#I sort of combined classic with my own style

[the-moon-files]

YESSSSS I BEG GET INTO THE CULTURAL DIDFERENCES BETWEEN HYLIANS AND HUMANS 🙏🙏

...now ur just sweet talking me 🥰 /lh

Not years, well maybe 1 year-

but i have wanted to ramble desperately to smone, even the tumblr void if i had to, abt humans vs. hylians so much, esp with a guide reader or male reader bc whatdya know im into niche stuff that only u and like 2 other ppl like lmao ¯\(ツ)/¯

Anyway im so shocked, since ur like the third person to be interested in this and wanna hear abt it 🥺 🤲💌 here u go!! Hope u like it <333 👉👈

Sun: Masc!Reader (he/him)

Orbit: Humans are Not Hylians/Humans are Space Orcs AU, Headcanons-ish, long overall but each section is kinda short

Stars: Mostly worldbuilding! you've been warned, don't get mad me for not talking abt the boys too much✌️

Comets & Meteors: Content Warnings: mild cursing, mentions of private area/joke in the clothing headcanons, & Trigger Warnings: none known.

Please comment if I missed any. /gen

☆

just some quick headcanons bc tbh i haven't given it too much thought, and i feel like I've been able to somewhat get into it in other posts? or maybe im thinking of stuff i have in my drafts idk-

Imma make another list, so buckle up for the short ride lol

Courting periods/dating/marriage

individual/small groups society-based hylians v. large personal groups/large community society-based humans

simpler foods hylians v. complex food humans

clothing modesty/style/relationships with fashion

fighting styles/strategies

entertainment complexity/differences

and language

☆

1st one, not much yet, im also making a separate post bc someone else asked me to talk abt that more 🥺

(tysm for all the enthusiastic asks guys <33)

anyway, basically hylian courting is a lot shorter, think “lesbians with the uhaul” type of energy, like sort of the classical medieval “does thee wish to pursue marriage with this one?” ← how hylians ask u out for the first time lmao

if it helps, they do tend to get to know one another well, talking about morals/kids/life goals/preferred lifestyle/house/etc. pretty clearly and quickly, then using the in between time to sort of stew on that information

id say the total time is sort of something like 6 months? maybe 3/4 if they're really compatible

(so bc i love interpreting video game logic for real world building, I actually blame this on how fast Zelda/link get together in games despite having sometimes never met before that moment lol)

like i said, ill be posting about this later

2nd one!!

pretty basic, just saying we don't really see hylians in big groups, despite the organizations they form, like kingdoms/knights or on a more personal level, towns/families/etc.

(once again, in-game appearances/video game logic translated to real life to draw these conclusions)

like not only are family units pretty small, like nuclear family setup, with like 2 parents and 2 kids, or single parent 1 kid type of situation, but the towns or collections of these families arent very big either

hylians kind of use their government the way it was intended lmao?

like the villages and towns matter more for everyday decisions than the kingdom/royalty, like Zelda would esstientally just be the mayor of Castle Town for those constant decisions,

while occasionally is called on to make decisions like for several towns or like is a natural disaster happens

meanwhile humans are, in comparison, in Way Bigger groups, both on an organization scale, and a personal scale

like u have all these specific branches of government, whereas im sure the population difference doesn't help,

and on a personal level, humans can easily have like multiple parents, lots of siblings, and once u combine that with each parent having family too, and those families like to meet up? All together??

yeah, itd look insane to any hylians (who’s smaller extended family may just make up their own village and that's it)

3. I've touched on this

like the use of spices, syrups, seasonings, etc

but also the complexity of dishes too, like chilling cream and mixing it for awhile to make ice cream, or even just getting ordering a pizza,

that's a lot of processing, like making the dough from flour and other ingredients, to letting it rise, to making the tomato paste, making cheese, then combining those things with any other toppings, all into one dish??

i like to think that hylians have only just started to touch on actual complicated cooking processes (as in BOTW, where they sell flour and salt, so people besides Link/Wild must know what to do with it)

this has the advantage of impressing any hylian with what a “creative genius” you are lol

4. look im just a fan of medieval time periods Links

so i think its funny if the hylians are used to like 4/3 layers and ur over here like, “wym, if i take off my shirt there's nothing underneath?”

one of them gets bold enough to ask, “d-do you not. do you not have undergarments??”

you “just my boxers? like just to cover my di-”

also this makes its easy to seduce people here? LMAO

clothes are def higher quality, after all there's not as many artificial processes or materials interfering,

plus u usually get some sick embroidery on it too!!

5. so like i get it, Link is the main fighter in games

but like, the few times there is a war/army in loz games, there's rlly not a lot of strategy, beyond just finding the enemy and fighting

tho im partial to that hylians/most inhabitants of Hyrule abide by the “lets meet up either literally by inviting each other or just between our territories to fight”

with occasional guerilla warfare (by any means necessary/stealth/ambush attacks/strategy) that's only rlly used either by Demise/Ganon, or by the wilder individuals/races in games

or maybe even the more civilized fighters in an emergency

and so that means by this logic that all of the Chain use kind of wild techniques compared to their race/kingdom lmao

id imagine its not too surprising to also see “every fight is a bar fight if its for my life” from individual travelers, so im sure they're not viewed too crazy (esp when ppl know their the hero that constantly has to deal with guerilla warfare from Ganon)

but its be hilarious to watch the reactions of both the Links realizing they’re in a bigger group that should be using “proper” fighting strategies and seeing the general publics reaction to this absolutely feral, armed to the teeth, trained hylians with their equally wild human lol

LMAO everyone thinks ur the reason they started using the more brutal fighting methods bc ur human, ur a bad influence lol

(humans would use it primarily, esp after we converted to use that method in warfare a couple hundred years ago i think?)

changing course a bit, hylians tend to use weapons (to compensate for difference in strength compared to humans, and since they don't experience/get a lesser version of adrenaline)

while humans tend to equally rely on weapons and our body as a weapon (marital arts/basic self-defense)

6. this is mostly bc the hylians only rlly seem to have the basics of music, books/stories, theater, and art

i have, surprise surprise, another post abt how i think this came to be,

mostly based on how human curiosity is indomitable and insatiable and the endless force that has not yet met its immovable object.

or at least an immovable object they haven't at least poked a little, out of curiosity lol

like we went to space for that reason, we reach the most dangerous corners of our planet (deep underwater/volcanoes) out of sheer curiousity/for the sake of simple knowledge of the thing

so needless to say, curiosity can absolutely drive any field to its limits, including the arts, which is why we can have stained glass, or movies/tv shows, hell, the marvel that is Hatsune Miku lmao

(fully for entertainment, a projection of light and sound, what is essentially magical illusions but u did it hte hard way, to the hylians)

on a different entertainment related note, i don't know if the hylians would be super into sports, or not really at all? mostly bc they have to use their fighting/training against real threats, not the sort of “fake” threats that sports are

but on the other hand i could see people like knights wanting to use their abilities for something other than violence and fighting bc their life or their villages lives depended on it

bet the Links would enjoy it for those reasons especially, what with at least sumo wrestling being a sport or activity for them at some point in history, and practically beg u for any new games to play, or to ref their games, bc whewwww

im sure they could get pretty competitive lol

7. obviously, their mostly influenced by the Japanese language

id almost like to imagine a sort of, if not outright Japanese (like with earlier heroes like Sky) then a sort of English-Japanese hybrid further along the line

sort of like how English has German/Greek/Latin roots and therefore u can see what words or structure comes from where, or even how u can understand a fair amount of basic words when other languages share the same roots (english, pants = spanish, pantalones)

would make for some funny miscommunications

or even better, most hylians liking ur unique accent or the Links love to hear u talk bc of it lol

☆

well the fever has broken, i am now free of the sickness that made me hack this up geez

i hope u got some enjoyment out of these my beloved anon!! esp since u were so nice as to ask abt it <33

hope u guys have a great weekend, look out for some more posts, bc its been great to get some more asks in lately and very motivating,

not to mention i actually have time to write now that my siblings graduated/we’ve moved several states over 💀

so i have reliable internet now too! sheesh :’)

Peace out,

🌙

[yomogi-mogi-mochi]

Unnecessarily Convoluted Analysis of TWST Dorm Architecture

Putting that Art History degree to use 💪 I am getting my Masters in art history, so I am like semi qualified?? to do this. Tried my best with some of the dorms since some don't have an explicit cultural/architectural parallel irl. And obviously lots of liberties taken since I'm sure the people at Disney were not going for historical accuracy

Masterlist here

Much of this analysis can from my Spolia fic (Malleus x Light Fae MC)

Diasmonia: Early Gothic

Gothic- but early gothic. It's got a few flying buttresses, indicative of technology in later gothic movements- but in combination to the lower ceilings (lower than later gothic), fewer levels (celestory, triforium, doric columns, and shorter windows makes me think it's early gothic (more towards Norman architecture/Sens Cathedral), because it's a lot simpler and less technologically developed than high gothic (larger windows, rose windows, higher and pointier style, flying buttresses, more decorative stuff like Corinthian columns and stained glass). Still, I think the Fae would be been more concerned with its structural integrity against the waves of time- therefore gargoyles become a very prominent symbol in protecting this eternity and preservation of architecture since it basically prevents rain/weather from eating away at the building.

There's some interesting symbolism with Malleus' fixation with gargoyles, but I'm sure you can make that connection on your own based on what's out in Chapter 7 and how he reacts to both Lilia's and MC'S impending goodbyes.

Gothic was actually a term used by the French to demean the style, since it was seen as more 'savage' and 'lower' than classical architecture- which is symmetrical, solid, and values very literal and realistic (albeit idealized) characterization. Gothic architecture in contrast is a lot more airy, focuses on light and windows, and values more allegorical representations, which is why it resonated so well with the religious ruler and monarchies because they were able to not-so-subtly point to their influence and power in every single way without it being in your face all the time.

Because of this very stank contrast, it was labeled as "gothic" because people were criticizing it to be "savage" and "unkept". The goths were painted this way because they were mainly responsible for Rome's downfall, leading to the dark ages. Regardless of the French ruthlessly roasting the goths, this type of design flourished after the dark ages because technology was beginning to be advanced once more, and materials were more readily available.

My theory would be that the fae began to first develop this architecture because they had the advantage of magic, but then the humans were influenced by it- which leads them to high gothic (Noble Bell College), as well as Baroque and Rococo architecture (like the Pomefiore dorm). The Fae kept their style of early gothic since they didn't really see a point in changing much- maybe just more decorative gargoyles called grotesque as a symbol of the Fae's gratitude in their protection against time.

Also the hallways have what are almost like ribbed vaults which was one of the primary and first symbols of gothic architecture because they allowed more weight to be distributed to the vaults, and therefore allow for bigger windows.

Another distict characteristics in gothic architecture are clearly defined elevations.

Traditionally, they will have the celestial at the top, then gallery, then the main arcade (especially as we get into the later gothic periods and buildings get even taller and taller). Of course Disney isn't completely accurate with these things, but it seems that they're sort of going for that vibe, as many things end up being as our contemporary notions of historical design often creates a vague iconography of things that is often a copy of a copy of a copy of the original medium.

However I do think the intention to mimic the original design is still there overall, and combined with many of the other elements such as the prevalence of pointed arches that are a symbol of gothic architecture, and the sheer number of windows that were allowed originally due to the technological advances of the gothic era (and of course Malleus' own obsession with gargoyles), I think it would make sense to categorize this is like "gothic adjacent".

If I were to redesign the diasmonia dorm however, I would definitely begin by fixing the exterior- but I think they were referencing Malificent's tower in the Disney movie than any sort of historical accuracy lol. You win some, you lose some.

Pomefiore: Rococo with a touch of Art Noveau

Very obviously modeled after French Rococo architecture- the illustration of the hallways of Pomefiore dorm are almost exactly like the Palace of Versailles

It is definitely a toned down version- but pretty spot on, right? When I first saw the Pomefiore dorm I immediately Googled a picture of the Palace of Versailles cause I knew I saw it somewhere. Autistic spidey senses at it again.

Honestly wish they went more all out with the chandeliers, and had painted ceilings on the dorm colors- but I feel like they got the general vibes right. It feels closer to Romanesque with its simplicity but it still holds an aura of decadence and frivolity that I like. Very rich, extravagant like it's members (maybe not so much Epel lol)

Elements of Art noveau in the furniture (the peacock chair) and the embroidery of the uniforms.

Also, the peacock chair sort of reminds me of James McNeill Whistler's Peacock Room. He was an American impressionist that was sort of the forefront of art nouveau, since impressionism was one of the mainstream movements that really began the explosion of Japanese inspired design that is also used in Art Nouveau aesthetic.

(Vil would definitely have this room if he could)

The carpet in the room reminds me of William Morris' designs, and just art nouveau in general.

As far as I can tell, the exterior is based on a variety of German castle styles from 13th century Romanesque styles, to 18th century Neo-Gothic styles. Which is coincidentally what a lot of the castles on Disneyland are based off of.

Everything is very florial, Corinthian, and extravagant. I love it. It's very baroque, I dig it.

Scarabia

Please don't come for me I'm not as well versed in Non-Asian and Non-Western architecture except for religious architecture in Turkey and Jerusalem so I'm gonna try my best with this one

So I think it mixes a lot of the icons we think of in association to Arabic architecture like domes, pointed/ogee (rounded, then pointed)/multifoil (multiple curves) arches, and ornate floral designs that derive from the use of calligraphy in Islamic structures (as iconography, or pictures depicting the faces and bodies of religious figures were not allowed).

And I think all those tiny buildings resemble Minarets, or tall towers built adjacent to mosques where the muezzin can issue the call to prayer. But the artists were probably like "hm. Not enough. How do we make it more arabic??" And of course the contemporary orientalist perspectives that dominate the artistic realm made they go "quick just add a bunch of domes"

I think Kalim's room and the lounge in particular best shows the general "airiness" that parallels Islamic acthicture (ie the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque on UAE)

Open air courtyards are also a characteristic element of Islam architecture, which you can see with the areal view of the dorm, and also makes sense with Kalim's unique magic.

Jali window designs (the intricate gold metal covers on the arches) are also popular on Islamic architecture

The Haga Sophia in particular has been described to have a dome "suspended by the heavens", as the section connecting the building and the dome is made entirely of arches that allows the sunlight from the heavens to pour inside the building. Though the haga Sophia is a very special case, as it was occupied by varying religions with different architectural styles at certain periods- I think it's also a good representation of our contemporary prototype of Arabian architecture that makes up the final design of the dorm.

Ignihyde: Classical Greek

Looks like it's modeled after the Parthenon, which was built during the Classical period on Greece where Athens was flourishing as a center of mathematics, technology, and architecture. These are sentiments which becomes reflected in the Renaissance afterwards, such as symmetry and a very systemic way of approaching things. I think it fits perfectly with this dorm, since they're the "tech geeks" of NRC

It's got your pediment, your doric columns (would have preferred ionic columns but whatever Disney), your arcades. Pretty straight forward unlike the actual movie it's based off of lol (Hercules has so so many mythological inconsistencies. Like why are you talking about Achilles in the movie??? Trojan was hasn't even happened babe stop manifesting that shit)

I think the symmetry and order of Classical Greek design goes well with the overall futuristic look Ignihyde and the Island of Woe are going for. Pretty clever, Disney.

Heartslabyul: Tudor Revival Style

Though Alice in Wonderland is set in the later 19th century, I think the Tudorian Revival style than began in the beginning of the 20th century just shortly later fits best.

Turdorian revival style is characterized through half timbering, which is like the timber panels you see on the surface of the building; oriel windows (windows that jut out); mock battlements; and courtyards.

The Tudorian revival style also takes elements from Elizabethan era architecture and perpendicular gothic architecture, hence the long gallery and the tudorian four point arch)

The glass panes in the lounge leaves me to believe it's sort of like a glass house where part of the house is sort of like a greenhouse. This is characteristic of Victorian glasshouses that rose with the availability of timber, paint, and brick and the popularity of botany in the Victorian era propelled by botanical imports from British colonies. Architecrs like Joseph Paxton were also known for his opus magnum- the Crystal Palace, which held the Great Exhibition of 1851 (kind of like a world expo with the theme of industry and art) also popularize the movement- and was a significant sign of wealth, as glass and window taxes were especially high. But in the later century when iron and steel frame construction was advanced, people could be built out of iron and window panes, so they could be assembled easily, and also afforded by middle class citizens.

So it's basically a mix of Elizabethan and Victorian revival styles (tudorian and gothic), which is in theme with the Victorian period the original media is set in, albeit taking inspiration from styles little later in the period.

Savanaclaw:

Again- I am blind when it comes to Non-Asian/Non-Western architecture- but this one was kinda confusing cause it really doesn't have any architectural cohesivity??? Like it's just got a general "jungle vibe" which I'm not surprised at because Disney is infamous for glossing over non-white cultures and kind of just simplifying them into a "general vibe" which wow yikes my guy

Kind of reminds me of Mese Verde, which are structures made directly within a cliffside, or the Great Mosque of Djenné and the African Heritage house in Kenya which have very smoothed, natural designs that blend into the environment

What I could gather from my research and my juicy autistic brain, savannas are regularly subjected to wild fires- so a lot of the heavy, rocky architecture and interior style makes sense, opposed to one made of wood (which are mostly in the inside of the structure, besides the roof which I imagine is less likely to catch on fire). Much of the building seems also to be directly carved within natural rock formations- a very functional use of the resources around you- very savannaclaw!

The textiles in each of the dorm members' rooms resemble Kente fabric, a style of hand weaving from Ghana, originally reserved for royalty but now commonly worn for ceremonial occasions and such. Also unlike other African textiles styles, it's strictly a male practice. I think it would make sense for Sunset Savanna, a place where women are highly respected and perhaps take on more political and military positions- leaving largely men to the practice of textile making (both are honorable acts- not comparing the two). There aren't distinguished aesthetic styles of textiles that differentiate each weaving from another- rather, it is divided by technique and region- so this is not like a definite connection, just thought it was interesting to includle

Textiles seem to occupy the only decorative role in the entire dorm- so perhaps there is significant cultural significance? Maybe there is a certain region that's known for their practices? Or is weaving a symbol of adulthood or growth and therefore is why they're hung up in each of the dorm member's rooms with the exception of Ruggie, who may not have had the socioeconomic privilege of making one? Or does the practice vary across species? Much to speculate 🤔

Octavinelle: Art Deco and Art Nouveau

Saved this one for last because oh boy I don't even know where to start with this. Obviously the design is very creative and I love it, but there's a lot less historical elements I can use to analyze the style, kind of like the Savanah claw exterior.

But it leans towards the art deco style, which is most fitting for the business dorm I think.

Elements of Art deco like geometric aspects of design, thematic and aesthetic consistency, and decorative/geometric windows are seen throughout the dorm interior and exterior

But I think the art nouveau elements are also there too, with the cheeky sea-themed elements that use natural shapes and icons into the architecture, design, and surfaces of the dorm.

Otherwise, not much else to say about this dorm 🤷 it's not really based in anything historical but there are bits and pieces of art nouveau and art deco in there, but I definitely wish they would lean more into the art deco elements since I think it would go well with the general themes of the dorm values.

So uh, yeah. Told you it would be convoluted.

Feel free to add and or correct!

[thelastblackmoon]

My Sailor Star Healer Cosplay 💚✨

Although Fighter was my number one for the longest time, Healer came in and stole my heart after seeing the Sailor Moon Cosmos Movies. I thought their personality shined the most and loved the sass. That, combined with going back to the 90's version and fully appreciating their ✨attitude✨ made .e super excited to finally cosplay them.

As I mentioned in my post breaking down my Sailor Star Fighter cosplay, these costumes took a lot of inspiration from the Sera Myu versions. They offered a lot more support and coverage which was far more functional than any other version.

I left out a few details like the Golden belt on the shorts and the way the top had a black backing of sorts for modesty/support. I opted to go with the more 90's style shorts and add slits, and then simply have a thicker band on the top.

Sera Myu influenced my suit quite a bit, but I also leaned into the 90's version as well as suited my own design ideas.

I break down how I made my Sailor Star Yell prop in another post, so I'll leave it at that for this Sailor Star Healer showcase.

You can find my Sailor Star Fighter behind the scenes post here:

[p0rchc0ll4ps3]

comparing case notes on the ride home at the end of a long day

did all the perspective myself! it kinda' turned out jank but it's what it's. i'll get better at it eventually

really tried to capture the essence of revachol architecture style with this. the metro lines were built by the communards in '79 of the last century, about 11 years into the dictatorship. various cities in revachol have metro, but none are as extensive as jamrock's metro. however, due to mismanagement and embezzlement and war, a lot of the metro stations remain unfinished, especially in the poorest parts of the city (for example, it was never finished in the coal city district of jamrock, which is big enough to count as it's own city. the metro line was dug out, but the tracks were never layed due to the project never reaching completion and due to the commies not really caring to build out there. in the valley of the dogs, which is in west jamrock and about as poor as coal city, the metro wasn't even built at all due to there being a huge immigrant population out there and a lot of bullshit from the government). anyways a lot of homeless people live out in those abandoned stations. this among a billion other things really adds to how much east revachol and its slightly richer cities really think lowly of west revachol and jamrock despite not being much better off themselves

the metro cars and the metro stations are built in the neo-perikinassian style that the communards favored for all their structures (neo-perikinassian is an elysium equivalent to our neo-classical style). this style intends to give a vibe of old world richness and power and strong authoritative government, while also attempting to create a strong, national revacholian architectural style, celebrating insulinde's original pagan origins by reflecting traditional folk patterning. communism in revachol wanted to be purely revacholian, taking zero influence from the colonies that revachol used to rule over. the dictatorship did away completely with insulinde's original colonial past, trying to embrace a new totally revacholian identity and erasing anything deemed not revacholian. unfortunately, revachol is an immigrant country, with a history of colonialism and slavery, and a LOT of that has become a huge part of revacholian and insulindian culture. revachol is a melting pot, a mixture of influences from all over. the communists tried to erase this and make a new identity, but of course this attempted to erase everything else that makes revachol revachol. so in trying to make a new, purely revacholian identity, they erased true revachol from the books.

anways, they favored the neo-perikinassian art style with folk embellishments, but because revachol is revachol, there are also a whole lot of style moderne (revachol's art deco, a lot of airships, sunrises, and anti-pale shit) and noul stil (revachol's art nouveau which involves a lot of ocean and air organic motifs instead of flowers and the like) influences of course. as you can see here, there's noul stil motifs in the way that the lights are pearls and that they have waves on them. in fact, to go on yet another tangent, revachol's 'new disco' architecture, which started in jamrock during the new with the building of skyscrapers and new buildings in the style and spread to the rest of revachol, is a modern day revival of style moderne and noul stil that combines elements of both (i get a very og wizard of oz emerald city vibe).

anyways that's my lore essay. i really wanted to capture the feeling of being in revachol, specifically jamrock. the metro cars are also slightly based off bucharest's communist metro cars as well as the newer ones, but of course with a lot of wood instead because revachol and elysium are in a sort of era with their technology that mixes something of a industrial revolution 1890s victorian london, 1910s america and big cities right before the advent of skyscrapers and cars but also 1920s tech, and 1970s radio tech and all that shit. idk. some fucked up conglomeration

also guy on the left is someone from my de server's oc. i don't know their tumblr otherwise i'd tag!

oh and i tried to capture some kind of how the people of revachol are in general all types of people from many different ethnicities etc. and and the guy in the back looking at harry is one of jean's friends, enzo, who, after getting rejected from the rcm for being too violent (which is a big deal bc the rcm celebrates violence), joined la puta madre and now works to double-cross both lpm and rcm, doing what benefits him best. when jean and harry got captured by the lpm about 3 years back and almost died, it was enzo who saved them. enzo's one of jean's many connections he has in the city. harry doesn't remember him (but he will eventually. he has to figure out at some point where that big nasty scar on his stomach's from).

btw i spent like a wholeass hour or two one day trying to figure out what type of wood revachol would have because the commies use ONLY LOCAL RESOURCES. so i needed to figure out what type of wood they'd have. and i figured it was some kinda' birch with a very specific ashy grey wood. of course you can't see it here bc of the color-grading but yeah. know that i did research on that. ok?

anyways if you read this whole thing thank you very much for reading and congrats on getting thru it hahahaha. i really need to figure out a name for this au bc this is NOT kurwitz's elysium LOL

[beyondfabric]

Beyond Fabric x Norwegian Rain

A while back I was challenged by T-Michael and Alex over at Norwegian Rain to rethink modern officewear using some of their most classic raincoats. A sort of a social experiment aimed at registering a moment in time and context, that portrays my interpretation of professional attires in 2023.

Inspired by 3 of Norwegian Rain’s weatherproof styles, I put together 3 different looks I could wear to work in a not overly formal environment. Breaking down the traditional suit and tie paradigm, all 3 proposals are polished and sophisticated, with their own unique twists.

The first, depicted here, is a vintage-inspired combination that feels fresh by incorporating the raincoat’s technical fabric and a raw hemmed flannel sports jacket. On the more classic end, we have a stripped club collar shirt and wool tie, paired with off white corduroy trousers.

Ph: Elisabeth Teixeira

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #11 – The Maya (10th Edition) by Michael D. Coe and Stephen Houston

My second proper history book of the year, and significantly better than the first! This existed on the happy intersection of ‘the r/AskHistorian’s big list of recommenced works on Goodreads’ and ‘stuff my public library inexplicably has a copy of’. It’s dense and more than a bit dry reading, enough that I read it over the course of a week as a side-dish to more digestible fiction. Still, fascinating read, and a book that left more far better informed about the subject than when I started it.

The book is more or less what it says on the tin – a survey of the history of the Maya (or at least the current state of what’s known about it). The book opens with an explanation of the Maya language family, the relevant geography, the characteristics of the high- and lowlands, and the division into northern, central and southern area the field seems to use generally. The better part of it is then arranged chronologically, beginning with the Archaic Period, through the Pre-Classic and Classic, then then Collapse and the Post-Classic. The Spanish Conquest and history since gets a very abbreviated epilogue, ending with a few micro-anthropologies of different contemporary villages and then a five-page travellers’ guide to the most important sites and how to access them.

It’s all, as I said, quite dense – the sort of book where every paragraph adds at least one new important fact and very little time is spent on repetition or review. Combined with the usually very dry, expository tone, it feels much more like a textbook to be read with a lecturer or group to break down and dig into each section than something that was really written to be read alone and for pleasure. Which you know, makes sense, given that this is the tenth edition of a book originally written several decades before I was born.

Now, I say this is a history book, but that’s honestly a bit of a kludge – better to say it’s an archaeology book or, failing that, about anthropology and historiography. There is very little narativizing, and it is very much told from the point of view of the present. That is, the sections are organized chronologically, but within them the unit of analysis is the archaeological site, with every supposition explained as emerging from the analysis of some ruin or artifact or fragment of text. Far more time is spent on the architecture and layout of Mayan cities than the people who actually lived within them, simply because the author’s have so much more to say about them.

It’s only really in the chapters on the Classic (and, to a much lesser extent, post-classic) periods that the book goes from theorizing about building and pottery styles to speaking more confidently about royal courts and high politics and dynastic grandeur, and above all the attempts to give specific particular people a sense of personality and personal biographies that you generally expect out of a pop history book. Which does make sense, given that those are the only periods where we really have enough textual evidence to confidently name and ascribe significance to any particular people – overwhelmingly dynasts and war-leaders, because of course those are the (almost invariably) men who constructed stelae and covered the walls of temples with testaments of their own greatness.

This means that you do get more of a look into nuts and bolts of knowledge production that you do in most histories – a passage about the development of chocolate drinks as elite consumption is framed with the discovery of cocoa residue on preclassic ceramic vessels, one about human sacrifice by the discovery of skeletal remains in cenotes near major architectural sites, that sort of thing. Similarly, just about every single discovery or theory is credited to one or a few specific academics who initially made it. Which will be either incredibly interesting or the dullest thing in the world, depending on one’s tastes.

The text is mostly incredibly dry and expository in tone, which makes the points where a real sense of personality and subjective opinion leaks through interesting. And endearing, at least to me, but I just find there to be something instantly likeable about the sort of academic myopia which considers human sacrifice and mass famine from the point of view of the universe but is roused to passionate rage by suburban sprawl building over unexamined archaeological sites.

I knew little enough about the specifics of Maya civilization going into this that just relaying everything that struck me reading this would turn this review into a novella. But the way that lowland urbanization and agriculture were based around, not rivers like just about every other culture I’ve read on, but cenotes (and artificially constructed simulacra thereof) in the limestone to capture enough rainwater to last through the dry season was just fascinating. The fact that, the region’s reputation for inexhaustible lushness notwithstanding, the soil the Maya relied upon was very thin and in most cases totally degraded after just a few years of agriculture as well. (Speaking of, the theorizing about how diet changed over the ages and how this related to population movements and density was just fascinating).

The book really wasn’t that interested in the specifics of mythology or divine pantheons beyond how they showed up on engravings and ornamentation – there’s no bestiary of gods or anything – but there’s enough of that ornamentation for it to be a recurring topic anyway. I admit I still find the fact that there’s this great primordial pre-classic god-monster which in the modern era is just called ‘Principle Bird Deity’ deeply amusing.

The book is deeply interested in the Maya calendar and time-keeping. Along with the monumental architecture it’s pretty clearly the thing that the authors find most impressive and awe-inspiring about Classical Mayan culture. There’s enough time dedicated to explaining it that I even pretty much understood how the different counts and levels of timekeeping interacted by the end of the book.

One beat the book kept coming back to (which I admit suits my biases quite well) is that there’s just no sense in the Maya were ever isolated or pristine. Cultural influence coming down from the Valley of Mexico waxed and waned, but on some level it was constant – Mesoamerica was a coherent cultural unit, and the similarities in philosophy and culture (not to mention material goods) between cultures within it are too blatant to ignore. The book theorizes that the population levels reached in the Yucatan before the Spanish Conquest really couldn’t have been supported by local maize agriculture, and instead cities were probably sustained by harvesting and exporting from the salt flats (among the best in the Americas) they controlled access to.

Even beyond trade, there’s several points where ruling dynasties were toppled or installed by armies ranging down from Mexico. The Olmecs and Toltecs make repeated appearances. Even the conquistadors conquest of the Highlands was really only possible because the few hundred Spaniards who got all the credit were marching alongside several thousand indigenous allies.

Speaking of – it’s really only an aside to an epilogue, but given I mostly know the Anglo-American history here, it did kind of strike me how...traditionally imperialist the Spanish were, compared to the more-or-less explicitly genocidal rhetoric I’m used to. If you were an indigenous potentate or ruler enthusiastically selling out to the Spanish Crown was significantly more likely to actually work out for you than trusting a treaty with the US of A, anyway (well, for a while. Smallpox comes for everyone),

Then again, the book does mention that the newly independent Mexican and Central American states in the 19th century were actually significantly worse for the Maya than the Bourbons had been (with things reaching their nadir with the genocidal violence of the 1980s in Guatemala), so maybe that’s it.

Anyway, the book is illustrated, and absolutely chock full of truly beautiful photography and prints on just about every other page. Even if you never actually read it, it would be a great coffee table book.

[thatbanditqueen]

Basic Training

I Don't Date Soldiers

A new fic, possibly a new WIP, about Elvis' life at Fort Hood. Let me know what you think.

Summary: Bess is a smart, young secretary working for the Commander of Army Intelligence training at Fort Hood, dreaming of a life beyond the military one she has always known. That's why she doesn't date soldiers, they only break your heart, and she is looking ahead to something better. One Friday night in March, she stumbles in to the new draftee who's turned the base upside down, and in a moment of weakness, decides to try and help him sleep. Just this once.

Warnings: None, fluffy and angst combined, but innocent. For now. There are a lot of typos.

Word Count: 4.8 K

Some notes: Probably good to know the acronyms, every Army base has a chain of command, and at the top sit the Commanding Officer (CO), the Executive Officer (XO), and a bunch of other officers, of different rank denoted by their ascending O rank, from 1 to 10. WAC - Women's Army Corps, established in WWII, their was a sizeable WAC presence at Fort Hood in 1958. Oh, and Killeen is the closest city to Fort Hood and Austin, TX is about an hour away. Also I really wanted this to take place on a Friday night, but also have had Elvis at the base for two nights, so I gave myself creative license to make March 30, 1958 a Friday. Just don't look it up and we'll be fine.

This fic was inspired by the writing prompt:

Many thanks to my beautiful sister-wives-in-arms whose advice support and love make being an Elvis girl possible and fun, @be-my-ally @vintageshanny @from-memphis-with-love @ellie-24 @powerofelvis @missmaywemeetagain and @whositmcwhatsit, from whom I have stolen her trademarked description of Elvis' awkward manner of kissing half on the cheek half on the lips like a goofy weirdo who was never taught how to kiss right so he decided to make up his own style. And thanks for reading and connecting with me here, the Elvis fandom is the best and I love our community!

Friday, March 30, 1958

9 p.m. at Sal's Cafe

Bess pushed her veal marsala from one side of her plate to the other, feeling the vibrations of her fork scrape across the bottom of the plate. The place checked off all the requisite Italian restaurant requirements: checkered table cloth, candle in an old wine bottle, violin player sawing away at a classical reinterpretation of “That’s Amore.” But the brown sauce, and the meat it was congealing around, was inedible. It was the sort of food that begged the question “why not stay in and cook at home?”

“I said, don’t you think, Bess honey? You follow that stuff, dontcha?”

Bess looked up at her friend Dori’s face, realizing she had drifted off daydreaming of a future far away from Killeen, away from her job at Fort Hood, away from the Army, away from officers, like the ones sitting across from them. Away from soldiers in general.

“What, Khrushchev? Well, I think we all knew he wasn’t going to take the threat laying down.”

Dori hit Bess' shoulder lightly, smiling at their dates, two officers from Army Intelligence.

“No, y’all will havta excuse my friend here, she still thinks she’s studying political science in Austin. You’d think a year of civilian life would make her normal again, huh?”

Dori flipped her blonde hair and drawled on.

“No, silly goose, no one here is interested in that Russian stuff, we’re talking about Mike Todd. What do you think poor Elizabeth Taylor is going to do now that her husband's dead?”

Bess tried very hard not to roll her eyes. Dori was right, she read the movie gossip magazines, but her friend’s distraught, serious expression had made her think they were discussing something with a little more gravitas. The recent atomic weapons testing, or Russian political shifts, the stuff at the top of her New York Times front page everyday. But why would any one in the Army want to talk about that?

Bess smiled at her date and tried to focus on the conversation at hand. Later in the bathroom, Dori chided her while applying a fresh coat of lipstick onto Bess’ mouth.

“I wish you would try to be polite.”

“Dori, you know I am breaking my rule here with you. I don’t date soldiers. I have two goals I'm focusing on: get into law school and shake off these twenty pounds. ”

Bess rubbed her hands over her waist.

“Rules were made to be broken, Bessie Pie, and you look great, men like a girl with a jiggle, I think you look like a brunette Jayne Mansfield.”

“Hardly. You’re Mansfield and Monroe rolled into one.”

“Don't sell yourself short. I know you were fixin' to marry that boy last year, and now all you talk about is law school this, politics that. Don’t you wanna get married? We're not getting any younger.”

“I’m twenty three. Same as you.”

“Eggg zactly. Sure, it seems young now, but you're gonna blink and be thirty and single, with nothing but your degrees to keep you company. You already have a good job now. I just know you’d set this law school thing aside if you met the right guy.”

“Of course I wanna get married, someday. But not now. You’re the one in a hurry to quit your job and settle down, not me.”

“I don’t have a job.”

“See, you’re half way there, Doreen. Me, I’m not giving up my goals for Captain Smarmy out there. How did you even meet these ones?”

Dori steadied her self on Bess’ shoulder.

“Stop moving, or this lipstick won’t be straight. I met them outside the PX, I thought they were cute. Arnie knew who you were, he was the one who suggested we all go out. He really likes you, I can tell - “

“Yeah, he was just in my pop's office lobbying for an assignment, he doesn’t like me. He is using me.  There’s a difference, I shouldn’t have to tell you that.”

“So what if he was? Maybe he saw you there and couldn’t get you out of his mind. He’s good looking, smart, he’s already an O3 —”

Bess stopped her friend’s hand, and fixed her hair in the mirror, pushing up her bust and sighing at the rounder curves that had been widening at her waist since she’d graduated from college and settled into a very sedentary, very single, and currently very celibate life living back at home and working for her father. She turned to look at Dori who was waiting to blot Bess' lips with a tissue like the sweet girl she always had been. For Dori, a fresh coat of perfectly applied lipstick fixed all of life’s problems.

“Look, Captain whatever out there is only here for six months or so for training, then he's off to Heidelberg. That’s why I don’t date soldiers anymore. I’ve learned from my mistakes. I’m waiting for you to catch up.”

Bess gave her dark curls one last fluff.

“How’d you get these suckers to come out on a double date anyway? They aren’t scared of your father?”

Dori avoided eye contact as she smoothed her blonde bouffant and pursed her lips, then looked at Bess in the mirror.

“They don’t know.”

“How do they not know your father is the CO?”

Dori shrugged, then pinched Bess as they walked out of the ladies’ room.

“Don’t tell, ok? Let’s just have fun. What if you fall madly in Arnie? And he asked you to marry him and go to Germany with him?”

Bess snorted as they walked out to the men waiting for them in the restaurant lobby and Dori's eyes took on a knowing look.

“Hmm, so that’s big fat ol ‘no’ to dancing tonight, I’m guessin’?”

Bess nodded.

“Please at least tell me you aren’t going home to work on that boring research project?”

Bess smiled mischievously. “Professor Blotke agreed to help me, it’s going to be my submission sample for Georgetown. Papa took Mama to D.C. with him for his meetings, so I have the house practically to myself. It's just Kay and me, and she’s probably already asleep. I just have to grab a new typewriter back on post, I busted mine.”

Dori shook her disapproving of Bess’ plans for the night, then turned to greet their escorts with her usual vivacious pleasantries. Bess smiled at Dori's ability to interact with the men so casually and intimately, sliding her hands through both of officer's arms as they walked to the car. She considered how different she was from her girlfriend, despite the fact that they were both twenty three year old daughters of career Army officers. Every relationship she'd been in seemed to occur in spite of her inability to feel at ease or flirt with boys.

The conversation turned to recent events at Fort Hood as they walked.

“So,” Dori exhaled, squeezing herself against her date. “Has anyone seen Elvis yet?”

Bess pounded her foot a little harder into the concrete, hearing that name now provoked instant irritation.

“Ughh, no. It’s only been what, three days, and honestly I wish he’d been sent somewhere else for training. All I do is answer calls about him. It is driving me up the wall and I can’t get anything done. He’s turned the whole base upside down. Must have been a hundred cars parked outside the main gate, all scattered around the fields. It’s a security issue. I just —"

“Well, that’s not his fault Bess, and I think it's great. I wanna to meet him, don’t y’all?” Dori looked at the officers on her arms.

Arnie smiled a big dumb smile as he looked at Dori’s bouncing breasts and agreed. “I think it’s good for the Army, boy, I just - I just wish we could get the other enlisted to lay off him.”

“What do you mean?”

Bess felt the pit of her stomach tense as she thought of the thousands of green little boys running around base on edge with no external distractions for entertainment.

“Yeah, the boys’ have been giving him a hard time, shouting out when he runs during PT, or at the chow hall. There’s some concern he hasn’t been coming to eat all his meals cuz a the way they’ve been taunting him.”

Bess sighed, her irritation dissipating momentarily into sympathy as she considered how hungry and lonely Elvis Presley must be. Then she remembered that she was hungry, hungry because all the good restaurants had been filled up tonight by people trying to catch a glimpse of him. Elvis was the reason the only benefit from breaking her vow against dating a soldier, the free meal, had been a bust. She wondered if it was going to be this crazy around town for the next six months while he was here.

“I feel sorry for the poor kid, I do. But I still wish he was some other base’s problem.”

***********************************************************

Back on post, Arnie asked Bess for the fourth time if she wouldn’t like him to come help her carry the typewriter to her car. Then they could meet the others at the night club.

Beth pursed her lips with a demure smile.  “I think I can handle a typewriter, Captain, I use them all day.”

Dori chimed in with a reminder that it was Friday night and they were only young once, but Bess put them off, grinning as she heard Dori exclaim that both men would just have to dance with her all night.

“Two gorgeous officers all to myself,  what eva shall I do?”

Free at last, Bess drove her car to the supply building, and snuck in the back door carrying the type writer that she had been using at home, the big sticker along the bottom reading “Property of U.S. Army” evident as she held the machine under her arm to unlock the door. Bess slipped off her heels at the door so that they didn’t click down the dark hallways, and she easily scurried in to slip the broken machine into the repair center and help herself to a new model, grabbing a few spools of typewriter ribbon and a package of paper on the way out. Balancing everything as she locked up to leave,  Bess smiled at the cool air on her sweaty arm pits and laughed to herself for pulling this stealth operation in a tight green cocktail dress and pumps.

“A better use of this outfit anyway, I’d say.” She muttered to herself, sheathing her right foot back into her white heel with a sense of pride that she’d managed to get in, get the new machine, and would probably be home before 11 p.m. Bess had propped her self up against the building to slip her left foot into the other shoe when she heard a voice behind her call out.

“Uh, hey, need any help there?”

Startled, she almost toppled over, catching herself at the last moment by dropping everything in her hands.

“OWW fuck fuck fuck a duck!

She screamed in pain as the typewriter clanged down on her bare left foot and she almost knocked heads with the tall, gangly soldier who squatted down on front of her at the same time to try and help her retrieve her supplies.

"Oh man, I sure am sorry, listen -"

“At ease, uh Private,” she glanced briefly at the rank on his uniform while straightening up, holding her foot in pain and taking in the view below her. The paper knob at the top of the new machine had broken off completely.

“Fuck, this is what I get, I suppose,” she laughed, looking up find herself across from the shy, inquisitive face of Elvis Presley.

“Oh fuck a duuuuuck.”

Bess forgot about the typewriter, the paper spilled everywhere, the throbbing pain in the left foot she was now holding up and cradling. She didn’t even notice how she was exposing her thighs until she rubbed her foot again and dropped it with a thud, realizing she was about to flash Elvis Presley. He seemed to realize it too, and smirked as he turned his face to look away as some sort of attempt to give her privacy while she smoothed her dress down. Bess did this while clumsily trying to balance between one heeled foot and one bare foot.

Elvis found it very hard to stifle his chuckles as he watched her stiffen, and held out his hand to put her at ease.

“Uh, hey there ma’am, I’m Elvis, Elvis Presley.”

Bess shifted and smiled awkwardly, wiping her dirty, sweaty hands on her silk dress and extending her right hand out to shake his. The the same right hand, that had, moments ago, been rubbing her smelly, left foot. Honestly, it seemed like the most polite option, since she decided to act as if the last five minutes hadn’t happened. As if  sneaking out of the supply building past 10 p.m. on a Friday night with her arms full of government office supplies was perfectly normal.

“Bess Schwartz, I’m, uh, I work in the Front Office here. I’m, I’m, I'm the secretary for the Army Intelligence Commander.”

She gasped when Elvis took her hand, the hand cover in her foot sweat, and squeezed it warmly, bringing it to his lips for a chaste kiss.

“Nice ta, uh, meetcha. Imma sorry, uh, for startlin’ ya Miss Schwartz, ma’am.”

Bess shivered in the darkness as she heard herself whisper for him to call her Bess almost incoherently while she watched Elvis drop down in front of her and fit her other white pump over her left foot. She tried to remember how to breath. It was hard.  Hard because she was struggling to subdue  her visceral reaction to Elvis' thumb as it slowly smoothed over the top of her foot, which made it harder still to recover from the embarrassment of getting caught stealing a typewriter. By the most famous person in the world. Bess shut her eyes in disbelief that this was actually happening, and was disappointed when she lifted her eyelids to find that it actually was happening and Elvis was still there. He met her eyes, his finger delicately stroking her ankle.

“There, now, honey, you think you can walk?”

She pulled her leg back and nodded as she scanned the parking lot, the road along and other buildings behind it.

“Mhmm. Thank you, Private. Say, what are you doing stalking around the base right now? Lights out is at 9.”

Elvis bit his lip, looking at the ground as he stood.

“Can’t sleep.”

Bess arched her eyebrow as she started to bend, but Elvis put his hand up to stop her and stooped to gather the paper. He crushed it under his arm as he grabbed the typewriter and ink ribbons, talking slowly and deliberately.

“Well, my first night some jokers went an put shaving cream in my shoes, I ‘spose it gave em a good laugh to watch me run around like a damn fool getting ready for inspection. An well, I ain’t been able to sleep since, can’t bare to, uh, to uh - ”

His voice trailed off, but Bess knew what he meant. He was afraid of looking like poor sport or tattle tale if he complained, and a coward if he just took it. Her eyes narrowed as she noticed the bags under his eyes, calculating he must be going on 40 hours without much sleep. Or much food either, if her date was to be believed. Men. Boys, more like. Little boys amusing them selves by torturing this poor kid. This, tall, lanky, kid, who hovered above her and whose large hands made her typewriter ribbon look like a checker piece.

“Yeah, uh, they’re just scared they won’t be able to get any tail now that your here.” She smiled as best she could under the pressure of trying to talk with Elvis smoldering, lonely boy eyes piercing through her.

Bess looked at a passing car just so she could collect herself, then back at Elvis, thinking of the crowds of women lining the gates.

“The men should be thanking you, we haven’t seen this many pretty girls hanging around the base, since, well, since ever. Probably gonna be easy picking, especially for the soldiers who can leave post. Those poor girls hanging 'round outside the gates don’t know you aren’t allowed to go near ‘em for the next three or so weeks.”

“Mhmm, seems like, uh, uh, ya don’t havta go off post to meet pretty girls.”

Elvis bit his lip again, enjoying how Bess became flustered and embarrassed, smoothing the sides of her dress. She reminded herself that she hated him, as she felt the butterflies swarm through her belly and make themselves at home, flitting willy nilly up her spine. Bess also became keenly aware of how hungry she was from skipping dinner. She didn’t have time for his teasing and looked Elvis squarely in the eyes as she spoke.

“I recommend staying away from them, too. Especially the WACs. You’re definitely not supposed to fraternize with other soldiers.”

Elvis looked off at the trees that lined the road to the right. “How bought civilians? Is, um, ah, frater-a-nizin', uh, allowed?”

Bess turned, ignoring the question, though she was unable to ignore the warm, playful flirtation in Elvis’ voice as it washed over her and her chest heaved up and down at a quicker pace. Once again she told herself that she did, indeed, know how to breath. Her annoyance at his line melted away when she returned to his eyes and saw the exhaustion underneath his bravado, instantly regretting what she was about to do before she even did it. Somehow she couldn’t help herself, it was as if she was having an out-of-body experience, watching herself fumble through a simple sentence.

“Listen, I, um, I just had the worst date of my life, at the worst restaurant. Couldn’t eat a bite. You help me get another type writer, and I’ll, I’ll fix us something to eat. Then you can sleep on my couch for a few hours.”

Watching  his eyes light up, Bess felt the need to add. “But no funny business. I’m just helping out a new recruit, doesn’t mean anything.”

For the second time that night, Bess oversaw sneaking a broken typewriter into the repair shop and taking a new one, hobbling as she led Elvis to her car and directed him to put the stuff in her truck.

“Ya live on post?”

Bess patted the passenger seat of her blue Ford.

“Nope.”

“You know I ain’t supposed to leave?”

“Yup.”

“So — what’s the plan, stan?”

Bess turned to Elvis, removing his hand from her knee where it had somehow landed, and whispered with breathy excitement.

“I’m going to sneak you off.”

Elvis quirked his eyebrows as she kept talking.

“I, um, well, I share an office with the CO's secretary, Mabel. Who might actually be the most powerful person at this command. So, as long as I get you back in time for reveille, we’ll be fine. None of these guys will mess with me.” 

“I, uh, I don’ wan no special privileges, I wanna, uh, be treated like any other man, any other soldier. I reckon I better -”

Elvis trembled when Bess touched his shoulder and rubbed it gently, looking up into his face with her big brown eyes, now tender and reassuring. He looked to her like he might cry as he spoke of not being special.

“Look, I would do this for any new recruit. Boot camp, uh. Well. This is the hardest  part of being in the Army. I promise. I’m not offering because you’re famous. I actually kind of hate you, do you know how much trouble you cause my office? So, you should know I’m helping you in spite of who you are. Promise. I would - I would do it for any soldier in your predicament.”

Bess said this firmly to convince herself as much as to convince Elvis. Then she added a friendly wink and drove off, enjoying Elvis’ bemused smile and telling herself not to worry. Underneath her calm, confidence was the nagging thought that, unlike Elvis, Bess knew exactly what happened if some rule-minded officer were to find out that she had snuck Elvis off post. She had a good understanding of rule-minded officers. Like her father. Who, thankfully, was out of town.

******************************

The bacon and eggs sizzled on the stove and Bess flipped them, shyly avoiding Elvis’ gaze from where he was leaning with his back arched against the door jab, his right hip twisted up and his thumbs hanging from his belt loops as he watching her cook.

“So, uh, what’s a secretary doing taking typewriters uh, um, out late on a Friday night an a bringin' ‘em home for, huh?”

Bess shook her head into the frying pan, then met his gaze.

“I , um, I happen to have some very important work I need to do from home. For the General I work for. That’s, uh, why I have a master key.”

“Uh huh.” Elvis’ smirked, nodding his chin as he stuck his hands slowly under his armpits, and lifted one knee up to lean back further against the wall.

“Hand me your plate, dinner is ready.”

Elvis bounced off the doorway and strode slowly over to where Bess stood at the stove, his long arms dangling loosely at his side. He had become more relaxed and confident once they got to her house, after tearing up a bit in the car and telling her how much he missed his parents and home and how he didn’t have any idea what Germany would be like. He had then muttered on about how millions of guys have been through this, so he knew he’d be alright, though the tear dripping down his cheek made Bess think he believed the exact opposite. Now he was behind her, almost a different person, cocky and teasing as his strong arms snaked around her waist to steady her hands.

“Nah, see how the egg is still all jiggly wiggly, Bessie? S’not done, not nearly. Wanna get the bacon good and browned up, so’s there ain’t no more pink left.”

She flushed at the way his breath hit her neck while his words softly compelled her to make his food the way he liked it. The rumble of his voice as her nickname rolled off his tongue was an assault on her sense of decency, and she let his hands linger at her waist for another beat before lifting them off and assuring him that she understood.No jiggly wiggly, no pink. Black. That she learned, was how Elvis liked everything, and everything was what she gave him, as he ate the pound and a half of bacon om her fridge and her last six eggs.

Bess mused that sneaking a fatigued Elvis off post and filling him full of food must be what made him clingy, comfortable and forward when he put his arms around her as she led him upstairs to the guest room. Rubbing his eyes as he plopped on the bed, Elvis grabbed her wrist imploringly and begged her not to leave him all lonesome in a strange house, in a strange town, where she was the only nice 'lil gal to treat him like a real human bean. Sighing, Bess sat at the top of the bed and let Elvis lay his head in her lap, where she stroked his forehead, and, at his request, started to tell him her life story. He had passed out after five minutes, when she had barely finished detailing how her parents met at Coney Island in 1932, three years before she was born.

Elvis' eye lids fluttered closed and he mumbled, “That’s a when I was borned. Aww, Bessie boo, we musta been babies at the same time.”

Bess groaned as she couldn’t seem to pull herself away from him, and stayed there with his head in her lap for another twenty minutes, afraid if she rolled it off her lap she would wake him. She was cupping the back of his head to gently move it off her lap when he thrashed around and called out the name Satnin. This led Bess to give up and lean against the head board, reconciling herself to a night sleeping sitting up with the most famous rebellious heart throb soldier in the world calling out for his mama in her lap.

Elvis’ hands moved first at the sound of the alarm, roving over Bess tummy and breasts  before he opened his eyes to the smacks of her hand hitting him off her. Somehow she had been pulled down into his arms over the course of the night, and she jumped up, commanding him to get his boots on while she ran down stairs and made some coffee. She prayed her younger sister hadn’t heard the alarm. Still wearing the dress from the night before, Bess watched Elvis gulp down his black coffee and chomp down the bread and cheese she had thrown at him to eat in the car. Loudly. With an open mouth. Wiping the crumbs from his mouth, he put his arm around her and squeezed.

Despite sleeping in his arms, Bess felt a shock and jolted at his touch.

“Just so we’re clear,  Mister, uh, Private um Presley, uh, this was just a friendly, patriotic gesture. I wasn’t, uh um, trying to seduce you.”

Elvis arched his eyebrow, his expression one of amusement and incredulity at the idea Bess thought of her behavior seductive. The way she had hesitated spitting out the word ’seduce’ so earnestly was adorable and endearing.

“OK, honey, you’re the boss, jus do me a favor and call me Elvis, huh?”

She nodded, eyes forward in concentration as she felt him squeeze her shoulders even tighter. She left it there, and found herself relaxing and leaning back into him after a few minutes with a sigh. She couldn't help it, it was an instinctive response to the way his fingers widened and began to tap out a rhythm on the side of her arm. Everything felt good, and their two bodies melded together in the dusky morning twilight for a spell until a gate came into view and Bess jerked up to throw Elvis’ arm onto the car seat with a smack, not noticing how he, too, stiffened with trepidation.

She stopped around the block from Elvis’ barracks and met his strong, uninhibited bear hug with her body, letting him press the air out of her lungs and kiss her cheek.

“Hey, Bessie Boo, I,uh, I can’t, I don’t even, I uh, I hate to leave you, honey, I ain’t even had time to tell you what I want to say, what -”

Bess put her finger to his lips, feeling his breath as she shhhed him. His brows were furrowed and he frowned, not wanted to leave her car and return to the barracks. She rubbed her hand up his chest reassuringly.

“You only have five minutes to get into your bunk, Private Pres - Elvis.” She murmured. “Now, go be a good boy, I have an idea, for how to help you sleep in the future.”

“Hmmm, sounds fun.” A naughty expression played across his face, his jaw hung open and he waggled his eye brows.

Bess realized the insinuation and hit his arm.

“Not that.”  She cocked her head towards the road. “You better go.”

“Huh, usually girls are tryin to run after me, not run me off.” She hit him again as he teased her. “Ok, ok baaaby. I’m off like a gun.”

Elvis face twisted into a crooked grin, and Bess felt like the sun was rising in her car, the earth was suddenly brighter when Elvis’ blue eyes beamed down at her and he kissed her goodbye. It was a light, sweet kiss aimed at her mouth but somehow missing and hitting the crease of her lips.

It had been, what, a year since she had been kissed? Bess kept her eyes closed, just enjoying the soft, tingling sensation of  his mouth crushed into her face. Elvis’ hands gripped her tightly, one hand on her neck, the other at her back, and he moved as if to kiss her again. In a brief moment of clarity, Bess realized she had been fighting her attraction to Elvis all night. It had been gradual and immediate, and she felt very different being close to him then she did when she saw hm in the movies or on the TV and radio. At the back of her mind she could hear all the reasons she shouldn’t kiss him. She pushed her hand up between their lips.

“Um, hey, look. Think we could just be friends? I, uh, I have a rule. I don’t date soldiers.”

Elvis sat back, a quizzical expression softening on his face into a smile as he rubbed her shoulder.

“Sure, Bessie baby, friends. Got it.”

He clicked his tongue and grinned, shooting her a thumbs up. Bess nodded, unable to stop the flutter of her heart as she watched Elvis’ long legs carry him forward as he jogged around the corner to his bunk, pausing to look back over his shoulder at her with a goofy smile as he waved goodbye.

“Fuck a duck.” She heard herself mutter, as she put her car into gear and drove home to shower and get Elvis Presley out of her head.

***********************************************************

Chapter Two: Moo Moo & Tupelo

If you enjoyed this and want to read more, comment, reblog, and let me know what you think and if you would want to be tagged. Tagging a few of you on here who read my stuff, but DM or comment if you would rather not be ;)

@doll-elvis @richardslady121 @waiting4brucewayne2adoptme @father-of-2cats @everythingelvispresley @j-v-9-2 @eliseinmemphis @moonchild-daniella @notstefaniepresley @louisejoy86 @amydarcimarie @kingdomforapony @dkayfixates @artlover8992 @18lkpeters @literally-just-elvis-fics

[leupagus]

Three-Legged Puppy Fics

List five of your least-popular fics, as well as when/why you wrote them.

Home to the Weary: Merlin, Gwen/Morgana, 2010.

I wrote this at the request of a friend who wanted, I think, something Gwen-centric. Because I was not a fan of the show I decided to focus on an AU in which Gwen backflipped out of that whole situation and founded her own sort of kingdom, only meeting the terrible trio years later. It was really fun and was the first time I'd ever tried writing a fic that hinted at a larger world going on around the characters, if that makes sense. This one's a little pretentious but you can definitely see my "style" as it were.

Treads on the Ground: Babylon (not the sci-fi show, the short-lived british cop show), Liz Garvey/Finn Kirkwood, 2022.

This was written during my Bertie Carvel phase where I'd watched "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell" and was desperate for something, anything, that didn't have him wearing terrible prosthetics or playing a psycho. He still sort of plays a psycho in this show, but he looks super hot and angry all the time which is really all I needed. (Also bonus hilarity: Liz's boyfriend in this show is played by none other than James Lance, playing "louche asshole" to the absolute hilt.) Anyway I wrote this because I really wanted a fake dating AU for these two AND a "Finn is secretly in line to the throne" fic and this was the perfect way to combine these two. I'm still legitimately really proud of thsi fic.

The Bright Relief: 1776 musical, John Adams & Thomas Jefferson (and a little bit of / in there, if I'm honest), 2010.

I wrote this because my friends waldorph and screamlet and I were having the Summer of 1776 Feelings and we all wrote various (wonderful) crimes and misdemeanors in that fandom, mostly revolving all the ways in people who love John Adams make fun of him. That was a truly terrible summer but made a whole lot better by those two, and by William Daniels being the most John Adams to ever John Adams. (I actually rewatched the miniseries a few months ago and Paul Giamatti does a great job but that thing is SO DREARY. Although I will say Stephen Dillane first caught my eye in the role of TJeff, aka once again playing a guy who's down real bad for someone smarter than him (in this case both Abigail AND John). The scene where he first meets Abigail is just nonstop flirting, with John making faces in the background. It's great.)

Happy Tails To You (Until We Meet Again): SGA, Rodney McKay/John Sheppard, 2009.

Oh lordy — probably the worst fic I've ever written, but I can't quite bring myself to delete it. I've been on the periphery of fandom for most of my adult life (what up X-Files yahoo groups and Prodigy Star Trek RP rooms), but SGA was what made me start thinking of writing fic after a long period of only reading it. (Yes, there is college-era gus fic out there. No, I'm not posting it on AO3.) I never quite got a handle on Sheppard or McKay but I did enjoy writing this and the other SGA fic I wrote, but yeah this deserves its obscurity.

Honey Now I'm Not One To Complain: Dalgliesh, Adam Dalgliesh/Kate Miskin, 2022.

Another one of my "Bertie Carvel is extremely attractive when he's sad and/or a cop" flash-fandoms, although I wrote a pretty good primer on the first season that I think gives a good case for the show as a whole. I wanted to write that largely because the show is so resolutely grim and I prefer stories that are... not grim, so I gave myself the challenge of putting these guys into one of the classic tropes. I did toy with the fake dating/marriage trope but honestly I think this was funnier, and I would always rather commit to the bit.

Tagging uhhh let's see, @laiqualaurelote, @themardia, @sadcypress, @auntieclimactic, and @eyebrowofdoom, if they (or anyone else) wants to do this.

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

Have you looked at the dragons from the Wings of Fire book series? I think the wing designs mostly get rid of the issue of lacking wing membrane along with generally just having some unique takes on different types of dragons. They even go as far as adding some bug dragons in the third series which is pretty neat.

Granted they all still have that 4 leg western dragon style design to all of them but all things considered they have some unique designs overall, especially for a kids book series. It definitely has had its influence on artists I think given that people try to draw up hybrids and their own tribe designs. My only complaint is that when people draw hybrids it's just smashing two of them together instead of really thinking about the different body parts they have.

yes, I've had a few previous asks about specific dragon types in Wings of Fire. I have never read the series. from what I can gather, it is a perfectly fine series and the designs seem to be stylized with a younger audience in mind, using visual tropes that make the different dragon types' narrative roles very clear.

I do think the designs are oddly inconsistent about the wings, because some of the dragon groups do have a patagium but others don't, and there is also an inconsistent addition of the elbow strut, which is a pet peeve of mine.

overall, the designs are fine. they do what they're made for and they're visually appealing and very well suited to the type of fandom that wants to make a lot of uniquely colored ocs with interesting features. I'm sure if I went on deviantart to look for Wings of Fire art, I would find a thriving community of young artists making dozens of dragon ocs with all sorts of color combinations and hybrid features.

I don't think there's a problem with letting people make their hybrids in ways that are a bit shallow and not well thought out. most of those artists are likely young teens who have just found their artistic passion! and mashing designs together is a classic fandom oc tradition, it happens all the time. sonic ocs? pokemon hybrids? sparkledogs? if the original Wings of Fire creators were being sloppy and thoughtless with hybrid designs I might have some critique there because they're professional artists working with a detailed world that has its own rules and they ought to be able to do something more interesting and thoughtful with their own hybrid designs. but for the fans? I'm not gonna step on the creative energy there, people can have their fun.

[millenari]

I promise I will shut up about the Broadway Revival sometime soon but thinking about it again, I do think that if it were just bad, I wouldn’t pay any attention to it at all.

Like… I don’t really clown much on the West End Revival. I mean, yes, the three big changes in that production I know off the top of my head are A) Rap!Tugger, which most everyone hated, B) Growltiger costumes, which most everyone didn’t care about, and C) Sexy!Griz, which most everyone either hated intimately or didn’t care about. But even so, nobody really dissects the West End Revival the way we do the Bway Revival. And part of that may have to do with less accessible boots, but I’ve seen (probably) most of the West End Revival footage that exists and yet it’s the Bway Revival that gets my goat.

And, yes, the Gillian Lynne snub element of the Bway choreo definitely plays a big part in that.

But also… the Bway Revival is sometimes really good? The West End Revival just... *is*. It’s a 98 clone with slightly different (and generally disliked) costumes. If it weren’t for the sort-of-racist and unbearably cringe Rap!Tugger, I don’t think this production would get much attention within the fandom at all (despite doing really well financially), because that’s all it really is: a perfectly serviceable 98 clone.

(And that’s not a bad thing. I like 98. I like the West End Revival. It’s a good production with skilled performers, chunks of it are on yt check it out.)

But the Bway Revival changes don't universally suck. There are elements (lots of elements!) of the Bway Revival I adore and I genuinely think are better than the original. Everything to do with Macavity, imo, is just brilliant. The old Macavity fight choreo had this kind of cool abstract tribal vibe to it, but the new choreo looks violent. It also looks more catlike; Munk and Mac crouch low to the ground like hunched-up cats, they circle each other, and the hits actually look like they connect at the right angles. The goofier parts (the mutual ass-slap, the playing tug-of-war with Demeter, the piggyback ride) are removed so it feels more serious: Munk actually looks nervous or frightened sometimes despite not backing down, and it looks like the background cats might be being controlled (which explains why few cats try and help Munk during the fight until the end). Not even to touch upon the lighting and music.

Revival!Macavity’s style of movement is super unique and recognizable too, Daniel Gaymon’s Macavity is amazing, I love how the way he moves sometimes makes him look possessed by something (also his Plato was adorable, He Has The Range Darling). His costume is cool on its own, (I don't love the old Macavity design, which simultaneously makes him look more like a tiger and also a little boy wearing pajamas rather than a housecat) but I love how the little mane-like collar and wig curls makes him look like Tugger & I love the parallels between the two that this production emphasizes. Tugger, the tribe’s most popular cat & pride and joy, versus Macavity, the outcast. Tugger, who everyone wants, versus Macavity, who can’t seem to acquire the one cat he wants.

Plus Macavity’s mind control? In the classic Mac freezes the cats; in the Bway Revival he forces them to dance. In the show where dancing together is a symbol of togetherness and community.  In the show where characters frequently imitate each other to indicate closeness or admiration. In the show where you spend like 5 minutes watching Grizabella the Outcast Cat fail to dance along with the others, Macavity forces the others to dance with him. NO NOTES WHATSOEVER.

And the extra lore and worldbuilding they add to the magic element? I don’t love the Macavity Interlude, but “He hypnotizes with his eyes/His head moves like a snake” in combination with the fact that it seems like Macavity needs eye contact to control other cats? Plus how Tugger, Munk, and Deuteronomy all seem to be immune to his powers to a degree?

This element isn’t really in the boot on yt but in later performances there’s a bit at the end of the fight where Macavity, (on the top of the car) visibly tries to use his powers on the gathered cats, and when he fails he looks down at his hands and then scrambles to grab the jumper cables. The idea that he has some kind of ‘magic meter’ that he is capable of using up somehow? Potentially explaining why he went the subtle route and tries to impersonate Deut rather than go in guns blazing for Demeter?

THE WAY DEMETER REACHES FOR HIM WHEN HE FIRST GRABS HER? The way she looks like she’s flailing and trying to get away from him the second time, after the fight? Tantomile jumping between Demeter and Mac the second he lets go of her?

AND DON’T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THE MISTO/MAC PARALLELS I’VE BEEN WORKING ON A GIFSET FOR THAT

It’s so good. Those changes make me go insane. Because they’re deliberate, and pointed, and they add things to the story, build upon the story, and add more depth to the story. They’re also just cool and fun to look at and play around with. That’s the thing that gets me about the Bway Revival, because they were capable of making insightful and meaningful changes that genuinely elevated the source material in really cool ways.

[randomvarious]

1990s German Trance Playlist (YouTube)

Chicago had house, Detroit had techno, and with both of those world-changing dance genres managing to resonate so profoundly throughout much of Europe, you just knew that that continent was gonna then take all that inspiration from those two styles and eventually create something of their own that could stick too. And the big genre that they came up with was trance, which in its earliest days, was heavily nurtured like no other in the city of Frankfurt, Germany.

Now, although he's not strictly known as a trance musician or DJ, it's safe to say that trance music would not exist in its current form if it weren't for the legendary Sven Väth. Sven, a native of Frankfurt, co-founded Harthouse Records in the early 90s with some other folks, and that label would then prove integral to both the rise and spread of trance and hard trance. Sven was someone who had spent many a vacation in the party capital of the world, Ibiza, Spain, and he had also been to the tiny, coastal Indian state of Goa as well, where the beach parties there had DJs spinning all sorts of psychedelic tunes in order to induce their revelers into a state of trance 😵.

And Harthouse's first release was a trance record by Sven himself, along with his trusty sidekick Ralf Hildenbeutel, who seemed to have more of the technological knowhow in order to make Sven's ideas into a reality. Together, under the name of Barbarella, they released "My Name Is Barbarella," a 1992 song that sampled a line of dialogue from the French-directed Jane Fonda sci-fi flick that they had taken their own name from, and also sounded deeply inspired by Ibiza as well. As an undisputed early trance classic, the 9-plus minute version of this one is currently sitting at over 163,000 plays across a bunch of different uploads on YouTube, and it's the song that kicks off this little ten-song playlist here.

And right after "My Name Is Barbarella" then came another Harthouse classic: "Spectrum," by Metal Master, which was a duo that Sven Väth was also a part of, along with one of Harthouse's other co-founders, Matthias Hoffmann. The record that this song comes from, Vol. 1, is the one that started to establish Harthouse's harder edge towards trance, as its first Barbarella release was actually a much softer affair. True to the name that they'd given themselves, Sven and Matthias seem to have incorporated some metal guitar into this one, in the form of long, atmospheric, and distorted chords, which when combined with string synths, really manage to cinch the whole song together, making for quite an astounding piece of dance music 🤩. Currently nearing 112,000 plays with its multiple uploads on YouTube.

But while those two tracks are wholly important in the history of trance music, I also bring them up here because Sven Väth's other halves from both of those duos happen to have trance tunes of their own that are excellent too. Ralf Hildenbeutel had a song that's really hard to believe was made all the way back in 1993—because it sounds so much more modern!—called "Hypnoticharmony (Part II)," which he released as Progressive Attack. As its title suggests, this one is indeed hypnotic, as well as deep, and more than any tune in this playlist that precedes it, also feels like a blueprint for what trance would soon become. And across multiple YouTube uploads, it currently has under 18,000 plays.

And Matthias Hoffmann's contribution is simply one of the most breathtaking pieces of trance that I've ever heard in my life. Back in 1994, he released a song as Brainchild called "Symmetry (C-Mix)," which was put out on another label that he and Sven Väth had also helped co-found called Eye Q Records, which was closely associated with Harthouse itself. Then in '99, "Symmetry C" was re-released on Multiply Records, a subsidiary of UK label Telstar, and on it came a whole bunch of remixes, including a "Breakbeat Remix" that was done by the UK's Lange. And this is a tune that currently brings the whole playlist full circle too, as it serves as the final song while also taking us back to trance's origin point of Frankfurt. Currently sitting at over 341,000 YouTube plays across many different uploads.

Now, we're almost done here, but I'd be remiss if I didn't, at the very least, make mention of a few more tracks on this thing, all of which come courtesy of Hardfloor, a duo from Cologne, who, although they'd become more known for their techno prowess, applied their mastery of the Roland TB-303 bass synthesizer (the machine that yields electronic music's famed acid squelch) to some trance tracks, including "Trancescript" and "Into the Nature," both of which appear on their acclaimed 1993 debut album, TB Resuscitation. "Trancescript" is currently at under 85,000 plays and "Into the Nature" has over 130,000. And I also included an excellent remix that they did of Chicago native Robert Armani's "Circus Bells" as well, which currently has over 146,000 plays.

This playlist is ordered as chronologically as possible.

Barbarella - "My Name Is Barbarella" Metal Master - "Spectrum" Hardfloor - "Trancescript" Hardfloor - "Into the Nature" Robert Armani - "Circus Bells (Remixed by Hardfloor)" Marco Zaffarano - "For My Love" Progressive Attack - "Hypnoticharmony (Part II)" Paul van Dyk - "Words (PvD's Words for Love Mix)" Pitchrider - "I Know" Brainchild - "Symmetry C (Lange Breakbeat remix)"

And this playlist is also on YouTube Music too.

So with this opening shot, we start with ten songs that clock in at a total of 75 minutes; a bunch of classic, historic tunes along with some that have lower play counts too.

And next week will not be nearly as much of a cohesive history lesson, but I'm planning on revisiting these German 90s with a slate of favorite techno bangers 👀.

Enjoy!

More to come, eventually. Stay tuned!

Like what you hear? Follow me on Spotify and YouTube for more cool playlists and uploads!

[devoted-book-nerd]

Trick or Treat 2024 letter

Trick or Treat is absolutely one of my favorite exchanges! I love autumn and Halloween so much, and I am so ready for this season. Use whatever inspires you from this section of likes, or the fandom specific prompts, or any of my posts here–everything is organized by season and fandom on my tags page. I’d love any of it!

AO3: Rinadoll (https://archiveofourown.org/users/rinadoll/pseuds/Rina)

General Likes

I really, really love seasonal romances. All the opportunities for sensory descriptions and atmosphere float my boat. Being rained in someplace is a favorite trope of mine–the cuddling, the enforced proximity that can allow for intimacy or truths to be shared, or just being in their own world. This also applies to deepening friendships and found family. 

The other big thing I love is touch and caretaking–sensory descriptions of hugs, massage, snuggling, kissing, swats and spanks, punishment and funishment, hair brushing/washing, bathing, caretaking of all sorts, h/c with an emphasis on the c, etc, make me squee. It’s my favorite thing after snow, and I search these things out by tags when I need a happy boost. The day I found cuddle service fics was a red letter day, let me tell you.

Other likes: banter, flirting, romps, shenanigans, humor, affection, teamwork, friends falling in love, competency, fake dating turning real, mutual pining with happy resolution, established relationships, abandoned buildings reclaimed by nature, nature (rain, snow, forests, beaches, bodies of water), and happy endings. I generally prefer emotional and romantic intimacy over sex. I love things that are ridiculously atmospheric. 

General Treats: All the seasonal fun!! For autumn, cozy sweaters, scarves, plaid, crunchy leaves, baking, hiking, camping, fall festivals, new notebooks and pens, snuggling under blankets, thunderstorms, grey skies, winds whipping and whistling through bare branches, candles, bonfires, s’mores, apple picking or bobbing, pumpkin carving contest gets heated, baking, hay rides, smell of rain, getting caught and/or kissing in the rain, Halloween, Halloween parties or decor, trick or treating, scary stories around a campfire, pumpkin farms/carving pumpkins, anything that thoroughly evokes the season. A retelling of an autumnal movie or story, like Sleepy Hollow. Super autumnal dates or experiences are excellent.

General Tricks: Ghost stories are a major win. Seances and Ouija boards are great. Witches are great, whether actually magical or just smart women that society hates. Anything haunted, especially musty, abandoned houses or forests. Is it a scary ghost, or a ghost just hanging out in its old space? I love it all. Same with murder mysteries or noir. Terror and/or suspense with a happy ending of survival for the protagonists is also delightful. I love abandoned buildings, towns, islands, etc, and I love anything old and history coming alive, however you take that. Costumes coming to life is a classic that will never get old. Haunted photos. Cursed objects, or Halloween/horror legends or myths are real–I love things like the ghost passenger, etc. Scary stories around a campfire, and they’re true. Trapped in a dream/nightmare, alone or together. If it showed up as a plot in Goosebumps or Fear Street, I will probably love it. (As long as it ends happily for our protagonists.) Feel free to get your spook or horror on.

Combine tricks and treats however you like, too. Stumbling onto a ghost while on an autumnal date? Getting caught in the rain and ending up in a haunted house? Love. Balancing all the cozy and scary is fun. Comic horror is great, too.

All of the above would be welcomed as art, too! My requests are fic, but I ticked the box that I’d be delighted by art extra gifts. Anything drenched in the spirit and colors of autumn or Halloween or spookiness is wonderful. I’m not great with knowing how to describe styles, but I’ve saved a variety of fan art favorites in a tag! https://devoted-book-nerd.tumblr.com/tagged/fan%20art

Please note: I am clearly obsessed with 911 right now! But I promise you that I love my old favorites just as dearly, and genuinely would love to receive something for any of these fandoms.

DNW: watersports, dub/noncon, death of nominated characters, body horror, PWP, self-harm, humiliation/extreme embarrassment, character bashing, unhappy endings, gaslighting, homophobia, and dark, dystopian, mobster, a/b/o universe AUs. Please avoid kidfics unless requested. Please don’t turn canon characters into vampires, werewolves, zombies or other supernatural creatures, but including those kinds of creatures is fine. 

Fandoms: 9-1-1, Anne of Green Gables, Schitt’s Creek

9-1-1: Buck/Tommy, Buck/Tommy/Eddie, Buck & Maddie

“This show is my newest obsession, which is pretty clear from my A03 and tumblr. I started watching last spring and have already watched the whole series twice! I absolutely adore all of their Halloween episodes, Chim and Hen’s superstitions, Eddie’s skepticism (except when his own superstitions pop up!!), and the weird calls like the potential ghost. Autumn looks different in LA than in many other places, so feel free to send them on vacations or show off what autumnal fun LA has to offer. I love every character, so feel free to bring in anyone else you like, too! 118 shenanigans are always great.

Treats: Supernatural or paranormal cases that end up having an explanation or left open-ended. The firehouse is haunted–or is it? The return of Chim’s crow. Maddie taking little Evan trick or treating or on autumn excursions. Buck and Tommy try to convince Eddie that there can only be a supernatural answer to something (and maybe even try to play tricks to tease him). Helicoptering off to an autumnal weekend away. Halloween at the station, with activities set up for kids (because Buck refuses to give out smoke detectors again). Pumpkin carving, apple bobbing, corn mazes, or other autumn activities get heated. Honestly, anything from my general or treat likes in my letter would be amazing.

Tricks: Supernatural or paranormal cases. The firehouse is haunted. The Buckley family as a gothic horror story. Getting lost in the woods and feeling eyes on you. Sketchy carnivals. Ghosts, but they’re helpful. Arrive at a place on fire, but every door leads to one of their worst fears/nightmares. Chris insists there’s a monster in his room, and there is. Eddie is pissed off when something supernatural turns out to be real, but he’s still skeptical of everything else. They find bodies in the basement of a fire, and their ghosts are haunting the place. Fun AU possibility: the 118 are ghost hunters.

DNW: Anything less than positive about Tommy (if you can’t say anything nice, don’t mention or refer to him at all, that’s absolutely fine!), plus the above.”

It will surprise no one that I started watching when Buck met Tommy, and instantly fell for both of them. I love how much growth Buck has had, how he’s settled into himself at work and in his relationship, and how he’s still a bit of a golden retriever. He still looks for the good. He and Eddie remind me a lot of me and my best friend, and I love how he has a separate best friendship with Chris that’s outside of his friendship with Eddie or the relationship with the three of them. (I don’t see Buck as a co-parent, but a trusted adult and friend that he can rely on. Something closer to godfather or older brother/uncle.) 

Tommy’s growth has blown basically everyone’s out of the water, though. It’s incredible what a backstory and arc they gave him way back in S2, when we saw him change through ten years at the 118, and how much he’s continued to work on himself since then. I love his confidence and deadpan dry humor, and I love how that balance’s Buck’s personality. I also really love how he listens to Buck, and shares his own feelings with him right from the start. 

Eddie is a sassy bitch and I love him to bits. His one liners and facial expressions delight me all the time, but I also have loved seeing him breakdown and start to build himself back up again. I hate that Chris is with his grandparents (I see them as harmful caregivers), but I am looking forward to seeing Eddie have a chance to be messy and put himself together much healthier than he’s been since he had to get married at age 19. 

Maddie and Buck have such a special relationship, and I love how much she cares for him, and how he can trust her and that love. Her gentle prodding and confusion during S7 before and after Buck was realizing his bisexuality were hilarious and wonderful. It’s always broken my heart that we see in the Buck flashbacks when she was a young teen that she had already been conditioned by her parents to believe that sometimes people can only show their love by being mad. She was set up and harmed just as much as Buck, but I’m not sure she knows how much. 

I just love and adore each and every character on this show, basically!

Anne of Green Gables: Anne, Anne/Diana, Anne/Gilbert

“I think this book might be the genesis for my love of incredibly evocative seasonal things. It feels like the perfect fandom for both seasonally appropriate tricks and treats. 

Tricks: The Haunted Wood. What if it’s really haunted? Who is haunting it? Is there an abandoned building that seems perfectly romantic in its desolation and hauntings? Does Anne encounter a ghost of a doomed lover who needs to have their story finished? Is there town or Barry/Blythe/Cuthbert family lore about ghosts of torn apart lovers that Anne falls in love with and tries to find and heal? Does Anne fall in love with a ghost? Does someone die and Anne is convinced that it was Murder? Or do those things happen to mostly practical Diana, and she is beside herself? Gilbert has an explanation for everything, but does he? Does Anne convince Diana or Gil to have a séance or use a Ouija board with her, and what comes of it? 

Treats: Give me ALL the autumnal fun in Avonlea, all the sensory descriptions of the seasons and tramps through forests and shores and farms and autumn parties and storms and bonfires and food and nature joy.”

All of my tricks and treats and general likes apply here. I really love PEI and nature and would love any Island wandering descriptions. Go as iddily autumnal or spooky as you want, and I will enjoy it very much. Anne is one of my oldest friends, I reread her books constantly, and I would love to see anything about her, Diana or Katherine! (Which you can probably tell from my gifts–I match on this fandom a lot and I keep requesting it because I love the gifts and always want more. <3)

Schitt’s Creek: David/Patrick

“This show is my happy place! I fell for Patrick’s dry sense of humor pretty fast and was sold on the pairing when he confidently told David he’d get those grants. I love his love of control, and his deep love for David combined with their banter and his tendency to troll him so affectionately. I love how David cares so deeply for so many and refuses to admit it because of his history, but won’t stop, and is always there to step up when Patrick is feeling like he lost his control.

Treats: David’s anxiety is heightened and Patrick takes him to one of Twyla’s partner yoga classes, or gets some poses from Twyla to try. How much Halloween (correct and incorrect) does David let into the store, and how does Patrick convince him? Road trips to check out some great autumnal vendors—cider, donuts, sweaters, etc. Patrick insists on throwing a Halloween party at their new home; David’s in for the bonfire and s’mores. A fun murder mystery party—maybe David takes over planning from or with Twyla—seems like it would be up Patrick’s alley. Their shop/home ends up haunted, and it’s all good fun. Patrick stars in Jocelyn’s production of Rocky Horror–does David get wrangled in? They host an autumnal or spooky class at the shop—knitting, cider making, tarot reading with Twyla, etc. 

Tricks: A ghost themed escape room really is haunted and David will never let Patrick forget it. One of Twyla’s murder mystery parties goes wrong. (Character death is fine if you don’t kill a Rose, Patrick, Stevie, Ronnie, or a child.) The shop/house is haunted and it’s scary (with a happy ending). A road trip to check out a new vendor for autumnal goodies goes wrong—the place is abandoned/haunted, the vendor is a ghost, the vendor is a murderer, they pick up a ghost hitchhiker, etc (with a happy ending). Maybe that seance class Twyla is leading was a really bad decision."

I really love these two. Their dynamic is really fun—Patrick as service top and caretaker with sass, David needing all the praise and support, but they are good about switching as needed. Patrick is such a troll, and he gets so grumpy when emotions are involved. He’s better at hiding his issues than David is, but they’re still there. David can get pretty tunnel-visiony about himself as a defense mechanism, but I love how he steps up for Patrick whenever it’s needed. I wonder if he’ll get better about stepping up before those low moments as he settles into their future. And honestly, he really is correct a lot of the time, ha.

[honeyviscera]

over a year ago i went to my local art gallery, and i saw a sculpture there that i adored. i spent so long staring at it, taking it in.... i even returned to the exhibit a few days later to see it again. there was a submission box to tell the artist your comments, so I wrote a card and put my name and email address down. i talked about how deeply the sculpture touched me, how deeply i admired it. i've never been contacted by the artist, i don't even know if they received my message. i sort of regret not buying it, but it would have been thousands of dollars.......

the sculpture was a torso carved in marble. from afar, it appears to be a very classic Greek-style sculpture. however on closer inspection, the torso is deformed. bolts and ridges protrude from the skin, and one half of the chest appears to have a metal plate bolted over it, giving the torso an androgynous quality. all carved into the marble- no mixed media. the bolts were made to be a part of the flesh. it was a sculpture that presented something unusual, jarring, in a very elegant way..... the combination of body horror and such a classic style of sculpture was endlessly intriguing to me, and reminded me a lot of my own art. the way i try and present body horror through poetry. the way i try and make it gorgeous. this sculpture made something horrifying deeply gorgeous.

i saw this sculpture and felt understood, in a way that not many pieces of art have made me feel. i still think of that sculpture. i miss her. i hope the artist read my comment. i hope my love for it was not lost in the shuffle of comment cards. i hope they know how much it meant to me. all i can do is hope my love reached them.

[sleepboysummer]

jane doe week day 1!!! :3

@janedoeweek your own janey

so i have 2 main jane concepts (but so so many more) i call them pigtails jane and raggedy jane and u probably know that if u have seen my posts b4!! they have very different vibes but i love both of them so much

so pigtails jane is kind of a combination of citadel jane, roxys jane, ofc jane, and jungle jane i feel. does prayer hands a lot bc i love the religious aspects of her character and want to turn that up a lot.. looks very cutesy but the way she moves is terrifying, moves a lot like roxys jane because i like the idea that jane does Not know how to walk because she is basically learning how to be a person.. a higher, echoey voice, very very sad with big eyes and always reaching out at things

costume would have intricate detailed mary janes, knee high lacy socks, white ribbon bloomers, a wig similar to this but only half up, with black ribbons tied into the pigtails. makeup includes long pointed/manhua lashes, painted sad eyebrows, big lips, sort of circle blush, black sclera contacts (not covering the whole eye, just making eyes look bigger)

a super over-the-top white lacy blouse with a little black bow and baggy sleeves. the dress idea changes a lot but right now its something along these lines, but purely grey (not greenish like the picture). also rosary-style earrings

and then raggedy jane is much much freakier, with barely any control over her limbs, also sort of like roxys jane but without the "robotic" sort of aspect. stumbles and trips over herself a lot and stands up one limb at a time... carries her doll around by one leg and is so so scared of everything. dont get me wrong though she DOES bite

costume includes red mary janes, white ankle socks (or depending on the full costume, blue striped ones), bandaids on her knees, white bloomers, and a brushed out curly bubble braid/pigtail wig like this. makeup is freckles, lots and lots and lots of blush, reddish lipstick with an elongated smile, super chunky lashes and black eyes.

still stumped abt her uniform, but here are a couple concepts. i know i want it to have some sort of blue in it, as well as baggyish long sleeves. i loveee this first one for her because i think its very doll-ish. i would also really love her to have some sort of apron, since thats a classic raggedy ann style, but idk if that would work bc of the whole uniform thing.. HOWEVER it would be cool if everyone wore a blue uniform and she wore the same but with an apron on top.. would b cute i think

[tenrousei-kuroi]

Your answer to anon's question about your favorite character makes me wonder: what was you first incest ship? Also, do you think there's a particular reason this kind shipping that piqued your interest?

oh you’re so silly, my first naughty ship was Sirius/Regulus of course!

but now that I think about it, it was sort of a weird winding journey to get there 🤔

I think like a lot of people I had a bit of a crush on Sirius black as a child, so he was my favorite Harry Potter character from early on, and then when I started flittering about the internet looking for fan content, I gravitated towards him

one of the first fics I ever wrote was Unable are the Loved to Die and that was wayyyy back in…oof, 2005? Between Books 5 & 6, sometime when I was either in late elementary school or early middle school. And contrary to the fic’s final form on FF.net a few years later, it was originally….not overtly incestuous 😝 I think I *wanted* it to be though. Because it still *felt* that way, my preteen brain probably just hadn’t really realized just what it was I wanted to explore.

then I discovered LiveJournal, a little past its prime unfortunately, but back then a lot of accounts and blogs were still up so I dove in *deep* and ended up finding a Sirius Black big bang that I gobbled up, and it was all pretty normal gen or Sirius/Remus stuff (that pairing was called “puppy shipping” back then)….until…the last posted fic in the fest showed up, which was written by a woman named Annie who, according to her LJ, was a classic lit major (We can already tell this is a dangerous combination for someone as pretentious as me).

her fic was called Palimpsest and it had the most gorgeous art by a creator called magrat_me. It was also explicit Sirius/Regulus, the first I’d ever seen. And I fell SO HARD in love with it.

the fact that the first incest fic I read was so beautifully crafted and written by someone with actual literature experience was probably a big factor in why the pairing stuck with me so hard. I bounced from that author’s profile to a bunch of other LJ folks with similar levels of syrupy, pretentious, flowery writing styles and in the course of like a week I think I read every Sirius/Regulus and James/Regulus fic on the site

I wish I could have chatted more with that author because everything I’ve ever written has literally been her fault. But she was a real adult and had clearly moved on from most of LJ and fandom by the time I found her stuff so I just sort of lurked. I did reach out once, years later when I saw the links to Palimpsest were broken and I felt like I might *die* because of it. (Idiot me hadn’t yet learned the hard lesson of saving online content.) And she was sweet enough to not only respond to a DM on a site she hadn’t touched in years but also to resend me the fic 😭 which I now guard quite closely, it’s not gonna get away from me again lol

after my fall into degeneracy I actually went back and changed that first fic I wrote, Unable are the loved to die. It’s properly cesty now, as it was always meant to be 😅

modern discussions about the morality of consuming questionable fiction and protecting children from iffy fic content and such always seems so alien to me because it never came up in my own formative fandom years. (I’m sure it was around, I just skirted by it.) no one anywhere at any point in time in my early days of hoovering up every Sirius/Regulus fic I could find mentioned anything about it being “wrong”. So I never internalized any guilt or shame or confusion. When teenage-me realized how dark my fiction preferences were turning it seemed pretty clear why.

I just find it interesting. I have a pretty normal and stable life, and so the darker and more bizarre corners of humanity are fascinating in a way that happiness just isn’t. “Well adjusted person lives life of moral correctness” is just zero percent interesting to me. And I’ve never felt it went deeper than that.

I’ve always been confident in my ability to consume media critically, and without the need for the works themselves to guide me directly towards the correct opinion. Looking back now this is largely thanks to my mother and her willingness to share any book with me that I wanted to read, and get me to any film I wanted to see. Sometimes things would be scary or wrong or offensive but that just meant it was time to think about *why* and get some good practice handling those feelings.

my family doesn’t read my fanfiction, but they all *know*. My partner in particular is a pretty good sport, love him lol. But my mother has read a bit of my original fiction, which is all just as deranged. And the only question she’s ever asked in response to forty chapters of brothers fucking and murdering each other is: “when are you going to get off your ass and publish something people can buy?”

now that I’ve spewed out an entire confessional on how I became infected with a fifteen year-long Sirius/Regulus brain rot and then diverged into a topic you didn’t even *ask* about…how about you?

let me know if your journey was just as crazy or if you’re a normal person 😅

[princessasmosprincess]

Lisette Beaufort

I wanted to introduce my OC Lisette. She pops up a couple of times in Charmed, I'm Sure as a side character. The first picture is from 1909 (I did my best) and the second is modern times.

Lisette is a witch and a former high society socialite and heiress. She originally summoned Kallios to help her get out of her engagement to her fiancé whom she didn’t love (he sucked, he only wanted her for her money and how many babies she could give him). She refused to give Kallios her soul in return for their pact, leaving him to figure out some other sort of payment. Along the way she and Kallios fell in love, and she married him and moved to the Devildom where she was able to pursue her dream as a fashion designer. She currently owns and runs Majolish and Devil Style magazine, and has done so for the past 100 years. She's a partier and is good friends with Asmo and Mammon (Mams says she's the only witch he can tolerate, probably because she pays him and not the other way around). She’s not exactly immortal, but her skill in magic combined with her bond with Kallios froze her at the age of 30 and extended her life. She is gifted in divination (mostly through tarot) and she receives prophetic dreams but she can’t control what she sees or when they happen. Kallios's death devastated her and she was only able to get through it because of her dear friends, she cherishes each and every one deeply but she hasn't ever loved anyone else the way she did Kallios.

For her character design I wanted her to be almost "perfect" but just off. She's slim and tall, and always fits the fashionable silhouette. But her hair is light, which wasn't the popular hair color when she was younger, and she has unique amber eyes some might find off putting.

I answered some Get to Know My OC questions too:

1. She likes champagne and overly sweet, fruity cocktails. For non alcoholic drinks, Coca Cola is very nostalgic to her, something that hasn’t changed that much in all the years she’s been alive. She also likes tea.

2. Favorite flavor: Sweet, mostly.

3. Favorite food: She likes food in general so she doesn’t have one set favorite but if you asked her she’d probably say chocolate ice cream.

4. Dinner is her favorite because it’s the best time to dine with her beloved and friends, and after dinner comes dessert.

5. Once again, she’s not too picky about food but she doesn’t like meat that’s too bloody or fish that’s overcooked or too fishy.

6. At first she had difficulty tolerating spicy foods but living in the Devildom for over 100 years has raised her tolerance.

7. Favorite animal: Birds, specifically parrots. Kallios gifted her a hell cockatoo that she named Adonis.

8. She wears a nightgown to bed, usually something silky.

9. She sleeps on her back but sometimes she’ll sleep on her side, clutching a pillow (she really misses sleeping next to Kallios).

10. She’s more of a night owl because she loves to party but once she’s woken up in the morning she becomes alert rather quickly.

11. She’s usually an average sleeper, but on nights she gets prophetic dreams, she sleeps heavy.

12. She likes to sew on rainy days, there’s just something so cozy about the sound of the rain mixed with the clicking of the sewing machine.

13. She loves the smell of white florals and vanilla, also fresh herbs

14. What does she smell like: In the past she would have worn Jicky by Guerlain. Now she still keeps it very classic, she wears Chanel No. 5.

15. If she had the time she would take a leisurely bath every day.

16. Her cooking skills are pretty decent. Not gourmet but she can follow a recipe. She loved cooking together with her husband, it was quality time for them.

17. She loves fall, the weather is perfect.

18. Halloween, but she also loves Jill’s day because that was the first time she visited the Devildom.

19. She prefers making gifts for her loved ones. Usually it’s in the form of clothing she designed just for them, with love in every stitch.

20. She’s 5’7/170 cm