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tampire · 4 months

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We love to see evilbosses winning

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mttonex · 4 months

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Scott & Ramona & their (Evil) Exes ★

also happy new year loll 😜🎉 (first post of 2024 😈)

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kotopeachii · 4 months

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my persona 5 ocs: the crow's nest (aka a glorified pthieves hate club)

warning!!!!!

this post contains spoilers, as well as every other post related to this one.

by clicking the "read more" button, you are agreeing to spend a good few minutes reading my walls of text and thus giving your soul to me forever and being forced to read even more text in the future.

will you sign the contract?

cool, thanks.

the crow's nest is an au of mine featuring my (very cool!) ocs about our favourite goro akechi creating and leading his own ragtag group of outcasted teenagers to help take down the phantom thieves! through a bit of online chatting and human experimentation, akechi manages to gather SIX whole allies!

let's start with the first one, who isn't actually an adolescent outsider, but akechi's cute coworker.

that's right. a robot cat. with cannons built into his arms. akechi felt the same way, don't worry.

his name is lysander. like akechi, he was made to be a hitman sneaking around in the metaverse. but unlike akechi, he was made by rich people. then he was given to even richer people to turn him into a killing machine that makes snide comments every now and then.

as you might expect from a robot, lysander is very robotic. unemotive, dedicated to his routine, unable to grasp concepts like wordplay and human phrases, starts speaking in a southern american accent when magnets are brought near him-- that's just a lysander thing, actually.

akechi's not the biggest fan of his new coworker. he's a great assassin, so akechi's just a bit jealous of him. he's not a very good conversation partner, so akechi's rather bored of him. but he's a cute kitty, and you wouldn't hurt one of those, would you?

lysander uses both weapons and a persona in the metaverse, and for the people who have absolutely no clue as to how a robot could have a persona (probably because they haven't played the earlier games. no shame to you), i have an explanation.

but i don't remember it. whoops. maybe when i make the post about the infodump about their deal in the metaverse, i'll have recalled it. for now, just trust me, there is canon lore that supports this possibility.

it's not like they're ALL robots anyway. onto our next—fleshy—ally!

this is roxy okanoue. the witty and playful yet formal and intellectual girl akechi met on a forum, the leader of the Official Phantom Investigation Team (the lame OLD name), and the most passive aggressive asswad you will ever meet.

roxy puts up the front of a fun-loving, good-natured girl who's just living out her youth, but it's a little too late for that to be her truth. around her team, which she considers private time, she's much more jaded and quick to irritate. she really values her role as a leader, but any criticism towards her, genuine or not, will get a "haha, you're so funny" or a slight jab at your self-image.

her and akechi verbally agreed that they would both lead the crow's nest, but neither of them actually do. it's a subtle back-and-forth consisting of backhanded comments and not-really-compliments that tend to derail the serious group discussions.

meet bunki kuboyama, the shujin academy newspaper club member so unpleasant that the only other member considers him dead to her.

bunki is the one with all the attitude. where roxy is subtly malicious, he will not hold back on ranting to you about just how unflattering those colours are on you. he's very keen on voicing every thought of his, actually, which means he expresses a lot of—frankly, unwanted—opinions. it doesn't even matter if he wasn't in the conversation before, because he is now. and god he will not shut up.

akechi isn't fond of bunki's nosy nature, and especially not how much he insists he tells him about his private life outside . but bunki's failure to grasp the concept of fun makes him good for serious discussions where he brings in his actually good ideas, and he's within literal inches of the real phantom thieves, so akechi won't curbstomp him. not today, at least.

another one of bunki's good traits is that he's observant with a good eye for details, which makes him a plausible navigator in the metaverse. but that's another post for another day.

next is chifuyu oishi. he was born in a back alley dumpster and raised by feral dogs.

okay, not actually, but it would explain a lot about him. chifuyu is loud, aggressive, and his temper is as foul as spoiled milk. however, if you're trustworthy in his eyes, he'll have an undying and unconditional loyalty to you, as well as the impression that you'll always answer his pleas when he pesters you about his latest big bang burger craving.

unfortunately, akechi turns out to be the main target of said pestering because he's a "rich, famous celebrity or some shit like that, yeah?", and thus has to pay for his meals. akechi feels like he could really be doing something better with his time, but... whatever stops the bomb from going off, i guess.

chifuyu's fixation on combat makes him a useful asset in battle, at least. he's good at following commands, except for the ones telling him to take it easy, meaning he gets injured. a lot. nothing he's not used to, though.

introducing the girl who would probably be very upset to learn that she needs an introduction since she expects everyone to know her already, kiyoe hino!

kiyoe comes from a family of old wealth. you can tell, because she brings it up in every sentence. she's excessively prideful with lots of badges and trophies and medals in all kind of competitions to justify it. kiyoe likes to believe that she's composed and elegant like a princess would be, but if one dares to question her she will become extremely upset and petty.

akechi finds that she's rather hard to work with, seeing she has a tendency to follow commands from nobody but herself, but all it takes is a bit of bargaining and boot-kissing and she's willing to help out. it's not something akechi wants to do, but he has to, otherwise he's lost an ally. and knowing kiyoe, if she's not in the crow's nest, she'll probably try to find some way to take the phantom thieves down herself, disrupting the others' plans in the process.

that said, she definitely could if she tried hard enough. kiyoe isn't the best at managing her emotions, but she is cunning, calculated, and a good strategist. her intelligence is a great weapon if used correctly.

and last, but not least, is etsumi fukunaga. she's an ex-ballerina with a personality as fragile as a flower, making you wonder how she wound up with these guys in the first place.

well... "fragile" can mean two things in her case. either delicate, dainty, and precious... or very, very unstable.

etsumi is a sweet girl, sure. she's soft-spoken and a good listener and an obedient teammate. but put any pressure on her, and she will crack. it's difficult to have a productive conversation with her because it can never be her fault, she's the victim, and she only ever does good. etsumi also has a tendency to think aloud, and her thoughts are... violent. graphically so.

but akechi actually likes her. her crying can be annoying at times, but she's extremely dedicated to eradicating the phantom thieves, follows orders without resistance, and it's quite obvious she looks up to him.

etsumi's previous experience in the art of dance makes her a capable fighter (and an elegant one, at that) as well. she also offers good morale, seeing as she's the only one on the team without a stick up her ass.

if you've read this far, it means you gave me enough time to suck your soul from your body. it's mine now, and now you have to read more oc posts in the future.

i sure hope that's not something you'll complain about. i hope you enjoyed learning about them, and thank you for your time! bye now

#persona 5 #p5 #persona 5 oc #p5 oc #persona #persona oc #goro akechi #he is the star of the show here!#oc: lysander #oc: roxy okanoue #oc: bunki kuboyama #oc: chifuyu oishi #oc: kiyoe hino #oc: etsumi fukunaga #the crows nest au #so many tags... hghabd...#koto.txt #koto.png

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roxycorp · 3 months

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Spam tapping the like button to farm Roxy cum

*I* get to keep that. you're just making me richer. my roxycum fortunes

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the-meat-machine · 6 months

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is stridercest canon-compliant

Hi. I'm not sure how to answer this question, but like hell am I going to let that stop me from rambling on about it for far longer than anyone would consider reasonable.

What does it mean for a ship to be canon-compliant?

My first difficulty is this: what does it mean for a ship to be "canon-compliant"?

I tend to be of the opinion that you can come up with a justification for nearly any ship that, at the very least, doesn't contradict canon. Whether that ship is probable or not is a different story.

To give an example of a ship that's technically possible but canonically unlikely… let's say I were to posit that Nepeta had red feelings for Aradia. Well, we get fairly direct evidence of Nepeta's romantic interests throughout the comic, and Aradia never features in her self-pairing fantasies. Not to mention that if she had such feelings, you'd think it would cause conflict in her relationship with Equius, who does canonically have feelings for Aradia. But Nepeta never says she doesn't like Aradia that way, so for all we know they could have had a torrid romance offscreen that is never once hinted at in the comic. Highly improbable within canon, but not strictly impossible.

A level above that, there are ships where there's basically nothing to go on. Nothing to contradict it, but nothing to really support it either. For example, how would Dirk and John get along? Well, they only ever meet once in the comic and it's when Game Over!Dirk is giving himself over to the glitchy void, so who fuckin' knows. You'll have to base their interactions on a general knowledge of their characters. And hey, you can probably come up with a pretty convincing argument that they'd be great for each other! You can equally come up with an argument that they couldn't stand one another. There's really no canon basis to say either way.

That said, I think Stridercest is on a rung above that. These characters have had significant canonical interactions that revolve around one another, giving a richer basis to draw from. Or at least… Dave and Dirk have. Which leads me to my second difficulty.

What is Stridercest?

"Stridercest" can refer to quite a few possible ships.

For example, Guardiancest. Do I think Guardiancest has a basis in canon? No. Alpha Dave and Beta Dirk lived in different versions of the universe and both died well before the end of the game. They almost certainly never even knew that each other existed.

That said, Homestuck is a pretty wild canon as far as possible character interactions go, what with all the various ways characters can hop between universes, time travel, get resurrected, meet up in dream bubbles, etc. Trans-universal communication is canonically possible (see for example Jade and Jake's letters to each other), so who knows -- maybe Alpha Dave and Beta Dirk could have met each other somehow. Does it seem likely? Absolutely not. But it's not impossible.

Now, if you were asking about the original Stridercest, Bro/Dave, that's a ship that clearly is logistically possible, at least. They spent 13 years in the same apartment. Something could have happened. Did it? I don't know. I don't consider myself a Bro/Dave scholar, so I'll leave that as a question for the reader.

But one pairing I have significantly more to say about is Dave/Dirk.

Here are some things that are canon:

Dave has had, at the very least, passing attractions to a minimum of two of his ectobiological relatives -- namely, Rose and Roxy

Dave has evinced attraction to both men and women

Dave used to idolize his bro, but later came to have more complicated feelings about him

Dirk has had a lifelong obsession with his own long-dead bro. He studied all the minutiae of Alpha Dave's life and patterned his own life after what he's gleaned from that

Dirk is definitely attracted to men

Dave and Dirk had a long heart-to-heart during which they hugged each other

Here are some questions that cannot be directly answered by canon:

Do Dave's incestuous inclinations extend to Dirk and/or Bro?

Is there a homoerotic dimension to Dirk's obsession with Dave?

Now, you could plausibly answer these questions with "no". Maybe Dave's upbringing with Bro made it impossible for him to see Dirk in a romantic light. Or hell, maybe he only likes blond hair on chicks, not on dudes. And for all we know, maybe Dirk's interest in Alpha Dave is strictly platonic. (…ha, that one's hard to type with a straight face. But it's possible.)

Of course, I'm asking these questions because I think you can easily answer them with "yes". There's significant canonical basis to suggest that these suppositions at least could be true. At the very least, conditions are ripe for these two to have some very weird, complicated feelings about each other that are laced with incestuous and homoerotic undertones.

So is Stridercest canon-compliant? For Dave/Dirk, at the very least, I'd argue that it is.

#in which meat continues its tradition of giving essay-length responses to questions that absolutely do not require essay-length answers #meatmeta #that's not even getting into the post-canon where ult dirk explicitly sets up dave in a role that JAKE has played to dirk in other contexts

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t4le-4s-0ld-4s-t1m3 · 1 year

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A fanfic I really wish someone would write is one about the families back home during the events of the series (preferably cutting out the last 2 seasons or at the very least the last one where Mr.Kon in the owner of Mantah corp because that's when the quality dropped). Going from the beginning when the kids get invited to camp cretaceous to when the kids are back home and dealing with the aftermath.

What were the family dynamics like before all of this, not just with the parents but the siblings as well ? How did they view their member of the camp fam ? How did they feel about sending them off to camp ? Sorrowful, indifferent, panicked, guilty, excited, amused, curious, hopeful ? Every kid goes there for a completely different reason with different goals in mind, that has to alter their families perception of the trip.

How did they first hear something was wrong ? Did they watch the news unfold in horror, apprehension ? Did they go to Costa Rica to wait for their kid to return ? Did the richer ones try to go there in person ? What was it like for each family to get the news that their kid wasn't coming home ? Where were they ? How did they initially react ? Did they meet the other families of the camp fam members ? How did their community/surroundings react ? What kind of funerals did they have ? What actions did they take against the park as well as Roxie/Dave ? How did they adjust to their new normal ? How did they live during those 6 months ?

What was like to be told that the kids had survived and been abandonned on that island to spend 6 months fighting for their lives in a way virtually no one had accomplished and for no way near that amount of time (the only comparable example is Eric from Jurassic Park 3 and he was out there for 8 weeks) ? How did the reunion go ? All of the kids change on that island, how did that make them all feel ? Were they able to adjust to their new personalities and interests ? How did separating them go ? How well do they deal with the bucket loads of PTSD waiting for them ? Did they adapt into being the support needed or are they failing miserably ?

All of this deserves exploration and it sucks that it's been virtually untouched so far, especially since they mostly have very little canon presence so you can make it what you want. Add siblings, grand-parents as well as aunts and uncles galore. Choose their personalities and most of their appearances...

Though I do think a scene showing what the security cameras could have had time to dave to the cloud before the electricity went to shit would be really impactful. So I would want someone to work that in somehow.

I don't suppose anyone knows someone looking for a challenge ? Because what I am suggesting is a behemoth that would take time and dedication so I realise this is not for every writer out there. A girl can dream though.

#jurassic world camp cretaceous #fanfic prompt #I desperately want someone to write this #camp fam's at home family

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dustedmagazine · 5 months

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Chris Forsyth — Solar Motel (Expanded) (Algorithm Free)

Chris Forsyth marks the ten-year anniversary of his turn from towards rock with this expanded edition of Solar Motel, augmented with two previously unreleased studio tracks and a side-long live WFMU recording of “Paranoid Cat.” The two newly released tracks are a revelation, solidifying and reaffirming Forsyth’s connection to Television (he studied with Richard Lloyd) with cartwheeling guitar riffs and roiling, surging percussion in the epic vein of Marquee Moon.

Forsyth was just off his 2011 release of Paranoid Cat when he made Solar Motel, stillstruggling for a way to incorporate a palette of influences—Television, Takoma-style fingerpicking, psych and drone—into a coherent aesthetic. Our own Bill Meyer saw him as only partly successful at this on the previous album, calling Paranoid Cat, “an album that is full of good ideas lifted from other people’s work, but he makes such good use of them that it’s easy not to care.”

Solar Motel, Forsyth’s first full-band album, was a big step towards the driving, boogie-ing, rock-leaning long grooves that we have since come to associate with the guitarist. In the notes, he says, “Solar Motel is the first record on which I overtly took rock tropes and twisted them into new shapes, incorporating so many of my interests and influences - the twin-guitar elegance of Television, the sprawl of West Coast psych, the boiled down Rock Minimalism of Rhys Chatham, the abstract tangles of free improv, an undercurrent of ecstatic jazz energy, and the studio textures of Eno/Cale/Roxy ‘70s art rock.… Solar Motel basically set the template for much of what I did for the remainder of that decade.”

The band for Solar Motel included Forsyth, drummer Mike Pride, bassist Peter Kerlin and keyboard player Shawn Edward Hansen, all musicians that Forsyth had worked with previously in various roles and configurations. It was recorded mostly live, though Forsyth put in additional guitar after the fact to build up Television-like layers of interplay. The music took shape in four numbered tracks Solar Motel I through IV. “Part I” opens with tense, staccato guitar, at first alone, then joined by a second guitar and bass. The groove is insistent, cleanly minimal, and over it, Forsyth improvises warm, fluid arcs of solo guitar, and as it goes, the texture becomes less of a drone and more of a warm, living jam. This becomes a pattern over the next three track, as taut, disciplined motifs blossom into full-band free play. Repetition becomes a launching pad for the wildest swirls of improvisatory ornament, with sweet lyrical mid-range guitar vaulting over motorik grooves.

All that is still there, still striking in the way it marries austere experiment to lighter flaring guitar solo. If you haven’t heard it—or haven’t heard it in a while—all four original tracks remain very much worth a listen. However, it’s the new stuff that you’ll want to spin right away, because these two unreleased tracks take the basic experiment and launch them into richer, more exciting directions.

“Harmonious Dance,” at just under nine minutes, is the expanded release’s best tune. A slow chime of guitar notes hitting turbulence early on in Pride’s swelling drum roll. The notes get bigger, more resonant, more sustained as they go, taking on the burnished glow of Lloyd and Verlaine in tandem (though without the trebly yelp of vocals). “Long Warm Afternoon” starts out with warmth and sustained tones, building shimmering textures of guitar over a steady thump and roll. Both cuts feel less restrained, less tightly disciplined than the original Solar Motel cuts. It’s as if Forsyth had a concept for setting down guardrails and eventually swamping them with sensory data, and it took him a while to implement it fully.

The WFMU recording is fine, too, letting the twitchy glamor of “Paranoid Cat” stretch out, catch fire in a truly insane instrumental freakout and somehow stuff all that back into the bottle for a reprise of the original melody. But if you need a reason to check out this ten years after reissue, I’d look at the two unreleased tracks, where Forsyth and his band hit a groove they’ve been riding ever since.

Jennifer Kelly

#chris forsyth #solar motel #algorithm free #jennifer kelly #albumreview #dusted magazine #reissue #television #guitars #jam #peter kerlin #mike pride #shawn edward hansen #jeff ziegler #philadelphia #psych

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29pageshomestuckeveryday · 1 year

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Homestuck, page 1,931

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[S] John: Reunite with your loving wife and daughter.

Song used: How Do I Live (Bunny Back in the Box Version) by Michael guy bowman

Storyboards: http://readmspa.org/storyboards/11931.swf.html

Author commentary:

Now we get to "watch" the goofy Con Air animation without the critical musical accompaniment, Bowman's cover of Trisha Yearwood's "How Do I Live." The animation experience is an emotional rollercoaster. A cumulative celebration, if you will, of Homestuck's whimsical essence and its uncompromising spirit of absurdity. Now, here in this book, examining the frames will be more of a somber, meditative practice. I invite you to quietly behold Nic Cage's face for several minutes. Reflect on his visage the way one shows reverence for a religious icon during moments of silence in a church. You will come to understand that this sequence doesn't need funny music at all, and your appreciation of the content will be all the richer for it. This does admirably explain how Rose and Jade got these bunnies as their Birth Objects. It wasn't their own attraction to the bunnies, which wouldn't have made a lot of sense. It was John's attraction to the idea of performing this stupid skit at a highly inappropriate moment, which resulted in them being shipped off to Earth with a couple of ratty bunnies, thus setting the stage for them to grow up and regift the bunnies back to John in the first place. The official Con Air bunny I own is not the [real one Nic Cage is holding]. That's the ruined one at the end of the movie. I don't know where that one is, or frankly, if it even survived the shoot. The one in my possession is the bunny still in its original package, which Nic Cage buys for his daughter at the beginning of the movie. I'm just assuming that at some point in the future, I will have to travel back in time and give Cage the bunny for him to use in the film in the first place. The skit is essentially complete once Rose gets the bunny. But Jade gets one too, as kind of an afterthought. John does have another bunny to spare, so why not? That way these three young ladies all go home with something nice. Jane, however, gets fuck all, since she's offscreen at the moment, having decided to crawl into a man's filthy hat. Karkat is being melodramatic and pretending not to enjoy every minute of this spectacle. We don't know it yet, or have the context for understanding what it means, but at this moment he has a hate crush on John. It was hate at first sight. Every morsel of conversation we have read between these two has been driven by these feelings. What he is doing here now, bonking his own head, is nothing more than an act of powerful sexual frustration. The scribbled sequence above is misleading. By the time the plane crashes into the giant guitar in Vegas, the sports car it was keeping in tow had long since been severed. Also, there's another floating arm. What a great place to sneak an arm in. Generally when I was retconning arms into the story, the more surreal and incomprehensible a location was for John's arm to show up, the better. Not only did this moment not even take place inside the canon of the comic, it didn't even take place in the canon of the movie. It truly happened nowhere. And yet, there is his arm. There is nothing remotely stupid about any of this. John, his name is Bubbles Von Salamancer now. Respect his new identity. Roxy seems to be really getting into that hug there. I think I did a tremendous job in seeding her overwhelming attraction to Egbert men here in Act 4. Stick this fact in your pipe and consider smoking it toward the end of Act 6. There's a part in Con Air when John Malkovich holds a gun up to the bunny during a tense moment and says don't move or the bunny gets it. Or something like that. The rowdy criminals like to keep things loose and fun up there on the jail plane, as you will know if you have seen the film, which you have, at least a hundred times. Don't deny it. At some point in this song cover, there's a guitar solo. But nobody is playing a guitar. It's just some guy making jackass noises with his mouth. So John here is working his air guitar to go along with that riff. Actually it make sense that a Hero of Breath would play an air guitar. I really do think of everything... It's incredible.

#Youtube #video

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n0ncooll2 · 5 months

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Best Scott pilgrim takes off characters

1. Young Neil best character of the show hilarious always making funny face amazing

2. Wallace wells so many amazing funny things I wish I could put him in first but young Neil is too good

3. Scott pilgrim must I say anything more

4. Roxie Richer really chill the episode with her in it was my favorite one

5. Knives cute and naive

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lightbluesleeper · 5 months

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*crawls towards u soaked in blood hanging onto ur ankle* YOU DONT UNDERSTAND I NEED ROXIE RICHER SO BADDDD

#spto #oh my GOD #episode 3 altered my brain chemistry #all jokes aside though #spto was not what i was expecting at all #it’s actually insane #prob one of my fav series to come out this year tho #its sooooo good

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nobody-nexus · 1 year

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Fuck it- DRAGON AU RAMBLE TIME

Yes, I made a fucking Dragon AU for Security Breach. Blame Flight Rising. Anyway, time for me to ramble about this world

So, in this modern fantasy world, having a dragon is very common. They help with just about anything- and there’s many kinds. It’s also a very common practice among the rich folk to marry off their child along with their pet dragon- purposefully mixing pure breeds to show that they’re on good terms

Insert Chica, being one of these richer folks, being the daughter of a good businessman. She has a pure-bred feathered dragon named Rosey

One seeming normal day it begins to rain, and she notices that the mechanic/tinkerer has trouble getting back home since her dragon’s feathers are wet. She happily allows them to spend the night in the house, so she also meets them. The mechanic’s name is Roxanne, whilst her mutt breed’s name is Speedster, or Speedy for short. Speedy is placed in a room where dragons can relax, mostly where Rosey is. Although Roxy and Chica have a more platonic interaction, their dragons kinda DON’T- unknowingly to their owners

Months pass, neither of them know about the whole mating thing, even if Rosey has been acting strange recently, the two still talk through phone. It’s only when Chica ends up finding out that Rosey has laid an egg where it starts going downhill. Chica, of course, starts to panic to Roxy about the egg since she doesn’t know who the father is and how her arranged marriage is ruined etc etc, but Roxy figures out that the only other dragon that interacted with Rosey was hers- but she didn’t have room for a dragon as big as Rosey- and considering it’s a mutt egg- neither know what it’s going to look like

They don’t know where the egg’s gonna go, but it just so happens just her arranged marriage man, a man named Freddy, is related to the people who own the biggest hatchery/adoption dragon shelter company in the country. So now they have to hide the egg from other upper-class people and make sure that they can find a hatchery that’s big enough to hold at least the partial breed. When the egg hatches, this hiding becomes harder- and now they have to find the hatchery where Freddy lives because it’s the biggest one and they can’t take any chances with such a mutt breed

They find other people along the way on this hijinx themed adventure, like royal guard for Chica named Bonnie- and his rival who is Freddy’s bodyguard Monty, ironically having dragons from the same liter. Or The Attendant, an oracle obsessed with theater, having two powerful dragons and although one side wants to observe the dragon’s growth, the other side wishes to destroy it

Soon enough a necromancer even appears, attempting to find a perfect specimen to breed with HIS baby dragon in the far future- his dragon being diseased and disgusting- along with his mind controlled, partially diseased herself lacky

I put so much thought into this so I hope you enjoyed my ramblings

#fnaf #fnaf sb #security breach #glamrock #fnaf au #dragon #dragon au #got dammit flight rising-

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artcalledtattoo · 2 months

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Resistance All live for the glory a substance of some kind Breathing making due in the meantime a such happenstance Resistance I was talking to God when I was I was talking to myself Breathing making due in the meantime a such happenstance Resistance I’ll never fall into the devil and be the slave for him Breathing making due in the meantime a such happenstance Resistance Could’ve been richer, I don’t know In with theatrics Hallways in fallings Resistance Hated sands foot pad concrete walls Plastered & painted not in focus Resistant Botox Roxy from the depths of folds Kick the legs up Resist Forward March Impact And today Love! Whoah Red Resistor

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popentertainmentconcertreviews · 5 months

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10,000 Maniacs with Leigh Nash – Ardmore Music Hall – Ardmore, PA – November 12, 2023

10,000 Maniacs was briefly – during the mid-late 1980s and early 1990s – one of the biggest bands in the alt-rock world. Formed in Johnstown, New York in the early 80s and fronted by singer/songwriter Natalie Merchant, with keyboardist Dennis Drew, bassist Steve Gustafson, drummer Jerry Augustyniak and guitarist Robert Buck, they broke out with their 1986 album In My Tribe, which spawned three minor hits – “Like the Weather,” “What’s the Matter Here” and a cover of Cat Stevens’ “Peace Train,” but eventually sold over 2,000,000 copies.

In 1989 their follow-up Blind Man’s Zoo opened up their recognition even more, becoming a platinum record (1,000,000 units sold) and they just missed the top 40 with their single “Trouble Me.” Their 1992 album Our Time In Eden also became a hit, spawning the minor hits “These Are Days” and “Candy Everybody Wants.” However, they had their first top 10 single with a live cover of Patti Smith’s “Because the Night,” which was recorded for MTV Unplugged, back in the days where nearly every band released an Unplugged album.

Right at the height of their fame, Merchant decided to leave the band to go solo, a sporadically successful venture which led to a couple of big hit albums and has continued to this day. The band’s label Elektra decided to stick with Merchant and drop the rest of the band. Therefore, in regrouping, the Maniacs brought on board John Lombardo (who had been an early member of the group but left the album before they broke out) and his musical partner Mary Ramsay, who had a folk band called John and Mary which had opened for the Maniacs. (Both had performed as part of the Maniacs at the MTV Unplugged session.)

Over the years since, the band had a series of lineup changes – the most important one coming when guitarist and songwriter Robert Buck died way too young of liver disease at age 42 in 2000 – but basically the band continued on with a base of Drew, Gustafson, Augustyniak and Lombardo. Ramsay ended up having a much longer run with 10,000 Maniacs than Merchant ever did – recording four albums (10 if you count EPs and live albums), and even having a fluke top 40 hit with a cover of Roxy Music’s “More Than This” on her first album with the band, and touring with the band for nearly 30 years before leaving the group last year.

Without a singer for the first time in decades – I don’t know if they reached out to Merchant, but she is still working on her solo career and has shown little interest in looking backwards over the years – the band had an interesting thought. Over the years they had toured periodically with the group Sixpence None the Richer – which was big in the late 90s and early 00s and had hits with “Kiss Me,” “Breath My Name” and covers of the La’s “There She Goes” and Crowded House’s “Don’t Dream It’s Over.” The members of 10,000 Maniacs became friends with the band, particularly singer Leigh Nash and lead guitarist and songwriter Matt Slocum. Why not bring them onboard, and the tour can be a mixture of both groups’ hits? (The group’s official bio promoting this tour is a bit vague as to whether Nash and Slocum have joined 10,000 Maniacs full time or if this is just a one-tour thing…)

It turns out to be a pretty good fit. Nash’s vocals are similar enough to Merchant and Ramsay’s so as to not be distracting, and yet different enough to add a bit of interest and excitement to songs that have been around for decades.

This gig was the second of two shows on the tour in the Philadelphia area. The night before the new Maniacs played at the more traditional Colonial Theater in nearby Phoenixville, about a half-hour drive away. The Ardmore Music Hall is more of a large club, standing-room-only atmosphere.

The band opened with a slightly more obscure tune, “City of Angels,” but after that there was a run of hits that lasted most of the first set. (The show was broken into two nine-song sets plus a three-song encore.) “Trouble Me” started things off with a sweet hopefulness before the set took a slightly darker turn... at least lyrically. “What’s the Matter Here?” and “Like the Weather” (undoubtedly two of the most upbeat and catchy songs ever written about the serious subjects of child abuse and manic depression) from In My Tribe still feel new, immediate and wonderful all these years after their release.

The covers also started to pop up soon afterwords, with gorgeous takes on “Don’t Dream It’s Over” and “More Than This” going down smoothly. Back to the originals, the political treatise “You Happy Puppet” still stings in its immediacy – in fact it’s perhaps even more trenchant today than it was when originally recorded. The first set finished off on the gorgeously somber “Stockton Gala Days.”

The mix of the groups was even more evident in the second act, when 10,000 Maniacs’ desperate “Don’t Talk” was followed up by Sixpence’s wonderfully catchy “Breath My Name.” (That song should have been a much bigger hit than it became.) Of course, each of the bands’ biggest hits were represented: from 10,000 Maniacs’ propulsive cover of Patti Smith and Bruce Springsteen’s biting romantic discourse “Because the Night” to the sweetly naïve and lovesick catchiness of Sixpence’s near-perfect hit single “Kiss Me.”

That romanticism was also touched on in a couple of favorite In My Tribe album tracks, the sweetly charming marriage song “My Sister Rose” and the beat-generation mythologizing of “Hey Jack Kerouac,” which led into the encore. The group sent the night out with the perfect power pop of The La’s “There She Goes” and then closed things out with an uplifting version of “These Are Days.”

Turns out that the merging of two separate popular bands from two different eras worked out pretty well in this case. I’m looking forward to seeing if this collaboration goes further.

Jay S. Jacobs

#10000 Maniacs #2023 #Concert Reviews #Ardmore #Ardmore Music Hall #Jay S. Jacobs #Jim Rinaldi

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humanspiritbeingkd · 10 months

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why healing feels scary:

the interval of not knowing who you are.

during our early-formative years, if our identity is formed in a chaotic, consistently tense, or abusive situation -- that is not the true you. it is rather an identity made up of reactions, coping mechanisms and probably some damaging false beliefs. when you start to heal, by either finding or creating the proper conditions of safety and curiosity, those defenses start to fall away. they’re simply not needed as an inner-felt-sense of security builds in the actual tissues and cells and blood and bones of your body and nervous system. enter the shakey rawness of “who am i really?” what do i do now that my body isn’t worried about survival or walking on eggshells? you mean i don’t need these walls around my heart? i don’t need to people-please or feel shame for simply existing? i don’t have to emotionally caretake others to receive love? for real? [and it’s a process, right...an inching out into the new...a recoil...inching a bit further...maybe a smaller recoil...back out again, inner space strengthening...]

it doesn’t have to be scary, but often what’s familiar is soothing even if the familiar pattern or dynamic is painful. kinda weird, right? like we gotta keep touching that hot stove until one day we can really see it clearly: this fucking hurts and i have the power to change. it doesn’t super feel like i have the power, but deep down somewhere i know i no longer need to touch that hot stove and i can figure it out, somehow, even if slowly. i rather be wildly uncomfortable figuring it out than repeating *that.* so here we go, off healing into unknown territory...getting a little bit braver as we scooch our way forward, wondering if maybe uncertainty could be...really rich? like, richer than we’ve ever known?

during this interval, i suggest adopting the archetype of an explorer, researcher, discoverer, scientist, archaeologist, excavator, you name it! start to experiment with anything that might light you up.

maybe you already have a few things that light you up but even still, perhaps they too were reactionary.

for example: when i was a little girl i longed to be a star just like lucille ball. i can see now how that easily (likely) could have been a reaction to what i felt was an environment where i wasn’t able to safely express and have-heard all of my emotions...a longing to fully express myself, to be seen, accepted and loved for who i am. it’s no secret that this is a motivation for a lot of performers (maybe even dear lucy herself). as roxie hart puts it from the musical chicago: “i’m a star and the audience loves me...and i love them...and they love me for loving them and i love them for loving me...and we love each other...and that’s cuz none of us got enough love in our childhoods...and that’s show-biz, kid”

jumping ahead to my twenties when i started acting -- was this something i enjoyed doing? yes, yes, yes and no, depending on the role. now, i am careful with my motivations. will this role or gig be fun for me? will it be fulfilling to play this character and explore their life story, their nuanced depth of emotion? will it expand my empathy or confidence in some way? or am i acting just to be seen? admittedly there is undoubtedly some-”thing” in my core being that has a streak of lucille ball, a streak of performative outrageousness, maybe my leo rising...so who’s to say really? did the developmental wounding set me on my way into something i'd inevitably enjoy doing?

sometimes it works like that, especially with a lot of artists.

but what i want to get at about art or any hobby that lights us up but that contains lingering trauma motivations: let it transform the past for you. let it work for you, not rule you - because at some point in your healing journey, you might find a loss of fuel for that thing you enjoy so much...perhaps the need to prove yourself through this activity has faded...what then? it doesn’t necessarily mean the activity or medium is no good, but can it be a channel for the true-er you? maybe, maybe not. maybe it is time for something entirely new.

another example: my nature walks. people speak of walking (especially) in nature as so relaxing and pleasurable. for me these walks have been a necessity. since a young age i have routinely needed to go outside and be alone, a lot of times bringing with me some heavy load to unwind that it can start to become a reflex for the mental and emotional body, “oh here we go outside again, going on a walk again, cue up some problems to work out.” i’ve had to unlearn and retrain myself how to go on these walks and enjoy them for what they truly are: a pleasurable gift.

i am still learning.

i, too, am in this interval right now, excavating and discovering what kind of life i want to lead with a greater sense of harmony, of safety, and not safe as in tiny window-of-tolerance, pushing out the world to feel safe, but this wonderfully exciting, growing window-of-presence...an opening up more fully to myself and others kind of safe. a simultaneously silly, vulnerable and owning-my-power kind of harmony. and i feel raw as fuck. :) in the words of my bcst teacher Anna quoting the words of Leonard Cohen: “ring the bell that still can ring, forget your perfect offering, there is a crack, a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.”

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lolaslocker · 1 year

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Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: Vintage Style Crop Top.

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j77m · 1 year

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Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: Girls Roxy Hello Petal Dress Size Medium.

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