#and whos band was basically a 'i love my band' kind of work until they made it bigger

[bumblebeesfromvenus]

Hi! Can you please write part 3 of bale batman x assistant reader as his wife? And how he handles jealousy after their marriage? Thank you 😊

Hello!!

I actually wrote something about this a little while ago, but because I feel like just linking the post is a bit of an asshole move, I'll add some of my thoughts!

I hope that's okay <3

Here's my previous post :)

~Fi 🐝

(My inspiration for Bruce has been dwindling, I desperately need to watch the movies again)

Part 1 ♡ Part 2 ♡

─── ⋅ ∙ ∘ ☽ ༓ ☾ ∘ ⋅ ⋅ ────── ⋅ ∙ ∘ ☽ ༓ ☾ ∘ ⋅ ⋅ ───

He will always, ALWAYS call you his wife. More than your actual name. He has to keep reminding people that you're unavailable and that you're his and his alone. Bruce perks up immediately whenever your name is mentioned. He's policing all of his employees at this point lmao

maybe someone talks about you to a coworker about how innovative you're thinking for the company is, that you're kind and exactly what this industry needs and Bruce just pops up out of nowhere like "who are you talking about? Hm? Oh, my beautiful, amazing, perfect wife? I couldn't agree more."

He gets so stealthy after being in the batman business that he scares them half to death because he's just there all of a sudden. After hearing some of the complaints the employees make (you're not at work as often anymore after Bruce insisted you focus on some hobbies instead) you're seriously contemplating putting a little bell on him just so you don't have to worry about anyone getting a heart attack.

He always has to be touching you in some kind of way. His go to is a hand on the small of your back or on your thigh when you're sitting down, he loves holding your hand, too. His thumb will brush over the cool metal of your wedding band and it puts his mind at ease.

Every single employee knows not to flirt with you, even as a joke. Not after Jake suddenly disappeared after Bruce caught him sweet talking you... (he may have a received a strongly worded letter from his landlord ((Bruce)) and, what do you know, for some reason, any other living opportunity in Gotham is unavailable right now)

He brings you flowers at least once a week (or until the ones he gifted you before can't hold their own anymore and wilt). They're always fragrant and bright in color, whatever is in season right now. And they stand nicely on your desk in a beautiful crystal vase that catches the light perfectly. He catches himself looking at them more than he he would like to admit.

Or, more specifically, he wants to see if he can catch you admiring them. He's gotten a new appreciation for these small things since you came into his life. They way you cup the delicate blossom and inhale its sweet scent is a picture he will dream of forever.

Bruce makes sure that you're only addressed as Mrs. Wayne (unless it's someone close like Luscius or a very nice coworker of yours) making it clear to everyone, again, that you're his. He gifts you a necklace with his name on it, which you wear proudly, and Bruce can't help but grin when he sees his name glint in the sunlight against your skin.

─── ⋅ ∙ ∘ ☽ ༓ ☾ ∘ ⋅ ⋅ ────── ⋅ ∙ ∘ ☽ ༓ ☾ ∘ ⋅ ⋅ ───

I'm so sorry for kinda half-assing my Bruce posts lately, but I can barely write anymore 😭

I usually write at night but I'm tired then too so I'm like "Oh, I'll just write during the day." BUT GUESS WHAT I'M ALSO TIRED DURING THE DAY

Fucking iron deficiency istg

I basically sleep all the time and when I do write, it's not a lot bc I'm literally falling sleep halfway through so yeah

[klausinamarink]

One Kid Gone, Another Up and Vanished

ok wow a lot of you really love my Eddie in the UD with Will au and want that in fruition, huh… so by popular demand here’s like a very rough oneshot. Basically a first draft that sets up the overall plot until i write a better one someday in the future

Edit: I lied, here’s the other parts (ongoing): Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 now on ao3!

Wayne doesn’t hear the news of Will Byers’ disappearance until the afternoon workers come in. Within minutes, the whole plant is buzzing with bewilderment and sympathy. But there is also an underline of fear that struck some of the hearts of the family men. Hawkins hadn’t seen any child disappearance cases, at least not since Wayne moved to the town in the last decade.

He is worried about the boy, especially for the Byers family. He doesn’t know Joyce too well, but they’ve talked plenty at Melvard’s with stories of their boys being quietly mischievous. Wayne sent a silent prayer that Will can be found soon and bring his mother peace.

He doesn’t speed the drive way home, but it’s damn close. He just wants Eddie to be home safe without some boogeyman taking him away.

Thankfully, his nephew is on the couch and watching a movie. He greets Wayne with a lazy wave, “Weren’t enough leftovers so I made some dinner. Hope you won’t die from my veggie soup.”

Wayne ruffles his hair - which had grown past his ears now - and sits next to him. “You heard about the Byers boy?”

“Hm, yeah. Everyone was talking about it. Saw Jonathan putting up the flyers too.” Eddie says, his eyes still on the TV.

Wayne puts an arm around him, making Eddie look at him. “Ya know that if you ever go missing, I’ll search even the lands of Hell for you.”

Eddie’s quiet. He stares with misty eyes, which he quickly blinks away. Then he lightly shoves at Wayne’s ribs. “‘Course, you would, old man. I’m the only family you care about.”

“Hey, don’t go disrespecting your cousins like that.” Wayne jokes back, making Eddie laugh. The two of them watch the movie in comfortable silence until Wayne has the mind to get up and shower.

—

It’s a double shift today. It means extra pay but it also means Wayne wouldn’t be home until early morning. He tells Eddie this before leaving and Eddie says it’s fine as usual, only that he had band practice so he’ll be coming home late. Wayne tells him make sure to stay safe too.

The next morning comes as the second day of Will Byers’ disappearance. Wayne is predictably sore and tired, but his mind remains sharp as stone.

It’s why he doesn’t miss that Eddie’s van isn’t parked next to the trailer.

The small pebble of concern forms in his stomach, but he brushes it off. Eddie’s been going to go to school early lately so it’s not unusual.

But that pebble feels like a rock when he heads to the kitchen and finds no note on the table.

When Wayne first took in Eddie, who was skittish and mute back then, he started writing notes and leaving them next to Eddie’s plate of breakfast. It was little things like ‘eggs are better runny’ and ‘don’t remember toast being this toasted’. A way to get the boy to slowly open up. Not only it worked, but Eddie soon started writing his own notes, mostly of jokes that always made Wayne laugh heartedly.

Even at seventeen, Eddie never missed a day of breakfast without a note.

Wayne makes himself take a deep breath. There wasn’t any reason to get worried. Eddie might’ve been tired or was in some kind of rush. But even then, he would make doodles to make up a lack of written words.

Just check him at the school. He’ll still be there, even if he’s missing classes.

So Wayne leaves and drives en route to Hawkins High, the secret bane of his existence. (Not that he’ll confess that to Eddie. His nephew already has enough of an ego.)

But as he turns at Cherry, he nearly crashes himself into the trees. Because at the corner, parked hazardously at the side, is Eddie’s van.

Wayne gets out in record time, but forces himself to a slow pace. He hopes that anger wouldn’t be on his face when he finds Eddie on the driver’s seat.

But Eddie isn’t in the driver’s seat. In fact, the door is half open. As if it was meant to close but had no force behind it. The front of the van also looks crushed in.

That pebble or rock in his gut grows bigger and heavier when Wayne spots a red handprint stained on the wheel.

Somewhere further in the woods, the search party calls out Will’s name. Wayne is the only one to call out for another.

—

Earlier

Eddie scowled at his bandaged left wrist. He mentally sent a thousand curses for Luka Belinski to jail for a thousand years. The crime? He showed off how easily he can flip his switch knife without getting cut, creating a jealous curiosity within Eddie to try and do the same action. Now his ability to play another instrument was impaired forever!

Seriously, fuck the clarinet players.

He sighed, starting up his van’s engine. He pulled out of the school parking lot, waving to a few peers as he hit the road. He waited until the school was out of view that he changed the radio to David Bowie.

He was in a bad mood. Sue him. Not that anybody can find out.

As he sang along to “Watch That Man”, he felt his left palm oddly sticky. He lifted it up and saw that some of the blood had dripped out his bandage.

“Shit-” was all he said before something crashed in the front of his van. He swore even more loudly, turning the wheel too quickly and pressing the brakes. He thought he heard a loud wail before the van went off the road and finally stopped.

Eddie shakily got out of the van, nearly falling over. His hand pressed against his chest, feeling his wild heartbeat. Before he could inspect the damage, he heard a pained growl. He whipped around and saw a thing standing up long and tall with a face that opened up like the devil’s Venus Flytrap.

What the fuck?!

He ran into the woods. Yeah, nope nope nope fuck that.

Branches snapped behind him and he felt a clawed hand grabbing the back of his jacket. He fell to the ground, screaming and kicking his legs out as he was dragged. His good hand reached out to the scratch the monster’s arm, but his nails barely dug into the gross skin.

There was a weird swoop of vertigo as if Eddie was thrown up in the air. He remained on the ground though, but not until he was actually thrown across. His back hit against a tree, knocking him out for a second.

When his vision cleared, it was to the horrific closeup of the Venus Flytrap face. Eddie opened his mouth to scream, but nothing came out. The monster growled, its weird toothy mouth drooling over him. He shut his eyes, hoping that he would die painlessly and that Wayne wouldn’t find his body.

Then the monster growled again, with some weird fleshy sounds. Eddie dared to peek an eye open. Its face-mouth was shut and it looked around. Then it hopped to all fours and ran off to another direction.

He forced himself to wait for a full minute before he ran again.

There were few things Eddie realized. One: he had no idea where the fuck he was. Two: he had no idea what the fuck was that thing. Three: holy shit monsters were real and he almost died. Four: was it snowing?

He slowed down his run and reached a hand out. A few snowflakes slowly landed on his fingers, but it didn’t melt or felt cold. It wavered around before he blew them off.

He looked around, trying to guess which way was the road, and saw even something more weird. There were vines practically everywhere. The ground was littered with them. They curled around tree trunks and hang off the branches. Eddie was pretty sure that none of that even existed in the Hawkins woods.

Something blurred to his far right and growled. Eddie went back to running.

He looked back to see if that monster was back and fell off a small ledge. He tumbled and rolled with a yelp, feeling one of his ankles spike in pain. He scrambled to get back on his feet and made direct eye contact with Will Byers.

Seeing the kid’s missing posters everywhere had Eddie memorize the face. Bowlcut hair with a dimpled smile and cheerful eyes. But the kid’s eyes were fearful as he hid under a den of twisted roots.

“Uh…” Eddie said because what the fuck, he just found the missing kid.

Another growl, closer this time.

Will’s eyes snapped up, gesturing wildly to Eddie. “Here, here, quick!”

Eddie crawled in record time into the root den, barely fitting next to Will. He clamped a hand over his mouth as the sounds of the monster approached right above them. It made more sniffing and growling sounds, each one sounding closer…

He glanced at Will, who held a small rock in his hand. For a second, Eddie thought if the kid was gonna hit the monster with it. Instead, Will swiftly threw the rock to his left where it landed loudly against the bushes.

The monster roared so loud Eddie thought his ears burst. It scampered off to the rock’s direction and then everything was quiet.

Will poked his head out and nodded, “It’s gone.” Then he looked at Eddie and Eddie looked at Will.

He brought his hand down from his mouth, suddenly feeling lightheaded. “Don’t tell them I listened to Bowie.”

The last thing Eddie saw and heard before fainting was Will tilting his head in confusion and asking, “What?”

— —

tagging these lovely people for their excitement over this silly au: @unclewaynemunson @steves-strapcollection @hellion-child @sidekick-hero @mmmmwaffles94 @demolitionjetstar @hbyrde36

[riacte]

Big Terracotta and the "Let's overthrow Rendog" storyline

My knee jerk reaction to Ren saying they would be making minigames to fight over the permits because they wanted the plot to progress was "oh no NOT again". I initially thought of the minigames in the King Ren arc finale but I suppose it's also similar to the Mycelium War finale. I love minigames, but it's like another Ren vs Scar plot, which might very well (but not necessarily) extend into Neighbourhood vs Mountain plot (and I guess the Redditors will cry about a "civil war" because they've been anticipating it since the season began).

First of all: Big T is basically Ministry rebranded. It doesn't contain everyone from the Neighbourhood, but it's inherently linked. From what I remember of that stream from months ago, Ren's idea was for the Neighbourhood (at the time the Ministers) to band together and sell terracotta. To me, the Neighbourhood feels like it's become a conglomerate of its own: they live next to each other, they collab together, build farms and minigames together, and they have storylines together. The Ministry storyline pretty obviously formed the basis and set the tone. False's rivers permeate through the entire neighbourhood. They have a meeting spot and maps and roads and villager set ups and the bank of Iskall. It's not just "people conveniently live close to each other"— it's "people whose individual storylines intertwine". We got invested in the Ministry storyline. The minister roles felt fairly early season to me, so no surprise that it ended. Now we get Big T, which seems like an optimistic look forward with the idea of a "permanent" branded group because it's about selling a highly wanted commodity.

But what if it's not.... permanent? What if Short-T gets the permits? What then? Another rebrand? I have absolutely no doubts that the Neighbourhood, broadly speaking, will continue to hang out as a neighbourhood. At least until they run out of space / ideas in there. So it's not like they'll stop interacting if Big T ceases to become a thing, but that's exactly what it is— Big T gives them something to do. A common storyline. A collab opportunity.

Back to the Ministry storyline. It's a typical "Rendog seizes power" arc that we've seen before, prominently in S9 King Ren arc. But the thing is, it kind of fails at sculpting Ren as this awful leader who needs to be overthrown. (Partially due to Cleo's mic not working when they suggested overthrowing Ren, and there were also talks of people doing a coup, but in the end Ren decided to take the matters in his own hands.) Ren tries to be incompetent and bossy but they all end up indulging him. Because, despite everything, Ren is good at bringing people together, both in and outside of the game. He organises stream weekends (the others were thanking Ren on his shift during the last stream weekend, a while ago on another stream weekend Scar made Ren tear up with his heartfelt words). He "annoys" people into following him, and then he gets scared of the power, "annoys" people into overthrowing him, and BOOM Rendog kickstarts another plotline by playing the villain (again. And again).

(Arguably, Third Life also kinda followed this formula. I had a feeling Ren was trying to make the Red King unlikable by barging into people's houses and demanding them join the Red Army, and Martyn did "claim" he had "planned" to "betray Ren" from day one (looking at the camera with knowing but non-judgmental stare) but didn't do it.)

Point is, Ren has the personal charisma and thick enough skin to start groups and wrangle people into joining them. He's silly and the hermits love him, so they kind of bemusedly smile and let Ren drag them along. That's his first way of uniting people. Ren's second way of uniting people is by playing the villain, which he often employs and tries pushing it into this direction. In the Ministry plotline, the first way worked, but nobody cared enough to overthrow Ren (lol) so the second way didn't work that well.

... And I feel like Ren doesn't trust himself to play the role of a good leader. He has to be evil. Because he likes dramatics and being publicly humiliated (side glance) and killed. And also because he doesn't like playing the role of a good leader despite having clear visions of infrastructure / change he wants to achieve (S10 roads, S9 Hermit Quests). If anyone's dreaming big about community storylines and banding together to work on something, it's Ren.

So my fear for the Big T storyline is that Ren will seize power again and turn evil so they can overthrow him and Ren volunteers to be the villain for plot progression. I like seeing Ren being in the leader role. But to see him be overthrown again feels a little sad considering what they all went through so far. I don't want more self sabotage. I don't want Ren to go "yeah it's fine you can have it". I don't want Big T to lose the permits and disband. Obviously Big T isn't just Ren, but Ren is the main guy who does story and roleplay.

Good news: Big T contains competitive people who will no doubt enjoy defeating Scar and Bdubs. Bad news: those are the exact same type of people who like trapping Ren in pits. Even if Big T as a whole pulls through, I hope Ren doesn't do something stupid on purpose to set himself up. I want the power of friendship and neighbourhood solidarity to win. It's such a good overarching storyline and content.

[quietplantlys]

Hello! I've been searching VERYWHERE for a new Harry Hook x reader fanfic and I can't seem to find one that I haven't seen already :')

I was wondering if you could write a Harry Hook x Daughter of the queen of hearts! Reader (who is also in a band btw...Just because) where reader is struggling with everything basically...managing her studying, her band, her time basically and especially trying to learn how to use her cards (similar to the cards that the Queen of Hearts uses in D4) and shes just tired and Harry cuddles with her and comforts her??

Ik this might be a lot so you can take out or add certain elements to your liking! No pressure and I hope to see more from you :3

Stress - HARRY HOOK

Pairings: Harry Hook x Hearts! Reader

Genre: Kinda angst with comfort! fluffy.

Warnings: This is romantic so I hope that's okay!! Fem reader!

Note: Ahh thank you for requesting means a lot! I didn't really know what to do with her being in a band but it is mentioned. hope you like this! It's my second request so I hope you enjoy it.

Everything is stressful. Trying to balance studying, your band, and trying to learn and practice your cards.

You have been practicing with your cards, but no progress has been made. because school tests are coming up. And your band is something you also had to practice, for which you're trying to find time to smuggle it in.

You've been trying to do multiple things at once, and you haven't realized that you're burnt out.

Trying to stay awake during the last class of the day was hard. Luckily for you, you now have more homework. which now means you can't practice for anything, not your band or your cards.

Once you are in your dorm, you put all your homework on the table and in your head, trying to decide if you should just practice your cards or just practice for your band.

After a while of just staring off and trying to keep your eyes open, you decided to work on homework.

20 minutes later, you're still working on your homework. And after a couple more minutes, you hear a knock on the door. You turned your head slowly and began to stand up from your chair. and started walking over to the door.

Once you reached the door, you opened it to see your boyfriend standing at the door. "Oh, hi Harry, how are you?" you asked with a tired voice.

"I'm alright, love. You look pretty tired. Have you slept?" Harry asked with some concern in his voice. "Don't worry about me, I'm just super busy. I have to finish my homework, then practice for my band, then practice my cards." You said it quickly, trying to explain yourself.

"Okay, I think it's time for a break," Harry said, coming into the room and shutting the door behind him. He grabbed your hand and guided you to your bed.

"Wait, I have to finish my homework, then Pract-" You began saying this before he cut you off. "You can finish that later; besides, that's not due until Friday. And your band doesn't play till next month."

He sits you on the bed after moving some blankets down. "Lay down," he tells you, and you listen, not wanting to argue since you feel your eyes dropping.

He sighs, watching you fall asleep, and puts the blankets over you. He begins to say softly, hoping not to wake you, "I just wish you didn't overwork yourself."

He watches you softly snore and then shuts off your light on the nightstand. Once he turns it off, he begins walking to the bathroom to change into sweatpants and no shirt.

Once he finishes, he shuts the bathroom light off, walks over to your bed, and lays down next to you. You shift to your side and wrap your arms around Harry's shoulders.

When your arms are wrapped around him, he holds a side of your waist, and he closes his eyes. And began to feel his eyes drifting off.

A/N: I hope this is good I'm writing literally all of these fanfics at 12-3 am. 😭 also if this is bad please only give kind feedback!!

[things-arent-what-they-seem66]

7. “I want to believe you, but I don’t know if I can.”

context/idea: Lucifer confesses his love to Adam, but he doesn't believe him, because what if Lucifer just wants to complete the set? What if he's just a place holder, a bed warmer, until Lilith gets back and leaves him again, hurt and humiliated just like back in Eden?

Basically Adam's abandonment issues making him doubt what Lucifer’s saying.

Ahhh good ol' abandonment issues gotta love them for our favorite asshole lol

"Did you hear me? I said I love you." Lucifer repeated himself, Adam was just kind of looking at him with this slightly glazed, deer in the headlights look.

"No I heard you."

"And?"

Adam looked down, Lucifer didn't mean it did he? He glanced down at the king's left hand where the gold band that he wore for his WIFE still was. "I want to believe you, but I don't know if I can."

They had been together for a while now and Adam for the most part had been feeling emotionally invested for the last few months.

They haven't had sex yet. Not because Adam didn't want to, because he really wanted to.

But there was always that doubt in the back of his mind that what they had wasn't real, that he was just a placeholder, a bed warmer until Lilith decided to rear her bitchy head.

Lucifer would surely leave him for her if she were her, leaving him behind again like he did in the garden.

And if Adam gave in? Sleeping with the devil who claimed to love him only to find out he just wanted to complete the set of fucking the original humans? Adam would never emotionally recover. It took him nearly ten thousand years to sort of heal from the first time.

"What do you mean? I wouldn't say it if I didn't mean it."

Adam glared. "Yeah, and how do I know it's just some manipulation tactic to fuck me!?"

Lucifers eyebrows shot up. Where the hell did that come from? "Taking you out on dates, helping you work through your issues and down right pampering you is a pretty long game to play just for a quick fuck. I do those things because I love you dumbass."

"Then why do you still wear that!?" Adam pointed at the offending ring. "You still love her."

Lucifer looked down at his hand. Huh, he kind of forgot it was there. He removed the ring and tossed it over his shoulder. Fresh start, he could always get a new one when he marries Adam. "Happy?"

Adam blinked, he felt a little foolish now. "Yeah actually."

"Oh Adam." Lucifer started, he pulled the sinner in for a hug. "You're the only duck in my pond."

Adam smiled and held him back.

Maybe it was okay to love.

[lily-s-world]

Julie and the Phantoms vs. Julie e os Fantasmas

I had recently been practicing my Portuguese and listening to music in that language, which lead me to the soundtrack of Julie e os Fantasmas. The original Brazilian version of the show. Funny how music works, because the more I listened to the songs the more I remembered about the show. Which is why I decided to make a list about the main differences between the shows.

First, the Brazilian cast and the name of their counterparts so you know who am I referring to:

Side note before we start, their music is also pretty cool. My favorite one is Essa noite somos um so (Tonight we are one).  You can find it on Spotify:

The Brazilian show lasted 1 season with 26 episodes, which were divided in two parts from 2011 to 2012. However, the show was always planned with one season only, so it had a proper closure.

In the original version, Julie isn’t dealing with the loss of her mother. Her mother is alive but decided to take a job far away from them, which leads to Julie resenting her because she feels that her mother doesn’t care about them and only shows when it is convenient for her. This makes Julie feel invisible across her life.

Both shows revolve around music and how much Julie loves it. Julie (BR) suffers from stage panic, one of the reasons she had never sing in front of people. The phantoms help her with this. Also, her preferred instrument is the guitar.

The phantoms had a more tragic death on the BR version. They were trying to replicate The Beatles’ Abbey Road cover, but where hit by a truck and died instantly. One member was alive, but he retired from the music industry after the accident. They had been dead for over 30 years and were trapped on a vinyl record instead of a CD.  

The phantoms don’t have their instruments like the new version. After they help Julie with her stage panic, she buys them new instruments and decides to form the band.

The name of the band on the show is Os Insólitos (The Unusuals). They play in different venues and parties across the season. Unlike the new version, they sing the same songs repeatedly across the episodes. There are some special episodes where they reveal a new song.

The Julies share basically the same personality on both shows. Martim and Reggie are also really similar, being a flirt and a little bit clueless. Felix is way more anxious and fearful than Alex, he was scared of ghosts since he was a kid and being turned into one didn’t help with that. Daniel and Luke are probably the ones with different personalities, while Luke is this cutie that falls for Julie almost immediately; Daniel is egocentric and cold at the beginning of the show. It takes a long time for him to warm up to Julie and is resentful against the world for what happened to them. He had a lot of character development during the season.

Pedro (Carlos) and Bia (Flynn) learn about the ghost right after Julie does. Pedro and Martim develop a friendship based on pranks and jokes.

Julie, Pedro and Bia are the only ones that can actually see the phantoms. Whenever they play in the band, they hide behind masks and keep the idea as a mystery to attract followers.

Julie and Thalita (Carrie) were also friends when they were younger. The reason their friendship didn’t lasted, was because Julie realized that Thalita was a bully that picked up on other girls. Julie cut out all communication with her, which Thalita didn’t took well and continued to antagonize her until they were teens.

The main difference is that Caleb doesn’t exist in this original version, there is an agent of the Ghost Police that looks for the boys because he is convinced they escaped the rules of death. They should have crossed over, but never did. There also some kind of ghostbuster that is looking for them.

 At the end of the first part of the season, the boy say goodbye to Julie because they are planning to cross over; however it is later revealed that the ghostbuster capture them. They manage to escape and return with Julie.

Daniel develops feelings for Julie in the second part of the season, Julie also starts liking him, but she also likes Nicolas who had been her crush for years. Nicolas and Julie start spending more time together after he broke up with Thalita, and he develops feelings for Julie. At the end of the show Julie ends up choosing Nicolas, because she had liked him longer and he makes this grand gesture for her at school. She has a talk with Daniel about what they feel, and they both decide to still be friends and continue with the band.

Some fun facts: The show was sponsored by Monster High, so you can see a lot of merchandise in the show; Julie even dresses up as Frankie Stein for a Halloween party. The show was super popular, earning nominations for Kids Awards in LATAM.

[alchemistc]

You can find part one of this headcanon that I should really just fic at this point (but won't because that's a commitment I will 100% abandon 120k words in when there's still 10 more chapters to go) here.

Have some more "Eddie befriends a concussed Steve after season 2 headcanons-that-are-basically-fic-at-this-point"

Steve gives himself two blissful weeks of Eddie Time before he starts his job hunt, and Eddie pouts about it like the world is coming to an end. Offers to pay for Steve's gas and insurance himself because he really, really enjoys the bubble they've built themselves full of kissing and fucking and talking until six in the morning about nothing and everything and Eddie is only marginally more well-adjusted than Steve is about Love.

"Sure, yeah, my dad throws a fit because I don't get into college, and you think he'll react to 'hey in the same vein, I'm also a raging homo and my drug dealer boyfriend wants me to be his kept man' with anything but violence."

Eddie rants about capitalist greed while Steve gathers applications from shops in the mall, glares at the Sam Goody sign going up and doesn't shut up about how fucking stupid he thinks the mall is the entire drive home, but he changes his tune the first time Steve tries on his uniform. Then immediately rethinks that idea because "Steven, I will pay you to quit right now and keep the uniform, no one else is allowed to see this much thigh on display on the daily, these are my slutty thighs."

Robin nearly quits the first time Scoops has a staff meeting and she finds Steve Harrington lounging in the backroom in the stupid fucking outfit they all have to wear. Begs not to be put on shift with him and then isn't super surprised when she checks the schedule and nearly all of the shifts with Buckley listed have Harrington right next to them, because absolutely fuck her life.

He's kind of a fucking dweeb, if she's being honest, and way less of a flirt than she remembers him being, and every time he strikes out with a pretty girl (because of fucking course she notices exactly how cute they all are) he doesn't actually seem all that put out about it and sort of laughs at her little You Suck marks like there's a joke she's just not in on, which is categorically unfair.

And - he's weird, actually, the more she thinks about it, because sometimes Robin will go on a tangent about a band she's into who just put out a shit album, and Steve will nod along like he knows a thing or two about the band in question (but he can't because this particular bands music is super fucking queer and they're not popular, certainly not in goddamn Hawkins), or she'll start in on one of the popular girls from school once the girl leaves the shop and Steve will tell Robin fucking secrets about all the dumb shit his old crew used to get up to and he'll whisper all the embarrassing stories he has about them like she's a good buddy and he's always secretly wanted to gossip about those dickheads.

And, like, the one thing they do actually have in common is their attraction to girls, not that she's ever telling him that, only - only once, some dude from the jazzercise class came in and Robin is seventy-three percent sure she caught Steve checking out the guys ass when he left, which - no way. Right? He'd just zoned out, or something.

As it turns out she actually kind of enjoys being around Steve, who seems to have a few working braincells beneath all that hair and is surprisingly funny when he's not thinking too hard about it and hangs out with the weirdest people, like - Robin could have tossed the names of the entire population of Hawkins into a bowl and pulled out names at random and still wouldn't have chosen a weirder group of people for The Hair Harrington.

She can't decide if the more inexplicable is the revolving door of children who come to visit him nearly daily and often charm a free cone or a sneak through the backdoor to the theater - or the trio of metalheads here nearly as often. Eddie Munson buys them all cups of ice cream and then they sit in the corner booth menacing terrified suburban moms and hounding Steve until his break and then Steve saunters over with a dopey little grin on his face and argues with Gareth E for five full minutes about something that makes Munson boom in laughter.

And - okay, so Robin is firmly in the closet where she's safe and so is everyone else queer in Hawkins but Munson's never actually denied all the snide comments that get tossed his way and you can't ever assume but like - he doesn't exactly hide the way he ogles Steve Harrington in his stupid uniform and Steve - notices? She thinks he notices. He'd have to be an idiot not to notice, she thinks, but then - well, he's definitely an idiot because sometimes when he gets up at the end of his break Munson shoots a pining look his way and gets an elbow in the ribs from Jeff or Gareth and Robin is actually like a little desperate to know how the hell that particular dynamic was struck up but there's no way she's letting Harrington know he intrigues her.

Eddie learns about the You Rule You Suck board and has a minor freak out about it while pacing a hole into Jeff's bedroom carpet because "He's bi, Jeff, and Buckley's totally his fucking type, they spend literally all day together, Jeff, he's going to leave me for a band nerd, Jeff." and Jeff has to remind Eddie that Steve is ass over tits in love with Eddie and spends every moment not at his literal job either carting around his merry band of kiddos or with Eddie.

Eddie demands secrecy from Jeff about the freakout and Jeff crosses the fingers of one hand behind his back as he runs his fingers over his lips like a zipper, so the moment Eddie leaves, Jeff calls Steve to give him the scoop, and maybe Steve lays it on a little extra thick and does some stupidly romantic shit but it's not like that's far out of his wheelhouse, he romances the fuck out of Eddie whenever he can and Eddie totally knows Jeff spilled his secrets but actually this is sort of okay too.

Eddie picks Henderson up the day he gets back from camp, drives him over to the mall and gets caught by Buckley making cow eyes at Steve when Steve and Henderson get to the lightsaber part of their little handshake.

And. Okay. Sure, Eddie's always kinda figured there was more to the story behind Steve's journey into Being A Better Person but he didn't expect the Russians.

So, when it all goes to hell in a hand basket Eddie's tucked in the backroom of Scoops with the rest of them listening to a Russian recording and handing a coin off to Steve so he can listen to the sound of the Indiana Flyer and -

Fucking. Russians?

And then they're sneaking into a secret base because they got trapped in a secret elevator, and they're sneaking through an underground lab and the Russians are boring a hole into the inside of the world and "Babe, we don't really have time for Twenty Questions when RUSSIANS ARE CHASING US but I promise I'll tell you all about it if I make it outta here alive." and it's the sort of ridiculous bullshit he'd throw into a campaign if the players were really pissing him off so of course, of course they get separated, and Eddie nearly bites Dustin's head off trying to figure out how they're gonna fucking save Steve and Robin.

Steve goads the torture guy into fucking him up so he lays off Robin and Robin is high as shit but like, she knows, okay, she knows what he did for her and that's.

"Have you ever been in love?" Robin asks later, after she's already sort of laid her heart out hoping he won't stomp on it and Steve doesn't hesitate.

"Yep. Nancy Wheeler," and he mimes a gunshot to the heart, makes the sound effect because even though he's found something different and heartstoppingly epic, sometimes that still stings. "And-" but Robin's scoffing and calling Nancy a priss so Steve gets sidetracked from telling Robin he's head over fucking heels for Eddie goddamn Munson. For a second, anyway.

"Are you still in love with Nancy?"

"No."

"Why not?"

Because - because the sun shines out of Eddie Munson's ass and Eddie looks at him like Steve hung the moon and the stars and because somewhere along his journey of self discovery he realized how very much he wanted to love and be loved in return and that Nancy probably was never gonna be the person to share that with him the way he wanted, and damn the world and his parents and his former shitty friends for thinking there's anything wrong with that but also - shit, he likes Robin, thinks she's great, thinks maybe if things were different he'd probably be harboring a terrible fucking crush on her but that doesn't mean she's gonna want to stick around once she finds out he's already planning out the rest of his life with the metalhead she barely tolerates hanging out in the store until closing time three nights a week.

So he tells her about this person he's super into and how weird and cool and so not the type of person he would have gone for in high school they are, and she goes quiet, and he slides under the stall and settles his weight across from her and she's looking at him like she's terrified and - yeah, okay, yep, this fucking sucks. Anyone else who already knows had learned how to not be shitheads about it from Eddie long before Steve had his revelation, or they'd never been the type of people to judge that kind of thing anyway and - and he'd told Gareth that Eddie was worth the hassle and he is but this sucks.

And.

And then she's telling him about how she'd hated him because Tammy Thompson was obsessed with him and - and it takes more time than he's proud of for everything to sort of click in his head but he's got at least a few broken ribs and he's pretty sure that stinging feeling in the side of his skull is gonna amount to another fucking concussion so at least he's got a hookup for good weed - "But Tammy Thompson's a girl," comes out of his mouth anyway and he blinks half a second later because - holy shit. Holy shit.

Because if she - and he - and Steve laughs and calls Tammy Thompson a muppet but then he's laughing harder and pointing to himself and saying "Listen, okay listen, Eddie - Eddie Munson, yeah, I didn't say it earlier because - I didn't mean you, Buckley, I meant Eddie."

And - he'd called Eddie babe and Robin hadn't really noticed it at the time because, like, running away from Russians but - god she's been an idiot because if she'd paid a lick of attention she probably could have put two and two together, like Steve eying the lines on the You Suck board with a secret smile and Steve leaping over the counter like a showoff every time he took his break with Eddie right there across the way, like Eddie leaning across the counter and pressing a finger against the skin and hair on display above the line of Steve's uniform shirt , like Steve blowing off a cute girl to lean across the counter and call Eddie a nerd wasn't the gayest shit imaginable.

And then Eddie and Dustin and Erica are pushing through the bathroom door and Robin is cackling and the comedown from Russian truth drugs is gonna suck but maybe Eddie will smoke them both up if they survive the rest of the night.

---

Eddie doesn't call him out on attempting vehicular manslaughter because he'd seen how fucking long it took Steve to actually recover from the last go 'round with Billy Hargrove, and when the dust settles and they're all sort of reeling because - because Hopper was like a superhero, alright, and they've got an actual superhero in their midst but Hopper-

Eddie and Robin sit across from each other on the end of Steve's bed and Steve drinks his water and tries not to whine too much about the fact that Eddie is taking Robin at her word that they should at least make sure he's not gonna die of a brain bleed before they get him high and then they're laughing about the fact that Eddie was fully fucking convinced Robin was gonna steal Steve out from under his nose and it's - they wake him up once an hour as soon as he starts to nap and Steve's pretty sure they're just gossiping about Steve half the time but he doesn't mind that much.

Because Robin's, like, the best, the best person and the best friend and just the best thing, and she's gonna hate it so much that Steve trusts her because she's going to hear so many truly horrible things about how stupid in love with Eddie Munson Steve is but it's important to Steve that Eddie and Robin give a shit about one another and if they've gotta bond over his ability to injure the shit out of himself any time he's given the chance then he'll nurse his bruised ribs and grin dopily every time Eddie leans over to place a fresh pack of frozen peas on his eye.

---

Robin isn't sure she's ready for anyone else to know and Steve gets that, he totally does, because the few minutes he'd thought she'd judge him for the person he's given his whole heart to were the worst minutes of his life. Gareth clocks her in about two days anyway, keeps it to himself until he can't stand the awkward silences every time Robin and Steve get handsy and they realize it and leap away from one another but it's the same kind of handsy Eddie gets with the band when he's feeling a little lonely and he knows he can trust them to not be total fucking dickheads about it.

"How is it that the only totally hetero one is the only one with a fucking gaydar?" Jeff asks and - okay, so the thing is maybe watching Eddie and Steve fall in love made him realize a few things and he's - well, Hawkins is small and close minded and until Steve he hadn't realized that liking both was a thing you could do.

At the end of the summer Steve arranges a trip up to Indy and Robin has to make up a ridiculous lie to her parents about a camping trip with a few of the band kids because there's zero fucking way they're letting her go up to the city with four fucking dudes but she pulls it off and only has like, two freak outs about being in a club full of women who are also into women.

Babyfaced Gareth is a hit and Jeff definitely maybe makes out with a dude in the alley when he steps out for a cigarette and Steve makes Eddie dance with him until Eddie complains his toes are bleeding and it's actually kind of a perfect night, a perfect trip, a perfect way to end the summer.

Steve and Eddie take turns driving Robin to school in the mornings and Robin couldn't explain to a single soul how they've become the most important people she's ever had in her corner but the thing is she doesn't really have to, because that noise is for people who haven't seen Russians try to jumpstart the apocalypse, haven't been administered torture drugs by horror-movie looking 'doctors', haven't gotten their asses handed to them to protect one another.

By mid November Steve calls a meeting of Gareth and the Gays because Robin's crushing hard on a redhead from band and as previously established only one of them has a working gaydar. Gareth takes all of thirty seconds watching Robin and Vickie interact before he's giving her a thumbs up from across the gym.

---

Gareth fucking hates how catchy Gareth and the Gays is.

[andi-dromeda]

This is art for my New All Caste au. Basically, Jason wants to rebuild the all caste in order to keep the culture alive and also to have more people who can fight the untitled. Since Essence is busy sharing a body with Isabel, Jason decides he’ll do it on his own. He was the only human to be able to learn how to wield the all blades and the all blades are connected to his soul so he uses some random magic item to find people with souls like his. The two people he finds first are Tara and Grant. So now he has to redeem them according to all caste standards so murder is fine but other than that Jason’s got his work cut out for him.

In this au, they did all die at some point but stayed dead long enough for all of them to have ended up roughly the same age. Originally when Jason was 13, Tara was 15 and Grant was 20 but now they’re all roughly twenty. I keep saying ‘roughly’ because Jason was in a coma and unresponsive for a bit so if you ignored that year then he’d probably be more like nineteen.

Also, since I don’t think I’d be able to handle the whole cannon Tara and Slade situation with the gravity it requires and since I just prefer them to have a slightly messed up mentor mentor dynamic, Slade never groomed Tara. Or at least not that kind of grooming. He still probably wasn’t the best to her but nothing romantic or sexual ever happened. He treated her and saw her just like the rest of his kids so whilst she’d still have issues because of him, it won’t be those kind of issues.

Once Grant came back to life he decided not to reconnect with his family because whilst he did miss Joey, this was his chance to have a life completely separate from his parents and he wasn’t going to pass that up. Mostly he just hung out with his old pall Jade and did jobs with her until Jason showed up.

Jason met Tara first and when he gave her his sales pitch she was living with Slade, Tanya, Rose and Poppy. She’d just gotten into a fight with Slade and took up Jason’s offer because he promised health insurance, dental, free food, living in the Chamber of All where no one but Jason and S’ara could get to, and getting magic swords by the end of it which she could brag about to Rose sounded like a pretty good deal. However, after her many bad experiences she isn’t exactly the most trusting person so gave him a fake name - Rocky. (I know it’s silly but if she used Terra as an alias, Rocky isn’t completely out of the question.)

When he gave the pitch to Grant, Grant said he’d go if he got payed and after being Red Hood for a while Jason had gotten a lot of money he mostly just spent on reinvesting in Gotham but still had more than he knew what to do with. He figured rebuilding the all caste was a good enough goal to spend money on so agreed and Grant joined the team.

From there they take a while to get along with each other. They take even longer to figure out who everyone is. Grant never heard of Tara and Jason only heard bits and pieces from Dick when he’d visit but Dick never talked a lot about her because either she’d already betrayed them or was just a plain headache to deal with. Grant died before Jason became Robin so would only know him as the Red hood guy whose friends with Jade’s ex and Tara would have probably only heard about Jason through Rose. Granted she wasn’t paying that much attention. Whilst they all vaguely know the others are capes too, no one actually bothered to mention their identities so it takes Tara inviting them to a family dinner for them to all figure out who the others are.

Also random things:

Terra loves to wind Grant up because he reacts more than Jason. Jason and Grant are the first to start getting along and bond over their shared interests like swords, hating Dick Grayson and some niche metal band no one else has ever heard of. Whilst Jason teaches them to meditate, Tara likes to move rocks until someone else notices. One time she made the ground she was sitting on hover up to ten feet in the air until Grant noticed (if you ask him, he’ll say he realised she was gone because it was too peaceful).

@autisticrosewilson

[cherrylng]

ROCK'N'ROLL PREVIEW 2008! - Yannis Philippakis Interview - FOALS [ROCKIN'ON (May 2008)]

FOALS New horizons of art-rock pioneered by rising stars Foals. Interview: Yukiko Kojima

Foals are the 'most eagerly awaited' newcomers in the UK in the first half of 2004, alongside Cajun Dance Party. We wrote in last month's issue that their album 'Antidotes' has an atypical beauty and a novel beat that doesn't belong to any of the current UK/US scene's formulas, but Yannis, the central figure who embodies their sound world as it is, is a bohemian from a different culture who deviates from all common sense more than we expected. He grew up listening to his father's Byzantine folk songs in a village in the mountains of Greece until the age of seven, and at eight he moved to England with his anthropologist mother to attend a school full of middle-class kids. While receiving a traditional British education for gifted children, which was proud and rigid, he fell deeply in love with American hip-hop and suddenly transformed into a rebellious child. At the age of 12, he learnt to smoke, got a piercing, learnt to play guitar at around 14 or 15, became obsessed with US alternative, and spent his time playing live with his childhood friend Jack (drums) in a local mass-rock band that played a lot of noise. They later formed Foals and introduced dance beats and melodies because "we didn't know anything about dance music, so what would it be like if we made dance music?" was the reason. Normally, it would be impossible for a boy like this to get into the prestigious Oxford University in one shot! But he made light work of it, dropping out after just one year to concentrate on his work in Foals. Their subsequent popularity in the UK and US is well known. What a punk! It's the best.

The recording of this album was already finished in New York last summer. Why did it take so long between then and its release? 「Mainly because of the mixing process. When we recorded it in New York, everything sounded the way we wanted it to, but when we got back to the UK and heard the final mix, it didn't sound quite how we wanted it to. So we had to go back to the drawing board and re-mix all the songs ourselves.」

Up until now, David Sitek has been a producer who has mainly worked with US acts such as Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Was it your own choice to select someone with such a creative background? 「Yeah, we wanted to avoid a producer who was steeped in the so-called 'UK indie sound', so we turned to him, but he did the mixing on his own after we returned to the UK. The final mix was a lot more gung-ho with echoes and reverbs than we had expected…… On a human level, he and I were on the same wavelength, and the basic recording itself went well. But at the mixing stage, the essential view of the album was definitely different from what we both had, I guess.」

I have to confess that my first impression when I personally listened to the album was: "What a strange sound/album!" But around the third time I was gradually drawn in, and now I'm completely addicted (laughs). Every day your strange instrumental sounds and songs are going round and round in my head. 「(laughs). You're exactly where we want you to be.」

Yeah (laughs). First and foremost, the tone of the guitar itself has changed. Some songs sound more like mandolin or ukulele than guitar, and the beat pattern is an original mix of Afro, reggae, and rock beats, with many unusual instruments taking the lead. It's also a complete departure from the usual 'verse, bridge, chorus' formula/stereotype of a guitar band. For yourself, how would you describe Foals' music? 「For me personally, what we're doing now is ultimately pop music. I can understand why listeners who are used to listening to regular guitar bands might find this kind of music 'weird' when they hear it for the first time. But how would you categorise music like The Police, Talking Heads or P.I.L., for example, under the usual pop/rock yardstick? There are too many elements mixed in to be categorised as post-punk or new wave, and they are moving into new genres one after the other, so it's impossible to put them into any one genre. My motivation for starting this band was to create accessible pop music in a way that wasn't bound by any stereotypes. So we don't intend to create avant-garde music that is more noble than others.」

I see. So, for your part, are you aware that you are a "guitar band with elements of techno and dance"? Or, conversely, are you aware that you are a "dance band with elements of a guitar band"? 「At least at the moment, up to the point of this debut album, I'd say it's more the former. But the next album might be an album with no guitars at all, or with an emphasis on Mongolian drums. The reason why we introduced dance elements in the first place is because all of us have been doing music that has nothing to do with the so-called dance scene, so we wondered what we would get if we made dance music, what kind of thing would we create? That's how it all started. So for Foals, it's not so much about the predictable direction, but more about what kind of musical adventures the five of us might have together next.」

You grew up with a mother who was an anthropologist living in Oxford, but despite that academic upbringing, why did you decide to be in a band in the first place? 「I grew up in a village in the mountains of Greece, my father's hometown, until I was about seven years old. In Olympos, where the Greek language is still spoken in an archaic dialect, there are many arranged marriages, and the old tradition that all the villagers are either acquaintances or relatives continues. My father still makes folk instruments there. So when I was a child, I grew up listening to Byzantine folk songs that my father used to sing at the dinner table. Then, when I was about eight years old, I came back to Oxford with my mum and was suddenly sent to a school full of middle-class English people. So it wasn't until after that that I came into contact with so-called Anglo-American pop music. At first I started to gravitate towards American hip-hop, like Wu-Tang Clan and Naughty By Nature, and I learnt to smoke at the age of 12 and became a problem child at school. I often skipped classes, hung around downtown, got piercings and beat up my posh classmates, and my mum was called out for it (laughs).」

(laughs). So it was during your rebellious period, when you went from a simple country boy to a delinquent, that you encountered pop music. But despite being a delinquent, you were smart enough to get into the prestigious Oxford University's English Literature Department in a single shot. What kind of bands/artists drove you to music, even after dropping out of such an elite course after just one year? 「After hip-hop, I started going deeper into bands like Skinny Puppy, Butthole Surfers, Swans, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and maybe early Nirvana. It was around that time that I started getting interested in playing guitar and started playing shows with Jack (drums) in local bands.」

I remember that in the band you and Jack used to be in, Edmund Fitzgerald, you played guitar rather than vocals. 「Yeah, the Oxford scene at the time was full of so-called 'Math Rock' bands, which were experimental bands for the sake of experimentation, and we then formed Foals and started playing guitar. When we started writing songs with vocal melodies and choruses, we started getting shut out of the scene because people were like, "You're messing with low-class pop music". After that, I got out of the local scene and even moved to Brighton with the band for a while.」

Is "Mathletics" perhaps a sarcastic reference to the math rock that was prevalent in the Oxford scene at the time? 「(laughs). Maybe. It's a song about the ridiculous snobbism of the youth culture, represented by rock bands and the like, when they take themselves too seriously.」

Now let's talk about the specific songs on the album. "The French Open", which opens the album, refers to the famous tennis tournament? 「Yes, specifically the song was inspired by Andy Roddick (US professional tennis player). He's so good, but he always ends up second best in the most important matches, doesn't he? He lost the Wimbledon title to Roger Federer two years in a row. This is a song about losers. I don't know why I'm attracted to imperfect people and expressions like that that are somehow unfulfilled.」

What I found interesting about your lyrics was that for someone who used to study English literature at a top university, you didn't have an overtly 'literary' style. Is this intentional? 「Yes, because it's quite funny to see someone in a pop band pretending to be a literary person. I still like literature myself, but I don't want to bring that kind of pretentious style into pop music. So I personally try to concentrate on the visual imagery and describe it rather than the emotion of the song itself. I didn't put this band together to write about my daily grumblings about how I broke up with my girlfriend or how I'm having these problems.」

What kind of writers/poets fit your sensibilities, incidentally? 「I still like Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams.」

You like the poets of the so-called early 20th century US modernist and imagist school. And more to the point, I recently saw the music video for 'Cassius' on your MySpace, and once again I held my head in my hands and groaned (laughs). What does that bizarre visual image of a mass of meat hanging from the ceiling, swinging around, symbolise? 「That lump of meat is the heart of a cow.」

I understand that, but I wonder how that image is connected to the song 'Cassius'? 「You know that phrase in the lyrics, "The wind is in, the wind is in my heart"? That's the image that came to me. 」

Ah, so that's why your heart is swinging in the wind. I'm starting to get a feel for it. Foals' songs often feature 'mysterious' motifs that rarely appear in ordinary pop songs, and the rhythms and song structures themselves are 'non-traditional', not unlike those of ordinary rock bands. In such circumstances, surprisingly beautiful, so to speak, "melodies and phrases rooted in traditional pop" can appear unexpectedly in unexpected places. Especially "Olympic Airways", "Tron" and "Red Socks Pugie". Where does this unexpected 'pop sensibility' come from? 「It probably comes from our non-techno side, where we like a more melody-oriented type of music too. I personally like Gwen Stefani, Nelly Furtado and Justin Timberlake, and I still listen to them a lot, and all of us like bubblegum pop with clean choruses and hook lines. It's that kind of thing that made us decide to disassociate ourselves from the local math rock scene, which rejects all of those elements, in the first place.」

You yourself commented earlier that the local Oxford music scene is "full of experimental bands for the sake of experimentation", but what you are trying to do with Foals is to be an antidote to this "elitist consciousness of the British indie tradition" and "to be an experimental band that is also popular"? 「Yes. I think it's fair to say that this kind of anti-climatic attitude towards the soil and trends that used to shape our musicality was one of our creative motivations. I think that's probably why our music still has a certain strangeness and complexity that is outside the usual pop song formula. There are still remnants of the way we used to form our band in that kind of soil. We really want to shake it off, but we can't because we're like the creators of it, and that's exactly what you're talking about, the "snobbism/elitism of the English indie tradition". Oxford, in every sense of the word, is a place where that kind of old traditional British temperament and culture is still there in an obvious way. It was the perfect target for rebellion.」

So, when you titled your debut album Antidotes, was it also meant as an antidote to all the 'bad traditions' that are prevalent in the UK and the national scene? 「Hmmm…………… I personally think the title is more about 'healing' in a broader sense.」

'Healing'? 「Yes, it's more like self-healing. One of the purposes of this album was to create a place and a sound world where people can heal and eliminate the toxins that have become distorted or deviated from their true selves as a result of living in this real world. How does it sound to the listener? How would the listener hear or perceive it? We can't even imagine how it will sound or be perceived by the listener.」

Translator's Note: In my previous post, when I said that there's more that this particular issue of ROCKIN'ON (May 2008) has in its pages, this is one of them.

I've never listened to Foals before, but I translated this interview article because I know one or two of my mutuals who love Foals a lot and show their love of it on my dashboard, so I decided to scan and translate this so that they'll enjoy something that comes from Foals' debut album era. So if you see this, please enjoy it :)

[lulu-recs]

never have I ever written a love letter by wannnabesuper

during a drinking game, remus lets slip that he's written a love letter. sirius (and an increasingly large group of friends) won't rest until they get to the bottom of this!

confessional spaces by thatfilmgraduate

sirius black is trapped in an enclosed space with his best friend and fellow marauder, remus lupin, and some interesting truths come to light.

or: sirius black asks a lot of questions and remus lupin is a moody fucker.

the light that blinds my eyes by aryastark_valarmorghulis

sirius is in love. remus is too, he just doesn't know it yet.

in which sirius is demi and pines a lot, remus is oblivious, and they should move together as soon as possible.

possibly a date by anonymous

basically sirius asks remus to dinner, but remus doesn't realize it's a date.

it's me or the dog by ruarcher (coriesocks)

sirius didn’t realise how much he relied upon his best friend (and took him for granted) until he was replaced. with a dog.

come in from the cold by goodboylupin (somebetterwords)

the first Hogsmeade weekend of sixth year. alternatively: in which sirius frets and works to keep remus warm, james argues it’s not that cold, remus wishes the cold brought something more, and peter just wishes everyone would get their heads out of their asses.

solntse by lumosinlove

sirius, a young russian billionaire hires remus, who is working part time as a call boy to make ends meet. things happen, feelings occur.

that’s the art of getting by by sarewolf ♡

“what do you want me to do?” remus says, tiredly. all he wants is to curl up on his bed. smoke a pack of cigarettes. get drunk. he can’t stop looking at harry. “remus...” dumbledore is gentle. remus hates when he has that tone. hates that he knows it will hurt. “there is no one else left.” a bitter laugh escapes him. “so you’ll curse the poor thing with a werewolf for a guardian?”

lonely dancers by anonymous

remus didn't want to go out in the first place, and now lily's gone and his crush is kissing someone else. Nothing can save this from being the worst nightout ever. except maybe another person, who's also by himself... coincidentally

wading in waist-high water by colgatebluemintygel ♡

remus is a phd student and hobbyist baker who finds himself adrift following his father’s death. on a whim, he enters the great british bake off and is swept up in a flurry of curdled custard, shrunken souffle, and under-proved dough. remus expects to be challenged and to embarrass himself on public television. what he doesn’t account for are the friendships he develops with the other contestants and the deep connection he forms with his teenage crush, sirius black: charming ex-boy band member and bake off presenter.

or

sirius groans, dropping his head back into his hands. “it’s the dough,” he mumbles into the skin of his palms. “it’s the kneading. it’s his hands. they’re obscene.” lily laughs. “they are a bit, aren’t they?”

customers only by orphan_account ♡

"dragging her eyes back to sirius, the hostess pointed a perfectly manicured nail to the sign on the podium that read: restroom for customers only." a charming stranger saves sirius black from a sticky situation when little harry's on the verge of wetting himself.

just like the movies by venusjewels

standing off to the side of the red carpet, sirius wasn’t nervous at all. he had a flask of vodka and blind confidence, what more did he need?

sirius is a reluctant red carpet interviewer for the 2023 awards season.

remus is a charming movie star that just so happens to attend a lot of awards shows.

the best by far is you by orphan_account

padfoot and moony meet over mutual follows on tumblr. remus, the blind student, hires sirius, the fallen aristocrat, to be a reader for his classes. they fall in love in separate ways, and fall apart. then fall together. their love is almost as ridiculous as they are.

my jokes are my armour, my kindness is my sword by littleoldrachel ♡

“my mum died last year,” sirius says at last, perhaps more bluntly than he intended – perhaps not given the defiant set of his chin. “and we don’t have a gravestone yet, till the ground settles or whatever, so I want something I can put there to represent her and how toxic she was.” remus blinks. whatever he had expected sirius to say, it hadn’t been that. he had inferred that he and regulus had a complicated relationship with their blood family, but this was a wholly unexpected turn. unfortunately, instead of the empathic response he knows is in there somewhere, what comes out is: “yes, that sounds like a perfectly healthy response to grief.”

you and me, moony by amethystheart2421

prompt 85: ambiguous loyalties during the first war. they’re both using each other to get a piece of sirius they can’t have. au in which remus was in ravenclaw and only became friends with sirius in later years at hogwarts. remus is staying at sirius's flat resting after a full moon when his old boyfriend shows up... his old boyfriend, who happens to be sirius's little brother, and a death eater.

hot library hunk by thefeistyrogue

sirius and james fight over who gets to serve the hot library hunk that comes into their cafe.

to say goodbye is not forever by greywolfandmoon

when remus lupin falls in love, he lets go. when he lets go, he writes. he stores all his letters in a shoebox underneath his bed. one day, to his horror, all his letters are magically sent out ...and James has an idea. inspired by to all the boys I've loved before by jenny han. no prior knowledge needed.

by any other name by under_the_willow ♡

it was chance that brought sirius to moony's new and used books on one cold winter's morning - chance, and james potter. he couldn't tell if it was destiny that put remus lupin behind the front desk.

destiny or not, sirius finds himself visiting the quaint bookstore more and more, until he can't imagine going a day without dropping by to talk to remus, and share a cup of tea.

he finds himself captivated by the amber-eyed man - who seems to have even more secrets than sirius himself. secrets that show themselves in mysterious scars and an unnamed illness, and mingle with the one sirius keeps tucked away in his pocket, in the shape of a wooden wand.

but secrets don't like being shoved to the side, and it's only a matter of time before the truth makes itself known.

scent of summer snow by tracingpatterns

remus had spent seven years watching james potter and sirius black. it was impossible not to the get drawn in by their magnetism, impossible not to watch them when they were together, impossible not to be affected by the way the whole world seemed to centre around them. it wasn't that he was jealous, exactly, but when he lay awake in bed listening to the two of them whisper, unaware that he was still awake, he couldn't help but wonder what it would feel like to be a part of that.

love by the seaside by viwrites

remus is an artist who, after a particularly messy breakup, finds himself drawn to the cornish coast. his fresh start is disrupted, however, when he meets someone who reminds him an awful lot of his ex-boyfriend.

under the glow of neon lights by viwrites

james swallows the last of his drink and takes an ice cube in his mouth, rolling it on his tongue and then cracking it between his molars. regulus wants to chase it down his throat – remus leans in close and does just that.

he can’t quite make it out from here, but he knows what it feels like. remus’ fingers digging half-moon marks into the soft flesh of james’ cheeks, holding him there and groaning into his mouth, the tangle of tongues – one ice cold and one blazing fucking hot.

regulus bites down hard on his lip and mumbles something that sounds like “sorry, I have to go.”

as it was by peachyybabe ♡

"you know it's not the same as it was" a story about falling in love with a stranger in a bookstore and learning how to live again.

best gift ever by spookeart ♡

“the sensation of his lover’s hands creeping under his clothes while he’s not even there and regulus is in a room full of people is exhilarating. regulus’ lips part in a silent cry, uncaring when drool leaks out of his mouth and drips on his lap. he can’t even make sense of the pleasure coursing through him that’s not his —and yet is his.”

or, james is devilish, so when he offers matching rings for regulus and him to wear, telling him they’re enchanted to connect their bodies so they can feel what the other feel, regulus expects nothing less from him than to use it at the least appropriate moment. and james doesn’t disappoint.

the thing by realityshowjunky

sirius continued: “I thought this little guy could keep you company while I’m at work.” remus laughed as the puppy planted lick upon lick across his face. “I love you,” he said.

sirius’ felt his own breath hitch. “I lo—”

“I love you,” remus repeated to the puppy, in a high-pitched voice sirius had never heard come out of his mouth. “I love you, I love you, I love you!”

-

in which Sirius buys Remus a puppy and immediately regrets it.

how remus got his groove back by realityshowjunky ♡

after two years of noncommittal sex : remus tells sirius that he loves him. sirius firmly rejects him. remus tries to move on. sirius is not happy.

or

remus lupin becomes king of the cockroaches, fabian prewett writes a book, gilderoy lockhart is a catfish, and sirius black realizes he's a fucking idiot.

our destiny in the stars by orphan_account ♡

having no luck in the dating field, and insecure about his body, remus checks out a dating website which offers the users the opportunity to get to know a person before seeing what they look like. it's during this time he meets sirius, an enthusiastic teacher--and they immediately click. when they agree to meet, remus sees a photo of sirius and immediately panics. he's too good looking to ever be interested in someone like remus. what the tawny-haired man doesn't know, is sirius has already checked him out online and has fallen head over heels for the adorable editor.

fiery-coloured world by orphan_account

and though remus had a thick jumper and coat, they were still soaked and frozen as they ran across the pavement, laughing with their cold fingers clinging to each other like it was noah’s bloody flood and they were about to be swept away.

then someone—sirius was never sure who, though he often liked to take credit for it—closed the distance and lips met lips. and that was all it took, really. besotted. smitten. twitterpated—the word remus liked most of all.

sirius knew it would be minutes, moments, seconds before his heart told him he was in love and there was no going back from the emotional tidal wave that was remus bloody lupin.

in daylight by essie_cat

after twelve years in azkaban and two years on the run, sirius finally has the chance to settle down. remus does whatever he can to encourage that.

(or, instead of being bitter and depressed at grimmauld place, sirius gets chubby and domestic and grudgingly happy.)

hot child in the city by shes_reckless

sex worker/motel manager au. remus lupin is a motel manager who works the graveyard shift at a motel notoriously frequented by sex workers. sirius black is a regular.

the boy in the bordello by yumenouveau

regency era - london- sirius has spent the last five years starting a new life for himself as a brothel worker until late one night a stranger enters his room wanting only to talk.

the truth in the dare by marie_tomas ♡

remus has no idea why the gryffindors always dare sirius to snog him every time james, peter and sirius play truth or dare. yet for some reason, he can't bring himself to complain about it.

a dance move too complex by dark_owl_records

“he’s trying to find me a girlfriend,” remus admits.

lily immediately snorts at the prospect, but then, when turning to say something, she sees his face. what he looks like he can’t be sure, but it’s bad enough that she stops herself and says, “no, you're serious? He’s really… wow, boys are stupid.”

“lily.”

“right, no, sorry. just. why does he-?”

“it’s a long story.”

shaking things up by noisemakers

bartender!au. in an irritatingly thoughtful plot by serial matchmakers james potter and lily evans, remus lupin winds up at a gay bar in the middle of London. it just so happens that the bartender is a friend of james', and he's taken a special interest in remus.

swipe left for safety by remy_writes5 ♡

his finger hesitated over a picture of someone who absolutely couldn’t be real. he had long, dark hair that fell well past his shoulders and grey eyes that remus thought must have been either contact lenses or photoshopped. high cheekbones and sinful lips the man looked like a model. remus was not about to get catfished by a picture that was probably of someone famous that he just didn’t recognize. besides, what kind of a name was sirius anyway? it was obviously fake.

he swiped left. not today, satan.

“hard pass on that guy, huh?” someone said from above remus. “ouch.”

turn on my charm by bethanlovescoffee ♡

sirius black is a youtube phenomenon. a youtube phenomenon who develops a crush on his video editor.

discards by picascribit ♡

when assistant librarian sirius black develops a crush on a college student at the seattle public library, all he wants to know is whether he's cool about dating trans guys. but remus's life is more complicated than sirius ever could have guessed.

we will fill the cracks together by newskyillusion

remus works in a library and at his parents pub in a small, welsh town.

sirius black is doing his phd on werewolves and comes to a small, welsh town to do some research.

the bark's not always worse by sableunstable

sometimes, the bite's just as bad.

forever by orphan_account

sirius black--coda, outcast, family disappointment, and fairly famous youtuber who runs a sign language channel siriuslysigns with his best mate, james.

remus lupin-- vegan hipster who dropped out of university and lives with his best mate peter, and together run howlingmoon's diy, barmy science experiments, and ukulele tutorials channel.

when sirius becomes enamoured with moony's singing, he dedicates a sign tutorial in hopes he'll be noticed. this leads to exchanging of shout-outs and videos, and what sirius hopes, is a little something more.

[ourshadowstallerthanoursoul]

An audience with... John Paul Jones

(from Uncut, April 2010 - link)

You’re stuck on a deserted island, you have one instrument you can bring. It is: a) piano, b) bass or c) mandolin? (Gary Attersley, Ontario, Canada)

Oh… that’s horrible! I’ll probably get Hugh Manson – the guy who builds all my bass guitars – to build me some monstrous instrument that encapsulated all three! Hugh and his brother Andy Manson once actually designed me a triple-necked guitar with 12-string guitar, six-string guitar and mandolin on it! Andy also designed a triple-necked mandolin. But I guess if it really came down to it on a desert island, it would have to be the piano, because you can do so much on it. You’re a whole band. The bass is not much fun on your own.

John, it’s so good to see you so engaged with today. Any advice for old farts who can’t move on? (Andrew Loog Oldham)

Who are you calling an old fart? I dunno, Andy, you tell me! Ha ha. He’s done a good job of staying up to date. Andrew, of course, gave me the name John Paul Jones. I was John Baldwin, until Andrew saw a poster for the French film version of John Paul Jones. I thought it ’d look great in CinemaScope, as I wanted to do music for films. I imagined it saying “Music By John Paul Jones”, over the whole screen. I never realised then that he was the Horatio Nelson of America!

I know that you’ve been getting heavily into bluegrass lately – who are some of your favourite bluegrass artists of all time? (Ryan Godek, Wilmington, Delaware)

Apart from Bill Monroe, you mean? Oh, there’s loads. I’m friends with the Del McCoury band, I love that style of classic bluegrass. I love Sam Bush’s Newgrass stuff. And of course there’s Nickel Creek, Chris Feely, Mike Marshall. I love it all, really. One thing I like about bluegrass is that you don’t require amplifiers, drums and trucks. You can pull an instrument out of a box and get on with some instant music making. I carry a mandolin around wherever I go. I also like the fact bluegrass musicians play more than one instrument. There’s a tradition of them swapping instruments. In bluegrass bands I swap between double bass, fiddle and banjo.

One Butthole Surfers anecdote, please? (Dave Grohl)

Ha! I was brought in to produce the Butthole Surfers’ 1993 album, Independent Worm Saloon. I guess it was to give it a heavy rock vibe, but it didn’t work like that. They were actually incredibly hard-working in the studio, but I do recall running up a phenomenal bar-bill at the San Rafael studio. And then there was Gibby [Haynes, Butthole Surfers’ frontman] and his… eccentric studio behaviour. Gibby did one vocal take shouting into his guitar. He held it out in front of his face and screamed at it. Ha! He was trying to find out if it picked up through the pick-ups, which it kind of did. And that was pretty good.

How’s the violin coming along? (Sean, Berkshire)

I started about three years ago. With the guitar, or the piano, you can sound OK quite quickly. With the violin, it takes much longer. Once you get past the first six months of scraping, of muttering to yourself, “What is this fucking horrible noise on my shoulder?” you get the odd musical bit, and you think, ‘Oh, this is starting to get good.’ And you continue with it for a while. I’m getting into country fiddle playing, Celtic folk songs, a bit of swing. Basic stuff, but very satisfying.

Why not record a second ‘Automatic For The People’ with REM? (Franz Greul, Austria)

They haven’t asked me! But doing the string arrangements for that album was a great experience, actually. They sent me the demos of their songs, and we went into a studio in Atlanta, with members of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. They were great songs, something you can really get your teeth into as an arranger. And I’ve been good friends with them ever since.

How did you first meet Josh Homme? And is he still a notorious party monster? (Rob Hirst, Kippax, Leeds)

Well, I think we’ve all calmed down rather a lot. Dave introduced me to Josh at his 40th birthday party. It was a ridiculous themed place where they have jousting with knights. As Dave said, it was like somewhere you’d have your 14th birthday party. Or maybe even your 4th. Anyway, Dave sat Josh and I together for a blind date. Which was reasonably embarrassing for both of us, surrounded by people going “prithee this” and challenging each other to duels. But we survived the trauma and went into the studio the next day, and just started jamming. And I knew immediately it was going to be something special.

If Them Crooked Vultures had Spice Girls-like nicknames what would they be? (Paul Jones, Liverpool)

Dave would be Smiley Vulture. He can’t stop grinning. Josh would be Slinky Vulture. He’s a slinky kinda guy. And I’d be Speedy, I guess. Or Jumpy. So there you go. Smiley, Slinky and Speedy. Or does that sound more like the dwarfs?

I remember you being a pretty funky bass genius back in the day! What memories do you have of those sessions? (Donovan)

The sessions with Don and Mickie Most were great, because we were given a free hand. I usually got leeway, because I was the sort of Motown/Stax specialist, so producers in the mid ’60s would get me in for cover versions of American records, and none of them could write bass parts convincingly enough, so I was London’s answer to James Jamerson, I guess! And I was certainly encouraged to get kinda… funky when I worked with Donovan.

How did it feel to see Jimmy Page and Robert Plant venture off in their own project in the ‘90s without mentioning a word of it to you? (Danny Luscombe, Hull)

Oh yeah, I was pissed off about it. The surprise was in not being told. It’s ancient history now, but it was a bit annoying to find out about it while reading the papers. It came just after Robert and I had been discussing the idea of doing an Unplugged project. Then I’m on tour in Germany with Diamanda Galás, I turn on the TV and see Robert and Jimmy doing it, with someone else playing all my parts! I was pissed off at the time. You would be, woudn’t you? But… it’s all in the past, isn’t it?

Did you listen to much work by Josh Homme or Dave Grohl before you were contacted in relation to joining Them Crooked Vultures, and if so, how did you honestly rate it? (Ralph Ryan, Lisronagh, County Tipperary)

I did like the Foo Fighters and Queens Of The Stone Age, before I’d met either of them. There’s a tendency for people – especially musicians from my generation – to say that there has been this terrible decline in musicianship, that today’s bands haven’t got the chops, blah blah blah. But that’s not true at all. There’s always some people for whom technique on an instrument isn’t necessary. They can get their ideas across without being able to have the chops. But Josh really does have the chops, he just doesn’t feel the need to flash them about all the time. In fact, there were a few riffs he gave me that I had to simplify, because they were bloody difficult to play. I really had to work at it, where he could just flick it off. He is an astonishing musician.

Were you serious when you told Peter Grant that you wanted to jack it in to become choirmaster at Winchester Cathedral? (Brian Fisher, Manchester)

Ha! That was a tongue-in-cheek joke, although I was serious about leaving Led Zeppelin in 1973 unless things changed. But Peter did sort things out pretty quickly. What kind of choirmaster would I have made? A bloody good one! Listen, any way that they’ll pay you for making music is just the best situation in the world. I’d do it for nothing. I don’t care what music it is. I just love it all. The rubbing of notes together. I love it all. I would be very passionate about whatever I decided to do.

What was the worst session you ever did as a jobbing session player? (Adam Burns, Castleford, West Yorkshire)

I generally have fun memories of that time. I’d criss-cross London playing two or three sessions a day, going between Trident and Olympic and Abbey Road and Philips in Marble Arch, you know. You’d be backing Shirley Bassey, Cat Stevens, Lulu, whoever was paying you. The worst experience was a Muzak session. With Muzak sessions, the music was deliberately boring. I distinctly remember one session where I embellished the bass part a little bit, just so that it wasn’t so boring for me to play. They said, “No, you can’t do that. Any interest in the music will distract people’s attention from when they’re meant to be eating.” Or standing in a fucking lift. For fuck’s sake! So I was like, “OK, thanks, bye!”

[ronsenthal]

Part five and final of Jess Reads Fierce Valor as we reached his post WWII military career, his retirement and last years of his life

Notes: Please read the book and take your own conclusions if you can, this is my view and my own clonclusion from my experience reading it

okay now really not much happens, he got married for a second time, stayed in the army, got divorced again

he came to the veterans reunion in 1947 and then never showed up again until some 50 years later

he made his final combat jumps in Korea, he had like 4 which was like a LOT

btw do you guys remember Albert Blithe from the series right? Right! the guy lived after recovering from his wounds and actually served in the 187th Infantry Regiment, guess who was the company commander? thats right! our very own bald man

ok so he worked and had time studied Russian and became the governor os Spandau, at this time there was already some cold war shit going on

speaking of shit, his german was shitty (so is mine!!!) so he couldn't quite undestand the prisioners but played chess with one of them??

Ah yes got married and divorced again

trained and organized some stuff for the the Royal Lao Army and some more army duty??? but nothing interesting is said really

he was then Lieutenant Colonel and worked with the Pentagon, it says that his army duty came to an end in 1964 but his name came up in army records in 1965 at a special division, so he had some function? was he a spy? we will never know for sure

okay now he is retired, married again (the man was a machine), had some health related problems and had to do some heart surgeries, like 5 of them or even more

at this point he was really introspective over his life, then the Ambrose book came and old man was PISSED because guess what??? Ambrose didn't even bothered to actual fact check his book and Speirs felt that he did dirty to his first ex-wife and even to himself

Dick became his biggest advocate and tried so many times to reunited him to the last members of Easy but he couldn't, he even begged Speirs but remember he is a Taurus so he said no again and again

toward his late years and after the release of the book he was afraid some n30-naz1s would come after him for some kind of vengeance so he asked for his name adress and personal info to be removed so Dick was the only one who knew hot to contact him

then there was the reunion for the screening of Band of Brothers and he finally showed up after his last wife made him show up and it was really emotional, Matthew Settle just watched the real Speirs and Dick watching the first ep and then Matthew showed up on his door and asked him to sing his cast, cause he got hurt his feet somehow

oh right forgot to mention that he loved his poodles, he was really into square dance (I don't know what the hell this is don't ask me), had some weird hobbies like pan for gold on rivers??? also normal ones like playing golf and he was also a nice elderly to his grand-sons and great-grand-sons, nephews, nieces and stuff

he had really bad PTSD specially while sleeping ans even after being retired he couldn't relax while sleeping and always eat his food fast.

he wouldn't let people kill spiders, like black widow spiders because of the William Wallace story and because he served in a company that the symbol and nickname was one

also he didn't talked about his army life like AT ALL, he said it was harder for him to remember things since he spent great part of his life om the army while the other guys served like with one company and that was it, for me it's clear it was bullshit he was so hard on himself and self critical on the basic stuff he didn't so one can only imagine how he dealt with the heavy stuff

his final years he was losing his strength, already loss great part of his hearing and was so ashamed of it and was really frustrated and miserable

after his death this one person of his family took his ashes and spread somewhere in a beautiful lake near the Canadian border where he rests today, quite emotional really

Okay so overall this was such a great reading, it's really a testament to how complex, mysterious and sometimes twisted his character really was.

I loved how the authors didn't pushed any agenda or narratives, I feel like they did a good job because they didn't tried to justify any of his actions, they just wanted to bring as many facts to the table as they could so we, as readers, could come up with our own conclusions

Mine is: He was crazy indeed, he did some questionable stuff and it took it's toll on him during and after the war, but also really cared for the man on his side, he sure could be cruel, flawed, cold blooded, impetuous and a true killer, but at the same time protective, respectful, really smart and incredible skilled as a leader, so much that everyone respected him for it, some loved the man dearly, some despised and that it was what truly amazed me by

A big thank you to everyone who followed my dumb takes during this reading, it was really fun to do!!!

taglist: @mads-weasley, @mutantmanifesto, @love--persevering, @gorgeousundertow, @grumpy-liebgott, @wexhappyxfew, @latibvles, @1waveshortofashipwreck and @executethyself35

[tsuchinokoroyale]

I’d love to hear more about your thoughts on JJK. Admittedly, I’m not well versed in shonen, so I never even considered that it was trying to subvert the genre.

P.S. Thank you for the consistently thoughtful takes and hot ass 😘

Ooooo boy I hope you’re ready for a whole ass essay 😎😎😎

Shonen as a genre has changed over time as any art form does, but it is still mired in tropes that can be traced back to the classics. The shonen genre is thus named bc its target demographic is boys to young men, for our discussion we’ll say teenage boys. While it obviously has big appeal for other demographics, it is mainly designed to both appeal AND communicate life lessons to that crowd of impressionable kids.

Because of this dual function you get this really odd genre full of super powerful special boys who love their friends but have no qualms about slaughtering their enemies. They typically espouse lessons about the merits of hard work, sticking to your beliefs ((so long as your beliefs are beneficial to society at large)), of goodness and friendship triumphing over evil. Look no further than DBZ and Naruto which can broadly be divided into Battle Arcs and Training Arcs, upping the ante for our special boy main protagonists until we literally have them fighting gods as the logical extreme of continuous escalation.

The Standard™ Shonen formula has a boy main protagonist who’s got some sort of motivation that is so ideologically pure that he’s basically impossible to defeat. Goku loves to fight, Naruto wants to be hokage, Tanjiro wants to cure his sister and slayer all the demons, etc. He forms/joins a band of merry outcasts with their own tragic backstories and sets out to defeat whatever villain appears for that arc. If they win, arc is over move onto training arc, if they lose, they train, fight and win, then train some more. The fun of the genre comes from the colorful side characters, and the little twists that come with each battle system, which brings us to Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure.

At the time JJBA was being published, the big influence on manga was big beefy male led 80s action movies and Fist of the North Star, a manga about a beefy martial artist named Kenshiro going around beating baddies in a post apocalyptic world. Battle systems in Shonen were usually incredibly soft, most tied to physical combat enhanced by some poorly defined life force energy that could be called upon to even out fights and give big climactic finishes, like Ki from dragon ball and their iconic kamehamehas. Even JJBA starts off this way, with our beefy boys learning Hamon/Ripple and duking it out with vampires, til my man Hirohiko Araki was like “mmmm this is kind of limiting. Time to Change Everything~” and he came up with the concept of Stands, incredibly limited psychic/magic abilities that manifest as furries or sexy robots or a Lego version of the White House (?). You can see this idea really grow and expand within the part it’s introduced, going from “fire furry” and “robot knight with sword” to “guy whose stand turns into a ball that immediately erases anything it runs into but he can’t really see what he’s attacking since he has to be inside his stand in order for it to work also his name is Vanilla Ice and he’s a vampire in a thong.”

You can FEEL the impact this had even to this day. Stands became Jutsus in Naruto, quirks in MHA, Nen in HxH, Cursed Techniques in JJK. And part of what made it fun was that it added strategy to the mix! Str8 physical fights are hard to strategize bc it’s basically just a numbers game, right? Like bc his power level is over 9000, it’s going to be a tough time until some plot contrivance and/or training occurs to drive *my* power level over 9000. But now there is an additional layer of *how* these powers interact.

My ability is to blow bubbles and his ability is to turn a single person who comes into contact with bodily fluids into a mindless zombie? Create bubble shields so they can’t splash blood on you. My ability is to fold anything into origami and if you touch the origami you begin to see one object as something else and his ability is an automatic tracking stand that hunts me down by creating face shredding tornados when I breathe? Make a city bus look like my dad ((part 8 is fucking nuts)).

As you can tell, JJBA really burst open the dam on creativity, but as per the examples I’ve given they can often feel very… silly and contrived. The Serious Anime Fan™ will complain and say those fights are full of asspulls, which they are, but that’s very much part of the fun of the series. BUT because diversity is the spice of life, you also get artists who are less interested in adhering to the Rule of Cool and more interested in making things explicitly “logical” which is how we get Hunter x Hunter.

While JJBA dabbles in using stands for characterization, HxH goes HARD into it. Nen abilities are ((usually)) manifestation of their user’s idea of power, creating a direct link between who that person is and what they can do as a result. This is balanced by people having innate Nen types which means the kinds of abilities they can use are limited, though there are rules restrictions and exceptions to this as well. We know all of this bc mangaka Togashi literally gives a college level lecture on Nen in the story, describing how it manifests, how it works, what it can and can’t do, and how individual rules can supersede the basic set of rules and the rules for doing that. I call this style Erudite Shonen, bc bitches be TALKING. In erudite Shonen, powers usually fall on the complex side, even Bungee Gum, which has the properties of both rubber and gum, can be used in insane ways like ricocheting bullets, gluing minors together, and/or cheesing a game of dodgeball and it’s all both shown AND told.

Now where does JJK fall into all this? Listifying the common Shonen tropes we have A Special Boy main protagonist with a pure motive, a crew, goodness triumphing over evil, prioritizing bonds and community over selfish gain, and the winning power of hard work.

Early JJK fits the mold pretty well. Yuji Itadori starts off the series special, with superhuman fitness before he ingests sukuna’s finger at which point he becomes a Naruto analog, where he is strong because he has a powerful spirit trapped inside him. He has the rather off kilter but still acceptable goal of “dying a proper death”. His squad of mentor Gojo, Fushiguro, and Kugisaki is established by episode 3. The villains are cursed spirits who want to eradicate humanity, the good guys are the jujutsu sorcerers who say “no u” to that. Yuji wants to gain power to protect others instead of just becoming powerful himself. And there’s a training arc! Sure, it happens after Yuji gets his heart ripped out, but he’s not even dead that long. Even the powers in early JJK present themselves as pretty simple, Fushiguro does shadow summoning, Kugisaki does hammer and nail resonance, panda, Inumaki does cursed speech.

It wears its darkness on its sleeve however, presenting Junpei as a potential future team member only to shockingly kill him. The whole star plasma vessel incident casts an unflattering light on Jujutsu society. But none of that COMPARES to the shitshow that happens in Shibuya, where JJK finally shows its real hand.

Over the course of the Shibuya arc, we watch our protagonist mount an offense against the villains that have been building themselves up over the course of the show, sacrificing so so much just to ultimately… lose. The Shibuya arc subverts not just idiosyncratic plot beats but story telling traditions as well. “The strongest” loses, multiple fan favorite characters are either taken out of commission or outright killed, the story progression slams the fast forward button as Yuji goes from having ingested 4 out of 20 fingers to 15/20 resulting in mass civilian casualties because his version of the 9 tailed fox is an actual monster, and ((meta-narratively)) worst of all, Yuji doesn’t even get to defeat his arch-rival, Mahito. Instead Mahito is unceremoniously absorbed by other big bad Geto/Kenjaku. It’s supremely unsatisfying and the weight of the tragedy is so immense you wonder how our heroes are gonna come back from this.

And thus begins the “deconstruction” phase of JJK. Cuz they just… don’t. As dark as Shibuya got, a standard Shonen would then go on to give the heroes a big fat W, some sort of come back after all that. But not JJK! Bc JJK is subversive 😏 this means the fact that the story is super unsatisfying is like, the point mannnn. This isn’t the worst thing that can happen. Chainsawman is also a story of major L’s and minor W’s and it’s my #1 favorite modern manga series. The difference is in intent, however. Chainsawman works as well as it does bc at its core, it loves Denji. He REALLY goes through the ringer, but it’s all in service of understanding what life is like for someone trapped on the hedonic treadmill and how one can ((attempt anyways)) to break out of it.

And then there’s JJK. It truly feels like the manga is designed to tear Yuji’s self sacrificial mindset to shreds for the sake of making him suffer and for the reader to feel bad for ever feeling like good has to triumph over evil. The real problem is, it feels as if the series is bending over backwards to make this shit happen.

Part of the change over is what was a previously simple-ish battle system goes full Erudite Shonen. There were hints that cursed energy could get more complicated, what with domain completion competition and guaranteed hits and simple domains and that one guys FPS ability I can’t explain. But we go FULL HxH level afterwards. All of a sudden oxygen delivery to the brain becomes important to cursed technique, there’s domain range and boundary fidelity and incomplete domain properties, disruption of somatic components becomes a factor, and… it honestly feels like utter nonsense at times.

Complexity isn’t bad, like I mentioned I LOVE HxH and could probably explain the chrollo-hisoka fight if you gave me a few hours to study, but I could not tell you all the new rules for cursed energy that seem just kind of invented on the spot in random chapters during this back half of JJK. Bc they involve concepts never really mentioned before, it feels like an asspull, like this was something made up to force the situation at hand. Thing is, more of those situations only benefit the villains. You get shit like a character winning a battle at the end of one chapter and then starting the next one to find they were killed off screen moments later, actually. It’s just like yeah it’s subversive, but the reason stories aren’t told like this is bc this shit sucks lmao. I think out of all the plans the heroes make like only a handful of them are actually successful, and even then they get so unwound by the next step in the plan that they may as well have not happened. It doesn’t help that the abilities are so complicated now you’ll get a chapter dedicated to explaining what one guy can do just to have him wiped off the face of the earth the next one.

So the crew is gone, our special boy is actually the most disempowered guy ever except for the fact that he can’t be killed for some reason, the good guys are NOT doing a great job standing up to evil since like 86% of their plans fail or have bad results, a gag character wins one of the most important fights in the story and it’s unironically the best thing JJK has done in a while, and it’s all just a very confusing slog to read. This is the danger of writing subversion for the sake of subversion with intent for contempt, kids 😮‍💨

Granted we aren’t at the end of the story yet so maybe I’ll be wrong and there’ll be like a reset button that fixes everything (( which would also suck )), but yeah. JJK wants what HxH did in the chimera ant arc but forgot that that story was possible bc it was fundamentally about humanity and love, not just the parts about how people suck and goodness can fail.

If you made it this far congratulations you’re entitled to one big kissy on ur forehead from me and barnaby 😚😚😚

[amyreads]

I had some questions if that's alright with you.

1. What inspires your characters appearance and sense of fashion? All of your characters have such great character designs.

2. Would you say there's a difference in genre between what you like to read and what you like to write or is it the same?

3. And last but not least, what are your favorite genre of IFs to play? Is there a specific genre or type of ro/trope you enjoy?

Of course! I love these kinds of questions! Long post warning!

1. What inspires your characters appearance and sense of fashion? All of your characters have such great character designs.

Thank you so much! I worked really hard to get them to fit a vibe that felt perfect for me. I really wanted them to be fashion-forward since a lot of being fame and being visible is being on top of trends. Characters like G have stylists so G is very trendy. The characters are also very expressive not only with their music but their clothes. None of the characters are very shy when it comes to their sense of fashion was is exciting because I love describing outfits. I know some authors find it tedious and 'amateur' which I kinda see why since it's a bit juvenile but I love love love it.

For G, I was inspired by 80s rockstars with long curly hair as well as Cher in the 70s haha I knew I wanted G to have a very prominent detail and it's their long (straight, in their case) black hair. G's tattoos are sort of a mark of their growth as an artist. When they first started, they were essentially 'pure' in the sense that they had no tats and were very young. As they grew older, the tats also grew in number. Touched by fame. SO poetic /j G is very flamboyant and they are very experimental/adventurous with their clothes.

This goes for Victoria. As a model and actress, she's very fashion forward. She prefers dresses over pants and that's kind of her brand haha ! Her red hair and the fact that her stage name ends in Valentine made red her brand, and she takes advantage of that. Branding is very important for her and G, so it helps when you have that *thing* that reminds people of you.

For Seven, the infamous (lol) bandana was something that just came to me. I also wanted Seven to have a "staple" look and I just think it looks cool! Again, it's very reminiscent of the old age rock stars. If Seven were a cartoon character, the outfit they wore at the party (industrial shirt/red and black striped undershirt) would be their "everyday outfit" I think. It really shows their personality; Seven's oversized, messy look reflects them in a way. The fact that it looks deliberately disheveled but Seven worked hours to look good is very telling of who they are. Seven likes to pretend they don't care but we all know that's not the truth!

August has a very calming quality to them. Very grounding. In a story where the ROs are all messes, August's penchant for silence and calm shines. Their colors are a nice brown, green, beige. Very neutral and low-key. They wear a lot of sweaters and cardigans and linen pants because it's comfortable and cozy. Their clothes reflect their personality the most. Kinda reminds me of pajamas in a way!

Orion is pretty self explanatory. While everyone else considers BOTB and everything an outlet for their creativity, Orion sees it for what it is: a job. He dresses professionally to set him apart from the band and everyone else. He's there to work. He's very clean-cut, and very neat so it shines in his clothes.

Seb is well, I wanted Seb to be very unassuming and just normal hahaha. Everyone else dresses really stylishly and I wanted Seb to be really low-key. It's obvious he has no desire to be in the spotlight and that shows with his plain, basic clothing.

2. Would you say there's a difference in genre between what you like to read and what you like to write or is it the same?

Hm, up until recently I used to only read fantasy. I think one of my first if games was Choice of Rebels, among a few others. Writing fantasy is what helped build up my skill. All I've ever wanted to be was a fantasy author until one day...I just started hating it. I hated writing fantasy. I LOVE LOVE reading it, but I hate writing fantasy. I don't know why. I think it's because I fail to convince myself. My suspension of disbelief is very strict when it comes to my own writing, while another writer can convince me of anything in fiction so as long as it makes a lick of sense. It's weird!

I still love fantasy as a reader but I don't think I could ever write it. I do want to try one day though!

I'm more strictly slice-of-life nowadays, aside from Body Double. I think it's easier for me. I love romcoms. I love romance, which hasn't changed. I find it funny that I'm not very romantic in real life but romance is like a baseline requirement for me in stories.

One thing that stays the same is that I love angst. Reading and writing it. I don't like fluff, it makes me cringe. (There will be fluff in Infamous aha). I don't like power fantasies or any of that. Ah, I don't know!

3. And last but not least, what are your favorite genre of IFs to play? Is there a specific genre or type of ro/trope you enjoy?

I'll read anything! I don't have a favorite, I don't think, but I do love urban/modern fantasy. A mixture of slice-of-life and fantasy is the sweet spot for me.

Specific type of RO I like are the emotionally unavailable/closed off ones or the mean ones haha. I do not like easy romances. I like working for it and I think when an RO doesn't want my character it makes it so much more fun and the payoff is so much more satisfying. I need yearning...longing. I need slow burn!

I know there are readers who like playing games where the MC is important loved but I'm not a fan. I like my MC being a regular person that's treated accordingly depending on the character and the story. I don't want my MC to get special treatment or to be powerful just because they're the MC. It has to make sense to me. For me, the ROs should have a greater purpose that goes beyond just romancing the MC.

I get a lot of flak for making the MC an underdog in infamous, but MC is not meant to be the most important person in the room at the start of the story. They need to earn it, which I think feels better.

My favorite RO from any IF game is Nash so <3 I guess that says it all hahah

I hope you liked my answers! This was really fun for me lolol

[black-arcana]

Watch: HALESTORM's LZZY HALE Surprises Cover Band By Joining Them For 'Here's To Us' Duet

HALESTORM singer Lzzy Hale surprised a cover band at JBJ's Nashville Thursday night (June 27) by joining them on stage for a version of the HALESTORM song "Here's To Us".

YouTube user xSacramentofLove, who uploaded video of Hale's appearance, wrote in a description accompanying the clip: "Stopped in to check out Jon Bon Jovi's new Nashville bar last night, this really awesome cover band was playing. They started playing a crowd request for HALESTORM's 'Here's To Us', when Lzzy Hale herself surprises the band and they end up doing a duet!"

The members of HALESTORM are also no strangers to covering other people's songs, having released three cover EPs so far, including the latest one, "ReAniMate 3.0: The CoVeRs eP", which came out in January 2017.

In the summer of 2022, HALESTORM shared its covers of Adele's "Hello" and Dolly Parton's "Jolene" via social media.

In 2011, HALESTORM released the six-track "ReAniMate: The CoVeRs eP", which saw them take on tracks by SKID ROW, Lady Gaga, TEMPLE OF THE DOG, GUNS N' ROSES, HEART and THE BEATLES. Two years later, the "ReAniMate 2.0: The CoVeRs eP" featured covers of JUDAS PRIEST, DAFT PUNK, AC/DC, Pat Benatar, FLEETWOOD MAC and Marilyn Manson.

The aforementioned "ReAniMate 3.0: The CoVeRs eP" saw HALESTORM covering classic songs by WHITESNAKE, Sophie B. Hawkins, JOAN JETT & THE BLACKHEARTS, TWENTY ONE PILOTS, SOUNDGARDEN and METALLICA.

Back in 2017, HALESTORM bassist Josh Smith spoke to RingRocker.com about how he and his bandmates go about picking which songs to record for their series of covers EPs. "We start out with basically everyone… Our team… Oh my God! My dad finds out that we're doing a cover album, all I get is texts: 'Oh, you should do this.' But anyone… anyone who finds out we're doing a covers album, all of a sudden you're just getting this crazy list," he said. "So it literally starts out with e-mails of lists and lists, and somehow, over months, we kind of whittle down our list until we get to a short list of maybe ten songs or less. And then we record 'em and see what works and see what we like."

He continued: "Now, after the first one, we sort of followed a similar formula with the second one in that it's very generational — we have a song from '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s, a contemporary pop song… So that was a nice way to pick our songs. Really, that has been the template."

According to Josh, there is at least one added benefit to covering other people's songs when it comes to HALESTORM working on original material. He explained: "What's really cool is that when we do pick these songs, they really do influence us, because it's Songwriting and Performing 101. Where you have to deconstruct a song — a legendary song, essentially — you deconstruct it, and then rebuild it to how it works for us. And it really influences us in a lot of ways."

Added drummer Arejay Hale: "When we did 'Slave To The Grind' [from SKID ROW], we were, like, 'Oh, man! We need a song like this.' And then we wrote 'Love Bites', which is pretty much just off the feel of 'Slave To The Grind'. It's cool, 'cause we used to do that. We used to do three- or four-hour shows with covers and originals. And you're right — it is like training. And I always recommend that for newer artists, younger artists that wanna learn how to play drums or guitar. I always say the best way to really get good and learn how to develop your own style is to learn the styles of other people and learn other songs that you like or that challenge you. And it kind of makes you think differently. It's, like, 'Oh, this guy did these chords,' or, 'This guy played this kind of groove.' 'I bet I can do that in an original song.' So, yeah, it's kind of like training."

Arejay and his sister Lzzy (vocals, guitar) formed the band in 1998 while in middle school. Guitarist Joe Hottinger joined the group in 2003, followed by Smith in 2004.

[pixelagames2000]

Hay, Decided to remake my OC character sheet, Added some extra stuff.

I gave her two weapons, a retractable Paton, and a katana. I also decided to give her an elemental power (since, some bots have that too) I felt like giving her water powers, since I think it fits her. Her special attack is the Aqua pole, in combat she can Extend her Paton, and charge it with some water, it can hit the opponent rapidly in quick attacks, not as powerful as others, but still effective. Once it hit the opponent, it unleashes a powerful splash or wave that can yeet opponents far enough away, and if executed properly, it can even incapacitate them. Her alt mode is a mini cooper, around the same size as Bluecop and Wild Guardys alt modes, but slightly smaller. She’s also just a little bit smaller and shorter than them, reaching halfway up their shoulder.

(Background and Personality) Back on Mechina she was an artisan, just working on her craft as a student. But before she could graduate, and fully start her career, the planet was destroyed and everyone evacuated. She drifted through space, until eventually landed on earth, wondering around the planet until the Star guardians found her. She didn’t actually fight them, or resist them, she was actually very understanding and cooperative (which blue was very pleased with) she was however hesitant about letting Jun take her in and turning into a card for him to use, she has nothing against the kid, she just thinks it’s odd and unwise to let a kid be responsible for them and wield the watch band card reader thing (i don’t know what it’s called) why should their fate be trusted to a child? It just didn’t make any sense to her. Especially the fact that their freedom was being taken, of course she could see that Jun wasn’t that kind of person, he cares deeply about the Metal Cardbots, he doesn’t force them to do anything unless it’s dire. Eventually, after a lot of thinking (and some spark to spark talk from Bluecop) she excepts this, and let’s jun capture her in a card. He promises her that he’ll be kind, gentle, and patient with her, not making her do anything unless it’s absolutely necessary, she excepts it, and is happy to be apart of the Star guardian family.

As for her personality, she’s…(Autistic), Quiet, serious, sensitive, and kind. Does not like conflict, and is unlikely to do things which may generate conflict. Can be seen as cold or aloof, but she’s not actually like that (she’s a mix of cold and soft). Honest, loyal, faithful, compassionate, Wise but still naive, stoic and reserved, but still pleasant and friendly. Optimistic, creative, intelligent, shy, bold, brave, adventurous, caring, spunky, feisty when she needs to be, sassy, can do attitude (but can sometimes take charge), basically a type 5 or an ISFP. She’s good at problem solving, navigating, working with electronics, artistic, and she’s a good listener, she always tries to be supportive and helpful to her friends, she’s also a rule follower, if the rules are fair and just and logical, she’ll follow them.

She’s also got a small little crush on Bluecop, but she’s too shy to show or say anything about it, she’s not the best at showing love and affection to others. She also struggles with reading people, understanding social cues, and she can be a little too trusting of others, so much so that she struggles seeing red flags. So, the others look out for her, and warn her about any potential dangers. She’s still growing and learning, still finding her place amongst the star guardians, and still figuring out her new life on earth. But, she knows who she is, she knows what she stands for, and she stands firmly in her beliefs and opinions (she can be stubborn at times, but she’s not opposed to listening and understanding others point of view or opinions) she’ll always Stan for what is right, she always tries to do the right thing. Despite her shortcomings, she tries her best, she’s a good friend.

Ok, that’s pretty much everything! Sorry about the long paragraphs ^^, I hope you enjoyed this tho!