#Tower Recordings

[necrotic-nephilim]

as much as I love the common "Tim worships/stalks Jason" trope in TimJay fanfiction because it's Good and making Tim a weird little freak is Fun, I think the underutilized dynamic is where Jason is the one weirdly obsessed with Tim and makes it Tim's problem.

Like, the moment Jason is confronted with the information that a third Robin exists, the first thing he does is cover his wall with pictures of Tim so he can just obsess and torture himself over it. That is the behavior of a man who is Unwell over Tim's existence and I love it.

red hood: lost days #4

And as much as a shitshow as The Titans Tower Incident™ is characterization-wise (though I think it has far more merit in depicting Jason's character than people give it credit for but I digress-) there's something very fun about the fact that even after kicking his ass, Jason respects Tim and is impressed by him.

teen titans (2003) #29

And on top of that, Jason can't seem to stop trying to ask Jason to Tim to work with him in some capacity.

robin (1993) #177

batman: battle for the cowl #2

While Battle for the Cowl is an exceptionally bad comic, especially for its characterization of Jason and the "be my Robin" bit is taken deeply out of context, I do think it's interesting how obsessed Jason is with believing that Tim is extremely competent, only held back by being "brainwashed by Bruce". (hence him leaving Tim for dead later on in the comic.) Jason seeing a darker side of Tim and wanting to bring that out of Tim, wanting to see what Tim could be if he let go of his loyalty to Bruce is so fun to me, tbh.

And in Robin #177, Jason seems genuinely upset Tim doesn't want to work with him. Jason sees such a raw potential in Tim and is obsessed with it, constantly wanting Tim to work for him and see Tim be the type of person Jason is. And despite Tim rejecting him, Jason doesn't shoot to kill Tim. I just cannot get over the fanfic potential of Jason obsessing over Tim, tracking him and seeing what he's capable of and what he could be capable of. Wanting to make Tim see things the way he does. To Tim it's corruption, to Jason it's freedom. Tim trying to 'save' Jason is fun and all, but Jason trying to corrupt Tim? That's even more fun to me. Watching that power struggle between them, Tim unable to get Jason off his heels as Jason gets more and more possessive and bold with each attempt.

And when Jason sees Tim successfully get Gotham back under control after a gang war, he's impressed. He praises Tim, even. And then Tim just. Breaks him out of prison.

robin (1993) #182

The way they're constantly trying to see something in the other that isn't there, hoping the other will come around? That is the most fucked up hate/love dynamic ever. Jason keeps coming back to Tim, keeps trying to find ways to get Tim onto his side. They're always chasing each other. And I think Jason would be the one to confess love first, the one to do anything to make Tim his. And when you consider after all of this, Tim has his Red Robin arc and is at his lowest, getting the closest he ever gets to considering murder? I think it'd be so fun to see Jason take advantage of that and worm his way back into Tim's life and finally push Tim over the edge.

[dustedmagazine]

P.G. Six — Parlor Tricks and Porch Favorites (Amish)

Parlor Tricks and Porch Favorites by P.G. Six

Lately, you’re likely to hear PG Six’s Pat Gubler shading Garcia Peoples’ guitar sprawl with folky modal melodies or wigging out alongside New England psych mainstay Matt Valentine in Wet Tuna or beefing up an already guitar-centric sound in acid folk’s Weeping Bong Band. But before all that, he, along with Valentine, did a lot to invent the whole freak folk genre in Tower Recordings. This debut solo album, originally recorded in 2001 and expanded with eight live and unreleased tracks, comes just after that and continues on from there. Its lysergic takes on ancient tunes make you realize just how freaky the folk genre is, even before you start to fool with it.

Gubler accompanied himself in a range of stringed and keyboarded instruments, some familiar, some not, as well as a mystic flute. His main partner for this disc was Tim Barnes, a drummer who has collaborated with rock and experimental artists including Tony Conrad, Ikue Mori, Sonic Youth, Jim O'Rourke and Jeph Jerman.

The original disc opens and closes with versions of “Letter to Lilli St. Cyr,” one in flute, the other in a reedy, staticky keyboard and the overtone haunted strumming of something like a dulcimer. The sounds are traditional but stretched and distorted into stranger shapes. The traditional song, “When I Was a Young Man,” gets this treatment, too, starting in a ren faire lilt of folky flute and sunlit guitar, a patter of hand drums moving its stately rhythm. Not only elapses, however, before a fuzzed electric shoulders into view, putting buzz and friction under this melancholy frolic. The song ends in a tug of war between its folk and psychedelic forces, with splintered distortions of electric guitar winning out in the end.

That latter song is one of the more well-behaved and gentle cuts from this original collection. The longer cuts push further into alchemical amalgamations of folk and free-rock jam. “Go Your Way,” an Annie Briggs cover and the album’s clear centerpiece, changes shapes like a wizard sloughing off forms. Its radiant picked purity giving way to fluttery sung melody slapped into motion by north African desert rhythms. It dissolves, late in the cut, into pure tone and timber, the sawing dissonance of stringed instruments smoldering, throwing off sudden bright sparks.

“Go Your Way” comes up again in the extra tracks, via a sparer, less free-ranging acoustic version performed at the Dwars Festival in Amsterdam. “When I Was a Young Man” also gets a second look, this time from a radio performance on New York’s WNYU, and an alternate take of “Divine Invasion” was recorded live at the Flywheel in Easthampton; I’m pretty sure I was there. These extra tracks are, to a one, warm and unfussy and assured, Gubler’s clear, unhurried voice drifting over complex webs of crystalline picking.

This expanded version of Parlor Tricks documents a free-wheeling turn-of-the-century scene in which New Weird America was just getting started. Hippie enclaves in California and rural New England had got to wondering, what if you took old British tunes and chords and got them really, really high? The answer was surprisingly wonderful, an art with roots in the past and heads in the clouds, and P.G. Six was as good as anyone at it. Parlor tricks, indeed! This stuff is magic.

Jennifer Kelly

[omp4n]

Tower Records. Shibuya City. Tokyo, Japan.

[mylittlevintageworld]

[endmeseymour]

@magitober Day 6 - Holy Quintet

Tea Break

[avienarthur1111]

Saw a collaboration between TADC with Tower records cafe from japan, I wonder what would happen if Kinger worked in there

[absolutely-esme]

Monster!Tim Coraline AU Idea

This idea would not leave me alone.

It’s a cross between a meta!/magic!Tim au and a Coraline au.

Before I get into it, I feel like I should explain.  I was on a bit of an Eldritch!Batfamily and Cryptid!Batfamily kick.  Then I found a collection of supernatural Tim aus.  Then I stumbled across a Coraline au.  There’s probably also some inspiration in there from vampire au fics.

It didn’t really jell until the idea occurred to me of a scene where some frightened villain asks Tim “What kind of monster are you?” and Tim says “The hungry kind.”

...

The idea is that somewhere back along the way, Tim’s family tree includes some kind of supernatural creature which may or may not have been an eldritch entity.

The supernatural heritage allows Tim to acquire abilities from other entities he has defeated, and Gotham is absolutely full of the supernatural if you pay attention.

Of course, Tim’s power isn’t all sunshine and rainbows.  It actually comes packaged with some pretty nasty side effects.

One of those side effects is perpetual Hunger.  Tim is always Hungry.  There is no way to stop it.  He eats enough to stay healthy, but he still feels Hunger at all times.  Increasing his food intake will not help and will screw up his metabolism and cause him to need more for normal function.  If this was allowed to spiral out of control it could eventually reach a point where he was physically unable to eat the amount of food he needed to function and starved to death on a full stomach. 

Fixing it is stupid hard because this particular sort of magical inheritance is really fucking inconvenient.  And, of course, whatever is up with his biology also makes him insanely susceptible to addiction, so no coffee for him unless he wants caffeine withdrawal symptoms all the time for however long it takes to fix that.  The constant Hunger also makes it difficult to get enough sleep.  Have you ever tried to go to sleep on an empty stomach?  Not easy, was it?  Imagine that every night.

The Hunger is fairly central to the nature of the magic.  Whatever supernatural entity he’s descended from, it is the Hungry kind.  The ritual of defeating another supernatural entity, taking a bit of the defeated entity’s power, and incorporating it into himself serves as a sort of metaphorical devouring, (and metaphors matter more to magic than they do to normal biology).  That’s why he’s able to gain power and abilities from defeated foes. 

...

Tim’s relationship with his parents is complicated.  His supernatural heritage comes from his mother’s side of the family.  She did her best to teach him about it and how to cope with it, but a lot of knowledge was lost over the generations due to persecution forcing those like them into hiding more than once.  There may have been a few individuals who spiraled out of control and caused small-scale famines before losing their lives.  It only takes a few cases for people to decide that a specific category of people is simply not worth the risk of having around.  Janet always referred to herself and Tim (as well as anyone else sharing the condition) as “those afflicted with Gluttony.”  This is the closest they have to a name for the condition.

One of the important things Janet Drake teaches her son is to pursue his passions.  It is incredibly important for individuals like them to have things outside the self that they can draw satisfaction and fulfilment from, things that keep them going in the face of the relentless Hunger.  This is what leads Tim to his night-time photography of Gotham, and eventually to his fascination with the Bats. 

Janet’s passions are archeology and travel.  Unfortunately, traveling from dig site to dig site is not a particularly stable or safe environment to raise a child in.  She needs to do these things to remain in good health.  Without her external coping mechanisms, she could start spiraling.  If she starts spiraling, it might trigger her son to start spiraling too because children in their developmental years are delicate, and this type of hereditary magic is fucking inconvenient (there might be ways of managing things that make it easier to live with, but between the knowledge lost and the risks that come with experimentation, they don’t have much info on how anything works).  She comes home as much as she can without the risk of compromising both their health.

She also taught Tim how to calculate appropriate portion sizes based on nutritional data so as not to screw up his metabolism, and how to fix it if he does mess up.  She also stayed and managed the process the first time it happened because the process of returning the metabolism of one afflicted with Gluttony to normal after it’s gotten out of hand is difficult and unpleasant and Tim wasn’t old enough to handle it by himself.  The nanny that had overfed him hadn’t been malicious or unreasonable, she’d just been operating on the assumption that he had standard human biology.  It took months to get Tim healthy again.  It took several hefty bribes to keep things under wraps.  Janet doesn’t know if there are still people out there hunting their kind, but she’s not willing to risk it.

Janet may not know about the aspect of the family magic that lets them gain powers from defeating other entities.  It’s possible that she was holding off on explaining this until he was older and more ready for the responsibility of multiple superpowers.  It’s also possible that the knowledge got lost somewhere along the way and Janet didn’t discover it herself because she didn’t spend her childhood running around Gotham at night and was more the sort of person who would stay home and read when she had trouble sleeping.

...

Tim discovers his ability to gain abilities from defeating other supernatural things fairly early on.  The type of defeat can vary, but it has to be something of significance.  A fight will work for most, but there are other particular challenges that will work for specific cases.

The first things a young Tim is able to beat are these small things, invisible to most, that gain power from learning secrets.  What that power is used for, I couldn’t tell you.  They don’t seem to do much other than sneak around and learn secrets.  Tim doesn’t know if there’s a proper name for these things or not, but he calls them Secret Hunters.  They are absolutely everywhere in Gotham. 

Secret Hunters are invisible to most, but Tim is able to see them.  It might be because of his own supernatural nature, or it might be something else entirely.  If it’s hereditary it must have skipped his parents’ generation.  Neither of them seem to be able to see them.  Tim gains improved stealth and a sense for when something is hidden from catching Secret Hunters until they wise up and start avoiding him.  (Catching them works in place of a fight because secret hunters primarily operate on stealth and evasion.)

He can’t just magically know secrets, but he can tell when there is a secret.  (He still figured out Batman’s and Robin’s secret identities on his own merit.  The most this ability would have done is alert him to the fact that they had secret identities if that hadn’t already been obvious from the fact that they were wearing masks.)

He also gets various other abilities from other things he encounters while scrambling all over Gotham at night.  Nearly doesn’t get out of some of the scrapes he gets himself into.  He gains the ability to cut with his fingernails as if they were razors from something that nearly killed him.  He gains the ability to climb like a goat from a Jersey Devil.  Etc.

...

At some point, Tim is targeted by a beldam.  He doesn’t get the kind of warnings that Coraline does, but his ability to sense secrets lets him know that the Beldam is hiding something, and any child raised in any part of Gotham knows to be suspicious of things that seem too good to be true.  Tim doesn’t have a convenient seeing stone from the neighbor, but he does have the advantage of his own supernatural nature which the Beldam doesn’t know about.

Tim finds a button-eyed doll that looks like him after his parents leave on yet another trip, and thinks it’s a gift they meant to give him before leaving.  They do often bring interesting souvenirs.  It wouldn’t be at all unusual for them to find an artist who sews dolls to look like people and have one made based on pictures of him.  Later on, he discovers the key. 

This Beldam is older and more powerful than the one from Coraline.  She has more power and more past victims to work with, so she’s able to make a larger, more populated world. 

Oh by the way, I head-canon that the Other versions of people in the Other world are actually past victims of the Other Mother, remade and dressed up for whatever role she has them play.  The three ghosts were just the three most recent and not fully processed for use yet.  That’s why the Others are able to act against her sometimes (Other Wybie saving Coraline from the mirror, Other Father tossing the eye to Coraline) or say things she doesn’t want them too (Other Father says “so sharp you won’t feel a thing” and Other Mother kicks him under the table).

The Other Mother doesn’t know all that Tim knows, so the Other World has inconsistencies like Other Batman and Other Robin sitting across the table from Other Bruce and Other Jason.  She doesn’t know they’re the same people.  She just knows that they’re all important to Tim.  She also tries to tell him to “eat as much as he wants” when his real mother was the one to explain the dangers of attempting to eat to fullness for people with their condition.

There isn’t a cat to warn Tim but he doesn’t need it.  He can sense hidden intentions in everything, and he’s fully capable of uncovering the hidden secrets himself. 

Tim doesn’t have a cat, but he does have Other Robin, who might have been made from whatever remained of someone close to one of the people mirrored in the Other World made for Tim.  He doesn’t remember his life, but somehow he feels incredibly motivated to help a boy who cares dearly for whoever and is willing to let him know that they're living a good life out there in the real world.

Tim discovers the nature of the other world and sets out to free the souls trapped there.  He fights the Beldam will all the viciousness and desperation of someone who knows they’ve only got one shot.  He takes everything he can from this fight as he makes sure she won’t ever hurt anyone again.  He doesn’t stop until the beldam is well and truly dead.  Then he unravels Other Gotham and spills all of the souls out into the world where they can move on and rest.

This is how Tim learns to Sew.  He can’t make entire populated worlds like the beldam, but that’s mostly because he refuses to do what she did.  He can control things he’s made (though there’s limits on how much) and even see through buttons he’s sewn (onto cushions and such, he's not the Other Mother).  He also gets some minor illusory powers that let him make things look a bit brighter/nicer/cheerier than they are.  It takes quite some time before he’s comfortable with using these powers.  Trauma is a bitch like that.

Part of the reason this version of Tim was so desperate to do something about Batman losing it out of grief is because he already has Evil Batman trauma from Other Batman, and he doesn’t need that shit happening in real Gotham.

By this point Tim has a collection of powers that allow him to navigate the more dangerous parts of Gotham largely without fear.  Now he has to learn how to manage without using any that he isn’t one hundred percent certain he can sneak past Batman, which means he’ll have to divide his attention between learning from the training and not letting himself do things the supernatural way.  This is going to suck.

It does, in fact, suck.

Oh, it turns out some of the rogues are a bit supernatural.  He gains a bit of an intuitive understanding of the health of plants from Ivy.  He gains the ability to taste emotions from Scarecrow.  (Also, Johnathan Crane is a freaking weirdo, fear tastes like spoiled milk!)  The rogues with supernatural tendencies are freaking terrified of the new Robin because he always seems like he wants to freaking eat them.  The non-supernatural types don’t get it.

Eventually, Red hood breaks into Titan’s tower.  Tim, by this point, is very good at deciphering how supernatural entities work and is packing an extensive inventory of powers.  He realizes quickly that this is some kind of manipulative entity that feeds on rage and pain attached to an unwitting host.  When he realizes that the unknowing (and therefore unconsenting) host is Jason Todd, he tells the Lazarus Entity in no uncertain terms to give Jason back or perish.

Jason, who does not realize he has a malicious, mind-warping, supernatural parasite and believes there to be no one other than himself and Tim present, is understandably confused.

Tim decides that the Lazarus entity has had its chance and springs into action.

Jason is treated to the terrifying sight of just what Tim Drake is like when he’s not expending conscious effort on not being something out of a horror movie.  Suddenly he’s in the middle of a spider’s web and no matter how hard he tries to fight back everything around him is under the control of his opponent.  Furniture flies around on puppet strings.  Getting too close puts him in range of the freaking claws this kid apparently has!?  Trying to get away just leaves him caught in strings and the more he struggles the more entangled he becomes!  The new Robin is skittering and gliding around in a decidedly inhuman way. 

Jason honestly thinks he's going to die when he finds himself bound with Tim standing over him.  He passes out when Tim rips the Lazarus entity away from him and destroys it. 

Tim gains the ability to heal from defeating the Lazarus entity.

Jason is surprised and confused when he wakes up bundled in a handmade quilt with his head in Tim’s lap and a cool compress on his forehead, feeling sore but more well and whole than he has since before he died.

Jason later decides that his memories of the fight at Titans Tower must be some kind of weird fever dream caused by his body purging the last of the Lazarus Water from his system. It goes along with Tim's account of things.

According to Tim, Jason entered the tower, initiated a lock-down, and then collapsed on the floor. Then, Tim moved him closer to a wall where he was less likely to get stepped on than in the middle of the walkway and did his best to take care of him there because Jason was simply too large and heavy for him to carry all the way to the med bay by himself.

This is far more believable and less of a mind screw than what Jason remembers. Obviously this tiny, baby-faced kiddo who played nursemaid for a stranger who broke into the tower and now looks up at him with wide, starry eyes couldn't actually be the terrifying, predatory creature from the nightmare. It was all just a bad dream.

He's honestly glad he collapsed before he had time to do any harm. The poor kid will never have to know what Jason went there to do. Jason knows, though, and he'll do his damned best to make up for it. He may have flubbed first impressions, but he is going to be the best damn big brother that ever big brothered.

...

Tim might or might not go full on feral cryptid when Bruce is lost in the Timestream. I haven't decided. He will probably pick a fight with the Lazarus Pit much to the confusion and alarm of everyone around.

That’s all I’ve got so far.

[muffinlance]

Other child: *reaches for legos at the library’s play table*

Toddler: NO DO NOT DESTROY MY PANOPTICON

[katabay]

original thief series basso & garrett :)

ngl, it's about quality over quantity for me. an npc can have a total of three minutes of screen time, but if they have a cool name, they can live rent free in my head and I'll spend several hours trying to decipher drawable features from a blurry screenshot of pixels

there is a vague hint of a story here, and that's because every time I try to play thi4f, I get incredibly frustrated with how Not Fun the game play is. like, is the story good? well. but it has a PLAGUE. that should've given it instant 'I'll replay this once a year' status in my heart, but the game play sucks so bad that I've never finished it. I can't believe Not Fun gameplay beat out my obsession with narrative plagues.

anyway, the idea is basically if the original era had a game with a plague centric narrative and some other stuff I liked out of thi4f thrown into a narrative blender, with a heavy dash of horror thrown in because some parts of the thief games were scarier to me than entire dedicated horror genre games.

⭐ places I’m at! bsky / pixiv / pillowfort /cohost / cara.app

[fangomusic]

Old Record Stores.

[laboitediabolique]

Cover of Tower magazine, Number 254, 20 April 2008

[emmetofthestars]

artist beats the art

its for you!

noise gets beat

noise gets flattened

noise balloon incident

time for lunch dear

pick it up.

duel

duel (under the sunset)

quickest draw in the west

eye for an eye

frog season

frog season (strikes again)

RUN LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT WHICH IT DOES

gifs i recorded while playing. the caption under each gif is what file name i gave the gif. enjoy

[swallowtail-lotus]

Potential Opponent {Thor x Goddess!Reader}

A repost from my old blog!

Still kinda in love with Thor ngl (I keep putting down thot instead of Thor, my fat fucking fingers-)

~~~~~~~~~

In the middle of a humungous field full of flowers, sat a beautiful woman, who was admiring the butterfly resting on her finger with an gentle smile on her face. She watched its wings move slowly, giving her time to take in the pretty pattern it has.

The silence that filled the air around her was comforting to her, as it represents how she's feeling right now. At peace.

"To think my home used to be this breathtaking..." You muttered, your smile slowly fading from your face. With your superhuman hearing, you heard the sounds of footsteps rushing towards you.

"Lady (Y/n)! The Lord would like to speak with you!" A female servant exclaimed, stopping beside your sitting figure. The butterfly has fled from the two of you as soon as the servant had stepped too close.

"Which Lord? Because if it's about those marriages, I'll keep refusing." You hissed with disgust, rolling your eyes at the mental images of the Lord's sons trying (and failing horribly) at courting you.

Reason is that you always challenge them to 1v1 matches, and so far, you haven't lost a single one.

"Lord Zihao wants you to-"

"Tell them I refuse and that I'm busy." You interrupted your servant, your eyes moving to glance at her. The female servant gulped at your stern side glance and nodded vigorously, taking off from you. You sighed and pinched the bridge of your nose in frustration.

"These bastards clearly can't read the message." You grumbled, standing up from your spot and twirled around once, teleporting to a rather dark castle. You looked around, not finding anything familiar with the place.

"Shit, must've thought of the wrong thing."

You cursed yourself. As you were trying to make out anything, you felt a strong gust of wind hit your back. You quickly moved away, dodging whoever was trying to attack you.

"What the- Thor?!" You questioned, your gaze meeting his yellow eyes. Said God moved his hammer away from you when he heard your voice. You tried to see his face, but to no avail.

There was a deafening silence between the two of you. Without thinking, you grabbed his hand and pulled him to some light, relieved to see your love.

"So good to see you again!" You spoke up, trying to fill the silence. Thor look down at you, finally realising you and his face soften.

"Good to see you too, my love." He finally greeted you, a small smile on his face. His hands cupped your face and took his time to take in your features. He leaned down and kissed you softly. The gods didn't know who you were at all. All they knew was that you are a deity, just like them and Thor's love.

They recently noticed the two small blades attached to your hips, some wondering why you have them. This was confusing them a lot because you spent so much time admiring the flowers and playing with small animals. They think there was no need to keep whatever were attached to you when you have the strongest Norse God by your side.

If only they knew...

Twirling a single flower in your fingers, you smiled fondly at it. It was like your normal day, going to the gardens and admire the plants everywhere. You always loved nature, so you were given a garden as a gift.

Deciding you had enough time in the gardens, you placed the flower in your hair, walking out and in the hallways of the castle.

Stopping in your tracks, you reached for your blade on the left side. You felt something touch your shoulder, and out of instinct, you swung your right arm at the person, sending them flying. You sworn you felt your soul leave your body when you saw who you hit.

"I'm sorry, Thor! I tend to hit whoever startles me!" You exclaimed frantically, rushing over to your love. The God picked himself up with no problem, but his face was something of shock.

You noticed his lips curl up in a smirk, you know, that one and his eyes glowing bright.

Maybe you shouldn't have hit him...

[beatcroc]

i already wrote up a whole essaypost about the dynamic for these two but it's funnier to summarize it like this. also it's the only way youre gonna see anything resembling fp getting closure abt any of this :^) [x]

[yridenergyridenergy]

Pictures by DIRENGREY_sho

[kylieforeverandever]

Kylie Minogue at Tower Records in Piccadilly, London, to sign copies of her new album "Kylie Minogue - The Album" on 23rd March 1998.