#music: Phosa

[justashadetalkative]

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I look into the waters and see a face I don’t recognize:

Who’s this?

(Who’re you?)

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[starcrossedmyth-lovers-blog]

Music Tag 🎧

Rules: List ten songs that you are obsessed with at the moment and then tag ten other blogs!

I was tagged by @iluvsexyvoltageguys (❤❤❤❤❤)

When I listen I think of...

1. Young and Beautiful - Lana Del Rey 

The source of inspiration for my current fanfic stories: Zyglavis, Scorpio, Krioff, Dui...You walk into their lives, and in their hearts, you never die.

2. Born to Die - Lana Del Rey

Partheno. His godly appearance and demon blood.

3. Gods & Monsters - Lana Del Rey

Teorus. He doesn’t need to be understood.

4. Scarborough Fair - Sarah Brightman

Huedhaut. “He was once the true love of mine.”

5. You Don't Miss Your Water - Craig David

Tauxolouve. The No.1 playboy, but he gives up everything, including his godhood, for loving you.

6. Tighinn Air A'mhuir Am Fear A Phosas Mi - Capercaillie

Karno. His love is sweet, considerable, wide and deep, like the sea.

The meaning’s, Coming on the sea is the man who'll marry me.

7. Shape Of My Heart - Sting

Leon. He is so lonely. And you warm his heart, you teach him how to love.

8. Sleeping Sun - Nightwish

In every god’s route when you have to make a decision. A tough one.

You are fearless. Love makes you strong.

9. Gone with the sin - H.I.M

I have sinned. I am sinning. And I’m about to sin.

SCM turns me to a sinner. Or a sinnamon roll.

10. Raymonda Act III Variation IV - Alexander Glazunov

The solo I wanna dance for you, my beloved zodiac gods!❤❤

I am tagging:

@dopeassjaqjack @rougepetale-blog @syun0acute @synallie 

[justashadetalkative]

🐻and/or🎧 for any or all, I just need to know 👀👀

🐻 (or “creature”) + a character name to find out what animals or creatures inspire receiver’s writing of that character

Phosa: Lions, somewhat - mostly just the potential radiant/sun imagery, heh. Spiderwebs for some of her manifestation design, though idk if that counts as a creature. Also, these things.

Linast: Originally not much -- mmmaybe bats, and umbreon if that counts--but ever since you had Titus nickname him Buck, deer have definitely been on my mind. xD

Diamond: Snakes, technically. (...even more so if you count the character inspiration of Kaa.) Cats more realistically -- especially the stereotype of being capable of deep affection, but only on their own terms and in their own time. And for being prickly otherwise.

Clemcy: Cats again, this time for sun-basking & mouse-tormenting reasons. xD

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🎧(or “music”)+ a character name to find out what songs/style of songs inspire receiver’s writing of that character

Everyone has a five song narrative playlist, actually! Here's the tag. Phosa & Linast's are a little outdated but still not too far off the mark, I don't think. And Clemcy's is just a lot of fun slkfhsdgd. Perks of Disney villain music!

You sent Half-Decade Hangover my way a while ago and it was On Point so here is where it'd fit into the narrative playlist, if I hadn't limited them to 5 songs. ^_^ (If I were to work it in and trim the playlist back down to 5... would probably trim out The Gambler. It and Good Grief kind of cover different points of the same turnaround point, if that makes sense.)

I also have a playlist that theoretically tries to capture the kinds of songs that I think Spire Diamond might listen to while working! (Diamond's Worklist.) By necessity it's thoroughly filtered through a) songs I myself have heard, and b) songs I myself am willing to listen to while working on occasion. xD

Special mention to The Day It Fell Apart for being folk/filk music (Diamond loves social & narrative music) and for having the kind of irreverent morbid humor that can be right up his alley. (...and also for being a tale that probably isn't too terribly far off from some shit he's actually pulled over the years.)

[justashadetalkative]

VII. The Chariot — Describe one of your muses coping mechanisms.

(Old meme I'm not gonna dig up + speed run)

(...I wound up listing things more than "describing one" sldfkhdsg)

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Linast: His stimming and violent outbursts would be too obvious of an answer, so -- his art! One of his few positive and well-adapted coping mechanisms, hah. He finds it relaxing in and of itself, and he'll also often process specific events and concepts through it.

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Phosa: Like Linast, there's the obvious maladaptive answers of dissociation and denial, but as an alternative... physical activity! Both in terms of what comes most naturally to her -- practicing radiating in different spectrums, moving heavy objects, practicing forming shapes -- as well as mimicking corporeal movements, such as learning swordplay or restricting herself to actually navigating an obstacle course.

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Diamond: Meditation, playing music, and journaling, for positive coping mechanisms! Overworking and focusing on other folk's problems (which at least keeps him from ruminating) otherwise. He's managed to stay pretty much sober at the Spire, but drugs and alcohol are common in other incarnations.

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Clemcy: Stereotypical soft self care stuff tbh; naps, meditation, indulgent bathing practices, spending time outside. More maladaptive ones are fucking with people, violence and mind control purely for the satisfaction of it, and self harm.

[justashadetalkative]

Speed run ask! Someone's composing the score for a ballet about your characters. Which characters would be represented by what instruments? (e.g. the celesta being the "voice" of Tchaikovsky's Sugar Plum Fairy.) Answer for the first three characters who come to mind.

(Speed run night)

Ooooh

I love this notion! And I might have to come revisit it sometime outside of speedrunning efforts, because I can guarantee you that if I spent some time googling I'd be reminded of some more fitting instruments that won't come easily to mind off the top of my head.

And I could probably go even further down a rabbit hole if I started researching ballet music specifically, which I know absolutely nothing about but which I'm sure has its own fascinating conventions. xD

But off the top of my head and with solely band/orchestra experience:

Linast: Piano

Phosa: French horn

Diamond: Cello

Clemcy: Violin

[justashadetalkative]

(Follow up to this from @oflostinfound ! ~1300 words.)

Valien flumphs down onto the couch next to Diamond. There’s the sound of shaken paper. “What’s this?”

Diamond sighs, closing his computer and setting it aside. Valien is radiating the brusque decisiveness that usually precedes trouble. “Adoption papers,” he says, dryly. “I’ve decided to assume guardianship over the next litter of kittens. I think you’ll be a good influence on them.”

Valien snorts and shoves at his shoulder. “If you ever actually do that, I’m moving out.” A smooth card taps against Diamond’s hand, and as he takes it he realizes that he does actually recognize it; it isn’t a generic sheet of paper. He must have left Eath’s invitation on a counter somewhere. “I meant this. Some sort of ball?”

“Ah. Yeah. That kid I told you about – one of the daemon’s Phosa and Linast have been talking to, that world where I’ve been testing the new containment spell – she’s throwing a party, invited the three of us. Just for the sake of it, as near as I can tell. Linast talked Phosa into it.”

“I knew I recognized the name. You should go, too.”

Diamond rolls his eye. “Like hell I should. I can’t waste a trip on a party, Valien.”

“You can and you will. If you take the next few weeks off, then you can keep an eye on this ball – metaphorically – and make sure it doesn’t get out of hand.”

“What in the world are you on about?” Diamond asks with a frown. Valien’s timeline is incredibly unrealistic. “The next manual check is–”

Valien shifts. “Um. Look. I, uh. I already talked to Sondra. She’s gonna take over the next few monitoring station visits. You can check the one on this world while you’re there for the ball– it won’t do any harm to get to it a bit early– but other than that…”

Diamond’s frown turns into a glare. “It sounds like you have this all planned out.”

“…well the ball is new. Obviously. That, I just think those kids could use watching and I know you like music. If you actually don’t want to, that's fine. But the rest… yeah. We’ve been talking about redistributing the workload for the next few months.”

“And this is the first I’m hearing of it because…?”

“How many seizures have you had this month, Diamond.”

Diamond grimaces, his stomach sinking at Valien’s flat tone. “…five.”

“And the month before that?”

Diamond groans and lets his head fall back against the couch, staring blindly up towards the ceiling. “You’ve made your point,” he mutters. That doesn’t mean he has to like the overreach, or that he wants to talk about it. Quite the contrary, in fact.

Valien continues, unyielding. “And have you or have you not completely refused to delegate anything unless we just proactively do it before you can get to it.”

“Valien–”

“You didn’t even mention it, Diamond!” Valien exclaims. Diamond winces at the genuine distress that suddenly suffuses his tone, at the sharp spike of it against his senses. “I knew about the seizure you had at home, but I only found out about the others because Sondra asked how you were doing after the two last week, and— I just… I don’t know. We started talking about what we could do about it in the same conversation. I didn’t mean to make any actual decisions behind your back, but… but damn it, you need a break.”

“You can’t just…” 

No. Stop.

Diamond takes a calming breath. With deliberate care, he sets aside the half-formed, uncharitable notion of Valien conspiring with the Spire medics and monitoring his activities. He should have known better than that, at least. He finds Valien’s hand and squeezes it. “…look. I hear what you’re saying. I’m sorry for scaring you.”

“That sounds like you’re leading up to a ‘but’,” Valien mutters, even as his hand tightens around Diamond’s.

“Well for one thing, I would have appreciated it if you’d brought it up as an actual conversation rather than trying to make some sort of fucking decree out of the blue. Even if planning with Sondra just got away from you, acting like it was already decided is bullshit.”

“That’s… fair. This isn’t how I meant to do things. I’m sorry.”

Diamond sighs, closing his eye. He doesn’t want to talk about this. But he’s clearly avoided it for too long already, and he isn’t going to get a better opening than this. 

“I have been talking to the medics about it, believe it or not. Millie thinks it’s just sleep disruption and stress. Madras… Madras thinks we might have overestimated how often I can leave the Spire over the long term, with the last assessment.”

“Fucking hell, Diamond.”

“I’ve been… I don’t know what I’ve been doing," he admits, pulling up each reluctant word one at a time. "Just... putting it off, I suppose. I wanted to at least finish the current phase of the project.”

Valien leans against his side, head sinking onto his shoulder, and Diamond releases his hand in favor of wrapping an arm around his back. His emotions are tangled, registering to Diamond’s telepathy with no more clarity than a general sense of tension. “So… I was right, then? Stress or soul strain, either way a break would help.”

Diamond grits his teeth. It isn’t even just irritation with Valien anymore; he’s anxious, the thought of fully acknowledging the situation twisting uncomfortably in his chest. Finding his voice feels like drawing acid up his throat. “...yes.”

“You… you can’t afford uncontrolled seizures, Diamond. You’re almost eighty. They take too much out of you even when you do get enough warning to get somewhere safe. And I know you have safeguards for your spells, but it’s still…”

“Yes. I know, Valien.” 

“So… what’s the plan?” It isn’t a patronizing ‘I told you so’ prompt; Valien sounds subdued, genuinely uncertain what choice Diamond is going to make. 

Diamond hates that his own damn foolishness has the power to frighten people like this. He grimaces and runs his free hand down his face.

“The plan… is to take a vacation, I guess.” Which is more or less admitting that Diamond didn’t have a plan until Valien shoved one at him. Before Valien has the chance to dwell on that for too long, Diamond nudges Valien with his knee. “I’d hate to mess up whatever schedule you’ve worked out with Sondra, after all.”

Valien snorts, and Diamond can sense his relief. “‘Course. Can’t have that.”

“Though what the hell you think I’m going to do with myself for a solid fucking month is beyond me.” Diamond isn’t entirely joking. Projects are just what he does with his time; part of how he staves off dangerous moods.

“I’m sure we can come up with something. Just. Less magic and travel, yeah?”

“Except for the sake of an adolescent’s party, apparently.”

“Well I didn’t know Madras thinks your actual soul might be pulling apart at the seams again, now did I,” Valien mutters. “But… I mean. Three weeks to recover, one short trip, time to recover after… that’s probably fine, right? It’s way less than you’ve been doing.”

“True.” Diamond sighs and tilts his head, pressing his cheek into Valien’s dreads. “...and you’re right, someone should be there. The only adult I actually know is likely to attend is Hax, and that’s assuming their incoming child doesn’t interfere.”

“Good grief.”

“I said ‘that I know.’ There probably will be others, I just – don’t know how many, or who they are.”

“And this is a guest list chosen by the kid who hasn’t been scared off by you, Phosa, or Linast? I take it back. That’s ground zero. You’re staying home.”

Diamond smirks, weary and a bit savage at the edges. “Nope! Too late. You said I’m going, I guess I’m going. I’m feeling orthodox all of a sudden, couldn’t possibly imagine disregarding Valien’s original Commandments – ”

Valien jabs him in the ribs, but fails to talk him out of it.

[justashadetalkative]

Character Playlists (p.2)

✶ 𝒎𝒖𝒔𝒆 𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒚𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒕 ✶

Prompt:  Post   3  -  5   songs   that   remind   you   of   your   muse. Rules:    Repost, don’t reblog.

Tagged By: @eliza-williams-1922​ ; thanks for the tag!

Tagging: @elk-and-thearchivist​ @magicmonstersandmischief​ @sunlithalo-goldeneyes​ @magicalmultimuse​ (Michael or Brook?), and anyone else who would like to!

I already have some carefully curated playlists for everyone, but! There were plenty of songs that didn’t make the cut for those, and other songs that I’ve found since, so everything here is new. 

Stars beside the ones that I think are most interesting or that are at least vaguely uplifting, because a) there are a lot of songs, and b) most of it’s an angst fest. ;P

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PHOSA & LINAST

Little Lion Man by Mumford & Sons

Hopeless Wanderer by Mumford & Sons  ✶

Castle of Glass by Linkin Park

Home from the Bright soundtrack

DIAMOND

This Year by The Mountain Goats  ✶

Hate Me by Blue October

Exile Vilify by The National 

CLEMCY

Seamstress by Dessa  ✶

You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid by The Offspring

Everybody Knows by Leonard Cohen

[justashadetalkative]

Character Playlist: Phosa

Song order was carefully chosen. So if you have the time and inclination, I’d encourage you to give the playlist as a whole a try!

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Phosa

Full Playlist  →

Call Them Brothers -- Regina Spektor & Only Son

Hideout -- Hi I’m Case

Careful -- Paramore

Unstoppable -- Sia

Flaws -- Bastille

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Over and over they call us their friends Can’t we find something else to pretend? Like nobody won, and we’re safe at the end...

~ Call Them Brothers by Regina Spektor & Only Son

[justashadetalkative]

IV . Does your muse listen to music when studying? Why / why not?

Linast & Phosa:

They don’t tend to listen to music when they’re trying to learn something new; they both like to devote their full attention to new things. They may listen to music when interacting with things that they already understand, though. But at that point it’s not “studying.” xD

Diamond:

Definitely, yes. The right music can do a lot to help him focus, and if he knows a playlist well it can also help him keep track of time. He tends to hum along to anything that’s playing.

Clemcy:

Clemcy does like to keep quiet music going in the background, but he works as well without it as he does with it. 

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Bonus:

Diamond likes music similar in sound to rock. Clemcy most definitely does not. When the two were working together, they had a low-key, mostly good-natured feud going on over whether or not to have music playing and whose music got played if so.

[justashadetalkative]

♫: Favorite music genre(s). ✍: What language(s) they can speak.

♫: Favorite music genre(s).

Linast likes a lot of different genres of music, and he’s still kind of exploring all of the options available to him. But he has a particular fondness for trance, IDM, and certain chiptunes. He’ll listen to those for hours, whereas he can be kind of picky when it comes to music with lyrics.

✍: What language(s) they can speak.

Linast can speak English, though it’s something like a second language for him in that he often struggles to ‘translate’ his thoughts into it. He is learning to read and write English as well. Phosa can speak English more fluently than Linast, but is a bit behind him on the reading/writing front.

Both of them also speak the soundless ‘language’ of light patterns that they developed between each other during their years alone. They’ve taken to calling it flickersign.

(I don’t use scare quotes for ‘language’ because it’s soundless; manual languages like ASL are 100% languages in their own right. I use it because Linast and Phosa’s communication was pretty rudimentary, and conveyed emotions and immediate actions quite well but was not well-equipped for abstract concepts. It’s getting more complex as they continue to use it now, though, so it might become a full-blown language at some point.)

[grumpyoldsnake]

I’ve been putting together character playlists for my roleplay blog! Figure I’ll stick them over here as well.

Music Playlist: Phosa

Song order was carefully chosen. So if you have the time and inclination, I’d encourage you to give the playlist as a whole a try!

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Phosa

Full Playlist  →

Call Them Brothers – Regina Spektor & Only Son

Hideout – Hi I’m Case

Careful – Paramore

Unstoppable – Sia

Flaws – Bastille

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Over and over they call us their friends Can’t we find something else to pretend? Like nobody won, and we’re safe at the end…

~ Call Them Brothers by Regina Spektor & Only Son