#c: scheherazade

[kohaive]

art summary 2022! I think I got a lot better on colors definitely. but also you can see exactly where my character bias lies

[kcwells94]

A dream turned reality.

[jules-writes-stories]

The Night Court Lounge | Tribeca NYC | Azriel x Eris

Chapter 6 on AO3

Eris couldn’t hold it back anymore. He laughed. The cat purred. Azriel’s dark brows shot up. 

“Are you jealous of the cat, Azriel? Or mad that he likes me? Tell me what's going on in that head.” He bit his lip to not laugh again. 

The dark-haired man’s nostrils flared as he stretched his legs out. “He’s a traitor, is all. I can’t believe he likes you so much. He only likes three people other than me: Nesta, the weird soup lady, and now you.” 

Eris sighed and looked down. He should probably go soon. But he did not want to. He’d spent this whole time asking Azriel what he wanted. But now, as he sat there, he considered: what did he want? 

He stroked behind Cobalt’s dark gray fur. Eris wanted to stay. 

Without thought, he passed a hand along the other man’s tattooed forearm. “You keep asking me what I want. What do you want, Azriel?” 

A small smile. “I want to be happy. Maybe one day…” He trailed off even as his eyes glittered with the spark of mischief that Eris had come to need. “But I think I will be Scheherazad and not give away all my secrets in one night.”

Eris threw his head back and laughed. This man never ceased to surprise him. “So, am I the homicidal sultan in this analogy?” 

A perfect raven brow arched. “You certainly have the wealth of one, don’t you?” He studied Eris. “I wonder if you’ve ever been told no?”

Eris rolled his eyes. “Of course. I’m told no every day. What do you think business is?” 

“But where it matters?” Azriel pressed. 

Eris sighed and stared at him. “What if I told you that I have wanted to kiss you from the moment I saw you in that stupid fucking cage?” Hazel eyes darted to his lips, and it took every shred of self-control he had to not grab the man by his beautiful face and taste his mouth. 

A pink glow spread over Azriel’s cheeks, and he huffed a laugh at the cat, who, at that very moment, chose to purr with an intensity that would have soup lady banging on their door. 

“Why haven't you, then?” Azriel asked, even as he yawned and leaned back into the couch. 

Eris leaned back into him. Why? He turned and they were so close. “Because I don’t always get what I want.”

Please let me know if you ever want on/off the tag | @the-darkestminds @fieldofdaisiies @mistandmemories @secret-third-thing @chunkypossum @talibunny30 @amalhe-kofee @shadowsandlint @queercontrarian @molcat07 @c-starstuff-man0 @lovely-vanserra-sunshine @hieragalbatorixdottir @brunetterebel010 @pippsmcgee @theartofmischief @born-to-riot

[thegildedbee]

If you've been on stand by until it's complete, it's now time to go :-) Scheherazade of the Thrift Shop

@blogstandbygo has finished posting a fth 2024 charmer, a lovingly crafted alternate first meeting fic, Sheherazade of the Thrift Shop, in which bits and pieces of John and Sherlock slot together over time, like puzzle pieces, through the art of storytelling (both of the characters, and of the author!) You never know what treasures are waiting for you behind the door of your local thrift shop 😉❤️ 🥳 I think this calls for a little celebratory music, yes? (c/o Dan Zanes)

@calaisreno  @totallysilvergirl  @friday411  @peanitbear  @original-welovethebeekeeper

@helloliriels  @a-victorian-girl  @keirgreeneyes  @starrla89  @naefelldaurk

@topsyturvy-turtely  @lisbeth-kk  @raina-at  @jobooksncoffee  @meetinginsamarra

@solarmama-plantsareneat  @bluebellofbakerstreet  @dragonnan  @safedistancefrombeingsmart  @jolieblack

@msladysmith  @ninasnakie  @riversong912  @dapetty

[subzeroparade]

What's a ballet with real snazzy costume work, in your humble and/or professional opinion? c:

Oh, you’ve activated my trap card - asking about costume design and ballet and not expecting me to barf up the entirety of my PhD. I’ve also done work on the ballet blancs costumes (Giselle and La Sylphide specifically) but they are interesting on a theoretical level and not so much visually, so I’ll skip that.

So here are some personal favs of mine - the highlights, if you will. Caveat: long post, and mostly limited to the work of the Ballets Russes, because they are my longtime obsession and I think (and have argued) for their role in fundamentally changing stage and costume design (to say nothing of dance, and George Balanchine can sit the fuck down). I didn’t put that in my thesis but I wanted to.

Anyway tldr in the first decade of the 20th century a troupe of dancers from the Russian Imperial Ballet (later the Mariinsky) travelled through Europe under impresario Serge Diaghilev, for what became known as the Saisons Russes, or Russian Seasons. They performed both opera and ballet, and are probably best remembered today (if at all) as the troupe that danced the premier of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and caused a riot at the Theatre des Champs Elysées. The eminent artists that worked with them include Debussy, Cocteau, Picasso, Chanel - and these are only a few recognisable names. But my focus was primarily on the Russian roots of the ballet, in their visual language and presentation of gender and nationality, more precisely around the work of artist Leon Bakst and dancer Vaslav Nijinsky. 

Second image of Nijinsky from Le Dieu Bleu, and Bakst’s set design from Scheherazade (1911). These are mainly photos and scans I have from the year I spent in the archives of the Palais Garnier (the Paris Opera) where all the good stuff is.

The crux of why these costumes are insanely interesting to me is because they are very specific to their time - they are a product of a resurgence in nationalist interests in Russian art (Diaghilev ran Mir Isskustva and worked with Savva Mamontov before he organised the BR) as well as a carefully crafted, highly artificial presentation of Otherness, expressly destined for export to the west. French audiences in the first decade of the 20th century (because there is a stark cut-off at the beginning of WW1) still had an appetite for Orientalism, despite their flagging colonial power. What the Russians brought them was compelling mix of performative Orientalism just vague enough to be appealing and fantastical, visually intriguing, and refreshing to a society that had otherwise come to recognise itself as decadent, fallen “victim” to modernity. In the athletic virtuosity of Russian bodies, Bakst’s exotic visual language and the soaring music of Rimsky-Korsakov and Stravinsky, the French devoured what they deemed a sort of noble savagery (yes, that kind). Despite the oversaturation of Orientalism in painting throughout the 19th century, the French identified a kind of masculine vigour and freedom in these live performances they found they themselves lacked, and longed for. Primitivism, as demonstrated in myriad ways by the BR, was for them a way to reconnect with a virility that they felt modernity had stolen, or at the very least, weakened. If you think this sounds eerily akin to the discourse around mounting desire for war to “cleanse” or “reset” Europe during that same period, you are right. 

A few of Bakst’s lesser known designs from the archive, for context (including a reprod by Barbier which I don’t have the OG of but is saved in my Bakst folder so please take my word for it). I have a thousand more of these but tumblr has an image limit per post 😤

Tamara Karsavina, who often performed with Nijinsky, and one of my most beloved historical figures. The existence of a strong classical ballet cirruculumin the UK today is in part thanks to her. 

One of her most famous roles, as the Firebird:

Nijinsky is by far the most interesting figure to come out of the BR. He combined virtuosity and strength (that most audiences identified as masculine) with a glittering, joyful, and expressive queerness on stage (and off). Some of his greatest roles are expressly feminine in their costume design: Le Spectre de La Rose, for example.

There’s a colorised version of this out there where you can see every pink rose petal on him.

While others are much more decorative but still markedly Orientalist (or Russian-Orientalist): Le Dieu Bleu, La Peri, Les Orientales, L’Oiseaux de Feu. 

This last image above is not, the last I saw it, in a private collection. It hangs above the vestibule of the Palais Garnier archives (also Napoleon’s private hangout room) where it faces the sort of “diptych” version that features Karsavina, and on occasion I would stand below them and weep quietly).

Either way, there is an argument to be made about Nijinsky’s physicality and, more importantly nationality as a kind of avenue of permission through which the French could admire both his beauty and athleticism and even, to a degree, imagine themselves in his place while still maintaining that safe distance of Otherness.  

But I would argue that his greatest role was the Golden Slave in Scheherazade, a wild, erotic orientalist fantasy that has little to nothing to do with the actual tale of Scheherazade. In it, Nijinsky - bejewelled, wild, ecstatic, (and yeah often in blackface) - cavorts with Zobeide, the Sultan’s favourite, in a very sexually explicit storyline. Both characters are equally decorative in their costumes, and both, in real life, were recognisably queer(ed) figures. It’s Scheherazade in particular that helped accelerate an obsessive trend in fashion (Paul Poiret was at the centre) for Orientalist design. Bakst himself did some silhouettes that are hard to distinguish from his costume design, and through the remarkable illustrations by Paul Iribe, Georges Lepape and Georges Barbier, we can see some of the blatant repetition of motif and silhouette in these ensembles that are designed, among other things, to be worn to the theatre. 

3rd and 5th are depictions of costumes of the Firebird and Zobeide respectively; the rest are fashion plates. This doesn’t even include the lampshade dress - which I don’t have a handy picture of, but have seen in real life - that is a pretty blatant melange of the Firebird and Zobeide, as designed by Poiret. Below is one of my favourite examples: A woman in a lampshade-style dress, standing against a backdrop not unlike Bakst’s set design above, attended by a archetypal oriental servant wearing Nijinsky’s Golden Slave costume.

These motifs also proliferated in advertisements and in all kinds of other consumer products (perfumes, for example, and decorative objects). Thus, there’s a performative aim in wearing these designs that I read as a sort of pseudo-kinetic empathy (and can funnnily enough probably be compared to cosplay). There is an attempt here to channel what is being presented onstage, to reenact it, to physically embody it, in the way that fashion is, at its core, a tool through which to construct identity. That the French pulled inspiration from an openly queer man leaping across the stage dripping in jewels, and from femme fatal-style odalisques, says a lot about the visual and cultural impact the BR had on the theatre-going public at the time.

You can see in these fan designs by Paquin some pretty obvious references to the BR aesthetic: L’apres-midi d’un faune, Daphnis et Chloe, Scheherazade, even a little Le Pavillon d’Armide in that first one. 

Nijinsky was not the only one to queer the stage: despite not being a dancer trained to the level of the BR troupe, Ida Rubinstein, no doubt purposefully channelling Sarah Bernhardt, was also a beloved stage presence, whether as the sly harem favourite Zobeide or as the strikingly androgynous St Sebastian, gayest of saints. 

This is not to say there haven’t been wonderful and brilliant costume designs since - and quite a few known fashion designers working alongside dance companies, to great success or otherwise. I will, however, shoutout my favourite contemporary work: Akram Khan’s Giselle, which has everything and yet nothing to do with Adolph Adam’s 1842 piece. I don’t even want to post pictures because the costumes of the nobles (the landowners, in this very apocalyptically late-stage capitalist version) are so fucking breathtaking in relation to the overall design, and their entrance itself is probably one of the most spectacular parts of the ballet, that all I can say is just see it. Or buy the dvd. What Khan does gesturally is beyond words, what Vincenzo Lamagna does with Adam’s original score is visceral and haunting and churns my insides. I make a point to see it live at least once a season when it’s touring with the ENB, and I will do so until it leaves the repertory or until I die. It’s my contemporary Scheherazade. It’s a gesamtkunstwerk. 

Tldr Leon Bakst is one of the greatest costume designers of the 19th and 20th century and criminally underrated. 

It’s not ballet, and it’s not the sumptuous costumes from Boris Godunov, but as a bonus here’s my favourite image of opera star Fedor Chaliapine as Ivan the Terrible.

[desceros]

hi sam!! kind of a different request, but would you list as many of your favorite orchestral pieces as you can? association with turtles v welcome but also optional! i have trouble doing my coursework because i can't listen to anything in the background while doing it (shows, music with lyrics), but i listened to scheherazade because of you and really loved it, plus got some work done to boot!! i'm not sure where to start in looking for more music like that so i thought i'd ask you. :)

oohhhh what a FUN ask, thank you so much!! i promise i am going to TRY to be REASONABLE with how much i talk about this. if i really did mention "as many as i could" i think i'd find out if tumblr has a character limit in text posts, hahaha!

so my favorite symphony of ALL TIME is symphony 9 by dvorak. absolute must-listen. my favorite moment of the entire piece (which you HAVE to listen to the entire thing to get REALLY feral about) is the last huge chord progression in the fourth movement that takes the db major brass chords from the second movement and puts it to the BOMBASTIC TYMPANI EB MINOR EXTRAVAGANZA from the first movement and makes me want to CHEW THROUGH BEDROCK, RAHHH

aside from that, here are a few that i love a lot and totes recommend:

all of scheherezade is, of course, absolutely stunning. it's one of my favorite pieces of all time. if you haven't listened to the other movements, i highly recommend! in this same vein is you liked that are pieces like the stepps by borodin, the polovstian dances (also borodin), marche slav by tchaikovsky, and to some extent saint-saens piano concerto no. 5 has some similar themes, particularly in the absolutely DELICIOUS second movement. it's called "orientalism" and while the, uh, intent has a history of. to say generously. problematic undertones. the pieces themselves are lovely.

russian easter overture by rimsky korsakov. i played this one in high school and man. it's just so FUN and PRETTY.

symphonie fantastique by hector berlioz. it's the story of this dude having a really bad acid trip. no i'm not kidding. also the fifth movement has the dies irie in my favorite iteration ever. eat your heart out, mozart.

...actually just literally anything by tchaikovsky. gun to my head, i'd say he's my favorite classical composer. i'm partial to his ballet work because that's what i played a lot of personally, but his overtures and concertos are quite fun. his romeo and juliet overture is extremely famous (though i personally vastly prefer the opening part over the latter, more famous part). every violinist you ever meet will be traumatized by him, though. so do be careful.

speaking of concertos: my favorite (ugh. i'm a traitor) is probably the barber violin concerto. it just has this. cinematic vibe to it that makes me think of something magical.

(....though the elgar cello concerto and the grieg piano concerto may have something to say about this.)

the planets suite by holst is very fun. you've probably heard mars, and you may recall the romance theme from jupiter if you've seen the movie braveheart. it's one of those mainstream pieces most people have heard. my particular favorite movement is uranus. it's so bouncy and fun!!! classical headbanger music here

beethoven is quite fun to listen to. for his orchestral work, i'm partial to symphony no. 5 since that was the first one i played and the drama of it is enthralling. (yes. i think it's better than nine. sue me.). that said, between you and me, i like the egmont overture better than his symphonies. that low open c on the viola is just so god damned juicy—[door bangs open] OH NO. IT'S THE PRETENTIOUS POLICE. THEY FOUND ME

i'll stop there. these are a few symphonic pieces, since you asked for those specifically. i also really love chamber music (which is just the strings section, sans the woodwinds/brass/percussion/etc), but i find those amazing to listen to as well! anywho i hope you enjoy some slash all of these and good luck with your studies!!

[yuri-is-online]

Hey do you think if I used baneful magic to give silver insomnia, that it would just cancel out the curse?

Witch yuu: ok I made you some coffe- Don't touch that!

Silver: oh sorry...but why not?

Yuu: it has mold on it

Silver:....Yuu. why do you have moldy lavender on your desk?

Yuu: uh. Don't worry about it?

Silver: it's a little late for that

Yuu: I'm gonna burn it later anyways

Silver: just throw it out?!

Ruggie, stealing shit from yuus herb garden: you'll get used to it. Better not to ask questions though lol

But if we fast forward, then will the insomnia jinx actually give silver insomnia, or will he just sleep like a normal person for once?

Also I got a new tarot deck! My favorite card in it is the high priestess because it has Scheherazade on it 😋 9 of wands coming in at a close second because that card has baba yaga

Oh that sounds like a lovely tarot deck! I remember reading the penguin books translation of 1001 Arabian Nights when I was a kid and I really loved Scheherazade. Shame fate never made a version of her c: that would have been cool cc: you know if they had done it CCC: And anything with baba yaga is automatically cool.

Anyway, no I do not think any spell Yuu could cast on Silver would do anything to his curse. Silver specifically says that his curse negates any effort to keep him awake, so I don't think the jynx would work normally either.

Briar Valley's culture surrounding gifts, and Idia's description of how the only difference between a curse and a blessing is the intention of the caster sort of reminds me of a Geas. Or well I say that but I suppose after looking more closely at wikipedia I mean a Tynged... I have an English folklore dictionary in my room somewhere but I do not want to look for it at the moment. Anyway both of those concepts impose a very specific destiny or order on a person that they cannot deny or else something bad happens. I thought of that specifically because of the example listed on wikipedia actually.

Anyway you can't exactly get rid of a geas or a tynged as far as I know, but curses in fairy tales more or less function the exact same way. A certain condition needs to be met to break it, and until those conditions are met nothing else matters. Geasa specifically can grant powers so long as their conditions aren't violated, and in Silver's case he cannot be awakened by artificial means. I think he would be very grateful to Yuu for trying though, he says in his labwear vingette that he is willing to try anything since his curse bothers him a great deal.

[nasuverse-most-breedable-tourney]

Side C, Round 1 (Match 2)

[lookinghalfacorpse]

7/8, 15, and 17 for the ask game if those haven’t already been submitted!

7. Which character do you think is most similar to c!dream?

the obvious answer, and the answer that cc!dream gave, is c!technoblade. their ideals align, they both have themes of de-humanization and being hunted by their enemies. i haven't seen anyone say anything besides c!techno, and that's because it's just The Right Answer.

for the sake of adding something to the discussion, i'll argue that c!philza is more similar to c!dream than most other characters. unique connection to death without experiencing "real" death, undying loyalty to allies, willing to go great distances just to prove a point, very protective, and ultimately just want some peace & quiet. if c!dream got what he wanted/needed and could live a few more years, he'd become c!philza.

also, all of prisontrio have more in common than they'd like to admit.

8. Which character do you think is most different to c!dream?

...it's tempting to also answer c!philza here, just to point out how c!dream never got the chance to become c!philza, but i don't think it's accurate. maybe a better answer would be c!sam, because they differ in Just the right places for it to be a disaster.

15. answered here!

17. what are some of your favorite c!dream fics?

i read @theminecraftbox religiously! my faves are where lies the strangling fruit and shell game. y'all also better get caught up on eldritch confessions since it looks like we're getting towards the end.

i've also reread scheherazade by our very own @swordfright many times, those who remain by @somanywips, and of the world & the way it makes you feel afraid (it's short but poignant). there are many more i've liked & can't think of right now; my 'fic recs' tag is probably a good place to go if you want to find some more.

[crestfallercanyon]

20 Questions for Fic Writers! Thank you so much for the tag, @incorrectcoldflashblog !! I'm excited to jump in (and have definitely answered too long windedly, haha, whoops)

How many works do you have on AO3? sixty-six!

What’s your total A03 word count? I was going to guess like over 100,000, which I guess I was technically correct because it’s 717,161!

What fandoms do you write for? A bunch! On this profile I’ve written for The Flash/Legends of Tomorrow, The Maze Runner, Bandersnatch (Black Mirror), Teen Wolf, Inception, and recently have gotten very into Shameless!

What are your top five fics by kudos? All coldflash (pretty sure it’s the most active fandom I’ve ever written for at a more active time, so, makes sense): a) Lullabies for Little Criminals (719 kudos) b) distract me from my last disaster (600) c) Something Out of Nothing (557) d) getting back to fine (512) e) Didn’t Change a Thing (424)

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? I try to, and for the longest time I kept up with it. Then I got overwhelmed with a bunch of stuff around late 2021 and into 2022 and stopped. Now i’ve started again, but there’s still a huge backlog that I haven’t gotten to. Please know that I appreciate you if you’ve commented!

What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? I’ve written so many angsty fics, I don’t think I could name a single one, so here are my major fandoms (5+ fics) breakdown: a) This Time of Doubt (The Flash, coldflash) Len knows there’s something wrong with this timeline, and if he has to go through Barry to prove it, he will. (TW: Implied/Referenced Character Death) b) Red Lights, They Blink Your Name (The Maze Runner, minally) Gally’s going to follow that signal, even if it leads him into the dark. c) it’d be better if you flayed me alive (Shameless (US), gallavich) Mickey can't believe he agreed to let Ian shave his face before his fuckin' court hearing.

What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? a) Conflicts of Interest (The Maze Runner, thomally) My maze runner criminal law lawyers slow burn au. b) What’s Mine is Yours (The Flash, coldflash) Barry and Len move in together. c) Nocturne, Murmures Milkovich Turns out, Ian still has things to learn about his husband.

Do you get hate on your fic? Only once, and I actually deleted that fic in its entirety. It was the first longfic coldflash I ever posted, and it rattled me pretty good. It was quite nasty. Since then, never again! (and I wouldn’t delete it this time around, I don’t think, but it was a multi chap and I was so stunned by the comment I just never wanted to continue writing it, so).

Do you write smut? I have tried, but I'm not the most confident in it. I’ve got Scheherazade in coldflash fandom, and then two thomally fics: Corpus Delecti (which is a fic you won’t see unless you’re logged in) and then he goes down easy for me.

Do you write crossovers? I do not.

Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not to my knowledge.

Have you ever had a fic translated? Not to my knowledge.

Have you ever co-written a fic? Not yet!

What‘s your all-time favourite ship? I genuinely don’t know how to answer this question. I don’t really have one. To be perfectly honest, if someone writes it in a way that’s compelling, I’ll probably enjoy it.

What’s the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Probably Stranger Than Your Sympathy. I’m sorry, I want to, but there’s just some foundational things that I would change (mainly Newt’s characterization, I actually prefer how I characterize him now)

What’s your writing strengths? I like to think I'm good with characterization and like... individual internal narration. The whole reason I write fanfiction is because I love exploring characters' heads and their dynamics and their world (or how they interact with aus). So, I like to think that what I write is true to character and makes impactful scenes.

What’s your writing weaknesses? I get easily inspired, so I have left some fics behind (I am so sorry Aphelion and Shiva, I will come back for youuuuu); and then I have worked hard on it, but I occasionally get very long winded and have a hard time killing darlings for the sake of pacing.

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? I’d love to be able to write in multiple languages, but I’m only fluent in English. At most, I could maybe write in Spanish, but I still would be worried about it being accurate.

First fandom you wrote for? Um, before I really knew what fandom was or anything like that, I wrote Naruto fanfic The first fandom I wrote for knowingly and participated in was Fire Emblem Three Houses.

Favourite fic you’ve ever written? Ufda, this is such a hard question. I’m again going to break it down into fandoms — a) Something Out of Nothing (The Flash, coldflash) b) Thou Shalt Not (The Maze Runner, thomally)(tbh this one changes all the time, ask me tomorrow it will probably be something different). c) I think it is all these things I have left to say to you Now it's my turn to tag! I'm very excited to do so, so here we go (and of course, no pressure!)! @blue-summers , @its-tea-time-darling , @itsthemxze , @sampharos , @callivich , @michellemisfit , @pathsofoak , @mmmichyyy , @go-catch-a-chickn , @sophiainspace , @sproutwings , @iasconsumesmedia

ALSO if anyone else would like to do this, go ahead!

[sang8262]

so im working on a pretentious, i mean, JP themed playlist, and i really wanted to throw in a composer with the same initials as a joke

which is why Johann Pachelbel and Jean-Philippe Rameau have infiltrated this playlist despite having no other relevance to his character;;;

speaking of, here's what i got so far:

J. Pachelbel - any fugue, just... anything that isn't Canon in D

J.P. Rameau - Les Indes galantes, Forêts paisibles (but this rock cover specifically)

Sergei Prokofiev - Romeo and Juliet, No. 14 Dance of the Knights (stolen from another JP playlist you know who you are lmao. it gets bonus points for being from a ballet)

Sergei Rachmaninoff - Piano Concerto No.2 in C minor, Op. 18 (there's a reason it's popular!! and i like the strings in it!!)

Dmitri Shostakovich - Waltz No.2 (another popular one. it's a pretty tepid choice i admit)

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov - Scheherazade, Op.35 (this one's pretty well known too. apparently there's optional yelling in the 4th movement?? gets bonus points for being a ballet)

Aram Khachaturian - Masquerade Suite (another popular one, especially the Waltz, which fits him rather well. though i also like Nocturne and Mazurka. apparently there's a ballet of this so that's bonus ballet points)

Khachaturian - Gayane, Sabre Dance (I'M KIDDING. but a JP hater would have chosen this)

Khachaturian - Gayane, Dance of the Comrades (since i do not hate him, i'm replacing the previous with this from the same ballet. and ofc, bonus ballet points)

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - The Nutcracker, Arrival of Drosselmeyer (there was a whole thing on Twitter about how JP's smile resembles a nutcracker, so this was obvious. Uncle Drosselmeyer as a character is rather JP-esque as well, at least, when he's pretending to be nice)

Alexander Mosolov - Iron Foundry (referenced in JP's win quote to Zangief: "Seeing you, I can't help but recall Mosolov's Iron Foundry, tovarisch.")

Mosolov - Two Nocturnes, Op. 15 (it's really unsettling! and reminded me of JP's introduction scene in World Tour, with the horror elements)

Igor Stravinsky - The Firebird, The Infernal Dance of King Kastchei (bonus ballet points, and for sharing names with his j.HK) (honorable mention to Petrushka, another ballet, but it isn't exactly 'JP'. but i like Danse Russe so, i'm mentioning it lmao)

Alexander Scriabin!!! - everything!!! (recently discovered for me and im in love. there's a whole collection made by Dmitri Alexeev of all his works, and i can totally see JP doing paper work with it playing in the background)

this list is already too long, but here are some extra notes: Rimsky-Korsokov was part of 'The Mighty Five', also including Modest Mussorgsky, Mily Balakirev, Cesar Cui, and Alexander Borodin. This was a historically and musically significant group, which is why I wanted to at least name drop them. Actually, it was looking into Mosolov that sent me down the rabbit hole regarding similar Soviet-era composers. Obviously there's a lot going on here with the... artistic (and political) censorship at the time. Or, all of interesting stuff going on with composers finding influences from traditional folklore/ dances. Or alternatively, responding to and processing contemporary events through music, as a form of subtle protest...

But I've only glossed over these topics so I'm going to refrain from going too deep on it;;

As for connecting all this to JP, gosh idk, these comic pages from Vol. 3 and 4 seem relevant. I'll let these stew as a final thought:

[kohaive]

i love . Them

[theminecraftbox]

Heyoooo, do you have good c!awesomedream fics? Like, I'm tryna find those from that au you talked about, and idk where to finddd

If you mean coparent au, check out @cgogs’ awesome wip Scream Eureka.

Other life-changing c!awesamdream fics: the trees deny themselves nothing by @lookinghalfacorpse and Scheherazade by @swordfright

[sergeifyodorov]

I just reread strange trails and I'd love to know your inspirations for it! Your ideas behind the worldbuilding, the genesis of the plot, all that good stuff if you'd like to share!

the backstory

im a college student and was unemployed all summer. in order to pass the time while waiting for local jobs to reject me i started a crochet project. throughout pretty much the entire month of june. and possibly also may. i would make my squares and listen to the strange trails album. straight through. every day. i may have gone a little bit insane.

but it's okay. i'm already insane.

lord huron (the band who made the album) has like. lore. am i familiar with this lore? no i am not. am i aware nonetheless that there is lore? yes absolutely. if you listen to their discography there's definitely lore -- recurring themes (resurrection, adventuring, magical seductive women, etc), motifs (depends on the album but strange trails is big on flowers, trees, snow, although there is one song that's set in the desert), characters (they keep mentioning a guy called the world ender.) anyHway the point of all of this is that the music is [solid 7.5 out of 10 but it scratches my exact brain itches] and very evocative of the imagery and idea of a deeper world. my favourite off the album (and one of my favourites in the discography) is la belle fleur sauvage, which tells the listener about a long perilous quest for some mythical thing (a flower. also a woman. metaphor), although one of the ones whose imagery i enjoyed the most is frozen pines, which is a little less concrete but invokes images of cold, the side of a mountain, strange happenings, etc.

the idea

those songs are definitely the most direct inspiration for it but unfortunately my process for developing ideas is kind of terrible because it involves less "sitting down and coming up with stuff" and more "wait for a 60% formed idea to smack you upside the head like rapunzel in tangled and her cast-iron frying pan." which quinn and his sad little corpse did.

if you go back far enough in the quinnfic tag on my blog u can see the post right after it Happened. the idea was literally "quinn hughes carries a corpse up a mountain, and horror."

so i take this little piece of grit from which my pearl of questionable moral integrity will be built and i ask it questions. first off: quinn, why are you on that mountain? who is the corpse? is anyone else with you? soon enough petey decided to join him (although quinn is and was always the protagonist/pov character). the body was The Ghost Of Vancouver before it was brock over top of that.

another inspiration, which i realize i'm leaving out, is this

this is artist grayson perry's work "hold your beliefs lightly" from tomb of the unknown craftsman, and this image of a long perilous upward journey towards some sacred place really combined together with la belle fleur sauvage to form the base idea of the world for the work.

and of course why would you carry a corpse up a mountain to some sacred place if you couldn't resurrect it at the end?

quinn

im big on metaphor. if i'm writing something long it has to have a Point to it, some larger theme than romance and stuff (this is mostly because i'm bad at writing romance)(and also big on curses and the like.) and also because quinn hughes asexual barb i never fucked/i never fucked/all my life man, fucks sake. this was also being written right before the peak of Canucks Captaincy Debate, and in our hearts didn't we all know quinn was going to be the one to wear the c?

so it became pretty clear pretty quick that as well as my attempt at writing horror that this was going to be a quinn character study -- and this is where i should talk about my other fic scheherazade.

in scheherazade, auston actually doesn't make a lot of choices -- he tags along, arguing with the narrator/bill, and only starts to take an active role in the way the story is going near the end, when he finally gets sick of it all. quinn, however, is not at all the same kind of person as auston. he's less artistic and more practical; an older brother instead of a younger one; jewish; not nearly so squeamish. he takes an active role in the story from the very beginning, showing up to the base of the mountain with his pack full, both prepared and not for what lies ahead.

the mountain

vancouver is smack in the middle of the north shore mountains, so there's a million hiking trails about, but the one i can most easily think of (as someone who hasn't been to vancouver in several years) is the grouse grind trail, a popular and fairly short trail that the canucks prospects actually do every year, so i knew quinn and petey (both vancouver draftees) would be familiar. i've never actually done the grouse grind, which was part of the reason i decided to kind of. toy with reality. you can't call me out on inaccuracy when it's Not Real On Purpose (although the sign at the 1/4 mark is copied directly from photos i've seen.)

petey and the plot

once i added petey, i knew i'd have to get rid of him -- a lot of the scene ideas were quinn-only, and petey's way too sarcastic and useless (AFFECTIONATE) to engage seriously with the ideas presented to him like quinn would and did. so i needed to divide them up.

the original plot idea from the outline is actually pretty similar up until the end of chapter 6 (the conversation w the ghost), but it differs in a few crucial ways -- one, quinn breaks down again, crying and everything, and two, he actually does go through with the resurrection instead of using his wish to get petey down the mountain safely. i realized around then that this wouldn't work with the quinn i'd created, especially after his argument with the ghost: he's far less focused on glory than stability, less interested in the cup or his contract and more interested in the safe long bet than high rolling. in a cold, wet environment like the mountain it's a lot easier to get hypothermia without noticing than it is in a dry environment, even if the dry environment is several degrees colder than the wet one. and quinn would know that, having seen petey's thin little sweater and knowing his stubborn ass is going to freeze.

so after that it became about hypothermia. i actually had a bit of a writing pause after this because i knew i was going off-outline, so i had to kind of inch ahead until i knew where i was going. but i'm happy with how it turned out!

[captainsspnanon]

So I did a tier rank list for Leverage before I do my full rewatch, with episodes based off of memory (some I even had to look up what they were!). I wonder how controversial these opinions are, if at all.

S = Absolute Favorite

A = Love them!

B = Enjoy Them!

C = Average episode but still like them

D = Meh/Boring/Dislike

....I also wonder if that's even legible! Just in case, I'll do a read more with the breakdown typed out. (and FYI, in C tier, they're all fairly interchangeable. Other tiers feel about right. Also two part finale episodes are always combined together as one.) (and yes, I'm aware that I have a bias for earlier seasons, partially because I have rewatched them more frequently just from starting from E1 then going on, and partially because I genuinely think that they are better.)

Link for anyone who would want to do this:

S Tier:

The Bank Shot Job #107

The Future Job #213

The Bottle Job #211

The Snow Job #104

The Ice Man Job #208

The Rashomon Job #311

The Van Gogh Job #404

The Long Goodbye Job #515

A Tier:

The Inside Job #303

The Gone Fishin' Job #307

The Grave Danger Job #407

The Tap-Out Job #202

The Long Way Down Job #401

The Home Coming Job #102

The Nigerian Job #101

The 12 Step Job #111

The Experimental Job #411

The First David Job/The Second David Job #112/113

The Mile High Job #105

The King George Job #312

The Jailhouse Job #301

The Stork Job #109

The 3-Card Monte Job #309

B Tier:

The Boost Job #308

The Cross My Heart Job #409

The Reunion Job #302

The Three Days of the Hunter Job #205

The Two-Horse Job #106

The Broken Wing Job #508

The Queen's Gambit Job #410

The Big Bang Job/The San Lorenzo Job #315/316

The Frame Up Job #509

The Rundown Job #510

The Runway Job #210

The Girls' Night Out Job #413

The 15 Minutes Job #403

C Tier:

The Lost Heir Job #209

The Zanzibar Marketplace job #212

The 10 Li'l Grifters Job #402

The Boys' Night Job #414

The Top Hat Job #206

The Two Live Crew Job #207

The Gold Job #416

The Last Dam Job #418

The Fairy Godparents Job #204

The Juror #6 Job #110

The Hot Potato Job #405

The Beantown Bailout Job #201

The French Connection Job #504

The Double-Blind Job #305

The Order 24 Job #203

The Morning After Job #313

The First Contact Job #503

The Blue Line Job #502

The Carnival Job #406

The Maltese Falcon Job/The Three Strikes Job #215/214

The Underground Job #310

The Radio Job #417

The Miracle Job #108

The Real Fake Car Job #507

The Corkscrew Job #513

The Boiler Room Job #408

D Tier:

The Lonely Hearts Job #415

The DB Cooper Job #506

The Studio Job #306

The Toy Job #514

The Ho Ho Ho Job #314

The Low Low Price Job #511

The Office Job #412

The Very Big Bird Job #501

The Give Me A K Street Job #505

The Scheherazade Job #304

The Wedding Job #103

The White Rabbit Job #512

[imall4frogs]

The last book I read was:

Rendezvous With Rama by Arthur C. Clarke

Approximately one hundred years from now the satellites tasked with guarding the Earth from dangerous asteroids detect an odd extrasolar object. We name the object Rama. On closer inspection Rama is revealed to be a perfect cylinder—a made object from another star!

I’m currently reading:

Chimera by John Barth

This read was supposed to be “serious” literature, so you can imagine my surprise when I found myself reading a cartoonishly ribald tale about Scheherazade as told by her sister, Dunyazad. Wild!