#ossuarium

[bubblesandgutz]

Every Record I Own - Day 810: Ossuarium Living Tomb

I’ve had this record in my draft box since 2019. I must’ve taken a picture of it before some trip with the intention of writing about it from the road. I see it every time I open my drafts, and as a result, it’s stayed fresh in my mind for over four years.

Ossuarium were a sludgy, vicious doom-tinged death metal band from Portland, OR, and their sole LP was on the front end of 20 Buck Spin’s gradual shift from focusing on stoner / doom stuff to the old school death metal revival.

It’s now January 2024 and I still don’t have a lot to say about Living Tomb despite the fact that I've listened to it quite a bit over the years. It’s well-recorded but still a little rough around the edges performance-wise. There’s a fine line between “this sounds like a real band… warts and all!” versus “was this really the best take they could get?,” and for me the band still resides in the former. If you can hang with Cerebral Rot and Cryptworm, you can certainly get down with Ossuarium.

I feel a little bad talking about Ossuarium today because, admittedly, they’re a springboard for talking about other things on my mind. But such is one of the inevitable truths about music writing—it often comes with a writer’s agenda. Perhaps that’s an obvious statement on par with “all criticism is just one person’s opinion and rooted in that person’s biases and current frame of mind.” But perhaps they also both warrant repeating.

So let’s clear the air: this post is largely motivated by my desire to talk about the recent news of Pitchfork’s merger with GQ. That’s my agenda. Let’s also clear the air on who is writing this: I’m a 46-year-old musician who has also dabbled in writing about music in various professional capacities. Having a foot in both the creator and the critic roles meant that I generally avoided writing about anything I didn’t like. When it comes to death metal, my journey started with childhood friends who got really into the classic Floridian, New York, and Scandinavian death metal bands around 1990. But truth be told, I didn’t really click with any straight-up death metal until Morbid Angel’s Domination came out in 1995.

My relationship with Pitchfork? I didn’t have internet at home until 2005, and consequently I didn’t spend any time looking at music websites until roughly 2006. In 2007, I began freelancing for the music department of Seattle's local alternative weekly newspaper, The Stranger. Part of my job involved gathering news from various music websites and doing a daily highlights post for their blog, so I started visiting Pitchfork every day. And that habit continued for roughly ten years.

That whole time I had a love / hate relationship with the site. I loved that they were committed to broadening their coverage to encompass a greater variety of genres and styles. I hated how that included devoting more and more coverage to giant pop stars. I loved their in-depth album reviews. I hated how those reviews could sometimes feel like personal vendettas against specific artists and how the rating system often felt out of alignment with the writing due to the score being based on a group vote. I loved that they operated at an intersection of my various musical interests. I hated that their criteria for coverage was never really clear: if they were only covering the cream of the crop across diverse genres, why were they dishing out bad reviews? Or if they were only covering artists already deemed important outside of their orbit, why were they considered one of, if not THE the top cultural tastemaker when it came to music?

Pitchfork was bought by Condé Nast in 2015. More and more of their news pieces revolved around pop stars. They started adding articles that seemed more fit for a lifestyle magazine than a music blog. It no longer turned me on to new things, and at some point I realized that looking at Pitchfork always involved some combination of frustration and disappointment. I’ll sometimes check in to see what they’ve said about a record I like, and I almost always regret it.

"But the writing was stronger than ever," I saw a few P4K contributors say on social media in the wake of the news that the site would be absorbed by GQ, as if anyone went to a music blog first and foremost for the WRITING, as opposed to... say... i dunno... the SUBJECT MATTER. "People don't realize that a 7.0 is actually a really good score," others would say in defense of the site's apparent inability to be excited about the very artists they chose to cover, as if a 7.0 doesn't read as a C- to any reader with a public school education, and consequently come across as "just passable" and not only not worth listening to, but also not even worth reading past the score. "We never stopped covering fringe music," others said, which is absolutely true. But when paired with an avalanche of Taylor Swift and Kanye coverage, those forays into freakier territories felt, perhaps unfairly, like the work of dilettantes and dabblers. A jack of all trades, master of none. Founder Ryan Schreiber finally left the site in 2019, but it already felt like Pitchfork had lost its initial vision years prior. I can’t imagine Pitchfork 3.0 will see an improvement in that capacity.

But what can you do? We live under the impossible capitalist model of infinite growth and yet we’re still somehow shocked when something gets too big to sustain itself. I doubt Schreiber had ambitions any loftier than sharing his music opinions with strangers when he started Pitchfork in 1996. At some point he began getting ad revenue. Other writers started getting paid. It became a career path. More people got hired. They needed more clicks, so they wrote about things that pulled in a new audience. Writing about pop stars meant more traffic from Google. Meanwhile, their initial readership stopped checking in. The reader who got hipped to Sleater-Kinney back at the turn of the century probably isn't all that interested in what Miley Cyrus is up to in 2024.

I was certainly one of those people. But my declining interest in Pitchfork also coincided with my growing disenchantment with the freelance hustle. It was tough to figure out what editors wanted and even harder to muster up the enthusiasm to write about the "hot" new pop artists that were already getting coverage. I started getting more work on the PR side of music world, which not only paid better, but allowed me to bond with like-minded artists and help share the excitement behind their vision. I started noticing how often my press releases were just slightly re-worded in album reviews. I can't say I blame writers--I would've had to write a Pitchfork album review every single work day of the month just to cover my rent in Brooklyn.

It's important to state that I didn't become cynical to music writing as a whole. I loved writers like Dave Segal and Mark Richardson (both Pitchfork contributors, I might add). I loved the enthusiasm, the disregard for what was popular at the time, the new perspectives, the depth of knowledge they held, and the fact that they focused on music that wasn't necessarily up my alley but succeeded in helping me appreciate stuff outside of my comfort zone. I wanted to write like that... without having to grade someone's work or weigh in on every trend. Beyond that, I wanted to do the thing that editors hate... I wanted to insert myself into the piece. Not out of ego, but because understanding the appeal of music that isn't instantly gratifying is often aided by having that specific personal angle. "This album got me through a break-up" or "this album permanently altered my brain chemistry when I heard it on mushrooms during the golden hour of a camping trip" will ultimately tell me more about how to approach a record than a bunch of adjectives and hyperbole. So in June 2017 I started writing these album posts in part because I wanted to do what Ryan Scheiber did back in 1996--I wanted to share my passion for other people's music--but I didn't hold any ambitions beyond cataloging my records and sharing my stories about them.

Strangely enough, my excitement for new music actually grew once I weaned myself off of music sites like Pitchfork. I found, among other things, a weird little pocket of heavy metal that hit my sweet spot and I've had a blast exploring it. I've finally found the bands that are more interested in being grimy than glossy. Bands that aren't afraid of a little slop. Bands that aren't trying to cross-pollinate with some divergent style of music. Bands like Ossuarium: meaty, oozing with dread, and just a teeny bit clunky.

Is there much to write about beyond that? Probably not. And that's okay. I don't think Ossuarium had ambitions beyond hanging out, drinking beer together in the practice space, and adding to an existing musical tradition they all loved. And 20 Buck Spin probably had a good handle on how big the band was gonna be. They printed up a conservative amount of LPs and sold 'em at a price that would guarantee they wouldn't sit on warehouse shelves for very long but would cover their costs and maybe allow them to send out a royalties check or two.

Living Tomb didn't need to be any bigger than that. Ossuarium weren't trying to break out and gain fans outside of their own tiny little community. They weren't trying to capitalize on the zeitgeist. They weren't claiming that appreciating their music would make you a better and more well-rounded person. They didn't take on more commercial attributes under the guise of inclusivity. And it didn't need to be overanalyzed and it didn't really warrant an in-depth long-form review from someone like Pitchfork (although I just looked it up and whaddaya know... it got a 7.6).

[consistentsquash]

Detailed Fic Rec - Ossuarium

ASOIAF Wednesday!

Super excited to rec one of the most brilliant fics I have read in any fandom! It does the impossible by combining book and show canon to deliver character studies with consistent characterizations and subtle recurring themes that build up into masterful storytelling on a bigger scale.

Structure - The series is based on Liszt's Symphonic Poems. Like the music which inspired it, the fic uses one-shots with interwoven themes and character motifs to build a bigger, overarching theme. Think about it like a Dr. Who series written by Moffat. Lots of complex and recurring themes but each episode in the series is a standalone you can read on its own. The POVs are unreliable but we get multiple POVs from characters and the full story really comes together without confusion.

Rec note - Recs are based on my reading. They are subjective based on what I like.

 Fic details

Ossuarium on AO3 by eldritcher (2022)

Length - 65000 words.

Rating - G to M

Summary - Soon.

Warnings - I didn't see any Major Archive Warnings or triggers in the fics. But the fics can feel heavy because of the canon angst. The writing has an insidious, lingering buildup which can make the emotions hit harder after reading.

 Description

The series is around 65000 words. It switches between multiple POVs of the Targaryen family characters. The one-shots are essentially character studies. The plot happens in the interwoven themes. It's a really unique series construction.

Talk about perfect summaries - The Soon in the summary is literal and allegorical. The sense of danger and suspense buildup as the events start getting out of control for the characters is really, really vivid.

 Pairings

Het, Slash, Femslash.

The main pairing is Daemon/Rhaenyra, but it is in context of the dysfunctional family relationships Daemon, Viserys and Rhaenyra have with each other. The relationship between the brothers is really, really messed up in classic Targ style. Similarly the Rhaenyra/Alicent relationship is also super messed up.

 Characterizations

I haven't read better characterizations for Daemon, Viserys or Rhaenyra anywhere else. The themes and the motifs build them into living, breathing characters with their own character journeys and regressions.

The side characters like Alicent, Laena, Rhaenys, Corlys and other family are also super fleshed out and come alive.

The standout characterizations are for the dragons. Caraxes and Vhagar are going to make you cry. I am not joking.

 Going Deeper

The prose is lyrical and musical. If you are reading with a screen-reader you are in for a treat because of the pacing/word choices making everything sound like a Leonard Cohen album.

Eldritcher’s writing is deeply emotional without being melodramatic. It is really brilliant how the symbolism and metaphors connect the generational trauma to the story and to the main characters.

The character voices have different styles of prose but there is a common writing style that creates the vibe of the series. Literally almost every other line is a quote you can frame on your wall.

 Soon the virgin

Relationship - Rhaenyra/Daemon

POV - Rhaenyra.

Blurb - The first fic of the series. A Rhaenyra character study that establishes the characterizations for Rhaenyra and Daemon and sets the context for their relationship dynamics. Although there is no Viserys appearance in this fic, we also get to see how much he has influenced their lives.

Why I love it - I am really picky about power dynamics in relationships where there are seriously messed up conflicts of interest and relative power differences. Rhaenyra calls the shots here. She is in control. The inverted power dynamics works brilliantly.

She will have to do everything herself. She does not mind. She knows what to do. She raps a finger on his mouth. He opens for her, with a smile and a sigh. She dips her finger into his throat, and withdraws with a scratchy caress of the roof of his mouth. He laughs with his eyes when she punishes his restraint by dealing a sharp pinch to his tongue.

 Soon the burning youth

Relationship - Viserys/Daemon

POV - Viserys

Blurb - Viserys and Daemon in a nutshell. Really messed up. Really Targaryen. Really brilliant at maximum self-sabotage. We get to see how complementary they really are but of course their egos and self-sabotage are out of control. The canon war has a lot of causes. But this is definitely one of the biggest problems which leads to the war.

Why I love it - This is Viserys. He is absolutely a Targaryen. His internal voice is extra Targaryen as if compensating for his external personality presentation. But he is really indecisive and all about that sweet self-sabotage. A really complicated personality with big grudges and deep love.

You wished that you could hit him. You wished that you could kick him in the guts once more. You wished that you could loom over him and watch his misery. His misery was as much of his making as it was of yours. You beheld it and wept for his unhappiness. You beheld it and delighted in his loneliness.

 Soon the wedding hymn

Relationships - Rhaenyra/Daemon, Viserys/Daemon

POV - Viserys

Blurb - Viserys obsessing about Rhaenyra and Daemon. Because he is that obsessed with his brother and really committed to self-sabotage. This is one of the most intense fics of the series.

Why I love it - Viserys and Daemon have a lot of common traits. But right before Viserys dies, we get to see how their character journeys took them in different directions. Daemon's character change is incredible. Viserys, on the other hand, is stuck in the past. Daemon was more about living in the moment compared to Viserys and it really shows in this fic.

He would not beg you again, you feared. He had Rhaenyra. He might thrive with her.

If he were your sister—

 Soon the maiden's thirds

Relationships - Alicent/Rhaenyra, Daemon/Rhaenyra

POV - Alicent

Blurb - Alicent characterization is incredible in this fic. She has a ton of contradictions in her personality and how she presents herself to different people. Who is Alicent actually?

Why I love it - It's heartbreaking and brilliant how the series characterizes gender role and presentation. Alicent maybe is the most affected because of the "box" of gender roles she's got to deal with. You get to see sort of a mindbreak because instead of performing a role her personality gradually changes to become that. It's really heartbreaking. The psychology in this series is incredible.

It should be Alicent at her side. It should be Alicent's hands about her.

 Soon the light on Olympus

Relationship - Daemon/Rhaenyra, Daemon/Viserys

POV - Daemon

Blurb - This is the most fascinating fic in the series. Daemon POV! We get to see inside his head! His characterization is a standout in this series and we get to see that from his own POV here.

Why I love it - The love he has for his family plus his pretty whacky ideas about how they are superior makes this a winner. He's definitely not the type you want to hire for a 9 to 5 desk job in Customer Support.

Viserys pleased everyone else. He wanted his brother to please him. And Daemon, Daemon did not have it in him to please anyone at all.

 Soon the untended wedlock

POV - Rhea

Blurb - Rhea Royce is written with a really good characterization. You feel pity and sympathy for her situation. But at the same time you also feel sad about Daemon. Jeyne Arryn is Rhea's BFF and she is the type of BFF everybody needs in their life. She calls it like she sees it.

Why I love it - The Rhea characterization is perfection.

It needn't have come to this. Viserys could have annulled their marriage when he became King. He could have wedded his daughter to his brother. Rhea could then have married another.

 Soon the vestal bride

Relationship - Alicent/Rhaenyra, Daemon/Rhaenyra

POV - Alicent

Blurb - Alicent feels really betrayed after she understands that Rhaenyra lied to her.

Why I love it - The relationship between Alicent and Rhaenyra is amazing. We get to see the death of the relationship they used to have as friends with some romance going on. But Alicent hasn't totally given up her love yet. Alicent's characterization and motivation is incredible here. Is it just performative? Does she actually believe in what she is doing?

Alicent cannot be Rhaenyra's lover. So she will be Rhaenyra's mother.

 Soon the feasting troth

Relationships - Daemon/Rhaenyra, Daemon/Viserys

POV - Viserys

Blurb - Viserys at the Royal Wedding being jealous of everybody and everything.

Why I love it - Because Viserys! He is so hyperaware about Daemon and Rhaenyra. Daemon is amazing in this fic. The good and the bad parts of the relationship between the siblings really shine here.

The food was sliced neatly into chunks that a man with only one good hand could eat. No tender morsel that was served at the royal feast. Sheep. The meat was charred by open flame. And when you took a bite, it warmed you as only dragon-warmth could. Brother feasted on brother's troth.

 Soon the espoused sea

Relationships - Corlys/Rhaenys, Viserys/Rhaenys

POV - Rhaenys

Blurb - BAMF Rhaenys is the real deal. We get to see a snapshot of her life before she is removed from the succession.

Why I love it - Queen Rhaenys was probably a better choice. Jaeherys the Misogynist didn't get that. But we get to see that her own cousins including Viserys are on her side here. Yay! Fic giving us the soul food we need!

"What you have seen and done... I have lived so little, Lord Corlys. I am afraid you will tire of me."

"You crawled up the volcano's heart to claim a dragon." Boldly, despite Grandmother's vigil, he bent to kiss my brow. "I have waited for a woman like you for decades. Do you truly think that I would make a mistake now?"

 Soon the hymen-song

Relationships - Daemon/Rhaenyra

POV - Rhaenyra

Blurb - We love a man who isn't scared about giving up some control some of the time. We love a girl working through her body image issues and accepting herself. So this fic is like total wish fulfillment for us.

Why I love it - The fic uses intimacy for psychological character study. What's not to love? Really really beautiful and healing fic.

He kissed her for her boldness, and she knew once more what it was to delight.

 Soon a more cruel fire

Relationship - Corlys/Rhaenys/Daemon

POV - Corlys

Blurb - Crackship? Think again. This fic makes it work and makes you root for these three.

Why I love it - The trust these three have is off the charts.

Rhaenys wanted her uncle once. She wanted Baelon Targaryen. Baelon died heartbroken after his wife's death in the birthing bed. He left behind two children. One became King. The other stands at the threshold of your chambers, gauging the lay of the land.

 Soon the juvenal

Relationship - Laena/Daemon

POV - Laena

Blurb - The softest and also the most sensual fic in the series. Laena is a BAMF character but her characterization and story is more compliant with book canon. Wholesome and sweet.

Why I love it - Justice for Laena! The context and the payoff is really good here. The prose is like honey.

She left her perch by the window and joined him at the threshold, so that she might grab the ends of her skirt and mop the sweat from his brow. He looked at her as the men in the bazaar below looked at the painted girls. Want was a warm and homely thing, in wedlock's embrace. She took him by the hand and led him to the fat table where was arrayed their supper of amber wine and spelt bread and sheep's cheese.

 Soon the god's hoar

POV - Vhagar

Blurb - The angstiest fic in the series. Vhagar has seen a lot and is really tired. She wants a rider who won't ask her to participate in any wars.

Why I love it - Because we get to see how much the Targaryen dragons suffered because of their riders. It's horrible. I cried.

Three she had wedded. One to war. The other to grief. The last to hearth. One more. The hearth was not made for loneliness. Even a god feared loneliness, when her dominion was the hearth.

 Soon the close-clinging daughter

Relationship - Rhaenyra/Daemon (background)

POV - Rhaena

Blurb - All the feels! Rhaena and Daemon bonding with some great father-daughter moments including dragons.

Why I love it - Daemon connecting with his daughter. Because he is trying to be a good father. This is a really brilliant contrast because of Viserys doing a bad job of connecting with Rhaenyra after Aemma's death. We get to see the difference between the brothers here.

A close-clinging daughter sought mother's comfort once. A close-clinging daughter shielded her father as he wept.

 Soon the fortunate hour

POV - Otto Hightower

Blurb - Most of the fics in this fandom are pro-Blacks. This fic is pro-Green because it is written from Otto's POV. It adds a lot of complexity and nuance about his motivations.

Why I love it - Because Otto is intense. His POV is a really close third person and it has this suffocating feeling. Like things are about to get out of control really soon.

Otto hopes that Daemon gets the wretched girl with child. The closer Daemon binds Rhaenyra to him, the farther the lords of the realm will want her from the throne and the quicker they will be to support Aegon. Even Viserys would have to set them aside then.

 Soon the vine to elm

POV - Caraxes

Blurb - If you read only one fic from this fandom, it needs to be this.

Why I love it - Because this is the best fic in the series in my subjective opinion. It is brilliant, poignant and encompasses everything about the symbiotic dynamics of the Targaryen family and their dragons.

Theirs is a warped and malformed bond, where ou steers instead of being steered. Daemon trusts ou to steer.

 Ossuarium

Relationship - Viserys/Daenerys

POV - Viserys

Blurb - It's really fitting how the last fics of the series are written in two sibling POVs from Viserys and Dany because they mirror the Viserys and Daemon sibling relationship which we got to see in the earlier fics.

Why I love it - Viserys is intense and really, really psychologically damaged. You won't like him because he isn't likable. But you are going to feel sorry for him just like you felt sorry for King Viserys in the first fics in this series. The mirroring is fantastic. Phenomenal characterization work for Viserys and Dany.

The third Viserys taught his sister-daughter-wife and fed her their mother's crown. She stands beside her war-husband and ushers in the ossuarium of her house.

Soon the—

Rec note - THIS! THIS IS WHERE WE GET TO SEE THE PAYOFF! The titles build up the suspense and the danger until we get to see the final payoff in this fic. It's tragic. Of course it's tragic. The Targaryens are a really tragic family. But it's also incredible to see how low they fall because of their self-sabotage and generational trauma.

 Sovngarde

Relationship - Drogon/Daenerys

POV - Drogon

Blurb - I know the pairing is insane af. But you won't regret giving the fic a chance. It's really beautiful.

Why I love it - We get to see a codependent relationship explored in more of the classic Star Trek scifi style without fetishization. This definitely is NOT what you are expecting. SFW. A beautiful concluding fic where we get to see the Targaryens and the dragons finally accepting the blood magic that got them connected in the first place. It's also a great GOT S8 fixit for people who care about that. You can see all her Targ ancestors showing up in Dany's characterization. Especially love how we get to see Daemon's personality in her characterization. Similarly Drogon also has a lot of similar characterization with the other dragons in the series like Caraxes and Vhagar. The Targaryen family completes their full circle here.

Ou took her home, to the new circle of fourteen that rose out of the Great Grass Sea. The horse-people had taken to leaving fat goats at mountains' root, to appease the dragons that lived within.

 Subjective Stuff

Like any media/content there are going to be things that don't work for some readers/consumers.

A lot of fans are Daemyra only OTP fans. They are probably not going to vibe with the series because of its multi shipping angle though the biggest relationship is definitely Daemyra.

A lot of fans don't read gen/slash/femslash. They probably won't vibe with the series because it contains literally everything.

Spoilers for the books. If you are a show only fan who doesn't want spoilers reading the series is probably a bad idea.

The prose. It is some of the best prose I have read in published media/fanfic. Eldritcher has an unreal level of control and precision when it comes to prose. But that surgical precision can definitely weird out some readers.

 Final thoughts

10/10. The series is also holding up awesome on rereads. There is a ton of lore and psychology here which means you are going to discover something new each time you reread. This is a difficult series to write a good rec about. Because there are a lot of brilliant and unique features about the characterizations, dynamics and prose it's hard to just pick One Good Thing. If that isn't an indicator of a great fic I don't know what else is.

I was just going to rec selected fics from this series. But it was impossible to choose. I ended up reccing everything because it's one of the rare series without a single dud.

 So!

This series is now solidly in my Fandom top-5. Incredible, fantastic, brilliant one of a kind work.

[hya3rdxn3y]

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[broomsticks]

@consistentsquash PHENOMENAL RECLIST PERSON. ALL THE SUPERLATIVES. you are such a fandom treasure. these reclists are pure organizational and reading goals, such a range of pairings and genres and themes and stories.

reccing is truly such a SKILL: picking a theme, selecting fics, and then writing an insightful snippet about why you selected them, giving away just enough to intrigue the reader while not revealing too much. the creativity! the critical reading! it’s way harder than comment writing! not to mention all of this formatting effort, and all often to not much feedback… i’m in awe. showering you in ALL the appreciation <3 <3 <3

my fave lists of yours:

Rarest of Rarepairs! 10 Femslash Recs for February tumblr || AO3. spectacular idea for a reclist, and so many good finds, of fics that take such care with their characterizations! pauraque’s magical petunia/helena (Narrow Escape, 700, T) was short and impactful, both featherxquill’s rita/luna (Beetle Dreams, 4k, M) & missm’s marietta/millicent (A Cliff in July, 5k, M) were gorgeous -- so strange and soft, and a richly detailed tailor fic like Mothwing’s minerva/madam malkin (An Occasion, 2k, G) is always a winner for me.

grindeldore intro recs. your little writeups for this reclist are so good, as are the little insights at the end. i can’t pick a favorite (i lie, it’s Thirty-Five Owls), i love everything on this list and it’s made me ship this pairing hard. grandiose and tragic, literary references, cultural references, sentient nurmengard, references to wolfstar tragedy… eeeeeee.

i also gotta shout out 10 HP Femslash Recs with Hopeful Themes because that led me to this dorlene fic (from 2018!) which contained the line "When Dorcas is around, Marlene has this bad habit of thinking about a future." and FRIEND that is not an okay line to put into my eyeballs. that physically hurt me. for days.

22 HP Femslash Recs from 22 Years (2001 - 2022) tumblr || AO3. ABSOLUTE A+ RECLIST. picking a best of the year is no easy task and you knocked it out! of! the! park! some amazing old finds: Left Handed by ivyblossom (2002), My Scarlet Name by parenthetical (2004) [three digit AO3 URL!], City Life by holyfant (2008), Advanced Research by minkhollow (2009) — and kelly_chambliss! Woldy! pauraque! montparnasse! dirgewithoutmusic! the WLWBB 2021 ginny keeps an anger journal ginny/tonks!! CLASSICS.

other reclists of yours i am SO excited to slowly make my way through: - snape rarepairs - snape/sirius recs (this comic is incredible, and also so excited for how many of these are <2007 fics)

AND also your Ossuarium rec and meta and your comments. OMG. i’m so not ready to stick my whole face in another obsession but just know that i am admiring from afar 😱

---

for an explanation of why i just wrote you a whole ~thing~, check out this post & the ‘mutuals march’ tag below!

[danpuff-ao3]

@consistentsquash, professionally. Squash, casually. Squish-Squash, affectionately. Overall wonderful human.

My first introduction to Squash was a mention of her 22 Slash Fics for 22 Years (though it was 21, at the time) rec list. Then I had to look for more and was suitably impressed! Very thoughtful, detailed rec lists; but best of all, such good taste! Squash's recs were right up my alley! Even now, I don't even blink when Squash recs things, I just blindly open links and Mark For Later. (Or, for non-AO3 links, I save them to my Pocket app.)

Then one day, Squash recced Teardrop In Your Palm on her New HP Slash Fics Published in 2021 rec list!! Which made me feel quite famous, let me tell you. And insanely flattered. "This person who recs such good fics!!! Recced!!!! MY???? FIC??????" (Am I super casually sneaking extra recs into the Introduction section? Well spotted! Yes. Yes I am.)

Of course, Squash is more than just a gourd with good taste in fics. She is a very intelligent, enthusiastic, supportive fan. Big love for fandom, the community, the history, the culture, and more! She is openminded and openhearted. A rockstar cheerleader. She leaves such sweet comments! She has read a lot, and somehow finds the time to do all of this stuff, even with life being hecka weird and rough!

Best of all, Squash is a good friend. I can fearlessly barge into her DMs and blather about my woes, various dramas, and worst of all: really humiliating fangirl shenanigans. If I can shamelessly fangirl in front of anyone, it's Squash! She is a great listener. Very compassionate and supportive and understanding. She is an absolutely fantastic HUMAN above all else, and I just adore her!

And with that in mind...check out just a few of the hecka awesome stuff Squash has done!

Meta

House of the Dragon Fanfic Character Analysis - Daemon from eldritcher's "Ossuarium"

Fanfic Relationship Analysis - Daemyra from eldritcher's "Ossuarium"

Fanfic Relationship Analysis - Rhaelicent from eldritcher's "Ossuarium"

Pretty sure these are some of the coolest things I've ever seen?? Very loving, ecstatic, detailed essays on eldritcher's work!!!! Too cool, even if I am woefully behind on Ossarium!

Recs

5 Meta Recs

Very cool concept for a rec list! I do love a good meta post. Though don't read that Making of Contempt haha oh no. I see a lot of fic recs. I've even seen some art recs. I'm not sure I'd seen meta recs before this, and I'd sure love to see more of them! I inhale good meta when I see it!

10 Albus Dumbledore Slash Recs

I do need some good Dumbledore slash fics in my life, and Squash provides. Such good fics on this list! Especially In Infinite Remorse of Soul, which I'm obsessed with.

10 Intro Slash Fics With 2nd person POV

I love this! Second person POV can be such a difficult one to pull off writing, or to properly get into reading, but when it is done well, it is done very well! And we can all thank Squash for putting together a list of goodies for us!

10 Snarry Recs with Sexposition

What a great list, wow. Snarry, for one thing, our shared OTP! But also...sexposition! Nice. Also: so many great fics. Wow wow wow. 10/10 rec list. (Haha. 10/10 for the 10 Snarry Recs. Look at me go.)

Some Snarry fics are seriously brilliant about using smut for plot exposition - they are indeed!

Comments Are Love / 5 Comment Recs

A very unique and special rec list idea! As a writer, I can assure you, comments ARE love. They are big love. And I love my commenters. It's also a reminder that comments are soul food not only for the creators, but can be so meaningful and impactful to other readers, as well! And an excellent reminder that this is a community. A community built on love.

for an explanation about Mutuals March, or to figure out why i wrote you a thing, please check out this post.

[writingsfromspace]

Nebelige Straßen

315 words | Steampunk! Magic! Dinosaurs!

Prompt | Nebulous roads - @flashfictionfridayofficial

This is late (mostly, though, for logictic reasons!) and also in German, apologies. But! On the plus side! A glimpse into the life and times of Athanasios, one of the protagonists of my latest WIP! This might actually be the day the story starts, come to think about it...

Als Athanasios an diesem Tag aus dem Ossuarium hervorschlich, war es so nebelig, dass kein Hinweis auf die Tageszeit zu erkennen war. Der Herbst war gekommen.

Tag war, das konnte er feststellen; wenn auch noch Nacht gewesen wäre, hätte man rein gar nichts mehr erkennen können. So bestand die Straße aus weißer Watte und ungefähr zwei Metern Häuserreihen.

Er hatte nichts dagegen einzuwenden; es passte zu seiner Stimmung. Es war kein guter Tag, sein Herz tat weh, als wären die Wochen, in denen es ihm schon besser gegangen war, nur ein Traum gewesen, und er hatte Hunger.

Er hatte noch ein paar Groschen, das war nicht das Problem, aber durch die verhüllten Straßen zu wandeln, gab ihm ein so unwirkliches Gefühl, wie er es seit dem Begräbnis nicht mehr gehabt hatte, und das machte es nicht besser. Viel lieber hätte er sich ebenso verkrochen wie offenbar jede andere Seele, die sich das leisten konnte; die Stille wurde nur gelegentlich von einem schläfrigen Vogelruf oder Flüchen auf das Wetter unterbrochen.

Er fand seinen Weg zu einem Straßenhändler, der dem Wetter trotzte - es gab trotz allem genug -kaufte sich eine Fleischtasche, obwohl das mit dem Fleisch fragwürdig war, und sah sich nach einem zufriedenstellenden Stehplatz um. Schließlich ließ er es sein und kletterte - der Nebel verbarg ihn ja ohnehin - einfach das nächste Haus hinauf. Er wusste aus dem Gedächtnis nicht genau, wie hoch es war - vier oder fünf Stockwerke - aber es besaß eine sehr hilfsbereite Regenrinne, so war es nicht so wichtig.

Als er am dritten Stock vorbeikletterte, riss der Nebel auf.

Er hätte eigentlich damit rechnen können. Das goldene Licht eines späten Herbstnachmittags ergoss sich über ihn, und als er am Dachfirst saß und das Nebelmeer unter ihm schimmerte und alle Kuppeln der Altstadt glänzten und er schließlich auch seine Tasche aß, hatte er das Gefühl, dass mit dem Tag vielleicht doch noch etwas anzufangen war.

[theartofmetal]

130. Ossuarium Silhouettes Unhallowed - Hooded Menace (Death Metal, 2018)

Art by Adam Burke / Nightjar Illustration

[mysteri0us-cookie]

Bride for a bride🪶

rain pours down steadily as if to cover my eyes, like gold leaves falling from trees people pass by waving as I drive but I smile knowing, they cant see my teary eyes wont ever know they succeeded I told them the city calls me and in this little turn of events both sides got what they wished and i saw them celebrate from the rearview they got rid of the witch and she's old news she wont cause no trouble, or wreck havoc in this sickly peaceful ossuarium and I, I sipped wine old as time I stole from the Bishop's secret wife and the clouds form a pattern, takes me back to a friend from a distant memory and though I still  forget his name, I ve still kept my deepest regard for him I swear, I ve been meaning to tell him I ve been through with his journals memories i wish he would have told her all this time now his words in a casket, and his love it haunts her gravestone while he puts a ring on an unknow priest's daughter while his family sips wine, from the same cellar as mine and I , I became his bride's lover's wife while she married mine

~Anne

🌸🦋🌸🦋🌸🦋🌸🦋🌸🦋🌸🦋🌸🦋🌸🦋🌸🦋🌸🦋🌸🦋

For anyone who time to read this, thank you.

have a nice day<3

[givereadersahug]

Eldritcher & Me Crying Over Them

Eldritcher reccing my little drabbles I wrote for HP Halloween. Nope. I'm not being awestruck and crying over here. (Yes, I'm still awestruck.) I just respect them so much. 😭 They are a gift to fandom, truly. Their HP fics are just *chef's kiss* and they just finished their epic House of the Dragon fanfic series that I still need to dig in. @consistentsquash wrote an amazing author love letter to Eldritcher and a lovely fic rec post for their Ossuarium's series. Truly, check Eldritcher out. You won't be disappointed.

[nicollekidman]

Abby have you read Ossuarium? It’s a series and it has one of the greatest Daemon/Rhaenyra dynamics but there are also parts dedicated to Alicent that are so good!

oooh i haven't read any of these but i am so intrigued by the setup and form..... bookmarked thank you!!!!!!!!!!

[attonitos-gloria]

I’m also starting to become obsess with Viserys x Daemon because of Ossuarium. One thing that won’t leave my mind is what if, Viserys’s possessiveness actually consumes him. I couldn’t get the idea out of my head Viserys being angry because all of a sudden Daemon relies on Corlys more. What do you think would a confrontation between Corlys and Viserys would be like when it comes to Daemon? Would their daughters be involved as well…or? Much worse if it was done in public how would that scenario play out?

Aahhhh I am so sorry for the delay to answer this; I started answering and it went to my drafts - I did this with a couple of asks, I think - and then it wasn’t in my mailbox anymore!! so so so sorry <3

I love this scenario and you’ve got my interest! but I don’t know if I have the talent to develop it narratively - I like Corlys a lot in the show, and I think the fact that Daemon marries Corlys’ daughter, in the end, is interesting. To be honest, I can’t imagine Viserys being consumed by jealousy openly, in public; only behind closed doors. I can totally picture him undermining Corlys’ decisions and opinions in Small Council meetings, though, because he can be passive-aggressive like that?! I think Corlys would know what it was about, he would notice and he would swell with pride even more - Viserys is kind of pathetic sometimes (I like pathetic men) and he handles Corlys very poorly, really. I don’t know; because Viserys is not prone to explosive behaviour, it would all happen between the lines, very cold war. But I am going to think about this (even) longer. Corlys/Viserys fighting for Daemon has a lot of political implications and so much potential for drama - because of Rhaenys, too (the best thing about the Targaryens is that they’re a human house of mirrors, really.)

[lesdeuxmuses]

Hooded Menace - Ossuarium Silhouettes Unhallowed (Season of Mist, 2018)

[consistentsquash]

Friday Rec <3

First fic meta rec of 2023 and it's by one of my favorite authors, eldritcher!!! Also lots of commentary about changes in fandom.

Link to meta - Re: Ossuarium.

You can totally read it w/o reading the fic. Also you don't need to know anything about the fandom/characters. Also don't worry about spoilers because the meta explains the plot like this

It is a simple affair from cradle to coffin, of a boy who grows up to be an old man and dies. Things happen along the way. He lands in a bit of a pickle once or twice. He has sex with men and women (as one does), and grapples with what society might want out of a man until he realises it doesn't quite translate when he marries a dragon (as one wishes one could), and he marries and marries (Catullus 62 is a bridal hymn!), and marriages are funerals too (because the cradle must reach the coffin).

[metalshockfinland]

SKULLDOZER Present Intense Live Video 'Kingdom Ossuarium' (Crushing Live Highlights 2023)

Death metal phenomenons SKULLDOZER present the live video for the track “Kingdom Ossuarium”, taken from the band’s album “Non Stop Ruthless Crushing” due for re-release on May 3rd, 2024 via Wormholedeath. Shot during the chaos of the “Hell Awaits New Orleans Extreme Metal Fest” at Siberia on July 8th, 2023, this montage captures Skulldozer’s live energy in all its glory. With Gene Broome from…

[interstitialvacancy]

Hey, you know what I didn't write about in a while? Yup, yeah, about the old fixations. So here's to the most "where did it come from?" one: MortalKombat from 2015.

Just saw the new MK factions trailer and I am unrationally bothered they changed Smoke to more plot-fitting appearence. Him being a sole Slav in the middle of ridiculous, bloody multidimensional fighting drama was fun! Yeah, a "a baby kidnapped from Czech republic due to abilities to secret ninja clan" background was idiotic, but was a good joke material!

Unless he'll get a line like "I'll put you skull in the Brno's ossuarium!" or something more stright-forward as this game isn't exactly full of metaphors and life-changing writing.

[grindpromotionrecords]

Several years having passed since the conception of their monumental debut album, Phrenelith have been slowly conjuring up new material, which has culminated in the creation and recording of a new full-length that will soon be unleashed upon the world. Titled Chimaera, Phrenelith’s second album comprises seven songs of bludgeoning death metal, with lyrics heavily inspired by the darker terms of Greek mythology and shows a horrid-yet-familiar visage. While delving into new and uncharted musical territory, incorporating new refining elements, Phrenelith’s attack is accompanied by the downtuned darkness and death-rattling emissions that the band is known for. Truly, it is not hyperbole to suggest that Chimaera eclipses the expansive horror of Desolate Endscape. Fully befitting this accomplishment, Chimaera is completed with cover artwork by the late/great Timo Ketola, while mixing & mastering were handled by Greg Wilkinson, who’s worked with Autopsy, Vastum, Necrot, Ossuarium, Undergang, and Fetid among many others (recording took place in Denmark’s Studio Ballade). As another cursed year draws to a close, Phrenelith looms ominously over all! #phrenelith #chimaera #nuclearwinterrecords #metal #death #deathmetal #osdm #oldschooldeathmetal #copenhagen #denmark #vinyl #vinyladdict #vinyllover #vinylme #vinylobsessed #vinyljunkie #vinyllover #vinylcollectionpost #vinylcrafts #vinyldecals #instavinyl #vinylrecords #grindpromotionrecords (presso Grindpromotion Records Hq) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cllx58UoXAc/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=