Soupy lil' Adventures

They are having a picnic

Day 16: happily ever after!!

I love them so much oughhh...

While lying down, Cleo has a nice space in her sternum that Pearl often snuggles her face into.

It's soft & plushy & the outside world tends to go silent while in that space.

Cleo tends to wrap their arms around Pearl to feel the warmth.. sometimes even run their fingers in Pearl's hair.

-🌑

Grief doesn't always look like crying. Here are some ideas for how to realistically portray it outside of the ‘screaming, crying, throwing up’ phase.

1. Burying Themselves in Work or School: Suddenly the most productive they've ever been, taking on extra shifts, extra assignments, anything that keeps their hands and mind too busy to land on the actual loss.

2. Avoiding Anywhere That Reminds Them of the Person: A restaurant, a route they used to walk together, an entire side of town. They'll go out of their way and never explain why, and probably won't even clock it as avoidance themselves.

3. Refusing to Change Anything of Theirs: The room stays exactly as it was. The voicemail doesn't get deleted. Moving even one object can feel like erasing them, so nothing moves at all.

4. Overcompensating With Normalcy: Laughing a little too readily, insisting they're fine a little too often. This one's great for a character who thinks showing grief means burdening the people around them.

5. Picking Fights With People Trying to Help: Grief makes people prickly in strange directions. Someone offering comfort can genuinely feel unbearable, and lashing out is sometimes easier than admitting they need it.

6. Taking Care of Everyone Else's Grief Instead of Their Own: Comforting siblings, managing funeral logistics, checking in on everyone but themselves. Tip: this one's especially good for an oldest-sibling or caretaker-type character, since it lets them delay their own grief almost indefinitely.

7. Sudden Reckless Behavior: Driving too fast, drinking too much, taking risks they never would have before. It's less about wanting to get hurt and more about needing to feel something other than the numbness.

8. An Obsessive Need for Control: Rigid routines, excessive cleaning, rearranging things that don't need rearranging. When one massive thing feels completely out of their control, controlling everything else becomes the coping mechanism.

9. Talking About Them in Present Tense: "She loves this song," not "loved." A small grammatical slip that says more about where their head still is than an entire monologue would.

10. Taking Up Something the Person Loved: Picking up their guitar, rewatching their favorite show, cooking their recipes. It's a way of keeping them present without having to say out loud that they're gone.

Looking For More Writing Tips And Tricks?

Check out the rest of Quillology with Haya; a blog dedicated to writing and publishing tips for authors!

As a former music teacher, I can also say that "learn the fundamentals first" is the death knell for a vast percentage of beginners, especially adult learners.

I've run into this with drawing several times, where some well-meaning artist has lectured me on needing to study anatomy properly or not use shortcuts like CSP brushes. And oh, believe me, I know. I know exactly how to learn an artistic discipline in a structured way. I just...don't want to!

The thing is, I'm not aiming to be a professional artist. I want to draw my gay little anime guys. I would undoubtedly improve at art much faster if I approached every gay little anime guy drawing as a study exercise. But I would also have quit drawing a decade ago if I couldn't just let myself enjoy drawing imperfect fucked-up little guys with whatever shortcuts I needed to body myself across the finish line.

With my adult piano students, my approach was always "What's your goal?" If their goal was to learn exactly one Elton John songbook to play at parties, then...that's what we did. We'd put tape on the keys to label the notes, and just fuckin go for it. Learning exactly one Elton John songbook is a good and noble musical goal, full stop.

Some of my students needed and enjoyed a more structured approach to learning; if they wanted to be able to play classical music, then yes, scales were going to have to enter the equation at some point. And yet others would learn the Elton John songbook, catch their white whale, and realize they wanted to explore more of the ocean. The scales were still there for them to learn!

Often the choice isn't between "learn art well" and "learn art imperfectly" - the choice is between "learn art imperfectly" and "don't do art at all." To which I say, learn imperfectly! Or, what the hell, don't 'learn' art. Just do, and enjoy the doing of it.

 ˙⋆✮ Still flinching at raised voices even when there's no threat behind them

˙⋆✮ Hoarding food or supplies in small ways without realizing why

˙⋆✮ The inability to accept praise without immediately deflecting or diminishing it

˙⋆✮ Becoming a different person entirely around family versus everyone else

˙⋆✮ Apologizing for things that were never their fault to begin with

˙⋆✮ Treating every disagreement like it might be the end of everything

˙⋆✮ The specific way they learned to make themselves smaller in a room

˙⋆✮ Being deeply uncomfortable when someone is genuinely kind with no catch

˙⋆✮ Watching other families interact and feeling something unnamed and heavy

˙⋆✮ Hyper-independence that looks like strength but is really just old fear

˙⋆✮ Needing to know the plan because uncertainty was never safe growing up

˙⋆✮ The way they parent themselves now using words no one ever said to them then

˙⋆✮ Finding comfort in routines because chaos was what home felt like

˙⋆✮ Trusting actions completely and words almost not at all

˙⋆✮ The anger that surfaces when someone else is treated the way they once were

˙⋆✮ Learning to read a room before entering it as a survival skill turned habit

˙⋆✮ The relationship they have with food, money, or safety that reveals everything

˙⋆✮ Becoming fiercely protective of others in the exact way no one was for them

˙⋆✮ The dream they still have sometimes that takes place in that old house

ᚑ      ᚑ

When the touch is gentle:

»-♡→ Brushed »-♡→ Grazed »-♡→ Caressed »-♡→ Stroked »-♡→ Patted »-♡→ Cradled »-♡→ Rested against »-♡→ Smoothed »-♡→ Trailed along »-♡→ Glided over

...or comforting:

➺ Squeezed ➺ Held ➺ Embraced ➺ Wrapped around ➺ Clasped ➺ Pressed gently against ➺ Rubbed ➺ Supported ➺ Steadied ➺ Cupped

...or affectionate:

➵ Ruffled ➵ Nuzzled ➵ Kissed ➵ Linked arms with ➵ Nestled against ➵ Curled around ➵ Leaned into ➵ Rested a hand on ➵ Laced fingers with ➵ Pulled close

...or romantic:

̗̀➛ Traced ̗̀➛ Ghosted across ̗̀➛ Brushed against ̗̀➛ Skimmed over ̗̀➛ Lingeringly stroked ̗̀➛ Ran a thumb along ̗̀➛ Tilted their chin ̗̀➛ Tucked a strand of hair behind their ear ̗̀➛ Pressed their forehead against ̗̀➛ Intertwined fingers

ᚑ      ᚑ

I can still hear her heart thumping despite the pan flute's attempts to drown it out

fun fact: for decades children were beaten for speaking welsh in school, even in areas where english was barely spoken, because the government decided in 1847 that the language made people lazy and immoral

fun fact: welsh orthography is actually easy to read if you take your head out of your arse for one minute and learn our alphabet - just like french, or spanish, or korean, because surprise! languages use different spelling systems that are not based on english. novel, i know - and in the 18th century, travelling schools were able to teach people to read and write welsh in a matter of months, so that wales enjoyed a literate majority, a rare thing in europe at the time

How I love you, Mr. Butterfly

Based on this red and blue toned velvet dress!

slow down for your disabled friends. thats like a bare minimum kindness that we shouldnt have to ask for. i love that youre so quirky and walking fast is a cool personality trait to you and all that but i bet you can count your physically disabled friends on less than one hand