#likes to play her collection of spanish records

[pinkhoodi]

music lovers !

✎ᝰ — music hcs on my fav spider folks <3

♡⃕ — 1610!miles morales, gwen stacy, hobie brown

♡⃕ — genre + warnings: fluff + no warnings

♡⃕ — a/n: thank you to @4kh + @cutenote for helping me outtt 🫶🏽

꒰ MILES MORALES ꒱

Ꮺ miles’ music taste would be a vast range of rnb, trap, hip hop, jazz, spanish, and any and everything connecting to his culture and he’s not picky with what to listen to tbh

Ꮺ I don’t believe miles has a favorite genre or set standard of what he listens to, it just genuinely depends on what his mood is or what he has on repeat at the moment. generally, it’s a song that he found from tiktok or a leaked song that he found on soundcloud. speaking of, miles has no shame using soundcloud as a streaming service

Ꮺ but miles does have a set genre for each part of his day or whatever activity he is doing. If he’s getting ready and on his way to school, some 90s rnb or 90s hip hop; when doing homework, he plays jazz music or some chill spanish music; during his drawing time, he’ll put on some chill trap music or try to find an album that connects with what he wants to draw

Ꮺ miles is very open-minded to his music taste so he’s not really one to say no to a specific genre. now there were definitely some albums he wasn’t a fan of, but he will explore the artist of that album. he usually gives artists another try, even if their recommended album wasn’t the…best

Ꮺ miles is definitely one to collect vinyls, especially old-school ones, he has them plastered around his room and some sitting in a bin. jeff gifted him a record player so the vinyls wouldn’t be collecting dust and so that they could both enjoy the music on jeff’s off days

Ꮺ miles has a playlist for like…everything, and I mean everything. he has a drawing playlist, a spiderman playlist, a playlist for gwen (don’t tell anyone), a playlist for when he’s overthinking, a playlist to change clothes, a playlist to brush his teeth, even playlists for his favorite tv shows. listen, this boy is very much so obsessed with music

Ꮺ he shares his love of music with his parents as well! I do believe rio is more open to his music suggestions than jeff. however, jeff can be more open to mile’s favorite artists, it will take him a while though. whenever it’s a quiet moment in the morales home, they let music play as the day goes

꒰ GWEN STACY ꒱

Ꮺ I do believe gwen is less open to music suggestions than miles is. like miles is very expressive with music while gwen isn’t

Ꮺ on a day-to-day basis, gwen plays 90s rock music or 2000s pop punk. she doesn’t really go by her emotions, but more like whatever song is stuck in her head at the moment

Ꮺ I believe that gwen was a major pop girl and was very in tune with the pop girls of her early ages, but later shifted into the punk/rock category. a couple of avril lavigne songs and that girl is screaming teen angst at 4 a.m

Ꮺ also gwen has a heavy liking for indie/alt music ! she likes her underground artists or artists that can combine other genres easily. she also has a love for artists like tv girl, girl in red, and frank ocean

Ꮺ technically, gwen would explore the sub-genres of punk and rock but doesn’t dwell for too long. She doesn’t mind heavy metals but prefers not to listen to them all the time, wouldn’t wanna shatter her eardrums since she’s spider woman

Ꮺ she also listened to a lotttt of female artists and female groups, and she’s a huge fan of girl groups! but I think she’s more into the older groups like spice girls, pussycat dolls, etc. I do think she would be into kpop girl groups and would be into ones that make like bubblegum pop or “noise music”

Ꮺ she has certain artists that she can never get tired of and also some artists that she prefers that no one knows she listens to

꒰ HOBIE BROWN ꒱

Ꮺ now hobie is all around when it comes to music, he’s just about on the same level as miles tbh

Ꮺ hobie isn’t embarrassed about any genre that he listens to. so yes, he doesn’t mind getting laughed at for liking country music

Ꮺ now hobie is very big on music that was pioneered by black people, which makes him love genres like country and rock even more. he can never get over how much music is curated by, and usually for, black folks

Ꮺ now hobie is always gonna give his flowers to artists that he loves and shouts them out in interviews or moments when he’s caught on camera. also, whenever he’s asked what’s his favorite song at the moment, it never stays the same omg- one day he says alex isley and the next he says smino

Ꮺ on a daily, hobie listens to whatever he’s vibing out to at the moment. If he just finished a concert, of course he’s gonna keep the mood going and have rock playing; on a lazy day, some new school rnb; on the days of being spiderpunk, some trap music mixed with some old school hip hop; wash days would include jazz, indie/alt, and some rnb (old school and new school)

Ꮺ hobie has a playlist of recommendations for almost every important person in his life. he loves music and it makes his heart happy when he can share his love of music with others or enjoy watching people enjoy what he listens to

♡⃕ this been sitting in my drafts and somehow got the energy to write it ;p

♡⃕ I do love music and this is lowkey me just projecting my love for music onto one of my fav movies…anyways !

♡⃕ if you have more hcs on this, lemme know !

𝐕𝐎𝐓𝐏 💗: 1 john 4:7

© 𝟤𝟢𝟤𝟥 𝗉𝗂𝗇𝗄𝗁𝗈𝗈𝖽𝗂. 𝖺𝗅𝗅 𝗋𝗂𝗀𝗁𝗍𝗌 𝗋𝖾𝗌𝖾𝗋𝗏𝖾𝖽

[moralesmilesanhour]

mad props! 04

summary: in the week leading up to the show, your grades begin to slip. whatever will you do... word count: 1820 a/n: hiii i rlly enjoyed writing this chapter bc some of the stuff in here has definitely happened to me lmao. if you feel up to it, reblog and tell me what your favorite song from any musical is in the tags! songs mentioned: 'Chip On My Shoulder' - Legally Blonde the Musical (Original Broadway Cast Recording) prev next

“Max, you’re a little flat, hun.”

The choir director pulled her shawl tightly around her as Max–the chosen casting for Emmett Forrest–ran through some of his sung lines for ‘Chip On My Shoulder’. 

The brown-skinned, dark-haired boy was an excellent actor; he breathed life into the words on the script and delivered them with all the earnestness and humor required to play Emmett. Hell, he even improvised his own jokes.

But he couldn’t hold a note to save his life. 

For some lines, Max could get away with half-singing, half-talking, but he was practically tone-deaf once the song got more involved. The choir director–Ms. Johnson–had to be called in to help get him somewhere that was at least within the ballpark of the correct pitch. His high notes remained painful to all present in the room, no matter what she did.

You huffed from your spot on the fake park bench, resisting the urge to scratch your scalp beneath the itchy wig. Everyone had heard the exact melody on the piano by now. Hear it, sing it. Like Spanish vocabulary, you couldn’t comprehend how people got that sort of thing wrong.

Harmonizing with Max went about as expected; you lost your place several times because of the distracting dissonance between your voice and his, like hearing a parrot and an eagle squawk at the same time.

Regardless, it was too late to recast Max now. He had a leading role with too many songs and lines to memorize. 

“Alright, take five!” the director yelled with a clap of her hands. 

A collective sigh could be heard as students dispersed for their well-earned water and bathroom breaks, the tension in the air dissipating. You stepped carefully off of the stage, when you heard a snicker in your direction.

Miles was in the middle of painting a cardboard sorority building in an obnoxious shade of hot pink, shaded with strokes of fuchsia and cyan that managed to work together somehow. You frowned at the fact that you couldn’t say anything bad about it.

The boy struggled to hold back a laugh, looking up as you stood over him with crossed arms.

“Something funny?”

Miles stood to meet your eyes, carelessly wiping bits of paint onto his pants.

“That frumpy-ass 613 wig you got on, for one,” he replied with a teasing grin. “Are you gonna wear that for the actual show?”

You rolled your eyes.

“No, for your information, I’m not. This is a placeholder wig,” you ripped it off of your head for emphasis. “Why are you even here, anyway? Don’t you got posters to make?”

In actuality, you knew about the art club lending some of its members to paint sets for the show. But you wanted to make sure Miles knew he was unwelcome.

“Just doin’ what I do best,” he shrugged. “You should be grateful for my sacrifice.”

You snorted, “What ‘sacrifice’?”

Miles jabbed his thumb behind him towards the left side of the stage, where Max was going over his lines. “I gotta listen to that nigga sing for over an hour. I’m sacrificing my time and my ears.”

Despite yourself, you laughed brightly at the comment, causing a more genuine smile to spread across Miles’ face. You looked pretty when you laughed.

“Oh my god, he sucks, right? Spent the whole damn song looking for the note.”

“Too late to replace him now, though. Show’s in two weeks.”

You nodded.

There was a brief pause before Miles asked, “So what made you sign up for theater? I was kinda surprised to see you on a stage.”

You gave him a wary look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” he raised both hands in defense, “You just seemed like more of the quiet type, that’s all.”

I signed up to avoid you, you thought, but didn’t say aloud; That would’ve given him the satisfaction of knowing that you thought about him that much.

Instead, you answered, “I used to do theater at my old school. Got the lead part most of the time, if you can believe it.”

There was an arrogance in your voice as you said that last bit that soured Miles’ expression. 

“I believe you, no need to convince me,” he said flatly. “Legally Blonde’s an interesting choice, though.”

You shrugged, “The part really lets me show my voice off, so...”

“Showin’ off,” Miles muttered beneath his breath, “Sounds like you.”

“Excuse me?”

Before you could start to argue, his eyes went wide, like he’d just heard a noise that no one else could hear.

“It was really nice talking to you, Y/N, but I gotta go,” he said, spinning on his heel and bolting towards the auditorium door. “Watch my stuff for me!”

Your jaw dropped in offense. Was he allowed to just bail on a club activity like that? And with the gall to ask you to watch his things for him. You totally did, though.

Once you got home, your feet throbbed and your muscles ached from all of the choreography. You were just barely out of your school uniform when you decided to lie down for a quick nap. Or what you thought was a ‘quick nap’.

The blaring of your alarm made your heart jump as your eyes flew open, half of your face damp with drool. The early morning washed over your room in a pale blue shade, and the sight would’ve relaxed you if not for the sudden realization that you weren’t in your pajamas.

You shot up, wiping the side of your face with your sleeve. Your Spanish and AP Physics notebooks were still strewn across your bed, along with several worksheets that had remained blank. Unfinished.

…Oh no.

Your heart was practically in your throat when you explained to Mr. Sanchez why you didn’t have any homework for him to collect. 

The man noticed your glassy eyes, and held up a reassuring hand in the middle of your frantic explanation.

“That’s fine, it happens,” he said gently, “Just bring in the missing work tomorrow, and it’ll only be ten points off. Don’t make it a habit.”

He adjusted his glasses, and returned to grading the pile of worksheets on his desk as you trudged back to your desk, a pit forming in your stomach over those precious ten points.

“You good?” Miles asked as you sat down, concern coloring his features. He ran a finger over a small band-aid on his right temple. “You look like you’re about to cry.”

You buried your face in your arms on the desk.

“Nunya.”

He sighed, “I dunno why I even asked.”

Unfortunately for both you and Mr. Sanchez, missing assignments did, in fact, become a habit. 

You began to spend more time lingering in the auditorium after everyone had left, practicing your line delivery. Adding little details, like extra hair flips or twirls. The spirit of Elle Woods had practically taken over your body.

You got home later and later into the evening, sometimes flopping down onto your bed and falling asleep before your head could even hit the pillow. This new ‘habit’ had you scribbling down vocab words and formulas in a frenzy, balancing your notebook on your lap on the bumpy bus ride to school. The flashcards that you had made for Mr. Sanchez’s class were now sitting untouched at the bottom of your bag.

By Friday, it landed you in front of his desk for office hours after you received your very first ‘F’. 

“As you’ve probably noticed, Y/N, your grades have fallen a significant amount in a very short period of time, and I’m a little concerned,” Sanchez slid your weekly grade report towards you and placed his finger on your Spanish grade. “What’s going on? This is very unusual for a student like you.”

Your sweaty fingers clutched the sides of your seat as you stared down at the report. How did you let it get this bad? Elle Woods would never.

“I-I just…”

You shook your head. “I’ve just been busy with extracurriculars and stuff, so assignments slip my mind sometimes.”

“You’re having trouble balancing them with your schoolwork?”

“Yeah, basically,” you leaned forward, looking desperate. “Can I still re-take that quiz? I didn’t really get to study, and–”

“Oh! That’s actually what I called you in for, one second.”

Sanchez rose from his seat, and made his way over to the door.

“You know about our Study Buddy system, yes?”

You nodded slowly, skeptically. “Am I getting a ‘Study Buddy’?”

“Pre-cisely. Come in!”

He opened the door, and you almost groaned audibly at the lanky figure that appeared at the entrance.

Miles entered with a friendly smile on his face that dropped the second his eyes landed on you.

“Oh. You.”

The Spanish teacher sat back down and gestured towards him.

“Miles here is both a native speaker and beyond proficient in this class. He was so kind as to sign up for the program, so I thought it might be nice to pair him up with someone in the same period.”

Shocked into silence, you were unable to say anything other than a quiet “Okay” as you stared blankly in front of you.

Study buddies. With the guy who didn’t even study. This had to be some kind of sick joke.

“He’ll be giving up a bit of his lunch time to tutor you in my classroom. I’d also highly recommend you two study with each other after school as well, if you can make the time. Sound good?”

“Yes,” you both said in miserable unison. 

“Well, that’s all,” Sanchez waved his hand. “You’re both dismissed. Have a lovely weekend!”

“You too!” you smiled tightly as you got up and made a beeline for the door, nearly bumping into Miles as you did so. 

Your weekend would be anything but ‘lovely’.

You fixed Miles with a glare as soon as you got out into the hallway.

“I’m not giving up my lunch period for you,” you yell-whispered. “I hope you know that.”

He took a step towards you and fired back, “Neither of us have a choice, your highness. If we’re not both up here during lunch, I get in trouble, and you gotta take the L and fail this class.”

“I’d rather fail, then. I don’t give a fuck.”

“Oh?” he laughed mirthlessly. “You were in tears over a damn ‘89’. Makes no difference to me, but I think you do give a fuck.”

You opened your mouth to shoot back a rebuttal, then closed it. Miles raised an eyebrow.

“I’m lying?”

“...No.”

Miles leaned forward until he was only inches away from your face. “Then cooperate. Or we both lose.”

You sighed in defeat, “Fine.”

He nodded curtly, then left to go grab his things from his locker.

In a forced attempt at courtesy, you called out towards his back, “See you next week–”

“Whatever!”

taglist (comment to be added!): @vhstown @alaoraangelix @shuna-boin

[edwardseymour]

Is Katherine Howard very 'luxurious'? How is her family's expenditure situation?

✨ terfs/zionists fuck off ✨

i’m not sure what you mean by your question abt her family: her father ran up debts and struggled financially, but the howards were, generally, wealthy… and her uncle and grandmother likely financed her early career at court.

i think a lot has been said about how indulgent, frivolous and spoilt katherine was as queen, with alison weir suggesting “each day, katherine discovered some new caprice, and her greed earned her the disapproval of many of the older people at court” — for which there is no evidence — and lacey baldwin smith characterised katherine as “a doll upon which to lavish all the luxury and display of tudor imagination. at twenty-one katherine howard, temperamentally, was quite capable of acting the role of the pampered and irresponsible child bride, but she lacked the wit, patience and understanding to play the companion” — which can be disputed with evidence of her involving herself with the queen’s work, and multiple positive descriptions of her by her contemporaries.

moreover, the primary source for the idea that katherine was indulgent and frivolous comes from the spanish chronicle, so it’s not reliable: russell admits that “a spanish merchant living in london, who admittedly never let fact stand in the way of a good story, claimed later that ‘the king had no wife who made him spend so much money in dresses and jewels as she did, who every day had some new caprice’”. likewise, baldwin smith described the same author as “one not very reliable chronicler”. so, there has so be a level of criticism applied to the validity afforded to this source. that’s just basic analytical skill as a historian.

as for actual sources as to her frivolity, we can say that a considerable portion of her collection of jewels and lands (excluding those that came from the queen’s collection) came from henry by way of gifts, with marillac reporting “the king is so amorous of her that he cannot treat her well enough”. the spanish chronicle seems to have rendered this as something katherine demanded, that “the king had no wife who made him spend so much money in dresses and jewels as she did”, which almost certainly seems incorrect, if for no other reason than katherine was not his wife for very long. true enough, if we traipse through her inventories and other records, we can identify numerous gifts from henry. we can also identify gifts that katherine regifted to others, as well as pieces she had repurposed. that she was reported as favouring french fashions suggest her wardrobe was distinct from her predecessors enough to suggest new pieces were purchased in place of her inheriting pieces from jane seymour — albeit anne of cleves did also introduce french fashions to her wardrobe — but this can’t be corroborated with evidence, as hayward has pointed out: “little has come to light about katherine’s wardrobe”.

comparatively, it does not appear that katherine’s material wealth was excessive relative to henry’s other wives. as russell points out: “a defence of her spending can be mounted by pointing out that it does not seem so great when set in its wider context. her jewellery acquisitions in the summer and winter of 1540, for instance, compare favourably in cost to those commissioned by or for anne boleyn, even before she became queen”. likewise tallis’ research has indicated that “jane seymour’s collection was significantly larger than that of either of her successors. […] katherine howard’s inventory consisted of more items than that of the queenly inventory of her successor, katherine parr”.

simply put: the royal court was an exorbitant/garish display of opulence and wealth, irrespective of katherine — earlier in his reign henry’s court was described as a remarkable show of “jewels and gold and silver, the pomp being unprecedented”. katherine as queen, and as an english-born woman lacking international royal standing, was simply more vulnerable to accusations of overspending and frivolity than her husband or other members of the royal family, just as anne boleyn had been. this extends into her historiography too, with gareth russell claiming katherine valued henry because he “could give her everything she ever wanted”, and that “katherine’s extravagance was not balanced by any particular displays of piety or memorable largesse”; perpetuating this idea of teenaged frivolity while otherwise relishing the lavishness of royal and aristocratic circles. consider how russell describes henry’s court otherwise (“the henrician court in its twilight, a glittering but pernicious sunset” in the introduction, as one example). he wants to have it both ways, critical of the barbarity of the henrician court, whilst finding irresistible the level of wealth only barbarity can uphold — this extends beyond henry viii’s court, as russell has also written about the queen mother and titanic, so clearly richness and materiality has its own draw as a subject. meanwhile for katherine, it is used against her: “the very things that made katherine howard’s time as henry viii’s queen so pleasant became a cudgel with which to beat her” (blakemore). moreover i think it is a detail we read backwards into katherine’s historiography, as people allow archetypes about teenage girls, and young women who marry older, wealthy men, to colour their conceptualisation of katherine howard. i’m old enough to remember how people talked about anna nicole smith. especially given the fact that materialism is an element of the investigation into her downfall — “one cannot read the surviving records of the scandal without noticing the ubiquitous concern with the material circumstances of katherine’s indiscretions” (irish) — as the council were very interested in the material connections between the people involved as evidence of courtship conventions by way of gift-giving etc. it has been extrapolated in popular imagination to justify katherine’s actions as those of a spoilt teenage girl.

[buggitino]

some headcanons about sebastian solace from the hit game pressure roblox

to start - this may seem unimportant to you guys but its important to me: that ring on his finger is about as serious as the squirrel stapler room (that is, to say, the whole thing is a bit that the devs have included in their silly project and i will be treating it as such) (for selfish reasons, of course, but idc!! i'm having fun with this stupid game that i love and thats all that matters) (update on this: as i'm typing, i'm finding out that zerum is serious about her and sebastian being married which is honestly kinda...) (like sure fine that's cool and all if he were JUST your OC but sebastian has reached a point of publicity where he is more than that. obviously, i think it's rude and terrible and disrespectful to disregard a creators wishes as to how their character is used in fan-made content (this especially goes for NSFW art cause i think its fucked up if people make that sort of content of a character and POST IT after the creator explicitly said not to). at the same time, there are many people on the internet who do not care and will do what they want regardless. i think it'd be fair for her to ask not to have any of it sent to her specifically or posted in the Pressure server that she co-runs where she will obviously see it but she's saying she doesn't want anyone to make that sort of stuff period which is unreasonable and will only serve to hurt her in the long run. i don't know how old zerum is but this is reminiscent of my own (early) internet phases where i would become EXTREMELY attached to a character and refuse to acknowledge that that character existed differently (or at all) to someone else (i don't want to admit it was a sans AU but i really don't think i have a choice). i really hope she gets past this in a healthy way and comes to understand that a character who's been made public the way sebastian has been made public has a very different dynamic than an OC that you're sharing with your friends)

☆ pretty basic and angsty interpretation and im positive most people in the fandom agree with me on this - he doesn't like getting hit with the bright light not only because of the angler fish DNA making his eyes sensitive but also because it reminds him of surgical lights (which is why he has a Take No Shit policy (since the update) for expendables flashing him) (yeah, he has a pretty short fuse already, but he wouldn't deck an expendable for leaving and coming back in once nor would he shoot them for using the keycard on his wares) (so even though its because of the DNA mixing, i like headcanoning theres more to it for funsies)

☆ can and will let the expendables die in his shop because then he doesn't have to leave to collect all the shit they drop (on that note, wags his tail and chuckles when you buy stuff cause he knows it'll ultimately be useless and he'll just get it back)

☆ collects data so he has records of urbanshades bullshittery (so he can prosecute their asses the second he escapes) AND so he can re-discover his own identity (this plays into my headcanon that he's slowly forgetting what he used to look like as well as what his life used to be outside of urbanshades teensy weensy ginormous fuck up facility)

☆ i know this is (basically) canon but i'm solidifying it for myself by calling it here: he's chilean american (and speaks chilean spanish) and i know like i KNOW if his radio was working he'd be blasting Bio Bio or Futuro or Pudahuel 24/7

☆☆ bonus!! he 100% listens to mid 90s - early 2000s emo music now (have you even seen him) (that mf painted his nails pitch black in middle school) (walked out the door listening to Green Day and One Last Wish on his walkman while his mom kissed him goodbye telling him to have a good day at school TRUST) and his favorite chilean genres are nueva trova chilena, folklore, cueca, and punk melodico! (im not entirely familiar with chilean culture and music so if anyone here is chilean and likes Pressure PLEASE chime in i'd love to hear your thoughts)

☆ on the topic of family, he would help his mom cook and clean sometimes when his older sister was out (his dad helps too!!)

☆ twirls/plays with his hair (mostly because he doesn't have anything else to fidget with) (projecting he's self conscious about it cause thats why i play with my hair whoops)

☆ soft spot for teen/young adult expendables that he doesn't have for the older ones (every time he sees an expendable younger than 30, his disgust and rage towards urbanshade grows)

these are all for fun and just my personal opinions/headcanons!! i'll update these eventually (maybe) and i wanna hear what you guys have to say too :D

[duncebento]

you have such wonderful taste in so many things and i'm so appreciative that you cultivate this space and share it ❤️ could you please recommend another lovely piece of orchestral music?

oh LOL i'm glad you liked it, thank you!!! i was just giving it as an example of a piece that's a bit more technically advanced.

orchestral hmm? well the piece i recommended before was a concerto, which is a solo-ish piece with accompaniment written in-- in that case, a violin concerto accompanied by an orchestra. i find that most of my favored orchestral pieces are concertos rather than pieces written just for orchestras, perhaps because you get the best of both worlds?

first i'll recommend this DOUBLE concerto by brahms; we're in vienna in 1887. i had actually only heard the third and final movement of this piece but the recording is of all three movements and it's fucking incredible. quite long, of course, since most concerto mvmts are between 7-15 minutes i'd say, but so very worth it.

like, just listen to the very first solo, when the cello takes the stage-- how much character development there is in the first minute. this cellist (who is "acting" in the same way that actors are given a written script but decide what to DO with it) makes it easy to imagine a whole narrative-- vengeful, sexy, the cheeky switch to pizzicato (plucking as opposed to bowing.) crazed.

next is a piece from cinderella. it should begin at 37:55. now we're more modern, the bolshoi theatre in 1945, and this orchestra would not be on the stage but in a pit at the foot of the stage, providing a backdrop for cinderella to waltz with the prince before running away. i adore the (very russian) character of this piece because prokofiev paints a whimsical, scary ball rather than choosing to focus on the sweeter romantic aspects of cinderella's meeting with the prince. (and i do think she would've been scared and completely out of her element!) the piece gets more and more frantic until the movement right afterwards, "midnight," where the waltz ends and all we hear is the doom of the foreboding clock.....

now back in time again to 1905! ravel, another impressionist, lived in paris but many of his pieces have obvious spanish influence. he wrote this as part of a 5-movement piece with each movement dedicated to a different member of his artist's collective, which i think is really cute. you can definitely hear that this is a more modern orchestral piece due to its rulebreaking-- this era definitely influenced the compositions for BOTW if you happen to be a fan of that soundtrack as many are.

i'm also gonna link the spotify playlist where i compile the vaguely classical pieces i like-- sorry; it's not curated in any sense, i just add them as i like them. i'd say they're mostly in minor keys because i'm edgy and like musical angst (even the major key ones i like often manage to be angsty...) furthermore there's a focus on cello because i'm a cellist, so pieces that i've played or would like to play (in my dreams...) make their way in often. maybe same with ballet cos i spent a decade and a half in a ballet troupe. otherwise i'd say it's well-rounded enough!

here u go!! and like with any music, if you find something you like, the easiest way to get more of it it by looking at the other movements of the piece/other works by that composer or their contemporaries.

[zero0ne0nexus]

New video! - Oblivion

Hey guys! Today I played a fangame with quite an interesting development history! It's called Oblivion, made by Beloth, aka Lowpics, in RPG Maker VX Ace. The game was initially made for the 2nd Dream Diary Jam in 2018.

There are three versions of this same game. In this video, I have played them all in release order. To note, versions 0.00 and 0.01 are unfortunately not available for download anymore, this is why I have included walkthroughs of them too along with one of the latest version, in order to preserve their memory.

Below the cut are my thoughts on each version.

0.00 - Ayano's version

This first version of Oblivion stars a 9-year-old girl named Ayano. She uses a computer to enter the dream world and her bed to save the game, much like .flow. She seems very hesitant to leave her room and so she refuses.

The dream worlds in this game are rather peaceful, I especially like the fairy forest-looking world with the umbrella flight event. The choice of music in the world was also very nice. (It took me a few attempts to figure out how to actually leave the umbrella event, I had to press W, a key which is never used anywhere else in the game.) There are a few worlds however that are very dark and grim, such as the hospital area where the Peanut Butter Mud ego is obtained. There are also writing on walls that can be edgy in a funny way to some, but to me (as a person with autism who tends to take everything seriously) they feel kinda sad and concerning to read.

The choice of music in the dream worlds is mostly very nice and fitting. The song used in the Overgrown School really brings out the lonely atmosphere. I think that might be my favorite area in this version, along with the Fairy Forest. My only complaint is that Cake Ruins' music is VERY LOUD. It's not like noise music, it's actually a very jolly waltz-y tune. But dang is it loud. All of the music in this version of the game is not originally made by the dev, they're from royalty free sites, but I think the soundtrack still does the job well, and I enjoyed it for what it is.

Ayano uses effects called "Egos". They are mostly food and dessert-themed, however there are a few that are not. An interesting thing that happened while recording is that I accidentally found out you can, when pressing the Q key while using the Milkyway Umbrella ego, you return to the nexus! So, it's one of two speed effects while also being a return to nexus effect. Neat!

There was also a VERY weird event I discovered that intentionally closes the game. I sorta decided to just end that section of the video there because I like to keep things spooky and cinematic, y'all know me LOL

Overall, this version of the game is (mostly) very tranquil and calming. Despite having no ending at that time, I think it was pretty solid!

0.01 - Carla's version

This version of Oblivion was made for the 4th Dream Diary Jam in 2020. The game was completely rebuilt from the ground up, initially releasing as 0.00+, then 0.00++, and finally 0.01 (before being rebuilt yet again for the 5th Dream Diary Jam in 2021.)

Ayano is no more. This time we play as a new character - Carla, a girl who also has a computer to enter the dream world and saves the game using her bed. Carla's sprites are a lot smaller than Ayano's which makes her difficult to see sometimes. She has 7 effects to collect, and also 1 ending to achieve.

Previously, the game was entirely in English, but now it's all in Japanese, save for some menu options which are in... Spanish.

MS. WORLDWIDE!

The dream worlds in this version are kinda... Eh, they're there. Not too much going on. Not even nearly as many NPC's as the last version either. The dream worlds have been entirely replaced. They're all new. Not a single world from the previous version remains.

There was also this event where Carla went to a mirror in a castle and the picture made her look a bit like Omori??? Could be entirely a coincidence as this version of the game released around six months earlier than Omori lmao.

The music is once again very pleasant to listen to. The music is all from a site called Looperman. (I would advise against using Looperman to use free music loops from as there was this one time Youtube content ID'd my Espacio video even though my video predated what song struck me. I checked what song got ID'd and it was some AI-generated song with a dumb title "Joy at the Fellow" and I was the first view LOLOLOL im still mad as hell)

The ending felt very cheap to me... and you can't even re-explore the dream world after you collected all the effects and wake up...

Overall this might be my least favorite version of the game. It has nice music but that's all it has going for it. Pretty boring.

0.02+ - Generd's version

This version is now in Spanish. Once again, the game feels like a completely different game than the previous versions. Now the game feels like a PC-98 game. The color palette is limited and there are special effects for the menu and going from room to room.

Unlike the other two versions, this one opens with a cutscene that explains the premise. The protagonist Generd arrives home one evening. He checks his computer and receives an email from a mysterious woman. She says she is coming to his house because she loves him. Generd somehow cannot delete the email. She soon arrives. Obviously taken aback by this stalker, Generd resolves to get to the bottom of this mystery, by entering a closet(?) and dreaming.

The music in this version of the game is in fact original (save for two Looperman tracks) and was composed by Enonigmus and EBroxas72. I feel they both did a great job capturing the "old computer" music feel.

The object of the game is to collect 4 effects (to achieve Ending 1) as well as 6 pages of a diary (for Ending 2).

I want to say something: the setting of this game makes absolutely no sense. The game:

takes place in 2022

in Canada

Everyone speaks Spanish. (i wouldn't know if Canada had a particularly large Spanish-speaking community like French ones)

Everyone uses old computers even though there's references to Youtube.

The train station also has Cyrillic graffiti and posters

Like something really isn't adding up in terms of setting.

I also want to point out this version of the game has many elements ripped off of Noyemi K's fangame "DuGaSHoBa!"

????????????????????????????? I'm stunned.

This is already a very long post so I'll stop here kthx bye.

[lionessshychai]

Wildflower Intro:

“All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” -Picasso.

There's nothing quite like the smell of a Spring day when it's raining. I think the scientific term for that smell is "Petrichor".  It's strange how that seems to happen in any given part of the world, but spring in Seoul hits differently and that delicious scent meets the very welcoming perfume of cherry blossoms and everything seasoned with gochujang. It's refreshing, sweet, and then, at the last second, a peppery smoke hits you in the face with a hot burst of red chili to see if you're paying attention.  This is my second trip to South Korea since I got my business and marketing degree two years ago, a feat that even I didn't think I'd pull off in time, much less what everyone in my family expected,  or didn't think I could manage based on a long track record of procrastination and general chaos that my entire college experience proved to be. 

But wasn't I supposed to be a famous artist when I grew up? My many works were for everybody to drink espresso in tiny mugs and stare at in intellectual poses while muttering wise interpretations. " ahh, this one speaks to my subconscious self".  -Big dreams when you're eight and you see the world through a twirly straw.

  I didn't grow up in a wealthy family, neither were we poor.  Just the kind of family that eats tuna casserole a few times a month and never goes on vacation, unless you count the two-hour drive to Kalaloch Beach every summer to play in the tide pools and make a pitstop at Kurt Kobain's hometown on the way (A request always given by my older brother, Oliver.) My younger brother, Tan, was content with playing Gameboy the whole way, and not usually even thrilled to get out of the car to see the shoreline and I sketched everything I possibly could into my ratty old Batz Maru sketchbook that was held together by a hair tie.

Practical vocabulary like "income" and "livelihood" crept into my thoughts during junior year and shattered my creative sparkles. “No one can live on an artist’s income. No matter how good you think you are, Mags” Dad told me. Well, thanks for the vote of confidence, dad. A few spins around the sun, long nights, and a mountain of student debt later,  I somehow wound up with an MBA in business, marketing, and linguistics. Honestly, It's still crazy to see "Maggie Marsden has been awarded the Masters of Business Administration- Marketing and Strategy..." hanging on my wall in its pretty brushed gold frame. And yet, I had a feeling that I still hadn't quite washed all the oil paint out from under my fingernails.

 I still love art, but my sketchbook must be collecting dust somewhere beneath a pile of textbooks and graph paper stained by rings of coffee. My other strengths and interest in language came from just having an ear for it.  I guess I was pretty good in French and Spanish throughout high school. Then, I started on basic Korean about a year ago when my bestie Hana got me hooked on watching K-dramas. Her family is Korean-American and she grew up speaking the language.  She's been spending the last two weeks quizzing me with her homemade “Hana Hangul” cards. I feel lucky that I absorb it well.  I am by no means fluent in anything but English and Spanish, but I'm a quick study.  Long story short, I now work in marketing and advertising and answer to Rob Kelly, Manager of international contracts and Amy Sanchez, director of social media advertising. It just so happens that someone in the uppers at Focus Marketing and Advertising, the company I now work for, needed someone with a fresh, young college mind and a happy tongue to go to Seoul to brainstorm some ads and assist a pretty major record label there with a sort of media/cultural cross-over. <My would-be client is an artist known in Korean culture as an "idol" :

(Korean: 아이돌; RR: Aidol) refers to a type of celebrity working in the field of K-pop music in fandom culture in South Korea, either as a member of a group or as a solo act. K-pop idols are characterized by the highly manufactured star system that they are produced by and debuted under, as well as their tendency to represent a hybridized convergence of visuals, music, fashion, and dance.

This idol is putting out their first solo album in both Korea and the States. Their record label is in need of some PR and to create some good media coverage for promotional sales. So, their people work with my people to create something that works for record sales, merchandise, and various other necessities for the success of both the label and the artist.  This is the first contract we have with a media outlet, so I'm excited at the prospect of working with a one as big as this, though I have a lot of homework to do on how.  According to the financial stats, the K-pop machine is churning out some major success in South Korea and everyone wants a cut. I fully accepted the challenge, but shitting bricks at the prospect. 

I asked my younger brother, Tan to keep an eye on things at my place while I was gone and to occasionally water my Monstera plant "Lizzo" in my front entryway. I've had her since junior year of college and now, she takes up most of the foyer. I called Tan one more time before my plane started taxiing the runway at SEATAC.   

“You have ONE job, Tan! Lizzo needs you!” I reminded him for the zillionth time that the lock on the front door is funny and you have to pull on the knob as you turn the key.  I could hear Tan’s eyes roll through the phone. 

 “ Anything else?” he mumbled sleepily. 

 “Yeah, get your ass up, it’s almost six.”  Bro is a senior in highschool and is aiming high for UCLA, though I don't see him earning that scholarship since he's screwed around so much. and mom and Dad couldn't afford that tuition in a million years.  He'd be lucky to get into Puget Sound Community college at this point.

Tan groaned.  “I’m up. ZzZzzzZZ....hey, can you bring me back a shitload of Shin Black, the ramen that has the fire-breathing rooster on it?” he asked.

 "You know there's an H Mart in Tacoma, don't you?  They have a shit ton.  You can stop by after you visit Gram Saturday and give her those old copies of Vogue I put on the entryway table, it's the glass one with the Chagall vase and the photo of Dad at Pike market."  I could audibly detect his mockery after I spoke the word "vase".

 “vahhhhzzz.” He snickered.

 "Tan, you shit!" I huffed.

  "Yeah, yeah, I know the one.  I'll stop by after the gym." He then wished me a 'good flight, no puke’ and ended our cheerful call.

 Exasperated by his deflection, I opened a playlist named "Chill Cello" on Spotify.  Preparing for take-off and staring blankly at the flight attendant doing the safety spiel while in a basket of nerves. I've flown dozens of flights, why does this never get easier? I always end up white-knuckled with sweaty palms and I must look like death because the flight attendants always ask me how I'm doing in a very concerned manner. They immediately offer premium beverages, and, without fail, I usually get a whiskey highball and konk out 30 minutes into the flight. Off we go.  It's fine.  I'm fine...

[fluffydragonmakes]

A Recording of a Lady

After catching the bug of collecting unusual oddities, you will gain the Eye, and inevitably come across a legitimate treasure. Not an earth shattering one necessarily but something that tells a more satisfyingly complete story than usual, and makes you relieved it wasn’t lost to time….and wonder why it isn’t at least in a local museum. 

During my probably unhealthy phase of buying ameteur recordings on eBay and then filing them away, I found this lot. It consisted of an aluminum record, and your typical amateur record faire of the time, a recording of some kid’s christmas pageant from 1951. Alone this would be interesting but I already have one of these and the aluminum record caught my eye.

Aluminum records, particularly the Speak-O-Phone brand typically date from the 20’s and 30’s and were one of the few options available for the general public to hear themselves on their phonograph. With bamboo needles only of course as the steel needles would destroy your record. 

But this was not a Speak-O-Phone, this was a Walter C. Garwick, Rye NY record. Looking up this name revealed quite a bit. Walter C. Garwick was a recording engineer who built his own record recorders and recorded primarily for experts in the ethnomusicology field throughout the 30’s. He provided recording service for the America Dialect Society and ethnomusicologist Laura Boulton and designed a record lathe for the Library of Congress. His recordings are mostly held by the Library of Congress and Columbia University and at least a few more in private hands according to one worthpoint post. Here’s a good dive into Mr. Garwick’s life.

Walter C Garwick in 1945 holding a baby.

source: Christine Whittaker

I knew this had to be one of those so naturally I got it. I didn’t originally notice it but when it arrived I saw that the record sleeve has a note scrawled on it, providing more clues.

“The Little Half-Chick told by (a name starting with Cl) P. Cope.”

Below there’s a trail of multiple arrows leading the way to the reminder “Play this record with fiber needles only.” Whoever recorded this probably had a frustrating history of people ruining his records with their steel needles and needed MULTIPLE arrows for emphasis. This has got to be the real thing.

The recording features a woman, Ms. Cope, narrating the Little Half-Chick, the Spanish folktale of a flat chicken and how it became the weathervane. 

The recording is noisy but her voice comes in very clearly in places. Towards the end a man, possibly a researcher or Mr. Garwick himself, asks “Who is telling this story?” which she responses with an unintelligible first name with her last name, Cope. The man then asks “Ms. Cope, what are you doing…” and then becomes unintelligible.

My next steps from here are to figure out whether the man‘s voice appears in other Garwick recordings and what Ms. Cope’s first name is. I can’t hear what she says and I can’t read the handwriting.

(I was part of the last 3rd grade that learned cursive before my school district splurged and gave us all iPads that everyone broke one week in.) 

I could also look into whether physical documentation exists that this recording was made. This is easily my greatest find. Not only is it likely from the 30’s but it can be tied down to a name, and if I’m lucky, a date. I want to ensure its story gets told. 

My time with it is probably temporary and as I poke further, I will likely end up donating it somewhere, perhaps joining its brethren at the Library of Congress, a family, or Columbia University. 

Here is my recording of both sides on the top of the post. I heeded the warning by using a fiber needle and recorded it with my 1914 Victrola and an iPhone in the horn. 

[corrupted-nightmare]

back to the basics -

name: viviana june vikare. name meaning: vivana meaning alive or lively. june meaning young. nickname(s): vivi, viv occult type: vampire, red council. birthday: october 13th age: 126 ; 23 (age when turned) sexuality: bisexual occupation: dance teacher ; stripper language(s) spoken: romanian, hungarian, english, spanish

extra, extra, read all about it !

personality deep dive -

archetype: the coryphee zodiac: libra - the scales - air - venus personality type: esfp - entertainer positive traits: sociable, persuasive, daring negative traits: unhinged, extravagant, intrusive moral alignment: chaotic evil enneagram: type 7 - enthusiast hobbies: dancing, ballet, vinyl record collecting pinterest: click here theme song: rhiannon - fleetwood mac

ties that bind -

birth parents: skender vasile & livinia barbu aunt: sorina barbu sibling(s): jinx & sorin vikare pet(s): athena - cat

open for the taking -

(character) back from the dead - ex. vivi acts spontaneously. you made her angry during your breakup years ago and she killed you. or, at least she thought she did. she wasn't as fine-tuned in axing people as she is now and accidentally turned you into a vampire. whoopsie daisy. now, you have returned. could be that you hate her and have been hunting her down. could be that you just accidentally stumbled into the same town. any gender. would likely have been turned in the late 40s-early 50s.

(connection) it takes two to tango - vivi teaches dance classes of all different styles. you could be a long time student of hers (at least, since she came to town) or a new one.

(connection) all that jazz - vivi loves music. you two have bonded over this. maybe, you just love it too or maybe you play/sing. either way this has brought you together.

(connection) former hookups - vivi likes to have a good time. these were nothing serious, but you likely remained pals.

(connection) enemy/ies - viv doesn't take things too seriously. even having a foe. this could irritate you or you find it amusing. either way, it is like a game to her. would probably be an occult fued, but we can really figure out anything!

once upon a time -

viviana never got to know her parents, though once she did meet her father, she understood why. her mother died during childbirth and her aunt raised her.

having known that vivi was in danger of being turned one day from the rumors around their village in romania, her aunt moved them to new york. she had thought the busy city would be a good place to hide amongst the throngs of people.

vivi grew a deep love of dancing when she was a child, certainly stemming from the flapper era that she was being raised in. that love sent her to a ballet school in london during the summer of 1944. it was there that she had received a call that her aunt had been murdered. when she went back to their home, she found a letter addressed to her in the event of her aunt's passing explaining the fears of her father finding her.

not sure of what else to do, vivi packed up what she needed and headed towards the west coast, thinking that she wouldn't be found. however, she was wrong. her father caught up with her in california and turned her into a vampire. not that she wanted a relationship with him, but it seemed he also didn't want one with her. he did tell her limited information on his plans to gain more power by extending his bloodline.

vivi wasn't sure when it would happen, but she knew eventually she would have siblings that she would be unable to warn about the man. that day came when she found a brother and sister, jinx and sorin, both created and turned by skender vasile.

despite the circumstances, vivi was thrilled to have siblings and took to them immediately. she gladly moved with them from place to place, eventually finding san arcadius.

inside information -

during the war, vivi could often be found at uso dances.

after her aunt was killed, she would leave california for months at a time to go to different countries and study their dance styles.

during the day, vivi has a dance studio in town that she rents to teach. all of the windows are blacked out.

she loves music, often losing track of time dancing around to music.

she has a fascination with daggers and throwing them, making her an excellent dart player.

quite the gambler, loves both the slots and tables.

believes her cat is a better judge of character than she is.

[tenderloviingcare]

❀ *◦ luke pasqualino. cis man. he/him. homoromantic gray-asexual. ⇝ hey, isn’t that leonardo amoretto? i think that the thirty-five-year-old from queens, new york, works as a pediatrician at anchorage regional hospital, but outside of that people describe them as freshly ground espresso; dusty tchotchkes at the back of an antique mall; the blanket you always use when you sleep over at grandma’s house; and the steady click of knitting needles. i hear they are rigid & timid, but they are also known to be benevolent & gentle. consider giving them a visit at their home in delilah’s den gated community and get to know why they’re called the recluse.

➙ this muse has a stutter, which may sometimes vary in severity, and is written by someone with experience with speech impediments! ➙  leo’s gayness is inclusive of trans men and masc-presenting nonbinary people (as long as they are comfy with a gay man being attracted to them)!

full name: dr. leonardo cirrincione amoretto, md

dob: 15 september 1988

place of birth: queens, new york

languages: italian (fluent); sicilian (near-fluent); american english (native); latin (fluent); latin american spanish (very strong)

education: medical degree, columbia university

strengths: educated; compassionate; empathetic; dependable; perceptive; captive listener; logical; humble; benevolent; calm; dignified; polite; loyal; gentle

weaknesses: anxious; overthinker; rigid; enigmatic; passive; gloomy; escapist; pessimistic; shy; submissive; tense; timid

hobbies: cooking; singing; bicycling; running; watching movies; reading; antiquing; collecting vinyl records; ice skating; skiing; gardening; quilting; knitting; bowling; jigsaw puzzles; magic tricks

likes: snow; Christmas; his privacy; quiet time; trashy romance novels; good coffee; torta settevelli; freshly baked bread; The Princess Bride film; soul music; antiques; cooking competition shows; home improvement shows

dislikes: instant coffee; alcohol; excessively loud people; anti-vaxxers; drivers who don’t use their turn signal, whether they’re turning or changing lanes; the sound of styrofoam rubbing against styrofoam; sudden stops in pedestrian traffic; people who follow a gluten-free diet even though they don’t have celiac disease and are therefore unaffected by gluten

disabilities & health: major depressive disorder; seasonal affective disorder; generalized anxiety disorder

dr. leo amoretto shares very little about himself with his peers. though friendly with just about everyone he meets, he doesn’t consider himself to have many friends: he feels himself too dull to be of much interest to anyone. through quick conversation with him, though, you can quickly deduce from his accent that he’s from queens; and from his mannerisms that he’s painfully shy and high-strung, and old-fashioned.

the man known as many kids’ favorite doctor was adopted and raised by his sicilian grandparents in queens. his existence was an accident: his mother, only 19, had immigrated by herself only months prior to getting pregnant; his father was twice his mother’s age and was little more than a hook-up with a fellow italian immigrant. fabiana amoretto was an immature, irresponsible addict; and her parents, gianfranco and benedetta, made the decision to sell their deli business in palermo and immigrate themselves so they could be in their grandson’s life.

being in their grandson’s life turned into raising him completely, gaining custody of him when he was in kindergarten, as his mother would still often disappear for days at a time, totally neglecting her young child. she missed out on a brilliantly intelligent, and helpful and sweet, little boy. leo’s grandparents’ english wasn’t very strong, so he learned italian and sicilian as his first languages at home; while they enjoyed playing old movies and tv shows to learn english faster. 

even from a very young age, leo hasn’t liked many eyes on him at once, shrinking in anxiety when too much attention is placed on him. the confusion of languages—italian and sicilian at home, english at school and everywhere else—combined with his crippling shyness formed a lifelong stutter that has diminished only slightly with time. as an adult in his 30s, he can control it usually; but if he has to speak for too long or if he’s in distress, it becomes far more obvious.

leo was always a dutiful child, learning to cook and do many household chores from a young age. this became even more important when his nonno—grandfather—was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer when leo was a teenager. leo had to take over much of the house work and cooked most of the meals, and would accompany nonno to appointments while nonna was busy working to support them. leo was doing all of this in between staying at the top of his class and completing community service for activities such as beta club.

nonno died when leo was weeks away from graduating high school. he’d always been a bit melancholy, but the death sent leo into a spiral of depression. it was late enough into the school year that he was already guaranteed to graduate as valedictorian, and he had been awarded many scholarships to several top schools; but he began floating through life. he didn’t go far for his undergrad years so he could be close to his nonna, who was soon diagnosed with a rare nerve disease called myesthenia gravis.

nonna died during the summer between undergrad and the beginning of medical school. leo totally buried himself in med school. his mother has only ever made occasional appearances in his life, begging for money; and he wasn’t very close with his extended family in italy.

being so intelligent and dedicated, leo had very little trouble getting a residency on match day when he was finished with med school; and after that, he quickly found interest in the pediatrics field: when you watch him interact with children, it’s plain to see that it’s much easier for him to interact with them than adults, and that he has a huge heart.

he ended up in anchorage as a way to put distance between himself and the memories of the past, not wanting to be surrounded by painful reminders. it’s difficult out here, as he’s just so damn shy, but he’s already gained a reputation as a diligent and caring doctor.

and if you manage to get close enough to him, it’s like having an italian grandma who’s a gay man in his thirties.

[raphaelly]

End of Year Zuka Tag 2023 Part 2

3. Never Say Goodbye: Which taidansha did you find the hardest for you to say goodbye to this year? 

Timewise, the first one has to be Kazumi Shou's taidan... she was one of hanagumi's best singers, both mature and cool on stage, and she brought something truly special by her presence alone. Her taidan role in Singing Loverbirds was perfect though and her funny and touching dynamic with Hoshikaze Madoka was imo the highlight of the show!

The second one was Arisa Hitomi's, I was wishing she'd stay forever 😭 Unparalleled voice, amazing acting, and a genuinely sweet personality, it's just impossible not to love Kuracchi. She was one of those non top musumes the company allowed to shine and she truly felt like a star. To hear her sing that solo as Marie Antoinette in 1789 made me a tear up for real...

4. Material Girl: Favourite piece of merch (most treasured Takarazuka thing you have bought yourself this year, OR if you didn’t buy anything this year, a piece of merch that is on your wish list)

I have very little merch dfjhv but this year was the first year I bought stills and bromides from QR! It took more than 2 months to arrive lmao but I'm still so happy to have all these high quality pics of my faves. And for christmas I treated myself to Madoka's photobook, it should hopefully be on its way now 👀

5. Mon Paris: Did you discover a new fav show that was not from this year? (This can be any fav show that you saw for the first time this year that was released before 2022)

I must have discovered a bunch of older shows but the one that stood out to me the most was Never Say Goodbye (2006). The Spanish Civil War and fascism at large are difficult topics, especially for a company like Takarazuka that doesn't have the best track record when it comes to handling these issues with care when so much revolves around making siennes look cool, no matter what they play. But NSG felt spot on for me. Without making any sienne play any fascist, it managed to portray the importance of resistance against fascism while still showing the difficulties of organising armed resistance without (too much) infighting. Also Wildhorn has never not made a banger, all the songs slap.

6. Wings of the Heart: Favourite fandom memory (this could be a fun stream experience, going to the theatre with friends, all collectively freaking out about something together, anything really!)

Most probably the first (and only so far) international-friendly livestream we've had on BeyondLive for James Bond. The excitment was palpable lol and personally I was so happy to have any "official" subs at all, even if of so-so quality. They gave us some top tier memes and memories, plus the general emotions of seing Makaze Suzuho and Jun Hana taidan (my first top combi taidan!), I was happy to be a fan that day and to have this community.

7. The Final Dance (Saigo no Dansu): What was your favourite duedan of the year?

Frozen Holiday, hands down. Ayakaze Sakina and Yumeshiro Aya, and other pairs, dancing while Howl's Moving Castle's theme plays in the background, it feels magical. And with the news of saki taidanning on the next GT, it's now even more important to me.

[lastsurvivor]

Character Sheet

basics.

full name. ellen louise ripley

nicknames / aliases. ripley, rip

age. 30s

zodiac. capricorn

spoken languages. english, some spanish (enough to get a point across)

physical characteristics.

hair colour. dark brown

eye colour. dark brown

skin tone. cream(?), very lightly tanned, some freckles

body type. toned, lean

dominant hand. left

posture. pretty good, but slouches/ leans forward sometimes in her seat

scars. a few that are mostly covered by her clothing, but some on her hands as well from work and other small accidents

tattoos. none

birthmarks. a very faded one on the back of her neck, you’ll only see if if you look hard enough

most noticeable features. extremely curly hair, piercing eyes, the way she carries herself

childhood.

place of birth. olympia, luna (earth colony)

siblings. none

parents. frank ripley (father), jennifer ripley (mother)

adult life.

occupation. warrant officer in main verse, ex-military in modern, vigilante/superhero in superhero verse

residence(s). an apartment on luna

close friends. some of her coworkers (main and modern), a few childhood friends she’s kept in contact with, other verse dependent connections

relationship status. single (verse dependent), but has two ex husbands

financial status. working-middle class

driver’s license. yes

criminal record. N/A unless you wanna count her abandoning an entire ship without delivering the goods I guess? (Doesn’t count in my book but lmao)

vices. a little bit of wrath, but she deserves it I think, being stubborn, wanting to go by-the-book as much as possible (if that counts ???)

sex & romance.

sexual orientation. lesbian

preferred sexual role. dominant

libido. average

turn-ons. clear communication, having a good sense of humor, being yourself / not hiding behind a mask, being passionate about something, confidence, good grooming habits, actively listening to her, receiving neck kisses, her hair being played with or tugged on, having her partner use her first name, giving hickeys

turn-offs. selfishness, being rude to waiters/waitresses/servers, excessive pda, cockiness, using her first name if she doesn’t know you too well, ignorance, sloppy when eating/in dress, being controlling, jealousy, being assumptive/jumping to conclusions

love language. words of affirmation & quality time…probably a little bit of gift giving, I can see her leaving nice goodies for her partner on occasion because she saw it and thought of them (I forgot the others and these seemed like her so…)

relationship tendencies. tends to be open and honest and communicates her likes/dislikes clearly, has had casual flings in the past, but is looking for something serious nowadays especially after her two husbands weren’t the best people. she can’t fix what happened, but healing would be very nice, especially after that she discovered her true self. slowly dipping her toes back into the dating pool.

miscellaneous.

hobbies to pass time. wood working, tinkering, reading, playing basketball/tennis, watching corny/cheesy movies, cooking/baking, stargazing, going to unique museums, collecting things related to her interests (peanuts/snoopy stuff, etc.), reading the comics in the newspaper and cutting out/ collecting strips she enjoys

mental illnesses. ptsd, depression, claustrophobia, survivor’s guilt

self-confidence level. pretty good most of the time, even with people not listening to her. she knows when she's right.

Tagged by: @sxbaist <3

Tagging: YOUUUUU

[dbstaches]

MATERIAL WORLD: THE GRID Grid your loins, it's Dave Ball (left) and Richard Norris Picture: Roger Sargent

NME magazine, 30 October 1993 — full article text bellow

WHERE ARE YOU NOW AND HOW DO YOU FEEL? RICHARD: In the Village Inn as usual, unshaven, post-remixing lag DAVE: The Village Inn, tired and emotional

FIRST RECORD YOU EVER BOUGHT? R: ‘Blockbuster’, The Sweet D: ‘Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes’, Edison Lighthouse

WHO WOULD DIRECT THE ‘TEXAS COWBOYS’ MOVIE? R: Andy Warhol, if he was alive, Lonesome Cowboys 2 D: Sam Peckinpah – lots of fake blood

WHICH CHARACTER WOULD YOU HAVE PLAYED IN THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY? R: Clint – for the stubble and cheroots D: Lee Van Cleef. He wears black clothes, smokes cigars – my kind of guy

WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU SAW MARC ALMOND AND WHAT WAS HE DOING? D: On TV, doing a costume-change at Royal Albert Hall

DESCRIBE EACH OTHER IN THREE WORDS? R: Jolly Uncle Jack D: Griff Rhys Jones

WAS VIC REEVES AS SURREAL IN REAL LIFE? R: Haddock

FONDEST MEMORY OF YOUR NME DAYS? R: Jack Barron ranting, Fred Dellar (gawd bless ’im) and two weeks in Ibiza on expenses

MOST EMBARRASSING RECORD IN YOUR COLLECTION? R: A double LP of Barbara Woodhouse teaching dogs to sit. Walkies! D: ‘In The Night’ by Tony Blackburn

HOW DO YOU SEE THE FUTURE OF SPAGHETTI DISCO? R: Take That doing ‘Rawhide’

BEST THING ABOUT PERFORMING LIVE? R: Watching the wide-eyed and legless

WHAT INSPIRES YOU? R: Punk rock, disco D: Everything

WORST FLYING EXPERIENCE? R: Being in economy class D: Flying from LA to London on acid; flying from London to the South of France with Depeche Mode, dropping 1,000 feet when we hit an air pocket

WHO WOULD BE YOUR DREAM COLLABORATION? R: Iggy Pop D: A film score with John Barry/Angelo Badalamenti

IF YOU HAD A LABEL WHICH TWO ROCK ACTS WOULD YOU SIGN? R: AC/DC, Nine Inch Nails D: Zodiac Mindwarp, The Ramones

WHAT DID YOU THINK WHEN THEY DESCRIBED YOUR MUSIC AS “JUNGLE” ON CORONATION STREET? R: Smashing, chuck D: I liked it so much I sampled it

FIRST BANDS? R: The Innocent Vicars, The Fruitbats, The Wild Kitchen, East Of Eden D: Soft Cell

HOW MANY TELEVISIONS DO YOU OWN R: About 20. I got a fine for not having a license

DESCRIBE YOUR TOTP EXPERIENCE? D: Tedium-tastic

THREE GREAT THINGS ABOUT THAILAND AT CHRISTMAS? R: The sky at night, bats, blue-capped evenings with neon fish

HOW WOULD YOU SPEND AN IDEAL SUNDAY AFTERNOON? R: Horizontally, after a bad game of golf D: Lunch with friends and good wine

WHAT'S THE WEIRDEST SITUATION YOU'VE EVER BEEN IN? R: Being surrounded by Hackney constabulary with Genesis and Paula P Orridge at 5am after imitating a Sunday People reporter D: Running naked down a Madrid hotel corridor with Stevo, wielding two replica Flintlock pistols, chasing two Spanish girls

FAVOURITE PEOPLE? D: Richard & Judy, Paul Merton, Dennis The Barman

CAN YOU RETIRE ON THE MONEY ‘TAINTED LOVE’ MADE IN AMERICA? D: No, but I'm, sure our American lawyers and A&R men could!

WHAT DID MADONNA DO WHEN YOU UPSTAGED HER IN NEW YORK? D: She forgave me the next morning

CHOOSE A RECORD TO WAKE UP TO/SLEEP TO/HAVE SEX TO R: Wake up: ‘Cobalt Blue’, Michael Brook. Sleep: ‘Music For Airports’, Brian Eno. Sex: ‘There's A Riot Goin' On’, Sly And The Family Stone D: Wake up: ‘Rise And Shine’, The Flintstones. Sleep: ‘Very/Relentless’, Pet Shop Boys. Sex: ‘Neroli’, Brian Eno

WHAT ELSE CAN YOU DO? R: Write a mean paragraph. I could be an A&R man if I was really desperate D: Top oarsman and not a bad cook

HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO GO? R: Like Aldous Huxley

[dissonantia-goddess-of-chaos]

Yorata/Jorat, the Bat-Dragon kaiju (2022 redesign):

Edits to the picture:

It is meant to say "long sticky tongue". You know, like a frog. Kinda.

I know I misspelled "Kaiju". It was 3:00 am when I finished this, cut me some slack.

I forgot to mention that she can mimic other monster cries. Not perfectly, but still good enough to fool them.

She will volunteer to take care of Godzilla's son and nurture him.

Will immediately chase monsters off her territory, except Godzilla. She will give chase if she sees Mothra.

She naturally goes after large sharks and blue whales, but will accept fruit, meat, and rice offerings from her people. She also likes chilé.

Very soft fur and sheds every month on the seventh day.

Almost always a group of researchers are following her and recording her every move. She has zero privacy when courting Godzilla.

Once a month, she'll visit Skull Island to steal a creature to eat later, mostly the large octopi and skullcrawlers.

She lives in underground caves deep beneath the earth. She will often tolerate miners working in the smaller tunnel systems, often watching them with curious (calm) eyes.

Black and white fur.

She does a spin funnel in the air to dry herself off after hunting at sea.

Often visits Godzilla's underwater home.

Absolutely despises Rodan and Ghidorah.

She surprisingly is on good terms with the Queen MUTO, based on observations, but has eaten deceased MUTOs and their eggs in the past.

No one knows where she came from, but it is said in legends that she is an ancient goddess worshiped by the Aztecs and was believed to be part of a group of spiritual animal entities who fought each other for territory, shaping the Earth with their many battles. But there is evidence that she might be a creation of the Aztec bat god Camazotz; all of the cave tunnels she digs leads back to an extremely large chamber underneath central Mexico, with the walls filled with aztec hieroglyphics and images engraved into them describing how she came to existence: when the Spanish conquistadors came and destroyed the Aztec Empire, as one final attempt to save their culture and history, the people did sacrificial rituals and prayed to the Gods to save them. Camazotz and Quetzalcoatl, hearing their cries of desperation, created Yorata to guard the treasures and remains of the fallen empire.

At a closer inspection, the quills on her tail are similar to that of a porcupine, but are laced with sedatives. It is theorized that the quills are used as tranquilizer darts used against both prey and attacking predators.

It is unknown if Yorata sleeps like a bat (upsidedown) or laying down (stomach or side).

She is partially mammalian with no visible scales, so she would most likely give birth to live young, but there is a chance she could lay eggs.

She is resistant to paralysis toxins and venom of all kinds.

Her stomach acid is highly corrosive, three times more than human stomach acid. When she accidentally vomited on a car, it melted in ten seconds. It is theorized that the usefulness of her stomach acid is to dissolve the tough armor plating of other monsters to reach the soft tissue.

She often locates forgotten warheads for the military.

Explosives and mines don't damage her, as they are too weak to cause any harm to her skin. Her gills might be her weak spot.

Rarely eats humans, as we are too small to satisfy her hunger.

Dogs never bark at her.

Her quills are collected to make painkillers.

She is observed to bring food offerings and gifts to Godzilla, and doesn't seem interested in anything in returned. She can be also seen laying on his back when he surfaces, chin resting on top of Godzilla's head.

Her purring can be heard from a mile away, as well as her mating calls to Godzilla.

She can actually smile, and form other facial expressions.

Yorata is observed to tease, play with, and annoy Godzilla, constantly rubbing against him as if she was a cat.

She constantly "cleans" Godzilla with her tongue and teeth, but she could be feeding off of the radiation on his skin.

Mentioning radiation, Yorata also emits "good" radiation that helps environmental growth, as shown with the studies of plants growing in the cave systems she inhabits and digs.

Bats from the Hollow Earth react to recordings of her vocalizing, often tilting their heads in confusion or calming down after being provoked.

It is theorized that, since she is rising up on the food chain and defeated Mothra several times, she is technically the Queen of Monsters.

Her worshipers annually gather every year around the Gulf of Mexico to celebrate a festival dedicated to her. To prevent accidental tsunamis, high barriers are placed on the beaches curving towards the sea. Massive amounts of food is prepared and cooked for both the attendants and the Kaiju—she often brings Godzilla along to enjoy a quick meal. The fattest of cattle, swine, and herds are sacrificed to Yorata. Absolutely NO fireworks are allowed!

Her screams and shrieking sounds like an amplified Aztec Death Whistle. It is an effective psychological sonic weapon against other monsters.

In the main chamber, an Aztec artifact that has been discovered appears to be a giant version of the previously mentioned death whistle. It is theorize that the Aztecs used it to summon Yorata.

Theme song.

[urapunk2023]

Was Nico a Nazi? 

Lena Kelsall 

Many of us know harrowing sounds of the Velvet Underground’s lead accompanying female vocalist on their debut studio album “The Velvet Underground and Nico” produced in part by Andy Warhol, but who among us has investigated the sinister origins and worldview of this beautiful and lonely proto-punk Feme Fatale?  

The longevity of her career as well as the allure with contemporaneous male artists make Nico a misunderstood but enticing proto-punk figure. She sold out a show in San Fransisco at the club Fab Mab as a solo artist almost 10 years after the album with The Velvet Underground debuted, but she played none of her folksier tunes made in collaboration with the Underground nor her solo album “Chelsea Girl” made with help from artists like Bob Dylan a decade earlier. Rather, she performs the eerily ambient and gothic sounds made with her harmonium and afflicted voice, produced with the help of John Cale from her albums “Dessert Shore”. What is troubling however, is her choice of finale at this performance at Fab Mab’s; a rendition of “Deutschland,’ the German national anthem including the parts which are routinely omitted for the national socialist connotations. A rendition entitled “Das Lied Der Deutschen” is the closing track on her 1974 Album “the End...” and a performance of it in Berlin is said to have incited a riot among students. Can we acknowledge Nico’s “Nazi-esque” leanings and still listen to her music? 

Nico was born Christina Päffgen in Cologne in 1938, she came into the war-torn continent with a Nazi-informed world view as her Spanish and Yugoslavian parents were coerced towards Hitler’s cause to their fatal end. Despite enduring trauma growing up in the midst of WWII, she was educated in France, Italy and Germany and pursued a model-actress-singer career across Europe from the age of 15. Although Nico’s biographer uncovered her diaries from her childhood in Cologne where she wrote sentiments of resistance towards the anti-sematic human degradation she witnessed, this is not a qualification for racist behaviors and statements from her recorded in the 70’s where she had a public platform on the continent which claims freedom and human liberty. As people debate ‘canceling’ and deplatforming problematic figures, and considering the use of swastikas in the punk scenes in London (in a critical method of Detournement, or in a white nationalist way by skinheads), we have reason to seriously consider the ideological implications of an artist's identity and perhaps separate it from their art.  

Bibliography  

Greg Turner, “Nico on th’west coast and other UFO sightings” New York Rocker Vol 1 No 11 February-March 1977 accessed via Special Collections at Charles Library  

“She'll Be Your Mirror: Who Was the Real Nico?” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 4 July 2021, https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/nico-biography-velvet-underground-b1875484.html.  

Fyles, Fred S. “Problematic Faves: Nico.” Felix, https://old.felixonline.co.uk/articles/2016-12-9-problematic-faves-nico/.  

“She'll Be Your Mirror: Who Was the Real Nico?” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 4 July 2021, https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/nico-biography-velvet-underground-b1875484.html. 

[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