#and for some reason i find writing middle-aged morally-challenged people entertaining

[captain-wereduck]

Still eyeballing Titans United:Bloodpact.

Still wanting to just pick up Kon and dad!Lex and throw them into some other universe, so they can be Dad and Son in peace and fulfill my need for fell-good fluff fix-it shit.

But what universe to pick? Dick around with early MCU, before everything went meh with a sad farting balloon noises? Smallville, so I can see how fast I can break the entire plot of the show? (that I watched like a whole season of, before I've noped out of it) Timmverse, so they can awkwardly hang out with the bestest Superman?

[camxnoel-updates]

[PREVIEW OF CAMERON’S INTERVIEW FOR GRUMPY MAGAZINE]

Cameron Monaghan reflects on his rise to stardom with Liana Liberato

  Cameron Monaghan is the type of actor who has proved throughout his many years working in the industry that he can do it all. As he just turned 27, Monaghan has claimed his own space at the forefront of a generation of actors committed to telling stories that are relevant to today’s society. Growing up in Florida, Cameron has been climbing the steady road to success for over 20 years, diving into television, film, and now video games. He was that deeply disturbed kid in cult sitcom Malcolm in the Middle, and had screen time with Hollywood royal Meryl Streep in The Giver. But his major break came when he was cast as Ian Gallagher in Showtime’s Shameless and became a fan favorite. Since, his outstanding performances have been critically acclaimed, including his interpretation of “the Joker” in FOX’s Gotham.

At the beginning of the lockdown, Cameron connected over the phone with his longtime friend Liana Liberato — who he came up in the business with — to recall their first audition together and reflect on his eclectic career — discussing his most iconic roles in TV shows Shameless and Gotham, as well as his recent acting experience on video game Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order. It was 2PM in Los Angeles — on the other end of the line, Cameron cheerfully greeted his pal with a mischievous ‘‘Liana, it’s 2:03PM. This is unacceptable and so unprofessional.’’ The actress apologized before adding, ‘‘Do you regret asking me to do this?’’ This was a clue about their great complicity, and Cameron’s warm and jovial personality — to the point he started flipping the interview to question Liana as well.

On growing up in Florida, influences, and first approach to acting…

“I was very young when I started. My mom was a single parent who worked two jobs, so she did her best for me. But that meant that I spent a long time by myself, entertaining myself with movies and TV. I was a hyper kid and I didn’t really focus well, so my mom got me involved with local community theater and commercials. She needed something to put my energy to and I actually really enjoyed doing it. […] I grew up in the 90s and one of the movies that blew my mind as a kid was The Matrix. I would play on the playground, pretending to be the characters from it. We would fight each other — which we probably shouldn’t have done. As for actors, I was very strange. I really liked Christopher Walken, Steve Buscemi, Gary Oldman, William H. Macy — who I actually ended up working with for many years on Shameless.”

On his evolution as an actor…

“When I was younger, I was so much more interested in how the plot functions, and some of the mechanisms of that. As I get older, what interests me more is humanity, how characters interact, what it’s trying to say about how we relate to each other, how characters change over the course of the story. I think that a really well-written relationship, saying something interesting about a person’s morality, or what they do in a time of struggle, is so much more interesting to me now than any amount of tools or special effects. […] I love when you’re able to have a story where the characters are so well-defined. There’s something really enjoyable about that, and some sort of emotional catharsis in that. I feel like the reason why we do our job, why we become activists or artists, is to express the stuff that is somewhat broken or challenging.”

On signing onto Shameless at 15 and evolving with a character for a decade…

“I had a pretty even ranking of success. I wasn’t one of those kids who became really successful at a super young age and get all of this responsibility, money, and fame thrust on them at one time. I was lucky that I spent enough time around people who made smart decisions. Also, all the people who I worked with on the show were really supportive and interesting. I learned a lot from them too. We formed a little family who we’re all still tight with. We all support each other and call each other out when they’re making bad decisions. […] I still feel like I’m learning so much and growing as a person. Some of the times, the character was going through specific struggles and those struggles happened prior to me in my own life, or sometimes some of my own personal things were then reflected back within the character. Being able to put that and have a symbiotic relationship with your character over the course of the decade, it’s a really interesting exercise, and something that I’m lucky to be able to have done.”

On why Shameless is so important to today’s society…

“It’s interesting because when the show came on air 11 years ago, the landscape of American television was a little bit different. Now with all the streaming platforms, there’s so much more about family dynamics that are more uncensored, and speak more frankly about sexuality, poverty… When you’re 15-16 years old, talking really openly about things like sexuality, and maturing through adolescence, is an interesting thing. It was a little bit scary at first, but it was also something that I’m really happy to have been able to do. It allowed me to reflect on myself, learn, and become comfortable with who I am. […] I’ve heard from a number of teenagers who were gay, in the closet, or struggling to come to terms with certain things that my character or other characters in the show really reflected what they were going through. That’s always amazing to be able to hear about that.”

On taking on the role of the Joker in Gotham…

“A lot of times, I would finish up on the set of Shameless, get on the plane, land in New York, and literally go straight from the plane to work on Gotham. While I loved the Shameless set, crew, and the cast, it is nice to be able to always experience other things outside of it. You learn so much each time you step foot on a different set. […] When I filmed my first episode of Gotham, it was just a few years after Heath Ledger played the role in The Dark Knight and won the Oscar. He became the most iconic person to touch that role. That’s saying something considering he was following Jack Nicholson. No one else had played that role since then up to that point. That was intimidating, but it was also really exciting and a huge honor. I liked what they were trying to do with the character. It was something very different, and distinct from the movies and the media that had come before. It was a really unique opportunity.”

On diving into the world of video games with Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order…

“I had never done a video game before. I’ve played games for most of my life, and I’ve really appreciated how they’ve matured and grown over the last decade. Right now is an interesting time as an actor, because so much is based off of media that people are familiar with, and there’s a challenge. You have to take that, and make stuff that still feels human and still says something about you as a person. That’s my interest with it — trying to see if there’s something about the character in a story that raises interesting questions, because otherwise what’s the point of doing it? […] We had a lot of really great and wonderful conversations with the creative team, our writers, Lucasfilm story group, and all of the actors about what we wanted to say. So much of that story is about dealing with trauma, guilt, and things that were out of your control when you were younger or in your life. Pretty much every character in the story has experienced loss — how they grieve, or how they come to cope with the loss defines them as a character. Being able to access the story from that angle was what made me want to do the job.”

On dealing with the level of heartbreak and rejection inside the industry…

“There is a certain level of […] all of these things that you do have to learn how to deal with. Ultimately, it takes a certain level of acceptance and trust in yourself. I want to represent the things that I value, and the things that I find interesting and important. Right now too, with all the quarantine and the fact that we, as actors, don’t have the ability to work, it is very frustrating. It’s difficult, but I think all you can really do is try to either make opportunities for yourself, or work on yourself. I know for me, I’m writing and talking to friends who are trying to do stuff. […] I think that I’ll probably be an actor for the majority of my life, unless I get to the point where I either fall out of love with it, or if I feel like I can’t perform to the best of my abilities.”

FULL CONVERSATION AND STORY WILL APPEAR IN GRUMPY MAGAZINE’S ISSUE NO.16.

[passionate-reply]

Great Albums is back for a third time! This week, we discuss Dazzle Ships, the avant-garde masterpiece that was so infamously weird, it almost “sank” the pop career of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. Or did it? As usual, you can find a full transcript of the video under the break, if you’d like to read it instead.

Welcome to Passionate Reply, and welcome to Great Albums. Today, I’ll be talking about an album that many would consider OMD’s best, and many would consider the last great album they ever made: 1983’s Dazzle Ships, their fourth studio LP. It has a reputation that precedes it, as a strange, experimental, and avant-garde album. And I can’t argue with that too much, when it has tracks that sound like "ABC Auto-Industry."

The most obvious thing one can say about Dazzle Ships is that it’s dense and rich with samples. You’ll hear found sounds ranging from a “Speak and Spell” toy to a radio broadcast from Czechoslovakia. It’s a magpie’s nest constructed of garbage and baubles, collage-like and conscientiously artificial. And OMD’s Paul Humphreys and Andy McCluskey managed to make it before sampling became easier and hence more widespread later in the 1980s, thanks to advancements in digital technology. In its own day, it was, famously, a huge flop, baffling even the critics, which makes it tempting to argue that the world simply wasn’t ready for it. Popular legend says that Humphreys and McCluskey were essentially forced to make increasingly soft, pop-oriented music for years afterward, usually at the hands of their label’s higher-ups.

Is that story really true? Well, I don’t know, and I’m not sure if anybody really does. But I think it’s important that we entertain some doubt. Regardless of its actual veracity, this legend is offering us a simplistic narrative of art and capital butting heads, and one that we see repeated all too often in music journalism. It’s a story that expects us to believe that experimental music is good by default, and the natural goal of music and all the people who make it--and, conversely, that accessible music is bad, and anyone who writes a song you can dance to is always after profit, never craft.

Ultimately, though, the most important reason why I’m asking you to leave this question at the gate is that it’s simply a less interesting way to think about art. What I think is truly ingenious about OMD is their ability to combine a pop sensibility with that bleeding-edge experimentation, and vice versa. I don’t think of Dazzle Ships as just an inscrutable, esoteric musical ready-made, but rather something capable of animating and enriching a bunch of otherwise mundane sounds. A word I might use for it is "challenging," because it isn't simply off-putting--it has a certain charm that invites you to stick around and work through it, and you don't feel like it's a waste of your time. I think the underlying pop DNA offered by Dazzle Ships is a big part of that.

In “Genetic Engineering,” the samples from that Speak & Spell are contrasted with a more traditional chorus, which rises above the chaos, stirring and anthemic. It’s a song full of friction, not only between these musical ideas, but in ideas about technology and our future. Like many great works of electronic music, especially earlier in its history, Dazzle Ships is deeply concerned with science and technology, and the ways they’ve structured our world. These guys wrote “Enola Gay” a few years earlier, sure, but there’s much more than Luddite, dystopian thinking here! Dazzle Ships walks a tightrope between romantic adoration of the promise of a better tomorrow, and the tempered uncertainty we’re forced to develop, when we witness the devastation our most horrifying inventions have wrought already. Something that helps sell the former is the motif of childhood: in addition to the Speak & Spell, “Genetic Engineering” also features a children’s toy piano, and prominently references “children” in its lyrics. And “Telegraph,” the album’s other single, sees fit to reference “Daddy.”

Touches like these, and the centering of not-so-new technologies like telegraphy and radio, carry us backward in time. Dazzle Ships has a sense of nostalgia for the technological explosion of the Midcentury, when household technologies were improving in ways that saved time and labour, and faith in “better living through science” was high. It’s not a wistful or introspective nostalgia, but rather one that taps into the bustling excitement of living through that era. That retro styling helps us situate ourselves in a childlike mindset: optimistic, but somewhat naive. Children are highly imaginative, and become enthralled with possibility, but don’t always understand every implication their actions have.

But, as I said, “Telegraph” and “Genetic Engineering” were the album’s singles; the typical track on *Dazzle Ships* sounds more like “ABC Auto-Industry.” The track listing is structured such that these more conventional songs are surrounded by briefer, and more abrasive, intrusions. They become signals in the noise, as though we’re listening to them on the radio--or ships, rising above some stormy seas. Several tracks, such as “International,” also feature a more dissonant intro, on top of that, crowding their main melodies inward.

Over the years, many critics have been quick to contrast Dazzle Ships with OMD’s other albums, but I actually think it has a lot in common with their preceding LP, 1981’s Architecture & Morality, and seems to me to flow naturally from the direction the band had already been going in. Architecture & Morality is a lively mix, with moody instrumentals like “Sealand,” guitar-driven numbers like “The New Stone Age,” and catchy, intuitive pop songs like “Souvenir.” Architecture and Morality proved to be their most successful album, when its title track sounds like this. I fail to see how it’s tremendously different than the title track of Dazzle Ships, which leads us on a harrowing sea chase, with radar pings quickly closing in.

That nautical theme is a great segue to discuss the album’s visual motif. Like all of OMD's first five albums, its sleeve was designed by Peter Saville, most famous for his stunning work for New Order. The cover and title were inspired by a painting Saville had seen, Edward Wadsworth’s *Dazzle Ships in Drydock at Liverpool,* which portrays WWI warships painted in striking, zebra-like geometric patterns. These sharply contrasting “razzle dazzle” designs weren’t “camouflage,” but rather served to confuse enemy forces’ attempts to track them, and predict their motions. Dazzle ships were killing machines that fought dirty...and they were also beautiful. It’s a potent, complex symbol, and it’s a natural fit for an album that’s also capricious, perplexing, and captivating in its uniquely modern terror. Saville’s sleeve design features both a die-cut design as well as a gatefold; peeking through the cover’s “portholes” reveals the interior, where we find a map of the world, divided by time zones. It’s yet another reminder of how technology has reshaped the planet, connecting the human race while also creating divisions.

Earlier, I argued that Dazzle Ships isn’t that different from OMD’s preceding LP, and I’d also suggest that their follow-ups to it aren’t all that different, either. It’s easy to see the influence of Dazzle Ships on their most recent work, made after reforming the group in the late 00s, and informed by the critical re-evaluation and cult acclaim of their alleged masterpiece. But even in the 80s, they basically continued the pattern of layering easy to love, “obvious single choice” tracks alongside more experimental, sample-heavy ones. Compare the title track of their sixth LP, 1985's *Crush.*

Even the greatest of pop hitmakers can't maintain a streak in the charts forever--it's not the nature of mainstream pop charts. Not even in the 1980s, when you could get away with quite a lot of electronic weirdness...at least for a while. Looking back and listening to "Maid of Orleans," it's almost hard to believe it was one of OMD's biggest hits. Is it really less weird than something like "Telegraph"? Perhaps they had simply reached the end of their imperial phase...whether they really had that stern talking-to or not.

It's not so much that Dazzle Ships isn't weird, so much as it is foreseeable that a nerdy, left-of-center band like OMD would have come up with it. Dazzle Ships IS excellent--it’s a Great Album! But it's good enough that I think it deserves to be heard and valued on its own terms. The album is too goddamn good--too compelling, too spell-binding--to be reduced to "that one album the plebs were too dumb to really get." I'm not clearing the air because I think this album is overrated, but because I think it deserves better, deeper discourse than it gets. A truly great album is great whether it sells or it doesn't, right? My advice is to never let art intimidate you, no matter how obtuse people say it is. Send your ship on that plunge into the dark waters of the unknown--you might find something beautiful.

That said...my favourite track overall is “Radio Waves,” an irresistibly fun cut that could easily have become a third single. Since “Genetic Engineering” and “Telegraph” live on side one of the record, “Radio Waves” is really the only “reprieve” we get on side two, smack in its middle. It really stands out, in context--almost like the opposite of how a more conventional album might have one out-there track that catches you off guard. Aside from all of that, though, the song also stands perfectly well alone. I have a real soft spot for music about music, how it’s made and transmitted, and “Radio Waves” is simply one hell of a ride.

Thanks for reading!

[e-vasong]

Can I ask about your writing process?

Huge fan of your TUA fics here - the way you just GET the characters is incredible - its almost like reading a novel written by the actual show writers!

How do you go about your characterisation and your drafting process? Any tips on nailing the complexities of the characters (specifically five)?

Thanks!!!

:') This is literally so nice I don't know how to respond, oh my goodness. I wish I had, like, life-altering writing wisdom for you here, but I honestly feel like my entire process is kind of a mess. I'll share it with you anyways, though, just in case you can glean anything helpful from it. I’ll tuck it below a cut, but here it is (ft. some of my specific characterization notes on Five, since you asked :D).

Pre-draft: Concept stage! This can be a variety of things -- sometimes it's a specific scene. For me it's usually a challenge of some sort. I like to take things that I think are unlikely for a character (under what circumstances would [x] character ever become a bad guy? How would [x] character’s secrets get revealed if they never talk willingly about their emotions?) Then I build out from there. I outline sometimes now, but I’ve been winging all my pieces for so long that it’s pretty tough for me. 

Draft one: Throw things at the wall. If I let myself, I will spend way too long agonizing on making every word perfect on the first go around, and I’ll never write anything. So draft one has permission to be as bad as it needs to be: sentence fragments, OOC dialogue/actions, clunky word choice, the whole nine yards. The most important thing is getting the words/scenes on the page.

Draft two: What sticks? Everyone is different -- I find it easier to edit than to write in the first place. So here’s where I look over my work from draft one. Is my sentence structure variable enough? How are their voices? Their actions? Does the narration work with the POV I’m using for the scene? 

Like, okay. I’m working on chapter two of the end of the war right now. Currently, it includes this line:

“How did you even—” Five starts, then shakes himself.  Absolutely not.  He isn’t entertaining this.  “Luther.”

In retrospect, I’m not wild about it. It doesn’t sound in character to me. I’m not pulling out receipts right now or anything, but the more I think about it, the more that I feel certain that Five rarely expresses surprise unless really shocked. Part of this is likely the contrast between him in his siblings (all the stuff about the Apocalypse and time travel is familiar to him and new to them, so the show has a lot of “Five explains [x] to his siblings while they look flabbergasted by him.”)

Anyways, it doesn’t sit right. So maybe, instead:

Five frowns, taken off guard. He could ask, but--quite frankly--he’s starting to think that he doesn’t want to know. He does, however, know what this is a preface to -- Luther is going to meddle. 

“Luther,” Five says it like a warning. Luther either doesn’t hear it or doesn’t care.

Anyways, rinse and repeat step two as much as necessary, and you basically have my entire drafting process.

Characterization, though, I have a more thorough process for!

Fanon and meta is super, super helpful, but I definitely prefer to look at canon first and foremost. I find it easiest to build characterization by asking myself questions about the character! I mean, don’t get me wrong. The first step is just to...get your own read on their personality? And there’s no trick to that. Everyone comes away from watching a show/reading a book with a slightly different interpretation of a character’s personality. But when building off of that to write them, I find questions helpful. They vary from fandom to fandom, but, like, here are some of the questions I’ve asked myself while writing Five.

What motivates them? For Five, this is a super easy one. He literally says it at multiple points throughout the show. He’s motivated by his family. To the point of wanting to save the world because they’re a part of it. Five troops through injury and pain and discomfort, but one reference from Handler about a deal to save his family is enough to coerce Five into 1 - working with her when he doesn’t want to and 2 - taking a job that he doesn’t seem like he wants to take.

How far are they willing to go to get it? For Five, he’s willing to do pretty much anything.

Are there any contradictions in their characterization? This is a weirdly specific question, but! People are inherently contradictory. Sometimes in TV or movies or books, it’s just bad writing. But sometimes it’s because people are complicated. So, in TUA, Five is consistently a big-picture thinker throughout the series. He seems to view his job at the Commission with apathy because he knows that it’s part of maintaining the timeline and necessary for him to get back home and stop the Apocalypse. He plans to kill an innocent person because he believes the butterfly effect of their death could stop the end of the world. He is, in many ways, a utilitarian -- the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. The greater good sometimes requires a lesser evil. Pull the lever in the trolley problem, and kill the one to save the five. Unless that one is one of Five’s siblings. 

For instance, his dialogue with the Handler in season one seems to imply that he is willing to give up fighting the Apocalypse if and only if she can guarantee his siblings’ safety (though this admittedly turns on how honest you think he was being with her -- I think he was honest, but smart enough to know she’d never follow through, but a fair argument can be made either way.) There are a million ways to read this, and the fun of playing with characterization is that you get to experiment with them! I read it as proof that Five is so driven by his desire to save his siblings that he actually places their wellbeing above his own moral compass (whether his moral compass is right or wrong is a whole other debate.)

What are they like at their best vs. at their worst? At his best, Five is strategic, driven, independent, determined, loyal, and protective. At his worst, he’s controlling, suspicious, bloodthirsty, temperamental, and obsessive. Of course, most people don’t just switch between these two extremes, and these traits frequently coexist, interact, and manifest in milder ways.  Five being suspicious usually manifests as him being cautious until he’s confronted with a character (in season two, Lila) that strikes him the wrong way. Him being obsessive is often just a side product of the fact that he is determined, loyal, and protective.  The fact that he can be controlling is connected to how independent he can be -- the same reason that Five tries to keep Diego in the mental hospital, never tells people that he’s injured, and hides things from them is the same reason he’s so quick and effective at getting things done. This is just a handy way of compiling a flaws/virtues list, and I like to look at it in terms of the potential extremes because I think it makes it easier to see how they interact to create the middle ground where the character actually exists.

How do they talk? Arguably the most important question for actually getting their voice, and the easiest way to nail this down is to just...look at the canon dialogue. Does the character use really big words? Do they talk in long gusts or in short, clipped sentences?  Do they use contractions more or do they not shorten things? This is the hardest part of writing Five for me, because my first impulse is to make him talk like an Intellectual (tm) and Very Erudite Adult. Like, I default to that when writing him, and it’s a horrible habit (in my opinion) because...while he does speak that way sometimes (usually when explaining things to his siblings) that’s not actually how he talks most of the time.  (Like, for instance, I tend to default away from Five using contractions in my first drafts of things. He actually uses contractions a lot, and frequently shortens words--”got to” is “gotta” for Five, “because” becomes “‘cause”, etc.) 

Other examples:

Five: Billions of people are about to die tonight. You can change that.

The Handler: Tonight, tomorrow. So little difference in the scheme of things. Don't you remember the Commission's raison d'etre? What's meant to be is meant to be, or, as I like to say, que será, será.

Five: It's bullshit in any language.

I love this exchange so much :D. And it establishes some great things about the way Five talks! He doesn’t dance around the issue or debate her or try and prove her wrong. He just tells her he thinks that that opinion is dumb, obviously.  He’s blunt, straightforward, and honest. (This seems to tie into the thing I was saying about Five and contractions -- he picks the most straightforward way of saying things unless he’s giving a technical explanation.)

Five: Okay, Luther, but be careful. I mean, I've... I've lived a long life, but you're still a young man. You got your whole life ahead of you. Don't waste it.

Five talks like an old man. Not all the time (though there’s a wonderful gif set out there somewhere of Five using old timer slang -- wait, I found it here.) He doesn’t use the old-timey slang all the time -- and I personally like the idea of mixing up Five’s slang habits and including slang from all sorts of eras because he’s a time traveler whose primary source of interaction after four decades alone was other time traveling assassins. But! He also talks in a way where he shows his age. 

Regardless of where you think Five’s psychological age falls (I have my own Opinions on this), he seems to unilaterally view himself as the Big Sibling, and by a very large margin at that. That’s reflected in how he talks. Not always, since not every line of dialogue is relevant to his age. But stuff like this, or related to it, crops up a fair amount. He counsels his siblings on their problems (as when he comforted Diego post-Eudora’s death), and there are little moments like the quote above, where the point is that Five has indeed seen many more years than his siblings and has the perspective to reflect that.

Well, this is way too long now, and it’s really late where I’m at. I feel like the comprehensibility of this post has been steadily declining the whole time, but if other writers have tips that they want to add onto this, please go ahead! 

[5lazarus]

My Dragon Age Fanfiction Masterlist

In chronological order, from Arlathan to post-Trespasser.

There Is No Ithaca Three moments where Solas loses his home: Solas wrecks his revolution on the altar of Mythal. Solas returns from war to find Ghilan’nain incubating the Blight within their own home. Fen'Harel negotiates the end of the world with the Thaig of the Bastion of the Pure. Answers to various asks from brightoncemore’s wonderful promptlist.

Overheard at the Hanged Man Thirty-one stories written in Nightmare-mode for Beyond the Veil’s 2020 Artober Challenge, ranging through the entire series, from Arlathan before the Blight to the Chargers in Serault.

Alistair the Accidental Heretic Alistair gets bored during morning prayer and starts changing the words of the Chant as he sings. Mother Prudence and Knight-Commander Greagoir are less than pleased, and soon he finds himself tripping up over accidental heresy even within the kitchens of Kinloch Hold. It’s not easy, being a half-elf templar with a conscience, because even having a sense of humor is heresy.

The Starkhaven Crier A portrait of two future apostates at ten-year-olds: Jowan and Surana are bored, get dragged to the Chantry for the good of their souls, and accidentally make the new girl from Starkhaven cry. Featuring Surana determined to be the one Dalish against letting the Maker come back, the self-hating mage in the Surana/Amell origin as the Starkhaven Crier, and the same Mother Prudence who sent Alistair to bed without supper. From the six Florence & the Machine prompts that ellie-effie sent me.

Morrigan at the Crossroads Morrigan reaches her breaking point, confronted with the one person she cannot flee: her six-week-old son, who cannot be soothed back to sleep, struggling in the Crossroads. From a prompt musettta3 sent me.

Shartan’s Riddle Surana talks Mahariel through writing Leliana, after Leliana leaves to work for the Divine. Shartan promised them a home, and Mahariel worries Leliana, devout as she is, cannot give it to her. From the six Florence & the Machine prompts that ellie-effie sent me.

Winter in Amaranthine The Wardens’ companions decide to leave, and Warden-Commander Arana Mahariel cannot find a reason good enough to tell them no. Meanwhile, letters between the Warden and Leliana get lost in translation, and Arana makes it worse. From the six Florence & the Machine prompts that ellie-effie sent me.

Phosphorescence A Despair demon in the Foundry district is clogging up the whole city with a miasma of misery. Justice runs into an old friend of his, during Anders’ first few weeks in Kirkwall, and the three set to work. Heavy-handed allegory abounds, but, Justine opines, that’s the Dreamers’ fault. From the six Florence & the Machine prompts that ellie-effie sent me.

Labyrinth "Anders made no attempt at escape during the years they were together." This story is meant to explore everything absolutely horrible about that statement. If the core part of Anders' identity is his refusal to submit to imprisonment, then perhaps listening to Karl was a violation of his sense of self. Things get better, and then things get worse.

Kirkwall Thunderstorm Family squabbling as the storm sets in, Hawke flees to face the thunderstorm head on, and laughs, because what’s more to life than this, chasing a storm all the way down to the harbor? From the six Florence & the Machine prompts that ellie-effie sent me. One of my favorite things I’ve written in 2020.

Debutante Leandra manages Hawke’s debut ball, and surprises herself by having a lot of fun. From an OC ask I decided to turn into a prompt.

Dregs Anders baits Varric, or Varric baits Anders, both drunk at the Hanged Man. There’s no resolution to an argument when they’re both just angry, thinking about dead mages. From the six Florence & the Machine prompts that ellie-effie sent me. One of my favorite things I’ve written in 2020.

The Scent of Pomegranates Merrill brings a pomegranate to the Hanged Man, to try and capture some of the way her clan celebrated the new year. Fenris is oddly moved. Written for the DA Den’s 2020 Holiday Gift Exchange.

Anders in Autumn Anders and Fenris, over the course of one gorgeous autumn in Kirkwall, find common ground, a common goal, and even tenderness, as the city grows cool and vibrant in the changing of the year. Justice returns to the streets of Kirkwall, one way or another, and it is as transformative and loving as justice truly is. An answer to an Artober challenge from cozy-autumn-prompts.

Warp & Weft Anders wakes Fenris up in the middle of the night talking, and then not wanting to talk, about weaving. What they remember and what they have forgot climb into the bed with them. A gift for potatowitch.

Landlocked Merrill goes looking for Isabela after a night of drinking at the Hanged Man, and finds her considering the sun rising over the horizon at the docks. They're landlocked and the salt's drained them both dry, but maybe it's not all been a waste. They're shipless, not shipwrecked. Part of a personal challenge to write more femslash, after realizing how little there is in Dragon Age fandom.

Catabasis Kirkwall’s in ashes and Hawke and their friends are on the run. Varric might have ended the story at the docks, but the conflict continues. The question persists: should they separate? And what brought them together in the first place? From a series of prompts ellie-effie and musetta3 sent me.

Dead Man Hiking Solas broods over what has been lost. Dorian interrupts, and Solas dangles hidden knowledge in front of him like a carrot. They both take the bait, because, as irritable and sad Solas can get, “he wants to give wisdom, not orders,” and Dorian loves to learn. Written for Beyond the Veil’s 2020 Satinalia Gift Exchange.

Dirthara Ma! May You Learn After the Exalted Council, Solas stops for a drink and a sulk in a quiet tavern in Ostwick. He is convinced no one will ever recognize him with a full head of hair and a beard. Then the Inquisitor walks in. The first in a canon-compliant post-Trespasser Solavellan series.

White Nights A year after Trespasser, Lavellan takes a new lover to a quiet inn in Val Royeaux. She steps out to the balcony for a quick smoke under the stars, looks over to the balcony adjacent to hers–and who is there but the Dread Wolf himself, slightly disguised, with a glass of wine? Despite themselves they talk, and do not stop talking. “Entertain me,” Solas says. “What ending will Master Tethras write for us? Because I do not know how to leave this gracefully. Though I suppose any ending is better than the last one, when I left with your arm.” The second and most comprehensive in a canon-compliant post-Trespasser Solavellan series. From the six Florence & the Machine prompts that ellie-effie sent me. One of my favorite things I’ve written in 2020.

Ligaments Briala has loaded her dice when playing the Game. Gaspard throws her in prison, but her message goes out to both the Dread Wolf, keen to better his reputation for catastrophe amongst the elves of Orlais, and the Dalish Inquisitor, who is still reeling from the loss of her arm. “We do not necessarily know he is the enemy,” Leliana says. “And it is exciting, no? To have that rush of danger and destruction between every kiss.” The third in a canon-compliant post-Trespasser Solavellan series. From the six Florence & the Machine prompts that ellie-effie sent me. One of my favorite things I’ve written in 2020.

Out From Under the Dread Wolf's Eye Briala and Merrill try and steal an eluvian out from under the Dread Wolf's eye. It doesn't quite work, but that doesn't mean the day's a failure, not when there's dinner to be had and a connection to explore. Part of a personal challenge to write more femslash, after realizing how little there is in Dragon Age fandom.

The Domesticities Solas adjust to a new, gentle love that has gripped his heart and will not let him go: a Lavellan who heralds a world he did dream of, and learns how to survive grief and his own betrayal, learns how to surrender the high moral ground and focus on the domesticities. A series of Solas-POV ficlets from my story, Fen'Harel’s Teeth, where Lavellan is a mother and leader in her own right, and barely keeping her head above the water of her own deep grief. Not in chronological order!

He Who Hunts Alone Solas will restore the Elvhen People as he knew them, even if this world must die. It is his only purpose as he understands it. But a magical accident leaves him in another world, where a version of himself has made a very different choice. Solas is forced to reckon with a desire he has never let himself explore. Inquisitor Tara Trevelyan, both his friend and adversary, is dragged with him, as they move from their world, to a world where Solas seems to have won it all, to another that seems both their worst nightmare. Inquisitor Tara Trevelyan: the rebel apostate mage, romanced Josephine Inquisitor Imladris Lavellan: the Dalish First, romanced Solas, featured in Fen'Harel’s Teeth Inquisitor Brigid Trevelyan: the faithful Andrastian prophet, rogue and noble, Tara’s sister, romanced Blackwall and then Cullen Written in tandem with my partner, batsy22-me, and likewise abandoned when we got bored of it.

Fen'Harel’s Teeth First Lavellan, Imladris Ashallin, thought that her audience with the Divine against templars’ harassment of Dalish mages would be a token protest, and that her people would use it to draw the city elves closer to the Vir Tanadahl. She didn’t think her Keeper’s calculations would catapult her to the top of the Chantry’s leadership, manipulating the powers of Thedas to leave her people be. Meanwhile, Briala foments revolution in Halamshiral, using the eluvian network to sabotage the armies of Orlais. A new movement erupts in the Dales, and elves across Thedas look at this so-called “Herald of Andraste” and see Mythal’s vallaslin. Fiona breaks the chains of mages across Thedas, and Fenris starts whispers of a new age in Tevinter–one where the slaves throw down their masters. A new age is coming, and all of Thedas look to Lavellan to usher it in. My baby, my never-ending story, my current work-in-progress.

[vishers]

1001 Ideas That Changed the Way We Think (2013) General Editor Robert Arp: A Pre-read

★★★★☆

Title, Subtitle, Publication Date, Preface, Introduction

Title: 1001 Ideas That Changed the Way We Think

Publication Date: 2013

Despite the current fashion of criticizing Liberal Arts education, this book is proof enough that we have no reason to favor Science and Technology over the Humanities. Ideas that change the world as as likely to come from Religion or Philosophy or Architecture as they are from Chemistry or Astrophysics. And more importantly, it's when those disciplines work in concert that the real magic happens.

Moreover, studying big ideas from a wide array of sources is intellectually challenging, mentally broadening, and just plain fun. As we face an uncertain future it's most likely that the ideas that shape it will stand on the shoulders of the giants found herein.

What is an idea? Interestingly the definition isn't so simple, as is so often the case with words that are nearly universal and self-apparent. Plato used the word to refer to the real Form from which everything in the universe was a copy of varying quality. Christian Philosophy through the Middle Ages, thought that these Forms, or ideas, lived in the mind of the Christian God. It wasn't until the later part of this period that idea began to take on the connotations of a 'concept' or 'object of thought' rather than this 'real' thing one could consider through the mind. By the 17th century, evidenced clearly in the writings of some of the earliest Modern Philosophers, idea no longer had the implication of a Platonic Form but instead was "the object of the understanding when a man thinks". This idea, philosophically at least, held fast through the twentieth century when Mortimer Adler (author of [[][one of my Great Books]]) added the caveat that in order for an object of thought to be a proper idea the object of thought in question must be held in common between at least 2 people. Today, the word has "several connotations and denotations, many of which are aligned to these historical conceptions." In line with Modern Philosophy, an idea may be the image brought to your mind when a concept (like General Relativity) or entity (like the Eiffel Tower) is mentioned to you. An idea may be considered a synonym for 'concept' as well, such as 'digestion' or 'cost-benefit analysis' or 'addition'. Finally, an idea could be a 'goal, end, aim, or purpose'.

This book aims to collect 1001 of the most influential ideas throughout human history. Our actions are driven by our thoughts and our thoughts are made of ideas. When a new idea is unleashed upon the world, the effects can be enormous.

This book organizes ideas into 6 categories: Philosophy, Religion, Psychology, Science and Technology, Politics and Society, and Art and Architecture. Each entry should contain a description of exactly what the idea is, an account of its origin, a quotation that uses or is about the idea, and a brief explanation of why the idea is important. The ideas themselves are organized chronologically in as much as is possible, wherever possible using their earliest recorded date of the idea to place them. There are chapters for the Ancient World (2,000,000 BCE to 499 CE), The Middle Ages (500 to 1449), Early Modern (1540 to 1779), Late Modern (1780 to 1899), Early Twentieth Century (1900 to 1949), and Contemporary (1950 to 2013).

Some of the entries might sound more like inventions (Kinetoscope, the telephone, the map). These entries nevertheless try to discuss the idea behind the invention rather than the invention itself as much as possible.

Table of Contents

The table of contents is exactly as the editor said it would be. One neat feature though is the Index of Ideas by Category which is an alphabetical index but with the sub-categories broken out.

I'll record the page numbers so the relative space given to each period can be easily seen.

Ancient World 20

The Middle Ages 268

Early Modern 312

Late Modern 428

Early 20th Century 606

Contemporary 738

General Index 942

Index/Bibliography

The categories in rough order of coverage:

Science & Technology

Politics & Society

Philosophy

Religion

Art & Architecture

Psychology

Since each idea is covered in essentially the same detail as any other idea I'll simply record a list of ideas here that I found to be intriguing.

Art & Architecture

Krumping

Don Quixote

Feng Shui

Homophony

Hero

Panopticon

Postmodernism

Sewer System

Philosophy

Absolute power corrupts absolutely

Banality of Evil

Lifeboat Earth

Deconstructionism

De Morgan's Laws

Infinity

Pragmatism

Skepticism

Space

Politics & Society

Ageism

Amazon.com

Art of War

Counterculture

Consumerism

Godwin's Law

Leninism

Male gaze

Morality of Terror

Restorative Justice

Sexting

Stages of History

Supermarket

Wikipedia

Psychology

Behaviorism

Child development

Lateral Thinking

Nature vs. Nurture

Pavlov's dog

Personality Indicator

Religion

Adam & Eve

Age of Reason

Atheism

Biblical textual criticism

Chakras

Feminist biblical exegesis

Kabbalah

Quakerism

Transubstantiation

Zen

Science & Technology

Abortion

Animal Magnetism

Archimedes Principle

Assembly Line

Binary code

Butterfly Effect

Clothing

Cybernetics

Electricity

Fifth element

Hippocratic oath

Light

Mathematical function

Paradigm shift

Pi

Speciesism

Theory

Symbols

Wine making

Zero

There's no bibliography.

Publisher's Blurb

This is a comprehensive guide to the most interesting and imaginative ideas from the finest minds in history, ranging from Confucius and Plato to today's cutting edge thinkers. You'll find many (and conflicting!) answers to some of life's enduring questions. There are also many entries that are remarkable from their sheer weirdness. "Supported by a wealth of striking illustrations and illuminating quotations, 1001 Ideas The Changed the Way We Think is both an in-depth history of ideas and a delightfully browsable source of entertainment."

Notable Chapters and Statements

Since there's no central argument I simply dipped in to some of the ideas I thought would be interesting.

The entry for Zero (attractive because of my deep love for Seife's work) was interesting at least for tracing the origination of Zero, one of my favorite parts from the book, which is stunning in how late it arrives to the Western World. However, it's explanation of what the import Zero is was so brief as to be nearly non-existent.

The Personality Indicator entry did accurately record the origination of the idea but the explanation wasn't quite right and it failed to record the controversy of the system compared to more modern systems like The OCEAN Model.

Banality of Evil, on the other hand, was covered quite well, discussing the historical context from which it came as well as the areas of humanity that have been affected by it.

The entry for De Morgan's Laws does accurately describe De Morgan's Laws but I wasn't left with any sense of why they changed the way we think.

The Abortion entry was good, accurately capturing the origination and development of the technology and the controversy around the practice.

I also thought the Restorative Justice entry was informative.

Overall though I would definitely say that while this book is a collection of quite a few important ideas, to actually gain much information about them (or maybe even an accurate understanding of them!) you'd really need to look elsewhere.

What is 1001 Ideas That Changed the Way We Think about, as a whole?

The book is about collecting 1001 Important Ideas from Human History into one volume so that important ideas can be discovered by curious minds.

What is being said in detail, and how?

Ideas from Science & Technology, Politics & Society, Religion, Philosophy, Art & Architecture, and Psychology are outlined from 2,000,000 BCE to 2013 BCE. Each attempts to define the idea, describe its origin, provide a quote regarding it or its use, and point at why it is considered important. However, the quality of each entry varies.

[colleydogstar]

ADHD and Mental Health Stuff

The fun part about being ADHD is that when you try to sit down and write about being ADHD and mental health stuff, you get distracted and keep putting it off.  Regardless, I've wanted to talk about mental health issues and ADHD for a while, so HERE'S A NICE RAMBLY, PROBABLY INCOHERENTLY ORGANIZED, AND LONG WORDED PIECE FOR YA TO READ NOW.

(Tagging @neurodiversitysci cause that site is a damn good read for folks like us)

The human brain is weird, and often our own worst enemy. Mood swings, crashes, it hits us all differently. Not always a whole lot one can do when the world and emotions decide to plant themselves right on your head.  That fun part of the human brain that doesn't let us handle things the way we wish we could deal. Still, in the end, Brave heart. If you can find the strength to get through this life in something, grab it and don't let go. 

Some of us choose to express our issues more openly, others may internalize. Sometimes internalizing isn't always the worst idea, but you got to be really careful when doing it. Know the limits of what your body and morale can take from it. it can turn self-damaging real easily, and that won't do you any good.  One thing to remember, we're all insane. Gotta be to get through this shit. We CAN'T be sane. Have you seen all the stuff we gotta go through? It only makes sense we're gonna break and lose it at times. The trick is finding what part of insanity works in our favor.

Me? I retreat to fantasies in my head a lot, and I know that can't be entirely healthy. One of the reasons I latch onto cartoons, fantasy, and heroes so easily is the escape. For however long it's running I don't gotta deal with the problem. Doesn't help solve it, but will give a bit of buffer time to maybe try and figure out a new approach, steady the nerves. 

"Trey, why the hell do you have Paw Patrol figures on your shelf, that show is for little kids?" Because the biggest concern in that show is 'Will Mayor Humdinger steal all the prizes from the carnival?!' and after dealing with people who think the world is ending if their door has the tiniest, easily repairable scratch on it, you NEED simplicity. You need to be able to give your brain something it can decompress on. Cartoons work for me. Hell that Mr. Rogers Marathon last month was Relax-o-Vision for me. Your mileage will vary. 

There's something I picked up, from the original Twin Peaks of all places, that has actually helped me a lot. Once a day, do something just for you. Doesn't have to be big. A snack that you like, a tv program, a cup of coffee, 15 minutes to read a book or story. Just something that is entirely selfish for yourself. It can be a challenge to get yourself into the habit, but oh so worth it. For me, I try to read at least 4 pages of a book during my lunch hour at work. Dealing with ADHD in my adult life still? Not always a simple task. But, small steps get you there. 

There's a fear some have talked to me about with ADHD that sometimes your mind can feel like it is slipping, knowledge leaving you, and that you're going to get dumber as you get older. But you're not going to get dumber, you're not going to be brain dead. Anyone who tells you that happens is a damn liar. 

The thing about ADHD is that it isn't just a lack of focus, it's the hyper focus that makes people think you're unfocussed. latching onto something almost obsessively. You have to train yourself to deal with it, and I really wish i could describe how to do that better, but I'm not sure how I wound up doing it without my meds sometimes myself. With work? Try to find a work environment that you can turn the side-effects to your advantage. I work retail, have most of my life now. I turned my sudden need to move and walk into excuses to patrol the store grounds, hit up other departments to see what is happening in them and general meandering that still looks like I'm busy.

The hyper focus? Don't fight it, ride it out. Trying to deny it will make it worse. Listen to that song for 6 hours nonstop. Watch that show til you get tired of it. Search for that collector's piece to finish your set BUT COLLECT RESPONSIBLY. I've had the song Lake Shore Drive on loop for 40 minutes as I type this, as an example.

I would draw in class, or work on homework for other classes while taking notes for the one I was in. Drove my teachers insane. Are you able to multitask with it? Still keep your grades up while doodling? And when i say that, I mean C+ - B+ area are totally acceptable grades. If so, then rock and roll with the doodling. Just, you know, always be ready in case you get called on. There's wonderful smug moments if a teacher calls on you to solve something cause they think you're not paying attention and you grand slam that shit.

Your brain is going to be running 500MPH, all the time. It's going to cycle from Point A to point R, back to point A all day. And there's going to be annoying little voices in your head telling you dumb shit to make you feel bad. Those little voices in your head, give them a face, a sound, something you can then imagine telling to shut the hell up, or punch in the face. 

One of the most reoccurring one is going to be: "I really need to discuss this but what if that makes them turn against me in some form." That is the annoying bastard voice that will always haunt you. Even with your closest most trusted friends, IT WILL NOT LEAVE. That is especially annoying when you work retail and need to bring something to your boss' attention! What I have found helps with that?

When you do start talking, don't apologize like "Sorry for taking up your time/being annoying/ect." Try to remove sorry from your vocabulary and replace it with "Thanks for letting me talk about this/giving me a moment to talk/ect." Again, something that takes practice, but can help quite a bit. It can also trick the brain into not feeling bad about the discussion. The Sorries will trigger an instinctive "I'm being a problem." But the thanks yous help the brain go "Yeah, they were ok with this!"

And don't let folks shame you for your interests in comics, tv, and books. EVER. We live in an age were folks will go out of their way to find people who share those interests now. WE HAVE FANDOMS, CONVENTIONS, ENTIRE SECTIONS OF THE INTERNET devoted to stuff we love. When it comes to entertainment, age demographics are for Producers and Ad Execs to worry about, not you. See above with me enjoying cartoons meant for younger ages. (As a bonus, this also means I have on many occassions been able to help confused parents/grandparents in Target/ToysRUs when i walk by and hear them trying to figure out who the hell their kid likes in a tv show. They think I work there. HA)

C.S. Lewis used to talk about how he hid that he loved reading fairy tales growing up out of fear of what folks thought. And as he got older, he just stopped caring. 

"Critics who treat adult as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."

Do you know how much reading that impacted my life? How much of a realizing of "I'm not alone in this?" that was? 

That shit right there helped me realize that there is no one definition for what being a Good Adult means. Cause in the end, there is no such thing as the Good Adult we're told about growing up. We are all, at most, mediocre adults. We win, we fail, we get frustrated, we move forward. There is not a single person out there reading this that has been a Good Adult. At most, they've learned to fake it really well, and that's an awesome skill to learn.

How do I end this? Really I'm not sure how to sum this up, because everytime I try I keep getting distracted by other things.

So... I'll simply say: For those of you out there thinking you're the only one dealing with weird shit in your head, you're not alone. You really are not alone, a lot of us are just scared of talking about it cause that's how people conditioned us, whether they meant to or not. But there's going to be those of us, like myself, my sister, and others who are going to be, "YO, LET'S TALK ABOUT THIS WEIRD SHIT!" You just gotta find us. We're here to help.

[sincerelybluevase]

Masterpost of my fanfics

I’ll try to keep this post updated regularly. I can be found on FanFiction.net, as well as AO3

Rebecca (Daphne du Maurier)

Series:

-  Careful, Madam. A smutty angsty fic in which the narrator and Mrs Danvers get rather intimate just before Manderley’s fancy dress ball.

Call the Midwife

Series:

- Kiss, interrupted. What if Doctor T and Sister B had kissed, only for Sister Julienne to find them? Sister B has some serious thinking to do regarding her life as a nun. Somehow, a metaphor surrounding cake and biscuits snuck its way in here. My first fic EVAH.

TW for abuse.

the entire work can be found here

-Lips touch. Based on the amazing fic by @kienova66, in which she details twenty possible ways in which Sister B and Doctor T could have shared their first kiss. Now, I’ve tried to near her perfection in these ten fics. UPDATE: it’s going to be fifteen fics, now. The first ten are a mixed bag of the silly, the (sometimes a bit overly) dramatic, and the sweet, and all inlcude a proper kiss on the mouth/a snog. The last five, though, are more serious and written with the idea that these COULD have happened, though they probably didn’t. They also explore other kisses that don’t include two mouths. TW: assault (chapter 1), alcohol abuse (chapter 2), abuse (chapter 6)

Part one   - Part two  -  Part three  -  Part Four-   Part Five-  Part Six-  Part Seven-   Part Eight-  Part Nine-  Part Ten-  Bonus Part-  Part Eleven-   Part Twelve-  Part Thirteen-  Part Fourteen-  Part Fifteen

-Fragments. A series of asks in which the asker gave me a first sentence+a ship and I had to write the next five sentences. A variety of people and situations. Possibly one of the most entertaining things I’ve written!

There are eighty of them in total, all of which can be found here

TW: none, I think.

-Adventures in Faerie. When Angela starts her 'fairies live in our garden' phase, Patrick discovers more about Shelagh's childhood, and decides to do something special for her. TW: none, I think, though chapter 4 does head into the uncanny. What can I say? Angela is an imaginative child ;). Seven chapters, all of which can be found here

-Pros and Cons. For the 100wordsctm2017 challenge. What are the pros to being maried to Patrick? And what of the benefits of being maried to Shelagh? TW: none. Part 1-Part 2-Part 3- Part 4- Part 5- Part 6- Part 7

-Breathless. After Sister Bernadette has been diagnosed with TB, she decides it is time to put into words how she feels about the doctor, and goes to him to tell him in person. Season 2 Canon divergence, because what would have happened if Sister B and Doctor T had given in to their love for each other before the misty road? TW: Sister Bernadette is afraid of dying and thinks about this possibility. This work has ten chapters, which can be found here. 

-Twin rooms. Shelagh and Patrick decide to go on a little holiday. Imagine their surprise when it turns out that Trixie and Christopher are staying in the same hotel. In fact, they are staying in the room next to the Turners. Hotel walls are awfully thin... TW: discussion of alcoholism in chapter 3. Three chapters, all can be found here. 

-New Year’s Eve. Turnadette modern AU. When Shelagh's appartment gets shut down after a fire, she has nowhere else to go on New Year's Eve than her colleague and month-long crush, Doctor Turner. As she lives there, she slowly starts to become obsessed with Patrick's first wife, Marianne. I used vibes from Du Maurier's 'Rebecca' for this fic. TW: Discussions of death, guilt, graphic depiction of victims of a car crash Seven chapters, all can be found here.

-Consumed. Sister Bernadette discovers that her cough is not so much due to TB as due to something else: a latent power inside her that no longer wants to stay dormant. AU with magic, but don’t let that keep you away; the kiss these two share has been described as ‘possibly Turnadette’s best kiss’ ;). TW: none Five chapters and an epilogue, all of which can be found here.

-Lessons in Lovemaking. Shelagh is more than ready to start her new life as Mrs Turner, but there is one part that worries her a little, since she wants to please Patrick always: what happens between men and women in the bedroom. However, she reasons that lovemaking is a skill just like any other, and can be taught. After discussing her concerns with Patrick, he comes up with several lessons for her, which include a lot of real life practice. TW: none. But this fic is very much M-rated. Taking Lessons- Lesson Number One- Lesson Number Two- Lesson Number Three- Lesson Number Four (Part One- Part Two)- Interlude- Lesson Number Five- Lesson Number Six- Lesson Number Seven- Lesson Number Eight- Lesson Number Nine- Lesson Number Ten- 

Oneshots:

-Rainy Road. What if the misty road scene had become a rainy road scene instead? TW: none, I think. 

-This Unbearable Heat. Some sexual tension between a married Shelagh and Patrick, which involves a toy rabbit, a tin of formula, and a rainstorm. TW: none, I think. 

-Greetings, Doctor. A steamy phone conversation between Patrick and Shelagh, because Patrick didn’t get to show his appreciation for his wife’s uniform properly that morning TW: none, I think. 

-Scars and Kisses. Shelagh thinks back on the previous few weeks during the ride to the adoption agency to pick Angela up. TW: none, I think. 

-Four things to be proud of. Trixie Franklin has four things she is proud of. When she sees Shelagh in those drab, ill-fitting suits, she simply has to employ one of them to help her friend. She didn't expect a shopping trip to teach her a bit more about herself, though. TW: none, I think. 

-Home. Shelagh takes a bit of time to reflect on her new house in the middle of the night with Teddy in her arms. TW: none, I think. 

-Stripes. Trixie is insecure about her body post-baby, so Christopher decides to give her a bit of a pep-talk. TW: none, I think. 

-Unconventional Motherhood. Phyllis and Sister Julienne have a conversation about unconventional motherhood when Phyllis struggles to understand her emotions after Barbara's wedding. TW: none, I think. 

-Unconventional Daughterhood. A companion piece to Unconventional Motherhood, though both can be read separately. Barbara and Shelagh have a good conversation about what name to give to friendships that don’t always fit that label. TW: none, I think. 

-A First Time. Trixie’s and Christopher’s wedding night. Steamy, as you can imagine. TW: none, I think. 

-Tension. Every marriage has its little fights, but what happens when Angela Turner picks up on the tension between her parents and has a nightmare as a result? TW: none, I think. 

-Strife. Every marriage has a bit of strife sometimes. When Patrick ignores a pile of unfolded nappies, Shelagh can't control her anger. This fic explores how little tensions can come out in an argument that started over a little thing, but also how these two talk things through and make up. A companion piece to Tension. TW: none, I think. 

-A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes. When Sister Bernadette wakes up from a troubling dream, she turns to Sister Julienne for advice. TW: none, I think.

-Beasts in the Bedroom. Angela has the firm belief, like most children of her age, that her room harbours a vast array of monsters. What happens if she decides to vanquish them, only to hear strange sounds from her parents' bedroom? TW: none, I think. 

-Once Upon a Dream. A fic in which Patrick explains a young Angela how he and Shelagh met. Since it is almost a fairy tale in and of itself, Patrick takes some liberties, borrowing from Disney's Sleeping Beauty. TW: none, I think.

-Three. When Patrick gives Shelagh a rather obvious love-bite, he tries to find a way to justify him leaving his mark on her, and does so by explaining what this mark means, along with all her scars. TW: None.

-Prompt 29 Alternative Ending. So this fic is based on @cooldoyouhaveaflag /RipperShipper’s Prompts of Turnadette prompt 29. Go and check all of those prompts out if you haven’t already; they are super well written and just plain amazing! Anyway, in prompt 29, Shelagh has a bit of a nasty encounter, after which Patrick comforts her. I wondered what would have happened if it was one of the nuns who intervened, and thus this fic was born. TW: assault.

-Good Dolly. When a certain doll keeps returning to the Turner household, drastic measures will have to be taken to get the haunted toy to stay away.

-Doctor’s Delight Shelagh had never considered herself as the type of person to read romance novels. She’d assumed them rather lurid affairs, not fit for a woman of her own high moral standards.That was before she’d read Caribbean Kisses.

-Socks and Sheaths Shelagh needs to have a talk with Patrick about birth control now that she is not as infertile as they once thought.

More to come, I’m sure.

I also write original fiction. A masterpost of my own work can be found here.