#project: evenfall

[yvofficialfm]

Feather, Wait's Prideful Lynx

Arao Iwazume {岩爪荒雄}

"The night ain't all 'bout restin' up, it's got its share of fun things too."

The lynx of Feather, Wait. Preferring to be solo, Arao likes to challenge himself and is quite cocky. Being prideful, he won't let anything get under his skin.

#yearnedvoices

[villanesus]

It’s still the weekend, so this counts as on time/on schedule.

In the future, remind me never to write from only a single character’s perspective ever again. This is unnecessarily complicated for an ensemble cast in a four act story.

Chapters: 21/? Fandom: Killing Eve (TV 2018), Killing Eve Rating: Explicit Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova, Eve Polastri & Villanelle | Oksana Astankova, Eve Polastri/Niko Polastri Characters: Eve Polastri, Villanelle | Oksana Astankova, Niko Polastri, Bill Pargrave Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Student/Teacher, Vampire Villanelle | Oksana Astankova, Alternate Universe - Vampire, killing eve/twilight au nobody asked for, Masturbation, Infidelity, Vaginal Fingering, Oral Sex, Tribadism, Angst, Mentions of Death, Mentions of Blood, Cunnilingus, Suicide, Child Death, Child Murder, Murder, Mentions of Suicide, Broken Bones, Blood Loss, Canon-Typical Violence, Injury, Major Character Injury, Not Beta Read Summary:

The Killing Eve/Twilight AU no one wanted. I let ChatGPT* write the summary based on my outline. It is exactly as trashy as I had hoped:

"In Forks, Washington, high school teacher Eve becomes infatuated with the mysterious Vasiliev-Martens family, particularly with the rebellious Villanelle. As she navigates the boundaries of mentorship and desire, Eve's obsession threatens to unravel her life and unearth dark secrets in the seemingly peaceful town."

* I've gotten several comments and direct messages about this. Please re-read the above statement. This fic has not been written using an AI tool. The only AI-generated content here is the two-sentence quote above. It's a joke about how this story is a bad idea, so I used a bad, AI-generated blurb to advertise it. We good?

[the-nocturnal-writer]

Evenfall Grove Dev Log 2

So real-life things have been kicking my ass, which was delaying everything I tried to do for the past few months. 🙃 A bit frustrating, but things have settled a little, so I hope everything will be back on track with my writing! 

Sorry for the lack of posting as well, like I said, lots of real-life shenanigans kept me offline and from being able to write. Now that I’m back, I’m going to finish designing the looks of some characters and as a bonus, I’m even going to draw concept pieces for certain locations in Evenfall (Like The Wolf Den)!

I plan to finish Ashborn up and get started on the second lot of romanceable characters- I shall reveal one name because I’m excited for them. 👀

ROWAN. Feral? Yes. Mysterious? Second to Heke. Overly calm about the chaos going on? Suspiciously so.

I won’t ramble on about it any longer, just happy to be back to things. I am, at least soon is the hope. Going to upgrade my equipment as well, while I’m grateful for my little Chromebook pushing through hell to work for me, I’d like to get a laptop I can actually use the software I need on, I’ve figured out ways on chrome to do it, it’s just not making my job easier. So, here’s to hoping I can save up soon (some are recommending opening commissions, but I’m still not sure…)

I have been brainstorming when I can! I had so many ideas I needed to get out, some not even relating to Evenfall (later projects for future Sin to enjoy). I’ll share some of my thoughts, but not all of them, don’t wanna spoil some stuff.

So I wanted to develop the MC’s background a little to better mix it in with the main storyline. It has a lot to do with their parents (who are deceased long before the events of Evenfall Grove). Basically, my brain needed a giant dose of ‘You have more to do with things happening then you think’, my favourite flavour of story. Yum. 

Another idea was only if going down Heke’s route, well it’s still present as a fact, but it’s only really touched on if the MC romanced Heke… Which will be very interesting to write (Painful too, but I think it will be worth it.)

Those are the two I can share without revealing and spoiling too much. Plus! I’ve got to get myself back into gear and catch up on everything.

Thank you so much, all of you! Thank you for being so patient while I get things in order and to new readers- Hello and thank you for your interest in Evenfall Grove! I hope to not disappoint… 🥺

Remember to hydrate, eat your meals and take medicine (if you take any)!

~ Red

[redmonstermash]

Update: Writing. Art. IFs.

I completely forgot to update Tumblr after my partner and I got a new rental. To make it short and sweet, we packed and moved to an apartment with a few friends. It was all the way across the country and used everything we had, but we did it! 🥹✨

We've settled in and love it here, most peace we've had in years haha. 😂

After settling, etc, I decided to discontinue Evenfall Grove, a lot has happen since beginning to write and code this story. In the end, I don't have much motivation for Evenfall's story outside the characters everyone grew to love haha (maybe I'll reuse the characters, Crow and Ashborn have the luxury of being my OCs for a loooong time outside the world of Evenfall Grove, so rewriting them for a different world won't be hard)

That all being said, I do have more ideas. Projects I'm brainstorming and books I've been writing and plan to post after editing a few times. One of the book series I'm writing is called Demonology and is about demons, devils and humans with unique abilities called arcs. It's based in a sort of post-outbreak/apocalyse cyber world.

Along with Demonology, I'm planning a few Interactive Fictions. I still want to create a IF story and I'm hoping brainstorming more then one idea will help me lean more towards one or the other.

One idea is similar to Evenfall in terms of genre, but the plot and characters are very, very different and it's all about people being chosen by the gods to face their destiny and, if successful, have the chance to become a new God. This one is definitely more planned out them the other few, but I'll do a seperate post for each one and expand on them a bit further.

I'm going to be way more active on Tumblr, especially since I now only have to worry about this account and my Bluesky, I'm not active on much else nowadays. I apologize in advance for the amount of art and writing I'm soon going to post 🦇 I have much to catch y'all up on!

[note-katha]

If you’re looking for new experiences, challenging courses, and a new life, Evenfall University is the school for you! At EF University, student’s education and safety is our top priority. As one of the leading universities in advancements in course diversity, students have endless opportunities to learn and grow while at school.

Apply today and make the first step towards your future!

[interact-if]

hello! do you have any interactive fic reccs where the ROs are your coworkers? like in when twilight strikes, novaturient, and project hadea :) thank you so much!

Hi Anon!

Yes, we do! And plenty! See the long list below:

180 Files: The Aegis Project by Karelia Hall

June in Abyss by @abyss-if

Attollo by @attollogame

Citadel by @bouncyballcitadel

Cut The Lights by @cutthelights-if

Greenwarden by @fiddles-ifs

Ari, Caleb, and Magnus in Guilded Shadows (VN) by @streamberrystudio

Herotome (VN) by @herotome

Song in Lost Lambs by @lostlambs-ifgame

Magician's Voyage by @magiciansvoyage

Mousetrap by @gamesbyalbie

Noveturient by @kalorphic

Red Sugar Society by @redsugarsociety

Remember, You Will Die by @vapolis

Secrets of Swatheford by @swatheford

Shepherds of Haven by @shepherds-of-haven

Sinners and Saints by @sinnersandsaints-linwrites

Snakeroot by @cerberus-writes

Supernova: Renegade by @jupitergames-if

Lestrade in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: An Affair Of The Heart by @doriana-gray-games

The Golden Rose by @anathemafiction

The Masked Defenders by @ian-lythe

The Numbers Game by @thenumbersgameif

Virtue's End by @virtues-end

Eddie in Water To Blood by @veirsewrites

When It Hungers by @roast-ifs

When Twilight Strikes by @evertidings

You Live And Fern by @beetlebethwrites

No Demos:

Lucky and Delphinium in Evenfall by @evenfalling

Thank You For Today by @thankyoufortoday-if

Witchsworn by @crimsiswrites

[dailyadventureprompts]

Villain: The Evenfall Empress

Adventure Hooks:

Wretched flying beasts have been emerging from the wilderness, hunting and devouring those caught out at night before burning up in the light of dawn. These “Gloamstalkers” aren't native to the region, and seem to have manifested all of a sudden.  A famed local ranger seeks the party’s aid in capturing one alive and transporting it to a dark safehold for study.

Travelers report seeing a grand castle out on the moorlands or rising from the depths of the forest, towers standing out starkly against the ominously low hanging moon. Since these tales never correspond to the location of any local structures or the moon’s actual phase or portentousness, most dismiss them out of hand as the fancies of out of towners.

Strange symbols have begun to appear in across the region: walls graffitied with  pair of skulls under a crown, or grisly totems found in the wilderness recreating the same only with bone and rusted nails. It’s not until the party meets a knight astride a skeletal horse carrying the banner, both rider and mount’s eyes alight with ghoulfire that they learn what it means: These lands are to be claimed by the Evenfall empress, and they would do well to submit when the time comes.

Setup: History has all but forgotten Kiviara Vilse, the unrecognized and unwitting by-blow of a faltering dynasty, who spent much of her life as a servant in the castle that for any justice should have been hers. Years of abuse darkened her heart, and attracted the attentions of a malign spirit that saw in the young woman an ember of hatred that would burn the very heavens if only it was nurtured. Stoking her envy and ambitions, the spirit led Kiviara to perform wicked rites and sacrifices, opening a way into the Shadowfell where her training could be complete.

Returning to the material plane near a century after the fall of her father’s house, Kiviara stands at the head of a host of shades, sorrowsworn, and worse. Fealty and tribute is what she seeks, sowing fear across the land until the people “recognize their true sovereign” and bend the knee. The castle folk have been seeing is the shadowfell reflection of her childhood home, cut free from its foundations in the underworld and slipping between planes at her command. Each night it appears in a different place, allowing Kiviara to deploy her forces wherever she wants to project power. 

Further Adventures: 

Infiltrating Kiviara’s shadow palace is difficult not only in that the party will have to anticipate its appearance, but also time themselves carefully as the structure flees the rising dawn. A party that lingers too long delving the castle’s dungeons may find themselves entombed when the surrounding chambers fade, or falling to their deaths if they ventured too high into the structure’s innumerable towers. There is also the risk of being dragged back to the shadowfell, where the evenfall empress’s minions are at their strongest. As a delve that may take weeks to complete, the party can expect to find their points of entry barred and traps laid for them, as the inhabitants respond to their repeated intrusions. 

Kiviara’s introduction to the campaign is best made with a light touch, her influence subtly creeping in while the party is busy with other matters. The villainy of the evenfall empress isn't that she’s willing to back up her claims of authority with threats of force (every noble does that) but that her attempts to build a new powerbase will draw other evils to her, whether from the mortal world, from the shadowfell, or even beyond. This is the danger of all so called dark lords, as they create an enviroment where evil beings can temporarily work together for the chance of upsetting the powers that be. 

Kralvize, the fiend that made the evenfall empress who she is today has ambitions that far outstrip demanding tithes from villagers and unleashing shadowbeasts upon the landscape. Cursed into a wraithlike existence and incapable of holding power himself, he aims to push Kiviara to further and further entrench herself in the fight to assert her claim, until her mind cracks under the pressure allowing him a means to possess her. In challenging this would be conqueror, the party may give rise to an even greater villain, one who cares nothing for the lands his protégé attempted to rule and will happily see them bathed in blood if it means establishing his dominion. 

Background: Kiviara’s father was a philanderer, but born high enough in the lines of imperial succession that who he jumped into bed with was a matter of national security. Though he plied her mother with promises of love and social elevation, she was cast aside as soon as she began to show: escorted away to a place where her daughter’s birth would not feed the gossip of the court.  Years later, Kiviara under a false name sought employment in her father’s palace, dreaming of a reunion with the man her mother still spoke of so highly. What she found was a spoiled and lecherous drunkard, barely reigned in by the ambitious harridan the royal advisors had him marry in the intervening years. Seeking to earn the sort of approval that would let her catch her father’s eye, Kiviara threw herself into work and spent her best years toiling under the abuse of the castle’s staff and those she sought to appease. 

After losing her temper when one of her snotnosed royal step-siblings ruined months of fine embroidery (a present for their mother), Kiviara was banished to the catacombs, to chase mice and dust darkened passages until she was old and blind and forgotten. Instead Kiviara listened, listened to the whispers coming from the cracks in an iron-bolted sarcophagus she found in a sealed off section of the tombs. It told her about the secret passages worming through the walls of the castle, used to spy and steal at her leisure as a means of taking back what she was owed. 

Two years of being captive in darkness turned her thievings to petty cruelties, after which it took very little coaxing to convince Kiviara to use the passages to slip into the room of her wicked little siblings and silently dispatch each one. Disappearing into the walls, she was back into the catacombs before the alarm was ever raised, by then placing the two children’s heads in offering upon the sarcophagus, letting blood seep in through the many cracks and breaking the bindings that had kept the devil Kralvize bound to a mortal cadaver. This had been one of Kiviara’s imerial ancestors, and the fiend’s last mortal vessel in his thwarted attempt to seize power. 

Art 1

Art 2

[simpingland]

Brianne of Morne.

Luke makes a new friend who is willing to help them reach Evenfall. Meanwhile, is Aemond's turn to feel nostalgic.

Part 7 of "Peace after the Storm". A Lucemond fanfic.

Im gonna start leaving just the link for the AO3 here unless someone ask me to fo otherwise.

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume 9, Number 5

Ascended Dead

Hard to believe we’re approaching the halfway point of another year, and yet here we are in May, thinking about the mid-year and how we’re going to fit all the excellent stuff so far into a reasonable length list.  There’s always too much music, a wonderful problem, but a problem all the same.  And so we turn again to Dust to burn off some of the excess.  As usual, the reviews run the gamut, from lucid ambient reveries to blistering industrial mayhem, from joyful death metal (surely a contradiction in terms?) to ragged improvised noise. Contributors this time include Ian Mathers, Andrew Forell, Jonathan Shaw, Tim Clarke, Bill Meyer, Christian Carey Jennifer Kelly, Bryon Hayes and Jim Marks.  

Aarktica — Paeans (Projekt)

Paeans by Aarktica

One of the most distinct and striking things about Jon DeRosa’s work as Aarktica has always been the way he blends more ‘pure’ ambient material with songs, both his own and others (everyone from Danzig to Peruvian shamanic songwriter Artur Mena). The new Paeans actually marks the first Aarktica LP without DeRosa’s vocals since his debut, 2000’s No Solace for Sleep. Coming on the heels of last year’s magnificent We Will Find the Light, this record could have just felt like a post-banquet digestif, but instead it’s a reminder of the beautiful, clear atmospheres DeRosa can make with just his guitar (here ably assisted by Henrik Meierkord on cello and viola). Whether it’s going Ashra-stratospheric on “Arcturan Transmission” or drifting towards Stars of the Lid on “Golden Hour at Pyramid House,” the result is a reminder of how vital his ambient work is.

Ian Mathers

 Antimaterial Worlds — Double Saturns Last Purification Exercises (Chemical X)

Double Saturns Last Purification Exercises by ANTIMATERIAL WORLDS

Gaura-jīvana Dāsa has a long history of industrial noise making under various names and degrees of success. His latest incarnation, as Antimaterial Worlds, combines the raucous noise of past projects Skull Catalog and Sewn Leather with his learnings from several years of immersion in Vedic religious studies. The results will do little to win converts to either enterprise. Musically, Double Saturns Last Purification Exercises clings to lesser Nine Inch Nails flailing whilst the lyrics swing from masochistic self-abnegation to that peculiar form of So-Cal spiritual sadism that seeks to purge the penitent while scourging the sinner. The “Kill them all and let God sort them out” forgets that hubris is a powerful enemy for the faithful but if you like your prophets wild-eyed, messianic and slinging guitars instead of lightning bolts and locusts, have at it.

Andrew Forell

 Ascended Dead — Evenfall of the Apocalypse (20 Buck Spin)

Evenfall of the Apocalypse by Ascended Dead

Evenfall of the Apocalypse comprises 42 minutes of perversely joyous Metal ov Death. Not much else to tell you, folks. The four San Diego-based musicians in Ascended Dead continue their project of making songs that cleave to the verities of the Old School, which they have come by honestly: drummer C. Koryn and bass player Kevin Schreutelkamp have put in time in the live bands of Blasphemy, Incantation and Morbid Angel, death metal legends, all. In Ascended Dead, that rhythm section is joined by guitarists Ian Lawrence and Jon Reider, and the requisite whirling chaos commences. It’s a lot of fun. Every song is overstuffed with riffs and ideas, all constantly on the verge of collapsing into noisome, rotten goo. Koryn’s drumming keeps them coherent (mostly, anyways) and coaxes them into increasingly wacky shapes, building toward the next semi-blackened guitar break or bout of psychotic shredding. There’s nothing innovative or risk-taking here, but it's nimbly composed, confidently executed and always on the move. The shorter tunes (“Nexus of the Black Flame,” “Bestial Vengeance”) are especially effective. They arrive, they mess up your mind, they’re gone. Come back and do it again, please.

Jonathan Shaw  

 Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean — Obsession Destruction (Redscroll Records)

Obsession Destruction by Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean

There’s not a tremendous amount of range in sludge metal, so it makes sense that Massachusetts band Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean seems to have derived its name by altering the title of a song (“Fucking Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean”) from Thou, perhaps the best sludge band to make misery-inducing music since Eyehategod. But’s there’s a line to be drawn between recognition of one’s artistic idols and pastiche, and Chained to the Bottom of the Ocean steps right along it — or crawls, or trudges, as the case may be. Songs like “Summer Comes to Multiply” and “Every Day a Weeping Curse” sound a whole lot like…Thou. This reviewer responds, at a profound gut level, to those tones and rhythmic structures, so he can dig a tune like “Ten Thousand Years of Unending Failure.” Ironically, it succeeds. It’s crushing and thrilling and huge, and it closes with an entertainingly daft lyric couplet: “When obsession takes over I’ll be fine / When destruction takes over I’ll decide.” Is that nihilism? A sort of fist-clenched catharsis? The aggro intensities of the music can accommodate both, creating a pretty good set of emotive qualities for a sludge song. Why decide, dudes? 

Jonathan Shaw 

 Clark — Sus Dog (Throttle)

Sus Dog by Clark

Clark’s most recent releases have been dominated by soundtracks and neo-classical work (2021’s Playground In A Lake and 2019’s Kiri Variations are especially beautiful). On his new album, Sus Dog, he returns to an electronically dominated palette, introduces his own voice as a key element, and even gets Thom Yorke on board as executive producer. Yorke’s involvement is obviously a drawcard for anyone interested in the Radiohead frontman’s oeuvre, with the overall sound of Sus Dog largely in the vein of Yorke’s last solo album, Anima. Clark’s voice is similar to Caribou’s Dan Snaith in its timbre and the way it sits in the mix, while squiggly synthesizer lines and pounding drum breaks carry the music forward with aplomb. However, it’s Sus Dog’s down-tempo moments that really shine, such as the title track, featuring guest vocals from Anika; “Medicine,” featuring Yorke on bass and vocals; and the piano-driven closer, “Ladder,” which repeats the striking vocal refrain, “Living on a ladder, stuck between two floors.”  

Tim Clarke

 The Electric Nature — Old World Die Must (Feeding Tube / NULL|ZØNE)

Old World Die Must by The Electric Nature

The Electric Nature is a free noise trio which is based in Athens, GA. Improvisation is baked into their methodology, but that doesn’t mean that they serve up raw jams. This album, which is a rare vinyl outing in their mostly cassette/digital discography, contains just two, side-long tracks, but includes sounds made between 2015 and 2022. Given the density of their sound, one suspects that Michael Potter, Michael Piece and Thom Strickland, who are jointly credited with guitars, synths, drums and recordings, add tapes of earlier performances to the one at hand. But don’t get the idea that these guys are snakes swallowing their collective tail; they’re decidedly open to outside input. “Enter Chapel Perilous” opens with the croaks of some swamp denizens, and then turns the spotlight over to Sunwatchers saxophonist Jeff Tobias, whose long, furry tones clear the path for the eventual battering assault. The trio is likewise augmented on the flip side’s titular performance by John Kiran Fernandes, whose clarinet adds a Morricone-esque dimension to the late-night squall. Times are tough nowadays — sometimes it takes a village to whip up some solar wind. 

Bill Meyer

Feather Beds — Softer Measures (Strange Brew)

Softer Measures by Feather Beds

Feather Beds is the experimental pop project of Irish musician Michael Orange, and on his new album, Softer Measures, he pushes things to perverse extremes. The album title seems to allude to the music’s raw materials being endlessly pliable, able to be squashed and stretched into new forms. There are identifiably pop-leaning tunes here, but often buried beneath effects and refracted through a funhouse mirror. Predictably it’s the two singles, “Really Disney” and “Sport of Boxing,” that offer the most immediate gratification, but even then, things get weird, a la early Animal Collective or Ronald Jones-era Flaming Lips. “Sport of Boxing,” for example, is a jangly lo-fi pop tune that hurtles along at an addictive clip, only to be swallowed up by chittering digital loops. Indeed, there’s something decidedly nightmarish about the way the songs refuse to follow the path you might imagine. Rhythms stutter and stumble, guitar tones warp in and out of tune, voices circle eerily and overlap one another. All the chaos renders moments of calm, such as the end of “We Safari,” uncannily beautiful.

Tim Clarke

 The High Strung — Address Unknown (Paper Thin)

The High Strung makes a kind of trebly, warbly, high energy garage pop pioneered by the Seeds and the Flaming Groovies and rediscovered during the aughts “rock is back” era by the Cynics, the Gripweeds and the Insomniacs. It’s not quite bubblegum, but it’s got a fair lacing of sweetness, and it’s hard to do well without slipping into saccharine cliché. Address Unknown is the band’s 11th album, following several decades together, through multiple line-ups and one major breakthrough: a song in opening credits of the Showtime series Shameless. It is everything you’d expect from a band of lifers—tight and relaxed at the same time, sure of itself but not particularly concerned about reception, and utterly charming. I like “Different Animal” the best, with its pounding beat and fluttering tunefulness, its clever rhymes and loopy harmonies. It’s the single and the video, and you can see why they focused on it, but there’s plenty of other good stuff as well. “Overcoat and Skis” with its Beatles-esque tootling keyboard and its wistful upward lilting melody, seems loose and casual until you recognize the sharpness of the ski-themed writing. (“It’s all downhill from here.”) “Run It Back” rocks harder, in a one-two punching way, but never abandons its tipsy whimsy, like XTC but rougher. Here’s a band neither torqued too tight nor slouched too low, but just a little high strung.

Jennifer Kelly

 Joseph Jarman-Don Moye feat. Craig Harris & Rafael Garrett — Earth Passage-Density (Eargong) 

By the early 1980s, when this album was recorded, the Art Ensemble Of Chicago spent a lot of their time playing music in other settings. On Earth Passage-Density, percussionist Don Moye and woodwinds multi-threat Joseph Jarman joined forces with Craig Harris, a trombone and digeridoo player who was active on several New York scenes, and Rafael Garrett, a bass and winds player who one worked with John Coltrane on the mind-melter, Om. Originally released by Black Saint and recently re-pressed by Eargong, this session shows the same breadth of reach as the AEC without shortchanging the creativity of Garrett and Harris. Patient development balances jump-cut transitional strategies and Brownian rhythmic urgency as they work their way through ceremonial dirges, angular bop, and gleefully chaotic funk. If you have any appreciation for the Art Ensemble’s pre-ECM recordings and haven’t heard this record yet, well, why are you being so hard on yourself?

Bill Meyer  

Rob Mazurek and Exploding Star Orchestra – Lightning Dreamers (Rogue Art)

Rob Mazurek enlists a formidable lineup for Lightning Dreamers, Exploding Star Orchestra’s latest recording, including instrumentalists Jeff Parker, Nicole Mitchell, Craig Taborn, Gerald Cleaver, and Angelica Sanchez. Damon Locks provides futurist lyrics and intoned vocals, taking the lead on “Future Shaman.” Mazurek’s cornet solo on the spacy “Dream Sleeper” is a standout, mellifluous and melodically inventive. The supple groove and doubled melodies on “Shape Shifter” demonstrate the groups allied affinities to fusion and modern jazz. Add in hat tips to the Arkestra, as on the paired pieces “Black River” and “White River,” and a fulsome brew is concocted.

Christian Carey

 Miranda and the Beat — S-T (Ernest Jennings)

Miranda And The Beat by Miranda and The Beat

“Sweat!” shouts Miranda Zipse in the opening salvo to this very strong album, as a soul-powered guitar snakes through surges of 1960s organs. She sounds like a long-lost Bond opening credit singer, from the Connery era no less, but she formed her band only a few years ago with her childhood friend Kim Sollecito, after dropping out of high school at 15. Now, she wields an astonishing belt, a swaggering style and a crack band of retro-maximalists. She’s caught the attention of another 1960s soul vamper, King Khan, who enthused, “I never thought I would see someone be able to play guitar with the ferocity of Link Wray, and sing like Lydia Lunch had a nuclear meltdown and morphed into Etta James and Yma Sumac.” Too much? Maybe, but “I’m Not Your Baby” swells and roars, surf guitar cascading through a Spector-esque wall of sound. “Concrete” cranks the tension with stuttering high-hat and drum—and blasts out of the blocks with a battering bass line. “Listen to the sound of the kids that are hanging out on the street,” she spits against the rough beat, and who knew that the kids would sound like this?

Jennifer Kelly

 Olololop, Arakawa Atsushi And Zea — Soyokaze (Makkum) 

Soyokaze by Olololop, Arakawa Atsushi and Zea

The Japanese trio Olololop plays electronic and acoustic percussion, and their compatriot Arakawa Atsushi manages electronics; one of them also plays a credible saxophone. They encountered Zea, the nom-du-rock of singer-guitarist Arnold de Boer (also of the Ex), at a Dutch music festival. Impelled by mutual appreciation, they flipped on some microphones and improvised a session which doesn’t fit easily into anyone’s pigeonhole, and is better off for it. Beats sputter, reeds and synth sputter, and at one point a poem drifts through the proceedings like a half-remembered dream. This music is a thing unto itself, beholden to no genre, but infused with the delight of jumping right in and finding out that you can swim. 

Bill Meyer

 Joakim Rainer Trio — Light Sentence (Sonic Transmissions) 

Light.Sentence by Joakim Rainer Trio

It must be daunting for any young musician to pick a point of entry into jazz these days. Joakim Rainer Petersen, the leader of this Norwegian piano trio, has chosen wisely. While he may not be as distinctive a composer as Kris Davis or Andrew Hill, his interest in their music helps to steer his own towards expressions of formal logic that are open to improvisational reassessment at any moment. He and bassist Alexander Risis sound like they’re completing each other’s ideas, but not by adding one guy’s statements to the other’s; no, their ideas cohere like two people saying parts of the same sentence. Drummer Rino Sivathas keeps things moving with a nicely splashy attack that keeps the moments of reflection from bogging down. Word has it that this combo tours, at least in Europe; keep your eyes and ears peeled. 

Bill Meyer

 Roser Monforte Trio — Landscape Songs (Self-Release)

LANDSCAPE SONGS, RM TRIO by RM TRIO

This slightly unusual trio lineup delivers jazz with a prog twist. Monforte has a big sound but gives drummer Jordi Pallarés and guitarist Pau Mainé plenty of space to realize her highly polished but uncluttered compositions.

The first two tracks, “Once upon a Time” and “Horses,” blend together into a suite that shows the group at its best. It begins with over a minute of unaccompanied guitar, which, as throughout the album, Mainé plays clean and with restraint. Pallarés is boisterous once he gets going, producing a wide range of sounds out of what looks like a fairly standard jazz kit, though well appointed with cymbals, in online videos. The leader eases into the tune around the minute-and-a-half mark with a catchy descending lick, and they’re off. Pallarés takes a solo at the transition between the tunes that is followed by the introduction of a new, serpentine theme and a neat shift in tempo, and the suite draws to a close with a funky vamp and a revisitation of the serpentine theme.

The rest of the tunes are nearly as memorable and fairly concise, most running three to five minutes. There’s plenty of variation, with “Cosmic Dancer��� and “Orixa” straying into exotica and fusion territory, the lovely ballads “Absence” and “Baraka” slowing things down, and the rousing “anTANAnarivo” and “Atzutac” sure to set toes tapping.

Jim Marks

 Tomten — Artichoke (Plume)

Artichoke by Tomten

Tomten’s songs billow and swell in that frictionless, effortless way that often indicates great care and craft. The Seattle-based band makes heavy use of keyboards—organs and synthesizers for instance—for lulling sustained tones that envelop and soften rock song architectures. The surf rock swagger of “Lizard in the Grass” comes wrapped in a dream pop shimmer. “Grapefruit Sea” the opener and early single, has the rolling gait and spiraling psychedelic expansiveness of a Grand Archive cut (it reminds me of “Sleepdriving,” always a good thing). The lyrics are better than they need to be, with precise and evocative natural imagery scattered across the disc, poppies and wild heather and mallow weeds. The whole thing feels like a pleasant dream, radiant but fuzzy at the edges.

Jennifer Kelly  

 Volcano the Bear — Amateur Shakes (Volucan)

Amateur Shakes by Volcano The Bear

A new Volcano the Bear album is cause for celebration among fans of strange sounds. Unfortunately, even though it arrived this year, Amateur Shakes doesn’t comprise recent music. The Leicester-based Dadaists laid these songs to tape at the tail end of the 2000s, prior to the release their final official album, Golden Rhythm / Ink Music in 2012. Timeline aside, this is a notable release for the band. Recorded with Andreas Schmid at Faust Studios and with Hans-Joachim Irmler producing, this is some of their best-sounding and most surreal music. Like in a Burroughs novel, thematic elements explored on past records reappear in these songs’ lyrics, which are sung, croaked and howled. The group have dialed back their signature avant-jazz and polka leanings, leaving room for their less-frequented outré rock tendencies to shine through. The lengthier, multi-part songs “Amateurs Blind” and “Classic Clarence Fusion” somehow come across as the most accessible, with the other tracks absorbing the experimentalist influences of the studio. There’s an uncanny symbiosis going on here, but can it really be a coincidence that a proximity to Faust has intensified the band’s already kooky demeanor? This writer thinks not. 

[waitingforwinterwinds]

A Clash of Kings - 42 DAVOS II (pages 546-563)

Stannis and Melisandre talk philosophies with Davos, though separately, and Davos takes Mel to Storm's End's Secret tunnel instead of the Maternity Wing.

-

Every man of the party was of better birth and higher station than Davos Seaworth, and the great lords glittered in the morning sun.

Doesn't mean they're even half the man Davos is.

A red-gold fox poked its shining snout out from his breastplate through a circle of lapis lazuli flowers.

guess at which point in this sentence I realised GRRM did not mean a real live fox the colour of red-gold. Did you guess halfway through the next sentence? Cause that's where it happened.

Stannis had left his queen on Dragonstone along with her uncle Axell, -

I just dropped into the strangest Kingdom Hearts crossover ever (:

Oh no, my brain is set to silly mode D: I'll power through, but I apologise in advance (;^▽^)ブ

"She ran. As well she might. Her was the hand that slew the king." "A lie," Ser Cortnay said. "I knew Brienne when she was no more than a girl playing at her father's feet in Evenfall hall, and I knew her still better when the Evenstar sent her here to Storm's End. -"

See, even this guy knows Brienne killing Renly is ridiculous. *remains salty about the guy(s) who just up and accused her on sight*

The king saw the motion. "Are they still there, onion knight? You have not lost them?" "No." "Why do you keep them? I have often wondered." "They remind me of what I was. Where I came from. They remind me of your justice, my liege." "It was justice," Stannis said. "A good act does not wash out the bad, nor a bad act the good. Each should have its own reward. you were a hero and a smuggler."

It's always interesting to see the difference in not just whether a character believes in the end justifying the means, but how an act affects a persons overall moral value. If I had to label Stannis, I think I'd definitely class him as Lawful-Neutral rather than Lawful-Good, just because he's so focused on the law as justice, but not in the all consuming all condemning way of Lawful-Good Paladins, and because he's a little easier with the ends justifying the means approach to offing his own brother.

"Only Renly could vex me so with a piece of fruit. He brought his doom on himself with his treason, but I did love him, Davos, I know that now. I swear, I will go to my grave thinking of my brother's peach."

Stannis: *poignant speech about loosing his brother and never being able to gain closure* The Reader: Pffff hahHAHAhahahahHAHA "thinking of his brother's peach" XD

Ahem. Sorry. I've been in fandom too long. ... hehehehe ... could have been worse, could have been chrysanthemum

"Stubborn or craven, what does it matter? Ser Cortnay Penrose seemed hearty and hale to me." "So did my brother, the day before his death. The night is dark and full of terrors, Davos."

TNiDaFoT = 🥛

You know, I'm starting to wonder if Stannis actually does know about the shadow him that killed Renly or not. Like the way he talks about it, his dream of Renly's death, I can't decide if he's trying to convince himself it doesn't count that he killed his brother via freaky astral projection, or if he truly doesn't know what happened.

"I killed him but i woke with clean hands" and all that, of course it doesn't help they we aren't in his head and he's not going to come out and say it to Davos "Mel made a freaky shadow clone of me, emphasis on the shadow and I mind controlled it in my sleep to off Renly."

"- The flames do not lie, Davos." Yet they require me to make it true, he thought. It had been a long time since Davos Seaworth felt so sad.

Aww, oh no. Stannis you suck!

also that thought that Stannis might not know? yeah, that's as dead as Renly.

"I can smell the fear on you, ser knight," the red woman said softly. "Someone once told me the night is dark and full of terrors. And tonight I am no knight. Tonight I am Davos the smuggler again. Would that you were and onion."

TNiDaFoT = 🥛

... Melisonion.

"If half of an onion is black with rot, it is a rotten onion. A man is good, or is is evil."

Men might have layers like an onion, that doesn't mean they are onions, Mel.

"You are more ignorant than a child, ser knight. There are no shadows in the dark. Shadows are the servants of light, the children of fire. The brightest flame casts the darkest shadows."

That's an interesting take... I think I like it. (She's right though, no shadows in the dark.)

He knew that shadow. As he knew the man who'd cast it.

and birth of the demon shadow baby! (take two) mmm, even more horrific than the show. delightful. Oh but the sense of dawning terror and horror in Davos. He deserves a better boss.

[xxlittle0birdxx]

The sudden silence was louder than if the entirety of all the denizens of Evenfall began to shout. Brienne’s footsteps came to a halt. She passed the reins to a nearby stable lad, then tugged self-consciously at her creased and stained tunic, squared her shoulders and turned on her heel. The man standing in the middle of the yard topped her own prodigious height by a number of inches. His ashy blonde hair tossed in the ever-present breeze. Creases fanned from his intense blue eyes. Dressed plainly, his only concession to rank was the quality of the wool and linen, and he wore and a Tarth sigil embroidered on the right shoulder of his jerkin. Brienne returned the man’s even gaze. ‘Father.’

[riocat01]

What Was Left

Chapter 26 & Epilogue

The Lannisters of Tarth welcome their second child, and enjoy the promise of a happy life at Evenfall Hall.

[villanesus]

If I hit a snare in the plot, a bit of dialogue I’m worried is repetitive, or something I feel the need to research, I will just add some notes in square brackets to fix it later and carry on with the scene. Those notes are functionally bloopers but in writing.

Things I have typed out in the course of authoring this fic (thus far):

i don’t want to do assholes here

live nadia slug reaction

describe banging or nah??

vampire horny like “nooOOoooo, whhHyyyYYyyYyyy???”

third act stress sex

get into the shit with a whole gang of werewolves

[SEX HERE]

outline for future sad mason who has to write this

i do not know what happened here.

hermetically sealed package… ha ha. ha ha ha h-

You know, like the Snickers commercials.

Enjoy the latest chapter.

Chapters: 22/? Fandom: Killing Eve (TV 2018), Killing Eve Rating: Explicit Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova, Eve Polastri/Niko Polastri Characters: Eve Polastri, Villanelle | Oksana Astankova, Niko Polastri, Bill Pargrave Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Student/Teacher, Vampire Villanelle | Oksana Astankova, Alternate Universe - Vampire, killing eve/twilight au nobody asked for, Masturbation, Infidelity, Vaginal Fingering, Oral Sex, Tribadism, Angst, Mentions of Death, Mentions of Blood, Cunnilingus, Suicide, Child Death, Child Murder, Murder, Mentions of Suicide, Broken Bones, Blood Loss, Canon-Typical Violence, Injury, Major Character Injury, Not Beta Read Summary:

The Killing Eve/Twilight AU no one wanted. I let ChatGPT* write the summary based on my outline. It is exactly as trashy as I had hoped:

"In Forks, Washington, high school teacher Eve becomes infatuated with the mysterious Vasiliev-Martens family, particularly with the rebellious Villanelle. As she navigates the boundaries of mentorship and desire, Eve's obsession threatens to unravel her life and unearth dark secrets in the seemingly peaceful town."

* I've gotten several comments and direct messages about this. Please re-read the above statement. This fic has not been written using an AI tool. The only AI-generated content here is the two-sentence quote above. It's a joke about how this story is a bad idea, so I used a bad, AI-generated blurb to advertise it. We good?

[nostraightheadcanons]

Once Eve gets into a project, she REALLY gets into it. Like, REALLY. It’s impossible to get her attention. She becomes so focused on her work that it would take more than an earthquake to get her to look up.

1010 once used this to their advantage when they decided to go riding down the side of Evenfall Gallery in a shopping cart in another one of their jackass stunts. Eve was none the wiser.

[veeples-archive]

✨ wamen in picrews i’m too lazy to draw ✨

from left to right, top to bottom:

aris laurent (nb, they/she, project ha/dea & the ex/ile)

briaun velasquez (cis, she/her, evenfall)

gabi storm (cis, she/her, project ha/dea)

ruzha (nb, she/her, the name/less)

[note-katha]

Truly, the dialogue from Evenfall is never what I expect it to be.