#victoria leitmotif

[abybweisse]

Crack theory: Sins of the dead

@stainedglass-wings had some late night thoughts and shared them on another post, and it got me to thinking. I still think the last initials of the lockets could represent musical notes, and the order could represent a leitmotif.

However, this new idea would shed light on the motives for their deaths, since I think we can probably all agree they didn't die simply from natural causes. And then Yana-san had to choose specific words for these things, so that the initials could still represent musical notes and not repeat each other (wouldn't be confused which locket was for which thing).

But what do I mean by "things"? Sins. Cardinal or deadly sins. This would be another parallel to s1's Ash Landers' obsession with purging the world of "impure" humans. And it would work very well, if John Brown turns out to be an angel or something bent on a deranged version of divine justice.

Ok, so here are the lockets again, with their order:

Emile C. -- Lust. The "C" could stand for "cravings". Lust is sometimes thought of as a type of gluttony, and "cravings" (as well as "appetite") can describe aspects of one's libido just as well as one's desire for food. So, this Emile fellow (if Yana-san isn't playing with name genders again) could have been killed for the sin of lust. And considering I've long thought the "C" might be for the name Chambers (the Viscount of Druitt's family name), this would make sense. The Chambers line could have a particular penchant for the more lustful or hedonistic pursuits.

Oliver A. -- Avarice. That's an extreme form of Greed. I have no idea what last name this would be or where they might fall into place within the narrative, but this Oliver dude might have been seen as far too greedy for his own good.

Alex B. -- Blasphemy. It's not what's typically listed as one of the "seven deadly sins", but it's considered one of the unforgivable ones. I came to this one because I couldn't think of a "b" word for Wrath. However, when our earl watched his older twin being stabbed to death, his unbridled anger led to him making a blasphemous statement. That blasphemy is apparently what really interested the demon that was summoned.

So, Alex could have been blasphemous and/or wrathful. Again, I don't know what last name the "B" might be.

Cloudia/Claudia P. -- Pride. We know the Phantomhives can be a prideful lot, and Vincent says the Phantomhive women tend to be particularly strong-willed. Apparently, Undertaker repeatedly warns them about it, too... saying they keep losing touch with the fact their power comes from support they receive from others, and how they will fall if they lose that support. Our earl wearing that ring like a collar around his neck by his own volition also seems to be a matter of pride, and Undertaker warns it could end up "choking" him someday. So, perhaps our earl's grandmother was a particularly prideful sort of person. Vincent might have been, too. Francis/Frances sure seems to be....

Molly/Mally G. -- Gluttony. No idea who she is, but she's the one who died first, among the people represented by lockets. I'm reminded by some old research I did on Queen Victoria and her early scandals, back when she was new to the throne. She ascended the throne in 1837 (coronated in 1838), and an early scandal involved a female servant whom Victoria accused of getting pregnant out of wedlock. Her belly was so swollen that she looked pregnant, but it turned out to be a horribly large tumor in her abdomen. I had once wondered if Molly/Mally was a Kuroverse version of that unfortunate woman. The possible "sin of gluttony" reminded me of that swollen belly mistaken for pregnancy. And pregnant people are said to be "eating for two".... 🤔 It's a long-shot, but she could have been a royal servant repeatedly caught stealing food, or something? Accusations against her could have been some huge misunderstanding, too, particularly if Victoria acted against her before John Brown was by her side... or if he was there and knew the truth but did the queen's bidding anyway. It seems like a weak motive to kill someone, but the queen might not see it that way. Not if she truly believes the person is committing a deadly or unforgivable sin.

Gilbert D. -- Dejection. That's the term sometimes used by the orthodoxy instead of Sloth. Gilbert could have been someone who was too overcome by depression or even just apathy. If we are talking about someone who specifically pissed off the queen, it could be that he neglected to follow her orders. I used to think the "D" could stand for Dalles/Durless, which is apparently Madam Red's married name. If the death was in 1885, it could have been Madam Red's husband, supposedly killed in that carriage accident, but I don't think the accident was really an accident. He was the Baron of Burnett, and he showed deep affection for his wife and unborn child, despite the fact Madam Red was still in love with Vincent. If it was him (another long-shot), then he could have been killed for not giving a toss about the queen's intentions or goals. If the death was in 1862, as one image of the locket shows, then who knows. March 1, 1862 was a few months after Prince Albert died, so it could have something to do with Albert's death. Like a physician whom the queen blames for not doing enough to save her beloved Albert's life. This is me using a lot of words to say idk who Gilbert is.

Harry E. -- Envy. How Harry's envy leads to him being targeted for death, idk. I also have no clue who he might be. Perhaps he was envious of the queen herself. There were many attempts on her life, especially early in her reign. I found a total of 8 known attempts on her life, committed by 7 different people (one failed twice), but none of them happened in 1851. However, Vincent was born in 1851. Harry could have been involved in some plot to kill or overthrow the queen. Otherwise, I got nothin'.

Well, I don't know if any of this will pan out, but it sure is an interesting idea! Also, it doesn't take anything away from my leitmotif theory, so I kind of like it. We all want to know why and how these people died, right? Deeply hidden clues about their "sins" is a cool concept, and I think it's still worth pursuing, even if their last initials don't end up being that clue.

#black butler #kuroshitsuji #stainedglass wings #stainedglass-wings #hair lockets #mourning jewelry #mourning lockets #leitmotif #motives #sins #cardinal sins #deadly sins #queen victoria #john brown #theories #crack theories #jun 4 2022

[studentofetherium]

hey so here’s 1,100 words about Arknights music, particularly what it all it, what it means, and how it relates to the game. it’s just an outline of a subject which could be talked about in much more depth, but i hope it’s interesting anyway

so loosely, i think we can break Arknights music down into a few rough categories. three at the broadist, that being in-universe music, songs tied to characters, and songs that are just songs. however, it’s more complicated than that

IN-UNIVERSE MUSIC

these are songs that exist on Terra, that an Arknights character could conceivably listen to. most directly, the songs Alive and Aflame Avenue, meant to be performed by the in-universe band Alive Until Sunset, as well as Ready by DDD, and Not Your Business Part.2,  Loyal to the beat, and Melting White (which seems to be about Magallan, who is similarly based on a penguin) by Emperor

we can also assume the songs Curtain Call and Rhythm in Literature are in-universe songs, as the characters they’re associated with, The Playwright and Phantom, are musicians, so this is likely the music they perform as a troupe

the songs March On! and Towards Her Light are both nationalist anthems associated with characters who have close ties to their home nation of Victoria, Horn and Saileach. this also goes for Keep the torch which is associated with Pallas, another nationalist character, this time tied to Minos. that song was even sung in a constructed language resembling Greek, further demonstrating its in-universe nature. the song Song of Fools is sung from the point of view of Iberia’s people, wishing for better times. 

Hunter's Song is the last song from the in-universe music category, as Skadi in the Under Tides event sings a song with similar lyrics, making it the only song to show up directly in-game

SONGS ABOUT CHARACTERS

i broke the songs about characters section into two subsections:

character songs: songs sung from the point of view of a specific character, but which might not exist in-universe otherwise

and

“associated with character” songs: this includes songs whose lyrics might not directly relate to a character or characters, but through other media such as a music video, may still relate to them, as well as instrumental leitmotifs for 6* operators, which, owing to their lack of lyrics, can’t properly be properly categorized as character songs

the first category has 21 songs in it and the latter has 39. from the latter category, A Grand Adventure (Durin & Myrtle), Bridge to the Dawn (Pinus Sylvestris), CONFRONT (Rosmontis), El Brillo Solitario (Thorns), Evolutionary Mechanization (Eunectes), Field in the Light (Pinus Sylvestris), Gazing From Great Heights (U.S.S.G.), Gearing Up (Passenger), Hometown Wind (Bagpipe), Lily of the Valley (Suzuran), Lithos (Mudrock), Neon-lit Bustle (Aak), Rapier (Irene), Real Me (Carnelian), Reconnection (Surtr), Self-observation (Saga), Solitary Journey (Ceobe), Sparking Hydraulics (Weedy), Stay Gold (Blemishine), Till the Bell Tolls (Archetto), Till the Wave Ends (Dusk & Nian), Tipsy (Mountain), Voices (the Abyssal Hunters), Y1K (Mizuki), Zone 10-8 (Ethan), 却阑珊 (Lee), and 醉飞尘 (Ling)

several of these, such as El Brillo Solitario or Gazing From Great Heights could suggest what in-universe sounds like, as it mirrors the real-life musical styles of the areas which nations in Arknights in based on. however, other than that, there’s little that ties them to anything concrete within the world of Arknights

of the remaining nine songs in this category, it can be broken into two further categories. most are seem vague. their degree of relation to their respective characters varies, but none can be said to be “about” their characters in the same way that the character songs are. this category includes the songs, Autumn Moods (Croissant & Angelina), Daydaydream (Ch'en & Hoshiguma), Everything's Alright (Magallan & Mayer), Hold Onto The Light (Surtr, Thorns, & Zima), Random Randomly (Jessica, Snowsant, & Swire), Spring's Pulse (Myrrh & Nightingale), and Your Star (Nightmare, Podenco, & Scene). these songs frequently combine characters who could conceivably be associated with one another but otherwise don’t have much connection— aside from Ch’en and Hoshiguma, the exception— these are more based in vibes than anything else

however, the songs Lullabye (focusing on Faust & Mephisto) and Requiem (focusing on Patriot, and about FrostNova) are more direct. they’re also notable for the fact that they focus on non-playable characters and seem to talk about specific plot beats. more on this later

as for the character songs, their quality varies, in particular the degree to which they relate to their respective character’s characterization. some are quite direct, and others are more vague. i’m not an expert in every character, so i won’t attempt to analyze all of them. still, the songs Across the wind (Ch'en the Holungday), Ain't Seen Nothing Like This (also Ch'en the Holungday) Awaken (Specter the Unchained), Bluish Light (Lumen), Boiling Blood (Blaze), CanNot Wait For (W), Double Dragons (Ch'en, directed at Talulah), End Like This (Patriot, another song focusing on a non-playable character), Eternal Flame (Fiammetta), Heal the World (Gnosis), Immutable (Kal'tsit), Last Of Me (Frost Nova), Magic Theorem (Dorothy), Radiant (Nearl the Radiant Knight), Renegade (W), Silver Lining (SilverAsh), Ständchen (Ebenholz), Spark for Dream (Goldenglow), Winter Absolution (Shining), Wrathful Cerulean Flame (Amiya), and Прощание (Hellagur) seem to focus on their associated characters’ feelings, and frequently involve their hidden emotions or motivations

there are two other songs that don’t fit in the prior categories, that being ManiFesto:, which features performers singing from the perspectives of Emperor, Siege, Lappland, Indra, and Ethan, and Rock the Night Away, which features W, Zima, Blaze, and Frostleaf. these being such eclectic collections of characters as they are, they’re not especially useful to look at as anything but a fun extra

IDK THESE ARE JUST SONGS

there are a lot of other Arknights songs, which are either instrumentals or only loosely tie into the game through vibes. frequently, these tie into events or special occasions. there’s not much more to say about them without going into analysis

After It All, Come to Light, Crystallize, AJURIKA - Fading Sky, Feels, Heart Forest, I Believe In Us, Infected, Lean On, Never Give Up, Operation Barrenland, Operation Blade, Operation Cinder, Operation Dawnseeker, Operation Deepness, Operation Lead Seal, Operation Pine Soot, Operation Pyrite, Operation Spectrum, Operation Wild Scales, Reversed Time,  Rewinding Breeze, Save Us From Ourselves, Speed of Light, Summer Wave, Survive, Timeless, Tower Fierce, Two Feet On The Ground, Under Tides, Untitled World, and Wildfire

CONCLUSION

IDK! this ended up being longer than i meant it to be. i guess the interesting things here are the in-universe songs or the character songs. there are interesting things that can be further extrapolated from this if one chooses to look deeper on it. music is something Arknights quite obviously puts a lot of thought into, especially with the character songs, so it’s worth giving it focus

also i might have gotten stuff mixed up here because there’s a lot of songs and a lot of lists if i did don’t be rude and just lmk

#arknights #i might write analysis about specific character songs in the future #cause they're definitely interesting

[reflections-in-a-critical-eye]

Hi, BMT! I loved your essay on Jimin's photobook. I especially enjoyed your take on the Lesbian Butch section of the book. I've been crazy about that concept since it was revealed, I have to say that's probably my favorite Jimin™ ever, and I desperately look forward to him further exploring that path.

When the photoshoot sketch came out, I really wanted an in-depth explanation of his choices and the entire creative process. It felt like he had dropped an overwhelming amount of information that we were not used to getting from him, and I wanted to know everything. Honestly, I didn't expect him to actually do it, and I'm glad he didn't because it opens the gates to an array of interpretations and analyses the others failed to provoke. What I would like, though, is to know what he likes, what he enjoys, what he consumes. He rarely shares any of that with us, but I would love to know what's the inspiration behind the concepts, the stylistic choices, and just, in general, I guess. What movies does he like? What does he read? Is he super into Greek mythology or just fascinated by Artemis specifically? Speaking of which, I'm still obsessed by the choice of Artemis as a leitmotif and how it becomes of particular relevance in the last concept where he takes on both the roles of the God/ess and the deer, the hunter and the prey.

Damn, I want my photobook to arrive already so I can look at it forever 😔

Hey, anon! Thanks for stopping by. I wrote that essay to also start a conversation or hear other opinions, so I appreciate this.

The concept that had Jimin is a suit was the most fascinating for me as well because initially, it was a bit difficult for me to pin point what exactly was I seeing there. As I mentioned in that post and even in my first reaction a couple of months ago, my mind went immediately to Victor/Victoria, except the process we see here was in reverse. And not only that, but a bit more complex. I had endless discussions about this with some of my friends, especially since I couldn't come up with the appropriate term. It gave me a bit of a headache and made me delay writing the post, but thankfully, I stumbled on to that James Dean essay and I had that Evrika! moment. It still made a bit wary to use that concept and terminology, but as long as I was able to build an argument based on something that was already researched and not just my imagination, then I felt it was safe to go in that direction.

When I did the research for the piece, I went back and rewatched the making of, trying to see if I missed some key information. But what I realized once again, is that Jimin barely reveals anything in interviews. He was specifically asked about each concept, but he avoided giving the suitable answer, choosing instead to say something generic, that wasn't particular to what photoshoot he was doing. At the same time, I can fully understand this strategy. All the reactions and think pieces on the photofolio on every platform, from twitter, tiktok, to tumblr, seem to interpret it as having a big theme and if it's any close to what Jimin wanted to express, then I see why not getting into details might be the best approach. After all, the concepts are supposed to represent his inner self (his words) and perhaps it's best to leave the photos to speak for themselves. Which they obviously do. Jimin is subtle and straightforward simultaneously, for those who are willing to pay attention. He's smart and everything he does is intentional. Anyone underestimating him or downplaying the obvious symbolism in his concepts either doesn't want to pay attention or is not comfortable with what they clearly can observe.

P.S. I'm still waiting for my photo-folio as well, I hope it gets here before Christmas at least 🙏

#bmt asks #jimin #jimin photofolio

[openingnightposts]

#Cabaret #ChelseaTable+Stage #EdwardKliszus #Musicaltheater #RichardC.Walter

[goldenlilium-ocs]

Elara(again bc I love her sm)

Would you consider them well-liked in universe, or are they more an... acquired taste .

^ What about outside of canon? Are they one of your more well-liked characters?

What do they smell like? If unsure of specifics scent-wise, do they smell good, overly-soaked in perfume, like trash etcetc?

What would their theme song/leitmotif be titled? What would it sound like, if you have an idea?

Are they a projection of yourself in any way? How similar are they to you?

Are they capable of holding their own in a fight or are they laughably easy to beat?

Do they swear often? On occasion? At All?

How do they text people? Lots of exclamations? All lowercase? Very Serious And Grammatically Correct? 1 Billion Emojis? Cutesy uwu speak? Etc etc.

How easy is it to befriend them? How easy is it to make them hate you?

Source:

https://www.tumblr.com/medicasino/698149000445149184/my-very-suited-to-my-own-personal-tastes-oc-ask

Elara is like a living contradiction. She may be hot headed and feisty, but she actually makes friends very easily. A good leader leads with respect, not fear. She likes to surround herself with people so most will find her to be very likeable.

She is definitely one of my more liked characters! I wish I got to use her more, but I do think I have other characters who are similar

Elara smells like lavender and sunscreen

Her theme song is Black Sea by Natasha Blume or Firestarter by Victoria Carbol

I don’t think Elara is too similar to me other than our instant defensive reaction when confronted. We both definitely have tempers that need reigning in

Elara is very capable of holding her own and would likely refuse help in a fight

She swears like a sailor. Haha, get it? (Rip Finding Rivermere)

Elara doesn’t own a phone but if she did text I feel like it would mainly be very short and to the point. She’d definitely be one of those annoying people who send two word responses

As mentioned before, it’s very easy to befriend Elara. It’s also just as easy to make an enemy of her as soon as you become a possible threat or try to underestimate her

#elara seymour #i love her too 😭

[oro-e-diamanti]

Quiet Music: Leitmotif (Chapter Eight)

In collaboration with @bethanysnow

Bodies finding a rhythm all their own, like planets in orbit. A gravitational pull making them never loose each other in the chaos. Opening wounds to clean them still hurt, but love and patience can heal. Finding a new approach. Judgement calls and rum and cokes make an evening of honesty shared between kisses.

Content | Fluff

Pairing | fem!Reader x Damiano

Word Count | 5960

***

Damiano’s hope of enjoying his breakfast with Y/n, to be alone with her for a while before they would go back to travelling, maybe spend some quality time, lasted about three minutes. Then the rest of the band stormed into her hotel room behind him, declaring her suite to be the best place to order breakfast to. Y/n bore it with a smile and a shake of her head, quickly calling for room service, and trying to keep the group from wreaking havoc among her half-packed bags. Yet, as Victoria, Thomas, and Ethan seemed to be flying through the room, high on energy and expectations for the day ahead, Damiano found himself curling up on an armchair away from the chaos. A little vantage point from where he could watch Y/n work.

He loved being able to stare at her now, unashamed. He loved being able to call her his. Or, well, something like that. They were still figuring it out, after all. Although, if it was up to him, he would throw all caution in the wind. Praying she would join him. Claim her as his own, make her his girlfriend, his partner, whatever she wanted to be, as long as it was decidedly with him. But she’d made it clear she wasn’t quite ready for the jump yet. He tried to push the worries that came along with it away. He was usually the jump-first-think-later kind of person? So the slow speed she was setting for the both of them was new, foreign, and almost scary. When he gave his heart, he gave freely, and when he loved, he did so passionately. Yet, she asked him for patience and time, and he couldn’t blame her. Not with his status, not with being on tour, not with her work.

He often wondered what exactly Y/n was working on. What exactly was preoccupying her mind, if she was thinking about university or the tour or him. He wondered what exactly caused her face to scrunch up the way it did right then, seeing her tongue edge out from her lips, lost in thoughts, unaware of being watched at all. She didn’t even seem to notice Thomas turning on the TV, as she kept switching between packing up her things and checking whatever notes she had on her screen. Damiano held his head in his hand as he leaned on the armrest, his eyes scanned over her, trying to take in every detail. She was so passionate about her career, education, and this tour. Wanting the best it could be out of everything. It made him want to be a better man. One who deserved someone like her.

“Alright, everyone! I have to go and run some errands,” Y/n announced to the room of people.

Damiano noticed how she hadn’t even ordered any breakfast for herself. Leaving Victoria and Ethan to argue over what was going to be for room service. He had hoped they might all have a nice, calm - slightly chaotic - breakfast together, a little check-in, seeing how everyone was feeling for the second half of the tour. But as usual, she was busy, or making herself busy, and would probably only end up grabbing a bite when everything else had been organised and settled.

“Right, the tour bus is here and ready to go, so we will be leaving at 12 at the latest. Which means that after breakfast I expect you to go pack your bags and head downstairs so we can pick you up. I am running to Sainsbury’s now, so if there are any last-minute wishes, please text me.”

Looking from one member to the other, she seemed to wait until each of them had given her a nod of understanding. Damiano was last, giving her a broad smile, hoping for a little special treatment. Maybe a moment of extra attention, but she simply shot a smile back and gathered her things. She shouted a quick see-you-later into the room, and she was gone. Damiano felt a twinge in his heart as she went from his sight. Always busy. Not even a moment for a kiss. Or any other sign that would clearly elevate his status above those of the others. Is this what it will be like? Is this all he is going to get from her while working? His thoughts were running in circles, still trying to make sense of this new situation they had found themselves in.

***

The trip to the supermarket was quick and even though London wasn't exactly the most characteristically English city she could think of, doing something as boring as grocery shopping in all the usual places gave her a feeling of home. She was looking forward to spending the following days in the UK, surrounded by familiar landscapes and her native language. As such, her mood was high when she finally stepped back onto the tour bus. Getting music playing from her phone, she prepared the space for the rest of the tour, tidying up and putting away the food.

She shouldn’t have been as surprised as she was when she realised that the place did not only need a bit of tidying up, but also a deep-clean from the looks of it. Generally, she couldn't complain about the band making too much of a mess but time had amassed some problems and apparently, no one but her felt responsible for it. Well, I have to live in this place too, so I guess this is on me.

It didn’t take her long to get sweaty as she crawled on the floor to sweep under the furniture, climbed on top of the counters to dust the tops of the cabinets, and found herself running back and forth in the small space. She didn’t mind too much, as long as she was in a place where she could blast her music loudly without anyone complaining.

The song switched to The Strut’s Body Talks and it was enough to get her remembering the video she had seen of Damiano pole-dancing to Kiss This. With a giggle and newly-found energy, she started moving her body to the music, getting lost in it, in how happy she felt, in thoughts about Damiano.

Taking out the hair band that was already slipping away through her movements, she felt like she wasn’t only literally letting her hair down, but figuratively as well. A moment to breathe and just be herself. No one there to tell her off, no one looking at her, no judgemental stares. No thoughts as she let her hips move to the music, hair flipping along with her dancing. Slowly feeling the heat rising up under her skin, she made quick work of removing her sweater, leaving her with a thin tank top, a pair of blue jeans, and a lot more freedom to breathe. She started to regain her senses a bit, feeling in her body again. The tour was great but left a little to be desired when it came to peace and quiet, so she cherished little moments like these. Right now, she was her old self again, confidence surging through her.

Making a dramatic turn, cleaning rag flying out of her hand, her heart stopped as her chest collided with another. Damiano. She just about managed to hide the gasp as she looked up at him, studying the grin that had appeared on his face.

“Having fun?” He teased, wrapping his arms around her to pull her close, still making her move to the music.

“I am now,” she replied, as she pushed all insecurities away, hands burying themselves in his hair. He was gorgeous. Even sleepy, a warm pullover hugging his torso, no make-up, no jewellery, he took her breath away. Just from the way he was looking at her. From the way his hair was falling into his face, daring her to push a curl away. His body seemed to mold perfectly into hers, chests flush against each other now.

“What’s that body telling me then?” Taking her by surprise, he pushed her away just enough to let her twirl on his hand before bringing her back in, low singing of You can be cool, you can be shy, say what you want, say what you like… He almost made her forget to answer at all.

“What do you think?” She bit back, as their bodies collided once again. It seemed to be all the invitation he needed, as he finally allowed his face to come closer, his breath hitting her skin. There was hesitation in his eyes, the slightest hint of insecurity, and her heart swelled at the thought that he could worry about doing her wrong. Taking the responsibility away from him, she dragged his face towards her, letting their lips meet. The kiss didn’t stay timid for long.

As soon as Damiano seemed to have gotten his groove back, he licked against her, demanding the access to her mouth she so willingly provided. His hands were squeezing her flesh, unable to get enough, if her own movements were anything to go by. Tracing and feeling past the curve of her hips to rest on her butt. Her hands raked across his scalp, pulling at his hair. A hand going to his face kept him tangled to her. Air be damned. The need to breathe was at the back of her mind, far removed, less than important. Damiano consumed all of her thoughts and only felt him and the drums of the song still playing in the background.

His hand slinked over her back pocket, giving her arse a squeeze. She looked at him in surprise as she broke the kiss.

“Dami!” she scolded, but he simply giggled and pulling her back into him, tongue once again searching for hers. She didn’t notice her own hand was playing with the hem of his top until his fingers came to rest on top of it, encouraging her to go further. Her blood ran hot as she finally dared, softly touching the skin underneath. The goosebumps under her fingertips were impossible to ignore and she found herself grinning into the kiss at the realisation that this affected him just as much as it did her.

His own hands were suddenly under her top, stroking her back, never once interrupting her kiss. Bit by bit, they moved to her front, along her hips and waist, edging upwards until they felt the underside of her bra. Her head was a whirlwind of emotions, absolutely overwhelmed by the feeling of making out with Damiano like this. She was ready to let go, let him do whatever he pleased, sink into how much better this was than anything she had imagined, when-

“Hey, Y/n, are you-”

She jumped away from Damiano instantly, turning towards the source of the sound, which turned out to be Thomas who looked like a deer caught in the headlights. Behind him, Ethan and Victoria, less surprised expressions on their faces, but rather smirks being sent their way.

“Damn, if we knew it was getting hot and heavy in here we would have waited until half-past,” Victoria snickered.

“Half-past!” Damiano exclaimed. “I’m offended you think I’d only take half an hour!”

“Maybe it’s time to stop talking about this, I’m afraid our dear assistant’s head might explode,” Ethan calmly interrupted, causing all eyes to focus on Y/n. She could feel the heat in her cheeks increase even more - she didn’t even want to know what she would look like.

“Maybe it’s time to get a move on,” Y/n suggested instead. “You’re playing in Manchester tonight and I’ll be damned if we don’t arrive on time.”

Smiles still present on their faces, everyone dispersed quickly. Only Damiano made sure to stop again for a moment, pulling her close, making sure no one else would hear as he whispered in her ear.

“I’m not done with you yet. Just wait until I get you alone again.”

***

The ride to Manchester started with a quick stop at Nando’s for lunch, then it was off on the road to make it to the city in time. The air between Y/n and Damiano had cooled down after some time apart, as Y/n sat in her usual spot with Damiano settling into the seat across from her. Victoria watched the both of them, watched what looked like a silent conversation happening between the two, and tried to pick apart what it meant. Y/n had spent the last twenty minutes working on her laptop and sneaking looks at the singer. He was more or less busy with something he was scribbling down into his notebook and sneaking looks at their assistant all the same.

She wasn’t surprised to find them wrapped up in themselves on the bus this morning. She knew it had only a matter of time before they really hit it off. Although she did find that Y/n keeping up this level of professionalism was getting a bit frustrating - even for her, nothing but an innocent bystander, of course. She didn’t even want to think about what Damiano was feeling. They were all friends at this point. She could relax a little, Vic thought. She wished their assistant would relax a little. What would be hiding under all those layers? Was she always this rigid? The bassist needed to find out - hopefully without the wine this time.

“Angelo,” Victoria cooed, getting Y/n's attention. When she didn’t immediately react, the bassist followed with a soft kick to her shoes. “I'm curious, what is your favorite song of ours?”

Y/n’s eyes were darting back and forth between a number of points for a moment and Vic briefly wondered if she shouldn’t have asked. But it was just her, their assistant, and Damiano - Ethan had retreated to his bunk, Thomas was busy on the console -, and it was time for Y/n to get out of her shell.

“Um, I like a lot of your music. Most of it, really. Fear for nobody is good, Lividi sui gomiti is wicked. But my true favorite is Coraline. I… I don’t know, it just feels like… I get it.”

“You get it?” Vic inquired, trying to dig deeper.

“Well, my personal interpretation of it anyway. But, like I mentioned before, my ex-boyfriend wasn’t the greatest. He didn’t hit me or anything, which you know … sets the bar on the floor, really. He didn’t cheat. But I read the lyrics and felt heard. I fell hard when I met him. Like, we were living together, the whole thing. He thought I was pretty but that apparently wasn’t enough, and when we broke up I moved into my friend's flat and ended up sleeping on her couch. My mum thought me and him were gonna get married, I think that says it all. But he wasn’t bad. Just wanted to be a manchild and have his girlfriend basically be his mum. Go to the pub every week, see a football match, get off. Didn’t care what I did as long as it didn’t get in the way. Never showed up to my events. Fell asleep drunk a lot. Never was really invested in me or my life. Realised there was no reason keeping that relationship up at some point.”

“Men fucking suck,” Victoria groaned. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Damiano open his mouth to protest, but a look was enough to keep him quiet. This is not about you, shush.

“It’s honestly fine. I moved on, I live in a beautiful city. I am doing something I love, I am going to uni and getting a degree in something I know a lot about. I am doing well. My family supports me. And I have you four now, which is an unexpected bonus. So honestly, you don’t need to worry.”

Victoria didn’t comment on the way Y/n’s smile faltered in between, or how she avoided eye contact. Her opening up was more than enough for now. And from the way Damiano was staring at their assistant, she gathered it would fall to him to sooner or later pick up her pieces anyway.

***

Damiano had listened silently through all of their conservation. It was like the metaphorical lightbulb suddenly turning on over his head. Everything was starting to make sense now. The hesitancy, the refusal to be affectionate when others were there, the innate need to take things slow. All previous desires to speed things up, get her to move more at his tempo, vanished in an instant as he looked at her. Knowing even this little piece broke his heart.

He wanted her, all of her, so badly and desperately, but it was right then and there that he realised he would need to take a different approach. Prove that he wasn’t going to go away anytime soon. If it meant moving slowly, waiting to make things official even after he was ready, keeping private for the time being, it was the least he could do. As long as it meant she would return into his arms at the end of the day, allow his kisses when no one was looking. As long as she was his, even if they wouldn’t call it that yet. For looking at her was like looking at the sun, warm and inviting, yet fearful you might go blind with its radiance.

With sudden clarity, Damiano felt like he knew what he needed to do. Keep her safe. Provide a space in which she would allow herself to fall. Step up and be the kind of constant she needed in life. And he would prove that he was the man for her time and time again if that was what it took. Be hers. Have her call him hers.

***

The gig that night was like a breath of fresh air. It was more than just the crowd going crazy, or the band playing with as much mastery as they could possibly muster. It was something in Damiano’s eyes when he sang, Y/n concluded. She had seen them play live several times now, always enjoying getting to sit down and simply enjoy the show when she wasn’t rushing to get things done, and every single time she seemed to discover something new about them that she loved. Or maybe this one really was new. The way he caught her eye, the way there was something else in them now that she hadn’t seen before. Hadn’t seen before or hadn’t noticed before? She wasn’t quite sure.

Either way, she felt herself get caught up in the whirlwind of emotions, laughing and giggling along with the band, as they packed up and left the venue, ready to get back to the hotel and ride the wave a little more. A number of fans had gathered in front of it, nothing unusual, and the four of them quickly decided on sparing a little of their time to greet them, take photos, sign autographs. Y/n was almost gone, halfway to entering the lobby, when she saw it from the corner of her eye.

The uncomfortable, almost panicked look on Damiano’s face registered before the rest of the situation did. Then she spotted the girl, all but hanging onto the singer, grabbing at his jacket, seemingly hellbent on getting under his clothes. Y/n couldn’t tell if she was drunk or simply out of her mind. A quick look around left her with no answers as to where security was - but it wasn’t present, it seemed.

In retrospect, she barely remembered what exactly happened. All she knew was that she had gotten between them like a flash of lighting, pushing the girl away firmly but not aggressively. A few choice words might have left her mouth. Pretty sure they had, actually. There had been a slight shuffle as the girl refused to accept the new situation, hands in the air and threatening to hit. Y/n had put an end to that as well, effectively pinning her arms to her side, telling her in no uncertain terms; that this was going to end here and now or with the police being called. After that, everyone had pretty much fled into the hotel, exhausted and disappointed by the way the encounter had turned out.

Crowding into the lift, Y/n couldn’t hold back a sigh.

“Guys, I know I’m technically on the job, but I think I could do with a drink.” She rubbed her eyes, taking a deep breath. “We can order room service or something, yeah?”

The rest of the band looked similarly exhausted, ready to turn in for the night. In the cramped quarters, she barely registered that Damiano was standing next to her until he grabbed her hand. She didn’t know if it was to comfort him, or her, or if they just instinctively needed to be close together. The happiness surging through her didn’t need to be questioned.

“Thank you, by the way,” Damiano whispered in her ear as the doors opened. “You being protective is...nice. And a little hot, maybe.” He sent her a wink that left her stuck in a place between blushing and giggling, but then he pulled her out of the lift, and Vic’s hotel room wasn’t the place to discuss this.

Vic was already busy orderíng drinks and whatever else caught her eye on the menu, when Y/n and Damiano stepped in. Thomas casually opened a window, Ethan joining him for a quick smoke. Y/n was in the middle of taking out her laptop, along with some other papers she had been working on when she felt Damiano’s hands slink around her waist from behind.

“Don’t work tonight, please?” She could almost see the puppy dog eyes he was giving her from there, picturing his exact face in her mind. His lips trailed along her neck and shoulder, soft kisses that weren’t meant to start anything, just creating that pull to get her to let go of the bag in her hands.

“Dami...” Her voice was a level above a whisper, only just. He started to hum the chorus of ‘Body Talks’ into her skin, low and soft, but enough that she heard. It almost scared her that he knew which buttons to push so accurately.

“Alright, fine. You win this round. Mr. David,” she relented, turning around in his arms to face him. He had a smug look on his face, obviously pleased at having won, and she couldn’t help put a little kiss on his perfect lips. It was the first time she had kissed him in front of the others and the thought left her giggling, easily infecting him as well.

“Look at those lovebirds!” Victoria teased, acutely reminding Y/n that the whole band was now, in fact, staring at them. She was glad no one seemed to be bothered.

Hanging up the phone, Vic crawled onto the bed, collapsing against the pillows. “They said fifteen minutes, so unless the two of you wanna go for a quickie, I’d turn it down a bit.”

The bassist chuckled at Y/n's face, going a tint pinker than before, as Damiano made his way over to Vic just to smack the back of her head.

“Wait! Idea! We should play truth or dare!” Vic suddenly shouted, sitting up on her knees as she looked at the group. Of course, Victoria would think this was a great idea. All her ideas were great ideas - according to her.

“Aren’t we too old for that?” Ethan asked, apparently not quite convinced by his friend’s enthusiasm.

“Come on, it will be fun!”

***

“-...and then I was woken up by a pigeon picking at my face, none of my clothes anywhere in sight, and the roof door was still locked,” Ethan explained as if this was the most normal situation in the world. Damiano could only shake his head at his friend, vividly remembering the incident.

“Why were you on the roof in the first place? And how the fuck did you not freeze?” Y/n asked, taking a sip from her third rum and coke of the evening, effectively finishing it.

Ethan grinned like it was some dirty secret. “Because I’m italiano, darling! Also, it was summer - in Italy.”

The night of ‘truth or dare’ had successfully turned their bad mood from the unfortunate encounter in front of the hotel into something sweet. Y/n and Damiano were leaning against the headboard of the bed, his hand absentmindedly playing with her fingers. Victoria kept draping herself in various positions on the end of the bed, obviously trying to find the best angle for a selfie, while constantly being interrupted by Thomas tapping her leg, playfully kicking her side, or offering her another drink. Ethan was sitting in the chair that was normally located in the corner of the room but had been brought to the front of the bed for their conversation. Damiano thought he looked awfully composed for someone who had just given a lap dance on a dare. Then again, Victoria was once again topless as well, and he couldn’t even quite remember if that had been part of the game or just Vic being Vic.

“Okay, Y/n, your turn. Truth or dare,” Ethan said, looking at her. She held his gaze, as if challenged, before answering.

“Truth.”

“What is the biggest secret we don’t know about you yet?”

Whatever was in this question or Y/n’s drink seemed funny enough to her, giggled erupting. Damiano simply watched in silence and curiosity.

“Um… I guess that I was a ballroom dancer at, like, competitional level?”

“No, you weren't!” Vic gasped.

“Try me!” Y/n giggled, pulling out her laptop and going through some files. A few clicks later she seemed content, setting the laptop down in the middle of the bed, as everyone crowded around it to get a good look. “I used to dance with a studio and this was the dance I did with my dance partner to qualify for a competition. He’s amazing. He still dances now, keeps me updated on the world I left.” One more click, and the video finally started.

The first thing Damiano noticed was the outfit. A little wine coloured thing with a sash going around Y/ns hips. It looked more like a bodysuit than a dress, really. Silver sparkles covered the skin-tone mesh fabric along her chest. Her hair was in an elaborate updo, sleek and tight. He trailed his eyes down her long legs, ending in silver dance shoes. Then the guitar opening to ‘Smooth’ by Santana sounded through the speakers and he was convinced his heart was going to jump out of his chest.

Her face was lit up with excitement and joy, and a seductive wink went towards the judging table, yet her concentration was unmatched. The dark red lipstick, perfectly tone-in-tone with her outfit, almost had Damiano drool. He made a mental note to make the suggestion for her to wear lipstick more often. No lip balms, or nude tones, but dark lipstick, sexy lipstick.

Her dance partner was handsome, tall, limber, and wore a matching purple suit with a white shirt. Damiano watched as his hands grabbed Y/n's hips, leading her across the floor. An undeniable chemistry between them, a perfect pairing, completely in sync.

Damiano was amazed. He was watching Y/n do the thing she knew she was good at. It was so obvious when he looked at her face in the little video. He wondered if this was how their fans felt when watching them perform, just full of awe and love. There was barely anything sexier than watching someone do the thing they were put on this earth for. The rest of the band seemed just as mesmerised, watching the display of not only physical technique but artistry as well.

“What dance is this?” Thomas asked without moving his eyes away from the screen.

“This is a cha-cha, only of my favourites. That particular one got me to nationals, actually.” The pride was evident in both her face and her voice.

In the video, Y/n’s leg wrapped around the man dancing with her, as he pulled her down for a dip, causing her back leg to extend and her back to arch. It was intoxicating. All the thoughts in the world, dirty and innocent and everything in between, muddled themselves together into an explosive cocktail inside his head.

“Oh dear, that’s the time?”

Everyone’s eyes seemed to fall onto the little clock at the corner of the screen at the same time as Y/n’s did.

“Well, as much fun as this was,” Y/n continued, smacking the laptop closed with maybe a little too much force, “it’s way past all of our bedtimes and we need to travel tomorrow, so get your butts into bed, I’ll be doing the same.”

She was getting up already, getting away from him, and all that came out of Damiano’s mouth was, “I’ll bring you to yours. Room, I mean.”

“Yeah, sure that’s what you meant,” Victoria giggled as he got up in a hurry, following the woman like a besotted puppy. He didn’t react to his bandmate’s comment. He had more important things to attend to.

***

She felt his presence behind her with every step she took towards her hotel room, as she unlocked it, and even more so as they finally entered. It was impossible not to - Damiano, somewhere between larger than life and the sweetest person she had ever met, was hard to ignore.Y/n lugged her bags onto the bed, keeping an eye on the man before her. He was smiling to himself and if she knew anything that smile meant he had gotten an idea.

“Tell me what’s going through your head because if you don’t I’m going to get scared it’s going to be something really questionable.”

“Oh nothing, amore. Just... You still have that outfit?” Damiano grinned, sitting on the bed.

“I don’t actually know, all my dancing stuff is in a box in my closet in Rome. Do I care to know why you’re asking? Or can I assume the obvious?”

As soon as she passed by him, toiletries in hand with some pajamas on the way to the bathroom, he grabbed onto her legs, pulling her into him. Surprised by the sudden motion, her items tumbled to the floor as he turned her around in his embrace. Looking down at him, she couldn’t help but mirror the smile on his face.

“What do you think, hm?”

“Well, I’m thinking it’s time you cool down a bit because it’s 2 am and I’m going to bed.”

“Ooh, do I have to? Maybe you just need to warm up instead? Fuck, you were so hot in that video. You sure you don’t want to keep that energy for a bit longer, Y/n?” His hands found themselves running up her hips and sides trying to pull her onto his lap. Damiano’s hair had fallen into his face making him look even more deviously handsome than normal. She hoped she wasn’t swallowing too audibly at the sight.

“Yes, Dami. I would like to sleep. I have to be the adult sometimes, and that requires sleep.” Kissing his cheek and relenting his hands from her figure, she picked up her things and went to the bathroom. “If it helps, I am glad you’re here. I am not a fan of nights alone really…” She briefly tilted her head out from the bathroom door to get a look at him. Damiano had laid back on the bed looking up at the ceiling. She could look at him for all eternity if he would let her. Given their predicament, he just might.

Quickly distributing what she needed and going through the bare bones of her evening routine, Y/n left the bathroom shortly after. Hair down, pajamas on. She stopped at the foot of the bed where Damiano was still staring at the ceiling. “Oi, lover boy. You alright?”

“Why did you leave dancing?”

She sighed. “Long story short, they didn’t want a larger woman winning. My partner and I overheard a couple of the sponsors for the competition speaking to the judges about how I would, quote, ‘ruin the lustrous history of the ballroom dance association’. Obviously, I am putting it far more politely now than they did back then. The next round comes up, we did a beautiful waltz and we are eliminated. Well, dancing is marked in artistry, musicality, and technique. You need high scores in every category to advance. And let me just say they couldn’t fucking touch me when it came to technique, I’m not an arrogant person, but I’ve re-watched the videos a million times, there was no fault to be found in what we did out there.”

Y/n could feel herself becoming angry, once again, over the same old thing. It wasn’t a thing that was easy to push away, still. Damiano had sat up and his hands found hers. He didn’t attempt to pull her onto the bed, instead, his thumb kept rubbing circles onto her skin. She was too agitated to sit anyway.

“So we got off the floor and people from other studios were like, ‘aww tough luck, maybe next season’ and ‘oh, be proud you made it here, love’ as if that made it better. Some other dancers made it obvious that I shouldn’t have been there in the first place. The studio I danced at wasn’t exactly happy when they had nothing to show for their efforts. I went home that day, my boyfriend at the time was asleep on the couch with beer bottles and takeout around him, and I just couldn’t do it anymore. I had worked too hard to get there and they didn’t want me. Not because I wasn’t a good dancer, not because I wasn’t putting in the work. I got my papers back from a competition prior and one of the judges said I was a ‘brilliant novelty’. But they hated the way I looked and I knew then they’d never let me advance to the level I deserved. So I quit. Put all my costumes, heels, stupid sparkly rhinestones in a box and there it stayed.” Y/n shrugged, staring at the floor.

“Hey, look at me.”

She couldn’t refuse him. His eyes were kind and loving, but none of the pity she feared would be visible in them. Keeping them on her, Damiano stood up, now cradling her head in his hands.

“Fuck them. Fuck them all.” There was anger simmering underneath, but he kept calm as he held her. “You’re so much better than all of that. These reactionary assholes have no idea what they’re missing out on. Fuck, I don’t know what I would do if any of them treated you like that while I’m around.” He took a deep breath. “You’re amazing, Y/n. And stunning, you know I can’t keep my hands off of you. And as shitty as all of that was, I’m so glad your path led you to me now.”

The kiss he pressed against her lips, combined with his words, made her so emotional she almost felt like crying. She didn’t though, tiredness taking over once and for all, simply responding to the sweet kiss. When he let go, he looked equally moved.

“Want to cuddle up in bed until we both fall asleep?”

She couldn’t possibly say no.

***

Taglist | @damianodavide @lizstans @unitersmoonshine @its-afucking-mess @ethaneskin @dont-let-me-drown-in-you @vampirtet @lividisuigomiti @juststalking @tabi-toast @ethan-torchio-angelo @cheese-toastie-11 @thewitchinthemountain @ethanesimp @sofckinelectric @man3skin @daddydamiano @finelinejpm @superchrystaldrug @ginny-lily @everythingisdefinitelynotfine @nientedaridere @rainbowmarta @ilwiwbysmv @tiaamberxx @shaunthesheesh @enjcltaire @rocketqueen @aleksanderwh0r3 @damianodavidhands @megann-duff @teatrodellavita @coven-daddy @till-you-scream-and-cry @solasullabarca @fanfictionandfluff @makapaka11 @slave4yourlove @geklutst-ei @marriedwithmarktuan @bookish0918 @mehrmonga @kanevill @butterfly-skinnylegend @lidiyabest @killerqueen1985 @ccweasley @bluscryn @deluxeplanteater @ohtorchio @messyhairday-me @bidet-and-legolas @maybanksslut @katyldamusic @fuckim-so-gay @demoiselle-en-detresse00 @petit-poussin @fedorable-killjoys @luvbadass @buttercup-beeee @navs-bhat @etaerealboyv  @tryymebitch @mell-bell @fenhakwe @solacestyles @softforlukescurls @vicsangel​ @theimpossiblehologramtree​ @alina-exe​ @cherricola66​  @supercorp-mari​ @onlykissystyless​ @thatonebraziliangirl​ @dannasixxworld​ @immrbrightside​ @lifeofa-fangirl​ @gr8rainbowpunk​ @que--sera--sera​ @achilleveleno​ @maneskinyakaar​ @maneskinsimpie33​ @hiraetheral​ @iosonoarina​ @8iunie​ @idyllicbutterfly​ @fanfictionandfluff​ @blackberryblossom​

#maneskin fiction #damiano david imagine #damiano david x you #damiano david x reader #damiano david fiction #maneskin imagine #maneskin x you #maneskin x reader #quiet music #bethanysnow #mywriting

[therealvinelle]

Do you or Muffin have any thoughts on the twilight soundtrack? It's usually the one aspect of the movies that gets praised

I unfortunately have Full Moon by The Black Ghosts on my Spotify top 100 of 2021, so I can't claim it didn't have bangers.

My general opinion on the songs, as songs, is that some are good and a few are full on great. I have esoteric taste and a lot of the songs aren't my style, though. But, the soundtrack did suit the atmosphere the films were going for, so kudos for that.

But I am a difficult person.

I don't think it's the soundtrack of the gods, not necessarily because the songs themselves are lacking, but because it never really makes a scene unforgettable. There are no moments like the "Immigrant Song" moment in Thor: Ragnarok, or "To Die For" in Lion King (sorry about the audio quality in this clip! But it is a great example, since we have the live action version to contrast with, and that version toned down the music as much as possible. The result was so very mediocre, and really highlighted how vital the music was to the stampede scene). Nothing like the shark theme from Jaws, or the ET bicycle scene, or the montage in Rocky. The songs are there, and... well, with the exception of the baseball scene (which, one scene in five films is... not good), they're never more than that.

Watching Victoria be chased in New Moon to a catchy soundtrack (I think "Hearing Damage"?) makes for a good bop, and it definitely made the scene better, but... I'm difficult enough that I still find it all to be rather "meh", because the film as a whole had failed to be engaging, and so a good tune can only do so much, just as "Immigrant Song" wouldn't have made for an iconic scene if it had played in the Breaking Dawn Part 2 battle.

Much of the soundtrack is great, but when the movies themselves are so mediocre, we'll never reach the zenith. There's just never a scene where I'm losing my mind because I'm so taken in with what's happening.

The other problem I have with the soundtrack is that I think Twilight in the long run was worse off for not having its own composer. I've mentioned this on the blog before - basically, by having different directors, different styles, different everything, from movie to movie, there's no internal consistency. The actors stay the same, at least, but even then their costumes, makeup, and hair change and the characterization changes. Compare the gloomy, kind of awkward, human-looking Edward of Twilight to the jokey, suave, and more inhuman looking Edward of Eclipse.

I think a soundtrack with reoccurring themes and leitmotifs would have gone a long ways towards giving the movies a brand, something recognizable that made the audience feel "this is Twilight" the way "Hedwig's Theme" and "The Imperial March" makes their respective franchises feel like Harry Potter and Star Wars. Look to how Lord of the Rings and Star Wars uses music to communicate with the audience, and then look to how Twilight-- doesn't. Well, apart from the obligatory one Muse song per film, but that's a nod to Muse, not the producers thinking "Let's give these films a feeling of consistency".

For the first film I understand the choice made, as it was the kind of indie film where indie music felt organic to go along with it. And the other films then had to follow suit, I get that. But this is a failing on behalf of planning the series, that the producers did not think "There will be more movies and we should have reoccurring musical themes to bring it together".

Of course, I say all of this, but I would still have made merciless fun of them because they would still have been bad movies. And the angsty sountrack does feel incredibly on brand, so my gripe is on a deeper level about me wanting the films to have been different from the get-go.

In a nutshell - I have complaints, but am impossible to please.

#twilight #twilight soundtrack #twilight renaissance #twilight meta #twilight movies

[openheartfanfics]

Newly Added Fic

Aug 15 - 21 

🎭 Angst  |  🛸 AU  |  ☁ Fluff  |  ♥ NSFW  |  📚 Series  |  📷 Edit  |  📱 TextFic

Bryce x F!MC

Ladies Night - @argylemnwrites ☁ Cassie reflects on her professional and personal life as she gives some advice to some medical students

Little Blooms - @eleanorbloom ☁ How Bryce and Eleanor react to news that she’s pregnant.  [Pregnancy] 

Moonlight - @eleanorbloom 📚 [extended: wip] This is a Moon & Sun trope - Opposites attract, if you want to call it. There isn’t really a conflict, or not a dramatic one as the one in my past series. This is just the story about how two people fell in love despite their fears.

Preface

Ethan x F!MC

Always In My Heart - @tsrookie ☁ Their son has a very important question to ask

Child’s Play - @izzyourresidentlawyer ☁ What happens when Little Via comes to stay with Ethan and Anj in Boston [Domestic] 

Each Careful Step - @terrm9​ ☁ Dancing together, one of them takes other's hand and kisses it

Family - @takeharryandgo​ 🎭 They're facing something no couple hopes to endure, but can their relationship survive it? TW: child loss [Family; Pregnancy; Traumatic] 

Fun at the Fair - @liaromancewriter ☁ Cassie and Ethan spend a fun-filled day making memories at Coney Island.

Good Morning, Morning Glory - @utterlyinevitable ☁ Their first vs last time waking up together.  [Domestic] 

Hearts Don’t Cooperate - @adiehardfan 🎭 Anna confronts Ethan upon his return from the Amazon. [Amazon; 2.1] 

Heartbeat Song - @liaromancewriter ♥ Cassie convinces Ethan to join her for a relaxing bubble bath, but it soon turns into something more. [Water] 

Leitmotif - @utterlyinevitable ☁ Odette has gotten an opportunity of a lifetime, and now it’s time to make a decision. Needless to say, she’s not taking it well. [Hurt/Comfort; Domestic]

Newlyweds Game - @danijimenezv​ 💒

Friends Edition

Newlyweds Game - @takeharryandgo​ 💒

Friends Edition

Newlyweds Game - @starryeyedrookie​ 💒

Spicy Edition ♥

Newlyweds Game - @lsvdw-blog 💒

Spicy Edition ♥

Our Last Chance - @jerzwriter ♥ With only two months of her residency remaining, once again they find themselves on a business trip in a lush, tropical setting. Will history repeat?

Regret - @potionsprefect 🎭 Lily Ramsey tries to tell Victoria something but she isn’t listening [Family] 

Rubato - @utterlyinevitable ☁ What happened after Ethan walked out and slammed the on-call room door on Odette. 2.13 scene insert. [Hurt/Comfort; 2.13] 

Smooth As Hell -  @perriewinklenerdie​ ☁ Ethan flexes his marriage muscle while being hit on. Bryce has never seen anything more impressive. ft. Ethan and Bryce bromance.

Snapshot - @jamespotterthefirst​ ☁ An intern learns that there is something in this world that can make the intimidating Ethan Ramsey smile. [Intern; Family] 

The Sound of Her - @a-crepusculo 📚 [mini: wip] Ethan navigates his thoughts and feelings towards Marchia using the faculties of sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch. [In Love] 

Part I  |  Part II  |  Part III

The Start of Something New - @aworldoffandoms​ ☁ “Are we going to carry on like this or are you going to give him back to me.” and “I think I’m in love with you and I don’t know what to do.” [Confession]

The Walk of Shame - @izzyourresidentlawyer ☁ Ethan and Tobias’ shared walk of shame. Feat. Tobias x F!OC

Love Triangle

Delaying the Inevitable - @jerzwriter 📚 [extended: wip] Ethan x F!MC x Tobias

Chapter 18 - Crossroads

Perfectly Imperfect - @cryomyst  [extended: wip] Bryce x F!MC x Ethan

Chapter 4

Tobias x F!MC

A Deli…ghtful Meeting - @jerzwriter ☁ Re-write/interpretation of the deli scene where Casey & Tobias meet in OH Book 2/Ch. 3. - Both like what they see… [2.3] 

Foul Play - @sillydg ♥ It’s Friday night and Bryce, Rafael, Tobias and Liz are having their weekly laser tag battle going on!

So, it’s a date? - @jerzwriter ♥ Casey constantly evades her handsome co-worker. When they meet up at a co-worker’s wedding reception, they explore the possible reasons.

The Walk of Shame - @izzyourresidentlawyer ☁ Ethan and Tobias’ shared walk of shame.  Feat. Ethan x F!OC

The Boys

Smooth As Hell -  @perriewinklenerdie​ ☁ Ethan flexes his marriage muscle while being hit on. Bryce has never seen anything more impressive. ft. Ethan and Bryce bromance.  Feat. Ethan x F!MC

_

SUBMIT OPEN HEART FICS & WRITERS HERE

#open heart #open heart fanfic #open heart fanfiction #choices open heart #open heart fanfics #ethan ramsey #ethan x mc #bryce lahela #bryce x mc #tobias carrick #tobias x mc #newly added fics

[lumberjackloverboy-moved]

who's your favorite cat from the cats musical?

hmmm.... i like rum tum tugger bc im a homosexual, but victoria’s costume is always beautiful and i’m a sucker for ballet/ballet-adjacent solos. i think my favorite though would have to be jemima. ‘daylight’ is so hopeful and meshes so well with grizabella’s leitmotif. fun fact: they changed her name to sillabub when the show moved to the states for.... unfortunately obvious reasons.... and now some casting directors use the names interchangeably! 

#homosexual cw #Anonymous

[stoportotouch]

liner notes for the daniil playlist.

you can listen to the actual playlist and find the lyrics that i picked out here, because this won’t make much sense without them.

i. funeral sentences for queen mary

the current fashion for ostentatious royal mourning in england is actually a relatively new invention -- for centuries it was seen as being something that other countries did until queen victoria, who was obsessed with death, obsessively planned her own funeral. (and now there’s a to-the-minute plan for what happens when the monarch dies.) but the medieval and early modern people did get practice -- probably because a lot of them died.

purcell is one of the earlier english composers who composed what everybody can agree was opera (there’s a 300-year gap between handel and britten where people get into arguments) but this particular piece was for the funeral of queen mary. it’s mostly here to set the mood, kind of like an overture.

ii. passacaglia della vita

the composer here is actually the best available musicological guess as to who composed this memento mori but i couldn’t find any better guesses so here it is. memento mori was a movement in the arts for reminding people that they would, in fact, die at some point -- it’s the same reason there was so many paintings where there’s a bunch of flowers, a lute, maybe some fruit, an hourglass, and a skull.

the lyrics i chose here translate roughly as “death comes to us all with no sense to it and we must simply accept it” and while in the original piece it’s intended with more of a “well, what can ya do about it?” feeling it still works for what daniil is........... like. a passacaglia is a type of dance.

iii. der tod und das mädchen

or “death and the maiden”. this one is similar thematically to the passacaglia but far less cynical in its execution. the first verse is the maiden begging death not to claim her, and the second verse is death telling her that death isn’t actually dreadful. it should be pretty obvious why i went for this one.

iv. erlkönig

another leid (a sort of german art song popularised in the 19th century), by the same composer. i will regurgitate what every musician can tell you about  erlkönig (the elf-king): there are four “characters” in this song, and those are the erlking, the father, the son, and the horse. while the horse never sings -- this recording makes it very obvious whether the king, the father, or the son is singing -- you can hear him galloping away in an example of something like leitmotif (but we’ll get to that later).

anyway. son tells his father there’s an evil elf-king following them. elf-king tries to encourage the boy to come with him. father keeps saying “you are seeing things”. when they stop the boy is dead. so many applications for this one in the pathologic universe, so little time.

v. chorus of the grail knights

i don’t actually like wagner that much, and that is my armour going into this conversation. however, parsifal is wagner’s final work and it really is... something. if we ignore the numerous problems with wagner, which for the sake of brevity i am going to do, what is happening here is that amfortas, the keeper of the holy grail who was wounded by the holy lance that pierced the side of christ on the cross, is being borne to the Grail Room to uncover the holy grail so that the knights can take communion.

also in the background is the fact that amfortas considers himself to have failed his duty as the guardian of the grail and spear and allowed the spear to fall into the wrong hands. (to be honest this would work just as well for artemy, and that is a little spoiler for something i am writing :).)

vi. varlaam’s drinking song

there’s a lot going on in boris godunov, and this is just one of the things that is going on in it. varlaam is a soldier-turned-monk who also has a major drinking problem, and is relating to the people around him how he was present when the tsar ivan ordered the destruction of the occupied town of khazan. i’m sure you know why this is here. (he doesn’t have a polyhedron but that’s coming.)

vii. le veau d’or

this is the demon mephistopheles singing the praises of the golden calf that moses ordered the destruction of, and also one of two things from a Faustian Opera on this playlist. gounoud’s mephistopheles is also a fantastic character who is basically just a pissed off unwilling demonic sugar daddy who (in the royal opera house’s production of faust) wears a ballgown during act v. i think that should happen more often.

the verse i’ve chosen here is the one where mephistopheles talks about a metal monster that insults the heavens, for obvious reasons, but really the whole thing works.

viii. son lo spirito che nega

another mephistopheles (mefistofele, because this is italian not french) aria, from another faustian opera. (this one is called mefisofele, and the composer of it had... a complex about it.) the singer is, for those interested in that sort of thing, the same guy as played the beast in over the garden wall. (he’s also a remarkably cool dude.) this mefistofele is more outwardly malicious than gounoud’s, who is really just here to vibe.

this mefistofele... does make me question why faust didn’t immediately say “...whoa, go back from whence you came”, honestly. he’s basically bellowing on about how he denies creation. and how he... whistles. (for context: rude in italian.)

ix. morir! tremenda cosa!

honestly, when i first started getting into pathologic, one of the first things i thought was that daniil and artemy have a pretty similar dynamic to carlo and alvaro from verdi’s la forza del destino. this is... one of my Pet Operas because it is truly wonderful despite being very silly, but the précis of what is happening here is carlo (the singer) is pondering the fact that his... Close Friend who just nearly died has, well, nearly died. then he finds out that his friend is his sister’s ex, who killed their father, and swears to kill them both.

i’m mostly thinking about the line in pathologic classic where daniil suggests that he and artemy are soulmates but in like, a bad way with this one because that’s essentially what carlo and alvaro are as well. they’re two people who would not have encountered each other if not for a very unfortunate series of events involving the death of one’s father -- carlo has sworn revenge long ago without knowing who he’s sworn revenge against, even, and because this is an opera that binds him and alvaro to each other in a way that will only lead to destruction.

x. e gettata la mia sorte

attila is a stupid opera, and i love it. e gettata la mia sorte is actually a cabaletta that comes after a cavatina but it makes more sense to include than the aria before it does, so here we are. ezio has been rejected... time after time by attila despite offering him the universe (literally: avrai tu l’universo, resti l’italia a me!) and is now saying that he is ready to go to war and die, safe in the knowledge that he will die as the last true roman. (there is always a political angle to a verdi opera.)

xi. o! de’ verd’anni miei

“i’ll make myself immortal. my name will never die.”*

xii. pareami che sorto

stricken after killing his father, despite, you know, having killed his father deliberately (his father isn’t actually dead), francesco moor is stricken by nightmares, which he describes to his Unwilling Enabler. francesco knows he’s cursed and later begs a priest for absolution. (he does not get absolution, presumably because he is not a catholic.)

xiii. e lucevan le stelle

i am still hurt about the fact that eva always kills herself, and there is nothing that you can possibly do about it. in this aria the painter mario cavaradossi reflects, before his execution, on his relationship with the opera singer floria tosca.

xiv. do not cast me off in my old age

i actually thought i would have more russian liturgical music on here but this is one of the best known russian liturgical pieces because of how low it is. i’ve already mentioned chesnokov and how i think his story fits into the universe of pathologic but this specific piece does have some sort of energy that is very similar to what daniil is putting out.

xv. toccata

this one actually is an overture even though i put it right at the end, but i’m sure you know the story of orpheus, travelling down to the underworld to try to free his lover from death but failing.

--

* e vincitor dei secoli il nome mio faro actually translates more closely to “my name will be the victor of centuries” -- the translation i’ve used is from the... fascinating and delightful chandos version.

#text #ollie considers

[quasi-normalcy]

tagged by @so-discreetly-sympathetic  !

NAME: Jaime. Possibly Jasmine. Possibly Amelia.

STAR SIGN: Gemini, but astrology is rubbish.

HEIGHT: 6′4′’

WHAT’S YOUR MIDDLE NAME: Patricia. Possibly Victoria. Possibly James

PUT YOUR ITUNES ON SHUFFLE. WHAT’S THE FIRST FOUR SONGS THAT POPPED UP?

I do not have iTunes.

GRAB THE BOOK NEAREST TO YOU AND TURN TO PAGE 23. WHATS LINE 17?

"Karellen as it liked and nothing would happen. Now it was ex-”

EVER HAD A SONG OR POEM WRITTEN ABOUT YOU?

Both. I had an entire leitmotif written for me once, although it was played on classical guitar rather than strings or harpsichord. I should still have a copy of it somewhere.

WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU PLAYED AIR GUITAR?

The last time I was making fun of the sorts of people who play air guitar, I suppose.

WHO IS YOUR CELEBRITY CRUSH?

I would crawl naked across a field of broken glass for Rachel Weisz.

WHAT’S A SOUND YOU HATE AND A SOUND YOU LOVE

I hate alarms. I love the sound of wine filling a glass.

DO YOU BELIEVE IN GHOSTS?

Maybe a little bit, though not in a way that I would attempt to justify rationally.

HOW ABOUT ALIENS?

A statistical certainty, but I don’t believe in alien abduction. I’d say that I don’t believe that aliens have visited the solar system, but I’m actually on the fence about Ouamuamua right now. And I suspect that at least one of the other bodies in the solar system probably harbours some form of life, though I would guess it’s probably a bunch of microbes.

DO YOU DRIVE?

Not recently.

IF SO HAVE YOU EVER CRASHED?

I’ve been side-swiped.

WHAT WAS THE LAST BOOK YOU READ?

Ursula K. Le Guin “The Dispossessed”.

DO YOU LIKE THE SMELL OF GASOLINE?

Not really, but it has strong and not unpleasant sense-memories associated with it for me. Together with the sound of garage doors moving and snow crunching beneath tires.

WHAT WAS THE LAST MOVIE YOU SAW?

Oh, um...The Kid who Would be King

DO YOU HAVE ANY OBSESSIONS RIGHT NOW?

Only my lifelong with Star Trek.

DO YOU TEND TO HOLD GRUDGES AGAINST PEOPLE WHO HAVE DONE YOU WRONG?

Yes.

IN A RELATIONSHIP?

No.

tagging @ajax-daughter-of-telamon @vague-humanoid @vague-humanoid@roccondilreblogs @noctumsolis do it if you would like.

[abybweisse]

Hi Abby! Wanted to ask you why do you think all the people in undertaker's lockers from a same time period? Like between 1830 and 1870,and after caludia's death in 1866 no locket is added...an most of the lockets are from after he deserted the grim reaper society so does that mean he reaped the soul of those people without having the grim reaper list?

⚠️ Warning: long post ⚠️

Significance of the lockets

I love asks about the lockets because that’s one of my favorite topics, even when I’m talking about Mother3 theory, like here and here. According to Mother3 theory, the lockets could be used as a weapon (emotionally) or as a shield (physically). Since battles in Mother3 rely on the player keeping time with the opponent’s battle music, I also think there’s a hidden music clue in the order of the lockets on their chain. But there’s a lot of information hiding in the existence and order of those lockets, even if you take away the musical clue aspect.

Lockets’ timeline

Let’s look at their timeline:

Dec 10, 1837 — Molly/Mally G. [Dec 10th is a Christian feast day.]

Nov 13, 1840 — Oliver A. [It’s a Friday the 13th.]

Jun 18, 1848 — Emile C. [The only last name I recall in the manga starting with a C (besides Collett, who left Weston to make room for our earl) is Chambers, the Viscount of Druitt’s actual last name. June 18th is also a somewhat random Christian feast day.]

Oct 7, 1851 — Harry E. [1851 is the year Vincent was born. Oct 7, 1851 is the 2nd anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe’s death. Oct 7th is also a Christian feast day.]

Apr 20, 1854 — Alex B. [In the manga, April 20, 1889 is significant; it’s also historically significant. April 20, 2006 is when Mother3 was released (but only in Japan!). It’s also possible that Frances/Francis was born in 1854. April 20th is another Christian feast day.]

Mar 1, 1862 — Gilbert D. [There’s an issue with Gilbert’s death date, since the year is different on some of the art. There’s an older illustration that looks like it’s 1885, but I’m going with this one, for now. Anyway, Mar 1st is yet another Christian feast day.]

Jul 13, 1866 — Cloudia/Claudia P. [That’s another Friday the 13th.]

Attachment order

And here’s the order they appear on the chain, from left to right:

Emile C.

Oliver A.

Alex B.

Cloudia/Claudia P.

Mally/Molly G.

Gilbert D.

Harry E.

I know that Japanese is read from top to bottom and right to left, but I don’t know if the same is applied to which way to read the order of names on the chain.

I do, however, know that you can make some cool music (here and here) from notes in the order of reading the last initials from left to right: CABF#GDE. I say F# because we don’t have a last initial F, but Phantomhive starts with “Ph”, which sounds like F, and you are more likely to see an F# than an F flat because F flat is the same as E. There is also at least one piece of music composed from playing the notes one way and then the other. [I’ll add a link when I can find it again.]

Potential order significance

When you map out how he attached the lockets over time, assuming he never rearranged them after attaching them, you will see he attached the first two halfway right then roughly halfway left of center. The next two were attached far left and far right. The rest eventually fill in the blanks, with Cloudia/Claudia’s getting the placement of honor in the center. It keeps some balance on the chain, as it’s filled up, but there isn’t complete consistency in the placement. [Note: the balance is maintained a bit better if Gilbert D.’s locket is added in 1862.] It’s also possible that he has rearranged the order and/or spacing of the lockets over time, as he’s added more. So, why this order? Why not end up with them in chronological order or something? Why not attach them in perfect balance with each other (if they were never rearranged)? There has to be a reason for this arrangement; Yana-san is so specific about the details of death order and arrangement on the chain for there to be no further meaning.

I think the order of the last initials gives us a hidden musical clue; I really do. It’s like a leitmotif for Undertaker, which our earl and Sebastian can “use against” him, just like making hit combos in Mother3, if you attack in time to the opponent’s battle music. There have been more straightforward uses of music in “battles” in the manga, like during the cricket tournament and later with the battle of the idol bands, so why not in this more symbolic way? The earl and Sebastian aren’t going to play these notes to battle Undertaker, of course, but the chain of lockets can be used to some sort of advantage. There are so many possibilities here, and I have numerous posts about that, like here. [Try clicking the tag below for #franklin badge or #courage badge for more.]

Timeline significance

As far as your specific questions are concerned, it’s very significant that all of these deaths occurred around the time he snuck out of the reaper organization (and realm?) and afterwards. Like I said earlier, there is confusion over the death year for Gilbert D, and I’ll talk a bit about that in a moment.

First, let’s talk about the oldest locket, the one for Mally/Molly G. I have quite a few posts about this. In a nutshell, I theorize Mally/Molly’s death might have been what finally made Undertaker leave the reaper organization. He had tried to destroy their HQ around 1819, the year Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were born. But Othello says that 136649 only half destroyed the place, suggesting that Undertaker failed… and that he might have been captured (and punished)… plus, Undertaker saying he hadn’t been called a reaper for about 50 years suggests he was not able to sneak out until nearly 20 years later. Mally/Molly dies at the end of 1837. That’s the year Victoria ascended to the throne, though she was officially coronated the following year. I suspect this was some last straw event for Undertaker, so he snuck out and took his death scythe with him (but left his reaper glasses behind). It might not have happened immediately after her death, but either then or soon after. One theory regarding his scars is that he was tasked to collect her soul, and her cinematic records attacked him (just like Thomas’s cinematic records attacking William in that “Will the Reaper” OVA… but worse, since there might have been no one to save him from it).

I have thought about the years on the other lockets, but we don’t have much to go on, just yet. Harry E. dies the same year Vincent is born, but I don’t see any other significance. His locket is at one end of the chain, but the order they were added on is a bit wonky. I’ll talk about that later, too. Crack theory: Harry E. has some connection with Vincent’s birth. Maybe a doctor was called for to help with the delivery? Otherwise, who knows why? Yana-san, that’s who.

Similarly, Alex B. dies the same year as one of my theories regarding the birth of Frances/Francis. If she was also born on a Friday the 13th, it was likely one of two dates: June 13, 1851 (as Vincent’s younger, fraternal twin) or January 13, 1854. If she’s Vincent’s younger (fraternal) twin, then this 1854 death wouldn’t have a connection to her birth. But if she was born in January 1854, it’s possible that Alex’s death about three months later could be connected. Like Harry E., this Alex could be a doctor or something. It’s also possible that Harry E. and Alex B. have nothing specific to do with the births of Vincent and/or Frances/Francis, but they have some other significance to Undertaker, and they were targeted to punish Undertaker after the births of his children.

Looking at all the dates, I see two instances of Friday the 13th’s, and I’m sure that’s significant on its own! Any time we see a Friday the 13th, it’s likely to do with punishment. I say this because I do believe Undertaker is Cedric K. Ros—, and Vincent was born on a Friday the 13th. I suspect that Frances/Francis probably was, as well. I think Cloudia/Claudia was killed at least partly because she had produced children of a reaper, and a Friday the 13th might be necessary for those births to occur [Undertaker parallels Thoth theory]. Her death was likely not a natural one, and the day of the attack might have been selected to “say” it’s punishment for this. Think of it like a criminal leaving behind a calling card or a clue to their identity. If that’s true, then Oliver A. must be an interesting case, too. What if he was another child sired by Undertaker, and he was killed as punishment for his own birth? Well, those people aren’t simply being punished; they are being killed. The punishment is for Undertaker; those clues or “calling cards” are messages to him.

There could also be historical significance to some of the other days, like April 20 (the day Mother3 was released, among other things), March 1 (feast day for St. David), etc., but I have yet to find any truly meaningful connections. The best I can come up with, so far, is that a few of these are Christian feast days. In fact, they might all be….

1866 is another turning point in Undertaker’s reaper life. I theorize it’s when he decides to get back into Vincent’s life and take a more active role in fighting against the queen. A more active role, too, in fighting back against the reaper organization.

If Gilbert D. really died in 1862, then Cloudia/Claudia’s death was the last in the series, and I have no idea why Gilbert might have been targeted, except that it’s the year after Prince Albert’s death. However, there’s a really interesting possibility, if he didn’t actually die until 1885. And that has to do with Madam Red. Long ago, I came up with a theory that Madam Red was pregnant with a son, and we know that their carriage “accident” was somewhat early in 1885. Well, I originally thought the unborn child might have been Gilbert D., and Undertaker had his own reason for being extremely upset about this. Thanks to Undertaker || Thoth theory, the fifth child born to the extended family should be a girl. And Madam Red wanted a daughter. So, now I don’t think Gilbert D. would be the son anyway; I think she was pregnant with a daughter.

Now, I’m thinking back to the un-introduced man that Madam Red married. All we know about him is he’s “Baron Burnett” or possibly really just the lord of the Burnett barony, since Madam Red is named Angelina Dalles (or Durless), not Angelina Burnett. So, if it’s March 1, 1885, then the mysterious Gilbert D. could actually be Madam Red’s dead husband. Why would that matter to Undertaker? Well, we only see the back of this guy’s head, but why? He could also be descended from Undertaker, or there might be some other connection. One of those possible connections could simply be how he died. Carriage accident. Sure. “Accident”. I don’t think so; I think he (and possibly the unborn child, too) was the intended target of this so-called “accident”. If this was on the queen’s orders, then Gilbert could have had some direct connection to Undertaker… or he could have been considered a threat to the crown in another way. This would be a cool theory, but chances are likely that Gilbert died in 1862, not 1885. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Basically, what I’m getting to is the idea that all 7 of these people were killed because of some connection to Undertaker… and that all of those deaths are “blood on the hands” of the queen. Her orders led to their deaths, even if it wasn’t by direct order. They were not all necessarily direct targets, but they died due to her words/actions. And these deaths might have been intended as punishment to Undertaker, especially if they were the intended targets. These are deaths that should not have occurred, as far as Undertaker is concerned. He doesn’t have access to the death lists anymore, so it’s also significant that, other than possibly Mally/Molly G., he couldn’t get onto the scene in time to stop them from dying. He might also hold the reaper organization responsible for not letting these individuals live. So, with the possible exception of Mally/Molly G., he probably didn’t reap their souls.

Please check out the tags below for more about the lockets, and you can also search my blog for “chain of lockets”; some posts should come up under that search, too.

#black butler #kuroshitsuji #undertaker #hair lockets #mourning lockets #musical clues #timeline #cloudia phantomhive #claudia phantomhive #molly g #mally g #emile c #alex b #gilbert d #harry e #oliver a #lockets’ melody #leitmotif #queen victoria #punishment #friday the 13th #thoth #long post #long reads #anon asks #i answer #answered asks #mother3 #mother3 predictions #feb 12 2022

[regalcanissapien]

Up next is Victoria Hall, 18, a popular Beauty Guru and Storytime Girl on Yoobtube (a Youtube expy for my oc universe) under the channel name VickiVice. She is very happy with how her channel is running, and has a fairly large, loyal fan base, who she calls her 'Viceers' (a pun on Viser). Her ultimate goal in life is a stable family with a good (and hot) husband, but sees herself as undesirable to anyone without makeup. She is an Indian American who has semi-dark skin, brown hair cut into bangs, brown eyes, and full lips. She is the daughter of Lucifer, former leader of the Demonic Rebellion and current Demon Lord over Pride.

Victoria's Ultra Form is a classic style demon named Vikiss. She represents Pride and will always have the biggest set of wings in the room. Her eyelashes are enormous as are her claws, which are her main form of attack. Her tail is prehensile and her wings are active and allow her high flight. When she transforms, whatever dress she has on becomes a more revealing form of itself sand her hair goes into an up do. Her transformation Leitmotif is Beautiful Dirty Rich by Lady Gaga.

#victoria #vikiss #pride #beauty guru #VickiVice #youtube #Yoobtube #claws #lady gaga #beautiful dirty rich #makeup #Heirs of Sin

[isobelrobinsonpoetry]

- Isobel Robinson

This is more a written piece rather than spoken word! I wrote it after a break up and it was super therapeutic !!! I also submitted it as an assignment for a class I was taking at the time about Renaissance poetry and literary imitation... Here is the short commentary attached:

Reflection on Imitation

To begin, I intend to make some opening remarks about my approach to writing my ‘sonnet’, followed by a line-by-line commentary which should serve to elucidate individual linguistic, rhetorical and grammatical decisions. The primary emotional context of the poem’s genesis was the breakdown of my relationship with my now ex-boyfriend, thus the tone of my ‘pseudo-sonnet’ and the poetic voice I have chosen to invoke are petty, ironic and somewhat histrionic in places, but not without a degree of sincerity.  

At the time of writing, I had been reading on Petrarch and Petrarchism interspersed with Nietzsche, which was required reading for another module I am taking. I subsequently decided to ironise, through a poetic dialogue, both humanist and anti-humanist tenets. During my reading, the humanist reification of classical rhetoric (such as Ciceronianism) as the pinnacle of literary writing frustrated my postmodern, fourth wave feminist, Marxist1 and millennial sympathies. Fascinated with critical debate on literary aesthetics, I considered the various sources of inspiration which inform my own poetic style. There is something, I find, in the poetics of obsession. From Petrarch’s 366 unanswered poems in the Rime Sparse (taking the millennial notion of ‘double texting’ to the next level), to Carol Ann Duffy’s narrative love-poem(s) in ‘Rapture’, I observed that there is something about the dialectic between the object of desire and the formulation of the self which is literarily irresistible. I have taken inspiration from these texts and paired this with the ironisation of the humanist dilemma2 and postmodern solipsist and totalising propensities. The formulation of a specifically female, millennial, postpostmodern écriture that is at once confessional, candid and interrogative was another stylistic consideration.

The title of the poem focalises the poetic narrative through the medium and discourse of

1 See ‘Aesthetics and Politics’ for Marxian discourse on autonomous art and notion of genius. 2 Simultaneous anxiety of influence and unflinching reification of genius.

obsession. I took the Biblical figure of the archangel Gabriel as a poetic substitution for my beloved and the initial image of Gabriel as the deliverer of the news of the Virgin Mary’s ‘fullness’ to serve as a metaphor for the sense of completion I associated with my ex-boyfriend; using the character as an extended metaphor for the fallacy of fulfilment of the self by (an)other. My decision to add the parentheses ‘By Monna Innominata’ was inspired by my reading of Christina Rossetti’s sonnet series, which both imitates and surpasses the work of seminal male sonneteers—primarily Petrarch and Dante (Moore 485). It plays on the notion of the female as object of desire and asserts a specifically female voice.

In my writing, I tend to play with indentation, enjambment, punctuation and stanzas fairly unconventionally. The opening stanza of the poem features two indented lines, which I have suspended in the middle of the page to reflect their meaning. The phrase ‘creation fable’ is a reference to the beginning of Nietzsche’s ‘On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense’, where he uses a demonstrative literary rhetoric to establish his theory of ‘truth’ as a human act of associative metaphorisation. This is an important theme throughout the sonnet, as I explore the notion of subjectivity and validity of experience of the self in unrequited love. The opening line is also in iambic pentameter, but I subsequently break the metre in the vein of Carol Ann Duffy, and the way she takes then breaks traditional sonnet forms to emphasise the unconventionality of her love poems. With the phrase ‘amputeed again’ I begin the motif of the disembodiment of the beloved. This is in part direct reference to Petrarch’s ‘scattering of Laura's physical features as a kind of defence tactic, one that works against the "threat of [his own] imminent dismemberment" implicit in his reworking of the Actaeon-Diana myth towards the end of canzone 23’ (Vickers in Leubner: 1081), and also Carol Ann Duffy’s ‘Absence’ (Duffy: 10) which examines the relationship between desire and objectification of the beloved. The line ‘left hand man’ is reference to Jewish portrayals of Gabriel as standing at the left hand of God (Alder 1906: 540–543). It also creates an oppositional structure with ‘right’ in the following line, in typical Petrarchan parallelism. Subsequently, the phrase ‘mythicised into the right side of the bed’, invokes a sense of the contemporary poet as capable of mythologising.

The last few lines of this stanza further the fragmentation of the beloved, whilst involving a a sense of the preservation of loss and the continuation of desire following the untenability of a relationship. The semantic field of food is employed to portray the object of desire as consumable and materialised through the creative act—this is something also explored with the reference to ‘engobe’; the idea of forming the beloved (in retaliation to thinking that my ex-boyfriend completed me). I use curly brackets in this phrase to reference my beloved’s mathematical and musical background; in music, braces can connect lines that are played simultaneously, whilst mathematical sets are used to group together distinct objects which are also considered as a whole. Therefore, my use of punctuation here communicates the simultaneity of the relationship being at once over and enduring through my own experience of the aftermath, as well as the notion of separation of the self and the beloved in a couple. This is echoed with the floating semicolon in the next line. The final line of the first stanza uses a slant rhyme with ‘peaches’ to mirror the alternate end rhyme structure of the Shakespearean sonnet (but also in the sestet of Petrarchan sonnets). It is a direct, retrospective and ironic reference to lines 13 and 14 of Rossetti’s ‘Sonnet 1’, playing on the idea of the mediation of experience of the self through the validation of the beloved. I wanted to incorporate here the sense of a female subjectivity, which Rossetti enacts using ‘rhetoric and figuration like those of Petrarch, including the rhetoric of self-analysis that fragments his speaker, but emphasising aural over visual sensuousness and thus avoiding visual imagery and metonymic praise, techniques that objectify the female or feminised beloved’ (Moore: 487).

The second stanza of my poem features a volta face. The tone of the stanza becomes more polemical and petty, which is mirrored by the playful euphony and prosody of its sound and the quickening of the pace administered through sibilance, alliteration and litany. The caesura following the phrase ‘like a club-foot’ is a metapoetic element following Nietzsche, which literally appendages the phrase from the rest of the verse. The rest of the stanza works through wordplay and reference to Ancient Rome. Whilst writing these lines I considered Petrarch’s RVF 85 and the line

‘love with what power today you vanquish me’ (Durling: 188); the idea of love as violent or imperial. I also imitated to some extent RVF 128 and the artistic implications of politicising (in my case asserting female agency and strength) alongside eroticism and desire (Durling: 256). Petrarch here attempts to recompose the fragments of his beloved motherland, but I have chosen to leave my object of affection dismembered and scattered over the page. For clarification, the phrase ‘reached in the Guf’ is another reference to Jewish scripture about Gabriel. My ex-boyfriend has Jewish heritage, and I liked the image of Gabriel picking souls out of a chamber to bring them into existence. This is again playing on the notion that I felt validated and legitimised by the relationship, but the flippant tone ironises this retrospectively.

I chose to stand the line ‘let this be your columbarium’ alone to act as a link between the images invoked in the second and fourth stanza. It refers to Nietzsche’s essay and his criticism of scientific and mathematic rigidity (Nietzsche: 112). The line also serves to juxtapose the image of the death of a relationship as an extinguished flame (in the spirit of Petrarch’s leitmotif of fire and ice) with a typical image of peace associated with weddings (the dove). Obviously this is also a nod to Ancient Rome, whence came the columbarium3.

The final stanza continues my use of colloquialised text-speak (inspired by Carol Ann Duffy’s use of text references to modernise and parody her relationships) in direct address to the subject. The address is at once interrogative and a direct allusion to lines from Nietzsche’s ‘On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense’ in which he asserts the sublimity of the ‘perceptual metaphor’ over empiricism (Nietzsche: 112). The closing lines of the poem use the anaphora of the dental plosive ‘truth’ to cacophonically reassert the tongue-in-cheek forcefulness of the poetic voice’s tone. I chose to finish the sonnet with a rhyming couplet to deviate from the typical Petrarchan sonnet, and evoke my national vernacular tradition in that many forms of English sonnets culminate in a rhyming couplet.

Bibliography

Adler, Cyrus, and Isidore Singer, The Jewish Encyclopaedia (New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1906), pp. 540–543.

Duffy, Carol Ann, “Rapture”, (London: PICADOR, 2017), p. 10

Leubner, Jason, "Temporal Distance, Antiquity, And The Beloved In Petrarch's Rime Sparse And Du Bellay's Les Antiquitez De Rome", MLN, 122 (2007), 1079-1104 <https://doi.org/10.1353/mln.2008.0028>

Moore, Mary. “Laura's Laurels: Christina Rossetti's ‘Monna Innominata’ 1 and 8 and Petrarch's ‘Rime Sparse’ 85 and 1.” Victorian Poetry, vol. 49, no. 4, 2011, pp. 485–508. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/ 23079669.

Nietzsche, Friedrich, "On Truth And Lies In A Nonmoral Sense", in From Modernism To Postmodernism (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), pp. 109-116

Petrarca, Francesco, and Robert M Durling, Petrarch's Lyric Poems (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001), pp. 188, 256

Rossetti, Christina Georgina, and Simon Humphries, Poems And Prose (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 227

3 Etymologically derives from Latin ‘columba’, referred to compartmentalised dovecote.

#poetic

[abybweisse]

I've seen a thread on ig about how Undertaker was probably never Claudia's lover, and I know you kinda ship them or at least are a believer of the UT=Cedric theory, I kinda am too and I tried not to be bias while reading that post but I feel like their points were rlly weak. Here are some points that tried to debunk UTxClaudia: 1. Cedric canonly has a birth and a death date which means he is human (lol).

2.Because UT was already a shinigami when he met Clau, we need to ask ourselves some questions: Why should a shinigami be able to have children? Since the shinigami duty is a punishment for those who commited suicide. Being able to live a nice life, have kids and interfere with human affairs and lives does not respect those facts.

3. Isn't it weird for him to fall in love with someone that was born 24 yrs after he came to the human world?

4. UT expressed strong feelings toward all the other mourning lockets and Vincent especially. Why would Claudia be more important than the rest of them?

Idk but when I read this I went ??? a bit cause I dont think it rlly debunks anything :/.. or maybe I cant see it that way cause I'm a fan of the theory/ship. However I wanted to see the side of a theorist/ an analytical pov, so what do u think?

Thanks for thinking of me! 😊

Only two things boggle my mind, here:

How that person thought their arguments debunked anything in the world, and

How you managed to send such a long ask in one message....

Anyway, I’ve received asks like this before, but it’s usually from people who think more like that thread on ig. You can try searching my blog with some of the tags on this post, like #cedric k. ros—, etc. But let me see if I can pull up something that gets to the heart of this ask....

....Um, it’s really spread out over way too many posts for me to grab that many links. Anyway, a search for “cedric k ros” brought up a ton of posts generally on this topic.

Also, my beliefs have changed somewhat over the years. I wonder how old that ig thread is, since we’ve learned a lot more canon information on Undertaker and the Phantomhive family since I first joined the discussion of Undertaker’s true identity. So, I’ll address each part of your ask here and now.

Cedric has a canon birthdate and death date, so he must be human. Well, it means he must have once been human, but it doesn’t mean he’s a mere human now. Besides, the years of his birth and death are rather conveniently covered up by a speech bubble. The rest of his last name, too. Go check out all my #cedric of rotherwood posts. Cedric might have lived and died centuries ago, might have become a reaper long ago, too.

Shinigami having kids breaks the rules. Reapers being able to have children could actually be part of their punishment... if my theory is correct that reapers are reborn as a form of karmic reincarnation. That would mean reapers are born to biologically female reapers, who definitely do exist; there just don’t appear to be as many of them, which fits suicide statistics. A reaper having children with a human goes against reaper rules, since they are not supposed to meddle in human affairs... just collect souls. Technically, they don’t even judge the souls, they just follow a protocol to verify it’s that person’s time to die. This doesn’t mean it’s impossible; it just does, in fact, mean Undertaker is breaking reaper rules. But he’s obviously doing that anyway. Why not break all of them? 🤨 Edit: There’s a good reason for him to want to have children with human females (not even necessarily just one), for the very reason that it skirts around this punishment of making more reapers with reaper females. Reapers like Undertaker, who might be mating with humans, can cause the reaper organization to become even more understaffed over time. That’s something else I have mentioned before in my theory about them being reborn. There could even be a backlog of souls from suicide victims that are waiting around for new reaper bodies to be placed into. And the way Ronald flirts with females both in the reaper realm and the human realm suggests that Undertaker isn’t the only one who might be spreading around his reaper genes... changing the very nature of humanity over the generations.

It’s weird that Undertaker would fall in love with a human within however many years of deserting his post. Not weird at all, plus we don’t know whether love is the only thing that might have brought them together. Also, 24 years is merely a guess... and not a very good one. 136649 tried to destroy reaper HQ ~70years before 1889, so around 1819. The year these three things historically happened: 1. Queen Victoria was born, 2. Prince Albert was born, and 3. (Sir) Walter Scott introduced the world to Cedric of Rotherwood in Ivanhoe. He even invented that name, Cedric. Undertaker says he hadn’t been called a reaper in about 50years. That suggests two things: 1. He not only failed to destroy the HQ, but he also might have been captured, punished, and returned to his work as a reaper until he finally deserted about 20years later, and 2. If he didn’t actually manage to escape until around 1839 or thereabouts, then Cloudia/Claudia was just a kid at the time. Undertaker might have become involved in the Phantomhive family’s “work” before she became watchdog; he might have been an informant to her father, for example.

Why should he care more about Cloudia/Claudia than the other people on the lockets or Vincent? If he loved her, and if she bore his children, then it would explain this quite easily. Who wouldn’t cry over the death of their child? These other six people represented by the other lockets must also have been particularly dear to him, for various possible reasons. But he seems to focus the most on her locket. It’s also placed directly in the center of the chain; they are not in order of death dates. (In fact, their last initials create a pretty cool set of notes, with Phantomhive becoming an F or an F# [F sharp]. Please see #lockets’ melody and #leitmotif posts that date as far back as 2016). And more recently, her locket (and her locket alone) has become a symbol of Undertaker in series merchandise. Them having been lovers would explain it pretty well, I should think! And, if I’m right that “136649” means he became the 49th registered reaper of 1366, then Cloudia/Claudia died (was killed) not just on a Friday the 13th... but also 500 years after Undertaker was registered as a reaper.

Thanks for this ask, and please check out the tags below for more information.

#black butler #kuroshitsuji #undertaker #cedric k. ros #cedric k. ros— #cedric of rotherwood #undertaker is cedric #lockets' melody #leitmotif #136649 #theories #thoughts #observation #anon asks #i answer #answered asks #mar 7 2021 #reaper realm #punishment #salvation #redemption #reaper organization

[openheartfanfics]

Ethan x F!MC: Pure Fluff

One Shots L

La Vie Avec Toi - @liaromancewriter  When it comes to love, these couples know it’s about every moment of every day. Feat. Sienna Trinh x M!OC

La Ville d’Amour {The City of Love} - @genevievemd  The first part of Ethan and Gen’s Parisian vacation. AKA When they secretly elope.

Labyrinth - @liaromancewriter   All it takes is one moment and a single glance to fall into the promise of always.

Lassie -  @rebsrams   Ethan and MC finally fly to the Scottish Highlands to meet her parents.

Last Shift - @liaromancewriter  It’s Cassie’s last day as a resident, and she has plans to commemorate the occasion with Ethan.

Late Night - @jamespotterthefirst  Harper is eager to share a new prospect with her old colleague. But when she visits Ethan’s apartment late at night to discuss, she is stunned by what-- or rather who-- she finds there. Feat. Harper Emery

Late Night Call - @perriewinklenerdie  Claire gets fed up with Bloom when he interrupts her evening alone with Ethan.

Late Night Conversation - @lucy-268  She’d rather stay up reading journals with him in his office than go home to her friends.

Late Night Talks - @theinvisibledreamergirl  When MC feels insecure about board’s exams Ethan does a wicked little plan to get her to sleep.

Late Night Talks - @potionsprefect   Victoria and Ethan chat after their moment together. [1.15]

LATEST TREND - @a-crepusculo  Set around 2,5years after the end of Book 3.  The newest TikTok trend caught Ethan off guard.

Lava - @perriewinklenerdie  Ethan joins his kids for a game of The Floor is Lava.

Lazy Days - @trappedinfanfiction  Life as new parents is exhausting.

Leitmotif - @utterlyinevitable  Odette has gotten an opportunity of a lifetime, and now it’s time to make a decision. Needless to say, she’s not taking it well.

Lento - @utterlyinevitable  Ethan hears Odette composing and knows exactly how to calm her frustrations.

Less Comfy - @potionsprefect  Victoria doesn’t want him to get sick, so she resorts to different measures.

Lessons In Shaving - @romewritingshop Mature - intimate shaving scene.

Lessons Still To Learn - @lucy-268  She was having a great day until Dr. Ramsey reassigned her case and told her to figure it out. So she ignores him until further notice.

Let It Snow - @jamespotterthefirst ❄ He teaches her how to ice skate. At least, he tries to.

Let’s Give Them Something to Talk About - @jerzwriter  Tired of the rumors, tired of hiding, Ethan has a plan to put it all to rest.

Let’s Talk About Sex - @jerzwriter Ⓜ When Casey came across this blank bingo card on a friend's social media post, she knew what they were going to do.

Liar, liar - @perriewinklenerdie   Ethan and Claire accept Alan’s invite to spend some time with him at his house in Providence.

Life Is Short - @takeharryandgo Baseball and housewarming chapters. (Book 1, Ch. 5 & 6)

Lights in your eyes - @perriewinklenerdie  🌟 Moments of Ethan and Claire’s New Year’s Eve party.

Like A Ton of Bricks - @heauxplesslydevoted  Ethan has an epiphany during a quiet night in with his girlfriend.

Like Whom? - @zealouscanonindeer  While on a trip to Providence, Aspen finds an embarrassing memory which leads to greater consequences than she thought possible.

Little darling - @bi-cookie Ethan plays the piano to calm down his pregnant wife and their little princess that keeps on kicking.

Little Helpers - @potionsprefect  Victoria has a genius idea.

Little League Chaos - @socalwriterbee  Tessa can only hope for the game and night to go smoother than what she has come to see during practice.

Little Ones - @potionsprefect  There are lots of important people Luke and Lily need to meet.

Little Sister - @a-crepusculo  The Ramseys welcome their newest addition.

Little Things - @liaromancewriter  When life gets busy, Ethan and Cassie make it a point to enjoy the little things that bring them joy.

Living The Dream - @the-pale-goddess  If Ethan did take her for granted the way the impostor in OHTY does, she’d definitely pretend to be asleep and then tease him about it in the morning.

Locked in. - @zealouscanonindeer  Going to a medical conference in Paris, and walking together along the Seine, and Ethan pulls out a lock to declare his love, taking her by surprise.

Look After You - @beebubbly  Casey comforts Ethan after the events of OH 3.3.

Looking After You - @choicesfanaf  Ethan looks after a sick Arundhati.

Looking in the Mirror - @potionsprefect   For a second, Ethan thought he had stepped back in time.

Love on the Ward - @amortentiaopenheart  Catherine doesn't show up for work and it has Ethan worried sick.

Losing sleep - @perriewinklenerdie  Suffering from insomnia, she turns towards the only thing she knows will work. Him. Feat. Caring!Ethan

Lost - @cariantha  Has Sawyer or Ethan ever "lost" their son when he was little?

Lost and Found - @paulfwesley Her friends suspect that she’s dating someone and want to know who. They come up with a good plan to try and figure out who.

Lost and Found - @lucy-268  When no one can find a poorly Charley, Ethan sets out to look for her.

Louder than words - @perriewinklenerdie  Her new patient is someone that knows Ethan really well. To her surprise, that patient knows her too.

Love and Care - @jerzwriter  Reader ask: “I saw you looking at it last time we were in the store together, so I got it for you.”

Love I Found In You - @liaromancewriter Cassie and Ethan enjoy a quiet first day of their staycation, leading to small moments of contentment.

Love in all forms - @coffeeheartaddict2 💘 After noting that Alexis has been out of sorts since new years, Casey brings back a Valentine’s Day tradition to show that she is loved, no matter what. Feat. Tobias Carrick

Love Is A Beautiful Thing - @aworldoffandoms  “Not only am I deeply in love with you, you’re my best friend.”

Love Letter - @genevievemd 💘 It’s Ethan and Genevieve’s first Valentine’s Day as an official couple.

Love of mine - @terr Ethan in love, Chiara being Chiara and some making out.

Love Rubs - @utterlyinevitable   He rubs her back on a lazy day off.

Love, Slitheens And Klingon - @inlocusmads  Ethan gives Jane a Valentine's Day card that is so feverishly extraordinary.

Love Story - @luvsyana  On a peaceful and extraordinary morning in Hawaii, Ethan and Anastasia spend their time together, for the first time, as official lovers.

Lover - @perriewinklenerdie   Songfic based on “Lover” by Taylor Swift. Follows a bunch of different moments in Ethan and Claire’s relationship.

Lows - @drethanramslay

Luck of the Draw - @jamespotterthefirst   There’s no one else in the world she’d rather be stuck with.

Luck vs. Talent  - @storyofmychoices   Ellie and Ethan have dinner with Naveen, Harper, and Governor Rivera in hopes of securing support for Edenbrook.

Luckiest man alive - @perriewinklenerdie  An accident didn’t break her leg, but it did break their resolve. Because there’s no way he’s going to stay away from her when she’s hurt. Feat. Bestie Bryce

Lucky - @starrystarrytrouble  Ethan and MC talk about his suspension… and that outfit.

Lullaby - @liaromancewriter  While caring for Baby Hudson in the neonatal ICU, Ethan Ramsey can’t help but reflect on the past and provide comfort to someone who needs it.

Lunch Date - @jamespotterthefirst It is time to finally talk about the next steps after their kiss outside his apartment. Set after 2.8.

_

SUBMIT OPEN HEART FICS HERE

#ethan ramsey #ethan x mc #ethan ramsey x mc #open heart #open heart fanfic #open heart fanfiction #choices open heart #open heart fanfics