#WHEN THAT OVERTURE HIT!!!!! IT WAS ALL OVER FOR ME MAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[vinylvacancy]

vinyls from my collection ( in no particular order ) 19 / ordinaryish people

ok orchestra ( 2021 ) by ajr

[sotwk]

The Best Gift (Legolas x f!Reader)

Summary: Legolas wishes a "dear friend" a Joyous Begetting Day--but anonymously.

Dedication: For my dearest @quickslvxrr, who has been such a constant and patient supporter. I'm so sorry it took forever to grant such a simple fic request from you. I hope this brings you some joy during rather difficult times. <3

Word count: 1.3k

Rating: General Audience

Content: Fluff, comedy, romance, shy young Legolas, secret pining, brotherly banter, OC Son of Thranduil (Prince Gelir) 

Warnings: None

To Read on AO3: LINK

The Best Gift

Third Age 556 June 26th

The Woodland Realm

“What in Araw’s name are you doing?”

Legolas gave a muffled cry and stumbled back a couple of steps, but caught his balance before he could crash into the shrubbery outside the small kitchen window. 

“Get down!” he hissed at his brother Gelir, grabbing the older ellon’s sleeve and yanking him down to the dirt beside him.

His heart racing like frightened deer’s, Legolas listened carefully for changes in the movement within her cottage, any sign that she might have overheard his dolt of a brother’s voice and sought to investigate. Mercifully, the melody of her sweet humming continued to float uninterrupted from the open window. 

“Oh, are you the only one permitted to wish our dear friend a Joyous Begetting?” Gelir smirked and punched him on the shoulder. “If I too had a gift I wished to present to her for the occasion, would you pound me?”

“No!” Legolas blurted out quickly; too quickly. “Wait--have you brought a gift for her?”

“I have not, because I had assumed your answer to that question would be yes. And as little as I fear your wee hits, honeg, I do not particularly enjoy being on the receiving end of them.” 

Gelir shoved the younger prince aside, leapt lightly to his feet, and crept over to peer above the windowsill. Legolas held his breath, despite knowing Gelir would never be seen or heard by any elf, man, or beast if he did not wish for them to. The worrisome issue was the great pleasure his brother seemed to derive from embarrassing him at every open opportunity--something one might assume a grown elf would grow weary of after two and half centuries, but it had yet to happen. 

Thankfully, after an agonizing few seconds, Gelir dropped back down to their hiding spot. “I see you opted for the purple night lilies.” He cocked an eyebrow at Legolas. "I seem to recall Ammë setting certain conditions on the use of the rarest blooms from her garden."

"You recall correctly," said Legolas tersely. All four of his elder brothers were frustratingly knowledgeable of the details of his personal business--a result of the powerful bonds that linked them. But Gelir was easily bored, and the only one to actually stick his nose in for active meddling. "She did not set a time by which I am required to make myself known."

"And is Ammë also aware you have spent--on my guess--at least the last two hours sitting outside this unwitting maid’s window hoping that she would come to some sort of epiphany?”

Legolas thought about the smile that lit up her face so beautifully his entire chest ached, and the way it had stayed on her face the entire time he waited there, content to just observe the joy he had caused. 

“I believe she knows. Or is close to discerning it.” 

“You are right. She must realize eventually that a plant so rare and valuable could only come from a high lord or prince.” Gelir snapped his fingers. “Perhaps I should walk in there and take the credit and her fair heart to boot!”

Legolas jerked his head suddenly. “You wouldn’t!”

“You are right. I would not; that would be wrong.” Gelir leaned in closer, his expression suddenly stern. “But it is just as egregious to carry on as long as you have, making veiled overtures to this lady rather than mustering the courage to speak the truth of your feelings plainly to her face.”

“The pursuit of someone’s affections must be like hunting. When you hunt an animal, you go with the focused intent of finishing the job as quickly as possible. You do not toy with the creature to scare or confuse it and cause it needless pain.” 

Gelir clamped a hand on his younger brother’s shoulder. “I may not know what it is like to lose my heart in this manner, little brother. But I know it is unfitting that I show greater respect to animals I stalk than you do to someone you profess to love.” 

The sudden outpouring of wisdom from his wise-cracking brother rendered Legolas speechless.  But something on his face must have quelled Gelir’s baser instincts to tease and mock him. 

“Explain your struggle. Where does all your hesitation lie?”

“I…she…” His brother seemed so genuine this time in his desire to help, that the words broke through Legolas’s reluctance to expose his vulnerabilities. “What if she does not feel the same way I do? What if she will not have me?”

“She does and she will.”

“How do you know for certain?”

“Because I have two eyes and I use them,” Gelir said flatly, his patience already worn thin. “Unlike the both of you, evidently, who cannot gaze directly at each other's faces long enough to notice how nauseatingly smitten you are with one another.”

Legolas’s hands curled into tight fists. Against his better instincts, he wanted to believe it. What maiden could refuse a son of the Elvenking if he offered her his heart?

Well, she could, in all likelihood. For what was his title against true beauty and grace such as hers? Why should he be her first choice when she could have anyone in the entirety of Eryn Galen?

“Bah! Enough of this tragic nonsense.” Gelir’s hand around his arm easily tugged the dazed Legolas to his feet.  “I will not let you waste any more time squatting here like a toad. And even toads have the sense to croak and announce their intentions.”

Gelir hooked his arm around his brother’s hunched shoulders and gave him a firm shake. “Perhaps a few bottles from Ada’s cellars might rally those nerves, eh? Come. With any luck,  you can make another go of it before the day’s end.”

As they trudged around the hedges to start the trek back up to the King’s palace, Legolas wrestled with the sense of failure at his retreat. Why could he not be more like his brothers, if not like their father? Afraid of nothing, brimming with confidence to speak their mind to anybody. What was stopping him?

Nobody. Nobody but himself. 

Legolas froze in place so suddenly that Gelir nearly lost his balance. “What--?”

The younger prince turned to squarely face the pathwalk leading back to the cottage, glaring at the bright green door with the intensity of one about to leap across an impossible distance over a deadly chasm. 

“Yessss. Go on!” He distantly heard Gelir hoot as he began his determined stride up the path. 

But then he heard something else. Footsteps. A doorknob turning. 

The color drained from Legolas’s face and his legs turned to lead. He twisted about to scurry away and out of sight, but a pair of powerful hands suddenly seized the back of his tunic, lifting him so that his boot soles left the ground. 

A hard, rough toss pitched the helpless elf to the cottage just as the door swung open. He flailed his arms out to regain his balance and avoid face-planting on the stoop, but not quickly enough to avoid bumping against the maiden that had stepped out of her home. 

“H-Hello.” He gulped down the panic that rose up his chest, as the nearness of her, such as he had never experienced before, enfolded him. Her scent, her warmth, her…touch? Legolas realized that she had raised her hands and planted them firmly against his chest, likely to help break his ungraceful fall. 

“I… uh, I came to wish you… that is…I-I just wanted to say…” Valar, did Gelir’s shove knock his tongue loose from his mouth?!  

“I wished so badly for it to be you!" she suddenly blurted out, and stuck forward her chin in her willful defiance of protocol.

“R-really?” Unexpected joy and relief burst out of Legolas’s chest like a flock of sparrows exploding from a bush.

The sweetest blush rosied her cheeks, but she still had not moved her hands from the front of his tunic, he noticed. “The flowers are the most beautiful present I have ever received, but knowing that what I had hoped for is true, that they came from you… that is really the best gift.”

“I do not believe there is anyone gladder about your begetting than I,” the elf prince avowed.

And as her whole face lit up brighter than Gil-Estel, as she slid her arm through his and guided him into the cottage, Legolas felt the nudge of a distinct sound inside his head: the chuckle of an older brother whom he had just given yet another anecdote to refer to the next time he wanted to crow over being “always right”. 

Elves HC Tag List: @a-world-of-whimsy-5 @achromaticerebus @aduialel @asianbutnotjapanese @auttumnsayshi @blueberryrock @conversacomsmaug @elan-ho-detto-elan-15 @entishramblings @fizzyxcustard @freshalmondpandadonut @friendofthefellowshipsnerdblog @glassgulls @heilith @heranintomyknife23times @ladyweaslette @laneynoir @lathalea @lemonivall @LiliDurin @quickslvxrr @ratsys @scyllas-revenge @stormchaser819 @talkdifferently6 @tamryniel @tamurilofrivendell

For more SotWK Fanfiction: Fanfiction Masterlist

Other useful links:

Introduction to SotWK

SotWK HC Masterlist

Fanfiction Request Guidelines

[is-the-owl-video-cute]

Hazmat Hole 1: Overture

I went back and forth on whether to do the pilot or not, but ultimately decided not to. Pilots are meant to be an episode 0 that isn’t necessary to understanding the plot. I may go back to it after episode 8 if I’m not completely sick of this.

It starts off with a story book narration about how hell started because Lucifer was a rebel or something and just states very vaguely that he had big ideas heaven didn’t like. Also Adam was the first man, Lilith was the first woman but she didn’t like Adam and liked Lucifer better they fell in love or whatever and Lucifer gave Eve the apple and he and Lilith were banished to hell. I wish I could lie and say I was skipping over details but they used more words to explain that in about as much depth as I did there. Anyway. The important part is that Charlie is a princess of hell as the daughter of Lucifer and Lilith and the angels go down to hell annually to purge excess souls.

These two start off annoying and by god I do not see them getting any less so. Charlie is legitimately the most generic Disney Princess rip off I have ever seen in my life, complete with reading books aloud bursting into song. It’s genuinely jarring to hear her swear because you can tell the voice director basically just told her actor to pretend she’s auditioning for the little mermaid. Vaggie is annoying because she’s written like a middle schooler’s first “strong female character”. She’s the emo love interest in a B movie that was straight to video and made by people who don’t actually know what emo is.

Appropriation Deer is literally just here to make wise cracks and occasionally move in ways that make animators cry and deviantart users in 2010 scream in joy.

They could probably cut the budget in half by not having him in the show. Anyway no he is not here to do anything besides whine about how television sucks and emphasize that he’s only there at all because he’s into watching people fail and cry or whatever. He’s very flat as a character since he’s just there to be tumblr bait.

Angel is here and spends the entire episode being sexually aggressive to the point of making everyone there uncomfortable and that’s the entire joke. That’s it. He’s a gay man who says penis and wise cracks and sexually harasses the men in the hotel. Because that is how vivziepop writes her mlm characters.

We get a two for one easy joke with these two. Haha gay man is harassing a man who isn’t gay as well as haha asexual gets hit on but he says no way.

Angel is here because “crack is expensive” and they don’t charge him rent there.

Which he says while drinking a whole bottle of liquor to establish he’s an addict because vivziepop is as subtle as a bull in a China shop.

And thus we are taken to our first musical number. It’s very underwhelming.

Also Vaggie sings like she’s getting over a cold and plugging her nose and trying to do an impression of a duck.

The opening number also leaves me with a perplexing question. Can you die in hell? Do you go to super hell if you die in hell?

And we get our first real sexual harassment/assault joke from a giant slug flasher trying to make Charlie touch him in the middle of a musical number. I’m sure this bodes great for how angel’s abuse will be treated.

I hate that I know this but as someone who did shamefully hate watch sausage party twice I have to point out that Adam here is literally just a rip off of a sausage party character.

Everything down to the voice direction is literally just a rip off of the main antagonist of Sausage Party, the douche. This is probably somewhat intentional as vivziepop was a massive fan of that movie when it came out, but if you’re going to make an homage that borders on plagiarism (this is a joke I’m not accusing her of plagiarism here but it’s giving original character, donut steel), does it have to be from sausage party? Does it really? There’s other movies. Anyway he doesn’t say much, just establishes himself as a douche.

Back at the hotel they start filming a new commercial since Alastor intentionally made their first commercial bad because he wanted to make fun of them and hates TVs just that much. Nothing very interesting happens. Angel is hot horny. Husk doesn’t want to be there. Alastor makes a deal with Vaggie to help as long as she never makes him go on TV again.

We go back to Charlie begging Adam to stop coming to hell and killing demons by the hundreds every year and Adam says no in frankly one of the only songs that I like from this series. Sadly, it’s still terribly annoying and repetitive.

Viv posted meme please clap.

Isn’t this the homophobic character from the pilot? Didn’t realize she was given a male voice to imply she’s either a drag Queen or trans I guess. Great. I’m sure it’s a very artistic and respectful choice and not every other more likely reason this was the casting decision.

The episode ends with the discovery that an Angel was killed during the last extermination so they plan to come back in just six months to kill every demon in hell. I might care if any character established themselves as anything other than a vessel to spout boring exposition and sex jokes for twenty minutes.

And that’s episode one. It’s honestly just boring and all of the explicit language sounds extremely forced and awkward.

0/10, the one okay song wasn’t enough to save it. Too much exposition dumping.

[acespaceacepilot]

i'd bleed for anything if it held me the right way 🩸🗡️💥 a wyll/astarion playlist on spotify

(song list + lyrics that made me chose them below the cut)

man or a monster (feat. zayde wølf) - sam tinnesz

it's so hard to tell which side you're on / one day is hell, the next day is the dawn / the lines are blurred, you keep rubbing your eyes / the tables turn, now it's time to survive

eat your young - hozier

i'm starving, darling / let me put my lips to something / let me wrap my teeth around the world / start carving, darling

until it doesn’t hurt - mother mother

i wanna fight, i wanna bite / i wanna swallow all the light / but i'ma stay right here / i'ma stay inside / i'ma just sit tight for another night / if i can't make it right / then i won't make it worse / i'ma just sit tight until it doesn't hurt

biting down - lorde

skip a hit, don't make a sound / (it feels better biting down) / breathed so deep i thought i'd drown / (it feels better biting down) / listen to the beats resound / (it feels better biting down)

furthest star - dirt poor robins

behold the day she found me here / so near the end of love's career / i feared every flower that appeared / had been uprooted by my peers / but then my autumn prayers were heard / just before the frost emerged / and i'll have my just deserts / when, once again, i'm next to her

flesh and bone - black math

break the truth inside of me / climbed down to hell on the devil's tree / i clutched a branch of soot and flame / the thought that rose, to scorch my feet

de selby (part 2) - hozier

what you're given, what you live in / darlin', it finds a way to live in you / and your heart, love, has such darkness / i feel it in the corners of the room

my body is a cage - arcade fire

my body is a cage / that keeps me from dancing with the one i love / but my mind holds the key / you're standing next to me / my mind holds the key / i'm living in an age / that calls darkness light / though my language is dead / still the shapes fill my head

gilded lily - slowed + reverb - cults

now it's been long enough to talk about it / i've started not to doubt it, just wrap my head around it / i remember when you told me it's an everyday decision / but with my double vision, how was i supposed to see the way? / haven't i given enough, given enough? (x4) / always the fool with the slowest heart

dispense with sentiment - we are scientists

i've been turning this over in my head / but i've been trying not to pick it apart / it's an overture to something, i guess / but i'll be goddamned if i can say to what / it's like i'm winding up to speak / for the first time in weeks / i'm trying to make sense / can we start again / and drop our defenses? / it might just be best / if we start dispensing with sentiment

graveyard whistling - nothing but thieves

all that afterlife / i don't hold with it / all your gods are false / just get used to it / let's go out tonight / kill some stubborn myths / set those ghosts alight, get into it. // ok, i admit / i'm not innocent / i did everything and i would again

crying wolf - julien baker

'cause i'm not crying wolf / i'm out here / looking for them / in the morning when i wake up / naked in their den / i'll swear off all the things i thought / that got me here / in the evening / i'll come back again

blood bank - bon iver

that secret that we know / that we don't know how to tell / i'm in love with your honor / i'm in love with your cheeks / what's that noise up the stairs babe? / is that christmas morning creaks?

bite the hand - boygenius

who do you think you are? / who do you think i am? / what do you wanna say? / what do you think will change? / maybe i'm afraid of you (x2) / i'll bite the hand that feeds me (x2) / bite the hand (x2) / bite the hand that needs me (x2)

metaphor - the crane wives

don't look too hard 'cause you won't like the scars he left in me / i've gotten good at making up metaphors / i've gotten good at stretching the truth out of shape / and all these words are sweet and meaningless / you can't trust a single thing i say

various storms & saints - florence + the machine

i'm in the throes of it / somewhere in the belly of the beast / but you took your toll on me / so i gave myself over willingly / oh, you got a hold on me / i don't know how i don't just stand outside and scream / i am teaching myself how to be free

savior complex - phoebe bridgers

baby, you're a vampire / you want blood and i promised / i'm a bad liar / with a savior complex / all the skeletons you hide / show me yours, and i'll show you mine

see the day - the altogether

the sleeping slip has begun to fray / i never thought i'd see the day / the pious hunter stops stalking prey / i never thought i'd see the day

myth - beach house

if you built yourself a myth / you'd know just what to give / what comes after this / momentary bliss? / the consequence / of what you do to me / help me to name it

posthumous forgiveness - tame impala

ever since i was a small boy / no one else compared to you, no way / i always thought heroes stayed close / whenever troubled times arose / i didn't know, ain't always how it goes / every single word you told me / i believed without a question, always / to save all of us / you told us both to trust / but now i know you only saved yourself

slowing down - the backseat lovers

whisper in my ear / that you need me / but if you saw it clearly / would you leave me? / i'm honest to you / but i'm lying to myself / and i don't wanna hear it / it has something to do / with the balance of my blood / and when i'll have to spill it

only - ry x

coming from the cold / buried under heat / lay you on the floor / i was only falling in love / cut me like a rose / turn me like a beast / hold you to the floor / i was only falling in love

daylight - david kushner

tellin' myself it's the last time / can you spare any mercy that you might find / if i'm down on my knees again? / deep down, way down, lord, i try / try to follow your light, but it's night time / please, don't leave me in the end

touch - sleeping at last

i know, i know the sirens sound / just before the walls come down / pain's a well-intentioned weatherman / predicting god as best he can / but god, i wanna feel again

will anybody ever love me? - sufjan stevens

will anybody ever love me? / for good reasons / without grievance, not for sport / will anybody ever love me? / in every season / pledge allegiance to my heart / pledge allegiance to my burning heart

holy lover - keaton henson

i think i love you / baby, please, don't be afraid of me / i think i love you / and oh, holy lover / i'll be the colors i can't see / and i will try harder / avail my father, live every need / and i've been so lonely / oh, please, just hold me so i can sleep

true love will find you in the end - someone, benjamin longman

but how can it recognize you / if you don't step out into the light, the light / don't be sad i know you will / don't give up until / true love will find you in the end

the moon doesn’t mind - lord huron

the sky doesn't care what my poor heart wants / and the desert can't hear my cries / the moon doesn't mind that i'm left all alone / and she's gone, gone

my love mine all mine - mitski

'cause my love is mine, all mine / i love, my, my, mine / nothing in the world belongs to me / but my love, mine, all mine

to build a home - the cinematic orchestra, patrick watson

this is a place where i don't feel alone / this is a place where i feel at home / 'cause, i built a home / for you / for me / until it disappeared / from me / from you

[alchemistoftheend]

The Piper (Case #9220611)

Pre-Statement

Statement of Staff Sergeant Clarence “Lucky” Berry, regarding his time serving with Wilfred Owen in the Great War.

Original statement given November 6, 1922.

Date of Event(s): 1917-1918

Statement

Wilfred was the only person he knew that ever saw The Piper

tf does he have against poets???

“There was an emptiness to it and every time he tried to put the war into words it just sounded trite, like there was no soul to what he had to say”

Wilfred had a habit of trailing off and tilting his head when reciting his poetry, as though his attention had been taken by a far-off sound

They were assigned to attack the Hindenburg Line near Savy Wood, pushing towards trenches on the west side of St Quentin.

Wilfred was unusually quiet, Lucky attempted to raise his morale but he shushed the Sergeant, and turned his head to listen.

“At the time I didn’t know what it was he was hearing but it kept him silent”

During the charge, Lucky got caught in barbed wire and saw Wilfred

standing, blank-faced, and his head swaying to some silent rhythm.

then he heard it, a faint, piping melody

“It’s whistling tune was unmistakable, and struck me with a deepest sadness and a gentle creeping fear”

There was a single gun shot, hitting Wilfred before he was hit by a mortar shell, he didn’t return with the wounded soldiers

A week and a half later, a scouting party found Wilfred in a crater along with the remains of Joseph Rayner

a man had just died, and nobody had noticed except Wilfred

“I met the war.”

He said it was no taller than he was and had three faces. One to play its pipes of scrimshawed bone, one to scream its dying battle cry and one that would not open its mouth, for when it did blood and sodden soil flowed out like a waterfall. Those arms not playing the pipes were gripping blades and guns and spears, while others raised their hands in futile supplication of mercy, and one saluted. It wore an olive green, wool coat, underneath—where it was not stained black—was a body beaten, slashed and shot and until nothing remained but the wounds themselves.

The piper came to claim Wilfred, who begged for his life.

It paused its tune before offering him a pen.

Wilfred knew he would live to play its tune but it would return for him one day.

Wilfred was wearing the same look he had before the shell hit and for a moment I could have sworn I once again heard that music on the breeze

Since then, every time they went over the top he watched the soldiers faces

A few of the men seemed distant, and were slightly tilting their heads, like they were listening to the distant music

Those men never returned

to pay the piper

the debt of Hamelin, who for their greed had their children taken from them, never to be returned.

I began to wonder: were we the children stolen from their parents by The Piper’s tune? Or were we the rats that were led to the river and drowned because they ate too much of the wealthy’s grain?

Even now, I can’t hear Exposure without being back in that damned trench at wintertime.

“I can say without a word of a lie that across all the war I never saw a soldier fight with such ferocity as I saw in him that day”

I hasten to add that that statement is not given in admiration – the savagery I saw in him as he tore into a man with his bayonet… I’d just as soon forget it

I could have sworn that I saw him cast a shadow that was not his own.

“Almost over now, Clarence,” Wilfred said

He sat there staring quietly for some time, Clarence could I knew he was listening to The Piper’s tune.

Wilfred Owen died crossing the canal at Sambre-Oise two days later.

He stopped turned to Clarence with a smile on his face

At that moment, a trickle of blood start to flow from an opening hole in his forehead.

But here, the bullet hole simply opened, like an eye, and he fell to the ground, dead.

It was on that day the first overtures of peace were made between the nations,

Clarence believed that very moment, when Wilfred fell, that the peace was finally assured.

Post-Statement/Thoughts

There are no follow-ups for this statement as it is too old

Jon feels like he’s heard the name ‘Joseph Rayner' before

Let’s start with the entity of this episode, the slaughter

war and what not

First of all, Wilfred Owen is a real man who wrote war poetry and died a week before Armistice

tbh i’m a little scattered brained and don’t know where to start

not that this episode was overwhelming i’ve only sleep for about 2 hours

anyways, let’s start with the description of war/the slaughter

three heads

play its pipes of scrimshawed bone

scream its dying battle cry

one that would not open its mouth, for when it did blood and sodden soil flowed out like a waterfall.

The slaughter seems to also be associated with music

a faint, piping melody that silenced those who hear it and condemns them to die

it’s also disturbing to those who hear it

Lucky describes the feeling as “striking me with a deepest sadness and a gentle creeping fear” and the music brought Wilfred to tears

Wilfred Owen’s Exposure, now i could analyze this poem but it’s 7:28 am on a Monday so moving on

to pay a piper: an idiom that means to face the consequence of one’s actions/decisions esp when accepting the responsibility of choosing a particular course of action

Originating from the story “The Pied Piper of Hamelin”

the town on hamelin gets overrun by rats, spreading disease and ruining crops. the townspeople try to exterminate them and failed. Then, a man named Pied Piper offers to solve the problem using his magical pipes. The people agree to pay him and with his tunes lire the rats into into the Weser river and they drown. however, when the piper came back to town the people refused to pay him liked they had agreed, feeling betrayed piper decided to get his revenge. the next day, as the townspeople gathered in the church piper plays a different tune on his pipes to lure the children out of the town never to be seen again

so to pay the piper: the debt of Hamelin, who for their greed had their children taken from them, never to be returned

When Clarence says “were we the children stolen from their parents by The Piper’s tune? Or were we the rats that were led to the river and drowned because they ate too much of the wealthy’s grain?” i know that certainly means something 🫤

i’m so tired pls help

context woohoo, so when the slaughter or i guess the piper takes soldier were they being punished for the own greed for the greed or someone else’s

something something music

this was weird “but here, the bullet hole simply opened, like an eye”

it’s probably a stretch to say that this was the referencing the entity, the eye but idk

also wtf would The piper/slaughter give Wilfred a pen

“The piper came to claim Wilfred, who begged for his life. It paused its tune before offering him a pen. Wilfred knew he would live to play its tune but it would return for him one day”

ok now that i think about i believe this has to do with wilfred’s war poetry

i don’t know how to put it but i think the pen was for the Wilfred to immortalize the war. He wrote poetry well before he met the piper but at best it was described as trite, like there was no soul to what he had to say, but then after his encounter with the slaughter his poetry gains widespread popularity. Lucky (Clarence) himself, who described his work was lifeless, later says that he couldn’t help but feel like new works sent him back to being stuck in those icy, barren trenches

[droughtofapathy]

The DroughtofApathy Theatre Awards Nominations:

Best Ensemble Stereophonic Jaja's African Hair Braiding Merrily We Roll Along Illinoise

Best New Song "Evanesce," Days of Wine and Roses (Adam Guettel) "Masquerade," Stereophonic (Will Butler) "East of Eden," Stereophonic (Will Butler)

Bad Accent Eddie Redmayne's Muppet Voice Whatever the fuck Jeremy Jordan was doing Colton Ryan's Muppet Voice from last season, I'm still not over it

Diva Performance of the Year Jennifer Simard, Once Upon a One More Time Jessica Lange, Mother Play Emily Skinner, Suffs

Most Incredible Scene Transition The I Need That home cleanup transition Opening up Jaja's African Hair Braiding shop Mary Jane's apartment set lifting up to reveal the hospital set Doubt revolving set Appropriate house falling into shambles with a tree and everything De-renovating the Broadway Theatre after Here Lies Love flopped

Most Beautiful Woman On Stage Bebe Neuwirth, Cabaret Kelli O'Hara, Days of Wine and Roses (bonus points for The Hours) Jessica Lange, Mother Play Anika Noni Rose, Uncle Vanya

Moment So Horrifyingly Bad I Physically Recoiled Eddie Redmayne as the Emcee singing "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" BEFORE the party Everything Gayle Rankin did on that stage "My name is Ponyboy//I'm the youngest of the three," lyric from The Outsiders The Hell's Kitchen book being allowed on Broadway at all

Most Hated Sound Designer Gareth Owen, The Who's Tommy Jon Weston, The Wiz Gareth Owen, Hell's Kitchen (hey, a doubly-bad showing) Brian Ronan, The Great Gatsby, but specifically those gunshots

Floppiest Flop Show How to Dance in Ohio Lempicka Here Lies Love Grey House Once Upon a One More Time

Weirdest Marketing/Publicity/Social/Design Decision How to Dance in Ohio only emphasizing "AUTISM REP" over everything that might have drawn in any kind of crowd at all.

The Lempicka social media team just straight-up lying with their pull-quotes and then doubling down and getting snide.

Broadway producer Greg Nobile's twitter discourse.

The Cabaret social media brand refusing to acknowledge Bebe Neuwirth exists and is the only thing holding that show together.

Who did the Days of Wine and Roses cast album design and like...why?

Can You Spell Miscast? Eddie Redmayne, Cabaret Gayle Rankin, Cabaret Eden Espinosa, Lempicka Basically all of The Wiz Doubly so for The Great Gatsby

Star-in-the-Making Sarah Pidgeon, Stereophonic The Grey House kids Hannah Cruz, Suffs Amber Iman, Lempicka Anna Zavelson, Encores! The Light in the Piazza (not Broadway, but I said what I said)

Criminally Underutilized Older Character Actress Jayne Houdyshell, Uncle Vanya Emily Skinner, Suffs Andrea Burns, The Notebook Beth Leavel, Lempicka Mia Katigbak, Uncle Vanya Bebe Neuwirth, Cabaret

Worst Audience Behavior The couple who stayed on their phones the whole time at The Wiz.

The guy who started screaming and fighting at the top of act two at Hell's Kitchen.

The drunk women at Melissa Etheridge who were singing and flailing the whole show.

Shrieking girls at Bad Gatsby whenever the leading man did anything.

Family in front of me at Heart of Rock and Roll.

Guy behind me at Cabaret crunching wine chips through all of act two.

Iconic Merch Item Rosie the Elephant, Water for Elephants: she's so soft and well-made and perfect and I love her and need her. Great American Bitch clothing, Suffs Mother Hat, Mother Play Tissue box, The Notebook

Moment that Had Me in Tears When *spoiler* off-stage, Jaja is taken in by ICE and her daughter can't find her and may face deportation herself.

Merrily We Roll Along overture.

Mary Jane breakdown over the music therapist.

All of Maryann Plunkett's masterful performance in The Notebook.

Me going home to sob over how they butchered Cabaret.

Kimberly Akimbo final performance, it might've opened last season, but fight me

Reading an article on the opening of the Bad Gatsby where a car hit a pedestrian right next to where all the celebrities were getting their photos taken and no one noticed. (tears of laughter-pedestrian was not hurt badly)

Single Best Costume Emily Skinner's Dorothy Louden coat Jennifer Simard, titties up and out as the Stepmother Sara Gettlefinger's fun jumpsuit and headscarf combo Anika Noni Rose entrance blue gown with the plunging neckline and deep v back Bebe Neuwirth's little pink nightie and phenomenal shawl Kate Baldwin's off-the-shoulder outfits in the regional production of A Little Night Music

Best Playbill Design Stereophonic - 10/10 no notes Suffs - Like the art style Illinoise - I really like the colors and art style Here Lies Love - I like the colors

Worst Playbill Design Cabaret - you should be ashamed of yourself. Not even the title Doubt - I know there was a last-minute replacement, but c'mon Lempicka - whoever did this should be taken out back and shot Spamalot - it's just the same damn design as the original, but brighter and worse

Tony Snub Laurie Metcalf, Grey House Jennifer Simard, Once Upon a One More Time Chip Zien, Harmony Days of Wine and Roses, Best Musical Grey House, Best Scenic Design of a Play

Cars on Broadway The Bad Gatsby cars that actually drive The Lempicka silver car that isn't green and doesn't drive The Illinoise concept car made out of props and actor's bodies The Back to the Future car that files and spins and shit

[bungandmunchpi]

Just wanted to write a little something about the shows I saw in New York before the Tony noms come out tomorrow! I never write long-form about the things I've seen any more so thought I'd indulge myself quickly.

Stereophonic, 13th April

Theatre twitter was abuzz about this when it was at Playwrights' Horizons and the transfer rumours were very exciting as we were planning our trip. We managed to nab some $40 seats in the rear mezz for previews and went with it as the first show of our week!

It's a great play, although I don't think totally deserving of the raves/five stars it's getting everywhere. It could do with some pruning in places and I think both Nancy and I thought the female characters were a little bit underwritten: I'd say the scenes where it's just the two of them discussing their careers and personal lives are the weakest of the play, although Sarah Pidgeon and Juliana Canfield are both fantastic. The rest of the cast is as well - it's stacked top to bottom, with six out of seven making their Broadway debuts which is thrilling! Will Butler's music is absolutely phenomenal, and the show really soars when the band kick into gear and are recording successfully: we were both nodding our heads and tapping along, and I can't wait for the album to come out on May 10th.

Shout-outs to basically everyone in the cast, as everyone gets their little (or large) moment, but I think Eli Gelb really anchors the thing and has a gorgeous arc, and Will Brill is incredibly funny and sad at the same time. Tom Pecinka is doing fantastic work too as the antagonist/engine of the show, and I've really enjoyed watching his Gold Derby interview where he speaks about the hostility he experiences from the audience a lot of the time, and how he processes that and stays true to the text without being tempted into making the character more likeable.

We stagedoored too and everyone was very lovely! We got to compliment Will on his British accent and meet Tom's dog Molly, who was totally over the two-show day and ready to be on her way (but very sweet with it). A great start!

Merrily We Roll Along, 14th April

This was the show I spent the most money on, and I went on my own as Nancy was off being immersed at Punchdrunk (/the McKittrick Hotel, apologies). I love Sondheim and I really love this show - I was introduced to it by Lonny Price's beautiful documentary The Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened, which I would really recommend even if you're not a big Sondheim/musical theatre person, as it deals with being creative and dreaming big at a young age, and how we adjust when those dreams aren't realised or turn sour. It felt very special to be seeing Merrily on Broadway, as I believe Sondheim used a lot of his own early experiences in the theatre to make it. So special in fact that just hearing the overture made me extremely emotional (although it's a different version/orchestration to the overture on the original cast recording, which is one of my favourites of all time).

It's brilliantly directed/somewhat reworked by Maria Friedman, and she's been credited with turning what was a notorious flop originally into an absolute smash off and on Broadway this season. I think she does a lot of good work but it's undeniable just how brilliant a lot of the songs in it are: when Daniel Radcliffe finished Franklin Shepherd Inc, the man sitting behind me exclaimed "what a number!" to his seatmates. The material in the second half in particular is extraordinary, and I thought all three leads were fantastic as the characters get younger and younger, with It's a Hit, Opening Doors, and Bobby and Jackie and Jack highlights. Our Time, the brutally optimistic climax of the show, had me tearing up as soon as it started, and I cried all the way through the curtain call, just because I felt so lucky to have been in that space experiencing that piece of work made by this team of cast and creatives.

Jonathan Groff, Lindsay Mendez, and Daniel Radcliffe are all phenomenal in it: I was expecting less from Daniel Radcliffe as I know he has the least musical theatre experience of the three, but he did a great job and brought so much humour to Charley, which I really enjoyed. Jonathan Groff's Growing Up is stunning and he just leads the show so well - he's a real star and would be very deserving of the Tony, which I have a feeling he may just land. Lindsay Mendez has been out of the show now and then so I was preparing myself not to see her and then was thrilled I got to: her voice is so solid and her arc was beautifully drawn, from Mary's acerbic comedy at the beginning of the show to her brightness as she's entering the creative world early on in her career.

In terms of emotion, this was probably the highlight of my trip, and I'm excited to see the production sweep a lot of awards in June!

An Enemy of the People, 17th April

As soon as this was announced, it started making my New York trip plans more concrete. I think Jeremy Strong is one of the best actors we have working today, and it was brilliant to see him onstage - I don't think he's done any theatre for a decade, and Circle in the Square is pretty intimate for a Broadway venue, so that was extremely exciting.

I was left a little cold by the production: I think that may be Amy Herzog's version, which gets through the nuts and bolts of Ibsen's play, but does so at quite a lick (the show runs about two hours with a five minute pause in the middle). The character work the actors are doing is beautifully detailed, so you really want to spend some more time with them all. Jeremy Strong is totally transformed from Succession, endearing and frustrating in equal measure, and he and Michael Imperioli work so well together as very different brothers. I saw Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' The Comeuppance recently at the Almeida, so it was fun to see Caleb Eberhardt and try to read him back into that play: I thought he was really fantastic and nuanced in Enemy, and would love to see him snag a Tony nom, although I think Featured Actor in a Play is insanely crowded (and I would hate to see any of the Stereophonic guys lose out).

Sam Gold's staging is nice although the space seems to be a little difficult to work in. There are some interesting details in the second half as things become less naturalistic, with characters remaining onstage to watch the action, and Jeremy Strong being Jeremy Strong has to put himself in some kind of physical peril (getting buckets of ice poured on him as the townspeople turn on Stockmann, leaving him wet through (and I presume freezing) for the rest of the show).

Overall this was good if not as impressive as I'd hoped, but it was amazing to see Jeremy Strong onstage and he again was lovely at the stagedoor, so I'd recommend that if you're interested!

Appropriate, 17th April

This was the best show we saw all trip, from the writing to the direction to the performances, and so brilliant that we didn't try very hard to get into something on the Thursday evening, as we didn't want to spoil the high we'd experienced the night before.

I love Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' writing, and the way he plays with drama as a form to create his shows. Appropriate sits in the tradition of American domestic drama, and it's harrowing and screamingly funny all in one go. Again a real thrill to see a cast this stacked, and fun to pick up another Succession cast member, with Natalie Gold so good in what could be a tricky role. Sarah Paulson leaves it all out there in the lead role, and does a fantastic job: another actor who isn't afraid to be unlikeable, and who goes deep in the cruelty she exhibits towards other characters. Corey Stoll does some great, solid work too, and Michael Esper is so SO good as Franz. The role is so disruptive and interesting and gross and funny, and he does a beautiful job. Nancy and I really bonded over the production of The Glass Menagerie he was in in London in 2017, so it was wonderful to see him onstage again and to see him bring it so hard.

The design elements of Appropriate are phenomenal too, particularly the final sequence, which I won't spoil but is one of the most extraordinary things I've seen done onstage.

That was the trip!! I had a brilliant first ever week in New York and the best time seeing my first shows on Broadway: I was very sad to leave but it's made me really excited to see great work in London over the summer, and I'm ready to start saving up again to go back!

[amarriageoftrueminds]

Every scene with Peggy in CATFA is infuriating. But the two scenes that infuriate me the most are: Peggy shooting Steve over petty jealousy and Peggy being so damn rude to Bucky at the bar. The last one is especially infuriating because Bucky was being polite and courteous to Peggy, but she just totally ignored him and continued to oggle at Steve. Like WTF was that all about??? What did Bucky ever do to Peggy???

That second scene is interesting when you factor in the period, and the fact that they thought they were writing a heterosexual scene.

Because you've got Bucky, who's supposed to know all about romancing the dames, who sees a woman walk up to his friend in a bar. And just... stays where he is.

Bro etiquette -- now and then -- dictates he should be hustling across the room to give Steve some privacy. But he doesn't.

(And Steve doesn't seem at all bothered that he doesn't either, does he?)

There is no reason why Steve -- even if he is busy giving his usual Live Slug Reaction to being hit on, yet again, by a woman who can't take a hint -- cannot answer Peggy's clumsy overtures himself.

But he doesn't.

So Bucky steps in, and prevents her from making even more of a fool of herself (twinkling at a man who just gives 🙂), by filling in the conversational gap. Picking up the anvil-sized hints she's dropping since Steve apparently doesn't care to.

(Hitting on a woman who walks up in a vamp dress and a bar would be considered less gallant by today's standards, but by WWII standards? Bucky is being the sole gentleman here!)

So why does he do it?

Did they mean to imply, by casting Jenna Coleman, that brown-eyed-brunettes are Bucky's type? 😬 Eeesh. Doesn't really say much for why Steve would be interested in her then, does it?

(In fact, it's like he only enjoy's Peggy pass as a do-over of the Stark Expo Double Date, but now he gets to succeed with the 'Jenna Coleman' instead of Bucky. It's just another version of Endgame's Hero's Journey-style 'Woman As Prize' motif. 🙄)

Bucky stays where he is and shows an interest because the dudebro writers so transparently wanted Steve to get the Nerd's Revenge; a little wish-fulfillment power fantasy. The handsome popular friend with the great personality, getting punished for being more popular and handsome than the hero in high school, by striking out with The Girl while the hero succeeds.

But -- since they're incompetent and/or cannot control what CEvans chooses to do with his performance 😂 -- Steve is not at all bothered when Peggy leaves, makes no move to go after her, etc. 🤔

No move to 'go dancing' when he has the opportunity, just like he didn't make a move on the original Jenna Coleman character, either...

(Contrast that with: actually-interested Tony Stark who couldn't be prevented from going after Pepper Potts, when he saw her in a 'hero' dress at the party.)

And those idiot writers think this scene is Peggy proving she's a Cool Girl.

Because she, who alone knows the Real Steve, has remembered that Steve is secretly just a great big loser inside...

(Never mind that he's a globally famous film star, a decorated war hero, a superhuman and a heart throb, obviously he's still beneath such an important person as Peggy Carter, nepotism hire!)

...So she has come, in Gaston Red, to announce that she will Allow Steve to date Her!

(Her Royal Highness the Most Specialist- nay, Only Special Person in the Whole Multiverse!!)

And she widens her eyes at him as if to say what a lucky boy he is, what a treat for him!

.

She is rude to Bucky, and won't look at him, because she is written by men who think a Strong Female Character means one who acts like a man.

In this case, it's a 'won't acknowledge the less-attractive female friend of the woman he's relentlessly targeting at the club' sort of a man. 🤡

Bucky's crime is being undateable and yet still in her presence. (Why can't he just have the common decency to not exist??)

No wonder Steve stayed with his bros! If he was a girl, he'd be a girl's girl. 😌

[kmomof4]

Word from your wips: smirk

Thanks for playing, Randi! Sorry it took me so long to answer, I kept forgetting! Oh, man... thanks to the sprint game a couple of weeks ago, I now have SIX official WIPs... 🤦🏻‍♀️😱 I've NEVER had that many before!! Now to see how many you hit!

A Scoundrel... Or a Gentleman- CS fic coming soon, tentative drop date in early May, inspired by Francesca Bridgerton's story.

Alice huffed. “Her dance card will surely be filled by then. You should go now.”

Killian gave her his signature smirk, designed to make her forget whatever she was fixated on at the moment, and set his glass down on a nearby table. 

“Now why would I do that,” he said, gallantly with a deep bow, “when I can dance with you instead?”

Her expression changed quickly to amusement. “You rascal.” But she didn’t protest when he led her out to the floor. 

He knew he’d pay for this tomorrow. The society matrons were already circling him for the kill, and there was nothing they loved better than a rake who doted upon his mother. 

The Arena- Werewolf fic for the @cssns dropping on July 3.

Nothing there

Return to Me- Dracula inspired fic for the @cssns dropping on August 22.

Killian saw red. This man, this Dr. Cassidy, descendent of Malcolm, the man who’d… was attempting to seduce his love.

Her eyes widened as her brow furrowed and her jaw dropped into a stunned “O” of surprise. “Don’t I have a say in the matter?” she queried, her eyes flashing with indignation. If Killian wasn’t so astonished at the revelation of her first name, and furious at Cassidy’s romantic overtures, he would have smirked at the pique on Emma’s lovely face- the very expression that had prompted his affectionate appellation of Swan on his beloved all those years ago. But he stood rooted in the shadows unable to do anything but watch and seethe in helpless fury.

The Risk of Remembering- H/C fic that is at the bottom of the priority list, no matter what @snowbellewells and @jrob64 say...

Nothing... sorry...

The Rescue- fic inspired by the recent daring rescue of a female tractor trailer driver over the Ohio River when involved in an accident.

Nothing again. Sorry.

Killian (Indiana) Jones- a fic inspired by... three guesses and the first two don't count... Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The jungle dripped with humidity as the tall man who was undoubtedly the leader pushed through the next tangle of vines and branches on the way to a cave that held the object of his desire. 

Two men followed him- one plainly nervous, betrayed by the way his gaze darted around the jungle and the small flinches whenever the cries of animals concealed within the greenery reached them. The other was a native, and when the first man stopped for a moment, mopping his sweat covered brow, he approached with a chuckle. 

“Not used to the heat and humidity of Columbia, eh, Dr. Jones? Aren’t you glad you brought me along…” The smug smirk on his face made Dr. Killian Jones roll his eyes in response.

“I’m fine,” he deadpanned, “I can assure you. I’ve been in jungles far worse than this. You just stay close.”

Thanks again for playing, babe!

[mydaroga]

Notes from the expanded edition of Tune In, mostly for to remind myself and keep me on track. As always, discussion/commentary welcome in all the forms!

I'm trying to step this up because I read very slowly; or rather, I read quite fast but during college developed some kind of psychosomatic condition wherein it's almost impossible for me to read for more than 20 minutes before falling asleep. It's been suggested I turn to audiobooks which is a great idea but I really like having the notes to refer to. Ahh well.

Chapters 1 and 3 below

Chapter 1: The Pool of Life

All of 16, Alf was wearing one of the Blue Coat suits, to which he’d added, from his oh-so-cherished first wage packet, a cigarette holder and bowler hat.

Apple/tree, etc. Just amused by the bowler hat reference.

With her particularly lively personality, iridescent appeal to men, and a job that brought her into constant contact with a great many of them, it’s simply not credible (though it’s been said) that Julia resisted all male overtures because Alf was her one true love.

Ok. So. I'm not exactly sure who Lewisohn is pushing against here, but this is one of MANY times he takes the opportunity to essentially call Julia promiscuous. And he does it in a particularly gleeful way, always highlighting her attractiveness to men, that I find bothersome. It's that same old double standard where women are objectified and simultaneously held accountable for their own objectification through overt or oblique references to their (over)active sexuality. He seems to both revel in her sexiness and low-key slut shame her at the same time. And lest you think I'm being a prude, you can absolutely write about Julia liking sex and being unfaithful to Alf (if that is the evidence you have) without making it sound like a potboiler.

Chapter 3: War Babies

I guess I had nothing to say about chapter 2. I guess that was the general Liverpool history one.

Mimi would later remark that Julia swiftly regretted marrying Alf Lennon, accepting that she’d allowed defiance of her family to cloud her judgement, but it was unlikely to have been for the sake of defiance that Julia conceived Alf’s baby.

Unsure what he means here, unless he's just saying they really did care for each other at one time. Which is funny, because he tends to go out of his way to point out Alf is the injured party at every turn and Julia the floozy but ok.

Contrary to most published accounts, however, Julia Lennon didn’t give birth to her baby in an air raid.

I definitely remembered this from Shout, though now I read it again it is slightly ambiguous:

Mimi Stanley had always worried about her younger sister, Julia. She worried about her especially tonight with more Luftwaffe raids expected and Julia in labor in the Oxford Street maternity home. When news of the baby came by telephone Mimi set out on foot from the Stanley house on Newcastle Road. “I ran two miles. I couldn’t stop thinking, ‘It’s a boy, it’s a boy. He’s the one I’ve waited for.’” She held John in her arms twenty minutes after he was born. His second name, Julia said—in honor of Britain’s inspirational prime minister, Winston Churchill—would be Winston. Just then a parachute-borne land mine fell directly outside the hospital. “But my sister stayed in bed,” Mimi said, “and they put the baby under the bed. They wanted me to go into the basement, but I wouldn’t. I ran all the way back to Newcastle Road to tell Father the news. ‘Get under shelter,’ the wardens were shouting. ‘Oh, be quiet,’ I told them. Father was there, and I said, ‘It’s a boy and he’s beautiful, he’s the best one of all.’ Father looked up and said, ‘Oh heck, he would be.’”

Norman does mention it was "during a brief respite in Nazi Germany’s bombing of Liverpool." But the drama seems to be supplied by Mimi herself?

With her devil-may-care attitude, great sense of humour, vibrant personality and undisputed man-appeal, it isn’t difficult to imagine what a hit she was when she took a job as barmaid at the Brook House pub

See: above re Lewisohn and Julia.

Ok, I took a lot of notes in chapter 4 so that's another post.

[tryst-art-archive]

This is an archive of work made by @tryskits from 2000 to 2020.

It's an art and writing archive, but it's also a record of how I grew up online, blemishes and all, and of who I was before I transitioned.

Before I was TrysKits, I was Refkins, and before I was Refkins, I was Rhawen. Getting from one me to the next was nonlinear and involved a lot of cringe-inducing moments, but I think acknowledging how growth is uncomfortable and messy is important, especially when so much of our lives are made public. I also, personally, like being able to look back at who I used to be. Reflecting on where we came from helps contextualize where we are, and I find I need that kind of perspective a lot of the time.

Below the cut, you'll find a timeline of my personal history for context, as well as guidance on navigating the archive's tags.

If you'd like to see what I'm making in the present day, you can follow @tryskits (or @tryskits-art if you want just the art w/o the reblogs), or you can find me at any of the links here.

History

The following is intended to give you a reference point for the works contained in this archive.

[Rhawen] Neopets was my entry point to the World Wide Web, and I joined it when I was still in elementary school. The 2000 - 2003 period of this archive covers this span.

[Rhawen > Refkins] I moved to deviantArt in 2004, when I was 13, and I proceeded to hang out there until I went to college in 2009, whereupon I disappeared from online creative spaces for nearly a decade.

[Refkins] During high school (2005 - 2009), I was one of the art kids and misfits, and I took some summer art classes. I also was drawn to writing and webcomics, but I never managed to get any of the latter off the ground.

[Refkins] In college, I studied Writing, Literature and Publishing and I had a minor in Photography. I was still making lots of stuff during this period of time, but most of it didn't make its way online until much later, and I was doing very little drawing.

In 2014, I began working QA in the game industry. I keep my game dev and creative identities separate on purpose, so that's all I'll say about it here, but it's worth knowing that my career and experience in game dev impacted how I made and thought about my own projects going forward.

[Refkins] In 2017 (age 26) and 2018 (age 27), I got hit with the drawing bug in a big way and made some overtures at returning to deviantArt. I uploaded the things I'd made over the previous 8-9 years. Unfortunately, it didn't stick.

[Refkins] From 2018 to 2020 I spent a lot of time writing, having finally moved past the burnout college induced.

[Refkins > TrysKits] In 2019, I got struck with the idea for Tarot Town, which you can learn more about via my main. TT proved to be the means through which I figured out that I am a trans man.

[TrysKits] In 2021, I socially transitioned, becoming Trystan (or Tryst for short). It was also the year I turned 30.

This archive ends with the conclusion of 2020 and the end of a major phase of my life--the pre-transition years and everything they contained.

Tag Guide

Content Type

The media type is pretty much always tagged, e.g., #sketch #illustration #prose , etc.

All visual works are tagged with #art archive

All written works are tagged with #writing archive

Anything that documents my years on deviantArt is tagged #deviantArt archive

While I've rarely done fanart, you can differentiate between that and original works with #fanart #fanfic #oc art #oc writing

#NSFW is used to denote works that explicitly depict sex, even when said depictions are censored.

#suggestive is used to denote works that imply sexual content but which don't outright depict it.

Furry works are tagged with both #furry and #anthro

Works depicting other peoples' IP are tagged with "others' OCs" and any other salient information about the character/creature/etc.

#mild nudity indicates that a character is in the buff but no detail is shown (e.g., no nips, genitalia, butt)

#nudity indicates that a character is naked and there's some amount of detail.

TrysKits IP

You can find work related to the stories set in Khra under #Khra-nicles

Work related to the roleplay my best friend and I used to do as teens is under #The RP

Work relating to my (defunct) first attempt to develop a webcomic is under #Redux/Project SE

Work relating to my (defunct) second attempt to develop a webcomic is under #A Practical Guide to Good vs Evil

Work relating to my (possibly zombified) third and fourth attempts to develop a webcomic are under #EC/WC

[I'll add more as they come up.]

Characters are tagged with their first and last name (assuming they have one of the latter). Middle names are left out if a character has one.

^ With exceptions: #Unge S. Chickt #Rhawen Evergreen Fox

Regardless of what they were called at the time of a work's creation, depictions of my primary fursona are tagged with #Refs

Not every OC is tagged. I focused on ones I felt were significant.

Temporal Organization

Each piece is tagged with my age at the time of its creation. Ex: #Age 14

Each piece is tagged with the decade it was created in. Ex: 00s

Each piece is tagged with the specific year it was created in. Ex: 2005

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

i love your metas! I just discovered them today and have spent all afternoon reading them. I have two part ask, if that's okay. Firstly, do you think a sensible version of bella could survive if she recognised early on that keeping on Edward's good side was her only survival option? and secondly, on the flip side, just how unhinged do you think bella could be before edward rejected her?

Ooh, both interesting questions, anon. Let's do this.

Sane Bella and the Yandere Simulator

Last time, on The Carnivorous Muffin's ridiculous blog, we covered what would happen to a sensible Bella who realizes the Cullens are not fluffy bunnies she should take home.

The long and short, Edward eats her.

Edward's romantic interest in Bella, the thing that has him fighting his own baser nature to keep her alive, is dependent on a few things.

One of those is Bella's interest in turn.

In time, if Bella truly was not interested in him, he would eat her. Alice tells us there's only two paths for Bella: death or vampire. Leaving her and walking away is never a true option for Edward.

So, Sane Bella loses Yandere Simulator because she doesn't realize the key aspect of Yandere Simulator: You Never Say No to Yandere.

However, you point out something interesting here, that this is a sensible Bella.

Sensible people do not immediately think they're playing Yandere Simulator. You don't run across people like Edward often, there aren't many of him, and while there are red flags early in Twilight Edward did a pretty good job of making them not particularly visible.

By the time we hit Eclipse he's pretty much thrown pretending to be nice and sane out the window. Luckily for Bella, that doesn't appear to bother her as much as it should.

Bella thinking "if I don't play along with this inhuman whack job he'll eat me", is paranoid lunacy. It is not the first conclusion a reasonable person would jump to.

That it happens to be the right conclusion is irrelevant.

But alright, I'll play ball.

Paranoid Bella and the Yandere Simulator

Bella is utterly paranoid and wearing her tin foil hat when she enters Forks. She remembers Biology very well and when Edward comes back and pretends to be nice she gives him a strained smile and thinks, "This motherfucker will eat me the moment my back is turned."

Bella considers travelling back to Florida, but that would be leading Edward to her mother, more it would be very easy to find Bella if he truly wished to.

Florida isn't an option.

Bella tries to keep her distance from Edward, hard when he sits next to her in Biology, but he seems willing to ignore her. Bella calms down a little, maybe this will work out.

Bella is nearly crushed by a van, desperately pretends she definitely did not see Edward fold that van like a pretzel. Nope, no siree Bob, Bella is concussed! She then stays awake all night in terror and OH GOD HE'S CLIMBING THROUGH HER WINDOW! HE'S GOING TO EAT HER IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT! HE KNOWS THAT SHE KNOWS!

Bella pretends to sleep, horrified, and Edward stays there all night. Staring.

(Edward, meanwhile, is realizing he's in love.)

Bella enters school a nervous wreck, waiting for that fateful Biology class and... Edward is studiously ignoring her. He doesn't even say hello.

Bella would be relieved, except he keeps sneaking into her bedroom at night, staring. Bella gets no sleep for weeks.

Then the blood testing happens and suddenly Edward is talking to her. He tells her they shouldn't be friends and he doesn't want to be friends, GREAT, EDWARD, THAT'S GREAT. But then it's very clear that he's after something, and Bella's spidey senses are tingling.

Edward doesn't want to be friends.

Oh, oh shit.

Suddenly, Edward sneaking into her room at night takes on a whole, new, sinister twist. First he'll rape her, then he'll eat her (or who knows, maybe vice versa, Bella certainly doesn't want to find out).

Bella is driven home by Edward (he insists) and enters the house to wheeze into a paper bag.

She thinks over her options.

Edward can crush cars, Bella trips over asphalt. Even if she wasn't Bella, there's no way she could outfight him even if she wanted to.

Edward was very concerned when he suspected that she knew, he likely still suspects and Bella's not a very good liar. Bella doesn't want to find out what happens to her if Edward realizes she really does know.

Edward appears to have a romantic interest in her. Does Bella really have the option of saying no?

Bella, still wheezing in her bag, comes to what seems like an inevitable decision. She must humor Edward at all costs. For the sake of her family, of her own life, she must play into his romantic overtures. Bella can't act but now, her life depends on it.

Well, Bella still can't act, but luckily for her Edward doesn't care.

Edward just thinks Bella's very jumpy, a little nervous and shy, and just plain weird (given he thinks Bella's just plain weird in canon this is not too far from normal events).

So Bella gets to live in terror for things like the meadow, where Edward talks about how easy it would be to eat her, how he contemplated murdering Biology in cold blood to eat her in the most efficient manner, how he loathed her for daring to smell delicious, how Alice warned him there was a good chance of him eating Bella in the meadow today, all while pressing his cheek against her hammering heartbeat.

"AH HA HA HA HA, EDWARD, YOU'RE SO CHARMING."

Edward invites Bella to the house. These creepy, man eating, people all meet her with smiles. Edward has composed her a lullaby. One of them, Alice, tells Bella they're going to be best friends.

"AH HA HA HA HA, EDWARD YOUR FAMILY IS SO NICE."

In other words, somehow, all of Twilight still happens because Bella is terrified of saying no.

At least, until Volterra. Given Bella's being hunted by Victoria, even had Bella not gone cliff diving eventually Alice would see her eaten and then black out as the wolves chased off Victoria instead.

Bella spends New Moon having a great time. Mostly. The Cullens are finally gone, she's free, she spends weeks on edge thinking they might come back.

Just when she starts to relax, fucking Laurent shows up and learns Victoria's trying to kill her. Because of Edward, because of course, it's always about Edward. WHY ARE VAMPIRES ALWAYS TRYING TO KILL HER?!

Regardless, Alice shows up and goes, "Bella, my god, you're alive!" And Bella dies inside. Alice Cullen is back. Oh no.

Bella pretends she's thrilled to see her. Alice, her best friend, her favorite demon. Hurray. Alice fills Bella in on the New Moon scoop, Bella pretends to be very invested. Then Alice gets the vision.

Edward has decided to commit suicide via the Volturi.

Bella has no problem with this, unfortunately, she realizes that Alice clearly has a problem with this. Alice fully expects Bella to run off to Italy to save Fucking Edward.

Once again, Bella isn't sure she's allowed to say no.

Bella runs to Italy, finds herself saving Edward's life, and then she's brought before the Volturi where she might very well be executed because Edward Cullen happened to involve her in this mess.

BELLA NEVER WANTED TO BE HERE.

Bella snaps. She's crying, she just can't take it anymore, and she finally loses her shit at Edward. SHE NEVER LOVED HIM! HE IS SCARY AND WON'T LEAVE HER ALONE! IF THEY'RE GOING TO KILL HER JUST DO IT NOW BECAUSE SHE CAN'T DO THIS ANYMORE.

Aro watches Bella's mental breakdown in utter amazement. Naturally, while Marcus suspected something was funky with those two, Aro did not see this coming from Edward's perspective.

Aro offers Bella her out, it is unfortunately death or vampire, but vampire is very much an option and Aro will offer Bella sanctuary in the Volturi.

Bella takes that offer and runs with it.

Edward is devastated and blindsided.

Somehow, neither he nor Alice saw this one coming.

But to answer your question: Paranoid Bella survives Yandere Simulator By Defecting to the Volturi

How Unhinged Does Bella Have to Be For Edward to Dump Her?

He won't.

Remember, Edward in canon thinks there's something legitimately wrong with Bella. She doesn't think like normal people, she always makes the least rational choice, and he can't hear her thoughts.

Edward doesn't think Bella's gifted just that she's... different. (Bella, hilariously, immediately picks up that Edward's calling her a freak. Edward backtracks hard on that one.)

Bella's decisions also become increasingly ridiculous as the series goes on.

She stabs herself in the middle of a battle, she insists on having sex with him while human, she consorts with shapeshifters (to Edward this is lunacy), she picked up motorcycle riding, she threw herself off a cliff, she ran from his sweet protection to the reservation, she believes he doesn't love her, and she doesn't want to get married.

I imagine Edward thinks there isn't anywhere left for Bella to go. She's left the planet, unhinged is her middle name.

But none of that matters.

I already linked the Edward/Bella post I always link near the top so I'll just recap. For Edward, it's all about the blood, the silence, and the projection.

An unhinged Bella is still a delicious and silent Bella. He can still pretend she's Carlisle.

Even if Bella became addicted to cocaine, and ruined that sweet scent, it wouldn't tarnish her memory. He'd nurse her back to health, then eat her so she never relapses.

That's the trouble with Edward/Bella, it's not about Bella, not at all. You could replace her with sweet smelling cardboard and Edward would not notice a difference.

[nocturne-overtures]

Kinktober Day 5-Bad Influences

Pairing: Lee Minhyuk (BTOB)/Lee Felix

Prompt: Daddy Kink, Spanking, Cumming From Punishment

WC: 2k+

Genre(s)/AU(s): Smut, Idolverse, Fluff

TWs: Swearing

SWs: Daddy Kink, Pet Names, Spanking (Hand and Paddle), Marking (Imprints), Bratty Sub, Teasing, Semi-Public, Sexual Punishment, Stoplight System, Dominant Idol, Submissive Idol, BDSM Overtones, Praise Kink, Pain Kink, Crying, Aftercare

Everything here is Safe, Sane, and Consensual as always, folks

A/N: I also have the tagged folks according to your preferences so if you’re someone who asked to be tagged in btob works, skz works, or both and included member x member works, then beep boop you’re gettin tagged. Also this is set during Kingdom filming

AO3

New! taglist moved to the bottom of the work. if you’d like to be added to the taglist for this or my other works, feel free to fill out the form here after reading the full post. ©Nocturne-Overtures. do not repost, translate, or use my works.

Kinktober 2021 Masterlist

Day 4                  Day 6

Network Pings: @kdiarynet @kwritersworld @kpopscape

Minhyuk was many things. 

Easily riled up, was not one of them. 

No, he was a very meticulous man. Took his time analyzing situations with a deceptive smile on his face, feigning aloofness while he sorted his thoughts. 

Think, before you act. Always. 

It was a lesson Felix hadn’t quite grasped yet, deciding he was going to follow after his friends’ footsteps and try provoking Minhyuk into action. 

Had he been learning bad behaviours from Wooyoung, Sanghyuk, and Sunwoo? Definitely. 

Unfortunately for Felix, Minhyuk had the benefit of age and experience on his side. He loved his boyfriend, no doubt, but he wasn’t so swooned and whipped that he’d crack like San. He wasn’t a switch in any capacity, so the tables didn’t get turned on him like with Youngbin. And he surely didn’t get flustered or caught out by misbehaviour like Sangyeon. 

So when Felix took to subtly brushing against him as they passed backstage for filming, when he sent him suggestive photos while changing costumes, the times he’d appear at Cube, an innocent smile on his freckled face as he sat directly in Minhyuk’s lap, pouting and chattering about how much he wished he could have fun with Minhyuk whenever he wanted like the others-

Minhyuk only hummed, kissing the top of Felix’s head. Today they were in the older man’s home, resting before the upcoming field day event.

“We only have a few more weeks of filming. I’ll be sure to stop by more often.”

“I mean...we have time now so-”

Felix pouted and looked up, shifting beside him on the couch, his freckled cheeks slightly puffed out. 

“Are you going to keep doing that?”

Minhyuk cocked a brow. 

“Doing what?” 

“Not…” Felix trailed off, making a small frustrated noise. Minhyuk cocked a brow, an amused noise leaving his lips. 

“Not what, baby? Fucking you?” 

Felix nodded and Minhyuk set the pen he had in his hand down, closing the notebook to the raps he was writing and humming. 

“Why do you think I haven’t fucked you, Felix?”

“I don’t know! I’ve been trying and-” he cut himself off, lips pursing.

Minhyuk couldn’t help the chuckle that left his lips, a deep rumble resonating from his chest as he looked at Felix in amusement. 

“C’mon to my room. I’ll tell you why it didn’t work.” 

Felix perked and nodded eagerly, hustling after him, practically on Minhyuk’s heels. 

How he ended up here, sprawled out across Minhyuk’s lap with the older man humming and rubbing his ass was another story. Felix blushed, looking up, expecting Minhyuk to finger him and prep him. Instead, he had his head lightly tilted up, looking into Felix’s eyes. 

Instantly, the younger man realized-finally-that he may have been in trouble, eyes widening. 

“Um-”

“Would you like to explain now? Or would you prefer to take your punishment as I explain to you what you did wrong?"

Felix shrunk a bit, cheeks flared. 

“I can let you go and let you explain yourself. Or I can spank you and I tell you why you’re in trouble.”

Felix looked into his eyes. Minhyuk never moved his gaze from his. He was giving him a choice. He always did. Felix looked back, finding a small leather paddle sitting beside Minhyuk’s thigh while his large hand lie rested on Felix’s ass, unmoving for now. 

He shied and nodded. 

“I’m staying here.” 

“Do you remember our system?”

“Yes, Daddy.”

Minhyuk nodded, a pleased sound leaving his lips. 

“Good.” 

He grabbed the paddle, rubbing Felix’s ass in circles before he brought the paddle down hard on his ass. Felix jolted and yelped, though Minhyuk kept him in his lap with his free hand wrapped securely around Felix’s waist. 

“You don’t have to count this time. But Daddy wants you to know that following after the other Brats is why that pretty ass is in trouble.”

Felix yipped at the second, then third hit, cheeks flushing as he felt the leather rub over his sore cheek between Minhyuk’s talking. 

“I j-just wanted you t-to….to…” He flushed and lowered his head. Minhyuk tapped his ass with the paddle. 

“Lift your head. You wanted me to what?”

“F-fuck me. They...they said being bratty and teasing works all the time for them and-fuck!” He cursed and jolted when his untouched cheek was struck, Minhyuk’s grip still strong around his waist. 

“There’s a difference between their Doms and Daddy, kitten.” he lightly scolded, his voice never going above the volume of his normal speaking tone. Felix bowed his head down. 

“S-sorry, Daddy.” Minhyuk hummed and rubbed his ass. 

“Are you?”

Felix nodded before whimpering and dropping his head once more when another hard spank fell to his ass. He could feel something on the paddle, like...an outline? Though the paddle was never pressed to his sore ass long enough for him to distinguish what it is. Minhyuk took care to rub him between spanks with the smooth end of the paddle. 

“Pick your head up, baby.” Minhyuk reminded him. Felix shuddered and muttered a quick apology before Minhyuk paused. 

“Are you alright?”

Felix nodded. 

“What’s your color, baby?”

“Green.” 

Minhyuk kissed his head before he continued. 

“I’m not San, or Youngbin, I’m not Sangyeon either. Who am I?”

“Minhyuk-hyung.”

A light tap to his ass from the paddle had Felix’s hips jolt, anticipating a full hit before he blushed. He realized he was hard, his cock pressed fully against Minhyuk’s leg. 

When had he gotten hard?

“Who am I, Felix?” He asked again. 

“M-My Daddy.” 

“Good. So Daddy is going to tell you, the best way to get him to fuck you, is to ask.” the paddle was discarded without a word, Minhyuk’s calloused hand squeezing and kneading both of Felix’s cheeks. 

“I won’t reward you with my cock for being a brat, Felix.” he scolded him, his hand coming down on Felix’s left cheek. A scream of surprise left his mouth and he nearly scrambled out of Minhyuk’s lap, his cock jumping against the fabric of the older man’s gym shorts. Minhyuk loosened his grip, giving him the chance to get out of it if he wanted to. 

Felix shook his head and settled back down, slightly panting as tears gathered in the corner of his eyes. 

“Color?”

“G-Green.”

Minhyuk hummed, sitting in silence for a few minutes, just groping and kneading the heated skin under his hand. Felix kept his head up like asked, though his thighs shook from his position across Minhyuk’s lap. The older man took notice, pulling him forward a bit more, spreading his long legs so he could support Felix a bit better. 

Once Felix had stopped shaking as much, Minhyuk continued. 

“Do you want to be a brat, Felix?”

Felix shook his head, groaning at the next spank, the tears rolling down his cheek as he clenched and unclenched his fists. 

“N-No, Daddy!”

“No? Not gonna try and be like Sunwoo and grind on me backstage like he does with Sangyeon?” 

Felix shook his head quickly, his hair stuck to his face and neck from the sweat that began to build up on his body. 

“What about sitting in my lap during meetings with the others? Mmm? Is it fair to tease Daddy like the others do? Do you think you should have my cock after being such a tease like that?” he inquired. Felix shook his head once more, biting his lip and all but thrusting against Minhyuk’s leg with the next jolt from his spank, his entire body flushed. 

He’d gotten hard, painfully so. Part of him feared he’d cum just from this. 

“D-Daddy-”

Minhyuk’s hand froze midair, attentive brown eyes looking down immediately. 

“What is it, baby? Do you want to stop?”

“N-No I…M...maybe? I feel like I’m going to cum and I don’t wanna be bad.”

Minhyuk’s eyes twinkled with mirth. 

“You’re gonna cum from your punishment?”

Felix shook his head quickly, embarrassed. 

“Felix. Be honest baby.” 

He flushed before nodding a moment later. 

“Do you want to cum?” 

He lifted his head, looking back at him with big eyes still teary from the pleasured pain thrumming through his cheeks. 

“I was bad.”

“I think you learned your lesson, personally. So I’ll ask you again. Do you want to cum?”

Felix nodded. 

“Yes, Daddy, please?”

“See? Those are the manners Daddy is looking for.” Minhyuk grabbed a few pillows, letting Felix rest his head on them before he resumed his spanking, growling between each strike. 

“Your ass looks pretty like this, baby. The red makes your freckles stand out. Go ahead, you can cum for me.” 

Felix could barely decipher his words between the sound of skin hitting skin and his own moaning and pleasured cries, his cock painfully hard between his legs. Minhyuk had growled something in particular, along the lines of Felix being his ‘cute pain slut’ before the younger man saw stars, cumming messily all over Minhyuk’s lap, his legs and thighs shaking as he nearly slipped to the floor from the force of it. 

Minhyuk held him tighter, keeping him steady as he picked him up, laying with Felix settled in his arms. 

He was careful, brushing Felix’s hair back and cooing sweet nothings to him as he sobbed against his chest. 

“You’re alright, baby boy. You did well for me.”

“B-But I was a brat-”

“Mmm. You were. And you took your punishment well. So, you’re a good boy. Hey, look at me,” Minhyuk waited until Felix’s sniffles subsided into little hiccups, the pained pleasure an overwhelming first time feeling for him. Minhyuk wiped his cheeks and kissed him gently. 

“You did so well. Let Daddy take care of you, okay?”

Felix nodded and held onto his arms as he stood, carrying him off to shower off. Minhyuk laughed and waved off the hasty apologies as Felix noticed him putting his shorts in the wash. 

“Don’t apologize to me, baby boy.” 

One magnolia scented, aloe-infused bath later, and Felix was on his stomach, eyes closed as Minhyuk gently massaged lotion over his cheeks. 

He was careful of his strength and there was no skin broken, but Felix had noted-in sheer delight-that Minhyuk’s paddle actually did have indentations, and they actually were hearts. Now his freckled bottom sported not only Minhyuk’s handprint to the left and a row of hearts to the right. 

“So...I think I have a spanking kink.” Felix mused tiredly as Minhyuk got him settled on his chest, putting on Deadpool for them to enjoy, since it had been one of Felix’s favorites. Minhyuk laughed and kissed him, holding his waist once he was sure Felix was warm and covered by the blanket. 

“I noticed.”

-xoxo-

So the field day was a completely different experience. 

Minhyuk felt a sense of pride as Felix waddled forward amongst the cheers that he had been voted as one of their top three visuals. The man looked around, pointing at himself through his slightly overgrown sweater and the older couldn’t hold back the happy exclamation of Felix’s name as he shuffled forward. 

He genuinely was surprised when they announced him for the number one of their visual kings, but he took it nonetheless, catching Felix mimicking his showboating from the corner of his eye.

How cute.

“They ended up voting for each other!”

Minhyuk turned, pointing at Felix as the younger man bowed deeply, flustered at having been chosen. 

He should have known Minhyuk would’ve chosen his baby boy above all else, but that’s beside the point. 

“Hey Felix, good boy.” 

Felix flushed and bowed again, and Minhyuk was approached later as they began to help staff clean up, the sun having gone down and the festivities over. 

“Hyung?” 

Minhyuk looked up at him, tilting his head. 

“Yes, Felix-ah?” he inquired, glancing around. The others were busy hustling to help staff so they could all rest up, leaving the two relatively alone. Felix adjusted his pink sleeves and looked up at him. 

“Uh...can I come over this weekend? For...um…’practice?’”

Minhyuk took it for what it was, a proud and knowing smirk tugging at his lips. 

“Yeah, of course.”

Taglist----

@not-majestic-bluenicorn @kimnamshiks @atiny-dazzlinglight @queenofhimbos @daisyhwa @gettin-a-lil-hanse @yunhofingers @stormiestories @billboard-singer @sweetutopia @lovely-devil6 @babiebumm @jacksons-goddess-gaia @storytimedragon @netcookie @seomisaho 

[bitchcraftmagic]

So I rewatched a late 90s romantic comedy “Return to Me” last night (it’s on Hulu) and I have thoughts! So first off I think this is a pretty solid little picture. Like it’s well done, well shot, some really stellar performance and beside one really shitty transphobic joke that felt out of nowhere, aged like a fine wine.

The premise is BONKERS, which is fun. So basically X-Files’ David Duchovny plays a dude who has just tragically lost his young zoologist wife in a car accident. Meanwhile, Minnie Driver has a heart condition and will die without a heart transplant. You see where this is going, yes? So Minnie gets dead wife’s heart and can finally live the life she dreamed of living: riding bikes, traveling to Italy, painting in her sick as hell garden. Our boy Dave on the other hand is mourning his really cool wife and his sad dog just makes him sadder. Flash forward a year later, he goes on a god-awful blind date where our girl Minnie is the waitress and they have a very cute meetcute where he takes her side in a very rude exchange with his date. For anyone who worked in a service industry you very much understand why Minnie gets it bad for ol’ Dave.

Very cute and sweet dates ensue where Dave hangs out with the old Chicago men who frequent Minnie’s grandfather’s restaurant. Some great Catholic jokes are exchanged. You are charmed by all the little side characters and Minnie and Dave are full on in love. Until…Minnie finds out that she had Dave’s wife’s heart. She freaks the fuck out (as one would) and then she tells Dave (who also freaks out). Events happen, Italy is visited, nuns ride a bike, happily ever after.

This movie is cute and it is also bananas. What makes it work so well, I think, is there is never and implication that the heart situation isn’t like weird or very complicated. There is a some vague implications that the heart has brought them together through some weird heart magic but it’s pretty subtle and it doesn’t like matter that much. When the secret is revealed (and I think the justification for it being a “secret” is pretty solid) Minnie very rightfully melts fucking down. And her best friend Megan also can’t quite figure out how to handle this buckwild bit of info. There is no overtures about how this is fate and it’s the most beautiful romantic thing EVER. The only bit like that is a very sweet speech from grandpa about how a very special person’s heart was always going to be the heart for Minnie. It feels like something a kindly old Catholic man would say and isn’t like the THING that resolves the situation.

Everyone in the cast has like over the top chemistry. Our boy Dave is so charming and rather funny in this (I think he is just a funny guy in general but he’s super cute in this lil’ picture). And Minnie Driver is a sweet pea (the last scene of the movie she is so smoking hot in and it feels like out of nowhere but, damn, she looked good). The old men are my personal favorite. They really make the movie. They feel very real and remind me of my grandpa and I loved it. Just cute little old dudes being funny.

This was a surprising hit for me. Thought I was going to find it cheesy and shitty but as a Italian Catholic who hung out with a lot of old people in my youth I found this one to hit the right spot of nostalgia. I also am a huge X-Files fan and love to watch movies with David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson from that period. It’s very fascinating watching Hollywood try to figure out what to do with these two major stars who are kind of weird. Fun shit. If you like this kind of stuff I would recommend watching this while wine drunk.

[therealvinelle]

Hi, your metas are super interesting, and even if I really enjoy fanon twilight, it's really cool to read opinions based only on canon too!

So my question is about the sexual orientation of the Cullens, do you think they all straight?

For example i saw someone saying that Edward maybe was demisexual and it left me thinking, so i just wanted to know your opinions about it :)

In short, no.

In alphabetical order:

Alice is with a man, but without getting into the mess that is Alice/Jasper here, I don’t think theirs is a particularly physical relationship. I mean, if Alice wanted to get laid, she could just decide to fuck Jasper, enjoy the vision, and bam. Itch scratched. Thanks, Jazz. Alright, I’ll be serious. Alice and Jasper are with each other because the other represents salvation, not so much because of a personal or physical attraction but because of mysticism. So to me that doesn’t really say much about Alice’s preference. All the same I can’t see Alice having a particular preference, she’s too... Alice. Although it is easier to picture her with women. She is also the second half of the Alice/Bella homoerotic extravaganza, which makes heterosexual Alice even more farfetched to me. So, bisexual or lesbian Alice.

Bella shows clear attraction to women as well as men. She’s attracted to Rosalie, Alice, Edward, and Carlisle. I’ll just give you guys quotes: Of the three boys, one was big — muscled like a serious weight lifter, with dark, curly hair. Another was taller, leaner, but still muscular, and honey blond. The last was lanky, less bulky, with untidy, bronze-colored hair. He was more boyish than the others, who looked like they could be in college, or even teachers here rather than students. The girls were opposites. The tall one was statuesque. She had a beautiful figure, the kind you saw on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, the kind that made every girl around her take a hit on her self-esteem just by being in the same room. Her hair was golden, gently waving to the middle of her back. The short girl was pixielike, thin in the extreme, with small features. Her hair was a deep black, cropped short and pointing in every direction. (Twilight, page 9) This is the Cullens’ introduction. I won’t spend much time on it, just notice the difference between Rosalie and the others. Rosalie is highlighted in a way Alice is not, and Edward is at first glance only the boyish one of the guys. Rosalie was the Cullen whose beauty immediately stood out to Bella. It was hard to decide who was the most beautiful — maybe the perfect blond girl, or the bronze-haired boy. (sic.) Bella has realized by now that Edward’s a grade A hottie, but she’s still torn between him and Rosalie. Bella then gets to know Alice, and they become friends who take showers together(!). Rosalie may be the most attractive Cullen woman, but Alice is the one Bella gets emotionally close to. We get this in New Moon:  UNNATURALLY STILL AND WHITE, WITH LARGE BLACK EYES intent on my face, my visitor waited perfectly motionless in the center of the halt, beautiful beyond imagining.  (...) I locked my arms around her, gasping to inhale as much of the scent of her skin as possible. It wasn't like anything else—not floral or spice, citrus or musk. No perfume in the world could compare. My memory hadn't done it justice. (New Moon, page 191) Bella never thought she’d never see any of the Cullens again, so for her to be hysterical and ecstatic upon seeing her second favorite is not by itself damning. I’m sure she’d be ecstatic to see Emmett too. It’s that fact that she’d missed Alice’s scent that’s interesting. The scent of her skin was something Bella was aware of before they parted. And while it may be tempting to say “it’s because they’re vampires, Bella’s admiring them like she would a work of art!”, Bella never dwells on Esme, Jasper, or Emmett in this way. Jasper and Emmett especially are not admired beyond the introduction of their characters. We never hear about what any of them smell like, nor does Bella remark upon their beauty after waking up a vampire. Carlisle and Edward, by comparison, are men she keeps noticing. Bella finds Carlisle blindingly beautiful when she first sees him as a vampire, and there’s this from New Moon: Though it erased the sting, it reminded me of the gash, and I watched Carlisle's face carefully to distract me from what his hands were doing. His hair gleamed gold in the bright light as he bent over my arm. (New Moon, page 18) There’s thinking someone is pretty, and then there’s gazing lovingly upon their face instead of pain killers. Bella is bisexual.

Carlisle moved in with a very gay man, had a close relationship with him, lived with him for the sake of his company for decades, and only left because of dietary differences. We don’t know for sure whether they actually had an affair or not, but the fact remains that of all the Cullens, Carlisle is the one who is implied to have had a homosexual relationship in canon. He loses his straight card based on that alone. Also gonna link this clip, because I’m Mac listening to Edward talk about how young Carlisle lived with this sexy Mycenaean Greek for a few decades when he was young. Aro is all the santas. Carlisle is bisexual.

Edward... oh boy. His brain is supposedly seventeen, and yet this very interesting thing happens in his relationship with Bella where he never notices her body. Not ever. By body I mean curves. Edward notices Bella’s skin, her frailty, her humanity. He praises her blushes, her doe-like eyes, her warmth, her softness, her swan-like neck, her delicious scent. The feminine aesthetic. He does not once notice her tits. The only tits he is on record noticing belong to Siobhan, and it’s because she has an impossible to ignore rack: She was profoundly female in shape—aggressively, forcefully female. (Midnight Sun, chapter Probability) It’s one thing for him to be old-fashioned and too quintessentially Edward to even think the word “boob”, but in 700+ pages of Midnight Sun there’s just this absence of this seventeen-year-old noticing her curves. More damningly, when seeing Alice’s vision of vampire!Bella, Edward is horrified at the sight of his love cold and hard. He doesn’t describe vampire!Bella by any of the positives, like “flawless”. Edward is attracted to the human, not the woman. What that means for his sexuality... well, I’m going to go ahead and point out that he is very weird about Carlisle, and it’s damning that the personality he projects onto Bella is so similar to Carlisle. I hesitate to apply a label here, but in my own, personal, headcanon we’re veering towards homosexual. Deeeeeeply closeted homosexual.

Emmett is straight. Straightest guy ever to straight.

Esme is pretty clearly taken with Carlisle. Though if she were to feel attracted towards another woman, I imagine she’d have no idea what to make of that, if she even recognized it for what it was. She’s from a very different time and still living in that time, and she continues to be very sheltered. Still, as per my personal headcanon, I see her as straight.

Jasper, who knows. Though if he’s into guys, he has probably gone for it in the past. I suppose I should write a meta on vampires and sexual norms in general, but in short I don’t think they all live monogamously like the Cullens. STDs and pregnancies are unheard of, as is social ostracizing. Vampires are hedonistic, Twilight vampires more so than any other. Which in turn means I don’t think Maria and Jasper were monogamous. A couple, sure, but I don’t think Maria would say “oh noes, I can’t, I’m with Jasper!” if someone she was attracted to made an overture, and same goes for Jasper. So, if Jasper was into guys, then sure. I can see Jasper/Peter happening, or even Charlotte/Jasper/Peter. Jasper is certainly into women, with the possibility of guys as well. And if so, then it’s probably happened.

Rosalie I’m shocked is with a guy in the first place, everything about her screams lesbian. However, she’s clearly into Emmett, so apparently she’s bisexual.

(I’m not including Renesmée in this, since she’s three months old by the time the series conclude.)

This all being said, several of these people are from very different times and wouldn’t have the same concepts of sexuality internalized as we do, so how they’d identify is a very different matter.

[iamwestiec]

June 27: Nie Mingjue, ace king

asexual Nie Mingjue, queer Lan Xichen, what even is flirting, rated T

Read on ao3

Contrary to popular (Huaisang's) belief, Nie Mingjue can in fact tell when people are flirting with him.

It's just, well, easier to pretend he doesn't. Nie Mingjue's a big, buff guy, so when he's friendly and affable and cheerfully misinterprets any flirting, then women tend to assume he's gay, and men tend to assume he's straight, and neither is quite right, but either way, he's planted himself solidly in the bro zone once more without any awkward conversations or needing to turn anyone down directly.

Which is why he can't quite figure out Lan Xichen’s deal. He was fairly sure the man was flirting with him when they first met at the gym. (Lan Xichen’s traps and lats, Nie Mingjue will readily admit, are downright enviable. He doesn't need to be interested anyone that way to recognize that.)

Nie Mingjue had expected him to go the way of so many other gym flirtations after a few rounds of his patented cheerfully oblivious act, but Lan Xichen had instead just backed way off the obvious flirting while continuing to extend cheerful overtures, offer to spot his lifts (and then actually do it), and greet him with that same dazzling smile every time they're at the gym at the same time.

"You're sure he's not just flirting more subtly?" Huaisang asks, when Nie Mingjue comes home from the gym once more buzzing with the weird energy working out with Lan Xichen always leaves him. "Some guys like the challenge of pulling a 'straight dude,' you know."

Nie Mingjue shakes his head. He's run into those kind of guys occasionally, and they do get the awkward conversation—and the smile with all the teeth he learned from his one and only ex. (They're still friends. Meng Yao had been great, back when Nie Mingjue was coming to the realization that, no, actually, he wasn't interested in sex with men either.)

"He's not flirting at all anymore," he says. "And you know I can tell. He's just so... intensely friendly."

Huaisang laughs at that, not unkindly. "Well, Da-ge, he just might want to be friends, then. Real friends, not just gym buddies."

Huh. Nie Mingjue had always vaguely wondered how people made friends as adults. Maybe that's it after all.

So the next time they're both at the gym, after they've finished their workouts and chatted through their cooldown stretches and are grabbing their post-grind smoothies—and okay maybe they've developed something of a routine while Nie Mingjue wasn't looking—Nie Mingjue asks, "You hike, right?"

"Sometimes," Lan Xichen replies, like it's not a total non-sequitur to the conversation they've been having about protein supplements. "I haven't been in awhile, but I do enjoy it. You?"

"There's a day hike I've been wanting to do, if you're interested. Huaisang sometimes goes with me, but he declared this one, 'too few birds, too much elevation,' and I was thinking it'd be fun for us to hang out together somewhere besides the gym."

"Somewhere that doesn't smell like sweaty feet, you mean?" Lan Xichen laughs. "I'd like that a lot," he says with one of those wide, warm smiles.

They trade numbers and pick a day and text a great deal over the next couple weeks, and that's how Nie Mingjue finds himself here, taking a hydration break at a scenic overlook halfway back down a mountain with Lan Xichen. It's been honestly perfect. The hike was everything he'd hoped for—great views and a decent athletic challenge—and the company is excellent. He and Lan Xichen match pace easily, chatting about little brothers, cooking mishaps, and a surprise shared love of movie musicals during the less strenuous portions of the climb. He's more relaxed than he can remember being in a long time, right up until Lan Xichen says, "Mingjue, can I ask you something? No wrong answer."

Hell.

He nods for Lan Xichen to go ahead and hopes he's not about to ask what he thinks he's about to ask.

"Am I reading you wrong, or did you mean for this to be a date?" And there it is. "If you did, it's been a great one, it's only... I didn't think you went in for that sort of thing."

He—what?

"What?"

Lan Xichen grins playfully. "Mingjue, I don't know if you've noticed, but you get hit on at the gym, like, a lot." Nie Mingjue raises an unimpressed eyebrow at him, and he laughs. "Yeah, I figured. Anyway, you always turn them down—guys, ladies, whoever—but you've also never mentioned a significant other or anything like that, so I figured you just didn't date. But then it also sometimes feels like you're flirting with me? So, I just wanted to check in. I really enjoy hanging out with you, either way."

That's... okay, that's a lot. Nie Mingjue mentally reviews his interactions with Lan Xichen, today and over the last few months at the gym, and realizes he has been flirting with him. It's apparently easier to recognize in the other direction. "I'm sorry!" he blurts.

"It's not unwelcome," Lan Xichen says, still smiling.

"No, I mean—" Ugh, Awkward Conversation time. "I'm ace. Like, the 'not interested in any kind of sex, with anyone, ever' kind."

"Oh," says Lan Xichen, "cool. Thank you for sharing that with me, Mingjue."

Nie Mingjue shrugs and gestures back towards the path. Lan Xichen falls into step beside him. 'Cool, thanks,' is not the worst reaction he's gotten, Nie Mingjue supposes.

"So not flirting then," Lan Xichen says after awhile with a chuckle. "I can't always tell. Sorry for putting you on the spot."

"No, it's... I was flirting, I think," Nie Mingjue admits. Lan Xichen’s been so honest with him, and he wants to respond in kind. "But I'll cut it out."

Lan Xichen's ears flush red. "I mean, you don't have to," he says. "I like being gym buddies. I've liked texting with you lately. I've really, really liked today. If you wanted to do more of all that, with or without flirting, I'd like that too."

"You'd want to date me," Nie Mingjue clarifies, "even though I just told you I'm not ever gonna want to have sex with you?"

Lan Xichen's lips twitch into one of his sarcastic smiles. "Gosh, Mingjue, everything's not about sex, you know."

Nie Mingjue throws his head back and laughs. "Fine then," he says, "it's a date."

🖤🤍💜

Shoutout to @shadaras for suggesting hiking when I got stuck on a good schroedinger's date activity!

#PrideMonthSnippets Masterpost!