#mandalamarigold

[andallthatmishigas]

A very merry happy to @mandalamarigold!!! 

Prompt for @blakesecretsanta2021 was “What on earth are you doing?” Holiday edition.  I definitely took a bit of a liberty.  A lot of a liberty.  But I hope you enjoy it anyway.  

[theloversthedreamersandme82]

For the TDBM asks: 5, 8 and 21 :)

Thankyou!

TDBM asks

5. Favourite Scene? Oh it's been such a long time since i've done a rewatch... I think one of my top favourites would be the scene at the end of 'A night to remember', Where Mattie has tried to make a cake and Jean and Lucien are happy and they sing for Jean's birthday.

8. If you've created anything tdbm-related, what is your favourite thing you've made? Hmm, hard one. I'm only counting completed fics here. Maybe The sigh of the weary

or my first fic, always is a huge part of me. The ones who love us never really leave us

21.You have all the show's writers, producers, directors, etc. in front of you. What do you ask them? Hmmm. Not sure. Nothing comes to mind.

[yesmadamepresident]

THANK YOU for making TDBM ask list!! It’s so fun!

1,3,7,8 and 21 I know it’s a lot, I really cut down my list! 😊

I'm so glad you're enjoying them!! And this is a great number of asks haha no worries there! (i answered some of these already but I'm just gonna answer them again lol)

1. Favorite episode. 5.2 Sorrow Songs!

3. Favorite smaller/underrated character. Cec Drury! I love that man

7. Do you have a favorite fic you've read? If not, list some that you love. THIS IS SO HARD but I quite literally did this to myself so. Here are some I love, in no particular order:

Forever in Your Arms and I Want You Back by @andallthatmishigas

Salvation Song, A Messy Kind of Love, Under the Mistletoe (My Love Waits For Me) by @rahleeyah

Sparkling Silence of a Dream by @blossom--of--snow

I loved and guessed at you. by @gabolange (my secret santa fic and i LOVE IT SO MUCH)

I know that there are others but it's been a minute since I've read a whole lot of fic (I still haven't gone back and read all the fic exchange fics which I want to do) but anyway here is a sampling.

8. If you've created anything tdbm-related, what is your favorite thing you've made? This is another hard one, but it's gotta be A Feeling That No One Can Ever Reprise. It was my secret santa fic for @andallthatmishigas and I worked really hard on it and was very proud of it in the end! It's also the longest blake fic I've ever written, and I did a ton of research for it and it was just very fun :))

21. You have all the show's writers, producers, directors, etc. in front of you. What do you ask them? Well my instinct is to scream WHAT HAPPENED IN ADELAIDE? But I'm not sure they'd have an actual answer for that. I would like to know what they think, though. And I would ask them how much stuff they had planned ahead of time. Like, was Mei Lin always going to come back? Did they know that in season one? And I'd love to hear any fun stories from behind the scenes. I love stuff like that.

[yesmadamepresident]

Macy! I love how you’re live blogging your City Homicide journey! It’s so fun to read in the mornings. So many of my initial thoughts match your thoughts. It’s a wild ride!

Thanks for sharing with us!

I am so glad you're enjoying this!! I'm having lots of fun with the show and it makes me very happy that people like hearing my thoughts :))

[andallthatmishigas]

😢 for chapter 5 of Walking The Wire (I just started it and my heart is hurting for poor Jean.)

⭐️ for any of your work

😥-Leave your favorite angsty scene in the ask and I’ll tell you what I was thinking.

I had to go back and reread the chapter and yeah wow okay I really went off with the angst there dang.  I have written various versions of the idea in that chapter before and I really can’t stop because I’m enamored with it.  The parallel for Jean of the two men she’s loved going away and leaving her alone and wondering after their fate.  Christopher went to war and died and never came home.  In this story, Lucien went to China and Jean has no idea if he made it or if he’s coming back or when.  The same thing happens with Ghost Stories.  And that cyclical thing of history repeating itself.  Jean is so different than she was when she was a young wife and mother with Christopher on the farm.  But is she really?  And if the two men she’s loved could not be more different -- a farmer with a wild streak and a small worldview versus a doctor who has seen and done practically everything and is so kind and gentle despite the pain he’s endured -- but what if they aren’t so different?  And how has Jean’s life gone so far from what it was and yet remained exactly the same somehow?  I love that exploration and so that’s what I did with Mattie catching Jean drinking Lucien’s whiskey in his study while looking at Christopher’s old watch.

⭐- What’s a scene/paragraph you’re proud of?

I think I’m just going to say chapter 3 of Lipstick.  I did three scenes of Robert going wild when Cora wears lipstick, and the last one is in 1926 and Cora is older and tries something new in front of the whole family and everyone is worried that Robert is upset because he’s quiet and tense at dinner while Cora sits there with her red lipstick, and when she goes to see him, turns out that he was trying desperately to keep control of himself the whole time and he’s driven absolutely mad with desire for her.  And they have their fun and sneak down to the kitchens for a midnight snack, the both of them smeared with her red lipstick.  That whole story is one of my favorite things I’ve ever written and that last chapter is just so much fun and so much the culmination of their three decades together of happiness and comfort and love.  It makes me so happy.