Welcome to the Gallery

(was asked to put my Bluesky thread on tumblr)

Just because of some stuff I saw yesterday: if you are a minor online, please do not openly identify yourself as such. It is not safe, it allows adults who want to interact with minors for bad purposes to know you are one.

There are different, safer ways to accomplish your goals than to do that.

You do not need to identify yourself publicly as a minor online to:

Ask that people respect your boundaries

Not create or interact with adult material

Not be a victim of harassment

Not give away personal information

All these are normal things anyone of any age can do online.

If you are being invited into spaces you don't want to be in as a minor, or which people have asked you not to be in as a minor, decline for any or no reason. If an adult wants to do something with you they should not with a minor, decline for any or no reason. If people do not accept that, they are not people you should be interacting with. Don't pretend to be an adult, just don't say you aren't.

I understand that recently, more people under 18 tend to say that they are under 18 to protect themselves online. People who are not dangerous don't need that information. People who are dangerous will gladly use it because they know you are vulnerable. You are not protecting yourself.

As an adult who doesn't really care to interact with minors, I probably won't interact a lot with you if you are "young." That's not hard to catch from the way people act online. If you are "young" I care about you being safe and not victimized by opportunists, regardless of your birth year.

Protect your identity and safety on the internet, and if you are a person who is vulnerable, be a mysterious figure. Make silly posts. Complain about "people you know." Complain about "living with your parents."

👧 🇰🇷🎤💜🐯

👹🪞🥺🖤🐥🐤?

Something about Zoey and Rumi and Sarang? Hmmm well

About a six months after Sarang comes to live with them, Zoey goes to her mom’s for Christmas. It’s not her favorite thing to do, but she likes hanging out with her half-siblings and it’s good to keep up with family, and she’s put it off long enough that even having Sarang won’t really make her mom accept that she’s not coming without a major guilt trip

It’s the first time one of Sarang’s family has left for any significant time, and it’s weird as fuck

After about three days of watching her pout around the penthouse, Rumi shows up in her bedroom with a notebook and a plan—after all, Zoey isn’t here to do it—and she gets Sarang to talk out all of her feelings about how much she misses her unnie and cares about her and hopes she’s having a good trip

And then she writes that all into a message and translates it into English and helps Sarang learn how to say it so they can send a video to Zoey’s family

Zoey treasures it, of course

(Her mom immediately decides that Sarang reminds her of her younger self, reciting English words phonetically like that, and sends Zoey back with extra presents just for her)

Drops this and runs

Oh I forgot I hadn't shared those on here yet! I made a compilation of all the other ones but not this guy's! oops!

Shadowsan:

Dr. Saira Bellum:

Professor Maelstrom:

Coach Brunt:

Countess Cleo:

The sources for some of these are lost unfortunately, most of Coach Brunt's classroom is by Johel Rivera, a bit of Brunt's + Bellum's is by Heejin Park!

I'm going to try it.

First, let me preface this with something very important: you can treat all of this advice as SECOND-DRAFT ADVICE. It is so much easier to rewrite this kind of stuff once you have words on the page. Telling yourself the first draft is totally appropriate and acceptable.

What we’re talking about here are FILTER WORDS (and to some degree verbs of being). Yes, “thought” words are included. But so are “heard, saw, looked, tasted, smelled” etc.—most words having to do with the senses.

This isn’t black and white advice; sometimes you’ll use these words and that’s okay. They’re not WRONG. They’re just weaker. And they’re weaker because they create distance between the reader and the experience of the character.*

If you want your reader to feel like they’re experiencing the story right alongside the character, you want to cut down on filter words.

*This is particularly important with first person and close third POVs. The reader always knows whose eyes they’re seeing through and thoughts they’re privy to. So you don’t need to tell them “I saw X.” Or “I heard X.” Or “I thought Y.” You can just jump into the action/observation as it’s happening.

This is also where you want to pay attention to verbs of being.

you want to pay attention

to verbs of being.

That means that when you read a line like

John saw that the curtains were open.

It immediately takes you OUT of the character's perspective and instead tells you what they experience as a secondhand observation.

You don't have to get fancy or purple with how you rephrase things like this. Not everything needs a ton of breathing room.

You wanna know what's perfectly impactful while keeping a tight POV?

The curtains were open.

Some of this, yes, is about POV distance--but some of it is also about the information being conveyed by the sentence. If you are using a sentence like "John saw that the windows were open" it should be because the information you are seeking to convey is that John saw it.

Maybe this matters because the next time John looks back they are closed, and so he's doubting what he saw. Maybe it matters because he later has to recount information about the room he was in, and it's notable that he specifically saw that the windows were open. The fact and method of his observation is part of the point of the sentence, rather than simply the observation itself.

When we are using sense verbs, it should be because part of the point is the sense. Same with "thought", "felt", etc.: "Mary thought that Susan looked a little thin" is telling us a different piece of information than "Susan looked a little thin."

Contrarily, at least in my opinion, simple telling phrasing like "It was rainy" can sometimes bring us more into a character's head than something showing like "The rain howled like an injured animal." I have read books when a relatively plain-spoken/plain-thinking character suddenly starts having elaborate descriptions of things like scenery or weather, and it is abundantly clear that the author wanted to spruce up their writing and avoid "telling." The problem is that it drags me as the reader out of the character's head and shows me where all of the strings are. I'm suddenly thinking about how the author is worried about being yelled at for "telling" instead of just reading the story.

Currently: the crew are attempting to invade the city of Seoul. Via road trip. In search of demon wraiths. While everyone else goes in for snacks, Miyeong and Minji are in a gas station parking lot discussing exactly what Miyeong might get if Minji can’t name anything Miyeong has written.

Apparently, she learns, a marine biologist is one who studies the creatures that live in the ocean. The very first marine biologists lived thousands of years before even Rumi—men with names like Xenophanes and Herodotus. (Though Zoey’s opinion of the latter as a whole is not very high, he did write a very funny anecdote about a man being saved from drowning by a dolphin.)

Zoey breezes through Charles Darwin and Charles Wyville Thomson—perhaps Charles is a title she is unfamiliar with?—and the “theory of evolution” (???) before making a joke about “AAPI solidarity” (or, at least, it must be, as Mira laughs) and beginning to tell them of the people who live in the seas south and east of Jeju.

Rumi’s head in spinning in the best of ways as they settle onto the ferry and Zoey tugs her and Mira out of the parked car and across the massive, metal deck of the ship—how does it still float?!?—to watch the waves.

“I… sorry,” Zoey says, stuttering to a sudden halt as they look out on the gray, late afternoon waters. “I’ve kinda just… full bore Zoey, huh? I didn’t mean to…”

“Dude,” Mira says, leaning on the rail with effortless grace. “It’s cool that you know all this stuff. You should keep going.”

Zoey bites her lip, looking as if this has done the opposite of reassuring her, and flicks her gaze to Rumi, who does her best to rearrange her features from confusion to enthusiasm with a broad smile.

“Scholars that would study the deep are a brave group indeed, to not fear any of the monsters that lie below, or even the simpler dangers of drowning,” she says, hopefully encouraging.

Zoey lightens a little. Then pauses.

“We should get a good supply,” Celine muses. “There’s probably something Mira can have for dinner, somewhere in all this, but it’d be good to have some at the hotel, afterward.”

It’s hard to tell, but Miyeong thinks she seems a little relieved, like the shakes somehow represent something more than just whether a capable adult woman who can probably handle being hungry for a few hours will continue to have to do so.

And Miyeong did that.

She tamps down on the inappropriate pride, again, as they find their seats.

Celine, who confiscated Zoey’s literary trash at the gate on the argument that she’d paid for it, after all, plops the offending magazine down on the table between them. “I’d like to read it,” she says, polite and sincere and completely unexpected, “but you seemed a little upset about us seeing it. We can throw it away, if you prefer.”

Miyeong blinks at her. “That’s…”

Unbelievably considerate? Impossibly respectful of the privacy of a person whose entire job is to violate everyone else’s? Yet more proof that Minji is absolutely insane to even be saying Celine and Miyeong’s names in the same breath?

“… very kind of you.”

Celine furrows her brow a little, like she doesn’t agree, but she doesn’t say anything, just waits patiently.

“It’s not the writing itself, exactly. I won’t claim to be good at much, but I know I’m good at that,” says Miyeong. “It’s more the topic. Forever ago, when I first got into reporting, I used to have this idea that I was going to write about things that matter. It’s harder to ignore how very much that did not pan out, when people I actually know are reading my trash listicles about TikTok.”

And Minji claims to have read all of it.

Celine’s look turns a little piercing, suddenly. “Miyeong-nim, forgive me if this is too forward, but, are you all right? You’ve seemed to have something heavy, on your mind, since we left the convenience store.”

“You should probably cut it down at least to -ssi, if you’re going to be reading my listicle trash,” says Miyeong, to cover the odd combination of embarrassment and warmth at Celine noticing her discombobulation.

“As you like. Miyeong-ssi.”

Oh, that might have been a mistake.

“...It’s about Minji,” says Miyeong, in lieu of acknowledging that. “I've known her forever, we share a friend group. Well, we did. And she was friendly enough when we were all out together. But just us, one-on-one, our entire relationship has been her kicking me out of the hospital, and chasing me away from her staff, and yelling at me about privacy laws and patient privilege. I wasn’t lying before, I've genuinely never really thought she even liked me.

“If that’s not true, if it never was, if I’ve actually mattered to her, all this time, I don’t… I don’t know what to do with that.”

Her hair has turned into a puffball by now, too, after all that brushing Miyeong did, so she’d look like a bit of an idiot if she did step out there anyway.

She makes a valiant attempt at a braid—it comes out badly, with different ends sticking out, and absolutely won’t hold together for long, but it’s enough.

They’d agreed to meet in the food court, but Minji almost wants to just stay here.

It’s quiet.

But she knows that if she sits in the quiet long enough, she’ll be useless in Seoul. Celine and Rumi both talked about the wraiths’ emotional attacks, and if she lets her grief have her now—

So she calls her grandmother instead.

Her voice is good to hear, even as desperately hopeful as it is (as so many of Minji’s coworkers—the coworkers who took her shifts—will have left their loved ones). “Minji-yah? Is that you? Are you there?”

“It’s me,” she promises. “It’s Minji.”

She is here.

“Misuk-ah!” Halmeoni yells. “Come quick!”

And so Minji is passed to her aunt Misuk, and then her uncle Sanghun, and then her uncle Gwangyeon, and then their neighbor Jeongbin, and then, and then, and then, until it seems she has promised every person living within five kilometers of her grandmother that she is alive.

Prof of what Aunt Misuk said, when she first took the phone: “Mother has been worried sick about you, you know. She’s had all of us over at hers day and night, waiting for news. Aren’t you with that ridiculous reporter woman?”

(And Minji had tried to say that Miyeong wasn’t ridiculous, even if she sort of was.)

“Hmph,” Aunt Misuk had said loudly, ignoring her. And then, softly, “I’m glad you’re okay, Minji-yah.”

Day and night.

So Minji promises her grandmother that she’s okay, that she was nowhere near the fire.

And she gets out of the car and walks to the food court.

Celine and Miyeong are sitting at a table together, leaning in as they speak. Celine is giving Miyeong one of those—not armor-piercing looks, but… armor-removing ones? Focused and intent and sliding right under the walls. Miyeong is a little flustered, warm in the sunlight as she explains her thoughts to Celine.

Minji doesn’t know which of them she’s rather be.

Rumi is less pleased when the honored shaman suggests demonstrating an exorcism technique, after the food is gathered, and Rumi has to say, “I agree. You should all have as many tools for the defense of yourself and others as you are able to bring. I can… assist with this training.”

The others think nothing of it, from only that little, but the honored shaman narrows her eyes. Rumi feels much the same. She did not want Mira and Zoey to even know this part of her, has shamefully hoped that Zoey has forgotten her use of it while searching for Mira, finds that she does not wish to see the good regard leave the faces of Minji-nim or Miyeong-nim or the honored shaman, as well. She fears the fear they will show her, if they should know her tainted power firsthand.

But their safety is more important than Rumi’s comfort, or whatever connections she might have hoped to make in this new time.

So she explains, “I have the ability to influence the mind, as a wraith does,” as empty of emotion as she is able. “I worked with young mudang in my time, on occasion, and was sometimes asked to push them, for demonstration, so they could familiarize themselves with the feeling, and practice cleansing safely. I can do it for you, as well. If that is something you desire.”

“Oh!” says Zoey. “Your Jedi mind trick!"

Evidently, Zoey has not forgotten; strangely, she seems more excited than wary, though admittedly her words are difficult to parse.

“That sounds… useful,” says Minji-nim, with a much more sensible amount of caution in her tone.

The honored shaman’s expression has not changed, but when she says, “Are you certain, Rumi-nim?”, her voice is only careful, not cold. Rumi does not trust her own voice, but she nods, solemnly, and after a moment, the shaman gives a brisk nod of her own. “Alright, then. We need a volunteer.”

The others exchange glances. “So this is, like. Mind control?” asks Miyeong-nim.

“Not exactly,” the honored shaman tells her. “If it’s like a wraith’s, it’s more a lowering of inhibitions. If there’s something you want to do, or could be convinced to, if you didn’t know better, it becomes harder to care that you shouldn’t.”

“Okay, then. Hit me, I guess.”

“It is not a physically violent process,” assures Rumi.

“Oh, she just means—” Zoey starts, then catches Rumi’s expression. “Wait. You got that one, you’re just messing with us.”

Her delight, and Mira’s amused snort, give Rumi the strength to turn to Miyeong-nim, and reach for the foul heritage ever hidden beneath her skin.

“You seem tired, Miyeong-nim,” she says, she pushes. She slips into the dark, smell and sight turning distant as she wraps cold tendrils around the bright pulse of human life before her and presses for weakness. “Perhaps you should sleep.”

She’s only vaguely aware of the physical world— the way that Miyeong-nim blinks and slouches, the honored shaman speaking, it’s all behind fog— but Miyeong-nim’s fatigue is clear and heavy in her demonic senses. She pushes, just a little more, against the softening will in her hands.

And then a song blazes across the shadows, a brilliant flare like a storeroom full of oil going up under a spark, a deafening melody of righteousness, beautiful and terrifying in its power, its suddenness, the blinding brightness of it, coiling around Miyeong-nim, around Rumi, around everything, and for a moment, the cruel, dark, greedy thing that is her is truly afraid—

—but when she’s pushed back into herself, it’s almost gentle, as she blinks back into human hearing and feeling and vision. There is none of the thudding mental bruising she remembers from doing this before, only a prickling discomfort, as though her mind is a slowly waking limb.

“Of course,” the shaman is saying, “ideally you also use a bit of the root compound, and you can make quick bujeok on white paper, but if song is all you have, as you can see, you can make do.”

Her eyes meet Rumi’s, and there’s a shadow in them that Rumi does not like. The knowledge, perhaps, no longer an intellectual abstraction but a brutal, visceral truth, that she has dedicated her life to a demon.

But all the honored shaman says is, “Who would like to try next?”

So Rumi reminds herself, as she tells Minji-nim to stretch and the wispy breeze of Miyeong-nim’s will practices pushing her back, that this is to help them. She assures herself, as she urges Mira to stand and the soft pressure of Minji-nim’s song tries to tug her demonic fingers away, that they asked for this, with full understanding. She convinces herself, as she instructs Zoey to eat, that this will make them safer, and she does not force herself to look at their faces.

And then Mira’s chant crashes into her like a runaway goat, knocking her back into her own mind with a stinging, painful slap.

“Well done,” says Rumi, letting her pride show and trying not to wince too obviously.

She fails, and the honored shaman catches it. “We can practice simple repetition without you, Rumi-nim, if you need a break.”

Her stomach lurches, shame and horror and anger mixing together. “Why the fuck—why would you do that!”

Rumi bites at her lip, and Mira wants to scream. “I… did not mean to make you uncomforta—“

“Are you kidding?” (She’s not. Mira knows she’s not.) “That isn’t—we were hurting you!”

“Are you okay?” Zoey asks, which is—a much better way to approach this. Fuck. “Can we help?”

“It’s only training,” Rumi says, sounding genuinely bewildered. “The pain will fade in short order, but the skills you are learning are very necessary. If that is your only concern, I would be very happy to continue.”

Mira wants to scream.

(Mira cannot scream.)

“So you are hurt?” Minji asks, sharp as a tack. “What kind of pain is it? Where?”

“It is only a mild headache,” Rumi protests, holding up her hands.

Minji, thankfully, zeroes in like a shark after the scent of blood, starting to ask questions about if they’ve been giving Rumi a fucking brain injury. And Mira just

Can’t

Breathe.

(They were hurting her.)

(One year, when Mira was younger, her parents took her and Jaeho out to the beach. It wasn’t even a magic thing, just… a handful of good memories that Mira’s clung to for years.

She remembers going swimming, ending up almost rounding the point. Her father had to yell at her to come back up the beach to where he was waiting.

He’d called her into shallow water and pointed down at where it swirled up and down around their toes. “You see how the foam is getting dragged to your left, just like you were? That’s the current, Mira. You have to keep track of it so you don’t get pulled away again.”

“Yes, Abeoji,” she’d said, and stayed there in he shallows, watching the foam be pulled down the beach, wondering at how she hadn’t even realized, until Jaeho decided he needed to conscript her for his sandcastle.

That’s the best comparison she has to the feeling of Rumi in her mind: that quiet, invisible pressure carrying her away.

And they were hurting her.)

“I did not mean to scare you,” she hears Rumi saying, so fucking apologetic, and it’s all Mira can do not to be sick.

Rumi had seen this before, too many times, especially after encounters with wraiths. I did this. This is my fault. She has to— 

“Rumi-nim, are you dizzy? Are there black spots in your vision?” Minji-nim asks. 

“I am well, and my vision is sound.” Rumi gives a small smile and affixes her best ‘everything-is-fine-mask.’ “Severance is not like a strike to the head.”  

Rumi isn’t sure if Mira is breathing, Minji-nim steps in front of her, when had she moved? “Have you been hit in the head before?” 

“That is not relevant.” Rumi says, stepping around the physician.

Minji-nim will not be deterred. “It is extremely relevant.” 

Rumi looks to the honoured shaman for support and finds only concern in her gaze.

A warm hand grips her own, tentatively, softly, as if she isn’t half monster. Zoey. “I’m sorry we were hurting you, I—” Zoey glances around frantically at the others “—we didn’t realise it would hurt.”  

Rumi stiffens at the tide of extremely unhelpful, demonic, evil thoughts that spiral from where their skin touches. 

Minji is a little less appeased. She has enough of her own experience to not trust a jock about the significance of a headache, no matter what era she's from.

Mira is not appeased at all, but it does turn her ire off of Rumi and onto the shaman. "You knew."

"Yes," agrees Celine-nim, as Minji uses her phone flashlight to test Rumi's pupils. "I also know that Rumi-nim does not need me to make her choices for her."

"Oh, yeah, of course. She gets choices." Mira's growling, frustrated, and close to breaking. "I can't-- I can't deal with this, I can't deal with you, right now."

Minji turns to see her storming away, stiff and furious, fists clenched in tight knots at her sides. Celine-nim and Miyeong seem to feel about the same way Minji does about it-- concerned, but if Mira needs space, she should take it-- but Zoey and Rumi both border on distraught, Zoey in particular glancing anxiously between Rumi and Mira's retreating back.

"Go after her, if you think it will help," Celine says to her, and Zoey, clearly desperately relieved to have the decision made for her, dashes off after Mira.

There's a moment of silence at the table, in which Rumi stares after the other two in wounded confusion and Celine-nim stares at Rumi like she is not, in fact, remotely sure that she knows her own limits, despite her earlier claim, and then Miyeong nods her head Minji. "She good?"

"Seems to be." Minji sits back down, heavy and tired. "We'll keep an eye on her, though." She shoots Celine-nim a narrow look of her own. "Was that actually dangerous for her?"

It's Rumi who answers, as she takes her own seat, again, posture rigid and unhappy. "I have never taken lasting harm from it before."

"If it's any consolation," says Celine-nim, who doesn't sound like she really expects it to be, "Mira and I are probably the only two who actually hurt her."

Zoey takes measured steps as she comes closer, chewing the inside of her cheek. Don't be too much, she repeats to herself as she nears. Don't come on too strong.

She swears she could see the bridges she thought she'd been building between her and Rumi via marine fun facts and stories about dragons who literally eat the rich burning in Rumi's flaming cheeks when she grabbed her hand.

And now she risks turning those between her and Mira to ash with a wrong word.

The past couple of hours had been like a fantasy come true, and not just because someone wanted to hear about the differences between loggerheads and hawksbills; talking with Mira and Rumi she'd felt…like herself. Not the Zoey who ran interference between her feuding parents or the Zoey who constantly checked her tongue and chopped off bits of herself to create a version that matched what the other kids at school wanted (or, well, what she thought they wanted).

Just Zoey. Who knew too much about music and ocean life and enough miscellany to probably do really well on a quiz show. And was…liked anyway.

But, clearly, from the look on Rumi's face- and Mira's too, a stormcloud darkening her gorgeous (nope, nope; not thinking like that; dealing with a crisis here) features- she'd read the room wrong. Again.

She sidles up to her, mindful to keep their elbows from touching, and tries to sort out what to say.

That was random. No.

Celine was being an ass for not saying that to begin with. No, but true.

Rumi was being an ass for not saying we were hurting her. Definitely not, though also true.

"That sucked."

She winces at the sentence that just popped out of her like she had no control over it. Absolutely not, why did she say that?!?

Mira turns, and looks at her, sunlight sharp on the frames of her glasses.

Zoey's stomach knots, waiting for what she knows is coming.

Why couldn't she just stop messing things up?

Why did she have to be so….Zoey?

"Yeah, it did."

She blinks, startled. It's…oddly encouraging, to hear agreement. It loosens something in Zoey.

"And, like, you're right! We should have gotten a say!"

Mira nods, flaring her nostrils as she huffs an agreeing breath.

Bolstered, Zoey continues. "I mean, how were we supposed to know?"

…And there it is, the look that says Zoey messed up. Mira's lip puckers and she turns back to the waves. "You weren't. I should have figured it out."

…Oh, that's right; she was technically part of a now-decimated evil cult (or, well, cult-adjacent; she's not sure if Mira ever officially joined; unless being born into one was enough? did you inherit lifetime membership?).

"I'd been taught about exorcising like this before." She tapped a nail against the railing. "Like, as a precaution, in case one of Appa or Jaeho's wraiths went rogue. I've done these, I knew they're meant to hurt, and- ERGH! I should have figured it out!" She slams a fist on the railing, sending a metallic thud vibrating along its length, then shakes out her hand. "I'm such an idiot."

Zoey grabs Mira's hand, squeezing it, trying to soothe the sting from her outburst with her thumb. "…I don't think so."

Mira snorts. "Yeah, someone who was fucking raised around this stuff and learned to write sigils before her name had no way of seeing this coming."

Zoey files away that personal history tidbit for later, when questions are appropriate. "No, really. You'd never really done any before. And theory and practice are, like, totally different."

Mira lifts a brow. "If they were that would make theory useless."

"I mean, it kind of is when you're out in the field," Zoey shrugs (not exactly one-hundred-percent true, but true enough).

"…Should I be worried you're a med student?"

"Oh, definitely," Zoey nods, like that was a very sensible assessment.

Her parents would have some words for her about that, but Mira laughs, and right now that's all Zoey cares about.

This is one of my favorite tricks, picked up from E.M. Forester and filtered through my own domestic-homebody lens.  Forester says that you should never ever tell us how a character feels; instead, show us what those emotions are doing to a character’s posture and tone and expression.  This makes “I felt sadness” into “my shoulders hunched and I sighed heavily, staring at the ground as my eyes filled with tears.”  Those emotions-as-motions are called objective correlatives.  Honestly, fic writers have gotten the memo on objective correlatives, but sometimes struggle with how to use them.

Objective correlatives can quickly become a) repetitive or b) melodramatic.  On the repetitive end, long scenes of dialogue can quickly turn into “he sighed” and “she nodded” so many times that he starts to feel like a window fan and she like a bobblehead.  On the melodramatic end, a debate about where to eat dinner can start to feel like an episode of Jerry Springer because “he shrieked” while “she clenched her fists” and they both “ground their teeth.”  If you leave the objective correlatives out entirely, then you have what’s known as “floating” dialogue — we get the words themselves but no idea how they’re being said, and feel completely disconnected from the scene.  If you try to get meaning across by telling us the characters’ thoughts instead, this quickly drifts into purple prose.

Instead, have them wash the dishes while they talk.

To be clear: it doesn’t have to be dishes.  They could be folding laundry or sweeping the floor or cooking a meal or making a bed or changing a lightbulb.  The point is to engage your characters in some meaningless, everyday household task that does not directly relate to the subject of the conversation.

This trick gives you a whole wealth of objective correlatives.  If your character is angry, then the way they scrub a bowl will be very different from how they’ll be scrubbing while happy.  If your character is taking a moment to think, then they might splash suds around for a few seconds.  A character who is not that invested in the conversation will be looking at the sink not paying much attention.  A character moderately invested will be looking at the speaker while continuing to scrub a pot.  If the character is suddenly very invested in the conversation, you can convey this by having them set the pot down entirely and give their full attention to the speaker.

A demonstration:

1

“I’m leaving,” Anastasia said.

“What?”  Drizella continued dropping forks into the dishwasher.

2

“I’m leaving,” Anastasia said.

Drizella paused midway through slotting a fork into the dishwasher.  “What?”

3

“I’m leaving,” Anastasia said.

Drizella laughed, not looking up from where she was arranging forks in the dishwasher.  “What?”

4

“I’m leaving,” Anastasia said.

The forks slipped out of Drizella’s hand and clattered onto the floor of the dishwasher.  “What?”

5

“I’m leaving,” Anastasia said.

“What?”  Drizella shoved several forks into the dishwasher with unnecessary force, not seeming to notice when several bounced back out of the silverware rack.

See how cheaply and easily we can get across Drizella’s five different emotions about Anastasia leaving, all by telling the reader how she’s doing the dishes?  And all the while no heads were nodded, no teeth were clenched.

The reason I recommend having it be one of these boring domestic chores instead of, say, scaling a building or picking a lock, is that chores add a sense of realism and are low-stakes enough not to be distracting.  If you add a concurrent task that’s high-stakes, then potentially your readers are going to be so focused on the question of whether your characters will pick the lock in time that they don’t catch the dialogue.  But no one’s going to be on the edge of their seat wondering whether Drizella’s going to have enough clean forks for tomorrow.

And chores are a cheap-n-easy way to add a lot of realism to your story.  So much of the appeal of contemporary superhero stories comes from Spider-Man having to wash his costume in a Queens laundromat or Green Arrow cheating at darts, because those details are fun and interesting and make a story feel “real.”  Actually ask the question of what dishes or clothing or furniture your character owns and how often that stuff gets washed.  That’s how you avoid reality-breaking continuity errors like stating in Chapter 3 that all of your character’s worldly possessions fit in a single backpack and in Chapter 7 having your character find a pair of pants he forgot he owns.  You don’t have to tell the reader what dishes your character owns (please don’t; it’s already bad enough when Tolkien does it) but you should ideally know for yourself.

An angsty something.

Zoey, who was always the odd one out, always too weird, always too forward. Had ADHD and all, but not in the cool, comes with superpowers way like in Percy Jackson—in the “Mom says it’s not an excuse, and Dad just tells me to be quiet” way

Zoey, who’s had enough fresh starts to know this one probably won’t be different, but not enough to stop her from hoping. (Celine—actual, for real, Sunlights Sisters Celine—gave her a contract. She said Zoey had potential. That’s the kind of thing Zoey used to daydream about.)

And she arrives at the hanok to find Rumi, who seems surprised every time a loser like Zoey gets up the courage to say something to her that isn’t “pass the salt, please?” or directly related to training

Not that she’s, like, mean about it! But Zoey can tell when she isn’t wanted. When she’s pushing her limits. And she’s always pushing her limits with Rumi

(Don’t think about Rumi, trying so hard not to make the same mistakes, to remind herself that Zoey wouldn’t want to be friends with her and she shouldn’t force herself on her, she needs to make sure that Mira and Zoey, at least, can get along, so she should keep her distance)

And then there’s Mira—it’s like no matter how hard Zoey tries to get along with her, she can’t! If she asks what Mira might want to do, if she tries to join her while she’s doing something, god forbid if she tries to suggest something she thinks Mira might like… Zoey just doesn’t get it

(And don’t think about how Mira might find Rumi and her perfect fucking life… irritating, but at least Rumi was honest. At least she actually thought her corny friendship bracelet idea was cool. And Mira maybe kind of agreed.

But Zoey? Zoey shapeshifts minute by minute. Zoey thinks banana milk tastes kind of weird, until Mira says she likes it. Zoey offers up nothing real, and that means everything about her is dangerous.)

Don’t think about Zoey, watching herself ruin yet another fresh start, crying herself to sleep, pulling all of her shame together and going up to Celine’s home office the next morning, ready to ask if she should just go or if Celine still thinks there’s some way she could do this right, muttering different ways to ask to herself as she tries to find the least humiliating

Don’t think about Zoey, walking straight into Rumi in the hall, looking up into her concerned face and bursting into tears again because there was no possible way she could ever deserve this and Rumi knew it

Don’t think about Rumi, tugging Zoey into her bedroom in the main house, throwing the teddy bear on the bed onto her lap for her to hold and panickedly doing everything she can to help calm her down, being so impossibly gentle with Zoey while she’s freaking out

Don’t think about Mira, being sent to find them because she’s the only one who turned up for their morning run and Celine is pissed, overhearing their quiet conversation from the end of the hall. Cringing as Zoey sniffs and says Mira’s been so mean, no matter what she’s tried, and bracing herself for Rumi to agree, because… fuck ‘em. They’ve already written her off, just like everybody else.

Don’t think about Rumi, still so gentle, instead saying, “Mira’s not mean! She’s just… selective about who she likes. I’m sure she’ll realize how great you are soon.”

Don’t think about Zoey, sitting there looking at Rumi, starting to wonder if maybe she isn’t as screwed as she thought.

Don’t think about Rumi, hoping that she’s right and that Mira hasn’t written Zoey off as someone too close to Rumi.

Celine, who desperately- desperately- wants Rumi to have what she had, for reasons beyond- above- the Honmoon (as wrong as it is for her to put anything above the Honmoon). To know what it is to share a life with people who make you feel whole and fill a part of you that you hadn't realized was empty.

(even if heartbreak comes later)

(which it won't; she will make sure of it)

Celine, who remembers what she wouldn't- couldn't- tell Rumi about her earliest days with Miyeong and Third; who didn't want to discourage her with stories of oil and water, of clashing personalities and arguments and her own snappish irritation at how Miyeong took nothing seriously except fooling around and Miyeong disparaged her back, of how she...doubted, that she could ever learn to like these girls, let alone love them.

It would be a disservice to Mi, and a disservice to her daughter, to daunt her with the growing pains of young friendships.

Celine, who raises a brow at Mira, all angles and broken glass, but trusts the Honmoon and welcomes her into their home, only to watch Rumi try and try and try.

And fail.

(Celine has failed)

Celine, who tells herself it's fine; Rumi is smart and kind and who couldn't love her Mi's little girl; they just need time.

They don't need her meddling; after

Celine, who gives them time.

Celine, who sees Zoey and thinks maybe this is what Rumi and Mira need, sunshine in human form. Because that's what Zoey, who hasn't stopped talking since they got in the car and whose face just lights up in a way that has Celine cracking the tiniest of grins, is.

Celine, who is wrong.

Celine, who is lying awake at night, lost, confused, alone, wondering what she's supposed to do.

Not what their mentors did, drag all three girls together for a talk about how "it's their duty to get along;" that's ridiculous.

(that was the first time they had a conversation that felt real, her and her girls, complaining about how ridiculous their mentors were, dictating friendship)

She is failing Rumi, failing Mi, failing the Honmoon and centuries of Hunters, all because she can't figure out how to help three girls who are soul mates learn to like each other.

Celine, who knows Mi and Third could have done a better job than her.

Knows...they should be the ones here, not her, who doesn't know what she's doing; hasn't, in so many years.

Celine, who's heart twists as she thinks about how she needs Zoey and Mira to love Rumi, because then maybe...if the unthinkable happens, they'll be able to do what she did so long ago and toss aside their blades.

Celine, who resolves that won't happen, since it's a risk she can't take.

Celine, who's still lost and confused and alone.

she wants her girls

Celine, who is standing in the training yard, watching the shadows grow short, irritation bubbling as she wonders whatever happened to Mira.

Celine, who goes looking for her in the main house, then freezes at the sound of voices from the hall leading to the bedrooms.

"H-hey. You- you two good?" Mira's voice, slow and halting and padding carefully around broken glass.

"Oh! Yeah, Zoey just...needed a moment." Rumi, trying to decide how much of a smile to give.

"Sorry." Zoey, who can't help but feel she's not allowed to take up space.

"Um, it's- it's okay." Mira again. "Celine just-"

Celine, who winces at the sound of someone bumping into a desk, followed by the hailstorm clatter of Rumi's collection of friendship bracelet beads falling on the floor. There's a silent beat, then apologies from Mira, placations from Rumi and Zoey, then they're cleaning up the mess, together, and-

"So, why all the beads?"

"Well, I...they were going to be for friendship bracelets. Which I guess in hindsight was lame, but-“

-and then there's chatter friendly as a spring breeze as Zoey vouches for the idea and Mira gives an assent that's the friendliest Celine ever heard her, spilling into the hall and lapping at her feet,.

Celine smiles, then turns back to the yard.

Sicktember 2026 Prompts:

1. Crash Out

2. Worried sick

3. Forced to care for a rival

4. Medical restraints

5. “Stop whining, you’re fine,” (They’re not fine)

6. Doctor visit

7. Sick on a date

8. “I can’t keep anything down,”

9. Sick in a snowstorm

10. “Stop getting out of bed!”

11. Wrapped in blankets

12. Sick in front of a partner for the first time

13. A usually shy pet begins to curl up to the sick character more

14. Infected wound

15. Rehab after a severe illness

16. Sick while camping

17. Caregiver burn out

18. Character gets spoiled by their caregiver

19. “I can’t afford to go to the doctor,”

20. Parenting while sick

21. Gaunt face

22. Carnival food poisoning

23. X-Ray

24. “My boss won’t let me take a sick day.”

25. Out of medicine

26. “I just want my parent (s),”

27. Work from home day

28. Dizzy

29. “You made the soup wrong!”

30. Mental health day

Alt Prompts:

1. “I don’t need anyone to take care of me!” (Loves being dotted on)

2. Pillow fort

3. “I’m bored.” “You wouldn’t be bored if you took a damn nap,”

4. Flowers