#online lawn collection

[myfashionroad]

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[punkshort]

Palm Trees

Thank you @itsafullmoon for this prompt!

Pairing: Joel Miller x f!reader

Summary: Sometimes love can be found unexpectedly in the aisle of Home Depot's Christmas displays.

Warnings: language, fluff, hurt/comfort, brief mentions of OC deaths, sexual tension, flirting

WC: 3.6K

dividers by @saradika-graphics

Joel smiled as he watched Sarah skip down the aisles of Home Depot, him trailing behind pushing an orange cart that already was half filled with way too many boxes of Christmas lights, two light up penguins, and an inflatable Santa.

Christmas was never this thing, but he tried to make it special for Sarah. Her mother had always been the one to go the whole nine yards for the holiday while Joel kicked back and watched his girls have a blast decorating the house. Every year they participated in the Christmas lights competition their small town just outside of Austin, Texas held, and every year they lost. But it never really mattered because they had so much fun putting everything together and brainstorming on Thanksgiving what they thought would give them a competitive edge.

When his wife passed away four years ago, they stopped participating in the competition. It never felt right, and neither of them wanted to do it. But that year on Thanksgiving, much to Joel's surprise, Sarah turned to him out of the blue and said, we should do a penguin slip and slide on the lawn this year.

Tommy and Maria fell silent, eyes darting between Joel and his daughter while they waited for his response. Once he collected himself, he said, what about Santa in a hot tub?

Thus, the idea was born: Christmas on the beach. They still had plenty of supplies from years before, but he let Sarah plan the whole thing. If she wanted new things to put on the lawn, he would gladly pay for them just to see that huge smile on her face when she looked at him over her shoulder as she skipped down the aisle.

Given their beach theme, one thing they definitely needed and didn't already own was a light up palm tree, one which Sarah scouted out online and informed Joel it was the only home improvement store that had them in stock. He wanted to tease her and remind her that of course palm trees weren't popular to keep on the shelf at Christmas time, but she was so excited he just shook his head and grabbed his keys.

"Alright, it's gotta be here, it says it's in aisle 17A," Sarah said when she slowed down, scanning the huge light-up displays. Joel sighed and looked around, gaze drifting over presents, reindeer and wreathes until he heard Sarah gasp softly. He slid to a stop and whipped his head in her direction. She was standing in the middle of the aisle, crestfallen, as she watched a young woman lift the very last palm tree into her cart.

"Oh, no," she whispered, and Joel's heart broke when he heard the despair in her voice. He couldn't stand to see Sarah that way after she had been so excited for Christmas for the first time since the loss of her mother, so he did something he never thought he would do. He abandoned the cart with Sarah, instructing her to stay right there, and hurried down the aisle towards you.

"Hey, uh, excuse me?"

You looked up in surprise, then glanced over your shoulder to make sure he was actually addressing you, before meeting his eye again.

"Yes?"

Joel came to a stop in front of your cart and lowered his voice.

"I have a favor to ask," he began. When he saw the defensive look on your face, he quickly shook his head. "Sorry, wait. See the little girl behind me? With the cart?"

Your eyes flicked over his shoulder quickly, spotting the curly haired pre-teen, then nodded.

"Well, it sounds ridiculous but she's got her heart set on that damn palm tree, and-" Joel looked at the shelf to confirm before giving you his attention again. "You got the last one. You think I can buy it from you?"

You blinked in surprise, your eyes slowly sliding between him and the boxed palm tree in your cart, then bit your lip.

"Well..."

"Please," he begged before pulling out his wallet. "Whatever you want. I don't wanna make you feel bad, but we lost my wife a few years back. Lightin' up the house for that damn competition was somethin' she always did with her mom. This is the first year she's been excited for it and I don't wanna let her down."

Your shoulders sagged in defeat and you turned to your cart.

"That's okay, you can take it. You don't need to pay me," you told him, stepping aside so he could grab the box. But Joel shook his head.

"No, please, lemme give you somethin' for it."

You smiled sadly and waved him off.

"I don't want your money. Make your daughter happy. It's hard for a girl to lose her mom. Just... take it."

You turned your back to him but he heard you sniffle softly behind your hand and he frowned.

"You alright?" he asked, hands slowly lowering when he sensed something was amiss

"Yeah, I'm fine," you assured him. You crossed your arms over the handle of your cart and leaned against it, like the weight of the world was forcing you down.

"No, you ain't. This palm tree mean somethin' to you?" he asked while pointing at the box.

"No, not really," you said with a shrug. But when Joel refused to accept that as an answer, you sighed and rolled your eyes. "I lost my mom, too. Last year. She lived in Florida and she loved Christmas and I saw the stupid tree so-"

You shook your head, letting your sentence fall unfinished in the air. Joel's heart sank and he looked back at Sarah, who was staring at him curiously.

"Sarah, c'mere," he called. She pushed the shopping cart down the aisle and you looked up, tilting your head to the side in confusion. "Sarah," he said with his arm outstretched towards you. "This is-"

He cut himself off and looked at you expectantly. You stood up straighter and told them both your name, which Joel repeated before looking back at his daughter.

"What'dya say we get a little help with the Christmas decorations this year?" he asked her. Then he swiveled back to you before adding, "I mean, if you wanna. We could really use it if you're free."

A slow smile stretched across your face and you gave him a quick nod before catching Sarah's eye. She grinned at you before saying, "Sounds great. He's pretty much useless, anyway." Sarah jutted her thumb in Joel's direction and you both laughed softly before you agreed.

"I mean, as long as it's not an imposition," you said quickly. Both Joel and Sarah quickly put your worries to rest.

"Not at all. We'd love the help," he assured you. Then Sarah playfully nudged his arm.

"Ask for her number, Dad."

You felt your cheeks warm and Joel awkwardly cleared his throat.

"Can I, uh, get your number? So we can set up a date? I mean, a time?"

"Yeah, of course," you giggled when he grew flustered at his slip-up. You took his phone and tapped in your name and number before handing it back to him.

"We're doing a Christmas on the beach theme for our house this year," Sarah told you excitedly, dragging your gaze off her father, who you finally allowed yourself to notice was extremely handsome.

"Oh, yeah? That sounds cool. You know, I used to live in Florida, so we literally had Christmas on the beach every year. We can put some sunglasses on Santa and beach umbrellas over the reindeer," you offered. Sarah's eyes lit up when she looked at her father.

"Dad, she's brilliant," Sarah said matter-of-factly. Joel chuckled while you tried to hide your excitement by shyly looking down at your own phone.

"Alright, well, thank you," Joel said before hoisting the box from your cart and dropping it into his. "And, uh," he glanced sideways at Sarah before saying softly, "anything else you wanna do to honor your mom, just lemme know. We'll do anythin' you want."

Even though Joel dropped his voice, Sarah still heard him. Her mouth twisted sadly as she looked away to offer you some privacy.

"Yeah, thanks," you replied with a small smile. You wrapped your fingers around the rail of your shopping cart and began to back away. "You better actually call me. 'Cause if you try to pull one over on me just to take my palm tree, I'll find you," you joked.

"Oh, I'll be callin' you, don't worry," he told you while trying to fight the stupid grin from stretching across his face. Right before you turned and waved, he shot you a wink that made your heart flutter, then you disappeared towards the cash registers.

"She's pretty."

Joel's neck practically snapped when he heard his daughter speak by his side.

"Oh. I-I ... it ain't like that. I felt bad that she-"

"Yeah, okay, Dad," Sarah said with a roll of her eyes. "C'mon. We need to find the extension cords before the store closes."

Joel let Sarah lead the way while silently trying to unravel her unexpectedly relaxed reaction to him possibly flirting with another woman. He ached for the comfort having a partner brought, but for years he stifled his own desires for fear of upsetting Sarah. She was his one and only priority, and he was fine with that.

But for the first time he began to wonder if it was possible to have both.

True to his word, Joel had called you a couple days later asking if you were free that Saturday to help decorate. It felt nice to have a distraction around the holidays. It kept you from wallowing and thinking too much about your mother, but as you were getting ready to leave, you decided you didn't want to forget about her entirely. You wanted to honor her memory in some way, so at the last minute you tugged on your ugly Christmas sweater, the same one you would wear every Christmas morning with your mom, then rushed out the door.

"Whoa! You came prepared!" Sarah exclaimed when she swung open the front door. You grinned and looked down at your sweater covered with garland that was hanging on by a thread and some horrifying looking Santa with a reindeer.

"My mom used to have a matching one, it was kind of our tradition on Christmas," you explained as you slipped off your boots.

"I love that. My mom used to have this vest with these, like, ornaments hanging off them. It was hideous but she legitimately thought it was cute," Sarah laughed over her shoulder as she led you into the kitchen, where Joel was hunched over the sink scrubbing dishes. While his back was still turned, you allowed yourself to quickly eye him up. He was wearing a red flannel with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and a dish towel tossed over his left shoulder. He looked so domestic and comfortable in that moment that it had your heart skipping a beat.

"Oh, hey," Joel said when he noticed you. "Sorry. Just cleanin' up. Lost track of time."

"No problem," you said, eyes still fixed on the way his broad shoulders moved underneath his shirt. Distracted, you went to lean against the kitchen counter and almost fell when you misjudged the distance, causing Sarah to stifle a giggle and turn away.

Once Joel dried his hands, he turned to face you properly. His eyes landed on your sweater and you could see the inner turmoil in his expression as he tried to figure out if it was worn as a joke or not, so you quickly put him out of his misery.

"It's just something dumb my mom and I wore on Christmas," you explained. His shoulders dropped and he smiled.

"Cute."

You pressed your lips together to keep yourself from smiling like a fool when you watched his face turn pink and his eyes widen.

"I mean, it's cute - the sweater's cute - not you."

Then Joel's face twisted and he pinched the bridge of his nose.

"That's not to say you ain't cute, it's just - well, I was tryin' to say -"

"Oh, my god, Dad! You're making it so much worse!" Sarah laughed before disappearing back the way you came. "I'll be in the garage getting all the stuff together!" she called. You heard the rustle from her coat right before the door squeaked open and shut, leaving the two of you all alone.

"Sorry," Joel finally said sheepishly. You giggled and waved him off.

"Don't be," you replied. Maybe it was the privacy that gave you a streak of sudden bravery because you then added, "I thought it was cute. It being you."

Before you could register the shocked look on his face, you swiveled around to follow Sarah's path towards the front door. "See you out there!" you sang before slipping back outside, grateful for the cool winter air to help soothe your warm cheeks.

You were surprised with how quickly you grew comfortable with Joel and Sarah. They had an easiness to their family that you craved and very much enjoyed experiencing, even if it was only for just one afternoon.

"Good thing you were free to help today. There's supposed to be a blizzard tonight," Sarah said when she climbed the steps of the porch, arms filled with an assortment of tangled Christmas lights. "We never would have been able to put all this stuff up with a ton of snow on the ground."

"When's the competition again?" you asked, plopping down and grabbing a string of lights to unravel.

"Christmas Eve," she said, "You're coming, right?"

Your mind stuttered a bit at the question. You hadn't been invited, but you wouldn't expect to be, either. A few days ago, both she and her father were complete strangers. It would have been weird to spend Christmas Eve with them. Right?

"Oh, no, that's a time for family," you insisted while focusing all of your attention on the pile of lights in your lap. Across the yard, you both heard Joel swear to himself when two reindeer toppled over. You looked up and smiled. It was incredibly adorable to watch him work so hard to make the yard perfect for his daughter.

"So you'll be with your family, then?" Sarah questioned with a hint of sadness to her voice. Your mouth opened and closed for a second as you tried to think of what to say until you sighed and shook your head.

"No, actually I'll be alone this year," you told her after deciding to go with the truth.

"Well, then, why can't you come over?" she asked. Before you could reply, she lifted her chin and shouted across the lawn for Joel.

Immediately you raised your hands, waving them back and forth while saying, "No, please, I don't want to be a bother. I meant you should be with your family," you said.

"No one should be alone on Christmas," Sarah told you softly just as Joel had walked up, lifting one boot to rest on the bottom step.

"You're gonna be alone on Christmas?" Joel asked with a concerned look so sweet, it made your knees weak.

"Yeah, I mean, it's not a big deal," you said while doing your best to avoid both their eyes. You suddenly felt overexposed and uncomfortable, so you picked up the lights again and got to work untangling them.

"You should stop by," Joel told you. "I mean, only if you wanna. No pressure or nothin', it's just gonna be us, my brother 'n his wife but... we'd love to have you."

"We can all wear ugly sweaters, just like you and your mom used to," Sarah said, the offer making your heart melt.

"Uh, thanks, but I don't know..." you trailed off, still fixing your gaze on the lights. "I'll think about it."

The rest of the afternoon flew by, fortunately without any more awkwardness. The sun had set almost an hour prior to the three of you hurrying towards the end of the driveway so you could take in the beautiful Christmas landscape you created in all its glory.

"This is our year, I can feel it," Sarah announced happily between you both. You looked down at her and grinned, her dark brown eyes sparkling as she stared at the beachy Christmas scene you had worked so hard to create.

"Better be, considerin' my electric bill's gonna be through the roof," Joel muttered, but when you lifted your eyes to look at him, you caught him smiling just as wide as Sarah.

"Well, my job here is done," you said, clapping your gloved hands together. "I should hit the road before that blizzard comes."

"It's not supposed to snow til, like, super early in the morning," Sarah protested. "Can't you stay for a little while longer?"

"We were gonna order a pizza and watch a movie, if you're interested," Joel added. "C'mon, it's the least we could do for all your help."

You hesitantly agreed and you told yourself it was only because you missed being part of a family and absolutely nothing to do with how handsome Joel looked under the glow from the Christmas lights.

What you didn't expect was for everyone to be so exhausted after spending the day working hard that the three of you would fall asleep halfway through the movie. It was close to four in the morning when you awoke with a jolt, your neck craned at an impossible angle against the back of Joel's couch. You winced and tenderly massaged the knot in your neck, then straightened up and looked around, wondering what disturbed you in the first place.

It was Joel, who was in the process of gently picking up Sarah from the spot next to you. He noticed you were awake and held one finger to his lips. You swallowed tightly and nodded, remaining still and quiet so as not to wake up Sarah, and watched him carefully walk down the hallway past the kitchen to tuck her into bed.

Once they were both gone, you were left with a glowing television screen and a dryness in your mouth that had you wandering into the dim kitchen for some water. You were halfway through your glass and about to peer out the window when you heard Joel's voice behind you softly say your name. You swiveled around to find him leaning against the kitchen counter, still clad in that red flannel but now adorned with messy bedhead hair that had your mind going down a dangerous path.

"God, sorry I fell asleep," you said, placing your empty glass in the sink. "I'll get going-"

Joel laughed quietly, cutting you off.

"Don't think you'll be goin' anywhere. Did you look outside?"

Your face fell and you hurried over to the window, peeling the curtain back just to find his entire driveway, your car included, covered in a thick blanket of snow.

"Still comin' down, too," he told you. "Ain't safe to drive. You can take my bed and I'll sleep on the couch."

"Oh, gosh, no - I'll sleep on the couch," you told him firmly. The corner of Joel's mouth twitched into a little smile before he pushed off the counter, taking a few steps towards you.

"You're stubborn, y'know that?"

"I do," you replied with a grin. But when he got close enough to pinch the material of your sweater between his fingers, your smile slipped from your face and your heart began to race.

"I like it," he finally said, his voice so soft it sent a shiver down your spine. "You, by the way. You and that stubborn streak. Not the sweater, this thing is ugly as hell."

You laughed and quickly clapped your hand over your mouth so as not to wake up Sarah. Joel grinned and moved a little closer, the scent from his laundry detergent and faded cologne invading your senses.

"You'll come by for Christmas, right?" he asked, letting his hand fall back to his side. He gazed down at you, those beautiful eyes scanning your face like he was looking for something.

"I don't want to impose on your family time," you told him, noting you sounded a little short of breath from the close proximity. He just frowned and the hand that was once touching your sweater came up to pinch your chin.

It felt as if time stood still when he leaned down to gingerly brush his lips over yours. Then he leaned back and searched your eyes, checking to make sure what he did was okay. Without hesitating, you stood up on your tiptoes and pressed your mouth against his, too eager to feel the warmth of his lips again to wait.

"How 'bout now?" Joel asked after he tore himself away. You opened your eyes and looked up at him curiously, then he smirked. "You still think it's an imposition?" he clarified. Your eyes lit up and you bit back a smile as you pretended to think about it.

"Hmm, I'm not sure," you teased, "I might need you to kiss me again before I can decide."

Joel chuckled then crashed his mouth against yours, taking your breath away. You could feel a heat behind that kiss, one that was filled with promise and excitement that had you feeling lightheaded and giddy.

"Well?" he panted when he pulled away a second time, but he kept your cheek cradled in his palm while he waited for your answer.

"You make a very compelling argument," you whispered, wrapping your arms around his middle. He grinned and leaned forward again for another kiss, but stopped inches away so he could ask, "That mean you'll be here for Christmas?"

"Yeah," you breathed, "I'll be here for Christmas."

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[godbirdart]

"all our devices are listening to us and they track you everywhere you go online" okay yeah i Do believe this to be true but whoever is collecting my data to target ads at me fucking SUCKS!!!!

my ads cycle through the following across each and every damn platform:

outdoor power tools

mens birkenstock sandals

mens tropical-themed polo shirts

electric heaters / furnaces

some kind of farming ad

ride-on lawn mowers

febreze plug in [i suspect it is because i call my cat "stinky"]

kubota tractors

baby essentials [i also call my cat "baby"]

obligatory truck commercial

i really want to know how the tech companies took "furry artist that lives alone with his cat and spends hours looking at anime men and playing video games" and spun it into ads curated for a lost dad in Home Depot

[postoctobrist]

have you ever used iron gall ink for calligraphy? It's what medieval scribes used to write on parchment. On of my previous hyperfixations was copying Anglo saxon manuscripts with using accurate materials, and i loved to tell people how they made the ink and parchment. It's made from gallic acid, extracted from fermented oak galls, and iron (ii) sulphate, aka copperas or Green vitriol, which is leached from iron pyrite. I don't know the chemistry but when they dry on parchment they react together to produce very dark, sharp and permanent marks. I made it once with oak galls I'd collected from various walks. Copperas is more commonly used as a lawn fertilisers today so it's easy to get online. I also made and used feather quills, which take a bit of practice, and you kind of have to sharpen as you go to keep the end sharp, but they can make beautiful letters once you get the hang of it.

I literally have a bottle of Rohrer and Klingner Scabiosa on my desk in front of me right now

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2025/01/04/early-royal-family-photo-albums-display/

Article text below the jump.

King George V mowing the lawn among early Royal family photos to go on display for first time

Thirty-three of Queen Mary’s photo albums currently being conserved document official engagements, royal tours and private family gatherings

Hannah Furness, 4 January 2025

Personal photograph albums belonging to Elizabeth II’s grandmother and containing thousands of pictures of the Royal family are to be seen in full by the public for the first time, including a shot of George V mowing the lawn in a top hat.

The pictures, pasted in 33 albums by Queen Mary herself, are being conserved and digitised by the Royal Collection Trust (RCT), with the vast majority of the 12,000 photographs to be seen by the general public for the first time.

They include early photographs of the Royal family in their leisure time, detailing the childhoods of the boys who would grow up to become Edward VIII and George VI, as well as the key moments Queen Mary wanted to save for the history books.

One image, taken in 1895 while Queen Victoria was still on the throne, shows the future Queen Alexandra holding her baby grandson, the future King Edward VIII, who reaches up to grab the hat of his father – the future George V – while his mother, the future Queen Mary, watches on.

Another extraordinary picture, which was shared on social media during the research project and will form part of the final digitised collection, shows George V mowing the lawn at Adelaide Cottage, the current home of the Prince and Princess of Wales and their children.

Queen Mary wrote a caption next to it: “G. in tall hat!”.

Other photographs include Queen Mary’s first ride in a motor car, early family holiday photos at Balmoral, and some of the first-ever royal tour photos.

In one photo, Queen Mary – then the Duchess of Cornwall and York – is captured up a mountain looking down the river in Banff, Alberta, during the Dominions tour in 1901, which saw the King and Queen travel 7000 miles from east to west via the Canadian Pacific Railway. 

In another, Queen Mary, formally dressed in the heavy corset and hat with which she is associated with, visited wounded soldiers during the First World War, and the troops of the Queen Mary’s Women Auxiliary Corps in 1918.

Other shots show the family away from public duties in Sandringham, Aberdeenshire and Windsor.

Many of the informal pictures were taken by members of the Royal family themselves, while others have been cut from press photography or official palace photoshoots.

All were personally arranged and captioned by Queen Mary herself, between 1880 and 1952.

The 33 albums are said by the RCT to “provide a visual narrative of her life, documenting everything from official engagements and royal tours to private family gatherings”.

They are held in the historic photographs collection – part of the Royal Collection – at Windsor Castle.

Many have never been seen by the public before, while a small proportion were published in a 1989 book.

They are currently undergoing conservation treatment, which began in 2019 before being paused during the Covid-19 pandemic, to allow them to be safely handled so that they can be digitised, researched and displayed in future.

Experts from the Royal Bindery and Paper Conservation teams are cleaning and repairing the albums’ paper and binding, as well as treating the photographs that need greater preservation.

Before this, only around 200 of the pictures could be searched for individually on the RCT’s website.

The full pages, including contemporary annotations, can now be seen online, with 26 of the 33 albums already available and the remaining seven to come.

The RCT has described them as a mix of “snapshots”, taken by amateurs, family and friends, including members of the Royal family, images taken by professional and studio photographers and press photographs which were often collected by Queen Mary’s staff after engagements.

[ax-y10]

musician! bur mood board and headcanons

so, i've decided that i am going to be impatient and make headcanons for the inages and how they relate to musician! bur.

i also may or may not have chosen the images with the intent of making headcanons.

oh, and the layout for the order of the photos: first row: 1, 2, 3 second row: 4, 5, 6 third row: 7, 8, 9

anyways, headcanons below the cut:

1. "your voice is my favourite sound"

when wilbur is stuck in a writer's block, he'll listen more intently to when you talk and what you're talking about.

if he thinks it can be used in a song, he'll definitely record the conversation without you knowing.

he'll hint at the fact he wants to use that conversation as backing vocals and such, saying "your voice is my favourite sound" and will casually take a photo of you when you blush at his sly remark.

he wants to make sure every rant, conversation, and random sentences you voice are recorded in history, whether it be in his songs, on his phone, or stored on his computer to listen to as he works.

2. "everything's better with a little background music"

he will say this when you both are doing domestic activities, beabadoobee or the arctic monkeys playing on his speaker

"everything's better with a little background music" when you're washing the dishes, maintaining the lawn, when he's playing guitar for you in his room, when he shouts over the running water of the shower

he lives by this motto. it's constantly uttered every other minute of the day.

absolutely somehow pisses of his bandmates by bringing you on tour and muttering "everything's better with a little background music" at midnight to keep you awake, and just hearing mark shout "wilbur! shut up!"

3. "but wilbur! it's cool!"

one day, you had a need to take photos and keep them to look at later. one of the victims was wilbur's record collection and his headphones

you hadn't brought it up with him, but once he walked into the room with you positioning the headphones and touching his record collection, of course he was going to be anxious. that's his favourite collection!

"y/n! what are you doing?" he said, frantic, almost startling you. "i'm taking photos, wil," it didn't ease him at all. "yes! but i love that collection! please don't touch them!" you paused. "but wilbur! it's cool!"

when you showed you the photo later, he was over-joyed and begged you to make more. as long as you didn't hurt his music.

4. "you look pretty..."

it was a date, and you'd both decided that you were going to go record shopping so you could expand your own collection. wilbur's excuse was that "the atmosphere in the stores are cool! you have to see it!"

wilbur had his phone out the entire time, even though you had asked him to put it away because you felt awkward

you heard him utter "you look pretty..." while you were sifting through different records, immediately looking up at him and seeing a bright flash

when you got home, you saw a different background on his phone. it was the photo he took of you when he called you pretty.

5. "wilbur. smile!"

you were trying to take photos of him after lovejoy performed a gig, but he either wasn't staying still, was somewhere different to you or had the most default expression on his face.

"darling, hold on. let me put my stuff away then you can take a photo," you would not take such disrespect /j

"wilbur. stop real quick" and he stilled, and looked at you, so very unimpressed, so you took a funny photo of him through a small fit of giggles

"wilbur. smile!" you said, hoping to get a better photo, but he walked off, clearly exhausted from the day. so you joined him in bed while showing him all the photos you had of him. he fell asleep...

6. "music heals"

his birthday was coming up soon and you desperately needed to get him a gift. you thought a guitar pick would be perfect because all of his current picks were slowly being worn down from constant playing.

you found a website online that made custom picks, and you were grateful that they were uk based, making it easier to get it shipped to where you lived on time.

you got "music heals" engraved onto the pick, because it was what you always said when wilbur has in a rough spot. and he always ran to get his guitar and happily played for himself while you watched with soft eyes.

when he got it, he cried genuine 'i love you' tears. immediately engulfing you in a bear hug, he pressed soft, loving kisses across your face

7. "you've made a mess!"

for months, you sat in wilburs room with him, watching random videos he had on his phone and listening to silly stories from when they record in the studio

so the first day you go in there to watch in person, you were shocked by what the group left at the end of each rehearsal, specifically wilbur.

mark, joe, and ash all cleaned up after themselves at the end of the studio session, but wilbur left his things on the ground, leaving more mess for everyone else to clean up. you quickly snapped a phot and walked up to wilbur, holding the phone close to his face.

"you've made a mess!" you said, faux angry, clearly meant to be a snarky remark, but wilbur showed the opposite effect. "yes, sweetheart. i'll clean it up in a second," you had to clean it up because he fell asleep

8. "i love it!"

it was after a lovejoy gig when a small meet and greet had created itself. everyone either had a gift for wilbur or wanted to take a photo.

every gift he got, he replied with an enthusiastic "thank you so much!" but one gift stuck out to both you and wilbur.

at this specific gig, you were at his side, half asleep and leaning against him. wilbur would bring every gift into your line of view and you'd give a small smile.

but this gift was a drawing of a record player and a record on it, the small spotify listening line at the bottom. his loud "i love it!" broke you out of your sleepy state, and yet again, another gift was in your eyesight. "i love it!" you'd say, before dragging his ass to bed.

9. "without music, life would be a mistake"

yet again, this is another quote of wilbur's, and is specifically uttered when he feels like shit and is listening to music.

when you both are on a flight with lovejoy, on a car ride with the sorry boys, or simply walking somewhere, you share headphones, and you both listen to his music.

you can sense when he feels like shit, so you whisper under your breath, looking up at him "without music, life would be a mistake" which immediately causes him to look down at you.

with shock in his eyes at the sudden string of words, his flat expression is replaced with a small smile, and he mutters the words back to you, pressing a kiss to your forehead before continuing to listen.

[lakesbian]

the undersiders need to play minecraft together so bad. heres my opinions on undersiders minecraft server as someone who effectively never plays minecraft

taylor: having an autism moment (beating the game in the most terrifyingly efficient manner possible and then clearing out mass amounts of terrain for resources in what is also the most terrifyingly efficient way possible and then creating an excessively large chest library of the obtained resources but forgetting to actually build anything because she is having so much fun creating a very large square hole in the ground)

brian: also having an autism moment (helping taylor with her square hole and then meticulously building an endearingly poorly designed house and then spending several consecutive hours carefully doing interior design and traveling the world to find ideal flowers for his front lawn)

rachel: collecting one million dogs and nametagging every single one and feeding them every day and then getting really upset in real life and quitting when one of them dies in battle

aisha & alec: "redecorating" brian's endearingly poorly designed house and making fun of him for how it looks bad and cringe (which makes him mad and flustered because he recognizes the merit in their critiques so he spends 6 hours looking for minecraft interior design hacks online and then redoing the entire house but good this time and then he tries to show aisha the new house to prove he can be good at video games too but she's too busy using cheat commands to fuck around in caves with alec to come look and it makes brian kind of sad. 🙁.) also they build the world's least aesthetically coherent little house on the planet together and brian gets really mad when he sees it because it demonstrates that CLEARLY they have NO BASIS to insult his.

lisa: the one who set the server up. i know she's Spectating Things and standing there watching taylor's autism moment like. are you having fun. but i know not what Funny Thing she would do. lisa understanders please assist

[rebeccathenaturalist]

The most salient point to me in all this is that he used an unnamed ID app to try to figure out what mushrooms he found because he thought "Man those look good." The app misidentified the mushrooms as edible puffballs, but in reality they were destroying angels (Amanita ocreata). One is enough to kill an adult, and this person ate four of them. He's very, very lucky to be alive.

This is far from the first time someone put their entire faith in a single app to tell them what mushroom they were looking at, and then they paid the price with their health. You're going to hear me say this again and again: never, ever, ever use an app as your only tool for identifying anything, especially if you're planning to eat it. An app can be useful in conjunction with other tools like books, websites, online foraging groups, etc. But apps are frequently wrong, and are not the easy answer many people seem to want them to be.

(Rant about foraging below the cut.)

This right here is why I spend a decent amount of time in my foraging classes trying to scare the hell out of my students. I want them to understand the risks, not just as a brief aside, but as anecdotes I've collected from the news over the years like this one. I have had more than one person say afterward "Wow, I had a really romanticized view of foraging, and now I'm going to be more careful." That's a clue to me that I've done my job.

It's why my classes are SO focused on identification skills and tools to make you a more informed and careful forager. I am not going to just spend a bunch of time showing you slides of all sorts of edible species, with a little bit of information on how to identify and collect them tucked in before or after. Yes, we do look at some beginner-friendly species near the end of the class, but if all you want to get out of a foraging class is names and pictures of edible plants or fungi, that's what field guides are for. I spend the bulk of the time doing my absolute best to make sure people are PREPARED to go out and use their observational and critical thinking skills when assessing a new-to-them species, to include making use of many different types of resource, not just a single app.

I have literally had people complain that we spent too much time on "boring" stuff, and not enough on the edible species themselves---aaaaaand I don't care. My goal is to try as hard as I can to make sure incidents like the article above don't happen in the first place, which is going to take more than a couple of hours of looking at pretty pictures of mushrooms. Sure, sometimes all you get is a night of bad indigestion, but if you get one of the really nasty species full of amatoxins, you can die. Or end up with permanent liver and/or kidney damage. Or need an organ transplant.

And yes, as I said, you will get information on some species that I think are relatively beginner-friendly because they're distinctive AND they don't have any really serious poisonous lookalikes. But puffballs aren't on that list, and this article is a perfect example of why.

[remnantglow]

can you talk about how you made the costume please 🙏🙏🙏

:D sure!!! putting it under cut bc it's a lot lol

when i got the idea i had absolutely No clue as to how people even go abt cosplays like this, so step 0 was obviously One Billion Youtube Tutorials (this one - it's in polish but has eng subtitles - was my best friend <3 but there's really sooo many for every little aspect of making armor cosplay i owe them my life)

anyway. proceeding. assume every step takes a fuckton of trial and error and at least 3 failed attempts

REFERENCES:

collected all the covers where u can see mb's suit well, some fanarts that interpreted it in ways i liked, the 2 previous mb cosplays i found

PLANNING:

little to no planning (bad idea. btw.)

MATERIALS:

regular long-sleeved shirt+pants+cycling gloves+fanny pack. (sorry murderbot. but the armor piece over its crotch literally looks like a fanny pack)

the armor's made out of smth called EVA foam (similar to yoga mat in terms of texture/stiffness), had to order it from a cosplay-specific online shop

heat gun (i was lucky bc my dad's an amateur handyman and turned out to already have one) bc EVA foam's much easier to form+less absorbent when heated

contact glue (also known as contact cement) for glueing the armor pieces whole, superglue for details here and there

straps (the kind u use in backpacks etc)+plastic buckles+velcro. so much velcro. i'm never hand-sewing thru velcro again

wood glue+smth called glossy universal lacquer (p sure it's just car paint.) for painting

transparent plastic mask + rit dye for dyeing it (bc i couldn't find one that was already dark 😔)

tape+cling wrap for patterns

MAKING PATTERNS FOR ARMOR:

okay so. you wrap [Given Body Part] in cling wrap (yeah just regular kitchen cling wrap). put tape (i used duct tape at first but switched to masking tape bc it's cheaper) all over. draw, roughly, the shape you want the armor piece to be. cut urself out, cut away the excess edges, bam! pattern. like these:

(the chest piece was the tough part. i wanted the characteristic rounded shape so i didn't use cling wrap there, it was a lot of trial-and-error with cutting shapes out of paper, putting them against my chest, adjusting things, rinse&repeat.)

(also, the helmet - for the face shield i got these v cheap plastic masks that were advertised as lawn mowing masks (???), then tried to dye them black with Rit Dye for synthetics. that was a Whole Ordeal & my best try still turned out too see-through & more orange-tinted than i liked, but i was out of time so (shrug emoji). & for the pattern, i put on the mask + a beanie before wrapping my head in cling wrap dkjfgn)

i cut the patterns into shapes that could be flattened & copied them onto paper (to be able to transfer them onto foam more easily):

ACTUALLY MAKING THE PIECES:

the annoying part: outlining all patterns on the foam and cutting them out with a box cutter. This Sucks. then, shaping them with the heat gun. This Doesn't Work As Well As It's Supposed To. then, glueing the pieces together with contact glue. This Takes Ages.

(& it's like. near-impossible glueing them so the seams don't look terribly obvious 😭 i'm sure there's a way to cover it up well, but the method i tried (foam clay) worked Eh at best)

oh right also the. thingy around the neck. that's just a tube made out of some leggings i was gonna throw out. filled with a bunch of cotton i stole from a pillow. improvise adapt overcome

ATTACHING IT ALL:

That's Velcro, Baby 👍 it's either glued onto the foam or sewed onto the straps Everywhere. it's how the forearm & thigh & lower leg pieces close, how the chest & back pieces connect, how the face shield's made removable. Velcro All The Way Down.

the 2 exceptions: the thigh pieces are attached to a belt with some straps bc they kept sliding off; & the tiny armor pieces on my feet have a loop of string glued on the inside that i just pulled my shoelaces through

PAINTING:

the issue with EVA foam is that it absorbs stuff v easily, so before painting it i had to prime it (aka cover it in 2-4 protective layers of wood glue). then for actual painting, i sprayed all the pieces with 2 layers of universal lacquer (outside on some cardboard ofc). here it is all drying in the garage (bc it stank 💀):

and that's it!!!! done!!!! a bit over a month of work in total :]

[sunsetsandsunshine]

If me and my mutual’s were the Spider-gang…

❤️EMERY AS MILES MORALES🖤 @sunsetsandsunshine

Y’ALL ALREADY KNOOOOWWWW 💘💞💖💕💗💓

Artist of the group

My Dad is a police officer AND detective sooooooo…

He has done the “You gotta say I love you back” thing to me multiple times…

Fucking loves having friends and talking to people

COMIC BOOKS ARE LIFE‼️ COMIC BOOKS ARE LOVE‼️

Keeping the collectibles I N S I D E of the box!!! IT STAYS NICE AND FRESH THAT WAY— LIKE PRODUCE YK???!!!

Tries to be quote on quote “cooler” in front of others…

Newsflash? It never works

💝 Family lover all the way 💝

Music is LIFE 🎶🎤🎵🎼…idfk what we’d do without it…

A collector of many random things— rocks, toys, bracelets you NAME it

Hyperactive as HELL

Has a hard time accepting loss

“NAH” “🫠” “UHM…” “AAAAAAAAHHHHH”

A sketchbook for literally every season

When it comes to friendships, I will try everything in my power to maintain it and try to keep it going but once I’m done? I’m done 🫶🏾

A singer 😩🤚🏾

Physical affection 🫣💕💓

Apologies WAAAAAAY too fucking much

H A P P Y. S T I M S.

Suppressed anger issues

Knows way too many people both online and irl

Becomes a whole different person when angry 🥸👍🏾

Beatboxes and raps horribly

Basically Miles is me and I’m Miles ❤️🖤

🤍JOJO AS GWEN STACY🩵 @shut-up-jo

Cool af legit why the hell are you friends with me man—

Musician of the group 🪗🎷🎻🎺🎹🥁🎸

Shows up to your house without warning like you owe her money

In a band (most def)

Says the most DIABOLICAL and out of pocket shit known to MAN

🔥 Would burn down the kitchen if she ever cooked 🔥

Listens to Billy Joel 😌

POPULAR AF

Short af too 🤪🫶🏼

BAD PICK-UP LINES…

Would be cancelled if any of her texts got leaked

“DIE” “KYS” “CHOKE” “STFU”

Had the WORST 2020 phase (I’m sorry ilysm please don’t kill me 🙏🏼)

AOT lover (as you fucking should )

Honesty is the best policy 💋

Changes her voice depending on who she’s talking to

Has the most fucking unhinged and cursed FYP page

Doesn’t matter what social media app…it’s just straight up CURSED

Gives the best advice like oml

Could host a TED-talk but would there’s a 99.9% she would get cancelled

Needs to take a flipping BREAK 💕

Could make a TV show with her life (with like a million specials and crossovers)

Licks the powder off the Doritos and/or Taki’s and puts them back in the bag 😶…

Has burned Barbie’s before

Unironically sings 'Dance Monkey' just because

Your so so silly I love you so much 🤍🩵

💛SANA AS PAVITIR🩷 @itzsana-kiddingmenow

If sunshine were a person 🌞

Has a really toxic fanbase…

✨Anxiety✨

The best cook out of all 4 of us probably

“🥺” “GRRRRRRR” “🙈” “NAUUUR”

Calls people adorable, cute etc but can’t handle when people say that to her 🥹💓

Your adorable btw ☺️

When she’s mad she doesn’t cuss that much but most def just says big words

#TOXICFRIENDSGANG

Takes selfies like every single second 📱

Has Snapchat probably

Has listened to JoJo Siwa’s Karma WAAAAY too many times…

Would fold like a lawn chair if poked in the side 💕

FANGIRL

✨ Bilingual queen ✨

Sobbed for DAYS when MatPat dropped his departure video…

Is way too fucking smart 😉

Has the Ultimate Alpha Sigma Gyatt Rizz but doesn’t know it quite yet 👁️🫦👁️

A tea lover ☕️🍵

Would go to antique stores with people to just look at things and then end up buying the whole ass store

Does cartwheels for funsies

Overthinker ��️

Could solo Bakugou and win

Is going to be a menace one she learns how to drive

Needs more sleep frfr

My lil sugar cream puff over here you guys 💛🩷

💙ZEEZIE AS HOBIE BROWN❤️ @ziipzeepzop-eez

101% effort in E V E R Y T H I N G

Side-eyes 🤨

Has more rizz than the whole Earth population combined

“FW” “THAT’S RACIST” “TWWINNNN” “YUUURR”

EMOJIS EMOJIS EMOJIS EMOJIS EMOJIS EMOJIS

Did I say emojis?

Comes up with the most cutest freaking nicknames for people 🥹💕🩷☹️💓✨

TAKE A BREAK 😡😡😡

Can most definitely win a dance battle against anyone but acts like she can’t

Dad jokes 🫶🏽

Uses finger guns unironically (through text and in person) 👉🏽👉🏽

Could make a diss-track about so many people 🫢…

Would have a million cats if she could

Probably had a Gacha Life phase

Would go to a movie theater just to watch cat videos on the big screen

Popular af 💕

Friends with legit everyone 🙏🏽

Would actually murder a man if they hurt one of her friends

Has watched Coraline and The Nightmare Before Christmas soooooo many damn times

Guillmero Del Toro’s Pinocchio made her ugly cry (Same here 🫠)

Could solo everyone here on Tumblr easily 👁️👄👁️

Hates Twitter/X but only has it for the ✨drama✨

FAIRY LIIIGHTS

Is most def someone’s opp ☺️

Can multi-task like crazy

So cool and dazzling and aahhhfhfhds 💙❤️

(If any of this makes any of you guys uncomfy just DM me and I can erase it 🫶🏾)

[loptrcoptr]

It’s come to my attention that a lot of people in the BES fandom are new to fandom-culture in general (or lack there of; we denizens of tumblr are residents of a cesspool) and don’t know a lot of general old school online manners, laid down in Days of Yore by earlier generations. So let me bring up a crucial one that is generally being ignored on tumblr in the BES-sphere: ship tagging!

I am not doing this to condescend, I genuinely want to be helpful and to help us all enjoy our enclosure and our enrichment in said enclosure together. I think a lot of grief going around the blue eye samurai world on social media could be solved if everyone remembered one good old cardinal rule of fandom bullshit:

you do not put ship wank in a ship’s general tag.

let me say that one more time in different terms:

If you want to rant about how much you hate a ship, general practice has always been, on tumblr anyway, not to do so in the safe space created for said ship.

once again, lemme be very clear; I don’t give one rat’s ass or 800 collective asses of rats what you ship, why you ship it, whether you ship anything at all, why you hate x y z, etc. That’s great, that’s what fandom is for! Enjoy yourself! The issue is that there’s all this infighting fuckery going on that is exhausting to even watch from the sidelines, and I think there’s a lot of confusion as to why anyone is fighting over any of this shit at all as it is 2024 and ship wars are 2011 superwholock garbage that we all collectively agreed to jettison into space by 2015, ya feel me?

(and if you like to start shit and throw hands then obv this post isn’t for you as you know what you’re doing, this is for the folks who don’t know and are confused as to why they can’t rant without blowback)

So if you’ve gotten on tumblr recently and noticed your anti-ship post blowing up for some reason or other and asked yourself “Jesus why are these assholes from that ship always coming for me?? They’re such dicks!!” ask yourself:

did I tag them in my post?

Because when you tag a ship in a post about how much you hate it, it’s not a beacon that says “Hear Ye Hear Ye, Interacteth Not Ye Fuckos From Ship I Hate, This Is About How Much I Hate Your Ship”. For that to be the case, you would need old-school anti-ship tag nomenclature, like this: #anti-[shipname] or #[shipname] wank. Those tags would communicate your intent to rant, which is your sacred fandom right to enjoy doing! It is not, however, your sacred fandom right to enjoy doing it in the wrong space, that’s what’s happening here. A post that tags a ship with its normal tag, but whose content is anti/wank content about said ship, sends the signal: “ayyooo, who would like to debate this with me?”

So, does all that make sense? If you tag your post analyzing all the reasons why you think a ship sucks with #ship, you are encouraging everyone who ships that ship to interact with your post. It’s like rocking up to somebody’s house, ringing the doorbell, and saying “I hate your fugly ass piece of shit house, asshole” and then getting irritated when the homeowner responds with “who the fuck are you, get off my lawn?!”

#anti-[shipname], #[shipname] hate (forgot about that one, also useful), and #[shipname] wank do two very useful things:

1) They let other people who want to gleefully rant with you know that you’re on the level and they give like minded individuals a chance to follow those tags so you can have more rant sessions together, and

2) they minimize likelihood of involvement by the shippers you’re ranting about, who can block the tag, while keeping the ship’s normal tag open for the people who enjoy it

tldr; *swordfather voice* it would be bitchin if people could stop bitchin in the wrong places so that we can all coexist like adults here, touch some grass, and chill. Tag ship hate #anti-[shipname], #[shipname] wank, or #[shipname]-hate and keep it out of the general pro-ship tags :)

if your response to this is “don’t tell me what to do, cuntwaffle” or “I have an unhealthy relationship with the idea of shipping and think no one should have a safe environment to enjoy media except me and people I agree with so I will continue to poison the waters” then ok, cool beans, keep on chooglin’; but know that everytime you walk into a tea party you weren’t invited to and yell I HATE YOUR FUCKING TEA YOUR TEA SUCKS ASS blowback is a bit inevitable

[whump-princess]

Hunted and cursed imagines/prompts

Biting into an apple and there’s worms in it.

Things go missing that you literally just saw two seconds ago.

You think you see a figure of a person in the distance.

A vampire sneaks up behind you and bites you. You pass out and wake up in your bed, it’s the same day again.

You find ashes in your pockets.

A tooth in your shoe, a pointed one like that of an animal.

All the coins you have are heads on both sides.

A mysterious rash appears on your body.

You look in the mirror and can’t recognize your self.

Your spoons and forks keep ending up bent. Really bent, all the way back.

Your suddenly afraid of things you were never afraid of before.

Your nails keep breaking and chipping.

You’ve got multiple new gray hairs popping up all over your head.

You suddenly can’t remember your name.

Someone smiles at you as they walk by but you could have sworn they had fangs.

Everyday there os a book on your porch, the doorbell camera doesn’t show anyone leaving it though. The titles all together reveal a secret message.

You keep getting letters written in code. P.S. it’s a vampire who’s is madly in love with you and is getting upset that you aren’t returning their letters.

Cats everywhere. All the cats in town seem to all hang out around your house. All the black cats that is.

You wake up and your hair is a completely different color, you didn’t dye it.

A witch turns you into a frog, someone kisses you to turn you back into a human but now your in a different human body. Where you just reborn?

Dead birds keep showing up on your lawn and you thought it was the stray cats in the area doing it. You haven’t seen the stray cats in months now that you think about it.

You have nightmares every time you sleep next to your new partner. Horrible nightmares about them.

Your partners apartment is extremely hunted, every time you go over something scary happens but your partners never seems to notice.

A motorcycle drives by every night at 3pm, you hear it, it’s loud, but you never see it.

Your on the train and the lights flicker and the only other passenger is suddenly in another seat… closer and closer to you. You move to another car, they are already in that one too.

Nosebleeds. You get them all the time now.

Your tattoo, the words are backwards.

Cats show up in your house, how do they keep getting in.

Your mail box is filled with valentines. It’s not Valentine’s Day, who are these from?

You get these emails, one everyday, it only contains one letter. combined they spell something.

Your suddenly allergic to your favorite foods. All of them.

You get sick and there’s butterflies in your stomach. Literally.

Something had been hurting in your chest, your ribs to be exact. After much complaining to the doctor your able to get some tests done, the X-ray shows a key in between your ribs.

Your an artist, no matter what medium you try you can only ever seem to paint, sculpt, draw, etc… the same person. A stranger you’ve never even met.

Your craving sugar, but it’s so bad trying to eat anything else tastes disgusting. Eventually you eat sugar straight from the bag.

All the produce in all the grocery stores in your town have rotted over night.

Your house is infested with butterflies.

You collect dead bugs, pin them into pretty picture frames, they decorate your wall. They’ve come back to life and are crawling around in their frames on the wall.

Someone keeps leaving voicemails about how great and cool you are and how nice you look… who is this and how do they know how I look?

Crows keep leaving you little shiny stuff. They bring you a ring, there’s dried blood on it.

Your plant is growing some suspicious looking fruits, you can’t find any information on them online. Taste test.

[path-of-grass-and-leaves]

Creating a Backyard Land Spirit Profile

Working with land spirits can help connect you with your local ecosystem, and for some practitioners is a crucial aspect of bioregional magic. Some folks, like myself, consider themselves to be initiated by one or more land spirits.

When I use the term land spirits, I am referring to a few different things. First are the collective spirits of various plants, animals, and insects present in a specific bioregion. An example of collective, in this context, means that if I'm petitioning help from the spirit of violets, I am working with the spirit of all violets present in that area rather than a singe flower that grows in my yard.

The next is the land guardian, which in my practice is a more powerful spirit with claim over a specific territory, like a forest, river, or neighborhood.

Sometimes these two concepts are separate and sometimes they're interchangeable. It all depends on personal practice, culture, local folklore, etc.

One thing that has been extremely beneficial to my practice has been creating a backyard land spirit profile. This method has been useful for spirit work and "green" magic, but more importantly, it's helped me immerse myself in my local ecosystem and I get to meet a lot of cool animals and plants.

Here is an over-simplfied example of my backyard land profile:

Ecosystem: Central Interior and Appalachian: Mixed woodlands, close to possible floodplains

Soil Type: Clay in garden bed, Loamy near/beneath shrubs, Sandy in sunny areas of the lawn

Flora:

Cultivated- Paradise Apple, Highbush Blueberry, Rose of Sharon, Dog Rose, Black-Eyed Susan, Sundial Lupine

Native - Bloodroot, Wild Strawberry, Common Violet, Wrinkle-Leaf Goldenrod, Blue Wood-Aster, Horseweed, Fireweed, Deer-Tongue Witchgrass, Common Milkweed

Invasive - Round-Leaved Bittersweet, Yellow Toadflax, Creeping Bellflower, Common Mugwort

Naturalized - Dandelion, Broad-Leaf Plantain, Deadly Nightshade

Notes - Various mosses, unidentified mushrooms growing on lawn and lichens found on some trees/shrubs.

Fauna:

Mammals - Raccoon, Opossum, Striped Skunk, Grey Squirrel, Chipmunk, Feral Cats, Deer mouse, House Mouse

Birds - Cardinals, Chickadees, Catbirds, American Robin, Downy Woodpecker, Turkey Vulture, Crow

Reptiles and Amphibians - N/A

Fish - N/A

Invertebrates - Dotted Wolf Spider, Leopard Slug, Tiger Bee Fly, Monarch Caterpillars, Peach Root Weevile, Narrow-Winged Mantis, Fireflies

Ecoregion and Soil Type

The first thing I did was determine what type of ecosystem my yard used to be. In an urban/suburban area this was a bit challenging.

I started by identifying a few wild plants and finding out where they usually grow. Most of them seemed to prefer shady woodlands and rich soil. There were also a couple of pioneer species present in the sunnier and more disturbed areas of the yard.

Next, I took a look at surrounding wild areas. We are close to a mountain and a large river. There are woodlands near and within the city made up of mostly hardwood and conifer trees. I knew from memory that certain areas close to my home are likely floodlands.

After that, I found a bioregion map of my country which showed that my state fell under the category of Central Interior and Appalachian. I searched this region on landscope.org and was able to determine my specific ecoregion (not shared here for privacy reasons).

From there I started making educated guesses. I determined that my backyard was likely a mixed hardwood and conifer woodland sitting very close to what might have been a floodplain.

For my soil type, I took samples from different areas of my yard and used an online guide to determine what kind of soil I had. Most of it was sandy or loamy, but my flower beds seemed to have some clay.

Using all this information, I had a general idea of what kind of plants and wildlife would be present without human intervention. It also helped with deciding which native plants to start growing.

Plants

Throughout the year, I went out to the yard with a wildlife field guide and a couple identification apps and identified every plant and insect I found. I grouped the plants into four categories: native, invasive, naturalized, and cultivated. This isn't shown in the example, but I also grouped them by season and the time of year they appear.

Naturalized refers to plants that have integrated themselves into the environment without inflicting damage to the local ecosystem.

You'll notice that under the cultivated section I included a few native plants. This is because those plants were introduced by me and would not be present without my intervention and I wanted to make that distinction.

The importance of native and naturalized plants is obvious, but what about cultivated and invasive? Keeping a profile of invasive plants helped me keep a record of which noxious weeds I need to remove. From an ecological perspective, their removal is crucial to the survival of my native plants and garden crops. From a spiritual perspective, this can be an offering or act of service to the local land spirits. Some of these plants, like Common Mugwort, are both valuable for workings and fine to harvest in large quantities since they are invasive.

Cultivated plants are also important. Many of these plants, like my Blueberries, Apples, and Rose of Sharon, were here before me. The importance of plants introduced by humans is greater than you'd think. First, they are usually crops and flowering plants and provide food for both humans and the local wildlife. Secondly, I live in an urban area, and my land spirits are likely very closely associated with people.

I researched all of my plants and took note of growth patterns, toxicity, medicinal uses, ediblity, native region/habitat, ecological significance/impact, etc. Then I moved onto folklore and symbolism and started working with the spirits of a few plants, performing divination, leaving offerings, harvesting them and including them in rituals and spellwork. I did this in groups to avoid feeling overwhelmed.

Please note that you should always properly identify plants and be aware of potential toxicity before harvesting, especially if you plan on burning or consuming said plant. Also steer clear of protected or threatened plants and keep harvest to a minimum even for abundant native species.

Wildlife

My next project was writing down every species of animal and insect that I had encountered in my yard. I grouped them into several categories: mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and invertebrates. In real life my invertebrates section is separated into several subcategories (orb weavers, beetles, etc.).

Next, I used basically the same system I did for plants, researching their native range, preferred habitat, behavior, diet, ecological importance. Then I started looking into folklore.

Finally, I started integrating them into my practice and working with their collective spirits. This involved using animal symbolism in rituals, leaving offerings, and performing a lot of divination.

Remember to never interact with or directly feed wildlife. If I'm making offerings outdoors it is usually fresh water, scattered birdseed, and acts of service like creating habitats and growing plants that a specific species enjoys. If scattering birdseed, do so in the morning to keep too many animals, like raccoons, from entering your yard at night.

Side note: Keep a record of what appears in your yard each year! For example one year we had several chipmunks and one year I saw none. One year we had no fireflies and the next our backyard was covered in them.

Tying It All Together

Once I had my backyard profile completed, I started working with the collective spirits of select species. I have an offering schedule, perform communication, and petition these spirits regularly in spellwork. I use certain plants that I harvest for offerings and use for tinctures, infusions, cooking, and crafts. I use symbols of local animals in crafts and spellwork.

After working with the "smaller" spirits, you can start seeking out specific land guardians by using a combination of divination and research of local history and folklore.

On a mundane level, I am now able to cultivate an appropriate ecosystem for the local wildlife and start projects to support it. Examples of this are pollinator gardens, stick and brush piles for fireflies and small animals, growing seed-rich and fruiting plants for birds and mammals, winter shelters and TNR plans for feral cats, and more.

I also like to take notes on plants and wildlife that I encounter in my general area that don't usually make it into my backyard. For example there have been coyotes, foxes, bobcats, and black bears spotted in my neighborhood.

I want to stress that I live in a semi-urban and relatively populated neighborhood and I have a small yard. The brief example of of my land profile doesn't cover even a fraction of the wildlife I have encountered in my backyard. There is so much life in urban and suburban areas in need of our support.

[thelikesofus]

color me in, make me your own

9-1-1 on Fox | buddie | 1k words | established relationship, marriage proposal, sidewalk chalks

I have spent all day feeling like I wanna vibrate out of my skin so I wrote this as a distraction. Have some soft boys in love xx

Read on AO3

The chalks were for Chris. Buck had brought them online and had them sent to Eddie’s house while they were in isolation. He had thought they might be a fun way for Chris to keep himself occupied while he was stuck at home and couldn’t go to school or hang out with any of his friends. Eddie and Buck had sat squished in next to each other on the couch watching Chris open the packet via video call and the bright grin Chris had flashed them as he excitedly babbled about all the cool things he was going to draw had been enough to ease the desperate ache in Eddie’s chest, if only briefly.

Post pandemic the chalks had been lost to the back of the cupboard as trips to the park and the zoo had taken priority. This week though, Chris has been stuck at home with the chickenpox and the chalks have served as a great distraction from the near-constant itching.

Eddie has always hated any time he and Buck end up on different shifts, especially since they started dating, but he has to admit it has worked in their favor in this case. Knowing that Buck can be at home with Chris has certainly eased Eddie’s conscience and the near-constant updates and photos Buck has been sending while Eddie he is at the firehouse have eased the pang of being away from his partner and his sick kid.

He knew to expect the chalks before he even left the station, having seen them featured in most of the pictures from that afternoon but finding Buck sat out on the footpath by himself is a surprise.

“Hey!” Buck greets him as Eddie gets out of his truck. “Chris is inside taking a nap, he finally wore himself out.”

Eddie drops his bag on the lawn and crouches to kiss Buck hello. He hums against his lips, savoring the sweet taste of his boyfriend soaked in the late afternoon sunshine.

“Rough shift?” Buck asks as Eddie finds a blank spot on the pavement to sit nearby without smearing the carefully drawn images that decorate the footpath.

“It wasn’t that bad. Mostly run-of-the-mill calls.” Eddie shrugs and reaches out a hand. Buck meets him in the middle, passing him one of the pieces of orange chalk and Eddie starts absentmindedly doodling small shapes next to his feet. “Oh, but we did have one cat-up-a-tree call, and when we go there the caller literally had about thirty or forty cats roaming around.”

“Oh, Bobby would have had a field day.” Buck laughs.

“Yeah, the place stank. Animal control had to be called. Chim had kittens stuffed into every pocket of his turnout.”

Buck passes Eddie a green chalk while he asks for the orange one in exchange. Eddie passes it to him and shuffles around to find another patch of empty concrete. The movement puts his back to Buck but he leans against his side and kisses his shoulder briefly before turning back to his work in progress.

They work in comfortable quiet for a while before Buck pipes up again and Eddie can almost guess what he’s about to ask before he even says it.

“Do you know which shelter they took them all to?” Bingo.

“No, Buck. We are not getting another cat.”

Buck turns around to grin at him in that cheeky way of his that’s one step away from puppy eyes and begging. “You said that last time.”

Eddie sighs and waves his hand dismissively. “Yeah, well. Cosmo needed a friend and Hulk was so small, I couldn’t just leave him at the shelter.”

“You mean you couldn’t say no to Chris?”

“Yeah, well you taught him that face and you know I can't say no to it. You can’t either.” Eddie sighs, His small collection of stick figures and lopsided cartoon animals look like a kindergartener drew them next to Christopher’s many detailed pieces. He adds his chalk back to Buck’s pile, stands, and brushes his palms off on his work pants, leaving smears across the thighs. “Speaking of, he’ll be awake and hungry soon so I’ll go check on him.”

He presses a kiss to the soft curls at the crown of Buck’s head—loose and gel-free, just how Eddie prefers them—and turns towards their front door only to be stopped in his tracks by the brightly colored rainbow lettering that has appeared in front of Buck, each letter carefully drawn in clear broad strokes.

WILL YOU MARRY ME?

Below is an image depicting three figures holding hands and two pointy-eared and long-tailed blobs that could only be Cosmo and Hulk. It is just as carefully and lovingly drawn as the words above and Eddie cannot even begin to describe the warm feeling that is bubbling up inside him.

“Ah, Christopher actually drew the picture. He said he wanted to help and that I would get it wrong.” Buck ducks his head bashfully while Eddie’s heart feels like it's about to leap out of his chest.

“Buck.”

“I have a ring,” Buck adds quickly, glancing up at Eddie’s, no-doubt, stricken face. “I mean, not on me, it's inside but–”

Eddie doesn’t give him a chance to finish as he pushes Buck back against the footpath—chalk dust be damned—and seals his mouth against Buck’s firmly. He kisses him deeply and brushes his hands up Buck’s sides to fist into his t-shirt and when he pulls away he leans their foreheads together he breathes heavily, watching the way Buck’s eyelashes flutter against his cheekbones which are stained with a vibrant pink that matches the smear of chalk adorning his chin.

“Yes.” Eddie breathes out between planting a kiss to one of Buck’s cheeks and then the next. “Yes.”

Buck grins up at him, all teeth and pure joy and then they’re both laughing, and Eddie sinks down to wrap his arms around Buck’s shoulders and bury his face in his neck as he breathes him in, content to ignore nosey neighbors and passing cars as they lay plastered together on their front walk-up. Buck’s arms wrap tightly around his back and one hand finds its way into Eddie’s hair, pressing his face closer as Buck drops a kiss to the side of his head and whispers in his ear. “I love you.”

Eddie lets out a wet chuckle and mouths at Buck’s throat. “I love you too. I’m gonna marry the hell out of you.”

Buck laughs, so deep it rumbles through Eddie’s chest where they are pressed together and he cannot help but squeeze him tighter and laugh with him.

[trivialbob]

Today was scorching hot and very sunny. I doused myself with suncreen, filled a backpack with water, more sunscreen, and dental floss, and went over to the "Great Minnesota Get-Together," otherwise know as the annual Minnesota State Fair.

When I arrived at 10:00 AM the place was packed. If you do not revel in big crowds, sweaty people, fried food, food on a stick, high food and drink prices, farm animals, or tractors, this place is not for you. I can tolerate this mixture of things if I go to the fair every few years.

Lots of people. Did I already say that?

Getting there is easy if one takes a bus. $5 buys a round trip ticket from one of several park-and-rides around the cities. Both the bus ticket and the admission ticket can be purchased online ahead of time. Very easy.

People watching is excellent. Food smells are delightful. The assortment of eats is interesting. It would never have occurred to me to make deep-fried pickles. I didn't try them but I heard some people raving about how good they were.

French fries and huge tubs of chocolate cookies are popular and available in several stands. I shudder thinking what a nutrition label on those cookies would look like. It likely would indicate a serving size as "one small bite" just so the amounts of sugar, sodium, and fat didn't exceed 200% of the recommended daily allowance.

For my lunch I tried the HotDish-on-a-Stick. Hot Dish is a Minnesota thing, made with a tater tot topping over a mixture of meat, cream of mushroom soup, and maybe some veggies. The stand selling hotdish-on-a-stick didn't have a line of people. That is not a good sign. It did have a sign explaining what you got for $7 (a bargain compared to other food stands).

I liked the concept, but results didn't work for me. It tasted like deep fried batter. The mushroom-hamburger dipping sauce was too salty, and I only dipped into it one time.

Some food stands had enormous lines. There must have been 150 people waiting for a new-this-year doughnut stand. "The Doughnut" was $5. Based on the long line, they easily could charged more. The Peanut Butter Cream doughnut was $10. At that price I would have thought it would be served on a stick. This stand had me curious, but I wasn't going to wait in that line.

On Machinery Hill there were collections of vintage farm and garden tractors. Very cool. There were also lots of trucks, modern lawn equipment, side-by-sides, ATVs, and travel trailers on display. I sat on a swell little John Deer tractors and made revving noises with my mouth, much like I did as a 5-year-old in Sears stores long, long ago. I thought it was funny, but an actual 5-year-old boy today looked at me and backed away.

There are also a lot of the "as seen on TV" displays, selling items you didn't know you had to have!

The 4H people had farm displays. I like those kids. The Miracle of Birth Center had newborn calves, chicks, goats, and lambs.

After several hours of walking around my feet were burning and my back hurt a little. As I made my way back to the gate where the buses were, I stopped to try some deep fried mac and cheese bites and have a beer. Those bites were delicious. The beer, while a little pricey, was extremely refreshing and frankly worth the price in that heat.

I plopped into a seat on the articulated bus. The air conditioning worked very well. I actually started to nod off as we waited to leave.

Four blondes and a brunette get on a bus...

No, this isn't a joke. It really happened. As my bus started to pull away and take us back to our cars, an adorable young woman, the brunette, walked up to the driver.

"Wait, where does this bus go?" She apparently missed the large banners with park-and-ride names and the those same names flashing on the bus LED signs.

The driver explained that we were going to the Bloomington park and ride, next to the Mall of America.

The brunette turned to her similarly cute cohorts, the four blondes with nearly identical haircuts, who sat midway down the bus.

"What bus did we take to get here?"

The other four came up to the front of the bus. They discussed it. I heard one blonde say she was sure they had not parked in Bloomington.

"Ohmygosh, will let us get off this bus?"

We hadn't left the parking area yet so the driver politely said he could do that. The brunette turned to address the rest of the passengers.

"I'm so sorry you guys, to make you wait like that." (It had been under a minute.)

Everyone said it was no problem and wished them well finding the correct bus. I smiled, then dozed off for the ride to Bloomington.

[shapeshiftersvt]

Cryptid Collection Spotlight: The Fresno Nightcrawler

Today we're infodumping about the last of the six cryptids we chose to feature in our Cryptid Collection! Check out our The Cryptid Collection tag to see our previous spotlights and share your own thoughts, feelings, and experiences too!

Our last cryptid spotlight is that viral sensation, the Fresno Nightcrawler.

👣The Cryptid Collection 🦿Fresno Nightcrawler Travel Poster 👖Fresno Nightcrawler Binders & Sportsbras 🧵Fresno Nightcrawler fabric designs

Some sources claim that the first sightings of the Fresno Nightcrawler date back to the 1990's. But it came to the attention of the internet in 2007, back when we didn't really call it "going viral" and YouTube was mostly a repository for random odd video clips.

The one that was passed around forums and chat rooms and LiveJournal communities that introduced us all to the Fresno Nightcrawler was perhaps surprising in its simplicity. It was a snippet from the security camera footage of someone's yard in Fresno, California. Being footage from a personal security camera in the late '00s, in addition to the fact that the footage was being taken at night, the original video was already quite grainy, and has only gotten moreso on today's higher resolution screens. But even with the low picture quality, you can still make out two figures that appear to be mostly legs strutting into view from the top left of the frame, across the lawn, then out of frame again at the bottom right.

And that was it. The clip was less than a minute long, with no sound or context. But the odd look of the things, and the awkward, stiff yet wobbly way they walked made us go wild for them. Thus one of the internet's favorite cryptids was born.

Another video surfaced not long after, this time allegedly from a trail cam at Yosemite National Park. Similar in quality to the original Fresno footage, the Yosemite footage shows two Nightcrawlers, one much smaller than the other, traveling down a tree-lined trail, from the left of the frame to the right.

You can find some articles online claiming that the Fresno Nightcrawlers are "terrorizing" people. But that's not really backed up by the fact that all of the documented sightings — Fresno, Yosemite, and most recently Billings, Montana — show them just ... walking. The only reports of anyone being terrorized are the man who took the original Fresno footage claiming that he set up the security camera because his dogs were barking at night and he wanted to find out why.

Regardless of what the Fresno Nightcrawlers are, be they aliens or a previously unknown critter or some magically animated pants, it's clear that all they really want is to go for a nice moonlit stroll. And isn't it just fitting that the cryptid that truly belongs to the internet is just a Weird Little Guy who just wants to touch grass?