#Boston renegades

[o-the-mts]

Boston Women’s Sports has updated the Boston sports championships graphic to include titles won by professional women’s teams in Boston.

[baddawgsports]

BOS Nation FC Becomes Latest Black Eye on NWSL

The highly anticipated franchise out of Boston, Massachusetts finally selected their club name after fans have been waiting years for the city to return to women’s soccer. Needless to say fans, media and potential new fans never would’ve expected what they got when the day arrived. The club decided to release its named BOS Nation FC with no reasoning behind the pick and why it represents Boston.…

[angleofmusings]

yeah i was reserving judgment up until now but it is. extremely comical and kind of sad that the pwhl teams don’t have names or logos yet. im sorry but when the merch stand is all the league logo or a stylized letter “B” that is just pathetic. at least put yr colors on the merch

[goalhofer]

Thank you, Eddinson Paulino.

[gigabyte-flare]

There’s No Escape (Part 1)

Summary: You are going through a rather nasty breakup as you escape your ex-boyfriend’s apartment while he’s away on a top secret government assignment. You move to a completely new state in hopes he won’t find you. You clearly underestimated his determination because he has no intention of letting you go. 

Pairing: yandere!Leon Kennedy x fem!reader (afab)

Word Count: 1.1k (Next part should be longer! Wanted to get story building stuff out of the way before getting to the good stuff ;) )

If any of the warnings below trigger you, please kindly pass on this fic 

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction, actions depicted in this story are not condoned in real life; if you feel this way, please go touch grass

MINORS DO NOT INTERACT OR I SWEAR TO GOD I WILL YEET YOU INTO THE GODDAMN SUN. Thank you!

Warnings (may not apply to all parts): Sex, gaslighting, swearing, stalking, acts of violence, blood, dubcon, kidnapping, pet names (baby, doll, angel, sweetheart, etc.), PTSD triggers, unprotected sex, forced breeding, daddy kink, manipulation, oral (m and f receiving), choking, overstimulation, knife play, gunplay. Long story short, DEAD DOVE: DO NOT EAT. More warnings may be added in the future

A/N: @dollrxst, @hxllfiredoll, @nexyswrites, @ghostkennedy, @lipglossanon and like a bunch of others who’s fics I’ve consumed and have been inspired by, this is all your fault and I’m not even mad about it. Please excuse grammatical errors and such, it’s been a hot second since I’ve written stuff like this. Enjoy!

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

It was now or never.

Leon Scott Kennedy, your soon to be ex-boyfriend, is away on some top secret government assignment and isn’t due back for about three days. You had been seeing each other for about six months and he insisted you move in with him after three months. He seemed wonderful at first, but living with him proved to be way more than you had signed up for.

He was bat shit insane.

You weren’t sure if it was due to unaddressed trauma from his line of work or whatever but his controlling and sick nature was ludicrous to you. He was controlling, manipulative and sick in the head. His idea of fun was holding a knife to your throat while fucking the absolute shit out of you. That was just the tip of the iceberg on the things he forced you to do for his pleasure. 

Anything you absolutely could not live without was getting stuffed into your little Jeep Renegade. If it didn’t fit, it was getting left behind because you had absolutely no intention of coming back. Clothes, toiletries, some of your books, your video game console and games, a couple pillows and some sheets all got stuffed in. When you were confident you had everything essential for your impromptu move, you closed the back hatch on the Renegade and grabbed your purse, phone and car keys from the kitchen counter, making sure to leave the copy of the apartment key you miraculously found behind. You lock the apartment door and shut it. You lean up against it and take a deep breath before you rush back down to your car. You had a long ride ahead of you; Washington D.C. to Boston was about a 9 hour drive.

It was now or never; you weren’t about to squander this opportunity to escape.

🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤

It was dark by the time you finally arrived in Boston. You navigate the confusing winding streets and find your apartment that you got with your best friend, Becky. You see her come out of the front door as you pull up in your car and park. You see her wave as you step out.

“Hey, you made it! I trust you had a good ride,” she inquires.

“Yeah, long as hell, sorry I’m so late. What time is it?”

“It’s like 9:30, come on in! I ordered pizza for us,” she says, motioning you in. 

You grab your purse, keys, phone and one of the pillows you had stuffed into your car and go inside the apartment. You decide you can unload your stuff in the morning. The kitchen is the first room you end up in and you set your stuff down on the small island before stumbling your tired legs into the living room where the smell of pizza was calling your name. You practically collapse in a reclining chair after grabbing a slice of pizza from the box on the coffee table. You let out a loud sigh of relief. You made it. You escaped.

“How are you feeling?” Becky asks before taking a bite out of her slice of pizza.

You finish chewing on yours and swallow hard, “I’ve never been so happy in my life. I’m honestly surprised I’m not dead from some of the bullshit Leon pulled.”

Becky shifts nervously on the couch. She was the only person you confided in about your sick, demented ex-boyfriend. You didn’t even tell your parents, you didn’t want to worry them. 

When you moved in with Leon, he forced you to quit your well paying I.T. job and forbade you from ever leaving the apartment alone. He took your phone away, but you found ways to sneak it back so that you could at least contact Becky. You didn’t want to think about the things he made you do; it was an absolute miracle you weren’t dead or pregnant from the amount of abuse you endured. 

“He hasn’t contacted you yet, has he?” 

You shake your head, closing your eyes as you lean back in the recliner, “nah, he won’t be back from whatever assignment he’s on for another few days, and I blocked his number.”

“Good,” Becky replies with a nod.

“I’m going to hit the sack,” you say suddenly as you get up from the chair and begin to walk back into the kitchen to collect your stuff. 

“No problem, I’ll help you unload your car tomorrow. I was able to get the day off from work.”

“Thanks, Becky.”

🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤

It’s late in the afternoon when Leon finally gets home from his excursion, his forearms covered in scraps and bruises. He couldn’t wait to see his baby girl, his cock growing hard from the anticipation. 

He fumbled with his keys in the low light until finding the correct one to unlock the front door to the apartment. He unlocks the door and opens it.

“Sweetheart, I’m home!” Leon calls out.

But there’s no response.

“Sweetie? Are you asleep?”

Nothing.

Leon could feel adrenaline rush through his veins as he starts to frantically search each room for his sweetheart. He became hyper aware of the dead silence of the apartment the further he searched. When he got to the bedroom, he ripped the closet doors open and found most of your clothes were gone. He ran into the bathroom; your toiletries were gone. Almost all your belongings were gone.

“No, no, no, no, nO, NO, NO!”

Where could you have gone? He never in a million dreams imagined you would ever leave him. You belonged to him. You were his everything. Everything he did, he did it for you, he did it to keep you safe from the disgusting world. Pure rage began to flow through him as he stalked back into the kitchen. Unsheathing his knife, he stabbed it into the center of the small dining table before he used both hands to flip it, letting out a primal growl as he did so. 

“That fucking ungrateful bitch!” he growls before walking over to the overturned table to retrieve his knife. 

“I loved you, took care of you, protected you… and this is the thanks I get…”

He pulls out his cellphone, dialing your number and putting the phone to his ear.

“We’re sorry, the number you have dialed cannot be reached at this time. Please check the number and try again.”

Taking a deep breath, he then attempts to send a text to the number.

We’re sorry, the number you have entered is not valid.

Breathing heavily, he puts his phone back in his pocket, balling both his fists and closing his cobalt eyes. He stood there for a moment, seething when he suddenly appeared to have a revelation. His eyes snap back open and he digs his phone back out from his pocket and opens an app. A smile slowly overcomes him as stares down at the phone like he was staring down at a long lost lover.

“There you are. Don’t worry baby girl. Daddy’s coming to get you.”

Part 2

[crystalvfae]

working on a renegade version for C2E2 / Anime Boston

[disco-troy]

I would argue this to be in character bc Dicks issues with consent. But there’s one big glaring issue with this perspective on Dick and that’s the years he spent as leader of the titans with Joey on the team and the way he approached Joeys power set.

Because Dick used Joeys powers - the same as deadman’s of possession - strategically and often in order to accomplish the teams goals and didn’t seem to have any moral qualms about it.

There’s a few ways to see this, right -

A) Dick's definition of "innocent" is doing a lot of work here - most of the people Dick asks Joey to posses - aren’t “innocent” they are criminals and henchmen or somewhat complicit in crimes. he doesn't like when people are possessed but he sees it as a necessary evil and he has to be practical more than moral - and so he makes a line to do with perceived innocence and sticks to it.

B) but that doesn't account for the times that Dick has asked Joey to posses people on the team or people that are not directly responsible for a crime - like when Vic gets angry and Dick asks Joey to posses him until he agrees to calm down. This is so so fucked up for so many ways - espcially to vic who at this point in the timeline is THE MOST fucked up about consent

“You haven’t given us a choice” as if this is an impersonal decision and not a revoking of bodily autonomy and ability to express emotion. No one on the team seems to see anything wrong with it except Vic (hint it’s bc they’re all fucked up about consent :))

^^ B is kind of an extension of A - the idea of "necessary" evil. It just shows that Dick is willing to stretch that definition as far as it needs to go. He may know morally what he's doing is wrong but he will not confront it because he is filling it under necessary evils. Anything can be necessary, it’s not the person to which the consent is revoked but the context in which it is.

C) another option is the Joey of it all. Dick is close to Boston, in some continuities they have an uncle-nephew relationship - Boston famously says Dick is the only guy in the superhero community everyone can trust.

But Joey is on a whole other level. Despite being introduced as Slade's son, there's something about Joey that Dick trusted from the start and maybe that bit of trust, of seeing and believing in Joeys innate kindness and struggle with his powers (as opposed to Boston enjoining it in this scene) helped Dick dimiss the lingering feelings about the morality... its Joey... Who would mind Joey in them…. (pun not intended im sorry)

D) Finally there's the time component - maybe as he grew up Dick started to refect on his past, his decisions, his role as a leader. Something that is important to note is that chronologically Dick's issues with consent really ramp up after ntt (though brother blood does happen in ntt) - him struggling w/ bodily consent and getting comments, assult, his name + story being warped, people wanting to control his destiny and identity ect. So I think it would be fair to say that as Dick matures he looks back on the decisions hes made with new eyes and is horrified with what he incidently facilitated. Maybe this newfound wisdom and self reflection is why he makes more of an effort to mention his views to Boston despite that fact that he's worked with Boston with no problem before.

Relevant Dick Grayson thoughts from the Renegade arc:

[petra-creat0r]

Deltarune: Fool's Fate Ch. 6 Secret Boss

Talked about her in my post about Fool's Fate Chapter 6's insane plot, so here she is. Good ol Miss Soxs Calzino. If Doggone is my most unhinged secret boss, then Soxs must come in second purely due to her Dark World being the most unhinged. Literally came up with it off a single joke that spiraled and spiraled and spiraled until snowballing into what it is now while I was on call with some of my friends.

Though even for how unhinged Soxs world is, she may just be the most well adjusted of my secret bosses, say for some anger issues and an irrational hatred for Snas the Hermit and Sans the Skeleton. Most of her trauma isn't even caused by old mystery man. Or at least she doesn't see it that way, she barely knows who the mystery man is because she just doesn't remember him that much.

For her name, one can probably tell that Soxs comes from, well, Socks. Because she's a sock puppet. Her last name, Calzino, though, well it also means sock. It's just Italian for sock. Her name is Sock Sock. Though Calzino does sort of sound like a mobster name. (Likely just because it's Italian.)

Soxs doesn't really have a text quirk. Unless you can consider speaking like a mobster and sounding like a Boston Elmo a text quirk, but that's more of an accent. The soul mode used in her battle is the yellow soul mode, making her share a soul mode with Spamton.

As could possibly be inferred, Soxs is Sans's sock. Instead of actually putting it away, he just brought it to work with him one day and left it there. Eventually placing a box over it. In the Dark World, she becomes a sock puppet sorta creature. It was a little difficult figuring out how to keep Soxs at least some what original when there are so many Sans's sock secret bosses, but I think making her a girl helped. (She's trans partly out of spite.)

Backstory under the cut

Soxs Calzino has always been something of a renegade. Even back in her original world, she never seemed to follow the rules and was always at least a little bit rebellious and disobedient. Other socks might've been happy falling in line, getting paired and put away, but not Soxs. Even when others tried to make Soxs fall in line, she'd always find a way to go on her own. This upset many around her, including her identical twin brother, Boots.

Eventually, either because those in her original world got fed up with Soxs's rebellion or just because Soxs yearned for greener pastures and thus went on to find them (Soxs will never say which one it truly was, though it seems both are somewhat correct), Soxs found herself in the convenience store Dark World. Seemingly all alone in a strange new place. Soxs didn't seem to mind the solitude all that much though, especially with how more lax this new Dark World seemed to her old one, and she eventually made a friend. A Rabbuster named Dusty who also seemed a bit of an outcast aw well.

The only grip Sox seemed to have was with the ruler of the convenience store world, The Hermit. The old milk carton didn't seem to do his job at all and would rather sell milk than be a ruler. Something about that irked Soxs, how could she stick it to the man when the man didn't care? Still, it was because of him the world as a whole had such a chill atmosphere, so she couldn't complain too much.

At some point, Soxs met a man. A strange someone also out of place who seemed equally disgusted by the Hermit, though for other reasons. After learning that Soxs also didn't seem to like the Hermit and believed herself to be a much better leader, actually doing her job while still maintaining the laid-back nature of this place, the man offered her a deal to help her achieve that. Not only would Soxs be able to stick it to the Hermit, but she could rule this world in a way to allow other rebels to try and stick it to her.

With a shrug, Soxs accepted the offer, figuring she had nothing to loose. And so with the man's assistance, mostly through offering information and giving tips, Soxs was able to form a rebellion. One that swore to over throw the Hermit. Even though the man helped Soxs as an informant and possibly influenced others to be more substantiable to listening to her, much of Soxs influence seemed to come from her own charisma. Just needing to know the right people to talk too.

Even with Soxs's influence and growing rebellion though, the Hermit didn't seem to care. The old milk carton even offered to just step down and let Soxs take his place. The rebel sock wouldn't stand for this though, demanding a proper fight. The Hermit shrugged and said "okay" before Soxs stormed off to plan some way to take down the milk carton while still getting him to care.

Over time as Soxs planned though, the man seemed to leave and some of her influence seemed to fizzle out, with most now just seeing her and the few that remained under her as a gang of petty criminals rather than some epic rebellion. Pretty much to today, Soxs has been planning her uprising against the Hermit, especially since he "exiled" her to the Backstreets where her gang's secret base was set up. (He really didn't, even he claimed she couldn't leave without an employee card, there was no way he was gonna stop her from leaving if she actually tried.)

That was until a group of Lightners entered her turf...

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

Hehe. I hope ya'll like Soxs, I had a lot of fun making her and the rest of the convenience store Dark World. My friends and I were pretty much dying of laughter all call while coming up with it, especially Snas.

It wasn't mentioned in the backstory, but the man did technically give Soxs a Shadow Crystal at some point, but either she never exactly looked through it before misplacing it, or it just didn't change anything as she mostly just saw Sans and was still too focused on her goal of getting Snas to pay attention to her rebellion. I sorta like the later. "Oi yeah! I knows our world ain't real and we're all just inanimate objects, but that don't matter 'cuz my hatred for that old milk cart'n is real, ya dig? Who cares if our reality ain't really real if it's real ta us?" All the other secret bosses are secretly jealous she wasn't traumatized by learning the Truth.

Another little tidbit, Boots did not exist until I was writing this and remembered, "hey, socks go in pairs", and had the idea of Soxs having a twin. I searched up synonyms for sock and bootsee came up, so named the twin Boots. Together they are Boots and Soxs. I like it because together they sound like your basic beat-boxing beat.

[sunburnacoustic]

Rich Costey: Producer

Recording Muse's Absolution

(article in Sound On Sound by Richard Buskin in December 2003)

Photo: Tom Kirk

With their number one album Absolution, British three-piece Muse have established themselves as one of the most ambitious and innovative rock bands in the world — and in Rich Costey, they've found an engineer and producer who understands their aims and encourages them to experiment.

"I believe that anything should be possible at any moment," says Rich Costey. "The records that I'm most fond of are ones where people have taken as many chances as possible in service of the material. The process itself may yield both successes and defeats, but you'll never know unless you're free to explore, and that's something an outfit like Muse is very comfortable with. Those guys have been playing together for a long time, and as a result they are completely fearless and will try anything. That's one of the reasons why we had such a good working relationship."

A guitarist in high school who turned to producing indie bands in Boston and New York, Costey spent three years as the in-house engineer at Looking Glass Studios in Manhattan during the mid-'90s, assisting modern classical composer Philip Glass, and it was there that he steeped himself in the experimental approach to recording that has characterised much of his subsequent work, including the aforementioned Muse's acclaimed new album Absolution.

"My time at Looking Glass was just a thrill for me," he recalls. "I had been a huge admirer of Philip's, and it was no trivial matter for me to be able to work on his records day after day. When you're mixing for him, he holds out the score the whole time to ensure that you can hear all of the parts and are following the dynamics, as he simply composes on paper in the traditional manner. One day I was mixing something for him, and he was describing some of his compositional methods — he would use his motifs in an almost modular fashion, plugging in and reusing different parts of the same material within the same piece — and he told me 'Attempting to exactly repeat a success is bound to seem a failure, whereas if you move forward it's far more likely to seem a success.'

"How that translates to me in terms of making records is that I tend to reject the notion that there's a sort of penned-in area regarding how rock music is supposed to sound. These days there's a certain guitar sound that people think of as the guitar sound, and that's unfortunate. Previously, artists were more comfortable pushing things forward and trying things out, and obviously there are still artists who do that, but not many. That's what I'm interested in doing, though it usually means a bit more effort and occasionally a bit of risk."

Finding The Muse

After relocating to Los Angeles in the late 1990s, Costey teamed up with Jon Brion to produce and mix Fiona Apple's second album When The Pawn Hits The Conflicts... This led to assignments from producer Rick Rubin, which included the mix of Rage Against The Machine's Renegades album in 2000. Since then, Costey has undertaken numerous mixing projects, as well as production and engineering for the likes of Dave Navarro and, most recently, the London-based Muse trio of guitarist/vocalist Matthew Bellamy, bassist Chris Wolstenhome, and drummer Dominic Howard.

Originally hailing from Teignmouth, Devon, the three began playing together at the age of 13, first as Gothic Plague, then as Fixed Penalty and Baby Rocket Dolls, before adopting their current name in 1997, when they released their eponymous debut EP on Dangerous Records. A second EP, 1998's Muscle Museum, led to critical acclaim, a rapidly growing live following, and a contract with Maverick in the US, and in the wake of albums Showbiz (1999) and Origin Of Symmetry (2001), the band have attracted plenty of interest thanks to songs that meld melodic, sometimes unconventional lead vocals with strains of grunge, punk, psychedelia and arena rock. All of these elements are prevalent on Muse's new album, Absolution.

"I had become a fan of theirs, particularly after hearing their last record," says Rich Costey. "This was conveyed to them by some mutual acquaintances and we decided to collaborate. They had worked with the same people for a while, and I think they were interested in mixing it up a bit. By the time that I came into the picture, they had already recorded several tracks for the new album with John Cornfield and Paul Reed: 'Butterflies And Hurricanes' and 'Blackout' were among them. Those had gone very well, but they were interested in trying out some other ideas and seeing what else might be out there."

Costey would end up mixing 'Blackout', which utilised mandolin and real strings recorded at AIR Lyndhurst in north-west London, and recutting the vocal, bass and piano on 'Butterflies And Hurricanes'.

"Initially, we went to AIR just to see how things would work out between us," he recalls. "I did what I normally do, and they sat back and observed me. In retrospect it's kind of funny, because now, having gotten to know them so well, I realise they were a bit coy. There was also something of a continental divide between the American use of superlatives and the more reserved English use of them, but I wasn't aware of this at the time. For instance, soon after we went into AIR, my engineer Wally Gagel and I got what I thought was a great sound for the band to track live, and when I finally rolled some tape and they came in the control room to listen back, I thought they'd be over the moon. However, their response was along the lines of 'Uh, yeah, it's fine. All right, let's crack on...' and I felt deflated. It turned out that they did like it, but they were simply a bit reserved. They loosened up later — and I'm sure I did, too — when we got to know each other better.

Tractors & Water Sports

Grouse Lodge Studios, where much of the tracking for Absolution took place.Photo: Tom Kirk

Opting for a rural residential facility to complete the recording sessions for Absolution, the band members located Grouse Lodge in Ireland via the Internet, and it turned out to be a successful choice. "We just showed up and took our chances, and the place was fantastic," Costey remarks. "We had a great time there. It's the only place I've ever been where there are windows all the way around the control room and tracking room. And it was kind of funny, because at one point Dominic was in the live area while we were sitting in the control room, and just as he was playing a really intense drum part, some guy on a tractor drove by the window that was behind him. You don't see that too often in a studio! Fortunately the isolation was good — there's no tractor on the record.

"Grouse Lodge has a Neve VR, and although it was a good-sized board, we still brought in 14 [Neve] 1073s and several [UREI] 1176s as well as some Pultec EQs. The studio contacted a number of rental companies for additional mic pres, and apparently that was all we could get because Iron Maiden were tracking somewhere and using up all of the other 1073s in the UK.

Recording the introduction to 'Apocalypse Please': Dominic Howard plays a drum fill from the Grouse Lodge swimming pool, with the driver from an NS10 speaker used as a close mic.Photo: Tom Kirk

"Of course, one of the advantages of a residential studio is that you can just kind of take over the place, and so we were able to do things like set up mics in the residences, while for the song 'Ruled By Secrecy' I had this idea that I wanted the drums to be intimate and very close, yet with a unique distant ambience.

"At one point, while we were rehearsing in the smaller Studio B, the band was running through the number with the doors open and I could hear it echoing around the courtyard. It sounded fantastic, so one afternoon while we were tracking I decided to set up the drums outside. We brought out a whole bunch of mic pres to ensure that the mic line was as short as possible, and we spent a number of hours setting this all up.

A less successful experiment: Dominic Howard plays drums outdoors in the Grouse Lodge courtyard. Photo: Tom Kirk

"The kit was backed up into a sort of corner, with brick on one side and stone masonry on the other, alongside a tractor. Directly behind it was open, and it was good that Dominic was close to the wall because that enabled him to get a little more bass out of his kit. We set up a couple of distant mics and ran them through some Neves, and then I sat down in the control room and he started playing... and it sounded terrible. I think we captured one take, but we didn't use it at all. We got a little bit of ambience out of the courtyard, but the overall sound was unbearably thin and it just didn't have the presence that I'd expected.

"Still, one idea that we did try and that was really good found its way onto the tracks 'Apocalypse Please' and 'Time Is Running Out'. The intro to 'Apocalypse Please' has a tom section, and I really wanted that to sound just ridiculous and as epic as possible. So, lo and behold, the studio had a swimming pool, which of course was full of water, and what we did was bring over a couple of kick drums, put them on stands, and miked one of them really close with the disembodied woofer of an NS10 to get a low, thumping sound, while a few C12 ambient mics were placed in the swimming pool area. We also had to bring mic pres into the pool area for all the same reasons, and Wally and I set things up so that Dominic could actually stand in the water while he was playing, just because it looked really good."

So, were there any lapping sounds? "Not during that section, although we did do some hot-tub overdubs later on. We did a couple of takes of the bubbling water, but again we didn't use it. In fact, we did a bunch of stuff. I'd seen a modern classical performance a few years back where there was a whole back line of people hitting gongs and dipping them in water. The water gong is not an unusual 20th-century classical instrument, but as we were gong-poor, we took some samples of doing the same thing with cymbals, hitting them loads and loads of times while dipping them into the water. Of course, cymbals have nowhere near the sustain and heft of an actual gong, and whatever they did have would dissipate as soon as they went into the water, so that was pointless. But it was funny.

"One thing that actually was useful was recording a couple of takes of Chris diving into the pool — we used that on the start to the bridge of 'Thoughts Of A Dying Atheist'. Listen really closely and, right where the bridge hits, you can hear him jumping into the pool. We used rather nice microphones to capture that, so we made sure to keep them clear of the water, and we also had to move really quickly because I was concerned about humidity affecting the mics."

Reaching For The Overheads

"I didn't want to do anything that sounded like their previous records. I liked Origin Of Symmetry quite a lot, but one of the reasons why I thought I might make a good producer for Muse is that I believed I could hear what they were reaching for and felt there were moments where they weren't quite getting there. For example, it struck me that at their basic level they wanted to sound like a colossal, dynamic, epic and powerful rock band, but there were a lot of moments on their past two records when they didn't quite achieve that. So, the first thing I wanted to do was make sure that they sounded pretty damned big and aggressive when they were supposed to, and that was down to the recording methods as well as their performance.

The control room at Grouse Lodge is based around a Neve VR desk. Photo: Tom Kirk

"For their part, the guys had heard some of my mixes for Rage Against The Machine and Audioslave and they were quite keen to get a sound that was just as big and assertive. They play extremely well together and they sound quite powerful on their own, but as usual we needed to explore different drum kits to obtain the right sound. Dominic's very good at tuning his drums and Chris has his own bass tone down really well — he's got three amps with different degrees of distortion coming out of each. I also brought in a Diesel guitar head, which I'm pretty fond of, and Matthew played a bit through that as well as his own custom Marshall, and overall I set them up a bit differently to what they were used to.

"In fact, I spent quite a while trying to sort out the drum sound, because Dominic is a pretty aggressive drummer and he tends to hit his cymbals rather hard. A bit of thought went into how to have the individual drums sounding defined without being washed out by the cymbals, and to that end I did something that I wouldn't recommend anyone doing carelessly, using far too many microphones. For overheads you might use a stereo pair, maybe accompanied by a mono microphone, but we ended up using that for an overall kit sound and tight-miking each of the cymbals. I myself normally use [AKG] C12s, and then for the close mics I use [Neumann] KM84s whenever they can be found, and I'll slightly mix those in to get a lot of attack — that way, the overheads themselves can be fairly low, and you can mix up the attack of the cymbals without the overall sound being too brash.

"Chris's monstrous amp rig consisted of three Marshall bass heads and three different Marshall cabinets, and how much room we had in any given studio basically determined what size of cabinets we set up. One of them produces a cleaner bass tone, while the second amp largely goes through [an Electro-Harmonix] Big Muff [distortion pedal], as well as a few other pedals that he'll occasionally hit. Then his third amp, which is the most distorted, uses an obscure Japanese distortion pedal, which is pretty weird, expensive and apparently difficult to find. It has a real nasally tone that doesn't necessarily make any sense on its own, but when you mix it within the context of the rest of the bass sound it's critical to what Chris wants. He has several bass guitars, and there's a well-worn Pedulla that he's particularly fond of.

"I like to use condenser mics whenever possible on the bass cabinets. They tend to have a much more open sound, the transients come through a lot stronger, and the net result sounds a lot more like you're standing in front of the amp. There certainly is a place for dynamics and I am a fan of them as well, but to me they colour the sound much more than a good condenser. That having been said, I've actually got a fair bit into recording the bass with this mic made by Blue, called the Mouse. Wally Gagel and I used it last year on the Antenna album by Cave In and it was excellent, so I used that on Chris's bass rig and I also used it on the snare, doubled with an SM57 whenever possible. I sometimes use a Neumann FET47 to record the bass, but Chris's rig was so loud that I didn't think we could get away with that — nowadays, I think people play much louder than they did when 47s were introduced, and one of the advantages with a newer mic like the Blue is that it can take a stunning amount of level.

"Aside from that, we used a pretty standard setup on the bass: [Sennheiser] 421s and [Electro-voice] RE20s. We tried a whole host of things while working at different studios, and we used different stuff each time. The full band was set up at AIR in the lead-up to Christmas, and then a couple of months later we set up at a place in Ireland called Grouse Lodge, where we did the majority of the recording over the course of about four weeks. We didn't have exactly the same microphones to choose from there, but we tried to copy the AIR setup as much as possible so that the basic tracks didn't sound totally foreign next to one another."

Learning Reserve

Muse singer Matthew Bellamy hits some pretty amazing vocal notes on the new record, most notably on cuts such as 'Apocalypse Please', 'Time Is Running Out', 'Hysteria', 'Blackout' and 'Butterflies And Hurricanes'. "He has an amazing voice and an amazing range," confirms Rich Costey. "He is completely confident with what he's doing. He'll just get in and, in three takes, he'll have everything he needs. Sometimes, with the vocals, not unlike the rest of the process, we would try out different things, different directions even once we knew we had something great, and while this would occasionally produce improved results, most of the time it wouldn't because Matthew's own first instinct was exactly right.

"In terms of the vocal mics, we would switch between different ones according to the song. I'm a big believer in that as well. For example, he sang 'TSP' into a [Shure] SM7 that I had — one of the advantages for many singers who do a lot of shows is that they can grab hold of the SM7, carry it around the room and do whatever they want without creating very much handling noise. To me, that sounds quite a bit better than your more typical SM58, which a lot of people might use in the studio. The singer can press his face right up against the microphone without any worry whatsoever, so we used that on a few songs, while we mainly used a C12 for Matt on most of the more sedate vocals. Then again, in the case of 'Endlessly', we tried out a few mics — we tried an RCA 44, but that was just a little too dark, so we ended up going with the 77.

"Matthew has tremendous vocal capabilities, and if anything he's still learning what those capabilities are. I think one of the things that he became more comfortable with during this project was the ability to sing in a little more reserved fashion. Like on the verses of 'Sing For Absolution', his tenor voice is very quiet and just beautiful, whereas normally he's pushing himself quite hard. Any time you work with a great vocalist it's pretty exciting.

"Matthew's styling determined, to some degree, what I'd want to do with his vocals. For example, when he's singing loud, part of his sound frequently amounts to clipping the mic pre — I'd deliberately clip the mic pre on 'Time Is Running Out' as he sang louder and louder, adding more intensity and grit to his vocal. Distorting a vocal is so commonplace nowadays that to me it's the same as distorting a guitar or a bass. And much of the time when I'm mixing records for other people I'm distorting the vocal... whether they know it or not!"

Things That Have Character

In the months between the AIR and Grouse Lodge sessions (see box), Matthew Bellamy did more songwriting and Rich Costey took care of overdubbing some of the first-batch songs at AIR: 'Sing For Absolution', 'Stockholm Syndrome', 'Hysteria', 'TSP' and 'Fury' (which would end up as a bonus track on the Japanese release). These were then completed at North London's Livingstone Studios during a 10-day period following the Christmas/New Year break.

"We used the custom vintage Neve console at AIR, and whenever possible I only monitor on ATC SCM20s, which they also had there," says Costey. "Every facility was booked at the last minute, and when you're going from studio to studio it's really a crap shoot as to what you're listening to. On the other hand, the console at Livingstone was an SSL G-series, and it made a big difference switching to that from the vintage Neve. We rented a bunch of Neve 1073s to use as front-end mic preamps, and I also brought my old Universal Audio 1108s with me to warm up the sound. The UA mic pres are Class AB, whereas the 1073s are Class A. I largely only record through vintage Neves, but in this case we couldn't find a UK studio with one at short notice, and while I wasn't able to completely match the sound, I didn't mind that. I find it tedious when records sound the same all the way through. I'm much more interested in things that have character, and so long as they sound good, that's all that matters."

Rich Costey and Matthew Bellamy in debate at the desk in Grouse Lodge. Photo: Tom Kirk

Matthew Bellamy's custom Manson guitars were mostly recorded through the aforementioned Diesel and Marshall amps running into a variety of cabinets. "The band played live together, facing each other in a semi-circle, and Matthew was singing, too, which he apparently doesn't normally do when they're cutting basic tracks," Costey explains. "Still, once we'd created those basics, it was a case of anything goes. I don't really believe in any hard and fast rules after that, and I don't necessarily like to go with one setup for a whole record. So, after we got the basics, we would try to push every single overdub to make it as interesting as possible.

"The way that I and the band chose to work — and I like to work this way, anyhow — was to concentrate on one song at a time for a while. I remember that we did quite a bit of work on 'Stockholm Syndrome' and 'Sing For Absolution' at AIR. We'd just put up a song, see what it needed, and explore it for hours, days, whatever, and then at the point where we felt we were slowing down we'd move on to the next thing. That process continued at Livingstone.

"On 'Sing For Absolution', I had a pretty clear idea as to what I wanted to hear on the chorus: big, broad-sounding guitars with a little bit of echo — it's hardly ever the case that something goes down without getting run through a [Maestro] Echoplex. I'm addicted to them, although recently both of mine unfortunately have gone ill on me. Still, I wanted the big, broad guitars with Matthew's voice just peeking out over them without being too far in front, keeping the chorus kind of subdued and real simple whereas the verses really needed to sound expansive and three-dimensional. We did some basic stuff at AIR on that song, and then when we got to Livingstone we spent time treating different pianos.

One of Rich Costey's much-loved Maestro EP4 Echoplex delays. Photo: Katy Alverson

"The main piano sound on that song was heavily treated. I laid nails, guitar strings and all sorts of metal objects on top of the piano strings themselves so that they rattled, and then I miked all that with a pair of C12s. I had the dry piano coming into the console and I then split the signal so that half of it went to tape and the other half went to a [Digitech] Whammy pedal. In fact, the Whammy pedal also got split, so that half of it went to — no surprise here — an Echoplex and the other half went to a [Lovetone] Doppelganger pedal. That achieved a fake stereo, with a dry attack front and centre, while the Doppelganger with the echo was on one side and the Whammy's echo was on the other. Then we doubled it, so that it wasn't even fake stereo any more; it was two performances, which made a lot more sense.

"Once we had that down, the song took on a much more melancholy sound, and thanks to the piano it also had kind of a broken sound which, I think, worked well with the lyrics. After that, we did some ambient passes of various synths running through different effects and doing volume sweeps while Matthew played throughout the song. We just wanted things to sweep in and out around the vocals."

Although the songs were all comped, with each of the band members performing a minimum of passes, Costey was keen to guard against too much editing. He typically treats Pro Tools as if it were a tape machine, not because of a retro mindset but simply in order to enhance the music by way of a more human touch, and he'd therefore utilise as much as possible of a single take before editing in parts only where this was absolutely necessary. The same applied to overdubs — he'd use as much as possible of complete takes, and never once was a performance flown into another section of a song.

"I made that mistake years ago," Costey admits, "and what ends up happening is that the record has a real thin veneer to it, almost like a genetically engineered tomato that looks perfect but has absolutely no flavour."

Three People Trying to Sound Like 10

The approach paid off. Absolution boasts a collection of very live-sounding tracks that convey the effect of the band members playing complete performances. Then again, in terms of aural imaging, for all of the reverb and power chords, the manner in which the instruments blend into one another creates a sense of the musicians being bunched close together within a fairly confined space.

"I think that's partly the design of the band," says Costey. "Because they're only a three-piece, Chris's bass tone is engineered from the ground up to go from the low lows of the bass through the bottom end of the guitar. And Matthew, by extension, because he switches quite frequently to the piano, doesn't necessarily feel like he has to carry the brunt of things with his guitar. What you have is three people trying to sound like 10, and they've got it down pretty good, so that their instruments sonically tend to overlap one another, and the way they play off each other tends to overlap more than it does with a lot of other bands. Often you hear bass players who tend to double the guitar roots very low and function as a mere guitar support, but that isn't the case with Muse.

The Grouse Lodge live room. Photo: Tom Kirk"

At the same time, another reason for the tight sound may be that I don't tend to use much reverb on things like drums when I'm mixing. I pretty much just used whatever ambience was to be found on the room mics. Then again, when we were at Grouse Lodge in Ireland, we occasionally augmented things in terms of the drum sound, and this was especially so on 'Falling Away With You'. We ran a couple of Earthworks mics way down to the other end of the building, in the hallway towards the residences, and the track had this ridiculous, cavernous pomposity to it. This wasn't very useful if the drum part was busy, but if it was a simple part then it sounded terrific, and so there were a couple of moments where I cranked those up quite a bit."

One notable aspect of 'Falling Away With You', which starts off as a ballad before seguing into heavy rock, is the prevalent sound of Matthew Bellamy's fingers sliding on the strings of his guitar. "That's simply the sound of a human playing guitar," says Costey. "Matthew was playing his black Manson guitar very quietly through an Overbuilt amp, and all we added was a bit of reverb, so it was fairly clean. However, if you run just a little bit of compression you're bound to enhance those finger noises. A lot of people find them distracting, but for me that's the sound of someone playing an instrument. I have worked with people who play in such a manner that you don't hear any finger noises at all, and in those cases I just defer to the musician, but with Matthew you can hear the sound of his fingers on the strings, and this created a kind of intimacy that perfectly suited the quiet section of 'Falling Away With You'."

On some tracks, Matthew Bellamy didn't want to track his vocals until he really had a feel for where the music was going to lead him, whereas on others he'd record his part and, in so doing, highlight the fact that some more musical texture needed to be developed underneath the vocal. One example of this was the song 'Endlessly', with its loungey-sounding Wurlitzer intro and backwards cymbal and conga during the short instrumental break.

"That song was really a work in progress up until almost the last minute, and we took a different sort of vocal approach with it," Costey recalls. "Obviously, it's too slow to be a dance number, but there is a kind of subdued four-to-the-floor, 909-sounding rhythm going on throughout the track. That's largely due to the fact that Matthew did a couple of demos, and one of them featured him performing on a piano as well as a drum machine that was playing that pattern. There was such an honesty to it and a directness to it that even though we tried it with a full band approach, nothing seemed to work as well as what he had on that demo, which was just a real pure intro and a really heartfelt vocal. We therefore took that approach and built on it, and we had Dominic play loads of different drum patterns within that tempo and then actually cut up ones that had kind of a light jazz feel with a couple of fills."

More Chet Baker, Less Arthur Baker

After the work was completed at Grouse Lodge, the project switched location once again, this time to Cello Studios in Los Angeles, where three weeks were spent overdubbing before the mix then took place. It was here, during the overdubs, that 'Endlessly' really came together.

"Although we were happy with the drumming aspects of the song, we were still dissatisfied with a lot of it," Costey explains. "We were in Studio Three, where the Beach Boys had once recorded Pet Sounds [when the facility was still known as United Western Recorders], so we tried to conjure up the spirit of Brian Wilson by bringing in an old S6 tube monophonic synthesizer. I mostly wanted Matthew to use it to play some arpeggios, but those didn't end up sounding very good, and so he then reached over to these auto-chord figures on the left-hand side of the keyboard, where you can just hit one button and it will play the chord. Underneath it is a button that you can press to control the volume of that note, and while we were running the track down Matthew started playing the chords to the song and using the dynamic button to tap out a rhythm. That ended up being the main thing that the rest of the song was centred about: the real soft, moody, warm keyboard sound that plays in the chorus.

"At that point, we absolutely knew that we wanted the sound more Chet Baker and less Arthur Baker. So, Matthew sang into a big old RCA 77 ribbon mic, and we did a number of other overdubs on the track, but we tried to keep it as sedate as possible even if, by the end of the song, it gets a bit expansive. There's a treated type of opera vocal coming in later in the song, and we tried to be very careful with that, because it's a dangerous area."

Meanwhile, another song that starts off in fairly staid and straightforward fashion before building in force is 'Ruled By Secrecy', on which thundering piano bass notes are interspersed with high notes that ride over the top of the vocal. "A lot of the time we would actually cut the right-hand and left-hand parts separately and treat them separately," Costey remarks. "The beginning of 'Ruled By Secrecy' was all CP80, which is an old Yamaha electric piano, and while that was a left-hand part we also doubled it up with a right-hand part that was actual piano. We also took the CP80 and ran it through a couple of guitar amps only for the left hand, so that the left hand would have a larger tone to it when Matthew hit those notes. Then, by the end of the song, when he was hitting the more sustained left-handed parts, I trotted out the old Echoplex as well."

'Time Is Running Out' was probably the most difficult song for band and producer to nail down, especially with regard to an intro that required mucho experimentation. "We tried out all sorts of percussion ideas," says Costey, "including people clapping their hands and slapping their knees. At one point Wally even miked up Chris and Dominic scratching their heads to produce a shaker track, and that worked suprisingly well, but we didn't end up using it. Eventually, we concluded that the bass would comprise the centrepiece of the intro, so we had to come up with a unique, very characteristic tone, although I wasn't totally convinced about the bass line that we initially settled on. We spent an entire day trying to get the greatest bass intro sound ever created in all humanity, and by the end of that time we went with an acoustic bass guitar running through a ton of pedals and different amps. Then, just as we'd attained a sound that we thought was pretty good, Matthew walked in, listened to it and said, 'Fantastic, you've just spent eight hours on a flanged bass?' He was right of course, not having spent hours on the floor, toying with pedals and cables. We didn't keep any of it. Still, there was always good give-and-take like that, and we trusted each other enough to go with our respective ideas."

The well-stocked gear rack in Cello Sound, where Absolution was mixed, with Rich Costey's own gear on top and in the portable rack to the right.

As most arrangement decisions regarding the songs were made while recording, the overall modus operandi amounted to settling on a direction that would subsequently determine the nature of the overdubs and then the mix. This, in turn, ensured that the mixing process was relatively short and strightforward; about three weeks in all.

"The biggest challenge on Absolution was making sure that the whole thing hung together cohesively," Costey asserts. "We tried out so many different ideas, and in a couple of songs we didn't get the arrangements totally nailed down until it was time to mix. At that point, if you're not happy with something it's too late to go back and change it. So, during the last week there was a certain amount of making sure that all those loose ends were dialled in, and that the songs sounded good next to one another and sounded like the same band. Hopefully, that's what we achieved. By the end, for all of their British reserve and my over-the-top American enthusiasm, the guys were very excited about this record — and so, of course, was I."

[hrodvitnon]

Abraxasverse Headcanons - Infrastructural/socio/political consequences

Some thoughts and headcanons of mine, this time about some of the possible lasting impacts of the post-2014 major Titan crises on humanity’s infrastructure and zeitgeist. ;) (Bear in mind, I’m not an expert on politics or the military myself.)

(1) After the Mass Awakening, the U.S.’s military DON’T have the unexplained recovery that they seem to have had in GvK with the naval fleet. Having thrown all their home-based personnel except for last reserves and those out of contact at Washington D.C. and Boston, and having lost the majority of those forces to Ghidorah and Rodan’s counterattacks and to Ghidorah’s Boston wing-lightning respectively, while most of their abroad forces including those at Monarch outposts were likely called to assist the local militaries in trying to push back the other Titans on the other continents… After the Battle at Boston concludes, the U.S. military’s total personnel is probably reduced from over one million to just somewhere in the thousands - and even with a surge in new recruits joining up after the world caught a hard glimpse of the existential threat that Titans like Ghidorah can pose, it takes the U.S. at least a decade to built its military personnel back up to anything NEAR a pre-Mass Awakening level.

(1.5) Ghidorah’s involvement makes the U.S. military’s decimation a lot worse than that which other superpower countries’ militaries suffered - other countries just had to contend with one or two baseline Titans rampaging on each on their respective soils. So in the meantime after the Mass Awakening, the U.S. has officially lost its position as the world’s number one military superpower, and it probably isn’t even the second or third biggest military power comparatively speaking at this time. The good news is that almost every country is much too focused on global cooperation against future Titan threats to even try starting fights with each-other anymore.

(2) Sooner or later, once people at large catch on that the worst of the Titan clashes and incidents usually occur in cities, I can imagine LOTS of people will start emptying out of cities and moving into the countryside (areas of it that aren’t claimed by territorial Titans that is) and into more rural population centres. The cities are left HALF-abandoned but are still standing, ripe for being toppled by Titan battles. I don’t know whether this exodus will last, or if it’ll reverse due to major Titan clashes still finding their ways to people in the countryside.

(3) After the Mass Awakening, Monarch have lost at least half their global personnel. Whilst there are a lot of people willing to sign up with them after the Mass Awakening, Monarch are in dire need of new personnel. To the point where, I can imagine, some of Monarch’s higher-ups who didn’t learn anything from Emma Russell take a “quantity over quality” approach to new recruitment and evaluation requirements. Which could enable an infiltration of Monarch by a nefarious lot down the line, or it could enable a Renegade Splinter Faction forming and stealing some of their resources with them when they split.

(4) Birth rates after the Mass Awakening haven’t fallen much at all globally speaking, but it’s widely believed that that ISN’T a sign that people at large are feeling hopeful about bringing children into a post-Mass Awakening world of Titans, where hundreds of thousands seem to die every several years in a crisis-level Titan conflict that wipes a city off the map. Rather, there are rumours that the Titans’ radiation affecting humans is massively bolstering human fertility much like it affects other life in the environment and that’s making it a lot easier to conceive, so the whole thing balances out.

---

All interesting thoughts! I imagine the influx of new Monarch recruits would even result in Titanics (Titan cultists for anyone in need of a reminder) joining their ranks; this could result in anything from friendly hangouts that may or may not end up in religious pamphlets being found all over the place (”The Church of Old Gods wants YOU!”) to groups secretly meeting up for practices after-hours a la DOOM 2016 but with less Hell Bullshittery, to some loonies trying to replicate Dr. Graham’s ascension to Abraxas under the delusion that mankind are children of the old gods and divinity is their evolutionary birthright. Never a dull moment at Monarch.

[swankyangles]

The launch of BROWN OBSERVABLE PHENOMENA © is very VERY close. Due to a limited # of shirts/sizes/money on hand currently, I would like to know what I should print first.

VOTE FOR YOUR FAVORITE T-SHIRT DESIGN!

PLEASE share this with as many people as you can! Attempt to rig the voting by telling your whole discord to vote for your favorite!! I make these in my shed!

Http://www.brownobservablephenomena.info

[kannivalistic]

Name: Valka Lanius Hadley (she/her/hers) Occupation: Butcher Age: 45 Sexuality: Chaotic Bisexual Species: Hunter Affiliation: Fellowship Hometown: Boston, Massachusetts Relationship Status: Single Personality Traits: Abrasive, brash, intolerant, spontaneous, entertaining, loud, loyal (if you've earned it)

Biography (tw trauma, death, cannibalism):

Lanius : the typical shrikes, are a genus of passerine birds in the shrike family Laniidae. The majority of the family's species are placed in this genus. The genus name, Lanius, is derived from the Latin word for "butcher", and some shrikes are also known as "butcher birds" because of their feeding habits.

The Hadley family were hunters by blood. Proud of it too. Their bond was strong, and they fought for and alongside one another. Didn't matter when the youngest Hadley found herself pregnant from a one night stand, her older brothers Soren, Arlo, and Franklin stepped in to protect her and help raise the boy she birthed -- Roan Harrier Hadley. From the day he came into the world, he was her little Hero, and she couldn't wait to show him how to be strong.

Her father Winslow was a proud man. Valka was always a bit of a renegade, old enough to have the wisdom and maturity of the legacy hunters, but young enough to remember how to relax and relate to her young son as he did all the things kids should do. He'd be a hunter in his own time. The family was Brotherhood, distinguished and disciplined and occasionally forgetful of the realities of growing up in the world whether there were monsters or not.

But even that legacy of hunting couldn't save them from losing someone.

It was late one winter, when guards were lowered. Valka doesn't know how they got through, but she has never forgiven herself (or them) for the pain they caused -- a vicious pack of wolves stole her son. It was his birthday. Valka was the first one calling for swift revenge, bloody and immediate. But her older brothers insisted on due process. Winslow cautioned her not to rush to recklessness. Due process, for the monsters that were going to kill her? It was the first crack in the shining front of the Brotherhood for her. What good was power and a promise to end the darkness if it couldn't help them the one time it mattered most?

Loss wasn't uncommon in their line of work, but their near-denial of it began to eat away at Valka. She ran herself ragged looking for her boy -- it felt like her world had been ripped away and all she knew now was hunting. She redoubled her efforts into exterminating wolves and vampires wherever she could find them, with a growing disdain for witches too despite the tenuous alliances established between covens and cadres. She wasn't so impulsive as to take on the offending pack herself alone, without the backing of her family, but Val kept searching for the wolves who abducted her child.

Valka was pushed to an extreme -- to eliminate every monster before they could take any more lives, or breed and spread their curses like vermin. To do anything less was to admit the Brotherhood were useless bureaucrats who couldn't even do their damn jobs right. Even when all logic told her her boy was dead, she kept searching. Because if she couldn't have him back, she'd avenge him and take her pound of flesh from every stinking bastard that ever laid a finger on an innocent person.

She swiftly broke from the Brotherhood, leaving the Hadley family behind in all but name, to become one of the founding members of the Fellowship. Their creed was supernatural elimination at all costs. Even witches, who were mostly tolerated by the Brotherhood, had only few uses when it came to combating creatures of the night. To leave them alive was dangerous, increasingly so.

Valka moved up and down the eastern seaboard with her new brothers in arms, trying to recruit Hunters new and old to their cause. The vampire and werewolf infestations multiplied by the day, meaning they'd have to be vigilant and decisive in the actions that older, more established Hunters refused to take. Valka even tried and failed to mentor another young Hunter who found her beliefs too extreme. But no one could truly understand her pain.

Her hunt brought her out to Port Leiry within the last year, a well-known hotbed of supernatural activity, hoping to cut it off at its source with allied Fellowship hunters from the burgeoning branch of their organization. But along the way, something changed -- her hopes of finding her son quietly smothered beneath the cathartic rage of killing. About three years ago, she quietly accepted Roan was likely long dead. But as long as monsters still lived, she would continue her fight.

Anger and hatred fueled her at every turn, but even her history of hunting had no relation to the sordid habits she picked up in her time fighting monsters. Butchering was a good outlet for her frustrations -- but when legal animal meat wasn't cutting it anymore, she experimented with the flesh of her victims. The monstrous kind, who were no better than game to her.

Val doesn't eat every kill, but she saves special ones for her crass culinary experiments. She's filleted werewolves under the full moon and those in their human guises (they're most tender under the waning crescent). Vampires are best kept fresh and eaten raw like sashimi -- their second death renders them entirely too corpselike for anything else. The only creatures she won't eat are witches, their various magicks tainting the meat, though their blood has other uses and she won't deny they know their way around herbs that pair nicely with the rarer cuts.

Why not use these damnable things to fuel her hunts? If nothing else, it left her victims in a final state that Valka had always believed they were -- just pieces of shit.

Physical Stats:

Height: 5'5"

Weight: None of your damn business

Tattoos: Her original Brotherhood mark on her left wrist, a Fellowship mark on the nape of her neck, and a tribal-style cuff on her right arm. (IYKYK)

Scars: Tons, everywhere, very sexy. Mostly not the face. One on the lower lip. The rest are for you to find out.

Notable Features: Valka's lower left leg has been amputated below the knee and she uses a prosthetic limb, walking with a slight limp. She also has missing her right eye and has a highly detailed false eye that may be imbued with some magical qualities. Both of these disabilities were results of her hunting, both justifying her hardened world view and making her style of fighting even more frenzied to compensate for a lose of finesse.

Other:

Valka has a motorcycle she calls "Baby".

She hates all supernatural entities pretty fiercely, but she hates werewolves the most. Not just because of the personal vendetta, but she finds them the most dangerous and hardest to control.

Valka has a pet staffy dog that, contrary to popular assumption, has nothing to do with her hunting. His name is Bolillo, he is a house hippo, and he is very well fed and an absolute baby.

Wanted Connections:

I've Got Your Eye On You - A witch who managed to get their magical mitts on the glass eye inside Valka's head before it was implanted, placing a hard to detect backdoor spell on it that allows someone else to see through her eye. This requires communication so as not to induce god-modding. But it's a fun liability she doesn't realize she has currently. - @whisperdreams-blair Fresh Meat - Valka sells meat and blood in an honest shopfront, but there's always the hope her little enterprise will snag a supernatural client she can torment later. And of course, for those of more acquired tastes, she's happy to share what she's acquired with Hunters who can be trusted. She suspects not too many people share her strange appetites, though. General: Chaotic romantic flings, targets, fellow Hunters

Established Connections:

Roan Harrier Hadley (@sntshadleys) - Flesh of my Flesh Anika Booker (@anikabooker) - You Remind Me Of Someone I Cared About

[goalhofer]

2024 San Francisco Giants Famous Relations

#45 Kyle Harrison: Grandson of former San José Bees P Drannon Guinn. #33 Taylor Rogers: Brother of giants P Tyler Rogers. #71 Tyler Rogers: Brother of giants P Taylor Rogers. #16 Nick Ahmed: Nephew of University Of Rhode Island Rams baseball head coach Raphael Cerrato & brother of former Arkansas Travelers 3B Michael Ahmed. #49 Tyler Fitzgerald: Son of former Springfield Cardinals 1B Mike Fitzgerald. #8 Michael Conforto: Son of former olympic swimmer Tracie Ruiz-Conforto. #13 Austin Slater: Grandson of former Jacksonville, Florida mayor T. Ed Austin; Jr.. #5 Mike Yastrzemski: Grandson of former Boston Red Sox LF Carl Yastrzemski. #43 Tristan Beck: Brother of Hudson Valley Renegades P Brendan Beck. Bullpen coach Garvin Alston: Cousin of former Azules De Coatzacoalcos LF Dell Alston & father of Harrisburg Senators P Garvin Alston; Jr.. 3B coach Matt Williams: Grandson of former Paducah Indians LF the late Bartholomew Griffith, ex-husband of actress Michelle Johnson & husband of news anchor Erika Williams.

[sapphicbookoftheday]

Empress of Forever by Max Gladstone

Today's sapphic book of the day is Empress of Forever by Max Gladstone!

Summary: "A feminist Guardians of the Galaxy—a smart, swashbuckling, wildly imaginative adventure of a rag-tag team of brilliant misfits, dangerous renegades, and enhanced outlaws in a war-torn future.

A wildly successful innovator to rival Steve Jobs or Elon Musk, Vivian Liao is prone to radical thinking, quick decision-making, and reckless action. On the eve of her greatest achievement, she's trying to outrun those who are trying to steal her success.

In the chilly darkness of a Boston server farm, Viv sets her ultimate plan into motion. A terrifying instant later, Vivian Liao is catapulted through space and time to a far future where she confronts a destiny stranger and more deadly than she could ever imagine.

The end of time is ruled by an ancient, powerful Empress who blesses or blasts entire planets with a single thought. Rebellion is literally impossible to consider--until Vivian arrives. Trapped between the Pride, a ravening horde of sentient machines, and a fanatical sect of warrior monks who call themselves the Mirrorfaith, Viv must rally a strange group of allies to confront the Empress and find a way back to the world and life she left behind.

A magnificent work of vivid imagination and universe-spanning action, Empress of Forever is a feminist Guardians of the Galaxy crossed with Star Wars and spiced with the sensibility and spirit of Iain M. Banks and William Gibson."

[asphyxiatedredherring]

This is my gift for @fourdollarwords in the Leverage Gift Exchange! ( @leveragegiftexchange )

I decided to make a playlist of songs I felt fit the show in general, the thiefsome, and as well as each character!

It is quite a weird mix of music

I tried to keep it short, and some characters were easier to come up with more songs than others, but everyone got at least one.

Under the cut, I'll list each song and why I chose it. (It's sorted in categories as well as the order they appear on the spotify playlist, which I recommend listening to it in).

I hope you like it!

Nate:

Another Shot of Whiskey by The Gits - it's about drowning your problems in alcohol, I think we can all see the connection.

Behind Blue Eyes by The Who - the villain theme for the rock opera that never happened. The villain doesn't want to be the villain though, he was forced into that role and no one can see the grief that caused. It really lines up with Nate's story line.

Renegade by Styx - This is a song about a criminal who has been caught and is about to be executed. This song makes me think of The Maltese Falcon Job.

Well Respected Man by The Kinks - I think this represents the life Nate wanted for himself, Maggie, and their son where they are all happy and healthy but in reality Nate knows this is not how his life went and he is not this well respected man.

Breaking the Law by Judas Priest - the song seems to be about a man who was fired from his job so he started breaking the law. I'll let you draw those connections.

Alcohol by The Dropkick Murphys- he's an alcoholic from Boston what more can I say?

Sophie:

Who Do You Want to Be? by Oingo Boingo - its the art of the grift. Sophie makes herself into different people, deciding who she wants to be each day, everything is an act, a character maybe even losing herself along the way

What's Behind the Mask by The Cramps - as a grifter Sophie is always wearing a mask, Sophie isn't even her name. Her family wants to know what's behind her mask, let her know that she is safe to be herself.

Hardison:

Maneater by Hall & Oats - we know Hardison loves Hall & Oats. Best if listened to while Parker autism bites him.

Shout by Tears for Fears - I headcanon that Hardison loves synthpop and this song is a perfect example of that

Rebels With a Cause by The Dropkick Murphys - This song reminds me of the line where Nate calls Hardison "a 24 year old genius with a smartphone and problem with authority." He may have been ignored as a kid, but he's making a difference now. "Don't be angry with the kids Be angry with the greed."

Parker:

Runaway Train by Soul Asylum - I feel like this song really represents Parker's childhood

Never Go Hungry by Hole - I think Parker would have started with stealing food and this is like her internal monolog rationalizing it because stealing became a key part of her personality

Been Caught Stealing by Jane's Addition - Stealing, simple as that. She's a thief. If she wants something she simply takes it. I think it's just a fun catchy song she'd like.

Eliot:

The Boxer by Simon & Garfunkel - Despite their wishes, Eliot left his family and became a fighter just like the protagonist of the song. No matter how hard he tries to escape, the fighter remains. I could write an entire essay about how the story of this song and Eliot's story line up.

Guilt Within Your Head by The Gits - Eliot has so much guilt built up in his head over his past, being unable to forgive himself he created his own hell but he can escape it through forgiveness and redemption.

Bullet With Butterfly Wings by Smashing Pumpkins - I feel like this song fits Eliot because like the song says Eliot still feels like he can not be saved and is trapped in a cage, despite how angry he is.

Rooster by Alice in Chains - Even though it's a song about the Vietnam War I feel like it can still represent Eliot's life, joining the military and his career as a hitter in which people are constantly coming to kill him, yet he won't die.

Harry:

Ironic by Alanis Morissette - I think Harry would love Alanis Morissette. Hands down. No further notes.

Breanna:

Just a Girl by No Doubt - People frequently underestimate Breanna and I think this feminist anthem conveys her anger with that.

Seasore by The Regrettes - "You're talkin to me like a child Hey I've got news, I'm not a little girl" So much of Breanna's character is wanting to prove herself, that she is capable and not just someone's kid sister and I think this song conveys the anger that comes with being underestimated and judged for your age or gender.

Youth Gone Wild by Skid Row - Breanna isn't interested in conforming to society's idea of what she should be. She has been called a problem child, but she doesn't care because she will stand tall and be herself.

The Thiefsome:

Love in an Elevator by Aerosmith - Hardison would think it's funny but Parker would latch on to it. I'll be citing the first episode for this one.

What I Like About You by The Romantics - I may be stretching this one but the parts of this song can be applied to aspects of the ot3 and them expressing their love for eachother. "Keep on whispering in my ear" fits Hardison talking to Eliot and Parker through the coms, "you really know how to dance" represents Parker's acrobatics and thief skills, and "you keep me warm at night" Eliot is a grounding presence for them at night and they love eachother.

Iris by The Goo Goo Dolls - they are all broken in their own way and it doesn't matter what the world thinks, just that they have eachother.

The Crew in General:

Head Like a Hole by Nine Inch Nails - the people with power have the money and they aren't using it properly. But Leverage won't bow down despite what the mark wants. I just think this song encapsulates the anger they have with each mark and their desire to give the mark what they deserve.

And Justice for All by Metallica - I debated putting this song under Hardison but I think it could fit the whole crew. It's about how money has corrupted the justice system. The truth is gone but the crew is working to bring it to light and reinstall justice (in their own way).

Ain't No Rest for the Wicked by Cage the Elephant - there is no rest for the wicked and no shortness of evil in the world which makes Leverage necessary. "The rich and powerful take what we want. We steal it back for you."

We're Not Gonna Take It by Twisted Sister - I think this song does well to represent how Leverage is fighting the system and the people that abuse it.

Take Back The Power by The Interrupters - I could also write an essay about this song and its correlation with Leverage but to boil it down, Leverage is working to fight the corruption of the world and fix what they can. They are taking back the power.

Hunger Strike by Temple of the Dog - this is practically the Leverage theme song. "I don't mind stealin bread from the mouths of decadence But I can't feel on the powerless when my cup's already overfilled" It's a song about stealing from the rich, class divides, and how the rich get richer but the narrator refused to join them and would rather starve than be like the rich and feed on the poor.

The Men Who Rule The World by Garbage - a song about corruption, money, and violators, the very thing Leverage aims to destroy.

[canongf]

ok so i’ve been wanting to get more into classic rock music and since you are thee girlie to go to i wanna ask for any recommendations you may have 🤲 i listen to a lot of fleetwood mac and billy joel and some queen but that’s pretty much it for my rock knowledge and i’d love to expand my music tastes :•)

i have been waiting my whole LIFE for an ask like this!!! thank you for thinking of me as thee girlie, i am so EXCITED!!!!!

classic rock is so vast, there are so many different decades and subgenres!!! and musicians!!! which is so fun and interesting, and exciting because it means there's a little something for everyone!!! it can be a little overwhelming too, but your existing rock knowledge is a great place to start!

since you like fleetwood, i have to suggest listening to stevie nicks' solo stuff if you haven't already! edge of seventeen or leather and lace (my favorite!) are good ones to try!

stevie did leather and lace with don henley, who was in the eagles! they have some great stuff like hotel california and life in the fast lane. but i also really enjoy don's solo stuff, like the boys of summer and the heart of the matter!

when i was little i used to get billy joel and elton john confused because they both had two first names and they both played the piano... they are not the same but they are both brilliant! which is why elton john came to mind for a suggestion! your song and rocket man (i think it's going to be a long, long time) are some of his most well known!

but if you love billy joel for his raw, blue collar new york energy, i suggest bruce springsteen. he's actually from new jersey but it's close. my favorites are the promised land and dancing in the dark!

and since you like queen, i definitely gotta throw david bowie's name into the mix! he and queen collaborated on under pressure and it's magic, but so is rebel rebel!

i could go on and on but i would end up making this ask response 10 pages long. it's already, like, halfway there. so instead! i'm just gonna compile a little collection of some of my classic rock faves, in case you wanna browse some more!

walk this way by aerosmith // foreplay / long time by boston // voodoo child (slight return) by jimi hendrix // any way you want it by journey // lights by journey // black dog by led zeppelin // paint it, black by the rolling stones // renegade by styx // where the streets have no name by u2 // with or without you by u2 // runnin' with the devil by van halen

anon, this was so much fun. thank you!!! i love talking rock and roll and it is the highest honor to be able to share with you!!! i hope you have a great time exploring!!! if you find stuff you like and you want more suggestions, you know where to find me!!! 🖤