#listened to the men's voices... which is my favourite thing to do when it comes to otoge

[stargazedwinchester]

Soft Sounds | Dean

Summary: Dean mocks you for listening to nature sounds/lo-fi music while you sleep.

Based off of this request here, thank you! <3

Word count: 996

♱⁺. ⋆˙✧⋆✧˙⋆⊹.♱

Sleeping with any sort of noise has always been so comforting for you, having to live with the loud sounds of the world, all of the trauma you've endeavoured keeps you awake at night, memories creeping back from the most horrific times in your life.

You bought yourself your own little white noise machine a week ago, it makes multiple different sounds, and your favourites are lo-fi music and rain/thunder sounds. It's not every night that you have to use this, though, but it really does help. Especially with sleeping alone, your brain loves to play tricks on you during your quietest hours.

Tonight, you turn on your machine, clicking the button on top to change which sound you'd prefer to hear tonight. Your door is slightly ajar, knowing that the brothers were in the kitchen sharing a couple of beers and catching up. You had already told them you're going to have an early night for once and try to catch up on a lot of sleep you've missed out on recently. Doing this could probably help your awful sleep schedule.

You change into your pyjamas, a t-shirt and shorts combo that you threw on from the night before. Trying to look good while you slept is never the first thought since you literally live with two men who couldn't give any less of a crap, also, you're not dating either of them. You climb into bed and throw the covers over you, moving your hair out of your face, and lay on your side. Scrolling through your phone, you try to focus on the sounds coming from your machine, and within minutes, you're knocked out.

♱⁺. ⋆˙✧⋆✧˙⋆⊹.♱

As Sam and Dean call it a night, Sam stays to watch a movie in the main room, whilst Dean makes his way down toward the bedrooms. He notices your bedroom door is still slightly open, and he assumes you're awake.

"Hey, Y/-" He pauses, seeing you're fast out with your phone screen lit up, the lights still on and some noise coming from a weird-looking radio. He frowns, not knowing what is going on. He very quietly makes his way into your bedroom, and locks your phone, placing it on your bedside table. He dims the lights as he pads on over to your radio. "What the Hell is this?" He asks himself, keeping his voice just above a whisper. He glances at the tiny screen that presents what's playing. "She sleeps to this?" He scoffs, and a small grin appears on his face. He looks back at you, huffing. "This is such a Y/N thing to have." He says, standing back up and glancing over at you. Why would she ever own something like this? He thought to himself. It's stupid.

Your positioning in bed makes Dean chuckle to himself. You quite literally take up the whole bed, sprawled out like a starfish. It's mostly funny to him because of how cute you look when you're completely conked out. Your hair in your face, your shirt slightly riding up your torso from the amount of times you've tried to get comfy. "Hold on, is that my shirt?" He laughs quietly, admiring how natural you are.

Dean usually goes for the typical blonde, blue-eyed type of girl. The ones that show that they know they're sexy, that they can get any man they desire, but you - you were different. You never gave a damn about how you looked. If someone liked you, you'd make sure they get every single side of you, every single flaw and weakness. Having Dean see you completely barefaced and look like you just collapsed on your bed was the least of your worries.

Dean's gaze hovers over you for another minute or so, he catches himself smiling, noticing how comfy you are. You shuffle, which scares him a little, panicking that you're going to wake up to him watching you sleep.

"Dean?"

"Y-yeah?" He whispers, taking his hands out of his pockets.

"What are you doing in here?" You groan, wiping your hair out of your face, barely opening your eyes. "I um, heard your little radio thing and... I got curious." He says, an awkward smile appearing on his full lips. He reaches up and scratches the back of his head. You hum quietly in agreement with what he said. Whether Dean understood or not, it didn't matter. "Are you staying?" You mumble, shuffling yourself to the side to make more room. You quietly pat the side of the bed, inviting Dean to join you.

His heart skipped a beat. Sharing a bed with the only girl who genuinely liked him for him? It's almost unbelievable.

"Are you sure? I can go back to my room-"

"Dean, just get in." You say, pulling the covers open for him. His eyes lit up and the smile on his face looked as if it had been slapped on. He takes off his flannel shirt revealing his dark grey t-shirt underneath, and also taking his jeans off down to his underwear. He gently sits down on your bed, ensuring there's still enough space for you. He keeps his space, though, not wanting to give any wrong ideas. "Why were you looking at my machine?" You say, and Dean grins. "It looks weird. Why do you sleep with it?"

"It's to help me sleep."

"It's to help me sleep," He mocks, shutting his eyes. "Just sleep in silence, it's not that hard." He adds, and you huff. "So funny." You grin, slowly moving closer toward him. "It's nice though, really nice..." He trails, his eyes are fully shut, and his body is relaxing. "Come here," He says, adjusting himself so he's lying slightly above you, and you move in to lay on his chest, your leg intertwined with his. He keeps his arm rested above his head, his other hand caressing your hair. "This is nice," He mumbles, almost instantly drifting to sleep.

[writerdream22]

requested by: anonymous, I really hope you like this ✨🌻💛

pairing (platonic): Chandler Bing x reader

prompt used: “I told you that I'd never leave you. I'm not going anywhere”

warnings: none. English is not my first language so there might be some grammatical errors a/n: it has been some time since I have either written or posted anything on this platform. This first year of uni has been quite difficult, but I will try to fulfill all of the requests that I have received throughout all of this summer!

feedbacks are always appreciated!

REQUESTS ARE CURRENTLY OPEN!

You had lost all your trust in people.

Men in particular.

When you realised that your longtime boyfriend had been "having fun" with one of his colleagues (who he’s told you was just a friend) for six months, you tried to find ways to resolve the matter in the most responsible way.

First, you tried to resonate with the guy, who promptly started accusing you of neglecting him and your relationship and justified his cheating in the most absurd ways.

Even though you had started the discussion with somewhat good intentions, the rage and hatred you felt against who you thought you'd spend the rest of your life with won against your better judgement. So you kicked him and his mistress out of the house, then you threw all of his things and everything he had ever gifted you out of the window.

As soon as the whole ordeal came to an end, you fell to the ground and started crying uncontrollably. 

You normally would have called your friends and asked for their comfort. This time, however, you felt the need to be alone and process the whole thing by yourself. 

Even though you received quite a few calls, you let them all go to voicemail and cried yourself to sleep for a few days in a row.

A week after the breakup you heard a knock on your door. The person was rather insistent, because even though you were not answering, they kept going.

“Y/n, it’s me, Chandler. Please, open up” your eyes widened as you realised that your best friend was standing in the hallway.

“Go away!” you shouted, as you sat on your sofa.

“Come on, I bought your favourite food. And some coffee. I figured you might need it”

You sat up, and hesitated if you should either open the door or not. Just as you were about to turn the handle, you heard Chandler’s voice again.

“Ok, let’s put it that way” he said “If you don’t open up now, I will break in. And I know how much you like the new wooden frame that you put on your door”.

Your eyes widened. Chandler wouldn’t do such a thing now, would he?

“Yes, I will actually do it, Y/n”. It seemed like he had read your mind.

Needless to say, you pondered your choices and opted to let your best friend in.

“God… you look- terrible”

“Yeah, I know” you scoffed, as Chandler walked through the door “What do you want?”

“I did actually bring you food, you know? And refreshments, too” he responded, gesturing to the plastic bag that he was holding. He quickly reached into it and pulled out a plastic coffee cup.

You softly smiled, taking it from his hands, then put it down on your counter in order to prevent it from spilling onto your carpet.

“The food’s already cold, so we can wait to eat it if you’d like” Chandler responded, to which you responded with a nod indicating that you preferred to eat later.

The two of you sat down on your couch, facing each other. You knew that there were questions to be answered, so you prepared yourself for your best friend’s interrogation.

“So, you and him-” he began.

“Yes. We broke up”

“Because he-”

“He cheated on me with that colleague of his. The one we all met at that party. Rachel had told me that there was something wrong about her, but I didn’t listen” you paused “You, too, had told me that you didn’t like him as soon as you saw him. And- I am so dumb” 

Just as you were beginning to recount the whole story, you started crying. Obviously, Chandler immediately hugged you as tight as he could in order to show you that you were safe.

“Shh, I know, I know. He’s a scum” he asserted “And he’s stupid for leaving you”

“You’re not leaving me too, are you?” you sobbed. 

You genuinely fear that, eventually, each and every one of your friends was going to leave you because of a particular flaw that you had or because you were too annoying for them. But at the same time, you had known Chandler, Monica and the others for quite some time so if they were truly annoyed by you they would have said so earlier.

“When we graduated college, I told you that I’d never leave you, Y/n” Chandler said, as he held you in his arms and gently stroked your hair “I’m not going anywhere”

“Really?”

“Yeah, of course! You’re stuck with me! Now, let’s celebrate this new era of you and not think about the bad stuff, huh?”

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Glynis Johns (Mary Poppins, The Court Jester)—LISTEN, I'd let that woman's voice with all its gravely hoarseness (positive) wash over me all goddamn day, but if that's not enough she managed to play the straight woman to Danny Kaye's jester, all with her cleavage so plunging it might as well have been catapulted into the ocean right after Basil Rathbone

Eartha Kitt (Anna Lucasta, St. Louis Blues)—My friend and I have a saying: NOBODY is Eartha Kitt. A thousand have tried, and they've all come up empty and will continue to do so. Everyone knows her for something: from "Santa Baby" to Yzma in Emperor's New Groove to Catwoman to making Lady Bird Johnson cry for the Vietnam War. She was a master of comedy and sex, an extremely vocal activist, and she aged like fine wine... I honestly don't know what I can say about her that hasn't already been said, so I'll stick to linking all my propaganda. Like what else do you want from me. She was iconic at everything she ever did. Literally name another. How can anyone even think of her and not want to absolutely drown?

This is round 4 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Glynis Johns:

She walks the line between sexy and cute. Her best role for me is in "The Court Jester as Maid Jean. She's fantastic as the soft but tough captain of the outlaw band and she looks stunning in every gown she wears throughout the film. And of course we can't forget her iconic turn as the suffragette mother, Mrs. Banks, in Mary Poppins! Also shoutout to her distinctive and beautiful voice, kind of smoky and husky. Extremely hot and set her apart from many of her peers."

"She was amazing in Mary Poppins (the Suffragette song is severely underrated) and apparently she was Welsh? National pride! And she advocated for arts funding in Wales, which is very cool. Also, she died recently (RIP) making her one of the last survivors of the Golden Age of Hollywood, according to Wikipedia. Also also, she just has a cheeky energy I like? And her eyes are beautiful!"

"She had this wonderful wit and charm to her no matter the role and the most distinctive, striking voice!"

"I mean, incredibly beautiful and talented, can do drama can do comedy. And she was a mermaid."

"Like Bette Davis she has eyes to die for. Unlike Bette Davis you felt comforted by them, even when she was batting her eyelashes at you. Would glady go to Downing Street with her and throw things at the Prime minister"

"Listen, listen. I was raised on Mary Poppins and "Votes for women! (step in time)" single-handedly taught me how to be a feminist. Also The Court Jester is one of my favourite movies of all time and she is UNBELIEVABLY gorgeous, charismatic, funny, and clever in it. She knocks several men out. Absolute icon."

"I love Glynis Johns. Most of the reason is The Court Jester where she's a sensible and capable foil to whatever what going on with Danny Kaye at the time. She was also the first star I based an OC on. An OC that I still have to this day! Anyway here have some YouTube links love u bye"

Mermaid clip:

Court Jester (sharing a bed trope):

Court Jester (seducing the king):

"VOTES FOR WOMEN! Well, votes for this woman. Please."

Eartha Kitt:

"A hot vintage woman who was not just known for her voice, beauty, poise, and presence, but also her unapologetic ways of speaking about how she was mistreated in the show business as a girl who grew up on cotton fields in South Carolina in the 1930s through the 1940s coming to Broadway first and then Hollywood."

"Have you watched her sing?? Have you seen her face?? Have you heard her talk?? How could you not fall instantly in love. She makes me incoherent with how hot she is."

"She can ACT she can SING she can speak FOUR LANGUAGES she is a GODDESS!!! Although she is (rightfully) remembered for her singing, TV appearances (Catwoman my beloved), and later film roles, her early appearances in film are no less impressive or noteworthy!! She’s an amazing actress with so much charisma in every role. She was also blacklisted from Hollywood for 10 years for criticizing the Johnson administration/Vietnam War, so. Iconic. Also Orson Welles apparently called her “the most exciting woman in the world.”

"She had such a stunning, remarkable appearance, like she could tear you to shreds with just a glance- but the most undeniable part of her hotness was her voice, and it makes sense that it's what most people nowadays know her for. Nothing encapsulates the sheer magnetism of her singing better than this clip of her and Nat King Cole in St. Louis Blues, she pops in at 2:49. Also I know it's post-1970 but her song that was cut from Emperor's New Groove is likely to make you feel Feelings."

Even with as racist as Hollywood was in the 1950s and 60s, Eartha Kitt STILL managed to have a thriving career. She also once had a threesome with Paul Newman and James Dean, and called out LBJ over the Vietnam War so hard that it made First Lady Johnson cry. Eartha Kitt was talented, sexy, and a total badass activist.

[oraclekleo]

33rd Birthday!

Hello my dear followers and random visitors of my blog.

I have already made a sorry announcement due to my hiatus but that’s not all I wanted to tell you.

This Monday, April 15th 2024 to be precise, is my Birthday. I’m already 33 years old! Would you believe that? I certainly wouldn’t. I feel like 16. 😂 

And how pretty the number is, right? Two threes… My life path number is also 3. How neat is that, huh?

When it comes to angel number 33, this source says the following:

“The 33 angel number means anything is possible. This powerful angel number is also known as a master number because of its double digits mirroring each other and its powerful vibrations. The number 33 is linked to themes around creative thinking, deep compassion, spiritual-level connections, discipline, and bravery. When you see this number show up it could be because it's an opportune time for a change or because patience is paramount right now in your daily life because a spiritual meaning that will have major significance is soon to be revealed.”

Nothing can be more true for me as major change is about to happen for me. I don’t want to reveal what it is just now but I will keep you informed in time. 😜

And no, I’m not dating anyone 🤣 Still happily Sexy, free and single.

I did want to celebrate my birthday with you with some sort of event but as you know I was really busy so… I guess we will celebrate my 44th Birthday properly? LOL!

Honestly, I have a lot to be grateful for in my life, you guys in my little community included. I hope we can stay together for many years that come and have some more fun with both serious and kinky tarot readings.

And those might soon become even better articulate and with much more expressive vocabulary as your girl Kleo is currently fully immersed in listening to audio erotica, which is really good! I mean… not all of it but I have already found several favourite voice actors, their voice and style really suiting me and apart from having a good time listening to it while working (yes, I do listen to audio porn while at work, sue me if you want), I also learn a lot from it. You know I can just soak information like a sponge from anything I do and well… This is a really good source. Also, I’m considering holding a voice chat once in a while with my friends now as I really want to learn to use my voice as well as I use my fingers for typing. And yes, I tested with my bestie and I nearly choked when I had to pronounce word ‘f*ck’ out loud. You wouldn’t guess it by reading my posts but I’m really talking like a lady out loud. I rarely curse or say rude words. 🤭 

I also learned about very surprising preferences through this audio erotica experience. I swear I didn’t expect to love what I love so much. It came as a shock and I truly thought my preferences to be completely different from what I actually enjoy the most. I guess there’s still a lot to learn about myself. Another great thing about my new hobby. You know how much I love to learn anything.

Anyway! That’s about my new hobby and about my approaching birthday.

Feel free to contact me through inbox or through DM or join my Discord. I don’t bite… unless you ask me to 😏 I’m also learning how to flirt better. You can be my test subject anytime. 😀 And no, it’s not to go hunt men, I’m way too old to change my ways and routines to fit another person’s lifestyle. My goal is actually much purer. I really like to make people happy and… well, I noticed people will feel happy, flattered and their self-esteem boosted when I flirt with them a little bit. Just another skill I’m learning in order to spread happiness and joy in the world. Might seem frivolous to you but… Well… I enjoy it. And that’s what counts for me.

So yeah! Happy Birthday to me! I’m not growing old, I’m only one year closer to death as my sister tells me every year since I was like 17. 😂 We are a weird family. Try not to think about it too much.

Thank you everyone who’s sticking around here. I promise I will post something soon. Maybe nothing super big but I will post. 🙂

Your forever joyful Oracle Kleo 🦄

[abihastastybeans]

HELLO

5, 10, 13, 15, 18, 19, 21, 29 from here

(i just realised that that's a lot so feel free to skip some/answer selectively if you want to do that!)

CAL HIIIII!!!!

(are you kidding ofcourse I'm gonna answer all of that, let's make a game out of it and see how long it takes me)(it's 15:05 when I started answering)

5. Favourite song in your native language

Can't think of one rn😭 The first one that came to mind is Venmadhi Venmadhi from Minnale because some guy was playing that on the bus yesterday. I think it's a lovely song, especially the third verse :)

10. Most enjoyable swear word in your native language

I don't really swear in Tamil😂 I only use words like stupid/wastrel/dog/buffalo... y'know the most common ones lol

But, again, the first swear word that came to mind is *looks around to make sure no one's listening* "watha" - which is basically the Tamil equivalent of fuck - because one of my friends called another friend that this morning lmao

13. Does your country (or family) have any specific superstitions ot traditions that might seem strange to outsiders?

Well there's so many but i generally think that doing rituals/ chanting slokas or vedas must be very strange to outsiders who aren't really used to that! Imagine being a white christian and you encounter a yagna happening with a giant fire, lots of huge shirtless men saying very weird words in their blaring voice, adding all kinds of different things into the fire, while surrounding people watched on... I'd be terrified 😂💀

15. A saying, joke, or hermetic meme that only people from your country will get?

SO BEAUTIFUL. SO ELEGANT. JUST LOOKING LIKE A WOW.

18. Do you speak with a dialect of your native language?

Gosh I speak so many dialects - depending on who I'm talking with. There's what I consider the normal one, there's the one mixed with random English sentences😂, there's the local chennai dialect for when I'm dealing with/in public or local vendors💀, there's the tambrahm (wow it feels weird to say it like that) dialect because that's what I was raised on in mum's side of the family

19. Do you like your country's flag and/or emblem? What about the national anthem?

I've honestly never thought about this before...

Flag - 🇮🇳 It's a good one, I like what it stands for. But no one would forget the struggle it would take when you were 6 years old and were asked to draw the national flag and you wouldn't remember how many spokes are there in the ashoka chakra😭 or even if you remembered, you wouldn't know how to divide them evenly throughout the circle... So much stress. 7/10

Emblem - it's a bit complex if you ask me but eh. It looks cool i guess. I like the phrase 'satyameva jayathe' ("truth alone triumphs" in Sanskrit) so there's that :p 5/10

National Anthem - I love it!! I like the picture it paints, listing out all those places! Only criticism is that it was very difficult for younger abi to sing the beginning because it was so very low and i struggled for a long time😅 9/10

21. If you could send two things from your country into space, what would they be?

Aloo mutter gravy and methi roti👍

29. Does your region/city have a beef with another place in your country?

I was thinking really hard...before i realised🤭

MYSURU. WHY do you do that to your sambar??? It's nice, I'd be lying if I said it's bad, but how?????? How did you come to the decision "oh you know what. I'm gonna make this taste sweet. Yeah."??

We went to Mysore one time and had some sambar and do you know what happened, cal? My cousin threw up, that's what happened.

(it was because of the long uphill travel but the sambar definitely contributed :p)

What you lack in sambar, you make up for it with Udupi rasam so. I forgive you😤

(now the time is 15:55)

"Hi, I'm not from the US" ask set

[satocidal]

𖥔 ִ ་ ، ˖ ࣪ ་ ˖𝐑𝐨𝐦𝐞 𖥔 ִ ་ ، ˖ ࣪ ་ ˖

— 𝐴𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑅𝑜𝑚𝑒<3

(factual speed run!): Rome is — 18, South Asian, entp (7w8), favourite colour? Red and Gold but what’ll you do anyways…she/her, a full-time-student—STEM, raging bisexual, bilingual. This is, as per my indecisiveness, a multi fandom blog now hehe

˚ ༘💭⋆｡˚ — (what’s goin’ on in that gorgeous brain of yours?): Rome is thinking — of her husbands and wives<3 especially of Suguru Geto because just about men who hate your guts and will also rearrange them for you makes me horny. In an eternal poly relationship with SatoSugu and honourable mentions to my side bae Shoko.

(music that is blessed!): Rome Listens to — Hozier, Mitski, Cavetown, Artic Monkeys, Lost Stories, Zeph, Nanku, The Yellow Diaries, Neighbourhood, Young The Giants, Catfish and the bottlemen, Hoosiers, pat!d, lumineers, one direction, Lorde, Mother Mother, Wallows, Girl in Red, Marina, Alec Benjamin

— 𝑅𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝐿𝑖𝑘𝑒𝑠:

—my general likes: coffee and tea, vanilla scented things, sour candies, psychological thriller, mangas, maths and physics and classic literature, drama, random silly little debates on mundane topics, star-gazing, watching sun-rise, organised phones, raspberries, men who are smarter than, women who are stronger than me, late night walks, hot showers, watching people do makeup (because I can’t), doing my hair, dancing, silly little skirts, caramel flavoured things, pasta, baking, a lot- like a lot of academic validation&lt;3

—my general dislikes: conservatives(or that’s still ok but don’t come @ me with your views),furries, chemistry, people who shove their opinions into others, misogynists, rad fems, gabi haters, sadly- eren💀; incels, homophobes and islamophobes; any sort of discrimination

— 𝑅𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑊𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑒𝑠:-

—What I will write:

most genres at any given time- angst, fluff, smut. I do accept requests and will write anything ranging from drabbles and Headcanons to longer fics (+2k words); I do age up all my characters (given I mostly write for adults anyways) even if there’s no smut; I am fine with most kinks too, just check what I don’t write for a heads up.

It may that you sent a request and I never worked on it or maybe even said I would and then nothing ever happened, I’m sorry but sometimes that’s how it is. Often I don’t have enough motivation and I’m an ask-hoarder so even as I write, I have month old asks stored in—it’s nothing personal at all in fact I may just corporate your ask/request/thirst in a longer fic as I please (sorry not sorry my love)

I’m fine with writing angsty stuff too, blood and gore, character deaths, polyamory, character x reader x character or character x reader; I usually write Fem! Reader unless requested otherwise (I’m not experienced much with Male! Reader though);

my reader inserts are always fem! Bodied and devoid of any other particular physical features (may sometimes be defined as chubby but yes); dub-con; concept of physical/mental abuse (works will be properly tagged or trigger warned)

—What I won’t write: water sports; monster fucking(may hold exceptions); omegaverse; indulgence in bodily fluids (except blood and cum); rape; non-con; pedophilia; incest, any kind of discrimination; scat; lolli-con

—What fandoms I work on: Shinjeki no Kyojin; Boku no hero piko; Jujutsu kaisen; Haikyuu!!; Tokyo Revengers; Bungo Stray Dogs

“Rules”:

i love terms of endearment and use them indiscriminately so if there’s an issue, do lemme know and I do talk a lot in general but don’t barge into my inbox with slurs or “bitch/slut/whore” when and if we don’t know each other)

Do not, I repeat, do NOT bring discourse to my blog <3 about other writers, my mutuals or anything

It may be that I make you uncomfortable or vice versa, in which case I do encourage talking it out and voicing your issue but if you’re not big on that, soft-block and hard-blocks are ok with no hard feelings because I’m huge on curating your own experience

If you wanting to hard-block/soft-block me, it’s ok but please by all accords don’t leave me following you because that’s just weird

don’t send hate because 1. It doesn’t matter to me 2. I’ve better things to deal with and you look stupid

𝑅𝑜𝑚𝑒’𝑠 𝐻𝑢𝑠𝑏𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑠:-

— Geto Suguru, Satoru Gojo, Hanma Shuji, Rindou Haitani, Kokonoi Hajime, Jean Kirsten, Erwin Smith, Nanami Kento, Oikawa, Kuroo, Chuuya and Fukuzawa + I’ll find more <3

[clouds-of-wings]

I don't even know what my top albums of the year are, but here are some I discovered this year that I really liked, so that I don't come across as ONLY a hater. Linking my fav track, or one of my fave tracks, on YT every time.

Molllust - Mother Universe (A glimmer of hope in the irradiated wasteland that is symphonic metal at present. Also one of the four female-LED metal bands I know. Like with a female composer! Such wow!)

Knights of Heliopolis - Ferrum Fero Ferro Ferror (ditto about the hope thing. Also they have an operatic bass frontman and holyyyyy shiiiit that is the best thing ever! I keep fangirling about this band but they used to be called "Phoebus the Knight", so that's the tag that's in.)

Nostra Morte - Sin Retorno (A flicker of light from the NON-wasteland that symph was 12 years ago)

Silent Opera - Immortal Beauty (ditto. Oh how I wish for soothing rain and some fucking OPERA VOCALS in the fucking OPERA GENRE. Why is symph metal full of COWARDS and CASUALS? I know I sound like Holden Caulfield, but that's because he's right and my role model.)

Nanowar - Dislike to False Metal (Power Metal, Nanowar being awesome as usual. I link perhaps one of their less surprising songs bc I'm a sucker for that Rhapsody stuff but plz listen to the whole album, it also has tracks like this - great variety really, and greater wtf! I gently pat Gatto's head and wonder what he will do next, clearly he's called Cat for a reason.)

Elina Garanca - Habanera (These are just some famous arias, but her voice is really nice! Dark-voiced mezzo-sopranos rule the world!)

Snowy Shaw - White is the New Black (I have been listening to this so much lately. Somehow I always ignored his solo work after the Notre Dame stuff except for some of his singles, but this album is actually really really cool! I don't know which genre it is lol. Metal Archives says "Heavy Metal", but that doesn't really describe it so well. Snowy has a lot of personality, and so does his music. Just click! You may not even regret it!)

Wolfenmond - Can't pick an album... Galdra (EP!) I guess. Folk metal or medieval rock with a woman who doesn't get forced to sound cute.

Grendel's Sÿster - Myrtenkranz Heavy metal / folk metal with a woman who REALLY doesn't get forced to sound cute. As SATW said, women should be respected, but sister Germany should be feared. Damn straight. This is an EP, same music first in English, then in German.

Kornalyn - Intemporel (French acoustic folk, revolutionary communist and anarchist songs. This guy is a folk song recording MACHINE and I like almost everything he releases.)

Therion - Leviathan 3 (I still wrestle with this album. A lot! I also know from past experience that in retrospect I'm more likely to regret not including it than I am including it.)

---

I also watched like 20 operas this year in an attempt to be a little less of a poser in the genre. I don't know which I would recommend the most. Wagner's "Die Walküre" touched me the most, both in terms of story and of pure epicness of the music. Kinda wiped the floor with everything else :/ It seems Wagner is the only one in opera who isn't shit at plots. Lohengrin also had a good story! Vivaldi's "Juditha Triumphans" (not technically an opera but an oratorio, but really I don't care, it's basically an opera) and Bizet's "Carmen" (I'm not linking that, there are 8945098340 good recordings, just find one that looks appealing to you) had the most pleasant music.

I also liked Alessandro nell‘Indie by Leonardo Vinci (no relation). I link my favourite scene. Don't worry about the lack of English subs, the plot is 4 hours of soap opera. They did a very traditional staging of this, like back in 1730, which means it's all countertenors and sopranists, half in drag. Thus it pairs nicely with the all-female Vivaldi one above. Back when women were real men who led armies and men had fake boobs or danced under falling rose petals singing about love, LIKE GOD INTENDED! TRADITIONAL VALUES!

[sunburnacoustic]

An interview with Matt Bellamy in the Guardian, 17 August 2001. By Will Hodgekinson.

Matt Bellamy is the slight, angular, 23-year-old lead singer of the rock band Muse. He's sharing a flat in north London with a friend from his hometown of Teignmouth and the band's drummer, Dom. The flat has the air of a temporary home with only the bare necessities present and standard regulation furniture fills up the space between a piano in one corner and a computer in the other. For a flat occupied by three rock'n'roll-involved young men, it's surprisingly clean.

"We've been here a couple of months," says Bellamy, who talks in a rapid monotone. "I lived in Exeter for six months and I'll probably be here for six months before hopefully moving to the States. I'm living my life in six-month chunks at the moment."

Laying down roots is not on the current agenda. "If I'm in the same place for too long, I can't write anything. When things are changing, that's when the writing kicks in, whether that change be moving house, or losing a girlfriend, or making a new bunch of friends. Because that's when I get the urge of wanting to be in touch with the one thing that is constant, which is the feeling I get from making music. That's why the last album was called Origin of Symmetry - it's important to have that base when everything is in flux."

Being a child of the 21st century, Bellamy has dispensed with the notion of a record collection for something far more transportable - music stored on computer. "Since Napster went, the program you need is Morpheus, which can not only download music, but films and other computer programs as well. Perhaps I shouldn't be saying this, but I've got AI and all these films that haven't come out yet downloaded on to my computer. And with songs, you download the ones you want from somebody else's machine and form your own playlist."

When he's away from the computer, Bellamy uses a wristwatch-sized MP3 player to listen to music. "You plug a lead into the computer and put on the songs you want, so you can walk around with this and the quality is brilliant. It costs about £250. I'm on planes a lot and they always tell me to turn off my Walkman during take-off, but this is so small that they can't even see I've got it on. When you put these headphones on, it's absolute cut-off from the outside world. You can't hear kids crying or anything."

On the little MP3 player is a catholic range of music. Along with tracks by Rage Against the Machine, Weezer, American lo-fi favourites Grandaddy and funk-rockers Primus are blues tracks by Robert Johnson and European classical excerpts. "When I was about 10 my dad played me Robert Johnson, and that was the first time I heard music that made me feel something, even though what I'm playing on piano these days isn't blues but music from European history, be it folk, classical, or flamenco. I'm into Jeff Buckley's voice a lot too, as he was one of the first male singers who made me comfortable about singing in a female range."

Another favourite is the Belgian rock band Deus. "One of the best rock bands from Europe. They're too experimental for radio here so they've never made it, but they're huge in Belgium. They jump across all kinds of styles and will play anything from blues to disco in the same track. They've been around for about 10 years, and they did a tour supporting PJ Harvey in England, but apart from that, they've never had much exposure."

All of this feeds into Muse's own sound - emotional, heartfelt rock popular with troubled young men. "Chris, the bass player, is into his metal, and for some reason he's also obsessed by the Beach Boys, and he's got all those outtakes of Beach Boys tracks that you can get. Dom's into percussive things like Buddy Miles and the Aphex Twin. We all like Rage Against the Machine, while I listen to a lot of classical music and the other two don't really go there. We meet in the middle of all our tastes with what we do in the band."

From playing us noisy American rock on his computer, Bellamy goes to knocking out some astonishingly accomplished classical piano. "I play the piano for ages because I enjoy the experience of doing it. It's always been something of an escape, if you like," he says. "Then something will come from that and there will be the start of a new song, even if at that point it's just expressing a state of mind, a feeling of loneliness or whatever. I wrote a lot of the last album on tour, so I would often find a piano backstage at a venue, and just play it all day."

Occasionally, there's time for that most traditional of listening pleasures, the record. "Our producer, John Leckie, has opened me up to people like Tom Waits and Captain Beefheart, and even Jimi Hendrix who I don't think I would have listened to otherwise. After a day's session he would pull out a few records and play them in the dark. It was cool."

[mollymauk-teafleak]

it's called freefall (you can let it all go)

Sometimes you're deep in your Top Gun obsession and you also happen to be listening to a podcast reviewing House of the Dragon (which you haven't seen) and things happen and now Ice and Maverick have dragons. A huge thank you to @hangsters who continues to be my most favourite person <3

Please reblog and comment over on Ao3 if you enjoy this!

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People said a lot of dragon riders. 

They said they could talk to their dragons with their minds. They said they felt pain when their mounts did, that the two of them shared one soul and the death of one would bring the death of the other. They said dark magics were performed on them at birth, to strip them of all desire, take away their human needs and the associated body parts so they could bind them inextricably to their duty. They said they were cursed, that the gods spat at their attempts to breach the heavens and pulled them down for it. 

And of course they said they were mad. 

Tom supposed he wasn’t doing much to dissuade them of that one at least, standing on the balcony of the Crooked Tail tower nearly every night and staring up at the sky. He’d heard serving girls and grooms whispering, though they shut up quickly when they heard the clink of the light armour he never took off. All the usual horseshit, longing for a love lost when he took up his scales, going sky blind from too much time in the air, listening for calls in the secret dragon language. Tom wondered how people told such wild myths of men who used the same bathouses as they did. 

Though maybe he was mad. The thought at least crossed his mind, as he watched the sun sink into the grasp of the capital’s many towers, draining through those crooked stone and timber fingers and leaving night behind. But none of the shadowy clouds up there were shifting, none of the stars winked as something passed over them. Maverick hadn’t returned. 

Tom sighed, knowing he was high enough that none of the people threading through the narrow, crowded streets below would hear him. The Crooked Tail tower might list like a drunk against a wall but it at least gave the dragonriders who lived there a bit of privacy in a very crowded city where that was hard to come by. Tom could stand here, able to stare up into the endless sky and let the noise of the rest of the world fall away, like none of it existed, inside the curtain walls of the castle or outside it. And he would, gladly, if there were not that voice missing behind him, where the other riders laughed over cards and hurled jokes back and forth. 

Tom knew what he should do. He should turn around and join them, integrate himself with the men he wanted to lead some day. Even if he wasn’t entirely sure why leading them mattered to him. Those men were his brothers, the only ones he’d ever have, the only ones who had a chance of understanding him. He knew he should go and laugh with them, drink a cup of wine and work on letting himself be comfortable around them. 

But Tom also knew what he was actually going to do. So maybe he was mad after all.

No one tried to stop him, not the other riders who perhaps knew more than they would admit, not the guards on the main gate as he rode past them, not the people on the street, nobles or merchants or humbler city folk. Being known for a cold unapproachable nature had some benefits to it. 

The keepers at the dragon pits were even less likely to stand in his way, as Tom rode through gates designed specifically to look blackened and half melted, up to the enormous stone colosseum like structure on the highest hill in the whole city. People who worked with them every day, who cared for them in the strange way you could with something you feared so deeply, they’d never keep a rider from their mount, whatever the hour of the day.

The pits didn’t look like a place anything would enjoy living. It was dark and imposing, an undeniable dungeon so thick black stone and heavy iron chain curtains, the wall sconces kept low so the sight of flame didn’t excite any of the younger residents, projecting every movement up the high walls in shadow. It was dank too, cold water running through the walls like blood in a stone giant, ready to burst forth with a well placed hammer strike if worst should come to worst. The smells of damp and raw meat and smoke were inescapable, clinging to the stone like the layers of soot caked into the mortar. And of course, every so often, there would come a noise that could have been the earth shifting and breaking open, echoing eerily through the labyrinth so it felt like the walls were caving in, 

It made for a dismal, gloomy home for any living creature. But then dragons were unlike any other living creature in the world. 

Tom knew these dripping, cavernous corridors the way any other man would know the home he grew up in. Without thinking, his feet took him to the largest of the pits, the oldest, the ones built to house the dragons of old who grew to sizes where their wings could eclipse the sun over a whole city. 

There was only one dragon still alive who was growing to rival them. 

Tom walked through the enormous doors, familiar with their deep, low groan as tons of steel and stone cracked open enough to let him pass. They closed behind him much swifter than they’d managed to open, as if in panic. Tom understood. 

It seemed as though the vast pit in front of him was full of nothing but shadow and a slow, echoing drip. But Tom smiled all the same.

“Suivon?” he kept his voice soft, knowing it would echo, knowing she would hear, “Come on. We’ve got a job to do.”

And she did. One of the shadows high above him detached, unfurled, swelled in size as it broke through the others. There was a single shaft of moonlight coming in through the grate in the ceiling and as the shadow passed, it turned to brilliant white. 

As it always did, the sight widened Tom’s smile into a grin. The dragon rider all had titles of some kind, the way many traditional knights did when they gained some renown. His was The Iceman and of course people would insist it had nothing to do with his personality in the slightest, however apt it had ended up being. 

And Tom could hardly challenge them on that, when he rode Suivon, The Dread Blizzard. 

A tremor ran through the ground as she landed before him, a towering wall of brilliant white scale that relaxed into the form of the biggest dragon the world knew, enormous black iron claws each as long as Tom himself, tail that unfurled out and out and out, bristling, ice blue points until eventually it came to a dagger sharp point. Those jagged icicles continued up her spine as well and into a crest that looked like a crown about her craggy head, the tip of each wickedly sharp enough that they could, and had, impaled a man. Her face was spiderwebbed in brilliant blue cracks, like ice breaking to show water beneath, ones that could also be seen when she let her phenomenal wings loose. She looked like something that had pulled itself free of an icy mountainside, something wholly natural, cold and uncaring and old as the earth. 

And when she brought her head down to Tom’s level, when she opened her mouth to show row upon row of shining white teeth and blackness between, he laughed.

“Don’t give me that look now. It’s hardly past your bedtime.”

Suivon made a noise that might have been a growl but was just enough of a purr, the noise trembling the loose stones on the floor. Tom smiled, stepping towards her and resting his hand on her snout, feeling the unexpected heat of her, her exhales sending a warm, wet gale blowing around him. 

“I know, I know…” he soothed, his voice lost beneath her rough, admonishing purr and yet Tom never doubted she could hear him, “But it’s Maverick.”

Suivon gave a huff, the sudden gust nearly blowing him back. 

Tom felt his cheeks warm, “Hush. We’re going. You owe me for those two extra sheep carcasses at dinner today.”

He ignored her irritated grumble, resting his forehead on her warm scales for a second before moving to climb onto her back, like scaling a steep hill that breathed. He slid his lobstered gauntlets into the locks on the harness, settling comfortably into the crouched stance between her wing joints that he’d been practising and perfecting since he was a child. 

“Come on,” he inhaled deeply, matching his breathing to the beast already stretching and shifting eagerly despite her minor tantrum, “Let’s go drag him home…”

He dug his heels in and Suivon responded, their bond had long grown past the verbal commands. She extended her neck fully and exhaled three short bursts of flame that gouted up the throat of the pit and through the grate at the top. The signal to open. Within moments, Tom heard the creaking of that massive metal grinding to one side, some keeper having seen their command. Suivon gave a chirp and began skittering up the walls towards the moon. When she was right at the mouth, she leapt, wings snapping open with a sound like the sails of a warship, carrying them effortlessly into the air. 

The lights and smoke and noise of the city fell away so quickly as they escaped up into the night. Like always, Tom couldn’t help but feel the weights he carried were left behind too, the frustrating wall between himself and everyone else, the pressure to be the perfect knight and the perfect dragon rider, the need to look as though he’d stepped straight out of a tale of heroism and chivalry so no one looked any closer. He never felt like The Iceman when he was on Suivon’s back and racing the moon across the sky. He wasn’t sure he even felt like Tom. Things like that just stopped mattering and he simply felt like someone who could breathe. 

He pulled Suivon gently into a slow, mid air roll, wings tucked tight then snapping out, propelling them low across the sea the capital city was backed by. The air currents stirred by the roiling, inky waves buoyed them easily like a sea of its own kind, Suivon only beating her wings because she liked to feel the salt spray on them. She even dipped down enough to let one of her dagger-like claws cut through the water, rising and falling with the swell of the waves as they grew tall as houses that collapsed down into deep valleys, following this restless horizon closely. Tom laughed, the spray harsh on his face, enough to sting, but in a way that woke his nerves up and made his heart beat faster. He gave Suivon her head, letting her duck and roll and chase the waves, never once trying to pull her up into safer air. They didn’t ride the dragons for safety. 

And besides, they both knew where they were going. 

There were a myriad of rocky islands scattered throughout the sea, the frayed edge of the continent. Most were small enough for a gull or two to make their home, some even smaller, only a handful were large enough to support caves, spires, colonies of seals. But only the sailors and the dragon riders knew that further out they grew bigger, large enough to be bolt holes for pirates and smugglers, places to swim for if you were shipwrecked or if you didn’t want to be found. 

So it was these Tom steered Suivon towards, not that she needed much direction. This was a route they were familiar with. 

The largest of these islands was surprisingly empty of any sailors, legal or illegal, mostly because it was hard to reach. The water around it was famous for riptides and snags and other invisible dangers, hidden rocks that were actually the spires of sunken islands, ready to rip out the belly of passing ships, and of course there was a ghost or two if you believed the tales. So it was useless to the pirates but perfect for a dragon rider who was staying out past curfew. 

Or two dragon riders who just wanted to get out of the city. 

Suivon glided easily over those waters that would prove deadly to any ship, circling the island a few times as she drew lower. But, almost instantly, she wasn’t the only thing in the air. With a loud, raspy cry, another dragon leapt from the rocks and joined her, to neither Suivon or Tom’s surprise. 

Udrayatis was Suivon’s opposite in every way. Inky black instead of bright white, small and lightning quick instead of formidable, always chittering and squawking instead of the stony silence. When she took to the air, she immediately began flying about the larger dragon’s face, turning like an acrobat in a mummer’s show, rolling and showing off. Tom immediately felt Suivon stiffen with haughty disapproval, forcing him to hold back a laugh. 

Though they were opposites, the dragons had one thing in common. Their names suited them well. Suivon was the Old Tongue word for ice, Tom having been apparently struck by a chronic lack of imagination when a snow white, unusually large dragonling had broken free of the egg he’d chosen as a boy. While Udrayatis, born a little twisted and so small it was feared she wouldn’t survive, her name had come after her rider disappeared into books for days, thinking on it for longer than he’d ever given any decision. Tom could still remember the delighted grin on Pete’s young face as he’d told him the word meant rule breaker. And, sure enough, she kept to that name, stubbornly surviving and growing to take a rider when it had seemed impossible. 

Tom rolled his eyes and squeezed his heels, urging Suivon down before she decided to take a snap at the other dragon. With a growl and a gout of smoke from her nostrils, she obeyed, though not before not so accidentally letting her tail whip at Udrayatis and sending the black dragon tumbling and shrieking. 

“That wasn’t nice,” Tom admonished gently, as his mount settled on the rocky outcrop at the edge of the island. 

Suivon grumbled, narrowing her eyes at Udrayatis and apparently not caring whether it was nice or not. Though, as he always had, Tom suspected her dislike was a little feigned, an act that was wearing slightly thin as the two dragons grew up together. 

And he had to say he empathised with her.  

Tom unlocked his gauntlets and slid gracefully down Suivon’s mighty back, sighing down at the young man now stood grinning up at him with a smile. Ink black hair instead of light blonde. Small and lightning quick rather than tall and broad. Mouth endlessly running, even when it shouldn’t rather than taciturn and distant. Constantly forgetting his duty rather than being unable to let go of it. 

In some ways, dragon riders were supposed to forget any life they could have had before they entered the order. The titles helped with that, distancing them from the names they were given, from anyone who might have cared for them before they took to the air, from any other path they might have taken. And no rider clung to their title more fiercely, lived it more fully, than The Maverick. 

How a man could look so dangerous while standing there in nothing but trousers and an unlaced shirt billowing in the wind, Tom didn’t know. 

“You were supposed to be back at the tower by now,” he called down, trying to keep some tone of a future commander in his voice. 

Maverick laughed, his smile not dimming even slightly, “I could say the same to you, Ice!”

Tom tilted his head, “And I assume there’s no way to convince you to come back with me?”

“Well why would I want to go back now?” he grinned wider. He couldn’t see from this height but Tom knew there were creases around those dark, playful eyes, “You’re here!”

Tom also knew that Maverick shouldn’t be able to see the way his ears reddened at the tips. But he had a feeling he knew regardless. 

His resolve was clinging by a thread by the time he climbed down the rock, “I don’t know how we’re going to explain this…”

Mav was perched, cross legged, on a boulder by then, happy to lounge as Tom descended a few feet of wet rock, “Giving the girls some air. Scouting to the east. Extra patrols. Gods know we need them with the corsairs massing on the coast. I’m sure you’ll think of something to tell them, Iceman.”

“I can’t tell them that every night, can I?” Tom prickled a little at the use of his title. Whenever Maverick said it, it always seemed as though he was poking fun, like he knew how poor it fit him, “They will start to suspect something, even more than they already do.”

“Well…” Maverick’s eyes danced with a light that wasn’t there, a light he seemed to conjure up all by himself, “We don’t need to steal away every night, I suppose…”

Tom had reached him by that point and without another word he pulled the smaller rider into his arms, crushing him into a kiss fierce with need, longing and no small amount of desire to just shut Maverick up for a moment. He responded instantly, wiry strong arms wrapping around his shoulders, triumph and challenge on his lips. 

“That’s not happening,” Tom murmured, voice rough with how long he’d made himself go without air. 

“Thought as much,” Maverick grinned, dragging him back in.

The first time they’d kissed, nearly a year ago now, Tom had only felt fear, panic, the sense of falling like he’d slipped off Suivon’s back too far from the ground. All he could think of was what would happen if they were caught, the shame, the inevitable execution for breaking their oaths and with another man, no less. Condemnation from men and gods alike.

But he’d done it again. Because even that was better than going another day with that need burning inside him. 

That feeling, that voice, it had grown quieter each time, Tom had gotten better at recognising that it wasn’t his own. Of course there were still the nights where it found him again, usually when he was alone in his cell and trying to fall asleep, when Suivon was far from him and Maverick was too damn close. Though it had shifted, it was no longer they’ll all see you, they’ll all know. It was they’ll take him from you and they’ll kill him. 

But it all felt far away right now, lost in the roar in his ears that might have been the crashing waves and might have been the blood rushing through him. He kissed Maverick harder, hands coming up to hold his face. 

“Easy,” Maverick laughed into his mouth, shuddering a little at the touch of the cold steel, “You’ll leave marks…”

Tom withdrew his hands, sighing as he began to shed his black iron armour, “Well, look at you, out here in your shirtsleeves. I’ve told you, Maverick, if you fall-”

“I’ll be killed and there’ll be nothing a tonne of steel can do to change it,” he stole the end of his sentence, helping him unbuckle his breastplate, “Udrayatis hates the weight anyway, it slows her down.”

Tom would remind his fellow rider that his dragon was no longer the sickly, struggling thing he’d nursed so diligently, so much that Tom had found him asleep in the pit’s nursery more than once. He would point out that risking a broken neck at lower heights for the sake of having the fastest dragon in the sky was idiocy. But he knew Maverick too well to do either of those things. 

So he just kissed him again, pressing close into the other man’s warmth as layers of steel fell away to let the cold air in. With the speed and skill of the best of squires, he had him down to his linens and quickly drew him over to the cave mouth they’d made use of since they started whatever this arrangement was. The moment they took that first step away, Suivon began to growl, like those handful of inches more were simply unacceptable. 

Maverick gave a coy smile and drew away from the other man’s lips reluctantly, “She still doesn’t like me, does she?”

Tom sighed, “She’s just protective…” He glanced back, trying not to think about how his dragon saw Maverick as something she needed to protect him from. 

Suivon was still on her rocky perch, staying where she’d been told to stay, obedient as ever but doing it with very little grace, eyes narrowed and horns raised and teeth bared. Tom squeezed Maverick’s arm and walked back to her a little ways, standing firm. 

“It’s fine,” he called into the wind, putting the edge of command in his voice, “Go fly, go hunt. I’m safe.”

Suivon shivered unhappily, eyeing Udrayatis disdainfully as she cartwheeled up above, snapping at gulls. With a hard rush of smoke from her nostrils that made plain what she thought of his command, she took to the air, out over the sea on a few beats of her heavy wings. Undeterred, Udrayathis gave a loud shriek of delight and shot after her like a black bolt from a crossbow, apparently eager to show her the gull she’d snagged on her onyx teeth. The dark shadow chased the white across the rising and crumbling waves until they disappeared amidst the swell. 

“You know,” Maverick observed lightly, running fingers through his hair to sweep away the sea spray gathering in it, “We raise our dragons from eggs. We take care of them, we feed them and we teach them to fly. And yet somehow, Suivon sees herself as your mother.”

Ice shouldered him gently, rolling his eyes, “Let’s not think on that too deeply…not when there are much better things to do…”

He took the initiative then, catching the smaller man’s hand and drawing him in smoothly like they were at a court dance, other hand alighting on his waist. His kiss interrupted a purr of delight from Maverick, who bent into his embrace willingly. The wind had long since pulled Maverick’s shirt from his belt and Tom took advantage, sliding his hand up and under, against skin that shivered too his touch. 

“You’re freezing,” he murmured in the desperate snatch of air between one kiss and the next. 

“Getting less so…” Maverick smirked, taking the chance to nip at his lip, “But I take your point.”

He drew him towards the nearest cave mouth, a place that looked yawning and uninviting, all black stone, stalactites and stalagmites like rows of spiny teeth. But it was familiar to them, even when the rocky mouth swallowed them and left the moon behind, he still knew where to step in the gloom. They went further down the gullet until the wind and rain grew quiet, replaced with rhythmic dripping from a ceiling closer than was comfortable, soft trickling from hidden rivers that had never seen the sun. The walls shrank around them, forcing Tom to bend. Just at the point when the tightness became unbearable, when apprehension would tip over into fear and panic, there came that breath of air, a current in the stillness. Tom squeezed Maverick’s hand and let himself be pulled forward, having to crawl for a moment though he never let go, until they came to a vast, sudden emptiness and a strange light. 

It took a moment for Tom’s eyes and mind to adjust, it always had. To let himself believe he actually was seeing what he thought he was seeing, to accept the impossible scene. The moss or fungus or whatever it was that grew along the walls of their hidden cave held its own, eerie light, a dim green that carpeted the floor and crawled up the walls, making it look and feel like they’d crossed some veil into a different world. And it wasn’t just the walls, the pool that steamed with impossible heat towards the back of the cave, somehow warm as a man’s blood, was alive with light too. It was a cool blueness that would shift and swirl when they put a hand in it, like motes of light were suspended in the otherwise inky waters. Maverick had sworn that he’d seen fish in there that also shone, eel things that moved like lightning across the sky, though Tom would wait until he saw them with his own eyes to truly believe that. 

Tom inhaled, letting himself sink into the cool, damp, fresh scent of the place while Maverick went off to strike flint against the obsidian walls and light some of the candles they’d smuggled down here when they realised this was a place they’d visit frequently. They’d brought other comforts too, some blankets Tom neatly draped on stalagmites to keep them out of the damp, a few bottles of summer wine from the city markets, a smaller bottle of oil purchased much more secretively from a brothel on the Street of Silk. There were even some books, piled up safely away from the water, Tom insisting that it was hard to concentrate back in the Crooked Tail tower with the snoring of their fellow riders.

Altogether, it made this dim and dripping cave more of a home than either of them had ever known. It meant Tom was smiling as the warm candlelight spread, even though he knew it would be hard to explain their absence, even though he knew the risks they were taking. 

Maverick wasn’t in the mood to waste time, sweeping his shirt up over his head and beckoning him over to the pools. 

“Come on,” he grinned, his smile beckoning, “You stink from the ride over…”

“Is that supposed to be seductive?” Tom laughed, undressing too, “You’d made a terrible whore, shouting that down from a balcony.”

“I’d make a fantastic whore,” Maverick feigned woundedness, kicking away his riding trousers, “Though I suppose I wouldn’t be a rich one…”

“Why is that?” Thomas eyed him, letting himself be generous with his gaze, up and down Maverick’s tight, lithely muscled body. Clinging to a dragon’s back for ten hours a day did wonderful things for a man’s form, the lot of them were as strong as any knight.

“Well, I’d only have one client, wouldn’t I?” The lightness in his voice told Tom he knew he was staring, that he was enjoying it immensely, “You.”

He bent and slid into the pool, with none of his usual reckless abandon, like even he understood it would be sacrilegious to disturb these glowing waters. Once in them, up to the waist in iridescent, shining water, he looked like something mythical, like some elf king out of a storybook. Or like some tempting trickster god, a siren ready to reach out and snag a passing sailor. 

Tom was more than willing to be snagged. He finally stripped off the last of his clothing, the cold, hard rock under his feet softened slightly by the glowing lichen, the thin sheen of that oddly warm water. All of the chill from the ride and the sea melted helplessly before it, reigniting his nerves, bringing life back into his limbs. 

Maverick made a chase of it, sliding back to the very edge of the pool, making Tom come after him simply because he could. Grinning, Tom hunted him down, caught him about the waist, pressing him against the far wall and pinning him under a fierce kiss. 

“Gods, Ice…” Maverick breathed, his voice a tremble, a wisp of breath unlike his hands which closed tight as a trap around the taller man’s shoulders. 

Tom showed no more restraint, hands slipping down to grip Maverick’s hips, his thighs, feeling that dizziness that usually only came with being miles above the ground. Kissing him was like taking flight, that same sense of freedom and danger all at once, woven together so tightly it was impossible to know one from the other. Knowing you could fall and believing you wouldn’t, letting something so much stronger and more powerful than you take hold and run wild. 

Before long, Maverick’s collarbone was covered in bite marks, thankfully all well below where his armour would cover, and he was begging shamelessly, “Please, Ice…please…”

“Please what?” Tom growled against the hollow of his throat, that edge of a command in his voice again, for no other reason than to hear the words.

“Fuck me,” Maverick gasped, voice heavy with need, his nails raking thin white lines on Tom’s shoulders.

The plea worked as well as the command. Tom’s hand reached for the second of those little red glass bottles, the one they rested in a convenient divot in the cave wall just by the pool. The stuff inside was thick and filled the air with a fresh, grassy scent, cool on Tom’s fingertips, even cooler when he reached below the water and pressed it against Maverick, into the crease in his body. He jolted in response, grinding down into it hungrily with a wanton groan. 

“Easy now…” Tom gasped, taking his earlobe between his teeth. 

“You take so damn long,” Maverick whined, fighting to keep his hips still though he didn’t seem entirely in control of himself, “Fuck…”

“I take long so I don’t break you,” he punctuated his words by sliding his fingers in deeper, more suddenly, making Maverick kick and yelp. 

Through gritted teeth, he gasped, “Who says I don’t want to be broken?”

Tom had to laugh at that, working two fingers in and out of him, feeling those strong, wiry legs wrap around his hips so he could take him deeper, “Let’s see what I can do…”

More oil in his palm, this time along his own length, already hard and hot in his hand. He rose out of the water a little to slick himself and Maverick groaned at the sight of it, as though they hadn’t been doing this for a year, as though they hadn’t shared a bathhouse since they were boys. As though even now, even as he knew him inside and out, better than anyone ever had, Maverick still found something beautiful in him. 

“Take me,” Maverick’s voice was raw, desperate, his eyes so wide and dark that Tom felt he could pitch forward and fall into them. 

He answered with a kiss, with hands tight on Maverick’s hips, lifting him enough that he could begin the slow roll and press into his body. He swallowed the high, fractured cry Maverick gave at the stretch and burn of it, pushing beyond into the closeness, the dizzyingly sweet blurring of their two selves. 

“More, more, yes, fuck, oh fuck, yes-” Maverick rambled in senseless want, heels pressing into the small of Tom’s back, both body and voice willing him deeper until he just couldn’t. 

So Tom moved, bracing himself on the cool rock under his feet, one hand on the slick, black wall, the other around Maverick’s back. Like the waves somewhere up there, he rocked, gentle at first but then harder at a pleading whine from his lover, a press of those heels. Growling deep in his chest, he slowly gave everything he had, every ounce of strength in his body, to Maverick, fucking into him then drawing all the way back, only to surge forward again and make him scream. Tom lost all sense of time, of place, everything in the world becoming him and Maverick and the dense, tangled forest of their joined nerves, that soaring feeling. It was like flying. It was like falling. 

It came apart too soon, too suddenly. Tom broke first, hips stuttering, a low, throaty moan torn out of him as he spilled his heat deep inside Maverick. He took his lover down with him, a shriek of his name echoing off the cave walls as his release hit him hard. The landing at least was easier than a fall from dragonback, the tension unwinding and leaving the two of them panting softly, last embers burning out in each other’s arms. 

“Tom…” Maverick murmured, voice weak, pressing soft, feather light kisses against his neck, “I’ve got you…it’s alright…”

Tom burrowed into his arms, feeling the broken pieces of himself rattling loose inside his chest, letting Maverick’s gentle words, the soft fingers through his hair, slowly, painstakingly, fit them back together, “Pete…”

“I know,” Maverick whispered and for a moment, Tom could believe him. If Maverick couldn’t know, if he couldn’t understand, who would?

It was a long time before he could pull himself away, let them become two separate bodies again. Maverick was still smiling, those words they weren’t allowed to say plain in his eyes as he looked at Tom.

But fuck that. There was no one else to hear them. 

“I love you, Pete,” Tom murmured, resting his forehead against his lover’s. 

That smile broke through, like the sun coming out from behind the clouds, those creases in the corner of his eyes. “I love you too, Tom.”

They would have to leave the cave soon, they would have to whistle their dragons back to them and return to the city. They would have to take this thing they had, tuck it away, hide it in a chest and push it well out of sight. 

But they could have another moment here, in their strange, safe, glowing world. 

A moment was all they had. 

[rosalind-hawkins]

Okay your new header is SO cute!!!

So for the ask meme, our lovely mumble boys!!! 1, 8, 35, and whichever your favourite number is!

Thank you so much, and thanks for indulging me!

1. Who fell for the other one first?

Generally speaking, Ryou is the hopeless romantic who falls first, but somehow in Power of Three, he's the last one to fall for both of his boys. 🤷‍♀️ Seto falling for Ryou first is just too adorable.

8. Do they get along with each other’s friends and family?

Oooh, I've made a post like this before, but I never get tired of talking about how these boys build their family.

Seto lets Ryou put up a little angel shrine to his mother and sister in the mansion's garden with votive candles and such (thanks to my "Ryou had a Catholic mom" headcanons). Duke is not on speaking terms with his parents (idk that we know anything about Duke's mom, but assuming she's not dead, I think he resents her for what she let his dad do), so Kaiba is happy to stonewall them as well. "The enemy of my friend is my enemy." And if either Duke's dad or Ryou's dad shows up uninvited, Seto is taking every legal measure to keep them as far away as possible.

Ryou and Duke love Mokuba, and Mokuba loves them. Kaiba cannot date anyone longterm that Mokuba hates, it's not allowed. They get along super well and it's honestly enriching for lil Mokie.

In an AU where Amane is secretly somehow alive, she and Mokuba become BFFs, she slips right into his friendgroup with Leon and Rebecca, and he has a big crush on her. Seto and Amane don't quite know what to make of each other, and that's partly because Seto is weird with women. Duke and Amane would get along great, total nerdy gamer bros.

Kaiba is forced to learn how to play nice with the rest of the gang, mostly due to Ryou's insistence. Ryou's not going to keep the people he cares about all separate unless there's a very good reason for it, and he doesn't think Kaiba has a good reason for refusing to interact with the others. Duke actually would have been fine with Seto staying so standoffish, but does admit that it's not fun when they can all do things together with their friends.

35. How do they deal with being away from each other for a long time?

Ooooooooohhhhhhhh boy. *Deep breath* Okay, SO.

When Seto has to travel and taking either of his boys with him isn't an option, they use phonecalls to stay in touch. Seto doesn't usually do much of the talking on these calls, but hearing their voices and listening to them happily talk about their day and their ideas makes him happier in that "I miss you more than I did before" kind of way.

Sometimes Duke has to go to America for business stuff with Pegasus, and he prefers video calls and exchanging selfies to help with missing his boys. Kaiba won't take selfies but Ryou takes pictures of him on Duke's behalf, which is deemed acceptable.

When Ryou is missing his men, in addition to the stuff above, he will wear their clothes to feel closer to them and hang out in a spot where they usually spend their time. Sometimes he'll drink coffee when he misses Seto, even though he doesn't really like coffee. It makes him feel closer. Then when they come back, Ryou is all over them for cuddles.

And, since you asked for my favorite number, I've become a little... extra indulgent.

33. Who is the big spoon and why?

Mostly Kaiba, secondarily Duke, but Ryou will be a big spoon too sometimes to both of them and it's precious. Ryou likes to hold onto people and cuddle, and Kaiba denies that he's a cuddler, but if he's holding them in his sleep and they creep out of his hold for any reason, he wakes up fast. It's secretly an anxiety thing. Ryou figured that out first but doesn't say anything about it. Duke just loves physical contact, he will go either way with either of them. 😉

48. Who would bring home a homeless animal?

Ryou 1000%. He will come home with a box of abandoned kittens, crying because he already loves all of them so much. Duke grabs the tissues and Seto summons a veterinarian.

49. Do they match outfits for special occasions?

Ryou likes to match Kaiba, and Duke likes to be his own thing. Duke's style and flair are very distinct and don't match Kaiba at all, though they are an interesting complement. Sometimes Duke wants Ryou to match him instead, and that's when Ryou becomes an absolute doll that his boyfriends dress up because he would wear casual comfy clothes every day of his life for every occasion if he didn't have such fashionable men to guide him.

[kitamars]

hope you don't mind me sending in another ask so soon but i always find this kinda stuff interesting- now that you've survived two big serious arcs how would you rank the main cast in terms of like. favs & stuff?

don't apologise for the asks at all!! i love answering them and rambling about my thoughts so actually thank YOU for giving me a viable outlet haha

so I had to pull out my notes app to draft this one bc i can't do things simply apparently. i can't rank characters for shit so I'm just gonna rate the main ones (at least to me) out of ten and that's that lol, so onward beyond the cut!

Gintoki: I'm in love with him. 10/10.

He's captivated me with his dead fish eyes and pathetic charm, the way he subverts the general shonen protag archetype really works for me (bc i tend to get annoyed with the genre every now and then) but other than that he's such an interesting character on his own that I cannot get into for fear of rambling too much but yeah. I like him a lot. I might cry about someday in the tags of some art or whatever

(also beam saber arc is UNDERRATED (to me) and its very much overshadowed by everything before and after it but I DON'T CARE it has some of my favourite gin character bits this is my propaganda i just felt like i had to put this here THANKS)

Shinpachi: the human-wearing-glasses gag is absolutely hilarious and I hope it never stops. 8/10.

I love shinpachi a lot I promise, i love how dedicated he is to the straight man role and also the times when he's not. Honestly he could have very easily annoyed me after a bit, but he's genuinely just so loveable and a lot of his charm just comes from his VA's delivery, I've never heard anyone else able to convey the emotional range that I've heard from shinpachi in this anime fnsnjrjgjs

I do think he needs more screentime though (watch beam saber arc),,,kagura tends to get a lot of the spotlight (which I'm not mad about) but he also needs some love!! he's just some guy yk gotta give some appreciation!!

Kagura: queen of kabukicho and the queen of my heart. 10/10.

SHE IS LITERALLY EVERYTHING TO ME. i don't have words to express how much I love her, she's one of my all time favorites ever. She's just doing her thing, eating gin-san out of house and home and kicking ass while she's at it and she's so valid for that.

A big part of why I like her is also just her relationship with the yorozuya. the amount of times I've felt like exploding when I see her and gin or shinpachi just interacting in the background of a scene or something similar is impossible to count. She's my little mimi and she deserves literally the world

(Also there's this one compilation of her singing on YouTube and i listen to it RELIGIOUSLY kugimiya rie is a blessing for this character for real it's insane)

Sadaharu interlude: Big ball of fluff/10 (he's adorable)

Hijikata: this man makes me feel a similar range of emotions I feel cramming the night before a final, if not more. 10/10.

He drives me NUTS. you know me, i love my dark-haired chainsmoking men with issues, and he's just chock full of them, it's like a dream come true. Every arc that's focused on him has been absolutely incredible, and even on his own he's such an interesting and funny character. Fully biased towards his VA btw, i don't think anyone else could voice him as effectively, the delivery is always top notch.

His dynamic with the rest of the shinsengumi is honestly one of my favourites, he's got so much range as a serious and gag character, especially when the plot decides to chuck his coolness out the window with that little mayonnaise addiction of his (now everytime I put mayonnaise on anything at all i give myself a dirty look, idk why).

Also i should mention that tosshi was one of the only things that made my watching experience truly difficult. I'd just cringe out of existence everytime he opened his mouth it was. An experience. I still love him very much. Too much maybe.

Sougo: sadism has never looked more fun. 9/10.

I don't think I really have much to say about him? he's genuinely a really fun character, and his endless quests to smear hijikata across the asphalt is always the highlight of any viewing experience. i loved him regardless, but the mitsuba and farewell shinsengumi arcs gave him that extra bit of depth that really solidified him as a fav hehe

YOU DONT GET CHARACTERS LIKE HIM VERY OFTEN AND I LOVE HIM SO MUCH

kondo: gorilla gorilla/10 (9/10)

thi guy is just the fucking funniest. he's one of the perfect examples of how gintama does characterisation through comedy because by introducing him with all his hilarious gags, you start to care a lot more about him when things actually get serious. Plus the joke never really gets old with him, if he shows up in an episode I know I'm about to have a great time.

but as a serious character as well he's just so good. Him being the glue of the shinsengumi is incredible and sometimes in the plot (crisis and farewell arcs) you can see exactly what it is in this man that makes people want to follow him to the ends of the earth, he is just a good person and I love him for that.

also he's the reason i realised I have not grown out of my 14 year old dick joke phase so there's that

Otose: gintoki's overdue rent/10 (9/10)

I enjoy her so much actually, she's already incredibly fun, but whenever they show more background to gintoki and her's relationship, all of a sudden i am in a puddle of tears on the floor, it's one of the most important things ever to me, the foster parent trope is my weak point.

evidently, kabukicho four devas was my kryptonite (in a really really good way)

Catherine: the heavy accent is pretty funny. 7/10.

I don't really have strong feelings about her tbh, she's alright and funny enough, that's pretty much all I can say

Tama: total number of her leukocytes/10 (9/10)

I LIKE TAMA SOOOOO MUCH SHES SO SWEET AND KIND AND ADORABLE. all of the tama centric arcs have been really fun and each episode involving her is so nice. Finding out she was the time traveller in the bfy movie was such a great twist but immediately made sense bc OF COURSE she would go that far for her very first friends!!!!! i love her innocence so dearly and the way she simply just wants to help others, also otose seeing her as a daughter makes me so emotional

Hasegawa: the madaodog madaonaire episode made me choke at the speed at which I got that reference. 8/10.

Incredibly funny character, the fact that he cannot win a single W is both hilarious but also a bit sad and pathetic, but he's authentic to himself regardless.

He also ruined my later attempts at trying to watch NGE

Otae: the price of one dom peri/10 (8/10)

I love her SOOOOO much she's so entertaining...again I don't have much to say but it's not really in a bad way, i just like her a lot and that's mostly it hehe

Kyubei: otae love/10 (9/10)

as a nb person I have a huge bias towards kyubei, their struggle to figure out where they stand in the binary is pretty relatable, and while I can say that you don't always see a character like that in media who is also hopelessly in love with a woman (so real for that though) i can also admit that this show isn't the best handling of it all, but honestly it's a very "take what I can get situation" so I try not to be too bothered, dekobokko was a bit strange but the ending for kyubei is better than most other instances I've seen, even if it doesn't stay consistent in the series

Also where is jugem jugem? i miss that little bastard so much that arc was so good

Tsukuyo: where does she stash all that kunai. 9/10.

TSUKUYO IS MY WIFE AND GINTOKI NEEDS TO MOVE OVER BC I WANT TO KISS HER. thank you

no but seriously she's a really fun character, and I love everything about her and yoshiwara and her relationship with hinowa and seita and he hyakka and ACK. yoshiwara in flames and the red spider arcs were really good for her, and her slightly confused air at most times is so charming, i love her muah

Sacchan: uhhhhhh huh. 7/10.

I'm gonna be honest, she's one of the only characters I really didn't like since she was introduced, i just found her so incredibly annoying all the time. But then came shogun assassination and suddenly I could stand her a lot more when her personality didn't revolve around gin-san's massive d– (but like. I hate that I can relate to her)

also I don't know where her strange friendship with tsukuyo came from but I actually genuinely like it a lot..........sillies with sharp knives, what could possibly go wrong?

Okay I'm running out of steam here honestly so if I've missed anyone (I'm very sure I have) feel free to ask in replies and I'll tell you what i think jgjekkfkd

this is terrible. Everyone is a main character in my eyes

EDIT: I MISSED THE REST OF THE JOUI 4. I WILL DISEMBOWEL MYSELF. BUT FOR NOW HAVE A LIGHTNING ROUND

katsura: 10/10.

One of my all time favourite characters ever, literal definition of head empty no thoughts, he is so stupid and I want to kiss him passionately under the moonlight

Sakamoto: 10(00000)/10

He is my everything. He needs more screentime. I'm begging on my knees. He is the perfect man.

Takasugi: 9/10

He's great. Shogun assassination made me cry over him. I'm forever sad about him now he was so mochi.....and then the trauma.............ue

Anyways now I think I'm done. time to atone

[witchthewriter]

Level 3, idk if you recongnize me but I did a match up a while back and decided to do another again if that's okay? 🐦

Fandoms: Game of Thrones, Marvel, X Men

MBTI: INFP

Sexuality: Lesbian

Pronouns: She/They

Zodiac Sign: Capricorn (i only know that😭)

Hogwarts House: Hufflepuff

I'm a very quiet person, timid, kinda grumpy and a bit shy but with close ones I'm a bit more talkative. I'm the type to be logical but also feels bad if it affects people's feelings, a bit of a people pleaser not gonna lie. I try my best to stay out of trouble but sometimes can't help but help people in need even if it causes me trouble (blame myself for it after sometimes). To be honest I'm actually pretty nice, kind and friendly. Like I would split my food and hand you the bigger one. I'm a good listener and gets embarrassed after i ramble about something i like. I get nervous and overwhelmed easily, I'm also anxious and paranoid like I check if i have the things i need like five times 💀. I'm very loyal to my friends and hate to see them upset.

Likes: Quiet places, music, relaxing solitude, matcha tea, cold drinks, cold weather, reading, taking breaks and hanging out with people i like.

Dislikes: insensitive or immoral people, germs, untidiness, loud noises/people, not being able to sleep.

Hobbies: Drawing, Reading, Organizing and Sleeping

Habit(s): I have a habit of dozing off when Im stuck in my mind and I pully my sleeves really hard when I'm nervous.

My Love Language: Quality Time and Acts of Service

Thank you! Have a great day or night =°_°= ♡

Want one? Here be the rules 🦋🌈 

𝐆𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬

𝑫𝒆𝒔𝒄𝒓𝒊𝒑𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏

𝑰 𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒑 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝑺𝒂𝒏𝒔𝒂 𝑺𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒌! She's been through a lot and your gentle nature would make her feel cared for. I think that's what she needs most, someone who will care for her. To make her feel loved and needed.

𝑯𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒄𝒂𝒏𝒐𝒏𝒔

・Very faithful and loyal. Anyone who speaks ill against you ... never does so again (depending on what they say, Sansa will take their tongue.)

・Treats you as her equal, and wants your input on many things. She loves your opinions because they're level-headed and come from a good place.

・Sews gorgeous clothes for you. She's naturally talented in that area, and has made such detailed items that take your breath away. Threaded your favourite flower, woven with golden shining thread. It's time consuming, but she doesn't mind it. She wants to spend time on things for you.

𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐯𝐞𝐥

𝑫𝒆𝒔𝒄𝒓𝒊𝒑𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏

𝑰 𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒑 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝑾𝒂𝒏𝒅𝒂 𝑴𝒂𝒙𝒊𝒎𝒐𝒇𝒇! She loves romance and would sweep you off your feet. You would keep her grounded and she would make you feel loved and protected. I think she would be able to take away some of your anxieties as well by letting you feel safe.

𝑯𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒄𝒂𝒏𝒐𝒏𝒔

・Everything is deeper and more intense with Wanda. She makes you feel like you're worth it. That you have so much worth and your thoughts are important. You're important.

・Likes to bake for you! All the time! There's many things that haven't turned out right, but it's fun and you enjoy taste-testing!

・If you need her, she will not leave your side. She makes you feel like her number one priority

𝐗-𝐌𝐞𝐧

𝑫𝒆𝒔𝒄𝒓𝒊𝒑𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏

𝑰 𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒑 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝑹𝒐𝒈𝒖𝒆! She has a good heart and wants to do the best by others. I think you two would be a great match because she wants to love someone with her whole being and I think you would want someone who is completely ready for a relationship. The compatibility would be high because you're both sensitive and emotionally mature/open.

𝑯𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒄𝒂𝒏𝒐𝒏𝒔

・Sees the good in every situation, which makes you feel like a more positive person

・She's great at listening and wants you to tell her everything about your day. Often begins a conversation, just so you can take over and talk. Your voice soothes her.

・She never breaks her promises, and reserves her affection just for you

[transformedyt]

Hadestown is SUCH a good musical! I’ve listened to the entire soundtrack dozens of times, and my favourite songs so many more. And through that, I’ve noticed some messages that may or may not have been intended, and i keep noticing more. I wanna share some of my favourites because it’s so good and i wanna talk about it. (Spoiler alert if you haven’t listened to it. You should. It’s good.)

1. There’s an anti capitalist message. This is strongest in Chant, but it appears throughout most of the musical. In Hadestown, you live to work, and lose yourself in the process. You lose your memories, your identity, and your freedom. All while the boss rakes in the money at your expense. And to deal with that, you pay someone else, the wife of the boss, to give you a glimpse of what you’re missing. Stars, flowers, the moon. Things that are free are suddenly locked behind a paywall, which makes you keep working to get the things that let you tolerate all that working. That sounds an awful lot like capitalism…

2. It shows that you need to let your significant others be their own people, not hold them to you and never give them space. Hades wanting to be with Persephone all the time nearly ruined their marriage, and the world with it. He grew obsessive and possessive, viewing her as an object he should be able to control. Which ended up driving her to driving in order to put up with this. He even made artificial replacements for the things she loved on the surface to try and keep her from returning. And by the end, he seemed to have learned. He learned to be patient and to trust his wife. And i like to think he didn’t fall back into old habits.

3. And while you definitely shouldn’t be overbearing with your loved ones, it also says not to neglect them. Orpheus didn’t pay attention to Eurydice when she said there was a storm coming, and she ended up dying as a result. That’s obviously taking it to the extreme, but it’s good to listen to your loved ones when they tell you something is wrong.

4. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Orpheus walked halfway to Hell and back using sheer determination. The road may be scary, but you’ll never know if you can make the trip if you don’t try.

5. Wait and see if you can’t change the outcome. Orpheus was told that if he looked behind him, Eurydice would go back to Hadestown. He began to grow paranoid that she was not following him. If she was not there, looking behind him wouldn’t change that. If she was, it would. So logically, he should have finished the trip instead of looking behind him. If she wasn’t there, he could go back. He got there before, he’d be able to do it again. But because he looked, she was sent back and he was unable to save her again.

6. “The meanest dog you’ll ever meet, he ain’t the hound dog in the street. He’ll bare some teeth and tear some skin, but brother that’s the worst of him. The dog you really gotta dread is the one that howls inside your head. It’s him whose howling drives men mad and a mind to its undoing.” I interpret this to mean that you are your own worst enemy. That little voice in the back of your head that puts you down or says things to scare you is worse than anyone else. Because it knows you. And it follows you. And it is so much worse than some random person saying those same things, imo. I personally view this, along with another bit later on in Wait For Me (Reprise) about the hardest road to walk, is about mental illness. Depression. Anxiety. Disorders that make that voice so much worse. And through that, there’s this hopeful melody. They sound a little scared to me, but hopeful. Which just makes what comes next that much more tragic. Because sometimes people stumble. Sometimes they fall back into that thinking and do things that they might regret. For me, it was losing touch with so many of my friends. But it can be different for everyone. But try to remember that hopeful melody is still going, even when you can’t hear it.

7. Times are tough. There are a lot of people who can barely afford to eat, if they can at all. People who are so focused on surviving that they don’t have time to focus on living. There is a difference.

8. Weddings are expensive.

I know it got kinda heavy there, but it’s a heavy musical. I’d love to know your own interpretations, things that you noticed, favourite songs/lyrics, character breakdowns, and anything else! It’s my favourite musical, but i don’t know anyone else who likes it, so I’d love to be able to discuss it with someone!

[lucienballard]

Famous fans say farewell to the B-52’s:

After 46 years, the Athens originals are taking off for good later this year. David Byrne, Boy George and more pay tribute to one of the most unusual pop bands ever

Kathleen Hanna, Bikini Kill

What other band has three great lead singers? Nobody can do what Fred Schneider does. And Cindy [Wilson] and Kate [Pierson] – I remember listening to Give Me Back My Man, and the quality of their voices was so strong and so powerful. And also to be able to be so funny – their music is so joyous and interesting, and such a celebration of independent thinking.

Ricky [Wilson] passing of Aids was such a loss to the musical community that was never fully acknowledged. Ricky and Keith [Strickland] were the primary songwriters at the beginning, and just so obsessed with music. It’s really important to acknowledge [the influence of] gay men in music – the B-52’s are one of the biggest influences on every independent band that I’ve ever met. It’s not just all straight men who make music, it’s not all Bob Dylan – there are tons of different people who have made incredibly iconic, important music, who aren’t straight white guys, and I think it’s important to acknowledge that even though that’s not where their genius lies.

In Le Tigre, we opened two shows for the Pixies reunion in New York and the whole audience yelled “B-52’s” at us the whole time while we were performing, I guess because they assume all electronic music is the B-52’s. It was so funny, because they were booing us, but we were like: Oh my God, they think we sound like the B-52’s! We left the stage happy – that was really rude, but I mean, seriously, if you’re going to be booed, being called the B-52’s is like being booed with flowers.

Gerald Casale, Devo

The B-52’s and Talking Heads always felt like Devo’s kindred spirits. We were all unique and not very punk. The punks didn’t like us because we weren’t orthodox, and orthodoxy permeates rock’n’roll. We’d first become aware of the B-52’s through independent record stores when we were hawking our debut single. It was exciting because I knew where they were coming from, how they were grabbing from 1960s kitsch with the beehive hairdos and the theatricality of it all. It was like they’d come from their own planet. Who on earth sings about a Rock Lobster?

It was outsider stuff with a distinctive sound that was consciously slightly retro, coming from surf music and rockabilly, but not with rockabilly beats. They’d come up through the Athens, Georgia, scene and dance clubs and were in the realm of LGBTQ [music] before such a thing was identified. They were transgressive and polarising, but in a different way to Devo. I met Kate at the Mudd Club in New York in early 79 and immediately fell for her. She had the beehive, of course, because they were always in character, which I thought was fantastic.

David Byrne

We in Talking Heads became friends with the B-52’s early on. I remember they told us: “You have to see this other band from Athens playing at Danceteria – they’re called REM.” The Athens, Georgia bands were all very supportive of one another, it seemed to me.

I produced an album with the B-52’s which ended up as an EP [Mesopotamia]. I suspect they came to me because they wanted to experiment a little bit more. Maybe that’s why the LP got cut down to an EP – or maybe the other songs weren’t up to snuff? My favourite song from that record was Deep Sleep, which sounded like Young Marble Giants gone psychedelic. Ricky Wilson, who was such a large part of their sound, had Aids at that time, and was not around for many of the sessions. It was a pretty tough time for the band but they persevered and eventually revived. They were a tight family.

Jake Shears, Scissor Sisters

I was aged 12 when Love Shack came out [in 1989]. It was everywhere and was a game-changer for me. It was the first time I’d heard a gay man in music. Fred didn’t come out until 1992, but he didn’t need to. It was just the sound of an unabashed, unapologetically gay man at a time when it wasn’t part of the conversation. He was so interesting because he was more of an MC than a conventional singer. There wasn’t anything really sexual about the B-52’s but if you look at the lyrics to Dirty Back Road they’re obviously about butt fucking. There’s a silly sexuality to them. I just knew when I heard Fred for the first time that I had something in common with whatever I was hearing. I got the Cosmic Thing album and from that moment I was a huge fan. I’d find pictures and make collages, write letters to them and fantasise: “Maybe we could go out to lunch sometime?” I thought they were so cool, especially because it was otherwise such a lame time in pop music.

They were integral to me wanting to make music and showing me the possibilities of what a band could be and look like, free of convention. The B-52’s gave me the freedom to write stuff that was kind of stupid and dumb and funny just for the sake of being fun. What’s a Rock Lobster? You come up with something like that by free-styling and being open – basically using music as meditation. When I moved to New York aged 21 I went to their 25th anniversary show at Irving Plaza, which was unforgettable. Yoko Ono came out to sing Rock Lobster and I met Fred for the first time. Scissor Sisters went on to do a bunch of shows with them and I hope we continued the lineage. Without the B-52’s, Scissor Sisters wouldn’t have existed and I wouldn’t exist as a writer and performer.

Boy George

My friend Jeremy Healy had Rock Lobster, which we both loved. It was so random and surreal and I loved the idea that a song can be about anything. Rock Lobster is the Beach Boys on crack. I think Jeremy might have seen them live at the Lyceum but I couldn’t go. Then I bumped into Kate in Camden outside the Electric Ballroom when she was attending some other gig. I had a green face and said hello. I think she grimaced.

Later we [Culture Club] played with them a few times and they had the most unique, hypnotic sound. It’s trashy Americana, John Waters, Divine, the Shangri-La’s, high camp and bubblegum punk. The beat is everything. Fred always reminded me of Dr Zachary Smith from Lost in Space. I never thought about whether the B-52’s had a gay angle. They were just against rules in general – taking classic American kitsch and giving it a punk, space-age irreverence, like a beautiful car crash with pop surrealism. They were very camp but very funky: always on it, melodic but effortlessly free. It’s the sort of pop music that I want to hear.

Read more here

[purpleplaid17]

Jess Watches // Fri 3 Nov // Day 45 & Sat 4 Nov // Day 46 Synopses & Favourite Scenes

Fingernails (Film)

Anna and Ryan have found true love, and it's proven by a controversial new technology. There's just one problem, as Anna still isn't sure. Then she takes a position at a love testing institute and meets Amir.

With a cast list including Jessie Buckley, Riz Ahmed, and Jeremy Allen White I was ready to f e e l things. And while everyone was wonderful, as always, it was quieter emotionally than expected. I did enjoy it though. An interesting concept with a late 80's/early 90's aesthetic.

Manhãs de Setembro (September Mornings) 2x02 The traditional Brazilian mess

Leide and Gersinho connect with Lourenço and Ruth. Back in Sao Paulo, Cassandra tries to get back to her old routines.

This is the second thing I have watched today in which a couple washes each other in the shower. I adored too that while being very intimate, both were more healing and soft rather than sexual.

Sin huellas (No Traces) 1x05 Dakota

With Irene arrested, and after losing the Russians again, the girls and Ubaldo hide in Dakota, a street club. There, they discover something that changes everything.

Ubaldo is a pos and Cata can do so much better. She clearly has a lot of love to give and he doesn't deserve any of it. Also, I'm Desi always saying how beautiful Irene is to anyone who will listen. If she were she right now I would eat your pu-- [my mother kills me in Spanish].

A Business Proposal (with friend) Episode 4

In and outside of work, Ha Ri scrambles to hide her true identity from Tae Moo and his grandfather. A fake one-year anniversary comes up.

Does Taemoo have face blindness? Because how tf did he not notice Hari in the lift when they were literally face to face. Yet he finally realized who she was when her entire face was covered by a helmet?? He got there eventually I guess lol. And why do kdramas always have a sinister story wedged in? I just want Lois and Clark to be safe and together, thirsting over each other in their building's big ass gym.

The Power 1x05 Scarlet Minnow

New voices are emerging - those who champion The Power as a promise of a more equitable future… and others who see it as a threat to their very existence. These opposing forces can rip apart the deepest bonds… or bring unlikely allies together.

The men in positions of power are trash. Zap them all.

[mellybaggins]

when did you first start writing?

Middle school (that would be 1992 or so.) I wanted to write down the stories about my favourite characters on tv that my friends and I talked about while going for walks.

what was the first fandom you ever wrote for?

Star Trek! Then X-Files, then Lord of the Rings.

do you ever read your own writing for fun?

Sometimes, though mostly to proofread and remember stuff I said ten chapters ago that the current chapter I'm writing is referring to.

if you could erase any three tropes from existence, what would they be?

I honestly don't have that strong of an opinion on tropes. They can all be good in the write hands, I think. They're tropes for a reason.

do you prefer writing longer or shorter works?

My giant longfic can attest to how much I like longer works, but I do like the occasional short fic now and then. Oathbreaker began life as a Nanowrimo story, that became a series of short fics which later became the first several chapters of my now longfic.

do you have a “guilty pleasure” (trope, character, au etc.) to read or write?

I'm an angst junkie. The main character must suffer, apparently. No conflict, no story amirite? Also enemies to friends/lovers is fun.

what is your favourite thing that you’ve ever written?

Oathbreaker, specifically my backstory chapters. Those surprised the hell out of me, and I tried all kinds of new stuff with them that seemed to work well. I liked my backstory characters so much some of them will be appearing in present day in Act 3.

tell us the titles of your three favourite works in progress.

I really only have two WIPs. The next chapters of Oathbreaker that's almost ready called Frozen Angels, and a prompt drabble for Gale and Laileth with the tentative title IngwaR.

which app do you use to write?

Google Docs. I can write on my computer and on my phone, depending on my mood.

what is your most favourite character to write about and why?

Morwen/Idril is probably the most complex character I've written, I'm so damned proud of how she's evolved over time. A very close runner up is Amdir, damn he's fun to write.

what is your least favourite character to write about and why?

I don't think I have one. I did purposely avoid including some characters in Oathbreaker though, to reduce the amount of narrative juggling I'll have to do, but I can't think of anyone so far I don't enjoy writing. There are a few whose voice intimidates me, but that's not the same.

do you read a lot of fanfiction?

I try to, but I also have to make time for my own writing and my day job. When Oathbreaker is finished I will be taking time to just read, because there's so much good stuff out there, omg. I try to schedule some time every week to read though, I have a few that I keep up with regularly.

how do you shake burnout or writer’s block?

Take breaks. If it's not coming, I'm trying too hard. Listen to music, go for a walk, do chores. That's when I get most of my good ideas actually. Music just speaks to my soul and the chapters come. Take a nap. To amend John Mulaney's words: 'Do my characters hate me, or do I just need to go to bed?'

do you write smut? if yes, would you ever stop? if no, would you ever consider it?

Yes. No, in that order. I have a complicated relationship with smut. I love reading it, but I get an anxiety response in my body when I write it due to religious trauma. So I try to force myself to write it as often as I can, which my characters are more than happy about. Fuck you, religious trauma, I'm writing about elves and vampires and wizards and bear men having depraved polyamorous sex.

are there any works you’ve written that you personally dislike?

Some, but they're all on my ancient FF.net account that will never see the light of day. Maybe one day I'll go back there and edit my own stuff and repost it on Ao3, but not for a while.

when do you think you’ll stop writing fanfiction?

When it's no longer fun. When my inspiration runs dry. When it starts to feel like work.

how many wips do you have right now?

Two. One chapter of my longfic and one prompt fic.

name three fic writers you personally like to read from or are inspired by.

@bhaalbabebardlock who is just the best encouragement I could ask for, @ballofbitter who writes Karlach way better than I ever could, and @astarionfreak who writes just, the best smut.

do you proofread your writing before you post it?

OBSESSIVELY. Even after it's posted I still go back and fix things and hope no one notices.

inbox game for fanfic writers 📨🖊️

when did you first start writing?

what was the first fandom you ever wrote for?

do you ever read your own writing for fun?

if you could erase any three tropes from existence, what would they be?

do you prefer writing longer or shorter works?

do you have a “guilty pleasure” (trope, character, au etc.) to read or write?

what is your favourite thing that you’ve ever written?

tell us the titles of your three favourite works in progress.

which app do you use to write?

what is your most favourite character to write about and why?

what is your least favourite character to write about and why?

do you read a lot of fanfiction?

how do you shake burnout or writer’s block?

do you write smut? if yes, would you ever stop? if no, would you ever consider it?

are there any works you’ve written that you personally dislike?

when do you think you’ll stop writing fanfiction?

how many wips do you have right now?

name three fic writers you personally like to read from or are inspired by.

do you proofread your writing before you post it?