#I’ve done a lot of research but am still learning and am open to learning more!

[alithographica]

It’s still a work in progress—hoping to get a big broad-leafed plant they can rest on/under—but Soup and Sandwich now have a proper enclosure

[justafellr]

Heyooo!! I’m a fellr :3 I’ve long had this tumblr account for years but never knew what to do with it for the longest time, but I think figured I could use this place to post about my hyperfixation, INSIDE OUT!!!! I love this series to death and it means so much to me. It’s what got me into psychology and colors and made me who I am today. I appreciate it so much for what it taught me. It then got me thinking of how MY emotions would look like and what my mindscape would look like, so I went on and did some redesigns of them for fun The redesigns here are kind a outdated and I’m currently in the process of revamping them, but these will give u a general idea of what I’m aiming for and I’m still pretty proud of how it turned out I’m also in the process of coming up with new emotions to the group. It’s a grueling and tedious process but an eye opening one, since I’ve done rigorous amount of research on the topic and learned things that I never knew before and applying it to my ideas Expect a lot of IO posting on this account :333

[humbledragon669]

S2E3 - I Know Where I'm Going Write Up P1 - up to the credits (present day)

Tiny bit of trivia about me that I’m sure nobody really cares about - as of Christmas just gone, I own my own version of Jim’s mug. It’s definitely one of the top three presents I got (one of the others is a GO themed long-sleeved t-shirt), and I absolutely have been using it to drink hot chocolate out of. I LOVE it.

Anyway, it’s Easter egg time! Yeah, that’s right, this one appears right at the beginning of the episode. And I suspect that many people will already have noted this one, but as I’ve said before, you never know. So here it is:

That’s the music instrument shop across the road from the bookshop, called “Arnolds”, presumably for the soundtrack composer for Omens - David Arnold. Obvious though it may be, it’s a bit “blink-and-you’d-miss-it”, so I felt like it was worth drawing attention to, just to reiterate the level of care and attention on display in this show that we all know and love. And whilst I have my attention-to-detail hat on, I have a brief point of speculation to make about Jim’s location in this opening shot. Given his view across the street, and the limited view we get into the room behind him (I’m thinking mostly about the lamp you can just about make out over his shoulder), this would appear to be Jim’s bedroom. In front of him is a tray with his mug and a container of hot chocolate on it. There’s even a trail of hot chocolate powder in between the mug and the container, as if someone has been a bit careless when spooning the cocoa from the pot into the cup (no judgement, I do this ALL the time). Before breaking away from this shot, we see Jim pouring boiling water into the mug from an electric kettle. All perfectly understandable actions for a set-up to show a man looking out over his neighbourhood, right? So my speculation is this, and I am jumping ahead a little. Why is it necessary for Crowley to leave the room when offering to make Jim a cup of hot chocolate in a later episode? It would seem that all the equipment required is right there in Jim’s bedroom. Sounds like another instance of scriptual convenience to me, albeit a small one. Anyway, enough pedantry, let’s move on.

It's taken me ages, but I’ve worked out what the music is playing in the background of the coffee shop. Unsurprisingly it’s another Queen tune - “Radio Ga Ga” this time. Given the lyrics, which speak of a fond farewell to a medium that no longer has relevance given more modern offerings, I wonder if this might be a reference to the state of Nina’s relationship with Lindsey at this point? Aside from that potential insight, I can’t really say there’s an awful lot about this scene that I like. Obviously Nina is still being her unlikeable self (checking her phone whilst she’s in the middle of serving someone? Not being funny, I would genuinely walk out of a coffee shop if a barista did that to me), but now we’re “introduced” to another fairly abrupt character, but this time we don’t even learn her name. Poor Mrs. Sandwich, she turns out to be an incredible likeable addition to the show, but in my opinion, she really doesn’t get to shine here. And what’s the point of this scene really? So that we can get a long shot of Muriel’s arrival and have it hammered home that their appearance is visible and noted as odd by the people in Whickber Street? If that’s the case, honestly this whole scene feels pretty unnecessary, but perhaps that’s just me.

Now. I did a little bit of digging about the way that Muriel introduces themself, because this stereotype is familiar to me, but I have no idea where it comes from. There’s a lovely bit of hive mind research been done here, which suggests the origin of the phrasing is over 100 years old but personally my money is on this being a nod to Monty Python (as detailed in that forum post), particularly as it wouldn’t be the first time we’ve seen a Python reference in the show (NIAT RUC, I’m looking at you). I think there might be another little homage here though, and this one if a bit more niche. It’s to do with the whistling in the soundtrack, heard here:

It rang bells with me, and unlike the backing music in the coffee shop earlier, this one didn’t actually take me very long. Back in the mid-90s, there was a sit-com show here in the UK called The Thin Blue Line, which followed the personal and professional lives of a group of policemen from an English town. The policemen in question were of both the uniformed (commonly called “bobbies”, or “on-the-beat”) and non-uniformed variety. Muriel is most definitely dressed as one of the former. Here’s the theme tune from that show:

Not too dissimilar, are they? I couldn’t find any evidence for whether the theme we hear in the Omens soundtrack is an homage to the theme from The Thin Blue Line or not. Perhaps it wasn’t even a conscious thing, though I highly doubt that. I would so love it if this was an intentional reference to that little copper comedy from the 90s - it ran for only 2 seasons, but I remember watching every episode when it aired and finding the whole thing really funny. I don’t know how well it will have aged, but I do remember that (bearing in mind this was the mid-90s) its casting was progressive - an Asian woman and a gay man both playing lead roles and part of the police force, with the characters most commonly ridiculed for being wrong and unreasonable being the middle-aged white men.  It was perhaps a little slapstick in places, and intrinsically “British” in its humour, but I still feel like it was a delightful addition to our televisions, so if this is a tip-of-the-hat to the show, I feel it’s well placed. Right, time to move on, this is supposed to be a write up of a Good Omens episode, not an appreciation post for long-dead British TV shows.

It's pretty difficult to say with any certainty, but I don’t think Aziraphale recognises Muriel when they arrive. Granted, he wouldn’t have seen or spoken to them in quite some time (since his defection from Heaven at the latest, though the only time we see them interacting is in the Uz flashbacks), but given the conversation he had with them during the Job debacle, you’d think he might at least realise he’d seen their face before? Particularly given the memories he has so recently lived through. Don’t get me wrong, he clearly knows they’ve come from Heaven, but that outfit pretty much gives the game away on that front, and he has been told to expect a visit from an auditor. Doesn’t take him long to decide to play along either.

I really love this moment - I’m pretty sure that this is where he decides not only to pretend he doesn’t know Muriel is there to check up on his miracle claims, but to be gentle about his interactions with them. He's recognised the joy that Muriel is getting out of the situation and decided that the nicest thing to do will be to let them enjoy the ride, which can only happen if the pretence is maintained. Subtle as it is, I actually think this is one of Aziraphale’s clearest indications of his Good nature - faced with a similar situation, many people (Crowley included, as we’ll come to see shortly) would openly mock Muriel for their apparent lack of intelligence, and given their visit’s true purpose I don’t think anybody would have been too displeased if Aziraphale had just closed the door in their face. It’s such a selfless act of kindness, and in not shunning Muriel, we are treated to some truly beautiful comic moments throughout the rest of the season.

Oh hold up. Was I just waxing lyrical about how kind and considerate this angel is? I take it all back. I almost feel like Crowley has suggested this to him, it’s that mischievous. And not the first time he’s done it either, except the last time he tricked another angel into sullying their body with a liquid intended for human consumption, that being was suffering from complete amnesia. Vulnerable you might say. Which is actually not that dissimilar to Muriel, who is clearly in a very precarious position and not doing a particularly good job of hiding their discomfort and mild panic in trying to maintain their cover whilst staying in character. He even manages to sound as if he’s trying to coach them on proper human responses with no hidden subtext. At least he has enough of a conscience to show pity for his visitor and the position he’s put them in:

Bit of a tangent here - why doesn’t Aziraphale recognise that the fact that Crowley is bringing his plants into the bookshop gives the game away that he’s living in his car? Don’t get me wrong, I am in no doubt that the reason Crowley removes them from the car at all is because he wouldn’t trust anybody else to look after them, not even his angel, so I do understand the reason for them to be removed. As far as I can see, there are four possibilities for this:

Aziraphale doesn’t make the connection between Crowley having his plants in the car and what means for his living situation.

Aziraphale does make the connection but, perhaps due to the current awkward situation panning out in the bookshop and his plans for his Edinburgh road trip, doesn’t mention anything about.

Aziraphale already knows that Crowley is sleeping in his car.

Crowley isn’t really living in his car at all, and the plants are simply kept there to maintain the cover story.

I think Aziraphale is smarter than the first option, even with his innate inability to pick up on Crowley’s cues. And I can’t really comprehend that Aziraphale would have taken the revelation that Crowley is living and sleeping in his car without any sort of protestations (let’s not forget that Crowley openly offered Aziraphale a place to stay when they thought the bookshop was gone, and that was before their respective defections). The third possibility has legs, but it doesn’t sit right with me - I just can’t see that Aziraphale would tolerate this living situation for Crowley, even if it meant buying or renting a place somewhere else for the demon to call home. The last of those possibilities is where my head canon lives, as I think I’ve mentioned in previous write ups. We’ll see Aziraphale “reacting” to the confirmation that Crowley has been sleeping in his car in a future episode, so I’ll hammer this point home one last time when we get there. And regardless whether you agree with my ideas or not, you can’t deny that Crowley’s confident swagger when he bursts into the shop really goes to show just how comfortable he is in this environment, and that he has no qualms about asserting himself there. Almost like it was home in fact…

See? No problems asserting himself at all. The subtext here is pretty glaring - his joining Aziraphale gives a clear message to Muriel about the fact that they’re a team (a group. A group of the two of them), and despite the fact that there surely must be A LOT of body contact going on here, Aziraphale’s expression doesn’t change at all. Not a muscle moved. It feels to me as if this is the sort of close proximity contact that the two of them are very accustomed to when not in the presence of other beings that might see it for what it is. And not only is Crowley comfortable with his position, he’s really enjoying himself:

I’ve mentioned it before, about us not getting to see much of Crowley’s mischievous side in the present day in this season, but this is it on full display. I’m not sure why I love more about this interaction with Muriel - Crowley’s cheeky grin or the fact that Aziraphale does absolutely nothing to reprimand him over his behaviour. That angel is having just as much fun partaking in the mischief as Crowley is, and I find it really adorable to see him indulging his playful side, even if it does eventually result in another one of those pitiful compassionate looks he throws Muriel’s way.

There’s a potentially interesting use of pronouns in the conversation that follows in the back room:

Interesting, see? Crowley refers to Heaven as “your lot”, despite the fact that Aziraphale has openly admitted that he no longer works for them. Not only that, the angel takes the baton up with his reply, grouping himself together with his former workplace using the “we” pronoun. Perhaps it’s just the habit of the previous multiple millennia, it just strikes me as odd, not least because Crowley’s questioning of them being “in charge” would appear to imply that he feels Heaven has the upper hand in the Heaven/Hell power play. Semantics aside, there’s something about this conversation that I really love. They’re both actually listening to one another, the tone is congenial, and they’re engaging in teamwork, and it all feels so natural. There’s no emotional stress going on, no arguing, just two people working together to try and achieve a common goal. I think this is probably the closest we come to seeing them in their normal relationship state, and it feels so relatable.

Well, it looks like Crowley’s plan has changed somewhat following his streetside conversation with Nina - now it needs a “fabulous kiss” for it to be successful. Considering his previous plan was so obviously a retelling of the love story between he and Aziraphale, I find the addition of a kiss at this point to be a notable one. Yes, my head cannon has our hero couple very firmly established in a relationship in the present day, but no, I do not believe that they kissed during either of the two “shelter-under-an-awning” moments that they have shared. Not to mention that I feel like there’s an element of heartbreaking foreshadowing going on with his throwaway comment (though to be fair, I don’t think there’s anything “fabulous” about that kiss in the Final 15, but I’m getting ahead of myself). What is it that makes him add the need for a kiss for his plan to be successful? Consulting my head cannon again, I suspect there might be some further revelations to be had about when he and Aziraphale shared their first kiss, and that this might tie into his updated plan somehow, but whether we’ll get to see that in the space of our final 90 minutes, I don’t know.

Oh I love this. Like, so much. It’s such a MARRIED COUPLE mini spat. It’s so obvious that Aziraphale takes the role of the stereotypical wife - there’s no negotiation, just the thinly veiled threat of extreme rage if his wishes aren’t complied with. And just as obvious is Crowley’s adoption of the stereotypical husband role - downtrodden, with the resigned knowledge that he’s been beaten and can’t worm his way out of a situation that whilst he knows he doesn’t like, he has no logical argument to counter. It’s so lovely. Beautifully delivered and excellently timed. The more I look into the episodes for this season, the more I seem to find that feels stilted and somewhat unnecessary, but moments like these are most definitely not one of them, and in fact I think they’re probably largely responsible for our intense love of the relationship between our hero couple. There’s another one coming up, but I’ll get there in a moment.

Despite being at the tail end of a spat, and that Aziraphale is clearly both disappointed and distracted not to have put his hands on the car keys, we’re about to see a lovely example of Aziraphale and Crowley showing a sixth sense for knowing their roles in the relationship. Regardless of the fact that there is no verbal communication between them following Muriel’s entrance to the room, Crowley knows instinctively that this is his cue to step up and perform a mini rescue, and Aziraphale knows to simply let him do his own thing. He doesn’t say a word once Muriel bursts in on them, just allows Crowley to do all the talking, with the instinctive knowledge that they will be in a better position soon. Which of course leads to this OUTRAGEOUS look from Aziraphale:

There it is, another one of those moments I was just discussing! I remember the first time I caught this look from Aziraphale, it was like a bomb had gone off in my head. It’s… well it’s pure filth, isn’t it? We all thought the look Crowley drew in the Bastille was the best example of a mental undressing we would ever see, but this just blows it out of the water. And why wouldn’t Aziraphale be feeling particularly enamoured of his demon at this point in time? There he is, doing his little rescue and invoking feelings of his knowledge of love (“love”?) at the same time. It’s pretty clear to see how much Crowley’s little speech has affected him, because he barely manages to catch the keys that the demon throws to him mere seconds later. He doesn’t even argue when Crowley continues to assert that the Bentley belongs to him alone, and even manages a wink, which I can only assume is supposed to be reassuring that he’s on the same wavelength about the current situation, and that he appreciates the olive branch just offered to him by way of Crowley’s accepting of the mission he’s been given.

Apart from a quick note to say that Aziraphale’s driving looks worse than Crowley’s, and that Crowley’s reaction to seeing his beloved car driving away speaks (to me, anyway) more of boredom than it does of worry or possessiveness, I think that’s all there is for this instalment, seeing as we’ve arrived quite neatly at the opening credits. As always, questions, comments, discussion: always welcome. See you for the next one!

[kristannafever]

Big Sky Ranch - 17

Kristanna Modern AU Rated: Explicit WC: 3560

Chapter Index

-------------------------

Anna was walking by Mr. Weadick’s study in the afternoon after she’d made him his lunch, when he called to her.  She set the basket of folded laundry against the wall in the hallway and went to the open door to see what he wanted.

“Yes, Mr. Weadick?”

“Come in, Anna.  Have a seat.”

She did as she was told and took a seat in a cushy chair across from his big mahogany desk, still harboring a little fear that he was going to say he didn’t need her anymore and send her packing back to the diner, even though he always complimented her food.  Even that morning, he’d told her that the Stroganoff she’d made for when his daughter visited was the best yet and reminded him of the way his grandmother used to make it. 

“I just wanted to let you know I have some more appointments in the city coming up so I will keep you posted when I am not around.  Also, I wanted to ask, if you would you be able to assist me with a research project?”

Out of all things, that was not what she was expecting.  “Um, yeah, of course.”

He leaned back in his big leather chair, his back to the large picture window that overlooked the sprawling pastures of the ranch.  His expression, normally looking grumpy, now only looked sad.

“I would like you to pick up on something my dear wife had started when she learned that her diagnosis was terminal.  I’ve tried, but every time I pull out all her research, it upsets me.”

Anna felt her throat tighten with emotion, now understanding the sadness about her boss.  “I understand, Mr. Weadick.  Again, I am so sorry for your losses.  I would be happy to help you with the project.”

He nodded, his eyes wandering off to her right and seeming to lose their focus.  “It’s the family trees, on both sides.  There is a lot of information for mine, however, hers has a lot of holes in it.  I don’t even know how one would go about filling them, but I assume you can figure that out?”

“Of course.  I can do research, no problem.”

He nodded again, seeming like he was lost in another thought.  “It would be nice, for my daughter to see the history of this place, I think.”

Anna didn’t really think it would make any difference to that woman one way or another.  “Sure, that’s a good idea.”

His focus snapped back to her.  “I’m not saying there is a deadline or anything, but this is something I do want handled with priority.  You can forget the housework for now and once you make some headway, if it helps to prep some of my meals, let me know.”

“Sure, Mr. Weadick.  I can get started after I put the laundry away.”

He waved her off with his hand.  “Never mind that, I am perfectly capable of handling laundry.”  He sat up in his chair and leaned to the left and opened one of his desk drawers.  He pulled out a stack of paper and several manilla folders and tossed them on the desk in front of Anna.  “That’s the extent of what she got done.”

Anna nodded quickly and took the pile, shuffling it all back into place.  Another person might have considered him throwing the stuff on the desk like that a rude gesture, but Anna knew him and that was just the way he was.

“I’ll get started right away,” she said, as she stood and tucked the pile of paperwork under her arm.

“You have a computer?  I’m using mine.”

“I do, at the cabin.  I can rush over there and grab-”

“Yes, go home, but don’t worry about coming back today.  You can just work on it in your place.  There is plenty of leftovers I can heat myself for supper.   But please, bring it with you tomorrow?”

“I will, sir, absolutely.”

“There might be some shit at the library in town for my side too.  Someone mentioned something to me a while ago, although for the life of me I can’t remember who or when that was.”

“Sounds good, Mr. Weadick.  I’ll check it out.”

He gave a single firm nod of dismissal and Anna hurried from the office.  She was nervous and excited and gleeful that Mr. Weadick had said that the cabin was her home and her place.  It was Kristoff’s, of course, but Anna felt more and more like she was part of it too.  It was a relief that Mr. Weadick seemed to be so comfortable with Anna living there.

She drove back to her and Kristoff’s place and set up on the kitchen island with a glass of cold water and a bowl of hickory sticks and began to carefully go through all the paperwork she was given. 

*****

Kristoff rode up to the houses and despite the rush they were in, wondered immediately why Anna’s car was gone.  He frowned, and pulled out his phone, expecting to see a text from her but there was nothing.

“Old man probably has her out on an errand,” Sven mentioned at his side, noticing himself that her car was gone.

“This late?  She’s usually down here for an hour by now shooting the shit with Coop.”

Sven shrugged.  He was in the dark as much as Kristoff.

Levi rode silently on his other side to the stables, and the men set about putting the horses away.  The wind was starting to pick up, one of those early summer storms from the hot dryness of the day, and everyone picked up the pace to get the horses stowed before they became restless.  Buck rode in with Jett only a few minutes later and they all helped to stable the remaining two horses.

All five of them were walking to Sven’s place clutching their hats to their heads in the wind, when the sky opened up and tiny balls of hail started pelting them, forcing them to run the rest of the way.

Kristoff got to the house first and opened the door, a fierce gust yanking the knob out of his grip and slamming against the railing of the steps.  After everyone was in, he muscled it closed, and his phone started ringing.  He grabbed it and answered quickly, relieved that it was Anna.

“Hey, you okay?”

She laughed.  “Yes, and I am sorry!  I totally lost track of time!”

“Where are you?” 

“At home.  Mr. Weadick gave me a research project and the afternoon off to work on it.  I was so wrapped up in it I didn’t realize how late it was until that storm kind of snapped me out of it.  I hope you’re at the houses by now?”

“Yeah, just stepped in through the door,” he answered, happy that she was safe and sound.  He was about to mention that he was worried when he didn’t see her car, but she didn’t really owe him an explanation for her movements.  “How’s the old place holding up?  That wind is pretty awful.”

“Oh, it’s fine!  I’m snug as a bug in a rug.  But I don’t think I am going to make it over there for dinner.  I don’t want to drive in this.  Why don’t you just eat with the guys and wait it out, then head on home?”

He smiled.  “Sure, Anna.  I’ll bring you a plate and let you know when I’m headed out.”

“Okay!  I am going to get back to this.  Have fun.  I love you.”

“Love you too, Baby.”

He hung up and joined the guys as they were dishing in plates of the Jambalaya that Coop had made.  Levi stayed, wanting to wait out the storm too before heading back to his wife, and they all had a good meal, even though there was plenty of wind and thunder rattling the old ranch hand house.  Thankfully it didn’t last long, and Kristoff was able to hop on a quad and head home not long after they finished the meal.

It was a refreshing ride, the air smelling like rain and the faint aroma of wet grass, as well as a pungent scent of alfalfa from a neighbouring farm.  The cool air rejuvenated him, and as soon as he was in the cabin, he was over to Anna and kissing her passionately.

~   ~   ~   ~   ~

The next morning, all the hands knew that the first order of business for the day was to split up into groups and check the entire ranch for any damage that may have been caused by the violent storm the night before.  Normally, they never found too much and doing the exercise was out of precaution more than anything else, but once in a while they would find a downed tree that had taken out a fence, or a blockage in the stream from the copious amounts of rain that had fallen grabbed deadfall as the little river surged.

Kristoff arrived on the quad bright and early, still feeling the lingering kisses that Anna had given him when he was headed out the door.  He parked it in the usual spot beside Sven’s house just as his brother was coming down his steps and settling his cowboy hat onto his head.

“Mornin’,” he said in a very unhappy tone.

“What’s up?” Kristoff asked, suddenly worried as to why Sven looked so down.  “Something happen?”

Sven shrugged, sauntering up to Kristoff.  “Dixie was offered a gig during her break.  Teachin’ some young girls how to race.”

Kristoff frowned.  “She’s not comin’ back for those ten days then?”

“No.  She said she was gonna turn them down, but I could tell she really wanted to take it, so I told her to go for it.”

Kristoff placed a hand on his brother’s shoulder.  “I feel for you, but it was the right thing to do.”

“I know.”  Sven sighed.  “I just really miss her.  She says she misses me too but…” He shrugged again, looking dejected. 

“She probably wouldn’t have even brought it up if it wasn’t important to her.”

“Yeah, I figured.  That’s why I told her to take the job.”

Sven’s tone was getting a little annoyed, so Kristoff figured he’d drop it.  He knew exactly how Sven was feeling in that moment.  There was always a little bit of doubt in their minds that they were worthy of the love from the women they’d fallen for.  It was completely unfounded, and yet there all the same.  Perhaps that was from the way they were raised.  Their father was a simple man, but he showed his wife all kinds of love and support and constantly told the boys that when they grew up to honor their women and always know that they can and will find someone better if you didn’t treat them right.

“Mornin’ fellas,” Coop said in his normal chipper tone as him and Jett walked down the steps to join them.  They started shooting the shit when Levi pulled up and Buck sauntered down the steps towards them.

Buck took charge as soon as they were all gathered.  “Coop, you and Jett take the East pastures, me and Levi will handle the middle section, and Sven, you and Kris take up the left.”

All the men nodded their agreement.  The left was the biggest and hardest of the sections to check, but neither Kristoff nor Sven minded.  They were the fastest riders of the bunch and more than capable of handling the extra workload.

“Well meet back here at noon,” Buck continued, “and after lunch…”  He stopped talking, his eyes taking focus on something out beyond the group of men.  “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said slowly.

Every man’s gaze turned in the direction Buck was looking and their eyes widened in surprise at their visitor.   Each man had heard the stories and none of them really believed them.  Now, faced with the potential truth, all five of the other men standing around Kristoff, slowly backed away from him while he remained frozen, staring into the eyes of the bull that had it out for him.

“Holy shit,” Sven said quietly.  “He’s looking right at you, Kris.”

“I can fuckin’ see that,” Kristoff hissed.  “And I fuckin’ told you!”  His eyes remained locked with the beast as he slowly lowered his big head.

“Bruce!” Buck yelled.  “Git on outta here.”

The bull ignored him and continued to stare at Kristoff, squaring off his big body and arching his back.  Every man there knew the animal was getting ready to charge. 

Buck started laughing.  “You better run, Kris.”

“Uh huh,” he agreed, taking a step backwards.  As soon as he moved, Bruce snapped forward and ran directly at him.

Any man with half a brain doesn’t just stand there when a bull is charging in their general direction, and all six of them scrambled towards Sven’s house and up his steps, jamming each other against the screen door making it impossible to open.  Kristoff was in the middle, and he used his large body to push the guys behind him with his back while he reached forward and shoved the other guys out of the way to yank the door open.  No sooner did the screen door slam shut with them all inside, Bruce came to a skidding halt at the bottom of the steps. 

They all looked through the screen down at the furious bull, and every man except Kristoff burst into laughter.

“You wasn’t wrong after all, Kris,” Buck roared. 

“Dude, I didn’t even believe you,” Sven chuckled and slapped his brother on his shoulder.  “Sorry, bro.”

Kristoff turned away from the screen door and scowled at all of the other men as he pushed his way past them.  “I’ve never done a damn thing to that animal.”

“You’re the only one of us who’s blond though,” Buck said to his back.

Kristoff turned around.  “What the fuck does that have to do with anything?”

“Well, I always figured you was full of shit, but considerin’ that bull clearly does have a hate on for you, I think I know why.”

“Enlighten us all, please.”  Kristoff gestured vaguely with his hands. 

“Before you and Sven came lookin’ for a job, we had one ranch hand that was a blondie like you.  Guy didn’t last long, wasn’t all that bright, but he did fancy himself a bull rider.   We had Bruce in a pen by the stables for the vet to check him out the next morning, and that night this guy, can’t remember his name for the life of me, gets drunk and decided he’s gonna ride him, so he climbed the fence and jumped right on.”

“You’re kidding?” Sven said.

Buck laughed.  “Nope.  He got bucked off in about two seconds flat.  Had to scramble his ass back over the fence to avoid getting a horn in the ass.”  He looked at Kristoff’s hair and shrugged.  “Maybe he thinks you’re that dude.”

“I don’t really give a shit what he thinks.  We need to get him back where he belongs.”

“How we gonna do that?” Coop asked.  “He’s pissed as hell.”

“First thing we’re gonna do is make sure Kristoff is out of sight.”  Buck laughed again.  “Maybe he’ll calm down enough we can get him back.”

“With the horses?” Jett asked.  “That don’t seem like a smart idea if he’s angry.”

“Best bet is use the truck first, get him pointed back in the right direction, then keep pushin’ him with the horses when we run out of road.”

“Speaking of road,” Sven chimed in, “all them gates musta been left open if he managed to get all the way back over here.”

“Yeah, that was my call,” Buck answered.  “We were trying to get back before the storm opened up last night.  Figured they would be fine for a night with the cattle all the way in the back forty.”  He shrugged.  “That big oak out in his pasture must have finally come down and took out a part of Bruce’s fence.”

“Yeah, we’ll have to check that out seeing as how it’s in our section.”  Sven answered. 

“You and Kris take the gator with all the fence material in the back then, I’ll drive the truck, and the rest of you can mount the horses and follow-”

The sound of tires on the gravel road came floating through the screen door.  Kristoff’s eyes went wide, and he looked at the clock in Sven’s kitchen.  “Fuck!”

He ran to the screen door and peered out.  Sure enough, Anna was just parking her car in the usual spot beside the stables and Bruce was no longer looking at the house.  His big head was now pointed towards her car.

Kristoff put his hands around his mouth as soon as he saw her head poke out of the vehicle.  “Anna!  Get back in the car!”

Her head swung in his direction, looking a little startled, and her gaze went from him, straight to the big animal that was turning to face her.  Her eyes went wide and she scrambled back into the car, yanking the door shut.

The bull started walking towards her, but he did not look like he was about to charge the car.  Kristoff’s phone started ringing and he answered it without having to look to see who was calling him.  “Just stay in the car until we get him outta here.”

“What the fuck?”  Anna sounded exasperated.  “Where the hell did he come from?”

Kristoff had to chuckle.  This whole thing was ridiculous.  “We’re going to look into how he got out, but for now we gotta get him outta here.  Sit tight.”  He hung up and looked at Buck.  “You guys slip out of Sven’s window and I’ll try and keep his attention on the door.  Get the truck, mount up, and get that thing moving.”

Every man nodded with a smirk, and they removed the screen from Sven’s bedroom window, slid it open, and dropped to the ground to sneak around to the stables.  Kristoff peered out the screen door and Bruce was just standing there, halfway between Sven’s house and Anna’s car, looking in her direction.

Not wanting to chance the guys being seen, he shouted, “Hey!”

Bruce turned back towards the house and stood there staring.  He didn’t charge, just resumed looking tense and pissed off.  “Jesus,” Kristoff muttered and shook his head at the animal’s audacity.

It didn’t take long for the big dually to slowly rumble around the houses and approach the bull.  Bruce looked at the vehicle without a care in the world and only moved when the grill was just a foot from his face.  Slowly, he turned and started to walk back the way he’d come. 

Only when the one-ton animal was securely locked on the other side of the first gate, did Kristoff finally relax and go straight to Anna in her car. 

“What the hell?” She laughed, getting out of her car and shutting the door as he walked up.

“Storm probably pulled a tree down onto the fence,” he answered.  “And that nasty old thing came and found me.”

Anna laughed.  “You know, even I wasn’t sure to believe the stories about-”

A sharp whistle came from the house and both Anna and Kristoff looked towards the sound.  Mr. Weadick was on the deck looking at them.  “Kris!” he shouted, and gestured with his hand for Kristoff to go see him. 

He looked at Anna quickly with a nervous smile before taking off and jogging up to the house.

“Yes, sir?” he asked when he got close enough to where his boss was resting his arms on the deck railing. 

“That old Bruce I just saw being led out of here?”

“Yes, Sir.  He musta got out of his pen.  We figure that big oak finally came down.”

Mr. Weadick nodded thoughtfully.  “I been thinkin’ about sendin’ him to auction.  He’s a mean old cuss, always has been, and now that he’s well past his prime I recon it’s time.”

Kristoff knew that meant he’d be bought up by a feedlot or slaughterhouse.  That was the way it worked on the ranch.  That’s where all the cattle ended up.  Still, he suddenly felt bad for the nasty old thing.  He certainly had fight left in him.

Mr. Weadick seemed to instantly pick up on his silence as Anna finally made her way up to the house.  “Either that or he can just stay here if you boys don’t mind takin’ care of him.”

His eyes slid to Anna as she ascended the steps, throwing him a look and a smile before heading into the house.  He looked back to his boss.  “Don’t matter too much to me, sir.  It’s your business.”

Kristoff saw it then, a glimmer in his eye and the faintest of smiles, just like Anna had talked about seeing one time.  “Well, I’ll think on it,” he said slowly, then turned away to head into the house.

Kristoff, being dismissed, turned and rushed to the stables to grab the gator with the fencing materials to catch up to the others.  Only, not getting too close…

---

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[rainbowchewynuggets]

IT'S DONE IT'S DONE IT'S DONE IT'S DONE

I've been grinding away at this for months. I can't wait for people to see it. This project turned out to have a lot of gears behind it, so check out the artist statement below!

vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

I love this song. The first time I heard it, I already began picturing a story where a woman stumbled upon a gathering of birds in the forest and became so enthralled by their song that she partied with them until she became a bird, herself. It turns out that isn’t too far off from the singer, Yma Sumac’s, first experiences learning to sing. She would imitate the animals near her home in the hills of the Andes mountains as a very young kid, developing a vocal range that would make her famous later on.

From there, I fell into a montage of research on her life and the Peruvian festival music that defined her early career, as well as the complicated story of the exotica music she became most known for in the United States. I followed that up with a month-long dive into northwest Peruvian culture, mythology, ornithology, flora, and topographical studies. Then, I blacked out somewhere during the drawing phase, and now I’m here.

While I really value what I’ve learned while doing this project, I think it’s important to note that I did it all as an amateur researcher and a foreigner to the subject. I decided it would be a little conceited to try to make a totally accurate depiction of a traditional Peruvian festival, so I instead focused on referencing the regional variation of these traditions. Costumes and music have their own specific designs and textures depending on the area, and dances and festivities reflect local history. Yet, it all shares the same themes of celebrating prosperity and surviving hardship. Common motifs and characters reflect a shared heritage and cultural identity that coexists with individuality. It’s all just very cool to me.

So I asked myself, what if these birds had their own version of these traditions? What would a bird sing a folk song about? What would be new and cool to Yma, but still familiar enough that she could join in? (I got lucky, since Peruvian festival culture is already very reverent of birds and feather patterns.)

What I ended up with pulled a lot from the Carnaval de Cajamarca, which originated in the next town over from Yma’s childhood home of Ichocán. It also references these dances, among others:

Huaylarsh - Los Emplumados - Marinera - Tondero - White Dance / Los Chunchos

It’s also important to know that I took a lot of creative liberties with my research to pull the story together. I hope I haven’t used any elements in a harmful or insensitive way–and if I have, I’d like to know so that I can apologize. (I also missed out on some cool stuff, like the White Dance always having shaker beads on the legs.) I highly encourage you to have a look at some of the sources I did, and to look further if you’re interested. I found it all very enlightening, and I hope you will too.

Yma’s wikipedia, which seems like a mostly accurate overview based on other sources

Her official website, curated by a fan and friend

A segment on NPR about her musical career

The interview I got the opening from

The ornithology archive that saved my ass

I’d like to work on uploading all the frames as an image reel somewhere so they can be looked at individually. Might take a while, though.

Thanks for watching!

(To those using a screen reader, the video description follows this message. I'd like to apologize for putting the description as the last thing on the post. Not only is it extremely long, but this seemed to be the rare instance where the description would benefit from the context of the post's commentary before being read itself. I wrote and formatted this description in a way that I hoped would apply to aid various disabilities that impede enjoying music videos, and I am very interested in getting feedback.)

DESCRIPTION

[The following is presented as an animatic (a series of still images edited into a video) set to music. The art is drawn with condensed yet fuzzy pastel-like linework and full color. The song used is “Chuncho” by Yma Sumac. The song was composed to imitate the various sounds of tropical birds and animals. It has no lyrics, at least in a traditional sense. I, the describer, have tried my best to translate the especially abstract nature of this song into language that can be interpreted through text. Please use the best of your imagination to fill in the rest. An audio description will always refer to the visual description that follows it.

Audio: A male interviewer asks, “Since you are referred to the bird who became a woman in your native Peru, Ms. Sumac, may we hear your exotic voice?”

Visuals: A title card appears with gold lettering on a black background. It reads one word: Chuncho. The word is depicted as if it were carved into a flat surface with loose individual strokes.

Audio: A woman answers, “I will try to imitate the birds, as I did in my earliest years in the mountains of Peru.”

Visuals: Credits appear, also in gold text: Sung by Yma Sumac (Zoila Augusta Emperatriz Chàvarri del Castillo. Drawn by Carlie Hughes (rainbowchewynuggets).

Audio: The music begins with the steady four-note strumming of a guitar, which will continue throughout the song. Then, it is accompanied by low ragged notes from a heavy woodwind instrument.

Visuals: A green cicada flicks its wings as it rests on a plant with jagged leaves and a little white flower growing from the middle. Beetles of green, red, and yellow crawl around on trees and ferns among puffy yellow blooms. Yellow humpback beetles huddle together on a cold stone surface as mothlike butterflies cling to hanging purple-grey moss in the background. A cluster of butterflies of black, green, blue, orange, purple, and red flare their wings along stems and vines. A line of spiny cocoons hang from a vine leading up the center of the group.

Audio: A vocalist, the same woman as before, begins to sing in vocables. Her first notes are short, round, and bubbly, like the chirping of a small bird. The lilt of a flute follows.

(“B-bm, bui-bui-buiii…”)

Visuals: A small village sits on the side of a forested and scrub-covered mountain at night. Buildings twinkle with yellow and blue window light through the darkness. At the edge of the forest, a tall lean woman appears with warm orange skin, long black hair, a simple green dress cinched at the waist with blue trim on the neck, hem, wrist, and waist, and a powder blue shawl tied at the chest. She sneaks away from the village into the temperate tropical forest, glancing back to make sure hasn’t been followed. She grows more at ease as she leaves the buildings behind and strides between bushes, deeper into the trees. She passes a flowering plant with orange petals. Its bulbs are held aloft on long, long stems.

Audio: The vocalist sings in elongated threads of notes, wavering in a minor key in a mischievous way.

(“Whu, hu-uuuu…”)

Visuals: The woman grazes her fingers along a bush with little black berries and white spiky flowers. Her hand passes up and down with the shape of the bush, like the rise and fall of an ocean wave. She walks uphill, past pink clover and increasingly frequent stones.

Audio: The vocalist clicks and rolls her tongue with her notes, like drops of water splashing across stones.

(“Dlu, dlu-dlu-dlu-dlu-buiii…”)

Visuals: A voice suddenly gets her attention. The voice passes by as a green line with wide wave forms. The woman follows it. She passes through a stone forest–dense moss-covered rock formations that reach up toward the sky. The ground below is streaked with snake trails. The line of song is now yellow. It leads her forward along a trail through the rocks. She climbs a more precarious formation of boulders, through dense shrubbery and a dramatic rocky landscape. As the voice shifts redder, her colors shift pinker. Even the environment’s colors are shifting to pinks and blues. She climbs a hill, past tall spindly trees and a nearly vertical mountainside. The pink line of song leads her still upward.

Audio: The vocalist belts out the deep throaty call of a tropical bird trying to be heard far and wide. The notes increase in frequency, then widen into a whoop that softens to a murmur. The flute follows her with a few short forceful notes.

(“Ah, bya bya bya-bya-bya-bya-bya-byaaa, whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa-wi, wa-wa-wa wiii…”)

Visuals: When the woman reaches the top of the hill, a light shines up at her from the other side, returning her original colors. Below, she sees a gathering of human-sized bird people celebrating on a leafy platform. They’re dancing in different sized circles around a tree at the center. Rainbow colored ribbons of different lengths have been tied to the branches of the tree and hang down to form the silhouette of a condor. More ribbons and colorful bulbs hang from the leaves above. The line of song (now light blue) travels in a circle around the tree trunk. The camera zooms in, revealing details of the birds and their costumes. The birds are pigeons, hawks, cuckoos, seedbirds, and corvids. They’re all dressed in colorful hats, vests, slacks, and dresses with patterns that reflect those of their feathers. A circle of spotted woodpeckers closest to the trunk wear purple gowns and party hats. The party’s singing expands the blue circle of light. A wider circle of yellow, green, and white birds sit and watch the celebration from the edges of the platform. As a line of bright manakin birds zip by with their hands clasped together, the woman approaches from a nearby branch. She’s enticed by the party and joins the dance, clasping hands with a green parrot and leading the line with a broad smile on her face.

Audio: The vocalist makes a quick sudden series of escalating notes, then makes a hard sound with her teeth and returns to a low whoop. The flute echoes her.

(Ba-bana-baba-cht!,  waw waw waw waw waw waw waw wiii…”)

Visuals: The birds switch to individual dances. A short red woodpecker and a tan long-necked bird with ribbons in her hair dance and sing together, their lines of song intertwining. The woman and three pigeons in red and black dresses stomp their heels in a quartet dance. She follows their steps flawlessly, familiar with the type of dance. When they begin to sing and whistle, she joins them–though her voice isn’t as strong as theirs and her line of song is thin and brittle.

Audio: The vocalist makes a low growl, at first imperceptible, that grows to a steady rumble. The flute follows.

(“Rhhh…, rhh, rhh rhhh…”)

Visuals: Then, the lights darken and redden. The woman stops to notice all the other birds heading to the back of the platform. They climb and flutter up to sit in fruit-bearing branches that grow just beyond. The woman finds herself a spot and picks a piece of fruit to eat. She takes a bite as a show begins. A band of various birds wearing ponchos and cloth hats sit down by the show platform. They play their instruments (flute, guitars and a drum) and count in the performance.

Audio: The vocalist makes more short bubbly chirps. They grow higher in small strings of notes until the phrase ends with a low long note.

(“Bom-bom, t-bom-bom-bom, mbom-bom wiii…”)

Visuals: Five owls appear, bathed in magenta spotlight before the center tree trunk. All of them have their yellow-spotted wings wrapped to mostly cover their black and gold-trimmed dresses. The four owls on the sides are short and red, while the one in the center is tall and bright purple. As all five begin to sing a golden song, they operatically open their wings and extend their feathers. As the light darkens to violet, the black and gold patterns in the folds of their wings leap out as if exposed to blacklight. They extend their arms upward and then double over to kneel on the stage, fully splaying their wings in a dramatic display. The woman watching is transfixed.

Audio: The vocalist rolls a noise from the back of her throat. Once, twice, three times–before hitching the roll up and down and letting it trail off. The flute makes a low hollow arc of a note.

(“Ghhh, ghhh, ghh gh-gh-gheee…”)

Visuals: Cut to the next performance. Two teams of blackbirds with long waving feathers compete, standing on each other’s shoulders to form two pyramids. The one at the top of each team lunges forward to try to strike the other with a long stick, propelled by their team. Their feathers glow with yellow light from above. The team on the left—with orange vests and red sashes—strikes first, only nearly missing. They gloat as the lime vest and green sash team on the right recoils and protests. Then, it’s the green team’s turn to take a confident lunge, forcing the red to frantically pull back in time to dodge. On the next strike, the red team buries the stick in the top of the enemy pyramid (actually tucked under the green leader’s arm). The victim feigns a mortal wound, and the entire team flies away. The red team poses, victorious. The red leader gets down to the floor to greet the widow of the green team, wearing a green dress. She peers at him from behind a silky black wing. As soon as he lands, she whacks him over the head with her own concealed stick. He is surprised. She is unamused.

Audio: The vocalist lets out a ghostly wail that wavers wildly like an eerie wind, higher and higher. A shaker instrument rumbles beneath her voice.

(“Woaaa… woaaa… woaa–”)

Visuals: Next, it’s dark. Three colorful birds in masks and costumes tread the air at an angle on the left side of the screen against a blue and green background. There’s a yellow spiky one, representing lightning. A blue round-feathered one, representing rain. And a spade-feathered green one, representing trees. Long beaded threads tied to their wings and tails wave and tangle across the screen as a group of five hummingbirds in shades of red struggle to survive the “storm” raging around them. The colored ribbons of the central tree are muted and flutter with the power of the wind. Two other birds hug the trunk, nearly out of sight. There’s a prop on the floor to the right made to look like a stone alcove, where more hummingbirds are hiding. The storm bringer birds beat their wings hard, casting the strings of lightning, water, and leaf shaped beads in huge chaotic waves. The five hummingbirds in vests and dresses wince and tumble against the wind, flying together in a tight circle. The threads crisscross behind them, an overwhelming force on the tiny birds’ scale. A red line of song floats up to reach them, guiding them down to the nest.

Audio: When her wail is at its highest, the vocalist pushes it further into the voice of a shrill songbird. The note hangs high in the air, then takes a few steps down and up. The segment ends with the sudden interjection of the low round voice–as if in surprise–and a trailing mumble.

(“Haaa, aa-aa aa-aa aa-aa, hoa? Ah, bw-huh…”)

Visuals: Those in the stone nest finish singing and reunite with the others, pulling them down to safety. A blackbird hiding behind the trunk spreads its wings, sitting on the shoulders of a brown woodpecker. The blackbird’s vest and wingspan are covered in yellow, signaling the coming of daylight. The storm birds retreat and sit still on a nearby branch. The wind is suddenly gone.

Audio: The guitar plays alone.

Visuals: After the stage performances, the audience members move back to the platform. They’re gathered off to the far left side of the central tree trunk, standing in a circle around a single figure. The light of the gathering area is deep plum-purple in far off areas and warm dull pink over the crowd. The empty space around the single dancer is salmon red, and the figure herself is blue.

Audio: The vocalist perfectly mimics the sound of a flutter, of delicate waving in the wind.

(“W-w-w-w-w-w-w”)

Visuals: The camera zooms in on her hand as it flits a pink handkerchief in the air.

Audio: The vocalist belts a pair of bold staunch vocables. The second note is held for several seconds before fading out.

(“Kyen, kyen…”)

Visuals: The camera pulls back to reveal the rest of her. She’s a blue eagle with wings that grade from red at the arms to pink to blue at the wingtips in a wavy pattern. Her smiling beak is bright pink. Her dress is royal blue with reddish-pink trimmed ruffles on the hem of the skirt, waist frill, neck frill, and the flower decoration on the side of her head. She stands with the hem of her dress in one hand and the handkerchief extended in the other in an open invitation to dance. A pale pink spotlight frames her head and shoulders against the darkness, and a dark pink line of song passes behind her. Her partner, an eagle of the same coloration with a blue vest and pants, pink shirt, pale orange sash, a blue hat in one hand, and a pink hanky of his own raised in the other, is calling to her. He puts his hands behind his back and takes high steps toward her. When the two are close, they turn and walk parallel to each other in a slow circle. The male’s back is to his partner. He looks at her over his shoulder with a smile and abruptly splays his feathers to be cute. There’s a layer of pink under his outer coat. She grins, entertained.

Audio: The vocalist repeats the two vocables, twisting the end of the second up into a high wavering trill that eventually soothes and disappears.

(“Kyen, kye–eee, ee, eee, ee…”)

Visuals: The two turn to face each other, circling tighter and tighter in unified song until they’re face to face, looking deep into each other’s eyes. With another turn, they’ve passed by each other and out of sight.

Audio: The vocalist makes a whisper, a ghost of the two vocables. Then, a few quick whistles, barely loud enough to hear.

(“Hyo, hyo”)

Visuals: The woman, who has been captivated by the dance, suddenly notices that the crowd has dispersed around her. Partners are walking off in all directions, leaving her alone. The dance is over.

Audio: The guitar picks up, getting faster and louder for a bit.

Visuals: The woman walks alone in the blue night air along a tangle of tree branches that form a pathway. She walks with her hands behind her back, her face looking preoccupied and a little disappointed. Bushels of soft leaves pass by in the background.

Audio: A high, light pleasant note from the vocalist overtakes the guitar. It grows until it fills the soundscape.

(“Aaa…”)

Visuals: An orange song reaches her from the direction she came, and she stops. When she turns, she sees a blue swift standing on the branch path, far behind her in an opening in the trees. The underside of his feathers is dingy orange, and he’s wearing a black vest, white pants, a rusty red sash around his waist, a bright green kerchief around his neck, and an orange rectangular accessory tied around his neck like a necklace. His face is obscured by a white hat with an orange band. He bows low with a hand on the hat. The hat comes off, revealing inviting eyes and a smiling orange beak. The woman grins and accepts the invitation with determination.

Audio: The vocalist draws long high vocables that resemble a wail. They trail off with a low note.

(“Whoa whoaaa…”)

Visuals: She and the swift untie the fabric around their necks and step toward each other as the line of song forms a ring above them. The woman holds the ends of the shawl in her hands and her hands at her hips with the body of the shawl hanging behind her waist. The bird holds his kerchief out in one hand with the hat in the other, held behind his back. He takes measured winding steps along the branches. The woman mirrors his steps, then pushes off of the main path and lands on an outcropping branch.

Audio: The vocalist’s song wavers back up and demurely bobs up and down, intertwined with tweeting from the flute.

(“Hoa…  ohee…”)

Visuals: Her voice, seafoam green and a little stronger than before, trails behind her. She darts back onto the main branch and ducks behind the bird, then circles around to face him, the two only a few feet apart. They exchange steps pushing the other forward and back and flicking their garments in time with their movements. The woman’s voice grows stronger, nearly matching his. The bird quickly catches up as she moves backward, dancing beside her. The two dancers then leap from the main branch and fall down into the rocky forest below, passing by grassy plateaus and vines creeping through stone. Their song follows all the way down. They leap across boulders in the moonlight, side by side. The swift suddenly stops and folds his kerchief around the center of the shawl, hitching the two together. 

Audio: The vocalist belts a complex series of syllables that mimic the heavy majestic cawing of a large bird or hawk. The flute makes itself known a little as the voice fades out.

(“Hlau-lau-lau hau-au-wau-wa-wiii…”)

Visuals: The woman, at the receiving end of the momentum, is swung wide and lets out a vibrant complex line of song that could match any bird’s. The two pull closer to each other and end their song on a low steady note. Then, they bow to each other as the camera pulls back. They’re standing on a rock that rises above a basin of  water among huge formations of rock. Pairs of birds dance all around them in the shallows.

Audio: The guitar takes over for a bit.

Visuals: The camera cuts to an upward view of a varied group of birds sitting in branches, staring downward with interest. The light from the moon coming down through a break in the trees above is now cool green. The light coming up from where the birds are looking is orange-red. 

Audio: The vocalist lets out the aggressive growling of a cat.

(“U-wau, wau-wau-wau-wau”)

Visuals: Below, the woman is dancing in a line with three reddish woodpeckers in a greenish clearing in the trees. They wear intricately detailed dresses in different combinations of bright green, yellow, red, and black with geometric and floral embroidery. The dresses are cinched at the waist with a piece of fabric covered in colored bands. Their heads are covered in scarves with the same colors and patterns. They sing and step aggressively toward the left of the screen. At the other side of the clearing, a line of four red and white faced woodpeckers with green beaks and wings face right. They wear bright green hats, kerchiefs, and sashes, yellow and black striped vests, and dark red pants with yellow tassels at the ankles. Their black shoes tap against the ground as they make quick little dance steps and flutter yellow handkerchiefs. They hold onto the brims of their hats and then lean down with a flourish of their arms, exposing the red crests of their heads sticking up underneath. The dance then changes formation. The girls dance in a line to the left as the boys step in a line to the right. 

Audio: The growl hushes down to a wavering whisper, like wings beating in the dark.

(“Tchwahh-cwah-cwah-cwah-cwah-cwah-cwah-cwah…”)

Visuals: Out on a cliff by a waterfall, the scene is bathed in cyan. The line of dancers–alternating male, female, male, female–do a hopping dance from partners on the left to those on the right and back again as they move along the cliff, passing behind the waterfall as it disappears into the greenery in the foreground.

Audio: The guitar asserts itself again.

Visuals: Everything is suddenly red. A guitarist in a blue poncho and a red neck sash frets the neck of a guitar with a brown feathered hand. Rainbow ribbons are tied to the headstock. A deep orange song emanates from the strings.

Audio: The vocalist quickly accompanies the guitar with a harmonized version of the growl that revs up climatically, taking steps up the scale until it’s at its absolute height.

(“U-wa-wa ee-ee eh-oh! Oh-oh-oh-ohh!”)

Visuals: A congress of the partygoing birds stand in lines facing each other, all wearing blue outfits with red kerchiefs with rainbow tassels on them. The group jumps up and down in unison as part of a dance. The party breaks into smaller dances, and the woman dances by herself. She’s wearing a green skirt and flowy purple top with red underskirt, waist cinch, and scarf. Rainbow tassels are attached to the overskirt, and they swish with her movements. Beside her are a hawk woman and a pair of long billed bird men dancing in a circle with their ankles locked. A pair of red birds with white streaks on their wings suddenly hoist the woman into the air, as other birds are hoisted in the distance. As she’s held aloft, she sings and spreads her arms, revealing more tassels on her top, resembling wings. Her song is immense and beautiful. The camera focuses on one of the hoisted birds in the background, who has executed a handstand with the person who threw them. The blackbird’s feathers are all sorts of bright colors. The song passes by behind him. The excitement of the party disguises the presence of a looming pair of yellow slitted eyes peering out from a dark spot between the leaves nearby. A trio of purple pigeons dancing in a line with twigs and colored strings in their hands dip and weave together. The one in front balks, noticing the threat at last.

Audio: The high energy of the music suddenly cuts out. The shrill call of a small bird climbs up out of the silence.

(“Eee…”)

Visuals: A striped short legged pampas cat pounces into the center of the dance field. It misses the birds, but the illusion is shattered. The bird people are just birds again. They fly in a frenzy up through the trees to the safety of the early morning sky. The hilltop erupts with silhouettes of wings.

Audio: When the small bird’s call is at its highest, it tumbles back down and transforms into a low disquieting wail. The guitar re-enters.

(“Ee-ee-ee-ah-ahh ahh oohhh…”)

Visuals: The pampas cat has retreated into the dim tawny forest. It stands on a bent tree branch among bushes and hanging moss and stares into the camera with glowing yellow pupils. A tiny rodent scurries by and into a bush. The cat notices and darts after it. Nearby, dozens of bats hang from the underside of a rock formation that extends over a field of berry bushes. Their sleepy heads are tucked into their folded wings. A straggler flaps up to join the rest as the sun continues to rise. Elsewhere, a hive with wasp-like insects resting on the outside hangs over a rock. Sunlight gleams over the scene from a break in the trees in the background. A large brown mouse climbs up on the rock, backlit by the sun. It grabs a wasp in its teeth and leaves before the rest of the hive can wake up.

Audio: The vocalist makes a low steady murmur. A couple shakes from the shaker instrument follow.

(“Hoo…”)

Visuals: A colony of green and brown frogs with purple eye ridges, yellow faces, and orange bellies are asleep on dewy ridges of rock. A green cicada hangs out on a leaf off to the top left corner. The mouse jumps down through their resting spot, waking them all up. The frogs croak a green song as the cicada hangs on for dear life on the swinging leaf. The wind moans through the crevices of another stone forest. The little flowering shrubs that grow on the rocks bristle in the breeze. A variety of green, yellow, and blue lizards poke their heads out of the rocks, into the morning light.

Audio: The vocalist repeats the murmur. The flute follows this time.

(“Hoo…”)

Visuals: The camera pulls back to view the entire rock formation. The still rising sun shines only on the top half of right-facing stones. Long spindly tree trunks grow from the top left, out of sight. Long grass waves on the ground below. An alpaca-like vicuña raises its head from the long grass, facing the light. In the branches of the trees above, various birds perch facing left.

Audio: The vocalist makes a mysterious sound that begins as a harsh sound between her teeth and ends as a whisper. It echoes in the background.

(“Chwah-ah…”)

Visuals: The camera turns back to the village. Golden light casts diagonally across the brown roofs and tan buildings. The silhouette of a small bird flies toward the center of town.

Audio: The vocalist makes the sound again, then pulls the whisper up into a harsh repeated rasp from the back of her throat.

(“Chwah-ah qwah-qw-qw-qw-qw-qwah-qwah-qwah”)

Visuals: Down in between the one-story houses, the bird flutters down. Long shadows lay across a passage leading toward a door on the side of a building. We see the shadow of the woman land in the soft dirt path where the bird’s would have. She heads toward the door at a walking pace.

Audio: The call returns to a whisper. The vocalist clicks her throat in a short series of hollow sounds, nearly like the creaking of wood.

(“Qwk-qwk-qwk-qwk-qwk, qwk qwk qwk qwk”)

Visuals: As she opens the door to enter the purple interior light of the house, we see that she’s back in her green dress, but now her shawl is red. The sun glints in her hair. Before she goes inside, she looks back and winks at the camera with a smile. Then, she slowly pulls the door behind her until it’s shut.

Audio: The vocalist lets out her breath entirely as the accompanying music trickles into silence.

(“Haaa…”)

Visuals: The screen is black for a few seconds.

Audio: The high whistling call of a green manakin can be heard over the rustling of forest trees. The call’s tone is raised at the end, like it’s asking a question.

(“Twee?… Twee?… Twee?… Twee?”)

Visuals: The end card appears. Yellow and green lettering and a border lay on a black background. The text reads: Yma Sumac. Peruvian soprano and composer. October 13th 1922 until November 1st 2008. Biographical and reference info in description. Chuncho, 1953. Written by Moises Vivanco. Capitol Records, Universal Music Publishing Group. Carlie Hughes. Tumblr @rainbowchewynuggets. www.carliehughes.com. End ID]

INDEX

[the-wip-project]

SloMo WriMo: Confronting Your Fears

There’s a voice in my head. And it’s telling me to stop writing.

It makes me afraid, telling me that my writing is worthless, that there’s no point, that nothing I do matters. That I suck. That I need to check my ego, pretending that I’m any sort of expert in a position to give advice to others. That if I post this then I’ll be opening myself up to attacks by trolls. Why even bother? It says. No one wants to read your ramblings anyway. Why not just keep your ideas in your head? Where it’s safe?

If you’re reading this? It means that once again I’ve beaten the voice back and written anyway.

There’s a lot of names for that voice. Impostor Syndrome, The Critical Voice. The Inner Editor. Writers Block. (Yes, I am including writers block on this list.) The Superconciousness.

And like it or not, we all have a version of it in our heads.

Writers who write often and freely are not magically free of that voice. The only difference is that they (including me— most of the time) have learned how to corral and even shut out that voice.

How? Every writer has a different bag of tricks, but it’s not as simple as using a program that stops you from rewriting, or only writing in sprints. That can be helpful, but treating the symptoms without confronting the problem will eventually lead to failure.

First you have to pay attention to exactly what is that voice in your head whispering to you. (And don’t let it trick you into believing that it’s not like other inner voices, and is actually is helpful, or truthful.)

Everyone’s inner voice is unique, but if you find yourself:

Needing to do just a bit more research before you can start (even though you’ve already accumulated plenty of knowledge on the subject)

Endlessly editing a section (often the opening!) and never moving any further forward

Suddenly bored with a story even though you were excited to write it just a few thousand words ago

Frequently abandoning writing, and having a hard drive full of almost done manuscripts

If you find yourself frequently doing any of those things? Most likely it’s fear stopping you. Fear of what? Again, it’s different for everyone, but here’s some common ones:

What if it’s bad?

What if it’s made fun of?

What if I fail in my vision?

What if I offend someone (reasonably or not) and a twitter mob descends on me with pitchforks and torches?

What if no one wants to read it?

The thing is, on the surface those fears sound very reasonable. If you write something it could be bad, or stupid, or boring, or offensive.

So what should you do in the face of all these risks?

Honestly? There’s really only two options. Quit, or write it anyway.

Me? I’ve decided to face my fears and write anyway. I assume that anyone reading this wants to do that too.

But how?

In the end it comes down to awareness, and permission.

Here’s how it works for me. I get an idea: What if it’s like Leverage, but in SPACE!!!(but in space is a common idea I have lol) I start writing: This is exciting! Writing an ensemble cast is a fun new challenge! And then suddenly I feel like I’ve hit a wall: This sucks. The characters are boring and hackneyed. No one will ever want to read it. How would I even market something like this? Why am I writing this? I should just quit. I have a different idea that’s much better anyway.

Sound familiar?

But ha! It’s familiar to me too. I know those negative thoughts are just the fear voice talking. So I face them: Fears? You might be right. It might be bad. But I’m going to write it anyway.

And I keep repeating that, reminding myself that it’s okay to write something less than perfect, that it’s okay if it’s bad, and that I still want to write this story, until the writing gets fun again. And it does get fun again. For me at least. I’ve had enough practice at this that the fears really only grip me at certain moments. Unfortunately if the fears have a powerful hold on you, you may have to battle them all the way through. Even if that’s the case, every time you beat them, they will get weaker.

And that’s it. It’s three simple steps.

1. Identify your fears, and how they stop you

2. Challenge the negative thoughts, and give yourself permission to write anyway

3. Keep writing

Easy to say, and hard to do! (Of course I’m not a mental health professional, this is simply my experiences. If what you’re dealing with is severe and/or harming you, please seek professional help.)

I'd love to know what you do to confront your fears!

[tamelee]

I love your artwork, it's so cool! I'm an amateur in art, do you have any tips? Thank you!

Thank you so much! 💕 And sure! (Have you seen my other posts as well?) It’s a bit easier when it’s more specific >< But I’ll try my best; 

- Keep notes about the things you want to learn as you draw! Someone gave me a tip to have an art-goal so you know what to work on and then improve these particular things as you go, but for some reason I found it really hard to set these goals? (Am I the only one?) I kept thinking I just wanted to ‘improve’ everything, but that’s not very tangible and I can’t effectively measure whether I’ve succeeded… (it’s also not always easy to see your own improvements… at least I rarely can ><) 

But when you draw and you come across these little things that make you go “hm, I wish this was easier” or “I really love this sketch I made, but I’m not sure how to go about coloring it”, anything like that— then your desires regarding your art or your process become a lot more specific, right? Write these down! What specifically would you like to improve on?

I’ve noticed for myself and many others talked about it as well that once a piece is done, it’s like you forget a lot about the process and your mind is set on a new project. (Also, yay! You were in the zone~) You can either use your current project as practice (all of them are in a sense, really) or start a new one later, research what you need (on YouTube, books, or perhaps a course from an artist you really like if you can afford it) and work on your goal! 

- Also keep notes for any ideas you may have. We always think we’ll remember something and then we don’t. These sudden, often spontaneous glimpses you receive seemingly out of nowhere can be some of your best and it’s a shame if they fade back into the void. This also applies to anything that inspires you.. it can really be anything. I think I’ve said this before, but if you do this, try and organize a bit. Otherwise you’ll end up with a bunch of notes that’s more overwhelming than anything else. 

You can use folders to keep images, notes, a dedicated Notion page perhaps or if you can afford it, keep an extra external SSD for this. 

- Well, this also applies to research or video’s you’d like to watch. If you end up with too many tutorials or books, or they aren’t goal-oriented specific to your art desire, it may get really hard to get you started on something. If you’re like me and it’s hard to focus, I’d highly recommend taking some time to sit back, think about the thing you really want, organize and structure a way towards it and go. That way you don’t have to make all these decisions along the way— you know what to do already, it’s written right there!

- And that also applies to tools and brushes xD I know it’s really fun to download all of it because many are free and what if there’s ever a time you may need this specific texture on a brush? What if you can’t get this style that inspired you with the brushes you already have? But truth is, you don’t need them all and if you do, you’ll notice there are many you won’t even touch. And well… as you can see in my art as well, apart from the pencil ones, it doesn’t necessarily encourage consistency if that’s what you strive for. If you want to practice, most often the basic round brush will do, the less opacity or blend, the more you can practice shapes and clarity. In that case I’d stay away from the airbrush whenever possible. 

- Depending on the program you use (CSP has their own), you can use these to help you with facial angles, or this if you rather prefer a basic skull. You can use the site if you can’t get the angles quite right for many things. 

- For coloring I highly recommend James Gurney’s articles or book ‘color and light a guide for the realistic painter’, even if you’re not a realistic painter, it still contains most (all?) of what you need to know about color.

- A great way to experiment is to just… open a blank document and do whatever. I know it often feels like you have to draw something (preferably something good), but you can actually learn a lot by just scrabbling away. Here’s also often where you find the things you feel like you need to improve. Certain angles are especially hard for me, but I hadn't known that if I didn't try >< Oh, I also found this site by accident and I haven't read it all, but it covers many subjects! Hope these are helpful! 🌷

[cleascozycorner]

The life of a mute person

Mute people are very rare. You just have to open a search engine to realize it. Doing research on muteness automatically means coming across articles talking about deaf mutes when deaf people are not necessarily mute. It’s just that some people no longer see the point of using speech.

To be truly mute, apart from psychological problems, there must be damage to the larynx or vocal cords (maybe also to the speech center in the brain, but I’m not sure).

Okay, but apart from being the perfect woman, what are the consequences of being mute in your life?

I’ve been mute since I was a baby and a mute baby is an inexhaustible source of worry for parents. A mute baby means not hearing his cries and therefore not knowing when he is hungry or needs to be changed, not knowing if he has hurt himself, not knowing if he is still alive until you look at him. My parents slept very little during this period.

Both my parents were drug addicts. They met during a detoxification treatment.

From what my father confessed to me, my mother always thought that my tumor was due to her addiction and always blamed herself. That added to the stress that I caused must be the cause of her relapse and her departure.

Growing up, I learned French sign language but above all I developed an incomparable talent for miming things. There are sadly few people who speak sign language. Besides that, I always carried a notebook and a pen (then a pencil when my dad got tired of the ink stains on my clothes) on me. Until the blessed day I got my first smartphone.

When I talk to my dad or my close friends I use sign language and of course people who don’t know me think I am and who see us talking think I am deaf so they start shouting to talk to me which tends to annoy me. If I were deaf I wouldn’t hear any better because they talk to me louder but eventually I think I could become deaf.

It had some positive sides. I often changed schools when I was little because of my father’s job which meant we traveled a lot. So in middle school and high school people would talk next to me thinking I didn’t understand what they were saying. It was handy to be aware of all the rumors of the moment.

Another really annoying thing is getting rid of a pain in the ass who doesn’t want to understand that you can’t talk and who thinks you’re taking him for an idiot because he thinks you’re trying to pass yourself off as deaf while you’re listening to music in your headphones…

Finally, another worry when you’re a mute girl: I never leave my house alone when it’s dark outside. Being mute means not being able to shout “help” in case of danger. I’m aware that I’m easy prey for any crazy person.

Don’t feel sorry for me!

Beyond these inconveniences, I’m not complaining. Apart from becoming queen of karaoke, there are no activities that I can’t do. And then I’ve always known this state so I don’t miss my voice. And in intimacy with my boyfriend, I still have the possibility of whispering sweet words in his ear.

I think I’m done with this post. If you have any further questions, please feel free to use the comments.

See you soon!

[redley-of-many-noodles]

Hello there,

Welcome to my blog.

I’m Redley. Relatively new to Tumblr still, but I’ve been finding that I’m comfy here. Though it still feels awkward (thanks, dysphoria), I prefer she/her pronouns. I don’t mind they/them, but… meh. Note that Redley is neither my legal or chosen name; it is solely a handle, and I will only tell you my chosen name if I feel comfortable with you. If I extend that trust, please treat it with respect. If you don’t, I will remember.

Here’s the main stuff I’m comfortable sharing or want you to know about me:

1) I’m transfem, but haven’t had an opportunity to do much actual transitioning yet. Dislike my voice, adore my hair. My luscious, glorious, flowing hair.

1.5) I am likely pansexual, but I haven’t done enough research to know for sure. All I know is, people are… well, people are hot.

2) I live in Florida, but was not raised here. The climate and scenery are nice; the local government sucks ass though. Also, I miss snow.

3) I’m a diagnosed autistic, falling somewhere on the high-functioning end of the spectrum. I’m on prescribed antidepressants, but have not been able to find a psychologist/psychiatrist yet because it’s fucking Florida.

4) There are a lot of things and people I don’t understand, but I’m always open to learning. Trying new food is a special passion of mine, and I’ve met some quite fascinating new people since starting this blog. (*eoughck* @potentially-a-poser *aucghk* @analogue-system *ahem*)

5) I will not tolerate hateful behavior. You will be immediately blocked for shit like denying any of the shades of aro/ace individuals as being part of the LGBTQIA+ community. If you see me spreading misinformation or saying something that excludes members of the community, please tell me. I’ll research the matter, as well as review any sources you send me.

5.5) okay so I think I’m demiromantic

6) I do not mind being tagged or sent asks or otherwise brought into conversations. People who abuse that will likely get blocked, but whatever your social anxiety is telling you probably comes nowhere near ‘abuse’ in my book. Anonymous asks are enabled, but that can likewise change if the feature is abused. Hate asks will be blocked, naturally.

7) I would prefer being asked before you directly message me. If you don’t, there is a possibility you’ll be blocked, but it’s not a guarantee. I don’t want me and my friends’ conversations getting buried by anything.

8) If you consistently and frequently post tiktok/reddit memes with little to no commentary, I may block you simply out of annoyance should you repeatedly show up on my dash. It’s not personal. If something about you makes me suspicious or uncomfortable, but not outright offended, I’ll most likely notify you of my reason before I block you.

9) Age: pick a number between 1 and 100 because it’s none of your fucking business. None of you are entitled to any of my personal information, regardless of the reason. I will share only what I want.

My Behaviors

There are certain things I gravitate towards or away from on this site. Here’s some:

1) I am most likely to follow people who are part of the LGBTQIA+ community, are mentally ill, or are dealing with some variety of personality disorder. This is mostly just due to the fact that I find the most common ground with those people. But even those who I have little common ground with, I’ll tend to find very interesting.

2) I don’t mind things like roleplay and hornyposting on my dash, but will almost certainly not interact myself, or make original posts in that category. More extreme examples won’t necessarily get you blocked or unfollowed, but… well, my filtered tags list may grow.

3) I don’t always tag reblogs. This may mean that my followers will see random things that caught my interest. It could be art, shitposting, tender affirmations, politics, or just goofy-ass Tumblr shit. If something I regularly reblog/post about bothers you and isn’t properly tagged, let me know.

4) I am discovering that maybe, I might, perhaps, be a little bit nosy. When I see someone receiving hate or suffering and stressed, I am likely to take it upon myself to do or say something to try to make them feel better. If I bother you with this, I will not be hurt or offended if you block me. In general, I will do my best to be respectful of it when people draw boundaries, so don’t hesitate to draw any you feel necessary.

5) If your intentions are pure, you will likely find that I try to be forgiving and/or understanding of your mistakes, at least in regards to interacting with me. (The /or is a very important distinction.)

6) I will often be attracted to dark, tragic, or dystopic works of art/fiction. I get a form of catharsis from such media, and some of my writing will reflect that.

That’s about it.

That’s all the important stuff I can think of, aside from tags which are at the end. Still, this post may be updated or rewritten in the future. In general, just be kind and open-minded, and we’ll get along fine. Even if you disagree with me, as long as you are civil and rational about things, I’ll likely have no problem interacting with you.

Be safe, and be yourself! <3

🇵🇸🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈

My Tags:

#redley’s playlist - Some of my favorite songs!

#redley’s photos - Photos taken by/of me!

#writing - Writing related things and occasionally stuff I’ve made! (#poetry will also contain some of my work)

#let me just frame this one - My personal favorite posts by others. Put that right up on the wall!

#cw/tw: [content] - I will tag posts that I recognize may be disturbing to others with content warnings and/or trigger warnings. This way, you can filter content that may be harmful to your mental health to view. If a post is missing an important one, let me know.

[beeapothecary]

AI Pollen Project Update 1

Hi everyone! I have a bunch of ongoing projects in honey and other things so I figured I should start documenting them here to help myself and anyone who might be interested. Most of these aren’t for a grade, but just because I’m interested or want to improve something.

One of the projects I’m working on is a machine learning model to help with pollen identification under visual methods. There’s very few people who are specialized to identify the origins of pollens in honey, which is pretty important for research! And the people who do it are super busy because it’s very time consuming. This is meant to be a tool and an aid so they can devote more time to the more important parts of the research, such as hunting down geographical origins, rather than the mundane parts like counting individual pollen and trying to group all the species in a sample.

The model will have 3 goals to aid these researchers:

Count overall pollen and individual species of pollen in a sample of honey

Provide the species of each pollen in a sample

Group pollen species together with a confidence listed per sample

Super luckily there’s pretty large pollen databases out there with different types of imaging techniques being used (SEM, electron microscopy, 40X magnification, etc). I’m kind of stumped on which python AI library to use, right now I’ve settled on using OpenCV to make and train the model, but I don’t know if there’s a better option for what I’m trying to do. If anyone has suggestions please let me know

This project will be open source and completely free once I’m done, and I also intend on making it so more confirmed pollen species samples with confirmed geographical origins can be added by researchers easily. I am a firm believer that ML is a tool that’s supposed to make the mundane parts easier so we have time to do what brings us joy, which is why Im working on this project!

I’m pretty busy with school, so I’ll make the next update once I have more progress! :)

Also a little note: genetic tests are more often used for honey samples since it is more accessible despite being more expensive, but this is still an important part of the research. Genetic testing also leaves a lot to be desired, like not being able to tell the exact species of the pollen which can help pinpoint geographical location or adulteration.

[lavender-teardroplettes]

Thank you for that post about To. and I am so sorry about everything. This was so well put together and not throwing around straight insults in each sentence. I see both sides throwing around hate without even explaining their sides of why they're sticking up for him or why they're mad. I was also one of the people giving him a chance to come back and apologize, people say stuff in the moment all the time and I felt like he deserved that chance. But, then he just left.

At first I thought his post was okay, I understand not getting neopronouns, not liking the idea of people showing too much at pride parades, or people under 18 getting surgery. Those are things I could understand but when the n*zi and racism down play happened? I was in shock and upset. Still, I wanted to at least give him a chance to comeback fresh and see if he would apologize... but he left.

If I'm being honest. Both sides weren't handled at all properly and you guys who explain it make it so much better to understand then others just writing it off as hate, telling people to kys, or getting called cis and not trans, which I am, as an insult. Everyone is still upset so I'm letting it go but I will stand by what I said and if that gets me hated just for giving him a chance or not supporting either side than that's okay. Thank you again for your amazing post and I hope you have a wonderful day.

TW: I’ll be detailing some of my experiences subtly and trying not to go into full detail.

Hi there. I don’t know who you are, but thank you for reaching out.

There’s a lot I want to say on Tom’s views, but many people have done that for me with their own time and energy and I appreciate them. I’m going to use this space to come out and say that I use neopronouns now in light of the situation. You’re allowed to use he/him, they, them, and fae/faer/faers when talking about me. I’ve been wanting to use these pronouns since first learning about them back in…idk…2014(?), but….I’m Black and of indigenous heritage, it’s hard enough being nonbinary on top of everything.

I highly suggest taking courses in gender and sociology, it was one of the most informative and open spaces for discussing gender, gender expressions, and touches on intersectionality within the Black community and being Queer during my college years as someone who was told that if I entered those spaces that I’d be molested…despite that happening more in the spaces I shared with cis/straight people .

I will echo what a lot of people have said and what I know from my own personal research as a trans person in an unsupportive family and as someone whose partner’s adopted little brother is going through: Children don’t go through gender affirming surgeries. In some cases, a 16 year old can with expressed consent from a therapist, their parents, and themselves. And honestly? It’s no one’s business. Out side of that, most children are placed on hormone blockers until they’re over 18 and able to take the right hormone replacements to experience puberty properly and develop what they need to before surgeries are viable.

On the topic of pride, in my experience in both small communities and going to San Francisco pride, there are safe spaces for children. Parades usually have an itinerary that parents can look at and guide their children appropriately. I am 100% on the side that human bodies aren’t inherently sexual as a demisexual person. It’s on the parents to PARENT their children appropriately, not complete strangers just trying to exist and feel good about themselves for ONCE instead of being afraid of hatred, death….so much…it’s so fucking much…

That being said….yes, I wanted to give him space. I really wanted to give him a chance to do better, but he’s going to have to do a lot more now before I forgive him or accept an apology and actually move on and want to engage with his content again. I just want people to really sit and conceptualize the situation and just how much people are hurting. And if I have to be that voice, then I will be. Please bare with me. 🙏🏽

Again….no harassment towards anyone. You’re allowed to realize your mistakes and apologize, but there’s work you need to do to make it stick.

Edit: Also, people are allowed to be upset, but there’s a line when you send death threats. I AM, however, in the sentiment that the only good N*zi is a dead one. Half of my family didn’t flee to America for no reason- if they weren’t already fighting against them. Those are harsh words, but it’s my truth seeing the PAIN it’s caused my family first hand. I wouldn’t ever wish that on anyone, but you are NOT in good standing with me if you support any form of N*zism.

[writingquestionsanswered]

I am writing a story where the MC has a guide dog. I am struggling with writing the relationship between the MC and the dog, and with writing the dogs behaviors and personality as well. I’ve watched tons of dog videos and read blogs, as well as scientific articles on dog behavior and characteristics, but so far nothing has helped with my understanding on how to include the dog realistically in the story. Do you have any suggestions?

Struggling to Incorporate Researched Element

If you've spent a lot of time and effort researching an element but still aren't sure how to incorporate it into the story, here are some things to consider:

1 - You need to learn about the element. Guide dogs assist people who are blind or visually impaired, so if you haven't done enough research and character development on your character who is blind or visually impaired, that would certainly be an obstacle in incorporating the guide dog into the story even if you've learned about guide dog characteristics and behavior. You need to understand how guide dogs assist their person, too.

2 - You haven't fleshed out your story enough. If you have fully done your research, both on your MC who is blind or visually impaired as well as how a guide dog would assist them, another reason you may be struggling is you don't really know what needs to happen in your story and why. If you're not sure what your character is doing, why, and how, it would be difficult to visualize how the guide dog fits into that.

3 - You may not be the best person to write this story. While representation is important and we should all strive to write characters who reflect the world around us, if you're struggling this much, even with research, I think you have to take a step back and ask yourself why you think you're the best person to tell this blind or visually impaired character's story. If you have a guide dog yourself, have a family member or friend with a guide dog, or work with guide dogs, then it would certainly make sense for you to write this character. But if you're feeling stumped even with a lot of research, it may be a sign that this isn't your story to tell. If you feel strongly that it is, I would suggest finding out how you can volunteer to work with guide dogs and/or people who are blind and visually impaired in your community to get some firsthand experience.

Best wishes as you work through this!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

Learn more about WQA

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[nightskywriter]

Layla Meets Jake

A/N: This fic is also posted on Archive of Our Own under the same name! This is a fanfiction. I do not own any of these characters. Comments always welcome (and greatly appreciated)!

CW: This fic references previous child abuse, but doesn't actually show anything. It also shows Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). I did a lot of research on DID for this fic, but I could have gotten things wrong. Sorry in advance.

Characters: Marc Spector, Layla El-Faouly, Jake Lockley, Steven Grant (briefly)

...

Marc and Layla checked into the hotel and lady at the front desk gave Marc the key. Layla knew they were a sight. They were both covered in sand, Layla even more than Marc. They had been digging most of the day and they were both sweaty and gross. She had stayed mostly clean from sand until she got in that fight. She was pushed in the sand before Marc showed up. The man who attacked her hadn’t even been interested in the dig. He wasn’t there for that. He just saw her and thought she was alone.

But currently, Layla was fighting to appear amicable for the clerk. She tried not to look at Marc because she knew she wouldn’t be able to stop her eyes from narrowing and glaring at Marc. Marc and Layla always tried to appear to be getting along in public, but that didn’t mean they were actually getting along.

Marc put the hotel key in his pocket and picked up their luggage again. He insisted on carrying both of their bags.

“Am I just a liability to you?” Layla asked in a whisper once they were out of earshot from the clerk.

Marc didn’t look at her. He was focused on the dialog lights showing what floor the elevator was on. “We really doing this?”

“I grew up at dig sites. I can take care of myself.” Layla could feel the grit from the sand in her shoes and it was only making her mood worse. All she wanted was a shower. She felt like she still had blood on her from the splatter after Marc cut the man’s throat with one of his stupid crescent blades. It itched even though she knew she had wiped the blood off before they even came into the city. Blood splatters got the wrong kind of attention and the wrong kind of attention led to the wrong kind of questions from the wrong kind of people. Even though she knew it was gone, the itch wouldn’t be gone until she took an actual shower.

“Yeah. I know you can,” Marc said.

“I had that guy.” The elevator door opened, and they walked off together. “If you hadn’t gotten in the way, I could have knocked him out instead—” of you killing him. Layla stopped herself before she said the last part, but Marc knew what she was going to say anyway.

He opened the door to their room and set their bags down. “You don’t know what that guy was thinking.”

Layla crossed her arms, glaring at Marc’s back until he turned around. “I’ve got a pretty good idea. People like that man are why prisons are built. You didn’t have to kill him.”

“So what?” Marc threw up his hands. “You would have done the same thing.”

“No, I wouldn’t—”

“If he was going after another woman or a kid, you wouldn’t have killed him?” Marc knew she wouldn’t answer because they both knew the answer. Layla would have without hesitation. “We were there for the artifact. We were there on a job. But just because we were doing our day job of collecting artifacts doesn’t mean I get a day off from Khonshu. Khonshu wanted him dead and after Khonshu told me what that guy was planning to do, I agreed with him. Congrats, tonight you were a Traveler of the Night.”

Layla shook her head and scoffed. She ran her hand through her sweaty hair. Layla hated arguments like this. She wasn’t going to budge; she knew what killing people did to Marc and she hated him doing it. But she also knew Marc wasn’t going to change his mind. No matter how bothered he was, he believed he had done the justified thing and there was no convincing him otherwise.

“You need to learn when to stop,” Layla said, getting undressed so she could take her shower. She took her belt off and Marc froze.

Every muscle went rigid, and his eyes became unfocused. He blinked a few times, and his eyes softened a little.

“Marc?” Layla asked.

“Um, not right now,” Steven said. He looked around the room, confused. Marc had told Layla that it was hard for them to watch what was going on when the other was fronting and it seemed that Steven hadn’t been using the extra energy to listen in on their spat. “What happened? Marc just…left.”

Layla started to answer and took a step towards him—then Steven’s eyes hardened. Instantly, his postured changed to a more defensive stance. He cleared his throat.

Something about this change made the hairs on the back of Layla’s neck stand up.

“I wouldn’t come any closer, chica,” Not-Marc-or-Steven said. His voice was deeper than the other two and had an accent that sounded Hispanic. “You want to tell me what’s going on?”

“Who are you?”

“Please answer the question. I’m being polite for Marc and Steven but everything in me is telling me not to.”

“I’m not sure, that’s what I was asking Steven. We were just talking.” This new guy didn’t say anything, just kept watching. “I wasn’t going to hurt him if that’s what you think. We disagreeing and then he just…switched with Steven and now you,” Layla said.

Layla and Not-Marc looked down at her hand that was still holding the belt. She dropped it and covered her mouth with her hand. “He didn’t… Did Marc— Did he think I was going to hit him?”

“Were you?”

The question was like a slap. Layla thought back to everything Marc and Steven had told her about their past. After the Harrow situation, Marc had decided to tell Layla everything. She knew about his past and why Steven developed but she didn’t know he was scared that she would hurt him until now.

Layla shook her head. “Never.”

“Hmm,” Not-Marc said. “I believe you.”

Layla was so focused on her own thoughts that she barely heard Not-Marc. She thought back to all of the arguments she had had with Marc over the years. He had always kept his distance from her, never getting within arm’s reach. She hadn’t thought much of it.

Peripherally, Layla saw Not-Marc walked over to the bed and sat on the end. “This sucks.”

Layla looked up at him. “What?”

“Cat’s out of the bag, isn’t it? You weren’t supposed to know I exist but now, now you know.”

“Why wasn’t I supposed to know? Why didn’t Marc tell me?”

“Because he doesn’t know.”

Layla blinked. Marc seemed to be so aware of Steven that Layla never considered others. “Who are you?”

“Jake,” he said, “Lockley.”

[magnetarmadda]

Hi there! Like probably a lot of people, I'm quite jealous and in awe of the amount of reading you seem to get done. If you don't mind my asking, did you read this many books when you were in grad school? I'm in the last few months of my PhD (in paleontology!) and I've found that working on my thesis has absolutely killed my ability to get through books. Did this happen to you? Did your brain recover afterward? Or did you never deal with the reading slump?

Thanks! (And I hope you're having a good day, because you seem like a cool and nice person!)

Hey, hi! First, best of luck with your final months of grad school!!! Honestly, for me, they were so hard because of the lack of structure. Just, “finish your dissertation” and that was all the instruction really. If you ever wanna chat/vent about that, lemme know!! (Also paleontology!!! That’s so cool!!)

I always like to preface my reading habits with this: I have a very fast reading comprehension speed, and so for me, it averages out to about 100 pages of a novel in an hour and about 75 pages of nonfiction in an hour. In that way, I got lucky with the combination of early reading education, at-home book discussions, and genetics. So I can sit down and read a 300-page book in one evening, which meant that, even though I was only reading only one or two days a week, I was still getting through 50+ a year that way in grad school

I also listen to a lot of audiobooks and love trade paperbacks of graphic novels. The graphic novels can be quite fast reads for me, and this again is partly luck and genetics—my mom’s an artist, so I learned to look at images critically quite young, and can frequently find important info in them quickly. Then, for audiobooks, I do struggle with some chronic illnesses and chronic pain, and I frequently have to check out of life—but I cannot be left alone in my own head, or I rapidly catastrophize lol. I also can’t shut my own brain off when it’s time to sleep, so I listen to audiobooks then as well. I’d say this means I average about 4 audiobooks a month, where they’re usually between 8 and 14 hours (I do listen at 1.25 or 1.5 speed, because otherwise my brain stops paying attention)

I was also lucky with my advisor in grad school. She had a firm self-care policy, in that she cares more about her students’ well-being and health than timely progress. So I never felt like I was stealing moments or neglecting my work—I was trying to cultivate the healthiest version of myself, given all the other factors outside of my control. In the six years I worked with her, we actually spent more than one meeting talking about fantasy novels instead of research, which was lovely

But, yeah, there were a lot of reading struggles in grad school for me. I would go long stretches of time where the idea of opening a book and reading more words was unbearable, because god, didn’t I just spend all day reading and writing?? I also started to not care as much for the types of books I read before grad school, so now I’ve got a few stacks of books on hand I feel guilty that I haven’t read (but I’m trying to recognize that I’ll probably never read them, because tastes can change). So I might've had motivation to read, but nothing I had on hand sounded particularly good

Submitting that dissertation and knowing the hard part was over was actually the biggest relief, I think maybe of my life. I defended in mid-October and then submitted the finished manuscript about two weeks later, and then I spent a solid month just…reading whatever the fuck I wanted to lol. I have a postdoc now (and am applying for faculty jobs 🤞), and the responsibilities are waaaaaay less than as a grad student. In fact, my PI is adamant that I should not do more than 40 hrs a week, and so I’ve been able to plow through books like wild in the last few months

I also want to say: grad school is hard. It’s so absolutely difficult. Master’s programs are rough, and PhD programs are their own rodeo, and it sucks to say (because it sounds awful to most people, I know), but unless someone goes through grad school themselves, it’s hard to fathom what makes it so hard and exhausting. It’s totally okay to cut yourself some slack for finding you don’t have as much energy for other things, even the things you really enjoy. The books will be there waiting, and I'll admit it took me a solid 4 years to accept that myself lol

Thanks for the lovely ask, and I really do wish you well as you finish up 💜 again, I'm here--ask box or dm--if you'd like to take more about any part of the process 💜

[parochena]

Lunar New Year - Year of the Snake + Updates

It’s almost Lunar New Year and I wanted to have something ready for this kind of time as I tend to like coming up with ideas for the Lunar Zodiac! - Mostly because it’s full of animals! - Apparently this year, it starts on Wednesday, 29 January 2025.

It tends to be a nice little challenge to try to incorporate some of the cultural elements into each of the pieces I’ve attempted; be that aspects of the particular year - for example… a wooden dragon - or simply what I at least understand is a little more common to stumble upon during that time of year in the cultures that celebrate Lunar New Year.

Now, granted, I am not from these cultures myself, so they are purely from places of research because I’ve been curious, or admired how pretty or beautiful the celebrations are! I’m not trying to appropriate; just admire and be inspired, so I hope it doesn’t come across negatively. - I do always try not to offend anybody when learning about new cultures, but please point anything out if you see something that is meant to celebrate that particular event and instead, offends!! I’m always open to be educated. Especially it is absolutely NOT the intention to hurt anybody.

I initially tried to do a couple years the last 12 year cycle so the bunny on the very right of the set underneath has all sorts of issues (for example that umbrella haha!!), but I hope this 12 year cycle (from the tiger onwards) at least shows a little more understanding for objects hahaha! I think it would be really cool if I can complete all the animals at one point but some years have been better/harder than others and we’re trying this personal challenge again! 4 down, 8 to go! HA! - 2022 to 2033 as I think the next year of the tiger (when I started again) starts in 2034? Is that right?

Below I’ve also added in the related shorts/reels I uploaded around socials just to keep everything somewhat together.

I want to get into the habit of actually updating this blog when I paint/draw new things so it’s actually clear when I’ve updated this website! - Right now, I can add stuff to the gallery and because there’s quite a little bit there, it’s not always obvious that I’ve added something new. Granted, it’s not intended to be a portfolio so much right now, but rather just a big compilation of things I’ve done, as I want to take the time to really develop a much larger personal project to have a portfolio I can be really proud of. - Then I’ll just add a page for that I think…

In terms of updates, overall, I have added a whole bunch of stuff that I haven’t put on here for awhile and tinkered with SEO things and such. - There’s still a few more things to add but I’m getting there slowly. For those of you who require accessible alt text, I’m working on adding this everywhere too, it’s just a lot of images to explain and I’m just a sole person that just needs to get into better habits so things don’t become overwhelming like they are now hahaha! - Little by little, this site will also have everything as fully described as possible in the alt text. - The character limit is not my friend!! I have uploaded the whole timelapse of this painting - as I usually do - to my Patreon for anybody interested. <3

That’s all from me for now! Thank you for reading! X0x Paulie xoX

[umichenginabroad]

Week 4: Guess the Chocolate Croissants weren't for me

The weather is clearing up this week! Hit the beach a few times and ran outside, I’m really starting to feel like a local. Deidra and I have made good progress on our motor. We have hit all our performance marks and have kept it within our design constraints. Honestly as I’ve found with a lot of the research work I’ve done there’s a good amount of down time during the day. I’d say about 80% of our time is waiting for simulations to run, so while technically our work is being done there's not much we can do. So Deidra and I have taken to binging Netflix shows (all other platforms don’t work in Spain for some reason). We started off with this show called Muster dogs, transitioned to my favorite trash tv show Perfect Match, and she’s currently putting me on Sex and the City. I’m having a lot of fun at work and I’m really starting to enjoy the company of the people here.

Next on the list is my almost sudden encounter with lady death. Started the morning off like any other. It was my off day from running in the morning and I had been eyeing down the chocolate croissants at the breakfast buffet for a few days now. For context, I am deathly allergic to hazelnuts so I just hadn’t gotten around to asking them if I could eat them yet. Finally got around to it on Tuesday. In Spanish, so there was no confusion, I asked one of the lunch ladies if the croissants had any nuts. She said no and neither do the butter croissants, which I had been eating consistently everyday. Awesome I thought, I love chocolate croissants but can very rarely eat them. If it were up to my mom I’d be staying away from chocolate entirely but although I’m THE biggest Vanilla guy, I like to indulge every now and then. I cheerfully bring back my plate to the table and sarcastically say “she told me they had no nuts, lets see if she lied”. Safe to say I will not be making a joke like that ever again. I took one bite and immediately realized that it was not just chocolate. “What’s that I said” surprised, “Nocilla” my friend said. Nocilla as in hazelnut spread, as in basically nutella, as in the only thing I am deathly allergic to. I felt a bit of panic, my heart sunk. I had already swallowed my bite and just waited to see if I was going to have a reaction. To my surprise I wasn’t really feeling anything. I couldn’t tell if I was having a false alarm, placebo reaction or if I really was having an allergic reaction. There have been instances where I’ve thought I was reacting but really was just in my head about it. But this time I was 100% sure I ate hazelnuts. I quickly collected myself and thought, well I have my epipen (it's expired but still effective), if I feel like I can’t breathe I’ll use it. 

We deliberated for a couple minutes on what we should do. I wasn’t sure what was going on. We decided to walk to the nearest hospital just in case and if I got worse to use the epipen. So we started walking, halfway up this hill we realized we didn’t even know if this hospital was open. I told Diego to check if it was and it definitely wasn’t. How convenient. This was probably when I was the most scared, but I was surrounded by my friends, we had the safety of my epipen still to be used, and we now had a new plan. We will take the bus to the hospital we know is open, half an hour away by bus, and if at any point I get worse we would use the epipen and call for an ambulance.

It’s a funny thing, I felt surprisingly calm on that bus ride. By this point, if I was going to go into anaphylaxis I would have already and it felt nice knowing I have great people here with me. We made it to the ER without the need for my epipen. I got a shot on my ass which made it sore for the rest of the day. All worth it for the peace of mind of knowing I was completely safe now. 

I’d say my risk setting has been reset a bit. But all in all, I learned I’m surprisingly calm in stressful situations, I have wonderful people surrounding me, and that maybe just maybe I should avoid chocolate.

The rest of the week was much calmer. Took a nap on the beach on Wednesday as the sun finally came out. Went to the club with my buddies on Thursday night. The nightlife is a little crazy, pregaming doesn’t start till at least 10 and we made it to the club at 1 am to leave at 6 am. Safe to say waking up for work at 9:30am was a struggle, but I somehow made it on time. Also, the Euros started yesterday so I’ve been going to the local bars to watch soccer with all the Spain fans and I also explored more of the city on a long run. I’ll put some pics of the week below. 

Mateo Jimenez

Mechanical Engineering

Engineering in San Sebastian, Spain