hoooOw dare you detective diaz i am your supIORIOR OFFICER!(BONE!!!!)whathappensinmybedroomdetectiveis none of your business (!boOoOoNE?!) dont, ever, speak to me like that again.
I’ve already reblogged this scene but the last comment is a masterclass in punctuation and vocal emphasis.
A standalone fantasy in a world of merfolk and pirates…
The ocean is uncontrollable and dangerous.But to the sirens who swim the warm island waters, it’s a home more than worth protecting from the humans and their steam-propelled ships. Between their hypnotic voices and the strength of their powerful tails, sirens have little to fear.
That is, until the ruthless pirate captain, Kian, creates a device to cancel out their songs.
Perle was the first siren captured, and while all since have either been sold or killed, Kian still keeps them prisoner. Though their song is muted and their tail paralyzed, Perle’s hope for escape rekindles as another pirating vessel seizes Kian’s ship. This new captain seems different, with his brilliant smile and his promises that Kian will never again be Perle’s master. But he’s still a human, and a captor in his own way. The compassion he and his rag-tag human family show can’t be sincere… or can it?
Soon it becomes clear that Kian will hunt Perle relentlessly, taking down any siren in her path. As the tides turn, Perle must decide whether to run from Kian forever, or ride the forming wave into battle, hoping their newfound human companions will fight with them.
Our Bloody Pearl is a fantasy novel, with slight steampunk world building and a bit of both romance and deep friendships. It has a simplistic but endearing plot, with strong themes of family, forgiveness, and home. Prepare for a voyage of laughter and danger while your heart is stolen – if not eaten – by sirens.
I haven’t talked about this during the month of pre-release info, because these aren’t the character’s defining characteristics and I don’t want to portray them as token diversity to gain brownie points, but because this is the final release post:
Yes,this is an #ownvoice book about a nonbinary, disabled protagonist (who isn’t“healed” by some ablist power of love) and an asexual love interest. Yes, the entire cast are characters of color. Yes, Simone is a trans woman, and she and her future wife do live happily ever after.
For those of you who are enthusiastic about OBP but don’t have the funds to purchase it right now, please note that in the tags when you reblog the post, and I’ll see what I can do for you!
A stray dog in Bolivia joined a monastery and became a monk. The resident monks of St. Francis Monastery, named for the patron saint of animals, decided to adopt a dog they call ‘Friar Bigotón’ from the Cold Nose Project, which hopes the dog’s story will now inspire more monasteries to take in homeless pets. SourceSource 2Source 3
I accidentally deleted the ask, but anon basically said “do you have any more florist anecdotes?” And YOU BET I DO!!
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So one day this girl walks in, wet rag to her face, and rushes over to me, phone in hand. “HAVE YOU HEARD OF THIS….eey-low veer-uh plant??”
I had. As we’re headed to the succulents, the story comes out. She’s heard that aloe vera is good for soothing pain and….she leans close, super embarrassed, and whispers that she just went and got her mustache waxed off, and….she shows me her lip. Huge, swollen, little red bumps. She’s tried to cover it with makeup, and that’s made it worse. She’s getting teary, because she’s scared, but she’s lucky because she’s talking to me!!
We talk about a lot of stuff, skin care, hair removal, I won’t bore y’all since it’s not flowers, but I was able to give her some advice on it, and I’m thinking “okay she might not need a plant, but whatever” but she’s DETERMINED TO COMPLETE HER MISSION.
We get to the succulents, and I give her my whole aloe vera spiel (I love these plants!! My mom has a huge one that’s almost 25 years old!!) and the girl nods very very seriously, and buys one.
Before she leaves, she comes over to me, dead ass serious and informs me that this plant is her “super buddy” now, and she’s named him Ralph.
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In my previous post I mentioned a nervous husband with his wife on their first Valentine’s Day. Here’s that story:
So the guy, for a mental image: mid-30s black man, very well dressed in a nice work suit, leather laptop bag. Normally I’m MILDLY wary of v well dressed men, because a lot of them are uh…Difficult.
This wasn’t one of them! He was super nervous, looking through all the mason jar arrangements Very Seriously. He looked super focused and was having trouble picking through them, so I went over to help.
This nice man has four ladies to get flowers for. His wife, and their three daughters. He wanted to get mason jars for the girls (all under ten) and he was hoping to find them in their favorite colors.
I realized what he was doing, which was trying to find jars with predominantly pink, red, and purple themes. And since it wasn’t super busy, I just smiled and told him we could rearrange the jars in the color themes.
He was so BLOWN AWAY. I think he wanted to cry when I busted out the ribbons and made big bows for each jar! (Appropriately colored!!) (also while I was scavenging for flowers, he whipped out his phone and showed me some of their pictures. They’re so cute!! These girls are his princesses, for sure.)
So now His Wife. We were already on a roll, so once his jars were ready we started patrolling for The Perfect Bouquet. And as it happens once you start talking about personal stuff, his story came out!
So the girls are from Wife’s previous marriage. He married her last year, and he really wants to show them that he Really Loves Them. Like, these girls are His GIRLS. His phone still has their entire wedding album!! He shows me her bouquet, and he wants to get flowers that are like the bouquet, but MORE.
So we have the choices down to three big bouquets. He legit stands there for a solid FORTY FIVE MINUTES, just comparing and thinking about it. (I left him to it, obv.)
He then comes up, very serious, and asks what it would cost to combine the two bouquets he’s picked. He’s also picked out a vase and a card, and some chocolate.
I quoted the price (Not Cheap) and he just nods, dead serious, and walks away and pays for it. Like up front. And I’m like, well shit, this needs to be the most amazing thing I’ve done. So I clear the counter, because this is a man on a mission, and we put those flowers together into a MASTERPIECE.
It’s hard to explain size, but these flowers were big enough to hide behind!! I got him a nice box and we carefully packaged this sucker for safe transport in his tiny sports car (the jars for his girls all fit in the drink holders, which was hilarious for reasons I can’t explain. Also hilarious is that he had to manually take the top off of the convertible to fit the flowers and was totally willing to drive home IN THE COLD with it down if he had to, luckily he didn’t)
I sent him on His Odyssey. He was SO HAPPY, and I was so happy because I love good experiences that have triple digit sales, and he was so patient and nice!! Love is real.
(He came back with his friends about three hours later, and they got nice flowers as well! They were all calling me Miss Hexalene by the end, and their good moods infected every other customer in the store, which is the best infection we get in flu season)
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One of my favorite customers is this nice old lesbian who comes in and has one of our potted orchids in hand, big smirk on her face.
“My wife hates roses, so I’m getting her thi—“ she breaks off and her eyes go HUGE.
So she’s carrying this normal orchid, about a foot and a half tall, purple, v cute. She has just spotted our cymbidium orchids behind me, which GOOGLE THESE PUPPIES!! Ours came in, they’re THREE FEET TALL without the pot. Half of the plant is bloomed into these big beautiful brown/orange flowers, and the other half is still growing. They’re massive and I love them.
So this old lesbian (she’s about 60, cute boycut with all white hair, nice mom jeans and one of those balloony pico shirts) very deliberately sets her Lesser Orchid down, and points to the cymbidium orchids. “THAT. I need that.”
She’s got the absolute best shit-eating grin on her face, btw. She can’t stop laughing. She’s even crying with laughter a bit and while we’re strapping These Beasts (SHE BOUGHT FOUR OF THEM??) into her truck, she tells me about how her wife hates roses because she got a thorn tip stuck in her hand permanently as a kid. So every Valentine’s Day she goes on a hunt for the weirdest flower/most out of season flower she can find. These orchids are the best find she’s had since the 80s, when she brought home a massive Silver Vase Plant that’s still alive 30 years later.
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So I’m gonna stop with these three before I obliterate everyone’s dashes!! 8) thank you for the ask!!
when I was a kid my mom had to intervene and make me stop saying “farewell” instead of “goodbye” because elderly relatives complained that it sounded like I expected them to die before I could see them again
people complain that my manner of writing is “stilted” and “pretentious” NOW but hooooly hell you should have seen it when I was a kid
I shit you not, the first line in one of my journals was “I am but a lass of nine years of age.”
#when my friends hamster died i said that he ‘’fell’’ like they said abt ppl dying in war
We would have gotten along swimmingly.
When I was about five my dad and I were joking around and he said “You’re a weirdo.” I then said, and I quote, “I suppose I am a rather odd child, are I not?”
I think about that a lot
I once described myself as “very queer indeed” on a school assignment, long before I ever figured that I am, indeed, very queer, in every sense of the word.
On the first day of kindergarten, they introduced us to our principal. I didn’t have the barest inkling of how Normal Humans greet authority figures, but I had read some books about knights and kings, so… I uh.
I bowed deeply and kissed my principal’s hand.
You just fucking didn’t though
You’re right, actually… and that’s the worst part. I didn’t kiss my principal’s hand – I kissed the hand of a different old bald man who happened to also be in the school library at the same time, and looked superficially similar to my principal.
willowfoot 