#symphony tag

[desceros]

per my last reblog: somewhere in my head there's a fic where symphony!donnie sees your pupils blow wide the first time he uses violence to defend you and he all but physically has to get a spray bottle out on himself before he does something wildly inappropriate on the hood of the nearest car

[gornackeaterofworlds]

A quick drawing of a small line in the latest chapter of Symphony(by @desceros) cuz I latched onto it hard(using it as a study for anguish is me trying to not get overwhelmed by how incredible the chapter was(it was described so well I physically felt the out of body feeling))

[twisted-tales-told]

🌷🌿

HI HI my wonderful mutual

This ask game

🌷 writing achievement you want to brag about

Honestly in the past 2 months I’ve become genuinely interested in my writing projects. Like I love them. I love them so much. They feel like mine, and because of that they are precious.

I really struggle to feel attached to my own creations (bullshit art teachers r 2 blame) so the fact that I have been able to get that feeling back is everything to me.

🌿 who is your favourite character you've ever written?

Probably Mary MacDonald in my fic Ghosts of Us. She truly has my heart because she goes through life after life losing the friends she loves and still chooses to love them again. She wants more than anything to live quietly with them.

[katherine-mcnamara-archive]

the audacity to think arthur and nimue don't have chemistry - they do. chemistry doesn't mean you eye fuck each other the whole time ppl. arthur and nimue are cute as fuck!

LOUDER FOR THE RACIST ASSHOLES IN THE BACK!!!! And right? like they’re cuteeeeeeeee. Episode 5 really was like hey hey dev lemme grab you by the neck and slam you into the locker of otp and like thank you netflix, thank you Mr Devon Terrell for your wonderful portrayal of Arthur because he really is up there in my top characters now.  And I will follow Devon to any project he does in the future he’s brilliant! 

BUT YES THIS THANK YOU SYMPHONY!!!!

[desceros]

Symphony No. 4 in Eb Minor, Op. 16 "Of Heliotropium"

Donatello/Reader Rating: Explicit

You have soft hands, Donnie thinks.

Reader-insert, female reader, strangers to lovers, classical music, all the turtles have ptsd (title in gdoc: touch-starved donnie), fluff, angst with a happy ending, eventual smut, turtle anatomy, minor original characters, pining, touch-starved, miscommunication, family bonding, mutant/yokai racism, slow burn, demisexual donnie, canon-typical violence, characters from other TMNT canons

🎻 read the series HERE 🎻 tag for meta HERE 🎻 tag for asks/fanart/misc etc HERE 🎻 official chapter song playlist HERE

You are a violist for the New York Philharmonic, perfectly content with your quiet, solitary life of predictability. Then, your conductor gets mutated, and by defending him, your whole world changes forever. A story of finding family, healing wounds, and discovering that hope is as certain as the sunrise.

other miscellaneous links beneath cut (CONTAINS SPOILERS!):

what does the title mean

Future!Symphony future!donnie learning viola-chan is pregnant (tumblr HERE) (ao3 HERE) what was the future like (tumblr HERE) "i should have married you." (tumblr HERE) talking to viola-chan as a hamato spirit (tumblr HERE)

Blurple Symphony AU (non-canon) (ao3 HERE) leo has a secret (tumblr HERE) leo didn't mean to do that (tumblr HERE) how would the relationship work (tumblr HERE) healing with leo after chapter 20 (tumblr HERE)

[desceros]

i’ll be putting together a masterpost for everything symphony related over the next few days. with that said, many people have asked me if there is an official playlist of songs and here at last, i can say YES. HERE IT IS

[desceros]

ah yes, so the time to do the discussion about symphony!leo has arrived at last

as many of you know, i am big on death of the author. the text of symphony stands on its own. your interpretation of the fic is what it is, and anything i say outside of its bounds are my intent but only that. i also write in a limited third person point of view and this fic heavily leans on the idea of an unreliable narrator.

symphony!leo’s feelings towards viola-chan are meant to be misunderstood. the first part of the fic plays on expectations, then subverts them when he explicitly shares what's going on his head when he has the conversation with viola-chan in chapter 22. then in chapter 41, once again there’s a jarring shift in your expectations for his feelings. finally, in chapter 44, there’s another one.

i highly recommend this breakdown my dear friend cleric did back when chapter 22 dropped. she does a spectacular job of dissecting the breadcrumbs i left behind for you to find on a second reading, so i won't do that labor a second time here.

what are symphony!leo’s feelings for viola-chan? i have left the “canon” answer to this ambiguous on purpose.

THAT BEING SAID. i Do have my word of god answer to this, and now that the fic is at last finished, i am willing to divulge it. i'm also happy to go into my thoughts and intentions with symphony!leo’s character and mindset. i’ll put it beneath a cut for those who are interested in the meta of the fic, and so people who want to maintain that mystery as intended don’t have to have the WOG opinion spoil that.

prior to chapter 22, it’s intentionally written for leo to come across as romantically interested in viola-chan. viola-chan, who is second only to leo when it comes to reading nonverbal cues, actually does a pretty good job of sussing out that this isn’t really the case. other people (donnie, april, etc) think that leo has a crush, but viola-chan is pretty adamant that no, they’re just friends.

then, in chapter 22, we have the reveal that actually, all those actions were leo weaponizing donnie’s feelings for viola-chan in an attempt to bridge the gap between him and his brother. leo had been hiding his true feelings for viola-chan, which were hatred and envy. (i point again to cleric’s breakdown above for those moments as she captured them quite well.)

over time, as he got to know viola-chan, however, those feelings faded. it wasn’t perfect; he probably would have gotten to a more genuine relationship with her had he not smelled where donna was scenting viola-chan at the end of chapter 10, something that is erotic and requires a lot of touching. the beginning of that conversation were, in truth, leo being truly affectionate with her. seeing the way she ached for them over krang had him feeling genuine, and he probably would have had his full heel-face-turn at that point were it not for that hug.

this is when his inner conflict really begins. he recognizes that viola-chan is a good person who helps him selflessly, who loves him, who loves his family the way he loves his family. she is a hamato. but also she is an outsider, an interloper, and he can’t stand it. the two feelings battle, and we see moments where he’s distant and moments where he feels genuine. in chapter 16, we even have him admitting to viola-chan that he’s avoiding her to “decide what it is he wants.” this is written so on a first reading you think it’s him warring with romantic feelings for her; it is in fact him warring over the fact that he doesn’t really hate her as much as he wishes he did. does he want her to go away? or does he want her to stay in his life? what is it he wants?

the answer comes for him in chapter 20, when viola-chan comes to him after the revelation with donnie. he sees the way she’s hurt, and it’s at that moment that his feelings resolve. it hurts seeing her in pain, and in fact he takes viola-chan’s side throughout the entire incident. he doesn’t go comfort donnie; he goes to comfort viola-chan. he doesn’t blame viola-chan for seeing something that wasn’t there; he blames donnie for not seeing what clearly was there.

at the time of chapter 22, i got a lot of people saying that leo could have “kept that shit to himself” and never hurt viola-chan by telling her how he hated her in the beginning. but i said then and still hold today that no, that absolutely had to happen. viola-chan told leo that her number one expectation for a good relationship was honesty, and the way he manipulated her for so long was an albatross that would have haunted him forever. as such, even though he would have rather carry that to his grave and pretend he was always team viola, we see the events of chapter 22.

the rest of the fic until 41 shows leo and viola-chan becoming real friends. he learns how to respect her boundaries, she learns to forgive and let herself heal from such a painful emotional wound.

and then chapter 41 happens, and we have the reveal that bad future symphony!leo not only had romantic feelings for his viola-chan, but he acted on them in a way that led to her death. you will notice that i used the exact same words in chapter 41 (leading to the eventual reveal that bfs!leo had romantic feelings for viola-chan) as the ones in chapter 20 (leading to the reveal that s!leo had negative feelings for viola-chan). i did this on purpose; by invoking the same words, i purposefully planted the seed of doubt, both in viola-chan’s mind and in yours. bsf!leo and s!leo said the exact same thing. are their feelings the same? then again in chapter 41 and chapter 44 i do it again. (“You keep me grounded. Always do. It feels nice.”)

bfs!leo 100% had romantic feelings for viola-chan. in fact, i think he fell for her very early on, but he didn’t act on those feelings because of the time not quite being right, and later because he could see that she was melting through bfs!donnie’s cold shell. he only kissed her in a moment of desperation and lapsed judgment, smelling the pregnancy, feeling like she was slipping out of his grasp. i think he felt a little like she was his, as i imagine he was the one that brought her into the resistance, the one who got her on her feet, the one who drank tea with her and listened to music with her and had vulnerable conversations with her. she was something to him that nobody else was, and he hated the way he couldn’t be that for her.

as for s!leo…. i think he does have romantic feelings for viola-chan. i look at chapter 20 as the moment where things changed for him, perhaps with him realizing that the angry rage in his chest at his brother wasn’t just because he hurt his friend’s feeling, but because he had what leo wanted and threw it away. that part of the reason he couldn’t keep hating viola-chan was because, little by little, he was developing feelings for her. slowly, against his will, but veritably. in my mind, he really accepts this in chapter 29, when he has the conversation with viola-chan after hugging donnie here:

…in my mind, when he presses his forehead to viola-chan’s, he thinks about it. leaning in and kissing her, putting those romantic feelings forward. but also, he knows donnie loves viola-chan, and he knows viola-chan loves donnie. he says here that he’d wait for her friendship forever. in my ear, i hear him saying he would wait for her forever.

so yeah, at the end of the fic, i think symphony!leo is very much in love with viola-chan. but nothing will ever come of it, because he would never act on it in a way to interfere with donnie/viola-chan, and with that relationship resolved they are 100% end game, grow old together levels of devoted. i think leo probably thinks about it, sometimes, when he’s alone in his room, and he never, ever refers to viola-chan as his sister—just “family.” but he’s also satisfied with how things are and he doesn’t resent or envy anymore, and is content.

but you know, none of this is canon, and totally up to interpretation, so keep that in mind!

[desceros]

me: i've never done anything wrong a day in my life you: i know this and i love you