#novelmonger

[valiantarcher]

Rules: Make a poll with seven of your all-time favorite characters from seven different fandoms, and then tag seven people to do the same. See which character is everyone’s favorite.

Tagged by @novelmonger - thanks! These are just some randomly-chosen characters from some randomly-chosen fandoms (mostly - the last couple of times I've done these, they've all been ladies, so I've picked gentlemen this time).

Which of these is your favourite?

Jack Hardy (Tom Brown at Oxford by Thomas Hughes)

Joe Hardy (The Hardy Boys by Franklin W. Dixon)

Gonff (Mossflower by Brian Jacques)

Shasta (The Horse and His Boy by C. S. Lewis)

Bear (The Shadow of the Bear by Regina Doman)

Noah St. Claire (The Silver Eye by Laura Hollingsworth)

Archie Roylance (John McNab by John Buchan)

I don't know any of these ;(

Voting ended onMay 22

Tagging @citadelofthestars, @stingrayextraordinaire, @nerdysk8s, @dandelionsandderivatives, @siena-sevenwits, @thetreasurechest, and @theladywyn, if you so desire.

[fictionadventurer]

16 and 33 for the 50 Q's?

16. what’s your favorite form of flattery?

Praise from patients/family for doing a basic part of my job is always nice.

33. your personal favorite oddity about yourself?

My sense of humor

[healerqueen]

6 and 7 for the End-of-Year asks!

6. What’s your favourite piece of dialogue you wrote this year? I really don't think I wrote any brilliant lines of dialogue this year. This one will have to do.

“What’s the matter with you, Thalia? Did you get into a hornet’s nest?” “Yes.” Thalia shut her mouth and kept walking. Luke danced along beside her. “Already? It’s too early in the day for a scrape, Thalia!” She looked at him coldly.

7. What’s your favourite piece of description or narration?

The streets were already darkening into gray twilight, but a golden glow seeped through the western sky along the seaward side of the town. Little clouds of rose and gold scudded above the roofs of Avonholm.

As a rule, I'm much better at description than dialogue (though I occasionally have a burst of dialogue inspiration), and I generally feel more proud of my descriptive lines and find them easier to write.

Ask me a question from this list!

[pippilotta-the-philologist]

As of today, it's been one year since I found @griseldabanks's wonderful Whole Shards AU! (Yes, I'm aware that July 3rd is an ironic anniversary to have with a Captain America fic. XD)

In celebration/commemoration/thanks/just-because-I-love-this-story-and-its-author, here's a few doodles inspired by the first instalment, Make Me Whole, which I'm re-reading.

Inspired by Chapter 7.

"Winter glanced over at him in the same moment, and a silent message seemed to dart between them.

Steve grinned and took off running as fast as he could. Winter fell behind slightly at first, but soon they were running shoulder to shoulder again. Sam, of course, was left in their dust immediately.

Freezing air stabbed through his lungs with every breath. His heart beat a crazy rhythm, keeping time with his feet pounding against the ground. All he could hear was the wind howling against his ears and Winter's heavy breathing beside him. The road tilted downhill, and they ran even faster.

He had never run with someone like this, pushing himself to his utmost extent but running next to someone who could match every step. Before, he'd always been too weak or too strong; he'd never met someone who was his equal. He hadn't even been able to do this with Bucky."

Inspired by Chapter 10.

"Winter cupped his hands together, letting rainwater collect in them, then cascade to the ground.

Slowly, as the rain continued to fall, Winter straightened up. His shoulders lowered, his head raised, and he looked around at the rain-drenched yard. Closing his eyes, he tipped his head back and turned his face to the sky.

The rain smoothed his hair back from his face. Water washed over his forehead, streamed across his mask, and dripped from his hair and his chin. Moisture beaded on his eyelashes like pearls."

More doodles may be coming if my brain cooperates. We'll see. :>

[dairogo]

For the fic title ask game:

No Room for Martyrs

The Calm Before Crescendo

The Ghost of Best-Laid Plans

Ooh, okay, so I've been going so canon for the previous asks that I'm going to try to branch out here and cover either

No Room for Martyrs:

A comedy about Marta and her time in the Devil's Nest gang. Poor puppy Dolcetto saw Greed leave and doesn't know when he'll ever come home, so he's basically whining at the door waiting and Marta tells him there's no room for martyrs here at the Devil's Nest. Dolcetto is confused, but Roa gets it and just points to her. "Marta." The guys all laugh at her and make her the butt of the joke. Over the next week they all take turns momentarily excluding her (but it's like a one-moment and then they relent kind of thing, like snatching her drink away when she tries to sit down and telling her, "no room for Martas" but then giving it back two seconds later). The story finishes when they do it the fiftieth time for the week and she snaps and says she'll make martyrs of them all and see how they like it, right as Greed walks through the door. This must be a comic, not a fic, because it ends with Greed with question marks over his head as he imagines his whole team dressed in Marta's combat pants and singlet, doing pouty-mouths like her. Everyone else is having a great time but he's just confused.

The Calm Before the Crescendo

There is a breath in the calm before the crescendo of music - that tender lull that an audience can feel and the performer lingers over - an absence of tension for now. For now. Roy Mustang - the Buble of his time - can hold a crescendo aloft with the fluttering hearts of so many middle-aged women beguiled by that deep, smooth voice, but the until that crescendo arrives, one critic says, he's got nothing to offer the audience. They're there for his highest heights of emotion and passion, and he's been thrust into a musical corner with no way out but up, so crescendo he must. Riza Hawkeye doesn't play to packed audiences, but there is something beguiling in her quiet songs, lyrics that twist and play with a steady dynamic that lilting notes. There is tension there of its own, without the crescendo, and Roy sits in a bar, listening to her play her set, knowing that there is something real and naked to her act that he just cannot match on his own with passion and fury put on like a mask.

The Ghost of Best-Laid Plans

Roy and Riza return to the Hawkeye estate and confronting the memory of Berthold Hawkeye with how much they'd betrayed him. He was right about the military - he was wrong about keeping alchemy from others - he was everything and more (and less than he should have been).

[x-i-l-verify]

Trick or treat!

One good turn deserves another!

-

If you want a rec... hm, well, it's not a "rec" per se, but I'm sure you see me posting a lot about it, so I figured I'd explain what the Dream SMP is just for clarity's sake. ^^;

So, to quote tumblr user existentialterror: "The Dream SMP is a private multiplayer Minecraft server. A bunch of Twitch/Youtube streamers roleplayed on it regularly from 2020-2022. It grew a 'plot' based on improv which later became somewhat scripted in advance. There are arcs, seasons, worldbuilding, and factions."

I personally describe it to people as this strange, unholy mix of Game of Thrones, Homestuck, and Loony Tunes, but it manages to still be compelling somehow despite all its many flaws (the story could have seriously benefited from having whatever the Minecraft RP version of a Dungeon Master is, that's all I'll say about it). It's also the single most nuanced and fascinating study of morality and perspective I've ever seen in a fictional medium (one that was absolutely wasted on its target audience because a lot of people - especially younger people - aren't capable at looking at stories through an objective lens anymore), because the DSMP has no single main protagonist. Every character is the "main character," and their story intertwines and intersects with the other characters', creating a vast web of character conflicts and interactions. A character can be the flawed hero of their own story, and a despicable villain from another character's POV. A silly little guy to one character, and the worst person imaginable to another. Basically, "Villain" by Stella Jang is the DSMP theme song. And I think that's neat!

Characters include:

A violent anarchist pigman who somehow manages to be the most open-minded and based character in the entire series.

A sentient slime monster who pretends to be human by saying things like "I have so many bones! I have like 300 bones in me like everyone else!" and "Hello, fellow meat brother!"

An anthro fox who suffers from prophetic nightmares and serious daddy issues.

A sweet, silly demon who spends half the series being a chaotic menace and the other half either being mind-controlled into a cult leader or being traumatized by what he did under the influence of said mind control.

A former king who spends most of the story sleeping to escape from the crushing disappointment of reality and who reshapes his dreams into what he wants reality to be courtesy of a deity he befriends while there.

And many more

Also the fandom is full of very talented animators. :D Here are just a few of the super cool animations they've made over the years. (Links because the rest of the videos are unavailable outside of YT dangit)

Requiem | Fundy Lore [DSMP animatic]

Tightrope | GeorgeNotFound Lore [DSMP animatic]

Folding Chair | BadBoyHalo Lore [DSMP animatic]

The Search | Season 2 Lore Recap [DSMP animation]

Put “trick-or-treat” in my inbox and I’ll give you either a) a meme or two related to a fandom you’re interested in (if I don’t know you as well I’ll go random/miscellaneous) or b) a random book/movie/game rec. Feel free to specify, or to ask for both!

[valiantarcher]

Tagged by @novelmonger to share a favorite uncommon Christmas song is (ie, a song you wouldn’t hear on the radio or playing in a store or sing in church/a song you think people may not have heard of) - thanks!

Shout out to a number of songs on Michael Card's album The Promise and Loreena McKennitt's album To Drive the Cold Winter Away, but the first specific song that came to mind is Ella Fitzgerald's recording of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas".

Tagging @stingrayextraordinaire, @citadelofthestars, @lover-of-the-starkindler, @lady-merian, @nerdysk8s, @isfjmel-phleg, @aceofstars16, and @siena-sevenwits, if you so desire!

[valiantarcher]

Give me a rainbow of books!

Thank you! I first tried to create a rainbow using books that had colours in the titles, but it was woefully short.

I ended up picking out a variety of differently-hued book spines and I think this probably gets a bit closer.

Send me a prompt and you'll get a stack of books fitting (or approaching) the prompt.