#has it been a while

[the-sun-and-the-sea]

I feel like i should be writing more Odesta

[opt1gan]

Two movies I like

[aroaceleovaldez]

i had a thought of "do people not know what AUs are anymore?" and then i remembered nobody explains fandom stuff to new people anymore so it is entirely plausible people genuinely don't know what AUs are and nobody has explained it to them, so for today's lucky 10,000:

"AU" stands for "Alternate Universe" or "Alternative Universe" (same difference) and is basically any thought scenario for a fandom that isn't canon and can't fit within the canon universe. If it takes place in the canon universe but something is notably different, that is typically what's known as a "Canon divergent AU," because it diverges from canon.

an AU can be absolutely anything. There's a couple of widespread pan-fandom au scenarios that often get thrown around, like coffee shop aus, genderbend aus, hanahaki aus (hanahaki is a whole thing in itself i'd recommend researching on your own), etc. One you might hear sometimes is "crossover AU" which is when you have characters from one fandom interacting with characters from another.

You can have as many aus as you want. They can be whatever you want and you can do whatever you want in them. It's a sandbox for you to play around in and explore how things would be different or how the characters would act in those circumstances or environments. Maybe they have different relationships with each other. Maybe they behave slightly differently. Or you can just say "Okay, [x] is true. How did they get here? How would things have to be different for this to occur?" which can also be fun.

If you are ever confused about why people ship something that seems completely out of the blue or doesn't make sense to you in the canon setting, there's a good chance they like it in an AU setting! Not everything everybody is interacting with is necessarily the canon! Not everybody wants things to exist in canon and just want to explore playing dolls in a different sandbox and that's okay. And their sandbox might look a lot different than yours, and that's also okay. You have the freedom to make your sandbox whatever you please. Do whatever you want forever. Get funky with it. AUs are fun.

Okay that's my schpeal. everybody go have fun and play nice now.

[shandzii]

go my sillies

[valeriapryanikova]

choose your (secret) fighter

[balleralbumcovers]

EPIC ALBUM COVER #180

Trust Fund - Has It Been a While?

Released: 2024 (Tapete)

Indie folk

[idontmindifuforgetme]

“she’s aging so well!!” and the woman they’re referring to is like 27. touch grass

[sangthael]

the closet is made of glass

[soapbbox]

I like that Megatron is essentially leading a bunch of senior citizens

[danidoodels]

trying to get used to drawing this goober again

[dustedmagazine]

Trust Fund — Has It Been a While? (Tapete)

If you’re familiar with Trust Fund at all, you likely remember it as a clever, breezy indie pop band, always on the verge of twee but held back by bracing self-awareness and humor. That bash-and-pop iteration of Trust Fund called it quits after 2018’s Bringing the Backline, but its leader, songwriter Ellis Jones continues on. Has It Been a While? is his first solo album since the band’s hiatus, a spare and lovely collection of tunes with surprising lyrical bite. 

The disc tilts towards folk, partly its main ingredients are acoustic guitar, voice and strings, but also because of the way these elements are deployed. Indeed, the opener, “Leaving the Party Early,” sketches shadowy melancholy with its minor key picking. The guitar here is like Bert Jansch but less jazzy, the vocals echoey and haunting like Nick Drake, and a brace of stringed instruments add trad folk swirl and swoon and uplift. The kicker, though, is in the lyrics, which twist sounds and meanings into intricate patterns. Ellis mouths them quickly and without drama, barely landing on the phrases; he connects mundane details and hearts’ longings and an admiration for Nietzsche and Spinoza in a seamless spray of words.    

Jones has a way of decocting cerebral quirk into the lightest, easiest, clearest musical forms, as for instance in “Mirror” his duet with Radiant Heart’s Celia MacDougall. The two do a version of the acting exercise “mirroring,” facing each other and copying musical gestures in a slightly altered form. Yet even small changes in the buoyant verse, indicate radically different points of view. 

For example, MacDougall trills, “I know you want to be remembered/when you go, you don’t want to go/all fruits and flowers of adoration/you write things down to make sure they are here.” And Jones answers, “I know you want to be remembered/when you go, you don’t want to go/our worldly goods are men and nations/you write things down to make them disappear.” Same verse, different conclusion.

The lightness and warmth of these simple arrangements takes on, occasionally, a bossa nova lilt, as for instance in “In the Air” and “A Wooden Medal,” where the guitar licks come syncopated, a slight hitch in their flow. But while the strumming takes on a lively rhythm, Jones’ trebly singing unspools fluidly and easily, almost without a beat in it. Amid all this sonic ease, the sharpness and specificity of the words catches you short occasionally, like a nursery rhyme that suddenly quotes T.S. Eliot. And yet sometimes, too, simplicity is allowed to just be, as on the lovely title track, which shimmies up a minor scale with effortless grace. “Has it been a while?” asks Jones, and perhaps it has, but the moment is lovely enough to make time itself irrelevant. 

Jennifer Kelly

[drenched-in-sunlight]

thank you for the amazing halftime show 💙❤️🥰

[tuuneoftheday]

Trust Fund - Has It Been a While

[illusioncanthurtme--art]

Physically? I am sitting in my bedroom. Mentally? Spiritually? I AM DEAD ON THE FLOOR!!!!! THESE TWO HAVE KILLED ME!!!!

(Another drawing! This was originally attempt #1 at drawing stan, and then fiddleford just showed up. Kinda feels like them five minutes after the above acting like nothing happened though, so it works sdjkgkjfshj)

[stealingpotatoes]

if you're a fan of Lady Normalgirl and Her Eunuch, and a fan of using images to convey emotions, then have I got the perfect thing for you: 12 emojis of my noble eunuch Tucker!

emoji pack now available on my ko-fi store! <3