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shieldofiron · 18 days

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Pretty Boy Live in Santa Fe, 1977

Part 1/3 Also on Ao3 here

For @harringrove-relay-race. Very happy with how part 1 turned out, and there will be more to come. Thanks to @foxxtastic for the intro and next up will be something stunning from our fearless Relay Race leader @half-oz-eddie

Rated M / 5k words / Part 1/3

Part 1: Into Hades

Rolling Stone Magazine - May 2002

Billy Hargrove arrived after I did, in his lovingly maintained blue Camaro, the subject of his song, “Lady Blue.” “Lady Blue” was recently named #93 on Rolling Stone’s Top Love Songs of the Century.

“I wrote, ‘She’s the wind in my hair, the rumble in my soul.’ I thought it was so obvious,” He laughed, his blue eyes still boyish. “My niece made it her wedding song, I said ‘Really? It’s about a fuckin’ car!’”

He showed me several pictures of his niece, the supermodel Tyler Sinclair. It seems good looks run in the family. He suggested the diner and he ordered waffles, winking when I mentioned that we’ll be here a long time.

The decades have been kind to him, maybe a few more lines. It’s not hard to imagine him stepping right back onto the stage, as if no time has passed at all.

“A little extra glitter on the eyes,” He said with a smile, “to hide my crows feet. That’s all I need.”

I ask what he’s going to wear to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony for Kaleidoscope's induction and his smile dims only for a moment.

“I think I should pull out some old costumes. You know, the butterfly still fits.”

He was referring, of course, to the sheer butterfly cape costume that nearly had him thrown off the stage in Houston Texas in December 1976. He caved to putting on a pair of silvery shorts rather than the nude underwear it was designed with. He later wore it with the nude underwear on the inside cover of Kaleidoscope, the album that will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in just a few short weeks. Kaleidoscope was his last album with the iconic Glam Rock band Pretty Boy, which famously broke up at the height of their career while touring for the album, onstage.

It’s not often that a band is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and there’s a question if all of them will even show up.

“I’ll be there,” Hargrove said, fiddling with the silver band on his middle finger. “I have no problem with seeing him.”

The him is, of course, the lead guitarist and other lead singer of Pretty Boy, Steve Harrington.

Steve Harrington invites me to his oceanfront house in Malibu later that afternoon.

“I haven’t decided if I’m going to go,” He said thoughtfully, his brown eyes darting around the room.

When I mention that Billy is going to go, he seems surprised.

“He didn’t say he was going to punch me, did he?” Harrington smiled, but it doesn’t seem like much of a joke.

For one of the most famous rock stars of the 70s, Harrington is shockingly low key. He wears a t-shirt and slouchy linen pants, and he jokes that he ought to have shaved when I take out my camera. The house is stunning but empty, with miles of blank white walls and overstuffed white furniture.

“I’m looking for a little peace,” He shrugs, “I used to have all these pictures up, all this furniture… It was too much.”

It was hard not to see him as an artist without a muse. He drifted listlessly, picking things up and putting them down as we talked. So it was a surprise to me to hear that he’s been recording.

“I may never release it but… Yeah,” He laughed, “Music. After all this time. Bet you didn’t know.”

He picks up a rare photo from the piano. It’s from the early days of Pretty Boy, before Billy Hargrove. Harrington has his arm around his bandmate, Eddie Munson. Their drummer Chrissy Cunningham is balanced precariously across their shoulders, laughing and cringing at the same time. Bassist Robin Buckley smirks from the corner of the frame, messy bangs in her eyes.

“Who knew, right?” He asked no one, shaking the frame a little.

There are no pictures of Billy Hargrove.

“That’s a… a long story,” He said, when I asked.

But I have time. I tell him Rolling Stone will pay for it. At least that makes him laugh.

It was just by chance that Pretty Boy’s last concert was filmed.

“We were meant to just film in Vegas,” The director, Argyle Molina-Zapata, sat down with me after a private screening of Pretty Boy Live in Santa Fe, 1977, “But there was a freak rainstorm, and I couldn’t get my camera’s out of the back. The crowd was digging it, refused to leave. I remember when Billy hit the high note for ‘Mother Make Me,’ there was this lightning crack… brilliant.”

Molina-Zapata shook his head, “But the footage, what I got of it, was awful. Awful! So I begged Murray to let me come with them to Santa Fe.”

Murray was Murray Bauman, famed tour manager, who handled the Boys, later Pretty Boy from their first album Starfire, all the way to Kaleidoscope.

“And I was lucky,” Argyle nodded, “They had that extra tour bus.”

The tour busses are featured in the first few minutes of the film. They roll around the corner, one reading Billy Blue (Billy’s original stage name was Billy Blue before he dropped the Blue), and the other, Steve’s Six (Named after Steve’s best friends from his hometown.)

“They were nightmares,” Murray Bauman’s voice crackled over the phone, “Nightmares on tour. Separate buses. Separate hotels. Fuck me, I swear to god at one point they wanted separate stages. And the label caved on almost all of it. Fucking nightmare.”

It’s almost impossible to imagine it when you see them on stage together. There’s something electric that passed between Billy Hargrove and Steve Harrington, something that drove crowds wild. They gravitate towards each other on the stage, orbiting like planets until they can share the same mic. They can’t seem to stay apart.

It’s hard to see exactly what happened that night.

“I’ve watched it a million times,” Argyle laughed, “But the only two people who can really say what happened are Billy and Steve.”

What you can see is this: Steve tearing into “Pride & Prejudice”, the lead off Kaleidoscope and the last song of the night.

Billy was trembling, visibly shaking as he sang and Steve harmonized along.

What can I say, if you ask me to walk away?

Baby, there’s no words for you.

Baby. I don’t know what to do.

Billy danced closer, joining Steve, his handheld mic loose at his side.

Can you ever put away your pride?

Is it worth it to not have me at your side?

I guess it must be, because I’m yours,

Regretfully,

Baby.

Billy leans in, sharing Steve’s mic for the bridge.

Is it really a mystery?

What I mean to you, and you mean to me?

Is it really, baby?

Billy shook his head, curls bouncing. He looked into Steve's eyes. He smiled. Steve looks at Billy, and Billy looks at him. It almost looks like Billy mouths something, but bootleg footage also has appeared where it looks like Billy just nodded. Steve goes a little shell shocked, hand freezing on his guitar, falling out of sync.

And then Steve turned away and left the stage, handing his guitar to a stagehand. Billy turned to the crowd, his expression strangely triumphant. He was always magnetic on stage, but this moment transcends that. It somehow feels like he’s getting everything he wants.

So I guess I’m losing you,

You promised me you would and it’s true.

Baby, there’s no words for you.

Baby. I don’t know what to do.

Steve Harrington hasn’t performed in public since 1977.

“None of us knew what was going to happen that night,” Chrissy Cunningham curled up next to her husband, Eddie Munson, on the large white couch of their Seattle home.

They’re a handsome couple still, draped in rock and roll finery. He toyed with the edge of her scarf, and she curled his long hair around her long fingers.

“We had some of our own shit going on at the time so…” Munson shrugged, “Maybe we were distracted.”

Their living room was crowded and verdant, every spare flat surface covered in plants. Their partner, former record executive Jason Carver, puttered in the kitchen in an apron that read Plant Papa.

“Yeah,” Chrissy smiled, “We had some stuff going on at the same time. But still… It seemed like they were getting better. Didn’t it seem like they were getting better?”

Munson shrugged, “The thing about Billy and Steve… they were soulmates. You don’t write music like that and not… it was like they had a second language, just for them. They were soulmates, I really believe that. Everything they did, everything that happened… they could only hurt each other that badly if… yeah.”

When I ask what they did to each other, Eddie and Chrissy just scooted closer together, like teenagers in a slasher, hiding from the killer. She laid a hand over his leg, her two stone diamond ring catching the sunlight.

“Steve never wanted Billy to be in the band,” Eddie shook his head, “but Jim had a soft spot for Billy. And Steve had… I mean Jim was…”

“Jim was like a father. To all of us.” Chrissy’s knee jiggled.

“We were this little tiny band from Nowhere, Indiana,” Eddie nodded, “And Jim believed in us.”

“I was just a junior exec at the time. I was put on the Kaleidoscope tour in case of catastrophic failure, which by the way it was,” Jason Carver is making risotto while we speak, the steam curling the lock of hair that falls over his face. “But it wasn’t my fault although I was high as hell on coke half the time. I guess I deserved to get fired. But Jim was the real deal. Gold records out the ass, best wife in the world, and his daughter, I mean… she was something else.”

They’re referring, of course, to Jim Hopper, producer on Kaleidoscope as well as Billy Blue and The Boys’ records, and the father of pop superstar Eleven aka Jane Hopper.

“Jim was…” Steve Harrington’s eyes always got a little misty talking about Jim, staring out over the ocean. “Yeah, I guess he was a little like my dad. My own parents were always gone. Which is like… I grew up so privileged so like I’m not saying… I just mean I grew up mostly by myself. And we were just so lucky he even agreed to listen to us when we got to LA.”

“I remember that night,” Joyce Hopper’s voice was raspy, cigarette-y in the way only old movie stars are. She’s a gorgeous woman in jeans and a gardening hat, speaking to me while she tends to her garden at her home in Castellammare. “He came home and said, ‘I have the next ones, the next big ones. Fuck, Joyce, they’re brilliant. Unpolished, but brilliant.’”

When I ask about when Jim discovered Billy Hargrove she just laughed.

“If Steve and the rest of The Boys were unpolished, Billy Hargrove was a fucking ten carat diamond,” She said. “But Steve’s band was Jim’s, and he could polish them up how he wanted. And then when he thought they were just right for it… he set the diamond.”

Jim Hopper was a big man, larger than life both in appearance and in personality. His fingerprints are all over some of the best hits of the decade.

Watching him on old interviews, there’s an immediacy to his presence that leaps off the screen.

“My daughter is the one who really found him. She snuck out with her sister and wandered God knows where. And she just… found him. Called me the next morning, saying ‘Dad, you have to hear this guy.’ He was playing in this… terrible club,” Jim said, tapping his cigar on the table of Merv Griffin’s set. “Absolute shithole, pardon my french. And he’s got a great voice, you’ve heard his voice, right?”

“I have,” Merv said.

“I had to get him out of there. He was a star.”

Billy Hargrove was a teenage runaway from San Diego when he came to LA in 1971.

“I had a girl’s backpack from my stepsister, eight dollars, and an extra pair of underwear. By the end of the next week? I had two more dollars,” Billy laughed. “But I got lucky. I met Heather.”

Heather Holloway was a showgirl at Wildwoods, a nightly revue. She found Billy at the backdoor, and took him to her apartment.

“She saved me,” He frowned. “Whenever I needed her most.”

Heather Holloway, Billy Hargrove’s first and only wife, died in 1979.

“I got a job singing at Sugar, this great gay club downtown. It was in the late afternoons, so I had a crowd of about… two. But those two brought two more,” Billy smiled, “Heather would talk me up to all the promoters. He’s a singer, he’s great, you’ll love him, he’s so cute.”

“He was an instant hit,” Sugar’s manager, Bob Newby, tells me by phone as well. “I did have to keep a couple of creeps off him, when he just started he was only nineteen. But even if you closed your eyes… he was a hit.”

“Guys used to think that because I was a part of the entertainment, I was fair game. And let me tell you, the novelty of that wears off mighty quick,” Billy shakes his head.

He shares a diary entry from his late wife of a night in April 1972. He came to her home with blood all over his face.

“Some guy thought because I was a fag…” Billy’s mouth twisted, but he went on, cradling the little marble notebook in his hand. “He could do whatever he wanted to me. When I fought back… he cracked a bottle over my head.”

He’s not just a piece of meat. He’s a person. I don’t understand these people. I just don’t understand, Heather Holloway wrote. I cleaned him up and he’s sleeping now.

The next diary entry is from a day later. April 12. Billy and I drove to Vegas and got married. When we spoke in the morning he said he was afraid for me too, even though I’m careful with the girls. He’s afraid of the cops trying to bust up the Wildwoods and picking me up. At least this way, he says. He and I can come home to each other. Look out for each other. Always. The groom wore band aids and his great velvet pants. The bride wore lavender. It was perfect.

“And lucky too. Because within a month… I met Jim,” Billy smiled. “And my whole life changed.”

Upside Down Records signed Billy Blue, unagented, in1972 and he spent the next year working on his debut album with Jim Hopper.

“I didn’t even realize, when it happened,” Billy shook his head. “A couple of girls came by after a show, wanting to talk to me, wanting to meet me. That wasn’t that unusual. But they were young, far too young to get into the club. And the little one, she was asking all these weird questions. Did I have an agent? Did I know if I had enough songs for an album? Weird fuckin’ questions. And then she said I have to meet someone. To be honest, I thought she was coked out of her mind when she said, ‘You have to meet my dad.’”

“I was not,” Eleven promised me, “coked out of my mind. But that’s just Billy.”

Eleven aka Jane Hopper, meets me backstage at one of her shows. She’s dressed in slouchy leather pants, to match her sister and drummer Kali Hopper.

“I knew he was something special. My dad was always talking about the IT factor. That thing that made a person something special. But I didn’t get it until I saw Billy Blue singing on that tiny stage,” She smiled. “He didn’t just have the IT factor. He was IT.”

It’s odd then, that Billy Blue’s first album had a surprisingly tepid response. His first single, in 1973, “Let Alone,” came in at only 26th for the month of April on the pop charts.

“People liked it,” Billy shrugs, “But I don’t think they knew what to do with it. You have my songs, these like… little pop love songs and ballads. I wasn’t that strong of a writer at the time. It was like half my songs, half covers. And so they’d book me, expecting fucking… Peter Frampton. And here comes this big queer with glitter on his nipples.”

But the lyrics of “Let Alone” would hint at his later songs, a hallmark simplicity that shone off his raw voice and poetry that hinted at a troubled past.

And if you were meant to care for me

You would, and that’s how it has to be

You said I couldn’t go on without you

Ha, look at me, looking brand new

At the same time, The Boys’ song “Paper Girl,” penned by Harrington, was number one.

She’s my paper girl

Wakes me up every morning, right on time

She got me smiling, got my head in a whirl

Picture perfect, paper girl

“Billy didn’t have much commercial appeal. Sex appeal, yes,” Jason laughed, toying with Chrissy’s hair. “But for sales? That’s where The Boys came in.”

“I hated that name,” Eddie said, “To start with we were half girls.”

The Boys had already had a somewhat successful tour under their belt by the time Jim suggested a collaboration with Billy Hargrove.

“It was a nice, short tour,” Steve Harrington glances away when I ask about the first tour.

“It was a nightmare. Balls to the wall nightmare,” Robin Buckley’s voice is a warm crackle over the phone. “Steve went on like thirty overlapping benders at once.”

Her partner, soap actress Vickie Carmichael cackles behind her, at their home in Salt Lake City.

“The thing about Steve is… well… he’s never found a good way of coping with himself,” Robin huffs. “Music was about as close as he ever got. But in those early days, he just kept looking for more and more.”

“You don’t think it was about-” Vickie asked, just barely into the phone.

“No.”

“It was about Nancy,” Eddie said confidently when I mentioned their first tour. “Nancy, Nancy, Nancy.”

The Boys got their start in the late sixties, beginning with Eddie and Steve. Eddie gave Steve guitar lessons, which turned into some talent show performances. They used to practice at Eddie’s Uncle’s trailer.

“That’s where we got the name,” Eddie nodded, “My uncle used to just call us that, and it stuck.”

“I don’t even remember,” Chrissy said.

“That’s not how we got the name,” Steve shook his head, when I mention Eddie. “It was our first gig, after we got Chrissy and Robin. Robin put it down after the headliner kept asking when ‘you boys’ would go on, and kept addressing it to Chrissy’s chest. She blew him out of the fucking water.”

Nancy Wheeler was there that night, writing about local bands for a tiny column in the school paper.

“She was beautiful. Smart. So smart. Could hear her talk forever,” Steve said, eyes falling.

Steve Harrington and Nancy Wheeler were married in 1972 after they graduated high school.

“Steve made his own choices,” Chrissy shook her head.

That summer, the Boys plus one drove to LA and Nancy Wheeler took a job at Women’s Day Magazine and later, Rolling Stone. Steve Harrington and The Boys got a “steady gig” at La Bonita Rosa on the strip, playing for drunks every night from seven to eight.

“I really liked playing at La Bonita,” Steve said. “The audience, right there. You could smell the sweat. You could see on their faces if you were bombing. And we used to bomb. A lot. But it was a great place to try things. Experiment. We played there for about a year but… it felt too short.”

Within the year they had met Jim Hopper, who got them into the recording studio and sold their demo nearly on the spot to Upside Down Records.

“They had a great sound. They had got this way of playing. Smooth like a polished stone. Everything sounds good sitting in a frame like that,” Jim said in an interview with Rolling Stone in 1981. “Their songs were… catchy, but basic. But they had the sound.”

Upside Down records set the Boys on a US tour after “Paper Girl,” and “Joy to Love You,” both charted.

“It was like… overnight. One day we’re in a studio, messing around. Kid stuff. I was nineteen,” Steve Harrington shookhis head. “But…”

“That tour,” Chrissy trails off, playing with her ring again.

“I…” Steve Harrington scratched his nose. “I was losing it. Majorly losing it. It felt like we had just moved to LA and we were already neck deep. I mean, I had a number one fucking song. And for some reason I got it in my head to call my mom. She told the maid she wasn’t home. And I could hear her over the phone. My mom. So yeah. I lost it. Lost about half my damn mind on that tour. And people will say it was because of Nancy, because we got married just out of high school, and she wasn’t supportive… but that wasn’t true. Nancy saved me.”

“Nancy never wanted him to be in the band. But… she also didn’t seem to care that much either,” Eddie shook his head, “It’s… complicated. Love is supposed to be. Simple. Like the chords of a song. 1-3-5.”

Jason Carver rolled his eyes at that, “Then what are we?”

Eddie grinned, “We’re a band.”

Nancy Wheeler met me on a Thursday in New York City, slim sunglasses dominating her small porcelain face. We get lunch at her favorite deli shop, and she perches at the counter, loafers dangling. She’s an editor at The New Yorker now, but she still has a soft spot for rock and roll, as evidenced by the Grateful Dead t-shirt under her blazer.

“That tour. I didn’t even know anything was wrong. He just came home with a funny look on his face, saying, ‘We’re headlining.’ So I said, ‘That’s great, Steve.’ He just kept… saying it. It was starting to piss me off, if I’m being honest,” She shook her head. “I should have known something was wrong.”

“I wish she had stopped me. But how could you know right? Hindsight is always 2020,” Steve Harrington said. “I mean, she was my wife. How could she not want me home? But that’s just… sorry. That’s not fair to put on her. I chose to go.”

“I flew out to meet them when they were in Indianapolis, visited my family, and I came a day early to see him,” She smiled warmly, and then it fell. “He was… Well, first, Eddie Munson tried to intercept me at the hotel, so I wouldn’t see him. I told him, ‘I’m here to see my fucking husband.’”

Steve Harrington didn’t add any more details about the tour, just shrugged when I asked.

“He was coked up like you wouldn’t believe,” Robin scoffed. “She walked in on him with two girls and coke all over his… well.”

“I just asked him. Do you want to come home? Do you want to get help? Or not?” She purses her lips. “And so he came home and we found a rehab place near Hawkins.”

“The tour kind of… fell apart. Obviously. We had lost our lead singer and guitarist to fucking… Hawkins, Indiana,”

Everything stopped for the Boys. Upside Down offered to let them out of their two album contract, but Steve couldn’t afford to pay it down.

“Rehab,” He shrugged. “Is expensive.”

Right as it seemed that everything would be over for the Boys, things were looking up for Billy Blue.

“Jim was always saying, ‘the record is selling alright, the songs are getting there but he needs a… push,’” Joyce said. “‘He’s so close. So close. He’s a star.’”

“He always believed in me,” Billy smiled, toying with his ring again. “Always. Even when I threw a jug of milk at his head.”

Joyce laughed when I asked about that moment, “He came home saying, ‘He milked me, Joyce. But he’ll fix the song tonight.’”

“And I did,” Billy said. “And the album was going alright. I did a little tour, socal and the southwest. And then one night, Jim brings me this song. He said, ‘I want you to tell me what’s missing from this.’”

The song was, of course, the Boys’ biggest hit, “Hades.” Steve Harrington’s first version was called, “To Orpheus” and the chorus goes:

Don’t turn back don’t look behind you baby

I’m close, I’m right behind

The future's so bright, and I want you to take me

Wanna be holding your hand when I make it across the line.

“It was fine, but just kind of… nothing. It was supposed to be about Eurydice, but it was so… nothing. She just loved Orpheus and that was it. There were no insides to her. She was going to follow him to her doom,” Billy shook his head. “That’s not right.”

This was not the version that made it to the recording booth, of course. The Boys’ single, “Hades featuring Billy Blue,” came out in 1975. The actual chorus goes:

Turn back on me and I won’t forgive you baby

Don’t want you to see me like this

Up ahead is bright, and I want you to take me

If you’re strong enough to cross that finish line

“‘Hades,’ was a real step forward for the Boys. Gone were the teenybopper tunes,” Steve Harrington’s biographer and personal friend Dustin Henderson wrote in his book The Pretty Boy. “Their first album got the kids dancing. But the second proved that they actually had something to say.”

“Still hate it,” Steve Harrington said. “I wrote that song in rehab. It was deeply, deeply personal to me.”

“He came out, all ready. He wanted to start recording right away,” Robin sighed. “Like I mean the next day. All these songs, just pouring out of him. But the label had lost faith in us. And they certainly weren’t going to let us start recording with a guy who had only just earned his thirty day sober chip.”

“The song wasn’t ready,” Billy shook his head. “But I guess he was. Jim said he needed this. So Jim asked if I would come and like… pitch some stuff as a personal favor. Songwriting credit, that’s all it was supposed to be. Get the songs moving, get them going.”

Steve Harrington takes a long time to continue speaking about it.

“I felt it, writing for that album. I felt proud of those songs. They didn’t belong to anyone else but me,” He toyed with some piano keys while we talked, and then finally sat down and began to play something tuneless and half formed.

“That album was all about Nancy,” Chrissy said. “I mean. I know it. You know it. Nancy knew it. And she kind of hated it. But-”

“You can’t leave your husband right as he gets out of rehab,” Nancy said to me, toying with her wedding ring. “When he writes all these songs about how you’re the only thing… Steve was always like that. Heart wide open. That’s why when he met Billy. I almost thought… it would all be okay. That sounds fucked up but. I thought they could save each other. That the music could save him.”

“It was just a songwriting credit,” Billy raised his hands. “Jim swore up and down. I was just gonna come in there and sit down with this guy Steve. But when I walk into the studio, there’s two mics set up.”

“I was the Boys’ only singer,” Steve Harrington shook his head. “And to be absolutely honest, I was kind of a jackass about it. So to have some guy come in and say he’s gonna sing me my song… well…”

“Steve was the only one who would ever argue with Jim, And he let him have it that day,” Eddie laughed. “He called him the most low down, dirty, rat bitten bastard in California, and that he would die rather than give up his band to someone else.”

“I did not want his band. I did not know his band. And I did not care. And his song sucked. And I told him so. And then I sang it. Better.” Billy smiled.

“Billy was…” Chrissy shook her head. “Incredible.”

I ask Steve what Billy was like that first day in the studio.

“He was,” Something passed over his face. “Alright. He has a great voice, alright.”

“I was good. Better. Best.” Billy smiled.

“But he didn’t understand the song. He wanted Eurydice to… doubt. To think she wasn’t going to get out,” Steve slammed his hands on the keys. “It’s been… almost twenty years. I still don’t understand it.”

I asked why he let Billy stay. But Steve doesn’t have an answer.

“They were like oil and water, right away,” Chrissy said.

“Yeah, but oil on the water can catch fire,” Eddie shrugged.

“Jim asked me to stay,” Billy looked away from me, down at his waffles. “It was a favor to the label.”

“If Billy said louder, Steve said mute,” Robin snickered. “It was kind of great, actually. Finally someone called King Steve on his shit. One day I came in and they were arguing over how close the microphone should be to your throat. Almost got in a physical fight over a fucking microphone. I mean, I love Steve. But he always thinks he’s like… the babysitter. It’s his job to do everything for everybody.”

“Like who was this guy? Really? He came into my studio with no shirt on, most of the time still half smashed from the night before, and he thinks he can make all these changes. But Jim keeps telling me it’s just business, the label thinks it’s good business.” Steve frowned, and then smiled, and then frowned again.

“Yeah, I never wore shirts back then. Or underwear,” Billy said with a grin. “I was a rockstar!”

“Steve fought for every song on that album,” Nancy Wheeler patted her lips primly with a napkin. “He only lost on one.”

“Billy Hargove has songwriting credit and lead vocals on “Hades.” Dustin Henderson wrote.

“Billy was all over that album. He’d make some minor suggestion, maybe this chord instead of that, this word is better. And Steve would flip out, yell at him, yell at Jim, threaten to storm out… and then two days later quietly tell me to change the chord, he’d start singing the new words. Billy was there with us about every single day,” Eddie said.

“Of course, it was our biggest hit,” Chrissy laughed. “Everything but that song, Steve did what he wanted. Oh we had Billy in the studio, making suggestions. But Steve did what he wanted except for ‘Hades.’ Jim said that song is the album, and he wouldn’t cut it.”

“Jim was always right,” Steve closed the piano. “The bastard.”

Hades exploded onto the radio in late 1975. They didn’t have the same distribution as their first record, but the Boys had another hit.

“Billy had this way of singing it. Still does. He broke four mics when we recorded it. Singing so loud I had to keep an eye on the cymbals to stop them from shaking. You can feel him, right in your chest.” Chrissy giggled. “Like he was trying to wake all the dead from Hades. If anyone could, he could.”

“It’s a really, really great song,” Robin said.

This song belongs to Billy Blue, Rolling Stone wrote in 1976. The only question now is, what will The Boys do next?

“I remember that article. Fucking… Harrington said that he basically wrote the whole song. But he said, ‘the label thought bringing Billy in was a good idea,’” Billy gets tense for the first time. “I’m not saying I was like… I just mean. It would have been nice. To treat me like an equal. I’m more than just a singer. I’m not just… a piece of meat.”

“Billy was really pissed about that article. I remember, the day after the article came out, we were getting breakfast at this tiny place off La Cienega. Steve had this car back then, a big maroon BMW, and Eddie had got him a vanity plate when he bought it. Stupid thing it said, ‘BIGBOY.’ Anyway, We’re having breakfast, and we hear this screech outside, like an accident,” Robin Buckley gets uncharacteristically quiet as she goes on through this story. “Billy’s car is parked halfway out of the parking lot, and he comes in like a bull in a charge. Billy… he wasn’t some wimpy guy. He was small, but he was strong as hell… He came right over and grabbed Steve by his collar and lifted him right off the counter. And he said, I’ll never forget it because Steve used to recite it from memory, yell it at me, ‘Tell me I’m not dreaming. Is that Steve fucking Harrington? The lead singer of the Boys. Hey man, I love your song ‘Hades.’ How’d you get your voice to sound halfway decent for once?’”

“I don’t remember that,” Steve Harrington said flatly when I asked.

“And Steve used to be a fucking dick in high school. So he starts getting real bitchy, shoving Billy off him, asking what his problem is, why he’s such a dick all the fucking time, when it’s not even his band. And Billy said something like, ‘No one wants your shit band. Not with you in it,’” Robin paused for a moment. “And they just. Stare at each other. Like… daring each other to do something.”

Billy just shrugs when I ask, “I was pissed. I gave this guy a number one hit, and he still wanted to treat me like some… airhead singer the label brought in as a stunt. I’m not just a singer. I’m not a piece of meat. I’m a person.”

When I ask Steve about that day he’s pretty quiet, deflated at his piano. He only wants to talk about the song. The music. Can’t seem to talk about Billy any other way.

“He sang it like he not only knows Orpheus can’t save him, but that he won’t. It was supposed to be hopeful. A happy ending.” Steve said.

“So you still hate the song?” I asked.

“No, I don’t. It’s brilliant. And that’s the whole problem.”

To be continued...

Next up is Half-Oz-Eddie's piece at 7:00 pm. GET HYPE!

#harringrove relay race #harringrove #billy x steve #billy hargrove #steve harrington #harringrove fic #steve x billy #harringrovefic #harringrovefanfic #harringrove fanfiction #harringrove fanfic #stranger things #my writing #DJATS au #Daisy jones and the six au #tw drugs

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imsodishy · 5 months

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The Harringtons have been separated for years but no one knows. They maintain a polite fiction for the sake of their waspy reputations, but they don't actually live together.

Only one of them is ever in town at a time, excepting times and events where they're obligated to appear together. They've got a schedule for who's in Hawkins with Steve, the other one on a 'business trip' or a 'retreat' whenever the subject comes up, Steve's only seldom left completely on his own, when it actually can't be avoided.

It makes it astoundingly easy for Steve to play a little shell game after he moves Billy into the house, and keep them both fuzzy on the details of just how often his 'friend' is around. Because even though one of them is there, they're never really there.

Which gives Billy the unique opportunity to observe just how different Steve is with each of them.

He's endured completely silent meals with Mr. Harrington. Stiff and cold, tension so thick you could cut it with a knife. On the rare occasion either of the Harrington men actually have to ask the other a question they largely get a grunt, vaguely affirmative, or disapproving or whatever (mostly disapproving) in reply.

When Mrs. Harrington is around there’s constant light sounding chater where no one's really saying anything, but also they're both somehow being shockingly passive aggressive at all times. Neither of them ever acknowledge that fact.

There's always a butt load of tension, but never any blow-up, and it leaves Billy in a weird limbo state of stress for weeks until he finally breaks and starts a fight with Steve about it (cuz that's his version of talking about it, they both have problems).

Anyway, Steve ultimately realizes he'd become blind to the background radiation of it but he is also extremely stressed living with his parents and they resolve to get their own place ASAP!

#harringrove #steve harrington #billy hargrove #the harringtons #category 5 wasp steve my repressed baby boy #it's all very foreign to billy #dishy writes #is this a brand new harringtons scheme? i dunno

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eoieopda · 1 year

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the one with yoongi, netflix, and zero chill

Pairing: Min Yoongi x Reader Type: Drabble; Suggestive Fluff Word Count: 1.1k Content: fuck buddy!au; birthday boi Yoongs A/N: Nobody asked for this — I just wanted it, lmao. HAPPY (belated) YOONGI DAY ‼️

Of all the texts you might’ve expected to receive from Min Yoongi — of all people —this hadn’t been one of them. A far cry from the anticipated “cum over?” and follow-up “that was intentionally cringe but seriously, get here,” it was one word:

Hey.

Simple, unassuming, shockingly innocuous. A text like this from any other person wouldn’t have set off the shop-lifting alarm in your brain, but this one did.

Until now, all of your other exchanges had been borderline — if not entirely — pornographic. Yoongi had received enough photos of you in compromising positions to fill a dossier; or the national archives, if your tits were properly classified as subjects of great cultural significance. He wasn’t the type to chat for the sake of it, certainly not without an ulterior motive bulging uncomfortably in too-tight jeans.

What the fuck?

Unable to square this flagrantly conversational message with its sender, you’d replied to ask if he meant to send it to someone else. He hadn’t, he clarified. Then, doubling down on whatever fast-one he was pulling, he’d asked if you wanted to hang out. No suggestive emojis, no “*bang out, my bad” — just an invitation, sans subtext.

It was too intriguing to ignore.

You parked in your usual spot on a side street and followed the same path you always did towards his apartment building. By now, there should’ve been shoe prints worn into the concrete from how frequently you’d passed overtop, but there weren’t. You were able to confirm as much because you were finally perceiving that sidewalk in sunlight. Even his building looked different when it wasn’t shrouded in darkness and questionable judgment.

After a quick trip up the stairs, you found yourself on familiar territory: a doormat that said “fuck off.” You snorted, staring down at it, and wondered if it knew how often you’d done the opposite.

You knocked and Yoongi answered; his usual smirk wasn’t present with him to greet you. Instead, he offered you what looked like a genuine smile and nodded his head for you to come inside. If your ears hadn’t deceived you, you might have heard him ask about your day, but they were too busy ringing as if a bomb had gone off nearby. Still shocked, your brain was left to stagger through the aftermath while you trailed off after him.

At this point, on any other occasion, he would be charting a map of your body by now — before you could even cross the threshold. There’d be a mouth nipping at the underside of your jaw, too. In lieu of small talk, his tongue would be lavishing warmth upon the curve of your neck. This time, though, Yoongi kept his hands to himself — and when he led you further into his apartment, he didn’t make a beeline for his bedroom.

Once more, with feeling: what the fuck?

You’d never seen his living room before, not even in your fucked-out wobble towards the door when your nights with him were over. It was cozy, confusingly soft in comparison to the roughness you knew right down the hall. Plush couch, plusher throw blankets, and multiple bookshelves — all seemingly hand-crafted. To your surprise, they were all full of personal trinkets, and curated works of fiction and nonfiction alike.

It never crossed your mind that he had personal possessions, let alone hobbies. You were shocked to learn that your recurring dick appointment involved a full-fledged person with interests. You coughed, “You read?”

It wasn’t meant as an insult, but it sure as hell sounded like one. Immediately, you winced at your lack of tact.

Just add friendly conversation to the short list of things that mouth doesn’t do.

When Yoongi blinked slowly back at you, all you could do was anticipate. What quip would he hit you with? What sarcastic remark would fly out of his mouth and how wet would it make you despite your embarrassment?

He chuckled, shrugged, and said, “Guess I do.”

Your eyebrows furrowed. Yoongi’s face didn’t change at all, remaining as airy and unbothered as it was when you walked through the door. He unknowingly left you buffering where you stood, walked around the back of his couch, and dropped down onto the cushions.

You might’ve stood there all night, wondering what sort of wormhole you’d fallen into, but he glanced back over his shoulder at you. It wasn’t expectant, the way he eyed you. In fact, he seemed just as confused as you were.

“You good?” Yoongi asked, eyebrow slightly raised.

You opened your mouth to respond; nothing came out. Am I? Does anybody else smell burning toast? You closed it again without saying a word.

Resigned to this frighteningly domestic fever dream, you padded over to where he was — apparently — waiting and sunk down into the cushion next to him. Though you couldn’t explain why, you left a few centimeters of space in between your thigh and his. Grinding yourself down onto his naked lap was one thing, but this all felt so blatantly out-of-bounds.

Once you were settled into your spot, you watched with suspicious eyes as he turned on the television. He’d begun to scroll through Netflix’s newest additions before you’d bothered to blink.

Yoongi was in the middle of asking you what sort of movies you typically watched when you blurted out:

“I don’t understand what’s happening here.”

He hit play on whatever choice he’d made and set the remote back down onto his coffee table. “What’s happening is Tazza because you said you’ve never seen it.” He responded easily, like none of this was wildly out of the ordinary. Then, he turned to smile at you again. “It’s a great movie. Probably my favorite, honestly.”

There wasn’t a single coherent thought in your brain, just the sound of sirens and flashing red lights. Is this what he meant when he asked you to hang out? Sitting on his couch, fully-clothed, watching a movie? His favorite movie? The one he knows you haven’t seen?

Maybe that was how normal friendships worked, but this friendship blew your back out on a bi-weekly basis. This friend routinely rearranged your guts, whispered depravity in your ear — and throughout all of that, he noted the distinctly non-sexual shit you mentioned in passing.

Things you didn’t even remember saying.

Using some sort of app on his phone, he dimmed the lights. As the opening scene blared from the screen ahead, he nestled himself down into the couch looking downright huggable. It wasn’t a word you’d ever have attributed to Min Yoongi until now, but there was no other way to process the weird urge you felt to nestle into him.

You didn’t, though. You stayed firmly planted within the bounds of your designated cushion, straight upright with perfect posture you’d never previously exhibited. Still, you were staring and you couldn’t quite help it.

Yoongi could sense it, it seemed. He pulled his gaze off the screen and set his sights on you. And he kept them there, inhaling quietly then exhaling a soft sigh. “It’s my birthday.”

If that was meant to be an explanation for summoning you, it only made matters more confusing. Stupefied, you peeped, “Oh? Happy — um — h-happy birthday?”

He looked shy, which was yet another word you’d never expected to associate with him. Even in the dark, you could see the way his cheeks flushed pink.

Yoongi swallowed, nudging your nearby thigh softly with his knuckles. “I didn’t want to spend it alone.”

#jade’s drabbles #bts drabble #min yoongi drabble #yoongi drabble #yoongi day #min yoongi x reader #yoongi x reader #min yoongi x you #yoongi x you #min yoongi fluff #yoongi fluff #bts imagine #bts scenarios #yoongi imagine #yoongi scenarios #myg #trashlibrary #re: the one with yoongi netflix and zero chill

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xiaq · 10 months

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How did you and B meet?

I'm sure I've talked about this before, but here's the Official Story from our reception invitations:

Erica met B through their mutual friend G while rock climbing at the Austin greenbelt in April of 2019.

Erica had just purchased a new camera and 80% of the photos she took that day were of B. She shyly sent B the best ones and noted he was a lovely subject. B said, “thanks bro” and used those pictures for his Bumble profile.

It was an auspicious beginning.

At the time, B was living and working in Austin while Erica was a PhD student in Dallas. She often visited “home” to see her parents and climb, so they met up regularly over the next two years.

When the pandemic hit, Erica moved back to Austin to work on her dissertation, and isolated with a small group of climbers that included B. They also started playing D&D together.

Erica’s character was a chaotic neutral half-elf bard who cast spells and cantrips exclusively via limerick. Her go-to solutions to problems they encountered were seduction, inciting political rebellion, befriending monsters, and stabbing.

B played a lawful good half-elf paladin who found Erica’s character extremely vexing.

In real life, however, they had quite a bit in common, and started spending time alone outside of group climbing and D&D meetups. Later, they would discover they had a mutual romantic interest at this point, but neither acted on it since Erica had accepted a visiting professorship in Colorado. She moved in July.

When Erica returned briefly to Austin over spring break the following year, she spent most of her time with B: climbing, hiking, grilling at her parent’s place, and staunchly denying there was anything happening between them even if she wished there was because honestly, mom, he's never shown the slightest bit of interest in me (her father scoffed loudly from the other room).

She decided to move back to Austin at the end of the school year. When B (and G) came to visit her a few weeks before she moved, Erica decided to be brave and make her intentions known. While watching a UFC fight with B on the couch, she tucked her toes, lasciviously, under B’s thigh.

Shockingly, he did not respond to this unequivocal romantic overture. But he did help her remove all the temporary wallpaper on her ugly rental cabinets before they left, so that was nice.

The following month, when Erica moved back to Austin, B asked if she’d like to come over for dinner after climbing. She agreed because she wanted to procrastinate unpacking and also she was slightly in love with him. The following day, he asked if she wanted to have dinner again. She did.

“Wow,” Erica said to her mother that morning, “I guess B is really lonely since G moved. He’s been asking me to hang out with him a lot.”

“You're an idiot,” her mother said.

That night, B asked Erica if she'd ever thought about them dating.

“I’m thinking about it now,” she said, cavalier, suave, blasé, and not nervous at all.

This wasn’t a lie, but she had also thought about it once or twice prior to that moment as well.

“Great,” B said, “How would you feel if I kissed you?”

And Erica said, “Yeah, I’d feel pretty good about that.”

A few weeks later, B casually showed Erica an empty shelf in his bathroom cabinet and an inviting space in his closet and a couple spare drawers in his dresser and she, equally casually, moved in with him.

Over the next year, the apartment’s decor and Erica’s diet improved drastically. They traveled, they climbed, they spent time with each others families. They lived, laughed, loved and reduced, reused, recycled. Shortly after moving into their new house, combining bank accounts, making each other their medical powers of attorney, solidifying their retirement plans, and discussing whether getting married would have tax benefits, they realized most people got engaged before doing…a good portion of those things. So they planned to propose to each other.

Christmas of 2022, they took a road trip across Colorado. B proposed to Erica on the gondola in Telluride; two days later, Erica proposed to B on the Train to Cascade Canyon in Durango. They both said yes.

In August 2023 they will elope, with their dog Deacon as a witness, to Mt. Rainier national park.

In November 2023, they’ll celebrate with their friends and family at a backyard reception that will include food, drinks, swimming, croquet, corn hole, axe-throwing and a bounce house (the axe-throwing and the bounce-house will be on opposite sides of the lawn; if it's cold, the pool will be heated). They hope you’ll come and share their joy with them.

#b #wedding stuff #love #romance

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from-the-coffee-shop-in-edoras · 12 days

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Dear Resident Rohan Expert:

I'm not sure if you have given any thought to this, but I could sure use your help! What are your thoughts about how Rohan's government is structured, specifically the King's council at Edoras? I have assumed the King rules with full authority, but with the help of a council of advisors... but how do you think those advisors are selected? How many? Are they military men? Nobility? Elected? Appointed? Are they inherited titles?

Any of your thoughts would be appreciated since your grasp of Rohirrim culture is sounder than of anyone around! Thank you in advance! 😊

Ooh, this comes very close to giving me the chance to answer the question, “What was Éomer’s tax policy?” 😂 (Which, as a public policy major, is something I wouldn’t mind knowing about!) I have thought about Rohan’s government, and I hope you find my answer useful or at least interesting—it’s always my goal to live up to the praise you give me and to make my Rohan even close to being as well contextualized as your Mirkwood universe!!!

I’ve tried to keep a general structure for Rohan’s government in my mind that is at least quasi-related to the way that Anglo Saxon lands were governed, since they were Tolkien’s model. The big deviations are: 1) there is no mixing of religion and government like the Anglo Saxons did, since Rohan has no organized religion; and 2) I like to keep my Rohan government a little more democratic in the sense that everything isn’t based solely on nobility, inheritance or wealth. That’s partly because I don’t vibe with that approach, but also I feel like Tolkien gave us hints that the Rohirrim are pretty laid back about stuff like that anyway (like, Théoden is shockingly casual about the whole issue of royal succession, and he’s totally willing to take advice from guys like Háma or Wídfara even though we have no reason to believe they’re particularly wealthy or elite nobles).

So, the king has ultimate authority in Rohan and, starting with Éomer, that power is equally shared with the queen (I have to believe that he really took in what he learned about Éowyn’s experience in Rohan and would want things to change, starting with his own wife!). The monarchs exercise their authority with the help of a council. That council is comprised of: 1) the advisors of the royal household, a small group that is at Meduseld with the king and queen every day; and 2) the officers of the court, a bigger group who are out in the towns and villages as representatives of the crown. The entire council meets formally a few times a year to discuss and make recommendations on significant issues, though the king and queen can call them more often if needed. And when the officers of the court are back at their homes in between formal council meetings, the advisors of the royal household give the day-to-day advice or handle emergencies that crop up.

The royal household advisors are chosen by the king/queen and would generally include trusted family members as well as others who have distinguished themselves as being particularly skilled in relevant subjects. There would normally be 7 of these, with each specializing in a particular area: defense, diplomacy, justice/law, treasury, trade, infrastructure (roads, bridges, etc.) and public welfare (care of orphans, famine relief, what passed for public health in those days). But there could be more or less depending on the priorities of the particular king/queen, and the individual advisors might have their own staffs to help them.

The royal household advisors would often be members of the most prominent families in Rohan, if only because those are the people with the most access to the education and experience needed to become good at these things, but anyone can be chosen. And younger people of any background who are identified as being particularly bright and with a lot of potential might be referred to extra schooling/study with the idea of training them to be advisors, or work for them, in the future. (In my fics, this is how Gríma ended up in an advisor role – he failed out of éored training, but the brilliance of his mind was recognized, he was given the additional education to become an advisor on diplomatic affairs, got too close to Isengard and everything went to hell.) (It’s a good process, even though the one example I’ve just given is one where things did not work out well!)

The officers of the court who are spread throughout the land are chosen by their communities, though the king/queen can refuse to seat one that they don’t like or trust.* The king and queen decide how many officers there are, adding or subtracting as the population shifts, but there are generally 5 each from the West-mark and the East-mark and 3 from Edoras and its surrounding lands. These officers not only sit on the council that helps the king/queen set law and policy, but they’re also the first line administrators who see those policies carried out around the country (so, they hire the tax collectors in Dunharrow or the work crews that build the new road between Aldburg and Grimslade or whatever). That makes them kind of the face of the crown in most parts of Rohan where regular people are never going to see the king or queen (or, at least, not often). They can also draw on the expertise and knowledge of the royal household advisors as needed when carrying out royal policy.

Thank you again for the opportunity to write something that’s probably far too long about a niche topic that I find very interesting!! If anyone has their own ideas and thoughts—either complementary or conflicting—I would love to hear them. More Rohan for everyone! 👑🐎🗡️♥️

*A king/queen should really try to avoid doing this, especially if the person in question is really popular in their community and has any kind of independent power base. Don’t get me started on how Helm Hammerhand really fucked this up with a member of his own council and got a war started as a result.

#asks #answered asks #lotr #lord of the rings #rohan #governments of middle earth #bless you for giving me a chance to blather about stuff that I like!!!

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prodigal-explorer · 4 months

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i have a sanders sides au concept on the brain

they're all siblings but they all sort of defy expectations when it comes to sibling dynamics. all six of them live together.

(cw for mention of substance addiction under the read more)

janus is the oldest at 23, and he struggles a lot with the whole "parenting" thing. he's very ambitious, and he's working to further his career in the detective industry so he can better provide for his family, but he is extremely emotionally and physically distant, and it's rare that he does anything with his brothers, whether it's helping around the house or playing with them. he does love his brothers, but he has trouble connecting with them.

virgil is the second oldest at 21. he had to drop out of college in order to provide for his younger siblings' needs at home, and he resents janus for staying in college and leaving virgil to be the one to drop out. virgil is a bit of a "bad cop" when it comes to parenting his younger brothers, but he'd rather be a little mean than be the reason why his brothers get hurt. he cares a lot about safety, and he's super protective over his brothers. but being the one who does all the chores and the cooking and the paperwork is super taxing, and virgil runs on practically no sleep and no self care.

patton is the third oldest at 20. he's the "fun one" to the younger siblings, and he also stays home to help his brothers when he isn't working his job at a bakery, but he doesn't do as much around the house. he's the "parent", the one who gives the children baths, reads them stories, comes to their school events, etc. he's practically worshipped by the littles, but he's hiding a horrible secret that puts his brothers in danger whenever they're around him. he has a bad habit of babying his little brothers, especially roman. he also tends to spoil them with money that they do not have.

roman is the "middle child" so to speak at 18. he's a new adult, but nobody really considers him as such because he is severely intellectually disabled, having the estimated mental capacity of a six-year-old in terms of physical and intellectual ability. despite being the fourth oldest, roman is sort of regarded as the baby of the family due to his disability, which is something he does not particularly like. roman is very close with all of his siblings, even though he has a tendency to dramatize things and make up grand stories. despite struggling with academic and common sense related skills, roman is extremely emotionally intelligent, and he is probably the wisest sibling in the bunch.

remus is the second youngest at 14. he's at a difficult age, where everything is getting harder, and nobody is truly there for him. between family fights left and right, siblings who seem to always need more than him, and his tendency to brush off emotions, remus is often floating around on his own with no guidance. he is addicted to nicotine due to looking up to some bad influences at school, and he's going down a very dangerous path. he's gritty, sarcastic, and overall just angry at the world. angry at his family. angry at himself. just...angry.

logan is the youngest at 10. he's a shockingly serious child, being a prodigy. he's extremely skilled academically, especially in subjects like math, science, and grammar. despite being the youngest, he hates being regarded as a baby, or a child, or anything similar. being the only member at the family adept at math, he does the family's taxes, and ends up being a kid who grew up way too fast. he's the only one who knows patton's secret, and he's sitting on it with sealed lips until he can figure out what to do about it. despite being very mature for his age, logan is still very clearly a kid who needs help.

i just have so many scenarios pertaining to this au as a whole and i might need to write some snippets.

#sanders sides #thomas sanders #tss #roman sanders #sanders sides fandom #virgil sanders #logan sanders #remus sanders #patton sanders #janus sanders #sanders sides au #prodigal tss

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bonefall · 1 year

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So way back in the day on the original Warriors website, there was an area where you could submit questions about the series that the Erin's would answer and then post the question and answers on a FAQ page. Someone asked about prefixes that the Clans don't use because they're considered sacred, and the answer had been iterations of Moon-, Star-, or the Clan names themselves, so Sky-, Shadow-, etc.

Obviously this isn't true for canon anymore, if it ever actually was (citing here: lack of continuity between the Erins) but I'm curious to know if your AU has any prefixes that the Clan's absolutely refuse to use for one reason or another? Whether they be sacred or maybe they're considered "cursed", like perhaps a particularly evil cat has tarnished the prefix forever. (Such as the lack of Maple- prefixes in canon books post-Mapleshade! Maybe not intentional, but a cool world-building detail nonetheless!)

Stemming from that, do you think any prefixes would/could be turned into insults/curses later on down the line? Basically, what's the culture like for names? My favorite part of Warriors has always been the names, and the Erin's had such a nice thing going until it was tossed out the window. The system you use with Clanmew and all is super neat and I'd love to know more about Clan naming traditions! Also how each leader names cats - idk if it was you or someone else that I follow, but I saw a post talking about how each leader has a distinct way to name their warriors.

(Also small fun fact while on the subject of names, a friend of mine submitted a question asking about who Bluestar's parents were, and the answer was Duskflower and Stormtail. This was a few years before Bluestar's Prophecy was published, so she was very upset over them changing "Duskflower" to "Moonflower" when it did finally come out!)

The Duskflower thing is actually a misconception: What happened was that in a field guide, the Erins wrote that the name was "Moonflower," and then felt that "moon" should be sacred. That's when they started using "Duskflower," until Bluestar's Prophecy came out and they agreed with the editors that the older information should take precedence

(Rare anti-retcon win)

But anyway I have no banned or sacred names! I don't like that concept! Possibly because I am from an old fandom era of 'traditional namers' that just used it as an excuse to bully people and have bad taste. Hawkfrost's name ROCKS MY SOCKS and they all died mad while I'm still here.

My rules with namings is that EVERYTHING must make sense in-universe. So I don't like lyrical naming very much... names like "Friendlyface" or "Empyreanmist" are funny, but I don't see how a kitten would end up with those names unless every cat in their Clan stopped taking their lives seriously

(Or are in WarriorClan. BB!WarriorClan renamings are going to look WILD)

That also means ecologically invalid names get cut or end up being translation quirks. Names like Cypress, Olive, Myrtle, etc.

I don't ban "insult" names either, but I do rule that they are typically ShadowClan. They have a very dark sense of humor.

And yes I am the one with leader naming styles! So far these are the styles:

Bramblestar: terrible. Doesn't consider names beforehand, often comes up with titles that are awkward or unimpressive

Harestar: Reverant and thoughtful, tries to name based on friendships, interests, and quirks.

Mistystar: Names litters according to 'themes,' often sharing suffixes or picking similar ones.

Brokenstar: Only ever gives "cool" names with deadly and strong connotations.

Firestar: Names awkwardly, but genuinely. Surprises his Clan constantly with banger names (Lionblaze) or shockingly uncomfortable ones (Brambleclaw).

Onestar: Names practically, trying to limit suffix repeats and tonguetwisters.

So on.

#Better bones au #Bone babble

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an-s-sedai · 8 months

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Edit: I will not re-post this to the correct blog, this just lives here as a monument to my glee!

B5 s02e19 Divided Loyalties Table of Contents • previous episode

Delenn: "I find the notion of the press a…fascinating, but sometimes troubling concept."

I find the notion that the Minbari don't have press to be a fascinating but potentially troubling concept!

The machine that dispenses Universe Today but requires that you confirm your identity to get a paper is wild. Does it give different papers to different people?

Delenn: "It is good to know what your people are thinking and saying about my people. And, uh, I often learn things about my own world before I'm told what I need to know and no more."

She is so cute!! And so crafty!! I liked Delenn from The Gathering, but I like her more and more whenever she appears.

A flood on a space station seems like it could get really really bad, really really fast.

I once read a hilarious fanfic where some Star Wars characters traveled to B5 and bought a shitload of data crystals, which turned out to be kyber, and this reminded me of that.

When I was looking up what the episode was called, I saw that Lyta-from-the-Gathering would be coming back and I'm so excited for this! I hope she and Talia get along.

asddkhfsdkfh what was that little shimmy?? Cool alien, hilarious shoulder wiggles.

Sheridan: "oh, I miss trees…." Garibaldi, from Mars: "……" *yeah, so anyway changing the subject now*

Talia: It's hard to believe it's taken us so long to get to this point. Two years. Susan: Well, you didn't exactly make it easy. Talia: Me? how 'bout you? Susan: I'll have you know I've been nothing but compassionate and understanding. I mean, all you had to do was admit that you were wrong and I was right and everything would be fine!

LMAO.

Sleepover? Sleepover!!! GAY GIRLS GO

Susan: "I'd like the company."

Yeah I'd like her company, too. *eyebrow waggle*

Wow, Lyta had a rough arrival! Maybe she can sleep over with Susan and Talia, too. *eyebrow waggle*

Go Lyta Go. I support unhinged women wielding surgical tools.

Poor Lyta has spent years being distrusted and interrogated by psicorps for what she saw in Kosh's mind. I'd be pretty twitchy after that, too! Their tender loving care seems like it would be the exact oppposite.

She is even hotter than she was in the Gathering.

OK, love the exposition about the fucked up things psi corps can do with people's brains. Fucking terrifying. Implant a personality below their personality, that emerges and destroys the original when the right time comes around. Moles that don't know they're moles. Very uncool of PsiCorps.

Lyta is SO paranoid, but I suspect she isn't being paranoid enough. She's shockingly tolerant of being placed in secure holding. I don't think I'd agree to be literally imprisoned that readily. She hasn't done anything but come out of anesthesia swinging surgical tools after being imprisoned by PsiCorps for two years.

Delenn!!!

Sheridan: Why is it every time you finally get things calmed down and everything's going great life decides to kick you in the butt? Delenn: …but what?

That really got me and I lol'ed. Good use of idioms and miscommunication! Love it. She wasn't taught slang because it was considered innapropriate for a member of the religious caste.

Delenn: I butt, you butt, he or she butts… Sheridan: NO. No, it's… Delenn: Butt-butt. Sheridan: you sound like a motorboat. Delenn: Motor butt?

I continue to cackle. OK, I finally ship them. They reeled me in!

Hold her hand back you fucking monkey!!

The debates and counter-intelligence and fact checking is A+. Damn you JMS for making me like Garibaldi via the excellent Garibaldi-Sheridan interactions. :|

Sleepover date!! I am so excited. Susan knows how to woo a woman: with a real, hot-water shower. It would work on me.

More good exposition. Talia knew Lyta, she was six months behind Talia at the academy. She was nice, sweet. They were close at one time. *eyebrow waggle*

It speaks very well of Lyta that she hated her PsiCop internship and went commercial instead.

"So I've come to the decision that there's only one person on this station that I can trust implicitly…" *gets in Susan's personal space and stares at her lips* "…you." *almost touches Susan with bare fingers* me: *goes absolutely fucking feral*

Why tf is Lyta a prisoner?! I ask a-fucking-gain. This is ridiculous, and exposes her and her mission to the goddamn EarthCorps brown shirts!

Yeah, well obviously someone wanted to shoot at her when she was being transferred! This is why she should be having a gay-ass sleepover with Talia and Susan right now!

At least they don't think Lyta instigated the attack on herself. They're ass-backwards about this. She shows up with news of a secret, they imprison her where any security staff could find out, including the goddamn leak she was talking about, and then Sheridan is mad and shocked someone knew she was there with critical info. C'mon, dude.

Also Susan, <3, Sheridan is right about one thing, this isn't a scan to object to, it's just her projecting a code word to see if anyone reacts.

Talia: "I woke up last night and you were gone." Me: [beast shaking toy in mouth.jpeg]

O.o WHAT IS SUSAN LYING ABOUT. Is she telepathic???? It's my long-running headcanon about her! Please be telepathic, please be. If we get to find out that her mom used her telepathy to hide Susan's powers that would be EVERYTHING to me.

If only Na'Toth and Laurel were in this episode also being badasses it would be the greatest of all time.

c'mon telepathic Susan! C'mon!! omfg I'm almost vibrating.

"…and then, every once in awhile, I was the one who touched her mind."

SCREAMING CRYING THROWING UP FUCK YES I AM WELL FED THIS EPISODE

"…I'm a latent telepath."

FUCKING WINNING

Now Sheridan just needs to not be an idiot about this. Obviously she hid it, who wants to be fucking gangpressed into PsiCorps?!

Good job, Sheridan. Minimal shittiness achieved. And I know I'm completely fucking feral about Susan/Talia but it's so perfect that Susan is so close to Sheridan that he's the first person she tells about her hidden talent.

Smart of Garibaldi to hand over his piece before being not-scanned. What a fucker tho, faking them out. hahah.

also please don't be the mole, Ivanova. I don't want anything bad to have happened to her, ever, but since plenty has, I don't want any more!!

After all these people have been cleared, I think Ivanova will probably just agree to being cleared. She will want to know. Maybe she would let Lyta tell Talia the password and let Talia password her?

I do like Sheridan's theory earlier talking to Garibaldi that the second in command who shot Garibaldi in the back was the mole.

Ahhhh Ivanova did change her mind. And she's clean!

Lyta: I'm sorry Susan: Go to hell.

That's my girl.

Oh man!! I didn't even think to suspect Talia! Fuuuuuuuck, and she's all telekinetic'ed up, too!! Oh, damn it. I don't like this at all.

or do I? There's plenty of whump to be had. hm.

You know what I really don't like, this boys-only confab. Ivanova is the second in command of the entirety of B5 and she's not present for the strategy meeting. Uncool.

Ahhhh it's all coming together for Garibaldi. Wow, they really have been seeding this plotline for the whole show!! Cool Hat Man Mind Empty No Thoughts Only Hat wasn't just fun filler!

The Talia that Susan knew definitely has to be in there! They haven't kissed yet! And I need that!!

Oh, this is chilling!! The angst! The whump!! Susan!!!

I think it would be really funny if the sub-personality didn't understand homosexuality and therefore has no idea real!Talia was in love with Susan and vice versa.

OK now I weirdly ship Lyta/Kosh.

"I never told them, I never told anyone. I hid it all away in the smallest, tiniest corner of my mind. They could have killed me and they still wouldn't have found it. Only at night, alone, would I open that small door in my mind where I kept the memory of you and listened to your voice. Listened to you sing me to sleep. I hope I can come back again, but I don't know. Until then, Kosh, I want to see you again. Just one more time before I go."

Lyta's a bonafide monsterfucker. What a great note to end this on!

My thoughts right now are: "Hnnnnnngggggshshshcsagfjkaldsf yes." Good episode! My favorite of the season so far! I can't wait to see how all this plays out!! I may make some gifs and do a gif-post of this ep later. So many good shots!

this next one is posted to the correct blog, hah.

#babylon 5 #lyta alexander #susan ivanova #talia winters #susan ivanova x talia winters #screaming crying throwing up #an episode of all time #plot plot plot plot #woodsfae b5

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dragoneyes618 · 1 month

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Compassion That Kills

Debbie Maimon

February 14, 2024

The Dark Side of Progressive ‘Humanitarianism’

Beware of compassion; it can kill.

One often reads of “a deep political divide” within the Democratic Party on the subject of the Israel-Hamas war. That is a diplomatic nicety covering up a nasty truth; the Democratic Party today is abandoning Israel; it is being effectively hijacked by left wing progressives who are openly hostile to the Jewish state.

But not out of hatred or cruelty, of course. All under the guise of compassion and solidarity with the “poor and oppressed.”

About half of Democrats today sympathize with Palestinians over Israel. Shockingly, this is even after Hamas’ horrific massacre of Israelis and barbaric torture of children, woman and elderly.

Sympathy among progressive Democrats for the Palestinians persists even as Hamas proclaims its intention to “repeat Oct. 7” and annihilate Israel, and even after polls report that the majority of Palestinian civilians approve of this genocidal goal.

After the House overwhelmingly passed a resolution condemning Hamas for its horrific attacks in southern Israel Oct. 7, New Jersey Democrat Josh Gottheimer wrote on social media that the 15 Democrats who didn’t vote for the measure were “despicable and do not speak for the party.”

“Mr. Gottheimer was only half right,” a Wall Street Journal op-ed commented. “Those 15 members from progressive constituencies may in fact represent the Democratic future. The party of Franklin D. Roosevelt has an anti-Semitism problem.”

“This week progressive activist groups released a “Gaza 2024 statement” asserting they won’t vote for Joe Biden “if he does not end U.S. support for Israel’s brutal war in Gaza. The announcement offers background on ‘Israeli ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza,’” the WSJ wrote.

“The Democratic Party never expected Jew-hatred to be a feature of its coalition. Now it is,” the article noted.

“This [shift in allegiance] is the culmination of a trend decades in the making,” a NY Post op-ed argued. The article ascribed the Democratic Party’s embrace of progressive goals to relentless efforts by anti-Israel activists to undermine support for Israel.

The younger, progressive wing of the Democratic Party, ignorant of history and indoctrinated by woke ideology that champions all “people of color” as victims of oppressors, has firmly embraced the Palestinian cause, propelling the party’s base towards the left.

Democrats and Republicans Swapped IDs

The NY Post op-ed by Jonathan Tobin, editor of JNS, notes the irony in how the Republican and Democratic parties have “largely swapped identities in the last 60 years when it comes to Israel.”

Decades ago, beginning with the founding of the Jewish state, Democrats were overwhelmingly sympathetic to Israel, viewing the country as a tiny island of democracy fighting for its life against Arab and Muslim regimes that sought its annihilation.

Republican ranks were divided, with many opting to throw their support behind oil-rich Arab countries and even oppose aid to Israel.

That paradigm changed with the election of Ronald Reagan who was in office from 1981-1989, and was staunchly pro-Israel, the article noted. By the 1990s, the GOP had aligned with Reagan’s view that Israel shared common values with Americans and was a crucial regional ally.

Republicans today back Israel by an overwhelming margin, while congressional Democrats who still support Israel are out of touch with their party’s left-wing base.

Some ascribe the Democratic Party’s reversal to the legacy of the Obama administration, which was hostile to Israel in the extreme. Obama expressed that animus by embracing the nuclear deal with Iran that endangered Israel’s existence, and by its policy of appeasing Teheran and strengthening the rogue nation’s clout in the region to Israel’s detriment.

The Biden administration and certainly the State Department remain wedded to that platform, writes noted columnist and Middle East expert Caroline Glick.

Propaganda Machine Betting on Public’s Ignorance

The real explanation for the Democrats’ shift in alliance, experts say, is the rise of a left wing movement that falsely equates the Palestinian war on Israel to the struggle for civil rights in the United States.

Its propaganda machine ludicrously casts the Jewish state as an “apartheid regime,” descendants of “white colonizers,” and an oppressor of Palestinians who are supposedly “indigenous” to Israel—the earliest natives of the land. Laughable, but it works if you can count on the public’s ignorance.

A significant proportion of Congressional Democrats, testing the direction in which political winds blow, have begun alienating themselves from Israel, following the lead of the congressional pro-Palestinian “Squad” who propagate anti-Semitic tropes as part of their hate-Israel tirades.

These propagandists also count on the capacity of people to blindly swallow wholesale lies. Shrieking pro-Palestinian protesters will never have to digest the historical fact that the majority of Israeli Jews have roots in Middle Eastern countries, and are in no way descendants of “white European colonizers.”

They will never stumble across the fact that ancient Jewish monarchies presided for centuries over the land of Israel before a Muslim ever existed.

Progressive activists also hide from the uninformed the fact that Arab Israelis comprise 21 percent of the Israeli population, are represented in the Knesset and in every strata of Israeli society, and enjoy full civil and political rights.

Luckily for the propaganda artists, the average American college student has no idea or interest about these real world facts, or the entire edifice of lies would collapse.

“Until our entire educational system was hijacked by Marxist radicals, Israel was popular with Americans of all backgrounds,” notes the NY Post op-ed. “And it remains so among those, like most GOP voters, who don’t buy into the left’s lies about history and race.”

It is no longer possible to pretend that despite a “political divide” among Democrats, both parties are committed to Israel’s defense, the author contends.

“Thanks to the influence of the ideology to which even President Joe Biden bends his knee,” and which he apparently hopes will help secure him the Arab vote, “the Democrats have reached a tipping point on Israel from which there may be no road back.”

All In the Name of Compassion

A closer look at the progressives’ platform, reveals, in addition to its anti-Israel agenda, a political end game to radically change the United States—again under the guise of compassion and humanitarianism.

Many of the major cities such as NY, LA, San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Portland, Washington D.C., are witness to the havoc wreaked by progressive soft-on-crime prosecutors, who refuse to prosecute crimes of shoplifting, carjacking, vandalizing property, home break-ins and violent assaults on innocent pedestrians.

The Target chain is closing nine locations across the country — including the liberal-DA strongholds Manhattan, Seattle, San Francisco and Portland, Oregon — because they haven’t figured out a way to combat crime in these soft-on-crimes cities,” a National Review article reported.

“We cannot continue operating these stores because theft and organized retail crime are threatening the safety of our team and guests, and contributing to unsustainable business performance,” the article quoted the company’s statement.

In Washington, D.C., thieves have looted dozens of convenience stores around the city, afterwards selling their stolen goods in “pop-up shops”—sometimes just a short distance from the stores they just robbed, noted AMAC Newsline, a news outlet operated by a conservative think tank.

“The carjacking craze which has gripped major cities throughout the country has also been particularly acute in D.C., more than double the number from 2022,” the article said. Strikingly, “most of the offenders have been juveniles, some as young as 12 or 13 years old.”

Despite the crisis, the D.C. City Council has advanced “reform” legislation reducing penalties for crimes, and making it more difficult for prosecutors to score convictions.

Last year, over the veto of Mayor Muriel Bowser, the council passed a radical overhaul of the city’s criminal justice code that would have slashed prison sentences and ended the prosecution of many crimes. After much feuding and litigation, the bill was ultimately blocked by Congress.

One would hope that real world consequences of unbridled compassion toward lawbreakers would shatter left-wing delusions and dangerous fantasies about “redemption” and “restorative justice” for hardened criminals in place of jail time.

That doesn’t seem to be the case. In one beleaguered city after another, the elimination of cash bail for arrested suspects; policies that phase out jail time for convicted lawbreakers in favor of counseling, parole or community service; and the premature release of violent criminals have collectively led to a dramatic surge in crime. [See Sidebar]

Migrants Ratcheting Up Crime Wave

The current migrant wave has exacerbated the crime surge in big cities, authorities say.

‘Over 125,000 migrants have flooded New York City since last spring, looking for shelter at places like the Roosevelt Hotel reception center,” writes USA Today. “Looters are storming electronic, department and liquor stores for expensive tech, designer goods and alcohol.”

In a shocking incident, two violent migrants who were captured on CCTV stomping and kicking two police officers during a vicious Times Square attack late last month, have yet to be apprehended. They are still at large, according to the NYPD.

In another incident, a 15-year-old teen from Venezuela was arrested for opening fire in Manhattan, while fleeing from police after suspected shoplifting, an AP article said. The shooting injured a tourist from Brazil.

In yet another migrant assault, a video released last week shows members of a migrant crime gang dragging a woman down a New York City street, grabbing her purse and hurling her into a steel pole before speeding off, the NY Post reported.

It turns out that the crime gang has its members steal cell phones and other IDs, and then hires hackers to break into the victims’ bank accounts and drain their funds.

Several immigrants already arrested for these and other crimes were released on bail and have fled the state, prompting outraged calls for Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg to be removed from office.

The incidents have galvanized authorities to impose an 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew at 20 migrant shelters starting next Monday, a spokesperson for Mayor Eric Adams’ office said.

The curfew impacts about 3,600 migrants, with the largest of the emergency centers housing nearly 1,000 migrants in Long Island City, Queens. A total of 24 migrant shelters are now subject to the restrictions, but this represents only a fraction of the more than 200 such facilities the city operates to house some 66,000 newly arrived immigrants, an AP article said.

As hotels commandeered for the new arrivals are bursting at the seams; schools are overwhelmed; New Yorkers are being displaced; and government services are cut back to cater to the newcomers, Mayor Adams is railing at the federal government for not extending more financial help.

He apparently has forgotten his words in 2022.

In a now memorable speech, Mayor Adams boasted that he was “proud that this is a Right to Shelter state.” Within a year, he was begging for the buses of incoming migrants to stop, saying “It will ruin our city. We are losing the New York City we know.”

*****

Jews Targeted in ‘Tzunami of Hate’In an alarming trend, the lawlessness in New York and other major cities is increasingly targeting Jews.

“Los Angeles Area Plagued by Anti-Semitic Attacks in ‘Tsunami’ of Hate,” declared an ABC News headline on December 1, 2023

“Anti-Semitic Hate Crimes Surge 200 Percent in NYC over Same Period Last Year,” the National Review wrote around the same time. “Despite overall crime declining in New York City in October, hate crimes against the Jewish community jumped by over 200 percent compared to the same period last year,” the article said.

In the weeks following Hamas’s surprise terror attack on Israel, the NYPD’s Hate Crime Task Force registered a 214 percent “spike in anti-Jewish incidents,” compared to the same period last year, according to an NYPD press release.

“Hate has no place in our city. Our Jewish neighbors are being targeted more and more just on the basis of their faith,” the mayor said in response to the surge of anti-Semitic incidents. “That is unacceptable, and it’s why the NYPD is surging resources to synagogues and key locations in communities across the entire city.”

The latest numbers from NYPD’s hate crime bureau underscore FBI director Christopher Wray’s earlier warning on Capitol Hill in late October about growing threats to the Jewish community.

“This is a threat that is reaching sort of historic levels,” the director told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, shortly after Israel began its invasion of Gaza following the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7.

“The Jewish community is targeted by terrorists really across the spectrum,” Wray said, adding that the FBI predicts that “the actions of Hamas and its allies” will likely galvanize terrorists “in a way we haven’t seen since ISIS launched its so-called caliphate years ago.”

“In just the past few weeks, multiple foreign terrorist organizations have called for attacks against Americans and the West. Al-Qaeda issued a call to attack the United States. ISIS urged its followers to target Jewish communities in the United States and Europe.”

“Hizballah has publicly expressed its support for Hamas and threatened to attack U.S. interests in the Middle East. And we’ve seen an increase in attacks on U.S. military bases overseas carried out by militia groups backed by Iran,” Wray added.

“This is not a time for panic, but it is a time for vigilance,” the FBI director said. “We shouldn’t stop conducting our daily lives – going to schools, houses of worship, and so forth – but we should be vigilant.”

******

Criminal Justice Reform or a Push for Anarchy?

Just a few years ago, being tough on crime was a surefire way to bolster a DA’s political aspirations. In a stunning shift, the pendulum has swung wildly in the opposite direction with the emergence of the “progressive prosecutor”—radical reformers who are reinventing the role of the modern district attorney.

While many agree on the need for reform in the American criminal justice system, progressive prosecutors have instituted drastic soft-on-crime changes that, far from dispensing justice, have notably jacked up crime rates in their cities.

Political analysts studying the new trend have pointed to the immense influence wielded by left-wing billionaire George Soros in having soft-on-crime candidates elected to office. Soros created local, independent political action committees which allowed him to bypass the contribution limits on giving to a candidate’s own committee. He then was then able to spend unlimited amounts on behalf of the candidate of his choice.

Soros’s ultimate calculation was that he could make enough of these investments in radical prosecutors that it would cause a major shift in law enforcement in American cities.

His scheme worked and scores of his candidates won elections. By one calculation, 20 percent of the population of the United States was covered by Soros-funded prosecutors, according to City Journal.

But after crime rates soared in cities where Soros-backed prosecutors systematically let lawbreakers of the hook, the soft-on-crime movement has run into bitter grassroots resistance.

Is The Tide Turning?

Since 2022, at least 15 Soros-backed district attorneys have resigned, been recalled, or lost re-election, according to a recent report from the watchdog group “Virginians for Safe Communities.”

In one case, St. Louis circuit attorney Kim Gardner, a self-professed “progressive prosecutor,” released a repeat criminal on bail. The man then hit a young girl with his vehicle at a high speed, resulting in her having her legs amputated. Amid several lawsuits to remove her from office, Gardner finally resigned.

On January 8, Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm became the latest Soros DA to announce he would not seek re-election this year. Chisholm’s policies received national attention in 2021 after it was revealed that a man who intentionally drove his car into a holiday parade in Wisconsin, killing five civilians and injuring at least 48 more, was out on $1,000 cash bail.

“Chisholm’s decision to not seek re-election is particularly significant considering that he was the blueprint for other far-left Soros prosecutors throughout the country, often acting as the movement’s top cheerleader in the media,” the AMAC article said.

In another ouster, voters overwhelmingly chose to recall San Francisco DA Chesa Boudin after the city—one of the most liberal in America—deteriorated into one of the most dangerous zones in the country. That recall sparked a national backlash against soft-on-crime prosecutors.

A month later, Baltimore DA Marilyn Mosby, another far-left prosecutor who received millions from Soros, was defeated in the Democrat primary by a challenger promising to get tougher on crime.

Another major blow to the Soros prosecutor movement came last November, Soros-backed DA Buta Biberaj lost re-election in Loudoun, Virginia, a deep blue county.

“One of the most notorious soft-on-crime prosecutors is Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon, who was elected in 2020 and is up for reelection this year,” a Fox News article said.

After just one year in office, criticism of Gascon was so intense that a recall campaign was begun. While it failed, more than a half-million signatures have been collected for another recall.

Across the country, it seems millions of Americans, even in liberal cities, are rejecting Soros’s vision of criminal justice “reform.” More than 70 Soros prosecutors are still in office, however, and wield enormous influence, including in the nation’s largest cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.

“Americans will have their next opportunity to deliver a further rebuke of the radical criminal justice “reform” movement in primary and general elections this year,” writes AMAC. “With cities continuing to succumb to chaos and lawlessness, the worst backlash for Soros prosecutors may be yet to come.”

#antisemitism #israel hamas war #politics

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yunharlaquin · 1 year

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today, on this varyingly chilly day of the twenty-fifth of december, we commemorate the death and roast of the blessed squawkcoo, laying the way for the noble chewbacca to realize the error of his ways and repent consuming porgkind. as the porg so loved to do with his brethren, we remember his sacrifice by sharing how much we enjoy each other's company...

alright, alright, alright, enough jokes! merry christmas, god jul, fröhliche weihnachten, and happy holidays to everyone on the dash from a shockingly snowy oklahoma! whether you're celebrating something today or eating chinese (or in one confirmed case, middle eastern) food, i hope you're having a wonderful day. you all bring me such joy through your presence, and i hope (as i'll inevitably forget someone) if you don't find yourself on here, you know i still deeply appreciate you. i laugh, i cry, i squeal almost every day, all because of you and your muses. you're all so supremely talented, and i adore everything you produce.

now, without further ado...

FRIENDS, CORELLIANS, SITH LORDS: LEND ME YOUR DROIDS

@graysistance / @lionthought / @commandsir / @greenscrunchy & your plethora of blogs which are starting to rival the number of mine — PUCK, you beautiful, wonderful, sweetheart of a saltdish, you've listened to the ups and downs of my year side by side with hackett, always finding the time to come up with a comforting or encouraging word. your kindness is the sort of thing people like to claim their friends have, but you truly possess it. i adore talking about history with you, spinning out context with so many subjects we speak of, let alone specifically the group wwii au. your support for my various crafting projects always brings a smile to my face. i love to see the things you fun and across, including your growing collection of legends books. i adore how you characterize each of your characters, giving them the depths of compassion and forethought that so many hold. your internal dialogue is absolutely stunning and our plots make me giggle hysterically.

@aniimvs / @scoundrvls / @honorhunt / @hellmartyr & your equally numerous blogs of which each is perfection — HACKETT, considering how intrinsically tied you and puck are in equal measure to my time on this hellsite, i wish i could you both side by side at the top of this list. sadly, this is not a tumblr feature..... yet. in this year of coding and dash tumult, you have soldiered on behind the scenes irl, kicking names and taking ass, while popping up to deliver exquisite pain, cause minor chaos, and be the saltmine you are. our discussions of just how bad a certain... pad.mé writing author's work is brings me life. your technical history knowledge is top notch and i adore all you bring to the wwii au so much, let alone the jp and lotr aus you and puck have worked on. you, more so than perhaps anyone i write with are the queen of establishing a setting. i always love seeing where you decide to set a not established location thread and to build off the descriptions you give for it. it lends an effortless star wars vibe to everything... let alone your depth for your grey and dark muses... *chef's kiss*!

@carnalstress — literal best friend, JESS!!!!! even though i've only managed to the once so far, i am SO happy that i live close enough for us to visit each more often, and i'm so glad you're back to writing on tumblr. you bring so much comfort and joy into my life with your conviction and your kind heart. i admire your dedication to your field even when things get tough and that you're trying to find new avenues in it. you are such a wonderful friend. and your cat is the cutest thing. i hope this next year is the best one yet!

@debelltio / @impostre — ALISTAIR, you are perhaps the newest friend amongst this section of the list, but you are no less dear. i love the subjects we have crossing over interests and experiences in, from living in multiple cultures, to law, to history, food and beyond. i've really loved getting to know you over the last few months, and you do such a lovely job with orson and all your muses. it is just a whole wonderful thing.

@colpapabear — annika! i love that we've written together for so so long and bonded over so many different things. i especially love the vintage clothing and knitting discussions we've had of late. they bring me so so much joy. watching you take leaps and bounds in both and produce such pretty things is the literal best.

@darkestshadeofgrey — listen, i neeeed to respond to our threads because every single one without fail is a plot i am wild for. your characterize your muses so interestingly and each is so very compelling. and even though i'm often late to respond, i ADORE the star wars tiktoks you send me, so often so much pain.

@heirite — i know you haven't been on for a bit, but i'm very much hoping you'll come back and see this! you are such a lovely friend, and i adore your ben to pieces. he brings me such joy, and with you off doing irl, i occasionally go back and read through your blog for that ben sky.walker goodness!

@notimminent — hey you! not that you've ever been truly gone but i'm so glad we've met up again. i can't wait to turn our plotting into threads for emma! you're a truly wonderful person and i'm so happy to have you back more regularly on my dash.

@acharnemcnt / @finaliseur— ame! i'm so very excited for some of the plots we're slowly working on and the threads we have in the works. you've also been so so kind. i very much enjoy your hux, and i'm thrilled about the new multi AND the ask blog AND rae. it's all so so cool!

@galaxycrxss / @hamadaxfighter — hey hey, i very much enjoy your clone squad. and the genius boy. watching you flesh out echo and hiro is a lovely thing, as well as hearing about all your ideas for the future!

@astraldestiny — listen, you adding winter hands down made my week! the plethora of legends characters you write never fails to bring me joy to see, and i enjoy writing and plotting with you so much. stay warm and i hope you enjoyed a christmas market! (next year when i go back, NEXT YEAR)

@multipleoccupancy — caraaaaaaaaa! no matter what you set your mind to on your multi or elsewhere, you do to perfection. it's been so lovely to write with you for so many years across so many genres and muses. our history threads will forever be my favorite!

@chokethelight — you you you, we haven't been able to write much this year, but whenever you pop in to say hello, or whatever version you decided to use that time, you bring a smile to my face! i hope 2023 is a better year for you. <3

@stillsails — i'm so glad to see you around again on tumblr! you've had so much happen!! i am so so so proud of/happy for you for all your accomplishments and milestones this year! keep being the lovely academic and wonderful writer you are.

@fasciinating — listen, whatever we're working on brings me much joy, and the friendship that spock and jaina are building is just lovely. plus, i've really enjoyed the headcanons you've written for that challenge, let alone your beautiful art!

to all those i really love writing and talking with but also hope todo more with this coming year:

@paramounticebound @gurrillero @fifthbornforrester @lunascientia @rubiesintherough @protectxthem @caedus @kylo-wrecked @keeve-trenniis @jaigalorad @mandogold @hopegained @ncxile @reawakcn @theysparked @becomelions @fatedtruths @vuulpecula @conniidel @withoutpeer @skjebne and everyone i inevitably missed, have the happiest of new years!

#︲ ooc » has needle‚ will costume...#i've had a week... so instead of building up 90% of this over more than a week #i did the majority of this this morning so #apologies for anyone i missed again and also that messages are shorter than i'd like #i literally couldn't tag any more people without the editor glitching out......

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orcdaddy · 1 year

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This is an example of my version of the Baobhan Sith ( buh-VAWN shee) of Scottish folklore, horrific vampiric faeries that not only drain blood, but feed on sexual and life energies. In my lore, Females are much larger, outgoing, and more aggressive than males, and thus seen more often by humans, giving early humans the impression that there were only females of the species.

I wish I could remember the bloody source for a fascinating historical account of an encounter, but it involved a troop of young men camping in the highlands for the night on their way to the next town. They reportedly were sitting around the fire when several pale women of unearthly beauty came out of the wood, engaging with the men, and then becoming very seductive. One man, and the only survivor of this story, happened to look over at one of the women getting familiar with his friend, and realized to his absolute horror that she has goat legs under her flowing dress, which is a sure sign of a Sith, as it’s the only part of them they can’t disguise. His friends are too far gone under their seduction to listen to his horrified shrieks, and do not run with him. He is pursued by the Baobhan Sith, until he reaches the horses, which he notes seemed to terrify the faeries (it is suggested from other sources that this is due to the iron shoes horses wore, and iron burns fae like napalm). He is able to ride off and flees, not stopping til he reaches town. His ravings are taken seriously, and when the sun comes up, a group of armed men ride to the scene, only to find the drained bodies of the sole survivor’s troop.

I love folklore. Stick around if you want more exclusive, hard-to-find info because I find that Wikipedia and Google are shockingly lacking in folklore information, barely having more than a paragraph for more unknown critters I might bring up. Books are your friend when it comes to the subject, as almost all my most important folklore info was found in some random out-of-print book with coffee stains and questionable crumbs from the library.

#modern faerie tales #fae #faerie #modern fantasy #catch 22 #fairy #baobhan sith #unseelie #horror

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variousqueerthings · 5 months

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It’s very obvious that you’ve been with him for awhile, because you are really good at the excuses

if no one else got me, I know Time Heist's got me! and, shockingly, it was co-written by M*ffat! I wonder if I should do a top ten episodes per season type list, because this is so far EASILY the best of season 8 and I imagine it'll stay there

sexism rank objectification (female character is ogled/harassed/turned into a sex joke by the doctor and/or a lead we’re supposed to root for and/or the camera): 9/10

sexism rank plot-point (lead female character is only there to serve plot, not to have her emotional interiority explored, or given agency to her emotional interiority): 7/10

interesting complex or pointlessly complex (does the complexity serve the narrative or does it just serve to be confusing as a stand-in for smart, this includes visually): 8/10

furthers character and/or lore and/or plot development (broader question that ties into the previous ones, at least two of these, ideally three should be fulfilled): 6/10

companion matters (the companion doesn’t always have to be there, but if the companion is there, can they function without the doctor– and overall per season how often is the companion the focus or POV of the story): 4/10

the doctor is more than just “godlike” (examines the doctor’s flaws and limitations, doesn’t solve a plot by having it revolve entirely around the doctor’s existence): 9/10

doesn’t look down on previous doctor who (by erasing or mocking its importance, by redoing and “bettering” previous beloved plotpoints or characters, etc.): 10/10

isn’t trying to insert hamfisted sexiness (m*ffat famously talked a lot about how dw should be sexier multiple times, he sucks at writing it): 10/10

internal world has consistency (characters have backgrounds, feel rooted in a place with other people, generally feel like they have Lives): 7/10

Politics (how conservative is the story): 7/10

FULL RATING: 77/100 (if I can count….)

this may be the highest M*ffat (co)-written episode so far -- the other writer is Stephen Thompson, who also did Curse Of The Black Spot (underrated) and Journey to the Centre of the Tardis (a bit of a missed opportunity, but cool Vibes)

this one is. it's good. also a pre-Bridgerton, waaay pre-Fellow Travellers Jonathan Bailey, and he's got a moment that made me go "wait, fun queercoding? M*ffat's economy???"

OBJECTIFICATION: Clara's in the objectively sexiest outfit of her entire time on this run -- a suit and thin tie. perfectly suited for the slickness of the episode, and finally giving her a bit of that lowkey bi-cred (listen, this may be contentious, but while obviously Clara is solidly considered to be bi, I don't think it's adequately confirmed on the show beyond a scant few jokes/male-gazey fanservice and Word Of God, so it's like... yes we can consider her bi, but she's not portrayed as such onscreen)

(I wonder if Big Finish have come through on that front, from what I've heard it's sooooo queer on the whole)

(Let Clara Be Bi On Big Finish (if she isn't already))

PLOT-POINT: Clara's got more Journey going on in this than the last one, which, considering what the last one was meant to be giving us (emotional exploration) and what this one is giving us (a fun Bank Heist!) is funny... M*ffat you were part of the writing of both of these???

this is one of those where they poke further at the way the Doctor just pulls Clara along in a very emotionally messed up way and she's left to be apologetic about his behaviour, but aaaaalso...

this could be subjective, but at the end the Doctor shows his true colours and the other two characters (Psi and Saibra my standouts for this season!) also very much forgive the way he's been acting for the rest of the episode, which I think makes sense

they realise the Doctor needed to do certain things (erase everyone's - including his own - memories, make-believe they're going to die, etc) in order to make sure that nobody died, and to get things to them that they'd never have been able to get otherwise, and can change their lives for the better and... it was all done to save someone

so it gives these two sides to the current Doctor as off-putting and secretive, and also someone who is trying to help everyone around him

this Doctor hasn't had so much of the latter half of this so far in this era, and it makes you think "ah yes, that's what Clara sees in him"

COMPLEXITY: ohhh an episode where the plottwists pay off? shocking, actually, genuinely

it's got some twisty-turns, but they're... they're good on the whole. it all centres on one particular concept, that this being can read thoughts and is a slave that must work for the bad guys, so everything has to be around not allowing this being to know what's going on whilst helping it out

I'm sure if I go deeper into it I'll find some holes here or there (such as "just keep your mind blank" as a valid plan for avoiding the mind reader, it's fine, I'll suspend my disbelief on that), but it's not trying to trick you, or to be overly clever for no reason, it's got a good core to the reason things are happening

CHARACTERS/LORE/PLOT: there's not soooo much of this on the whole, it's Fun Bank Heist Time! but yeah, more stuff on the relationship between the Doctor and Clara

RIP if M*ffat had to bring characters back, why not Psi and Saibra (jk, they're mercifully great single-episode characters, we don't need to make them sexy recurring Cool Concepts)

COMPANIONS MATTER: again, this isn't much of Clara's episode on that front. she has some neat interactions with Psi that make us learn more about him and he in turn puts some thoughts in her head, and she's the reason why he sacrifices himself/teleports without knowing it

“GODLIKE” DOCTOR: Yeeees this is a Doctor Machinations episode, but it's cool machinations, with a Point, and even consented to -- everyone goes into this one consensually!

and the Doctor's whole reason for doing things is... to rescue these two beings....

PREVIOUS DOCTOR WHO: there's this cool bit where Psi, being an augmented human, makes the memory-sucking being believe he's every great/dangerous/etc criminal ever and the screen flashes everyone from a member of the Slitheen family to John Hart from Torchwood... that was good fun callback!

“SEXINESS”: can you believe this episode features just a host of the most attractive actors (JLC, Jonathan Bailey, Pippa Bennett-Warner!!!) and there's no stupid sexiness????? AND they were like "oooh what if Psi was an augmented human with a sexy haircut and plugs in his cranium, and Saibra was a shapeshifter who could take anyone's form with a touch and they were both dressed in lowkey cyberpunk coolness" and still resisted any stupid fucking Nonsense

this is hands down the sexiest episode of M*ffat's entire run, and it's purely on the strength of great characters, hot actors with neat character Types, cool AF costuming, and a plot with heart

INTERNAL WORLD: it's a big bank! it works. also the woman who runs it has clones of herself running every bank, which, I'm guessing this is during a time period where clones have no rights, so she can just "dispose" of them whenever they let her down

there's another neat concept in this about clone rights, but I'll let it slide, because this episode is already doing Many Things

there's also the suggestion of some hypercapitalist prison state outside of this, where families of potential bank robbers are incarcerated, again, great potential future concept, this episode is firmly, and correctly, centred on One Location

POLITICS: there's some stuff here -- clone rights, hypercapitalistic prison state, augmented human rights, and the mind-reader which is kept as a slave being the whole point of the story

I think what I like about this episode is that it's very much advocating against everything the bad guy stands for (see the above), and for kindness, support for one another, and respect for many ways of being. it's very scifi, but its core is in the right place

FULL RATING: 77/100 (if I can count….)

could this be the winner of the season?

the more I think about it the more it !!!!!!! it's not rated higher, because it is in the end a single episode concept, and that's not a point against it, it's just the limitation of this ratings system

if I were to say one thing it's wanting Clara to be incorporated more, but that's an issue for her entire run, much like Amy before her. M*ffat really struggles to write companions Doing Things In An Episode

still, Psi and Saibra, my besties, rocketed up to my top ten of single-episode characters (ooh, should do a list of that for nu!who) -- also Psi had this Moooment of shaking the Doctor's hand for a long time and inviting him on another bank heist...

Psi: If you ever need help with another uh… bank-heist

after which Clara hugs Psi goodbye and says in his ear: It’s not really his area

listen... listen I cannot say if this was what it was. but it certainly was more than I've ever seen in M*ffat's era of dull heterosexuality, walking gay jokes without names, and sexy lesbians in leather -- if that's what it was going for, I found it incredibly charming actually

although Clara, you've never met the Master or you wouldn't be saying that (also have we re-asexualised the Doctor? I think so mr M*ffat)

#im watching nu!who #im watching capaldi who #episode time heist #the measurement

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