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self-proclaimed-chaotic-good · 2 years

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Finding Significance in Simple Things | Jancy

Prompt: Future AU/Post-Canon

Words: 2364

Fandom: Stranger Things

A/N: A spin-off set a year after the [Somebody to Love] series. Could be read as a stand-alone, since they’re mostly background in that series. Tentative -verse name is “We Will Always Have Hawkins” or WWAHH-verse lol I think it just sounds neat and I got it from one the series' future chapters. Mentions Steddie and Jopper.

Summary: Freelance photography work had been coming in steadily, but after a while, Jonathan started to look for something more. One night, he heard rumors of sketchy activities that sounded all too familiar in a small town in Long Island.

He didn’t realize that a small place like Montauk would have this many expensive places. It was a small town east of Long Island that thrived in the fishing and tourism industry. Unlike Hawkins that didn’t really have anything noteworthy besides the so-called curse and the rest of the messed up stuff that the government covered up. What was similar, though, was the rumors behind this seemingly unassuming town. There were articles about residents reporting strange activities at the old military base, UFO sightings, random blackouts across town, clocks stopped working properly, and people going missing.

Jonathan placed the Montauk Point tour guide book down and sighed, looking at the array of articles he managed to find. It was overwhelming. While he managed to track down the connections, he still thought that Nancy would have been quicker. Nancy…

When college got busy and adjusting to life in big cities got a bit much, he and Nancy hadn’t had the chance to talk. Last time they spoke, Nancy expressed her frustrations with the school’s newspaper, how picky they were with their stories and how they always published the same people that wrote biased articles. She said that it was almost as worse than working at Hawkins Post, which was saying something.

NYU was a culture shock for Jonathan for sure. A lot of rich kids from the city that made Junior year Steve Harrington look like an innocent country bumpkin. There was also a mixture of art snobs, both elitists and nonconformists. Often, they make the same points but for different reasons. He tried to not lose sight of why he loved photography. People can lie to your face, but a moment in time can reveal many things about them. Freelance work wasn’t so bad and he used it as an opportunity to explore the city and its stories.

It was at a hole-in-a-wall nightclub where a slam poetry group was performing when Jonathan heard about the Montauk project. He snapped a photo of the next performer on stage before sitting down, getting a glass of water from the bar. There was a couple sitting next to him, speaking in hushed tones as they leaned back on the bar, facing the small stage on the other side of the room.

Jonathan took a big gulp of water and turned in his seat, eyes scanning the crowd as the performer’s voice echoed through the old dusty speakers. Many were enraptured by the performer’s voice while those on the outskirts of the tables were either zoning out or whispering amongst themselves.

“No shit!” the man sitting next to Jonathan exclaimed.

His partner hushed him, smacking his arm. “I’m serious!” they hissed, leaning in closer, “My cousin said that even the magnets stopped working. Like, how is that possible?”

The man shrugged. “Could be a coincidence. Could be something. I mean, the whole town of Montauk? There’s not even anything significant about that place.”

“Anything could be significant if something special happens to it. Who would have even given a shit about Roswell until those UFO sightings, huh? Your birthdate wouldn’t hold any significance to me if I didn’t know it was your birthday.”

“Thanks a lot, babe.”

“But, you get my point, right? This time, I know someone who saw it. The blackouts, the broken magnets, even the hallucinations.”

“Hallucinations?”

“Yeah, she said that she was walking along the beach when she thought she saw something hovering over the old air force base. Something big. It was floating in the air, then it dropped so fast that it exploded and the ground shook. Lights were flashing and everything. When she blinked, it was as if the air force was untouched, completely abandoned, and the sky was darker.”

“That’s freaky stuff.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Are you coming over for Christmas?” Will asked hopefully.

Jonathan glanced at his calendar marked with deadlines and events. Christmas was closing in fast, faster than he thought possible now that he was in a big city. Decorations were being put up since the end of October and Christmas parties were being organized. It was a good time to pick up work and as tempting as it was, he was really missing home. His family was everything to him and this was the longest he had gone away from them.

“And miss mom’s burnt gingerbread cookies? Not a chance,” Jonathan said, smiling at the memory of when their mom got distracted by something and forgot to check the oven.

The brothers fell into a comfortable silence, the sound of rustling papers could be heard from Will’s side. He had been working on a new art project when Jonathan had called. It took Will some time to readjust to life back in Hawkins, especially when Jonathan left, but with El and their friends at his side, it almost felt like he never left.

DnD had been temporarily moved to Steve’s new apartment after the school had put a halt to the Hellfire Club for the time being. Eddie was bummed out about it. He worked so hard to get it made and opened its doors to all those who were lost and sought for escapism where one could shape their own narrative in a fantasy game. El was learning how to skateboard from Max when she wasn’t being a Hawkins High undercover superhero, making bullies trip on nothing or their shorts falling down in the middle of the hallway.

“How’s it been? The city sounds crazy from how you described it,” Will said.

Jonathan huffed out a laugh, nodding. “Yeah. It feels like… everything and nothing is happening, you know? Everyone’s got their own thing going on, always on the move. When you’ve got nothing going on… it’s just nothing.”

“Are you saying that you’re bored of living in New York City?” he asked incredulously.

“No. No, it’s not that. It’s just… I don’t know.” Jonathan sat down with his chest leaning against the back of the chair. “I feel like back in Hawkins, if I don’t figure out what I wanna do with my life, then I’m stuck there. In New York, if I don’t figure it out, then I’ll be swept away.”

“So, same thing, different pace,” Will surmised.

Now that they were older, the brothers found that their talks seemed almost at an equal footing. It was always Jonathan comforting and protecting Will, but now, he’s been seeing more and more of that wiseness that Will’s friends were always talking about. Not that he didn’t know about it before, but Will was his baby brother. He was supposed to be the one to give him advice and take care of him. Finding a friend in Argyle who, while near constantly in a stoned state, had advised that he try to lessen the burden he had placed on himself and let people help take care of him.

“Yeah. I’m just looking for something to do. Things have been getting monotonous, relatively speaking. I guess with everything we’ve been through, all these things that people find so… significant seem so trivial now.”

“Maybe you need to find something worth putting value in to make it significant. Things almost feel like nothing matters, right?”

Jonathan sorted through the newspaper clippings he had and stacked them neatly in chronological order. He thought back to the couple at the slam poetry night, about how something wasn’t significant until something special happened to it.

Hawkins was a place that no one even knew about until he and Nancy released the story that got Hawkins Lab shut down and the news that covered the mess at Starcourt Mall. A cursed town in Indiana. But, it was also Jonathan’s home, where everyone that mattered to him was. Well, almost everyone.

He looked down at his palm where the scar, shining slightly under the desk lamp light, served as a reminder of the night where he and Nancy lured out the demogorgon, knowing that they could potentially die. He sometimes wondered if she ever looked at her matching scar or covered it up to forget about it.

Will knew the gears were turning in his head, going by his brother’s silence. “They’re opening up a new mall here,” he said, “Several of the local businesses are planning to relocate there. There’s even going to be a skating rink and a music stage. El’s excited about that. She managed a kickflip the other day!”

“That’s so cool. Tell her I wanna see it when I get there. No evil Russian labs under the mall this time, right?”

“Not that we know of. I’m sure that once me and El sense something, mom and Hop will catch on quickly.”

“Mom should be a detective by now. Those two make quite a duo, don’t they?” Jonathan laughed before trailing off. “How are things with them? Mom’s happy, right? No bad fights?”

“Yeah, yeah, no, she’s really happy. I haven’t seen her this happy in a long time,” Will said. “Hopper… He treats her right and… he’s cool, I guess. Hey, did you know that Steve’s debating whether he should join the police force?”

“What? No way. A police officer with a former drug dealer and murder suspect for a partner?” Jonathan tried to picture Steve in that blue uniform looking exasperated at a handcuffed Eddie wearing a wide cheeky grin and snorted. He thinks that they might actually play it up and did not want to think about it any further.

“Stranger things have happened in Hawkins.”

“Oh, don’t remind me.”

“I am the reminder.”

There was no point in getting a car in New York. If he can’t walk to his destination, he’ll take the subway or the bus. If he was desperate, he’d take the cab. Getting to Montauk was going to take almost three hours of sitting in one spot, then getting a cab to one of the cheaper motels. He didn’t know why he decided to go. Maybe it was the familiarity, painful curiosity. He didn’t know what to expect either. Certainly not Nancy Wheeler at the train station.

“Nance?”

She turned, her brown curly hair swishing off her shoulders. There was a thick knitted scarf wrapped around her neck and a long trench coat tied tightly by the waist. Her large luggage was by her feet, her backpack slung over one shoulder as she bounced in her high ankle boots. Her round eyes widened when she saw him and a smile automatically spread across her face.

“Jonathan!”

The wind was knocked out of him and he wasn’t sure whether it was from the sight of her or when she slammed her body into his. His arms felt familiar around her small frame, his face aching from the sudden stretch of his lips as he felt her practically melting into him. He closed his eyes, breathing her in. Her light floral perfume, her fruity scented shampoo, and that hairspray she liked to use when her hair gets out of control.

“Nance, what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be heading back home?” Jonathan asked, taking her luggage without question as he adjusted the strap of his backpack and small duffle bag.

“I was,” she said, still smiling, “But then I heard about something. Something big. I had to come and… and… I need to know what it is.”

There was that glint in her eye that he always loved. It was when she got excited, so passionate, and driven. Emerson’s school newspaper must be filled with idiots if they’re not jumping on the chance to use her stories.

“Is it the military base in Montauk?”

She nodded, grabbing his arm and leaned in to whisper, “You, too?”

He smiled. “Yeah. Wanted to take pictures that weren’t art scenes and street views for once. Think there’s an alien spacecraft? Some green people?”

Nancy rolled her eyes, walking with him towards the train. “Yeah, maybe like E.T.”

They hurried to a seat before the surge of people pushed them around and potentially separated them. They leaned back in their chairs with a sigh, taking a moment to relax and wait until everyone in the train settled for departure. Their hands were centimeters apart, but Jonathan didn’t dare to grab hers. They were on a break, a mutual decision to remain friends as they went off on their separate paths.

An hour into the ride, Nancy had dozed off, resting her head on Jonathan’s shoulder. Her left hand was slightly turned up, her matching scar on her palm peeking out. To anyone else, that scar could mean anything. Clumsiness, mostly, or accident prone. It would just be any old scar from their reckless teen years.

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” Nancy said softly, lifting her head slowly to look at him with a small smile.

He smiled back, bringing his left hand over next to hers. She grabbed his gently, running her smooth fingers over his scar, his own fingers giving a small twitch at the tickling sensation, before comparing them.

“Mine’s bigger,” she said, smirking.

He scoffed playfully. “Okay, it’s not a competition. I…” He trailed off as she entwined their fingers together and squeezed his hand.

“I really missed you.”

“I missed you, too.” He squeezed her hand back.

She reluctantly pulled away to dig through her backpack for her journal. Of course, she already had notes about all the abnormal sightings written in neat handwriting with notes of what they knew about Hawkins Lab and about the signs of anything related to the Upside Down. No matter how many times they helped El close the portals, that wouldn’t stop people like the Russian military from trying to open it again.

His frustration and anger of governments seeking to control something that they do not understand overrode his exhaustion from the constant fighting to keep his friends and family safe. If what’s happening in Montauk is what he and Nancy think it is, they need to stop it.

“Ready to hunt down another government conspiracy?”

“I’ll get the perfect shot if you write the perfect story.”

Nancy nodded firmly with determination in her eyes. “Just like old times.”

#writersmonth2022 #writer's month #jancy #jonathan byers x nancy wheeler #jonathan x nancy #stranger things fic #jancy fic #stranger things imagine #jancy imagine #jonathan byers #nancy wheeler #background steddie #hopper byers family #will namedrops the show

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haik-choo · 4 years

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request: i read your haikyuu as boyfriend headcannons and 🥺 they were so cute!! if you don’t mind can i get some hcs of your first kiss with noya and hinata 💞

a/n: yess!!!! YES!!!!! your mind...i decided to do all of the first years and add in noya because i really wanna,,,ALSO THESE ARE KIND OF LIKE SCENARIOS??? AGAGAG

@dearkozume because you wanted me to tag you in posts!!! <3

[FIRST KISSES WITH KARASUNO FIRST YEARS + NOYA]

-nishinoya, hinata, kageyama, yamaguchi, tsukishima

nishinoya yuu.

he’d kiss you when walking with you, his mind would probably already be filled with thoughts about kissing you when he realizes you’re giving signs of wanting to be kissed and he. panics

has probably been dating you for a week and keeps on thinking about how to kiss you

he doesn’t want to be pushy and kiss you when you’re not ready, but baby really wants to kiss you

but he won’t if you’re not ready!

but you’ll be walking back from practice with him, hands intertwined as he complains about tsukishima being an ass or something

and all of a sudden he notices that you aren’t responding like you usually do, not even an ‘uhuh’ or a ‘mhmm’

and he just looks over at you to see if you’re okay, and he notices that you’re literally just staring at him, seemingly not even noticing that he’s stopped talking

and he stops walking and realizes that you’re not just staring at him,,,,,,you’re staring at his lips

WHEN I TELL YOU HE ALMOST SHITS HIMSELF. HE’S BEEN PREPARING AND EVEN TOLD HIMSELF THAT IT WOULD BE LIKE A MONTH BEFORE YOU WERE READY BUT YOU’RE GIVING THE SIGNNNNSSSSS

he takes his hand from yours and grabs your shoulders and pulls you in really close, and his breath shakes when he opens his mouth; you’re a little shocked, but in a good way

“can i please kiss you?”

it’s a whisper, and his eyes are wide and his cheeks are painted red; you can even feel his fingers twitch on your shoulders, which is cute because he never gets nervous

and you just...nod

and he nods back at you, closes his eyes, and you close yours. and his lips gently press against yours in the middle of the sidewalk, it’s nighttime, and it just feels so right

he pulls away, his face a mixture of “did i just fuck up” and “OHEIHGroigerngrGUvk” and it has to be the most endearing thing you’ve ever seen. and you wanna see it again sometime soon

just not when he looks like he’s about to pass out from the nerves

“w-....was that good?” he’d nervously ask, his hands still gripping your shoulders, and you’d just nod and laugh, kissing his cheek and intertwining his fingers with yours again before starting down the street

“it was perfect, yuu. let’s do it against sometime.”

“yEAH o-OKAY” (he says as his voice cracks)

hinata shoyo.

you’d kiss him at night, in his room with no one home, it’s a chaotic kiss because he probably doesn’t see it coming, like at all, and he does something stupid before melting

you guys are used to being at one another’s house like,,,,all the time

you’ve been friends since his middle school says, and when he told you he was going to karasuno, you decided you’d go too

and now that you’re dating, it’s all basically the same. except you wanna kith him and he wanna kith you but you guys are each other’s firsts and just.awkwardness pursues

you’re at his house, but natsu is out with his mom getting groceries for dinner that night (you’re staying over for the night because it’s a friday)

and you’re waiting for hinata to be done with his shower, just finishing up the homework for the weekend so you can 1) spend time with your boyfriend and 2) so you can help him with his homework later

“y/n, have you seen the lotion anywhere?” he calls from the bathroom

“oh, yeah, give me a sec” and you get up and open the door, remembering you put it in the cabinet instead of on the counter, and you just stop,

his hair is wet and he has a towel on his shoulders, his cheeks red from the heat of his shower, his eyes raking over the counter and shelves

“i-its in the bottom cabinet” you manage, and he smiles and opens to cupboard, laughing, “why’d you put it there?”

his voice is just. perfect. it’s smooth from the steam and yet it’s still a little grainy

and you briefly wonder what it would sound like after a make out session bUT YOU STOP YOURSELF

“what’re you staring at???” he tilts his head to the side and just. doesn’t realize your heart is beating out of your goddamn chest

and you decide to just go for it

in one swift step you’re right up next to him, both hands on his cheeks to bring him down and kiss him, his eyes are wide, not really processing what’s happening, and he’s pretty shocked

so shocked, in fact, that he drops the bottle of lotion on your foot

“OW whAT THE HELKE”

“AH IM SO SORRY IM SO SORRY I DIDN’T MEAN TO --”

you sigh and hold your foot, jokingly saying “you could’ve just told me you didn’t want to kiss instead of smashing my big toe, shoyo --” but he doesn’t even let you finish before he dives in for a second kiss, lips tightly pursed together, inexperienced, but eager, hands squishing your face

and he pulls away, his large eyes staring straight at yours, breath ragged and ears glowing red

“hehe, shoyo, you’re getting your wet hair all over my face”

“sorry i just really wanted to kiss you again”

kageyama tobio.

he kisses you because he just can’t take it anymore. it’s probably out at a park after he’s done practicing, and it’s unexpected because he doesn’t know how to do anything; but he goes for it anyway because he just wants to let you feel how much he loves you

i’m surprised he even has an s/o anyway--

he texts you saying ‘hey can you come to the park with me. i was practicing with the idiot but he left because it was late and now’

‘now???’

‘i’m lonely :(’

and now here you are, sitting on a bench, laughing with kageyama as he tries to practice by himself

“kageyama! it’s already nine pm, take a break and then let’s get something to eat”

he reluctantly nods and moves to sit next to you on the bench

you smile up at him and lace your fingers with his, resting your head on his shoulder and staring at the night sky, peacefully thinking

and kageyama is sure you can hear his heart beat like a drum against his chest

he texted you because he wanted to kiss you but he didn’t know how to say that, and chickened out and just said he was lonely

kageyama knows that he’s not experienced, and that if you were in a relationship with someone like tsukishima or sugawara you’d have already kissed by now

and he’s just...so thankful that you’re so patient with him, and that you respect his boundaries

and he knows that you’ve probably been wanting to kiss him, and damnit, he wants to kiss you too

so he just tests the waters...and just kisses your temple, causing your head to shoot up in shock, because he never kisses you

and you can’t even say anything now because his beautiful steel blue eyes are staring at you so intensely that your breath is stolen from you

before you know it, he leans down and firmly presses his lips against yours

but he doesn’t pull away for a few seconds, which you don’t mind because fuCK hE”S KISSING YOU YES

but then a few more seconds go by

and then a few more

and then you finally pull away, “kageyama?” but he doesn’t respond and then you get a good look at his face and almost burst out laughing because it’s literally SO RED

his brows are furrowed together, his lips are tight, and his cheeks are so pink and he just softly mutters out, “i didn’t know how long to kiss you for and then i freaked out because i thought it was too long and i froze up please don’t break up with me i’ve never done this before--” and you cut him off with a kiss that, this time, only lasts for a few seconds

“there. is that better?”

and he can barely manage a nod with how hard and fast his heart is beating

tsukishima kei.

he’d kiss you the morning after you’ve slept over, both tired and lazily watching tv with a cup of joe in his hand and breakfast in your lap, a warm atmosphere taking over you both

it’s probably a sunday morning, and you and tsukishima are sitting on his couch with the tv playing a documentary on dinosaur fossils after you wake up from spending the night

and he had a cup of coffee in a white mug with a stegosaurus decal on it, and you have a finished plate of toast on your lap

“did you know that a stegosaurus’ brain was the size of a dog’s?” he mindlessly says, taking a sip of coffee

you hum and look up at him, taking him in with all his glory. his hair is messy and slightly curled at the end now that let it grow out a bit, his glasses were slipping from his nose and his typical piercing eyes were less so, now seeming just a little tired

but your eyes got caught on his lips, and how the coffee left them with a wet sheen

it had already been a month of dating, you had met him when you both took the same extracurricular class in college (’art before the modern ages’ it was called, all about art from the cavemen period and around there)

after suffering through the boring lectures from a rather untalented professor, he ended up asking you out to coffee one day (surprising you)

and now here you were, sitting with your sides touching, heart beating in synch

‘well. might as well kiss him’, you thought

“hey, kei, put your mug down real quick” “???okay, weirdo.”

he gently places his cup on the coffee table in front of you both, and he looks over at you expectantly “why'd you wan--” but alas, his words are cut off as you pull him down on top of you, your back hitting the cushions with a soft ‘thud’

but despite having the confidence to initiate pulling him on top of you, his honey eyes are wide and right in front of yours and you didn’t plan for them to be so mesmerizing

needless to say. it’s silent and awkward before he opens up his mouth to tease you

“so you aren’t going to kiss me?” he’d say with a smirk, before rolling his eyes and repositioning himself so his lips are hovering right over yours

“guess i’ll have to do it myself”

and he laces his fingers with yours as he kisses you passionately. the sun is filtering in, and it looks like he has a halo of light coming from behind his blonde head of hair. it’s so breathtaking that you just close your eyes and lose yourself in the feeling of him on top of you

he pulls away from you with eyes filled with love, something you’ve noticed he’s giving you a lot lately, and gives you a small, genuine smile

“god, i have to do everything around here”

“oh my gOD shut up”

yamaguchi tadashi.

he’d kiss you when you’re doing something domestic together, like making dinner together when you both are blaring music in the kitchen and you’re crushing him with the back hugs you love to give

“tadashi, the salt is in the cabinet above you head!”

“thanks, baby!”

he’s stirring the pot for the spaghetti, putting salt in the boiling water before he puts in the angel hair

and you’re finishing up the homemade sauce, deicing to let it simmer for a few minutes while you decide to go and bother tadashi

“mmmm, that smells good, baby!” you say as you go behind him, peering over his shoulder. he laughs and shakes his head, “it’s just pasta” you shrug, “still smells good.”

the domestic scene just fills your heart with so much content that you’ve just GOT to let it out

and you want to let it out on your wonderful boyfriend, tadashi

so you press your face in the back of his olive green sweater, letting your hands slowly slip over his sides and across his stomach, interlacing your fingers together before letting out a sigh of satisfaction

you almost giggle at the way his body tenses up and he twtiches in your hold

“wha-what’re you doing! you’re going to make me burn the spaghetti!”

“you can’t burn spaghetti, tadashi”

“watch me!”

“i can’t help it, you just smell like...”

“like what?” he’d ask, his face red as he finally pours in the pasta, the corners of his mouth poking upwards

“like my future husband~” CUE HIM DROPPING THE BOX IN THE WATER, BABY BOY IS SO SUPRISED

“w-WE’VE ONLY BEEN DATING FOR TWO WEEKS, I--”

“i”M KIDDING TADASHI AGAGAGAA CHILL OUT”

a few seconds pass, and his heart is still going a thousand miles per hour, you know because you can hear it thumping against your hands that are now on his chest

you start to giggle, face propping up on his shoulder

he can’t help it, and he starts to laugh too, laughing at how he gets flustered so easily when it comes to you

and after a minute of loud tear-inducing laughter, he finally just turns around and wraps his arms around your waist, his eyes staring down lovingly at you and your dazzling smile

time slows to a stop, and you both just lean in at the same time, lips connecting at the halfway point, perfectly. he’s smiling against your lips, scrunching up your shirt in his grip. :(((( this is so cute

and his heart jumps a little at the way your hands fist his shirt, and he thinks about how he could do this all night (which he will) before he separates from you with hearts in his eyes, placing his chin on the top of your head

“uh, i think you burned the spaghetti babe??? how the hell--”

“i TOLD YOU THAT YOU DISTRACT ME”

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mack3030 · 3 years

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Things the Sims 4 Community Can Do About Paywalls...A Post...

[This is going to be a bit long, so you may want to save it and read it when you have time, or just...you know, buckle in.]

I thought I would ring in the new year by talking about something that I feel we as a community need to finally decide on. (It’s been debated since 2017 or so, and it’s now 2021...) I’d like, if possible, to try to suggest some real solutions and choices that we can make that will hopefully create a better and more honest community out of all of us. Now I would like to start by making some postulates. In geometry, postulates are facts that do not need proven with a mathematical proof. They are assumed to be true. Thomas Jefferson and the founding fathers would call these “Self-Evident Truths”. I would like to use these as a bit of a basis for my arguments.

Truth: The Sims 4 has been enough of a cash cow for EA. If you buy the base game ($40) plus all expansion packs (40 each x 10) + all game packs (20 each x 9) + all stuff packs (10 each x 17) you would come to a total of seven hundred and 90 dollars ($790) plus tax. This is of course, without sales, bundling, etc, which many people DO take advantage of, but STILL. That is a TON of money for EA’s pockets. EA makes a majority of its money on the fact that the Sims 4 is an “incomplete game”. It “completes” the game further and further by adding more “expansions” to the game to the point that it seems almost useless to buy the base game alone without adding to it.

Even with sales and other things, it’s easy to spend over $500 dollars on the sims 4 game + expansions. Still a lot of cash for a game that is years old. This is just money that is spent on the game that goes to EA. This does not account for: * Money spent to buy a new computer because your old one wouldn’t run the sims. * Money spent supporting CC artists who have donations open or early access. * Money spent on access to sites that have ads/paywalls/exclusive sims 4 CC such as Leosims, etc. (Which are the problem, frankly)

We should be able to respect the fact that a majority of us paid a hefty amount for this game. It is unfair, and frankly greedy to REQUIRE people to pay MORE just to unlock or gain access to specific user created content.

I am not talking about a VOLUNTARY support or donation because they like what you offer. I am talking about FORCING people to pay if they want to ever be able to use the CC or mod you offer.

Now, the typical defense for this is “Well, I’m an artist! I spend time/effort/etc working hard on these meshes, the code, etc to make this content!” Which leads me to point #2.

Truth: Mods, CC, and other content for the Sims 4 are useless without the game. Once they are created/uploaded to the game, all copyright to those objects IMMEDIATELY transfers to EA.

I teach art in a Missouri public school. Our state standards dictate that when art students are in middle school grades, they have to learn about copyright, fair use, and creative commons. While I am not a copyright lawyer, I have had to learn enough about this subject to teach it. So allow me to break down a few facts about copyright:

First, when ya make it, ya own it. There’s not a process to apply for a copyright. The moment you create something that is 100% your own work, you hold the copyright to it.

Second, when you make something that is created based off of or USING someone else’s intellectual property as a reference or resource it is a fan creation. In art, we call this “fanart”. It is not 100% your own work. Someone else’s intellectual property is involved.

Fan creations always have tread a very thin and shadowy line when it comes to different companies and the legality of them. You can easily search google for various articles explaining it, but to summarize it in a short method:

Most companies do not actively go after those who create fan creations unless they are making profits that could instead be going to the creators of the intellectual property. If the fan creation is discovered to be making profits and/or taking the intellectual property in a direction the creator does not approve of, they have legal options to pursue (court, cease and desist letters, etc).

Third, Copyright can be transferred from person to person. In most cases this is done through a written document that both parties sign, however there IS an exception to this that EA uses to allow itself to transfer your copyrights to your content to them:

EA’s agreement with you is non-exclusive, meaning that the moment you hit “agree” on the sims 4 terms and conditions, you have handed over your rights to any CC you create for the game.

If you want to maintain full creative rights over the mesh/mods/etc you make then, you have to not make that content for the sims 4 and make your own platform to host it on. This is way easier said than done.

Truth: There have been various examples in the past of CC creators who have stolen meshes, bases, bits/pieces of work, or “inspiration” for CC from other sites/companies, who have been called on it publicly.

The most recent event concerning this was drama concerning itsbrandysims and their use of meshes from imvu/secondlife (you can see my opinion on the subject HERE), but there have been other documented cases. Leosims, for example, has been listed as an example of someone taking meshes from secondlife creators and reuploading them (when it was told to me, I was shown THIS thread as evidence). Another well known creator was accused by a former sims 4 cc creator (who now makes content from second life), and was called out in THIS post in 2019.

The horrible part of this? Many of these creators are charging people (often at not so great rates as well), for STOLEN content. Content they don’t even own, that they ripped from another place. This should not be accepted by a community that loves a game as much as the Sims 4 community. Truth: EA has provided a way for people to make money while not hiding content behind paywalls entirely, and the INTENT of this was to OFFSET COSTS. Almost every post about content locked behind paywalls features this post found on the Sims Forum from 2017. In it, SimGuruDrake, who was the community manager at the time (she has since left the Sims 4 team for another job). Most of you who have seen this discussion topic before know this post by heart, but I’d like to highlight one important aspect of it:

One thing that is always important about communication is the intent behind it. The intent for people to be allowed to make patreons and allow early access wasn’t so people could just make money for themselves, the idea was to offset costs to buy programs to make the content. For example, a yearly subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud (which has photoshop, illustrator, etc) costs a couple hundred dollars US a year. If someone was using photoshop to help them create their CC in addition to blender or other free programs, EA/Maxis wanted to allow the creator to not have to pay for making the CC out of pocket. Can EA/Maxis control what people spend the money they make off of patreon on? No. But it should be noted that the intent of this action was to help people pay for supplies for their hobby more than to make a business out of it.

Onto the next truth! Truth: There is an image that disputes this post above, however the authenticity of it and timing of it are very disputed.

This image is often thrown around by people who lock content behind paywalls, but I would like to take a second and try to provide an honest assessment of it. First of all, I have a bit of a problem with the fact that the original person who “messaged” SimGuruDrake this question has not been identified. This image was not posted on the tumblr of a CC creator who claimed “Hey I reached out to a sims guru and this is the answer I got!” The main pages that have this image are either tweets from CC creators using it to defend their stance on paywalls (ex: here), or tumblrs/tweets “debunking it” (ex: here, here). I even reverse image searched this image using google, and another platform and could not figure out where this originated from. Of course, I’m not an expert, but...still.

The fact that the origin of this picture is unknown casts doubt on it. If it were a well known CC maker who is known for being honest, that’s one thing. But the fact that we don’t exactly know where it came from is suspicious. Because frankly, anyone with some decent editing ability could photoshop this.

Here’s my imperfect edit, but I’m just a self-taught graphics nerd and I am not as dedicated at faking screenshots as some. (And the crap photo quality didn’t help.) Another common issue is that at the supposed “time” that this question was being asked, some state that SimsGuruDrake had already left the Sims 4 team. I will admit, this photo is within the correct timeline, as SimsGuruDrake did not officially depart the sims 4 team until February 2018. (There is a post on the sims forums that has a timestamp that confirms this.) But, if you were in the process of leaving your job within the next month (as a two week/30 day notice is common when leaving a job), would you REALLY be answering questions in DMs on twitter, or be focusing on packing up, and training your successor? The last thing that really makes me doubt the validity of this picture is the fact that it’s not really easy to message the sims gurus on Twitter. This appears to be twitter from the screenshot (although there are some things that are a little out of place from the current UI): But when I attempt to direct message a sims guru I get this message:

I even tried seeing if I could reach out via DM to Drake herself, (who now posts under a different twitter) to see if it was possible:

Could the policies have changed since 2018? Possibly, but I feel that opening up direct messages is just asking for Sims 4 team members to get angry messages, so this could very well be a long running EA policy. I have also reached out to her via a twitter tag (as of 1/2/21), and will update y’all if I get a reply:

Okay, so now that we’ve gone through all of this, let’s talk about the last truth that’s really important: Truth: Putting content behind paywalls has generally been considered disgusting by many in the sims 4 community, and TAKES AWAY the choice of people to support CC creators they love/appreciate WILLINGLY. A few notable posts sharing the disgust with this practice can be found: HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE & HERE). And these are just what I can find from a simple precursory search.

Okay, Brainiac. So what can we do to solve this problem?

Well, there’s a few methods we can employ, and sadly, it’s going to take a bit of a commitment and concentrated effort from the community.

Step #1: Make the COMMUNITY the VICTIM instead of EA.

Now when I say this, I don’t mean we’re actually victims, but mean that instead of constantly saying things like “WHEN YOU DO THIS YOU VIOLATE EA’S TOU!”, thus making EA the “victim” of the crime. We change the dialog to saying “When you lock stuff behind paywalls, you cheat the sims 4 community and disrespect their choice to support you or not.” Because let’s be honest. Maxis/EA really doesn’t give much of a care about if people aren’t following this rule. You can report people to the team, but as far as most people have seen, it doesn’t get anywhere. But if we make it where the community is the party being “wronged” it is much harder for those who have paywalls to not be scared. Because the community, in the end, has to be with them. DepthofPixels had a really amazing post about this HERE.

Step 2: Decide to not support anyone who puts their content behind exclusive paywalls and do not hesitate to spread the word about why you choose not to do so.

By that, I mean

not paying any patreon accounts that don’t offer either their content 100% for free, or offer early access.

And sharing about why you choose to do that on your social media. Something I might suggest would be to make it a bit personal and share something like:

Instead of spending $15 a month to get exclusive content from Leosims (or any other patreon/paywall creator here) I’m spending that $15 supporting creator x, creator y, and creator z, who don’t put their work behind paywalls!

Link their patrons, share why you like their content, and why you take the stance to make the community better. Make it a positive thing, praising the people who are doing RIGHT by the community.

Yes, you may not get their content for a while (although there are some different places (

) to find them *cough*. But in the end, is it worth supporting someone’s content when they’re treating the community badly?

Step 3: Report creators who actively steal content from IMVU/secondlife to those respective companies, and all others to EA. (Even though nothing may happen.)

Here’s the deal. When people steal from either of those sites, they are infringing on someone’s copyright, as well as Imvu/secondlife’s copyright as well. It’s not okay, and they should be held accountable for it. Here’s the LINK for submitting a ticket to Secondlife. I haven’t been able to find one for IMVU, but maybe someone else will find one. Let those companies know and allow them to handle those specific creators. As to the other creators, EA may not handle them at the moment. But IF (and this is a wishful thinking “if”) there were suddenly a flood of messages about certain creators...? I think they might have to pay attention to some of those messages. There is an official report form, but it might even be worth tweeting to SleddingGuruFrost, who is the current community manager asking about their stance on paywalls. And last but not least:

Step 4: Make sure that those who are doing the right thing and not putting their work behind paywalls feel appreciated. Show them some love via a tumblr ask, or by tagging them on twitter, or by going up a tier on their patreon (or pledging for the first time). Celebrate these heroes who are creating content and not forcing it on us.

Us asking for people to give us a choice to support them isn’t being greedy, or disrespecting their time. We just want transparency, and respect from those who create content for the game we love so much versus them treating us like we’re just a source of income. I know it might seem a bit hard to do this for some of you, and for some it may seem like I’m preaching to the choir, but we have to decide where we stand on this issue and stop letting those who abuse this system keep doing it. We can make a difference if we decide as a COMMUNITY to work together.

With commitment, ~Sunny

#sims4cc #sims4mm #maxismatch #sims4alpha #sims4cccommunity #paywallssuck #downwithpatreon #EA #maxis #TOS #thievessuck

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phoenotopia · 3 years

Text

The Last Phoenotopia Blog Update

(Date 2021 MAR 01)

I debated how to open this blog post, but perhaps the main crux of this blog post is the best place to start. The blog is being retired.

The purpose of this blog was to be a "development" blog for Phoenotopia, and well, Phoenotopia's development is done. I'll still be doing bug fixes and maintenance on the PC and Switch versions, and playstation and xbox ports are underway (by a publisher). But I'm not going to be making any more major changes to the game. At some point, you put the paintbrush down and say it's done. Blemishes and all.

Recent Events

The game launched on Steam last month, and like any launch, it was hectic. Bugs Galore. This is our first commercial PC launch, so it was a real baptism by fire. Unlike Switch's one configuration, the PC has multiple configurations and factors to account for. The game needed to be able to handle multiple control schemes, screen resolutions, refresh rates, and more! I had a 60Hz monitor going into launch and didn't know anything about Hz (I do now). There was a troublesome stutter that some players were sensitive to that my whole team didn't notice since our eyes compensated it away. There were a few times where in fixing something at one party's behest, it introduced problems for another party. A few times, due to disorganization, I unwittingly rolled back a fix that was meant to be applied. For some, the game couldn't play at all (really glad Steam allows refunds).

It was messy. It was tiring. I.AM.BEAT.

I think the worst of it is over... I'll still be around to do the last updates and bug fixes, but I'm ultimately ready for what's next.

SO what is next?

What isn't next... is Phoenotopia 2. As you may have heard down the grapevine, the game couldn't be what you call successful. No one's earned even minimum wage on it.

Maybe there's hope in the game's long tail. A year or two down the line... maybe. I won't hold my breath though. At some point in the past few months, I finished processing (or grieving) and it's time to move on.

The game has at least earned enough for us to continue our modest operations. As long as we don't expand the team, and we don't take another monster six-year dev cycle like what Phoenotopia took, we can continue. We'll have to be smarter and faster. Perhaps the most valuable thing we gained from all this is experience.

The Experience

It is a dev blog. Here are some of the lessons I've accumulated from this game's development.

- Have a good menu design. Menus aren't just that in-between fluff before you get to the good stuff. Menus are KEY. Your menus need to be robust, expandable, and *understandable* (to you, the developer). Because once the game's out, you will invariably be asked to add more options. And if your menu design is bad, every time you have to add a new menu option, it becomes a whole new pain all over again. Support mouse from the get-go, etc.

- Focus on features that people will actually care about. For instance, I've never seen anyone praise the camera's zoom feature. In practice, people try that feature a few times and then never use it again. But that feature was a constant consideration factor for every level. Run through it multiple times to make sure the level didn't break, think about which zoom levels made sense, resize rooms because they worked at one zoom level but not the other, and so on.

- Don't do boxes that you can move around. Other 2D platformers avoid movable boxes because they're a huge headache to program and they really complicate the game space. Enemies need to respond to boxes you throw in their path and either navigate around or attack it. When you're moving the box, you have to worry about constantly changing your collision size and reconciling when the box gets snagged on the environment. The boxes were also a constant source of bugs because people can manipulate them to soft-lock themselves and more.

- More focused script. Phoenotopia's 100,000+ word script was panned more for being bloated than it was praised for being lengthy. Long scripts take a long time to write and make the game more unwieldy, increasing the costs of translation and upkeep. Every update we're addressing some textual error or mistranslation. There are some highly renowned games (e.g. Hyper Light Drifter) that do without a script at all!

- Be flashy! A bat and a lightsaber take the same amount of work to program, but the lightsaber will draw a lot more attention and interest.

- Slopes, surprisingly! Six years ago when I started, Unity was ill-equipped for 2D games. If you used the physics that Unity provided you'd have a really floaty character that wouldn't adhere to the slope when going downhill. There were a hundred different tutorials saying different things (use forces, use move position, use translation, etc). You can get rectangular collisions done in a day, but to do slopes took weeks. Meanwhile, games can actually get by fine without slopes. Most people won't even notice. Did you know the Phoenotopia flash game didn't have slopes? Neither does Hollow Knight or Rogue Legacy. You can save yourself a lot of work by avoiding slopes.

(big entities look weird on slopes. Bad slope!)

I could write enough little knowledge nuggets like this to fill a book! But I'd rather just make the next game.

So… what IS next?

As mentioned previously, it's not Phoenotopia 2. Pirate and I are mostly just tossing some ideas back and forth right now. We'll go silent for a year (or two). Our next game's scope will be more modest in some ways, more ambitious in others. It will definitely be more smartly designed. (There will be a map!)

We'll announce it when it's ready for the public. It might be necessary for us to do a kickstarter. I've tried to avoid kickstarters having been burnt on quite a few myself and also because I worry that mismanaging a kickstarter would earn the ire of backers.

But I did keep this blog regularly updated for six years. So I've gained some confidence in my abilities to at least manage a kickstarter well.

Is it really the last Phoenotopia Blog update though?

Okay, not really. There is some news that I'll need to announce, and this blog is one of the game's main outreach channels. Here are the events that will cause me to update the blog:

Announcing the launch of the xbox/playstation ports when they're ready

If a physical edition of the game happens

If a new language is getting introduced into the game (Korean is a high possibility)

When we're ready to talk about our next game

If (BIG IF) we begin development on a Phoenotopia sequel. I do want to do a sequel one day if we have the means and the demand is there.

Those updates will be more on a "when they happen" basis, rather than me reporting in every couple months.

Fan Art

As always, I'm very happy to see fanart of Phoenotopia. Major thanks again to Pimez for collecting all the artwork from the corners of the internet! Since this is the "last" blogpost, Sir Pimez can finally take a rest from collecting the fanart :P

ÆV made a series of pictures that tell a story. A Pooki is humanely sheared of its wool to create a hat. The Pooki is unharmed. Nice! Gotta love Gail’s expressions.

Amagoo Mazeru makes a stunning landscape shot of a full moon and shooting stars. It’s a sharp and clear vector art. I like the faint glow of the moon and the fire and the subtle gradient in the night sky. Very skillfully done!

Hah hah. I got a chuckle out of this one. I imagine this is how Gail's enemies see her by the end of the game. CaESar made this image based on TerminalMontage's famous youtube videos. Nailed it!

CrownStar drew two pictures of Gail. I'm a big player of JRPGs, so the first shot instantly reminded me of Persona 4's art style. (Hmmm... Phoeonotopia as a JRPG... there’s potential there...) Next, Birdy is shown carried off after her defeat. I really like Birdy's expression here - she just seems mildly uncomfortable.

There's a bit of a story behind the first image. As Firanka shares it, she wasn't able to defeat the Big Eye monster at the end of the flash game, so she believed a tall tale that what awaited after was a 6 armed Kobold boss. Hilarious! The second is a rendition of the lonely Anuri elder. A rare subject. The loneliness is portrayed well here. I feel lonely just looking at it!

Koo_chop draws the clash between Gail and Katash at the top of the towers. I really like this interpretation of the game's art style. It’s faithful to the in-game graphics. And the lighting, from the glow of Gail's bat, to Katash's sword, and the lightning in the background... Amazing!

Lime Hazard shows Gail with a salute pose. Very appropriate for this occasion. I also like how there's a slight tilt in the angle that Gail is portrayed. Those dynamic angles are always hard to get right, and Lime Hazard pulled it off very skillfully. See you next mission!

Lyoung0J with a digital painting of Gail posed sitting on a rock. I like how it almost seems like she was caught in a candid moment - she’s smiling, but also feeling self-conscious. Cute! The art style really pops, and I like how Gail is sporting what I call the old anime style nose.

MyUesrNameIsSh*t with a sketch of Gail performing a skillful slingshot. I like how Gail is depicted with her tongue out in a mischievous manner, the way all mischievous people with slingshots do.

Niitsu Kentaro returns with a 2021 Happy New Year picture. That happened didn't it? A New Year... Gail's pose gave me a chuckle with how she seems to be waving the bat around as casually as one would wave hello. And "Phoenotopiyear"... Well said! One day we'll have our Phoenotopiyear...

Ochan Nu breaks all records with a stunning NINE pictures in one session :O

There's so many goodies here. My favorite would be the one with Gail staring intently at the screen - it's like she's looking directly at you. You almost feel uncomfortable.

Next, there's an Animal Crossing villager dressed as Gail and sporting her pink hair. It even looks like a house Gail would live in. Gail is a connoisseur of the arts and likes Mona Lisa. Yes :)

There are various comics of Gail pointing out Gail's weird food habits. A picture of Fran looking really cool, and even Gail rocking a bathing suit. (bathing suit image linked here in case NSFW). Wow!

Pimez didn't just collect the arts, he creates them as well! This one, which he aptly named 'The Year 175' is a depiction of when the dragons invaded the towers as told by an elderly Daean woman. Great pixeling skills! I got a good chuckle from the ice dragon leaving with its stuff slung over its shoulder.

Quo made a stunning picture of Gail playing the flute surrounded by the 5 musical notes and the Phoenix logo behind her. The theme seems to be "fire" and it works really well. Gail herself looks awesome depicted in her red suit - it's like she's leading a marching band!

Rai Asuha depicts Gail in the late game with her red suit, and night star bat, and holding a lamp. She looks ready for adventure! I really like the white outline here and Gail's poofy shoulders here - the art style feels reminiscent of Final Fantasy Tactics.

Seri also draws Gail bearing her late game equipment. Unique to Seri's drawing is how all of Gail's equipment is accessible from a pocket on her shirt. I also like how Gail is depicted with her lucky earrings - that accessory is often forgotten.

Treedude depicts Gail with a bat and wearing a funny smirk. She looks like she's ready to hurt someone!

Warotar returns with everyone's favorite Great Drake, Bubbles! It seems so happy to be featured!

I'm really grateful for all the fanart this game has received. From the bottom of my heart, thank you!

Closing Notes

Pirate drew a picture to mark the occasion. It shows Gail enjoying a hot chocolate with marshmallows and a pumpkin muffin. A rest well-earned...

Goodbye! Until next time!

#phoenotopia

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umbrahighpriestofgiratina · 3 years

Text

Divided I Fall

IT'S FINALLY DONE! I am so sorry this took so fucking long, it took me like a year to write because my art brain forcibly took over my body for a stupid amount of time but now it is DONE and you can SEE it with your EYEBALLS. Anyway... This, This is a project I have been planning for YEARS but took some stuff lining up just right for it to sift to the top of my oneshot backlog. It is, to keep it simple and not spoil too much, an origin story for a character that's shown up in my stuff before.

As one important note before I begin... This fic stars a character of a fakemon species known as Vahirom, created by @kynimdraws on Tumblr/kyleenim on Twitter, used with permission. If you steal it I will be offended on her behalf and personally boil your toes. Got it?

ANYWAY:

Divided I Fall

Zygarde had a dilemma.

Unova had too many humans and they had it too good. But there was nothing they could do to thwart them without letting the other Legends in on his game. What to do?

As they stewed on this, lurking on the edge of civilization, they looked up, and there they saw it.

A meteor, careening down toward the nearby hills. It crashed, sending out sparks of light and a shockwave, which Zygarde weathered easily. They were a god, after all.

"Lots of those since AZ broke the sky," they muttered.

They slithered through the earth until they got to the impact crater, emerging in its center to find, surprise surprise, a meteor. However, it was one they could tell was a Metionite, a kind made of an extremely rare, alien ore.

It was then they got an idea.

An awful idea.

Zygarde got a wonderful, awful idea.

They started burrowing their own cells into the Metionite, pumping it full of energy. Godly energy. Draconic energy. The Meteonite contracted and curved until it turned into a small gray orb.

Zygarde tapped it.

And it burst to life.

--------

What am I?

What is this place?

Those were my first thoughts as I gazed around, wide-eyed, until my eyes fell on a strange green and black titan.

"Who are you? Who am I?"

"I am Zygarde, the guardian of order, and you are my creation!" the titan said in a booming voice.

"You created me?"

"Yes! For one purpose!"

The titan pointred a claw to the southwest. "There's an infestation of these pests called humans around thataway. Deal with them for me."

I looked in that direction. Seemed simple enough.... But something didn't feel right.

"...Very well."

Tubes extended from my shoulders and attached to my tail as my wings flared. I took off.

-------

I arrived to find strange structures,domes, blocks and pyramids, and walking among them strange creatures. Were these the humans Zygarde mentioned? "Deal with them." What did that even mean?

I got closer and as I did they started acting strangely. They seemed... Afraid?

"You creatures! What are you?"

They were making loud screams now. They didn't seem less afraid. Maybe they couldn't understand me? How DO I talk to them then? Come on, think think think-

~-Think!~

Thehumans stopped, gazed up. I had communicated by... Thinking really hard?

~Uh... Humans! I mean you no harm! I just wish to... Deal with you!~

The humans started murmuring among each other before a more elaborate-looking human came forth.

"You, great dragon! What do you propose as a deal?"

Oh, I can understand THEM fine. But good question...

~Let me think.~

What do I even tell this person? I guess... If they were afraid of me, they had other things to be afraid of. That wasn't good. Maybe...

"If you give me shelter and a home, I will aid you however I can. Is that a satisfactory deal?"

The elaborate human slowly blinked several times slowly before rapidly nodding.

":We will accept your offer... B=but my warriors will keep an eye on you."

I looked to the "warrior" humans he spoke of. They were trembling. Everyone was looking at me with unease,

This would take some adjusting.

-------------

I was in my own corner of the city, surrounded by more of these warriors. They were taking shifts watching me, but they all seemed scared. Almost as if they felt if I tried anything they couldn't stop me.

I didn't feel like doing anything that needed stopping... but then I wasn't sure WHAT to do. I had made the deal with the humans but I wasn't sure how to enact i-

Just then I heard a roar, in the distance. The warriors looked to me, then to the source of the sound. They seemed confused that it wasn't me. Soon another warrior rushed up to them.

"T-there's a Scolipede trying to take over the farmland!"

"O-one of those? Why?"

"They're immensely territorial! It claimed the farms as its own!"

What was this beast? The humans needed help. But they wouldn't let me help...

...Then again they couldn't stop me.

I activated my tail turbine and lifted off as the warriors panicked, and I jetted off to where the other warrior had came from.

---------

When I arrived there was indeed a large, purple, insectoid Pokémon rampaging about. Several warriors and their Pokémon were trying to pierce its chitinous armor, to no avail. It was much bigger than the humans, that's for sure.

...But it was much smaller than me.

I flew ove4r to and landed right in front of it. It looked up but seemed unphased.

"What do YOU want?"

"I want you to stop bothering these humans."

"Why should I? This is MY turf." "No it's not. As far as I can tell the humans were here first." "Well it's mine now."

I narrowed my eyes. "Leave. Now."

The Scolipede scoffed. "Make me."

"If you insist."

I flicked him with a claw.

He went sailing back into a tree with a very loud thud and collapsed, unconscious.

Humans started gathering around, looking on in awe. Then they started cheering. It was only then I realized the magnitude of what I'd done.

-------------

Things changed after that rather quickly. Or, they did from my perspective anyway.

The humans, after that, regarded me as a protector. Not only that, they gave me authority. It wasn't much at first, I started as captain of the warrior, but as time went on and I helped the humans more and more I ascended to the right-hand mon of their rulers.

They called me Vahirom, or more commonly, the Iron Arbiter.

They adored me. And I grew to adore them. They cared for me and I cared for them back. And after time things changed. I learned how to alter my form to be like them.

It started simply, firsty with mimicking their speech, but then I started to learn how to alter my physical form, this way and that way, until I had come to resemble them in my own way. It was at that point the Iron Arbiter was both a dragon Pokémon and a human.

And someone didn't like that at all.

One day they returned, while I was alone, sitting on the throne the humans built for me. I looked up into their glowing green eyes as they glared down into mine.

"What is THIS? This isn't what you were supposed to be doing! And why do you LOOK like them?" They stomped a foot on the ground.

I sighed. "It is less intimidating to them than my natural draconic form. And why do YOU look like them? Don't you have forms that are oh so superior?" They winced, and in an instant cells swirled around them to return them to a more traditional serpentine form. "Only to subvert them, manipulate them. You do it for sick kicks! You were supposed to DESTROY them, not help them!"

"There is no need to destroy them. They are flawed yes, but have kindness and charity in their hearts if you know where to find it. I seek to bring that out in them. "You're wrong! All humans are a sin against the natural order! MY order! They need to be purged!"

"Your view is dangerous. And I will not have you threaten my people."

I grew and stretched and bent into my true, draconic form.

"You may have given me life, but I am not yours. They are not yours. Leave, or I will force you to."

Zygarde hesitated, then let out a long, pronounced hisss before disintegrating into cells and vanishing.

I sighed again, then resumed my post.

-----------

Decades passed, that turned into centuries. I saw many humans and their Pokémon come and go, and cherished them all dearly while they lasted.

But then one day two were born that would change my life forever, for better and for worse.

They were twins, born to the current queen and king. They were shown to me soon after they were born. They were lumpy and chubby as human babies were but they had fire and lightning in their eyes from the start.

And thus their parents named them Tentay and Pethakhon, Ancient Unova's words for fire and lightning. As usual, I was assigned to be their guardian. I did not realize then how special they would be to me - and how that would be my downfall.

-------------

The children grew quickly. Their tiny grasping hands grew inquisitive, groping for anything they could reach. At first, I let them pull and tug at my human form, but as they grew older and nimbler I allowed them to play on my dragon form as well.

Eventually they started to talk.

"Say mama!" "Say dada!" their parents clamored. But every time they both pointed at me and said "va va!"

They didn't care. They just laughed.

When they got old enough to learn, I was their teacher. I taught them.... Well, not everything I knew, I was too ancient and powerful for that, but I tried to teach them a good amount. And I definitely tried to answer their many questions.

"How old are you?" asked Tentay. "Older than you can comprehend."

"What's your favorite food?" asked Pethakhon.

"I do love corn cakes."

"Do your parents let you stay up past bedtime?" asked Tentay.

I had to pause and think about that one. My only "parents" were Zygarde and the stars, so...

"I don't listen to my parents. I do what I want."

The twins gasped and looked at each other eagerly. "You can DO that?" they said. I chuckled. "I can. You probably shouldn't until you get older."

The two visibly deflated.

"Not fair..." said Pethakhon.

"I guess we have to listen..." said Tentay.

"No way! We can't!" said Pethakhon. "But we gotta! Or we'll get in trouble!"

"Nuh-uh! We can do it!

I chuckled. By all means this was amusing.

And yet. Something deep inside felt off.

------------

It came suddenly, swiftly.

The king and queen fell ill, from a terrible disease. They were isolated, only taken care of by a select few.

It was too little, too late.

A grand funeral was held, several ceremonies, a feast, a fitting sendoff. But none of it filled the hole in all our hearts.

Especially not the twins'.

I visited their room afterwards., They were huddled in a corner together, curled up, sitting only a few inches apart. In human form to fit in the room, I pulled them into an embrace.

"I know better than to say it's all right, but... I am here for you."

"But... Mom and dad... They're gone forever," said Tentay.

"They're never coming back... What's gonna happen to us?" said Pethakhon.

I sighed. "I have seen many leave forever just as they did. I can escape it, it is both a gift and a curse, but for your kind it is inevitable. But it is not truly the end. You two will grow to be great, and your children, and your children's children, and so on. I assure you of this. You can pick up the pieces and carry on in their stead. They would want you to."

"...Okay, Va." said Pethakon.

"...I guess so, Va," said Tentay.

They nestled into my arms further. I patted their heads.

We stayed that way a while.

--------------

The two started to near adulthood for their kind, and thus I started teaching them how to rule. . ~Now, you two, I have a question.~

They both shifted in their seats in the courtyard we were in. Teenagers were antsy about being taught. Especially when their teacher was an ancient and powerful dragon.

~Say that there is a famine. What are your main options for dealing with such a thing?~

"Simple," said Tentay. "You spend the royal budget on improving the crops."

~Ah, but such a solution would be expensive... And could be unsustainable."~

"Then we improve the harvest infrastructure over time!" said Pethakhon enthusiastically.

~Yet that could take a long time. Too long. People could starve.~

"Well my method is clearly better!" said Tentay. "It gets more immediate results!"

"You're wrong!" said Pethakhon. "MY plan won't doom us all later!" "It MIGHT not. It will definitely make people starve."

"We have to consider the future!" "The future is NOW, Pethakhon."

"Moron!"

"Imbecile!"

The two continued arguing like this until they finally noticed me waggling a claw mockingly.

~Now now now. Have you considered these solutions aren't mutually exclusive?"

The two of them stared at me. Then started sheepishly rubbing their heads.

"You have a point..." said Tentay. "That could work.." said Pethakhon.

~See?" I said. "If you work against each other nothing gets done. But if you work together...~

"Yes, we understand the moral, well done," said Pethakhon. "Why must we learn things we know already?" said Tentay.

~Because with you two it bears repeating.~

The two blinked and staredbefore rubbing their heads sheepishly again.

"...You have a point," said Tentay.

"We'll. We'll work on it.." said Pethakhon.

I simply smirked.

------------

They quickly became adults, true kings of Unova, and soon their first test was upon them. The ruler of a desert kingdom smack dab in the middle of Unova was a Volcarona by the name of Heliana. Shee was called before them for a diplomatic meeting, and we all assembled on the border between the desert and greener land.

"Why hello there!" said Heliana, floating before us.

Tentay and Pethakhon stared then turned to me, each whispering.

"She, uh, is a little hard to--" Pethakhon started to say.

"She's a Pokémon, but she can't speak telepathically, so we can't understand her," said Tentay.

"...That." said Pethakhon.

I chuckled. ~Don't worry, I can translate. She just says hi.~

The two nodded and turned back to Heliana.

"Right, hello," said Pethakhon.

"Shall we get down to business?" said Tentay.

"Oh, yes, yes!" said Heliana. "There was a matter of grave importance I wished to speak of with you! It was... Oh, hm, what was it..."

"She isn't very professional," Tentay whispered.

"Shhh!" said Pethakhon, nudging him.

"Oh! I remember now! It was wood!" said Heliana.

"Wood?" said Pethakhon. "My kingdom doesn't exactly have many trees," said Heliana. "I want cedar in particular! I'll offer you our finest textiles and minerals in return!":

"Hmmm. But we need the cedar for-"

"Shhh!" said Pethakhon. "She's making us a great offer!"

"More like a ridiculous one. We can't give her all that cedar!" "But we need the minerals and textiles!"

"She hasn't even specified WHAT minerals and textiles! Think before you leap!" "Well ask her!"

"Fine!"

Tentay took a deep breath and looked Heliana straight in the compound eyes. "You're being awfully vague about what those "minerals" and "textiles" are... Could you be more specific?"

"Oh! Lots of iron, copper... and Silk! Me and my babies spun the silk ourselves!"

"Wait, the silk comes from-" Tentay started to say.

"Sounds great!" said Pethakhon. We'll-"

"No. We need that cedar."

~Now now you two.~ I said. ~Put your heads together. Your wants and needs aren't mutually exclusive.~

They stared. And blinked. And... Well they didn't literally put their heads together but they did start mutually putting their hands to their chins thinking.

"There's some places we could grow... Cedar groves?" said Tentay.

"Yes! And we could loan those groves out to you!" said Pethakhon.

"They would take a while to grow normally but our Grass-types can make them grow faster!" said Tentay.

"Excellent!" said Heliana. "It's a deal! And Hekla and Katla will get started on the silk straight away!"

"Hekla and Katla?" said Pethakhon.

"Who?" said Tentay.

It was then two Larvesta emerged from Heliana's fuzz and divetackled Tentay and Pethakhon each with cries of "Friend! Friend! Friend!"

"My children!" said Heliana. "They spin the finest silk in all the land!"

"Well they sure are cute," said Pethakhon, holding up Hekla to get a good look at her.

"Easy little one," said Tentay, cradling Katla.

I just smiled.

---------------

I was in my throne room, and human again. I was alone, and it was quiet... until I heard a telltale slithering again.

"...Hello Zygarde."

The serpent congeals in a flash from their cells before me.

"You're still doing this. Why are you still doing this."

"They appreciate my help. And they are clearly better in my hands than yours."

The snake withed, their form rippling.

"Look, if you can't stop yourself from messing MY order up, I WILL."

I scoffed. "How?"

"You're awfully fond of those two humans, aren't you?"

My eyes widened. I clenched my fingers on my seat. "...Petty threats will get you nowhere."

"Oooh, I struck a nerve, didn't I? Don't worry, I won't do anything to them... Physically anyway. Unless you try to warn them that is, in which case I can always arrange an accident...."

I shifted to dragon form, knocking several things over in the process. "What are you planning, Zygarde?"

"How does the saying go, something something for me to know and you to find out?"

I roared and slashed at them with a claw, but before I made contact they scattered into cells and disappeared from whence they came. Guards rushed into the room shortly after. "Arbiter! Is everything all right?"

I panted heavily, looking at where Zygarde had gone, before turning to the guard.

~It's... It's fine. Just spooked by a shadow.~

--------------

From there it became apparent something was very quickly going wrong.

It started small at first. The brothers being more snippy with each other than they were before. But it soon blew up into full-on arguments, and everything I had raised them to do was falling apart before my eyes.

I knew exactly why.

I stalked the halls of the castle until I found a hound, ducking and weaving through the corridors.

"You!"

The hound stopped, looking smug. "What is it?"

"What are you doing to them?"

"Oh nothing much. A lie about one here, a rumor about the other there, did you realize exactly how easy it is to turn them against each other?"

"How... How dare you!"

I fired a metallic burst, a small-scale version of my Origin Flare, but they were already gone, and the brilliant beams of light only sank into the corridor, reducing chunks of it to rubble.

It was then I panicked. As long as Zygarde could keep spreading their lies...

...There was nothing I could do.

------------

Soon enough came a day that would come down in history as a fateful one.

The two of them were having a particularly heated, particularly philosophical argument about the future of the kingdom. Said argument was happening in the throne room, right in front of me, a dragon silently watching as their two human charges escalated to potential civil war right before their eyes.

"Do you really think your deluded visions would ever lead this kingdom to greatness?" said Tentay, "Your ideals will only bring ruin!"

"Your plan is built on a flawed foundation," said Pethakhon, "and faulty delusions of truth!"

It was becoming all too clear for me.

They would not reconcile this time.

I would have to choose one.

...But I couldn't.

I couldn't possibly-

One side of me wanted one. Another wanted the other.

But I couldn't choose.

I couldn't I couldn't I couldn't I couldn-

CRACK

-------------

When I awoke, I could not move. I had reverted to the God Stone I use to sleep and could not get out.

But I could see everything. I could see Tentay and Pethakhon beholding two dragons that I quickly realized had split off from me, by sheer will to leave neither one behind. I could also see I had rolled off to the side, where no one could see me.

But if those two pieces of me were out there... What was the rest of me doing in here?

As I wondered this I witnessed the argument between the two brothers escalate further, and eventually they stormed out of the room.

Time passed. Day turned into night. Then the serpent came.

"Well well well, that was an entertaining show. I knew your powers were unstable but I never expected them to do THAT. Oh well, it works out for me plenty - those two idiots you were so protective of will decimate humanity by their actions, and those bits of you that spawned for them will only help.

I wriggled in my prison, trying desperately to escape and put Zygarde in their place. They noticed and chuckled.

"Oh how foolish. Don't try too hard to escape dear. You don't know what schisming off so much of your power has done to you."

Their form rippled.

"And besides. It's too late for you. I've already won."

He gave a hearty, echoing laugh as he dissipated into cells and disappeared.

----------

Throughout the night, I continued to wriggle and squirm. I HAD to fix this, I HAD to prove Zygarde wrong, I HAD to-

And then I broke free.

And then I felt it.

I could tell I was not the being I used to be. I felt weak. I felt empty. There was a gnawing hunger and emptiness at the bottom of my soul that I could not overcome.

I staggered through the hallways of the castle, in confusion and pain, when I came upon two guards, who recoiled at my approach.

"H-Halt! What monstrous kind of P-Pokémon are you?" said one.

I looked at that guard. And I hungered. The emptiness gnawed at me as I yearned for something to fill it.

I lunged.

The other guard screamed as my fangs sunk into his compatriot. I started devouring him, purely by instinct, rending flesh from bones.

"M-Monster! Monster!"

It is then I snapped back to my senses and realized exactly what I was doing.

I tried to say, "Wait, no, you don't understand!" but all it came out as was staticky buzzing. Then the guard fled.

Overwhelmed with grief, shock, and horror, it was then I did the same, leaving the tall pyramid castle I had called my home for centuries and never turning back.

-----------

I holed up in the crater I had first crash-landed in from thereon out, never emerging. Still, I saw many things.

I saw Unova burnt by a deluge of fire and electricity.

I saw Unova rebuild, become more technologically advanced, more close totheir Pokémon, then further away, then closer again.

I saw people settle the area where I lived, and grow to fear me as others had.

I saw one bit of kindness from a boy from those people.

I saw the white dragon that split from me return, join with me once more, filling my emptiness but causing her unbearable pain that racked me with guilt.

I saw all this, but one thing remained the same, for the most part.

I was alone. And I was unsure if that would ever truly change.

So all I could do was mourn all I had lost.

***

Bit of a downer, huh. But I hope you enjoyed it! WILL Kyurem's situation get better? We'll have to find out later - I've got other shit I've really got to get to writing.

#pokemon #fanfiction #kyurem #reshiram #zekrom #zygarde #vahirom #divided i fall #yangverse

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technoskittles · 4 years

Text

Catradora fic rec list

I mentioned making one of these awhile ago and I’m finally sitting down and compiling some of my all-time favorite fics. I’ve read a lot (like, a LOT), but I feel like a few of those really deserve an extra shout out.

I’ll separate them between multi-chap and one shots, but other than that they won’t be in any particular order. I’ll also try my best to tag the authors here on tumblr if I can find them, but if not, just lemme know if you see your fic and I can edit this later.

I’ll also be including ratings/word count/trigger warnings/etc

(I’ll mostly be including common tw’s so please make sure you also read the tags for anything that may affect you personally! Also, if I miss any, please keep in mind that it’s been awhile since I’ve read some of these so I may not remember all of them!)

Key:

[E] - Explicit

[M] - Mature

[T] - Teen & Up Audiences

[G] - General Audiences

And for the multi-chap fics:

(O) - Ongoing

(F) - Finished

(?) - Not finished and they haven’t updated in awhile so the author probably died

So let’s get started! (Get ready for a long post obviously)

Multi-chap fics:

1. upper west side by ceruleanstorm (F) [T] ~190,000 words

TW: past child abuse, alcohol abuse

@princessofgayskull

I feel like this is definitely one of the top must-reads for all Catradora fanfics. I know I’ve seen this on a couple different lists but I’m including it on mine as well because it really is just that good.

The chapters are lengthy (but in a good way!) and the story really takes its time to flesh itself out. The character development of the characters as individuals is beautifully done and wonderfully realistic. The pacing of the development of Catra and Adora’s relationship is also sweetly slow, a steady slowburn that invokes that deep-rooted yearning feeling mirrored by the characters themselves.

It’s a really clever premise that takes place in the modern world but implements the canon universe in the form of the book that Adora’s writing that ties back to her and Catra’s shared childhood. The way that aspects of the show were revamped into this fic are so creative and I just....ugh. LOVE.

This fic also has a oneshot compilation that takes place after the events of the final chapter which is currently ongoing and I HIGHLY suggest checking that out as well once you’ve finished this.

The sister fic for those interested: she’s god (and I found her) (O) [T] ~40,000 words

2. The Devil Is In (The Details) by SeasInkarnadine (O) [M] ~58,000 words

TW: Graphic Depictions of Violence, child abuse, emotional abuse, use of recreational drugs, Major Character Death

@seasinkarnadine

This is a really great fic where Adora is an undercover cop who sidles her way into one of the largest gang syndicates to bust whoever killed Hordak, a big gang leader and drug trafficker, whose death was originally ruled as an accidental overdose. Her and Catra (one of the gang members) both know foul play was involved and work together to figure out the truth.

The dynamics between these two is so casual and hilarious but still has those gut-wrenching moments that really ground you and realize that their relationship is dysfunctional on a few levels. The exploration of Adora’s conflicting feelings towards Catra hurt in such a good way as she realizes that she does genuinely care for Catra, but also is aware that what she’s doing will eventually screw her over and land her in jail. It’s the best kind of underlying angst and I highly recommend it.

Another really great selling point that I particularly love is that Adora is deaf in this AU and the author really shows this in such a realistic and natural way that shows she really knows what she’s talking about. It makes the dynamic between the two even more interesting considering that Catra also knows sign language which give the two a lot of moments of mutual understanding that doesn’t extend to the other characters. It’s something that the two of them have that’s sort of just for them to be on that level of understanding and it’s so great.

Also, Morgan is just a great writer in general and I highly suggest checking out more of her stuff (her art too!). She’s one of the writers I’ve looked up to since my beginning days in the fandom and it’s still amazing seeing all the great stuff she puts out.

3. Skinny Love by Maychup (O) [M] ~100,000 words

TW: past child abuse

@maychup

Another staple of big fics in the catradora fandom but for good reason. This fic is a wonderful exploration of events taking place after S1 illustrating Catra & Adora’s relationship in a different path that the rest of the show takes. It focuses heavily on their past experiences with each other and how that affects their current situation being on opposite sides of the war.

This fic is older, published just after S1, so canon divergence is an important aspect of its build. But the way the story is written is so beautiful and grounded that it’s still interesting even now knowing what really happens in the show.

Their dynamic is kind of back-and-forth, with Catra figuring out what Adora means to her and vice versa and where the two of them want to go from that point. It has so many sweet moments and steamy ones as well (btw, there’s a lot of smut) and the exploration into each of the character’s pysches is so compelling and intriguing.

4. Faded With Feelings by yesimgay (F) [T] ~24,000 words

TW: recreational drug use

This was such a cute, short multi-chap fic. It’s a bit older but I think it’s still one of my top faves.

A modern au, Catra & Adora are roommates post-college and trying to make their way in the adulting world. Catra has ADHD and smokes weed to help with that. One day Adora accidentally eats a couple of her edibles and cute shenanigans ensue. And that’s just the first two chapters.

The rest of the fic goes on to the girls figuring out their feelings for each other, especially Adora who, in this case, isn’t really sure of her sexuality. All-in-all, a really cute fic that’s a nice break from all the angst that typically saturates the fandom.

5. Chasing the Spotlight by holymountain (?) [T] ~20,000 words

This is an AU where Adora is hired to be Catra’s, a pop singer, bodyguard. There’s so many cute moments in this, though admittedly it’s been about 6 months since it’s last updated so be sure to keep that in mind.

6. we’ve been making shades of purple out of red and blue by darklady21 (?) [t] ~24,000 words

An “and they were ROOMMATES” au. In this one though, Catra and Adora don’t actually know each other and really only get to know each other over time. It’s cute and has a lot of interesting interactions between the two, but it hasn’t updated in about 7 months.

7. Tuning Out by FaiaHae (?) [T] ~2500 words

I actually really loved the whole concept of this fic but it hasn’t updated in like, an entire year so...only read if you’re okay with the fact that it probably won’t ever be finished haha

8. burnt sugar by jeserai (O) [G] ~11,000 words

@jeserai

Oh god YES this fic. The classic “fake dating” au except Catra is a rich kid inheriting a business who essentially hires Adora, a broke college student, to go on a date with her to this big business function. There’s not a lot to say about it other than that without giving too much away, but the fic is about halfway done at this point so it’s a pretty short read as of now.

Just be warned, it’s currently on a MASSIVE cliffhanger so if you wanna wait until it updates I totally understand lol

9. still waters by summerson (O) [M] ~28,000 words

TW: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, self harm

A “The Last of Us” AU. Personally, I’m not super familiar with TLOU because I could never get into the game myself, but this fic is so well done and the writing style is so interesting and well-executed that I still love this fic to bits. But obviously, for those of you who are aware of TLOU, you already know that this fic is going to contain quite the fair share of angst so be ready.

10. Whispering Dreams by dragonesdepapel (F) [T] ~7500 words

It’s been awhile since I’ve read this one so I don’t remember everything, but I do remember really enjoying the writing style and the construction of this fic. It’s a short read, but it’s totally worth it

11. please could you be tender by erce3 (F) [G] ~40,000 words

@figbian

please please PLEASE go read this fic. I’m actually begging y’all to go read this one I loved it so much it’s still one of my top 10 faves out there.

This fic is set in a modern setting where Adora & Catra were childhood friends and are in college and god it’s just SO. GOOD. The writing style and composition of the flashbacks with the present events is so beautifully done and organized and I really cannot hype this fic up enough GO READ IT

12. buried a hatchet (it’s coming up lavendar) by erce3 (O) [G] ~12,000 words

on the note of that last rec, I highly rec their other work which is currently in progress. It takes place after S3 but it’s an exploration on if Catra and Adora got trapped in the portal instead of Angella and FUCK this person is genuinely amazing go read their stuff

13. Senior Year by SimplyAbsolute (O) [E] ~98,000 words

@simplyabsolute

This is a really cute fic about Adora and Catra in their final year of college and I guess for me personally it really just hits hard because I’m also in my final year of college lol. But really, it’s a great fic and I suggest checking it out. It’s actually only got one more chapter left too so it’s almost done!

14. Assassinating Adora by Wicked42 (F) [T] ~13,000 words

@wicked-42

TW: Graphic Depictions of Violence

Jeez this fic was a real rollercoaster of emotions. I loved every bit of it.

Basically, some people try to assassinate Adora and Catra stops one of them, but both girls are still inflicted by the poison and....it just gets crazier from there. Don’t wanna spoil it too much but this is a must-read for sure.

And this one may seem like cheating but I’m gonna plug one of my own multi-chap fics here

15. Pure Feeling (O) [T] ~30,000 words

TW: brief mention of sexual assault in Ch 5

This is a modern AU set after all the kids have been out of college for a few years.

Adora and Catra were childhood friends but ended up drifting apart and falling out during their college years. Fast forward about 6 years and they run into each other again, except now Adora has a daughter and is struggling to balance her life as a single mother. Overtime the two girls work on rebuilding their friendship and somewhere along the way might even realize that they’re feelings for each other never really went away. But of course, like all things in life, this isn’t an easy process and they run into more than a few complications - internal and external.

One Shots:

(there’s so many of these I’ve loved so I’m really going to try and narrow it down to about 10. If yours didn’t make it, no offense! I just have WAY too many to include and this post is already so long haha)

1. The Interlude That Never Ends by FMLClexa [M] ~2500 words

TW: Major Character Death, brief mention of sexual assault

Okay I’m gonna be honest: If you ignore all the other fics on this list, READ THIS ONE. This is absolutely my #1 favorite without a doubt. It’s a soulmate/reincarnation au and it’s so wonderfully executed that I honestly cannot even begin to tell y’all how much I love this one. It’s old and one of the first fics I ever read, but it’s so timeless and excellent and I promise you won’t regret reading it. I know I’ve read this about a million times over.

It’s been a whole year and this has held my #1 fave position the entire time. READ. IT.

2. after party by summerson [M] ~2000 words

TW: recreational drug use

God this fic was so great I read it last night and I’m still in awe in how well it was written and the emotions it managed to invoke in me. My favorite scene is the part where Catra tells Adora “I love you” because it’s so raw and desperate and I vibed with it so hard. It’s really difficult trying to tell someone how much you love them with just a few simple words because they really just don’t convey how much you love them and it’s so frustrating and GAH this fic was fucking great please read it.

3. jigsaw by jeserai [G] ~2500 words

@jeserai

This fic is so great and I felt so warm inside reading it. Definitely read if you want sweet, slow friends to lovers burn.

4. Vicious by SeasInkarnadine [M] ~3500 words

TW: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Rape/Non-Con

I really highly recommend this one if you can get past the trigger warnings. It was so well written and very suspenseful with the juxtaposition of the timeline between current events and snippets of what had happened just hours before. But the ending is really sweet and the way that Catra cares for Adora after the whole thing squeezed my heart to pieces.

This is one I’ve read a few times over because of how much I love it. Def in my top 3.

5. Basement by spookyscaryskeletons [G] ~2800 words

This was such a great rendition of “Adora and Catra are forced to talk” and the emotions were raw and bleeding and I love the character portrayals.

6. Coming Apart by Whorls [E] ~13,000 words (or ~6,000 words each chap)

@crazy-pages

Okay this fic technically has two chapters but I’m including it here in the oneshots because the chapters are identical in the sense of story but the only difference is that in chapter one Catra is a cis woman and in chapter two she’s a trans woman pre-op. Other than that the chapters are identical so it’s mostly based off which experience you would rather have while reading.

This fic was. So. Fucking. Good. Sen did such a fantastic job with both aspects of this story and I love it to bits and pieces. The smut in the beginning is delicious as can be, but then towards the latter half it absolutely sucker punches you with feelings but in a good way. I really, really fucking love this fic and I think it needs more attention than it initially got so I’m imploring you all to please go read this fic. It’s fantastic.

7. Seconds That I Cannot Replace by Mogatrat [M] ~7800 words

TW: child abuse, underage(?)

This is a really heartbreaking fic set before canon. It’s about all the times that Catra and Adora started a romantic relationship only for Shadow Weaver to come in and ruin everything by constantly erasing and resetting Adora’s memory. I still think about this fic from time to time. Give it a go.

8. Come morning light by dragonesdepapel [T] ~1800 words

TW: Major Character Death

Another one that’s technically two chapters but it’s the same events, just covers the perspective of each girl. Adora’s dying and asks Catra to stay with her.

Basically this fic ripped my heart out and I still think about it sometimes.

9. someone you like by caela [T] ~5100 words

oh fuck me yes this fic. A modern au where Catra sorta stalks Adora on instagram and accidentally likes an old picture. Fluffiness galore.

10. When You Came Calling by ActuallyMe [E] ~5200 words

TW: Major Character Death

A 1940′s Mob AU where Catra is a private eye and Adora married high-ranking mob boss Hordak...who’s just been murdered.

Really great one shot. Personally I would’ve loved to see more come of this but it’s great on its own.

And once again, this is cheating but here’s a couple oneshots of my own that I wanna plug real quick

11. hang tight (all you) [T] ~9200 words

Modern AU fic set when Catra and Adora are in high school. Adora struggles to come to terms with her sexuality in an discouraging environment as well as the fact that she’s had a crush on her best friend since middle school. Personally I think this was one of my best works and a lot of other people seem to have liked it too so yeah!

12. as my World d[ivides] [E] ~2500 words

TW: Rape/Non-Con, Underage

One of my darker fics, but still one I’m pretty proud of. Without giving too much away, Adora suffers from a trauma and engages in unhealthy coping mechanisms and Catra enables her because no one’s taught them any different.

#she ra #spop #catra #adora #catradora #she ra and the princesses of power #fic recs #long post #thanks for hanging in with me guys #but yes I highly suggest all these fics

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troutfishinginmusic · 3 years

Text

The story of Grass Records: From Brainiac to Wind-Up and Creed

Images via Grass of ’96 compilation

Everything isn’t available in the streaming era. There are notable gaps in the seemingly bottomless amount of music currently available. Some of the most noticeable exclusions are albums released on Grass Records.

If you’re a fan of ’90s indie music, this short-lived New York label mattered. Though sometimes dismissed as a sibling label to Homestead Records, Grass released over 60 full-length albums ranging from pop to punk to noise to experimental music. It raised the profile of influential bands like Brainiac, Toadies and the Wrens.

The amazing thing about the label is how consistent it is. Every time I thought I was done with this article, I would listen to a band like Baboon and be completely blown away. These are all fascinating, idiosyncratic bands. This is more incredible considering the label was only around for about four years.

Much of this music is hard to find. The odd song might be lingering on YouTube, but you’re almost better off looking at your local record store or ordering from Discogs.

Why are the albums in this weird limbo? Mostly because the monied interest who bought the label in 1996 thought it wasn’t yielding a big enough return on the investment. Grass was gutted and rebranded into post-grunge/nu metal giant Wind-Up. Money poured in and these wonderfully weird records were swept to the side.

The following interviews were conducted via email, Facebook messenger and phone over the last few months. Quotes from the interviews have been edited for style/clarity. I’m eternally grateful to everyone who got back to me. I am also willing to expand this story if more former Grass artists want to reach out. If you’re one of these artists, my email is at the bottom of this story.

Seedlings

“I started in the music business purely by chance,” said Camille Sciara, who founded Grass Records.

Sciara got her start working at Record World in New York as a second job and became friendly with the store’s buyer. After attending a manager training program, she moved on to become a manager of the store. Her second job became her first.

“Then, after two years there, I became bored managing a record store and my friend Mike, the buyer, told me about Dutch East India,” Sciara said. “I started there as a salesperson and, after a year of sales, became the buyer when that position opened up. I never envisioned starting a label.”

While working as a buyer at Dutch East India Trading a friend sent her a Toadies cassette. She “loved it” and started Grass in 1993 to release it.

Grass released the Toadies EP Pleather soon after, which contained an early version of the band’s inescapable alternative hit “Possum Kingdom.” After Pleather, the band scored a major label deal with Interscope. The platinum-selling Rubberneck arrived in 1994.

“They did really well on their first major release,” Sciara said in an email interview. “But then it appeared that Interscope just dropped the ball or lost interest. They were such a great band live, I never understood how they weren't huge stars. And super cool people.”

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Tall grass

Sciara would go on to sign unique and influential bands like Brainiac and The Wrens.

“Since I had never run a label before, I was going purely on how much I liked what they submitted,” Sciara said. “Obviously not the best business model for running a label, but for the money we offered it worked to some respect. The longer I ran the label, the more I understood what was needed from them [the bands] regarding can they tour etc.”

There were few bands of the 90s that radiated weirdo energy as brightly and brilliantly as Brainiac. The documentary Transmissions from Zero chronicles the significant impact the band had on the music scene at the time. It also shows a band on the brink of mainstream success. Brainiac released two albums on Grass, Smack Bunny Baby and Bonsai Superstar, before departing for Touch & Go. The band’s forward motion was sadly cut short by Tim Taylor’s death in 1997. Prior to this, Interscope was expressing interest in the band.

“If Tim hadn't passed I'm pretty sure they'd have been the biggest [band on the label],” Sciara said.

Original Brainiac guitarist Michelle Bodine said Grass’ association with Dutch East India made the label initially attractive.

“[Camille] was super excited about us and we had total creative freedom,” Bodine said. “We also liked the 2-record deal with the option of 3 contract.”

After leaving Brainiac, Bodine would go on to play guitar and sing in O-Matic. The band released its lone album Dog Years in 1996. The album is one of the overlooked gems of the ’90s.

The Wrens’ influence reverberated in more subtle ways. The band’s first two albums, Silver (1994) and Secaucus (1996), provided a blueprint for much of the post-Pixies landscape of ’90s indie rock. They could’ve been much bigger, but still made a significant impression.

“The depth of realization in this record is unparalleled: every angle is perfected,” Pitchfork founder Ryan Schreiber said about Secaucus. The band’s third long awaited album, Meadowlands, dropped in 2001 and received a “Best New Music” tag from the same publication.

Rumblings of a follow-up to Meadowlands have been thrown around for the last 10 years, but a record has yet to materialize.

The level of talent the label had was staggering. A few groups Sciara thought would be bigger ranged from the Irish dream-pop band Chimera to Georgia punk band Sunbrain. “There's more, it would be long list,” Sciara said.

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New shoots

Baltimore

Baltimore punk band Liquor Bike had released one album before signing a two-record deal with Grass. The band’s first release on the label was Neon Hoop Ride in 1993. Liquor Bike was excited to be on the label because of the Homestead Records connection.

“We loved being on Grass, we toured like crazy,” singer/guitarist David Koslowski said. “We had great booking with Creature Booking.”

Between the booking agency, which had done work with Nirvana, Helmet, the Lunachicks and Jesus Lizard; and the new label things were looking up for the band. The band would have posters up in whatever towns they were playing in and mentions in the local paper. The label would keep them up to date if they had to do things like impromptu radio interviews. When they got off the road, they entered the studio to record The Beauty of Falling Apart. During this time Alan Meltzer, who bought the label from Sciara in 1996, entered the picture.

“At the onset we were pretty psyched because this guy’s got major label distribution,” Koslowski said.

It also helped that Sciara stayed on after the transition.

“We could still work with Camille, who we love,” Koslowski said. “We slept at Camille’s house when we would play up in New York. She’s an amazingly nice, sweet person and very giving.”

Koslowski said the band was given significantly more to record the follow-up based on buzz the band was getting at the time. J Robbins, of Jawbox and Burning Airlines fame, did the cover art and Drew Mazurek produced the album. The band even hired John Lay, who had previously worked with Squeeze, to manage the band.

“By that point we were having decent guarantees,” Koslowski said. “Those two years when I was on Grass I barely worked a real job. I wasn’t making a rockstar living or anything, but I was certainly able to pay my rent and utilities.”

Liquor Bike went on tour with Gas Huffer to promote the forthcoming record. On the tour Koslowski noticed there weren’t posters out and the band didn’t receive write-ups in the local press. To make matters worse, they never received CDs of The Beauty of Falling Apart to sell at shows. Koslowski said Grass had promised this.

“We were pretty confused," Koslowski said. “I mean our record had been mastered already, everything had been sent to the factory.”

Lay soon informed the band Sciara had been fired and the band had been dropped. Koslowski said the band decided to stay on the tour even after being kicked off the label. The band had old records and T-shirts to sell. They had put a lot of work into the tour and didn’t want to waste it.

Liquor Bike eventually released its third album on Merkin after failed meetings with Amphetamine Reptile, Columbia and Interscope. It was the band’s last before the members went their separate ways.

Seade was another band on on Grass that was unfortunately overlooked. Their lone album (Perf) is an underrated ’90s classic.

Prior to Meltzer, Koslowski said that he didn’t think there was any favoritism toward any one band despite the label being so prolific.

“I just think the woman loved music and wanted to spread that out to people,” Koslowski said of Sciara. “I think she legitimately wanted to help people, you know, help these bands out. She was nothing but giving.”

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Omaha

Mousetrap, an Omaha-based punk band, hoped to initially get a deal with Homestead when it sent in two 7” singles.

“Camille really liked our singles and got in touch with us.” Patrick Buchanan, Mousetrap’s singer/guitarist said in an email interview. “We developed a great relationship with her, and eventually she offered to sign us — we were given the opportunity to sign either with Homestead OR with Grass, which was a brand-new label at the time.”

Buchanan said the band thought it would possibly get overlooked in Homestead’s large stable of well-established bands and decided to sign with Grass. He also said Sciara made a large difference.

“Camille was one of the coolest people we had ever met in ‘the business’ – she just seemed really genuine, straightforward and honest,” he said. “Those are the types of people we wanted to work with. So our relationship with Camille was probably the main thing that made us sign with Grass.”

Mousetrap would go on to release three albums on the label, starting with Cerebral Revolver in 1993. The band was a big influence on Commander Venus, an Omaha band featuring a young Connor Oberst.

“They were definitely a big deal in Omaha and everybody loved them,” Oberst said of Mousetrap in an episode of the Turned Out a Punk podcast earlier this year.

Commander Venus came in contact with Grass through Mousetrap. The band signed to the label when Oberst was only 14. The band also featured Rob Nansel, who would go on to co-found Saddle Creek Records. Oberst said the band recorded its first album, Do You Feel At Home, in 1995.

“That was a good experience and a learning experience,” Oberst said. “I also think it kind of made it more apparent that even if you do get an opportunity like that, you know, you’re a little fish in a big pond. And maybe people aren’t going to work as hard or care about it.”

He said that this was mitigated by having the support system of a local scene in Omaha. The band ended up releasing its 1995 debut on Lumberjack, which later became Saddle Creek. The band released one more album, The Uneventful Vacation, before Oberst formed Bright Eyes.

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Promoting growth

Alan Meltzer came into the picture with a retail background. He had previously owned Titus Oaks Records in Long Island. He went on to found CD One Stop in 1985, which was purchased by Alliance in 1993. Meltzer became Alliance’s president during this time but left the company in 1995. Meltzer acquired Grass in 1995 from Dutch East India Trading (the label’s owner/distributor), finalizing major label distribution through BMG in 1996.

“When I heard the Grass repertoire, I almost fell down,” Meltzer said in a 1996 Billboard Magazine article. “I heard so much good material.”

“Alan was shopping around looking to purchase an established label with an extensive catalog that he could pour endless money into,” Sciara said. “He originally wanted Homestead Records. A great label owned by Dutch East as well. But once he saw the contracts and issues with some of the ‘grey’ areas in them, he then moved on to Grass.”

Meltzer did have some legitimate interest in the label as an artistic venture.

“He absolutely was obsessed with the Wrens once he heard them and Commander Venus,” Sciara said. “He was sure with all his resources, money and big ass staff he could make them huge stars. He failed. Not the bands’ fault.”

Grass would have the name (and credibility) of an indie, but the corporate reach of a major. Meltzer looked at the new situation as the best of both worlds.

“We’re not a major label, but we’re not an undercapitalized, disorganized independent that’s out there on a wing and prayer,” Meltzer said. “We’re somewhere in the middle. We’re staffed, we have the organization, and we’ve got the know-how. I opted for major distribution because the majors are better at it.”

Grass kept Sciara on as a VP of A&R (artists and repertoire) and expanded Grass’ workforce to 20 in-house employees, according to the Billboard article. The label’s future looked bright. Bodine left Brainiac and formed O-Matic (also signed to Grass) when the change happened.

“…It seemed better – they had a nice office in Manhattan with an open stairwell area and glass walls,” Bodine said. “It was very modern and cool. The budget was much bigger. They hired more people and we felt like we had a good support system.”

“When we went there it felt like money,” Koslowski said.

Koslowski only met Meltzer once at a Grass Christmas party.

“He was a typical New York money guy when I met him,” Koslowski said. “I didn’t get a good vibe. He didn’t have that indie spirit that Camille had unfortunately.”

The meeting didn’t go well.

“I remember drinking a bit and messing with him,” Koslowski said. “I said ‘hey Alan I wanted to see if I could run this by you. You know that new Liquor Bike record we’re working on? We got the artwork but we just wanted to run the title by you and make sure it’s cool. We want to call it Eat My Fuck Asshole.’”

Meltzer and his wife were horrified, according to Koslowski.

Yellowing, patchy

In an oral history with Stereogum, Wrens bassist and singer Kevin Whelan said the band was picking up steam.

“So Secaucus came out and it started to do somewhat well and “Surprise Honeycomb” was starting to get recognized and played on different shows, and we thought that international fame was around the corner,” Whelan said.

And then the call came in.

“He [Meltzer] said, ‘Well, boys, I’m not going to give you any more money. If you don’t sign with me today, it’s over.’ So, I remember, we sat in the van, we looked at the empty gas tank and we were like, ‘Well, I guess we’re not signing, let’s get the credit cards out and see how we can get home.’”

According to the Wrens’ website bio, Meltzer wasn’t pleased.

“[Meltzer], infuriated, commences layoffs of involved record company personnel and vows that ‘the next band to walk through that door will be made famous – at any cost,’” the bio states. “The next band through the door is Creed. Grass Records becomes Wind-Up Records. Creed becomes famous at any cost.”

By the time of the Wind-Up transition, Moustrap had already fulfilled its contract when it released its third album The Dead Air Sound System.

“At that time, Mousetrap was not very active,” Buchanan said. “I think we had become rather disheartened by how much time and love we put into the band, while getting very little recognition on any type of national level. At that point we were physically and mentally exhausted by constant touring and recording, with very little in the way of tangible success to show for it. So we didn’t really have any relationship with the label by the time it became Wind-Up.”

When the label wasn’t as successful as Meltzer thought, he brought in Steve Lerner. This was effectively the end of Grass Records.

“I was let go along with 8 to 10 others when Meltzer brought in Steve Lerner to run the company,” Sciara said. “The new staff felt Grass was too much related to me so hence a name change.”

“With Lerner serving as his right-hand man, the duo transformed Wind-up into a $100 million-plus sales operation with multi-platinum acts like Evanescence and Creed,” a 2007 Billboard article said.

Death, new high-yield crops

Grass was rebranded as Wind-Up, a key player in the nu metal and post-grunge universe, in 1997. Many of the Grass bands were dropped to make room for the likes of Finger Eleven, Creed and Evanescence. Meltzer, who ran the label with his wife at the time Diana, finally found his cash machine.

“I was extremely happy because, although Creed was a mega-seller and saved his label, I wanted nothing to do with that and the direction the label was taking,” Sciara said. “Not knocking it. You need artists like that to sustain a label that had an enormous payroll and nice offices. I totally get it, it’s a business. But I was happy running a small label with smaller contacts and cooler bands that didn't have to compromise their sound to write a ‘hit.’ That’s what he was always looking for.”

The transition to Wind-Up in 1997 did have some overlap with former Grass artists. The second Commander Venus album was released by Wind-Up and Thick (with a later release on Saddle Creek). Pollen, a rough-edged pop-punk act that had released two albums on Grass, dropped Peach Tree on Wind-Up. Baboon’s sophomore album Secret Robot Control was also released in 1997 on the new label.

Slowpoke’s Virgin Stripes, the final vestige of Grass Records, was a co-release with DGC in 1998. The album didn’t break the band, but it’s not a stretch to imagine it could have (especially since it boasted a song as infectious as “Belladonna”). The album retains some of band’s outsider noisy energy, but delivers it in a package palatable enough for the post-grunge crowd. Past this point, Wind-Up focused mostly on its new sound.

Koslowski didn’t initially know Wind-Up was the successor to Grass. One day someone mentioned to him that he was labelmates with Creed.

“I was like ‘wow, OK I guess he got his hit,’” Koslowski said.

Meltzer died in 2011 at 67. He made headlines by leaving $1 to his chauffeur and $500,000 to his doorman. Bodine saw this as frustrating because of how he left things with other Grass bands.

“He owed lots of bands money so it’s just really fucked up that he didn’t pay them/us. Liquor Bike did get theirs before he died only because they were persistent,” said Bodine.

In 2013 Wind-Up was purchased by Bicycle Music Company with distribution by Concord Music Group. In 2015 the two companies merged to form Concord Bicycle Music. Craft Recordings manages the label’s reissues.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/wZBpr1tDktI

Rare strain

Aside from Brainiac and The Wrens, many of the bands on the label aren’t on streaming platforms. The physical releases on Grass are mostly out of print. A sea of fantastic experimental indie music remains in this gray area. This doesn’t seem to be changing.

“Unfortunately, I haven’t a clue about if there are plans of Wind-Up re-releasing any back catalog,” Sciara said. “It’s sad really. Holding peoples’ artistic work hostage or just ignoring it seems cruel. Hopefully Wind-Up did the right thing and gave them back their masters, rights etc. Or at least license it to someone else to release.”

The three Mousetrap albums are stuck in this place.

“I wish more people had the chance to hear our music, so yeah I wish it was easily available,” said Buchanan. “Sure, we wanted to be popular — but the most important thing for us was that we made the music we wanted to make. We always did things our way — for ourselves, with no regrets. So even if the albums are harder to get, we’ll always have the memories — and those who were there to witness it will, too.”

Liquor Bike’s lawyer was able to secure the master tapes and artwork for The Beauty of Falling Apart with no questions asked. The band also has the master tapes for Neon Hoop Ride.

“Crazily enough, Grass did not make us buy Beauty of Falling Apart from them,” Koslowski said. “I have heard from some of my fellow Grass artists that they wanted to charge an incredible amount of money.”

Neon Hoop Ride was remastered and briefly available on streaming services. The album was only available digitally and did not get a physical rerelease.

Greener pastures

Following her departure from Grass, Sciara started Ten23 (Oct. 23, 1996 was the day she was fired from Grass). The label released The Wren’s EP 1135 before folding.

“It seemed like a great idea,” she said. “Didn't put out anything else after that release. It was an expensive endeavor starting a label from scratch, so to speak, and at the time I was unemployed.”

From there she went on to work at the Knitting Factory label group and eventually Narnack Records. She uprooted from N.Y. to move to L.A. to work at the latter. She eventually ended up back in N.Y. where she was a manager at Petland Discounts for 12 years until it closed in 2019.

Buchanan has gone on to release music as Vicious Lovers. Mousetrap has plans to release new music for the first time in 20 years according to Buchanan. Some of Mousetrap’s music can be streamed here:

Michelle Bodine went on to play guitar in Shesus, which was signed to Narnack. The band released an album and an EP before splitting up. Bodine has since been participating in Brainiac reunion shows and was featured in the Brainiac documentary Transmissions from Zero.

David Koslowski went on to play in the post-rock band Vivid Low Sky and the power-pop band Gerty. He currently owns a coffee shop/record store in Baltimore called Baby’s on Fire.

“I loved every aspect of being on Grass, except for the very end,” Koslowski said. “I also loved how diverse Camille had the label. A lot of friends from that time from those bands, I’m still friends with them. It was like a really cool little group of people that all got to share in something for as brief of a time period as it was.”

If you have questions, information or concerns I can be reached at [email protected].

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article spelled David’s last name as Kozlowski. It’s actually Koslowski. Also, J. Robbins just did the cover art for the band’s third album. Drew Mazurek actually produced it. Godplow is a great band but they’re from Minneapolis, not Baltimore.

#grassrecords #indie #90s #brainiac #thewrens #mousetrap #liquorbike #baboon #toadies #omatic

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alatismeni-theitsa · 4 years

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Thanks for bringing the racebending to my attention. I never considered that it was harmful towards the origin culture. I considered that it was kind of strong to claim that sort of race thing in a way, but maybe that comes from the more.. christianity? view of where there isnt a direct way that God looks, except any way the person perceives. That's probably what I thought, too, until just now reading your answer to someone else. So.. it's not okay? 1/?

I honestly want to understand as my perspective on this now changes. It makes total sense why it would be entitled of someone to do such a thing, and how it's inconsiderate of the actual origin culture that the deities come from now that I'm thinking about it in this way. So again thank you for bringing this up and answering that other anon. I have some things to revise in my head on this, as I honor Apollo and Hermes, I want to make sure that I get accurate and do my research.

I really enjoy being able to read your experiences and I think it's important as, someone outside the culture, gets to experience and understand more to be as accurate and non... whats the word... inappropriate with representing such a thing, I guess I can say. If that makes sense.__________________________________________________________

Thank you for sending a message and for listening to the opinion of Greek people. (I am not the only one with that opinion, many of my 500 followers also share the same ideas.) Anyways prepare yourself for a looooooong analysis! So, get under comfy blankets and take your tea/coffee next to you!

To begin with, there are Greeks that don’t mind but those are usually Greeks who have close contact with the American way of thinking through social media. Or some that don’t care because the approach our mythology in a kinda superficial way? I am not saying this to offend any Greeks who don’t mind the racebending. Every Greek has the right to have a relationship with their culture according to their own standards. Those people who think racebending is ok are usually no less patriots than the ones who do. However, those who don’t mind the race bending are extremely rare to find.

If I go to my 50 y/o aunt and announce to her that foreigners depict Demeter as Black she is gonna lose her mind. I have also asked the opinion of Greeks who are not into social media or groups where Greek mythology is discussed by foreigners. When they were informed of the racebending the first thing they said was “but... why??” and they couldn’t fathom how this could help anyone. The second thing they say is “But the Gods are white!” explaining that our ancestor have depicted them as Caucasian for centuries and we, as Greeks, know no other depiction of them.

I assure you, it has nothing to do with white superiority - which is a myth anyways. Greeks can be perfectly racist to people who are pastry white :P If you racebended the gods into any other race, we would still have a problem. It’s all a matter of respecting iconography and tradition. It would be ignorant of even us Greeks to change the depiction of the gods when our ancestors were very clear in their art about their race. It was also clear in antiquity that the gods had bodies. I am in another computer and I cannot access my files, but I had a file for a philosopher who tried to argue against the public opinion that the gods didn’t have bodies. But the majority of ancient Greeks believed that the gods had a physical presence.

Also, race matters for Greeks as it does for most of other cultures. You expect Nigerian deities to look like the average Nigerian, yes? Because they were created by a homogenous Black population. You think the same for Indian and Chinese deities, yes? It makes sense for deities and public figures from a certain culture to look like the people of that culture. I think it’s common sense. Turning an old Nigerian deity into a Chinese, would’t represent the Nigerian people any more. For similar reasons, we don’t want our important heritage figures changed. (In case a warrior was described as Black African in our ancient texts, then of course we wouldn’t have a problem with keeping that figure Black).

You are correct when saying that the race bending comes from a Christian point of view. I think many hellenic polytheists/pagans/wiccans haven't managed to escape the Christian logic. In Christianity we have accepted for many centuries that saints and important figures would be viewed with different races, so people can come closer to them. For example, there is a Chinese, Native American, Mexican (different tribes), Black Jesus etc. Most of the times they are also dressed in the traditional regalia of the respective culture. It's a thing for the last 200 years at least.

Even Greeks depicted Jesus kinda white (he has an olive skin complexionand brown hair, which is closer to the Greek standards). And this happened since the Byzantine Empire. We even call the Virgin Mary "Mother of all Greeks" (apparently Mary has a particular interest in our nation xD) We have made her into a Greek mum. But we kinda have the freedom to do this because Christianity is an international religion which is alive for the last 2.000 years, so these changes come organically.

On the contrary, almost nobody has worshipped the Greek gods since 500 AC. The religion was been dead for almost 2.000 years, until Western classicists made it a popular. Now people who have no actual contact with the Greek culture start worshiping those gods. Don’t get me wrong, I believe any foreigner can worship the Greek gods! The thing is that most of the foreign worshippers don’t see the Greek gods as part of the culture that created them, because of the Americanization of the gods in the media and the complete stripping of the Greek elements from them.

But gods are still part of the Greeks’ heritage. Many ancient traditions and myths have kept from the ancient years, we have the names of gods and the gods are still used as symbols here. Our culture hasn’t died, as many westerners (perhaps subconciously) believe. It is alive and evolving, despite foreigners usually ignoring us. So, the ideas about our ancient religion have been involving with us, becoming part of our national identity in a unique way.

After 2.000 years of the religion’s “death”, foreigners become enamored with Greece again. But not our Greece. They become enamored with a part of our culture that hasn’t existed in millenia. They study the culture only till the Roman years and then they skip 2.000 years of evolving cultural identity and go straight to the 21st century western (west Europe/America) ideals and societies.

You can only imagine how it seems to us Greeks, when foreigners suddenly remember us again and, on top of that, they don’t become part of our culture but they insist that a part of our culture (in its ancient form) becomes tailored to their own standards. And now foreigners ingore our own point of view, because, as they have done the last 2.000 years, they keep on ignoring us :P (I mean they as a people, greatly generalizing here). Please see that post for how disconnected a Greek feels about the modern Greek religion, and the analysis that comes with it. (Link)

Similarly, imagine if suddenly the Nigerian culture became a trend in Greece and now some Greeks become interesting in the old (almost dead to Nigeria) worship of Orishas. And now they want to depict the Orishas as White, because they, themselves are white and maybe white deities reflect better the racial situation in Greece. Wouldn’t that be disrespectful, though? Not only because the Black becomes White, but because we would take an inactive worship from the Nigerians and add our own politics to it.

Our situation is also kind of special because for the last centuries every country that has become interested in our culture has abused it. They have stolen antiquities from us and northwestern Europe but also in the US have no problem having those stolen artifacts and displaying them. There is a tradition of foreigners claiming to “love” Greece but they are really in love with our ancient aesthetic and they don’t give a shit about the Greeks who preserve the culture and even die to protect their antiquities.

So we are used to this kind of treatment and it hurts extra when it’s happening again. But we are also desensitized. For some reason a person can be dressed as a Greek deity for Halloween and we won’t bat an eye. At the same time, I see people from other cultures defending the importance of their figures, when foreigners dress up as them for fun.

I don’t understand how we consider this disrespectful for any other culture but if it’s the Greek we don’t care. Why could this be? Perhaps because many Greeks have come to see their own culture as public property. Perhaps because it is what the prominent international media tells us and maybe because we are used to selling our culture for profit (we are a tourist country) and we only see it as merchandise.

Let me add I am not only fascinated by my own cultures but also cultures around the world. It makes no sense to me that people want Gods of color and their only solution is to make the Greek gods Black. Have we forgotten the numerous rich cultures of Asia and Africa?? There are a ton of deities there who, if you want to draw Afrocentric art for example, will be great inspiration! It reminds me of a publishing house which put POC in the covers of western classic books (thus kinda turning the white main characters into POC only in the cover) while not promoting books from POC or books featuring POC. I think it’s counterproductive.

I think that’s all I have to say for now! Feel free to ask more questions if I haven’t covered you! And if you have more thoughts you can drop them in my ask box.

Also, one question for you before you leave. You mentioned “I considered that it was kind of strong to claim that sort of race thing in a way”. Can you explain to me why? I would like to understand better people who think this way. Then maybe I could explain more effectively to them that their race bending practice isn’t as helpful as they think it is.

P.S. Even saying “races” of people exist is considered deeply racist in Greece (and Europe). I mention that as potential food of thought. For us there are only hues of skin colors, not races, so our social politics are different.

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cursebreaker-lilith · 4 years

Photo

I only posted her original profile in September, but I’ve changed some stuff and wanted to do a new drawing. Lili was pretty new to me then, and I’ve found her voice a lot more since so it only felt right to have a do over on her profile.

This is all up to the beginning of year 6.

EDIT: Some formatting changes made 5-12-21

BASICS

Name: Lilith Silvia Vesta Brooks

Nicknames: Lili, Pipsqueak, Pip

Name Meaning: Lilith references a figure from Jewish folklore, Silvia comes from her grandmother’s name and references a figure from Roman mythology, Vesta was also chosen by her grandmother and references the Roman goddess of the hearth.

Gender: Cis Female

Pronouns: She/Her

Age: 16 (Variable depending on what year I’m writing about)

Birthday: October 19th, 1972

Zodiac: Libra

Blood Status: Half-blood

Ethnicity/Nationality: White Brit

Sexuality: Self identifies primarily with queer but is okay with being called bisexual. Is also probably on both the asexual and aromantic spectrum, but the words for them hadn’t been coined in her time period.

Appearance

Body:

Height: 165cm / 5′5

Build: Average to stocky, hourglass shape

Eyes: A bright yellow-green, noticeably a bit big and round.

Hair: Pale blonde hair that is very thin and fine. She likes doing it up in different ways, from ponytails, to pigtails, to braids. Right before starting her 6th year, she cut her hair short and permed it on an impulse encouraged by her Muggle friends.

Skin: Pale skin that burns easily but quickly fades into a tan

Misc: Small and usually unnoticeable scars scattered across her hands and face from ice in the Ice Vault that will fade wholly with time (most already have by 6th year). Pierced ears--one in each lobe as a teenager but adds more as an adult.

Material Items:

Clothing: As a young child, she tried to keep up with mainstream Muggle fashion. She preferred lots of bright colors, stripes, gaudy jewelry, and scrunchies. Dear lord she loves scrunchies. As she got older however, she began to phase out of the bright colors and mainstream fashion into something which would soon be called grunge. Not completely grunge however as she still loves her statement earrings and scrunchies. Usually wears baggy/non form fitting clothing.

Accessories: Almost always wearing some sort of dangly and obnoxious statement earrings. Always has at least three scrunchies on her person.

In her school bag: Her wand, at least five scrunchies, school books and papers, books Rowan wants her to read, an old crochet penguin for good luck (her first attempt at crochet animals), crochet hooks and yarn, journal and papers related to Cursed Vault plans, at least three cool looking rocks she found on the ground.

Reference:

Face Claim: N/A

Voice Claim: N/A

Personality

Traits:

+ loyal, friendly, extroverted, responsible, mature, kind, adaptable, quick learner, resourceful, hopeful, courageous

+/— determined, good liar, intense, clever, intelligent, independent

— obsessive, untrusting, secretive, forceful, quick temper, angry, abrasive, single minded, rule breaker, rude, spiteful

Description:

Lili has a lot of pent up anger and a quick temper. She’s angry at her family, at authority, at the world. She’s not good at processing this anger and thus tends to lash out at people very often and often very cruelly and violently. She knows this and tries to keep in check but isn’t very good at doing so even as she ages. Because of her anger, she also tends to keep grudges for quite a while, even for stupid or petty reasons and is slow to admit she’s wrong.

In a better world, she would be known for her friendliness. Lili can be very friendly and relaxed. She talks first and makes a judgement second, trying to be as open minded as possible. She’s very casual yet polite and likes people being the same back to her.

Lili is determined in a way that tends towards the negative. Her laser focus on things tend to quickly become obsessions if someone she trusts doesn’t intervene quickly enough.

After her mother stopped being a parent towards her at a young age, Lili learned to take care of herself quickly. She’s become clever and resourceful in her steps to becoming independent. It’s left her mature and responsible for her age, but also untrusting and secretive, convinced she can do it on her own (or with Rowan only).

Lili is very loyal to those that earn her loyalty. For those she cares about, she would do anything. If you do something to lose that loyalty, expect harsh treatment after if Lili even deigns to speak to you. She’s not afraid of cutting people out of her life if they betray or anger her.

Other:

Likes: crafts (crochet, knitting, sewing), Rowan and Barnaby, scrunchies, dangly earrings, being busy, collecting things, fashion

Dislikes: Merula and Ismelda, Rakepick, Snape, most other Slytherins, people who get in her way, Dumbledore, Doctor Who after the 5th Doctor, not getting enough sleep, flying class

MBTI: ESTP

Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

Hogwarts

Hogwarts House: Slytherin

OWL Classes:

Astronomy: 6/10 (E)

Charms: 9/10 (O)

DADA: 9/10 (O)

Flying: 2/10 (A)

Herbology: 3/10 (A)

History of Magic: 2/10 (A)

Potions: 4/10 (A)

Transfiguration: 7/10 (E)

OWL Electives:

Ancient Runes: 9/10 (O)

Arithmancy: 6/10 (O)

Care of Magical Creatures: 6/10 (O)

NEWT Classes:

Ancient Runes: 9/10 (O)

Arithmancy: 6/10 (E)

Charms: 9/10 (O)

DADA: 9/10 (O)

Transfiguration: 7/10 (E)

Extracurriculars:

Clubs: Dueling Club (3rd-4th year), Fencing Club (2nd-5th year), Transfiguration Club (occasionally from 2nd year on)

Quidditch: N/A

Prefect or Head Boy/Girl: N/A

Best Classes:

Charms It’s the one class she’s very naturally talented at. She never needs to study much, but she barely has to try with Charms. Someday she’ll beat Ben and be the best in their year at the class.

Defense Against the Dark Arts She’s not good at this because of any professor, she’s good at this because of her excursions into the Cursed Vaults giving her practical knowledge.

Worst Classes:

Flying Listen, if people were meant to fly, then they’d have wings, or a spell letting people properly fly would be created by now. Lili will be staying on the ground, thank you very much.

Herbology She’s lived in the city her whole life and being around so many plants is strange. She doesn’t hate the class, but she does use it to catch up with her friends rather than study.

Potions She doesn’t have the patience for potions, and that’s even when she doesn’t have Snape refusing to acknowledge her existence.

Favorite Professors:

Flitwick She thinks Flitwick is great. There’s not much more to say. He’s responsible but not smothering, and still thinks well of her brother. If she ever had to pick an adult to trust, it would be Flitwick.

Kettleburn She had taken Care of Magical Creatures because Rowan had wanted a third elective and Lili didn’t want to take Muggle Studies or Divination. However, she ended up loving the class and thinks Kettleburn is hilarious. She honestly wished she could take the class NEWT level, but her schedule was already full.

Least Favorite Professors:

Snape She has a very complicated relationship with Snape. He hates her because of her brother (who he did not get along with), because she reminds him of James Potter, and because her nickname, Lili, reminds him of his lost love Lily Evans every time he hears it. Lili, of course, does not know any of this and thinks he just hates her for no reason. Jacob thought he was a Death Eater (he got that from whispers older kids who Jacob knew were definitely Death Eaters), so Lili uses that as justification to not like him.

Rakepick She never trusted her and barely liked her, even before she became a professor. Her opinion didn’t go improve any time in fifth year.

Magic

1st Wand: Blackthorn, unicorn hair, 11 3/4 in, shiny and slightly flexible

“Blackthorn, which is a very unusual wand wood, has the reputation, in my view well-merited, of being best suited to a warrior. This does not necessarily mean that its owner practises the Dark Arts (although it is undeniable that those who do so will enjoy the blackthorn wand’s prodigious power); one finds blackthorn wands among the Aurors as well as among the denizens of Azkaban.”

2nd Wand: Aspen, phoenix feather, 12 in, fairly rigid

“In my experience, aspen wand owners are generally strong-minded and determined, more likely than most to be attracted by quests and new orders; this is a wand for revolutionaries.”

Special Abilities: Natural Legilimens, Occlumency

Boggart

Form: Jacob telling her she’s useless and unwanted and that everything she’s doing is for nothing.

Riddikulus: Has not found anything yet that works

Amortentia

What they smell: the Owlery, Standard Ingredient, and something else, something she can’t figure out

What they smell like to others: Lavender, hot chocolate, campfire smoke

Patronus

Form: A goshawk. Independent and intelligent hunters who focus intently on stalking their prey.

Memory: A childhood memory of going to a fair. Jacob looked after her the entire night, and it’s one of the last times she remembers seeing both of her parents laugh.

What they see in the Mirror of Erised: Herself with her family–Jacob is there and looks like how she remembers him, and her mother and father are holding hands and smiling. As she ages, her mother and father are phased out of the image and replaced by her friends, her new family.

FAMILY

Father: David Brooks

Muggle

b. 1943

Works at an accounting firm.

In theory, he was alright with magic and the wizarding world. In practice, it unnerved him more than he could say. When his children started doing accidental magic, and when Jacob came home from Hogwarts talking about nothing but spells and magic, that was it for David. He filed for divorce in 1980 and hasn’t spoken to his ex-wife or children since. He has since married to a fellow Muggle, treating her children as his own and speaking rarely of his biological children. He doesn’t even know Jacob disappeared.

Mother: Carina Flora Brooks (nee Braddock)

Pureblood

b. 1944

Ravenclaw

Works for a wizarding travel magazine as a photographer, travels around the world frequently

She was perhaps not meant to be a mother, and would have been happier following in her brother’s shoes of travelling the world with no responsibilities. However, her mother was insisting she marry and Carina, in a fit of rebellion, decided to marry a nice Muggle she knew instead of the purebloods her mother had picked out.

Carina was never very good with either of her children, and in particular could never get along with Jacob, resorting to abuse (emotional and physical) to try to get him to behave how she wanted. Despite this, she totally shut down when Jacob disappeared, feeling like a failure. This led to her severely neglecting her daughter to wallow in her own misery day and night. It also led to an irrational hatred of Hogwarts. She refuses to read any letters sent by them and has made several subtle attempts to make Lili miss the Hogwarts Express.

Brother: Jacob Seraphinus Ulysses Brooks

Half-blood

b. March 8th, 1967

Slytherin

Currently missing.

Never able to make friends easily or keep his mouth shut, Jacob always had a hard time fitting in, so he turned to books. He preferred fiction over nonfiction, but one history book’s mention of Cursed Vaults on Hogwarts’ grounds led to a search that would dominate his, and his sister’s, life.

He was an outcast in his house and Hogwarts, besides for a few acquaintances, and instead focused on reaching his goals. He was reckless and brave (the Sorting Hat considered putting him in Gryffindor), but obsessive, secretive, and increasingly dependent on the idea of “the end justifies the means.”

Grandfather: Ambrose Braddock

Pureblood

b. 1903

Ravenclaw

Deceased

Known for being Britain’s first natural Legilimens in a century. The Braddock family is known for being a line of natural Legilimens, but none in the family had had the ability in five generations before Ambrose was born. This ended up leading to an offer of marriage from the Malfoy family who wanted the connection to this rare ability. Later realized his grandson was also a natural Legilimens, but died before he could teach Jacob more than the basics on how to control it and never realized his granddaughter also had the ability.

Died of sickness in 1975 at age 72

Grandmother: Silvia Braddock (nee Malfoy)

Pureblood

b. 1911

Slytherin

Never worked, has always been a housewife

Your typical upper class, conservative grandmother. She may not believe that strongly in pureblood mania anymore, but she still believes in things like “children should be seen, not heard,” and corporal punishment. Was in an arranged marriage to Ambrose and never really grew to love him feeling she was marrying beneath her Malfoy heritage. Fairly reclusive nowadays, only entertaining old friends for brunch and going to the occasional pureblood party.

Uncle: Victor Felinus Braddock

Pureblood wizard

b. 1940

Gryffindor

Has a different job every few months, deosn’t really needs to have one and his work ethic shows that

Considered a fun uncle by his nephew, and an annoyance by his niece. Has a lot of stories, and a slight drinking problem. While his mother was annoyed at him for having a dalliance with a Muggle-born, she was even more furious that he refused to marry Suzie. Victor didn’t want to be tied down, and left her to raise their two daughters only appearing in their lives every few years.

Cousins: Donna and Caroline Jones

Half-bloods

b. 1960 and 1975

Both Gryffindor

Welsh

Their mother Susan Jones was a Muggle-born Sorted into Gryffindor in the same year as Victor Braddock. The two have had an on again, off again relationship since their Hogwarts years that has resulted in two daughters.

Donna was sorted into Gryffindor in 1971 (meaning she would have been roommates with Lily Evans which is a coincidence I swear) and it’s easy to see why. She’s confident, brash, and blunt. She has many problems with her father and refuses to interact with that side of the family. Works in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement for the Ministry.

Caroline is the opposite of her much older sister and was surprised to find herself in Gryffindor (Sorted there in Lili’s 3rd year). She’s timid and quiet, but with a backbone hidden underneath. She wilts at any negative tones, but is always ready to extend a hand to anyone who has hurt her, even multiple times.

Step family: Sabina Brooks, Ioan and Luca Ciobanu

Muggles

b. 1949, 1975, and 1980

Immigrants from Romania to England

After divorcing Carina, David began dating Sabina shortly after and later married her, acting as a father to her two young children. The four of them live together in London.

Pets:

Alfred An easily frightened black cat that once belonged to Jacob

Doctor Hoot A large barred owl that frequently forgets it’s an owl and not a lapdog

FRIENDS

Best Friends:

Rowan Khanna Her best friend!! She originally befriended Rowan because Rowan reminded her of her muggle friend, but it soon blossomed into a different, much closer relationship. Whenever Rowan is gone, Lili doesn’t really know what to do (”I’m going to cut all the sleeves off my robes.” “Why??” “Rowan left an hour ago and she’s like 85% of my impulse control.”) and Lili would never have made it through any of the Cursed Vaults without her. She probably also would have gotten expelled for brawling and dueling in like second year without Rowan. I’m not joking about that impulse control thing.

Barnaby Lee Lili didn’t like Barnaby at first. Even before he worked for Merula, she thought he was nothing more than a stupid jock and made fun of how Snape would pick on him in Potions. Then she actually talked to him and did a complete 180. “I’ve only known Barnaby for an hour, but if anything happened to him, I would kill everyone in this room and them myself.” She liked how sweet and genuine he was despite his awful upbringing. He’s always there to support her, and she’s really grown to love him for that. He once thought he had a crush on her, but it wasn’t really romantic (”The feeling was friendship but he had never experienced it before.”).

Good Friends:

Bill Weasley He’s like the big brother Jacob should’ve been. She was not thrilled to have a complete stranger helping with the Vaults, but in hindsight she’s so very glad she listened to Rowan. Lili isn’t sure she could have gotten half of what she’s done done without Bill’s help and steadfastness.

Charlie Weasley Their friendship kind of crept up on Lili. Charlie was closer friends with Ben and Barnaby, so while Lili had a passing familiarity with him before the Forest Vault, she wouldn’t have called them friends. She was surprised when she turned out to really enjoy his company when he started helping with the Cursed Vaults.

Chiara Lobosca Chiara was someone Lili tangentially knew due to people confusing them for each other (the hair color; once Chiara hits a growth spurt and Lili doesn’t people stop). Then Lili is forced to partner with Chiara in Herbology in 3rd year, and besides seeing her Herbology grade go up the slightest bit, she finds a friend in Chiara, appreciating the girl’s seemingly infinite kindness.

Friends:

Nymphadora Tonks They get along in classes, but Lili doesn’t trust Tonks with anything serious.

Liz Tuttle The two have many overlapping friends but don’t really hang out with each other.

Badeea Ali She really respects Badeea, but they just don’t have many reasons to be around each other.

Jae Kim Lili thinks he’s hilarious and very smart, but doesn’t trust him as far as she could throw him.

It’s Complicated:

Ben Copper Probably the most complicated relationship here. She befriended him out of pity and continued their friendship because of his skill at Charms. He’s had a crush on her since they were 11 when she stood up for him which no one had ever done before. Then the Red Robed Wizard Reveal tm happened and Lili dropped him and ignored him, though he tried to make it up to her. 6th year only drives a deeper wedge between them as Lili can’t stand his recent behaviour. Ben finally confessing about his love for Lili in 6th year didn’t help mend anything either.

Tulip Karasu After finding out that Tulip had purposefully not told her about Jacob’s room, Lili instantly decided she was an undesirable but necessary ally. Lili does not like Tulip for most of their time at Hogwarts as she’s really pissed that someone would keep her brother’s things from her. Lili will talk to her about the Cursed Vaults, but they do not hang out and Lili does not consider her a friend. This really, really hurts Tulip’s feelings but Lili doesn’t really care. The relationship does get a bit better in 6th year, but it’s never going to be a close one. In a better world without the Vaults, they’d probably get along smashingly as while Lili isn’t a prankster, she has no problem egging them on.

Love Interests:

Penny Haywood Her first, longest, and most confusing crush. She was wary of Penny at first. Popular girls were rarely that 100% nice, but Penny truly was. She also had a nice smile and pretty hair and soft hands…. It took Lili quite a while (like four years and Bill telling her) to figure out it was a crush and then….she did absolutely nothing. She panicked and stopped talking to Penny for a while before sheepishly apologizing when Penny confronted her. They went to the Celestial Ball together, but “as friends.” That did not stop them from having a Moment that Lili interpreted completely wrongly and she assumed Penny didn’t like her romantically. Penny in fact did, and since Lili never reacted to their Moment in the proper way, Penny assumed that Lili wasn’t interested. The two continued having crushes on each other for the rest of their time at Hogwarts and remained close friends after they both graduated.

Talbott Winger Her second, less confusing, crush. Similar to Barnaby, Lili didn’t think much of Talbott at first. He was that one kid who was talented at Transfiguration and she once saw him chatting casually to an owl in the Owlery. He was weird and she ignored him. Then she was paired with him on a class assignment in 3rd year and a friendship bloomed despite Talbott’s protests. It was a casual thing at first, but then Lili helped Talbott find his mom’s necklace, and their talk under the stars about family and the past and future deepened their friendship. Having already figured out she had a crush on Penny by this time, she managed to get the signs that she now also had a crush on Talbott, which made her panic, again. However, since Talbott is even worse with emotions than her, she didn’t do anything drastic like she did with Penny. They went on one date in 6th year but that was going too fast for Talbott and they decided to stay friends until Talbott felt more comfortable being around people. Lili took this….mostly gracefully.

Diego Caplan The two met in the Dueling Club in 4th year. Diego was impressed with Lili’s skill and tried to befriend her and also maybe flirt with her a bit. Lili, who tends to gravitate towards people who are unashamedly themselves, found his over the top flirting hilarious and was instantly endeared to Diego. She really enjoyed being around him, finding his lightheartedness helped her forget some of her troubles with the Cursed Vaults, especially in 5th year. He asked her out on a date, her first one, and she agreed. She enjoyed the date, but 5th year was the peak of her obsession with the Cursed Vaults so she broke it off. They later dated again during 6th year, after Lili’s one date with Talbott.

Dormmates:

Rowan Khanna see above

Desdemona Selwyn An OC. Their entire relationship can be explained with that one text post that’s like “Bitch.” “Blocked.” “Wait unblock me I need to tell you something.” “Unblocked.” “Bitch.”

Vidalia Barrows An OC. Lili has said like two sentences to Vidalia and she plans to keep it that way. Vidalia just eats and sleeps and does whatever Desdemona says to do.

Doesn’t Interact:

Murphy McNully/Skye Parkin/Orion Amari/Erika Rath She’s not involved in Quidditch.

Andre Egwu I just can’t think of a way to work him into the plot lol They would get along somewhat well otherwise.

Enemies:

Merula Snyde Hated each other’s guts for a while. Then Lili gave up her Frog Choir spot and Merula gained a small crush (even if Lili was a total ass about giving it up). While they’ll never be friends, by the time of 5th and 6th year they’ve become reluctant allies similar to Lili and Tulip above. Lili will probably never totally befriend her, but she’s learned to be civil and that’s progress.

Ismelda Murk Lili doesn’t really like Ismelda but she considers her all bark and no bite. Ismelda hates Lili because she thinks Lili and Barnaby are gonna end up dating and is jealous.

Desdemona Selwyn An OC. See above.

Most of Slytherin House Lili has never been shy about being half Muggle and being proud of it, and in a house that still worships Voldemort, that sets her apart. The few that don’t find her being pro-Muggle distasteful don’t want to be exiles in their own dorms and avoid talking to her.

Story

Childhood:

Lili’s childhood was never that great. Her parents fought frequently over her and Jacob’s use of accidental magic, and this eventually caused them to divorce when Lili was 9. Her mother in particular was emotionally and physically abusive but Jacob spared her from the worst of it.

Jacob was always the best part of her childhood. She loved her parents, but Jacob was the person she always looked forward to seeing. When he went to Hogwarts, she was upset for weeks, and when he went missing, she was devastated (especially as he went missing the night of her birthday).

Her mother didn’t take it well. Carina was not particularly close with Jacob, but this obviously big failure of her as a parent hit her hard. She became very emotionally withdrawn from Lili and threw herself into her photography work, leaving the country, and Lili, for weeks at a time.

Lili had to become very independent very quickly after that. That, plus the fact that she didn’t have any non-Muggle friends meant she trusted very few people and lied often. Getting her Hogwarts letter was a relief and a promise of freedom

Hogwarts:

: )

see here: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1467043

Adulthood:

Lili is very distraught after graduation and leaves everyone she knows behind to travel Europe and find herself. She spends several years doing this, helping people and doing odd jobs.

Eventually, she finds that she has a talent for languages, picking up a few easily in her travels, and starts to consider possibly doing something related to language whenever she goes back to Britain.

Miscellaneous

She fuckin loves scrunchies.

Has lived in a Muggle neighbourhood her whole life.

Likes muggle TV. Grew up watching Doctor Who. Not impressed with the 6th Doctor, and glad she was away at Hogwarts during his run. Favorite Doctor is the 4th and she knit herself her own version of his scarf.

Likes collecting things! She loves cool rocks on the sidewalk, tacky tourist souvenirs, and things you find for $1 in a thrift store.

She can knit, crochet and sew. She likes making little crochet animals and giving them to friends (or just keeping them and having a plushy empire around her bed).

Loves having her photo taken and has a whole collection of photos, but hates taking photos. It reminds her of her mother.

One of her Muggle friends got her into fencing. She thought it would be useful to hone her athletic skills with, so she continued doing it when she went back to Hogwarts in the fall.

The type of person who needs to be doing something 24/7. When she doesn’t have anything to focus on, she tends to be all over the place and rather annoying.

Quieter and more complacent as a kid. it was after her family broke apart that the need to be so driven started to become a part of her personality.

Love Like You from Steven Universe is a song for her and Jacob (from Jacob’s POV)

Chameleon by Michela is a song that fits her

Tropes:

Big Brother Worship

Determinator

Family Eye Resemblance

Good is Not Nice

Hair Trigger Temper

Jerk with a Heart of Gold

Parental Neglect

#hphm #harry potter hogwarts mystery #hogwarts mystery #hphm mc #jacob's sibling #jacobs sibling #lili brooks #art be mine #this is super long lol #pls enjoy #texttexttext post

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lilsherlockian1975 · 4 years

Text

The Nose Knows

A little soulmates AU, mostly fluff. Here’s part one. This is NOT beta’d, sorry for any mistakes. Huge thanks to @mel-loves-all for helping out with editing the images since I’m an ignorant goose penis when it comes to all that business. Blame me for the quality of the pics... it’s what I picked out for her. ~LiL~

-o-o-o-o-

He catches it on a breeze. It hits him like a physical blow and he instantly knows what he’s smelling, if not... who.

He and his cousin Daven are sitting on one of the few available benches on the Quad. Addam, his best friend since childhood, is talking about some girl he’d met at a sorority mixer the night before but as soon as the scent drifts his way, Jaime pretty much tunes out the sordid tale of sloppy, near-anonymous sex. It’s a gorgeous Spring day, not a cloud in the sky and no hint of rain for the first time in at least two weeks. This fact alone has driven most of the student population out of doors, making it almost impossible for him to quickly assign the scent to its owner.

Jaime is instantly ill at ease, which is unfortunate as moments ago he’d felt entirely in his element. He and his twin sister had celebrated their twenty-second name day the weekend before and prior to the scent, he’d been feeling at the very top of his game. Now he’s... confused and excited and anxious all at once.

Less than two months and he will be finished with this gods’ forsaken town and its massive university. He’s already been accepted at Crakehall School of Art & Design for his post-grad, which is, incidentally, where he originally had planned to study. His father’d had different ideas, forcing Jaime into the business programme at KLU. Thankfully, he had managed to slip a minor in Architecture into his degree by selling Tywin a load of shit about wanting to ‘propel Castlery Corp. into the modern era’. The minor had added a full year to Jaime’s studies and without a major in his chosen field, he will have to take supplementary classes at CSAD but he’s certain it will be worth it in the end.

None of that matters now. Tywin Lannister had died of a massive stroke seven months ago. Jaime supposes he should feel worse about that; should feel some kind of loss or sadness, and maybe he does, though not for the reasons most sons would for the death of a parent. But the old man was never a real father. He’d been indifferent toward Tyrion, dismissive toward Cersei - though he could occasionally be somewhat warmer to his only female child - and constantly demanding that Jaime ‘live up to the Lannister name’. Jaime can feel sympathy for their mother, of course, she did love the old bastard, but neither he nor his sister are overly damaged by the old man’s death. Oddly enough, their father’s death seems to be affecting his little brother the most.

The scent assails him again and this time he stands, walking towards it, leaving Addam sputtering objections and calling him names. Jaime doesn’t care. The only thing he cares about is the originator of that smell.

He passes small groups of fellow students, all equally excited about the respite from the spring rains. The Quad is packed, of course, so it’s no easy task. Not to mention that he probably looks like some kind of weirdo, walking around, nose first and… sniffing. But he’s being driven by something entirely out of his control.

Though he’s never really given much thought to the idea of soulmates, he knows they exist - his Uncle Gerion and Aunt Briony are soulmates, for instance, but it’s rarely talked about within the family, almost as if it is some dirty secret. Actually, for some unknown reason, talking about soulmates seems to be taboo in ‘polite society’. Uncle Gerion - his favourite uncle - however, is quite outspoken against Lannister Family tradition and societal norms. The phenomenon, as far as he knows, is very rare these days and Jaime has never once even considered the possibility for himself.

Now… Now there's no doubt. He can smell her - them? - whoever! Jaime’s never been attracted to men, but somehow he knows that if the gods have seen it fit to match him with a man… so be it!

Shaking himself, he chuckles as he moves to another group of students. It won’t be a man, he thinks. Surely the gods would have given him some kind of inclination towards his own sex if… Suddenly, he’s engulfed with the scent. They’re close, they must be! He turns, following his nose like a damn toucan.

The crowd thins a bit; it’s the top of the hour and people are rushing off to class. Jaime’s eyes and, yes, his nose, zero in on his target. Shit! It is a dude! He’s taller than Jaime by maybe an inch or so with short, straw-like blond hair, broad shoulders and… He’s just about to resign himself to a future that he’d never even considered (okay, so he’s maybe had the odd thought here and there about other guys - everyone has, right?! Right?) when they turn around and…

“You’re a girl,” he says without thinking.

She (oh, thank the gods she’s a she!) narrows her eyes, straightens her spine and glares. “Yes, I am. And you’re not very original, I’m afraid,” she says coldly before stalking past him.

What?! No! She’s… she’s supposed to know. She’s supposed to smell him too. What in the seven hells is going on?! “Wait!” Jaime calls out but she doesn’t stop. He can’t give up, he just can’t. Sprinting to catch up, he reaches out for her, wanting to stop her, to talk to her. He doesn’t make it that far, though. Just before he touches her arm, she jerks back - maybe she saw him in her peripheral vision, maybe it’s some strange side effect of their connection, he doesn’t know - but when he sees the look in her unbelievably blue eyes, he’s the one flinching away.

“I don’t know who you think you are,” she practically growls, “but you can’t just go around insulting people, chasing after them then touching them as if it’s your right!”

“But it is,” he replies lamely because... how doesn’t she know?

Her responding laugh is mocking and he can’t deny that it hurts him in a way he never imagined being hurt. Shaking her head, she sneers as she looks him up and down. “Guys like you are all the same…”

There are no guys like me, he thinks but luckily, this time he holds his tongue.

“I know I’m an easy target - hard to miss, low hanging fruit and whatnot - I’m just not in the mood for this nonsense today.”

Jaime knows he should give up, regroup and try again later, but patience has never been his strong suit. “I wasn’t… It wasn’t an insult. I was…” ‘Surprised’ sounds insulting and really, how does she still not know? His mind scrambles for a word to properly describe his condition. Finally, he settles on, “Confused?” though it unintentionally comes out as a question.

This seems to only further enrage the girl. She takes a step back, draws a deep breath and, once again, shakes her head. “Find someone else to help you figure out your sexuality!”

Okay, there’s a story there, Jaime’s sure of it but he doesn’t have time to ask. “No-no, you’re misunderstanding me. I know I’m not gay.” Although the fact that he considered it for thirty seconds or so is something he’ll deal with later! “I’m saying that…”

“I really don’t care what you’re saying.” Again, her eyes travel over him and Jaime has never felt so judged in his entire life. “It’s nothing new, it’s nothing I’ve not heard before. Do you really think you’re the first prick to want to screw with me? I’m guessing it’s another bet. Who put you up to this? Red? Bushy? If it was Hyle, I swear to the Seven...”

“None of them! I don’t even know who you’re talking about!” When he thinks about her words, an intense feeling of protectiveness overcomes him. “What bet? What did they do?”

Her pale, freckle-covered cheeks turn an interesting shade of pink as she hitches her messenger bag higher on her shoulder before crossing her arms over her chest. “Nothing. Never mind. Just… Just leave me alone. Please.” The last word comes out softly, pleadingly and it just about breaks Jaime’s heart. Turning, she starts to go.

“I’m not a creep!” he calls out, managing to stop her escape. Looking around, he notices that, miraculously, the Quad has pretty much cleared out. If their fellow students hadn’t been in such a rush to return to class he and the angry girl would have surely drawn a crowd. He takes a deep breath and tries to calm himself before continuing, “And I’m not a prick. I am sort of an arsehole, but not - I think, not like those guys you mentioned. Whatever they did... hurt you enough to make you make that face…”

She whips around. “What about my face?”

With a sigh, he says, “It looks sad. Too sad. It’s not supposed to.” And what does that even mean? he wonders as the words leave his mouth.

She’s surprised for a split second, then all emotion seems to drain from her features. “I don’t know why you’re doing this but please just… leave me alone.”

So he does. For now.

-o-o-o-o-

There is a very good reason that Brienne doesn’t know ‘who’ Jaime is. This is just the first part, I’m working on the next bit. Please let me know what you think. Thanks ~Lil~

#jaime x brienne #jaime lannister #brienne of tarth #uni AU #modern AU #game of thrones

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gffa · 5 years

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what first got you into star wars (if there was anything specific)? what always makes you smile? what is your favourite non-star wars book? what is your favourite non-star wars fandom? did you know i think your blog is great?

OH NO YOU’RE TOO NICE TO ME, HOW ARE YOU SO NICE??? what first got you into star wars (if there was anything specific)? I watched the original trilogy as a kid and was a fan, inasmuch as it seemed like everyone was at least somewhat a fan, if they’d seen/liked the movies. I was totally into Princess Leia and wanted to explore more of her, but the old EU just couldn’t grab me. I kept trying The Courtship of Princess Leia since it was always recommended as a Leia-centric book and I tried Heir to the Empire a couple of times, because everyone said the Thrawn books were super good, and bounced off both of them super hard. Then I did my time as a wee thing in fandom with The Phantom Menace, I was a pretty big Q/O shipper at the time and I read the first few Jedi Apprentice books, but that only lasted about six months before I wondered off again. I had vaguely kept tabs on the fandom, but it wasn’t until The Force Awakens and that Darth Darth Binks post that made me go OH MY GOD I HAVE TO KNOW IF THIS IS TRUE!!! and got me all fizzy about SW for the first time in years, which carried me through TFA and got me invested in the world for its own merits and A GIRL AS THE CENTRAL CHARACTER??? OH MY HEART, which then led to wanting to FIX EVERYTHING, which led to “well you have to go all the way back to the prequels to fix everything!” and then I started watching The Clone Wars and THEN I FELL IN LOVE AND HERE WE ARE. what always makes you smile? As corny as this answer is (and what a great question!), it’s when someone is really, truly having an absolute blast and loving something without reservation or irony. The nerdier the better! I spent a lot of years trying to be cooler and more intellectual than I was, until I realized it wasn’t making me happy, so I tried to embrace the fun, and seeing other people do it always, always makes me smile. ALTERNATELY, THIS GIF:

NEVER NOT THE MOST HILARIOUS THING I HAVE EVER GIFFED. I LOL EVERY TIME. what is your favourite non-star wars book? I think I would have to say The Silmarillion. I fell in love with the potential of it, the sheer amount of worldbuilding and the cast of characters and what fandom did with it and all the little things that you can try to tease out of Tolkien’s words. It’s a sparse book in a lot of ways, a dense book in a lot of ways, but just the sheer amount of world in that book makes it my favorite. I loved the Lord of the Rings movies, but getting the context for that world and realizing JUST HOW MUCH SHIT ELROND HAS SEEN, realizing just what Gandalf is and why he’s here, realizing just how much shit Galadriel has been around for and why her giving up the One Ring was such an important moment, all that history of the less-than-serene Elves is just MY JAM. (Runner up: The Martian will always have a special place in my heart for how much I bonded with my mother over it.) what is your favourite non-star wars fandom? Sailor Moon, easily. It’s tempting to say the MCU fandom or Tolkien fandom, they both have incredible charms, but Sailor Moon is my HEART. I enjoyed the ‘90s anime a lot, I hung around the edges of fandom for awhile, but then the manga was scanlated and I could actually read it for the first time and, holy shit, I FELL IN LOVE, and wrote like 100k words of various posts about it, then Sailor Moon Crystal came along and I was EVEN MORE IN LOVE and the art in that fandom is OUT OF THIS WORLD, it’s one of the most incredible I’ve ever been in and it’s been going for twenty years and people are still drawing art, there’s still content being put out, and it really is an incredible canon/fandom. (I fell in love with the manga because, oh, Usagi and her journey! She starts as this fragile crybaby who can’t stand to live in the world without people to support her and she has to go through all this shit, step by step, to learn to put others before herself, to learn not to be so childishly jealous, to learn to stand up and say that she’ll be the supportive one/the one who goes to rescue them on her own, that by the time I got to the end of the manga, and then went back to the first volume to reread it, it was shocking just how far she’d come. And, as someone who has dealt with suicide ideation for as long as I can remember, having a character who wasn’t shamed for that, who had a worthwhile journey, that she was worthwhile because she struggled with it, that really made it #1 in my heart.) did you know i think your blog is great? HEY, STOP THAT, I’M GONNA HAVE FEELINGS AND MAYBE TEAR UP A LITTLE AT HOW SWEET YOU ARE. (This has nothing to do with shark week coming up, nope.) By which I mean, OH NO FEELINGS but also YOU ARE REALLY SWEET and “thank you” seems almost flippant for how much I appreciate it, so just know that it’s very genuinely meant.

#i should have a personal tag around here somewhere #get to know the blogger #bpdanakins

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amoebo-id · 4 years

Text

a o t d !!!

no more than 1 release per artist to keep it interesting. selection and ranking is arbitrary and would prob be wildly different if i did this tomorrow. also i only went down to #42 cause everything after that didn’t feel like real aotd status - at least as far as the specific relationships i built over the past 10 yrs with the music i was listening to

#1 laurel halo quarantine

nobody did machine-body dialectic like laurel halo in 2012. i loved everything else from her this decade too but every time i listened to Carcass it made me leave my body physically. absolutely unreal album art too

https://laurelhalo.bandcamp.com/track/carcass-2

#2 e+e the light that you gave me to see you

2012 was a good year. pop/ambient/noise/radio-dj-tag sound collage ascended to spiritual intensity. makes you feel like a child experiencing awe. also fire-gut used to have probably my favorite music video ever but i think it’s gone now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p-SSuwW9cw

#3 ilovemakonnen 5

not to be confused with Drink More Water 5, this one’s from 2010 during his mostly-forgotten diy outsider-pop phase. off-key singing and amateur beats and the sheer absolute joy of making cool songs. all 5 are perfect

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORKpg_-z0Mk

#4 macintosh plus floral shoppe

would’ve made top 10 on album art alone. music, aesthetics, and cultural impact are inseparable here but going back to the album reminded me just how engaging its 2010s-updated chopped-and-screwed sound is, musically not just conceptually

https://vektroid.bandcamp.com/track/420

#5 jason lescalleet this is what i do 17

hard to pick a favorite from jason lescalleet’s semi-monthly document of his electroacoustic / field recording / tape loop practice but i’ve cried to multiple tracks on tiwid 17 so it gets the nod. couldn’t find any of them online so here’s something else of his

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t33x8OOm68E

#6 barrio sur बड़ा शोक (heart break)

dedekind cut guy’s weird one-off side project ended up being my favorite thing to come out of the last few years’ obsession w cowboy/western/country music/aesthetics. pure mystery

https://soundcloud.com/user-366783613/redemption-7inch

#7 cities aviv come to life

i think maybe people thought cities aviv was just another no-flow pseudo-”conscious rap” type rapper in 2014 but actually this album is nuts. hyper-energetic vaporwave rap? what if death grips were happy? idk

https://citiesaviv.bandcamp.com/track/url-irl-2

#8 beach boys the smile sessions

this cool fresh 1960s rock myth arrived fully formed and way more fun than the other ones. brian wilson’s concepts and songwriting got so unwieldy we had to wait 50 years to hear the sessions. i don’t care about conversations about his genius or whatever these songs kick ass

https://oldmasterpainter.bandcamp.com/track/surfs-up

#9 mindspring memories & intl. debris international memories

did this really only come out in 2017? i feel like i’ve been listening to it since i was born. tangential lateral kind of wormhole out of vaporwave into two meditative spiritual infinite-feeling loops that perfectly complement each other

https://noproblematapes.bandcamp.com/track/sad-horizons

#10 nyege nyege tapes sounds of sisso

absolutely obnoxiously insanely high energy high pitch high bpm dance music. i can’t believe this isn’t what people mean when they say future bass. set me down the path of historical and contemporary non-”global north” ideas about dance/rhythm/bass which i’m still on

https://nyegenyegetapes.bandcamp.com/track/mshamba-video-mster

#11 blithe field face always toward the sun

the most gorgeous implementation of the sorta-ambient guitar-looping vignette aesthetic. is this a real trope or did i listen to this album so much i convinced myself it was a thing? for me this is the sound of what its like to feel completely content with life and at ease in the moment

https://blithefield.bandcamp.com/track/zen-den

#12 anohni hopelessness

listening to this album and singing along while driving my car made me feel absolutely disgusting. unbelievable hooks, grossly hi fi sound design, and overblown drama add up to imo a scary effective type of explicitly political or ‘protest’ music

https://anohni.bandcamp.com/track/drone-bomb-me

#13 21 savage, offset, & metro boomin without warning

why is these 3 pop stars’ vaguely halloween-themed one-off collab my favorite trap album? 21 savage, offset, and metro boomin were all wildly corny in different ways but everything was perfectly balanced. i hope metro boomin makes like one seriously ambient album next decade

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWv-bR_X-VM&list=PLC1uUM4twa8i6zsD_Sn1LRUq4vhl_PLCx&index=11&t=0s

#14 laura les big summer jams 2018

‘crying in the club’ type bangers with no fear of ugliness and no fear of beauty and no fear of wildly unfashionable tropes like skrillex-y dubstep and guitar solos. so much input from other trans/queer artists it felt like a big t4t party

https://osno1.bandcamp.com/track/the-river-feat-scum-yung-skrrt-and-99jakes

#15 triad god nxb

the other triad god tape from 7 years later is just as good. what was this man doing in the intervening time? i just imagine him riding london public transit while it rains or something. i love knowing that most of his cantonese spoken-word/rap parts are insults and jokes rather than like, melancholy observations

https://soundcloud.com/hipposintanks/triad-god-remand

#16 dj koze knock knock

what if pop music sounded like this? somehow every song on here is wildly danceable, wildly sing-alongable, and also wildly detail-oriented. feels like a transmission from an alternate present where things are okay

https://djkoze.bandcamp.com/track/club-der-ewigkeiten

#17 ocora world of traditional music

box set of “world music” recordings from the label that french electronic composer pierre schaeffer started in the 1950s as a project to teach people in rural west africa how to dj. ethnography can be a fucked up idea but afaik ocora is one of the good ones and if you can sorta try to disengage from the tropes/cliches that get imposed on it, the music is phenomenal. hard to find a track specific to this box set but here’s another from the label

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJm8rn6gW5I

#18 oneohtrix point never replica

opn feels like an artist i’ve ‘grown out of’ i guess but samples never felt more alive or more dead than they did on replica. set a template for the kind of melancholy ‘soundscape’-y vibe that i spent years trying to find more of after

https://oneohtrixpointnever1.bandcamp.com/track/power-of-persuasion

#19 rihanna anti

the most perfect imaginable pop album. i keep trying to move it higher up. i almost put club chai vol 1 on this list purely cause of the Woo remix but then i remembered the original is better

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dDCUKElEwk

#20 colleen a flame my love a frequency

colleen’s ultra deadpan singing and wriggly rhythmic synth put me in a trance. everything sounded dry as hell even though it was covered in reverb. i think maybe some people were put off by the corny song names and lyrics

https://colleencolleen.bandcamp.com/track/separating

#21 dj paypal drake edits

back when drake seemed like a sorta-shitty dude rather than seriously creepy, dj paypal used the power of footwork to expose both the melancholy-ambient modality and the serious-bass-music modality latent in his voice and beats

https://mallmusicinc.com/track/brand-new

#22 huerco s. for those of you who have never (and also those who have)

not really as ambient as it first seems imo, but rather like a really intense focus on what we mean when we describe things as ‘static’ or ‘dynamic’. i know it’s corny but i wanna say these tracks are fully both and fully neither

https://brianleeds.bandcamp.com/track/promises-of-fertility

#23 girls rituals reddishness

for a track so deliberately shitty-sounding I Know had no right to be so fucking danceable. persona and production synthesized into the only ‘singer-songwriter’ music i could really get into

https://temporaryenjoyment.bandcamp.com/track/i-know

#24 chromatics kill for love

fakeass 80s retro melancholia digitized and pushed so far past pastiche it turned into pure slime. the phone call in There’s A Light Out On The Horizon came straight from the void

https://soundcloud.com/johnnyjewel/chromatics-kill-for-love-album

#25 actress ghettoville

the only genuinely post-apocalyptic music. specifically the postapocalypse in wall-e but if there was no wall-e to clean it up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcCPdfUFq6k

#26 playboi carti die lit

every beat on this album was reducible to a 4-second loop that perpetually demanded its own repetition and playboi carti somehow knew exactly what to do with them

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2pjiKmhlAI

#27 charli xcx vroom vroom

the charli xcx that came after this was fun, but there was black hole levels of power compacted into when she said vroom vroom on Vroom Vroom

https://soundcloud.com/vroomvroomrecordings/charli-xcx-vroom-vroom

#28 pacific breeze: japanese city pop, aor & boogie 1976-1986

it’s kind of amazing to think that this compilation only exists because vaporwave aesthetics made ‘japanese grocery-store kitsch from the 80s’ a marketable thing in the us. anyway every single one of these is an absolute bop

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl91bvEKj20

#29 young thug barter 6

i can’t get enough of listening to young thug’s voice. i’ve seen his rhythmic-melodic-textural sensibility described as virtuosic and i don’t know really if that term means anything but it feels right to me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg9ZxQKSDuw

#30 magic eye babylon

smeared dreamy lo-fi guitar music w wistful buried melodies pushed to an extreme. every song sounded the same and i wish there was more than the one cassette

https://magiceye.bandcamp.com/track/flame

#31 tirzah devotion

you could say this was ‘stripped down’ r&b but i think more accurately what separated it was that every sound stood exactly and only for itself

https://tirzah.bandcamp.com/track/basic-need

#32 mount eerie clear moon

it’s amazing how well mount eerie navigated the move from a lo-fi sound/mode/affect to a hi-fi sound/mode/affect. clear moon wasn’t his first attempt but it was the one that most embodied the feeling of the new possilibities that had been opened up

https://pwelverumandsun.bandcamp.com/track/through-the-trees-pt-2

#33 kelela aquaphoria

this mix was such a good idea it immediately seemed shocking nobody else had tried afaik. and kelela executed it so well you forgot the tracks already existed in other contexts

https://soundcloud.com/kelelam/aquaphoria

#34 james ferraro skid row

not sure what it means that the only james ferraro i really love is also the one i think of as the least abstract/conceptual. his recited lyrics had a rare spoken-word-poetic power

https://breakworldrecords.bandcamp.com/track/to-live-and-die-in-la

#35 salyu x salyu s(o)un(d)beams

absolutely unbounded sense of joy and creativity and possibility hovering between bangers-lite and ‘soundscape’-y electronic manipulation

https://soundcloud.com/snouu/salyu-x-salyu-s-o-un-d-beams

#36 dj rashad just a taste vol 1

double cup got all the press but it was so smoothed-over it could never have done something as absurdly beautiful as Ghost or even Go Crazy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZuHPAbte9U

#37 yves tumor serpent music

i’m sorta put off by the high-gloss sheen of music like this but serpent music somehow had the right combination of total cohesion and a ridiculous density of impactful moments

https://soundcloud.com/pan_hq/yves-tumor-the-feeling-when-you-walk-away-pan-73?in=pan_hq/sets/yves-tumor-serpent-music-pan

#38 maral mahur club

lo-fi beat collage elevated to something that could actually genuinely be called world music

https://astralplanerecordings.bandcamp.com/track/avesta-khani-reggaeton

#39 lucki ecks watch my back

did not expect this super low-stakes sadboy trap to end up on this list but i love his min-effort flow and somehow every beat is exactly the vibe even when the tracks aren’t volume balanced

https://soundcloud.com/boob7/leave-wit-you-prod-plu2o-nash-clams-casino?in=boob7/sets/watch-my-back

#40 arca stretch 2

not sure why i get more out of arca’s nonsense broken-beat non-rap than any of her later projects

https://unonyc.bandcamp.com/track/tapped-in

#41 klein only

a new way to do fucked up noise w pop leanings. ‘audacitycore’

https://klein1997.bandcamp.com/track/pretty-black-2

#42 city arcadia

another mysterious transmission, this time w lots of harp

https://soundcloud.com/halcyon-veil/city-arcadia

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randumbteahouse · 5 years

Note

I adore your titans!kon fan art! Do you have any ideas on how you'd like to see the rest of his YJ friends on that show?

Ahhhhh~no? xDThanks, tho. I really don't watch the show so I don't know the team's dynamic in this universe. All I know about it is random things I find posted on Tumblr.I know a lot of peeps are mad Tim's friends get given to Dick and Jason, and I get that. I'd love to see YJ's core four animated (or live action, I guess) as a team, and I'm really disappointed in the YJ cartoon, so yeah, I GET THAT. But I don't see why they would bring other YJ characters into the show, since it's supposed to focus on the Titans, right?Well, they did bring Conner into it tho, and honestly, I'm just now possibly interested in watching this series! xD

Ummmmmmm

Since Conner’s still a (clone)baby, giving him life experience before meeting Tim/Bart/Cassie is a good idea, I think. Much better with the Titans than him flying off on his own to Hawaii and getting molested by grown-ass women! And Jason actually having a friend (Conner) while Robin is kinda nice!I really don't see why or how they would bring Tim into the show, at least not for a long time. But you know, they could totally bring in Bart! Because time-travel and Speed Force sciency-magic! (or they could just go with a time machine and keep it simple?)

So like..Jason, Conner, and Bart could be their own little fun trio for a while. But then Bart gets lost in the time stream (however they want time travel to work in this show?) and so Jason and Conner are sad and miss their friend, but they don't get to miss him for long because Jason has to go back to Gotham and soon after SPOILER-BUT-NOT-REALLY Jason gets killed. So poor Conner misses his two best friends.

And there can be an episode where the team (or just Conner?) meets Secret. He/they ask her about the after life, ask about Jason. There’s sadness. angst. She possibly crosses over at the end?

Then a year/season later, Tim can show up asking Dick to come back to Gotham and be Robin, ‘cause Batman’s....having problems. Dick could be all, "No~o Robin is De~ad!" and dismiss Tim and the whole idea. But then Tim could meet Conner and the two of them click, and it's actually Conner who convinces Dick to talk to Batman.Or maybe, Conner could just fly Tim back to Gotham and straight up to Wayne Manor. And Tiny Tim confronts the Batman, but he's got super-baby body guard who's so over protective of him. And Bruce knows Conner is half Kryptonian so he has to be careful and is forced to be nicer to Tim than he would like to. Conner's like, “Give this guy a chance to be Robin.” And Bruce is like, “Fine! Whatever! But when he gets himself killed don’t blame me!”

And Conner can tell Tim all about the previous Robin, so Jason won’t be such a mystery to Tim in this universe. But Tim will almost feel like he knew Jason, thanks to Conner’s stories. And Conner’s so happy to tell Tim about Jason, ‘cause the others all found Jason annoying and reckless and don’t like to talk about him, but he was Conner’s close friend and he’s so happy to have a new friend who appreciates his friendship with the late Robin.

And oh fudge, I just remembered Red X from the old cartoon. Maybe they could bring the Red X into this show? Maybe he could be really be Jason, afterall? Maybe Jason actually survived but doesn’t want anyone to know for..some reason and so he’s running around under a new identity? idk

Anyway~ So Tim is still new at being Robin, and Batman is being buttman because man-pain over Jason’s death, so Tim spends a lot more time training with the Titans than with Batman. At some point Bart comes back from the future/past/whenever. Bart notes the different Robin and is sad about Jason....but Conner is so happy to have Bart back! Tho to Bart it's only been like two weeks since he last saw the Team because time travel. So he hasn’t aged at all but everyone else is two/three years older. But Tim, Conner, and Bart become inseparable.

And I don’t know about Cassie.. I have no idea which Donna Troy origin they went with in this show lol so maybe Cassie joining could have something to do with Donna or nothing to do with Donna. idk Maybe some cursed artifact her mother uncovered has ties to Trigon and thru said artifact Trigon tries to possess Cassie because he senses great power within her. So the Titans meet her while trying to stop Trigon. (Or maybe Cassie just thought Superboy’s butt was cute and joined for that simple reason. I mean, that’s practically canon and Conner obviously doesn’t mind showing it off.)

But honestly, this show is called "Titans" so I think they should focus on the Titans and not try to force too many characters into it like the YJ cartoon which has become a mess I don't even care about anymore.I know the YJ core four eventually join the Teen Titans, but they had their own group first and bringing them straight to the Titans would erase all that fun, right?But idk, its a different universe. The writers can do what they want. And like I said, I don’t know much about this series right now. So after watching it I might completely change my mind on everything I just said here. xD

I just don’t want them to be included..just for the sake of being included, ya know? If they have a good reason to bring them in, then good! If not, there’s no reason to shoehorn them in.

Wow, this got long~ Had more ideas than I thought I did!

#Titans #Conner Kent #Tim Drake #Bart Allen #Cassie Sandsmark

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duhragonball · 5 years

Text

Dragon Ball Z 166

Cell Games Saga! This is probably my all-time favorite part of DBZ. I have a hard time deciding between this and the Perfect Cell Saga that preceded it. This is probably because it was the Perfect Cell arc where I finally got hooked on DBZ, and the Cell Games was the payoff to the cliffhanger.

Here’s the thing: Cell has already won. Twice, really. He was the last warrior standing in the post-apocalyptic future he came from, then he went back in time to this era to fulfill the true purpose of his design. Actually absorbing 17 and 18 to become his final form involved a lot of extra battles that he didn’t have to fight in his own time, but like he told Piccolo in his debut, he was created to do it. He had to do it.

I suppose that’s the core concept of Cell as a character. Winning alone isn’t enough for him. He enjoys winning, but he wants it to be on his own terms. Dare I say it, he wants his victory to be perfect. So moping around in his native era, a world where the androids and Z-Figthers have all been killed, held no satisfaction for him. The Imperfect and Perfect Cell Sagas were his chance at a do-over. You’d think beating Piccolo, 16, Tien, Vegeta, and Trunks to reach his perfect form would be enough for him, but it’s not. And so he spared Trunks, and promised to arrange a tournament where they could fight all over again.

The other thing to keep in mind about Cell is that he only seems to enjoy winning for its own sake. Reaching his perfect form seems to have been his only major objective. In the last episode, he admitted to Trunks that he’s really only out to enjoy himself now. He was created to kill Goku, but that no longer holds any particular interest for him. He wants to fight Goku, but that’s probably because Goku’s the only major player he hasn’t beaten yet. But Goku’s probably not going to offer much more sport than the other Super Saiyans he’s fought, so that’s why he’s planning a tournament, so he can fight all his enemies in one go.

Except, that’s kind of what he just did in the last 17 episodes. It says a lot about Cell that he won that gauntlet, and all he knows to do with himself is to clap his hands and say “Again!”. Team Four Star observed that Cell is only six years old, which sounds about right. For all his power and intellect, Cell lacks emotional maturity in a lot of ways. All he knows is fighting, but he has no interest in conquest or spoils. There’s no raddish farm Cell can go to between battles.

So this leaves the Z-Fighters in the awkward position of losing a battle for the fate of the world, but still being alive to deal with the consequences. Vegeta and Krillin meet up with Trunks, and he fills them in. Vegeta scolds Trunks for trying to fight Perfect Cell alone and this just might be peak Vegeta right here. Does he even listen to himself?

Krillin tries to put Geets in his place by revealing that Trunks surpassed him, but Trunks shushes him. When I first saw this episode, I thought maybe Trunks was still trying to protect his father’s pride, but over the years I’ve realized that Trunks was just trying to spare himself the embarrassment. He had thought he had surpassed Vegeta, but his increased strength was illusory, and it’s just as well that Vegeta never knew about it, since he would have dismissed it as such.

Actually, that’s kind of the tragedy of the time these two spent in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber. They had to share the room, but they clearly spent very little time working together, or Trunks could have shown Vegeta his Dummy Thicc form, and Vegeta would have told him why it was a blind alley. To be sure, Vegeta probably wouldn’t have been very kind about it, but it would have been less painful than learning the lesson from Cell.

In contrast, we saw Goku and Gohan have that exact conversation in the previous episode, and it was pretty early on during their time in the HTC. Gohan was all “This will work”, and Goku was like “No, it can’t. We need to try something else.” Vegeta and Trunks could have shared that same exchange of ideas, but they didn’t because Vegeta insisted on training alone.

From the Lookout, Piccolo starts planning his own session in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber. You’d think this would do the trick, since he was much, much stronger than Goku or Vegeta before they went in. In theory, a year to train would push Piccolo over the top, but it never actually works out that way.

Likewise, Trunks and Vegeta decide to do the same thing. Krillin was pretty upset to hear about Cell’s tournament, because who could even enter the thing after Cell beat everyone? But Piccolo and the Saiyans are game for one more round. After all, they still have the time chamber, and this was what Cell was counting on, even though he doesn’t know about the chamber specifically. He saw for himself that Vegeta and Trunks improved very dramatically, and apparently Goku’s doing something similar, so he’s hoping that if he gives them ten days, they’ll be even better opponents.

Android 16 also wants in the tournament, and he steps forward to ask the Z-Fighters to take him in for repairs so he can fight on their side. Trunks hates that idea, because he still regards the androids as enemies of the Earth, but Krillin agrees to help, because he believes 16 isn’t really a bad guy. He doesn’t understand why the androids are worse in Trunks’ world, but in this world they all share a common enemy in Cell, and that’s good enough to help 16.

Hyperbolic Time Chamber Update: Goku tries to put Gohan in bed for the night, but Gohan wakes up and apologizes for passing out during their training. Goku wants him to rest, but Gohan pleads to keep training with Goku, so Goku decides he’s going to turn in for the night as well, if only to convince Gohan to get the rest he needs.

At Capsule Corp., everyone meets up to discuss the situation. Trunks explains Cell’s tournament, and Yamcha gets all nostalgic for the Tenkaichi Budokai. Oolong reminds him that he lost the first round of every tourney he entered. Well, let’s see how that compares to Oolong’s win-loss record, which currently stands at oh wait Oolong never fought in any tournaments because he’s just a one-off gag villain who never did anything useful after that one time he wished for panties. It’s almost like Oolong is a perverted jackass who needs to shut his mouth and stay in his own damn lane. At least Yamcha shows up for these kinds of things, and he accomplishes his own personal growth, even if it doesn’t actually turn the tide of the battles. What’s Oolong ever done for the world except drool and support the child-size suspender industry?

On the other hand, Yamcha’s been in exactly zero suitcases full of panties, so I guess Oolong has him beat there. In case you can’t tell, I’m being sarcastic. Fuck you, Oolong.

Vegeta, Trunks, and Bulma’s parents have never heard of the Tenkaichi Budokai, so Roshi explains it to them, while also noting that he was a former champion. Puar’s all “Wait, when did you win the Tenkaichi Budokai?” So I guess Roshi’s secret identity as Jackie Chun is still in effect? I feel like there was some point where it was implied that the others knew the truth. Or maybe I just thought that because Roshi keeps alluding to his Jackie Chun work without actually spelling it out.

Vegeta mocks the tournament, which seems pretty stupid, since it was a long time ago, back when everyone was weaker. I mean, he calls them “lower-level fights”, but by that logic, the scrap with the Ginyu Force was a lower level fight, and everyon in this room could kick Recoome’s ass today. Except Oolong, he’d get killed in seconds. Puar would shapeshift into a bug and burrow into his brain through his eyes and kill him that way. Puar doesn’t mess around.

According to Roshi, they stopped holding the tournament after Piccolo and Goku’s match destroyed the “fighting ring”. I find that weird, because it buries the lead. Piccolo destroyed the whole city the tournament was held in. Of course, we would later learn that a 24th Budokai was held without the Z-Fighters’ knowledge, but we’ll get to that later.

By the time Roshi finishes his story, everyone but Dr. Brief has left the room. I kind of like this gag, because Roshi sort of got lost in his own exposition. Most of the characters already knew what the Budokai was, and the ones who didn’t were only interested in how it relates to Cell’s version, which Roshi doesn’t know yet.

Outside, Vegeta insists that the human fighters won’t matter in Cell’s tournament. That’s kind of B.S., because when I first watched these episodes, I really thought they were going to do some sort of thing where Cell would fight each good guy one-on-one, and by the time he got to Krillin he’d be pretty tired, to the point where Krillin would have a real chance of making a difference. I mean, 16′s no match for Perfect Cell either, but they’re still taking the time to repair him. The more guys they bring to this party, the better their chances.

Chi-Chi, for one, is relieved to hear about the tournament, because Cell will finally have to follow some rules, even if they’re rules he made up himself. Killing your opponent was illegal in the Tenkaichi Budokai, and so she’s expecting a similar no-killing rule at the Cell Games.

That being the case, she refuses to allow Gohan to participate in the tournment, because in her mind it’s voluntary, as opposed to the previous crisis, where the androids and Cell went around attacking everyone.

Here’s a cute picture of baby Gohan, from a flashback to where Chi-Chi first declared that Gohan wouldn’t become a martial artist. When he was born, the world as at peace, so Chi-Chi believed it would be a waste for Gohan to learn martial arts. The last 166 episodes o this show suggest otherwise, but Chi-Chi’s sticking to her guns.

Then she tells the others that she doesn’t want Gohan to become a delinquent like all of them, and they take offense to that. Okay, from left to right:

Yamcha was a literal bandit.

Chiaotzu grifted yokels for free corn. He also cheats at things.

Krillin destroyed the remote, thereby allowing Cell to become perfect.

Master Roshi belongs in jail.

Oolong grifted yokels for free child brides.

I mean, the shoe fits.

On the other hand, let’s check in on Cell, who is literally murdering a guy so he can flatten his property and build a tournament ring over it. I love Chi-Chi, but she’s like every overwrought crusader on the internet. Cell’s out here dumping toxic waste into the ocean, and she’s calling out Krillin for using a plastic straw.

This whole scene is bad ass. Cell lifts a hill out of the ground with telekinesis, sort of like how Frieza did on Namek, except he carves it into a stone block, then slices it into tiles, and arranges them into a larger replica of the Tenkaichi Budokai stage. This event hasn’t even started yet, and it’s already way better than those piece of shit Frieza Games from a few years ago. Two hundred bucks a seat, and you get there and Frieza just sits in his stupid hoverchair and chatters while Zarbon and Dodoria fight people for him. For six hours.

A lot of this episode was a waste of time, because Cell pretty well explained the tournament idea to Trunks in the previous episode, and he’s going to announce the full details in the next episode. So there’s not much point in having a bunch of good guys talk about it here. This was probably just an excuse to do a flashback to some of the old Budokai episodes, but I still like this one because of Cell making the ring, and the gang chilling out on Bulma’s balcony. Good times.

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