mouthporn.net
@oreramar on Tumblr
Avatar

Flights of Fancy

@oreramar / oreramar.tumblr.com

Sometimes I just make stuff.
PostsLikes
Avatar

Possibly unpopular opinion: I don't like how EPIC the musical wrapped up the threat of Poseidon in the Vengeance Saga.

Spoilers ahead, in case anyone's picked up on the musical recently but hasn't gotten through the most recent batch of songs yet

First off, Odysseus is a guile hero. He's a trickster, he wins through tactics and knowing his foe and planning and occasionally a little extra godly help. This is usually at least referenced in his various conflicts, but in Six Hundred Strike he took down a literal god in the literal god's own literal surf using, apparently, a really powerful anime style strike. Brute force.

I'll grant that maybe Rule of Cool lets this one slide, as does the trope and concept of a character being pushed past their breaking point and therefore achieving something they normally couldn't. It didn't hit me right in this particular instance but that doesn't mean it's a bad story element, you know? So okay, he takes Poseidon down with pure physical/hysterical strength in the middle of the ocean. Sure.

What really gets me is that, while using Poseidon's immortality against him does work, it doesn't feel like it should have solved the ultimate problem. I know that it's going to because the narrative demands it! Because this was meant to be the end! But it feels very hand-of-the-author to claim that this one victory will prevent Poseidon, characterized in this musical as utterly vengeful and ruthless, from ultimately winning in the long term.

If the characters acted like the people they are characterized as, if they weren't restrained by the story saying "and that's the end of that," then the most logical result of the Vengeance Saga is that Poseidon would retreat into the ocean, maybe spend some time licking his wounds, and then he'd raise the tidal waves he threatened and destroy the entirety of Ithaca, Odysseus and his family included.

The best argument I can imagine to that is that Poseidon would rather kill Odysseus with his own two hands, given how he delayed just wrecking that raft for his own satisfaction, and that he wouldn't want to get that close to Odysseus again.

But, hell. He can't go letting Odysseus walk or the world forgets he's cold, right? Don't mistake his threats for bluffs.

Somehow, with characterization like that, this doesn't feel like a satisfying (logical, sensible) end at all.

#epic the musical#I had to get this out somewhere#odysseus#poseidon#vengeance saga
Avatar

Another prompt! Love Angel, inspired by Eros and Psyche.

This one is less of a development of concept and more of a surface-level, "let's see how much we can cram in here symbolically."

#art#mythology#eros#psyche#love angel
Avatar

Another prompt: Seelie Twins, Hansel and Gretel inspired.

To be honest, I forgot it was Seelie and not Unseelie, so I made them a bit creepier than the prompt perhaps intended.

These fairy twins lure humans by pretending to be children in dire circumstances - trapped or starving. What happens to the humans then depends on their own actions. Do they aid a child in need, showing compassion and kindness? They will be rewarded with gold and delicious food. Do they further the child's torment or seek to take advantage of the situation for their own gain in some way? Hansel raises the bones of victims past. And Gretel...Gretel is far, far stronger than her withered form suggests.

#art#hansel and gretel#seelie twins#fairies#seelie#unseelie#fairytale#come closer we are normal children we promise
Avatar

Found another list of art prompts in the midst of want-to-do-art, can't-decide-what. This was a list of fairytale figures with a twist, and the first was Red Witch (based on red riding hood).

I have re-read a number of red riding hood stories recently so I was full of ideas right away. I discarded most of the immediate surface concepts that occurred - a young witch woman in a red hood and a wolf fur cape or with a ghost wolf or with a summoned wolf under her command - as not really hitting the heart of the story: a cautionary tale told to small children, which the child in the tale sometimes lives to learn from herself. Little Red Riding Hood does not learn to control the wolves; she learns to recognize them and deny them.

So my Red Witch is this: a self-assured figure who walks the dark forest paths securely and without fear, who shelters and guides innocents she finds safely through, who knows a wolf when she sees it and drives it off, whose passage grows flowers near the path and never beyond it, whose red hood and cloak is a magical protection for herself and others.

#red witch#red riding hood#art#fairytale
Avatar

I finished my biggest crochet project to date - big forest pond hexagon blanket. It is large (pictured here almost covering a Queen size bed), it is thick, it is soft, it is heavy...and yet it also lets some air through the gaps in the crochet so if it's not layered on top of a sheet or other blanket it doesn't get too warm.

I might've done different colors than the burgundy-white-green mix for the surrounding grass if I'd a redo that didn't involve pouring probably about 60+ hours into something all told but I like it otherwise.

#crochet#blanket#fiber craft
Avatar

Florist Talk: Messiness

This one's for the sake of descriptions. Pull from this list of messes and ground them in situations. Most messes are the sorts of stains and so on that you might see on the Florbo themself; a few might involve the store or work area of the store.

  • Green fingers: certain stems and leaves stain, especially when you strip the leaves off by wrapping fingers around the stem and just running them down. Snapdragon stems are the worst for this in my experience; most others aren't too bad.
  • Yellow stains: some lilies have a very orange-yellow pollen. The stamens on these get plucked out so that they don't drop that pollen all over the flowers and, later, some poor recipient's tablecloth. You need to wipe the pollen off with a dry rag; using a wet rag or water only sets the stain into your skin further. Even then, enough contact = yellow stained fingertips, as well as yellow streaks and stains on any clothing or skin those fingertips happen to touch or brush up against. They'll fade or wash out eventually but can be noticeable for a bit, in a dingy sort of way.
  • Paint Flecks: Florbo might've used some florist spray paint to tint some flowers, or normal spray paint to alter a vase or basket or other container. This can mean speckles, streaks, or smudges on hands, arms, etc.
  • Glitter: Christmas and Valentine's Day can sometimes involve glittery picks and ornaments added to arrangements. The place I work at glitters everything for Prom. Glitter is always an option even outside of these special occasions. Florbo might well go home with stray flecks of glitter in various places, such as on the face.
  • Dirt: If the florist has live house plants on offer, they might also have to repot some plants, which can mean dirt on hands/under fingernails.
  • Sticky fingers: corsage glue is the worst. Tacky, slow to set, easy to spread. Create enough corsages and the fingers will come in contact with it. It's hard to pick off them even when dry. On a similar but less extreme note: there's this stretchy florist's wrap tape, usually green or brown, used to wrap the stems of boutonnieres. It's papery but there's just a bit of tackiness to it when stretched, which is how it sticks to itself. Use it enough, and that faint tackiness is left behind. Also also: pine sap. More of a hazard in the winter when that kind of greenery tends to be used, and can be mitigated by using hand sanitizer rather than trying to wash with water and soap, but it can persist even so.
  • Leaves n stuff in hair: less common in my experience but occasionally a possibility, especially with certain kinds of houseplants (ferns) or if working with dried moss (tangly, esp. spanish moss) around the bases of said plants.
  • Leaf and Stem mess all over work floor: Florbo perhaps has had a very very busy day to have scattered so much and not had time to sweep. I usually don't see this except around Mother's Day and V-Day, but that might be down to shop differences; some shops might allow clippings to accumulate on the floor and only sweep them up at the end. Even if big trash cans are available, not all trimmings go where aimed; some ricochet, bounce, or drop at a time not expected.
  • Blood: very uncommon very bad day, but always technically a possibility in a profession that involves a fair few sharp objects (stem clippers, trimming knives, boxcutters, broken vases, once or twice a really evil rose thorn that catches you just wrong). Severity will vary greatly. There'll be bandaids/a first aid kit in a cupboard in the back of the shop for sure.
  • Water on floor/soaked Florbo: could be anything from a spilled vase to a full on plumbing issue or leaky roof. A florist has to have access to water, probably some kind of work sink or other - something could've gone very wrong with pipes or nozzle. I've also worked in a place with a leaky roof and, when there was construction going on up there, a badly timed and very heavy storm resulted in an unplanned indoor water feature coming down from the ceiling. : )

Use any of these to describe a Florbo who is (or has been) hard at work recently. Mix n match if you like - maybe the length of their index finger and thumb are stained green from stripping leaves, but the tips are yellow from picking out pollen-laden stamens from lilies. Perhaps they've got flecks of red and gold glitter on their face and pine sap stickiness on their hands because xmas is coming and the people want their table centerpieces. Maybe they're slightly damp and frazzled because they had to move a bunch of display stuff in the store and set out half a dozen buckets to catch the drips and oh my god the landlord heard about this one.

Happy AU-ing!

#florist talk#florist au#flower shop au#messes
Avatar

Florist Talk: Funerals

Time to talk about the morbid side of floristry, the true bread-and-butter of the business, the dark elephant in the room: funerals and all they entail from this particular angle.

As always, keep in mind that this is from the personal experience of someone working in a small shop in the US and as such isn't gonna be full of universal truths. Use what I share as inspiration for your own writing and change what you must to make cultural sense of things.

First of all, here's a hard truth: your Florbo might well make more flower shop money from funeral pieces than from all the birthdays, anniversaries, congratulations and love-you's that might otherwise fill their days. Funeral arrangements tend toward the big and showy, with the center pieces like casket or urn sprays being the Most of all.

Heckin look at these things ^ Nobody but the rich is buying this kind of nonsense for an anniversary that comes around once a year, every year.

In short, Funerals are kinda important to the business side of things, so a Florbo might occasionally talk about them or reflect on that, depending on how philosophical you/your story/your character would tend to be.

So here's a few other details just to know or consider:

#florist talk#funerals#this time with pictures#all pictures were found via simple google searches#you too can trawl the internet and find examples now that you can guess at what things are called#long post#florist au#flower shop au
Avatar

Florist Anecdotal

Not quite in the vein of my recent Florist Talk stuff, but heck, these things recently happened to me and I figure they could potentially serve as some kind of Situation Inspiration for a Florist AU chapter or scenario or something.

So, the place I work at has a general rule: no long (out of town) deliveries. We don't have the extra staff to always justify having one of the two people working take a full hour on a single delivery run, so doing something like this is the exception.

Recently my boss made two such exceptions in a single day.

One was to a school in a small town about 20-ish Back Highway minutes away, for a teacher. This exception was made in part because at least schools are large and well-signed buildings so it'd be a bit harder to get lost looking for it than for a random house down who knows what street.

The other was to a 97-year-old lady in another town 20-ish Interstate Drive minutes away in a different direction. This exception was made because we had the customer and this recipient saved in our order system so clearly we'd done it before, and also it was an easy place to find despite being just a bit outside said town according to maps.

The first issue came up at about 12:40pm, roughly 10 minutes after my boss left for his lunch break. The person who had made the order called.

  • I'm so sorry, I just got this email - the school is letting out early at 1pm, and the teachers are going to leave by about 1:30.

...

yep, that's a problem all right.

I called my boss to give him a head's up, closed and locked the store and put an "Out on Delivery" sign in the window, and I hustled. Got to the school just past 1 and managed to successfully deliver it but oh man. Oh man.

Note that I said that was the first issue.

Later in the afternoon I took other deliveries out including the other out-of-towner. We'd called her to make sure she wasn't out to lunch or anything and got an all clear. Found the house easy peasy, rang the doorbell with a truly massive bouquet in my hands, stood waiting for a moment...and then the door was answered by a woman who was distinctly not 97.

First thought: she might have a daughter or granddaughter over.

Then I mentioned the name of the person it was for.

  • Oh nobody here is named that.
  • Oh I wonder if it's the lady who used to live here?
  • I think she's in a nursing home now.

Me: 0.0 ok thank you.

Get back in van. Call the person it's for. Just to verify the address.

She is, indeed, in a nursing home now - back in the town where I work, a mere 10 minute city drive from the shop. I could've been there and back in a third of the time or less.

Sometimes you laugh because there's no other way to express the depth of your emotions, regardless of their quality.

#florist talk#sort of
Avatar

Florist Talk: Mother's Day

Given when I'm writing/posting this, it felt too topical to skip for later.

As always, I'm writing this at least in part with the idea that anyone writing their Florist AU can use it as a reference point for framing their story or throwing into dialogue. Whenever the Florist Blorbo comes up, I shorten it to Florbo.

Also, as always, whatever info I have to share is gonna be anecdotal and colored by the experience I have myself (US, smaller town, etc). Some stuff might work differently in other countries or larger population centers.

So! It's May and the Florbo is preparing for the second biggest florist working holiday of the year: Mother's Day (US, CAN, AUS, NZ according to my wall calendar). Unlike Valentine's Day, this always falls on a Sunday, and there's a lot more flexibility in terms of when a customer might want the flowers delivered - most of them go out from the preceding Thursday to Saturday, but occasionally orders will be made for the Wednesday before or even the Monday after.

Note here that the shop I work for is typically closed on Sundays, and it doesn't make an exception for Mother's Day. Other shops might - I don't know well enough to say one way or another. Write whatever makes sense to you for that aspect of it.

Another Difference from V-Day is the types of flowers: there's kind of a lot more variety. People still get roses sometimes but most flowers sold are just colorful variety mixes. That being said there's a possibly-regional thing were certain groups - churches, mostly, around here - advance-order huge numbers of carnations to hand out to mothers in said groups. I'm talking like 150 here, 120 there, sort of numbers. These have to be ordered in, counted out, and set aside in reserve for them about a week ahead just to make sure there's enough for both these massive orders and for general florist use.

So all that aside, what do these days look like for the Florbo, moment to moment? Let's start here, beneath the cut as it got long:

#florist talk#mother's day#happy mother's day#have some insider knowledge#please pardon if it's a little scrambled or rambling as I have just come off of another Mother's Day Florist Week myself.
Avatar

Art prompt: Flowers growing in an unusual place.

I like games with pretty plants and foliage.

#art#flowers
Avatar

Florist Talk: Deliveries

Time to talk about what happens when flowers leave the shop! As always, I'm talking from the anecdotal perspective of someone working in a small US flower shop. This is going to be especially important for this one because the place I work at has some Delivery Rules that I know for a fact aren't - maybe can't be - universal, especially if you get into bigger cities.

For writing purposes, take inspiration from any bits of this that could be interesting for whatever plot you're writing out, and change others as makes sense or is properly narrative.

So, first of all - is your Florbo going to be running deliveries at all?

I do, because it's a small shop and we don't have a dedicated delivery driver. I design flowers and also drive them places, except on very very very busy days when we get other people in just to drive, like Valentine's and Mother's Day.

If you're writing a bigger shop in a bigger city, or even a small one with more dedicated roles, a flower design Florbo might not drive deliveries unless it's very needed, for whatever reason. Even so, you could have another character of some importance be the dedicated driver anyhow, or you might just vaguely need or want the opening to a scene be the driver coming back complaining about something that happened on the run, so this still might be useful.

So here's roughly what happens when Flower Deliveries go out:

  • Deliveries get sorted by Most Efficient Route. If a delivery address is unknown it can be looked up on a map. Maybe someone uses GPS to navigate. Maybe the Flower System being used can map a route for you automatically. Maybe it's all done in the driver's head because they know the area really well by now.
  • Flowers (and other things like balloons, etc) get put into the back of the Flower Delivery Van. There are holders back there to keep things in place en route. These holders can vary from foam inserts in plastic trays, with circular shapes in various sizes cut out of them, to wood boxes with more various circular shapes cut out of the top, to styrofoam trays with various openings to, heck it, some of those heavy cinderblock bricks with cloth or foam lining the inside so glass vases don't chip on the edges on turns.
  • Broadly speaking, these measures will mostly be effective. Sometimes the fit is loose, though, and a change in direction or speed is too sharp, and the driver will hear something rustle, thump, and start to trickle water. That is never a good sound.
  • Some vases fit the holders better than others. The ideal is a good snug fit that doesn't allow wobble, let alone clank-clank-clank on every turn or bump.
  • Deliveries tend to have matching delivery slips that are kept up front by the driver and are used to remind driver of addresses and to check things off as they're done. Personal anecdote: it's the norm at my workplace to write the time of delivery on the slip when it's done, so that if anyone calls later and asks if/when it was delivered we can give that info.
  • Here's where stuff is gonna vary: the rule at my place is that the delivery goes to the door of the house, and if no one answers, it cannot be left there. If no one answers the door, we call the recipient's phone number off the slip, assuming we got it. If we get an answer there, we ask if there's a better time to deliver these flowers, or another place within town - sometimes someone's at work and can receive them there, or they're out until a certain point and we'll return then.
  • If no one answers the phone, or if we don't have their number, we call the person who ordered the thing, and tell them what's up and ask if they have a way to get hold of the person the flowers are for. Sometimes it's a yes, and we get the info asked for above. Sometimes they also fail.
  • Sometimes voicemails must be left, with the store's phone number given and a request to arrange a better delivery time. Sometimes the voicemail box is full or has not been set up yet and we just gotta try again later.
  • The flowers are never left, only messages. They go back to the store if they must. They are stored in the cooler for the next day if they really must. They are remade a week later if they really really must (sometimes people go on vacation out of town right when someone they know, who doesn't know about the vacation, decides to send them birthday flowers or something).
  • This rule is definitely not universal. I've sent flowers other places and been told how they were just left on the front step and were found by accident as the recipient didn't ever hear a doorbell or knock or get a phone call like the website said they would upon delivery.
  • Businesses tend to be easier to deliver stuff to than houses. At the very least you've generally got some kind of front desk or counter to leave the things at.

Other little notes on delivering stuff:

  • If in a cold season and place, like sub-freezing cold, flowers must be put into plastic bags which are taped or stapled or tied shut before they go outside. This traps just enough warm air around the flowers to keep them from freezing between building and vehicle and building. There is a fine line between "cooler which keeps flowers fresh longer" and "freezing air that will give flowers frostbite so that they look nice until they thaw at which point they go to hell immediately."
  • Sometimes someone is sent flowers from someone they don't want flowers from. I have been told that, as flower shop, we have to complete the delivery. We can't take them back. What happens to them after they're out of our hands is, well, out of our hands, but we gotta be able to honestly tell the customer, if asked, that we did indeed successfully deliver the flowers. That being said, write what you will.
  • Delivering balloons on a windy day is hell. I haven't lost one to the wind yet - knots and strings tend to be pretty sturdy and I keep a good grip on them - but they will batter you all around the head as you try to walk with them, and if there are multiple they will tangle the strings together.
  • A delivery driver of any type probably knows the general area pretty damn well. Even if they don't know exactly where XYZ street is, chances are they know the general direction where it should be.
  • A florist driver probably knows by heart the location of and routes to nearby/local hospitals, clinics, funeral chapels, schools, and quite possibly churches.
  • Sometimes you get to meet one or more Very Good Dogs on a delivery and it is the highlight of your day.
#florist talk#floral deliveries#florist au#writing resource
Avatar

Florist Talk: a flower shop calendar

So I talked about the average day in a flower shop. Now it's time to talk about the average year (usual disclaimer: US-centric, small town sort of knowledge is to be found here. Adjust as needed for a different setting, whether real or fictional; these notes are merely meant to provide grounding or ideas for your writing).

So, Month By Month:

January

  • Business is basically dead for most of this month.
  • It's too early for springy colors but nobody wants the red and white Xmas color combo anymore. Floral limbo.
  • Prep for V-day begins in earnest sometime around here.
  • Earliest V-day orders might start coming in middle-to-end of the month. Sometimes people think ordering super early means they can get roses for cheaper. This is not the case; they will be charged the price of the roses they're gonna get, not the roses that exist a month before.

February

  • VALENTINE'S DAY ALL HANDS ON DECK OH GOD SOMEONE HELP US
  • A longer post will be dedicated to V-day itself eventually. For now, know that there's usually a lull in business immediately after the day itself.
  • There may be leftover roses. Nobody will want the leftover roses. If your Florbo over-ordered these supplies, they will have a difficult time shifting them. Write a fic and have them donate roses to an elderly care facility or something.

March

  • Kinda dead for the most part, aside from a little bit of prep toward Palm Sunday and Easter and Prom (see April)
  • I always make stuff for St Patrick's day but very few people want flowers for St Patrick's day so there's not much point. Maybe this could be different in a community with more people who go all in on St Paddy's.
  • When there are orders, this is when people start to ask for "springy" flowers.

April

  • If there are Christian Churches around they might want Easter Lilies ordered in for Easter, and Palm Branches for Palm Sunday.
  • Sometimes people will ask for flowering mum plants too, usually in white, yellow, or lavender. The wholesalers always seem to send way more lavender mums than any others, like they're trying to get rid of them.
  • Prom Season - technically can stretch from mid-late March through April. Depends on how many high schools are in the area. This means lots of corsages and boutonnieres. If there's a single big school that's very local then that means one very, very busy weekend spent doing nothing but assembling these things the day before and getting them picked up and paid for the day of. Might make a focused post on these one day.
  • Secretary's Day / Administrative Professionals' Day - late April. Technically there's a Day for this but it also covers the entire week of that day as well. Businesses and Bosses buy small flowers or maybe candy bouquets for their various Admins. Can get a little busy.

May

  • Teachers Appreciation Day / Week - early in May, lots of school deliveries.
  • Nurses Appreciation Day/Week - the next week in May, lots of hospital/clinic deliveries.
  • MOTHER'S DAY OH GOD OH - oh it's not quite as bad, actually. People get their Mother's Day flowers the entire week before so it's less concentrated. Still a big one.
  • US has Memorial Day right at the end. This means arrangements made for placing in the local cemetery. Can be busy but isn't usually too bad.

June

  • Dead business. So bored.

July

  • Dead business. So bored.
  • Attempt at July 4th table arrangements. Not many tend to sell.

August

  • Dead business. So bored.

September

  • School is back in session, which means that any student, teacher, or school admin staff who has a birthday or anniversary on a weekday might get sent flowers or balloons or candy bouquets or things like that, which means Flower Shop business.
  • Preferred floral designs shift toward "fall" and "autumny" colors and flowers somewhere between August and September.

October

  • Not a lot going on specifically, but business still tends to be busier than in summer. Also, despite all efforts, Halloween does not tend to involve a lot of flower orders, which is a real shame because you can do some real fun things with orange, purple, and bright green flowers, and with hot glue strands on twigs to make cobwebs, and with black painted bowl vases to resemble cauldrons...

November

  • US has Thanskgiving this month and some people want fancy flower and taper candle centerpieces for their tables. A responsible florist will include tags warning people not to burn those candles unattended because while the floral arrangement isn't going to be dry by any means, it is still technically flammable, especially if the candle has burned very low and for a very long time.

December

  • Christmas also involves fancy flower and taper candle centerpieces for tables. Also like 80% of all floral arrangements are being done in red and/or white.

And that's more or less it. Set your writing appropriately for how busy you want the Florbo to be with their flower job - if the plot demands Florbo have a lot of free time or be very very bored, look at the summer months, or the downtime of early January or late February. If you wish for them to be overwhelmingly busy, set it the week before Valentine's or Mother's day, or pick an April weekend for a local Prom and give them like forty corsages to make on a single Friday. A more moderate or variable day to day structure might be in May, or one of the Autumn months, when there's usually plenty of everyday type stuff to do plus the wild card busy days around big funerals or the like, with random dead days peppered in there.

Happy writing!

#florist talk#a flower shop's year
Avatar
reblogged
peachdoxie
Avatar
redstonedust

i can never write a soulmates au cause i very quickly stop thinking about romance and start thinking about the sociological implications of a world where soulmates are a confirmed verifiable thing

Avatar
redstonedust

is casual dating a thing in a world where everyone has a soulmate out there somewhere? is it frowned upon? is there a movement of people fighting for the idea that you don't HAVE to wait for your soulmate to find true love? is it considered queer to be in a non-soulbound relationship? how does polyamory function? how about aromantic people?

Avatar
redstonedust

is it guarenteed you'll find your soulmate within your lifespan? are you drawn to find eachother even if you're born a million miles apart? if it's the kind of universe with physical soul marks (ie. matching moles, first words on skin), are there medical options to change or remove your mark? would it be considered a tabboo? could someone fake a soul mark? could you catfish someone by pretending to match them? isn't there some kind of inherent horror in knowing destiny has entwined you with a stranger?

Avatar
hollowedskin

What happens when there's DV in a soulmate marriage? what are the laws on soulmate divorce? If everyone had a destined partner then there would be so much backlash on people divorcing people that were their confirmed soulmates! If tis a DV situation, how do you explain that the person who was supposed to love you the most in the world did this, how do you get beleived? Where do you get support?

What are the social implications for having children with someone who isn't your soulmate, are those kids considered lesser like bastard children were in the past? Do people who get pregnant outside of soul-mating get sent to women's homes like Catholics did?

What happens to widows, is it acceptable to remarry AFTER your soulmate dies? Is it only acceptable to remarry other widows? What happens if your soulmate dies as a child? Do you know if they die? If there is some sort of marker that tells you they're dead, would people find ways to fake that in order to serial date without the social backlash of not looking for your soulmate?

Avatar
oreramar

All of the above, yes! Soulmate AUs have long bothered me on many of these points.

Discussing this post with bf, however, he suggested a version of the whole soulmate concept that might answer a few of these things, ignoring the weird deterministic angle perhaps?

Instead of a soulmate mark appearing at birth, it only develops after you've been dating/close to someone for a good while. Let's say a year on average, give or take. In this way it's more a confirmation of compatibility than a mark of destiny from the get-go. Let's also say that the mark can develop no sooner than biological puberty if you want an evolutionary link, or if you're going cosmic/mystical/the work of a god, it develops around whatever the social age of majority is (or maybe the earliest it develops is the social age of majority, chicken or egg style).

As such, aromantics need never have or develop one, polyam groups might get whatever makes sense as a group, and if you assume that whatever universal force or omnicient love god is in charge of all this is concerned with the happiness and well-being of those involved, then presumably DV could be circumvented in genuine cases of soulmate connections. And at the very least you're not being bound by destiny to a complete stranger from the beginning of your existence.

Now this still has worldbuilding implications. Weddings might not have quite the same social weight of making oaths to each other - maybe once you get those marks, you're considered good as married and all that's left is to fill out the paperwork on it for the legal side of things and throw a celebratory party for the social side.

Maybe it's still considered abnormal if you never, ever develop a mark. The happy utopia for couples who face societal struggles to be together in reality still doesn't necessarily work out particularly well for aromantics, given the heavy romance focus of this worldbuilding. I don't think this can be fixed except with the happy little bandaid that says everything is ok for everyone, actually - not a very realistic answer.

If a couple dates for years and years and never develops marks, do they break it off as something that'll obviously never work out? Stay together hoping it might one day change? Go to some shady tattoo artist who can more or less reliably fake the marks in order to get married even if the universe seems to be saying they shouldn't?

Can these marks change or fade over time? People grow and change and this doesn't stop just because they've married each other. It's possible to just grow apart, to lose compatibility. Is a changed, faded, or lost mark simply taken as evidence enough to grant an easy divorce? Is it regarded as some kind of moral failing by society? (grounds for cultural differences there, I think) Again, can it even happen in the first place, or is the judgement of the Universe/Love God doing this simply that infallible?

If you're widowed and begin to date again, maybe you can start developing a new mark with someone, whether they had a previous soulmate or not. Do the marks change due to death? Do they remain in some form forever or do they fade away with time?

...

You know, all this said, I think that part of why the whole Predestined Soulmate AU thing rarely works out when you really start poking at it is this: love isn't just about feelings. It's about choice. It's choosing another person, choosing to communicate, choosing to cooperate, choosing to stay with each other or choosing to break apart.

Soulmate AUs are pretty little surface level fantasies where you cannot ever make the wrong choice, and therefore nobody can deny you that choice...but there is no choice in that part, is there? It's really just a cosmic-level arranged marriage, and sure, you can still choose to love that person, but you never chose the person to love.

#soulmate au#I've had thoughts about the whole soulmate au premise before#and I swear I've never liked it for so many of the reasons brought up above#it also always felt very cheap when it came up via fanfic shipping#even if I liked the ship itself just fine#seeing it touted as “They're Soulmates In This AU Actually” always bothered me so much#the fic always had to do some real heavy lifting with the concept to keep my interest in spite of that#it felt like a shortcut to avoid doing hard characterization work
Avatar

Florist Talk: daily tasks

I recently made a post with bullet points talking about some of the common aspects of being a florist (caveat: at a mom n pop shop in a small town in the US, not all points apply universally). This time I'm going to narrow down on the normal sorts of everyday, week to week aspects. This is written as though it's a guide for the writing of Florist AU fiction/fanfiction, so occasionally I'll refer to the example Florist as your Florablorb, or, now, Florbo for short.

May this be of use to anyone writing such a story in order to simply ground your character in everyday tasks when plot/characterization needs to happen.

  • Opening tasks: I'm sure you can imagine. Doors open, lights on, computer/POS logged into and till shift opened, any ambient music turned on. Extra details can be added such as dragging out sandwich board signs or those outdoor flags or maybe even an outside display stand/cart (only in warmer months) or shoveling/salting a walkway (if in a snowy time/place).
  • Then Florbo goes into the walk-in flower cooler and removes any flower arrangements premade for delivery on this day. Maybe delivery slips are organized now, maybe left for when a delivery will actually be made. Anything that was ordered in day(s) before this one should be delivered on the first run of the day if possible.
  • If there's a florist website it's possible web orders came in after previous day's closing/before opening this one. They might autoprint and simply need to be collected off the printer. If they exist they get sorted into same-day or put into whatever organization system is used for future orders. The shop I work at has a series of cubbies labeled Monday through Saturday; order sheets are folded in half and put into whatever day it's meant for.
  • Start working on whatever flower orders came in for this day. If they're done before first delivery time then they can go out with the others. If not, they'll go out later. On a busy day, an unspecified or "designer's choice" arrangement can be chosen from the display cooler for speed. It'll be replaced by a design of similar price when more time is available.
  • If calls or walk in customers happen during any of this then they're handled in between the rest of it.
  • Usually in my experience there's minimum two deliveries per day: one mid morning / before noon, and one after lunch breaks are taken / mid-afternoon. Rarely are there fewer runs, and occasionally more orders come in during or after the second run so a third (or fourth, or sometimes, rarely, even a fifth) are needed. This might be very modest given the size of the shop/town I work in; more may be normal (especially with a dedicated driver) in a larger or busier city.
  • Again, usually I can get any same-day morning orders done either before or just after lunch breaks conclude. Again, this might vary place to place, and definitely varies day to day.
  • Lunch breaks can be half an hour to a full hour depending on your place and person and how busy it all is. I've got a near-retirement boss who likes to go out to lunch and takes a full hour. I usually only do half an hour unless for some reason I need to run home for lunch in which case I can typically have an hour as well.
  • If and when same-day orders are finished, Florbo will get into the cubby/other organization and find anything already there for the next day and start working on those orders. Floral arrangements go into the back cooler (not the display one, to avoid confusion/people walking in and wanting to buy things already made for others). Any live plants or gift-type items go on some sort of shelf or counter or other out of the way surface. Confusion can happen if Florbo doesn't pay attention to dates: an order for Monday the first will be in the same cubby as an order for Monday the eighth. Gotta try to stay on top of that but mistakes can happen.
  • If a same-day order is made while working on next-day orders, it gets priority.
  • Obvious is obvious but orders that go to schools have to get there comfortably before school lets out. If that is just not feasible because someone up and ordered fifteen minutes before the final bell they'll need to be told that it's gonna be a tomorrow thing now. This usually isn't an issue.
  • There's usually a same-day delivery time cutoff, usually sometime in the afternoon. How strictly it is followed may vary by the day and store. If someone tries to skirt this cutoff by ordering online they may or may not need to be called and informed that it's not gonna work this day. There will be a separate post on Delivery Protocol later because that gets a bit long.
  • Make any arrangements needed to refill the display cooler. Every few days or so, recut and rewater any arrangements left in the display cooler to give them more longevity.
  • Normal cleaning chores might be done during lulls as well. Dusting shelves or watering live plants is occasional, but sweeping the work area and cooler floors is daily. No matter how careful you are in cutting leaves and flower stems stuff will end up on the floor. Some of those stems will ricochet wildly when clipped.
  • Flower deliveries come about twice a week. They could arrive any time of day, even overnight (warehouse drivers will usually have a key shop to put them inside for you) depending on your suppliers and their routes. Flowers arrive bundled in big, long boxes, and must be trimmed and put into water treated with flower food.
  • Flower food comes either in big buckets of white powder (mixed into water) or big buckets of liquid concentrate (again, mixed into water, and a handy hose that connects it to the water source through a special nozzle makes this much easier. The nozzle is squeezed like a gas pump and can be used to fill buckets/vases/jugs directly).
  • Closing bits are just what you'd expect. Sometimes someone calls or walks in five minutes before closing, and Florbo must unfortunately suffer this.
  • SATURDAY SPECIAL: any and all of the above needed, but this tends to be the slowest day for orders and deliveries, so instead some of the time is filled by removing literally all flowers from the walk in cooler, sweeping and mopping the floor, and recutting/reorganizing/refreshing all the water buckets. This includes emptying a bucket used to collect cooler condensation water via a hose. There's never much in the winter but in the summer this has to be done two or three times a week otherwise it gets too full to lift or carry and your poor Florbo, if they have floppy arms, might be forced to drag it across the floor to tip it outside.

Of course things can vary depending on the day and vary even more if there's some kind of holiday altering the flow of business, but that bit's for a later post. This one's gotten long enough.

So go now, and couch your Florbo's dialogue and narrative in actions such as processing a fresh order of flowers from the wholesaler, or in resorting to dusting shelves for the third time that week because business has been so slow and they've run out of normal things to do and space in the display cooler to make things for. There is much variety to be had beyond writing them arranging yet another dozen roses every time plot rears its head!

#florist talk#daily tasks#long post#flower shop au#writing resource
Avatar

Florist Talk for Fiction

I'm pretty sure the whole Flower Shop AU thing's day has long since passed but heck it, I've been doing the actual Flower Shop thing in real life for a few years now and I've got a handful of thoughts to throw out into the void, just in case anyone out there is still into or writing for that particular trope or theme or what have you.

First, a minor disclaimer: my experience is at one particular mom & pop shop in a small town in the US. Some details may differ for larger florists in bigger cities or other countries, but if your writing is set in some vaguely defined little town in vaguely defined culturally-American-location, then there could be overlap enough for you. Research and tweak as needed otherwise.

Second, I'm probably going to break stuff up by topic or something and post it gradually, tagging it all as Florist Talk, because initially I started writing a rambling mass of bullet points then realized it was way too much, and there were way too many dumb little details to include on some of those points. So call it a series I suppose. Feel free to send Asks if you have a curiosity about anything in particular. I may or may not have knowledge for you.

Third, a few general points for writing your Florist Blorbo with convincing verisimilitude:

  • Day to Day and Week to Week, weekdays are busier than weekends, usually. I've seen small town florist schedules where Sundays are Closed and Saturdays are only open for a few hours, like nine to noon or something. I am jealous of these, for the shop I work for is also a gift shop and one of the husband-wife duo of owners believes very much that Closing Early = Losing Potential Sales, and so I must often languish in agonizing boredom for four to five hours on a Saturday afternoon in order to be present for the one (1) person who maybe possibly walks in at 4:40 pm to look around or something.
  • Summers are the Slowest Season, the Saturday Afternoons of the Florist Year.
  • A flower shop lives or dies on the strength of its Valentine's Day and Mother's Day sales, basically. Oh, there's other holiday things, and day to day stuff, but nothing that can be counted on like those Big Ones.
  • Speaking of day to day, morbid though it may be, Funeral flowers tend to be the biggest contributors to flower shop sustainability outside of the holidays.
  • No seriously your FloraBlorb will know the Funeral Directors in town by name. Use these positions to convincingly place and namedrop minor characters. It's so easy.
  • Your FloraBlorb may have a Dedicated Delivery Driver (a secondary character perhaps?) OR they may have to do deliveries themselves. If they don't have a second person to run the shop while they do this then they'll have to close the shop and take calls on a cell phone as they come. Use this as needed for character or plot stuff I suppose.
  • Florist Flowers are Expensive compared to grocery store flowers, but this doesn't mean that the Florists themselves are making that much money. Flowers tend to be very perishable and there's a lot of overhead in transporting and storing them and stuff. Wallyworld might be making a technical loss, maybe just breaking even with their racks of cheap bouquets in the produce section, but they aren't hurt by that because they make so much more money selling everything else as well. A Flower Shop doesn't have that going for them, so they gotta charge more.
  • Maybe this is why I so often see Flower Shops paired with something else out there. Flower and Gift Shops. Flower Shops that sell Homemade Fudge on the side. Flower Shops and Boutiques. Flower Shops and Bakeries. Basically, feel free to write this AU and wedge the obvious interests of two Blorbos together into one store. As long as you can find a way to convince us all that their Flower Shop / Cabinetry business can thrive in the same space then why the heck not.
#florist talk#flower shops#fic advice I guess#or whatever you want to do#tag blorbos all you want#this is for your imagination to play in
You are using an unsupported browser and things might not work as intended. Please make sure you're using the latest version of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Edge.
mouthporn.net