#The first image gave me many gay thoughts

[arthur-lesters-spinal-cord]

I view Kayne as outside gender due to him being a god so human concepts of gender really dont matter to him. He just prefers to use a form that presents as male around Arthur but within the Bellaverse she uses she/her around Bella and has a form that matches.

I was chatting with @grayscale-sparks about this and woke up to some absolutely amazing dresses they found, which I had to go draw immediately!!

[misfits-in-motion]

pluck my strings

(ray toro x reader)

☾ — not proofread, not word counted, this is RAW everyone. first public story in years. crazy guys. trying to keep it gender neutral for my folks but,,, i am but a molar — ☾

summary: you're a guitarist coming into the 2000s emo scene. much like many others, you have just a basic knowledge of guitar. thus, feeling a little bold, you contact your friend with the most knowledge. and,,, yeah, maybe you just wanted an excuse to see him. when you finally do make it to the studio, you can't help but let your mind wander. can anyone blame you? he's just so close....

tw?: uhhhhmm not that i can think of. sliiiiight smut if you squint. really just suggestive and tense.

☾-☾-☾

⠀Your band had come in with a fever. One second, you were working job to job, trying to desperately cram your hobbies into your free time whilst also managing friendships and your ever-crumbling dating life. Then, one half-slurred, half-mumbled, half-thought hangout idea spewed by one of your close friends led to this moment. You had a show in exactly two weeks, and still only knew maybe five or so chords. Sure, you could switch between them pretty fast and come up with decent riffs and progressions, but nothing that would sound like more than a dead kennedys knock off on stage.

⠀While my chemical romance was making their way up the ranks, they still held you and your band in close regard. You and the guys had been tight since early 2002, and you even witnessed a lot of bullets being made. which, to say the least, showed off their talents. Out of the bunch, you tended to lean toward Ray for a number of reasons. He was quiet, but not terribly quiet. Quiet outwardly, but not in an introverted sense. Ray just reserved his words for when they mattered. You could appreciate that, along with his utterly charming smile, insanely good taste in movies, appreciation for music, among other things.

⠀It seemed everyone but Ray knew you had a total thing for him. Even when you called him up in the middle of your friend's mom's house, they snickered and made obscene gestures toward you deserving of a middle finger from hell, that of which you gave to them in full.

⠀Now, standing outside the recording studio, your previous idea felt a bit more ominous. Just as you were heading in, Frank was heading out. You bumped shoulders, that unmistakeable little laugh coming from the other guitarist.

⠀"Gotcha!" Frank grinned, turning to face you as you turned simultaneously. "Knew you were coming. Ray won't shut up about it."

⠀"Oh?" He'd piqued your interest. You couldn't help the smile on your lips, your head tilted a bit to the side as you watched Frank. Maybe you'd entertain this. "How are you so sure?"

⠀Frank playfully glanced off into the sky, hands in his pockets as he rocked on his heels with an excited little smile. "Oh, you knoooow," He shrugged, "Just the way he instantly got up and started making sure everything was juuust right for your arrival. I can recite it verbatim, dude. 'you know who called-? yeah! yeah. gonna help 'em with some guitar stuff- hey, do you remember where that one amp is-?'. Gay." Frank shook his head with a laugh.

⠀The image in your mind brought some warmth to your chest. He was that excited just to see you?

⠀"You guys are so gay. Look at that fuckin' smile on your face. Unbelieveable. Well, don't let me keep you from your date."

⠀Before you could protest, Frank had already turned and raised a hand in goodbye, leaving you outside the doors of the studio in the brisk air.

⠀You turned, looking at the doors with slightly wider eyes than a few moments before. Figuring the last thing you wanted to do was keep Ray waiting, you pulled open the door and walked inside.

⠀As usual, the smell hit you first. Wood, metal, a bit of sweaty musk, and a certain "clean" smell, but clean the way carpets are. It was warmer inside, but only warm enough to keep everyone from shivering considering the instruments and equipment were top priority. You walked down the hall, finally finding the recording room Ray was settled in. As if on cue, he looked up to see you through the window in the door. You smiled, and waved enthusiastically.

⠀Ray returned the smile, and you opened the door to realize there was no one else but him. Well of course there was no one else but him, but still it was a bit jarring to be alone with him. It was always a bit difficult to come to terms with the fact that you had the fattest crush on Ray. It was obvious to a pathetic point, hence the embarrassment.

"Glad you could make it. I mean, I was getting a little worried, y'know."

"Oh- pff, yeah. I had to walk here... No car, and all..."

"What-!?"

⠀The way Ray's jaw dropped made you nearly shrink.

"You walked here? Dude-! I-..." He let out a small laugh of disbelief, "I could have come picked you up. It's way too cold outside to be walking. Besides, what if someone kidnapped you?" Ray shook his head as he pulled two chairs close together, facing each other.

"I mean, I didn't want to bother you-"

"Oh shut up! You can always bother me. Always. Takes only a little gas to get to you. And if it meant you were gonna be warm, then that's what I would have opted for."

⠀Again, that same little smile crept up your lips along with a certain warm flush to your face. It was nice for him to worry so much. For him to care. It almost gave you a liiiiittle spark of hope that he felt the same.

⠀You pulled off your jacket, which Ray was quick to take. Just for a moment, his finger tips brushed along your biceps. The ghostly sensation was enough to raise instant goosebumps along your arms. And oddly enough, you couldn't help but think about how warm his touch was despite it being barely there. You wondered what it'd feel like for him to hold you with purpose. With his hands placed strategically, with meaning. Just for a second, you wondered what that warmth would feel like on the more private areas of your body. How would his hand feel clasping the back of your neck? Cradling the underside of your thighs snaking further up until he could cradle your ass in his palms? Would he be gentle? No. No, Ray would be gentle in theory. But he'd want to grab you. Hold you. Make sure you fit just right in his hands, slotted together like pieces of a puzzle.

"You ready?"

⠀You turned quickly. "Yeah! Yeah, sorry. Lot on my mind, I totally zoned out."

"All good... You okay? Do you want to talk about it?"

⠀You could have laughed if you weren't so tensed with both embarrassment and anxiety. Paralyzed with the realization that was now setting in: the man you had dumbly imagined a future with, sex with, dates with, and intimacy with was now going to be mere inches away from you while your mind strayed and tried to come up with every last sexual situation this moment could lead to. What a set up.

"No! No, it's nothing like that!" You gave a nervous laugh, waving your hand as you finally convinced your feet to move and walk you to the chair beside him. "Just... Nervous I guess. It'll be my first time playing on stage like that. I don't think high school band and choir count." You laughed again, softer this time. What you didn't see was the way Ray's lips curled up slightly at your more genuine laugh. The sound was sweet, no matter how much you tried to deny it. He loved it.

"That's okay. Here, we'll start simple? Okay? Just nailing down some scales and stuff? You gotta remember scales from band and all, right? These'll be your base blocks."

⠀You gave a few nods and desperately tried to focus on the guitar he placed in your hands. It only took a few seconds to realize it was one of his personal electrics. Ray carefully reached forward and guided your fingers into position. Again, you felt that same rush of heat. His hands were larger than yours, and now closely studying them, you wondered what they'd feel like in your hair. Running through it, or perhaps holding it tightly. Maybe even tugging on it.

"My fingers go here?" You quickly tried to end run your thoughts by paying attention, which was most likely important considering these lessons were meant to help you get ready for being in a proper band.

"Yeah. Just like that. See? You're already catching on."

⠀The little amount of praise nearly made your stomach jump into your chest. It was practically like he was trying to give your mind ammunition to fluster you with.

"Alright. You've done picking before, right?"

"Just some. I'm not too good, if I'm being honest."

"Don't say that. I'm sure you're great, but don't put yourself down. Try picking top string to bottom string. That's your low E to high E."

⠀You did as he instructed, and for a little while it was just that. Ray told you what to do, showing you little tips and tricks along with some position corrections and adjustments while you desperately tried to fight everything off in your mind. Now wasn't the time to debate whether Ray was into you. Now wasn't the time to question if Ray found you just as attractive as you found him. Attractive didn't even cut it.

⠀It seemed everyone knew about your 'thing with Ray', so you had spoken to your friends about it in the past. And boy, could you gush. Between his eyes that seemed to twinkle and shine whenever he was interested in something, to his smile that creased up his eyes in the most adorable way, and then there were his lips which were so plush and perfect looking. They paired perfectly with his cut jaw, which led down to an oddly hot-looking neck, and don't even get started on his broad shoulders-

"Are you really okay?"

You nearly jumped three feet in the air.

"Fine! Sorry, I'm so sorry... I think I'm just ready to move on. If you think I'm ready, that is."

"Yeah, I'd say you're pretty good on scales for now. I mean, if it comes down to it I can just give you another lesson. Meet back here again and polish everything, you know?"

"I... I'd really appreciate that, yeah."

"Great. Then we'll meet again for lessons. Until then, why don't we move on to some chord progressions?"

"Sounds good to me."

⠀Ray explained a few shapes, but it was a bit difficult considering he didn't have a guitar in his hands, too. He was moreso explaining them to you, guiding your fingers, and then having you strum. And for the simpler chords, it worked. But as they grew more complex, you could feel the gears slowing in your brain. Not to mention, being able to smell Ray's shampoo, deodorant, and cologne didn't help. You were growing desperate. Fast. You wanted to smell like him. Be so close, so enveloped in him, that your skin took to his cologne. Your skin smelled like his skin.

"Okay, this obviously isn't going amazingly, so let's try something a little different. I'm gonna move you, okay?"

⠀You nearly got up before you felt your chair move with you on it. Ray had tugged your chair over directly in front of his. So close you could see his shoes beside your chair. Then, his arms came from behind you. One of his hands settled on your waist, the other wrapped around your hand on the fret board. You could scream.

⠀He was so close. You could feel the heat radiating off of him. Hold me. Hold me, not the guitar. Say whatever you'd like, just hold me, please. I want your arms to squeeze me.

⠀You decided to royally fuck any mental restraint now. You wouldn't feed into it physically, but there was no point restraining your thoughts now. God, this had to be purposeful. Friends don't hold each other gently by the waist, thumb absentmindedly stroking back and forth along the fabric of your shirt. He had to be moving in on you, and you weren't complaining a bit.

"Here. Your index, or first finger, goes here, second here, third here, and your pinky goes here. Hold that, and strum a few times."

⠀His voice had dropped lower. Slightly softer, but richer. He was speaking just to you. Just for you. Saying words he only wanted you to here. The way his fingers tightened ever so slightly around your side made your breath hitch slightly. You assumed it was because you strummed the chord beautifully.

"Sorry, is this okay?" Ray asked gently, his voice carrying a slight gravelly undertone from being lowered.

⠀Realizing what he meant, you flashed a reassuring smile. "You're okay." You nodded a few times.

"Good."

⠀Ray's hand shifted a bit lower, his grip hugging the side of your thigh as he moved in closer. His head was over your shoulder and you could feel his chest pressed against your back. If it weren't for the stupid fucking chair, you'd be able to be perfectly snug against his figure. And, fuck, did you want to be.

"Let's try another chord. You're doing great."

⠀Ray's lips nearly brushed along your ear. You could feel his breath warming your skin, even feeling his chest rise and fall. If you paid any closer attention, you would be able to tell that his heart was racing the same way yours was. Being so close to you was a blessing for Ray. One you didn't exactly know about, but could guess by now. His fingers guided yours again, and made a different chord. You strummed, and and a string buzzed obnoxiously, as if wanting to be seen.

"That's okay, I think it's your pinky. Shift it a little to the right. Strum again?"

You did as he directed.

"Perfect." Along with his praise, he gave a small rub and squeeze to the side of your thigh. There was a small, trapped sound that caught in your throat, whether out of surprise or enjoyment. Either way, you didn't see the smile plastered on Ray's face.

⠀Just as Ray was about to say something else, his phone buzzed in his back pocket and played a Bauhaus song.

"Shit- sorry. One second."

⠀Just as his warmth had wrapped around you, it was gone twice as fast. He had pulled away and gotten up, answering the phone in the corner of the room. If you listened close enough, you would be able to make out whatever he was saying. You opted to pluck mindlessly at the guitar, even practicing a few of the picking patterns Ray had taught you.

"Okay, sorry about that. Gerard called, wanted to know if I would be down to practice with everyone else. Which, in Gerard talk, means everyone else wants to practice and needs me too. But, uh, I wanted to ask you, first." He stuffed his hands in his pockets.

"Ask me..?"

"If you didn't mind ending this lesson here. But not forever-! Just... For now. How does same time tomorrow sound?"

⠀You stood, leaning over to switch off the amp before you unplugged the cable and guitar. You handed the guitar over to Ray with a sweet smile, that of which he returned. It wasn't hard to see you were both seeing each other as newer people.

"It sounds perfect to me."

"Perfect. So I'll... Come pick you up, too?"

"I dunno. Maybe I'll... Walk here again. Just so that you'll have to do whatever you did back there to warm me up."

⠀Ray faltered for a moment, then laughed as he registered you addressing the moment. "Right. I'll do you one better. I'll pick you up a little early and make sure you're nice and warm in my car, yeah?" Ray took the guitar from you and put it away, safely in its case. He then grabbed your jacket, and held it open for you to slip your arms into.

"I don't think I can argue with that one." You grinned.

"Good. It's settled." Ray helped your coat on, then rested his hands on your biceps. He leaned down beside your shoulder again. "See you tomorrow?"

⠀Your face flushed again, this time, you turned slightly so that your lips were a few inches from his own.

"See you tomorrow."

☾ — mueheheheeeee i hope this was good. any comments are greatly appreciated, positive or constructive critcism, either way i'm down. ermmm debating a part two?? but idk it feels kinda finished to me ',:|. either way, hope u liked ittttt tags n shiz below but yeah :3 — ☾

[ofmdrecaps]

08/30/2024 Daily OFMD Recap

TLDR; Baby, Baby, Baby Day; Taika Waititi; Samba Schutte; Lindsey Cantrell; Nathan Foad; Samson Kayo; Nominations; FanSpotlight: Our Flag Means Fanfiction; Citizen Dame; Love Notes

== Baby, Baby, Baby Day ==

For those of you not already aware, 08/30/2024 was the 1 year anniversary of this beautiful teaser for Season 2 and David had shared it on his twitter.

Source: David Jenkins Twitter

You may recall, our friends over at @adoptourcrew requested that we flood social media on 08/30/2024 and send some love and try to get OFMD trending.

= Trends =

The final result caught this morning by our friend @jodegg was 30.7K (and David shared it with love)

Source: David Jenkins Twitter

There apparently was some help from some bots-- which who are we to complain! Thanks for catching MerakiRetreat (one of the coolest, sweetest folks btw).

Source: Meraki Retreat's Twitter

Apparently Twitter gave us a special trend name! (OFMD Baby Anniversary!) Thank you Ashley for catching this, this is priceless!

Source: Seven_Sugars Twitter

Source: Seven Sugars Twitter

Samba joined in on the festivities!

Source: Samba Schutte's Instagram Stories

== Permanent Ink ==

Several crew mates also wanted to share their beautiful permanent ink, inspired by or from the show! Thank you so much to all our wonderful crewmates who were kind enough to allow me to share this beautiful artwork <3

Source: mans41469295's Twitter

Source: Tiarne's Twitter

Source: Shaney's Twitter

Source: Pogo's Twitter

Source: NDKiwi's Twitter

Source: Ofmdframes Twitter

Source: OrphanedNebula Twitter

David made a thread of the wonderful shared permanent ink here!

He also made a sweet note and mentioned the #'s.

Source: David Jenkin's Twitter

One thing David DID want to mention though, since he mentioned the numbers were there, our crew mentioned Casey Bloys-- and he did have something to say. Take that as you will. (Sounds like we should focus the Schadenfreude on Zaslav)

Source: David's Twitter

Our friendly neighbourhood Honk Weather Control Center made a special Honk for the day!

Source: HonkForcast Twitter

I think that covers a good chunk of it. So many great things happened-- thanks to all who participated, it was phenomenal! Great job Crew!

= Taika Waititi =

Happy Anniversary to Eagle vs Shark! Taika's first feature film!

Source: NZOnScreen's Instagram

== Nathan Foad ===

One of Nathan's other works-- a short called Dope Fiend, has been selected for this years Official Selection at Aesthetica Short Film Festival <3

Source: SunGazerProduction's Instagram

Another sneaky shot of Nathan this past week <3

Source: WowGoose Instagram

= Samba Schutte =

Samba out with his folks <3

Source: Samba's Instagram

== Linds Cantrell ==

Linds, our amazing set designer, sharing teasers of some of her current works!

Source: Linds Cantrell's Instagram

== Samson Kayo ==

Lastly for the Cast & Crew tonight, I want to send so many heartfelt condolences to our dear Samson, his father passed away recently. I questioned whether I should share this or not because it's so personal, but I thought it would be appropriate to ask that if you have a moment, please send Samson some love in this hard time.

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A post shared by Samson Kayo (@samsonkayo)

Source: Samson Kayo's Instagram

== Nominations ==

So this is a couple days old, I apologize, our friends over at @adoptourcrew found some new nominations you can vote on for OFMD and Vico! (Yes it says Sci-Fi show-- which is a bit odd but hey whatever, not gonna complain it's getting recognition!)

Source: Adopt Our Crew Twitter

== Fan Spotlight ==

Running out of images for tonight so this'll be brief again, I'll try to catch up tomorrow with more fan spotlights!

= Our Flag Means Fanfiction =

Our lovely crewmates over at Our Flag Means Fanfiction will be doing a new Gay Pirate News Hour covering the latest in OFMD Fandom News on their Youtube! No start dates yet, but keep an eye out!

Source: Our Flag Means Fanfiction's Instagram

= Citizen Dame =

Citizen Dame is covering "This Is Happening" this week! The OFMD coverage is just for Patreon subscribers, so if you're a subscriber head on over and check it out!

Source: Citizen Dame Instagram

== Love Notes ==

Hey there lovelies. I'm hoping that life is treating you kindly. It was so very nice to see everyone have such a great day on the 30th. I know how hard it's been since the cancellation for so many folks, so it's beautiful to see so many people having so much fun-- and seeing David participate!

I wanted to suggest, if you haven't gotten a chance to-- this would be a great time to rewatch OFMD. I know a lot of folks have watched it a lot.. and others haven't had the heart to do so after the cancellation. I can't tell you how cathartic watching it again has been. I've watched it over and over again.. and every time I get to experience the joy and wonder of this positively beautiful show we got to share. If you're not ready though, please don't feel bad. Grief takes a long time to cope with...and if you need support, lean on your crew. Everyone is experiencing grief differently, but we're all here together. What we got was a stunning work of art, that if we don't get an s3 is imperfectly perfect in it's own way. It's what brought so many of us together. It inspired so much wonderful art, fic, gifs, friendships, meta, kindness, confidence, and love. It boosted some of our lovely cast & crew, and gave us a place to grow together. If we DO get an s3 one day, it'll be yet another chapter to this exquisite book of queer joy.

I hope you're getting some rest lovelies, be kind to yourself today if you can <3

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A post shared by Blurt It Out (@blurtitoutorg)

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A post shared by Hattie | The Violet Eclectic (@thevioleteclectic)

[niftukkun]

New from RECAP Weekly!!! An Exclusive Interview from Hermitopia's Emperor?!?

for the third week of @shepscapades ’s hermitcraft character design event, i offer grian as an empires smp member!

ok so first off, that head. thats just p03 from inscryption. but grian. it fits! but also! go play inscryption go go its on sale Right Now (until june 30) go play it its so good then go watch this video afterwards join my fandom please please please join us

ok back to hermpires! so i originally was gonna take an empire from s2 and just insert grian into it, but while browsing through the esmp s2 wiki i came across/remembered hermitopia and my brain went yep! this one. so i thought a bit about what grian would do if he was an empires smp member and how hermitopia would happen, and i think grian would crash the economy on purpose. i mean it almost already happened when the hermitpires crossover happened so i dont think im too far off. i think grian originally exported something simple, like maybe sugarcanes or mud, something easy to farm yknow, but then i dunno got bored or something so he made a couple more farms. then kept making more farms. then the hermitopia we all know and love happened!

actually maybe hermitopia isnt grians first empire. i think grian has a separate empire but decided to invite his friends to help him make some farms and then it just kept going. then hermitopia happened. i like the collaboration aspect of hermitopia so i think thats how that happens. hermitopia isnt necessarily grian's but its under his command so it gets called his. (isnt there a word for this? was it vassalage? i think its vassalage)

with that in mind i went with a robot-y grian because grumbot and a snazzy cool suit because business man (sidenote im looking over my pre art notes and one of them is just capitalism man and. yeah! not wrong). i gave him more steampunk-y wings than the usual feathery ones cause that fit better. i gave him a crown not really sure why but it fits since without it the design was more Just A Guy but with it he's more Emperor yknow. the buttons have a g on it because he would and an (attempted) gold trim cause that looked nice and fancy. originally he was gonna have four wings cause fun fact four wings is part of my base grian design but four wings kind of crowded the drawing so i didnt include them (sad) and i also didnt include the tail hes supposed to have because i couldnt find a good way to add it in with the pose. but in my heart he has both four wings and a tail

now why magazine style artwork? i 'unno. i thought itd look cool. and it does!! it looks SO cool!!! im so proud of it. recap magazine!! because of course im gonna make a hermitcraft recap reference are you kidding me recap is practically already a magazine reporting what gossip is happening on the hermitcraft server on any given week. its very specifically volume 9 issue 34 because thats when the crossover happened season 9 week 34 babey we love little esoteric details hell yeah!! i looked up how magazine covers work and its supposed to be like, main article big and smaller supporting side articles just kinda floating around so i did that!! and i made them funney references because of course i did! local bard catches scurvy because you cannot convince me that oli orionsound would not catch scurvy he would. does god is gay is a reference to that does bruno mars is gay nonsense article that makes me laugh everytime specifically in reference about mr smallish bean because he. has so many children. and none of them as far as i know from the lady server members theyre all lovechilds from gay lovers its hysterical and hilarious. quit your job join our sun cult is about the dawn empire because thatse the vibe that empire gives me and i think its funny. also!! thats hermitopia!! in the background!! i got the image off of the empires smp wiki and just Biggen'd it and it makes a bomb ass background hell yeah ^-^!!

also version with no text here lookit it!!

[icystorm76]

Lauren’s commentary

I’m forcing my sister to watch IWTV and her commentary is genuinely hilarious. She accused me of posting her comments somewhere, then gave me permission to do exactly that. So here you go, her comments on episode 3. (She’s never read the books)

About Raglan James

“Is he a vampire? Is he Vampire ex boyfriend?(When asked why she thinks that) “He seems the type, you know? Like he would judge them then sleep with them.” (I reiterate that she’s never read the books, I guess Daniel just radiates vampire fucker vibes. She just guessed the completely wrong guy)

“Why is he trying to be on the phone? Is he actually one the phone? What is he doing? Oh shit, I missed something, rewind”

“Are you posting my commentary somewhere?” (I am now, lol)

“Hehehe, raglan”

“I can’t see what he’s writing! Milf? Is that what he wrote?”

In the library with Armand

“OH MY GOD HES FLOATING”

“Do you think he has nudes on that computer?”

“I know they’re vampires but does their architecture have to be so brutalist?”

“His bone structure is snatched. I hate his eyes though”

“Of course YOU do” (In response to me saying I like the eyes)

Paris (Armand’s narration)

“OH MY GOD, did he turn Lestat”

“So he’s into bondage?”

“There are laws?!”

“So he has fire powers”

“Hehe, you’re ugly and I hate you, fuck off and die abuser” (she’s not a big fan of Lestat)

“Boo, tomato tomato tomato!”

“The only thing I like about Lestat is his voice”

“Are all vampires gay?”

“Hehehe, the way he’s standing there.”

*Awful French accent* “LeSTOT!”

“Ah, so the abused becomes the abuser. You’re perpetuating bad stereotypes there”

“Oh god Lestat, I hate you. Where Louis?”

“Armand and Lestat, sitting in at tree A-b-u-s-i-n-g. First comes hitting, then comes throwing, then comes dropping Louis out of the sky!”

“Yep, still hate him”

“Oh he cray cray”

“You know what? I hate both these people and they deserve each other”

“Oh my god Lestat you messy bitch”

“Diabolical!!!”

“Ewww, get a room”

Paris (with Louis and Armand)

“Hell yeah, welcome back Pookie”

“I fucking hate him. How do you like these people?”

“How have they now been hatecrimed yet? Like come on guys! I’ve lost faith in Paris’s homophobia” (My sister is a lesbian btw)

“He can read your thoughts Buddy”

(When Lestat starts singing) “AH AH AH PAUSE IT *full body contortions as off possessed by Saten* I didn’t think it was possible to have a physical reaction to an Ick. Oh my god I had a full body reaction to that. I feel violated. I feel really and truly violated.”

“LeTHOT”

“OH MY GOD IM CHOKING. WHAT IS THAT ANGLE”

“No, because the images of Lestat looks like those cameras that make you look like you’re walking on a really tiny world”

“Why is this episode called No Pain. All they do is give each other pain”

“Pause it, no stop, rewind. You’re at a 10, I need it to not exist. LeTHOT, what are you doing? I’m so disappointed. I mean, I knew this was a show about the awareness of Stockholm syndrome, but I didn’t know it would this bad. Every day I walk outside and I think life is great then I come back inside and you make me watch tho shit. I need you to get your lips off of him. I don’t think I can continue”

“This using, love, OH, thank you, keep going, this is better than porn” (while Louis is murdering “Lestat”)

“OH, Real Rashid, by babe!”

“There’s so many files”

“They have a curfew?!”

“You mean the one where Lestat abused you? Because it kinda seems like Armand is going to do the same”

“They got that at home goods, didnt they?”

“Oh, wow. but Daniel’s not a Vampire, so he doesn’t count”

“Uh, wellllllllllllllll”

“Side note, I love that the vampires can’t age but you can tell Louis’ getting older because he parts his hair like a balding middle aged man”

“Thought that when they kissed that it would be like that scene in despicable me 2 when their noses bumped and stopped them from kissing”

[whatmoredoyouwangfromme]

a small writing piece for @loosingmoreletters ‘s gay rofan dads!… set approximately 14 years becore the story

should be obvious to say this is non canon, the characters do not belong to me, this is just a writing exercise for me.

tw, blood. And vague descriptions of rotting smells?

A bloodbath

That was the only word that could possibly even come close to describing the scene Leonar and his men came upon.

One of his best soldiers. A strong, hardened knight, who had seen battle many times before, had to throw off his helmet, and puke at the sheer stench of blood and fresh, still dripping wet, death.

And Leonar almost joined him.

Leonar had been around dead bodies before, but never had the smell hit him this hard.

Never had it been so strong.

The pure, sharp metallic smell mixed in a painfully grotesque way with the rot. Like old meat. Rotting away because no one used it in time, flies buzzing around, picking and eating at the grey mold growing on what would have been useful.

He covered his mouth and nose, and forced himself to step forward, having to walk carefully to not slip on the blood.

There weren’t even any intact bones left. All crushed into such small pieces, it was like stepping on glass.

And as he approached, another scent hit him. Sharp, acidic, mixing awfully with the rot, and distinctly coming from under the smell of the bodies

Rather, it was coming from the smoke rising around the bloodbath.

Around the dead center of it.

The cause, standing tall, unshaken, as if he wasn’t surrounded by death caused by his own hands.

How foolish Leonar had been, when he first met the mage that had been sent to fight alongside them

He had joked that the man looked frail. Looked weak. Had to tilt his head ever so slightly to look at Leonar in the eyes, an action that had made Leonar chuckle.

He had truthfully just been laughing with his men, none of them taking it seriously. The man was the head of house Nimian, they would not allow someone weak to take that role.

But ..stil…. What had he been thinking?

He had laughed with his men, that the emperor must have been joking, sending the barely adult lord of the Nimian Family to the frontlines.

Or maybe, they had said, a bit quieter, their voices slightly slurred, when they had a few more drinks, the emperor had known exactly what he was doing. Maybe.. just maybe, he had sent him here to die.

They had raised their glasses and laughed.

…

They were not laughing now.

They could hardly breathe in without gagging.

Those with a strong enough stomach to not recoil from the scent, almost all stumbled back in horror once they fully processed the image before them.

The most terrifying part… it had been so silent.

Whatever spell used, it had barely made a sound.

It had completely crushed … who knows how many men, there was no way of counting the bodies, and if Leonar and his men hadnt gone looking for the mage, no one would have known it had happened.

Frail? Weak?

What fools they were. How could they be so blind?

This man was not frail.

He was barely human.

As Nichye An Nimian turned to face them, eyes darker than the blood surrounding him, hair falling over his face, disheveled and yet, completely clean, Leonar was filled with a singular thought, as he took a singular step forward, resting a hand on the hilt of his sword, his foot sinking uncomfortably into wet, smashed, flesh, that gave way to his weight far too easily. He knew these boots would never be clean again.

And he couldn’t bring himself to dwell on it.

All he could think, was of the.. the monster, he was forced to fight alongside.

Nichye An Nimian was not a man.

He was a demon.

[batsplat]

the anon who sent the biopic ask here. afsfdfhhjkk I did in fact sent it to get you to talk about the movie version of sete/vale rivalry! I am also the sete anon after all.

anyways.

the vale selling his would to curse sete stuff had me screaming bc you see…….a while ago there was this gif set going around where 2020 or 2021 valentino’s leathers are unzipped and you could see how concave his chest is. and my first thought upon seeing it was “haha it’s actually concave bc valentino made a deal w the demon and gave him his heart in order to become the god of motogp, and also to curse sete:)))”

love the casey stuff, I think if we get the minds that worked on revolutionary girl utena in on this they could make it work. mainly bc rgu had really great visuals, lots of surrealist stuff and all that while having a pretty low budget. (yes rgu is also very complex and deals with stuff like csa, escaping the cycles of abuse etc but we’re not getting into that.) so, in some far far away alternative universe that studio makes a casey stoner inspired animated film (with huge budged) and it a cult classic. alternatively, satoshi kon could have also worked some magic w that set up I know. lots of great imagery there.

dovi biopic could actually work, if we use his story to make into a movie about the man vs corporate machine, how futile that struggle is, disillusionment and ultimately choosing to walk away. so, actually it won’t be a dovi biopic in the sense most ppl think of what biopics are? it would end up more grim than general audiences realize bc the movie will show that in the end ducati succeeded and have won world titles etc and dovi was a cog in that machine, and had his imput being downplayed etc. but also like dovi has his family, his inner circle, his self of self to fall back onto and the audience is obviously ends up on his side so it’s not downright depressing. (I wrote this w a specific director in mind even afdgghjk)

w dani&jorge………ok I’m gonna sound insane for this but. we need to maybe fully fictionalize this. have original characters, who are totally not heavily inspired by jorge&dani *wink wink*. get pedro almodovar to direct or something. this movie is now about jorge-inspired-character dealing with his closeted homosexuality, his fraught relationship w his father….like I am in no way trying to suggest that real life jorge lorenzo might be gay here! but his story does land itself to these themes if you think about it. the rivalry is underlined by homoerotic tension the two characters cannot acknowledge (even to themselves) within the setting of competitive motorcycle racing. buttt after their retirement? they discover that there’s a life outside of it all and maybe mayyybe the movie implies they could get together or something.

also love the sepang 2015 movie framing but yeah it would be considered the worst racing movie of all time, like 5.4 out of 10 on imdb, tge director wouldn’t be able to make another feature film for another 10 years after that. but good news it gets some reappraisal and a small but dedicated cult following like 15 to 20 years later.

wow, did not mean to type all of this out actually! but I do want to say that your answers never disappoint and it’s always a good read. have a nice day!

(follow up to this post) omg pls I love long asks, I'm gonna not take this in order because I NEED to skip to the casey/valentino rgu vision because?? yes? casey is like... such a magical girl... (magical girl transformation into leathers, is this anything) the rose imagery!! I want to rose imagery casey!! obviously again yes the thematic overlap between these two things is only,, loose at best, we are very much ignoring many of the things utena is actually About,, but. disparity between idealised roles and how those roles actually function, having those images interrogated/torn down... growing up!! casey realising his parents' dream was imposed on him rather than chosen... even just kind of. the aesthetic make up of utena, the core components of how it actually tells its story. the focus on duels and being challenged... formalised process of DEMANDING to fight the current 'champion'... the shadow plays...

this to me is casey and valentino

anyway if u squint it is like. kind of the same energy as paddock gossip. the skits are also.... yeah hm. hm

moving away a bit from utena and its very specific themes, I think what you really can also do with this vision is like... play up the culture clash vibes for casey? I've been meaning to make the post on this forever, but there's a specific theme that comes through in a lot of the stuff casey's said and written over the years that's really concerned with... well, the trip from australia to europe, the hardship associated at various stages with that, never quite feeling at home in this new environment, zero paddock friends, never learning italian and being sick with the concept of italy by the end of his ducati tenure, saying that europeans weren't as straight talking and honest as the anglos (valentino did also help turn him off the concept of the british, mind you), saying the europeans were more partisan, bad sports fans, really kinda... wrestling with a lot of his loneliness and feelings of isolation by attributing a lot of this stuff to this different european mindset. where some of his competitors were nasty in part because that's what they're all like in big bad europe. and idk, that's something that you can really dig into with these abstractions, when you're isolating casey and then making him accept this Challenge of facing the god - through motorcycle racing but also through ritualistic sacrifice - and eventually he takes on this task that he's supposed to, that's supposed to be his duty, but for some reason everyone still hates him for it... and you play up how it's not necessarily his individual agency that even brought him there. he's there to win, and yet they hate him for winning. everyone wants competition, nobody likes the competition when it's actually there

also like. sleeping beauty him. pricked by the thorn of a rose and he's taken out of competition and has to recover and everyone criticises him for 'just' having his finger pricked with the tiniest drop of blood. idk a lot of his quite specific baggage and struggles are really made for abstraction. he's also got this... look. just a very specific vibe that I think you can magical girl-ify. vibrant red, a little bit delicate, as the shadows creep in on him

where it's kinda... he's unique, he's special, he's got All That Talent that allows him to take on a task nobody else has managed... but that's also part of what isolates him, that x factor of his raw natural ability that allows him to make it at the top of the sport In Spite Of All The Odds but also means he CAN'T get a quiet peaceful existence

and the rivalry with valentino, which, first of all they both make for great animated characters because they're incredibly distinctive (I would make utena!valentino so very very tall), but also that slight... element of menace. valentino constantly in the spotlight, and the brighter casey shines the more he's in danger - even if he rather wouldn't be the centre of attention. he still is.... even if he shies away from it, the world is still watching. valentino is still watching. and the gaze itself has consequences

literal glare of the camera lens, exposing casey in a way that makes him uncomfortable. unnerving and too bright and trapping him

casey looking at valentino and the changes in what he sees over time. the gradual adjustment of perception when he comes to learn of a different version of valentino (who is in turn still separate from Valentino The Person)

and that kind of animation style for the motorcycles and everything... thinking about specifically casey's phillip island 2009 which is his very first race win after his illness-induced absence and I've never personally been THAT big on white liveries (he still loves it though) but like. symbolism-inspired colour change for key step back into the fray, to a new moment of hope

his leathers also have like. a very specific vibe here. as do his interactions with valentino. the specific way they grasp hands idk I've got a vision

(they do also hug pretty warmly in parc fermé and there's a bit more to this race given it was a massive W for valentino as far as his title bid was concerned but he'd also been informed of a personal tragedy the day before - but we're gonna ignore all that here)

also OBVIOUSLY

the assen 2007 fight was SUPPOSED to be animated

it also lets you dig into kinda likeeee the weird elements of that rivalry where it switches from being a primarily on-track one to being a completely off-track one. like idk it feels you can play with that switch of them being real duels to just being. casey stabbing him while valentino taunts him. this disconnect where casey is now on top of the world in all the Actual Motorcycle Racing but the whole picture isn't quite as simple as that.... the ways in which casey can't entirely win....

other random fun bits of imagery/vibes:

again, you can have random animals running around in animation... tortoise turtle and the hare laguna '08 I will keep saying it

speaking of laguna '08, the most memorable move happens at the corkscrew... I think you can do something with concept of a corkscrew

laguna '08 overall is just a top ten anime battle isn't it, the fact that the whole thing depends on this. reversal. where rather than valentino always stalking his victims (inherently evocative) but is committing to obstructing casey from ahead (btw today's their anniversary!!! <3)

you have GOT to do something funky with pressers, like casey's relationship to the media is so fundamental to his entire story... essentially treat it as another form of combat imo. like give it the exact same visual lead in as the actual on-track battles, so that you have this collapse between the on-track and off-track

collapse between the identity of the rider and the bike. common thing anyway in the weird way these blokes talk about their bikes, obviously valentino is like. a number one offender for this. and obviously you can easily exploit this in animation!! and also if we're sticking with the yellow = infection stuff, then casey is constantly being at risk of overwhelmed by the yellow.... and once he's stepped away from that bike to go to honda instead, he has to see this thing that's separate from him but still somehow a part of him be infected

playing with how casey was inspired by valentino... you know the utena kinda. prologue of utena being inspired to become a prince... basically that vibe. stepping up to become a deity and being presented the blade to challenge a god. But Was That Really Such A Good Idea

you can do something with chequered flags I reckon. idk what but you do something with them

casey's obsessed with fishing. a symbol of childhood innocence and one of the things he would have loved to do when he was essentially being forced into making motorcycle racing his dream, something that caused controversy back in 2009 because he got backlash for going fishing during his injury absence (yeah I don't know what they were on back then too) and something he references when he retires on his pitboard 'going fishing'. it's innocence, it's his individual dream, it's peace away from the track... you can work with that

obviously valentino himself makes all this symbolism shit very easy given he did canonically give himself an eyeball helmet during one of his ducati races. like we get it buddy. that would SLAP in animation

okay I just need to say it. you know how in catalunya 2009 casey is just like. two seconds away from fainting on the podium and valentino/jorge are having their whole intense thing going on and are just. ignoring it. gets me every time, it's just such a bizarre discrepancy of vibes. like two different narratives are going on during that podium and they're just pretending like the other one isn't happening, except in casey's case that's extremely understandable and in the others' case?? idk I'd check on him?? power of animation I'm having casey literally faint and everyone ignoring it. maybe several times. sorry casey this is social critique on your behalf

if you have an equivalent utena walking up the stairs pre-race build up, it is so important to me to remember that casey crashed during the valencia 2009 warm up lap

something something valentino catalunya 2008 special italian football team leathers something casey's issues towards italy something them actually having a duel in that race while casey is just about trying to wrestle his italian manufacturer into making themselves useful for once... this is the first... second? turning point of the season. okay look there's several turning points. but crucially that's one of the big ones, when casey is starting to get the ducati situation sorted and they have a post-race test at catalunya and then casey goes on his little win streak that leads you to laguna. I think you can do something with the concept of italy here

something something taking on the number one plate symbolism

thinking of the utena stopwatch thing and how casey's mum was always making the notes for casey's races as a kid and they're included in his autobiography... like you've got this little kid with essentially performance reviews... idk something about constantly recording what he's doing. I can SEE that scene of animated kid!casey going around the dirt track while his mother is recording his progress with a stopwatch and notebook in my mind...

two-faced valentino... make it literal. Valentino The Racer and Valentino The Character and Valentino The Person as entities that casey meets separately

something about valentino's fucked up little fingers as his one vulnerability

valentino reeling in casey like a fish, is this anything

anyways. I love the dovi description... I still get like. nebulously sad about his 2020 where it's both kinda I get how this fell apart but it's so unsatisfying? which is the fun of it! narratively speaking. and the fact that he was such a big influence on the development of that bike, how possessive he got over that project and really saw it as his, how he ended up being unceremoniously dumped and he's seen them win again and again... again he does have the whole 'being well adjusted' thing working against him BUT idk there's a satisfying suitably cinematic story in there somewhere

and yeah I do see the jorge/dani vision!! I think that one's the one where I'm like. the least attached to the literal details and am quite happy to fictionalise it!! especially because lbr his path to his first title just Does Not Work narratively. like 2010 only works as a good conclusion of that arc if valentino is actually THERE to be defeated, or if jorge and dani actually have more of a title fight. and he does have an extremely queer-coded narrative!! you kinda have the actual family right, then the way he kinda... cycles through a few versions of what are essentially all found families, like he's got the whole manager situation which obviously in itself ends up a nightmare, then the coach turned manager he also split from then ?? it's kinda... that dimension of athletes where they're CHOOSING the people close to them (not that he's fully in a position to make a lot of these choices!!) and then has to cut ties when he becomes more aware of how those people are attempting to exploit him.... the whole number switching thing is explicitly framed as a form of liberation. his tendency to get Obsessed and a little Weird about all his major rivals (dani, valentino and dovi get the worst of this) like it's just a fun vibe to play with... the way the rivalry with dani is also a little Imposed from Above and also jorge doesn't get why dani keeps him at such a distance and is constantly trying to like. bug him into paying attention to jorge. he just makes for such a good coming of age story protagonist, like he's so vibrant and awkward and cocky and kind of ridiculous,,, prone to way too intense introspection and just overthinking EVERYTHING and he's trying to play a character while also wanting to find his authentic self or whatever... he's just such a Young Guy and his story with dani is full of that energy... yes

anyway. on to sete. you and me anon

valentino!!!! cuts!!!! his heart out!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE THAT omg.... I love the idea that he'd just. be motivated to destroy sete enough that he's willing to take the final step.... the one that ensures his rule over the sport will never be challenged in any meaningful way but he also cannot return from, a line that he can't un-cross.... AND y'know I've banged on enough about this idea that valentino really DID change his approach to his rivals after that, acquired a bit of distance which would be!! fantastic, it's also that element of not just him Losing something but also him not wanting to go through those kinds of complicated emotions at the hands of someone who had been a friend again... removes his heart!! exorcises his softness!!

I kinda love the idea of making it... the natural conclusion of where that particular journey was taking him. like the idea that that's kinda always where he was headed... it's why I think the sachsenring/brno 2003 thing is so neat, like the fact brno is the site of both the big comeback win against sete but ALSO where he agreed to ride for yamaha in the middle of the night. that you're drawing the line between 'he wanted to be his own man' (seemingly a harmless motive, even admirable) with what 'being his own man' involves, aka psychologically torturing his rivals (possibly a little questionable). another thing I adore here is his phillip island 2004 celebrations when he seals the title..... what a spectacle!!!! in retrospect it's just kinda,, oh look what a fun celebration! he's having fun!! it's all a show!! because sete has been erased from that celebration. and that race is the culmination of BOTH those arcs set in motion at brno 2003, it's his great yamaha victory while also being deeply cruel... and before that the sepang celebrations... I just like the idea that what people tend to see as Good valentino traits (joyous, fun celebrations) and Bad valentino traits (working to destroy his rivals) are fundamentally impossible to detach from each other, and the only way you get rid of them both is by suppressing who he is as a person... now I'm not saying that the devil tempted him to join yamaha but I'm not not saying that? works with the ibiza trip between sachsenring and brno too, like you can parallel that to sete contemplating honda the previous year (this did Not canonically happen but narrative efficiency). it's all their choice!! but they were also Twisted By Circumstances.... valentino's corruption arc why does nobody see this is valentino's corruption arc....

[devouredbyflame]

I’m a lesbian and I think Im attracted to Loki (whether I’m actually receiving interest from Him is something I plan to spend a while figuring out), but Im worried if I’m attracted to Him I’m making Him something He’s not in my head. I also dislike super masculine depictions of Him, and I’m worried that’s because I’m feminizing Him inappropriately or something. I’ve gotten mental images of Him while meditating that don’t seem accurate to normal depictions and it’s like I can’t tell if 1) I’m making it up or 2) He’s showing that kinda look to me because He knows I’ll like that look more.

I know Deities are kinda beyond actual human looks and gender stuff. Ive seen some people mention using different pronouns for Him, like They/Them… Though I respect the folks who did that, I’m kinda embarrassed to say it but I’ve asked like pronouns/terminology stuff myself, phrasing it as how He’d want me to refer to Him. I almost thought I felt Him amused or something when I did that, first time, and my results with divination seemed… unlikely. Almost felt like He was joking. Not like, at my expense, but still joking. I think keeping trying to confirm was bad though because the answers got really inconsistent and I thought I felt Him again, but this time He was annoyed. I’ve pretty much discounted everything I got from asking that way.

I’ve seen you mention being sapphic/gay in your posts, so I don’t know if you consider yourself interested in human men. If you’re technically bi or something it might not be the same situation, but I just don’t know where to ask about this. It feels like such a silly human thing to worry about when thinking about a Deity but the area feels so important to me it’s hard to just wave off.

Hi anon!

So before I begin, I want to acknowledge that these kinds of questions tend to be difficult to ask especially around the lokean community. It is difficult to have an experience not be in line with the rest of the community’s experience and believe me when I say I know how that feels. So thank you for having the courage to say something because I don’t think many wish to discuss these sorts of things without feeling worried they would somehow be shot down or panic that they would get canceled. I don’t consider myself among the lokean community for this reason just because I don’t align with their opinions or assumptions of Loki at all.

So with that out of the way, you now know my opinion isn’t in alignment with many others'. I don’t wish to sound like I know anything more than other people, but I do realize that pulling away from the community helped me understand Loki in a new light.

Hopefully I’ve amply prepared you for what I’m about to say on this matter because I do have my opinions and they tend to carry more weight to me because they happened outside of the echo chamber I once used to be in with Him.

First of all, having feelings for the Gods, especially Loki, in this way is actually the most natural sort of feeling you can have with a Deity. Loki inspires passion and intimacy and He also tends to feel much like arousal because His energy tends to pull at humans in a way that gets blood pumping and can often feel much like ecstasy.

Loki is, in my opinion, the very heart of Divinity within humans. He is the one who gave us this gift so we can sense the Divine’s presence and He gave us this blood so that we can feel the impassioned responses of sensing Them. Unfortunately, in the West, such feelings are accompanied by shame and guilt and it often destroys this connection to the Divine we might otherwise be having. We repress this feeling because we feel like we shouldn’t have this sort of (very natural) response to a Deity because we are human and what do we mean to Them?

However, we are as much a part of the Divine as the Divine are a natural part of us. These feelings are mutual. We all long to be with the Divine and They long to be with humans. Because Loki is the one to have given us this gift of connection, He, most of all, inspires intense passion and romantic interest in us because we are so immensely devoid of this kind of connection in a lot of places in our lives but especially with the Divine.

So you shouldn’t feel ashamed of that. In fact, that is an absolutely amazing sign that you are open to having this kind of connection with Him that most have already written off because they are human and therefore shouldn’t be feeling any sort of intensity towards a God.

Given that this is the baseline response that is triggered once a human is in proximity to the Divine, there is no other connotation around it beyond the fact that the connection is real and He is with you. People often associate this as a courtship or dating and this also is why Loki tends to have a lot of godspouses because we have no better way of explaining this phenomena otherwise in our Western culture even when those in the East figured this out millennia ago.

Now, in regards to gender, I also, once more, want to say that I am not popular in the Lokean community because I do not think Loki is trans, genderfluid, or non-binary. For further context, I am non-binary and sapphic. Due to being His priestess and wife, it doesn't matter what I'm attracted to because I won't be dating or marrying anyone but Him. I've also known a gay man being married to a Goddess and having the same sort of relationship I do with Loki.

The Divine do not hold the same context and definitions of gender and gender binary as we do, and therefore Their gender alignments aren’t about who has what body part, but rather whose energy is more in alignment with what and in what way. It is ideological rather than physical and so They don't run into the same problems we do with it nor experience Themselves in a similar fashion.

Loki has explained to me that he doesn't care for pronouns because He thinks they ignore the real problem in society which is that femininity is widely considered shameful.

That being said, though He prefers being called a man, that doesn’t stop Him from appearing androgynous, female, or anything else that people fancy Him to be. He normally appears to me as a man even though He once appeared to me without gender and once as a female (to none too subtly point at the fact that I’m gay and I was with a man and this is problematic). He is androgynous, graceful, and tends to act more like a female than male.

He has shown me that He is female-aligned in His own nature given the fact that He enjoys taking care of the home, and doing labor that is considered more feminine (like spinning, weaving, knitting, cooking, cleaning, etc.) than masculine. In Lokasenna, He is called out for being a milk maiden for a winter and also He is known for doing seidr which is a feminine art.

So, anyway, the moral of the story is that, in my experiences, your experience aligns with mine. He gave me the same reaction when I asked Him His pronouns and also got very annoyed with me when I kept asking and finally explained He is a male and then gave me the aforementioned spiel to the effect of “stop putting a definition on me that appeals to your standards of gender."

However, if you are worried about annoying Him, please don’t. He isn’t the most patient of beings and He will be the first to acknowledge the fact that He has a temper sometimes and can get annoyed easily by anyone. I think He just would prefer people to actually ask Him His opinion on things before assuming things that aren't always true. He isn't annoyed to be cruel, He just has a lot of opinions and people don't always ask for them before assuming something of Himself.

It's not because He doesn't like non-binary people, or doesn't support the LGBTQ+ (obviously, He's very queer and tends to collect queer and neuro-divergent followers), but the Divine are not human and therefore don't abide by our societal rules and expectations because They don't experience Themselves as humans do.

We tend to place our societal norms on Them because we think it makes Them more human-like when we're really just trying to make Them fit in with our standards of how to behave in a "correct" society. They tend to look at the bigger picture instead of the smaller ones that fill our time and experiences as humans. Loki is incredibly not interested in being "correct" in any sense of the word. In fact, that is His prerogative to not be what we want Him to be. I think it mostly is the issue we have in general with not asking the Gods who They want to be shown as and would rather write Them into our own narratives ourselves.

I know that was likely more information than you ever wanted and I apologize in advance for the long ramble but I felt like this was an important post to make. I hope it helps you feel more at ease, though.

[deathzgf]

( almost ) ALL MY AMREV + FREV WIPS ( 12 october - 5 november 2023 ) ! ! ! ! !

WARNING : long ass post jFDSFLKJSLF ( will all be under the cut )

NOTE : not everything is here ! a lot of my amrev + frev drawings are doodles ive done in class ( which i cant find ) + i Do Not Like a lot of them + Tumblr only allows so many images T___T

ah yes . . . the doodle that started it all . . . my good omens sona in the french revolution ! except i had no idea what i was doing at ALL and had no historical context ! which i now do have and it makes me ENRAGED for how good omens handled that era . . . why are they in the bastille in 1793 . . . ANYWAYS ! YEAH !

aaand because of that doodle , i researched frev fashion ! and guess what ! that robespierre fashion video came up ! wooo robespierre ! and then this was the first fucking thing i drew of him i cant . I WAS TRYING TO FIGURE OUT HOW THE FUCK HE MISSED SO BAD + HOW THE BULLET WOULD LOOK

BECAUSE after that i drew this ! pookie ! ! !

first saint just drawing . i was listening to angel with a shotgun on loop . . . and i thought . . . angel with a guillotine . . . get it cuz hes . hes angel of the terror . and . and . a

i dont have any explanation for this

i hate this . but first robespierre AND saint just drawing wahoo

first frev oc except the hair on that one drawing is red because i went back and changed it cuz i made their name Jules Le Roux and . You know . Red hair . yeah

jules and calixte ! ! ! calixte is @toastytrusty ' s oc and my sweet sweet little baby i love them dearly

. . . saint just doodle i forgor to come back to

JULES AND CALIXTE LORE

miku binder robespierre

saint just painting robespierres nails because :3

WE INTO THE AMREV NOW WOOO . anyways me when ive married and icarus and hes flown too close to the sun lol ( his wings are meant to be burning letters btw . yeah )

jules , calixte , and leonard interaction ! ! ! ! !

which didnt go well

this turned out gayer than intended i genuinely dont know what happened here

i wanted to continue this so bad but i fucking forgot about it but Uhhh uhhhhh uhhh

you know those vamp ! robespierre and vamp hunter ! saint just aus ? yeah

PLEASE STOP SAYING IT LOOKS LIKE A DICK IVE NEVER DRAWN A VIOLIN BEFORE PLEASE LEAVE HIM ALONE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE . anyways he playsss theee violinnn he tucks it right underr hisss chinnnnn

winning the idgaf war . unbothered . living his best life

theres a storytime for this drawing but ill save that for later . john adams ( 2008 ) scene redraw but instead of jefferson grabbing adams elbow its his waist except it looks awful and i need to redo it soo baddd

vamp ! robespierre and saint just ( ? ? ? i guess vamp hunter ! saint just cuz thats usually what goes with vamp ! robespierre but idk man ) . they were meant to be on like some moonlit picnic or some shit but then class ended and i forgor about this

donald trump , alexander hamilton , and thomas jefferson . need i say more ?

the ORIGINAL toxic doomed yaoi ( hamburr )

burr . boobies :3

that one scene from saint just et la forces des choses BUT AGAIN this turned out gayer than intended . why do they keep doing this

hey girl i think theres something wrong with your leg

semi modern band ! gay trio . . . thing . . . ? girl idk . but i gave up

making jules a proper ref ! who cheered !

AAAND THATS IT !

let me know if . you want me to finish any of these because otherwise theyre probably going to rot in my gallery HELP

[crehador]

Can I ask, if you have top favorite romantic couples (can be canon or non canon) of all time from any media? Why love them? Thx :D

ANON SORRY THIS ASK HAS BEEN SITTING IN MY INBOX FOR FIVE BILLION YEARS

this is such a fun thing to think about but my brain of course is just going "ichisama ichisama ichisama" nonstop, but now i will sit down and properly try to think of a top five (like the top 10 characters ask, i'll limit this to animanga and possibly group some together; i'm also limiting myself to ONLY icsm from hpmi, or this whole list would be hpmi lmao)

1. in first place of course it is ICHISAMA FOR LIFE

using this image yet again because well it's right there in my pinned and very convenient

i am a sucker for the dumb of ass kind of heart one falling for the bad boy with a heart of gold one, ESPECIALLY when they have the friends to enemies to lovers arc that ichisama does (ok the to lovers part is obviously hc only but hoo boy it is a strong hc)

what can i say about them really besides that i am writing a fic a day for them every day this year. i think that. says it all lol

2. gotta be koyanagi/kabakura wotakoi AND kashima/hori gsnk

while i'm not saying they are identical ships they definitely fall into the same bucket for me, and boy oh boy do i love that bucket

kashima and hori make me belligerently delighted, and koyanagi and kabakura make me a special sort of feral that i don't even know how to start in on

i really like narumi and hirotaka from wotakoi too, but there's something about koyanagi and kabakura that gets to me way more. the geek4geek dynamic is just impeccable with all four of them but the

[PUTTING THE CUT HERE BECAUSE WOTAKOI SPOILERS BELOW, ALSO TOKYO GHOUL SPOILERS FARTHER DOWN]

koyanagi/kabakura wedding just gave me a special sort of glee. i just don't think there's a single thing i don't love to pieces about them, their backstory ova only makes them better

3. saaaaaaya and yuusuke from neon sign amber (aka aokise knb)

obligatory shoutout to the boys of my FAVORITE BL OF ALL TIME ok so like as far as bl goes neon sign amber is really not the most unique thing, i would say. but that's what makes it so perfect to me

i feel like a lot of outstanding bl are great in ways that are 'atypical' for bl, like how saezuru is bl, sure, but also comes with a genuinely gripping gritty yakuza plot. and many others that are highly praised tend to be praised by people going "oh this is good because it's not like TYPICAL bl" which i have feelings about but let's not get into that here

neon sign amber is my favorite because it is very much a typical bl, it has a lot of the typical tropes (guy who's been historically straight but is "gay for you" for example)

i don't necessarily love any of those tropes, but i adore what neon sign amber does with them. it is practically a cookie cutter bl, but its characters (despite existing for only one volume of a manga) live in my heart forever. it takes that "gay for you" trope and doesn't gloss over the problems that could arise in a relationship like that, instead actually addressing them in a way i found satisfying

saya especially is one of my guys of all time, and given that they're kind of obviously aokise i'm lumping them in here too. mwah

4. idolish7 YUKIMOMO MY BELOVEDS (e banri)

thought about this one a lot because i feel like i normally like them in a... normal way, so do they really make the top five? but honestly i think they do

i love their stage gay married act and i love to think that's very much rooted in a foundation of they are actually fucking in love with each other. but just that would've made them a cute but not too memorable ship to me

THEIR BACKSTORY THOUGH. MY GOD. first of all baby momo looks literally just like tdd ichiro which is a. a lot. for me. lmao but anyway setting that aside

momo discovering revale at such a pivotal time in his life, being saved by them, becoming their fans, and then being the one to replace banri after THAT happened??? and then five years later feeling like he's running out of time with yuki and ad;slkfja;lkdsfj

i'm becoming incoherent just thinking about it. anyway i guess this is kind of an ot3 for me though i like it in very much a "we are a couple and we are, as a couple, dating banri" sort of thing (not because they wouldn't ever see banri as an equal partner but because imo banri has better things to do than get too involved in that lol)

5. this last one... is so tough... i think i'm giving it to VARIOUS RELATIONSHIPS IN TOKYO GHOUL

ok this is absolutely cheating and ultimately i think what i would have to say is kaneki and hide because like. eat my face to survive is peak romance to me, sorry. as if it's my fault

HOWEVER there are just so many relationships in tokyo ghoul that i'm absolutely obsessed with. amon/akira and nishio/kimi especially!! amon and akira are so so so delightful to me, in a way similar to roy and riza fma, and nishio and kimi are just. i mean. again. eat me to survive. peak romance

(and i swear i'm not a nishio stan because of voice actor bias, i have not watched tokyo ghoul yet because i have been repeatedly and sternly warned away from it... nishio is one of my manga favorites even without the asnm factor, but good fucking lord does the asnm factor tempt me to watch)

the writing in tokyo ghoul is genuinely just so good to me. the main plot is fantastic but what really makes it is the relationships between characters, both romantic and not

(also a fan of the one-sided tsukiyama/kaneki thing going on but strictly as a one-sided thing lol, tsukiyama get wrecked (said with affection))

so i think that is. more or less where my top five would be. though it's like. it's hard. and probably always changing. those are the first beloved ones to come to my though so they will go in this post and i will smack myself in the forehead and be like "I CAN'T BELIEVE I FORGOT ______" as soon as i go to sleep probably

thank you for the ask!

[alarrytale]

Hi Marte, what made you irritated about the IQ interview? I thought all the focus on venue size was mercenary and then the pretence that they could 'handpick festivals' when none of the big UK or US festivals want him.

What’s the m*tt vines interview? I did a search but couldn’t find anything

Hi, the both of you!

Here is the link. I haven't read the whole thing, i just read snippets on hldaily promo and other uas on twitter. That was more than enough to annoy me....

First of all i can't stand when the people around them talk about them. You know they're going to present you with the current narrative, enforce his fake image and do subtle fan policing. I always hate it.

The first quote i read;

Louis is indie. That’s the music he loves and you can see that through the acts he requests to support him. It’s time now to shine the light on who he is.

If he's indie why all the boyband covers? Don't think the chavs and the alt/indie fans wants to show their face at a show of his when he's playing 1d? Also, why are you talking about who he is and not himself? He's indie because his support acts are indie? Have his management heard his songs? Back to you is indie? Wtf?? Also you need to stop trying to cater to a male audience, it's not going to work. It's embarrasing to watch you try and fail. The tries are also half assed, but that's expected, mostly because he isn't actually indie...

He can’t hide from his past. One Direction was one of the greatest boybands of all time, but we have to respect his journey and see him for the artist he wants to be and not for what he was.

Do we really have to respect his journey? Or do we really have to respect this fake image you've created for him? Because that's what you're really saying here... Also i don't have to respect shit from one who doesn’t respect his own fans...

He loves his fans and loves playing for them. He loves being on tour and seeing how the songs connect live.

He loves his fans, right... that's why he's yelling at us, throwing us under the bus and being rude to us on twitter? Fucking read the room. You don’t get to say that as his management mere days after the tirade he gave us. And for his songs to connect live he needs to know the lyrics to his own songs. Pretty basic really.

His fanbase is so loyal and they hang on every word he says, he’ll go onstage after the support acts and say ‘How amazing were they, go out and follow them,’ and that’s what his fans do because they really believe in him and trust him.

No, i'm pretty sure the dude spews so many lies about who he is and his fake son that we've stopped listening to him. No one is buying it. We don’t trust him for shit lmao. Also it's not about being loyal, it's about supporting a closeted gay man that's being sabotaged by the industry and help him succeed despite his fucked up image.

So yeah lol, kind of annoyed at them not having a clue about fandom and the current environment. Bad timing on this article.

[official-alan-dabiri]

This is just a bunch of bug fixes, and minor balance changes masquerading as bug fixes. A bunch of talents that could sometimes simply fail to work will now work all the time. A bunch of talents that could sometimes work too well will no longer do that. Probably.

But it's been so long since the last patch notes, I don't remember any of my gags. Who was I insisting the best tank was last time? Did I have a running joke about Chromie? How many times have they taken away Samuro's hearth trick now? Did Li Li have this many changes on the notes during her rework? Why did they say so many things about Sylvanas when it all basically comes down to a 2% overall damage nerf?

I honestly don't know how to do this job anymore. The last time we had a patch we were receiving the first operational images from the James Webb space telescope. And that was the "end of life" patch where they just changed the free hero rotation timeline and added the Epic Chaos Lizard Mount. The last time we had a real patch, we were still talking about the chess tournament butt plug thing.

I got sad and wistful for longer than I expected here. Me being a nerd under the cut.

What is there to say? A bunch of talented people poured their hearts and souls into a game. It was - and still is - a fantastic experience. Its production value is very high, it looks good, and it's fun to play. Those people did good work, and in response to that good work a community sprang up around it. And then that good work was squandered. The company neglected it. Forgot about it.

HotS is still a good game. You can still play it! You can still play it casually. You can still play it competitively. You can have deep thoughts about strategy and synergy. You can just point at a big chunk of orange polygons and call him Gary Heckyell. You can click meticulously around the map, making strategic use of creep wave manipulation tactics to win a statistically losing one-on-one lane matchup. You can click on a skin that puts a ridiculous - but beautifully rendered - costume on your favorite blizzard character and immediately blurt out loud "I'm so gay." You can find friends and enemies and mentors and students in the midst of a sincerely penned love letter to Blizzard's IPs. You can point out quite honestly and truthfully that the people who made HotS loved these characters more than anybody in charge of their respective IPs now.

I'm not gonna ask you to pour one out for HotS, and the hard work of the people who made it the best Blizzard game. If you were going to, you did that years ago. I'm not going to ask you to boot up HotS for another reminder of what those talented people gave us. Because if you were going to, you probably already did. If you loved the game like I do, and let it go rather than have it break your heart every week, you don't need me to pick at that scab.

But it's still here. Still kicking.

Except now Blaze's bunker isn't going to get one-shot by the Infernal Shrines Punisher anymore. And I think that's what really matters.

[moorishflower]

66 for Sprout wings, 72, and 74 💛💛

For the fanfiction writing asks meme

What’s a fun fact about Maybe sprout wings?

It almost didn't get written at all! I wrote the very first scene with an extremely clear image of where I wanted to go with the fic, but...almost no idea how to get there. That's why the first chapter is so tonally different from the rest of it (and maybe someday I'll go back and rewrite it, now that I feel a lot more confident in my writing abilities in general lol). Maybe sprout wings owes its existence to @fishfingersandscarves, who provided a lot of encouragement and support over it, and kept my interest focused on it, and them prodding me about it is what gave me the inspiration I needed to connect the loose ends I was having trouble with. :)

A more fact-based fact: I read the entire Odyssey I believe 3 full times in the course of writing that fic, not to mention how many individual scenes I read over and over, and how many summaries and prose adaptations of scenes I read in order to get a better sense of what was actually going on, lol.

What’s your favorite writing compliment you’ve gotten?

I think any of the compliments where people express any strong emotional response as some of my favorites. I've gotten a number that tell me a fic made them cry, and that's always a very powerful thing, to be able to prompt that level of emotion. There are two that really stand out to me though. One was a comment on Ab instrumento ad corpus, which was on the surface my excuse to try and write fisting, and which turned, in part, into a 27k exploration of feelings, queer history, and kink exploration. I got a comment from a reader who said they were turning 71 this year, and who said that it was only in the last 15 years or so that they had come to understand their own queerness, but that they had been there in the 70s and 80s and 90s and had had gay and lesbian and trans friends, and that seeing their history in my fic had made them tear up, and how important it was to remember. Queer history and especially queer elders are super important to me. It wasn't that long ago there was a time when we simply didn't HAVE queer elders. They were all dead. And now we do! I went to Pride in NYC, and I saw SO SO MANY queer elders! People who narrowly missed the horrors of Reagan's presidency, who snuck or fought their way through, who survived. It made me cry. This comment still makes me cry, rereading it now.

The second comment was one on Beautiful, Strange and New, where a reader described their husband's struggles with depression and how they thought a line from the fic had helped them to connect to him during a very difficult time, and to feel more hopeful, and just...so I've struggled with depression almost all my life, and this fic very much was my love-letter to my own recovery, and coming to terms with the fact that there's never any CURING depression. There's only taking tiny steps forward, even when you slide back three steps on the way, because the alternative is giving up and then the depression, that bastard, wins. And it was really important to me, in BSN, that there wasn't some grand thing that made Morpheus better, he wasn't "cured" because Hob and Daniel loved him. He ends the fic no longer wanting to kill himself, but ADMITS that there are still bad days. That things aren't perfect. That his body is not perfect, that he hurts sometimes, that there will be days he spends in bed and doesn't want to leave because sleeping seems easier. But. BUT. There are birds singing, and kids playing in the park, and maybe next year they'll find the cure for cancer, and we won't know unless we keep going as long as we can. And to see that something I'd written had had some impact on someone like me, had offered some sort of comfort, had given someone the words they needed to help someone like me, that was...that was really powerful. I had to sit with that one for a really long time.

Do you have a fic you wish got a bit more love?

I mean, I think Wings just because it's my baby but I understand that it's not everyone's cup of tea. XD I don't know! I think everything I've written has gotten a good amount of attention. Definitely more than I ever expect each time. I think Here there be dragons, which is part of the Siren!Dream universe, is one of the more interesting settings and concepts I've written, and that the tags might scare some people off, but it's not that difficult to understand, I promise! And then I think the long way down, which was my first try at writing angst that I actually PERCEIVED as angst, was a major milestone for me. But for the most part I think fics are going to get the love that they get based on what people want to read, and I have to come to terms with the fact that sometimes what I want to write isn't the same as what people are interested in (see: Wolf and I, my extremely niche Dream-as-sentient-wolf smut fic, which was written for me and only me lol).

[izzysbeans]

gay eddie (hopefully just a) headcanon: when he was a child he went to his first confession and talked about having a crush on a boy. the priest made him pray so many rosaries that he now only remembers the shame but not what he confessed :)

First of all. That would fucking break me. Damn

Here's a very true funny story: so when i was like 6 i was in sunday school (obvs) and one time they gave us an image of jesus and we were supposed to color him in. It's important for the story to note that the lady supervising us was a god fearing but also god awful woman: racist, homophobic, aggressive and occasionally violent. So my poor little gay artist ass who believed jesus was just a cool guy who loved hanging out with the poor and outcasts in general, decided to color his hair bright purple and his skin a light caramel. And i drew flowers in his beard and rainbows all around him. Well, long story short lady immediatly started yelling i had made "the devine lord look like one of those (*rederected*)" (she used a specifc italian slur i still can't stand to hear to this day) and told me i would grow up a sinner for my impure thoughts. Which is an insane thing to say to a 6 year old so naturally i started crying and then my mom picked me up and they started arguing and i remember hearing the lady yell " JESUS DID NOT HAVE PURPLE HAIR" and my mom yelled back "WELL HE WASNT WHITE EITHER WAS HE?"

I have a complicated relationship with my mother she is a peculiar woman but that day i am incredibly thankful she chose to stick up for me.

I hope this was somewhat funny ahahahah

[wildandmoody]

Seriously the way the press starting doing a complete 180 on him into Tabloid Hell post-Thriller is just so convenient. I mean before they were praising him for being a goody two-shoes, looking and dressing modestly, and generally were fine with cornering his music into the Black music market only. But once he reinvented the short film/music video as a medium AND pushed and pushed until he was the first Black artist to be featured and circulated on MTV (and I'm certain similar music channels around the world), starting breaking chart records that only white artists had held, and had a truly universal appeal by the time he started touring for Bad, all of a sudden up jumped the bullshit.

Suddenly here came the same "he's gay/childish/virginal" fingerpointing that he had to address since fucking 1976. Here comes "he's a deviant ew" just because he started dancing and dressing more provocatively in 1987 as if musicians that same decade and before weren't also wearing buckles, O-rings and shin guards and doing god knows what on stage. By the time he spoke up about having vitiligo universalis it was too late and ppl were already saying he wanted to be white and thought he was lying. To this day ppl think that including a lot of fellow Black ppl despite his autopsy report and plenty of pics of brown flecks and spots on his skin being available. Suddenly it's "he's weirdly obsessed with kids" when he had been donating his concert proceeds directly to and visiting orphanages and hospitals since he himself was a CHILD in the jackson 5 days, and literal radio silence on campaigns he directly funded for mandela's anti-apartheid campaign, AIDS research, women's rights, gang-related issues and hundreds of other causes. And that's just on the causes that i can think of off the top of my head that we know about, because he also gave millions of dollars anonymously and directly supported many individuals by buying food and appliances and covering travel costs for them. Radio silence from the news and gp.

Andthe most damning of all as far as I'm concerned is the fact that he swallowed his pride and gave up on his Reclusive Image in the 2000s specifically so that he could call out the racist soul-crushing tendencies of the music industry, in particular Tom Motolla and Sony as a whole, and how it affected him and his Black peers. Which of course media tried to spin as a personal beef and not a race-related one. THE EXACT DAY that he was set to release one last compilation album for them and finally walk free while owning 50% of their publishings and all of his own masters (and the masters of older Black artists which he sold back to them for $1) ,and free of an oppressive music deal, up jump the allegations and now he had to fly his ass to LA to get both of his shoulders dislocated and get manhandled by the LAPD. The same day. How fucking convenient.

And look. This is not me saying that what happened to Michael was a pattern. It most certainly was not and there are plenty of truly dangerous men in power, this is a fact. I am not trying to circulate conspiracy theories but i am pointing out the shit that happened to him because of the target painted on his back. What i say in defense of Michael Jackson i say in confidence because at one point I had read every transcript , testimony, legal document available including his autopsy not because i liked him but because i needed to truly understand what the hell was going on. And ive read old newspapers and tabloids that covered him and they treated this man worse than an animal just based on how he presented himself alone. Matter of fact the name "Jacko" stems from an old British slang name for a dancing and singing boxing monkey that was popular in the 19th century, so that was based in racism too. It's just rhe Everything. And I'm also not saying that he never made mistakes or was a human person. He didn't really seem to be able to always surround himself with and trust the right people. But man oh man. Oh the Convenience.

[whileiamdying]

As Much As I Can, As Black As I Am: The Queer History of Grace Jones

In this career overview, Barry Walters details how one of the most transgressive stars of the 1980s, Grace Jones, gave voice to the oppressed while offering a bold example of what it means to be free.

Grace Jones is perched on a ledge above the dancefloor of New York’s 12 West, the state-of-the-art, members-only gay disco, about to take the stage for one of her first performances. The year is 1977, and no one is prepared for what’s about to hit them.

Tom Moulton, father of the dance mix and Jones’ early producer, describes the scene: “All of a sudden the spotlight hits her. She starts singing ‘I Need a Man’, and the place goes crazy. After she finishes, she goes, ‘I don't know about you, honey, but I need a fucking man!’ Talk about a room-worker. Whatever it takes. She was so determined.”

To understand the impact of this moment, one must understand a bit of history. Just a few years earlier, it had been illegal for two men to so much as dance together in New York City. With the exception of maybe hairdressers and artists, queer people risked unemployment if they merely hinted at their orientation outside the confines of gay bars and clubs, and it was in these discos that the seeds of liberation were sown. At 12 West, gay people could grasp the power of their collectivity and understand what it meant to be free.

That night, Grace Jones sang “I Need a Man” just like a man might—tough and lusty, she was a woman who was not just singing to them, but also for them, as them. She was as queer as a relatively straight person could get. Her image celebrated blackness and subverted gender norms; she presented something we had never seen before in pop performance—a woman who was lithe, sexy, and hyperfeminine while also exuding a ribald, butch swagger. In ’79, Ebony got her je ne sais quoi exactly right: “Grace Jones is a question mark followed by an exclamation point.”

Even now, her transgressive charisma remains bold. She still feels outré.

In 1960, a 12-year-old Beverly Grace Jones moved from Spanish Town, Jamaica, to Syracuse, New York, with her family. She didn’t have many friends; a high school report card described her as “socially sick.” Halfway through her studies at Syracuse University, she impulsively abandoned school to work on a play in Philadelphia. The Pentecostal preacher’s daughter realized there was no going home after that, and she moved to New York City in 1975 to fulfill her dream of becoming a star.

At first, Jones modeled for the Wilhelmina Agency while doubling as a go-go dancer under the pseudonym Grace Mendoza. “Even though the agency kept me pretty busy, I auditioned for every play and film I could find,” she told The Baltimore Afro American in 1985. “But they all wanted a black American sound, and I just didn’t have it. Finally, I got tired of trotting around and took myself to Paris.”

In France, her blackness set her apart from other models, and Jones landed covers of Stern, Pravda, and Vogue. Within a few months, she recorded a few singles; one was sent to Cy and Eileen Berlin, an enterprising husband-and-wife team who later managed Tom Cruise. Jones flew back to NYC with her roommate, actress Jessica Lange, and met with the Berlins. Impressed by her exuberance, star quality, and willingness, they signed on to manage her. “I thought of her as family,” says Eileen Berlin. “My son had gone to college, so I gave her his room.”

At the time, Tom Moulton’s pioneering club-specific mixes were blowing up both discos and R&B radio, and the Berlins begged him to produce their new client. Moulton and Jones’ partnership began with the double-sided ’76 single, “Sorry” / “That’s the Trouble”, and their next collaboration, “I Need a Man”, quickly rose to the top of Billboard’s disco chart the following year. Hoping to capitalize on Jones’ burgeoning fame, the Berlins approached Island Records founder Chris Blackwell, who signed her in short order. Given the combination of Blackwell’s status as an international reggae ambassador and Jones’ Jamaican roots, Cy Berlin anticipated a good fit. He didn’t know how right he would be.

Although Moulton and Jones made three albums together in three years—’77’s Portfolio, ’78’s Fame, and ’79’s Muse—the two former-models often clashed: “I always teased her about sounding like Bela Lugosi,” recalls the disco godfather. “I stood next to her while she was singing because I got so sick of hitting the talkback button [in the control room]. The moment she'd go off, I'd stop her. I was hard on her, but no matter how much I pushed her, she would take it and push herself.”

Portfolio’s continuous first side featured Broadway tunes set to string-intensive bluster arranged by the Salsoul Orchestra’s Vince Montana and performed by members of MFSB, a cohesive pool of studio musicians who played on nearly every Philadelphia-originated soul hit of the ’70s. But against the plush effortlessness, Jones sounded strained; the weight of Moulton’s hand was audible and uncomfortable to hear.

However, the LP’s second side dished out a masterstroke in Jones’ take on Édith Piaf’s “La Vie En Rose”, a version of which Moulton previously recorded with forgotten ’70s singer Teresa Wiater. Jones had gotten her hands on an acetate pressing of Waiter’s unreleased recording, which was wowing the 12 West crowd, and she lobbied Moulton to let her have it, baiting him that it would be a sure hit for the two: “I’m big in France.” The same rawness and struggle that worked against Jones on Portfolio’s Broadway arias conveyed the absolute heartbreak of “La Vie En Rose”.

On Jones’ second album, Fame, Moulton bolstered the French connection: Most songs were written by Jack Robinson and Jacques Pépino (credited as James Bolden, but elsewhere known as disco singer David Christie). Once again Moulton contrasted Philly soul’s lush romanticism with Jones’ confident, almost stentorian vocals. This time around, though, that combination gelled throughout because the material was made for her. Jones dedicated the album “with love” to her then-partner, Jean-Paul Goude, a Parisian multimedia artist who collaborated with her on the creation of subsequent album jackets, photos, videos, and stage shows. (Goude is also the father of her only child and author of a book that details their relationship, Jungle Fever.)

While the follow up, Muse, didn’t yield as many memorable songs, it did feature another nonstop A-side that moved from sin to salvation via stormy arrangements by Iceland’s Thor Baldursson, whose keyboards and charts lit up Giorgio Moroder and Boney M songs alike. It also brandished a killer floor-filler with “On Your Knees”. Laced with sadistic intent by D.C. LaRue, a cult disco act whose world-weary, gay-coded “Cathedrals” presaged Pet Shop Boys, and former Sugarloaf frontman Jerry Corbetta, the most soulful of Jones’ disco singles also pointed toward her future. The philharmonic instrumentation oozed luxury, but the swagger of the lyric and the toughness of her vocal suggested rock’n’roll dissent waiting to be unleashed.

I grew up in Rochester, New York, 90 miles from where a teenaged Grace Jones daydreamed about her grand ambitions in Syracuse. I was a fan of a local band called New Math, whose frontman did promo for Island and passed me a copy of Fame—the first piece of my disco vinyl collection. Later that week, I watched Jones on “The Midnight Special”, where she performed “Below the Belt”. She took the stage clad in a satin boxing robe, her hands taped for a fight. Halfway through, she pulled a brawny muscleman from the crowd, pretended to knock him out, and then stood with a foot planted on his chest, all while crooning, “Gotta take my chance/ Gotta go the distance.” She then did a victory dance as fake snow fell in celebration of Christmas (and perhaps—this being 1979—cocaine). I was hooked.

That jaw-dropping TV appearance prompted a discussion with my high school drama teacher. He bragged that his brother had once met Jones at a Manhattan roller rink, where, instead of offering him a business card, she gave him a plastic whip with her name emblazoned on it. I knew at that moment that I belonged in Grace Jones’ New York, that suburban life would kill me the same way it had killed my alcoholic father. A year later, I arrived. 

Jones’ “On Your Knees” was the last single I bought before leaving Rochester and it was one of the first songs I heard on the local disco station in New York City. Subway cars plastered with graffiti bore nearly inscrutable codes I was hungry to crack, for danger preyed upon the ignorant: Each weekend brought stories of fellow students who had been mugged. I remember protesters disrupting the filming of William Friedkin’s Cruising, which retold the real-life story of a fugitive who had lured men out of gay bars to bed and then killed them. In that anything-goes, pre-AIDS era at the tail end of the ‘70s, pleasure and danger were quite literally bedfellows.

Macho, close-cropped clones ruled the city’s mega-discos, but I hadn’t escaped my small suburb just to conform, so I sought out unconventional spaces like Hurrah’s, the Mudd Club, and Danceteria, where dub, reggae and post-punk alternated with chilly synth pop and radical funk. All those genres would mingle and mutate in Jones’ next incarnation.

When Muse fizzled in the clubs and on the charts, Chris Blackwell took over as Jones’ producer. “I wanted to treat her not as a model, but to involve her as a musician,” he recalls. “Tom Moulton had been recording the instrumentation and then having Grace come in later, but I wanted her to feel as though she were a member of a band, and record her the way bands used to make albums, with the singer and the players doing their thing all at once.”

Blackwell’s approach united two things he knew well: Caribbean ease and British audacity. “I wanted a rhythmic reggae bottom, aggressive rock guitar, atmospheric keyboards in the middle, and Grace on top,” he says. To get all that, he assembled a sextet of studio ringers at his Nassau studio, Compass Point. The soon-to-be signature sound of the Compass Point All-Stars went on to animate hits by the Tom Tom Club, Robert Palmer, Joe Cocker, Gwen Guthrie, and others.

The sessions began with an unlikely remake of the Normal’s “Warm Leatherette”. Jones’ version preserved the original’s deadpan vocal delivery and minimal melody but dropped the tempo to a saunter, twisted the rhythm into a sharp funk, and sashayed with offhand earnestness, as if sexual intercourse while dying from vehicular collision was just another kink worth trying. The sessions moved with disarming speed and ease: “If Grace or the group hadn’t nailed a song by the third take,” Blackwell recounts, “it was dropped and they’d move to the next number.”

Keyboardist Wally Badarou attests to Jones’ active role in the recordings: “Grace was there even during most instrumental overdubbing sessions. She was a part of the sound and the spirit that came out almost from nowhere. We all knew we were in for something quite experimental.”

Soon they had amassed enough material for 1980’s Warm Leatherette and the beginnings of a follow-up LP that would become 1981’s Nightclubbing. Upon its release, Leatherette failed to charm either radio audiences or most dance clubs; it was too authentically reggae for the New Wave crowd, too slow for disco. But by the following year, both New York radio and the club scene had grown eclectic. Primed by kindred punk-funk blasts like Yoko Ono’s “Walking on Thin Ice” as well as Taana Gardner’s “Heartbeat”, a far more open-minded dance music world was ready to re-embrace Jones and her new sound.

Nightclubbing provided Jones with newfound popularity on both sides of the Atlantic. European audiences appreciated “I’ve Seen That Face Before (Libertango)”, a vocal reimagining of Argentine tango master Ástor Piazzolla’s 1974 instrumental “Libertango”. For that track, co-writer Barry Reynolds penned lyrics about a Parisian stalker, and Badarou provided a haunting introductory riff. Jones’ lyrics were a rebuttal, en francais, penned with the help of Blackwell’s girlfriend, actor Nathalie Delon: “What are you looking for? Hoping to find love? Who do you think you are? You hate your life.”

In America, Jones’ R&B breakthrough came via an instrumental recorded by drummer Sly Dunbar during the Warm Leatherette sessions. The track first leaked out as “Peanut Butter” on the B-side of kiddie reggae crooner Junior Tucker’s “The Kick (Rock On)”, but, eager to make it hers, Grace co-wrote new lyrics equating cars with carnality. “Pull Up to the Bumper” pushed that metaphor towards lewd entendre: “Grease it, spray it/ Let me lubricate it,” she drawled. A summertime smash, “Bumper” became one of the last thoroughly sexual jams before a new virus began to complicate that kind of fun.

The sessions for 1982’s Living My Life marked a culmination of the synchronicity between Jones and the All-Stars. “Blackwell felt the band was so good it deserved to be doing its own material,” Badarou remembers. As a result, the album was made up entirely of originals, save for a cover of Melvin Van Peebles’ “The Apple Stretching”. Each song began with Jones’ lyrics, from which Reynolds wrote the music to fit. Recorded in the wake of her breakup with Jean-Paul Goude, the album found Jones getting deeper and more rigorously percussive: The percolating lead track, “My Jamaican Guy”, has been sampled by acts from La Roux to LL Cool J. The title track was eventually left off the album but it showcased just how personal the work was for Jones, a world away from the show tunes and entendres. “You kill me for living my life,” she sang. “As much as I can, as black as I am.”

By 1982, AIDS and Reaganomics were striking down Jones’ core audience, and the freedoms of the previous decade shifted to contractions. MTV arrived, and the New Wave dance sounds it championed—sonic stepchildren of Jones including Eurythmics, Culture Club, and Duran Duran—launched a second English invasion on the charts. Jones’ singular appearance and meticulously crafted presentation made her a natural fit for the burgeoning music video medium, especially in its early, experimental days.

She asserted herself as an astute visual artist with her 1982 VHS release, A One Man Show. Directed by Goude and nominated in ’84 for the first Best Long Form Music Video Grammy, it combined still photography, concert footage, and video clips to distill the pair’s simultaneously sensational and intimate collaborations into a heated, unbroken montage. Jones donned pointedly geometric designs that accentuated her angles while clad in screaming Pop-Art colors that flashed and flattered. Goude’s art direction came alive through Jones, who glared at the camera as if possessed; she was imposing, alien, almighty—it’s not surprising that she would soon be stealing scenes in films like Conan the Destroyer and A View to a Kill.

What came after One Man and the Compass Point trilogy would have to top them, which is precisely what “Slave to the Rhythm” did. Bruce Woolley, co-writer of the Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star”, wrote the song on spec for Frankie Goes to Hollywood, but helped to re-draft it for Jones. Producer Trevor Horn was brought in, and a nine-month studio odyssey ensued, allegedly costing Island $385,000—a fortune for a singer who had never scaled the U.S. pop charts. (The exorbitant single was offset by padding its accompanying album with eight different versions of the track in attempt to break even.)

“I remember a huge amount of experimentation with early digital techniques—the Synclavier, Sony digital tape spliced with sticky tape, and the Fairlight,” Woolley recalls. “We recorded a new version every four weeks, with Horn and Blackwell in search of the perfect track.” Between her acting roles, Jones returned to the studio month after month to update her vocals on the latest arrangements. “Slave to the Rhythm” was finally released in October 1985, and one would be hard-pressed to argue that all the laborious studio work and astronomical expenditures weren’t justified: Horn’s production work was ornate and opulent, lurid and symphonic. The spell cast by a larger-than-life black woman singing both metaphorically and directly about slavery was profound; the lyrics coaxed infinite interpretations. The Face—England’s authority on all things hip—declared “Slave” the single of 1985, and Jones appeared on the magazine’s January ’86 cover painted in whiteface. From the pure gloss of its ambition to the obsessiveness of its lyric, “Slave” is the ’80s.

Her ultimate hit in much of the world, “Slave” underscored how Jones’ incandescence and charisma made her bigger than her sales figures might indicate. MTV virtually ignored the track’s Goude-directed video; even when framed by Horn’s familiar transatlantic brilliance, Jones was, for them, still too black, too strong. Nevertheless, she got over elsewhere on the sheer magnitude of her presence. With the help of Hollywood and some crazy commercials for Citroën, Honda Scooters, and Sun Country Wine Coolers, she became more massive than ever.

“I like conflicts,” she told Playboy in 1985. “I love competition. I like discovering things for myself. It’s a childlike characteristic, actually. But that gives you a certain amount of power, and people are intimidated by that.” 

By the following year, with Goude and Blackwell out of the picture, Jones wanted more involvement in her debut album for EMI subsidiary Manhattan Records, 1986’s Inside Story. Taking EMI A&R head Bruce Garfield’s direction to “imagine a leaf being blown through the streets of New York, twisting and turning in the sunshine” as a starting point, Jones and Woolley wrote every song together, then joined multi-platinum Svengali Nile Rodgers in New York to transform their demos. This mutually flattering union yielded her last R&B radio victory, “I’m Not Perfect (But I’m Perfect for You)”. Indicting white-collar criminals and Hollywood liars, Inside Story revealed the singer’s observant, socially conscious side, while the jagged arrangements meshed Rodgers’ ricocheting, jazz-schooled guitar with Woolley’s smart pop. It is a singer/songwriter record you can dance to.

She followed it with 1989’s Bulletproof Heart, which yielded one resplendent club triumph, “Love on Top of Love”, courtesy of David Cole & Robert Clivillés, a house remix/production duo who later scored with C+C Music Factory. Jones co-wrote and co-produced most of the album with her new husband, Chris Stanley, whose output fell far below her avant standards; the two soon divorced. Having tried harder, thought broader, and crossed more boundaries than most of her contemporaries, this dance-floor renegade closed out the decade boxed in and coasting.

By the late ’80s, I had moved to San Francisco; AIDS was decimating the gay community. One night in 1993, I finally got my chance to see Jones perform at a local gay nightclub and took my friend Brian, whose partner Mark was too sick to join us. Jones’ lived up to her reputation for diva behavior and didn’t take the stage until well after midnight. At first she stuck to her hits, including that year’s house excursion “Sex Drive”. But it soon became apparent that she didn’t need the spectacular filigree of her Goude years. The special effect was her smile: It just wouldn’t stop, and soon it became contagious. She didn’t back away from the elephant in the room: She dedicated one song to artist and AIDS casualty Keith Haring, who had used her body for a canvas on the occasion of her legendary 1985 Paradise Garage performance.

That night’s show was remarkable for the simple fact that Jones just kept on going, granting one encore request after another, waiting patiently while the sound man scoured backing tapes to find the fans’ offbeat choices. When Jones got to such minor numbers as “Crush”, it became clear that she didn’t want to leave. She was giving as much of herself as she could to the beleaguered troops, knowing full well that many wouldn’t live long enough to see her again. A few months after that show, I inherited Mark’s cherished copy of Goude and Jones’ art book Jungle Fever after he and Brian died within weeks of each other. 

Jones’ lust for life that night represented not just resilience to repression, but also a way of fighting back that sent a message: We, who are thought less than, shall burn brighter than our oppressors. That was why she was so beloved—because she led the way, even when we couldn’t proceed. Along with the lesbians and lucky survivors who nursed our fallen, Jones had borne witness to what Reagan, Bush, and most of the country willfully ignored; she knew the toll of it all. 

Throughout the ’90s, rumors of new albums surfaced; Blackwell recorded several sessions, so did Tricky. Even Moulton buried the hatchet for a 1997 house remake of Candi Staton’s “Victim”, but Island nixed its release on conceptual grounds: They thought Grace Jones couldn’t be a victim of anything.

In 2008, Jones unexpectedly reemerged with Hurricane, her first record in 19 years. She brought back Woolley and the Compass Point All-Stars while adding contributors like Emmy-winning composers Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman, who worked with her for a month in their home on the the gospel-shaded canticle “Williams’ Blood”. “Prince has a presence and everybody in the room goes, ‘Whoa,’” Melvoin attests from first-hand knowledge—she and Coleman were key members of his Purple Rain–era backing band, the Revolution. “When Grace walks into the room, it’s more subtle, but it has the same effect. You just go, ‘My God, she’s taken up all of the space with that personality.’”

Hurricane mirrored that kaleidoscope. Unlike commonplace pop and rock luminaries who took extended vacations, Jones came back more polished and unpredictable than ever. With her trenchant track “Corporate Cannibal”, she even protested capitalist dehumanization by embodying it via grinding, insidious metal. But while her image as a constantly morphing, couture-clad hellion persists, the 67-year-old iconoclast stays true to herself. After all these years and so many disciples, there’s still no one like her. 

While gathering up my Grace Jones memories, I was reminded of what Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon once said about entertainers. This was 25 years ago, so my memory may have altered her words, but it went something like this: We pay to bask in the confidence of our most beloved performers so that we may learn to similarly love ourselves. Grace did that for me, for her audience, for anyone who has ever been too queer, too black, too female, or too freaky for the world around them. Grace Jones is liberation.

As a companion to Barry Walters’ Grace Jones piece, various Pitchfork contributors highlight some of the artist’s finest moments in music, film, and talk-show badassery:

The “Russell Harty” Incident 

In 1981, Grace Jones pummelled British talk show host Russell Harty on his own BBC show. Harty always sat among the guests on his early evening gabfest, and on this particular night he chose to focus his attention on the men to his right, leaving Jones, seated alone to his left, out of much of the conversation. The scene plays out with a frustrated Jones admonishing Harty: “If you turn your back to me one more minute.” Harty dismisses her, wagging a finger before turning away. Jones then clips him on the neck and lands one, two, three more hits in quick succession before slapping him on the head. The confused audience applauds—was this planned? Is this funny? Is it art?

This was my introduction to Grace Jones: elegantly beating the hell out of a man who won't take her seriously, her black body and everything it knows asserting itself for the good of fed up women everywhere. —Sara Bivigou

“Use Me”

Grace Jones’ version of Bill Withers’ “Use Me” is exactly what a cover song should be: It honors the strengths of the original while restructuring it, truly taking possession of it as if it were her own work. While Withers’ original is full of human pain and love, Jones’ version–produced by Sly and Robbie for Nightclubbing–turns on one robotic heel into S&M, all sex, all strength. The distinctly American, organic funk of the original is refashioned as electro-Caribbean minimalism, letting Jones’ voice be as powerful as Withers’. When issued from Jones’ lips, “use me up” becomes a challenge: a love song for power bottoms everywhere. —Jes Sklonik

Vamp 

Grace Jones fascinated me at a young age (seeing her as a kid while watching Conan the Destroyer with my dad both scared and excited me), but I didn’t become obsessed with her until seeing the movie Vamp at a sleepover in 1986. In the film, Jones plays Queen Katrina, a wicked vampiress running a strip club somewhere in Kansas (naturally). She makes her first on-screen appearance nude, save for a red bob wig and full body paint, doing a seductive dance that is as bizarre as it is weirdly erotic. At the time I didn’t really know much about her music (I was 11 years old and lived on a farm) nor could I appreciate that her body paint and the chair upon which she writhes were done by Keith Haring. The film is glorious ‘80s trash of the highest order, but Jones manages to transform the whole thing into high art by virtue of simply being there and, even though she’s playing the undead, sort of just being herself—beautiful, artful, exotic, and frighteningly wild. —T. Cole Rachel

“Breakdown”

Everyone from Suzi Quatro to the Replacements have covered Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ 1976 slowburner “Breakdown”, but Grace Jones’ take is the version most worth discussing. Given a sauntering, reggae reconstruction, Jones’ rendering is shaded by a subtle gradation of vocal inflections that give the song a searing potency: She is sturdy and commanding one second and mournful the next, the song’s titular collapse filtered through a distinctly Jonesian lens of fortifying self-sufficiency. Even Petty recognized that quality about Jones, writing a killer kiss-off of a third verse to cap her interpretation: “It’s OK if you must go/ I’ll understand if you don’t/ You say goodbye right now/ I’ll still survive somehow/ Why should we let this drag on?” In Jones’ more-than-capable hands, a bluesy classic is transformed into a clarion call, summoning strength from the depths of its vulnerability. —Eric Torres

“Warm Leatherette”

Grace Jones' cover of the Normal's “Warm Leatherette” is one of her more bizarre interpretations. The original song, based on J.G. Ballard’s dystopian novel Crash, was a cold proto-industrial track riffing on the flattening of human affect due to post-modern technology. In Jones' hands, the song becomes a sassy tribute to the pleasures of ultraviolence, queering the original text from a self-serious and mega-ironic love poem into a campy exploration of black female sexual identity. By subverting the tropes of white, male, anglo sci-fi, Jones turned the Ballardian porno-nightmare into a celebration of perversion via the intersection of technology and sexuality. —Eric Shorey

“Pull Up to the Bumper”

Grace Jones pioneered the way for Shamir, Stromae, and countless other dance mavericks of today—not just with her bewitching candor but through her use of androgynous innuendo. “Pull Up to the Bumper” was initially banned in the United States for suggestive lyrics—“Pull up to my bumper baby/ In your long black limousine”—that were revolutionary because they were smart, risky, and intriguingly gender inclusive, just like Jones herself. By combining Studio 54’s pulsing drums and chic new-wave licks with the kaleidoscope of Andy Warhol’s playhouse (Jones was a regular in both scenes), “Bumper” became a crucial track for American dance music while pushing boundaries of raw sexuality. —Molly Beauchemin