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howyoustudythestars · 1 year

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My predictions for Coco Moon

It's been a while since I made an original Owl City-themed post on this blog. But with Coco Moon dropping in a few weeks, I figured now would be a good time to talk about my predictions for the tracklist, so I can then see how right I am once it's out.

Now, there will be some spoilers for things Adam hasn't officially announced but have been gleaned from reliable sources. So, if you want to be surprised, stop reading this post now. But if you're curious, click below to read on!

This is your last chance. Spoilers are ahead.

Okay, you have been warned!

Someone on the Owl City Discord discovered that ASCAP added 11 songs to their database, including some confirmed to be on the new album. With the album confirmed to have 11 songs, the titles are (likely) now known. The order, however, is not. Furthermore, we only know details about two songs: One from its description on owlcitymusic.com, and the other from analyzing a snippet on the guessed pre-save link for the album.

Well, before I go into details about what I think each song is about, I want to share with you what I think the tracklist is, in the order I think they will appear on the album:

Under the Circus Lights

Learn How to Surf

Adam, Check Please

The Tornado

Vitamin Sea

Field Notes

Sons of Thunder

Dinosaur Park

My Muse

The Meadow Lark

Kelly Time

As I said, these titles aren't 100% confirmed, and this is the order I foresee them being in based on what I think each song is about. So, what do I think each song is about?

I think Under the Circus Lights is the opening track for a couple of reasons. First, the coordinates to a circus-themed museum in Florida were in the first teaser posted to Instagram. Of the four teasers posted, this is the only one I think lifts the teaser audio from the song the coordinates are teasing. I could see a circus-themed, score-styled opening to the song before transitioning into something more classic Owl City synthpop. Lyrically, I predict it will be an autobiographical song about the first time Adam, as a child, went to the circus. It will be about the awe, wonder, and imagination it instilled in him, and I think the lyrics will be more dreamy than a typical autobiographical song. Think less like Adam, Check Please, and more like Be Brave.

The next song I think will be Learn How to Surf. This is the song that's teased on the pre-save link for the album that someone guessed. I could be wrong, but I think the intro to this song will be from this Instagram teaser (the coordinates relate to Vitamin Sea, though). As you can guess by the lyrics in the pre-save link, I think it's a metaphorical song comparing surfing to fighting through your struggles in life, and maybe even how to take your place in the world. Think Beautiful Times meets Michael W. Smith's Missing Person.

The next song after that is Adam, Check Please. We already have that as a single. It's about the first job Adam ever had, which was working in the frozen foods department of his local Hy-Vee store. In case you didn't know, Adam previously wrote about this in a blog post many years ago.

The next song after that is called The Torrnado. We don't have any audio snippets from this song, but we do have a description in the bio on the Owl City website:

Naming legendary film-score composer John Williams among his longtime influences, Young has embraced a certain thoughtful grandeur in the making of Coco Moon. To that end, songs like “The Tornado” set their ultravivid storytelling against a majestic sonic backdrop, ultimately lending a larger-than-life quality to the most intimate expression. “‘The Tornado’ came from wanting to invent a story rather than write something autobiographical, and it turned into a story of a kid who’s delivering papers when a horrible storm starts up and forces him to take cover so he won’t get swept away,” explains Young. Partly inspired by the childlike poetry of Shel Silverstein, the string-accented track slowly unfolds as a life-affirming epic, encompassing an entire movie’s worth of thrilling drama in just four-and-a-half minutes.

I foresee The Tornado being very much in the vein of a cinematic score, like the Adam Young Scores project or even Montana from Cinematic. I also think they're might be an occasional reference to The Wizard of Oz, seeing as Dorthy lands in Oz after "traveling through" a tornado. I could be wrong about that, though. If Oz is mentioned, I foresee it being in the context of fear. I expect ethereal lyrics like in Lucid Dream.

The next song I think will be Vitamin Sea. This is already a single. A music video will be premiering later tonight (or it already premiered, depending on when I post this). It's a dreamy song about wanting to go on a vacation. As I stated before, the coordinates in the "Take Me Back" Instagram teaser teased this song.

After this song, we have Field Notes. I predict that this is from this Instagram teaser (the coordinates are for Dinosaur Park, though). According to Wikipedia:

Fieldnotes refer to qualitative notes recorded by scientists or researchers in the course of field research, during or after their observation of a specific organism or phenomenon they are studying. The notes are intended to be read as evidence that gives meaning and aids in the understanding of the phenomenon. Fieldnotes allow researchers to access the subject and record what they observe in an unobtrusive manner.

This is common in biology, ecology, and psychology, just to name a few. I think this song is about the impact we can make on the world and how one person can make a difference. Given its title, I can see a lot of science puns and metaphors used throughout the song.

Sons of Thunder (which I think is the next song) will very likely be a religious song, given that "sons of thunder" are the names Jesus gave to his disciples James and John, who were brothers (Mark 3:17). I think this will be a story-based song, lifting the narrative from the Gospels directly. Unfortunately, I don't foresee it being more subjective like Galaxies or Meteor Shower, but I do hope that it isn't another dime a dozen worship or CCM song. I'm likely wrong in that department, unfortunately.

After that, I think we have Dinosaur Park. As I stated before, the coordinates are teased from the "Signs of Life" Instagram reel. The coordinates lead to an actual park in South Dakota called Dinosaur Park. However, I do think the last remaining Instagram teaser lifts its audio from this song (the coordinates for this reel, though, is for Kelly Time). I think it will be another narrative-based song, inspired by Jurrassic Park.

Then, we have My Muse. Many theorize this will be about Abbey, and I don't doubt for a second that this is at least partially true. However, I foresee this being a ballad about the ups and downs of Adam's love life. Figures like Anne-Marie and even Taylor Swift could be mentioned (maybe not by name), but I also think it will mention whoever Vanilla Twilight is about, as well as this blog post. Think something along the lines of, "You were never my muse, / But I dreamed that you were". (If Adam doesn't use that line, I definitely will in a future song of mine!) Of course, in traditional Owl City fashion, it will end on an optimistic note, looking at his life with Abbey now (who, if you didn't know, is now Adam's WIFE! Look it up on Minnesota's open records site if you don't believe me).

The penultimate song I think will be The Meadow Lark. I foresee this being a spiritual sequel to Cinematic's song House Wren. It will be a dreamy song about nature, including birds in a meadow. I think this will be heavily influenced on Adam's many nature-themed Instagram posts in July 2021 and beyond.

Finally, we have the closing song being Kelly Time. The coordinates in the "Unidentified" Instagram reel relate to this song, as the coordinates lead to the island in Fiji where Cast Away was filmed (and is exactly the same as it was in the 2022 Owl City ARG). This was the very first single for this album cycle, and I have a love-hate relationship with this song being the closer. Like, we already heard this song, and that's one of the reasons I didn't like the idea of Take It All Away and This Isn't the End being the closing song on their respective albums. (That, and I didn't want the album to end on a sad note, which I don't really like on any album to be honest.) Here, Kelly Time is at least hopeful. The main reason why I think this could be the closer is because of this line: "Well, you and me went on a journey / Full of tragedy and pain". That line and the whole vibe at the end of the song feels like this will be the closing moment of this whole album. Don't get me wrong: I will be presently surprised if this isn't the closing song on the album, but right now, I think this is where it appears on the track list.

As a thank you for those who read all the way through this long and rambling post, here's the snippet from Learn How to Surf from the pre-save link WITHOUT the fades (like I did with Vitamin Sea):

Like I said before, this is just my predictions and opinions. I could be 100% wrong about all of this. I am not Adam Young, nor do I know him personally. But I just thought this would be a cool exercise, and then, when Coco Moon comes out on March 24th, I can go back and see how right my predictions were! Thank you for reading!

#owl city #adam young #coco moon #hootowl

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thinkingisadangerouspastime · 1 year

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2022 Writing Year in Review

thank you for the tag @northerngoshawk!! 💕

1. Number of stories posted to AO3: 18

2. Word count this year: 172,404 words! we could get really technical and subtract the word counts for the fics i technically wrote in 2021 but typed/posted in 2022, but that’s a lot of work i don’t feel like doing lol

3. Fandoms I wrote for: ATLA, Law & Order, MCU (+ Venom), Monk, and Medium. not sure i want to know what that says about me...

4. Pairings: petermj (mcu), allison/joe (medium), kincoy (claire/jack from l&o), zukaang (atla), tylara (atla), mjflash (mcu), and kataang (atla). a nice mixture!

5. Stories with the most:

Kudos: Walls (my mj&flash friendship fic) comes in first with 114 kudos

Bookmarks: Walls comes out on top again with 29 bookmarks!

Comment threads: this thing of darkness (i acknowledge mine), my mjflash + venom!flash fic, has the most comment threads by far with 47, the result of a small but loyal following of readers who made my day every time they commented 💛

Word count: by a hair, The Wrong Note (my monk x medium crossover) has the highest word count at 37,630 words! this thing of darkness (i acknowledge mine) has 37,011 words

6. Work I’m most proud of (and why): im proud of all my works for different reasons! today i shall spotlight my children will listen series, consisting of two waterbending-centric fics narrated by kanna and katara respectively; both stories explore cultural loss and intergenerational trauma. i’d never written companion pieces prior to that point, so im proud of how i was able to construct those parallel narratives! i also had a blast reworking one of my favorite shel silverstein poems to weave throughout the story

7. Work I’m least proud of (and why): ?? this is a silly question. fanfic is my hobby, im not writing it for journal publication. onto the next one!

8. Share or describe a favorite review you received: literally Every review i got on the children will listen series; i had no idea how impactful those fics would be or how many people would relate to it, but im so glad i ended up writing and publishing them! i also have to shoutout ocean’s review on time apart, time together (the tylara fic i wrote for her bday 💛) bc she truly Understood that story through and through, and i am equal parts delighted and relieved that she did (since it was written for her 💕)

9. A time when writing was really, really hard: i mean, im a college student. i almost never write fic during the semester, lol. i Literally haven’t written fic since,,,, august 2022. (technically i could have written some fic these past few weeks BUT it’s the holidays so i’ve been spending time with family + revising my research paper + loosely working on some original writing)

10. A scene or character you wrote that surprised you: BRUH all of my law & order fics surprised me 😭 come on, babe (why don’t we paint the town?) contains Thee sexiest scene i’ve ever written; find a flask (we’re playing fast and loose) is written SOLELY from jack’s pov (a 50-year-old white man, how low have i fallen); and it was more than worth it (my kincoy magnum opus) was my first foray into nonlinear storytelling. all in all, 2022 was quite an experimental year for me!

11. A favorite excerpt of your writing: i’ve talked to death my favorite excerpt from it was more than worth it, so instead i’ll spotlight an excerpt from if memories could fade away (my mj birthday fic):

Ned sticks his tongue out at her, and MJ responds in turn before opening the door anyway, because he’s Ned and she’s MJ and it’s always been just them, the two of them, eight years going on eighteen.

“Damn, girl, you live like this?” Ned says as he enters, watching where he steps so he doesn’t trip over one of her many piles of everything—textbooks, clothes, journals, old CDs too scratched to use that will soon become the basis of MJ’s next art project: voices we no longer hear.

She remembers getting each CD, starting with Let Go on her tenth birthday, back when she lived in New Orleans and always kept her curly brown hair in symmetrical cornrows or cropped at the base of her neck because of the suffocating humidity. She remembers taking each CD and ripping the music to her computer so her dad could move it onto her tiny red MP3 player for the long, long ride to Queens that began the next day. She remembers two CDs breaking during the drive and one CD breaking when they arrived because she threw it at the wall of her empty new room, angry, so angry she’d been ripped from her home like music from a shiny silver disc and it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair—

“You see, guests usually stay downstairs,” MJ teases, pushing aside a pile of clothes so Ned has room to sit on her bed. She takes a seat at her desk, spinning the chair around to face her dearest friend. “If I’d known you were planning to invade my personal space, I might have considered making my living arrangements more presentable.”

Ned snickers. “Considered, and then not done a damn thing about them?”

MJ winks at him. “You know me so well.”

Ned has known her so long, known her messy room, known her impenetrable walls, known her since she was thrown into a new school in a new city expected to make new friends when Michelle knew even at ten that would never happen, not that year, because 5th graders had already chosen their loyal companions five, six, seven years ago and there was no room for a Black girl to fit into a white noise machine that already hummed along without her.

Her parents sent her to school anyway. She must not have been persuasive enough.

MJ MY BELOVED!!! 🥺💛 i enjoyed playing with sentence length/rhythm and metaphors/similes in this fic, and i think this excerpt in particular captures that experimentation

12. How did you grow as a writer this year: hmmmm well i tried my hand at some action sequences in this thing of darkness (i acknowledge mine), which probably counts for something. and like i already mentioned, it was more than worth it was my first foray into nonlinear storytelling (and a lot of people told me they enjoyed it!) + if memories could fade away involved stylistic experimentation. in other words, i think i grew as a writer simply by letting myself try new things, from how i told stories to what content i included within them!

13. How do you hope to grow next year: i just want to write more, honestly. the more i write, the more i can try, and hopefully the more i’ll grow! to be more specific, i want to try my hand at some sci-fi/near-future dystopian original stories (à la kazuo ishiguro’s klara and the sun)

14. Who was your greatest positive influence this year as a writer (could be another writer or beta or cheerleader or muse etc etc): probably ocean and ambi! they always put up with my fic-related ramblings, are wonderful to bounce ideas off of, and by virtue of their existence (and enthusiasm) remind me why i love writing fic in the first place 💛 in terms of non-tumblr influences, haha, reading the promise by damon galgut was a GAME CHANGER for me. third person omniscient with no quotation marks?? the entire story is an allegory for post-apartheid south africa?? a stylistic and thematic MASTERPIECE. i can only dream of writing a novel with such artistic daring

15. Anything from your real life show up in your writing this year: lol this thing of darkness (i acknowledge mine) is packedTM with shakespeare references and milton jokes; if memories could fade away explicitly mentions one of avril lavigne’s albums (seen in the provided excerpt); won’t you hang a picture? references nancy drew; and Walls involves a whole project about the picture of dorian gray. when narratively appropriate, i never hesitate to sneak in my own interests 😂

16. Any new wisdom you can share with other writers: write for fun! write what you love! don’t be afraid to experiment! listen to the incredibles soundtrack while you write! read, read, read! write with a cat on your lap! never delete anything! write when you’re inspired and write when you’re not! if it brings you joy to create, then what you create is good enough!

17. Any projects you’re looking forward to starting (or finishing) in the new year: honestly, i want to focus on my original writing and my research more, so i may not have as much time for fic. that said, i hope to write:

a sequel to this thing of darkness (i acknowledge mine)

the next part of my mcu medium!au

ml fic in general

atla fic in general

time will tell!

18. Tag some writers whose answers you’d like to read: i know a lot of people have been tagged for this already, so apologies if im bombarding you or if you’ve already done this! i’ll tag @justoceanmyth, @ambivalentmarvel, @seek--rest, and @shifuaang :)

#no pressure y'all 💛#(this is starkravinghazelnoots for the marvel mutuals)#amy gets tagged #helaina tagged me in a similar game (thank u friend!!) that i still need to do; i never thought the holidays could be so BUSY what

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tentacledtherapist · 1 month

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I know the feeling, I love watching the movie over and over. It doesn't get old and there is always something new I notice when it replays. It is also fun to take new people into it because I love watching their expression during the scene with the hatchet in the bedroom. 10/10 nothing more entertaining.

I definitely see the gum melting as a sort of "glue" holding them together, you're right! There is a lot going on in that scene but I love all of it. I'd make my bedroom look like that if I could!

I also enjoy literature you can pick apart. There is something nice about digging your fingers inside it and unweaving it to try and find further meaning. I'm the opposite of "the curtains are blue" type people, I WANT that depth and symbolism. I want to pick it apart because it is FUN!

Maybe I like books like Les Mis because I enjoy people infodumping at me about things they like? 10 pages on the Parisian sewer system is nothing compared to the wikipedia articles some people have read to me. Sort of Tolkienesque type of worldbuilding and story where you have to understand what comes before so you can understand the now. Perhaps that is also why I like the genre of informational historical books. To understand the now we must understand the past. It holds its own sort of mystery too, like social archaeology.

The Ladies' Etiquette book was one of the most fascinating in-so-far as that it was actually far kinder than expected. You would think it would be stiff and cruel and demeaning but one of the first things it teaches is that as long as you are kind and care for others and love people, you will never be rude even if you shirk every other piece of etiquette in the book. I found that to be oddly sweet.

- Creature

P.s.: There is a corner give a book-take a book shelf nearby. Maybe I will find one there I can practice bookbinding on.

i saw the movie for the first time in an entirely empty theater, and the scream i scrumpt when the ax came down in michael's bedroom was hither-to unknown by mankind. it was peak cinema. i'm very glad i saw it on the big screen and it's my favorite scene to rewatch with people who've never seen the movie before. not my favorite scene in the whole movie, but the most entertaining to watch with people

i like the sentiment in that book. it reminds me of that snippet of roald dahl's writing about what real beauty is? granted, he was a pretty shitty person in the end, but he wrote a few paragraphs about how a person who is good on the inside can't ever be ugly, that the goodness inside them shines out of them like,,, sunlight? i think the quote was? i like the sentiment, even if the man who wrote it was pretty damn unpleasant on the inside

(and shel silverstein was the superior children’s book writer/illustrator double threat)

anyway,

i get it. the,,, almost infodumping nature of books that are really verbose. the person who wrote these books cared enough to write it all down, to proofread and fact check, to publish? i like it when there’s things to dig in to, to engage with. i like authors and poets and directors and, hell, even youtube video essayists who have something to say and they don’t care how long it takes to say it because they want to say it. and they’ll give us things to chew on all the while

i think i always need to be learning something, thinking about something, or else i’ll lose it. i genuinely enjoy the work i do, but it’s also not the most mentally engaging a lot of the time, so i like media that forces me to think about it. if that makes sense?

(it also doesn’t help that my coworkers are some of the most monotonous people ever? i enjoy my work, but breakroom conversations are hard when everyone you work with is a carbon copy of emmett from the lego movie. please can we talk about something other than your golf clubs, pleaseeee)

also there’s that… connection to people who came before you. it’s why i started doing all of my crafty hobbies. my mom taught me to crochet, my aunt started sewing clothes with me, my grandmother is why i play piano, etc. i get to keep that knowledge, i have that connection. and then i get to share it with other people and keep that connection going

- Lisa

#ps: i think that’s a really great place to start!#i don’t have any of those mini libraries near me that i know of #but they’re really endearing!#and practice will make perfect as much as the saying sucks

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notmuchtoconceal · 6 months

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You know who you kind of remind me of, at least from a certain angle? Like a ginger Shel Silverstein. It's not just the bald head and the beard. It's the laid-back confidence that bleeds through the photos, too. I was thinking about reading a biography on him, but honestly? From what little I know, dude seemed to be living his best life. Wrote quirky poems, drew tons of cartoons, played tons of music, never married, fucked thousands of women, was basically a Renaissance man without trying to be. The man just oozes casual, carefree confidence when I read his interviews. He also strikes me as someone who is basically born to perform for people and that's his lifeblood. What an absolute god. His interviews are so good. Like people will ask him if he's trying to emulate someone, and he'll just be like, "Nah." Or someone will ask him if he's surprised that The Giving Tree won a ton of rewards, and he'll be like, "nah, I already knew I was good." No wonder he got laid so much. When I say you kinda remind me of him, believe me it's meant as the highest compliment. But you've definitely got your own thing going, too. --"Ask Friend"

You're quite good at delineating essence without essentializing. This is emblematic of a clear, yet sharply-honed perception which I believe is the natural state of all thinking men and the aim of all language arts.

That one can "see" something which isn't readily apparent or always visible, and bring it into awareness through a process of comparison.

It's a different usage of the art from simple input/output which is the basis of action/command or typical announcement. You could say it's like kindling, in that language must establish friction against itself to gain heat, acceleration, immolation, and this is why the arts of oratory or polemic are so easy to liken to masturbation ;-- and yet as we men who partake of the fires of the flesh know well, this is likewise an act which tends to climax in eruption and a corresponding feeling of death.

I think every time one speaks plainly or intimately, they are burning a part of themselves. Some obscurity, some denser coagulation, has been broiled to a scorch by the heat of reason, like a blowtorch fixed to caked-on grime around the serrations of a twisted welt-to-be; the stain growing thinner and brighter, the filth fumigating the chamber as if transmuted to incense until, at last, the light of revelation bursts through!

Which is to say thank you again for the kind message.

I've always been quietly fascinated by not only the cover, but the concept itself of "Where the Sidewalk Ends". Being such a rational child, a part of me thought it was ludicrous. This notion of a sidewalk as some enchanted and unspooling thing, like Dorothy's Yellow Brick Road. A sidewalk was simply a procession of concrete blocks arranged linearly between sections of street and lawn, a quite typical public works utility -- some of which (particularly in suburban locales) may terminate quite abruptly for reasons of space, budget, or none whatsoever.

Yet, at the same time -- (to think that as a child, I could struggle with poetry!) this absurd and apocalyptic image of two children peering over an edge well-protruding over a void while their dog struggles to hang on. I can't tell you how I must have rationalized it to myself as a boy, but it seemed that my awareness of the sidewalk as a construction (which wasn't at all remarkable) was baked into the unreality of this image, for the emotion highlighted was in fact the limit of linear reason itself.

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spoke-n-languish · 1 year

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“If he had a rope, he’d probably just end up hanging himself with it anyways.”

I have tried to explain this, but I don’t seem to be getting through. I have written several nasty letters for my oversight committee, but ALWAYS at the last minute decided to pull back from releasing it. This is out of love. I would never wish you to feel bad or hurt in any way because I love you and would do anything I could for you. Which, I’m guessing (‘cause that’s the only option available) is what you are also trying to do. You have seen a person you care about in trouble and have interjected yourselves in an effort to provide help. This is a noble intention, nobody would argue that.

Shel Silverstein once wrote, “Some kinds of help are the kinds of help that helping’s all about. But some kinds of help are the kinds of help you’d rather do without.” I do not mean to belittle or diminish in any way the efforts you have put forth on my behalf. But I might think it could be relevant to ask the receiver of the help how or in what way would it be best expressed.

I have said this before and so some of you may be tired of hearing this analogy, but since you remain enumbriated, some may find it new. I have been not doing well for some time now, I’ll be the first to admit it. And, once I’d established that I was out of my league I began asking for help. But consider, if you will, I felt like I was venturing through a dark, thick jungle searching for (whatever)… when all of a sudden I realize I’ve walked right into quicksand! Now i don’t panic, that only makes things worse, but try everything I can recollect about this predicament reaching for branches, trying to lie back and float, etc. unfortunately, none of these basic solutions have worked. Now, because of my efforts I have sunk even deeper into the morass and I now begin to recognize that this is not just an obstacle, but potentially a disastrous pitfall, so I begin calling out for help. At first nothing happens so I continue devising ways to free myself as any man of science would: observe, hypothesize, experiment, evaluate (reiterate as necessary), and while doing so I continue calling out periodically knowing that with a little assistance it would certainly be a quickly solved dilemma and I would be set to continue along my way. As engaged thus I did not see but someone had appeared. Seeing me startled they say, “Well, you look like you are in distress,” to which I readily agree. “Yes, thank you, I need a little help please.” Here they reply, “Whenever I feel like I’m in distress, I try yoga. Have you ever tried yoga?” “Well, no, I haven’t but you see what I really need…” They continue, “Nothing like starting your day out with a little relaxing yoga… that’ll turn that frown upside-down in no time. Well I’m off, glad to have helped,” and they whistle their way away. Appreciating their friendliness, but still frustrated by your now increasingly dangerous state you call out more, and louder! You are amazed as you hear someone else approaching, “Hello is there anyone out there who can help me?” Through a break, a figure appears and proclaims, “Good day, was that you I heard calling out?” “Yes…””Say no more, friend, I heard your request and I know just the solution.” Relieved, you say a quick thanks when they respond, “If you want to find the One to help you, you need to practice meditation and breathing exercises.” “What? No I really I just need help,” you say, and they rejoin, “Yes, help indeed, I have these books in my bag here. Oh, it seems your rather stuck there — I’ll just toss them to you. Farewell, no need to return them I was done with them anyway,” and they leave. Now you are almost up to your neck. You’ve been helped twice by two very well-meaning friends, but at best now you’ve gained a book on breathing. I guess that might be intrinsically relevant here shortly, but all you really wanted this whole time was a rope. Helping others in need is indeed a very noble and elevated pursuit and any recipient is always grateful, as they should be. But sometimes, one might wish that they be allowed to direct the efforts of the help to maximize its benefit and ensure that the trouble in which they have found themselves immersed in is averted or removed so that they may continue their journey peacefully.

#riddle211 #hortonhasthewh’ooze #omnia•interroga #sharpen_saw #turn-the-page-h6ε

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dzamie · 1 year

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Speaking of vore, you mentioned the Shel Silverstein poem about the snake being influential reminds me of how when i was a kid I read this book(disclaimer- going mostly from memory here so may acidently get some things wrong) from the remnants series by ka applegate (the lady that wrote animorphs, and also the lesser known remnants series, which tldr is basically about earth was gonna be totaled by an asteroid so a ship was sent into space with some humans on it to avoid human extinction and they ended up in some really fucking wierd place )

in the book there was a thing where people ended up developing powers sometimes in the weird place, and in the book I was reading this one teen girl developed the ability to turn into a weird monster thing that can swallow people whole and in the book there’s a scene where she “wakes up” after transforming and swallowing some asshole antagonist guy who was like some egoistical asshole or something and realizing what happened and being disturbed by it and I remember being extremely fascinated by that part and re reading it and reading it out loud and stuff

(the guy didn’t die, he ended up surviving in a “Spiritual” sense by sharing a body with her)

Oh cool ^.==.^

#text #asks #rawrs #vore related #opabinia 777

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alywats · 3 years

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The Closing Ceremonies for Math Poetry Month 2021

I have a lot more to say about math and poetry, and I will save most of it for next April, I think. All I can say for now is that math and poetry continue to be powerful forces in my life, and I hope at least a few people gained something from this little project of mine. What I want to end this first Math Poetry Month on is some suggested reading:

1. Strange Attractors: Poems of Love And Mathematics edited by Sarah Glaz and JoAnne Growney

This poetry anthology is full of amazing math poems by the likes of Emily Dickinson, Shel Silverstein, Bernoulli, and Lewis Carroll, and it is all the proof you need that math and poetry have a deep connection. If you are just starting out with math poetry, I think this is the essential body of work. These two women are also active in the world of math poetry, so going to either of their websites is a treat!

2. A Mathematician’s Apology by G.H. Hardy

Written in 1940, A Mathematician’s Apology is a love letter to and criticism of the art of mathematics, yes, the art of mathematics. In it, Hardy compares mathematics to poetry many times, and even mathematicians to poets. He says: “A mathematician, like a painter or a poet, is a maker of patterns,” and if that’s not enough to sell you on this beautiful work, perhaps Hardy’s self deprecating take on what mathematicians are really about will peak your interest. I highly recommend this.

3. Any poems by James Sylvester, or maybe even his book The Laws of Verse

Victorian math poet James Sylvester is my personal favorite for the era. His work is what math poetry is all about: making mathematics relatable and human, capturing mathematical beauty in verse, the way we capture other types of beauty in verse, and giving not a single care about it.

4. Modern math poetry!!

I might be biased, but I think the poems my friends wrote are amazing examples of math poetry, read them here: [link]

And another modern creator that I love is 3Blue1Brown on YouTube. Here is a link to his math poetry! [link]

I also have written some math poetry myself, which you can find on this blog in multitudes, but in the spirit of math poetry month and how inspired I was and continue to be by writing math poetry, I want to show you the first math poem I ever wrote. Here is Some Mathematical Love Poetry; for, I don’t know, posterity or something.

Some Mathematical Love Poetry

Kisses are calculus, the examination of limits the jumbled breathing of trapezoids.

Kisses are entropy, nuanced chaos that taste like regulation the systematic rhythm of wanting.

My God, it smells like numbers in here you’ll inhale until only the irrationals are left on account of how dazzling pi appears when reflected in my glasses. Honey,

what would Bernoulli think of us? All lemniscate and no cardioid, proving by induction, holding on in 4-D.

Baby, kisses are algorithms. A step-by-step guide, instructions for the mathematical.

#math poetry month #math #mathblr #math poem #math poetry #mathematics #math poetry reading recs #suggested reading

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spnfanficpond · 3 years

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Pond Diving - mrswhozeewhatsis

Welcome to today’s Pond Diving Spotlight! We hope that you enjoy this little insight to our members and perhaps even find some useful tips for your own writing. Happy reading!

Want to volunteer, send us an ask! We’re looking forward to learning more about all of you! Not sure what PD is, you can learn more here.

“Don’t Be Koi About It” - All About You

Name: Michelle

Age: 46

Location: Just outside Philly, PA, USA

URL: @mrswhozeewhatsis

Why did you choose your URL: I made up the name when I created my WordPress blog. I spent a good five minutes thinking maybe I could become The Bloggess or Hyperbole and a Half or something like that. I forgot I’m not that funny.

What inspired you to become a writer: I’ve always had something to say, and sometimes I wrote it down. I didn’t think I could write fiction until I started SPN and got into fan fiction.

How long have you been writing: Fiction - only since 2015. Before that, I wrote a lot of non-fiction stuff. For a while, it was all journal entries on a support website for chronic illness peeps. Then there were the five minutes I considered becoming a blogger. I’ve always wanted to write a book. I never settled down and actually started writing that book, though. Maybe someday. If I ever get tired of fan fiction. (So, probably never.)

What do you do when you are not writing i.e. Job/Hobbies etc? I’m disabled, so I don’t do a whole lot. Read, watch TV, sleep. The @spnfanficpond is the closest thing to a job I’ve had since I stopped working.

How long have you been in the SPN Fandom? I started watching SPN on Netflix in December 2014. Watched 9.5 seasons in three weeks, and then had to wait a month for new episodes. In that time, I found Tumblr and fan fiction, and the rest is history!

Are you in any other fandoms and do you write for them? I like Doctor Who, The Witcher, The Umbrella Academy, General Hospital, and a few other shows, but I’m not nearly as active in those fandoms. I follow the cast on Twitter or IG and that’s about it. I’ve never written anything outside of SPN and never felt the urge.

Do you do any writing outside of fanfiction? If so, tell us about it? Occasionally, I will post some non-fiction writing on my Wordpress blog. Like, maybe once a year or so. Fanfiction has taken over my writing urge, and I don’t know when or if that will ever wane.

Favorite published author: I hate picking favorites because I can never pick just one. Here are a few, then: Stephen King, Erma Bombeck, Shel Silverstein, and Shakespeare.

Have you ever read a book that made an impact on your life? Which one and why?: So many. I would suggest that a series of books that I read when I was maybe 13-ish had the biggest impact on my life because of the way it changed the way I think. I haven’t reread these books as an adult (well, I read a new book added to the series much later, and was wholly unimpressed), so I don’t want to say that they’re the best books ever, but they taught me something. Piers Anthony’s series The Incarnations of Immortality. I found them in my high school library and read a couple of them out of order before I realized it was a series and there was an order. The original series has seven books and each book is based on one of seven Incarnations: Death, Time, Fate, War, Nature, Evil, and Good. Each book is also told from the point of view of that incarnation, telling the story of how they got the job. What I began to realize around book 3 was that the stories are all connected, some of them happening at the same time. This was the first time I’d ever read one story told from multiple points of view, and it opened my mind to the idea that the world isn’t only the way I see it. Also, there is a scene in Book 3 where different types of thinking are described. Before this, I had no idea that different people think about the same thing in different ways. I was excited when I saw he added an 8th book to the series, and then I read it and wished I hadn’t. Ignore anything he’s written intended for adults, really. The 8th book, and another I found that was clearly intended for adults, are really some of the worst smut ever written. Just don’t. Stick with the kids’ books like his Xanth series and the Incarnations.

Favorite genre of fanfic (smut, angst, fluff, crack, rpf, etc): I like them all, at different times. Love me some fluffy Destiel before going to bed. Some hilarious crack always cheers me up. Some angsty pining makes my heart beat faster, and the occasional RPF AU is always good.

Favorite piece of your own writing: I always go back to Third Wheel. Soulless Sam, vulnerable Dean, the Campbells (especially Gwen), and all of season 6. And I think it’s my smuttiest.

Most underrated fic you have written: Some of my Louden Swain one-shots are pretty good, but don’t get a lot of traffic because there’s no pairing, or have an OFC instead of being reader-insert. Eskimo is the one that immediately pops to mind.

Story of yours that you’d most like to see turned into a movie/tv show: Since Non-Trad is an AU, and therefore wouldn’t have to fit inside canon, I guess I’ll say that one.

Favorite Tumblr Writer(s): Really? You’re gonna make me choose? Hmph. Here goes: @kittenofdoomage, @jhoomwrites, @manawhaat, @littlegreenplasticsoldier, and @katehuntington. Stopping at five because this list could get really, really long.

Favorite Fic from another writer: Toil and Trouble by @littlegreenplasticsoldier, and I'm not just saying that because I was her beta. Cat!Dean. Dean as a sentient cat familiar. With a telepathic link to the reader!! It’s a whole ass meal, guys.

Favorite character to write: The only character I write consistently is myself as a reader insert. (Aren’t most reader inserts actually just author-inserts?) I like putting an idealized version of myself into a world with these characters that I love and making them dance. Besides that, I don’t think I have a favorite character to write, but I seem to find Dean easiest to write.

Favorite Pairing to write: Me and everyone. Sometimes all at once. ;)

Least favorite character to write (and why): Gabriel. I love him, and sometimes I’m inspired to write him, but he’s so completely different from me and how I understand the world, that I always fear I’ll get him horribly wrong.

Do you have anyone you consider a mentor? @manawhaat, @littlegreenplasticsoldier, @sebbytrash, @oriona75, and @kittenofdoomage. With a little @jhoomwrites on the side. They each challenge me to be better, even if it’s just by being their fabulous selves.

Do you have any aspirations involving your writing? Would it be cliché to say that someday I’d like to write a book? Non-fiction, with my own photos. Essays on all kinds of topics. Sometimes, I have things to say.

How many work-in-progress stories do you have: 35 ideas written down in a list, 1 active WIP, and one idea that I haven’t fleshed out quite enough to write down, yet. I have a beginning, and a sort of goal, but I’m missing the piece that ties it all together.

What are you currently working on? The closest I’ve come to actually writing is mulling over one of the WIP ideas in my head before sleeping. Lately, I’ve given up on the one shot with the missing piece mentioned above in favor of a request from my last follower celebration.

“Pond Diving” - All About The Writing

What/who has had the biggest influence on your writing? Tumblr and the friends I’ve made who have encouraged me and told me my writing isn’t all crap have been the biggest reason why I’ve not given it up.

Best writing advice you've been given: Crap makes good compost.

Biggest obstacle you’ve faced in your writing: Time and energy.

What aspects of writing do you find difficult when you write fanfiction? If I’m out of practice, writing smut is hard. If I’m not inspired, then it all feels like the same three ways to describe tabby A going into slotty B.

Is there anything you want to write but are afraid to (and why): M/M or F/F pairings, specifically smut. Being a cishet female, I just don’t think I could do it justice.

What inspires/motivates you to write: The characters. There’s just something about SPN characters that makes me want to find a new twist and make them dance.

How do you deal with self-doubt: Talk it out with friends and beta readers. There’s also an aspect of ‘fake it till you make it’ involved.

How do you deal with writer's block: Writer’s block is an easy way to say that something is keeping you from writing. Figuring out what that something might be is the cure. Like, right now, I could say that I have writer’s block, but what I really have is more interest in other things. Sometimes, when I’m writing, I’ll hit a wall that feels like writer’s block. Usually, if I go back to the last place where I felt like everything was flowing, I’ll find that wherever I went from that point on just wasn’t right. Rethinking that point generally gets me going again.

Do you plan/outline your story before you start: Not usually. Like Son, Like Father required some outlining because of the nature of the two stories being told at the same time. I wrote down some notes about Non-Trad, and then couldn’t understand the notes, so I’m not sure that counts. I do, however, keep a kind of outline as I’m writing, though, for my long stories. I will keep a chapter list with a short sentence on what happens in each chapter. This saved me when I was writing The Babysitter, especially when I ended up moving around flashback chapters to make them fit the story better.

Do you have any weird writing habits: I need something to stare into when I’m thinking. In 2015, I lived in an apartment near O’Hare airport in Chicago with a great view of the planes coming in to land and the sun/moon rising. I stared out my balcony doors all the time. Since then, I haven’t had an office with a good view like that, so I got a glitter lava lamp. Watching the glitter move gets my brain moving.

Have you ever received hateful comments on your fic and how do you deal with it? If I have, I’ve ignored and forgotten them. Hate isn’t worth my time or energy.

Conversely: what’s been some of your favorite feedback on your fanfic? If someone likes my characterization or says they’ve read it more than once, that makes my heart melt!

If you could give one piece of advice to a new and/or struggling writer, what would it be? Your story will take the number of words it needs to take. Unless you are doing a challenge where a specific word count is required, don’t even pay attention to it. The same with chapters. Some writers are very conscientious about chapter length, but I was raised reading James Patterson and Stephen King, and they will mix long chapters and short chapters to create suspense in the story. Fanfiction is a whole different animal, but don’t let some arbitrary idea of chapter or story length take precedence over the best way to tell the story.

#pond diving #spnfanficpond

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anthropwashere · 3 years

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deadfic: To Build His House

Further deadfic for @goodintentionswipfest, have the abandoned 6k of a giftfic for @phantomrose96 I wrote in 2017 as thanks for

a) for getting me back into FMA b) breaking my heart with all that damn good fic of hers

This was to be a continuation of her fic Giving Tree, which is so completely my jam it isn’t even funny. It will definitely help if you go (re)read that before reading mine.

“Can you give me a house?" ‘"I have no house," said the tree. "The forest is my house, but you may cut off my branches and build a house. Then you will be happy." And so the boy cut off her branches and carried them away to build his house. And the tree was happy.’ - The Giving Tree, Shel Silverstein

White. That’s all he sees at first. A white canvas, stretching on in every direction, as pure and unmarred as a freshly fallen snow. His eyes sting. He squints, disoriented and off-kilter; his mind’s a haze he can’t think clearly through. He can’t remember what he’d been doing before—

Wait.

His eyes sting.

“Oh no,” he breathes, and he’s breathing, exhaling out his dismay. His lungs deflate, his vocal chords hum, his throat rasps and his mouth’s as dry as sand. His tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth, swollen and pinched between his teeth. His chapped lips part reluctantly, catching on his teeth, peeling apart like a wound.

He’s in his body again, and it’s all he can do to keep breathing.

[[Welcome back.]]

He hears many voices speaking as one, a crowd perfectly in sync; young and old, masculine and feminine and a childlike singsong spun through. He can hear his brother’s voice loudest of all, speaking confidently, speaking with that ear-to-ear grin he reserves for fights he knows he’s already won. It seems to come from nowhere, or perhaps it’s only that he’s still struggling to see with his own eyes. He can see Edward’s Gate, of course; it’d be hard to miss the towering stone slab suspended on nothing, an intricate design upon the doors that seems both ancient and freshly carved. There are words, he knows, but he— his body, his body, his body— is sitting too far away to make any of them out.

And sitting opposite him is God.

Before East City, before his armor fractured and his blood seal splintered, before he woke up in this white void between two stone slabs face to face with this same thing, he never understood what Edward had meant when he’d mention any of this. It was an accident usually, a slip of the tongue that made Edward go still and look up at him out of the corner of his eye, as if he expected him to remember. He never did, but he’d pressed Edward to explain, once or twice. Edward’s voice always hushed a little, as respectful as he was fearful, as scared of the thing he called Truth as he was angry at it for taking so much from them. Edward always broke off before he ever said much, brushed it aside like it didn’t give him nightmares that he had to be gently shaken out of more nights than not.

After East City, he understands now why Edward calls it Truth instead of God. He doesn’t feel the same need to make a distinction between what’s sitting here and what people think is waiting for them when they die. It doesn’t scare him, like it scares Edward, and it isn’t bravery that makes him think this way. He thinks of God like a gemstone; faceted, blinding and plain in turns. The God sitting opposite him isn’t the one that took his body— or, it is, but it’s only one part of the greater whole. It is all and it is one, and it’s also so much more than that.

God has three of Edward’s limbs now.

“What happened?” He asks. It doesn’t hurt to talk, but his body is out of practice.

[[Don’t you remember? Think carefully.]]

It smiles at him fondly, a suggestion of teeth in an otherwise absent face. It had smiled the first time he’d passed through the Gate too, on that terrible night. He remembers it so clearly now; reaching into the light for the shape of his mother, only to be grabbed by his own hand. God had unraveled him that night, grinned with his stolen face before casting his soul into the twisted, broken thing they’d made. He shudders, the sensation of hot blood pooling in his throat as fresh as when it had happened. He licks his teeth, looking down at his pale, too-thin hands. His long hair tickles his spine and falls into his eyes, obscuring God briefly. His fingernails are too long too, but not as long he’d think they’d be, considering he hasn’t clipped them in years. They look torn, ragged. What does God do with his body when he isn’t in it?

He shakes his head. No, that isn’t what he needs to be thinking about right now. Where had he been before this? What had he been doing?

Resembol. They’d been in Resembol. Brother was recovering from his surgery, only just beginning his rehabilitation. The bandages had only come off last week, and his left shoulder still looked more like raw meat than scar tissue. It would be another month before Granny and Winry could put the protective plating on. His third automail limb, a steel port cupping his scapula, support struts clamped to his ribs, his remaining nerves threaded into a half dozen sockets for the control wiring to connect to.

God tilts Its head, watching him intently. It doesn’t have eyes that he can see, but he can feel Its gaze like a physical weight, cold and alien, like a bird watching a worm wriggling across the dirt. It sits loosely, in a comfortable sprawl. Edward’s arms are in Its lap, and Edward’s leg is curled neatly under It. His face twists, the guilt natural but the feel of muscle and skin reacting to his emotions almost as alien as the thing watching him. Brother should hate him. His weakness the night they tried to bring Mom back cost Edward his right arm, and the left now as well. Brother should want nothing to do with him, should want to leave him in this place to wither.

But Edward, impossibly, doesn’t seem to resent him at all. Edward just smiles at him, even through the pain, trying to reassure him. Sorry about the setback, Al. We’ll get back on track as soon as possible, okay? Like it was Ed’s fault he’d lost— traded— his arm. He hasn’t heard Ed complain once, not once, since they’ve been in Resembol, even with the winter cold and the spring thaw snapping at his old stumps, even with through the worst of the outfitting process, even with—

The spring thaw.

[[Ah, is it coming back to you now?]]

“Yes,” he says automatically. The spring thaw. He remembers now, and how could he have forgotten? That had been the closest Brother has come to being angry with him since they’d returned to Resembol, shouting himself flushed and sweating, demanding that he not go out there. But the thaws and the spring storms are always difficult this high up in the mountain. The river flooded every year, a [unfinished]

Winry doesn’t know what to do.

“It’ll be fine,” Ed says. “I can handle it.”

“Leave it to the search team,” Granny chastises. “They’ll bring him home just fine without any help from you.”

“Al fell in the river. He’s too big to fish out without alchemy, and I can’t do alchemy one-handed.”

Granny’s face hardens. “You’re in no condition to go traipsing around in a storm, Ed.”

“I’m the only one who can save him. There’s no other options—”

“There are plenty of good folk out there happy to help you boys if you’d just give them half a chance, and none of them are recovering from surgery.”

Winry watches Ed’s right hand briefly touch the empty port making up his left shoulder. The soft click of steel against steel is an admission all on its own. He’s only wearing a faded tank top so the new scarring is on full display, raw and pink, licking up his neck and across his collarbone. He’s standing in the doorway to the kitchen, boots on and a frightening calm draped across his shoulders. She keeps expecting him to shout, to crack the wall with his one fist, to tell them both to go to hell as he charges out into the storm and damn the consequences. Ed has always been short-tempered, volatile and furious when the world doesn’t follow his expectations. She’s never been afraid of him before, and there’s no reason to start now… is there?

He’s nodding agreeably to every sharp word Granny snaps at him, and he still insists that he has to go. “You don’t understand,” he says patiently. “If he fell in the river his blood seal in all likelihood has washed away. There’ll just be a suit of armor down in the riverbed.”

“So let the search team find Alphonse’s armor,” Granny says. If anyone’s angry it’s her, glaring up at Ed over her glasses, a screwdriver tightly clenched in one hand. The half-assembled arm on the kitchen table lays forgotten, curls of wire spilled across the pitted wood. Ed’s new left arm. “You’ll only earn yourself a fever if you go out there.”

“I can get over a fever,” he says.

“It’s much too early to put so much strain on your body.”

“You and I both know I can handle it.”

Granny scoffs, throwing down her screwdriver. A few bolts scatter across the floor, but no one makes any move to pick them up. Ed just smiles.

“I’m not asking for a whole arm, Granny. Just enough of one I can clap with.”

Her pipe clicks against her teeth as she purses her mouth, looking like she’s sorely tempted to toss Ed out with nothing but the clothes on his back. Damn the consequences. “Oh? Is that all you’ll be doing? And what about when you do find him? If his seal has washed away, do you intend on cutting off your leg next to bring him back again?”

He shrugs, sheepish. He’s only got the one shoulder, the left port empty and stiff. Funny. Winry can’t find the beauty in the easy motion of his automail. It’s been four months since he came back home with the wrong arm missing, and the absence on his left side still makes her breath catch. “What’s a limb to a life?”

Granny all but snarls at him. “Idiot boy! You’ve only got the one left!” But then the fury spills out of her in a slow, weary sigh. She touches her hand to her temple, eyes falling shut. “How many more times do you intend to do this?”

“I’ll handle it. Granny, please—”

She smacks her hand on the table, rattling metal plating. Winry jumps despite herself, but Ed doesn’t react at all. “Don’t beg,” Granny spits. “It doesn’t suit you.”

Winry is sitting opposite her at the kitchen table, Ed’s new fingers so many unconnected joints scattered between her hands. They’ve been taking his new arm slow, no need to rush order it because his port still needs time to heal. Slow jobs like this they like to share over cups of coffee, Den napping quietly at their feet. Ed’s been antsy, pushing himself too far too soon with his rehabilitation, but none of them had been surprised. He’d done the same thing with the first two limbs, and he’d been out the door and on his way to Central in a year. Still, even Ed’s not crazy enough to start slinging around a new arm on a new port after four months.

Except he is. He’ll always be that crazy, when Alphonse is in danger.

“Is—” She hesitates when both of them look at her, bites her lip until she can bring herself to ask, “Is Alphonse... dead?”

Ed shakes his head, no harsh snap of denial, no insults, no shouts. Just a calm, frightening certainty. “If his seal has been damaged, then his soul will have returned to his body.”

“But— but that’s good, isn’t it?”

For the first time since Mr. Caddeo knocked on the door and told them Alphonse had fallen into the swollen river, Edward’s face betrays some real emotion beyond this eerie, placid confidence. His mouth parts, his shoulder hunches, his eyes scrunch up. For one brief moment he almost looks like he’s about to cry. But it passes, like ripples in a pond, and that gentle smile returns.

“No, it’s not. The place his body’s at—” He chuckles, softly. His right hand is a fist at his side, gears humming protest. “I don’t think you can call it a real place. To be trapped there, I think…. I think you’d have to go crazy just to cope.”

Winry can’t say anything to that. She looks down at the spilled finger joints, the empty casings, the miniscule screws that will hold his fingers together once she’s put them together. Sheets of rain beat against the house. A hard wind rattles the windows. It’s mid-afternoon and the sky outside is black as coal dust, and Ed wants to charge headlong into the storm.

Ed says, “I can’t leave him there. Not for one second more than I have to.”

Granny’s voice is flinty, unwavering. “I can’t condone this.”

“I’m not asking you to. But I’m going to look for him, with or without your help. You can give me an arm, or I’ll go out there with a shovel.”

She sighs again, shaking her head. Winry watches the slump of her narrow shoulders, the weariness weighing down her small body. Granny’s never looked so old as this. “You’re gonna kill yourself if you keep this up, you know.”

“He’s my brother,” Ed says. “He’s all I’ve got left.”

The dummy arm barely qualifies as automail, only just complex enough to still hurt when the nerves are connected. Ed grinds his teeth and goes rigid, but doesn’t make a sound. It’s a skeletal thing, cobbled together out of old parts with no external plating to speak of, clusters of wiring carefully pinned away from the joints. It’s only real use is to help Ed adjust to the feel of using a prosthetic, a stepping stone to the arm she hasn’t finished building yet. It doesn’t have much in the way of fine motor control, and lacks pressure plating in the fingertips or palm. Weights can be attached to it to accustom the port to the eventual feel of the real thing. It’s controls are rudimentary at best; the elbow bends fine, but the wrist and shoulders don’t have much range of motion and the fingers tend to react as one.

It’s not meant to be a stand-in for real automail, just simple exercises. But Ed needs an arm; the dummy will have to do.

Winry walks him through the basic exercises mechanically, feeling like an outsider watching herself talk. “Don’t do anything crazy, okay? The dummy’s not built for your usual stunts. When you find him, you have to let the others do the heavy lifting, okay?”

“I know. Thanks.” He stands up, adjusting to the weight. Even stripped down to bare essentials, it is still heavy. He’s worked up to having it on a few hours at a time each day, but that still left his stump aching, even if he never said it out loud. He rolls the shoulder carefully, the leather support harness across his bare chest creaking.

Granny watches him as he struggles into his tank top again, eyes slitted. “Two hours, Ed. Not a minute more.”

“Right,” he says, walking over to where his red coat is hung up by the front door. He regards it for a few seconds, then gingerly raises both hands to clap. There’s a flash of blue light, and when Winry can see again the coat is hanging differently than before. He takes it down with his right hand and tuts.

“Sloppy,” he mutters, but starts to put it on anyway. Winry quickly steps toward him to help, expecting him to snap at her to quit hovering, almost disappointed when he doesn’t. Once the coat’s on she can see what he did to it. The left sleeve is gone, the fabric added to the rest of the coat so that it hangs more like a half-cape to protect the dummy arm. He lets her do up the top three buttons and smiles at her wordlessly.

This is a bad idea. No stopping it now, though.

“Winry,” Granny says, “Go with him, will you? Try and keep him from doing something stupid.”

“Right.”

It’s a long walk into town proper. By the time they get there Ed’s white-faced and breathing shallowly, and only nods when Winry offers to run into the general store. Someone should be there who will know where along the river Al fell in.

She finds Mr. Ragsdale just outside, a gangly middle-aged man who always smells like sheep no matter how much of Mrs. Karlson’s fancy soaps he uses. He sobers when she catches his attention, the other man he was talking to trotting off into the storm. He crouches slightly to speak without shouting over the hard rattle and patter of rain on the general store’s wooden porch.

“There’s some dozen or so folk out there trying to find a trace of him,” he tells her. “That armor of his must’ve fallen to pieces with how rough the current’s gotten. There’s no telling how far down he’s all gone.”

It’s Resembool’s worst-kept secret, what Ed and Al did. Only Winry and Granny know the full details— and Winry never saw whatever it was they made in their basement, only knows the ashen horror that painted new lines in Granny’s face that never left— but there was no way to hide the truth in such a close-knit village. Al stomping around in the armor, Ed missing two limbs— three now, it’s three now, and soon maybe another, oh Al, please be alive, please—

She takes a shaky breath, paws rain from her eyes, keeps pace with Mr. Ragsdale’s longer strides.

The only alchemists in Resembool are Ed and Al, and before that their dad, wherever he’d gone off to. No one has the knowledge to look at their crippled bodies and think taboo, but everyone’s heard horror stories about alchemy experiments gone bad. Rebounds, destroying buildings and shredding people to pieces. No one’s ever asked Winry what the boys tried to do; maybe no one wants to know.

As for Ed’s left arm, he’s stuck to the official story Mr. Mustang had spun about a car accident in East City. Everyone in town had shook their heads and tutted, said it was such a shame, what bad luck the Elric brothers have, to have been through so much so young.

Yeah. Bad luck.

Mr. Ragsdale hesitates when he sees Ed, leaning against an unlit house and shaking. He doesn’t look surprised to see Ed, just resigned. “Ho, Ed. Good to see you on your feet.”

“Yeah,” Ed says. “Any sign of Al?”

Six months after signing off on Edward Elric’s convalescent leave, Colonel Mustang receives a phone call from Resembol.

“Fullmetal,” he says once the operator patches the call through, and watches the head of every other person in the office swivel in his direction. “I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon.”

“Yeah, well, I figured I owed you a status report.”

His voice is raspy, worn, perhaps lacking some of its usual ire, but he sounds healthy. He doesn’t sound like someone halfway through exhaustive and painful rehabilitation. Mustang huffs. The idiot owes him a whole lot more than a phone call for not court martialing him into a lifelong imprisonment. “Oh? Good news, I hope.”

Edward chuckles. “Afraid not. I ran into a minor complication with my rehabilitation. I don’t think it’s any big deal, but I’m not dumb enough to try and tell a couple of lifelong gearheads how to do their job.”

“What happened?”

“Ah, I couldn’t tell ya for sure. Automail surgery is complex stuff. I’ve never been able to wrap my head around it. I mean, the first two ports went on more or less okay, so you think the third one would too, right? Show’s what I know, though.”

“It isn’t serious, is it?”

“Nah, I’ll be just fine. It might take me an extra month to report back though, two tops.”

“Take all the time you need. You’re in the middle of an extensive rehabilitation, after all.”

“Eh, it’s nothing I’m not used to.” His tone is dismissive, but there’s a slight tremor to his voice, a weakness Edward would never admit to. It’s not enough to comment on, but Mustang’s imagination fills in what Edward refuses to say. Torn muscle and broken ribs, infection and fever, leaking stitches and black-edged burns. Any number of things can go wrong with such dangerous surgery. “Still, at this rate I think I’m gonna miss my assessment. I’m not sure what to do about that.”

“It shouldn’t be any trouble, considering your condition.” His mouth twists, the unspoken lie like ash on his tongue. “I’ll submit a waiver on your behalf. You’ll have to worry about it once you’re back on active duty again, but for the time being you can focus on your recovery.”

“That’s suspiciously charitable of you,” Edward says, wary. “I kinda expected you to be hounding me for monthly status reports until I came back.”

Mustang sighs, hides his face in his free hand. The rough fabric of his ignition glove rasps against his eyelids. “...You lost an arm. It would be cruel of me to expect anything more from you.”

“...Right.”

Mustang sighs, dropping his hand. His team is still listening attentively, though they’re at least trying to be discrete about it. “Is there anything else?”

“I… yeah, actually. If you see Alphonse around, you mind letting me know?”

“Alphonse?” He echoes, surprised. “He left?”

Edward makes a noncommittal noise, a grumble that lacks teeth. “I pissed him off, and he decided to do some research on his own. I don’t blame him, ‘cuz I’m wasting valuable time here recuperating, but I’m worried about him.”

“I think a capable alchemist in an eight-foot tall suit of armor can handle a little research—”

“You KNOW what I mean, Colonel!” Edward snarls, and the anger in his voice is—not a surprise, no. Anger is Edward’s knee jerk reaction, or at least an emotion he has the easiest time showing. Mustang had expected a retort, but not one with so much venom. Edward’s breath catches, a sharp inhale hissed through his teeth.

“Fullmetal?”

“...I’m fine.” He almost sounds it too, but that tremor in his voice is stronger than he can stifle. “It’s just…. Al can be as reckless as me when he gets an idea in his head. He’s not invulnerable. I’m his big brother. It’s my job, to make sure he’s okay.”

A job that’s taken both of his arms from him, and Edward made it explicitly clear before he left for Resembol how much more he’s willing to give to keep Alphonse tethered to that armor.

Not for the first time, Mustang’s imagination gets the better of him. He pictures a boy more automail than flesh before his eighteenth birthday, blind and deaf, perhaps mute as well. Stolidly painting the blood seal anew with an unfeeling finger, forced to rely on past experience rather than sight or touch to know he’s done it right. Willing to trade every spare part of himself to bring his brother’s soul back again and again, loss calculated down to the number of ribs he can afford to replace with steel struts. Organs, too. Who even needs two kidneys? Two lungs? Halve the liver, two or three meters of the small intestine. The skin is an organ too, and he’d have plenty to spare on his torso. Fractioning himself away, leaving Alphonse to do the legwork when his piecemeal body can no longer support the metal that’s left of him.

Fullmetal. What a cruel sense of humor the Fuhrer had.

Mustang shudders, hunched behind his broad desk stacked with paperwork that seems so meaningless compared to Edward’s dedication, compared to Edward’s sacrifice. Lieutenant Hawkeye and the others have given up any pretense of busywork, watching him with furrowed brows and grim mouths.

This isn’t sustainable. This isn’t sane.

...But it isn’t his place to say as much. He’s Fullmetal’s superior officer, not his guardian. So long as Fullmetal is physically fit for duty, there’s nothing for it. Suggesting a psychological evaluation, suggesting that something beyond bad luck and an overactive willingness to throw himself into danger to protect others might be behind Fullmetal’s two— and soon to be three— prosthetics, would condemn them both.

“Colonel?”

He’s gone too long without answering. “I understand,” he says, mustering as even a tone as he can. “I’ll keep an eye out for him. In the meantime don’t overdo it, and I expect a status report on your recovery next month.”

“Augh, seriously?”

“It was your idea.”

“Me and my big mouth. Fine, fine, you’ll get your report. Just make sure you let me know first thing if you hear from Alphonse, okay?”

“Of course.”

“All right, thanks. I—” A muffled voice on his end interrupts him, too indistinct to make any words out. “Ah, okay, Granny. Look Colonel, I gotta go.” The line clicks dead before Mustang can reply.

When he hangs up the receiver, the silence in the office is like a physical weight pressed to his chest and bowing his shoulders. All of his subordinates are sat stiffly at their desks, waiting.

Lieutenant Breda is the first to speak.

“How’s the Boss doin’?” He asks, hesitant. Mustang knits his fingers together, rests his hands on desk to steady himself. He’s careful not to rub the fabric too roughly, leery of making any sparks. With his focus a scattered mess now, it would be all too easy to accidentally start a fire.

“More or less as well as can be expected,” he replies. “He called to inform me of a delay to his estimated return date. It seems he’s run into a minor setback with his outfitting.”

Sergeant Fuery leans forward, alarm in his expression. “Did he say what went wrong?”

Mustang can’t help but smile wryly at that. “Does he ever?”

“How long does he expect to be delayed?” Lieutenant Hawkeye asks.

“A month, two at the most.”

Warrant Officer Falman shakes his head, disbelieving. “I can’t believe how tenacious Edward is.”

“You’ve met him, right?” Lieutenant Havoc asks, laughing.

“No, I know. I just meant how incredible it is how quickly he intends to return to active duty after being outfitted with a new automail arm.”

“What d’you mean?” Breda asks.

Falman shifts nervously when he realizes the whole office has their eyes on him. “Ah, well. When I first heard about his automail I was curious, so I did some reading on the topic.” Mustang stifles a smile at that; Falman’s curiosity paired with his near-perfect photographic memory are both excellent qualities in a soldier. He’s saved untold hours of work. “There’s a good reason it’s still pretty rare to see automail in the military, and even then it’s usually people who were outfitted before they joined. The average rehabilitation time for a full arm replacement is two years, and that's for an adult. He's going to be [unfinished]”

Havoc stubs out the butt of his cigarette and draws a new one out of the crumpled packet on his desk. “If he says he can do it in a year, he’ll do it in a year. He’d know best, right? Since he’s already been through this before.”

“And that was an arm and a leg,” Fuery adds. “Not just an arm like it is now.”

“Almost surprised he’s not tryin’ to come back in half the time,” Breda says. “The Boss doesn’t know how to sit down and take it easy though. Guess he must be having a harder time of it than he’d ever let on, huh?”

Mustang hums, picking up his pen again. That’s certainly Fullmetal’s way, to play things close to his chest, to shoulder his burdens so no one else can be bothered by them. It’s a surprising display of maturity, for a boy only 14 years old.

Only 14 years old, and he’s lost— traded away— three of his limbs.

“Colonel?” Hawkeye’s tone is all calm, professional interest. “You’re certain Edward is all right?”

Of course. She was there, when Fullmetal committed the taboo in the hospital parking lot. She saw his arm peel away in a burst of alchemical light, saw the blood and heard his screams firsthand. In six months she’s never yet said as much to him, but Mustang doesn’t doubt that she blames herself, for not realizing what Fullmetal intended to do to bring Alphonse back again.

“He’ll be causing trouble again in no time,” Mustang replies. That, at least, is a certainty.

Two days later Alphonse arrives at Eastern HQ. Without Fullmetal he isn't allowed access to the base, so the gate guards call Colonel Mustang’s office and Sergeant Fuery offers to sign him in. When they both enter the office there’s a chorus of greetings; despite his intimidating appearance Alphonse has endeared himself to the soldiers with his soft-spoken insight and razor intelligence. Those long debriefings Fullmetal had with the brass gave the younger Elric plenty of opportunities to rub elbows with enlisted and commissioned alike.

Alphonse shuffles by the doorway, embarrassed enough to duck his helmet sheepishly. “Ah, thank you, everyone. It's good to see you all again.”

“It’s been too quiet around here without you and your brother raising hell every couple of weeks!” Havoc says, and he and Breda laugh loudly.

“Oh, yeah. I guess it’s been awhile, hasn’t it?” Alphonse clasps his hands at his waist, looking across the office to meet Mustang’s eyes.

“What brings you to HQ?” Falman asks.

“I’m not staying long. I know it isn’t really right for me to be here without Ed—” His voice catches, his hands wringing. Mustang frowns. Something isn’t right.

“You’ll always be welcome here,” Hawkeye says, reaching out to pat his arm.

“I— thank you, but—” He pulls away, his backplate bumping against the closed door. “—I just wanted to make sure you all knew about Brother, before I left.”

“He called,” Mustang says from his desk, and doesn’t miss the way Alphonse’s pauldrons jerk in surprise. “Just the other day.”

“He did? Really?” At his nod Alphonse hesitates, helmet spanning the room again. “...I see. Then I owe you all another apology.”

“An apology?” Fuery echoes. “What for?”

His helmet ducks again, his spiked pauldrons hunching as his leather hands fall to his sides. “It’s my fault,” Alphonse whispers, his child’s voice cracking. “It was all my fault. I was stupid, I was careless, if I’d just paid better attention it wouldn’t have happened and Brother wouldn’t— he wouldn’t—”

“Alphonse,” Mustang calls out sharply, and the boy flinches, falling silent. He gets to his feet and closes the distance between them, his subordinates parting uncertainly to let him through. “What happened? What’s wrong?”

The pale lights in Alphonse’s helmet flicker. “...What did he tell you?”

A chill runs through Mustang, a cold dread ghosted down his skin. No. Let him be wrong. Let him be wrong. “Fullmetal said there had been some complication with his port,” he replies slowly. “He informed me that his estimated return date would need to be pushed back two months.”

“Two—!” Alphonse breaks off, his gloves tightly fisted. “Of course he didn’t tell you. That idiot!”

Mustang’s throat is dry, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth, his lips reluctant to part. Let him be wrong. “What happened.”

Alphonse’s anger bleeds away as quickly as it had come. His voice is barely more than a whisper; dull, without inflection. “There… there was a flood. The spring thaws are always bad, but this year was worse. Half the village might have gotten washed away if I hadn’t gone to help. It shouldn’t have been any trouble, but I— I lost my footing. It’s hard, sometimes, to tell where I am. To be sure of my footing. I fell into the river, and got pulled under. The last thing I remember is being dragged across the river bottom, before my blood seal…”

He shudders, his overlapping plates clanking. “It was almost two weeks before they found my armor. Brother, he— he didn’t hesitate. He pulled me back again.”

Again.

There is a long, awful silence. The gravity of Alphonse’s hushed account sinking in, horror growing on everyone’s faces. Breda, Havoc, Fuery, Falman, and Hawkeye have all known the Elrics for years. They’ve known the truth behind Fullmetal’s automail and Alphonse’s armor. They’ve all grown to care for the boys, in their own ways. Every one of them had been stricken six months ago, when they’d seen what Fullmetal had done to himself to save Alphonse. And here they’re gathered, hearing it all over again.

“What….” Hawkeye swallows, looking away. “What was taken from him?”

The lights in Alphonse’s helmet have all but gone out. “...His leg. It took his leg.”

13 months after he’d walked out of Mustang’s office with a bandaged stump where his left arm had been, Fullmetal returns.

The worst part is, at first glance Mustang can’t tell anything’s different.

Fullmetal strides in like he owns the place, hands in his pockets, a bored expression like he’s already itching to stride right out again. He’s grown, a little taller and a little filled out. There’s a maturity to his face, a strength to his jaw and a new focus to his eyes. When he turns to shut the office door Mustang catches a glimpse of his braid stretching halfway down his back. Red coat, black jacket and pants, white gloves. It’s almost like nothing’s changed at all.

“Miss me?” Fullmetal asks, grinning [unfinished]

“He's trying to protect you from your own fanaticism!”

(Phone rings, Mustang makes to answer it, Edward smashes it. On his way out pauses to put shoes on [uh…. I think I was going to have Mustang demand Ed to show his feet when he tried to lie about the leg? I honestly don’t remember.]

“Fullmetal! Fix my phone!”

Derisive, “Are you an alchemist or not? Fix it yourself.”)

[super roughed here. Was going to have Ed bail East City pretty quick, try poking around Central for any sign of Al before resigning himself to Izumi’s fury in the hopes he’d find Al there. Imagine his surprise when she knows what the automail means, whoops.]

When Izumi kicks his ass across the yard she notes something is off at once. Edward's too heavy for his size, the thud of his limbs against the dirt too pronounced. She flips him again for good measure, feels how unyielding his arm is in her hands. Assumes two limbs are prosthetic, furious he was foolish enough to be hurt so badly since the last time she saw him. Transmutes a spear and demands he defends himself. Short one-sided fight as Edward doesn't want to spar against her, ends up blocking a slice with one arm, she sweeps his feet out from under him and puts the blade to his neck.

“How shameful! And where's your brother? Is he in as sorry a state as you?”

“I don't know! He ran off six months ago! I was hoping he'd be here.”

“I haven't seen him.”

“Damn it!”

Claps his hands, transmutes a blade and cuts her spear. Of course she knows what that means. “Idiot boy! Do you have even one limb left to call your own!”

On his knees he flinches. “No!”

“...That thing took so much from you?”

He realizes she's done it too. Bows his head, unable to meet her eyes. “No. The first time, it only took one of my legs.”

#fma #fmab #fullmetal alchemist #my writing #deadfic

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tarynisbunhead · 2 years

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I finally have my own copy of The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. Let me tell you a thing, as to why this is so important to me.

When I was in grade school, back in the 1980s, Shel’s books were used in the classroom. In fact, we were encouraged to write silly poems both in class and for homework. Then one day, a large projector was rolled into the classroom, not the TV/VCR combo we had grown accustomed to. The animated short film we watched that day, was The Giving Tree and it was narrated by Shel Silverstein himself.

When I was six years old and in first grade, I thought Shel Silverstein was the most creative writer on the planet. He wrote silly poems that covered all kinds of subjects, and he wrote a story that many people even to this day debate what the actual meaning is. I remember playing with my friend on the playground and saying, “I’m going to be an author, like Shel Silverstein”, and she laughed at me.

Later in life Jules Verne became another inspiration, but I never forgot Shel Silverstein. I never had enough money to buy this book because - Adulting. That always gets in the way of things, but now I have it in my library.

#books #author #shel silverstein

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oonajaeadira · 3 years

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100, 95, and 81

-corellianhounds

HEY THERE, HOUNDS!!!

100. What’s one of your fondest memories?

The two years I lived in L.A. were two of the worst of my life. So just the simplest things that made me happy stand out so bright. I bought a beach umbrella and every Saturday morning my boyfriend and I would drive down to Manhattan Beach before anyone else got there and we'd mainly have the place to ourselves and I would sit and look out over the ocean and the waves would be so loud. Many times there'd be dolphins humping up along the breakline. And as the day went on and it warmed up, people would take up space around us and I got to watch the beach fill with color and life and happiness. Around noon we'd trudge up the hill to put things in the car and stop at the ice cream parlor before going home. There was a time while I was there when it was the best part of my week and when I got home I was sad because it would be a whole week before I got to do it again.

95. Worst tinder or date experience?

Oof. I've already told the story of the date that wasn't supposed to be a date, so I'll go with the other terrible date experience. So I met this guy online and we went to a coffee shop for SEVEN hours and chatted on the couch there. He was charming, had his own house, was the youngest motorcycle engine designer in North America. Kinda had it made. There was chemistry. But then he asked about what I was interested in for books. I was deep into Harry Potter at the time and I told him straight up because why lie on dates? And his response was, "What. Do you like Dave Matthews Band too?" I had to ask him what he meant by that and he basically explained that he was asking if I liked everything that everybody else liked all the time. I moved past that and he came to understand that I am obsessed with fantasy and sci-fi and he hadn't read the books so he didn't get the appeal. Never got past skeptical on that point The date continued and we had a fine time.

But that was a big red flag. One that gave me a peek behind the curtain to a judgmental and bullying side of him.

He walked me to my car and tried to kiss me and I turned him down, politely telling him I'd rather wait for another date, when in reality I had no intention of ever seeing him again. But I deflected with a lie because safety in the moment.

When he wrote me for another date I told him I didn't think it was going to work and had the satisfaction of understanding my own instincts when he lit into me and told me I was a terrible person... among other, nastier things.

He was super mean and I cried about it, but thankful it happened on the first date and that I didn't waste any more time with him.

81. What books influenced you most as a child?

The Little House books were my favorite (Laura Ingalls Wilder). I was a big Beatrix Potter fan when I was very wee. I loved The Last Unicorn and it's still my favorite book. And I was a big fan of Shel Silverstein and Edward Gorey.

Get to Know me Asks

#Ask games

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optimiist · 4 years

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𝚒’𝚍 𝚔𝚎𝚎𝚙 𝚊𝚗 𝚎𝚢𝚎 𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚖 ; that there is LIONEL MILLER , notorious for being ( resentful ) and ( tense ) , but there are times when he can be ( considerate ) and ( self-effacing ) . i've heard that he could pass as a YUSUF GATEWOOD doppelganger , but i don't see it . the ( thirty-eight ) year - old cis man has been in town for ( his entire life ) and they are an ( english professor ) by day and murder suspect by night . they tend to spark images of an endless collection of the romantics - from the john donnes of the world to the carson mccullers’ , the perfect leather-on-tweed stereotype , being a willing human doormat to those with bright eyes and a kind smile , rehearsing the humphrey bogart but ending up the victor laszlo , a secret even worse than murder: …your favorite movie is the abomination of 2019 . you’ll know when they walk by because they always seem to be blasting as time goes by by DOOLEY WILSON . it truly explains why they're known as THE SECRET ADMIRER .

TO KNOW:

born to a single mother, lionel was lucky in never joining the daddy issues™ club. nonetheless, his mother’s status still deeply affected him. with all of the men he watched go in and out of her life, none staying around long enough for him to call his true role model, he found a very thin line - but it was still a line and he knew exactly which side he wanted to be on. the line? separated the good men from the toxic men. and, of course, he wanted to be a good man!

it should be noted that his mother worked in the local library ( he was unaware of why it was named what it was named for quite a while - he thought it was just named after abraham lincoln and some other guy ). naturally, he spent most of his youth reading authors all the way from shel silverstein to lewis carroll to… most importantly… t.s. eliot. why is this the most important? you may ask yourself.

he unironically likes cats. the book it was based on… the musical… even the 2019 movie… there are very few people he’d ever admit it to, but… his favorite movie is cats (2019).

ANYWAY, as he grew, he matured into the catalogs of writers such as john donne, william shakespeare, tennessee williams, carson mccullers…

he was fucked!!

the authors and the poets and the playwrights all gave him a sense of what love is, what love must be. he began writing poetry, attempting to mimic donne’s subtle style. this both helped and harmed him when he met the girl he was totally sure would be the love of his life: chastity. she was gorgeous and kind and had bright eyes…

he prepared a speech asking her out and rehearsed it every morning. just in case he forgot, he even wrote it down on notecards. but, when the time came, he was always just too… frozen.

he didn’t shoot his shot on time - before he knew it, ethan kim was dating the girl he’d psyched himself out of asking out one too many times.

although it was difficult for him to try to see chastity as just a friend ( perhaps friendly acquaintance at most on her part ), he did his best… especially when ethan enlisted him to help him get the girl™.lionel had plenty of moral qualms about it, but… ultimately, money was money. libraries didn’t make much. even the smallest amount would help.

not to mention, it was an excellent way to see if he… would’ve been successful in asking her out. in words, at least.

he’d give ethan poems he’d already written, soliloquies he’d been inspired to write, and just… ultimately give him the advice that all of the romantics had given him throughout the years.

when chastity was murdered, his heart :( shattered :( died along with her but more poetically :( while his alibi checked out - he had been in the library writing a poem in donne’s style, the subject inspired by mccullers’s ‘the lover v. the beloved’ tangent in the ballad of the sad café, and he won! there were some areas in which they could poke holes: his mother, who clearly wouldn’t want her son to go to jail, was the only eye witness, they had no way of proving the date he submitted the poem, etc., etc. but, for the most part, his alibi was pretty solid.

this idiot didn’t profess his love until she was dead. WAYYYYY too late to shoot ur shot buddy!!

anyway, he’d already gotten accepted into college - thank god because he, otherwise, would not have been in the state to write a worthy application. he chose local for his undergrad.

along the way, he found some new people to love. or try to love. it wasn’t exactly the actual relationship that made it hard for him to ‘get over’ chastity, what considering they’d never had one, rather the literal death and lack of closure.

but, come grad school, he met the woman he would be able to call his wife!! she was lovely and kind and beautiful and had such bright eyes. after only two years of dating, he proposed (granted, he’d been prepping… for an entire year... ) and!! she said yes!!

with an english professor slot (yes, slot) opening up at the university, they returned to taunwick. it was absolutely perfect, if you were to ask him. he could help his mom as libraries went the way of the dodo, he could potentially start a family (they were considering adoptive), he had a job he loved!!

but... then there’s that whole problem of the reunion… and, while he’s been doing well in taunwick, what in spite of the reminders of chastity… this could be yikes central for his marriage!! which is why it’s gonna be submitted to the main in .5 seconds!!

and that’s what you missed on glee!

TL;DR:

hopeless romantic who will never admit that he unironically likes all forms of cats.

CONNECTION IDEAS:

** (open to any gender unless otherwise specified)

his wife (f): WILL BE BEING SENT INTO THE MAIN.

people he tried to love: as was previously mentioned, when he entered undergrad, he desperately tried to find people he could love just as much as he figured he’d loved chastity. only real requirement would be that they would’ve both gone to the local university at the same time!!

opposites attract: he’s meek, easy to unnerve… give me this. give me 13 going on 30’s main friendship.

neighbor: pretty self-explanatory!! they live in the suburbs next door to he and his wife… both of whom are disgustingly domestic!!

couple friends: pls this idea just makes me laugh. we love the failed version of this connection where… it’s their last resort… they’re desperate… everyone else is trying to induct them into having a foursome… they just want a wholesome friendship… this is the closest they’re getting!!

students: let’s hear it for all the younger characters out there!!

more to come!!

FURTHER:

for a bit of a better idea:

pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/idkimnewwastaken/lionel-not-richie/

playlist (the final song is a lil treat): https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7vYatuuQmEWxcKvs2CBjCa?si=_XQCKYGsRz2jujfMT7V1BQ

musing tag: https://optimiist.tumblr.com/tagged/lionel-%7C-musings.

mini stats (to be later extended): optimiist.tumblr.com/ls (the font is strangely huge rn but… don’t feel like fixing it at this moment in time :\ )

#lionel !#lionel | intro.#taun.intro #UPDATE: i forgot!! that tumblr makes the read more happen on the dash now so the font is!! now small!!#hopefully did not strikethru anything bc that wld be a tragedy to lose.#THERE. ARE TABBED BULLETS. AND THEY ARENT SHOWING UP AS TABBED.#IF SOMETHING SEEMS LIKE IT'S RELATED BUT ONLY SORT OF. IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE TABBED. BC I THINK IM FUNNY.

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