#I'll probably post more of this verse later I have a lot of it written

[trans-cuchulainn]

Could you recommend some good resources on accurate depiction of parchment in the medieval period? I feel like most people interested in medieval studies have a basic understanding of what it is and how it’s made, but you seem more well-versed than most on its tactile properties and regular use cases. Where can others acquire this knowledge?

most of what i've learned about manuscripts and book history has been either during my degrees or from work (i have worked in various libraries including with special collections, although mostly with early printed books and later paper manuscripts in that capacity). and in terms of what it's like to interact with, i have learned this mostly from interacting with it, but if you don't have a library or museum near you that will enable you to do this, it's a bit harder. this makes it hard to give recommendations although there are lots of very good books out there about books and manuscript history

(there's one i read early on in my journeys with palaeography etc that went into loads of detail about different writing surfaces including wood and wax tablets and so on, but i cannot remember the title and past me did NOT write it down which was really unhelpful. if i remember it i'll post about it)

there are also a ton of online resources about manuscripts though. lots of museums have online guides to manuscript production, parchment, writing through history. there's lots of codicology stuff out there. so it's not like you have to learn it in a formal environment -- that's just where i learned it and therefore mostly from lectures rather than shareable resources

but to understand parchment specifically i think understanding the process of making it is a crucial step to understanding why it is the way it is (and why it's not paper). here's a couple of youtube videos that give an overview

this is a more detailed video about a project that got people to make parchment themselves which is just kinda interesting (haven't watched it all the way through but am watching parts):

once you understand how parchment is made and the resources that go into it, i think it's easier to understand why it probably wouldn't be used for ephemera and scraps, and that helps you think about situations where people might use something else -- e.g. a wax tablet to take hasty notes, send messages that don't need to be permanent, send messages that are emphatically not permanent (your recipient can melt it and hide the note), etc -- as well as beginning to rethink the modern world's reliance on the written word in general and consider how oral messages and other non-written communication might have been used

as for the tactile side of things, as i said in a previous post, if you can't touch book parchment, go find your local irish musicians and see if the bodhrán player will let you handle their drum (or good quality orchestral timpani will do too! but with a bigger drum it's harder to feel both sides of the skin). drumskins made of goatskin are very similar on a tactile level to parchment, just a little thicker and not processed to quite the same level as a writing surface. it helps you stop thinking of them as super fragile once you realise people are whacking them with a stick regularly, and you can learn about the difference between the hair side and the flesh side of the skin and stuff and see the way the hair leaves traces in the skin and so on. this helps with the tactile understanding

(the cheaper the bodhran, the rougher the reverse side will be even if the front is still nice and smooth, which also makes you realise the difference between high quality books where you can barely tell which side of the page is the hair side, and low quality ones where they're not fully treated, there's still hair, whatever)

i talked to a conservator lately who told me the way he got into book conservation was via musical instrument repair -- they are more similar than you would think -- and i know trad musicians scattered far and wide enough to be reasonably confident that even if you're in an area with no touchable medieval manuscripts, you can probably at some point find a drummer who will let you play with their bodhrán in exchange for a pint or something, lol

but in the mean time there's lots of cool videos about there about parchment making which i do think is a crucial step to understanding it as a writing surface! and i will see if i can remember the names of any of the books i've read...

[foxes-that-run]

Stockholm Syndrome

In the Four Hangout Harry said the song was about developing feelings for a kidnapper and applying the idea to enjoying the feeling of being trapped by love. When Liam talked about being trapped in a hotel room Harry cut him off with "This is more like about a nympho."

After What makes you Beautiful, Stockholm Syndrome is the 1D song he still plays most. It was on the Live on Tour setlist 2017-2018, but then not played again for 5 years. It reappeared on 13 May 2023, (While Taylor's surprise song was This Love). Harry then played it 18 more times to the end of Love on Tour. He also changed the emphasis on "Now he's changed his mind!"

Production

Harry said "Stockholm was a lot of fun to write." He seems to enjoy playing it too. Harry wrote it with the 1D writers, Julian and John, as well as Johan Carlsson. At the same time Johan & Harry wrote:

"A Little Bit of Your Heart" for Ariana Grande. Written around 20 February 2014, SS was probably written close to then, (the JALBOH timeline.) and

"I love you" for Alex and Sierra at the same time, which was May 2014 based on them sharing a photo of Taylor's cat.

It was on Four, released 17 November 2014, 3 weeks after 1989:

9 February 2014 Taylor wrote Clean in London

11 February 2014 she cut her hair off backstage after Red at the O2, Harry was spotted watching.

14 February 2014 - Taylor posted "there's nothing like real love" quote for valentines day. She released the Style Music Video 12 months later, which may have inspired Two Ghosts.

19 February 2014 Taylor wrote Style

March - May 2014 Harry likely wrote Stockholm Syndrome. It was Recorded by May.

Live Performances

Stockholm replaced Happily as song 7 on the OTRA setlist on 25 February 2015, the day after Taylor was seen with Calvin at the Brits. It was on the setlist for the rest of the tour. (it was in the Encore for the first few shows)

It was on Harry's Live on Tour main setlist in 2017 and 2018. On May 13 2023 it was added to the last 18 Love on Tour shows with Grapejuice.

Lyrics

[Verse 1] Who's that shadow holding me hostage? I've been here for days Who's this whisper telling me that I'm never gonna get away? I know they'll be coming to find me soon But I fear I'm getting used to Being held by you

The verses of Stockholm are questions, the chorus is statements. The first verse is asking the muse what they have done, how they have trapped Harry with love.

The Shadow/Ghost/Phantom is a reference to HYGTG and continued by both. See: Back from the dead theme.

How You Get The Girl “Stand there like a ghost shaking from the rain” (HYGTG was written January 2013)

Ready for it...? "Wonder how many girls he had loved and left haunted / But if he's a ghost, then I can be a phantom / Holdin' him for ransom"

So it goes "Gold cage, hostage to my feelings"

Two Ghosts

[Chorus] x2 Oh, baby, look what you've done to me Oh, baby, look what you've done now Oh, baby, I'll never leave if you keep holding me this way (Oh-oh-oh)

The theme of being unable to escape this recurrent love, a golden cage. Taylor has referred to this chorus twice:

In Ready for it..? "Keep him forever like a Vendetta"

Later still in loml "I’m combing through the braids of lies“I’ll never leave,” “Never mind”"

[Verse 2] Who's this man that's holding your hand and talking 'bout your eyes? (Oh-oh-oh) Used to sing about being free but now he's changed his mind (Oh-oh-oh)

The second verse is also questions, this time of Harry. Harry is asking rhetorical questions as he doesn't recognise himself, he is changed from wanting to be free to wanting to be with the muse. He is the one talking about her eyes, whereas in the past he didn't want to settle down.

When Harry first started singing the whole song in his solo career as in the top link he sang the line 'used to sing about being free' along the tune. In July 2018 and again when the song re-appeared in May 2023 he has emphasised "changed his mind" more and more.

I know they'll be coming to find me soon But my Stockholm syndrome is in your room Yeah, I fell for you

"They" is 'othering' anyone else. Other people, people not in the relationship will come and ruin it soon, Harry wants to stay where it is happy and he feels trapped, in the metaphor of loving a kidnapper this is the stockholm syndrome at work, he's fallen for the person he can't escape his feelings for. I hear 'they'll' be coming soon to also mean other people break the spell and will ruin this soon. It reminds me of

Where Do Broken Hearts Go? - Anyone in between is the enemy

[Bridge] All my life, I've been on my own (Oh-oh-oh) I used the light to guide me home (Oh-oh-oh) But now together we're alone (Oh-oh-oh) And there's no other place I'd ever wanna go [Breakdown] (Look what you've done to me) Baby, look what you've done

The guiding light to home is also a theme in Harry and Taylor's songs where they refer to each other as home:

Sweet Creature "When I run out of road, you bring me home"

The Lover Video included a home where every room was Haylor

Woman Exile has a list of Haylor Home lyrics

[seventeenlovesthree]

So, you do so much Adventure analysis posts… what about Tamers? Particularly our favorite Tamer trio’s favorite characters from Adventure? ❤️💚💙

Even though you already know my answer to this, I'll be going for it, hehe.

My favourite headcanon is that Takato is the only anime nerd among the main trio. Jenrya and Ruki watched it once, the latter may not even have finished it the first time, because she was "too cool" for it (and Sora and Yamato may have hit close to home too much) and they both were just more into the monsters and card game, so Takato has to be like:

"WAIT. WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU WATCHED IT ONLY ONCE?

HOLD UP, HOLD ON, HOLD THE PHONE FOR A MINUTE.

LISTEN, LISTEN.

YOU. YOU TWO.

COME TO MY HOUSE AND WE'LL MAKE A WATCH PARTY. NO BUTS, NO EXCUSES."

And then he goes into a whole ramble to convince them. Jenrya listens because he is polite like that and may actually get convinced to check it out again, with a different angle, because we know he is analytical like that.

But Ruki would still be like "Do I really have to?" She'll be forced to and at first, Takato would consider asking Juri to add her as "bait" for Ruki, but then he remembers Leomon and decides against it. (He will later ask Jenrya to cut away all Leomon death scenes, doesn't even matter if the scenes still make sense or not. But either way, the series would be traumatizing for Juri.)

Needless to say, both Jenrya and Ruki will end up enjoying it immensely, even if the latter would never admit it - while secretly going on an internal tangent on how Sora was an entirely wasted character. She's still her favourite too and she can kinda relate to Yamato as well, but again, no way she'd ever admit that.

Jenrya relates a lot to Taichi and Koushirou, but for pretty different reasons - he also likes Hikari a lot.

And Takato is probably the biggest Taichi fanboy (outside of the Adventure-verse, because there it's Daisuke), but he has his own personal rankings. He loves all the characters and has probably written meta and fanfic about it too, including several OC evolutions for all Digimon lines.

[autonomousxselves]

//Blog update regarding changes to my muse list

Muses:

Kyouka Sayama: I have found a FC icon set for her! I may begin tossing her out soon for both 1999 and later times. A:TFM muses finally coming to fruition -v- I do have to pick a social link arcana for her but she does not have a Persona (for now?). Currently accepting asks.

Yu Narukami: I really just have to get icons from the manga I already have saved for other P4 characters and to add his name to the list, he is also pretty much ready to go. Currently accepting asks.

Erina/Eri Natsuhara: I really feel like I need a FC for her/them since there's no official P5T manga that I know of and there's not exactly a lot of images of them in the game beyond portraits. If anyone has a good match please do share!! Currently accepting asks.

Souto Aizawa: Still not entirely sure whether I'll add him as well but I would like to. No new FC yet. I'll toss some things in later. Needs a social link arcana, probably Hierophant. No Persona (also for now?).

Labrys: I've beaten the first part of Arena Ultimax and have links to some icons others made for her(as well as for Shadow Labrys and even for #024!), as soon as I'm ready I'll be reblogging those and officially adding her. ^^

Test Muses: May accept asks.

Goro Akechi: Idk WHAT changed, I did not originally have a muse for him (I do like him as a character) but something recently is possessing me to reconsider. If I take him then he will also be ready and just need some icons from manga I have saved.

Zen and Rei: While there's a fairly limited time pool to write them from, I would also be willing to write them in any time period. Would have to discuss the circumstances with you beforehand if so.

Hikari: If I keep her out, I would prefer her to be starting at 14 or 15 around 2007. I refuse the canon ending of PQ2 post credits lol. Of course since I'm breaking that rule if you really wanted, I could have her be 15 in 2009, 2011 or 2016 as well.

Maki Sonomura: My poor P1 muses have had exactly 0 interactions and that's all on me, but also now I'm tentatively adding Maki to the list after replaying it. Also willing to write her in any time period at her correct age.

Spot changes:

Muses moved to secondary position due to inactivity or having less personal interest: Minako, Maiko, Bebe, Metis, Teddie. Still accepting asks.

Muses I may remove due to losing the feel for them or reconsidering: Maya Amano, Shinya Oda

Verses:

S.E.E.S Ryoji Mochizuki: He's literally ready to be written I'm just too lazy to write a short verse intro in the character doc and haven't had the time to make a "like this for a starter" post just quite yet. But... Currently accepting asks.

Persona User Nanako Dojima: She might have a FC now, still needs a Persona and perhaps more story. If you're reading this and have suggestions for her Persona please lmk! I would prefer Japanese mythology for her considering the P4 team but it's not a strict rule.

[mayalaen]

20 questions for fic writers

Thanks to @hullosweetpea for tagging me!

First, my AO3

How many works do you have on AO3?

186

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

2,072,229 words (don't ask the count for fics NOT posted 😱)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Supernatural, Stranger Things, Fargo, Stargate 'verse, Hannibal, The Blacklist, Dickensian, Angel+Buffyverse and more

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Alpha House 'Verse, Resonance, Best Brother Ever, CONventional Psychopathy Part 1: Primary Deviance, and Try on for Size - all SPN fics

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I do, but I get into weird moods where it's hard to do it, so I'll go for a while without responding and then do a bunch to catch up.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Probably Inside (SPN). It's short but gory and really not a happy ending.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I tend to leave things on a good feeling but I think the one that has the most whiplash type of oh shit this is bad to oh wow we're all good is Rewritten in the Stars.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

In comments and in anon messages sent on Tumblr, but I delete immediately because I refuse to feed trolls. For the most part readers are SUPER awesome and I really appreciate them!

9. Do you write smut?

Tons!

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Open Sesame Street Walker is by far the wackiest one. It's a choose your own adventure but every choice leads to insanity 😂

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Yup. I wouldn't have minded any other fic being stolen because it's all fanfic, but this person managed to grab the ONE fic I'm also writing as original fic and it's a world that's been living in my head since I was like 9 years old. It means a lot to me, so to have someone take it and make money off it with the possibility of fucking up a future book deal sucks. Every time I get it taken down, she puts it back up a few weeks later.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I think there's at least one, possibly two fics translated.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I wrote one crackfic, but I'd love to write more with somebody. I think it would be fun.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

I can't say I have a favorite. I'm too much of a multishipper to pin down one in any fandom. The closest I can get is the OT3 of Leverage, Eliot/Hardison/Parker.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

I really think I'm gonna finish all my WIPs. Might be delusional, but oh well.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialog. It's harder for me to put in a lot of description on surroundings because I always think it's going to be boring to the reader, which is silly.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Keeping it short and to the point. The only short fics I've written were crackfic.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

The closest I came to this is Castiel's noises in Resonance 'Verse. It's just animal noises. I don't think I'll ever attempt to actually write in another language. The most I would do is italics so it tells the reader it's spoken in another language.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Stargate SG1

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

It changes depending on mood, but right now it's Caging the Mongoose. It's not popular at all, but it's a Blacklist/SPN crossover and it's got all the things I love plus Dean is schizophrenic in it.

tagging (with no pressure or obligation): @actualalligator @unforth @ltleflrt @whataboutthefish @wheels-of-despair @peachonified @kallisto-k @lochnesswriter and anybody else who wants to play! Please tag me so I can see your stuff 💜

[internerdionality]

Question game! Tagged by @dragonmuse and @thetardigrape 💕🙏🏻😊

if you're a writer and you see this, consider yourself tagged if you want!

Do you write in order?

Nope. Frequently quite the opposite. I tend to start with the climactic scenes of a fic, the big emotional cruxes, and then figure out how to get the characters there.

There's definitely exceptions, especially when writing more humorous or lighthearted fics, and I've been experimenting more in the last year with posting works-in-progress, which requires writing much more sequentially than I used to!

WDYDWADS and A Fucking Duel, my most popular fics so far, each started with a very cracky premise and I had no clear idea where I was going when I started with them. I had the occasional out of order moment—I've been sitting on the next chapter I'll be posting of WDYDWADS since July, because I wrote it and then realized a bunch of other stuff needed to happen first, and the third chapter of A Fucking Duel was written before the second. But mostly they were written in order and I posted up each chapter before finishing the next.

But my longer fics like Soaked to the Skin and Mutually Beneficial were written much more chaotically. Chapters 17 & 18 of Soaked to the Skin have some of the earliest scenes I wrote for that verse. It's been a bit longer since I wrote Mutually Beneficial, so I don't remember the exact order, but I know that the moment in Chapter 14 where Clark goes to his knees was the first one I envisioned and one of the earliest ones I wrote.

How fully formed does your writing come out the first try?

I tend to think over the scenes first, and then workshop sentences and paragraphs as I'm writing them, so it depends what you mean by "first try." Most of the time, the fic as you would read it after my first fully written draft is pretty close to the final version. It's just fine-tuning after that, unless something isn't working.

However, sometimes something isn't working, and then it can change a lot. For example, the aforementioned Chapters 17 & 18 of Soaked to the Skin were originally one chapter, and all from the Lucius' POV. After I'd written a bunch of the rest of the fic, I realized that we desperately needed to see what Izzy was thinking during it, so I ended up splitting it in two, expanding both parts, and flipping the POV in the second half. That doesn't happen to me very often, but pretty much every longfic I've written has at least one chapter that ended up getting overhauled, sometimes multiple times. The one I tend to remember with agony is Chapter 9 of Welcome to the Mouth of Hell (please mind the tags if you follow that link)—I actually swapped out one of the major characters in that scene twice before finally figuring out how to make it work.

How many drafts do you go through?

Well, that depends on what you consider a draft, lol. The longer and more serious the fic is, the more I tend to pore over it. I also tend to reread and fine-tune earlier chapters of a longfic to get back into the right mindset before writing more, so chapters written earlier may end up getting fiddled with a lot more than later chapters. But it's all a pretty incremental process, so I don't usually have multiple "drafts" of the entire fic in the way I did when turning in assignments in school.

If we're counting every time the text changes as a different draft, though—at least two? At the very least, I'll write out a fic in Google Docs, import it into AO3, and read it over again in the rich text editor, looking for import errors and fine-tuning as I go. I think the most I've ever gone over a chapter before posting it is probably around ten times? I do also reread over my old, posted work sometime (especially the smut, that's why I write smut!), and I'll fix typos and fine-tune sentences even years later if I notice them.

So an old smut like A Private Nightmare... and Fantasy, I've probably gone through three or four "drafts" since it was originally posted. As far as drafts that are substantially different from each other though, the record is three, for that chapter linked above.

Tell me about your process.

Well, I think I covered a lot of it as I blathered on through the previous answers! I tend to seize on something that seems important or interesting (preferably both!) to me, whether it's a dynamic between two people that I couldn't get out of my heard, or a piece of emotional growth that I went through and want to model, or exploring a sexual kink or orientation that resonated with me, just a particular premise that I thought was funny! (Or well, sometimes it's just 'write the smut you want to see in the world'...)

I usually try to have at least the broad strokes of what I'm going to write worked out before I start, although as mentioned previously, there are exceptions! With longer fics, I write outlines—I'll use the heading feature of Google Docs to lay out the main beats, then block out how many chapters I think I'll need, usually with a little summary of what I'm trying to do with each one.

I get somewhat overly married to (what I think are) clever story structures sometimes—for example, the alternating POVs in Soaked to the Skin, or each chapter of A Fucking Duel aligning to a number in The 10 Duel Commandments. I have one outlined WIP that using a four-person rotating POV. We'll, ahh, see how that goes if I ever start actually writing it.

[summonerluna]

For the fanfic writer ask, I'll go with my date of birthday: 2, 11, 80 🥰

2. Talk about a notable time a narrative or character has looked you dead in the eyes and said "fuck your plan, here's what we're actually doing."

Fifteen Minutes Old. It was supposed to be about Squall trying to learn more about sorceresses and learning that he didn't need all the answers to be supportive, and the pregnancy scare thing was going to be a brief note that just led to more research. I had zero interest in ever writing them as being parents and it wasn't what I saw for my post-game headcanon. Instead Rinoa decided she was GOING to be a mom, dammit, no matter how hard the journey to get there was, and it led to a follow up longfic and the creation of two characters who went on to live in an original novel because they just demanded to exist.

11. What's something neat you've learned while doing research for something you were writing? Also, how much do you worry about doing research in general?

On the "I promise I'm a writer and not Planning Crimes" line of things, I did a lot of research into neurotoxins while working on The Successor, specifically tetrodotoxin. I don't remember all the science about it anymore but it was cool to learn. Same with drowning and hypothermia and what the human body can actually survive. Recently I've learned more about the actual process of knighthood; who even would typically be considered, the training (having to run/ride/climb/SWIM in full armor was part of it), education, and social status. LoZ plays VERY fast and loose with the actual history of knighthood, if anyone was wondering.

I care VERY much about research while writing. I have had to train myself to leave placeholders while writing with a note of what to come back and research later, or else I will end up in a rabbit hole with absolutely zero words written but I'll know a lot more about George Washington's favorite bible verses. (True, recent story.) While working on The Successor I kept a tab open for moon phases and tide tables. I'm not going to promise I didn't miss something, or swap a scene around in editing and forget to correct for it, but for the most part the moon phases should correspond exactly to the passage of time, and the tides should line up to whatever month I decided to base things on (October, I think), based on the Bogue Banks tide chart. I'm a nerd, I love this shit.

80. Do you try to put themes, motifs, messages, morals, etc... in your writing? if so, how do you go about it?

Yes, but not intentionally. At least not at first. When I start a new project I get an idea and see where it takes me. If you look across my writing in general, there are a lot of themes of grief, loneliness, and motherhood, and there's no real reason for that other than they are extremely personal subjects for me so it makes sense I explore my own feelings about them in writing. If I notice I have unintentionally started adding something though I will pay more attention to it, start doing research, and make notes so when I am editing I can look for consistency. The zelink longfic I'm working on right now for instance, I realized I multiple times referenced birdsong as background noise so I started paying more attention to when, and looking up what the birds I had mentioned symbolized and looking for other ways I could maybe incorporate birds. A friend did point out to me once that I am constantly coming back to the idea of choice in my writing, which I didn't even realize I did. So I guess in terms of themes or morals I do place a lot of value on my characters having freedom to make their own choices--or trying to gain that freedom if they don't already have it. I also mention the moon a LOT, so that's a motif I suppose. I use it to denote the passing of time, and probably lean a lot into the moon as having yin energy since a lot of my storytelling is more internal and about the place and characters, than it is the yang energy of plot and action.

These are REALLY thoughtful asks! I would love to get more, and to see more of y'all reblog that post so I can see your answers!

[autistic-autumn]

Music Ramblings #1

Decided to start doing these every now and again. Will tag all posts with music I've found and my thoughts on it with '#Autumn's Music Ramblings'. My inbox is always open if you want to send music in and I love people doing that. Will sort out exactly what's happening later but for now I just have this. If you want to send me music then feel free. Always like people sending in whatever. I'll probably respond to ask and then later give more rambling though. If you want me to give you music then you can also ask and I can find you something. I mostly just like rambling about music a lot.

Capital Punishment by Abuse Ken This one was suggested by @aroace-poly-show (sorry marlo for ping, didn't get chance to respond earlier when you shared). This isn't a style I tend to listen to very often but was very cool. The way the piece constantly plays with shifting the rhythm in the sections is very cool and gives a lot of drive between sections. I quite like how the chorus is effectively just pedaling the high G while shifting chords underneath. The leaps here are nice. Makes for a very strong sound compared to the more melodic verses. Do enjoy a nice modulation during final chorus. Overall very cool piece and will likely continue to listen to in future. Used to listen to a fair bit more vocaloid but never got that far into finding new stuff.

Samuel Barber, Adagio for Strings, Op. 11 This is honestly one of the best pieces I've found recently. It's so sublime and beautiful. I personally prefer the 1960 version Barber wrote for choir. Something about closely set voices that is particularly pleasing. It's just a little softer and smoother than the string. I'm pretty sure there's some psychological reason why critical bandwidth doesn't really apply so much to human voices. I've been listening to this almost on loop recently. Was particularly nice while walking in the rain yesterday while it was a bit dark and kind of cold. Hearing this live in a venue like a church with all that resonance would be incredible and I hope to be able to see a performance one day.

Samuel Barber, Toccata Festiva, Op. 36 Been on a bit of a Samuel Barber roll recently and just picked a bunch of his stuff out of the library. Did not realize this one was an organ concertina really. Very exciting and organs are such cool instruments that really don't have enough soloist + orchestra repertoire. I actually posted a video of this one after listening to it with just the organ pedal cadenza because that thing is wild to watch someone play. You never really know what you're getting with Samuel Barber and this was certainly a fun and dynamic piece.

Tchaikovsky Symphony No.4 in F minor, Op. 36 Generally a very nice symphony but that's sort of expected with Tchaikovsky. A bit frilly at times but that is also just how Tchaikovsky is. Not much really stood out to me as particularly notable in this but was generally nice enough. The third movement however is extremely cool and the high speed pizz reminds me a lot of the second movement from the Ravel string quartet. Certainly a lot of a fun with that movement and was quite interesting. Not my favourite Tchaikovsky symphony but nice enough.

Gustav Holst Op.3 Quintet in A minor This is quite a nice short set of four movement for Oboe, Clarinet, Horn, Bassoon and Piano. I do like wind ensembles particularly so this was nice. It's from Holst's student years and never got performed till after his death in 1989. Likely written around the turn of the century. Does sound like a late romantic piece rather than the later Holst works. I personally thing the first and second movements are the best. The first has some very nice melodies and is smooth and elegant. The second movement is highly paced and neat but nothing hugely notable I don't think. Third movement is pretty interesting and the B section is particularly pleasing, although doesn't last very long. This is admittedly the first time I have seen a proper score use quadruple dotted notes, normally you only ever get a double if you're lucky. Fourth movement is quite nice too although nothing really stands out to me other than the cadence at the end which is quite interesting and is certainly hinting towards Holst's later harmonic development.

[daydreamorama]

For the ask game: 1. Tell us about your current project(s)  – what’s it about, how’s progress, what do you love most about it? 5. What character that you’re writing do you most identify with? 14. At what point in writing do you come up with a title? 20. Tell us the meta about your writing that you really want to ramble to people about (symbolism you’ve included, character or relationship development that you love, hidden references, callbacks or clues for future scenes?)

I currently have two. One I just started posting and is mostly written, just needs some heavy editing. It's a slavery au and it's very dubious porn. There's a lot more in the universe I want to write, but I decided what I had made a cohesive story, so I'll probably write more in the series later.

The other I've been working on for over two years. It's been so long. I currently have 34k written and so much more to write. I'm very excited about it, it's a firefighter AU (nominally) BDSM AU, and is all about Liu Sang joining the iron triangle polycule but like not romantically or sexually but a secret third thing. (tagging will be fun on this one.). I absolutely love one-side romantic/sexual attraction that results in a happy ending that isn't 'and they got romantically or sexually together' but rather strong queer platonic bonds. The story is all about Liu Sang's developing bonds, sprinkled with a heavy dose of whump for him.

5. Liu Sang. No contest. From the moment he came on screen and puked in a gutter from being over sensitized/whelmed from the train, I was sold.

14. When I click post and it tells me I need a title. I usually have a working title for example 'hei xiazi BDSM verse' for the second AU (even though hei xiazi isn't even a main character) which is usually completely misleading or super generic. Also I really like puns. The number of ship/boat related titles I have is a bit of a problem.

20. Almost every time I write Pangzi hugging Xiaoge (no matter the era/age) I am almost always thinking of that hug Pangzi gave Xiaoge at the end of ultimate note right after Xiaoge comes out of the amber thing. The relief of Pangzi, the all enompassing love for his friend, Xiaoge breaking down and can't take anymore and how he allows Pangzi to hug him in a way he wouldn't allow just anyone to, even if he doesn't hug back he clearly want's to be there.

[persianflaw]

M, Q, and U for the ask,

thank you!! i was on mobile for a while so i lost this notif

M: Got any premises on the back burner that you’d care to share?

GOD, i have this whole deeply self-indulgent concept for a beejtraphawk post-canon verse that will probably never be realized as an actual fic/series, but it does bring me deep joy to think about. i also do want to write a sequel to "in tango tempo" eventually, but i have more time sensitive projects that have it fa-a-ar on the back burner.

Q: Do you have any discarded scenes/storylines/projects?

generally i don't have things that i discard entirely, i just stick them in a "scraps" document to repurpose later. if i've started writing it, i'm loathe to trash it unless i really think it's badly written. one scene that falls under that is a ray-centric sequence from ITT that i ended up cutting, but am hoping to use for the eventual sequel. it'll end up playing out differently in the sequel because of what happens in ITT, obviously, but here was the original concept:

BJ becomes suspicious of ray and hawkeye spending time together and demand to know what they possibly have in common. hawkeye panics and says they talk about books, to which BJ is like 🤨 if that lunkhead is even literate i'll be surprised. he catches them off-guard at rosie's on night and asks ray what he's been reading recently, and hawkeye is sitting there sweating bullets thinking he's been caught out. but ray pulls a dog-eared saroyan novel out of his pocket and talks a little about some authors he likes, which shocks both BJ and hawkeye alike. afterwards, when hawkeye and ray are pillow-talking, hawkeye admits that he didn't really think of ray as the reading type, and ray shrugs and says he's got a life outside of railing hot doctors. hawkeye ends up confronting the fact that he hasn't really been seeing ray as someone with interiority and depth, and he feels ashamed.

i took this out of ITT because i realized it would take a few scenes to make it happen, which would affect the fic's momentum a lot. as i said, it'll be reworked when i get around to the sequel, but i do like the base concept of fleshing out a stock character type and making ray more than a living dildo

U: A pairing you might like to write for, but haven’t tried yet.

🤔🤔🤔 hmm! this was a tricky one; even though i haven't posted fic for most of my ships, i have scraps for a lot of them, or have mulled them over with friends in some detail. but i'm realizing that as much as i love it, i don't think i've ever written piercinhoulityre! need to fix that

[tiny-cloud-of-flowers]

📝⛈️☕🎞️ for Lorenza floor that "if your s/i was canon" ask memes?

I can certainly do that for you, friend! Thank you very much for sending all of these in!~

(question source: "Imagine Your Self-insert Was Canon… Self-Ship Asks" by cursedmoon-doll13)

📝: How would your story in canon go? How would you influence the events of the original story? - I feel as though Lorenza's presence wouldn't directly change all that much in the story, in all honesty..? The main parts in which she would be a more prominent character would be anything to do with the Thirteenth for obvious reasons, so that would mostly be the Crystal Tower raids (when she first enters the Source and helps NOAH find a way into the World of Darkness), the Shadow of Mhach raids (for reasons I'll explain later down the ask), and most prominently, the post-Endwalker story. The main thing I would want her to change, if she could change something, is taking Zero back from Zenos during Endwalker itself somehow - but I haven't actually seen that many cutscenes of her as his unwilling avatar yet (I'm pretty sure I skipped some), so I am not sure to what extent that would actually be possible. It'd be nice, though. So I'd quite like it to happen. Of course, crystal verse-wise - which is what I tend to view as Lorenza's default/"canon" version of events - you could argue that she may have slightly more of an influence on the story, simply by virtue of helping keep K'pheli in a much healthier (or, less aether-sick) state than he would have been in without her intervention or presence. But that and anything more than that is largely for you to establish if you so wish, hehe~

🌦️: Would you be accompanied by mostly fluff or angst fanfics? Both? Explain why. - Hmm.. On the one hand, the fact that Lorenza and Zero are separated from each other for so long might encourage people to write lots of fluff to counter that fact. On the other hand, there is always potential for angst, by sheer means of how many painful moments happen in the plot - I can imagine there might be a number of sin eater/Lightwarden Lorenza AUs, for example, because of how poorly she reacts to the First as well as the fact that she's the one who takes on the Lightwardens' Light outside of crystal verse/in my version of events, plus the whole "light vs. darkness" dynamic that this would introduce. Another key angst moment that probably gets focused on a lot would be Zero appearing as Zenos' unwilling reaper avatar during Endwalker, as alluded to above. So, in conclusion, perhaps both? I can imagine anything that gets written being pretty far one way or the other, rather than somewhere in the middle.

☕️: What are the most common plots of shipping fics between you and your F/O? - Hell if I know, in all honesty! The trouble with not reading very much (or hardly any) fanfiction is that I don't have a very good idea of what sorts of things are common for people to write about specific pairings, unfortunately =P I can perhaps imagine that there would be some scenes of Lorenza showing Zero various places on the Source or introducing her to things there, since - although both of them are from the Thirteenth - Lorenza has of course experienced much more of the Source than Zero would have, so she could act as a guide for her, and use that time as a way for the two to catch each other up on what has happened since they were last able to be together. But, that's about the only potential plot to come to mind.

🎞️: What ‘canon’ scenes would the fandom point to as evidence for the validity of your ship? - I tried to write one of these out, once - it's the one where Lorenza confronts Diabolos at the end of the Dun Scaith raid, forcing him to go and report that she is alive to the rest of the Thirteenth, and also to mandate that no harm can come to Zero. While it doesn't technically reveal who she is, it does at least serve as the first major on-screen example of Lorenza referring to her lover, and would probably be what encouraged whoever-was-with-her-as-part-of-the-raid to ask her about her for the first time. This is the only really concrete part of it that I have so far (that isn't just me writing out how the in-game cutscene normally goes), but I still think it stands pretty well on its own, so here it is. Imagine Lorenza holding Diabolos by the neck or something as she's talking at him.

(Technically speaking, Lorenza is not directly connected to Scathach like she's implying here - there's an argument to be made that the Thirteenth consists of what you could call "the Celtic voidsent" and "the Italian voidsent", given the divides in names (other than Diabolos, ironically), and given that her names are Lorenza and Colombina and she literally speaks Italian in the above snippet, it's perhaps evident that she is of the latter instead of the former. Even so, she's still a princess of the void - so of course she would take the throne next in the absence of a queen, right? A wayward princess ruling from afar.)

Other than that, I do think that Lorenza would open up more about Zero at some point on-screen in the story, I'm just not sure when or to whom yet. So, that would also be a pretty clear example of another scene, even if Zero herself isn't present for it. The other example would of course be the actual reuniting of Zero with Lorenza at last, whether that's post-Endwalker or I be self-indulgent and bring her into things early.

Ah, that was rather a lot for one post, but I hope that these answers are alright for you, friend! Thank you very much once again for sending in so many questions, it really means a lot~

[madeimpact]

10, 26 for the munday meme??

Shh pretend it's still munday || @beinfriends

Gonna answer 10 under a cut because it talks about some of the, uh...more difficult subject matter in End of Evangelion

∗ 26﹕ who  was  your  very  first  muse ?  would  you  consider  writing  them  now ?

I answered this already, but just to humor the question, I'll refer back to my other answer last time this question came around the blog. Old Vocaloid self insert that predates tumblr.

Hm...I dunno if I'd consider writing her as she last was before she kinda retreated into the recesses of my brain. I'd probably end up completely reworking her into her own OC ( she was already sort of evolving into her own character in her later stages anyway ).

∗ 10﹕ is  there  a  piece  of  your  character’s  canon  that  you  refuse  to  accept ?

I've talked at length before about how I feel about the infamous hospital scene in End of Evangelion. EoE Shinji is just overall a very different, more vitriolic character compared to what we see in the anime. I'll go ahead and link this meta I reblogged a while back because I basically directly quote it whenever I'm asked about this, they were able to put the vague feelings I had into words way better than I ever could LMAOSDHKDFJLG

I don't really outright say it didn't happen, but rather I try to figure a mental process that's a little more in line with the anime that would result in...yanno...that. I just feel like it's a little bit more of a challenge to do it that way you feel? Writing it out entirely feels like the easy, "it's problematic therefore it doesn't exist" solution, which really doesn't work for what Eva tries to be. In the past I've explained it as a lapse in judgement that not even Shinji knows how to explain ( not the most satisfying or in-depth, I know, but this is something I've been struggling with for years ). With him strangling Asuka on the beach, I've written it as some combination of him acting on pent up rage about how Asuka treated him, plus him needing to know he exists in the physical world again, therefore being able to touch someone. Mind you — holding up a big flashing neon sign here so no one gets it twisted — that's not to say any of this is justified behavior. It's not. EoE Shinji does fucked up shit, there's no two ways about it. I've just...tried getting into Anno's head about the whole thing, I guess. I've tried to think whether there's a universe in which this stuff happens. And of course, I'd NEVER actually write this shit out in RP. Not the time or place.

I just...I have a lot of complicated feelings about End of Eva. I don't actively dislike it as a film overall — it has some good things that can connect back to the anime, like "anywhere can be heaven as long as you have the will to live" and Shinji's ultimate rejection of Instrumentality. But it's hard to reconcile several elements of it with the ending of the anime ( which I prioritize over EoE as the conclusion to anime Shinji's character arc ), even though I've tried over the years. Maybe it's just my weird reluctance to just outright change shit about canon, idk.

If anything, I guess my answer to all of this is my post-EoE verse where things start to rebuild and look up for the cast. It's something I like about the manga and rebuild — they're a little more unambiguously optimistic, which I think ultimately does Eva's message of self-love and self-improvement better service. Post-EoE Shinji is generally in a better place mentally and regrets his actions in EoE. He chose a world of individuality, which means he needs to take ownership of those actions and do better.

[aeranethwrites]

To all the new followers and people who liked/read my superbat drabble: You are awesome <3

Anyway, have a continuation? I’m a sucker for reactions

“Clark Joseph Kent, I cannot believe you bothered to show up to work!!”

“Um. H-Hi, Lois.”

“Gah!! I could just-!” While Lois pantomimed strangling the soul right out of his body, Clark adjusted his glasses and tried to not listen too much to the whispering.

Who was he kidding, he was both ‘curious and obscenely nosy’, as Bruce liked to put it.

“Braver than he looks, if that’s real-”

“Actually sleeping with Batman, holy shit-”

“How did Batman pick that up? I’m surprised Clark didn’t faint at the sight of the Bat.”

“-cannot believe we spent all these years one cubicle from each other, and you have the audacity to keep something like this from me- hello? Clark?!” Lois snapped her fingers impatiently, and Clark blinked several times.

“Sorry. Spaced out.” Lois pinched the bridge of her nose. She breathed very slowly.

“Smallville,” she growled. “You have one- just one- chance to tell me that this was a hoax. That Jimmy saw something completely fake, that some other weirdo in a bat costume was hanging out on the rooftop, and you gave him the friendliest hug on this side of the Atlantic.” The whole floor was quiet, everyone holding their breaths. While also trying very hard to pretend they weren’t listening.

Clark sighed very quietly. “It’s my fault,” he admitted. Lois sucked in a breath- “If I was going to kiss my boyfriend, I probably shouldn’t have done it on a building full of photographers.” Her jaw hung slack, and the whispers exploded back in. Then Lois snapped out of it and began shaking him back and forth, spluttering incoherently.

“Enough!!” The floor quieted. “Kent!” Perry snapped. “Office! Now!”

“Yes, sir,” Clark said meekly, gingerly squirming out of Lois’ hold. She sputtered quietly as he shuffled into the open door, eyes still huge.

Perry walked stiffly to his desk, indicating Clark sit. Clark sat, watching him pace for a few moments. After a long while, he turned around, eyes sharp.

“I almost told Jimmy to hell with that picture,” he finally said. “If that kid wasn’t so damned positive that he was the real thing. If it were anyone else, Kent- anyone, I would have thrown them out on their asses.” Clark winced.

“I wouldn’t do something like that.”

“That’s just the thing. I know you wouldn’t. You never have before, and if you were about to start, it damn well wouldn’t be with Batman. He may not do PR, but he’s still the kind of person that gets the message across.” Clark nodded absently. He really was. “Still, all exclusives aside…” The editor sighed, rubbing at his forehead. “Seriously, kid? Batman?” Clark shrugged awkwardly. “How long has this been going on?”

“... Some years, now.”

“How the hell did that happen?” I met a man in Taiwanese prison, then followed him across Asia and fell in love. Clark coughed, adjusting his glasses.

“Through Superman.”

“That’s it?”

“It’s… a long story. Essentially, through Superman.” Perry eyeballed him for a long moment, then harrumphed.

“I guess asking for an interview is too much.”

“Batman wants his privacy, and I won’t break that.”

“Uh-huh. I don’t suppose you talked with him about this mess.”

“We did.” Clark grimaced. “I think he’s more upset with himself for not noticing Jimmy sooner. But he doesn’t want me to retract anything.” Perry raised an eyebrow. Clark sighed. “He… knows my career is important to me. He respects that. Said if nothing else, exposing him as a gay superhero will be beneficial.”

“I didn’t think he cared about that sort of thing.”

“He cares a lot more than you’d think, sir. Believe me, if you knew him, you’d wonder what he ever saw in me.” Perry scoffed, leaning against his desk.

“No, I wouldn’t.” He shook his head to himself. “You’re not allowed anywhere near this story. Neither is Lois, for that matter.”

“She’s going to strangle you.”

“Probably. It’s too late to take back either way.”

“I understand. Batman does, too.”

“Good. Go find Jimmy when you can escape the mob. He’s probably still hiding in a closet and having a crisis. Like you do sometimes, only more dramatic.” Clark snorted very quietly.

“I’ll find him.”

“And- Clark,” Perry called, before Clark could go out the door. “... Be careful, kid.”

“I’m always careful.” Perry’s expression bordered scathing.

“No, you’re not.” Clark could only shrug sheepishly. He went out the door anyway. “... Batman,” Clark heard him mutter to himself. “The goddamned Batman.”

Lois peered at him over the top of their shared cubicle wall as he returned to his desk. He sighed. “Neither of us is allowed near the story,” he recited.

“What?!”

“Sorry, Lois.”

“If I could just get five minutes alone with-”

“Lois.” Clark frowned. “Please respect his privacy. He’s not a story, he’s someone that’s important to me.”

“Clark-”

“Please,” Clark repeated, softening his voice. “As a friend.” The reporter faltered, visibly wavering. Clark almost felt bad, but there was very little else that would throw Lois Lane off the scent of a good story.

“... The second you break it off, he’s mine,” Lois finally growled.

“We’re not going to break it off.”

“Oh? Long-term, then?”

“Lois.”

“Fine, fine.” Lois waved him off. “Fine.” She still didn’t leave. “... So is your boyfriend a good kisser? Just out of friendly curiosity.”

Clark sighed.

Bruce was the center of attention the moment he stepped foot on the Watchtower. He expected it, but it didn’t make it any less irritating.

The main hall immediately went quiet as he walked through. Mostly because Flash had switched off the main monitor so quickly along with the conversation dying off. He ignored it, along with the stares that followed him. Everyone was gathered around the blank screen, watching him intensely.

“... Hey, Bats!” Flash attempted. “Hey! Buddy. Pal. W-What’s happening?”

“Probably crime,” Batman replied flatly. “Where’s my monitor view?”

“Oh, that’s- that’s a bit on the fritz. There’s, uh, some weird connection that keeps popping up, best to not mess with it-” Bruce pulled a remote from his pocket and switched it back on. The show continued playing.

“-right here in Smallville, where Clark Kent was raised. How did you two know each other, Miss Suzanne?”

“Oh, you know, we’ve been best friends throughout our childhoods. That’s just how small towns are, though, you know? He’s basically my brother.”

“You dumped milk in his lap in sixth grade and called him a stupid dork.”

“Shut up, Pete!”

“Annnd back to you, Jeff!”

“The Daily Planet reporter that’s been sweeping the headlines as a topic himself, Clark Kent, has so far declined comment on his relationship with the world-famous hero Batman-” Another click and the monitor switched back to his crime watch. Bruce rolled his eyes as he went up the walkway to his station. He settled in to get some actual work done.

The League followed him to the computer.

“Sooo… on the topic,” Lantern began. “Is it true?”

“Yes.” Bruce frowned at the screen. “There’s definitely crime happening.”

“... No, Batman. We mean-”

“We mean,” Hawkgirl cut in, “that we are only curious if this ‘Clark Kent’ is spreading false rumors in an attempt to damage your public image.” Batman paused. He’d been planning on ignoring them, but the question rankled.

“And just how would me having a boyfriend damage my public image?” he challenged, bristling.

“Whoa, whoa, that’s definitely not what she meant,” Flash insisted hastily. “Not what she meant at all. Look, we just know Kent is close to Superman, and he does a lot of coverage for the Justice League. She was just asking if he might be going rogue on us.”

“What else would I mean?” Hawkgirl muttered. Green Lantern raised an eyebrow. “... Oh.”

“... No,” Brucefinally grumbled, turning away his glare. “He’s not going ‘rogue’ on us.”

“So he’s not lying?” Wonder Woman confirmed. Bruce had the feeling of being tricked, though he couldn’t say why.

“... He’s not lying.”

“Oh-ho, Bats!” Flash cheered, clapping his shoulder. “Good on you! Rooftop makeout and everything!”

“Congratulations,” J’onn offered. “He seems very nice.”

“He’s pretty cute,” Hawkgirl acknowledged. “In a dorky way. I wouldn’t have guessed that was your type.”

“So how long have you been dating?” Flash asked eagerly, leaning into his space. “Is he dating Batman, or does he know your secret identity?? How’d you guys meet? Did Superman hook you up? Wait, does Superman know about you two? I mean, I guess he knows now, but did he before?” Bruce sighed harshly.

“All of you have better things to do.”

“Yeah, but we wanna talk about you and your cute boyfriend!”

“I have a question, too,” Lantern added. “If you two were a secret, why’d you end up making out on top of the Daily Planet? You know, the building full of reporters with cameras on hand?”

“Oh, let him live a little,” Hawkgirl scoffed. “Some people like showing off.”

“Yeah, sure, but not Batman.”

“What not Batman?” Kal wondered, entering the hall. Batman felt somewhat vengeful as Lantern turned around.

“We were just asking the Bat about his voyeurism.” Kal choked for a moment.

“Excuse me??”

“What else do you call him making out with his boyfriend on a building of reporters?” Hawkgirl returned.

“W-Well, that- I mean-”

“It’s your fault,” Bruce informed him. There was a moment of silence as everyone stared between them. Kal’s mouth moved silently for a moment.

“M-Me? What did I do?”

“Suddenly he’s upset about some Watchtower gossip you shared with him. Something about supervillains constantly flirting with me and other women.” Wonder Woman’s face twitched violently. Kal coughed awkwardly as Flash and Lantern looked busy studying anything else.

“Well, I just- You know how often we talk-”

“You know he’s sensitive.”

“Yes,” Kal ground out, groaning. “Yes, I- do.”

“He took risks he wouldn’t normally and we got caught.”

“And you’re mad at me for it, I get it.”

“I’m not mad, Superman,” Bruce replied patiently. “I don’t blame either of you. You’re a weak man for gossip and he’s prone to bouts of jealousy. Do you really blame him?” Kal rolled his eyes to the heavens while Flash muffled a snort.

“No, Batman,” he intoned. “I don’t blame him. You’re a wonderful man and anyone would be lucky to have you. How can he stand not having you to himself twenty-four hours a day?” Bruce waved him off, returning to his work.

“That’ll do.”

“So you’re done?”

“For today.”

“For the month.” Bruce hmmed.

“The week.”

“Fine.”

“Then I’m going back to work.”

“So am I.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.” There was a long silence. Kal cleared his throat, then finally left. Bruce shook his head to himself as the League quietly dispersed. Flash lingered, leaning against the console.

“... You two really are close, aren’t you?”

“We’ve known each other too long,” Bruce replied. Flash chuckled.

“I guess he really did introduce you two, then? How long ago was that, anyway?”

“Why do all of you care so much about me having a relationship?” Bruce frowned at him, baffled.

“Well, it’s- I don’t know. You’re just… You’re always such a hardass. John was in the Marines and even he thinks you’re over the top.” The speedster shrugged. “It’s just nice knowing you’re human, I guess. You never seemed to notice anyone or show how much you care about things. It’s nice to know there’s a soft, squishy heart under all those layers of darkness.”

“He’s the squishy one,” Bruce denied immediately. “He’s composed of eighty-seven percent sunlight and rainbows.” Flash grinned hugely.

“Awww. And you love him just like that, don’t you?” Bruce muttered some Kryptonian swears under his breath. He hoped Kal was enjoying himself.

“... I like my privacy,” he finally said, when Flash still wouldn’t go away. “And it’s for his safety. Along with his family’s.”

“Yeah, but everyone knows he’s Superman’s BFF.”

“People like the Joker didn’t have a reason to care about that before.”

“... Point. Hey, so did Superman introduce you? Can I at least get the footnotes on that story?” Bruce held back a sigh. Still, of the rest of the League, Flash was… least suspicious. Just overly friendly. (He seemed to attract the type.)

“Superman didn’t introduce us,” he admitted at length. “We met before him.”

“Whoa- seriously??”

“It was a long time ago, we were still teenagers.” He shook his head to himself. “We had a habit of getting into trouble together, diving headfirst into mysteries. He wanted to take on the world through writing, I wanted to take on Gotham with my fists. We were together long before Superman came into the picture.”

“... You’ve known Superman for a long time,” Flash finally said. “Wow. You don’t have to answer, but have you ever considered getting married?”

“You ever consider not gossiping about the number of people that want to get into my pants?” Bruce retorted. Flash coughed awkwardly, but didn’t retreat. Bruce sighed his troubles to himself, but leaned back in his chair. He pulled off his left glove to give a lazy wave with it, flashing gold in front of the speedster.

Flash choked. Bruce slipped his glove back on. So he’d been feeling a little sentimental that morning, was all.

“Tell Wonder Woman that no, we’re not breaking it off anytime soon,” he said. “Even so, she really isn’t my type.” With that, he returned to work. He could feel Flash staring.

“... So how did you guys meet Supes, anyway?”

“It’s a long story,” Bruce answered pointedly. Flash got the hint at least, holding up his hands. He left with that, probably to gossip more.

Bruce’s handheld buzzed a moment after, and he glanced down.

Fine. You’re not sleeping on the couch tonight.

“I love you, too,” Bruce muttered in Kryptonian, rolling his eyes. He still sighed softly after a long moment, absently rubbing at the hidden ring. So, maybe it wasn’t so bad, letting the world know that Clark Kent belonged to him.

They’d deal with the consequences together.

[eleanorbloom]

Marry My Lover (Bryce x Eleanor Proposal Headcanon)

A/N: Well, I thought I wouldn't do it because I was too invested with this fic, but I've been thinking adult life is so fucking hard that maybe I'll never find the time and inspo to finish this fic, so... well, why not realease it to the world as headcanon/very-poorly-written-fic. If later I find the inspo, maybe I'll write it, maybe not, but I think posting this will lift a heavy weight off me.

Please forgive me my grammar mistakes and poor english, I mean, I know it's not poor, but I went really basic here, other way I would've never finished writing this lol

Tagging my WYR readers, in case you're interested in reading this @curiousconch @romereadingshop @utterlyinevitable @lahellacute @chocopeppermintcake

Also this is sumbission for @openheartfanfics Weekly Trope Challenge, week 2: Weddings & Proposals (@openheartheadcanons)

Marry My Lover

Bryce had wanted to propose to Eleanor for a while, considering both spontaneous and prepared ways to do it.

One of the first ideas was proposing on a visit to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, as it was the place of their first date. But none of their shifts let them assist for a couple of weeks, so he decided to look for something less complicated.

As he saw their annual meeting with the gang was coming, he decided he would propose on that occasion. Surrounded by friends, the people who helped them get together and supported them in the most difficult times both personally and as a couple.

So he would propose at Donahue’s. With a song, no less. Marry Me by Bruno Mars. A cheerful song, Eleanor loved Bruno Mars and simply matched with the tone he wanted to have on the proposal. Happy and spectacular. He wanted to make her feel the luckiest, most loved woman on earth.

So when he decided what he would do, he shared the news with Sienna so she could help him orchestrate the event. He would arrive a bit later than Eleanor, Sienna would keep her distracted, and then whoop, Bryce would appear at the center of the bar singing the song.

On the day of the meeting, Bryce was in the locker room when he received a text from Sienna: “All set, B! We’re waiting for you”. He breathed deeply, excited and a bit nervous at the same time.

They had talked about marriage, about a life together thousands of times, but it was different just taking the step and doing it, of proposing marriage. Marriage. Damn.

But at the same time, it was just a confirmation of the love they had for each other. Their love that had grown exponentially, to unknown highs and depths in the three years they had been together, and he was sure that their love would keep growing and getting stronger with each day.

After getting ready, he texted Keiki: “Hey Keiks, are you there already?” “Oh, yeah, hidden in the parking lot, super spy.” “Awesome, I’m coming out of the locker room I’ll be there in five” “Okay”

Bryce didn’t want her to miss it for the world. Keiki would kill him if he let that happen. Luckily for both Bryce and Keiki, she was studying close to home, more than close. Cambridge. BS in Physics at MIT, so as she was living just a few minutes away from Boston, they saw each other pretty regularly, once a week or once every two weeks depending on how busy the three were.

Keiki was excited about it, but there was just this strange smirk on her. Bryce thought it was just the fact that her brother would propose to Eleanor at last.

Once at the bar, he greeted their friends, Elijah, coming from Chicago, Jackie, from Baltimore, and Sienna coming from New York. Aurora was the only one living in Boston, working at Brigham and Women’s Hospital as attending and part of the new Diagnostic Team there.

Everyone was happy but at the same time with this strange smirk, like they were hiding something.

“And Elle?” he asked.

A few moments after the question was made, a guitar started to play. He looked at the center of the bar, and found Eleanor, on a yellow dress, and matched hatband playing guitar and singing: We could leave the Christmas lights up 'til January And this is our place, we make the rules And there's a dazzling haze, a mysterious way about you, dear Have I known you twenty seconds or twenty years?

Bryce couldn’t believe his eyes. His ears. His skin. How a shiver ran down his spine, making tingle every inch of him; how his stomach fluttered at the sight of her there, beautiful and singing and… Surprising him.

It was Lover by Taylor Swift, because, how not, his girlfriend was a Swiftie since High School, so once a Swiftie, always a Swiftie.

Bryce knew almost every song of the last two albums she had released in the last couple of years because they had blasted the speakers of their home for weeks. Can I go where you go? Can we always be this close? Forever and ever, ah Take me out, and take me home You're my, my, my, my lover

After singing the chorus, Eleanor handed the guitar to Rafael, who continued with the melody, and took the mic in one hand, singing the second verse as she started walking slowly towards him. We could let our friends crash in the living room This is our place, we make the call She took his hand on hers and softly pulled him to the center of the bar

And when Eleanor sang “And I'm highly suspicious that everyone who sees you wants you”, both chuckled knowingly, because they knew how true that was, wherever he goes, he enchants.

I've loved you three summers now, honey, but I want 'em all

It had been three summers indeed and nor he or she couldn’t imagine a summer without each other.

Eleanor kept singing, every word with meaning, it was like the song was written for them, especially “I take this magnetic force of a man to be my lover” Because who else on this planet was a magnetic force but him?

Bryce was beaming the whole song, smiling, laughing, biting his lip, showing how happy, flattered, incredulous and in love he was.

He couldn’t believe his luck. To this day, after more than three years, sometimes he still couldn’t believe he had the chance to love so much and be so loved. So happy, so free, so understood. And he would probably live this luck, this love, forever and ever with her.

When the song ended, Eleanor took out something from the pocket of her yellow dress. A velvet box. When she opened it, a silver ring with a diamond at the center shined under the multicolor lights of the bar. Eleanor took his hand in hers and kissed his knuckles softly before asking: “Bryce Lahela, mi amor, we both know we want to spend the rest of our lives together. In these three years you have made me nothing but happy. The happiest luckiest woman alive. I want that for the rest of our lives. Would you marry me?”

“Yes,” he said, eyes sparkling, shining so bright with emotions, with love, with adoration, with happiness, “Yes, babe, yes! The only thing I want is to spend the rest of my life with you!”

Everyone cheered, Sienna was crying, Kyra too, and even Keiki had shed a tear.

Eleanor put a ring on his finger and both kissed sweetly in the middle of the bar.

After a few moments, Bryce kissed her hand and chuckled, “Well, now it’s my turn.”

Eleanor stared confused at him, and when she heard him shouting “Música maestro!” she understood.

Eleanor couldn't believe it either. When the notes of Marry Me by Bruno Mars started playing, she covered her mouth with her hands just like Cecilia Bolocco when she won Miss Universe in 1986. “No way, love!” she squealed.

After a few verses, Bryce took her hand and turned her to the wall, where a video was playing. Videos of colleagues, nurses, even patients, with thumbs up singing along “Don't say no, no, no, no, no, Just say yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah” Then, her parents showed up in the video, beaming as they sang along too. Even her grandparents from Chile, Ricardo and Ofelia, appeared in the video asking the same.” “Oh my god,” Eleanor couldn't hold it anymore and simply let the tears fall. Tears of joy, of happiness.

Then Bryce started to walk around the bar, singing with a persuasive tone, asking the patrons to join him in his singing, as if he had to convince her to marry him. Friendly patrons would nod and show their thumbs up and sing along for a couple of seconds.

Once the song ended, Bryce bend on one knee and took the velvet box out of the pocket of his pants, where a beautiful rose gold ring was there, with a round diamond at the center and smaller at the sides. “Well, you won me. This was my idea too, but you were faster, or maybe you had friends who took your side and decided to help you instead of me.” Everyone chuckled. “Or maybe she just asked before you did,” Jackie teased. “Either way, I’m honored and flattered, but I couldn’t miss the opportunity to propose to you. I mean, I’ve dreamed about this day practically since I met you.” “Awww, mi amor.” “I want all summers with you and all winters, especially winters so you can keep me warm on snowy nights.” Eleanor giggled, her eyes full of tenderness, “Of course, my love. Summer, fall, winter, spring, all of the seasons and all of the years I have left on this planet.” “Good. And you, Eleanor Andrea Bloom, would you marry me?” “Yes, my love, mi amor, sí, sí, yes!” Bryce put the ring on her finger, and again, people cheered and clapped. Keiki and Jackie whistled.

When Bryce and Eleanor got off the stage, the gang approached them, filling them with congratulations and hugs, and just love for the happy, recently-engaged couple. they disclosed how everything had happened -Eleanor indeed had asked help first, she had been practicing guitar for more than a month with the help of Rafael.

After a while, Bryce took Eleanor’s hand and led her to a quiet place so they could have a moment for themselves. They smiled and laughed without saying anything, still processing what had happened and trying to understand the happiness they were feeling. their hearts were simply overflowing with happiness and love. “You know? I can say people, mostly women, have asked me a lot of things in my life, some of them shocking, some of them rather cute, but never had a woman proposing to me, so this is a first. You're definitely a keeper.” “Oh, that's why you're agreeing to marry me?” she asked, feigning offense. “One of the four hundred million reasons, babe.” Eleanor smiled pensively, earnest, “You deserve everything, my love, everything. And that includes being proposed, because, damn, we’re too far from gender stereotypes and toxic masculinity.” “I agree.” “And because I really wanted you to know that I wanna marry you, and spend the rest of my life with you, just as much as you do.”

Completely spellbound by the sincerity of her love, now and always, Bryce simply bit his lip and leaned to plant a sweet kiss on her lips.

There was nothing else to do but be happy.

____

Ps: Here pics of Bryce and Eleanor engagement rings. I had the idea of a collage, but it would've also taken me a day to finish it, lol sorry

Thank you for reading! ❤

[the-resurrection-3d]

Hi i'm from the uh bandingo fic and I was wondering what the fuck is going on? I mean how can I find everything you've posted about nickberto.

ALRIGHT SO. Everything should be collected under my nick tag (mostly memes and story excerpts), but I'll also include a little summary of what's going on because the excerpt I linked to in "bandingo" is technically for Regular Timeline Nickberto, which is different from Modern Nickberto in some key ways.

The TL;DR backstory for both timelines is that Alberto meets Nick when Alberto is 15 and Nick is about to turn 20. Nick is taking a gap year in Italy with his uncle and his mother ("Isn't 20 a little old to be taking a gap year?" Yes. We'll get to it in the Berlin fic) and decides to pursue Alberto because he's the Felon of the Century. Their relationship ends up being a lot more intense than either of them anticipated, and uh oh, it looks like Nick might actually end up going to uni in Italy, but his uncle eventually walks back that idea. So at the end of the year, Nick goes back to America. The best way to think of it is that if luberto are soulmates (wholesome) then nickberto are soulmates (toxic).

In Regular Timeline, he basically just ghosts Alberto and Alberto has to learn later that Nick is back in New York permanently and even has a girlfriend (she's a beard because he's a full-on home of sexual, but regardless). Nick definitely does consider reaching back out to Alberto, but it's juuuust difficult enough to make him stop. Basically this all started when I posted something I'd written about Alberto seeking approval by fucking older guys, and a friend messaged me like "hey what if that 20-year-old pierced Alberto's ear too?" Things spiraled from there.

Here's the actual excerpt since I assume you're still curious:

You're 15, he's 19. You're 15, he's 30. You're 16, he's 43.

You're 16, he's 20 now, and he tells you the truth: fucked-up, broken people have all the best sex. You gotta fuck like your entire ego's on the line every time.

He shows you how. Oh, does he show you how.

And then he gets a girlfriend and admittance to a big fancy school in New York and stops taking spring break trips to some silly little town on the coast of Italy.

You hate how you miss him. Really though, you know you miss how dirty he made you feel. How seen.

Fun fact: that thing Nick says was based off something an irl friend told me. It actually was about people who've been molested. Probably gonna change it back, lollll.

In Modern Timeline, because keeping in touch is obviously a lot easier, Nick explains how it's not his choice to leave and him and Alberto agree to keep in touch. Basically it's a very on/off long-distance relationship, with cycles of ghosting each other for a few weeks before reconnecting (sometimes it's Alberto doing the ghosting, sometimes it's Nick). Nick comes back to Italy when he can, but basically every major move he makes is dictated by his uncle, so it's definitely less often than he'd like.

In Regular Timeline, while it takes Nick awhile to find out it's Luca specifically that Alberto's hiding, he knows pretty early on that Alberto is obsessed with someone else. Alberto is VERY firm about his boundaries regarding Luca stuff, no matter how pissy Nick gets. (Imagine getting emotionally cucked by a 14-yr-old, fucking lmao.) (Nick copes by drinking and playing whatever equivalent to 'Scotty Doesn't Know' was biggest in the 60s, I'm not your go-to dadrock person.)

In Modern Timeline, without Luca there, Alberto just falls head-over-heels in love with Nick. It's genuinely depressing, especially because Nick refuses to actually say he's Alberto's boyfriend or that he loves him even though his actions clearly show that he cares (I mean let's be real, if Nick was only interested in the age-gap aspect of their relationship, there's basically no shortage of closeted 15-year-old boys in NYC). Obviously their relationship isn't "equal" in modern!verse, but I honestly wanna say that Alberto has more skill at navigating it because he's more aware of how exactly he's impacted Nick and what exactly Nick is going through (because Nick himself has and is still being abused by his uncle).

At least he thought he did. The Berlin fic highlights how much he still didn't know about Nick even three years in.

They're literally so All Too Well (Ten Minute Version) (Taylor's Version) (From The Vault).

The Berlin Fic, as I've been calling it, describes the trip Nick took Alberto on for his 18th birthday, one year before "bandingo." It's a big deal for their relationship; my friend and I have been calling it their mental illness honeymoon. So that'll be fun!

[tolkien-feels]

Embarrassing (?) confession time. I love your MDZS blog so much when I saw you make this blog I decided to actually go and watch the LOTR movies orz And it's literally so good?? Can't believe I've been refusing to see it for so long lmfao So what do I do next if I want to get into the fandom?

First of all I'm so glad I was able to introduce you to something you had fun with!!

I'll put everything else below a cut so the post doesn't get too long.

It's Absolutely Normal to get people mixed up. There are many people to keep track of, after all! Rewatching/rereading helps, and there are also many wikis around if that's something that you think could be useful. (Personally, I like the Tolkien Gateway wiki the best because it's usually full of sources for everything, which makes double-checking info very easy.)

Okay, so I'm not sure which LotR movies you've watched, so let's begin there. There's the theatrical cut (which are around 3h for each movie) and the extended versions (which are around 4h for each movie.) If you've watched the theatrical version, I'd start by watching the extended version. You'll get lots of iconic scenes that were cut for length reasons but are honestly great. As a bonus, you'll spend more time with the characters and the world and get some extra familiarity with them, which might help you tell people apart. (As a side note, try and find the making of features called The Appendices if you can. It'll take you days to watch, but a lot of my love for these movies comes from watching how much love went into making them.)

Still in the movie-verse, there's a prequel trilogy called The Hobbit, which I'd skip for now. It has its following and I enjoy some things about it, but it's not exactly a good adaptation of the book it's based on. You'll probably want to watch it at some point, but I wouldn't make it a very high priority.

If you enjoyed the MDZS audiodrama, you might like the 1981 BBC radiodrama adaptation of the LotR books. It's relatively obscure compared to either the movies or the books, but it's surprisingly good and follows the book more closely than you'd expect - which makes it great for someone who's more familiar with the movies and wants to read the books. Also, Ian Holm, who plays Bilbo in the movies, voices Frodo in this adaptation and it's honestly eerie how much Elijah Wood sounds like him sometimes, so that's fun if you're into weirdly appropriate coincidences.

There are also a handful of animated movies if you're into that. They're all corny and dated and wonderful, but probably better appreciated once you're knee-deep into the fandom, unless you're a fan of vintage animation techniques.

At some point you'll probably want to get into the books, of course. There are A Ton of Tolkien books. The three core ones are The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion. Everything else you can come back to later after you've read these.

Now, your first instinct would probably be to read LotR since you watched the movies, but I'd strongly advise you to start with The Hobbit instead. It's a children's book and like 300 pages long, so you'll get through it very quick. It'll introduce you to Tolkien's writing style (including the many poems, which I'm begging you not to skip 🥺) and be just... Generally very fun without a very high time/energy/effort cost to pay. If you like audiobooks, a fan who goes by Bluefax has produced an unabridged movie-inspired audiobook that is the only Tolkien audiobook I like - I find The Hobbit has the tone of a story told out loud rather than a written book.

Then you should probably read the LotR books, which just as a fair warning, are pretty different from the movies in some major ways. I like the novel better than the movies but some people don't. It's also a bit of a slowburn in that you'll have to be patient with the long set up and development stages for both plot and character arcs - it does all pay off in the end, but it's different from the rather fast-paced movies. I know there are movie-inspired audiobooks (by Phil Dragash iirc?) but I've never tried them so I can't speak for or against them.

Last of all comes The Silmarillion, which is probably my favorite Tolkien book but it's not beginner-friendly. Do read it at some point (MDZS fans seem particularly fond of it and there are many reasons for that), but whatever you do, don't make it the first Tolkien book you read. It's not as nightmarish as some snobs try to paint it, but it can be legitimately challenging the first time you read it.

.....I think that's enough to last you for quite a while. I'll just add that standard fandom procedure does apply - start following people on tumblr, watch youtube videos, read fic, whatever you like. If you try to wait until you've consumed Every Tolkien Text before getting in the fandom, you'll... probably take a few years - there are some 30 or so books, depending on how you count, and that's without including stuff like biographies, commentaries and the subfandom dedicated to, say, movie lore, or games and music inspired by Tolkien. It's a lot, and you can and should jump in whenever you feel ready rather than trying to catch up on over half a century of material just to have fun.

And of course, if you end up finding that you loved the movies but can't stand any of the books, that's alright and there's such a thing as movie-only fans, so you can look into that.

Hope you have fun exploring 🤗