#pomprincesse

[mercurygray]

Can I be a little troublemaker and ask #9 and or #40 for Dick and Joan? (or any pairing you're feeling tonight!)

9. What do they dislike most about the other? Why?

Joan's unceasing desire to win will drive Dick up a wall. She always has to be right, and she always has to be first, and he just - doesn't want to give her that, all the time. Some days he wants to win and mean it.

I think one of the things that might drag at Joan when she's really had it is Dick's seeming lack of ambition. He wants to be good, yeah, but not...brilliant. And he could be! He could be that man her mother wanted. But he's content. And for what? And she'll never make him a city mouse - he wants that farm in the country and that's just the way things are going to be.

40. Do they have any regrets in their relationship?

Dick regrets not starting it sooner - that the time it took him to figure it out will be something Lew can tease him about until they're gray. I think maybe, some days, Joan regrets not waiting longer, making more of her career with the army before getting out. But I don't think that's a constant thing.

[ship ask meme!]

[floydmtalbert]

Psst could I also request 🥞 PANCAKE for Lou, please and thank you?

Of course you can, lovely!

🥞 PANCAKE: what is their comfort breakfast?

For Lou, it's not so much the food, but the specific setting. Breakfasts when staying with her great-aunt Maartje as a kid, getting thoroughly spoiled, are a fond memory, as is the first morning in her flat in London before the war, eating porridge (only slightly burnt) and being alone and independent for the first time in her life. During the war, she might only have a cup of weak coffee and crackers and jam from her rations, but if the rain has eased for a while and no one's shelling them, that's something to hold onto too.

[upontherisers]

Hi Cari, could i please request #11 (memory) for Coretta? <3

She considers accepting the early re-reassignment to Aldbourne after Pvt. George Winters came into the hospital. England is worse than Italy, she decided, because the bodies don't stop coming. The days bleed into one another, indistinguishable from the previous and the next. Her usually stellar memory is fading; it's all moans of pain, missing limbs, and waking up with bile in her throat. When Pvt. Winters get carried off of the medical flight, mangled and bloody, the only thing she can see is his cropped red hair and she doesn't have time to check the dog tags until they're removed when he goes into surgery.

After she wipes away the dirt and blood obscuring the first name, she lets out a choked sob of relief, clapping a hand over her mouth to stifle the noise. She digs her knuckles into her eyes to center herself, and doesn't realize she's shaking until she pulls her hands away.

[latibvles]

Also because you said I could color outside the lines....could I please request Jo/Joe for the playlist meme🙈

as I was hunting down songs for the Jo one I found one that was so Jo/Joe I nearly fell off my bed.

Honeybee - The Head And The Heart ( THE THIRD LYRIC SHO. I WAS CAUGHT OFF MY GUARD WITH THIS ONE. )

She Is - The Fray ( Hi All these air and falling motifs. Also “For now you're not here, and I'm not there” I’m staring into the void )

Love - Lana Del Rey ( Just replace coffee shop with like the Automat or something. Also for a 2010s pop song this song just has massive falling-in-love-in-the-40s energy ok? )

What A Feeling - One Direction (Jo/Joe being silly! Jo/Joe silly happy feelings!! I’m going to start crying over then, your honor)

Pancakes for Dinner - Lizzie McAlpine (It is not enough to simply say it once I must say it 37 times at LEAST.)

[Send me a character and I’ll make them a playlist of five songs! :)]

[tiberius-kirks]

Ooh 5, 50, 90 for the spotify wrapped?

5. charlie -- mallrat

50. i follow rivers -- marika hackman

90. fare thee well (dink's song) -- oscar isaac, marcus mumford

spotify 100!

[noneedtoamputate]

Thanks for the tag, @latibvles

THREE SHIPS:

In BoB: Spierton, Harry/Kitty, and Liebgott/Tipper, thanks to @almost-a-class-act.

FIRST SHIP:

My first ship ever was Anne Shirley/Gilbert Blythe, before I even know what a ship was.

LAST SONG:

Christmas Wrapping by the Waitresses, at my chiropractor's office earlier today.

CURRENTLY READING:

The John Stamos memoir (no judgments, please) and my hold just came in for Masters of the Air. I didn't know the MOTA was so long, although 80 pages of it is footnotes (yes, that's some Ambrose-directed snark.)

CURRENTLY WATCHING:

Justified, American Crime Story Impeachment, and pretty much any Big Ten college basketball game

CURRENTLY CONSUMING:

Just had a soft gingerbread cookie with cream cheese frosting

CURRENTLY CRAVING:

A professional organizer for my house.

CURRENT OBSESSION:

Twinnings Lady Grey tea, this new fine point pen I got at a work conference (total pen snob over here), relistening to Material Issue's International Pop Overthow for the first time in a while (I still love it)

CURRENTLY UP TO:

Reading smut featuring two favorite BoB characters as inspiration for my HBO War Secret Santa fic. Scouting out holiday gifts. Adding the 2024 PopSugar Reading Challenge to my 2024 planner.

Tagging: @pomprincesse @dcyllom @ep6bastogne

[tortoisesshells]

WIP Tag Game

Tagged by the lovely @aloveforjaneausten

RULES: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! and then tag as many people as you have WIPs.

full disclosure: I don't have a WIP folder so much as I have a "recently worked on list" in the midst of the mire that is my writing folder. For the sake of argument, I'm considering a WIP to mean "writing project" and "opened in the last two weeks".

customsanddutiesCH31 customsanddutiesCH31ALT customsanddutiesCH31_NightmareStart InHushedWhispers_NowWithMoreTimeLoop when we woke unknelled the monsters of the deep are made A gallant knight, In sunshine and in shadow a sunny sleepy corner two weddings and a road trip

Tagging: @boltlightning, @johnbly, @theonlyredcar, @jomiddlemarch, @sagiow, @enchi-elm, @ramiroangel, @mercurygray, @pomprincesse, @admiraleyk, @evilbunnyking, @starsuncounted

[basilone]

Music tag game! I was tagged in this by the lovely @emmylynnaa!

Rules: shuffle your on repeat playlist and list the first 10 songs that play. (The game wants me to tag 10 people but uhhh I'm just tagging @pomprincesse, @mercurygray, @junojelli, @arethosedustyjumpwings and that's it. 😂)

Also adding a readmore here so I don't clog up anyone's dashboard! 💚

[laineystein]

@shretl tagged me to ask nine people I’d like to know better! @hikelesbian @magic-ramen @saharathorn @hindahoney @pomprincesse @faeidolon @lettersfromthelevant @tributary @airborneranger63

(Y’all do not have to do this if you don’t want to, I’m just trying to keep this train moving)

Last song: יהיה טוב & מים שקופים - Omer Adam & Jasmin Moallem

Currently Watching: קופה ראשית (I think the English version is Checkout) - always my go to when I want something mindless and non-stress inducing

Currently reading: The Half Moon by Mary Beth Keane

Current Obsession: I’ve been really into loose leaf tea? Like trying new teas and blending different teas together. There’s a tea shop near me and I’ve been twice this week. I’m also getting back into knitting for no reason other than I need to keep busy and it gives me something to do when I’m reading.

[shoshiwrites]

Updated intro post!

Hi! I'm Shoshi/Sho. I'm 28. I love iced coffee, getting lost on newspapers.com, and inventing more AUs I don't need. I work in a library/archive, which mostly means that I love rabbit holes research.

Things you'll find here: (mostly historical) photography, sparkly baubles, moody vibes, and bits and pieces of a (very long-running) rewrite of a BoB WIP featuring my WarCo babe Jo. She and my other OCs can be found on my writing page and my OCs page. I also recently did a series of OC intro posts. There's also an about page and tags page.

This is a sideblog (someday this may change!). I follow back from @pomprincesse. I also have a(n infrequently updated) graphics blog @shoshimakesstuff and vintage clothing blog @shoshivintage. My inbox is always open, especially if something doesn't make sense (most things don't around here). Welcome!

[jump-wings]

Not me sending this to everyone but....#8 for the BoB ask meme? Thank you!

Hi Pomprincesse! Thank you for the ask!

8. How did you find out about the show?

In my Rami Malek phase 😁. I was trying to watch everything he is in and I watched The Pacific and I liked the show. I was lucky it is a period drama about WW2 era. It is one of my favourite history topic. And little bit search I find about Band of Brothers a similar show. I think I liked a little bit much than Pacific.

[mercurygray]

Give us the goods, Merc - what's in the Joan set?

Parade Ground Joan Warren Playset - Joan comes in full dress uniform, with ribbon bar, garrison cap, and black pumps, as well as a microphone, camera with flashbulb, and decorative patriotic bunting. This set also includes the coveted Jeep, outfitted and marked as as a 506 PIR vehicle, and Harry Welsh, also in full dress uniform.

(Dick Winters and Post War TDS Dreamhouse sold separately.)

[ askbox meme: if your original character came packaged as a barbie…]

[floydmtalbert]

Hello!! 👋

Could I please request 🌪️ TORNADO, 😨 FEARFUL, ☕️ HOT BEVERAGE, and/or 💗 GROWING HEART for Louise, 📦 PACKAGE for Ruth, 📎 PAPERCLIP for Ferraby, and 👖 JEANS for Emily? Thank youu 💕

Thanks so much Sho!! These are great questions 💕

🌪️ TORNADO: what is the biggest change you've ever made to them? how have they changed from their original version?

Such an interesting question! Lou has definitely gone through a lot of changes since I started writing her in [redacted]. I think the main thing is that she used to be a lot more reserved and stoic, with a big dash of war-weariness, which... just isn't her. She's gone through a lot but it hasn't dulled her spark or spirit--if anything, she's more determined to enjoy her life, for all the people she knew who now can't.

😨 FEARFUL: when scared, do they go into "flight" or "fight"?

On the whole, Lou goes into fight mode. She's calm under pressure, quick to make a plan, and I think enjoys, to an extent, the adrenaline rush of bad situations. Having said that, there have been a few occasions in her life when she's felt that kind of dizzying, paralysing fear, and it definitely takes a lot of effort to get her head working and her body to keep moving.

☕️ HOT BEVERAGE: do they prefer hot or cold drinks? what is their favourite drink?

Well, she's English, so her daily routine is punctuated by cups of tea and coffee. But her favourite drink is a glass of cool lemonade on a hot day, the perfect mix of sweet and sharp.

💗 GROWING HEART: if they have a crush, is it noticeable? what changes when they're in love?

Most of the time, Lou has a pretty good hold on her emotions, and she's also very conscious of the precariousness of her job: she wouldn't want any of her personal feelings to be used against her. So she's careful, but to anyone looking closely, there'll be some gazes that linger just a bit too long, and a certain softness and lightness about her.

📦 PACKAGE: what are some "most likely to…" that can apply to them?

Ooh! Ruth is most likely to offer sensible advice or emotional support to her friends (and boy, do they need it). Most likely to be the first one to be told gossip. Most likely to cry at a film, definitely. And most likely to get tipsy first (look, she's got a baby, she doesn't get out much, her tolerance to alcohol is very low).

📎 PAPERCLIP: a random fact

Ferraby! I love him. A random fact about him is that he's left-handed.

👖 JEANS: what is their go-to outfit?

During the war? Her FANY uniform. (Emily's an Ensign and is very proud of her red pips.) Off duty, she favours simple dresses or knit sets in darker colours: she looks best in navy, fir green, or burgundy.

[OC emoji asks]

[upontherisers]

oooo could I please request "Soulmate AU" + "Character in Peril" for...your choice of ship! <3

oh this is the webster/webster letter writing AU for sure.

a quick catch up for everyone who isn't shosh: georgie writes for the radcliffe review and publishes an open letter to the men of harvard calling them to burn their draft cards/refuse fight in the vietnam war, and she gets a letter to be published from one david webster, a harvard man, basically pushing against all of her arguments. they write back and forth, all of their dialogues getting published in the review.

adding the soulmate AU and characters in peril on top... i'm thinking a world in which you can feel your soulmate's pain and get bruises/scars from their wounds.

georgie's a smart girl, so it doesn't take her long to figure out her soul mate is a writer... at least, she hopes so. she's deducing from the callus that formed on her middle finger, the constant stinging slices of what have to be paper cuts, and the bruises they pass back and forth from jamming their fingers on their typewriters. (her soul mate also has a typewriter? match made in heaven.)

the morning of her 21st birthday, she wakes up sorer than she's ever been in her entire life. everything hurts; she feels like she got hit by a car. as she stretches in front of her mirror, she catches a weird yellow tint on her side and pulls her shirt up to expose a bruise that runs from her right hip to her shoulder blade. and her heart stops.

she honestly hadn't given her soul mate that much thought at this point in her life. some people take out personal ads, some people get specific injuries in order to compare them to others, some people lightly scratch names and addresses into their skin to get the whole thing over with. she'd never felt the need to do that--she was at a good place in life, at a good school, doing good work--and apparently, neither did her soul mate. she'd always assumed she'd find them when she'd find them and not think about it until then.

but a bruise that covered her entire side, aches that made it hard for her to walk down the stairs... what was going on?

it gets continues. a burst of pain from her ankle while walking across the radcliffe review offices caused her to fall and hit her head on a desk, probably giving her soul mate a rough go of it wherever they were. a rip of searing pain across her spine made her cry out during a lecture, embarrassing, then terrifying when she saw the strip of skin that had been ripped diagonally across her back. her right thumb was almost consistently bruised, and the pain from it getting jammed against something faded into a part of her life.

it wasn't until david writes, describing a common thumb injury that soldiers have from getting their hands jammed in their rifles, that it clicks. bootcamp injuries--falling from a climbing wall, a sprained ankle on a run, an ammo belt getting caught while climbing a fence and peeling the skin off your back.

she held david's letter, shaking, then threw up in her bathroom.

she wakes up in the middle of the night, blinding white pain behind her eyes, ringing in her ears, and figures it's from being too close to an explosion. her achilles tendons are rubbed raw from boots that don't fit. she tries to keep up with the fighting obsessively for a fortnight before she realizes it's futile to try to pinpoint where her soul mate could be. there are hundreds of thousands of men over there, from multiple countries, too.

the best she can do is hope that he's okay. petition for peace. protest. fight for them to come home.

the skin on her forearms is red and irritated all the time, hot to touch and peeling, and when david writes about the sun burn soldiers get from holding their rifles out in front of them while they walk, georgie thinks maybe.

he's a writer, he told her about the time he cut his foot on a rock while swimming in cape cod--and she has a scar running along the bottom of her right foot, he went through boot camp, he's in vietnam now. maybe.

she runs to the bathroom and throws up, again.

she wakes in the middle of the night screaming with a white hot pain burning under her ribs on her back. a week later, one of david's letters says he caught shrapnel in the back in the a shau valley, and she was becoming quite acquainted with her toilet.

she doesn't tell him because she can't. part of her has too much pride; she published all of their letters, and she didn't want to get that vulnerable in front of all of their readers. it would be a conflict of interest as well, attempting to engage with good faith in intellectual debates on war and government with her soul mate.

she loses sleep, can barely eat, and thank god school's out for the summer because her grades would've undoubtedly slipped. she's worried all the time, grateful when she's not in pain but always worried about when the next hit will come.

she'd come to care about david, before concluding that they were soul mates. she loved writing to him, hearing his thoughts, talking with him despite some of his infuriating ideas about justice and war. she loved when they debated, when his arguments were hard to pick apart or when he came at her from an angle she wasn't expecting. she loved hearing about his life, their parallel existences as new yorkers who moved to boston. she loved sending him books and getting them back with his hastily scrawled annotations and thoughts. (those didn't make the letters. that was just for them.)

she's walking through the radcliffe review offices one morning, on her third cup of coffee at 7 am because an explosive headache woke her up at 3 and she knew she wouldn't fall asleep again, when it feels like someone took a two-by-four the back of her leg.

she saved the coffee, but the feeling was so disorienting that she had to sit on the wood floor for a moment before it dulled to an ache. she hobbled to her desk then to the bathroom to vomit, because she remembered an account from a marine that got published in one of the harvard magazines.

gunshot wounds don't sting, they don't burn... they feel like getting punched. it's a dull, bruising, ringing pain, like getting hit with a baseball bat.

he wasn't dead, she'd know if he was dead. but she leaves before anyone else gets to the office, and spends the day in nauseous hell, and the next day, and the week an a half after that before she gets a letter saying that david indeed had been shot, and that he was coming home.

bonus scene:

She's sprawled out on her bed in nearly nothing as his lips roam her skin, his hands finding where he wants to kiss next. I'm sorry, he says, brushing his mouth over a horizontal scar across her shin.

You never explained that one, she says.

He laughs. I don't remember it.

It's from bootcamp.

He laugh again and shakes his head. Still don't remember.

His big hands wind their way to her calf muscle, where two circular scars sit on either side of her leg. His lips press so gently, yet so warmly. I'm really sorry about this one.

Hey, she shrugs. It brought you home.

[latibvles]

Could I please request Vicki for the playlist meme👀

the way I have to make her a playlist but haven’t yet is absolutely criminal…

Two Against Three - Daisy Jones and the Six ( “All I needs a promise I can keep to myself” no one touch me I’m sensitive and I have a lot of feelings about that lyric. )

Least Favorite Only Child - Leanna Firestone ( If I ever see Mrs. Graves in the street ITS ON SIGHT NO WORDS ONLY HANDS !! )

Take Me As I Am - Rina Sawayama ( Go Vicki being unapologetically herself what a girlboss moment )

Keep Driving - Harry Styles ( hi Vicki Lois and Margie I love my Melbourne girls !!!! )

Wherever I Live - Alessia Cara ( Vicki Graves moving into her apartment Feelings are very Strong here. Also once again THE FAMILY YOU CHOOSE!)

[Send me a character in my inbox and I’ll make them a playlist of five songs!]

[stanestreet]

Some planned 2023 reads - thank you to @thelovelygods for the tag!

I misread the meme (o travesty) so a couple of these are books I've already read this year: Paul Celan's Selected Poems (bilingual edition with translations by Michael Hamburger) and The History of England, which took me about five minutes and is a delight.

My grandmother gave me A Spy Among Friends (after she'd read it), saying, "You've always been so into spies!" I was unaware of this. It's the kind of weird thing my grandmother does. However, I'm not not interested in the history of espionage, and in the most tangential nebulous way it's turned into what you might call, regretfully, blorbo research.

Tagging @pomprincesse @vorsipellis @papersky-pencilstars @loquaciousbuckets @sandovers @inclineto @goodshipophelia @forshesajollygoodfellow @misericordae, should you feel like it, and also anyone else should they feel like it.