#thanks for tagging me Jen!

[notesonartistry]

thank you so much for the tag @autumnversion! This was fun to do.

RULES: Put your playlist on shuffle. For each of the 10 interview questions, select a lyric from the random song that comes up. (Skip if there aren’t any lyrics and make sure to drop the name of the song in your interview answer!)

1. First off, how would you describe yourself in one sentence?

I'm doing better (Closure, TS)

2. What kind of [insert zodiac sign] are you?

Scorpio - Teenaged love taught you there's good in goodbye (All of the Girls You Loved Before, TS)

3. You’re visiting your favorite spot, what are you thinking about?

Sometimes, I feel like everybody is a sexy-baby and I'm a monster on the hill (Anti-Hero, TS)

4. If your life was a movie, what do you think the first review would say about it?

So I'm throwing you a bone (Wendy, Maisie Peters)

5. Say you get a book deal, what are you titling your memoir?

Too long too far from home (Full of Grace, Sarah McLachlan)

6. What would you say about your best friends?

I'd live and die for moments that we stole (ivy, TS)

7. Think back to when you had everything all figured out in high school, what was your life motto as a teenager?

I know after all, this time I'm gonna make it (If Your Light Goes Out, The Maine)

8. Describe your aesthetic now:

Red lips and rosy cheeks (Wildest Dreams, TS) - this is not true tbh, maybe the rosy cheeks, but the only lyric that felt like it fit!

9. What’s a lyric that they’ll quote in your eulogy?

All roads, they lead me here (The Last Time, TS)

10. And for our final question, say we believe in soulmates, what do you think their first impression of meeting you will be?

Hahaha, pretty much the whole song is perfect for this, but I'll go with: And I don't know how, you became my favourite person (Only Wanna Be With You, Amy Shark)

tagging if you'd like to do this!: @thisisctrying @belleswiftss17 @longlivetv @snowonthebeachftlana @dress @lovr-23 @causeilovethiscurseonourhouse @shouldntbeaskingmyselfwhy @meholdingontonothing @self-made-cages @stat-e-ofgrace @stood-onthecliffside

[razmerry]

can the mediator of vengeanceclan really fall in love with a kittypet?...

[sugarsnappeases]

hi karaaaaaa talk to me about any rare pair you feel like yapping about <3

aaaaaa hiii this made me so happy <333 i’ve decided it’s Time for us to have a proper chat about tomlily….. @quillkiller and i’s second-born child

the first thing you need to know is that they’re both sociopaths (sociopath lily oh how i looove youuu)..... i made this post before about the quote 'beautiful monsters composed of every individual perfection' and how it relates to lily, but i think it's interesting to consider in terms of her being a sociopath (this is actually how our first tomlily convo began, way back whenever it was). her making sure that every part of herself is viewed as perfect, carefully curating her public image - she's the miracle muggleborn! so smart, so kind, so helpful and friendly and every single good characteristic! a shoe-in for head girl, the perfect prefect, responsible and hard-working and everything that anyone could possibly want from her! and she's good at it too. everyone sees her exactly as she wants them too..... not unlike our good friend tom marvolo riddle when he was at hogwarts...........

i think one of the central parts of their relationship is the concept of immortality. they’re both kind of made up of the same sort of thing. they’re the same at their cores. both of them showed up at hogwarts as muggleborns thrust into a completely new world and they’re both so determined to succeed and be more than what they came from and to have absolutely everything, to have their cake and eat it too!!!!! for lily, this comes in the form of being revered, putting herself on a pedestal, she’s going to Leave Her Mark and be remembered and she doesn’t care what she has to do to get there (btw i really recommend this fic about sociopath lily, it’s so so interesting and i think nearly entirely encapsulates my vision of her……). the idea that if she can’t be immortalised in her deeds while she’s alive, she’s going to become immortal in her death, martyring herself. she’s a saint, she’s a puppet master, she’s as close to a god as a girl can get.

without. of course. resorting to actual immortality. which is the path tommy boy chooses. obviously. i think there are such parallels here. he’s a presumed-muggleborn, in slytherin, the house of the ambitious and the pureblood supremacists, he’s got the biggest god complex known to man and he grew up in an orphanage in london in the middle of the blitz!!!! all factors that contribute to his fear of death and his desperation to be More Than That. more than just another orphan killed by a bomb. more than just another nameless muggleborn lost in the pureblood-centric society. more than anything that anyone has ever seen before. he’s going to make a name for himself, and he’s going to make sure that nobody ever forgets it, and he’s going to be immortal. he’s going to be more god than man (even if it makes him a monster).

anyway. taking them together, as you can see, they’re cut from the same cloth (although side note!! i think lily’s lack of fear of death gives her the potential to be even more dangerous than tom is….) and bc of this, they’re the only ones who can see under each other’s carefully curated masks (although!! another side note… i think they each have another person who can - dumbledore for tom, and petunia for lily, but that’s not entirely relevant rn).

they understand each other and they want to cut each other open and burrow their way into each other’s rib cages. they kill people together - lily is much more messy w it, all blood under her nails and on her teeth. tom prefers the cleanliness of an avada kedavra but the blood gets all over his clothes anyway from when he touches lily. also cannibalism and intricate blood rituals that bind them together forever and intertwining themselves so thoroughly that nothing could ever separate them (although! another side note! jen and i don’t think they’re at all interested in sex. the other things they do (murder etc) are far more intimate and romantic and exciting to them!!!!).

and in the end, they’ll kill each other, pull each other apart and devour each other entirely. the only person who could possibly kill tom is lily, and vice versa, they’re the only ones that would have the right to, or the power to, or deserve to etc etc. at the end it’s always them, a ticking time-bomb. them and a knife or a gun or a curse or a fire and their teeth sinking into each other and their blood flowing through each other’s veins and over each other's dying bodies. bc tom is the only one that Sees lily and lily is the only one that Sees tom, and they recognise themselves in each other and it’s soul-deep and dangerous and nasty and hungry and knowing and self-destructive and so so so sooooo interesting to me

consider: two people w the most Pristine public reputations. they’re politicians or something w bright white smiles and absolutely No skeletons in the closet. it’s a Win for non-purebloods worldwide to see them succeeding, they’re exemplary students and people and Public Figures. EXCEPT!!!! as it turns out!!!! they’re fucking serial killers!!!!! i imagine them falling asleep in each other’s arms covered in blood from their latest victim, having their morning shower together, washing the blood out of each other’s hair and then going into the office….. they get caught. eventually. obviously. and it’s probs lily’s fault lol. but GOD guysss just imagine the scandal. the headlines. the shock and intrigue and horror at these two Perfect People having done such horrific things. they go on the run and/or commit a little bit of murder-suicide before they get caught btw. like i said nobody kills them but each other…. anyway enough from me!!!! thank you for letting me ramble <333

[gracieheartspedro]

ty for the tag @jenispunk ❤️‍🔥 (you’re hot, please accept my hand in marriage)

my picrew 🥺

this is the closest I could get? I wear glasses way more now but I never take pics in them 😂 also i’m a mixed metals girlie so the gold nose piercing with my silver hoops adds up 🤭

tagging @ilovepedro @ramblers-lets-get-ramblin @planet-marz1 @tinygarbage

(idk if any of y’all did it) (if u did i’m sorry lol love u)

and since jen did it, ima do it too. face reveal under the cut 😅

😬

[shrimpoe]

Weee comm from @frankenbridez 😊😊😊 soo cute, they're so small🥺. I'm going to eat them and they're gonna start gnawing on my grey matter

[jennifersbod]

as a fellow stephen king girly, what are some of your favorite king recs?? looking for my next pick and thinking maybe salem’s lot or the stand… thots??

both of those are great! the stand is a long, long read so make sure you have time to invest. salem’s lot is a classic for a reason BUT definitely had some issues holding up when i tried to reread it (maybe i just wasn’t in the mood when i tried idk). my most recent was revival, which shocked me how good it was- especially the ending! it had some great references to a certain famous classic horror novel by a woman (don’t want to spoil it), but it mixes that with some really bleak cosmic horror that is very unlike his other works. i’ve also found craig dilouie (children of red peak and episode 13 are his best) and ronald malfi (come with me and black mouth are his best i’ve read) have similar styles to king so give them a read if you need that vibe.

my faves in no order:

carrie (my first stephen and what got me into “adult” horror)

the shining + doctor sleep (personally think doctor sleep is so underrated and too many people couldn’t get past the vampire-esque concept)

salem’s lot (also like the best adaptation of this is midnight mass despite not being an adaptation and i hope flanagan continues his original novel that he posted an excerpt from)

IT (can’t explain how much this one means to me; read it while listening to cobra starship and fall out boy if you want my middle school Experience™️ reading it)

pet sematary (it’s a classic for a reason but watch out because i felt this one did women especially dirty)

rose madder (a deep cut that stephen himself hates but i absolutely love- big tw’s for domestic violence though)

gerald’s game (also the movie lives up to and may surpass the book)

joyland (a kind of sweet coming-of-age/noir slow burn that’s a really tame but quick read)

christine (i’m from pittsburgh where it takes place so it’s special to me and its best adaptation is actually Halloween Ends and if anyone wants to discuss that further with me please do)

11/22/63 (great if you like historical fiction and for a quick cameo by some IT characters!)

[jpdrawsalot]

High Priest of minecraft england contemplates murder and gets told to eat rocks by smelly gremlin who refuses to hand over their intel.

[ivomartins]

Good evening. So I decided to tell you my opinion on HS as a whole. Well we should have stopped at the first one and the sequel lived solely due to pure unfiltered nostalgia and Vicky getting the facelift Kardashian style.

I love that despite our hate for HS2 or HS1 or all HS tbh. We all agree the LI's are the shit.

I think I love HS for the same reason many people liked Harry Potter. It spells "Wasted Potential" it spells "Infinite possibilities we could have explored if the author wasn't a coward-" . Like. I went for Mimi's route on both HS. I am not replaying this mess to see Severus Snape Albino Brother popping up again or the lord most annoying angel (that i had liked a bit in HS1 until a specific scene) or whatever the fuck Karen Haircut is up to(I don't hate her simply because I have experienced the Step-mother IRL. Just like her haircut. She is MID both in mother AND hater) I am not replaying this mess unless it's to count the plot holes.

Anyway. I do love HS and Mimi was the sole reason I even downloaded this app and kept it there. What saves HS is solely the LI's and nothing else.

Oh and my most controversial opinion about HS ? I think the author is homophobic as fuck cause why so many women but we only have 1 wLi and like 7 men with 3 being as spicy as flour.

I mean Austie was RIGHT THERE ! Plague TOO ! Even the fucking Statut. I am so mad. Anyway love your blog have a nice day sorry for the long ass rant.

TL:DR : I love HS for the possibilities and my sugar mommy goth demoness who is totally not just a succubus and the author is homophobic like a solid nat18 on the scale....

Still better then Remy-

hi hi!! thank you for sharing your opinion bb :) <3

i hear you on the LIs being the shit tbh. ngl i also love that despite our love and hate towards it we all still play it and catch up with it every single update HRKWHEKW like. as much as us haters shit on its flaws we still fed into its hype which is so funny to me

the comparison to HP is honestly so spot on i'm actually shook like. ok i Get It now actually

i feel you on the replay tho omg i was also tempted to replay hs1 when i saw a lot of people doing it but then i was like NAH i'm not putting myself through that 😭 especially cause hs2 didn't even feel worth the replay with its sequel-slash-clean-slate vibe

you're so 💯💯💯 about the homophobia though like it's even more glaringly obvious now that we've had some authors actually being inclusive to femme LIs. there's still nowhere near enough equality between the men and the women in 90% of the books though so honestly all of rc needs to step tf up when it comes to that not just alice. i am glad they've improved in that regard a bit but i'm not gonna praise them for it when they don't even meet the bare minimum tbh

AND SHE'S STILL BETTER THAN REMY YES i love our rants ending on the same conclusion <3

[diwns]

i was tagged by @void-imp, @mattodore & @lilamausmaus thank you all!! 💗💗

🎶 pick a song for each letter of your URL and then tag that many people 🎶

dinner alone - josh fudge i wanna be with you - videoprokat wonder - adoy never gonna give you up - rick astley so good - omar apollo step by step - kenta dedachi i miss you - sea, yaeow

i'll tag @lucidicer @beetlemp3 @prematurehag @tau1tvec @elderwisp @deehya @kitakati <3 feel free to ignore this!

[warlordfelwinter]

making my own post about that dress so as not to give an ai thing more notes but the actual dress from firefly path's site is frankly even more gorgeous

[aboutmetamorphosis]

got tagged by my beloved jen @jlf23tumble to do this fun tag game so here we go 🤍

last song: “samurai” by djavan feat. stevie wonder

last picture i took: cute baby loafers for my godson (they were two sizes too big tho so i didn’t actually get them for him boooo)

currently watching: just started watching hearstopper actually! i’m only a few episodes in and can safely say giftsets don’t do it justice it’s way sweeter than i thought it would be 🤧 (it is making me even angrier about what happened to kit connor though)

next watching: been wanting to watch only mrders in the building for a while, so maybe i’ll get on that!

currently reading: against empathy by paul bloom (i know i know this title automatically evokes an extremely negative visceral reaction but i PROMISE it’s a great read)

next reading: just ordered patti smith’s memoir, looking forward to reading it!

current obsession: omg this hand-made candy shop from australia and their youtube shorts i’m actually obsessed

alright thems the rules to tag three people so i’m tagging @blissoftheblue @swimmingleo @ialwaysknewyouwerepunk x

[kingofmyborrowedheart]

I was tagged by @wineonmytshirt to shuffle my library, list 10 songs, and tag 10 people—thank you Jen! I shuffled my Top Songs of 2022 playlist.

1. John Hughes Movie by Maisie Peters

2. Beg For You (Feat Rina Sawayama) by Charli XCX

3. Used To Know Me by Charli XCX

4. Late Night Talking by Harry Styles

5. Mastermind by Taylor Swift

6. Summer of ‘69 by Bryan Adams

7. High Horse by Kacey Musgraves

8. Cate’s Brother by Maisie Peters

9. Karma by Taylor Swift

10. Lavender Haze by Taylor Swift

Tagging (no pressure!): @w0nderland @missegyptiana @reputation @heystephen @stolenxkissess @speaknowtv @notesonartistry @danceundersparklinglights @alwaysleadstoyou @fightwithyouinmysleep

[tolerateit]

tagged by @stars-alinged thank you so much babs my love! xo 💞💞

last song I listened to: die 4 me by halsey

three ships: jim halpert and pam beesly (the office), karen sirko and graham dunne (daisy jones and the six), theo crain and trish park (the haunting of hill house)

currently reading: daisy jones and the six

craving: red lobster cheddar bay biscuits

tagging, if you'd like to take part: @erastours @magicwemades @ketterdam-snack-bar @crypticand-machiavellian @ilostyou @youbelongwith @chiara-swiftiedreamer13 @youmeetyourself @taylorswiftaylor @taylorswifff @stood-onthecliffside @1989tv @tolerateit @notesonartistry @sleepless-crows xoxoxoxoxox

[crestomancer-art]

sorry for the silence, i am planning on continuing to post art here! just whenever i open this app i think about the smut ban and it saps all my energy and love for posting art online.

this blog is pretty sfw but erotic art is one of my absolute most favourite things. I'll post more work on here soon tho, since the site is really good for archival purposes. I'm just waiting for the day when it doesn't feel like a kick to the teeth to go on here

[sgt-seabass]

thank you @jen-with-a-pen for the question tag! i'm making a fresh post since the last one was a lil long

nickname: uhhh i don't really have one i don't think? some friends call me ambs, if that counts.

height: 173cm which is like 5'8 i think

last thing I googled: 'twice momo cosmopolitan feb 2023'

song stuck in my head: this aboslute bop

amount of sleep: 12 hours. chronic fatigue life.

dream job: basement wife. no really, i just want to be put in a room and cared for. give me some video games and i'm set. but in the real world, i'm currently already working my dream job, so i'm lucky.

wearing: pyjamas with cartoon dogs on it.

book/movie that summarizes you: hm. Inception. cause my mind is a mess of realities.

favorite song: Seventh Heaven by Perfume.

random fact: did you know that doctors do not know what causes chronic fatigue, and do not know how to cure it? depressing fact that sums up my life.

no pressure tags - @rookthorne @jobean12-blog @sweeterthanthis @navybrat817 @emerald-chaos @writing-for-marvel @buckycuddlebuddy @lookiamtrying @flordeamatista

[oscartwofoxtrot]

[kicks down the door like the kool-aid man]: hi oscar talk to me about your favorite scene that you’ve written?

Sorry this took so long to answer, I was, apparently, writing an entire thesis. You Have Been Warned.

Oh my god uhhh. My favourite scene…okay, if I had to go with one, it’d probably be the scene from The Valiant Never Taste of Death I unofficially refer to as ‘Everybody’s dying bitch, let’s get you some peanut butter’. This comes about a quarter of the way through the second (proper) chapter, Requiem (NB: if we’re going by AO3 numbers then it’s Chapter 3, since there’s a Prologue chapter as well, but I don’t tend to count that numerically), and it’s the bit where Nate gently bullies Brad into sitting down and having a snack. And then uno reverse-cards him into talking about his childhood trauma. [Slaps scene] This bad boy can fit so many emotions in it!

For those unfamiliar with Halo 4 (which in all likelihood is most if not all of you), you should know that for the most part, I tend to hew fairly closely to the story and plot structure of the game when writing Valiant. But linear first person shooters don’t offer the characters a lot of opportunities to sit down and talk about their feelings, so this scene is an oscartwofoxtrot original! Sure, the action scenes can be fun, but there’s nothing I love more than getting to write Brad and Nate in their quiet moments, and I crowbarred this one in here to really dig into that Deep Halo Lore and hopefully use it to get at some of the complexities of their dynamic in this AU.

Speaking of complexities, you ask me anything at all about Valiant and I am not so much going to unpack the suitcase as start pulling hat stands and potted plants out of it Mary Poppins-style, so…this shit’s gonna need an itemised list.

1. Nate: [Basically refuses to acknowledge his own mortality, but you better believe he makes sure Brad remembers to eat and take a break every once in a while]. Also, Brad displaying just how whipped he really is. They may not have the same relationship dynamic as canon, but Brad pretty much lets Nate tell him what to do most of the time. tbh I think he likes it.

2. We get another hint at the circumstances surrounding Nate’s capture by the Gravemind. I alluded to this event in the prologue but have thus far avoided going into too much detail about it, so you’d better believe it’s a Surprise Tool That Will Help Us Later. One of the biggest challenges of writing an AU based on the fourth game in a series is finding the Goldilocks Zone of exposition – too much and you lose the current plot thread as well as the attention of literally everyone reading; not enough and the whole thing is virtually incomprehensible to normal people who don’t spend all their time on Halopedia. Trying to get that balance right is, shall we say, an ongoing struggle.

That said, I have been having way too much fun throwing out passing references to stuff like this – and this particular occurrence is a Big Deal in the world of Brad and Nate, because I think it may be the only time they’d been apart for more than like 24 hours since they started working together. (The backstory of their first meeting is a whole other essay in its own right, so I’ll just slap a sticker on this that says ‘Ask Me About My Canon Timeline In The Very Unlikely Event That You Are Interested’). Nate had become such a permanent fixture in Brad’s life, I doubt Brad understood what it would even feel like to miss him until he was gone.

And now that Nate’s life is in danger again, Brad has a very clear understanding of the stakes involved. Almost losing him the first time…it wasn’t The Moment of Realisation (more on that later), but it certainly did crystallise some deeper level of awareness on just how important Nate is to him. Of course, last time, the problem was one of distance – Brad was light-years away and couldn’t immediately get back to Nate, but there was a fortress to storm and a dragon to slay so he could save him. This time, Brad is right there, and he can see Nate suffering, and there is absolutely nothing he can do about it.

3. Couldn’t resist throwing in a version of the Peanut Butter MRE Temper Tantrum lol. I am at heart a giant sap and I do love writing them joking around and just being incredibly fond of each other. Because there’s no officer-enlisted divide here, it gives them more room to develop the casual familiarity and vaguely flirtatious banter we see hints of in the show. The spectre of Nate’s Rampancy does cast a pall over the whole thing, but it wouldn’t be Generation Kill without some serious mood whiplash. Speaking of which…

4. Hello and welcome to my impromptu TED Talk on the Insane Fucking Lore behind the SPARTAN-II program! (On all levels except physical I am this Brian David Gilbert Unraveled video). That’s right: the Spartan-IIs were kidnapped from their families at the age of six and, to avoid suspicion, replaced by clones implanted with their memories who would die within months due to congenital health issues caused by the cloning process. And as Nate points out, the UNSC didn’t even have the justification of the Covenant War, because that hadn’t started yet! They did this shit because various colony worlds wanted independence from the United Earth Government – but that would negatively affect the economy, so apparently the only two options available were ‘bloody civil war costing billions of human lives’ or ‘covert military operations to quash nascent insurrectionist uprisings, carried out by fucking child soldiers who we put through brutal training and experimental bio-augmentations that killed or permanently maimed like half of them’.

So, uh. That’s fucked! And what’s wild is that even though this has been a feature of the expanded universe since the beginning, it’s something that’s barely ever touched on in the games. Nate only knows about it because he went snooping for Brad’s unredacted file not long after they met for the first time (based on Cortana doing the same in the Halo prequel novel The Fall of Reach). For what it’s worth, Brad’s stated mindset is pretty typical of how the Spartans themselves feel about the whole thing: it’s been normalised for them because it’s the only life they know.

Nate, meanwhile, is understandably horrified, and it’s clear they both recognise the parallels between their experiences – the UNSC took away Nate’s autonomy too, by the very act of his creation. In between the Gravemind and the Rampancy, it’s something he’s been increasingly struggling with: that he was brought into being as a fully-formed person to serve a specific purpose, with the knowledge that he’d only have an operational lifespan of seven years before his systems started to decay irreparably. I can’t put it better than the Gravemind did (courtesy of the Halo short story Human Weakness by Karen Traviss): “Your creators made you separate. They placed a barrier between you and the beings that you would be encouraged to protect, a wall you could never breach. They even gave you a human to centre your existence upon, a human to care about, yet never considered how you might feel at never being able to simply touch him. Or how he might feel about outliving you.”

Damn are you guys seeing this shit? This is fucking crazy! Anyway I’m Rod Serling

5. Rule number one of Valiant: Brad does not know that he’s in love with Nate. Ya boi is pining without even realising that he’s pining. This isn’t a reflection of how I most commonly interpret canon – I look at show!Brad and I’m like ‘yeah, there’s a guy who’s 100% self-aware that he’s simping for his platoon commander’ – but in this AU, the Spartans’ lack of normal human socialisation has left him without any practical life experience of things like romance, so he’s just not quite able to put a name to those feelings. Yet, anyway.

As for Nate? I’ve been writing under the assumption that he is aware of his own feelings, but isn’t totally sure of Brad’s. I reckon he probably has a good enough read on Brad to at least suspect that Brad might reciprocate if made aware of the situation, but without any way to be certain, Nate’s unlikely to bring it up. Even I’m not fully decided on when Nate’s Moment of Realisation was. I do have a few ideas, but it’s not a detail that’s ever specifically relevant to the fic, so feel free to speculate.

In conclusion: …idk man, it’s been a year since I wrote this and I don’t completely hate it yet so. that’s probably a good sign, right? sorry for rambling it will happen again