#amyole

Hey amy,

I’ve had to think about this one for a while, but I think what most people don’t realise is just how much physical work really goes into being a florist. It’s a job that requires standing for numerous hours a day not simply because florists deal with customers but it is also a necessity to properly prepare arrangements of any kind. I’ve tried, it doesn’t work. I only ended up having to redo my arrangement because I had messed up the proportions. Not to mention that bouquets don’t only go up but down as well – there needs to be ample room for all those flower stems.

Other than that the job also involves a lot of carrying things that are heavy other than the prepared arrangements, like buckets full of water or palettes of flowers, which are a lot heavier when watered. Terracotta usually also adds weight. Anyone ever tried to lift a watered buxus? Heavy like whatnot. And if that hasn’t strained the wrists of your character enough let’s all collectively remember that bouquets may be prepared two-handed but only one of those hands carries the weight and there is only so much room in a person’s hand. For anyone who’d like to get an idea what that’s like grab a few different mugs and glasses and fill them with water. Now pick it up and hold it for a good 5-20 minutes. That’s the average amount of time a bouquet spends in the hand of most florists.

The other thing I’ve come up with is that not all florists have green thumbs. It’s gardeners that keep everything alive, florists just need to make things pretty. And well, keep things alive temporarily so in theory, even a florist with black thumbs knows a lot about plant care but the practical execution may still lack. Severely. I couldn’t keep a cactus alive if somebody asked me to but I sure as hell have extensive knowledge about hydrangea care and am happy to talk somebody’s ear off about it.

– Mod Jana

From a work perspective: cleaning the stems and prepping the flowers. Just constant go-go-go when it’s a busy time or big order. How even when it’s not busy there’s a ton of things to do. My floral design professor said that for his short certification programs he’d get people in there that decided to change to floral design or retire to it from nursing or something and they picked it because they were tired of being on their feet all the time.How trite some of the designs can be - you want to be creative but most customers want basic stuff, and when you’re making dozens or hundreds of vase arrangements for Valentine’s Day, you don’t have time for much creativity. If there’s decorative stuff in the vase, it’s really there to help make the stems stay where we want them. Bow making is a skill you will get, so many bows.

- Mod Den

Disclaimer

In Episode 5 of Radio Meteor  I had a little ramble about space stations, but couldn’t delve deeper. Have you ever wondered what a Lagrange point actually IS? Confused about where L1 is in relation to L3? Puzzled by phrases like ‘side’ ‘cluster’ and ‘torus’? Well, here it is, Friendlies, the skinny on all of that and more. Click through for @amyole’s excellent 101 on space stations, space colonies in Gundam Wing and what we’re talking about when we’re talking about ELO. 

- Lem xx

I vote equestrian

I’m totally leaning that way too! Thanks for voting the way I want lol

the-notorious-bhg answered your question: okay real talk

O____O please equestrian garb. Jodhpurs and shadbelly!! OMG.

okay so I read this about the things and exactly HOW MUCH wiggle room do I have here? Like can I add a bit of  . . .  embellishment??? like a bit of embroidery if it doesn’t stand out too much? 

Hi Amyole.

I would say it’s not common for most florists to know the language of flowers. Probably, many of us know a few common meanings like red roses and yellow roses. I knew a few more than that because I did a project in college where I included the meanings of many different colors of roses. But I think that most florists are interested in flowers and if they heard meanings for flowers might hold on to that information, but it’s not used enough in modern times to warrant us actively researching it for design purposes or keeping a reference in shop. I have never seen a flower language reference in shop.

Most customers just want an arrangement that looks nice in their price range. In the US they might have an idea from the Teleflora/FTD books. They might request a color or particular flower. In the small shops that I have worked in whichever florist was helping them with the order would tell them what flowers we had available. If they were in store, they might even pull out some of them so they could see if they didn’t know what the flowers look like. Around here, there are only a couple of flowers that would be seen as specifically wedding or funeral flowers so if there’s a connection to such for the customer it’s usually customer-specific. 

For example, my stepfather associates yellow roses as a funeral flower because he had an arrangement of yellow roses made for a funeral of a family member. Yellow roses have always been my mother’s favorite flower, but she can’t get them because of that association for my stepfather.

If someone is writing a modern florist character, I would say the character would potentially have some limited “language of flower” knowledge, but would mostly work with the customer based on budget, personal flower preference and aesthetic. I personally really like container arrangements because they are easier to do the interesting shaped designs, but most customers seem to want vase arrangements. 

So,  I could see a fictional situation where a customer came in and asked for an arrangement in the $50 range, the florist asks what flowers they want, who it’s for, what occasion. The customer says it’s for their wife, it’s their wedding anniversary, and they don’t care about what flowers are in it for the most part, but it should have some yellow roses. The florist says, “you know yellow roses mean friendship?” and the customer replies that it doesn’t matter because it’s her favorite flower. But the florist might not even bring it up even if they know the meaning unless the customer says something about the meaning. 

I hope this helps.

You can never have too much glitter

I’m so glad you all got the same answer as me. What are the odds of answer keys being wrong? How crazy! But yes, thank you all for the help and reassurance, because my math confidence is so low that I just automatically believed I was the problem lol

We rarely get a glimpse into the life of our GW ladies as kids, and Dorothy Catalonia’s no exception (we’re going to pointedly ignore Frozen Teardrop for a hot minute).  @amyole offers a brief glimpse into a shared moment between Noin and a 13-year-old, grief-stricken Dorothy following the death of the latter’s father in battle (and the subsequent ascension of Treize to the head of the Specials unit).  We all I think have this vision of the smooth criminal that Dorothy becomes by the time we see her in AC 195...but we rarely ever think about what she may have been like before then, but would have made her like that.  

Feel better!