#like Fiona Apple Tori Amos etc so on but it just feels like it’s been awhile since it’s been mainstream

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

You know it’s kind of a gift to live in an era where even the pop girlies are putting out albums dealing with really personal, fraught, existential issues about womanhood and life and society and idk it’s just… really cool to see.

[abloodymess]

I am a music person. One of my earliest memories is listening to Patti Smith's Horses with my Mom as we washed dishes. The Velvet Underground, weird Jazz, Chicago Blues, 70s Soul, along with all the heavy hitters of classic rock (Stones, The Who, Beatles, Kinks, etc) were always coming out the stereo my entire childhood. As a child my Dad took me to see and meet all sorts of old blues guys, he also used me to sneak back stage, it was a good gimmick and I have fond memories of standing just off stage as Bonnie Raitt was about to take the stage, and her taking a shine to the 7 year old roaming around.

Anyways, I thought this was how all kids experienced music. When we moved and I started a new school (big 4th grade) and I tried to communicate my love of music, kids my own age had no idea what I was talking about. My first sense of a disconnect between myself and my peers of this farm town. Reading Thrasher and watching skateboard videos sure planted the seeds of a whole world of modern music I had not experienced yet.

I did not come online as a modern music fan until 91. My cousin noticed I was getting drawn into metal and hard rock; he took me aside and showed me this new band called Nirvana. He had Bleach and showed me it, "you like this?, they are playing in two weeks in Chicago, want to go?" Not sure how we got my mom to say yes, but my first concert without my folks was seeing Nirvana at the 1200 person club The Metro just before the Teen Spirit video broke. I honestly was kind of scared, but the energy and the feel of the electricity in the room changed me. I knew this is something I wanted to be part of. Are there more bands like this?

91-95 felt like it should have been a lifetime, looking back its crazy how small that window really was. How fast the mainstream was able to pounce on underground bands with really progressive ideals and just decimate them. They either died (literally or financially), went back to the underground, or imploded as the machine found copies of copies that could fit in the box but were easier to deal with. If Nirvana was a Pixies rip-off, I am not sure what you would call Days of the New when they showed up in 97. God bless REM for soldiering on. (I am generalizing here because there was A LOT of music that got marketed as “Girl Music” your Tori Amos, Fiona Apples, Natalie Merchants, all of a sudden this was music for girlfriends and should be separated to the Lilith Fair while “real music” was Creed or something? and I am not even touching Hip-Hop here) There was a moment though in the early/mid 90s where it was perfectly normal to see Cibo Motto on the same stage as Soundgarden, then something changed. 

“Grunge” or whatever you want to call it was hollowed out and the imitators were fizzling out (some great singles in there but very few career groups), there was a push by radio to somehow hybrid cool DJ/Rave culture with rock culture and you got “Electronica” which was kind of soulless, but the good and pioneering electronic groups got a place in the sun. Rock though, it got hyper masculine (and not that Grunge wasn’t, but there was a sincerity and fragility that was removed) and fucking dethatched from any other feeling but anger, anything else was viewed as a weakness, there was no longer a sense of queerness or the feminine. 

By 96 I was out, I wanted nothing to do with what was going on, so I turned inward and got real into early Emo bands and old Goth records, I was a full on punk with metal leanings. Screamy boys and girls who had nothing but “feelings” and sincerity bubbling out of themselves. We formed our bands and locked ourselves in basement across the country with our own shows and did our own thing, ignoring what was going on above ground. A nice deep sub-genre of a sub-genre to keep myself with not having to associate with what I saw as the meatheads taking over. (Again, not that there wasn’t dreadful misogyny, racism, and shitty shit going on where I was). 

When I watched the documentary it was incredibly depressing. I can’t say if the documentary itself was good or bad, but the ideas presented, the where we were at that time and how we got there just kept rolling over and over in my head and how fast it happened from 94-99 a complete sea change happened. I don’t really have any insight to that, but its just staggering to go from waiting for a concert to start and having Food Not Bombs handing out flyers and a few short years later it is Girls Gone Wild getting girls to show their boobs (AND IT WAS THE SAME BAND just 2 years later and a really different fan base and energy). 

Clearly the promoters of Woodstock 99 were at best evil dummies, who after all this time showed zero reflection and just wanted to blame women and Mtv or the bands or anyone but themselves. I do not think the documentary sides with them, but presents that is what these men believe. Honestly if anyone sides with those dudes, get some help. Corporate rock sucks and even the most well meaning bands get put in horrible positions time and time again. I will never understand how Rage Against the Machine is always at the most corporate shit-shows standing there like a bunch of assholes. 

Anyways, sorry, I just needed to vomit out some words about this. I am just glad I wasn’t there, didn’t see myself reflected back, or see any of my friends. 

[lunar-witches]

“30 QUESTIONS” TAG

Rules: Answer thirty questions, then tag twenty blogs you would like to know better.

1. Nicknames Chels, mainly, but some people in my witchy group chat call me Queen, which is short for Trash Queen, so it’s definitely accurate, haha. 

2. Gender Woman (she/her/her’s)

3. Star sign Cancer sun, Capricorn Moon, and Gemini Rising

4. Height 5′0″

5. Time 2:31 am

6. Birthday July 13th, 1992

7. Favorite bands Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac, Nirvana, Radiohead, Linkin Park, Pearl Jam, Jefferson Airplane, The Mama’s and the Papa’s, Within Temptation, Evanescence, System of a Down, Tool, Metric, Smashing Pumpkins, July Talk, Garbage, Hole, The Cranberries and a bunch more I’m sure I’m forgetting about.

8. Favorite solo artists Tori Amos, Chelsea Wolfe, Stevie Nicks, Father John Misty, Damien Rice, Lisa Hannigan, Aurora, Lindsey Stirling, Fiona Apple, Marina and the Diamonds, Kesha, Sarah Brightman, and, again, a bunch more that I haven’t included.

9. Song stuck in my head Holy - Zolita

10. Last movie watched The Haunting (1999)

11. Last show watched Mrs. Brown’s Boys

12. When did I create my blog About three months ago, sometime in June, I believe.

13. What do I post Mainly witchy aesthetics (plants, crystals, nature, etc), but I also just post witchy stuff in general (spells, rituals, masterposts, tips, etc.)

14. Last thing I googled I honestly can’t remember

15. Do you have other blogs Yes!  I have my super old personal blog that I’ve been using for about 6 years, it’s mainly just a bunch of sad 90′s trash, haha, but feel free to check it out if you want @queerologist

16. Do you get asks? Yes, I do, somedays more than others, but I usually get a few questions or IM’s a day.

17. Why did you choose your URL Because I do a lot of witchcraft with the moon and the lunar phases so I figured it was just direct and to the point, lol.

18. Following 186 19. Followers Roughly around 4.6k+ 20. Favorite colors Black, wine red, silver, and violet.

21. Average hours of sleep Usually anywhere from 3 to 5 hours, I have really intense insomnia

22. Lucky number 3, 9, and 13

23. Instruments I used to know how to play the violin a bit, but aside from that I’m really not musically inclined.  Though, I would love to learn more on the violin, and also I’d really enjoy learning how to play the piano and guitar.

24. What am I wearing  A black Led Zeppelin t-shirt (the 1977 USA tour), and plaid pajama pants.

25. How many blankets I sleep with One, just a comforter.

26. Dream job Writer

27. Dream trip I’d love to travel all around Europe, but specifically Ireland, Scotland, Romania, and Italy.

28. Favorite food Pasta, literally any kind, JUST GIVE IT ALL TO ME.

29. Nationality Canadian!

30. Favorite song now Up The Creek - Tori Amos

Tagged By: @radiantwitch

Tagging: @dormi-veglia, @miyu-chan111, @a-witty-screen-name, @wwhomeopath, and whoever else would like to participate!

[handsingsweapon]

For the fanfic ask game, a. For precious things and f.?

A: How did you come up with the title to [insert fic]? 

precious things is the title of my favorite tori amos song, and when i set out to write the fic and was thinking about victor’s childhood and the song is just like. i don’t know. big mood. in the second verse, among some of the song’s other traumatizing stuff … tori sings about getting discovered, for those unfamiliar with her work it’s worth noting that she’s prodigy levels of talented on piano and that breaking into the music business was ridiculously difficult, and so i think victor would empathize with that? (’he said you’re really an ugly girl / but i like the way you play / and i died / but i thanked him / can you believe that sick / holding on to his picture / dressing up every day’) maybe physical appearance isn’t something he’s had a problem with, but he’s certainly been someone people have grafted ideas onto.

that and it’s just. an incredibly stormy sounding song and it sounds to me the way victor’s head must feel on his bad days. also: i knew i was going to be doing a lot of music throwback in those early chapters, and because of his androgyny i really liked the idea of making him into female singer-songwriter types, so out there somewhere in precious things canon is a victor who has a playlist full of tori amos, ani difranco, fiona apple, portishead, etc. all the chapter titles are taken from tori lyrics.

F: Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

christophe in ch. 19 of silver splendour, which i won’t go into a ton of detail here in regards to the circumstances precisely because spoilers, but this is the key dialogue line:

“I have one condition.”

“Anything.”

“Before I do this,” Christophe said, looking up at Viktor, “I want you to ask yourself one question. Tell me now that you believe he’ll be precisely the same person you love, once the wish is made.”

i like it because that scene is such a highlight moment in christophe’s story, how well he knows victor, how much he’s learned about the two main cultures of silver splendour’s world, how self-assured and comfortable he’s become with himself. what’s happening is also a pretty key part of the plot devices that have been set up in all the previous chapters, and it’s christophe’s agency (to choose to make the wish) and victor’s (to choose to ask for it) that will determine the outcome of history there. and finally: it is, of course, the moment where victor has to come to terms with the fact that loving yuuri means loving even the part he hates and wants to avoid, that while he might have spent an awful lot of time manufacturing a mask for himself, it’s not ever something he’d want to push onto yuuri. so. yeah. a lot of work went into getting to that moment and writing it honestly felt like getting to be proud of a friend (chris), like i knew him and we got to low key high-five after / offstage of the fic / celebrating how much of a badass he was in that particular moment.