#multiple people coming together to create a story is awesome :D
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it's freaking fun to collaborate with others!
meg pokrass, 2021
#it sure is 'freaking fun' to collab with my bffs! :D#multiple people coming together to create a story is awesome :D
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8, 9, 14 and 17 for the AO3 wrapped please :)
Hiyaaa! You've got it! :D Something tells me this is going to be a rambly fic rec list, so brace yourself! 8. Pairing you read the most for? For the first half of the year, I was creating things and reading at the same time, for multiple ships and multiple fandoms. I was reading everything for common ships and rare pairs, tbh. 📗 From my January TBR list, I’m reccing Licurici by louisfake | @lou-isfake (HP- Harry/Charlie/Draco, E, 133,092) because it’s amazing! I binged this in 2 nights, and it was so worth it! The world-building is phenomenal, and Charlie’s character is so well developed...I love how we see more than just a Weasley and a Dragonologist. He’s a person who’s complicated, has all the feels, and oh hey, he just happens to love the hell out two handsome blokes. A gorgeous read, and make sure to have tissues nearby because you’re going to need it! And I will always rec this fic again and again. You’re welcome. ANDDD, OKAY. From September up to now, I’ve been binging everything Sterek (pretty such every day), because that’s what happens when one is introduced and sucked into Teen Wolf. I quickly fell head over heels for them (it only took one fic ;D), and they’ve been a comfort ship for me ever since. 📗 It seems wasted now by DaaroMoltor (TW- Sterek, T, 48,618) is one of the first fics I read that made me want to explore this ship more. This is a deep slow burn where apparently Derek and Stiles suck at using their words and don’t know how to talk to each other, and the feelings that come up from so misunderstandings kinda just pull at the heart. (I think it’s very obvious now that all my fav fics seem to be angsty and make people cry, oops). I’d say Kelly Clarkson’s lyrics, “What doesn't kill you makes you stronger,” 1000% sums up what this fic is about, with Stiles trying to prove his worth to the pack, and of course I’m on board with anything that explores him being a Spark. Also, maggggic. 📗 Here’s one more rec: Blue Rocket by snarkatthemoon | @snarkatthemoon (TW: Sterek, E, 43,948) is a fic I couldn’t stop thinking about for dayyyys! There are so many things I can probably ramble on about from this fic, but Derek’s PoV is soooo on point, given his complex character, fears and expectations. The world-building is so well-thought out, the chemistry that Derek and Stiles have together is 🔥🔥🔥 and man, there are just soooo many layers to peel back. It’s gorgeous, heartbreaking, and yayy for Magical, Drummer AND Tattooed Stiles! Whoops, I guess that was a really loaded answer! 9. Favorite rare pair you read works for this year? What can I say? Perciver is always on my radar, so I’m always looking for new works to dive right into! They’re a ship I can come back to again and again, and ramble on about for infinity. I will totally talk read and talk everything Perciver in a heartbeat. 📘 A fav back from February is two cannot keep a secret by happynotdignified (HP- Perciver, T, 11,409). This story digs right into different PoVs of the Weasley family with each family member finding out that Percy and Oliver are dating. It’s bittersweet, and there are a lot of feels through conversations, letters and yeahh. Loosely follows the canon timeline while filling in some gaps, but gods, it’s so interesting to see how and what Percy’s family discover about him and Oliver and how that changes what they thought they knew about him, and how wrong they were. In terms of character development, we see how strong Percy and Oliver are as individuals and as a pair through different lenses. Love this to pieces, and it’s such a cool take on things. 14. Favorite AU you read this year? 📙 quite like us by alarainai (HP- Jegulus- T, 67,315) was such a fun read because that was how I was introduced to Jegulus and the awesomeness of text fic! Also, eagerly awaiting each update was super exciting when this was still a WIP. And this is probably the one exception I’ll make for fluff because holy crap, what a slow burn this is, but also, wrong number AUs always leads to great things, right? I have so much appreciation for Regulus’ snark and humour, and well, James is so gone for him, it’s not even funny. ♥️ 17. Did you leave any comments that had to be in more than one part? I usually like to keep things all in one comment just for ease. But if I need to ramble or break down all the things I appreciate in a work, I totally will. In general, if screaming and emojis can get my point across, that works too. :P Omg, just from the recs above, that’s already a lot of words read?! I have no idea what my actual wc for all of 2022 is (500k? Maybe more?), but I know it’s far more than what I read in 2020 and 2021 combined. 😅 Thanks for the asks!
___ Have more reader q's? Ask me via AO3 Wrapped [Reader Edition]!
#asked and answered#ao3 wrapped#sterek#perciver#jegulus#charlie/harry/draco#ask meme#fanfic#about me#hp fanfic#teen wolf fanfiction#fic recs#rec lists
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The Anti-Mercer Effect
On the Accessibility of D&D, Why Unprepared Casters is so Fun, and Why Haley Whipjack is possibly the greatest DM of our generation.
(Apologies to my mutuals who aren’t in this fandom for the length of this, but as you all know I have never in my life shut up about anything so… we’ll call it even for the number of posts about Destiel I see every day.
To fellow UC fans - I haven’t listened to arc 4 yet, I started drafting this in early August, and I promise I will write a nice post about how great Gus the Bard is once I get the chance to listen to more of his DMing).
Structure - Or, “This is not the finale, there will be more podding cast”
So, first of all, let’s just talk about how Unprepared Casters works. Because it’s kind of unusual! Most of the other big-name D&D podcasts favor this long, grand arcs; UC has about 10 hours of podcast per each arc. And that’s a major strength in a lot of ways: it makes it really accessible to new listeners, because you can just start with the current arc and understand what’s going on!
And by starting new arcs every six or seven episodes, they can explore lots of ways to play D&D! Classic dungeon delve arc! Heist arc! Epic heroes save the world arc! Sportsball arc! They can touch on all sorts of things!
And while I’m talking about that: Dragons in Dungeons, the first arc, makes it incredibly accessible as a show - because it lets the unfamiliar listener get a sense of what D&D actually is. (It’s about telling stories and making your friends feel heroic and laugh and cry, for the record). If I had to pick a way to introduce someone to the game without actually playing it with them, that arc would definitely be it.
And I’d be remise not to note one very important thing: Haley Whipjack and Gus the Bard are just very funny, very charismatic people. Look. Episode 0s tend to be about 50%(?) those two just talking to each other about their own podcast. It shouldn’t work. And yet it DOES, its one of my favorite parts, because Haley and Gus are just cool.
And a side note that doesn’t fit anywhere else: I throw my soul at him! I throw a scone at him - that’s it, that’s the vibe. The whole podcast alternates between laughing with your friends and brooding alone in a dark tavern corner - but the laughs never forced and the dark corner is never too dark for too long.
Whipjack the Great - Or, the DM is Also a Player!
I think Haley Whipjack is one of the greatest Dungeon Masters alive. The plots and characters! The mechanical shenanigans! The descriptions!
Actually, let’s start there: with the descriptions. (Both Haley and Gus do this really fucking well). As we know, Episode 0 of each arc sees the DM reading a description - of a small town, or the Up North, or the recent history of a great party. And Haley always strikes this tricky balance - one I think a lot of us who DM struggle with - between giving too much description and worldbuilding, and not telling us anything at all. She describes people and events in just enough detail to imagine them, but never so much they seem static and unreal - just clear enough to envision, but with enough vagueness left to let your imagination begin to run wild.
While I’m thinking about arc 3’s party, let’s talk about a really bold move she made in that arc: letting the players have ongoing control of their history. Loser Lars! She didn’t try to spell out every detail of this high-level party’s history, or restrict their past to only what she decided to allow - she gave them the broad outlines, and let them embellish it. And that made for a much more alive story than any attempt to create it by herself would have - but I think it takes a lot of courage to let your players have that agency. Most Dungeon Masters (myself included) tend to struggle with being control freaks.
And the plots! Yeah, arc one is built of classic tropes - but she actually uses them, she doesn’t get caught up in subverting everything or laughing at the cliches. And it’s fun! In arc 3, there really isn’t a straight line for the players to follow, either - which makes the game much more interesting and much trickier to run. And her NPCs are fantastic and I will talk about them in the next section.
Above all, though, I think what is really impressive is how Haley balances mechanics, and rules as written, with the narrative and rule of cool - and puts both rules and story in the service of playing a fun game. And the secret to that? She’s the DM, but the DM is a player, and the DM is clearly having fun. Hope Lovejoy mechanically shouldn’t get that spellslot back, but she does, and it’s fun. The changeling merchant in Thymore doesn’t really make some Grand Artistic Narrative better, but wow is it fun. And she never tries to force it one way or the other - the story might be more dramatic if Annie didn’t manage to banish the demon from the vault, but it’s a lot cooler and a lot more fun for the players if Annie gets to be a badass instead - and the rules and the dice say that Annie managed it.
Settings feel like places, NPCs feel like people, and the narrative plot feels like a real villainous plot.
Anyway. I could go on about the various ways in which Whipjack is awesome for quite a while - she’s right, first place in D&D is when your friends laugh and super first place is when they cry - but I’m going to stop here and just. Make another post about it some other time. For now, for the record I hold her opinions about the game in higher esteem than I do several official sourcebooks; that is all.
Characters - Or, Bombyx Mori Is Not an Asshole, And That Matters
Okay, I said I would talk about characters! And I will!
Just a general place to start: the party! All of the first three parties are interesting to me, because they all care about each other. Not even necessarily in a Found Family Trope sort of way, though often that too. But they generally aren’t assholes to each other. The players create characters that actually work together, that are interesting; even when there’s internal divisions like SK-73 v. Sir Mr. Person, they aren’t just unpleasant and antagonistic all the time. Listening to the podcast, we’re “with” these people for a couple hours - and it isn’t unpleasant. That matters a lot. (To take a counter-example: I love Critical Role, but the episode when Vox Machina pranked Scanlan after he died and was resurrected wasn’t fun to listen to, it was just uncomfortable and angering and vaguely cruel).
All of the PCs are amazing, and the players in each arc did a great job. If you disagree with me about that, well, you have the right to be incorrect and I am sorry for your loss. Annie Wintersummer, for one example: tragic and sad and I want to give her a hug, but also Fuck Yeah Wintersummer, and also her familiar Charles the Owl is the cutest and funniest and I love him. And we understand what’s going on with Annie, she isn’t some infinite pool of hidden depths because this arc is 7 episodes and we don’t have time for that, but she also has enough complexity to be interesting. Same with Fey Moss: yeah, a lot of her is a silly pun about fame that carries into how she behaves, but a lot of how she behaves is also down to some good classic half-elven angst about parenthood and wanting to be known and seen and important. (Side note: if your half-elf character doesn’t have angst, well, that’s impressive and also I don’t think I believe you).
There are multiple lesbian cat-people in a 4-person party and they both have requited romantic interests who aren’t each other. This is the future liberals want and I am glad for it.
Sir Mister Person, the human fighter! Thavius, the edge lord! Even when a character is “simple,” they’re interesting, because of how they’re played as people and not action-figures. And that matters a lot.
In the same way: the NPCs. There really aren’t a lot of them! And some of them come from Patreon submissions, so uh good work gang, you’re part of the awesomeness and I’m proud of you! The point being, the NPCs work because enough of them are interesting to matter. It’s not just a servant who opens Count Michael’s door, it’s a character with a name (Oleandra!) and a personality and history. They’re interesting. Penny Lovejoy didn’t need to be interesting, the merchant outside the Laughing Mausoleum didn’t need to be interesting, but they ARE! And Haley and Gus EXCEL at making the NPCs matter, not just to the story but to us as viewers. I agree with Sir Mister Person, actually, I would die for the princesses of the kingdom. I actually care about Gem Lovejoy of all people - that wouldn’t happen in an ordinary campaign! That’s the thing that makes Unprepared Casters spectacular - and, frankly, it’s especially impressive because D&D does not tend to be good at making a lot of interesting compared to a lot of other sorts of stories.
And, just as an exemplar of all this: Bombyx Mori. Immortal, reincarnating(?), and described as the incarnation of the player’s ADHD. I expected to hate Bombyx, because as the mom friend both in and out of my friend-group’s campaigns, the chaos-causer is always exhausting to me. And yeah, Bombyx causes problems on purpose! But! She is not an asshole.
And that’s important. Bombyx goes and sits with the queen and comforts her. Bombyx gives Annie emotional support. Bombyx isn’t just a vehicle to jerk around the DM and other players; Bombyx really is a character we can care about. To compare with another case - in the first couple episodes of The Adventure Zone, the PCs are just dicks. Funny, but dicks. Bombyx holds out an arm “covered in larva” to shake with a count, and robs him of magical items, but she also cares about her friends and other people! She uses a powerful magical gem to save her fertilizer guy from death! Yeah, Bombyx is ridiculous, but she’s not just an asshole the party has to keep around for plot reasons; you can see why her party would keep her around. And one layer of meta up, she’s the perfect example of how to make a chaotic character like that while still being fun for everyone you’re playing with, which is often not the case. And I love her.
The Anti-Mercer Effect - Or, “I think we proved it can be fun, you can have a good time with your friends. And it doesn’t have to be scary, you can just work with what you know”
The Mercer Effect basically constitutes this: Matthew Mercer, Dungeon Master of Critical Role, is incredible (as are all of his players). They’re all professional story-tellers in a way, remember, and so Critical Role treats D&D like a narrative art-form, and it’s inspiring. Seeing that on Critical Role sets impossible standards - and people go into their own home games imagining that their campaigns will be like Critical Role, and the burden of that expectation tends to fall disproportionately on the DM. And the end result, I think, of the Mercer Effect is that we get discouraged or intimidated, because our game isn’t “as good as” theirs. (And I should note - Matt certainly doesn’t want that to be our reaction).
So the Anti-Mercer Effect is two things: it’s D&D treated like a game, and it’s inspiring but not intimidating. And Unprepared Casters manages both of those really freaking well. Because they play it like a game! A UC arc looks just like a good campaign in anyone’s home game. They have the vibes of 20-somethings and college students playing D&D for fun because that’s who they are (as a 20-something college student who plays a lot of D&D, watching it felt like watching my friends play an especially good campaign). They’re trying to tell a good story, sure, and they always do. But first and foremost, they’re trying to have fun, and it shows, and I love the UC cast for it.
And that’s the other half of it: it’s inspiring! It’s approachable; you can see that Haley and Gus put plenty of work into preparing the game but it also doesn’t make you feel like you need hundreds of pages of worldbuilding to run a game. Sometimes a cleric makes Haley cry and she gives them back a spell-slot from their deity! That’s fantastic! It’s just inspiring - listening to this over the summer, when my last campaign had fallen apart under the strain of graduation, is why I decided to plan and run my new one!
That quote from Haley Whipjack that I used as the title for this section? That’s the whole core of this idea, and really, I think, the core of the podcast.
The Mercer Effect is when you go “that’s really cool, I could never do that.” But Unprepared Casters makes you look at D&D and go “wow, that looks really fun. I bet I can do that!” And I love the show for it.
And I bet a lot of you do too.
#unprepared casters#bombyx mori#haley whipjack#long post#this is really rough but I don't have time to keep working on it and it's already a month later than intended
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20-23 ?
ASKS FOR PEOPLE WITH A MULTIMUSE OR MULTIPLE RP BLOGS / @renran
20. What is the story or explanation behind your blog name?
This was originally an Itachi blog before I turned it multi! Yuruse came up in his wikipedia and it's used in the context of forgiveness. I believe it means 'forgive me'. I think quite a few of my characters can relate to that in regards to themselves and others,
21. Share a positive experience about multimuses you’ve had in the past.
I like playing with all the muses and seeing what can come out of it! Sometimes I get shy and just stick the muses we've interacted most with, other times when I'm feeling brave I will venture out and throw a few random prompts. Honestly I just enjoy getting to play with all these different characters someone has on their blog.
With @bestninjaclub that's how my interest in SuiHina got started. We just started messing around with those two and now they have my heart. Along with @eyecanfixthat muses too! Just decided to talk and throw muses together and now we're enjoying the fruits of it. :D
22. List some of your favourite multimuse blogs.
I enjoy all the multis I follow. If I follow I like your characters and writing. Simple. :)
@bestninjaclub is a lovely blog I've been following for years. Like close to the beginning of when I started college and I've already graduated with my masters long. Vana is amazing. They have such a good grasp on a variety of muses and their ideas are so good! Highly recommend checking out their blog.
@eyecanfixthat is such a sweet person to speak with and is a phenomenal writer. I always hear the muses' voices in their writing. They always have great ideas!
@dawnedkissed I really like speaking with them and have enjoyed what we have created with our muses. I get to explore other fandoms with them. They let me play around with my Tokyo Ghoul verse with Sasuke and now we have whole verse there. I love it. I also love our Mitsuri and Sasuke interactions too.
23. Tag a multimuse blog and write some positivity about them (their blog, their muses, etc.)
@kawaonago
We recently began speaking, because they liked a plot post I had rb from them or someone else. I can't remember, but now we're slowly putting a plot together! The experience has been really fun. Super chill and kind mun! Though we had been following them for a while and I just couldn't come with an idea to shove some of our muses together. They have so many awesome muses! I was like this shouldn't be hard, but I think I was a little intimidated. I'm glad they reached out!
They have an awesome blog aesthetic! I love clicking on their page and seeing black and pink. I've clicked on it quite a few times because I'm always reading over their profile pages to make sure I got information right. Overall they have some great muses and highly encourage ppl to go plot with them! Don't take as long as I did, lol. C:
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For the salty asks: numbers one, five, six, and twenty through twenty-three please 😇
I live for the chaos so pls just... go off my dude
Ah Tay, reason #187893467 that I love you is that you indulge me in my rants <3
Salty asks are from this post!
K this got LONG so here's a read more!
1. What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get?
Honestly even though I don't multi-ship often I DO usually get the appeal behind ships so this is a really short list. This will probably get me some hate but I still to this day can't get behind c/ex@ from the show that will not be named. But then again I do get the appeal of two super attractive women with chemistry and the whole ruler/ girl who makes the ruler change their ways thing. So I guess I get it even if I don't like it?
Also, and this is not to hate on Hinny, but Harry and Ginny from HP are not my cup of tea. I like what fandom has done for them but the actual content we get for them in the books (and movies, but I prefer the books) isn't enough for me to love them. Same with Mal and Alina from S & B/ Grishaverse, they're so bland to me in the books but the show is doing far better with them and actually making Mal ya know. Likeable. Again, I don't ship it, but best friends to lovers is top tier so I get it.
Oh! I also don't really get Dwalin/Ori from The Hobbit, but that is probably in large part because I'm a Dwalin/Nori shipper. Again though, all of the secondary characters' relationships in The Hobbit rely on fans to extrapolate HARD and wear extreme shipper goggles, and ik there's that scene where Dwalin helps Ori out of the river so like.. maybe that's where it's from? I don't hate it or anything but it's always something that's made me go ??? cause I have no idea where the heck it came from.
Apart from that... I can't think of any rn? I feel like I understand where all the PJO ships come from, even if I don't ship them. There are a couple that I don't understand how they can be someone's OTP, just because I find them super boring (no offense to those who ship C@leo or J@siper but I just don't love how Rick handled those relationships). In TSC I think fandom mainly vibes with the same pairings and that's true for most of my book fandoms. With the shows I watch I don't think fans majorly ship anything too out there for me. Maybe I don't interact enough with fandoms to tell. So this is all I got.
5. Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?
Oh my god, oh my god, this is a can of worms, my lord. A pairing I'm not so sure about, but characters? Abso-fucking-lutely. I took a break from PJO fandom for exactly that reason and the list of characters is endless honestly, for multiple fandoms.
I won't say fandom ruined Bell@rke for me cause I still ship it, but I definitely lost enthusiasm with how toxic the shows fandom was and then that was made even worse when the show completely destroyed itself with the worst writing and plots ever in the latter seasons.
Also I have a feeling that G@me of Thrones/ @soiaf ruined one for me but I can't remember this very second. Maybe not, and again that's probably cause I don't interact with fandoms en masse, usually just through fic and following a few people I vibe with in each.
6. Has fandom ever made you enjoy a pairing you previously hated?
Yes, quite a few! I used to dislike Drarry (for obvious reasons I feel) and Romione (as a kid I wanted Hermione to be with Harry and even when I grew out of that I really didn't like she was with Ron) but fandom changed that for sure. And same with Darklina now, I was upset cause I felt like the books really underutilized their relationship and fell short of what could have been a super awesome pairing if better explored, but the show fandom is taking it in so many different ways that I'm starting to really love them despite the reasons I shouldn't.
And I won't say I hated Hayffie in THG, but definitely the only reason I ship them is from reading @ellanainthetardis's fic Have a Drink Sweetheart and then all the others written for them. That portrayal of Hayffie and the characters have become my own headcanons now because I've been reading them for so long and they're so good.
Fandom made me ship Leon and Morgana from Merlin too, though that's very lowkey. I never hated them, I just never thought of them as a pairing until reading fic.
20. What is the purest ship in the fandom?
Percabeth. I don't care which fandom, it's Percabeth. Growing up together, going from enemies to friends to best friends to lovers? The establishment of them being best friends and the way Rick wrote that friendship was so pure, and they are a couple with no internal problems, all external, and you just know they're gonna be together through everything, fighting at each other's side, cause that's the way they are. There's a reason they're my OTP and it's cause they are the most well-established, ride or die couple I can think of. They're just so solid.
21. What are your thoughts on crack ships?
Love em for fandom but personally I very rarely get behind crackships just because I usually need a lot of build up, scenes, good dialogue and chemistry, etc. to ship something, so most of my ships aren't crack ships. The only one I can really think of that I actively root for and ship and would read fic for is Billy/ Owen from 911 Lonestar which is just... something.
Like idk if Barduil from The Hobbit is crack because ik it's quite popular... what makes a ship a crack ship anyway? Lack of canon reference? Is it cause they two characters would be so random together because they barely ever interact? Or because it's SO unrealistic you know for sure it will never happen but want it to anyway? Or is it lack of popularity in fandom? I need someone to define this so I have a better answer :D if it's the second option then I have MANY
I love seeing fandom stuff for crack ships though, cause seriously, it's fiction, ship who you want. If you ship two characters just cause you think they're pretty side by side then that's enough for me. Make all of the fan art and fic you like.
22. Popular character you hate?
Oof. Jason from HOO. And Leo in everything after The Lost Hero. I hated Piper in The Lost Hero and Mark of Athena but like her after those. I don't like any of the book characters from S & B except Nikolai, but I like everyone in the show (except David? Why did they make him so weird? Like he's not even awkward, he's straight up rude imo, but anyway). In @soiaf I don't like Jon Snow, I think he's boring. And I despise Jorah Mormont cause I think he's creepy for having a crush on Dany.
Didn't love Stefan in TVD, too much of a goody-two-shoes. I liked dark Stefan but it felt like a totally different character. Honestly most of the characters I don't like cause they're boring or too by-the-book.
OH! A big one in M@rvel is Captain America. Can't stand him honestly, I like him as a character to have in the story, but I like never agree with him on anything. I like a couple of his one-liners but that's it really. I also don't like Gale in THG, idk if that's controversial. Or Lex@ from the show that will not be named because I think she's manipulative and not good for any of the characters i DO love.
Is Ron popular? I think so. I like fandom Ron but not canon Ron and idk why. I think I'm growing out of it but I read those books when I was like 7 initially so I thought it was awful of Ron to stop being friends with Harry because he was jealous and I never really got over that.
There are so many but I'm gonna stop now.
23. Unpopular character you love?
Again, tons. I love anyone whose got kind of a tortured backstory because it makes them more interesting to me.
I love Movieverse Hawkeye! I think Clint is great and while I wish his deafness was canon in Marvel and I don't love J Remmer, I do love Hawkeye a lot. He was honestly one of the only Marvel characters that felt consistent and in-character throughout the movies.
I like President Snow from THG just cause I think he was a fantastic villain. And Effie and Haymitch aren't unpopular, but they're probably my favourites, again because of the fics mentioned above.
Leon from Merlin!! I don't actually think he's unpopular, but he's like... my fourth favourite character in the show which I know IS considered high for most people.
Sandor Clegane from ASOIAF. Not the show, just the books. His book character is phenomenal and I am so excited for GrrM to finish the goddamn series so I know what happens to him.
The Stolls and Katie Gardner from PJO cause fandom created Tratie and sucked me in at a young age.
Bellatrix Lestrange? Is she unpopular? I don't think so but she's another one I think is a fantastic villain. I'm almost more interested in her than Voldemort tbh.
That's probably it!
Thanks so much for the ask Tay, this was tons of fun! Anyone else who's interested can feel free to fill my inbox!
#taylor tag#ask games#look it's me!#now I'm just thinking of all the ships I hate and want to go off#i won't#but tay maybe you've awakened something in me that you will feel the brunt of later
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Anime That Deserve Another Season
Category One: Anime That Supposedly Deserve Another Season Even though the title says “deserve”, I will be listing some anime that I do not think deserve another season. They’re just here because people are loud about not getting another season. These are mostly series I just didn’t enjoy watching.
Category Two: Anime That Can Get Another Season They’re fine without another season as there are no cliffhangers to close and no questions that are really unanswered. These anime will not keep you up at night asking for an answer.
Category Three: Anime That Need Another Season While it’s not mandatory that these anime have another season to be enjoyed, they’d sure benefit immensely with it. Whether it’s because there’s too many cliffhangers, things end abruptly, or there is just too much good source material that was left untouched, they’ll end up here. Even if I didn’t really enjoy the anime, some anime may end up here anyway.
Bonus Category: Anime Need a Reboot Not all adaptations are created equal, and even if the anime can be enjoyed on its own, sometimes it’d benefit from actually looking at the source material and going, “Oh, it was written that way for a reason!” Some anime just need the Brotherhood treatment. From pacing to anime-exclusive storylines, anime in this category stray so much that you might as well just start from the ground up.
*Please note that if an anime isn’t here, it might be because I haven’t watched it (or I bypassed it in my listing journey)
*Categories Two and One are listed from “Bottom Tier” to “Top Tier” in terms of how much I think it needs a sequel/continuation
*I almost never read the manga. These are mostly speculations/me spoiling the series for myself by reading the last chapter of the manga after finishing the anime.
*The bottom half of category three really rips my soul out when people say that there’s no chance of another season.
Category One: Anime That Supposedly Deserve Another Season
Aoharu x Machinegun
The manga is still on-going, but I wasn’t interested enough to really pay any mind. It would benefit from another season due to it ending on a point that made sense, but you could tell there was way more behind the curtain.
Btooom
Remember when they joked about this gross anime getting another season? Hahaha! There’s a story behind it, apparently. Anyway, it leaves off unfinished, but I don’t need any more of whatever this show was. This show is garbage, questionable garbage at that.
Ao Haru Ride
This anime made me kinda bored. The characters were kind of bland. The world was kind of bland. This anime left as much of an impression on me as white-coloured pencils did in grade school. I’m sure it’d benefit from another season, but whether that’d actually make me like the series is another question.
Code: Breaker
This series was pretty bad. I enjoyed it at the time, but it was pretty bad. I don’t recommend this show to anyone. It technically has a ton of manga material left (I think it was a 100+ chapters?)
Classroom of the Elite
I actually strongly disliked this show and wanted it to be over, but people said it got good. I stuck it out. I didn’t like any of the characters. I couldn’t find a reason to enjoy this show, and maybe it’d benefit by having some more story content to it, but if you can’t make me enjoy any of the cast after 12 episodes, you’re not getting any more of my time.
No Game No Life
Admit it, 90% of the people who want another season of this just want to see more fanservice.
Category Two: Anime That Can Get Another Season
Kyoukai no Rinne
This series is very repetitive. I’m surprised it survived three seasons. I still really liked it, but it is counted as one of Takahashi’s weakest works (not sure why though). I would mind seeing it receiving the rest of its adaptation.
Hai to Gensou no Grimgar
While it ended well, it probably has a lot more story to tell. This is an earlier isekai, and it’s hard to say whether it’d do better in today’s isekai market. This anime is what Sword Art Online should’ve been. This show takes it slow. Its action isn’t as over-the-top, and while it has fanservice, the show still feels far more real than SAO markets itself to be (but it does it on purpose)
Hinamatsuri
This anime made me laugh too hard for me not to want a continuation. They also had a character they didn’t have time to touch base on.
Runway de Waratte
There’s quite a lot of manga material to go on. I feel like we haven’t seen the characters develop to their max, and the protagonist hasn’t even gotten his full shot yet. This anime is an underdog, no matter how you look at it, it’s a shounen series about runway fashion, but I’m rooting for it!
Yamada-kun to 7-nin no Majo
I hear the manga goes downhill, and honestly, you could’ve just let it end right where season one ended, and I would’ve gone, “Wow, that was pretty good!” It did come back and “overstay its welcome” according to manga readers, but those final chapters make up for that.
Gakkougurashi
I respect the way that this anime decided to end, but there’s a lot of potential to take it elsewhere. It has a lot of material too. I feel like not a lot of the backstories of even the main cast were revealed.
Category Three: Anime That Need Another Season
Kimi to Boku
I had a hard time determining which category this anime should go under, but I think this category fits it best. The manga does pause sometimes. There are a lot of loose ends romance-wise, but it could’ve easily gone into the previous category.
D-Frag
This is a romance anime that didn’t really get to any of its romance. It hinted, it tried, but it stuck to the comedy route (which I respect). However, there is a lot of potential if this anime ever did want to return.
Hataraku Maou-Sama
This series really needs a season two. It was an isekai before its time, and it has a lot of comedy that made me laugh. There are romance ends that are left up, and the underlying background plot went virtually nowhere. It ended, and it makes the audience go, “That was good and enjoyable”, but it leaves nothing else.
Mob Psycho 100
I’m pretty sure this anime will get another season, but it will take some time. This series does have the popularity, and since it was quite recent, I think it’s just a matter of time. Studio Bones is far too thirsty to leave their man alone. Let’s be real.
Ranma ½
I think what bothers me the most about this one is the fact that they had the right number of episodes to finish the series, but because the manga was still publishing at the time, they had to use a lot of filler which ultimately took away from a lot of the series. The Ranma manga ending had about as closed of an ending that you can have for a series like Ranma. There are some arcs in there that I think would boost the story after a lot of those OVAs left an unsatisfied taste in people’s mouths. I didn’t even bother watching those.
Nisekoi
I’m not sure if I would want an adaptation if it were to happen because I don’t like the ending anyway. There is material there though if they wanted to, and I do think it’s a bit annoying if you focus so heavily on romance and harem then just don’t end it conclusively.
Grand Blue
According to someone I know, the manga gets good. This anime was really funny during some of the parts, so I really wouldn’t mind a continuation.
Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun
This manga actually did end, and I feel like it’s really missing out by not finishing itself. Shoujo manga and other romance manga do rely on having the characters graduate, get together, etc. Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun didn’t get that chance, and since the manga has a more conclusive ending, I think the anime should too.
Tsurezure Children
This anime focuses on everything so ends up with little progression in the long run. A lot of this is puppy love, but we never really move beyond that stage with the countless couples. I think this anime would greatly benefit with a continuation because it got so little done than series that focused on one couple. Focusing on multiple couples is part of this series’ charms though.
Yuri on Ice
I personally don’t feel a strong need for a season two, but I’m sure a lot of people would enjoy it because it has a large audience that are attached to these characters. They weren’t at their final stage yet.
Edit: They just announced a continuation called “Yuri!!! on Ice The Movie: Ice Adolescence”
Jibaku Shounen Hanako-kun
The manga just hit a really pivotal point at the time that I’m writing this post, but the manga usually publishes monthly leaving it little room for successive seasons. Regardless, I feel that the series has more than enough popularity to carry it, and despite some of the real big corners that were cut during the making of the first season, people are still invested. I actually read the manga and can say that it has enough material for a second season.
Wotakoi
I actually read the manga for this series sometimes, and let me tell you, this series REALLY SHOULD GET a continuation. Sure, it’s sweet that you know who ends up with who, but this series is about “mature romance” (i.e. beyond high school). 12 episodes isn’t enough for this series. There’s so much awesome stuff that’s happened and is happening in the manga.
Deadman Wonderland
This anime isn’t great by any means. It’s a gore fest. However, a lot of its plot holes and questions could’ve been answered if it went further in its source material. I’m not sure how much it would’ve made it make sense, but this anime is one of the ones here that really suffered from their lack of time to adapt the manga. Without some of the explanations, this series may little sense. I don’t really want another season simply because I didn’t really enjoy this anime, but I think I put it up here just because of how much it would benefit from a continuation.
Ouran High School Host Club
Legend has it that every April Fool’s Day, someone goes on Twitter and announces season two. As much as we’d want that, Studio Bones is busy doing something to do with Bungou Stray Dogs or My Hero Academia. I already had to debunk a fake Ouran Season Two post for someone on Discord. I didn’t really enjoy the romance in Ouran (stayed for the comedy), so it would probably benefit from a continuation, even if it is a reboot. I mostly put this one here because of how much fans want it. Personally, I’d still be able to rest in peace either way. Regardless, it woudl still benefit immensely if they were to continue what they started.
Kekkaishi
This anime actually left 200+ chapters of manga untouched when it was adapting. I’m not sure of timelines and whether it was because of the manga publishing at the time that the anime was airing. Now that it’s a finished series in terms of manga, it can always get a reboot. It’s definitely worth it since it just finished on one arc.
Akatsuki no Yona
To me, Akatsuki no Yona was okay, but it could’ve been great... if they didn’t end on literally what the entire series was building up to. As a result of that, the anime really feels like a long manga advertisement going, “Wow, you sure are stupid for not reading the manga like the rest of us nerds!” The only reason why this series isn’t even higher on the list is because the other series did a better job cementing itself into a place in my heart. Akatsuki no Yona could’ve done that if they were given enough time, but alas, this series really suffers from a lack of anime adaptation.
Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun
It is such a shame that this anime doesn’t have another season. The OVAs are great, but if this had another season or two, they would be legendary. The voice actors really added to the comedy (the manga is still funny, but it’s didn’t make me laugh as much as the anime). The quirky soundtrack really adds to the atmosphere, and there’s so much development that’s gone down since its first season run. I really, really, really want another season. But this anime can be enjoyed even if it doesn’t.
Gin no Saji
This anime is incredibly enjoyable even if it doesn’t have a third season, but with the manga tying up all the loose ends with Hiromu Arakawa’s incredible storytelling, I find it really disappointing that they couldn’t get another season for this. Its characters were so likeable. I watched this anime with my mom who keeps nattering about a season three. If only such a thing were to exist.
Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic
As with a lot of shounen anime, this ended on one arc. However, this still had well over 100+ chapters that could’ve been adapted in series to come. The seiyuu events were hilarious, and this anime really hit its stride, but it left us all hanging. Now that the manga’s finished, I feel that it would be really great if we were to get another season. There were some arcs that I read that were so good. This was the first anime I watched, and it always holds a special place in my soul. I do hear the manga goes downhill majorly towards the end, but I’m sure that even that stuff would still be watched by people like me (heck, people waited for Black Clover to get good, come on!)
This also includes the Sinbad spinoff that felt more like a trailer rather than a full series. It wasn’t given nearly enough time.
Noragami
Noragami is extremely popular, and I think one of the reasons that it didn’t get the rest adapted is because the manga went on hiatus for about a year. However, I feel that it still had more than enough material to make some more way. Studio Bones is still busy with Bungou Stray Dogs and My Hero Academia, but Noragami would benefit by cleaning up some of the cliffhangers left behind. The future arcs are also really good, so the source material at least maintains some quality.
SKET Dance
I finished this series (both anime and manga) a couple of days ago, and I want to write a post about it. It was so good. It made me read 100 chapters in two days or something. But if this were to get adapted, this would give the series a MAJOR CHANCE to fix up the ending. Unfortunately, the manga ending disappointed a lot of people (including me), so being able to maybe just give the people what they want (I don’t care if it’s cheesy). They left a good chunk of great, hilarious, and touching arcs that would be able to keep toe-to-toe with the fantastic series they’ve done up to this point. I think it might’ve stopped due to the anime catching up, but come on, I just want this anime to get equal treatment to Gintama!!! It gets compared so often anyway!!! Series like these make me think, “If I was Jeff Bezos, I would just throw my money into making another season of this.” The seiyuu of this anime made the lines so funny too. I will be thinking and talking about this series for a while.
Anime that Deserve a Reboot
Soul Eater
They really just dropped the source material in the last half.
No. 6
The pacing kind of sucked in comparison to other materials, apparently.
Kids on the Slope
The pacing for this also really sucked and didn’t give a conclusive ending either way.
#anime#sket dance#noragami#ouran koukou host club#magi: the labyrinth of magic#Jibaku Shounen Hanako kun#gin no saji#gekkan shoujo nozaki-kun#mob psycho 100#deadman wonderland#yuri on ice
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"Hahaha. A friend pointed this out. W online shops too!" What does this even mean?! I don't know anyone in 2020 who doesn't online shop besides my 80 year old grandparents because they refuse to learn how to use a computer 😂 I don't get how Will, a 30 something year old man, online shopping is worthy enough for Abby to comment on it. I'm sure Chris does it too. And Darren.
On Nov 5, Darren wrote this post and the cc fandom lost their shit.
They decided that organizing 10 costumes for multiple events in two different states for two different people was not worthy of acknowledgment- especially since they wore several purchased costumes. They spent the next 30-ish days mocking her “online shopping skills” like the petty idiots they are and now they bring it up two months later.
Anonymous asked: this is funny, C posted a photo of beard, D posted photos with the beard. Almost like they were sitting next to each other and saying “ok ok I will say this”
ajw720 answered: The only difference, C controls his SM and the bearding, D does not, but they knew the Halloween post was coming when C posted his belated b-day wishes (not that he acknowledged they were late).
It really is, if you can remove the very human, tragic element, like a script for a really bad D Movie. C posts “Happy Birthday, Babe!” a day after the man’s actual b-day and “D” praises his fake bride for MAKING TEN costumes. Sure praise her if she actually designed them and sat with her sewing machine. No, she went online and ordered things (I doubt she even went to a store). And 3 couple costumes were cheap frankly. The only thought was how narcissistic she could be in their execution (as @flowersintheattic254pointed out even the Mario costume had a reason, it was a reminder of Japan and the fake encagement by referring to the ad that paid for their trip there).
And seriously how are people not questioning that she spent the entirety of her month picking TEN costumes? Who has time for this? I know, i know, a person whose only role in life is to play fake plus one.
I am just so tired by D in particular being utterly dragged down by the useless dead weight by his side and his team’s sole ambition to promote her and make her sound like a decent person.
If they wanted to praise her, maybe they should have forced her to participate in the zero waste initiative instead of sitting drinking by the pool or have her volunteer to help young girls who have been kicked out of their homes, or have been raped. Or pick any cause and truly volunteer her time to promote it. If she is not going to actually get a job and pursue a career, please force her to do something that is actually of value and contribute something good to the world. But to praise her for picking TEN costumes?
Praise that comes from a man who this year alone won three awards, is starring in a show he created and wrote the music for, has his first big movie premiere this week, is exec producer and star of a huge show on N/etflix, just announced his starring role with 2 A++ lists actors next spring on Broadway, celebrated the 5th anniversary of the festival he created, volunteered his time for the zero waste initiative, performed at several charity events, and was just yesterday name limited series actor of the decade. Where is the praise for him from his “bride”? He at least deserves it.
How do they not see how ridiculous it is for someone with D’s accomplishments in 2019 alone praise a person for purchasing TEN costumes for Halloween? And stans, how do you accept that this is right or normal. You really know nothing about him and have such little respect for him as a person if you continue to accept the character his idiotic team has created on his behalf. It is so far from the person he is and that he generally holds himself out to be when given the opportunity.
This isn’t about being a “gay fetishist” or “hating woman” this is about wanting for D to be fairly and accurately represented and no longer forced to participate in this stupid, life sucking game to promote a person that contributes absolutely nothing to the world. If you want to have a strong female role model, there are so many, i’ve talked about a few in the past few days (thus far Nancy, Lea, and Phoebe) and will continue to do so, but please stop worshiping a person whose sole reason you are speaking about her is her connection to D, even if you refuse to accept it is fake.
klainecentric Finished reading the funniest ig story of the day, the qween being praised for sitting in front of either a sewing machine or computer...bravo your majesty qween....your my hero well done.👏👏. And all I can think of is how irrelevant the statement D made about being an emotional horder, being a very private person and finally D saying he's lazy when it comes to social media, I'm internally screaming in frustration because yeah we know D wouldn't have written a post praising that lazy good for nothing waste of space but he's coming across as a lier and it's extremely damaging to his character as a person. I absolutely hate lying and every time another "private" moment is posted to the world is another small piece that's chipped away from what D has originally stated about privacy. PBB, nobody cares about your cheap arse highly flammable costumes you buy online, did you forget about your piano baby adult strip club. I'm sure there are still plenty of people out there you can hire to rub and flaunt their flanges all over the beer taps, why don't you keep busy on that instead. If you want to make costumes, I'm sure you can sew some mighty fine titty tassels together. It'll be cheap nasty, sound familiar.
souly So, let me get this straight. We should all praise a person for going online, looking up different costumes in online stores, putting those in their shopping basket and hitting “buy”? Because I do that at least once a week with other stuff. Do I get praised for that now? Pretty please? I’m doing good work there and buy a lot of stuff, therefore I must be the best person ever!
notes-from-nowhere You’re my Queen. Please, love me.
souly
(I think I got it right. I’m getting the hang of what said person is doing. Wheee! ;))
notes-from-nowhere You nailed it 🤣
ajw720 Yesterday I got a delivery of car food. And instead of his usual seafood mix up greats, I got him shrimp flavor. I’m awesome!!!!!
souly Oh, hey! I think we should all take pictures of whatever we bought online during the week or month and make individual posts on all of our social media accounts about it. Because, you know…
cassie1022 I picked up stuff I ordered online at Target and PetSmart. Does that count? Should I receive accolades because my cat will have fresh litter to do her business on?
souly Only if you post the pictures to prove it! ;)
ajw720 As soon as I get home. Pictures forthcoming. Shrimp cat treats and I also got a burgundy blanket for my new comforter!!! Life goals!!!!!!!!!!!
souly Okay, so, let’s see… What did I buy online during the past month that can be shared as pictures? Some things are gifts, so I obviously can’t post anything about those yet. But I think these here are safe.
Let’s start with one of my fav new shirts. (Excuse the grainy quality. I had to quickly edit it for privacy reasons. :p And yes, that’s a butterfly mirror.)
The rest are behind the cut to save your dash from drowning in too many pictures. ;)
cheekyface72 You’re my queen from now on…
ajw720 I think emmy/sag/gg/CC winner DC should write a post @soulypraising your awesome, amazing, unparalleled online shopping skills! You earned that praise. That cat toy is particularly spectacular.
*********************
Just A Taste of M’s Amazing Online Shopping Skills that are worthy of such Praise
ajw720
Super Mario with inflatable Dragon $54.66 (x)
Princess Peach $78.99 (x)
chrisdarebashfulsmiles. i can’t
flowersintheattic254. When you add the fact that the wedding was sponsored so heavily, and her history of outfits I think it shows Mi@rren is something that’s always been done very much ‘on the cheap’.
From work vacays (honeymoon included), RC ‘glue gun’ looks, thrift shoes and subsidized weddings.
It’s BUDGET BEARDING!!!
leka-1998. It’s not worth more than this, that’s for sure.
notes-from-nowhere We are so ungrateful. She worked hard to find the gloves.
I bet she had to click on another link to find them. She deserves another accolade.
ajw720 @flowersintheattic254 Budget Bearding! I LOVE It! (and something tells me D’s SW costume in particular was far cheaper than either of these).
souly That Snow White dress can be found for about $25 in a ton of online shops. I stumbled upon it even before Halloween way too many times. 😂
@notes-from-nowhere The plush question mark block can be found in a couple online stores like this one. She simply glued it onto some gloves - or asked L to do it with that glue gun of hers.
flowersintheattic254 Well funnily enough I think we may have confirmation that 🚽🚽 glued on the puppies so I guess YES to the question mark block too!!!
cassie1022 They can’t even glue things properly. Why am I not surprised?
leka-1998
SW
So, so amazing. Bow to the kween and her not so helpful helper.
************************************
There are lots more...I figured enough of your brain cells died reading the ones I posted. On Nov 30 she is STiLL bringing it up”
Anonymous asked:
Whenever I see miarren gifset they always use the same quote underneath (the rolling the windows down quote) and at first I rolled my eyes and thought uh not that quote again, and I can't believe it took me this long to realise it's because there is literally no other quote that can be construed as loving. You can hardly put down "she's a big girl" whenever you make a set of gifs with M beaming and D looking like someone murdered the dog he's allergic to.
ajw720: And I love the Emmy quote as it was an absolute reference to his character who was a psychopath. Pretty telling if you ask me. But that reference is over their heads.
And pretty much the only one. Guess saying he’s a ball and chain kind of guy isn’t romantic. They can’t even take pooping exes as he clearly steered the conversation away from her. Lovely lady of many moons? Nah she sounds like a stranger. Saying nothing changes after marriage? Sounds boring. It’s a struggle. But hey she’s an excellent online shopper that he done got hitched to!!!
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The Zach Sang Show with Frank Iero: Transcription
Frank: Hey everybody, I'm Frank Iero. I just did an interview with the Zach Sang Show and we talked about all the things I wanted to talk about, and some stuff I didn't wanna talk about. I got Sanged.
Zach: Hello beautiful human.
F: Hello!
Z: We're here with- real talk, you're a legend, man.
F: Aw, thank you.
Z: Frank Iero.
Dan: Alright!
F: Thank you so much.
Z: By the way, I've heard your last name be pronounced a couple different ways.
F: You got it right, by the way. Yes. I know.
Z: Oh my god, yes!
D: Okay, don't take credit for that. I told you exactly how to say it.
Z: Dude, I also listened to three or four different interviews and I tried to get a baseline of where people were at with it.
F: Right.
Z: And then do a grab from everybody, and do what I thought was right.
F: An amalgamation of incorrectly to be correct? Yeah.
Z: Yes!
F: I like that.
Z: That was it!
F: My dad always was like, "Oh, you gotta do a shirt that has an eye, an ear, and an O on it," and I was like, "Oh right, so people get it right?" He's like, "Yeah!" I was like, "That's terrible."
Z: I'm a phonetic guy, so if you can give me something like that.
F: That's how you pronounce it, though. Eye-ear-oh.
Z: Frank Iero.
F: There you go.
Z: We have a lot to get into here because-
D: You know, real quick. We usually have pop stars in here so it's very exciting to have you in here. This is awesome. We are so excited.
F: My pleasure.
Z: Really, you've shaped major parts of my life, right? In terms of how I listen to music and the type of music that I find interesting, also the type of music that ended up mainstream pop when I was actively a fan of it. But this guy, I feel like you shaped his entire existence in a lot of that.
D: Yeah, I am so excited to have you sitting in front of us.
F: Oh wow, that's amazing! I don't know how to take a compliment so you gotta-
D: I can tell!
F: Please stop. But I appreciate it, yeah.
Z: We got a lot to dive into because you have- Barriers is a great body of work.
F: Thank you.
Z: It's an awesome album. But one of the things I find, I mean there's many things I find interesting, but on the top of my list is, if we spoke a little bit ago, I'd be talking to frnkiero andthe cellabration, or I'd be talking to Frank Iero and the Patience.
F: Correct.
Z: You change the name of your group. Does each title reflect what?
F: Well, alright so to I guess delve back, I'd never set out to be like, "Oh I'm gonna have all these bands and then have a springboard to a solo career." That was never my plan. I never wanted any of that, right? So I ended up writing these songs and people would ask me what I'd been up to so I played it for a friend, who then asked if they could play it for another friend, and then before I knew it I ended up with a record deal, and I was like, "Oh shit. Now what?" You know what I mean? So, I figured if I'm going to do this and I need to put a band together, I want to name the band, and I should bring along something that kinda detracts from how maybe inept I am at being a frontman, you know? Maybe, you think you're at a party so you don't pay attention to the guy that's not good on the mic. And so I named it the Cellabration. And I love doing that so much, I love that honeymoon period of a band, you know? Starting it and naming it, figuring out who's gonna be in it, what it's gonna sound like, what's the t-shirt design, what's the aesthetic, what story are you telling with the record. That is so interesting to me, and when I'm in a band for a long time I start to lose interest, like I wanna do another project. So I thought, "Alright well, if I enjoy that so much, and this is just gonna be my thing, there's no rules. I get to make the rules as I go along."
Z: Do it over and over again.
F: So I'm just gonna keep doing it, yeah. And every record, the band changes, the name changes, and all that. I still have interest in it, you know what I mean? It's really just for me. It's a selfish, selfish thing.
Z: Is that the most exciting part for you, top to bottom? When you're building something, you're creating something?
F: Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. I have to at all times. I like having multiple outlets for that because when I hit a roadblock, like a mental block or a writer's block with one, I just jump to the other and then that kinda opens a door for the other thing, you know?
Z: I totally get that. Because you always have an avenue for something that pops into your brain if you wanna get it out there.
F: Right.
Z: So, Cellabration and Patience, could they come back?
F: I guess so. I mean, I don't know. Probably not though. I don't like repeating myself. I feel like we told the story with that thing. Because alright, the Cellabration, I felt like I needed a distraction. I got over that. I felt like after that was done, I was like, "Alright, you know what? I'm enjoying this, I don't need to be distracted from what I'm doing. I'm doing a pretty good job." I figured out how to be the frontman or the leader of a band on my own.
Z: How hard was that?
F: Very hard! Very hard. I have a huge appreciation and respect now for singers and frontmen of all sorts. The thing about it though was that I got worried that I would have to be this high kicking, you know what I mean? I never wanted to be this-
Z: Giant showman?
F: Giant showman, yeah. I didn't want any of that, and I realized that, "Oh okay! I don't have to do that, I can do it on my own," and that's when I started to feel comfortable in that role, when I figured out I could just be myself in doing this.
Z: That's what makes a great frontman, right?
F: I think so. I don't know. What the hell do I know, you know what I mean? I've realized that too, is that I have no idea how anyone else does anything. I just know how I do it.
Z: But you know how you've been doing it for quite some time.
F: Yes. But that doesn't necessarily it's the right thing for anyone else.
Z: Of course not, because yeah, essentially you've created your own madness every time, so if somebody else was to just randomly step on in there, it's your madness that they're unpacking, do you know what I'm saying?
F: I think so, yeah.
Z: It's like your thing, nobody else could do it your way because it's your way.
F: Exactly. Alright so, Tucker Rule, he plays drums in the Future Violents and we've been friends for a really long time. We talked about stage fright and stuff like that, right? I still get stage fright, I still get super nervous every time we play a show because you've never played that show before, it's always new. And someone had said to him, "Why are you nervous? This is the only thing you're good at." And I was like, "Oh wow, if you think about it that way, that's kinda crazy. But also, what if you're not good at it? Then you have nothing else."
D: Yeah.
Z: But are you at this weird phase in your life where you have to look at success differently?
F: Oh definitely, yeah.
Z: How do you measure it?
F: If I feel content, if my soul feels good, if I'm a good dad, and a good husband, and a good person, then that means creatively I'm fulfilled.
Z: Do they fuel your creativity, and does it change the way you create? Having kids?
F: Oh, it definitely does, because it changes the person that you are. Here's the thing, everything that you go through, whether it be meeting somebody on the street someday, or getting into a car accident, or writing a great song, it changes the person that you are, and it affects the person you become. So I'm around these amazing human beings all the time and it really does ground me. There's no way I can feel like, "Oh look at me, I'm a rockstar," when I'm picking up somebody's dirty underwear and shit, you know what I mean? Cleaning peanut butter off the fucking refrigerator, you know? But they're the best thing that's ever happened but I know that I can't be the dad I wanna be if I'm not satiated creatively. That really ruins me.
Z: Is that why you keep doing it?
F: I think so, yeah. Because they know too, when a song's not working out or if I don't feel like I'm- it's crazy, man. Being an artist is a really rough thing because one, you have to have a very thin skin in that you let the world in so that it comes in and kinda like boils inside you and formulates into something else and then you can express yourself through it. But then when you release what you have that you've made, you have to have a thick skin because people are really mean about it.
Z: It's vicious.
F: Yeah. And you only listen to the bad stuff that people say. A thousand people could tell you you did a great job, but one person will be like, "Eh, kinda sounds like shit to me," and you're like, "Oh, it sounds like shit."
D: You still let that get to you though?
F: You have to, yeah. You can't turn it off, you know? You either are this antennae for all emotion and everything around you, you're a conduit for the universe, or you're not. You can't just be like, "Oh, I'm gonna let things in now but later I'm not gonna accept any of this."
Z: Your vulnerability needs to stay the same.
F: It's always there, yeah.
Z: Do you feel like you've gotten more vulnerable and that thin skin is even a little bit thinner now that all of the creative stuff is on your shoulders?
F: Possibly. But also too I think the older you get, you start to realize how to navigate a little bit better, you know? But you're always gonna be crazy, you know what I mean? And that's your biggest fear, to find out at the end of it, like someone to say- you've worked all this time and you put all your energy into this thing that you've created and you finally think, "You know what? It's good enough to show someone," and then to find out you're crazy. That's the biggest fear, I think, of any artist out there.
Z: And you still face that?
F: Oh yeah. You have to.
Z: Is there a record off of Barriers that you thought, "This could be the one where everybody thinks I'm fucking crazy?"
F: Oh yeah.
Z: Every record, is there one in particular?
F: I think it's song by song, you know? There's definitely moments where you're in the studio and you have this idea and you're like, "This could be the greatest thing I've ever done or this could be where everyone is like 'Oh that's right, he's out of his mind,' and they leave and never come back." You know what I mean? There's always that.
Z: A New Day, did that actually start as a lullaby?
F: It did, yeah.
Z: And you just sat on a lullaby for a while?
F: Well, it was one of these things where- alright so, I wrote a song with my daughters called Best Friends Forever. That was their- they started that, you know? They would sing it really loud at each other, this "best friends forever but not now," kinda thing, to taunt each other when they were kinda having a fight. And so I thought, "Alright well, a great way to bring this all together and make it a positive is to sit down with a guitar, we'll figure out a melody, and we'll actually write a song." So we ended up writing this song. Did a video for it and recorded it and all that stuff, and it was amazing! And so, at night, we'll have this thing where I say, "Alright, you wanna hear a story or do you wanna sing a song. What do you guys wanna do?" And if they pick a song, we usually will sing Best Friends Forever because they know the words and they're a fan of it because they wrote it, right? And then, so if you do a song you're gonna have to do two songs. And I was like, "I don't have any other songs." So I wanted to write a song that I felt comfortable singing to them at night, like a sentiment that they could go to bed with and wake up with a fresh sense of "the world is my oyster," kind of thing. And so, I started to come up with this idea of A New Day's Coming. We're gonna wipe the slate clean, and no matter what happened today, whether it was good or bad, that doesn't matter. Tomorrow's a new day and it's the first day of the rest of your life, kind of thing. And I wanted to give them that, you know? So I had the chorus and I had a couple of ideas of how I wanted it to go, but I feel like songs are a lot like relationships, you know. Sometimes you meet somebody in your life and you're like, "Yo, you're something really special and I'm something really special, and together we could be really amazing, but this is not the right time for us." So you let them go and hopefully down the line, you meet again, but songs are a lot like that too. I had this idea but I wasn't ready to commit, you know?
Z: How did you know you were ready?
F: It just happened. Just happened. I tried on the last record. I tried to force it and it didn't work, and I knew maybe this isn't the right time. But this record, after everything that happened between the last record and this record in my life, it just felt right. This was the time to do it, and it needed to be the first song that you heard when you put the record on.
Z: Would you have ever thought, years ago, that you would've been making a song like A New Day? For your daughters, but also one that has a message that is so beautiful and pure and needed? I'm not saying the other songs didn't have a message like that, but it's totally different. We're talking about light to darkness.
F: Right.
Z: As basic as colors.
F: It's funny to me though, because I've always felt like I wrote really positive songs and everybody's like, "Oh man, your songs are so depressing." It's like, "Really?" This is the first record that I've written that people are like, "It's a really uplifting, positive record," and I'm like, "Finally, I did it. I've been trying for a really hard time, long time, yeah."
[ad break]
D: Why do you feel like you write depressing songs usually?
F: I don't think I do!
D: Why do you think other people see them as depressing and you don't?
F: I don't know. It's a lot like we're from Jersey, right? If you tell somebody to go fuck themselves, it depends on how you say it, right? It's not always a bad thing.
Z: Not at all. I tell somebody to go fuck themselves once a day and I mean it with love!
F: Exactly, yeah! I think it's just the way I am, you know? I think growing up on the east coast, you have this- there's this weird mentality where you can never think that you're good at something, because if you do, you're a jerk off. And you can't ever, I don't know, you can't ever not have that rough edge about you, you know what I mean? You can't let your guard down too much.
Z: I totally- what you're saying-
F: It's weird.
Z: Yeah, you're never soft.
F: No, yeah. Because you always think somebody's out to get you at some point on something.
Z: Even in your softest moments, there is an edge there.
F: Yeah.
Z: And as you say this, I think of a thousand moments in my life where that is so obvious. It's not until you look back at it that you realize.
F: Even when my kids give me a hug, I'm like, "Are they trying to steal my wallet?"
Z: You question almost everything a little bit.
F: Everything.
Z: But even when you really mean it with love, the average person will take it with a, "Ooh, did he really mean that?"
F: I know, yeah. I think sometimes it's inflection, sometimes it's what I think is- see, here's the thing. I personally, I love when things are beautifully broken, right? I think people aren't perfect, we're not supposed to be perfect, no one's fucking perfect, right? So this idea that we have to strive to be this image that we see on the internet or something like that, like, no. Even if there were people out there that were perfect, why would you wanna be that person? The only thing the world doesn't have is you. We have everyone else, so the only thing that we need is you, and you're the only one that can give it to us. So, celebrate shit that's wrong with you because that's what makes you unique, you know? Those "flaws," the things that people tell you are flaws, no. That's the stuff that you should nurture and build from. That's what's unique to you. No one is fucked up the way that you're fucked up, you know what I mean? And that's what I try to celebrate in songs and people are like, "Oh man, that's so depressing," it's like, no! Be courageous in showing what maybe isn't necessarily the feature that you would wanna put forward. Celebrate the stuff that scares the hell out of you, the stuff that you feel uncomfortable about, the things that are uniquely you.
D: Is that a lesson that you've had to learn over time, or is that something you've always kind of known?
F: I think over time. It takes a while to gain that knowledge because just like everybody else, I was young. I was, I'm insecure. I've always been that way, you know? I was a fat kid growing up that didn't really feel like they belonged anywhere. I found punk rock and I realized, "Oh shit, I can do this stuff on my own for me and my friends," and it took me a while to realize that I don't need anyone's fucking permission. I don't need to prove myself to anyone but myself, you know? And no one can tell me how to be me.
Z: Does that happen while you're releasing music or does it happen before? Because I'm thinking everything you just said, I feel like is missing in music today.
F: Right. Yeah.
Z: But what you said was representative of what pop punk used to be.
F: Right.
Z: Even when I was in middle school, or my first early years of high school, it was My Chemical Romance, it was Green Day, it was Fall Out Boy, it was Panic!, you represented those with flaws and you gave everybody that hope. Just because you were different or not like everybody else, seize that moment, seize those things.
F: Yeah.
Z: And milk it.
F: I think that you have to. It doesn't make sense to wanna be something that you're not, you know? I think that even if you see an immediate happiness in not being pointed at and being thought of as different, that's not a happiness that sticks with you because it's not you, and you're going to feel uncomfortable and unhappy in that skin because it's not yours, you know?
Z: Totally.
F: I think with that movement that you're talking about, I think what got weird and crazy and misconstrued was the- people started to then gravitate towards a certain thing and it became almost a caricature of those sentiments. And then from there, either people gravitated towards this caricature that they saw and thought, "Oh, well I don't fit anywhere else, I should fit in here, so I'm gonna be that," and that's not great because it kinda goes against what you started it from. And then also I think we lost the ability to differentiate between good and bad attention. We just realized that we're getting attention and that must be what I need. And I think that that's a big problem that's happening in young people right now, where they're looking for someone to notice them and they don't get that negative attention or positive attention difference. They just know that people are paying attention to them, they get likes, or they get followers or something like that, and it's kinda crazy.
Z: Kids today are three times more likely to wanna be a Youtube star when they grow up than an astronaut.
F: That's, yeah.
Z: But growing up when I was growing up, if a kid had a love for space or he was a math nerd or whatever, those are things that they seized, you know what I'm saying?
F: Right, yeah.
Z: Even though there was always that asshole in class that made fun of you, you always saw that and you wanted to kind of explore it and expand upon it.
F: Yeah.
Z: But now, it's all- it's attention.
F: It's attention and I think it's also when you hear people say, "What do you wanna be when you grow up? What do you wanna do with your life? What do you wanna do?" and they say, "I wanna be famous." "Famous for what?" "I don't know, I just wanna be famous." Like, oh fuck man. That sucks.
Z: It's freaky. As a dad, are you scared a little bit?
F: Very, very. I think that instilling that though, "You're getting attention or I'm praising you for something that you accomplished, or for trying something and failing and getting back up and doing it again," those are accomplishments. Those accomplishments garner attention. That's a good thing as opposed to just like, "Oh here's a participation trophy. Here's some sort of celebration for nothing." I don't want that.
Z: Are we against participation trophies? A for effort?
F: I think that it's hard, right? Because you have kids, you don't wanna see them sad. You wanna see them be happy all the time, but that's not life, you know? You can't have the sweet without the sour. You can't win all the time. I'm not preparing you for what the real world is like if I give you- if I rig the game every time.
Z: You're doing a disservice to your kids.
F: I think so, yeah.
Z: Yeah, totally.
F: It's terrible.
Z: They're gonna be set up wrong. They're gonna think that everything deserves to be handed to them and then you're gonna be Lori Loughlin, paying half a million dollars to get your kid into college.
F: Oh yeah. I don't know.
D: No comment?
Z: I don't know if it'll cost you that much to get into Rutgers. But also you might get them in there.
F: I don't know. Well, here's the thing. I went to Rutgers and I dropped out.
Z: I was just gonna say, right?
F: I know, I shouldn't have that. Well, that's my thing about it. I want my kids to go to college but I know what it's like because I went and I saw and I heard opportunity knocking and I was like, "This is my one chance in a lifetime to do the thing that I wanna do, that I love more than anything, and so I've gotta say goodbye to the backup plan." And my dad and my grandfather, who I love and looked up to more than anyone in this world, were severely disappointed in me. And that was a hard one, you know? But sometimes you gotta make your own way and you gotta- they can tell you so many stories about how this is the pitfalls of this and that, but you gotta get your own scars, you know? I get it. I can't fall off my bike for my kids, they have to fall off their own bikes.
Z: How long did it take for your dad and your grandfather to come around?
F: Years. I'd done a lot of things, accomplishments and sold a lot of records and had plaques and all this stuff, and then one day, my grandfather gave me a call and he said that my birthday was in the Trentonian, which is the local Trenton newspaper.
D: He was like, "Ah, you made it!"
F: Yeah! He was like, "Ah, you did it!" That was the moment where he was like, "Okay, it's alright that you dropped out of college."
Z: But that must have felt amazing!
F: It was, it was, yeah! I was like, "But I did all this stuff, or I could've fell down a well." It's the same shit, you know what I mean? You still would've been in the paper.
Z: "Local New Jersey man falls down a well!"
F: "Also on his birthday."
Z: Wow! I wanna go back really quick to pop punk and it becoming a caricature of itself.
F: Okay.
Z: Is that genre dead?
F: Oh man. Sorry, I didn't mean to blow into your mic.
Z: Anytime.
F: I mean, I don't know. I think it's hard to say because these are sub-genres of sub-genres of sub-genres. It really is just all rock and roll, right? I think the issue that you really have is when people set out to make something for a reason other than just creating. Say like, "I wanna set out to make this band that sounds like this because this is what's popular and this plays to this demographic," once you've said those words, you're fucking done. Yeah. So I think that's a big issue, you know what I mean? And then also too, I'm trying, I don't know how to be, how do I say this in the right way? It's weird to me- alright, there's classic bands, there's bands that have done this for years and years and years, and they do it well and those songs will live on and I love those songs, and I know a lot of people do love those songs. But there's something weird about seeing people that are 40+ singing about weird high school fucking fart joke stuff, you know what I mean? That's a weirdness. I don't know, maybe that's just for me, you know what I mean?
Z: The timeless of the records, there's a certain point where you gotta graduate from that?
F: I think so. I don't know.
Z: I get what you're saying.
F: Yeah. There are certain things about my personality and things that I will always find funny, I'm sure. But I'm not the same person I was when I was 15, and I don't write the same songs that I did when I was 15, but some of those emotions are the same and I understand that. But I don't know, I think it's a fine line, you know? I think your emotions have to evolve and I think your songwriting hsa to evolve, I think.
Z: So you're saying you're never gonna perform any Pencey Prep songs ever again?
F: Never.
Z: Never?
F: Oh man, that's funny.
Z: That was your first band ever.
F: Yeah, it wasn't my first band ever but it was the first record that came out and was signed to a label, yeah. First band ever, you wanna know what my first band ever was?
Z: What was it called?
F: It was called Fountainhead. Thank you.
Z: There was something prolific about that, I feel.
F: Yeah. We had one song, I played drums in it.
Z: Cool.
F: Because I wanted to play guitar but he was like, "No, I play guitar." So, that was the first band. And then shortly after that, I played my first show with a band called Steve Wiel and the Disco Kings.
Z: Whoa.
F: No one was named Steve Wiel.
Z: I was gonna say, "Where's Steve?"
F: No one played disco.
D: Where'd the name come from?
F: I think it was a friend of somebody and we- it was weird. I was a freshman in high school, my friend Hambone was a senior, he played guitar and found out that I played guitar, so he came over one day and was like, "Alright, show me what you can do," and I played probably a Nirvana song or something. He was like, "Oh! You can actually play? Alright, we're starting a band, we have a gig in a month." I was like, "Oh! Okay." He was like, "Oh by the way, our name is Steve Wiel and the Disco Kings," I was like, "What?! What the hell is happening?" So we played maybe three shows or something, but that a big deal. What's funny about that band is that- there's many things funny about that band, one of the funny things about that band is that in those months where he had a few shows or whatever, we wrote 25 songs.
Z: Whoa.
F: And every show we thought we had to play every song that he wrote.
D: Oh my god.
F: So the last show was at a friend of a friend's birthday party.
Z: That's painful.
F: And we just brutalized this party.
Z: For two and a half hours!
F: For like an hour and a half!
D: Everyone's like, "Get these guys offstage!"
F: Seriously, yeah. "We just wanna listen to the chicken dance or something. Please."
Z: "Where's Steve?!"
F: It was horrible! Yeah, it was terrible.
D: How many bands have you been in over the years?
F: Oh my god, oh man. There's no way, I have no idea. So many. So many bands. But Jersey's like that. Jersey is like a very incestuous pit of musicians. Everyone's playing in everyone's band. If you're a drummer you're in six bands, hands down. If you have a PA system you're in everyone's band. If your brother put on shows you're in three bands. If you have a job at Staples, which I did, you're in twelve bands because you can get-
Z: Promo cards!
F: Yeah!
Z: Come on!
F: You get stickers for free, you get flyers for free.
Z: Did you ever play the Marlboro Rec Center?
F: Oh yeah! Definitely, definitely.
Z: I've been to a few shows there.
F: Yeah.
Z: Some good times. Starland.
F: Starland. Bound Brook, I used to play at the New Palace all the time. Lindenhurst American Legion Hall. I played outside of a hot dog stand in Rutherford. You name it, I've played it. I've played on the back off a flatbread- flatbread. A flatbread bread truck. Flatbread bread truck, in Nutley. I remember this too because the band was called Hybrid and they listed us at Hybird and we were so mad! And our singer was like, "I'm not playing! I'm not gonna play unless they change the flyer!" I was like, "No one cares. No one's here to see us. Who the hell do you think you are? It's a fair. No one's here."
D: Isn't it crazy to think that you've played at fairs and then you've played in front of 100,000 people?
F: Yeah. Well, I mean, how do you get to 100,000 people unless you play the fair, you know what I mean?
D: That's a good point.
F: Right?
Z: You can't get there. I mean, there's people who do skip over.
D: I don't know. Lil Nas X, I don't think he ever played at a fair.
F: Who?
D: Lil Nas X, Old Town Road.
F: Oh.
D: He went straight up to the top.
F: Oh, I'm sure he's playing a fair right now. I'm sure there's a fair, right?
D: Probably a big fair.
F: Oh yeah! But you know, it's still a fair.
D: That's true.
F: Yeah. I don't care how big that fair is, somebody's winning fish by throwing a fucking ping pong ball in a thing. I don't care.
Z: That's such a New Jersey thing.
F: Yeah.
Z: Dude, I had so many goldfish that died within a day!
F: Yeah, they're disposable animals. The shame.
Z: I felt so bad because you were really winning the worst goldfish out of the bunch, you know?
F: Yeah, well, think about this, right? I don't know. Never mind. I'm gonna get letters if I go into this any further, but it's almost like you're the Kevorkian of goldfish at that point because they're just packed in this fucking tank, they get put in a bag, that fish must be like, "Kill me. Just kill me. Please."
D: It's why he dies in a day.
F: "Someone kill me." Yeah.
Z: He wants to go.
F: I think, yeah. I think you're doing it a favor.
Z: By the way, it is pretty wild to take a listen back to all the different groups you've been in, and really, you've performed in front of 100,000 people, but you can't have one without the other.
F: No, yeah.
Z: Do you think there is longevity for artists who skip over those coveted hot dog stand moments? Or those coveted somebody throwing a beer at you?
F: "Coveted," I don't think it's coveted.
Z: Those situations? But you learn something, don't you?
F: No, I definitely learned a lot. I learned a lot from every experience, good and bad. But I don't know, I mean, who says- I think if the art is valid, whether it gets recognized immediately or after you're dead, who cares? You know what I mean? I don't know. It's unfortunate, you know? There's artists out there that suffer their entire life playing to no one, dying in squalor, and then eventually somebody finds a tape somewhere and is like, "Oh my god, this is amazing." That sucks but that's what happens, you know? And then there's people that write one song and go immediately to the top and everybody gets to enjoy it, and that's a great thing. Who knows? I don't know.
Z: Why do you make music still today? What is it that motivates it?
F: I have to. It's like breathing. I can't not have a song pop into my head and then immediately just pick up a recorder and start recording it. I have literally thousands of voice memos on my phone, some of which will turn into songs, some of which I just needed to get down at the moment, you know?
Z: How often are you doing that?
F: I just did it today at KROQ. We were just there, yeah.
Z: So what happens?
F: I don't know, it's a couple of chords. I don't know what else it'll turn into.
Z: You have synesthesia, right?
F: Yes, yeah.
Z: So do you see colors, do you see objects? What do you see?
F: I see colors, yeah. But for me, in record form. The first record to me is pink, the first record that we did together, it's the Cellebration record. So Stomachaches is a pink record. Parachutes has always been a blue record, from the moment we started writing Barriers, it was a yellow.
Z: And that actually comes through in the album artwork.
F: Yeah. And that's why I think that I enjoy doing that so much is because I know what it needs to be, you know what I mean? I like being so hands on with that because I can see it already.
Z: But at what point in the creation process do you see a color? How many songs in? Do you see it from the get go or?
F: It depends. This was pretty early on, yeah. This was always yellow to me, I don't know. I wondered though too, if it's like the emotion that I go into the writing process with. I don't know.
D: So yellow means you were happy going into this one, right?
Z: What song started it?
F: The song that started this process- good question. I think the first full song that we did as a band was Young and Doomed. The first song that I wrote though for this record, if I were to go all the way back, was either the beginnings of New Day or The Unfortunate. There was also the beginnings of Six Feet Down Under, was early on.
Z: A New Day makes sense for yellow, but yellow could have its own meaning because-
F: I think it's-
Z: What is Six Feet Under to you?
F: Six Feet Down Under was me trying to make sense of the accident that happened almost three years ago.
Z: In Sydney, but do you see that as a positive thing that you used to heal or?
F: I think, yeah. I mean, if I were to try to put it into some sort of plan, maybe it's a fall color. Maybe it's seeing that situation kinda come to an end and die off, you know what I mean? This thing that was so huge and such a monumental, debilitating event in my life, it had such power over me, seeing that kind of wither away was huge.
Z: Like its hold on you.
F: Yeah. Because once I'm able to write a song about something, and once I'm able to verbalize and put a melody and words behind what I'm feeling, I am able to define that situation, and then it becomes real but I also have control over it.
Z: I get it.
F: You know what I mean? As opposed to it just being there and controlling me.
Z: Yeah, it's yours.
F: Once you name something, it's like, "Yeah, I got you."
Z: It belongs to you.
D: Is it hard to perform that song live?
F: We haven't.
D: Really?
F: Yeah.
D: Why is that?
F: Well, I think that with songs, all songs need to be written, but do they need to be played over and over and over again? I don't know, you know? I remember hearing in an interview once that our friends The Get Up Kids, they had performed a song called, I think it was A Newfound Interest in Massachusetts, and someone had asked, "How come you never play that song live?" and they said, "We got it right the first time. Why should we do it again?" And I was like, "Oh wow! That's so interesting, I never thought of it that way." If you nailed something, would you do it again.
Z: No.
F: And get it wrong, you know what I mean? So I think since, they've actually played that song because people just wanna hear it so bad, but that's an interesting way to think about things. I also think about, there's songs- a song that I wrote for my grandfather when he passed away, it's a song off of Parachutes, I never need to go through that emotion again. I needed to get it out because I needed to expel that but for my own soul, I don't need to do that song again.
Z: Young and Doomed, what event is that that you needed to get out there and have in your control?
F: Right. Well, that song I think is a lot about predetermination, you know? And how we can want the best for our offspring, right? We can get them the best doctors, the best school systems, we can give them everything that they could possibly ever want, but there's certain that are innate and things that are handed down through the blood that runs through our veins. Things like depression and addiction and all these things, they rear their heads whether we have done everything we possibly can or not, you know? And that song's a lot about that kind of stuff, about being your own worst enemy, and knowing that there's this predetermined path for feeling a certain way.
D: So why did you wanna include the I'm Not Okay lyric?
F: It fits so well! I think also too, it was one of those things where I was writing the lyrics for that song, and I knew the song was important and I wanted to get it correct, and it just came out as I was writing in my basement. I was like, "Oh my god, that's so good." And at the same time I was like, "It's gonna get a lot of attention. Again, do I want that attention? Is that negative attention, is that positive attention? Are people going to miss what's being said in the song just looking for this line?" And I started to think about that a lot and I thought, "Well, maybe people will get where I'm trying to reference in here, and not really try to, I don't know, be like, 'Oh is it because he fucks his best friend?'" You know what I mean? I want people to realize that there's these universes, you know what I mean? It's not just about some fucking weird meme that people make about the members. Listen to the songs that we were writing and what was being said in there. And I like that in a comic book, when you find out one superhero is in the same universe as another, like it references another body of work, I think that's kinda fucking awesome. It breaks down that fourth wall.
Z: But I'm here for it all day.
F: Okay.
Z: Because it is how you build an actual universe.
F: Yes, exactly.
Z: It's something that's bigger than just that one and it gives any fan who truly cares and invests the opportunity to connect all the dots and really be invested in all of it as opposed to just one. What is the connection between that line and the message of the overall song?
F: So, I think it's gaining the power of that not being okay. That's a huge thing, a realization to come to, and it's okay to not be okay. We get so concerned about wanting people to perceive us as being, "Oh no no no, I'm good, I'm good, don't worry about it. There's no problems here." Everybody's got problems! We're full of issues.
Z: We just don't wanna say it.
F: We just don't wanna say it, yeah. That idea that we can't break that porcelain, we have to keep this facade up that we got it all figured out, no one has it figured out, you know? We're old enough now, right? How old are you guys?
D: 28.
Z: 26.
F: Alright. So, I'm a little bit older, right? I'm gonna be 38, I have kids now. I'm my parents when I was a kid, and I was like, "Oh my god, my parents have it figured out." No they don't! Your parents don't have it figured out, no one fucking has it figured out, man! We just do what we think is right and we do our best, but we all have problems. Real life is crazy.
Z: But why isn't music showcasing that in a way that is mainstream anymore? That's what I'm trying to figure out.
F: Right. Well, I think some of it is, but some of it too is I think people don't wanna have to fucking deal with that. I think that's what it is too, you know? The escape is, they just want something to put on.
Z: We always escape.
F: Yeah, and not think about it.
Z: But what was your music before? And the music that we're listening to today? Was it an escape, was it reality, was it a combination of both?
F: See, I liked when people told me stories that were based in reality. That was the stuff that I really got into. Alright so, one of my favorite punk bands of all time, The Bouncing Souls. I remember them writing songs about walking through the city and they're friends and hanging out at the Cocktail Lounge, the Holiday Cocktail Lounge, and thinking about this universe. What is their life like, you know? "It's a long walk through the city in the rain, it's a long walk from train to train," thinking about like, "Oh my god, what is this like?" Living in the city, being in this band, touring the country, talking about writing songs about shows, that was huge for me. That was like folk punk rock. I was learning about this world that I wanted so badly to be a part of.
Z: So, do you write about escapes? Do you write for reality? Do you get what I'm saying?
F: Right. I write from personal experience. I find it very difficult for me to invent a world and just write fictional things. The things that I write about are things that I've experienced in my own life, or I've witnessed people go through it firsthand. Yeah, I draw inspiration from living.
Z: Has it always been like that?
F: Always, yeah. Yeah. And I find it, I wonder what it's like to be able to just come up with-
Z: Fabricate a story?
F: Yeah, fabricate a story. That's gotta be so, because I think about how draining it is to think and overthink and to live these songs. As much as I love making records, it takes everything out of me. So, I wonder, "Well, I wonder if I just talked about some fake bullshit, I'd be happy, right? I wouldn't have to-"
Z: I don't think you'd be fulfilled.
F: I don't think so either, but I wonder.
Z: And I think the people who do it the right way are drained in their own way because it's through empathy, and they hear a story a lot. I'm hella blessed, I get to talk to a lot of incredible musicians and I've heard stories of all different types of how people do it, and Sam Smith can hear a friend's story over and over again, and then craft this beautiful hit record after it. Or Alec Benjamin for instance, if you haven't checked him out, I would so recommend it.
F: Okay.
Z: He does retellings of Aesop's Fables.
F: Oh wow.
Z: But you won't know until you dig down into the lyrics.
F: That's crazy.
Z: Alec Benjamin.
F: Okay.
Z: Worth your time.
F: Alright, I'll check it out.
Z: I promise you that.
F: Right on.
Z: But he barely writes about reality. It's wild.
F: That's like fantasy metal. That's gotta be crazy, man! Writing about orcs and shit? That's gotta be so nuts. Think about that, you know?
Z: How do you ever get there?
F: How do you get that, I have no idea! How do you do that? Crazy.
Z: What mental state do you enter?
F: Think about this. Have you ever heard that band, Dust?
Z: No.
F: It's Marky Ramone's first band, it's a fucking fantasy band. It's dope as shit. It's so good.
Z: Orcs and trolls?
F: Dude, yeah. On the cover of the record, there's like a fucking troll holding a sledgehammer. It's crazy!
Z: That's pretty cool.
F: It's the best.
Z: What are you thinking?
D: You know what I was thinking that's interesting about you? You could be in a band now, you opened for Taking Back Sunday, right?
F: Yeah, yeah.
D: But then at the same time, you could go and be the headliner. Is that weird? You know what I'm talking about? It's like you guys went from being a headliner, now you're in a new band, you're opening for Taking Back Sunday.
F: Right.
D: Is it kinda weird to think about it like that?
F: Well, I think that- you're talking project to project? Like My Chem to this or any other bands?
D: Yeah.
F: I feel like one doesn't dictate the other, you know what I mean? Just because I did this, this, and this with one band, doesn't mean that if I tour with Leathermouth or Death Spells or my own projects, that doesn't have any bearing on this, you know what I mean? You still gotta start from scratch and start from square one.
Z: Is that important for you?
F: I think so. I mean, yeah.
Z: Because real talk, any agent would make sure that that wouldn't have to happen. But I feel like kind of motivates you.
F: Well, I think you have to earn it. Every project, yeah. One doesn't piggyback off the other. It doesn't work that way, at least in my head, I don't think so.
Z: I respect that because I think there's a lot of people who wouldn't do that, honestly.
F: Yeah. I don't know. I only know one way to do it.
Z: But it's cool!
F: No, it's fine. Here's the thing too is like, people will ask, "What's more fun? Playing this type of venue or this type of show?" It's all fun, man. It's all different, you know? I don't feel more at home in a basement or in an arena, I just love playing music.
Z: As long as you're doing it.
F: You have to think about it a different way. You're approach is definitely different, but I enjoy both.
Z: Because you're fulfilled no matter what.
F: Yeah!
Z: It's not about the size of the venue, it's the fact that you're doing it.
F: Exactly, yeah.
Z: That's how you know.
F: That's how you know. That's how they get you.
Z: Boom.
D: Are you trying to separate your lives? You were in- the My Chem life, obviously everyone knows about that, and then you have what you're doing today. Is it important that you separate the two? Because I'm sure a lot of people just wanna know what went on, how was it, what was it like being in the band? But then you're like, "Okay well, I'm this age, I'm doing this now, let's focus on this."
F: You mean in press and interviews and stuff?
D: Yeah, press, interviews, just fans.
F: Well here's what I don't like. I don't mind talking about anything that I've done, because I'm proud of everything I've done. What I don't like is when someone will sit down with me and talk about this project for an hour, and then at the end of it, be like, "Oh by the way," ask one question about My Chem, and then throw that at the title of it so that someone clicks the link on it. First off, you and I are both too smart for this dumb shit that you're doing. Two, no one is going to be excited when they click that link because you don't have any fucking information. You know what I mean? If I had something to say about that, we would, that's what this interview would be about, you know what I mean?
D: Yeah.
F: So that whole fucking grabbing clicks is just, it makes you look like a dick, and pisses everybody off. It does nothing to me, I don't care. You know what I mean?
Z: This is how I wanna start the whole conversation. This right at the top.
F: Right? I mean, you know.
Z: Because it's 100% true! It is what people do because they're looking for clickbait.
F: It's all about, yeah, it's clickbait for advertisers that, whatever. I get it, but don't do that. Then people aren't gonna go to your site anymore because you don't have any information.
Z: Because there's no integrity. If integrity doesn't matter, then what is there to gravitate towards?
F: Do you think that because everything is so fleeting anyway no one really cares? It's just a grab.
Z: It's really sad that we do deal with an audience or a public that has a very short attention span, but the one thing that I have noticed is that people choose to remember when they choose to remember. They store things away, you know? But I think it depends on how intense our wrongdoing is. Do you get what I'm saying?
F: Okay.
Z: If people are just looking for information, you might face a few crappy comments, but ultimately what that comes down to is who you choose to talk to. Because I think different people choose to play different games and we play a long-term game. I hope to have you on our show for as long as I choose to do radio, which-
F: I'm moving in. I'm just gonna stay here.
Z: Dude, I got candles for days! But I'm 26, I got 30 years left.
F: Right.
Z: A lot of people that you're talking to are playing this short "gotcha" game, and maybe they're trying to make a name for themselves in the middle of the country, or whatever. It's like everybody has their own motives.
F: Yeah, that's true.
Z: My motives are talking about music that matters and building quality relationships that last forever.
F: I like that motive. That's a good one.
D: But if somebody puts that in a headline- I'm just looking at it the other way, somebody puts in the headline, they could learn more about you that they didn't know before.
F: Somebody that's clicking just for that isn't looking to scan a whole article.
Z: They're gonna skip ahead.
D: They're just skip until they hear what they wanna hear.
F: Yeah.
Z: Boom!
D: Good point.
F: I don't know, yeah. I understand what you're saying, yeah. But yeah, unfortunately, it doesn't work that way.
D: I'm trying to be positive, you know what I mean?
F: Here's the thing. It'd be different if it wasn't- when you put something in a headline or something like that, you're promising to tell that story, right? If you're doing it just to, I don't know, to grab you in and then now it's like, "Ah, gotcha, here's bullshit!" you're not gonna have someone really stick around. I don't know.
Z: They're not clicks you want.
F: Yeah, exactly.
Z: You're not grabbing attention for the right purpose.
F: Right.
Z: So the retention on that is gonna be poor. Do you get what I'm saying?
F: I do.
Z: You're not gonna turn those clicks into fans, they're not gonna be there and like what they hear, it's a mess. I get what you're saying. That's internet culture, sadly. Which, by the way, it's all attached to everybody showing the world exactly what they want to world to see, and living everything through a filter, and doing whatever it takes to just grab that like, or grab that initial view, you know?
F: I agree, I totally agree.
Z: It's the real world we live in.
F: It's fantasy metal. It's a world of fantasy metal.
D: What do you think of the term or phrase "emo?"
F: I think it's been so bastardized and diluted that I don't even know what it means anymore, you know?
D: Yeah.
F: I think that it started as short for "emotional," right? Alright, I think when you hear about, "Oh there's Emo Nite!" It's like, "Oh okay, do you go there and you listen to The Cure?" They're like, "No." "Alright well, is it like weird early Jade Tree stuff?" "No, it's this, this, and this." "Oh, it's just pop bands disguised as real bands? Alright." That's weird to me, you know? When you use it now to just describe a shitty haircut, that sucks, you know what I mean?
D: Yeah, that's true.
F: You know what I mean? I feel like a lot of bullshit got lumped into it, into this term, and that's why I think people really rebelled against it.
D: So, when I think of emo bands, it's like All Time Low, I guess Panic! but not anymore, kind of. Hawthorne Heights, would you not consider that in that genre?
F: I would say that I don't know those bands well enough to know if they're emotional, but when I think of emo, I think of Mineral. I think of Knapsack, I think of The Cure, I think of fucking Embrace, you know? That's what I think of.
Z: Was this a part of the whole characterization or the caricature of pop punk music? Was the emo haircut and the emo kid all a part of that?
F: You mean later on?
Z: Yeah.
F: I think so. I think that's where it went to was like, "Oh, people that are sad and have weird makeup," and then it became this weird cartoon, kind of thing.
Z: Cartoon, yeah. It kinda bummed me out because I'm a Warped Tour kid. I was raised on Warped Tour and Bamboozle. And kills me every summer that I don't see the Bamboozle festival take over the freaking parking lot of Giants Stadium.
F: Right.
Z: Annoyed about it.
F: You seem annoyed.
Z: I'll get going. But it was around that time that I had the haircut that covered one of my eyes.
D: Oh, I had that haircut.
Z: I was wearing the fat bracelets, the Jac Vanek bracelets.
D: I had the eyeliner on.
Z: To Write Love On Her Arms. My sister's in the other room, she still rocks it, she still goes to Warped Tour every year. I feel like that whole thing went away and it just destroys me and I think you made a good point where we were talking about what is pop punk and the caricature and the cartoon it kinda became.
F: Right.
Z: Destroys me because it was such a hub.
F: It meant something to you, yeah.
Z: Of safety and community for so many.
F: Right.
Z: And whenever there were those groups that kind of crossed over into that mainstream light, it was like, "Yes!" I don't know, you felt represented.
F: I agree. I agree with that because I remember hearing bands like At The Drive In and Thursday on the radio, and being like, "Oh my god, these are kids like me. These are real bands." Bands that I saw, I saw those bands in VFW halls at the Wayne Firehouse. You know what I mean? "Midtown's on the radio, this is crazy. New Found Glory is on the radio, I know these bands. This is real." And that was confidence that, "Hey guess what, it's not far away. This doesn't feel like Oz anymore, you know? It's not this made up upper echelon of bands that are 'making it,' you know? Anyone can do this. I can write a song in my basement and fucking get on the radio? That's crazy! Thursday's on the fucking radio, that's awesome!"
Z: It made it real.
F: It made it real, yeah. And then all of a sudden, the videos started showing up on MTV and it was like, "Oh my god, this is amazing!" And then major labels started calling the fucking practice studio and it was weird. It was real weird.
Z: Because everybody wanted something like that because there was a need for that genre of music a little bit.
F: I guess so, yeah. I just know that we wanted so badly to be, you know, heard. We just wanted so badly to be out there touring and to have a chance. Just have a shot, you know? And you felt as a young person, how do you get your shot? How do you get people to listen? Even if they hate it, I just want people to hear it. And that was the early 2000s of Myspace and stuff like that, and that's how you got heard, and it was insane because heard it and they were like, "I've never heard anything like this. I wanna pay attention to what's being said here."
Z: What was it? Why did you know? What was it about wanting to be heard? Did you feel like you had a message that ended to get out there? Did you feel like you were doing something that was unlike anything else?
F: I definitely think we, especially that Jersey Long Island scene, was unique. It didn't sound like everything else that was going on, you know? There were certain offshoots that we had comradery with. There were a couple of communities and bands in North Carolina, and Florida, there were these-
Z: All east coast.
F: It was a lot of east coast, you know. And the majority of the bands were centralized in that Jersey scene. I don't know, man. People always wanted to be like, "It's the new Seattle!" It's like, "I don't know about that," but it was just a community of bands that- you know what I think it is? There were so many bands that you needed to be good. There's only so many, there's a finite amount of shows, right? And if you're a band in this scene in Jersey, you gotta fight for these spots. You gotta fight for the people that like your band, and you gotta fight for these spots and the shows so you have to be so good, and you're seeing all these other bands get better and better, and you're like, "Oh my god, I have to get better."
Z: You gotta step up your game. This constant awareness of the competition.
F: And for My Chem, when things really got crazy was when Murder By Death, or at that time Little Joe Gould, came to New Jersey because Thursday found them in Indiana when they were on tour. They signed to Eyeball, they came to Jersey, we saw them play and we heard their record, and we were like, "Oh my god! This is way more than anything else, anyone else is doing. We need to really think outside the box now." And we started to get even more cinematic and started to look to classical music for inspiration and that's when things started to branch off and explode.
Z: Wow.
F: Yeah.
Z: So from challenging yourself, you got to where you're at?
F: Yeah. I think that every time I've been put in a room or in a band with somebody that was, that I knew or felt was better than me that inspired me, I got exponentially better. And that was just how much I love playing with people that are better than me. The band that I'm in right now, playing with Kayleigh and Matt and Tucker and Evan, they inspire me to up my game. And that's huge, man. When I got in a band with Ray and Gerard and Mikey and that time Otter was in the band, I had to get better to join My Chem. I just had to get better.
Z: Did you feel out the gate that you weren't good enough to be around them?
F: Yeah. Yeah. But you can't let anybody, again that's the Jersey. You can't let anybody know, right? And you have to fake it until you make it, and then you just fucking grind.
Z: Dude, it's fake it til you make it and you work your ass off until you get to what you're saying you can do!
F: Absolutely. Always grind it out, man. Grind grind grind. People will tell you, old-school Warped Heads, they'll tell you. The first time we had a "bus," we couldn't just sit on the bus and chill. We had the bus gutted, we did. He had the bus gutted, we put in stations so we could rehearse and write the next record while on Warped Tour.
Z: Wow!
F: That's what we did.
D: Really?
F: We played maybe, realistically, five to four hours a day in that bus.
Z: Holy! And you did a show!
F: And a show.
D: So, what years was that? Do you remember?
F: I mean, we wrote songs for, I guess that was 2003, 2004, 2005 maybe? You know, that three year period.
Z: At what point did you know that you were good enough to be along these guys?
F: In My Chem?
Z: Yeah.
F: Well, if you think about it, the first record was basically written. I had to write on top of that record. So I only wrote maybe three songs with them on that record. The next record when I started to write, I think for Three Cheers, and became I guess part of the main melodies. A lot of those melodic guitar parts that are either going against or with vocals is usually what I would bring to the table, and I think- I remember recording Helena in LA, the engineer's name was Mike Plotnikoff, and I played my part for the choruses of Helena, and I remember him hitting the end when I finished the take, and he was like, "Phew, that's a great fucking chorus," and me being like, "Really? I wrote that! That's awesome, alright, cool."
Z: And then you knew.
F: That's when I was like, "Thank god, alright." You can finally exhale and be like, "Alright, no one's gonna throw me out while in my sleep. I'm not gonna wake up, all my shit packed around me."
Z: With just a Post-it note that says, "See you later."
F: Yeah, just says, "Fuck off."
D: Isn't it crazy that people are still singing that today?
F: That's amazing, yeah! It's crazy. What's insane to me is that we'll play shows and there's young people still coming to our shows, finding out about this band, and then also even younger people coming to shows wearing My Chem merch and just finding out about that band.
D: Really?
F: It's like, "Wow, how'd you find out about this band?" And it's being passed along from older siblings or old friends, and it's how I found out about bands that I loved, you know? I remember coming up in high school and being like, "I'm never gonna get to see Jawbreaker but I love Jawbreaker," you know? It happened before me. The Misfits or Gorilla Biscuits and stuff like that. Of course now, some of those bands are playing again, but I remember being in high school and being like, "All my favorite bands are dead." I felt like fucking Morrissey going to school, it's crazy, you know? But it didn't change the way that I felt about those bands and how they shaped my upbringing and how much I loved them. And to be that band for somebody else, that's amazing, that's crazy. It still doesn't make much sense. I feel like that band's bigger now than it ever was. It's crazy.
Z: It is pretty wild.
F: Yeah.
Z: Are there records of yours that you're happy knowing will live forever?
F: All of them, yeah, absolutely. That's unreal. That's like one of those pipe dream things that- I would never say that by the way.
Z: I can.
F: To say, "I hope this record lives on forever," but that's what you're doing when you make a record. That record will be there forever. Will people listen to it? Who knows, but that's a huge thing, that people will listen to that forever. It's strange to me to come up with a new record and then be on the cover of a magazine, then two months later be on the cover of the same magazine as a "classic artist." That's crazy.
Z: What does that say to you-
F: Because I'm old.
Z: It is pretty wild, but it also says something about the validity of all the music you've created.
F: Yeah.
Z: And it does great stories, great music in general, kinda stands the test of time. And beyond that, I don't know, I'll keep going back to it. I feel like the stories that you've been telling for many years are stories that aren't really told in music anymore, so people crave it. People want it, whether it's from you today or from My Chemical Romance.
F: Yeah, I mean, I hope so, you know? I hope that I'm doing something that people enjoy, but it doesn't affect why I do it or if I'll keep doing it, you know what I mean? That's just an added bonus, that's like icing on the cake. When you write a song that you love, you can ride that high for months, you know what I mean? Maybe even a year. But when people sing it back to you at a show, it's like, "Oh my god, that's really cool."
Z: Is there any song you used to perform with My Chemical Romance that you actually miss performing?
F: Yeah, you know, I mean, yeah. Some of those songs are really fun to play.
Z: Because you talk about just people hitting, that energy of the crowd just hitting you back with a record.
F: Oh yeah, that never gets old. Even if it's a song that you've played a million times, to play a song and have people just sing louder than the band is, that's insane! It's great.
Z: It's power.
F: It really is, you know? To be able to do that in multiple projects is crazy. I feel so blessed to be able to be able to do that kind of stuff. It doesn't feel real, it's something- all I ever wanted was to be in a band and to write songs that people would maybe sing along to. That's all I ever wanted. That was my dream, you know? I didn't think I'd ever get it, you know what I mean? But to be here now doing this for like 20 years finally? Yeah, it's crazy.
Z: You are making New Jersey proud.
F: Aw, thank you. New Jersey is never proud.
Z: Let's be honest about it, we really don't give a shit! But I'm just gonna tell you that they're happy.
F: I appreciate it, thank you.
D: When you're talking about people singing back to you, what do you remember from the Reading festival in 2011? Because that performance was amazing.
Z: It changed his life.
F: Oh, were you there?
D: No, I wasn't there, but I watch it on Youtube all the time.
F: Oh, right on. That was a dream come true. I remember, it's funny, I remember thinking as I was playing, "I'm going to remember this for the rest of my life." And then also thinking, "Oh my god, Brian May's coming up soon, and I better fucking nail it. Because I will remember that for the rest of my life." That was crazy, man. I still can't believe it. That feels like a dream, you know? The only reason that I know it's not is because I see footage. I can see footage of it, yeah.
Z: You can watch with Dan.
F: Yeah.
Z: Once a week.
D: If you wanna watch it together one day, I'm down. I've seen it probably 20 times.
F: Oh man. That's awesome.
D: It was such a good performance.
F: There was a lot to unpack about that time in the band, right? And the mindset behind it because we had had bad experiences at festivals, at Reading, at Download, and things of that nature. There was a very combative feeling. And then also too, if you really know all the ins and outs of the band, at that point too, we were pretty sure that the drummer that's on that show or that recording, was stealing from us and kinda fucking us over and it was really crazy. There was a real weird thing happening. But we knew that this was an important show, we weren't gonna let him take that from us. So, there's so much happening.
Z: Do you let him know that you know before you go onstage?
F: No.
D: You can't.
F: Well, I- this is a very weird touchy conversation to have. That whole thing really broke my fucking heart because he was a really good friend, I thought he was a really good friend. I had a walk and talk with him around that time like, "Hey listen, if there's anything going on, you might not be able to tell anybody, but you can tell me. Please feel like you can tell me anything," blah blah blah, and he was like, "Yeah, no, everything's cool, man." And then two weeks later, we caught him.
Z: Was he with you guys from the beginning?
F: No no no no, this was somebody else that came in. But I feel in my heart he would've been the drummer for My Chem. I think all of that stuff really played a role in having the band come to a close, but I think everything was for the best.
Z: I can't even imagine the whole situation because even bringing any new member into any band, whether the band's been around for a few weeks or years, that's a hard situation.
F: Yeah.
Z: I mean, musically it's hard, business it's hard, there's new personalities that now can clash with the group.
F: Yeah. It's a shame.
Z: It's a lot.
F: Yeah. It's a shame, man. It's a shame. It's one of those things that I still can't make sense of in my head, all these years later. It really was a real painful one. It was really really fucked up. Yeah.
Z: I feel your pain.
F: Here's the thing. When you are in a band situation with somebody, you tour with somebody, you live life together, you live in such close quarters, you become really close, you know? And you think of them as family.
Z: You have to.
F: You have to, yeah. And when that doesn't work out- I remember recently, I had a relationship with a musician that I was like, "Oh man, we're like family," kind of thing and then found out later on that the friendship didn't really mean much to that person, that hurts so bad, you know? But it's life, you know what I mean?
Z: That is life.
F: Yeah, it happens.
Z: But it still hurts!
F: It still hurts, yeah.
Z: I understand that situation too well, and I really know. But you learn from it hopefully.
F: Yeah. Yeah, you do. And here's what you learn, is to not cut yourself off completely because your'e going to miss out in the grand scheme of things. It's easy to be like, "You know what? I'm never gonna care for another friend or look out for somebody else or consider them family, and let anybody else in. I'm gonna be a fucking hard nosed prick the rest of my life." It's like, no, why do that, you know? You suffer more than anybody else.
Z: But that's not something you learn right away.
F: No no no, that's true, yeah.
Z: Because I'm sure after that drummed fucked you, every wall went up.
F: Oh yeah, yeah, definitely.
Z: You probably went on red alert, questioning everybody's integrity.
F: That was rough. When I think within that band, that really broke us hard. And I think, I don't wanna say that it was the final straw, but it was one of the final straws of the band. Just be like, "You know what? The curtains are gonna close on this."
Z: Because it's hard to move forward with a clear, I mean, vulnerable but also you need to have a mind that trusts those around you, right?
F: Yeah, I think so. Well, again, I think that goes back to being an artist and having that thin skin and being able to take in and put out all of this emotion, and really make sense of the things that you're experiencing around you. That's hard, man. It's difficult to do that and still be sane at the end of it, you know what I mean? And then have healthy relationships, it's crazy.
Z: As you bring up emotional barriers, I think it's the right time to tell everybody to listen to Barriers.
F: Oh, thank you.
D: I have another question or two.
Z: Okay.
F: Oh, go.
Z: Frank Iero and the Future Violents.
D: Well, I just see a lot of people online commenting on how young you look.
F: Ha!
D: And how you haven't aged in years.
F: I don't know if that's true.
Z: Is it the veganism?
F: Definitely not, I don't know.
Z: Is it all the Beyond patties?
F: The stress of trying to find vegan food?
Z: In New Jersey! That's your problem!
F: In Jersey, it's stressful. Here...
Z: It's everywhere!
F: We go on an eating splurge. We haven't stopped eating since we've been here.
Z: Do you just go to the one place in Montclair all the time?
F: Ah man, I like Veggie Heaven. I do, I do eat at Veggie Heaven. It's good. It's harder out there, but out here, that's how you get us. That's how you get us. It's the food is so good, the weather is so good, we're like, "Oh man, maybe we should move to California again." And then you get out here and you're miserable so.
Z: You feel the stress of the city, the selfishness that flows through the streets.
F: It's a lot like Ghostbusters 2, yeah.
D: Now, my last question, and it's a dickhead end of the interview question.
F: Oh no! You're gonna try to get a click, aren't you? Goddammit.
D: Are you-
F: Dan! Don't do it! Don't do it!
D: No, I have to do it.
F: You don't have to do anything!
D: You don't have to answer!
F: Pfft.
D: Are you aware of Joe Jonas' comments.
F: Come on, man. What, do you think I'm stupid?
D: So what do you think about Joe Jonas' comments?
F: I don't understand why you would do an interview about your band, and talk about someone else's band. I don't get it.
D: But I think that just shows even The Jonas Brothers were My Chem fans.
F: Well, I don't know. Maybe that's true. Maybe I think... I don't know. I think they're trying to rebrand their band as like a real rock band, and they're trying to mention as many rock bands and try to get synonymous with other things, and people aren't gonna forget that you're a Disney band, bro. I'm sorry. It's not gonna happen.
Z: Lovebug is gonna come again.
F: I don't know what that is, I'm sorry!
Z: On that note, Frank Iero.
F: Mhm.
Z: Yes! Woo! Barriers is the album. Please, Frank Iero and the Future Violents. Appreciate your time and energy, sir, thank you so much.
F: Oh, it's my pleasure. Thank you.
Z: You rock.
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Reylo and my meta/predictions
So i was watching almost every video i could find on youtube and read almost every meta i could find online regarding reylo, kylo/ben or rey since i joined this fandom.
So first of all this fandom rocks.
And now i make my own meta and predictions for the last episode. While i don’t like to to adore myself with borrowed plumes i like to thank all of the people inspiring me on tumblr and youtube.
So first of all what is SW about? its about family, love, hope, friendship dozed with a little action. SW is not a pure action movie. SW is not a pure drama and its neither a pure comedy. So what to expect when a movie is about family, love, hope and friendship paired with some war and action? Well, there will be loads of love in it. i am not even sure if the so called Antis just refuse to accept that or if they are indeed not able to see it. but enough of them and lets start with my results of the investigation. I call it investigation because the last month really felt like it haha.
So what do i think happens in ep 9?
Definately Relyo. I have absolutely no doubt it will happen which was different when i came here because i was afraid of another jonerys tragedy (no i am not comparing GOT with SW but a ship is a ship and it broke my heart)
I am convinced that the force brought these two together and we all know that the force is strong. Why did the force do it in the first place? Because its out of balance and the chosen one which was assumed to be Anakin failed. Why did Anakin fail? It was his possesive love for Padme and a few other reasons i am not going to mention here though. Love made him weak. We could now argue love makes kylo/ben weak too but its the opossite. And why do i think that? First of all Ben is not Kylo. Ben is Ben he just chose to give himself a different name but deep down its still the same person. Its like in real life when people try to be someone else because the pain is too much to cope with. With Ben though its much more complex which deserves its own meta.
So who makes love stronger and not weaker? Ben Solo.
Who is Ben Solo? First of all he IS the last male skywalker. Thats a fact which has also been confirmed multiple times. No idea why people still questioning that. He is a troubled young men who is strong with the force and falls in love with Rey. Sounds familiar? Look around happens all the time in real life too. And we learned that SW is about Love. People who watched and i mean who really watched all the previous movies will agree with me on that. I mean Anakin and Padme? Han and Leia? Lukes love for his father? Obi Wans love for Anakin? I could go on and on and on...
Coming back to the force and why it brought Rey and Ben together. When the force chose Anakin it failed. why? Because the force did not know that it needs two. The Ying and yang if you will. This is simple physics actually. Put one on a scale and it gets out of balance. Why Ben? Because he has this Skywalker blood which seems to have a certain importance in the Galaxy. Why Rey? Oh i can already hear people screaming because she is a skywalker, too. NOPE. She is not. Why isn’t she? Does it make sense to have two Skywalkers bringing back the balance to the force? NOPEbecause Luke and Darth Vader/Anakin couldnt either. They both failed. but they did not fail REDEMPTION!
Yes, there will be redemption. There has to. You cannot have an inbalanced person bringing balance back to the force. How will he be redeemed? First of all its Ben who needs redemption not Kylo. There is no Kylo. He needs to truly want it. but what will initiate it? LOVE. Love from his family and Rey. I do not really know how this will happen but i expect that Luke and Anakin will play a role in it too. The Skywalker saga would not come to an end if not all of them ending it. so i really really hope we will see them in whatever way possible. Maybe in the world between worlds, who knows.
Who is Rey?
I truly have no idea but what makes the most sense from my perspective is she was created by the force in some way. Ben did not lie to her when he said they were filthy junk traders selling her but i highly doubt they were her real parents. i also think that someone bought her and was trying to hide her for her own protection. From what? from the dark side of course. She would have made a good new apprentice. Who was the person who brought her there? i have no idea. I dont think it was Luke or Han, they would have remembered and since both are dead i would have expected it to be mentioned. Maybe it isnt important enough and we will never learn the truth or it will be a big surprise and it was leia or someone else we do not expect it to be.
I dont think she will ever go dark and i also believe that dark rey is either a vision or it wont even make it to the film. Rey can have dark moments here and there but not to a large extend. She is light, she believes in people, she fights for love and she fights for what is right. that is also the reason why i do not believe she is palpatines granddaughter. There was no indication so far so that would be a total gamechanger and i doubt we have enough time for that plot. What i do believe though is he knows about her and is trying to win her for his side. The novel indicates she heard a voice saying „kill him“ but she refused. I could be wrong though and this is exaclty what happens. i wont like it i am totally honest here but i trust J.J.to make it make sense.
Palpatine alias Darth Sidious. He is pure evil. The latest poster and trailer indicates he is coming back.
but how? I dont think he will be an incarnation or himself but spiritual. His mind is alive but not his body. So what does he want? What he always wanted evil power. He thought Anakin will bring him all this power but we all know how that ended. He sees another chance, another skywalker and another person strong with the force. If he could win the both of them he will gain even more power than expected. I have no idea how this will all playout but i could imagine he promises both something they are longing for. How can he be deveated? With Ben and Rey.
Yes, Ben and Rey will team up.
first of all because they have to. Sencond of all because its their fate and third of all because they love each other. How? He needs redemption first and the rest happens naturally.
I believe his redemption arc will start at the end or middle of the second quarter. Or maybe even later in the movie. In the beginning of the film he will remain dark and he will fight against rey. Not because he truly wants to kill her. He loves her he would never do such thing but because they will fight on opposite sides. I also believe they both try to avoid the force bonding/galaxy skype. They might have dreams or visions or i dont know but they will try to avoid it. Which makes them DESPERATE!Because that is not what the force wants and neither is it really what they want cause they are CONNECTEDand that is why their relationship is VERY VERY COMPLICATED. What would be awesome is if Leia senses it somehow and rey and herself have a great chat about it. i would loooove that. I really hope that happens. She has to tell her that she wants someone to wear her mothers dresses. Gosh if that happens i will die in my seat.
So when will we see a kiss? Or their commitment to each other? When do they finally say it?
i really struggle with this one but i think it wont be so obvious and it wont happen in the last 5 mins either. I was thinking about the „i’ll come back to you i promise sweetheart“ quote a lot recently. I am convinced that Ben will say those words to Rey. I think he will do something dangerous and she will be upset. They wont kiss when he says it but i could imagine he will touch her face while he says those words. It will be breathtaking. and that is the moment when i say „i told you so and so did my 9 year old kid (i dont have one but a child can figure Reylo out). I dont even know if there will be a kiss. I would prefer it but if they make it Pride and Prejedice 2005 like its fine. As long as it is 10000000% clear where this leads to. I also think there will be a child or more. But i also think we will not see them. It will be mentioned i guess. Or it will be a vision. Could be anything. But there will be future Solos/Skywalkers. The reason is simple. Disney did not buy LF to end the Skywalker saga for once and for all. They have to leave this door open to have a chance to make new movies related to it. i am fine with that as long as it wont have anything to do with D&D.
So why do i believe reylo is a thing, canon, endgame and one of the best love stories in years (at least for me)
Because it makes sense and its obvious. Its obvious since the TFA. Why? That!
and that!
„it is you“... yes, she is from your visions/dreams Ben
yes rey, its the voice which sounds so familiar and yes thats your prince right there.
and dont get me started with TLJ
yeah we all know what you guys wanted to do in that elevator
this is pure.. so pure
this is not the end for the two of them...
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D&D Campaign Looking For Players
Hi all,
I am looking to start a new d&d campaign starting in January (because everyone’s schedules getting crazy during the holidays). Looking for 3-5 players (I already have @eledhiel13) in a homebrew universe.
Campaign
It’s a homebrew universe starting with level 1 characters that will likely go through 20.
The basis is a society in which magic is strictly regulated and controlled. Unauthorized use is punishable by death. And it is used so little that the people living in smaller towns and villages generally doesn’t believe it exists.
There are multiple gods in the world, but people (generally) only know of one, as that is the only approved worship in the world. The church and the state are highly intertwined with tax dollars going to the church and the church assisting the government in law making, etc.
This doesn’t mean that players can’t play magic users or can’t worship other deities. Just that you have to be very careful how you do it. We would have to work together creating the backstories for anyone playing clerics, warlocks, sorcerers, or wizards.
The plan is a long overarching story line with a balance of combat, investigation, and role play taking into account player backgrounds and story lines and working through those along the way.
I can answer more questions and give more information if you interested.
Actual Game Play Nuts and Bolts
5e rules with one exception. Any resurrection beyond Revivify is going to be subject to a d20 roll with a DC. I believe strongly that death should not always be an easily remedied solution and should have an effect. It shouldn’t just work out that you can always come back so long as your party has money.
I’m open to Unearthed Arcana and some homebrew classes, subclasses, and races. We would just need to talk about it to make sure nothing gets stupidly overpowered.
Online play using Discord and (likely) Roll20 for maps. I’m a person that needs a visual for combat. I haven’t had much experience with Roll20, but it seems like the best option out there for that.
Games will hopefully be weekly and likely on a Saturday or Sunday in EST. I work EMS so I typically have to work Saturday or Sunday and my schedule changes on a 4 month basis (Another reason for starting in January). I’m open to weeknight games depending on everyone’s schedule, but I figured most people have the most free time on the weekend
About Me
I am a 32 year old. I am non-binary (she/her or they/them, either works for me) panromantic asexual. I work EMS. And this will be the first time that I am DM’ing a long term campaign.
I’m actually pretty new to D&D having just discovered it recently. I have always loved storytelling and acting, so this was a perfect fit. I have DM’d a handful of one-shots and part of Waterdeep Dragon Heist (which we still need to finish) and enjoy DM’ing more than I do playing (not that playing isn’t awesome as well).
Want to play?
Message me with your interest and we’ll go from there. We have a discord set up to talk about times and backgrounds and everything.
I would like to trial run a oneshot or two online to make sure that I have everything figured out with the mechanics of it, so they would be good trial runs of my DMing style and make sure that everything is a good fit.
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Dear Yuletide Author
Hi! Thank you for writing for me! I’m reconditarmonia here and on AO3 (and have been since LJ days, but my LJ is locked down and I only have a DW to see locked things). I have anon messaging off, but mods should be able to contact me if you have any questions.
The Psychology of Time Travel | Simoun | Sleep No More | The Strange Case of Starship Iris
General likes:
– Relationships that aren’t built on romance or attraction. They can be romantic or sexual as well, but my favorite ships are all ones where it would still be interesting or compelling if the romantic component never materialized.
– Loyalty kink! Trust, affectionate or loving use of titles, gestures of loyalty, replacing one’s situational or ethical judgment with someone else’s, risking oneself (physically or otherwise) for someone else, not doing so on their orders. Can be commander-subordinate or comrades-in-arms.
– Heists, or other stories where there’s a lot of planning and then we see how the plan goes.
– Femslash, complicated or intense relationships between women, and female-centric gen. Women doing “male” stuff (possibly while crossdressing).
– Stories whose emotional climax or resolution isn’t the sex scene, if there is one.
– Uniforms/costumes/clothing.
– Stories, history, and performance. What gets told and how, what doesn’t get told or written down, behavior in a society where everyone’s consuming media and aware of its tropes, how people create their personas and script their own lines.
Smut Likes: clothing, uniforms, sexual tension, breasts, cunnilingus, grinding, informal d/s elements, intensity; stories whose resolution isn’t the sex scene.
General DNW: rape/dubcon, torture, other creative gore; unrequested AUs, including “same setting, different rules” AUs such as soulmates/soulbonds; PWP; food sex; embarrassment; focus on pregnancy; Christmas/Christian themes; focus on unrequested canon or non-canon ships.
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Fandom: The Psychology of Time Travel
Character(s): None
I just read this novel, and it's so cool! It's so carefully worldbuilt, yet with such amazing potential for unusual character interactions, life stories, and relationships as shaped by time travel as well. I nominated this without characters because I would be delighted to receive fic that focused on worldbuilding, whether through the stories of OCs, or through any of the canon characters. I'm most interested in:
the Conclave and more broadly in social interactions and relationships between multiple characters who are time travelers (rather than a time traveler and their non-time-traveling partner or family)
art that might be created with time travel (like Grace's exhibitions or Angharad's dance; what about novels or other fiction somehow created using time travel?)
the rules and customs of time travel (in-world documents? habits or observances that develop on a mass level beyond people's individual compulsions or visits to significant dates within their own timeline? what fictional stories do time travelers write about time travel?)
interactive fiction?!
but really I'd love to read anything in this fandom.
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Fandom: Simoun
Character(s): Neviril
This is a perennial request for me and anything (other than, I guess, the slice-of-lifeiest slice-of-life) would make me very happy, but I'm particularly interested in the military side of the canon - how the war changes all the characters and their relationships with one another, how Everything is Beautiful and Then Shit Gets Real but amidst the war-is-hell there’s still the creation of bonds of trust and loyalty and chances to do what’s right (the bits with the Plumbish priestesses, for instance). Every character gets a chance to develop and make choices that are all brave in different ways. I've requested Neviril but would also be interested in fic about Paraietta or Mamiina if that's what you'd prefer. Some prompts:
Post-canon - what happens if Neviril and Aeru make it back to the main world when war is brewing again, but Neviril has no one from the old cohort to lead because they can’t fly anymore? What does she do, or see her role as being - a leader for peace, for war? How does she interact with Paraietta, Rodoreamon, Floef, Vyuraf, or anyone else?
What does she see or learn in the other world?
Magic or time weirdness retcons character deaths or disappearances! Go ahead and bring Mamiina back.
Paraietta and Rodoreamon building a life together and finding purpose in helping the war orphans, but they're also veterans and neither of them is the other's lost love
I love loyalty kink so I'm always up for something like that involving Neviril with the choir, Paraietta and/or Mamiina. But I'm also really interested in other permutations of loyalty, as we see with the Plumbish priestesses' loyalty to their role or ideal over loyalty to their side.
Fandom-specific DNW: Dominuura/Limone.
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Fandom: Sleep No More
Character(s): Bald Witch
One of my favorite things about Sleep No More was the idea of this world of darkness and magic that’s underlying or intertwined with the social world, rather than in a separate space - I loved seeing the Witches at the ball and, holy shit, Bald Witch pulling off her wig after the ball in her solo ritual thing! (I hadn’t realized it was a wig until that moment.) So -
how does she as a Witch interact with the normal world (Paisley/the hotel/etc.) or deliberately carve out other spaces (like the apothecary shop)? For that matter, I love the apothecary shop and her scene in it so more about that would be awesome.
How did the Witches find each other - before or after they were witches?
Is she immortal, and if so, what's that like for her?
How much does she have a day-to-day life vs. witching all the time?
If you want to ship her with Sexy Witch or Hecate (or both) I'm very up for that as well. Some sexy prompts if you go in that direction -
ritual sex magic to make something happen or share power?
If Bald Witch and Sexy Witch have non-witch personas and sleep together while they’re being normal people, is there still magic?
Sex in one of the play locations - the apothecary, the ballroom, the bar that’s the empty shell of the real bar?
Slow dancing nude, or another inverted version of something in the normal world?
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Fandom: The Strange Case of Starship Iris
Character(s): Sana Tripathi
One of my new favorite fandoms. I've requested Sana because I'm not interested in every single person in the tag set and so can't request Any, and because I love the core of steel and dangerousness and crew loyalty/protectiveness inside her nice exterior, but I'd also be delighted by fic about Arkady, Brian, or Krejjh. (I like Violet and Park a lot also and would be equally delighted to see them interacting with any of these characters, but wouldn't want fic that was just about them.)
I hope it's not too much of a cop-out to say I just want MORE of these characters.
Heistfic/casefic with extreme competence (either as a team with working together, or as individuals if it's pre-Rumor or they're doing a job for the team on their own - when else might Brian's linguistic skills, Arkady's fighting and hacking, Sana's mechanics, etc. have come up?)
slice-of-life on the Rumor or Iris II
backstory (Sana in the rebellion?!)
things they like or get excited about (the music they like to listen to/sing/play? food? Krejjh introducing Dwarnian customs to their crewmates and how they pick some of those up, or vice versa?)
I especially love loyalty kink and the Sana/Arkady ship, so I'd also be into a story about their history together (any cool places they've been to in space? starting to work together?), or one where they put themselves in danger for each other, or rescue each other, or Sana has to decide how to risk Arkady or use her skills. (I also have specifically sexy prompts for them in my "dear author letters" tag.)
Fandom-specific DNW: Violet/Arkady is cute and I don't mind if it comes up (it is canon, after all) but I'd prefer not to receive fic focused on their romance (or fic which suggests that an Arkady/Sana relationship is inevitably temporary or better-as-friends). I also do not want Sana/Campbell. Brian/Krejjh is an exception to my unrequested ships DNW.
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DCU Bang 2nd Story Claims
Hello! Second claims are now open and artists are free to claim as many stories as they are reasonably sure they can finish! Second claims are optional. Don’t want to claim a second story, or don’t feel like you’ll be able to create something for two stories? You don’t need to claim! I would much rather an artist focuses and creates something awesome for one story, than for an artist to be stressed out trying to create something for two stories. Know your limits and don’t overburden yourself! Each story can be claimed an additional two times. That means there is a potential total of 3 artists per story, and a minimum of 1 artist per story. While unlikely, it would be pretty hectic and stressful for an author to have to coordinate with 16 artists on their story! That’s why there is a limit, and to encourage people to spread the art around to other stories. =D Stories are guaranteed only one artist each. I cannot guarantee that every single story will get a second artist. Please be understanding of this! Second claims will close Saturday, July 13th 23:59 MDT, when all fanworker sign-ups will be closed. How to Make Multiple Claims:
Stories are claimed on a first come, first served basis.
Fill out this Google Form right here
A matching email will go out to both the artist and the author containing each other’s contact information after a claim is successful. I plan to start sending these emails out Sunday morning. You should receive this email no later than 72 hours after I have confirmed the claim. If you don't get this match up email, please get in contact with me ASAP so that artists and authors can get to work quickly! Every story is listed here is not guaranteed a second or third artist! I can only guarantee one artist per story.
If you have any questions or concerns, you can email me at [email protected], or contact me on the DCU Bang Discord!
1 Title: Fly With Me Word Count: About 14k Genre: Fantasy-Adventure Fandom/Universe: Green Lantern, Flash (comics) Characters/Pairings: Barry Allen/Hal Jordan/Guy Gardner/John Stewart/Alan Scott Warnings: Mild/implied body dysphoria Rating: PG-ish Summary: When Watchman Barry Allen arrives to a grisly murder scene, the last thing he expects is the enigmatic dragonlords of the realm to arrive and ask for him specifically. They are handsome and charming, but the existence of enormous fire-breathing flying lizards that seem to exert some kind of... Strange emotional aura is more than a little terrifying. He is introduced to the prince of these dragonlords, Hal, and steps up to be taken back to the towering natural fortress of Oa, a massive hollowed out mountain that sits on the edge of the continent. Called the 'weyr', Oa is home to the dragons and their riders, and Barry soon finds himself welcomed inside with all the honours that a prince might receive. In the morning after a restless night's sleep he is bathed and anointed, and taken down deep beneath the mountain to a holy underground sea, where he must confront the mysterious Lord of Oa and receive the prize for which he had been chosen: A dragon egg, rare and precious. The last third of the story will be hatching the dragon, and a montage of sorts with Barry further bonding with the dragon riders and forming a... Tentative proto-romantic relationship with them. He trains in arms with Guy, learns the histories and concepts of the weyr with John, is taught about the running and logistics of Oa from Alan, and finally Hal tutors him on bonding with his dragon, and eventually flying with it. The broad aesthetic of the fic is very much generic medieval fantasy, set mostly in the mountainous fortress/castle of Oa. Characters vary a little bit from canon appearances, mostly in regards to hairstyles and the like, but a few characters are trans, which is mostly going to be a background detail. There are no warnings except for a crime scene early on (which will be edited down) and brief discussions of trans characters being trans, so there's a bit of mild dysphoria but no explicit details or transphobia/homophobia. There is implied polyamory and age difference, but everyone is consenting adults and nothing is properly established in this fic.
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2 Title: The Case of the Missing Son Word Count: 6,031 of 10k-ish Genre: Mystery, Romance Fandom/Universe: Batman (comics) Characters/Pairings: Bruce Wayne/Dick Grayson, Talia al Ghul, Damian Wayne Warnings: Minor violence Rating: NC-17 Summary: Bruce Wayne has come to PI Dick Grayson with a problem. His ex-wife, Talia al Ghul, has been sending him letters claiming they have a son. Bruce wants Dick to find the boy and bring him home. Dick gathers information from various sources before running into Talia herself, which only results in him getting beat up. He goes back to Bruce to convince him to confront Talia. Eventually, the son goes to Bruce, and Bruce and Dick get some private time together. The story takes place solely in Gotham, from Dick's office, to Wayne Manor, with one trip down into the caves of Gotham for the showdown.
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3 Title: Forth My Mimic Comes Word Count: 19k Genre: Mystery, Supernatural Fandom/Universe: Batman (mostly comics) Characters/Pairings: Gen; Jason Todd, Barbara Gordon, Tim Drake Warnings: past canon character death, non-consensual bodyswap, thoughts that could be construed as non-specific suicidal tendencies (i.e., "I was already dead, if I die again it's no big deal," etc.) Rating: PG/T Summary: Robin saves a boy from being hit by a car, only to discover that the victim is none other than a very alive (if comatose) Jason Todd. An already unusual situation turns even more bizarre when an unfortunate turn of phrase and an errant bit of magic cause Jason and the current Robin to end up in each other's bodies. Knowing it's only a matter of time before Bruce learns of the switch and locks him up in a fit of paranoia, Jason must seek the help of the enigmatic (and familiar) Oracle to fix the problem, all the while learning far more than he ever wanted to know about the boy who replaced him. Takes place immediately following Jason's resurrection in a slightly canon-divergent timeline, primary locations being the clock tower, manor, and cave (and all of Gotham, because patrol).
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4 Title: Pussycat, Pussycat, Where Have You Been? Word Count: 4,579 of 5k Genre: Mystery Fandom/Universe: Batman (comics) Characters/Pairings: Bruce Wayne/Selina Kyle, Tommy Elliot Warnings: Nonconsensual body modification, some torture Rating: PG-13 Summary: Selina Kyle is missing. Bruce finds mannequins and dummies of her around Gotham, each with a modified nursery rhyme about cats. Bruce follows these clues all across Gotham, growing more desperate to find her. Finally, he confronts the villains of Gotham and finds Selina, only to find Hush there as well. They battle and Bruce rescues Selina and takes her back to the Batcave. This takes place solely in Gotham, from the streets and graveyards of Gotham, to beneath Arkham Asylum, to the Batcave.
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5 Title: Daily Gab Word Count: 5776 Genre: Coming Out Fic Fandom/Universe: Batfam Characters/Pairings: Jon/Damian, Damian & Dick Warnings: Bullying Rating: PG-ish Summary: Damian finds a tabloid taped to his locker at school. The headline? "Wayne Kid... Gay?" He endures a day at school listening to the gossip from all the other kids. Dick does the brotherly thing and helps Damian sort through all he's feeling. Damian admits to Jon what the tabloid said and why he's been running scared all day, they talk about the reality of what they want together and Bruce manages to be a real father for once. Summary I'm posting when I post the fic: Damian swallowed against the bile in his throat and carefully took in his next breath, walking himself through the steps of emotional calm. Pretend this was only torture. Pretend it was only a gunshot wound. Pretend it was only his body in pain and not his heart and his mind. Remove himself from the situation and take a few steps backwards from the reality of it.
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6 Title: Stay My Tragedy Word Count: 16k Genre: Drama, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Romance Fandom/Universe: Batman, Deathstroke, Red Hood Characters/Pairings: Slade/Jason Warnings: explicit sex, angst, descriptions of violence, references to self harm, slight dubcon, problematic relationship Rating: NC-17 Summary:
Soul marks can appear at anytime in one’s life -- a mark of karmic destiny that most people take to mean they’ve met the person they’re meant to fall in love with. Jason knows that’s not true. He knows because his soul mark appeared in the very last moments before he died -- marking his destiny to be murdered by the hands of a madman.
It is a world in which fate is unbelievably cruel, when Jason’s soul mark is of none other than the man who murdered him. Slade has other ideas however, and he might just be the one man who can change Jason's tragic fate into something else.
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7 Title: New Horizons Word Count: 6091 Genre: Action/Adventure Fandom/Universe: Canon Divergence/AU Characters/Pairings: Jason Todd, Stephanie Brown, Tim Drake Warnings: Major Character Death, Abusive Parents, Child Trafficking Ring, Drugs Rating: PG Summary: Jason, Tim, and Stephanie meet while Jason still holds the Robin mantle. They band together to take down a child trafficking ring, all while each one is fighting their own personal battles. Stephanie's dad is a small-time crook who is major-times ruining her chances at a better life. Tim's parents are never home--he doubts they could pick him out of a lineup. Jason is suddenly thrust into life with a billionaire (and vigilante), but not everyone might want him there. Story is mostly set in Gotham and Wayne Manor, with a few scenes in Titans Tower. The Major Character Death is Jason, but it happens off screen and in the epilogue. The Abusive Parents is Tim's parents neglecting him. Drugs are a passing mention. The Child Trafficking Ring is a major plot point.
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8 Title: You’re saving Blüdhaven but who saves you? Word Count: 3457 Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Humor Fandom/Universe: Batman/Nightwing comics, Under the Red Hood Characters/Pairings: Dick Grayson, Jason Todd/JayDick – Jason Todd/Dick Grayson Warnings: child’s death, mentions of rape, canon typical violence, non consensual drug use, incest (pseudo-incest? Jason and Dick were adopted), self esteem issues Rating: T/Teen And Up Audiences /PG14+ Summary: After a kid got killed Dick, already in a bad place, decides that his only option to make a difference is to fight crime in a different way. He decides to partner up with a carefully chosen criminal and Red Hood caught his attention even if some of their morals are on the opposite sides of the scale. This somehow leads to Dick having an elusive roommate he developed an attraction to. It’s a shame no one told him Red Hood is in fact Jason. This story is canon divergence or alternate universe and takes place after the events with Blockbuster and Tarantula in Nightwing comics and intertwines with some happenings from Under the Red Hood. The action is placed mainly in Blüdhaven, but there are trips to Gotham and Wayne Manor. The story has a romantic relationship between adopted brothers. The rape is mentioned several times and one of the character is forcibly drugged. It also contains description of child’s death and violence.
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9 Title: A Bit(e) Wild Word Count: 5-6k total, 4k written Genre: mostly Angst/Fluff but some Action/Adventure Fandom/Universe: Losers/Batfamily, no particular series Characters/Pairings: established Jensen/Cougar, will be Jensen/Cougar/Jason Todd later in series. Background canonical Pooch/Jolene, mention of Clay/Aisha. Warnings: Graphic violence, swearing, maybe sex in the flashback Rating: Explicit. Even if no sex happens yet, it will later, and there's also the violence to consider. Summary: The Losers have just barely taken down Max and cleared their names; Jensen's still cleaning up post-mission but they're all back home. Jason Todd's preparing to move back to Gotham and butt heads with Batman when a bit of pest control ends with him bitten by a wolf shifter. He didn't think the Pit's aftereffects would allow him to be changed, or that he'd call the Losers for backup again, but of all the people Talia had him learning from, Cougar's the only shifter he knows he can trust if this IS the dreaded change coming on. Cue frantic phone call. The Losers load up and head out immediately, but Pooch brings his family just in case, Clay rides up with Roque, and Jensen and Cougar lead the charge because they've already got the shifter genes and being bitten again isn't going to do anything to them (Jake is a recent change; Cougar was born a shifter). By the time the others arrive, they've got Jason settled and all three are in their animal forms. Jensen is a wolf, Cougs is a cougar, Jason is a snow leopard. After the first few lessons, Jason gets impatient--maybe the Pit, maybe new instincts, partly the knowledge that the Losers aren't going to just let him leave until he's got enough control over his shifter side to satisfy Cougar. He tries to slip out in the night, half hoping they won't follow him, subconsciously aware this will be much easier with trusted backup. Every Loser was expecting this, though, and when Jason slinks off to Gotham, they're still mostly packed and ready to head out. It doesn't take them long to follow.
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10 Title: where monsters lie (in dead men's dreams) Word Count: ~75k total, 47.7k written (including unfinished draft) Genre: Drama, Horror, Angst Fandom/Universe: Batman Arkham Games, and a lot of creative liberty taken with comic canon and the traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega AU Characters/Pairings: Jason Todd/Dick Grayson, Jason Todd/Bruce Wayne, Bruce Wayne/Dick Grayson Warnings: Non-con, Dub-con, Drugging, Non-traditional ABO Dynamics, Bondage, Descriptions of Torture, Pseudo Incest, Kinky/Rough Sex, Intersexed Characters, Background Polyamory, Angst, Murder Rating: R Summary: Oracle enlists Red Hood's reluctant help to find Batman and Nightwing, who have disappeared during an arms bust deal orchestrated by the Penguin. They've been captured and dosed with a perverted form of the Scarecrow's latest toxin, and the effects of the toxin force the three of them to face their feelings for each other. All Jason wants to do is run away, except Dick won't let him leave. Things grow more complicated when the Penguin re-emerges with a threat none of them had expected, and Jason takes it upon himself to teach the Penguin a permanent lesson. Meanwhile, Dick has been experiencing random bouts of mania and murderous intent, ever since getting dosed with the toxin. By the time he confronts Jason about the Penguin's vicious murder, Jason sees more of the Joker in Dick than he does in his nightmares. Fortunately for them both, there's no mystery in Gotham that Batman can't solve in time. The story is set in Gotham City, 1.5-2 years post the game Batman: Arkham Knight, but also features several flashbacks of bastardized canon scenes from the comics. If you're a stickler for canon, this will probably kill you dead so please bear that in mind. Besides that, there is a single instance of non-con and another instance of molestation. There are also two implied sex scenes which can be considered dub-con. There is pseudo-incest between Jason, Dick and Bruce. The Penguin gets tortured to death but the torture occurs off-screen and only the results are described in graphic detail. The polyamory is mentioned throughout but does not occur on-screen.
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11 Title: The Sacredness of Tears Word Count: 13k Genre: Romance, character study, elements of fantasy and drama/angst Fandom/Universe: Batman comics, set in the future and using events from New Earth and the current continuity Characters/Pairings: Tim Drake/Jason Todd, Tim Drake-centric Warnings: temporary character death, pseudo-incest, canon-typical violence, discussions of mental illness, parental abuse through neglect, swearing Rating: PG-13 (maybe R for swearing?) Summary: Tim Drake Wayne isn’t weak. He can’t be. And now that he can travel through time, he has the perfect tool to make sure he’ll never be vulnerable again. Gradually, Tim’s family, friends, and his slowly blossoming relationship to Jason teach him otherwise. The story is set in Gotham with scenes in Tim’s apartment, the Batcave, a diner and various rooftops. There are scenes with multiple members of the batfamily and Tim’s team. The romantic scenes are focused on cuddling and size difference. The plot spans several years. Tim is eighteen at its beginning and twenty-five at its end. There is one detailed description of a meltdown or anxiety/panic attack. There are discussions of mental illness; some symptoms of depression are shown, especially withdrawing from the world and diminished self-worth, but nothing too bad and absolutely no hint of self-harm or suicide. Jason dies in one scene (not the canonical temporary death), but that is quickly reversed. There are descriptions of injuries. The parental abuse refers to Tim’s and Jason’s canonical backstories, not Bruce (who tries to be a good parent in this).
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12 Title: The Nightingale Word Count: ~14k total, 8.5k written Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Alternate Universe, Drama, Healing Fic (kinda) Fandom/Universe: Batman - All Media Types, Red Hood and the Outlaws Characters/Pairings: Dick Grayson/Jason Todd Warnings: No Warnings Apply Rating: NC-17 Summary: Crushed by the guilt of Jason's death, Dick quits the vigilante life, gives up Nightwing, begs Bruce for a clean slate, and runs away to New York City. He takes shelter at the Nightingale, a nightclub where Dick works as an exotic dancer, a stripper named Richie. Dick uses the blinding stage lights, Bloody Marys, and a mysterious man named Jay to hide his past. However, Dick's rather painful former life is slowly uncovered by Jay through a series of one night stands. Meanwhile, Dick also has some unconventional run-ins with the Red Hood, a supposed antihero working in the tri-state area and associated with the family Dick has not had any relations with for over five years. Old wounds reappear, and Dick's new life slowly falls apart around him as the truth comes to light. Set primarily in NYC, in the Nightingale nightclub and at the different hotel rooms Jay books. Towards the end, Dick and Jason will eventually move back into Gotham City and Wayne Manor. Story takes place five years after Jason's death. Dick's "new" life is an emotional roller coaster of hurt/comfort, a path of healing, a life built on lies, and identity porn woven all throughout it, until it is all untangled in the end.
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13 Title: Between Flight Word Count: ~15k, 10.8k written Genre: Romance, Drama, Humor, Alternate Universe Fandom/Universe: Batman - All Media Types Characters/Pairings: Dick Grayson/Jason Todd Warnings: No Warnings Apply Rating: PG-13 Summary: Jason is a 15-year-old orphan, living at a crappy orphanage, going to school because it is the only fun in life, and dreaming of the day he becomes eighteen. After a little altercation with a pickpocket, Jason meets Robin, and from that night on, Jason could not get rid of the Boy Wonder. Coincidentally, Dick Grayson starts at Jason's school as well, and decides to befriend him of all people. Jason finds himself being tugged in two directions - towards a charming and talkative circus boy with a past similar to his, and towards Gotham's own hero in scaly panties. Over the course of a couple weeks, Jason is dumped at a school dance, kissed on rooftops, taken on dates a couple times a week, and even glared at by the Batman himself. Needless to say, Jason finds that his life is a lot more interesting after he met both Dick and Robin. But of course things smell fishy to Jason. Especially when Robin knows tricks that only Mr. Circus Boy can do. Or when Dick uses the same girly shampoo as the teen hero. Or when their identical disarming smiles send bursts of happiness straight through Jason's heart. Batman might be the World's Greatest Detective, but Jason Todd is not so shabby either. Set primarily at Jason and Dick's high school, the orphanage, the rooftops of Gotham City, the luxurious halls of Wayne Manor, with special appearances of "date" locations around the city. Jason is 15, while Dick is 17.
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14 Title: Moon Dust On Your Lips Word Count: ~6100 Genre: Romance, First Time, Mutual Pining Fandom/Universe: Batman and Green Lantern, no specific canon Characters/Pairings: Bruce Wayne/Hal Jordan Warnings: Mild sub/Dom, explicit sex, biting and bruising, praise kink Rating: NC-17 Summary: The Justice League is trying to expand their potential pool of allies in the known universe, and with the help of their Green Lanterns, they set off to personally negotiate with as many people as they can. Everyone is involved, but it mostly falls to Bruce/Batman and Hal Jordan. The longer Bruce and Hal work together, the more Bruce let's Hal see under the cowl, and the more Hal starts to like what he sees. Bruce even accepts advice from Hal on an issue dealing with his children. Then Hal, returning exhausted from a mission to Oa, loses his temper at the tail end of a League meeting. He says something stupid within Batman's hearing, and then goes off to get decidedly drunk with Barry. Hal confesses that he has a crush on Bruce, but there isn't anyway that he can see it ever happening, so he decides to just ignore it and move on with his life. Bruce doesn't exactly get the memo right away, but as soon as Hal starts physically distancing himself from Bruce as much as possible, their tentative friendship falls to the wayside. Soon, Bruce and Hal are back to being uneasy coworkers. It culminates with Bruce and Hal on the return trip of another successful negotiation, when their escorts decide to up and leave them in the Middle of Nowhere, Spaceville in a small, cramped, one man space pod. There's an argument, confessions, and then sex, before being rescued. The story takes place in a variety of locations, including Wayne Manor, the Watchtower, Barry's apartment, and the space pod. The sex will include Bruce manhandling a very willing Hal, with some rougher edges (biting and bruising, praise kink).
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15 Title: Happy Middles Word Count: ~4600 Genre: PWP Fandom/Universe: Batman and Green Lantern, no specific canon Characters/Pairings: Bruce Wayne/Hal Jordan Warnings: Somnophilia, Dirty Talk, Praise Kink, Noise Kink Rating: NC-17 Summary: Basically a slice of life PWP about the time Hal and Bruce make for each other, specifically how Bruce's ends his nights and how Hal starts his days. Bruce comes home early from a shortened patrol and joins Hal in bed a few hours before Hal has to go to work. Hal falls back asleep, and then wakes Bruce up when he starts exhibiting signs of a wet dream. Bruce pleasures Hal until he wakes up, and then gets Hal off. Hal turns the tide on Bruce, teasing him until Hal decides he's ready to ride Bruce to their mutual completion. This takes place solely in Bruce's and Hal's bedroom in the Manor, described as having a darker color scheme with blues, blacks, and grays. All kinks are negotiated prior to the story, as this is a well established, husbands!fic. No noncon here.
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16 Title: Hold Me Tight (or Don't) Word Count: 6055 Genre: Mystery, Angst, possible supernatural elements Fandom/Universe: Batman, no specific universe Characters/Pairings: Bruce Wayne, Talia al Ghul, Conner Kent, Jason Todd Warnings: Medical experiments, but non-graphic Rating: Teen Summary: Sometimes, a Family is you, your Beloved's dead kid in a coma, and your Beloved's best friend's "clone" who's other gene donor is sort-of kind-of your boss off to play at politics Or There’s been a rash of robberies in Gotham, leaving Batman puzzled as to what the villains are up to, all the while seeing Jason appear to him, even though he’s been dead for a few weeks. Meanwhile. Talia takes care of a comatose Jason, while discovering Lex’s secret project taking a form no one expected. On the other side of bay/river, Clark is investigating a mysterious Cadmus fire, under a building Lex Luthor (who is now the president) owns. Not to mention the mysterious new villain who may be more connected to the robberies in Gotham that it seems.
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17 Title: untitled as of yet! Word Count: 3039 Genre: 5+1 things, fluff, probably eventual smut Fandom/Universe: dc extended universe, films 2013-present Characters/Pairings: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne Warnings: none Rating: T at the moment, will likely slide into M/E Summary: After a few months of working together side-by-side as a team while not actively trying to kill each other (even in their spare time), Clark realizes he’s developed Feelings for Bruce. He knows Bruce is stubborn and self-isolating, so he decides the best plan is to figure out a way to make things a little (incidentally) romantic without scaring off Bruce: little notes on rooftops, a dubiously agreed upon makeover by Lois, advice from Barry and Victor and Diana—even Alfred ends up in on the game. Unfortunately for Clark, Bruce is even more slippery (or oblivious) than he ever imagined. Maybe what Clark really needs is a little help from a Higher Authority… or, the five times Clark Kent tried (and failed) to seduce Bruce Wayne, and the one time Bruce Wayne allowed himself to be epically seduced.
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18 Title: the weight of eventuality Word Count: 24,000 Genre: Romance, /Action, Drama Fandom/Universe: CWTV Flash (2014) Characters/Pairings: Barry Allen/Leonard Snart, Team Flash Warnings: canon typical violence, graphic sex Rating: NC-17 Summary: Life was pretty great for Barry Allen, honestly. Team Flash successfully pulled him out of the Speed Force, he still had his job, and all of his friends and family where there to support him. Eddie and Iris were expecting their first child, and even with everything that happened between Caitlin and Julian, the team worked as well as ever together. Barry didn't want to tell them that he was still slipping backward and forward in time, or that every night the Speed Force made him witness the death of Leonard Snart. Rescuing Leonard was easy. Falling in love with him? not really part of the plan. With Captain Cold back in Central City, it was hard to remember that there were other people out there who wanted to do more than flirt and steal pretty jewelry. It was just a matter of time until they made their move. This story takes place mostly in Central City, with a detour into the Speed Force. There isn't really anything to warn for, I think. There's an explicit consensual sex scene near the end of the story, and canon typical violence and injury. There's some mention of minor medical procedures. There's technically some torture, but that happens off screen and Barry is in the speed force of the entirety of it, so there's no graphic detail.
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19 Title: your continental divides Word Count: 9k Genre: Hurt/Comfort Fandom/Universe: DCU. not set in a specific universe, borrows from several continuities. Characters/Pairings: Dick Grayson centric, Batfam and company, Gen Warnings: non-con Rating: PG-13 Summary: After Catalina Flores, Dick is dealing the way Bruce taught him: push it down and carry on. It's not working out very well, and people are starting to catch on. The story is set mostly in Gotham, and guests a few characters besides the batfam (mostly Wally and Roy). It's essentially just an exercise in letting Dick be comforted by the people who love him. This focuses on dealing with the sexual assault from Nightwing #93. The assault is not graphically depicted but is referenced and discussed, in addition to self-destructive behaviors and a variety of coping mechanisms.
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20 Title: Broken Wings and Notched Arrows. Word Count: Around 6-6.5k total. 4,280 written Genre: Action, Romance, Drama. Fandom/Universe: Young Justice, Batman. Characters/Pairings: Will Harper (Roy Harper's clone)/ Jason Todd Warnings: Temporary Character death, mild language, mild violence, small age gape, Rating: NC-17 Summary: The only thing Will Harper wanted to be doing that fine winter morning was to play dress up with his beautiful daughter Lian. What he got however was a surprise visit from the legendary Bruce "Batman" Wayne. And if that wasn't a big enough shock being hired by said legend was icing on the cake. So now instead of spending Christmas with Lian Will is kind of, maybe being held against his will on Infinity Island. Bright side he did find Jason Todd like he was hired to. This story takes place in multiple locations. The main set is in the Caribbeans, mostly Infinity Island and the League of Assassins HQ. It also show cases Will's home in Star City and a major fight screen in Gotham. There is no major warnings. Temporary Character death as Jason Todd doesn't stay dead for long. Some violence but nothing more then a few short details of fight scenes. No gore just a little blood.
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21 Title: Masks Word Count: 7,783 Genre: Action/Adventure and Romance Fandom/Universe: Batman Comics, post-Infinite Crisis Characters/Pairings: Dick Grayson/Jason Todd, Alfred Pennyworth Warnings: Incest, canon typical violence, explicit sex Rating: NC-17 Summary: Continuation of pre-new 52 canon. Jason's back in Gotham. All he wants to do is figure out how he can successfully help fix his city, without falling foul of the rest of the Bats and the GCPD again. He's even hung up his red hood in an attempt to stay under the radar. When he discovers that Alfred is in danger from the gang he's investigating, he infiltrates a costume ball at Wayne Manor in disguise as a supervillain. He ends up flirting with Dick to stop him interfering with the rescue plan. Dick doesn't realise who he is and flirts back until they end up making out furiously in a closet. Afterwards neither of them can get the encounter out of their heads, and they start to get to know each other again. Featuring conversations with Alfred, Dick attending a party in a Superman costume, Jason spray painting his red hood grey, everyone rescuing each other and lots and lots of pining. Warning for pseudo-incest between the adopted brothers, Dick and Jason when they reach adulthood.
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22 Title: Sleeping Beauty Syndrome Word Count: 9k written. Genre: Romance, Angst, Fairytale Rewrite Fandom/Universe: Nightwing, Red Hood and the Outlaws Characters/Pairings: Dick Grayson/Jason Todd Warnings: Horror, gore Rating: PG-13 Summary: Dick Grayson and Jason Todd have been living the perfect life. Happily married for more than five years with two perfect sons, they have everything they could possibly need. Unfortunately, good things don't last forever. Struck by a spell during a mission, Jason's mind has been scattered, putting him into a deep sleep and the only way to wake him up is for Dick to put his pieces back together. The task won't be as easy because each part of Jason has been hidden within a fairy tale, a world tempting Dick to make one wrong move and doom his husband and himself forever. The story will take place over multiple locations, including rewrites of fairy tales like Snow White, Alice in Wonderland, Little Red Riding Hood, The Princess and the Pauper, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty.
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23 Title: we just now got the feeling that we're meeting (for the first time) Word Count: Around 36K (34K written) Genre: Drama, Romance, Fluff, Angst Fandom/Universe: Superman and Batman, DCEU canon/movie canon Characters/Pairings: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne; Lex Luthor, Diana Prince, Barry Allen, Arthur Curry, Victor Stone Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Rating: Teen Summary: While fighting Lex Luthor for his latest weapon, a time weapon, Bruce Wayne gets hit and sent back twenty years into the past. Meeting Clark Kent on some snowy mountain side in Alaska was not exactly what Bruce thought would happen, but he’s here now and there’s nothing for him to do except wait for his team to pull him back to the future. Unfortunately, he doesn’t quite know when that will be, so sticking with Clark is his best option. Of course, it would be much easier if Bruce wasn’t already pining for Clark in the future. How long until Bruce is pulled back into the future, and will he be able to stop himself from falling in love with Clark Kent in the past and potentially creating a time paradox? This story is set in a couple of locations. Most of it is set in the past in Alaska during the beginning of Clark’s pilgrimage, specifically in the Denali National Park. Other locations include the Wayne-Turned-League Manor, Bruce’s Lake-House in Gotham city, and the lake itself! Primarily it involves young versions of Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne, although the very beginning section and at the last few parts of the end is focused on the present/older versions of them. There are no Archive Warnings that apply to this story. It is mainly an excuse to just write cute scenes of Bruce and Clark falling in love in the snow with the added bit of dealing with time travel, with a lot of focus on Bruce Wayne's character! The most rated this story goes is the occasional swear word.
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24 Title: Scarlet Tears Word Count: 12,914 Genre: Action Fandom/Universe: AU Characters/Pairings: Barry Allen/Leonard Snart Warnings: mention mpreg Rating: M+ Summary: Leonard and Mick take a mini vacation from the Legends and head back to Central City. It is there they find out things aren't as them left it. A certain speedster has the attention of Captain Cold when an accident happen will he be able to resist staying away from this particular speedster?
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25 Title: Absent Shadows Word Count: 3487 Genre: Action/Adventure, Hurt/Comfort Fandom/Universe: Justice League Animated/Teen Titans Characters/Pairings: Robstar & Superbat Warnings: None Rating: NC-17 Summary: Starfire can’t believe her eyes when Robin sends her his resignation from the team, in fact she doesn’t believe it all. As she investigates Robin’s disappearance, she considers his similarities with his father and in the chaos, she meets a fellow traveller to this strange planet she calls home. Whilst they learn about each other, she seeks his experience when falling in love with both Earth and more specifically men from a certain family.
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26 Title: Make an Ass of U and Me Word Count: probably 10k-12k (6k written) Genre: Romance, Comedy Fandom/Universe: DCEU Characters/Pairings: Clark/Bruce, Dick&Bruce Warnings: sort of assumed incest, but no actual incest Rating: Teen Summary: Bruce neglects to tell the newly formed Justice League that he has a son, because he and Dick aren't talking to each other . Until they suddenly are. Unfortunately, he doesn't clarify who exactly Dick is to him, so Clark gets the wrong impression. Or: Five times Clark thought Dick was Bruce's boyfriend, and the one time he found out the truth. Contains lots of unfounded jealousy, misunderstandings, Dick being delightful, and Clark being a mess. Lots of domestic settings, mostly around the lake house and the batcave, with the exception of one battle scene.
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27 Title: Honey Trap Word Count: 7.7k Genre: Porn-with-plot, crime/modern AU Fandom/Universe: DCU (Comics) Characters/Pairings: Slade Wilson/Jason Todd, Dick Grayson Warnings: Consent issues (consent is there on both sides, but dubious on one side due to situation), manipulation, some BDSM-style kink Rating: NC17 Summary: Slade's used to dealing with informants. Most get caught in the screening process before they ever get a hold of anything useful, but this one, 'Jason Todd,' gets as far as working in the lower ranks of his organization before Billy drops the file on his desk. Another attempt at an undercover CI from Detective Grayson, this time just some random arrested civilian, instead of a fellow officer. Billy would prefer that he throw him out now, but Todd's not bad looking, and Slade likes the idea of ruining this plant just like he ruined the last one. Modern AU, no-capes. Aside from sex scenes, one character is primarily in part/all of a suit throughout scenes. As Slade is aware from the start that Jason's a plant, the sex has some consent issues. Jason is doing it partly to ingratiate himself, and Slade absolutely manipulates him into it. However, Jason enjoys/consents to everything that happens, it's only the situation that's sketchy.
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28 Title: Don't Let Your Yearnings Get Ahead of Your Earnings Word Count: 7.2k Genre: Western, technically Romance Fandom/Universe: DCU (Comics) Characters/Pairings: Slade Wilson/Jason Todd Warnings: Some non-consensual touching, non-sexual Rating: PG-13 Summary: Slade Wilson is a bounty hunter, one of the best in the business. The contracts that specify 'alive and unharmed' are rarer, but usually worth the extra bonus that comes with. This one is definitely not. Jason Todd was supposed to be just another young outlaw with more balls than brains, not a slippery sharpshooter who Slade would have to chase halfway to the next town. And just to add to everything, he still has to get the damned boy all the way back. That's going to be fun. Western AU with bounty-hunter Slade and an outlaw-ish Jason. Most of the story is traveling, but there will be an inside-mansion scene near the end with Roman Sionis. No real warnings for this. There's some brief non-consensual touching of intimate bits, but it's entirely non-sexual.
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29 Title: [insert song lyric here] Word Count: 8084 Genre: It's a slowburn at its core, with action and drama mixed in Fandom/Universe: DCAU's Justice League/Unlimited Characters/Pairings: Bruce Wayne/Wally West, Shayera Hol, J'onn J'onzz, John Stewart, Diana, Clark Kent Warnings: human trafficking, threat of dub/non-con, language, sexual themes Rating: R Summary: Ever since their run in with the Justice Lords, Flash and Batman reached a new stage in their teammates-but-not-quite-friendship. The only problem is Flash is the only one who seems to think that, so he decides to see how far he can push at Batman's annoyance level before the Bat snaps at him. Unfortunately for Flash, their job keeps getting in the way, including but not limited to stumbling upon a human trafficking ring and a worldwide invasion. When the dust settles, Flash finds himself wanting more from the man under the cowl, and the harder Batman pulls away, the harder Flash is drawn to the man and his elusiveness. The Fastest Man Alive needs to rely on his patience if he wants to get anywhere in his quest. This story takes place throughout the entirety of DCAU's Justice League as well as the first two seasons of Justice League Unlimited, with the main locations being the Watchtower and Wayne Manor. The human trafficking and threat of dub/non-con are contained to two scenes in which a main character falls into trouble, but nothing too graphic occurs. Still, the subject matter isn't everyone's cup of tea. The R rating is just to be extra safe.
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30 Title: Anachronistic Crises Crossover Word Count: 8k Genre: Gen, Crossover, Fluff Fandom/Universe: Red Robin, Batman- All Media Types, DC Comics Characters/Pairings: Jason Todd (Post Crisis),Tim Drake, Jason "Jay" Todd (Pre-Crisis)/Rena(Pre- crisis), Jason "Jay" Todd (Pre-Crisis), Rena(Pre- crisis) Warnings: Period Typical homophobia, possible inclusions of bad mental health care later Rating: T (just to be safe) Summary: Coming off of the Search for Ray Palmer, Jason Todd reconciled with his family. Just in time for Batman's apparent death. After an international adventure that led them to finding the batman, said batman in his Hyper-Adapter crazed state seemingly vaporized them with Omega Energy. Jason and Tim wake up to find themselves stranded in Gotham, New Jersey where its somehow the April of 1986. Tim takes the lead and stalks a young person also named Jason Todd- who is very unlike the one he knows. The Alfred Pennyworth with him seems similar enough though. In there efforts to observe this world's Bat-family Tim ends up having to go to high school again- where the shear amount of brightly colored clothes that are either skin tight or falling off makes him want to claw his eyes out. Jason is comparatively having a much better time as a librarian in the Gotham Public Library to fund their tiny studio apartment with money that doesn't look fake for the time period. Night work continues as well, with Red Hood and the vigilante named by the media as "Shrike". Their quick and calculated moves on the Gotham drug trade lead them to colliding first with this world's Robin. Jason alone is confronted by the Batman, and nearly has a panic attack though Tim will never be privy to that information. Gotham is a not as insane back drop of retro-not-so-chic. Jason enjoys the small pleasures of being legally alive and having a job. Tim doesn't cope well without all his compact gadgetry and hates school- but likes the closeted lesbian couple he meets. A budding bat-detective trying to figure out who these new and weird people are, and who these new sci-fi like vigilantes are. Will the people back home in Tim and Jason's Gotham ever succeed in getting them home? The entire fic takes place in either version of Gotham, with the exception of the Watchtower being there for like 5 minutes. Post-Crisis Gotham features locations like Oracle's clock-tower Jason is wearing his Under the Red Hood costume, Tim cosplays as knock off Midnighter (red robin), Bruce has blue accents and trunks, and Robin-Jay makes Jason re-live cold nights in hot-pants and pixie boots.
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31 Title: Batsons Be Crazy Word Count: 11,169 words Genre: Fluff With Plot Fandom/Universe: Batfam + Shazam basically DCU leaning towards the comics Characters/Pairings: Damian Wayne/Billy Batson Warnings: None Apply Rating: Teen Summary: The story takes place over a year, a year of Billy and Damian teaming up, falling in love, and meeting family. Damian has never liked anyone before, while Billy sees the best in everyone and will fall in love at the drop of a hat. Their romance isn't a crazy one, it's one built off of trust, comfort, and most importantly, a love of animals. Their romance brings them to many places, including Canada, Dick Grayson's apartment, and the dinner table in the manor. No warning apply except maybe underage because Damian is 17 when he begins to peruse Billy as a romantic interest, but doesn't start seeing him until he's 18.
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32 Title: The Past Still Ties You Down Word Count: 7k Genre: Angst, Romance Fandom/Universe: The Flash (TV) Characters/Pairings: Barry Allen/Leonard Snart Warnings: implied/referenced violence and abuse, alcohol abuse Rating: NC-17 Summary: On another earth, Barry falls in love with the most hated man in Central City - mob boss Leonard Snart. Only, Central doesn’t know Len like he does. They didn’t grow up with him like Barry did, sleeping in the bed above him, patching up his wounds and crawling under the covers with him when his bullies had been especially cruel. Even as the years go by - where Len is no longer a teenage boy forced into a life he didn't choose and Barry is no longer the child still grieving his mother while hating the father who killed her - they can't seem to let go of each other. Set in multiple locations in Central City, including a foster home, hospital, and the West house. The violence and abuse are not actually shown, but the aftermath is (ie. patching up wounds, some blood, some discussion of specific actions after the fact).
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33 Title: Unfortunate Souls Word Count: around 8-9k total, 4958 written Genre: Dark Fairy Tale Fandom/Universe: Batman, Batfamily Characters/Pairings: Dick Grayson/Jason Todd, Jason Todd/Slade Wilson, Dick Grayson/Slade Wilson, Dick Grayson/Jason Todd/Slade Wilson Warnings: dub con (may have a bad ending that pushes it into non con) Rating: Explicit, NC-17 Summary: Based off of The Little Mermaid (Disney film mixed with aspects of the original fairy tale) as well as fandom-type Mer AU’s. With red-headed Jason taking the part of Ariel, Dick as Prince Eric, and Slade as Ursula. Jason, adopted prince of King Bruce’s underwater kingdom, is fascinated by all things human. One night, while stargazing on the surface, he decides to follow a ship out of curiosity. On the ship is a handsome human prince who steals his heart. After an accident, Jason risks his life to save the human, which puts him at odds with Bruce. After inadvertently challenging Bruce during an argument about his ‘hobby’, Jason flees the realm and accepts the offer of octo-mer Deathstroke, a one-time rival of Bruce’s, to turn him human. But Slade’s intentions are murky and hidden. He wants Bruce’s throne, his son, and if he gets a human pet out of the deal, that’s just one more trophy to show that he is the stronger Mer. The story is set in the underwater mer kingdom ruled by Bruce; Slade’s underwater lair; and the idyllic land kingdom of Bludhaven, ruled by Price Richard. I haven’t decided whether I want a happy ending, like the film, where Jason and Dick ride off into the sunset or a bad ending where Slade gets everything he wants. If happy, there will be some dub con between Jason and Slade when they make the agreement and later when Slade is using magic to enthrall Dick. If I go with the bad ending, there will likely be some non con.
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34 Title: You Will See Me Word Count: 6,146 Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Character Analysis, Canon-divergent Fandom/Universe: Young Justice Characters/Pairings: Arsenal (Roy Harper), Artemis Crock, Roy Harper (Will Harper), Oliver Queen, Dinah Lance, Lian Harper || Oliver/Dinah, Arsenal & Artemis Warnings: Trauma, PTSD, Realistic depictions of injury, Physical Disability, Recovery Rating: PG-13 Note: Arsenal, and thus Roy, are trans men in this fic. Summary: After being rescued from the clutches of Lexcorp, a cryochamber, and no future, Arsenal struggles to find his grip on life. Between the vast amounts of anger, fear, and loss, he fights to cling to autonomy. A mentor he feels betrayed him, a clone he isn't sure how to relate to, and a couple of badass women who may not have known him, but are here for him, Arsenal is just learning to live again. A heavy introspection fic on the nature of the trauma Arsenal has been through, and his road to healing. Exploring the relationships he has with Oliver, Dinah, Roy, and Artemis especially, but others as well. The two weeks between his rescue, and his first mission with the team are rife with trouble and struggle, but he has a fire and a determination in him that will get him through. The hell of the War World and the true recovery afterwards. Learning to forgive Oliver, learning to accept Roy for himself, a separate entity than himself, getting to know Artemis and the real and true bond they form. Forgiveness, healing, and his fair share of slips and bumps, Arsenal finds closure, acceptance, and comfort in his life.
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35 Title: Build Me A Place (we'll call it home) Word Count: 6,800 story (+outline of ending) Genre: Fluff, Minor Angst Fandom/Universe: Batman, Superman, Justice League Characters/Pairings: Bruce Wayne/Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent, Louis Lane, Kara Danvers Warnings: None Rating: PG-13 Summary: Kryptonians are not human. It’s easy to forget, even for Clark. That being an alien means more than his powers. There are traits rooted into the DNA, coming out in the subconscious, until not even Clark notices. Kryptonians, among other things, build Bowers for their mates, beautiful homes to settle into. It’s more than a tradition, it’s a way of life. When Clark begins to redecorate, he doesn't know why it matters so much to him. And why it hurts so badly when Bruce doesn’t even care.
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36 Title: Little Scab Word Count: 6,246 words Genre: gen, family, found family, community Fandom/Universe: DCU, Batfam, Red Hood Characters/Pairings: Jason Todd, Damian Wayne, Cassandra Cain, OFC, Bruce Wayne, Batfam Warnings: violence, descriptions of abuse, non-graphic allusions to sex acts Rating: M for violence, adult themes Summary: Red Hood is not a hero to most. Outlaw, yes. Killer... yes. He and his estranged family all serve some role as self-described protectors, but only Jason Todd delivers his justice in blood. However, following one good deed and the start of a fledgling friendship, Jason finds the Red Hood tasked with leading a self defense class for some of Gotham's most vulnerable—homeless, prostitutes, and runaways. When the Batfamily members start catching on, will they approve? First appears Robin. Then Black Bat. Who next? What will Batman ultimately do about his wayward ward stirring up Crime Alley? Can Jason be trusted to keep Gotham safe? The story is set in Gotham, featuring set pieces like Crime Alley, warehouses, tall buildings, the Bat cave, and more. It features many Batfam characters as well as several OCs all taking part in self defense instruction, with a few action scenes thrown in. The story does contain graphic violence, including allusions to or descriptions of past physical, sexual, and/or psychological abuse. It deals with mature themes but is ultimately about forging friendships, building community, and becoming better stewards of Gotham.
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Second claims will close Saturday, July 13th 23:59 MDT, when all fanworker sign-ups will be closed.
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September Angel Fish Awards
Every month all of you fantastic writers work your asses off to post some truly incredible stories. Our Angel Fish Awards are the way for all of us, as a community of writers and readers, to lift each other up and give praise to those who have captured our attention and deserve a few kind words.
The monthly Angel Fish Awards are peer-nominated, meaning ANYONE IN THE POND CAN NOMINATE ANY POND MEMBER’S FIC. While the Pond was founded to support the Guppies, everyone in this community deserves to be showered with love and feedback, and we hope that by opening this up as a Pond wide system, we’ll be able to share the love as far as it can go.
WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, HERE ARE SEPTEMBER’S ANGEL FISH AWARDS!
Nominated by @thing-you-do-with-that-thing:
Blue or Red (series) by @atwistoffate
This is such a beautiful fic series. The writing feels effortless and it really tugs at the heartstrings. It feels so real and raw which I love. It makes you cheer on the characters at the same time as you fear the worst. Stunning writing.
Nominated by @wingedcatninja
Conditioned (series) by @impala-dreamer
The series is the angstiest angst to ever angst and it broke my heart in all the best ways.
Nominated by @alleiradayne
It Gets Better (series) by @supernatural-jackles
I am nominating @supernatural-jackles' It Gets Better after binge reading it and crying and flailing and giggling through the entire story. I thoroughly enjoyed the depiction of mental health awareness, care, and coping. It was refreshing to see such a beautiful portrayal of two characters coming together with mutual respect and friendship (at first) to care for one another. And then to watch the relationship grow into a romantic pairing paid off in a way I didn’t know I needed.
Nominated by @cas-backwards-tie
All Work, No Play (oneshot) by @idreamofhazel
I’d like to nominate them for the award with their fic: All Work, No Play as it was amazing and really enjoyable 💖
Nominated by @mrswhozeewhatsis
Wildest Dreams (series) by @crashdevlin
I love any excuse to have multiple Winchesters, and this gives me all of them! It’s wonderfully smutty, but also has enough plot surrounding it that I want to know more. It’s a great read!
Out Here In The Open (oneshot) by @evansrogerskitten
HOLY CANNOLI this is one hot fic!!! It’s got a pace that keeps you wanting more all the way through it, and gives you even more ideas about what probably happens after it ends. *happy shiver* I would say more, but I’m too busy wiping the drool off my keyboard!
Nominated by @percywinchester27
Something Borrowed (series) by @deanssweetheart23
This series is just! I mean the amount of detail that went into it is incredible. I love the pining and the misunderstandings because it creates such beautiful angst. The reader has a great personality and seeing her through Dean’s eyes in an experience. But let me tell you, the heartbreak is so very real. SO. VERY. REAL.
I fell in love with every word, full stop and comma of this story. And it ends so beautifully! 12/10 would recommend!
Nominated by @manawhaat
Alive (oneshot) collab between @plaidstiel-wormstache and @wi-deangirl77
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck! Yeah, ok, so the emotion in this is so understated and subtle but just there enough to make me feel like I was actually the one who nearly died. Laughing at almost dying, savoring each breath and the skin-on-skin, reveling in being ALIVE... all of that feeling is caught up and wrapped into these sweet words. The absurdity of it hits so true and John is captured so well with his reaction to the reader. Absolutely awesome little read!
Nominated by @thelittleredwhocould
Everything’s Bigger in Kansas (series) by @kittenofdoomage
It's got all the stuff I love- Sam, smut, A/B/O, misunderstandings, just enough angst to make it interesting and extra engaging, but not break my heart (there are other fics on her masterlist I go to when I'm craving that, lol). Love love love it. Probably gonna go do a reread and tell her myself ❤
My Real Dad (series) by @winchesters-favorite-girl
It's just starting out, but this series is super sweet so far and has the potential for so much angst and drama and feels and more sweetness, and I can't wait to see where Katie takes it!
Thank you all for the awesome work and great feedback!
As with the BFAs, these are not actual awards! This system is set up so everyone in the pond has a chance to share the love and promote a fic/author that has grabbed your attention. The more people that participate, and the more everyone remembers to submit their own fics after posting, the better this will be :D
(And don’t forget to send in ideas for prizes for the raffle!!)
THANK YOU ALL AGAIN, KEEP UP THE AMAZING WORK, AND AS ALWAYS, HAPPY WRITING!
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Our Heartstrings
July 18th was the day Sly made the sacred post. I suppose you could consider this a one month anniversary for The Heart Squad!
So this is a short story that explains how it feels like being on Tumblr, and how lucky I am to have such amazing friends. Because I like mixing fantasy and magic with my writing to make it more exciting, there’s a bit of a...twist that you’ll see :)
If you wanna scroll past this, feel free to, I don’t mind! This is personal writing of mine that I wanted to share, and if you’re curious about me (since this reflects me as a person as well), then you can go ahead and read this.
(Note! Some things I write about not might be necessarily true. The way I describe things might not be accurate, but behind the screen, that is what I see and interpret. It’s just my way of seeing things, my perspective, so uhh don’t get mad if I’m wrong lol??)
(Another side note! This is completely related to the story involving The Heart Squad that we’re working on. Just wanted to make that clear)
Either way, have a lovely day, everyone! :D
@danyulsdimple @sly-is-my-name-loving-is-my-game @bubblseri @phlying-squirrel
(I’m gonna put a cut because this actually became really long? Whoops I still don’t regret a thing lmao-)
But first, an explanation.
I...have this weird habit. I guess it stems from me being a detail oriented writer, but whenever I meet someone new and get to know them after an extended period of time, I have specific ways to describe that person. Similarly, this also happens for characters from new shows that I watch. For Sanders Sides, well, there’s that ‘Describing Sanders Sides Ships’ that I wrote. For Analogical, I think of an evening sunset, or for Logicality, the sun and the moon comes to mind-things like that.
Writing has always been very personal to me. Most of my art comes without thought, you see, there usually isn’t some secret message hidden in it. But whenever I write, it’s always to tell a story. Writing has posed a difficult and unpredictable, but rewarding challenge for me. I haven’t been able to write something so passionately for quite a long time, so thank you for that. <3
You all are awesome. Creating this little group has been so much fun, and having you guys be there means a lot to me. Sometimes it’s hard to express that, so I hope I can make that a little more clear with this little story.
This is for my dear friends.
To Lea, whose openness and humor lets me smile and laugh with ease.
To Piper, whose positive impact on others has caused me to admire her from afar.
To Sly, whose fascinating, patient personality provides comfort and stability.
To Sienna, whose bright and kind nature has warmed my heart.
This one is for you. I love you guys 💜💜💜
The red string of fate.
It is said to be an unbreakable string of scarlet that binds soulmates. Just like how fate is more than what people make it out to be, so are the strings.
I’d know.
Because love comes in so many different forms, I’ve already had several strings when I was little.
On my left hand was the comforting kind of love. The kind that gave me a small, soft smile when my mother kissed my head. Or when I couldn’t stop laughing over something my father joked about. Not just that, but even how proud I get when my sister compliments my art. Two strings tied to my parents wraps around my index finger, to lead me in the right direction. On the other hand, a string from my sister is looped around my thumb, which assured me that I could do anything.
I’m glad the strings are weightless, because my right hand would feel as heavy as a dumbbell if they weren’t. My right hand symbolizes platonic love. A string instantly becomes attached the moment I interact with someone. It first starts around the wrist, and as you get to know the person, the string moves. The middle finger is where hatred for that person resides, the thumb for those that are simply acquaintances that cheer me on from afar, and the index finger is reserved for good-natured, honest best friends that bring out the best in me.
My ring and pinkie fingers remain untouched.
Now, the ring finger, I understand. If I were to feel affection toward a friend, perhaps a string might find a home around my ring finger. But my pinkie? What does such a tiny, trivial finger represent?
Now back to the myth. As you can see, there is truth behind what is only known as a legend.
But there is one thing that they got wrong.
Tapping the power button on my laptop, I lean back in my chair. I sigh, long and quiet, all the while tugging and massaging my fingers. Faint aching at my joints causes me slight discomfort, but it’s nothing unusual. After finishing seven drawings in a hour or two, what do you expect?
I rest both hands atop my keyboard and let all of my fingers stretch in front of me, admiring the strings. I smile, I really do...I can’t help but flinch when I feel my grin dissipate.
The strings are a fading white, completely empty of color.
All the rich, vibrant shades of red that they talked of was untrue. Seeing the strings makes my heart soar, but their colorless, bleak nature is bound to bring a bit of gloom from time to time.
I constantly wonder why. Was I supposed to see color? Do I see colors when I reach a certain age? Am I broken? Why-
The screen comes alive, and the light that radiates from the letters on the keyboard bring me back to reality. Clicking on the blue logo that I know all too well, I find myself smiling right away.
Online friends are an interesting case. Since I’ve never physically met them, they don’t have strings. I can leave asks on as many people’s blogs as I want, but not a single string appears.
...There were four exceptions. Let me tell you about them.
-
She is the countryside.
She is the short walk to a nearby town, where the buildings huddle together and lights reflects off each other’s windows. There are quiet voices, the occasional booming cackle and the clinking of glasses. The streets and roads are mostly empty, but it is inside the stores and shops where laughter and chatter belong.
There is a homely feeling to this small town. You could always find her wandering around, going from building to building leaving smiles and bright faces. Whether it’s complimenting others or joining a protection squad, she is there with the town, reveling in the closeness of their companionship.
And then you are home. You are where the houses become scattered and the concrete roads become gravel or sand. Gazing out over the horizon, there is only the gentle swaying of tall crops and a setting sun.
You remain outside, sitting down and watching the sun fade away. Light falls and darkness rises, covering you with a blanket of constellations and glittering stars. With no factories or skyscrapers close by, the sky can breathe.
When your back drops against the ground and the grass meets your hair, she grins beside you. She laughs along when you point out the constellations, remarking that they look like things they definitely aren’t supposed to look life. She is the lift of your lips, the sparkle in your eyes.
Lying down with the smell of fresh grass and cool air lingering upon my nose, I feel calm. Her presence, though it is not entirely familiar, is peaceful.
But she is not always peaceful. In a place where there are nothing but fields and flatlands, you are bound to find something to liven things up.
When the colorful leaves drop from trees and a chilling breeze settles in, you could be chatting with friends in that bustling coffee shop in town, or be in a library, immersing yourself in an interesting book. Even indoors, you are sitting by the fireplace or watching movies. You could be smelling the blooming flowers and morning dew, visiting gardens and climbing trees. Then all of a sudden, you’re dancing, barefoot, with the stars hanging over your head, a popping firecracker in your hand as you take in the warmth of July.
Whatever it is, it is new and exciting. Taking something so simple and making it worthwhile is an admirable feat.
You do not know this place well, that is for sure. But you wish you do. You wish you could. The countryside is filled with wonders that you hope to explore and learn about in the future.
As you sit upright, you glance down. That faint swish on your wrist was indeed not the grass, but a string.
All you can do is hope she feels the same.
We are connected, the countryside and I.
-
She is a city.
Sometimes she feels distant, just like how New York City is to me, but I don’t mind. She isn’t constantly a part of my life, and yet every time I drive down that bridge, look into the river and see those shining buildings, I’m filled with excitement.
The city is an acquired taste, something that you maybe wouldn’t enjoy unless you’ve visited it on multiple occasions. Even for me, a person who was born and raised in such a place for most of her life, the city takes some getting used to.
In some parts, the buildings glitter like gold. With its polished glass windows, allowing sunlight to grace its surface all too perfectly, and elegant architecture, you are almost fooled by its facade.
Then you could turn your head and see tired, drooping eyes, voices yelling into phones and people crossing streets with a red traffic light hanging over their heads.
Insecurity disguises itself within beauty.
And she is always there.
The sun begins to set, bringing upon the shadows, the people and the lights. I’m stuck within a crowd of people, and I’m still alone.
After not being in the city for several months, things don’t seem all that beautiful anymore.
Suddenly the echoing footsteps of the people around me doesn’t sound so soothing. The buses roar, lions that snarl and growl intensely. Cars screech to abrupt stops, paying no attention to the rapid honking or the blinking stoplights. Above me, the trains let out bellowing cries as they bang against the rickety steel tracks.
She is there, pulling me to safety. Away from the dreadful noises, from the crowd, until there is tranquil silence. In order to ease the tension, she cracks a small joke.
Now, just for a moment, I can laugh in peace.
There is a tug at the corner of her lips as she sets off into the city. I follow alongside her. For a little while, things don’t feel overwhelming anymore. There are no due dates, no drawing requests to get done, no stories that are begging to be written. I can see the city for what it truly is.
Just like her, the city is real. Its raw, imperfect magnificence is bound to stun anyone, as long as they take the time to get to know its delighting qualities.
She is the embodiment of stupid, but brilliantly amusing conversations in the middle of the night. She speaks in the language of references, using words in a way that will make you giggle. Her words come quickly, in a rush that ends as soon as it appeared, but that refreshing feeling of a car speeding past you will never stop being exhilarating.
She tends to change a lot. One moment she’ll be bubblegum pink, a rose dripping in paint. Then the warm tones of golden sunflowers, or even a cat stalking through the night. All the colors and scents shift from one theme to another-her love for aesthetics never ceases to impress me.
She moves quickly and easily, but she will never completely abandon you. If she disappears for a couple of minutes, you can rest assured that she’ll come running back bearing a smile and a funny story. As fast as a subway train, she will jump from one topic to another, whether it’s about crazy school stories or cantaloupes.
Her relatable humor will lift a chuckle from one’s throat, lightening up someone’s mood like how the lamp posts along the sidewalks come alive at night. Light pours in through the windows of buildings, illuminating the jet black sky. In the same way, she, with her exciting personality, is able to brighten one’s day.
Only when you’re sitting on the roof of a building will you be able to appreciate her. When you sit still, taking in the view, just listen. She will be there. Not everyone enjoys the city the first time around, but I promise you, there’s always something there that’ll make you smile.
She doesn’t even live in a city, so for all I know, she could have no idea what I’m talking about.
But as a person who has lived in one and loved it with all her heart-that’s saying a lot.
She smiles softly, saying goodbye before turning her head to the city. She stares, almost in a daze, at the skyscrapers and flashing lights. She rises, jumping off the ledge, hitting a metal staircase attached to the side of the building. Rushing down the steps, she doesn’t look back once.
You aren’t worried. She will return, one way or another.
The wind picks up, a light breeze that mirrored her swift movements. I stand up and tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, noticing the tingling sensation that momentarily crossed my wrist. I look down and grin.
We are connected, the city and I.
-
They are a forest.
Personally, I haven’t spent much time in forests, so I think of them are rare. Unique. Where I live, there’s always been random patches of trees here and there, but never forests.
I think forests have plenty of hidden beauty. There’s just something captivating about entering a forest in the midday, seeing the light filtering in through the trees. Every tree’s branches spreads out far and wide, their long arms stretching out to embrace the glorious, radiant sun, but also weaving together to create a blanket of protection over the forest floor.
Forests means freedom. You could run, run, run: fast, far and even a little careless, but the support of the forest is always apparent. As you dash through the woods, you notice everything you could ever love about being able to express yourself. There’s the scent of pine cones and dirt, the gust of air that blows your hair into a tornado, and the babbling brook that you easily soar across.
But when the night fell-everything all of a sudden became more terrifying.
It isn’t the forest itself that frightens you-it’s what surrounds it. There are howls of stalking predators, jaws snapping wildly. Voices come from the swaying trees and whistling wind, rapidly increasing whispers that made your legs tremble. Their vile words yank and snatch at the remnants of my sanity, draining all of the energy and hope out of me. The sounds are not there to hurt you necessarily, but sickening feeling persistently tugging at your stomach isn’t the most comforting thing either.
They tell you that you’re not supposed to be there. Maybe you don’t deserve to discover any of the forest’s intriguing mysteries, or experience the gorgeous lights of a city, or even the simple excitement of the countryside. What if you’re being bothersome, or overbearing? What if-
The forest does not like ‘what ifs’. The forest does not mean to scare you, or make you feel out of place.
The wind begins to ease up, the steady breeze soothing your shaking hands. As you look down, you close your eyes and listen once more. To the faint chirping of the cicadas, the rustling leaves and swishing branches.
They appear at your side in your moments of unexpected, excessive doubt and panic. When your eyelids flutter open and you see them beside you, you are grounded. Safe. You start to talk to them, their tone hushed and quiet, as if they’re afraid of scaring you. You could never be scared of them. Perhaps worried that these conversations might be too time consuming for them, yes, but never scared.
They show you the forest as it is: fascinating, patient, understanding and even showing a bit of fear from time to time. The forest is as welcoming as it is calming, and you enjoy that.
You never expected that you would ever experience happiness from a night as horrible as that one, but you did. The thoughts never destroyed you because the forest was there to protect you.
Within the pitch black, there was light. Fireflies danced throughout the forest, their luminosity making me smile that night.
When your eyelids felt heavy and your yawns grew longer, they told you to sleep. It was late, they spoke, and you need rest. You reluctantly gave in to this request.
Just before you were pulled into a deep slumber, something brushes against your wrist. The ghost of a smile graces your lips as you lose consciousness.
We are connected, the forest and I.
-
She is a meadow.
I wish with all my heart that I could travel more often. I’ve only seen meadows through videos and pictures, but as an introvert that appreciates nature, I’d love to see one someday.
All I can imagine is light and beauty. The ground dips into smooth, elegant valleys and rises in the form of rolling hills. The sky mirrors the sun’s movements, changing its colors as it dances across the heavens. If you only you were there to see it-the dazzling, radiant meadow at work, stunning you with its abundance of warmth.
After wandering around momentarily, you shiver, turning around and stiffening. The wispy, cotton-like clouds that were just drifting through the sky had transformed into something worse. You tremble in sync with the ground beneath your feet, feeling your breathing become choppy and unsteady. The loud, booming, angry noises sink into your mind, not giving you a chance to recover. All you can hear is the regret, all you can feel is the doubt and all you can see is the fear.
You see her. Never once had she not been there for me.
Hearing her footsteps, the noises disappear. The grey clouds linger for a second, before giving in to the blue skies and sunshine. The storm does not come for the meadow, whose genuine joy is something that cannot be easily purged.
She comes with words-happy, lovely words woven together in the dandelions that surrounded her. She sits down, a smile on her face as she invites you to pick the flowers with her. The flowers’ colors are grounding and gentle to the touch.
For every flower that you take, her kind words flood your eyes. One tells you that you are amazing, the second that you are talented, and another that you deserve all the happiness in the world. Each one carries laughter, brings excitement and makes you grin. One after another, as the dandelions fill your lap, her compassion fills your heart.
There is one more dandelion. Once your fingers brush against its petals, you can hear it right away.
It reminds you that you are loved.
Pressing that one to your chest, you can feel your smile grow, which was almost impossible considering how wide it was beforehand. You like that specific flower a lot, you admit. Sometimes you forget.
Her arm rests along your shoulders, her smile comforting you. She knows, and that is precisely why she says it.
The meadow, in all of its glory, embraces you. She whispers, telling you how sorry she is, and how much you are loved. You can smell it in the dandelions, and you can feel it in your heart. You do not deserve her.
Are you okay, she asks with worry still lacing her voice. Upon spotting a string twirling around your wrist, you giggle and let yourself breathe. Without a doubt, you are alright, you answer.
We are connected, the meadow and I.
-
You might be asking, what about me? If one’s the countryside, the second’s a city, another is a forest, and the other is a meadow, then what am I?
The thing is: I had no idea.
I never saw myself as anything extravagant, or special. I don’t have the brightness of a city, the homely feel of the countryside, the soothing nature of a forest, or even the warmth of a meadow. What do I have?
A tug on my wrist. Faint, but urgent. I glance up at the screen.
I am...wanted...? Hm. I wonder.
I’m walking, blind. My eyes are closed and I cannot will them open. But the four are by my side, so I know all is fine.
The darkness clears, bringing in light.
Dunes of soft sand spreads out in a blanket of golden as far as I can see. The sunlight casts its rays over the shoreline, causing glittering, hidden shells to reveal themselves. I stare in utter awe at the waves-at how, with every passing second, the colors seem to change. First, it’s turquoise, then azure, and suddenly cerulean. The shades of blue shift and churn peacefully, emitting the scent of salt.
A beach.
Maybe...Maybe I do belong. I don’t doubt it as much anymore.
I stretch my hand out to the sea. I long for it, after all. Then, instead of focusing on the ocean, my gaze travels to my wrist.
Four strings lift from their place and begin to move, following the movements of the gentle breeze. Once unfurled from my wrist, they leap-
And find a comfortable spot around my pinkie.
Each string is filled with a color.
Green for the city.
Pink with flecks of gold for the countryside.
Red for the forest.
Yellow for the meadow.
Purple for the beach.
Once upon a time, five colors met. They have never been the same since.
They made a promise. It wasn’t too real or serious, just a dream that they hope with all their might would come true. They wish to one day meet each other.
When this dream was made apparent that all five of them shared, purple smiled. Purple’s heart sung with joy, for she was once again reminded that she belonged. She sits, in front of her screen, closing her eyes and extending her pinkie. Purple wishes to meet the four vibrant, wonderful colors.
One day, purple hopes. For now, she will remain at her screen: pencil to paper, fingers to keyboard. She is content with sharing herself this way, but...perhaps, with time...she will not be afraid of posting that picture.
They all have their differences, yet they are still friends.
They are The Heart Squad. ❤️💚💖💛💜
#the <3 squad#personal writing#the <3 squad anniversary#I'm tempted to do like?? Short stories for every month on the 18th??#Just because this was super fun#Who knows? :3#fave
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Entry 02 (07/01/2020): Research, Inspirations and Ideas
Hi there!!
Welcome to entry number two! This project is still VERY much in the preparation stage, so I wanted to use this one as an opportunity to link all the sources that I’ve been using as a basis up until this point, as well as specific pieces of work that have inspired this project, plus some brainstormed ideas that might be experimented with in the future.
The next couple of entries after this will most likely be focusing on making some first demos, visual ideas, mood-boards, notebook scribbles, and maybe some character/story ideas too! I won’t lie, the scope of all the different areas does slightly scare me, especially since I have next to no experience in a lot of them - I feel like I’m flying by the seat of my pants!!
But I’m definitely going to make a lot of mistakes as I try some new skills and play with new concepts for the first time, so please bear with me as I stumble around in the dark for a while :D Expect most of my nonsense to eventually end up getting heavily changed, retconned, or cut entirely!
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A List of Sources (at the time of writing!):
AWARE - AWAreness during REsuscitation - A Prospective Study (resuscitationjournal.com, October 6th 2014) - The first piece I found! The start of this idea came when I was thinking about how my dreams worked (more on that later!), and for some reason I suddenly remembered one religious studies lesson I had in school when I was 14 I think? Part of the lesson was talking about out-of-body and near-death experiences, and out of curiosity I looked it up to see if anything had changed. That’s when I came across this!
“What Really Happens After Cardiac Arrest?” - The New York Academy of Sciences (nyas.org, December 6th 2019) - A talk on the subject led by the Lead Author of the 2014 study, held in late 2019! There’s loads of interesting information and anecdotes in here.
Life — after life: Does consciousness continue after our brain dies? (nationalpost.com, April 18th 2019 [Updated October 2019]) - This article goes very in-depth as well as referencing a LOT of different studies, some even offering opposing viewpoints to each other! There’s loads of quotes and studies here that I really want to look more into.
Greyson NDE Scale (iands.org, 25th April 2015) - The NDE scale referenced in the National Post article - would be cool to use this somewhere somehow??
Understanding the cognitive experience of death and the near-death experience (academic.oup.com, 14th July 2016) - A summary of the 2014 AWARE experiment, but that references past studies into the field (see below!)
Life Changes in Patients After Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest (link.springer.com, 8th December 2011) - One of the referenced studies, this one includes a ‘life changes’ questionnaire at the bottom which might be another source of ideas.
A qualitative and quantitative study of the incidence, features and aetiology of near death experiences in cardiac arrest survivors (sciencedirect.com, February 2001) - An older study, but with very similar results to recent ones!
A Prospective Analysis of Near-Death Experiences in Cardiac Arrest Patients (link.springer.com, June 2002) - Another older study, includes characterisations of the experiences, some of which correlate with AWARE’s most commonly reported themes.
Possible source - What Happens When We Die? by Sam Parnia, M.D.(penguinrandomhouse.com, 1st January 2007) - I’m debating whether to look into this - it’s written by the same project leader as the AWARE study, but this book was written 7 years prior to it. I’m also fully aware that despite trying to look everywhere, the majority of my current sources stem from Dr. Parnia. (This might not be a bad thing! It’s just surprising to me that most of the recent studies into this field I can find out about stem from him.)
-------- Inspirations/Ideas:
Just a quick place to put current inspirations down! I’m sure that once I’ve finished this entry I’ll realise I’ve missed some out, so I’ll edit this as I go!
MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD:
Bojack Horseman - S6 E15 ‘The View From Halfway Down (& S6 E16 ‘Nice While It Lasted’) - Netflix - The View From Halfway Down takes place within Bojack’s mind, after he commits suicide by downing himself in the pool of his former home. This episode has a LOT of themes which link to the studies:
Just like how some CA survivors reported on seeing their life ‘in review’, the characters are asked what the best and worst parts of each of their lives were, leading to conflict of ideals between them as well as trying to tackle large philosophical questions.
Black tar, representing impending death, begins the episode as a drip in the ceiling, before consuming all the all the characters one-by-one, followed by both Bojack and the dream world the episode takes place in. With newer theories on loss of consciousness and brain cell/tissue functionality arguing that it may be a gradual process of decay, rather than an instant loss, the black tar effectively mirrors this. Combined with the fact that Bojack becomes more frantic as the episode ends and the tar begins to chase him, as well as more supernatural events which begin happening, this may mirror the post-death ‘elevated state of consciousness’ idea.
For the first half of the episode, Bojack believes that he is in a recurring dream he has had many times before in his life, even stating how the dream will end event-by-event. However, once these happen but dream doesn’t end, things take a darker shift, and it takes him time to realise he might not be waking up. While being unaware of their own death might be a concept to try in the future (although a scary one), it does bring up the idea that final moments of consciousness may be very similar to the dreams a person normally has (or take place in a similar format with similar people).
While Bojack’s father, Butterscotch, does feature in the episode, he takes on the appearance of Secretariat, Bojack’s personal idol. A percentage of CA survivors reported that post-experience, they came out of hospital and care with a renewed sense of who their true friends and family were - here it’s represented as a father taking the shape of an idol (but keeping his father’s voice).
The 20-25 minute time length: Supervising director Mike Hollingsworth revealed in an interview that the episode took place over around 30 seconds - one of the many theories on the length of consciousness persisting after death is 20-30 seconds, but in an elevated state, perhaps leading to a longer perception of time (e.g. 20-30 seconds becomes 20-30 minutes of video/audio).
The world this episode takes place in is a connection of significant locations in Bojack’s life (e.g. the kitchen from Horsin’ Around, the George Rogers Clark Memorial Bridge which Secretariat jumped off), albeit with slight changes. Purely coincidentally, this is how a lot of my dreams function!!
While it’s still theorised as to whether Bojack is actually alive in Nice While It Lasted, or whether it’s a continuation of his NDE, this episode focuses on optimistic reflection and reconciliation with the other major characters in the show, a similarity to the reflection on friends, family and morals reported by CA survivors.
Rachel Joyce - ‘A Snow Garden and Other Stories’ (Published by Penguin Books, 3rd November 2016)
This is an incredible collection of seven short stories, each one told at different time periods by different characters, the events of each story being individually unique, and yet all of them are linked in some way!! My current plan is to make multiple stories based off the different experiences CA survivors have had, and I’d love to somehow be able to link them all like these short stories are, to be able to tell another story in and of itself!
I really need to find more short stories like these, since the end result(s) of this project will probably be in short-story format (maybe 20 minutes of video/audio per character?). This book’s given me a lot of ideas in terms of character building in a short format, as well as what the ‘link’ could be between each.
Some of the characters in the stories were scrapped characters from Joyce’s previous works - I’ve been trying to think a lot on how to best approach character design for this project (since I’ve never done it before!) and this seems to show to me that compelling stories could be founded off a character’s traits, and that this could be a good way to start?? I don’t know, I could be completely wrong!
All the stories focus on one specific life-changing moment for each main character, but either through narration of past events or it coming up in conversation. we get a fairly clear picture of each character’s lives, their mentality, and where it stems from.
Pixar Animation Studio’s ‘Sparkshorts’ Films: - What happens when you give Pixar artists 6 months and a set budget? So far, 8 incredible short films, all in different styles, each exploring different and very real themes!! (Seriously, please check these out, they’re all incredible and hard-hitting and so worth your time!)
Seeing how such strong themes are addressed in such short time is insanely cool, and is exactly the kind of thing I want to try and make! It’s also super inspiring to see what awesome films can be made under such constraints.
If I end up making films/audio/albums on multiple people, these films show that you can play around with animation style, aesthetic, and storytelling techniques to create just as much heart and soul as each other. Varying styles is something I’d love to try when representing different characters.
‘Gravity Falls’ - Hidden Codes/Messages and Stan’s Mind:
The hidden codes scattered throughout both seasons seems like a cool way to enhance an existing narrative, fill in gaps in backstory, or work to link multiple together!
The ‘memory rooms’ approach may be one way of experiencing the ‘life review’?
Conclusion:
And there we go! I’ll probably come back and add more later, but for now here’s a lil idea dump. At some point in the future I’ll talk about musical influences and ideas too!
This will probably be the last text-filled entry - I’m hoping to use future entires more like a logbook, where I put up demos of what I’ve been working on. There’ll definitely be explanations to stuff (that I’ll probably needlessly overexplain!!) but nowhere near this and the previous entry’s level of paragraphs!
University deadlines are getting closer, so progress will probably be a bit sporadic for the next month or so. But I’ll keep chipping away at this when I can!
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Ad Agency Philosophies | Praveen Vaidyanathan
700 Global Agencies and their taglines/philosophies
1. &Co. — Collaboration is as important as strategy and creative.
2. +27 — We're producers of interestingness.
3. 11:21 — Only two things matter: being simple and creative.
4. 18 Feet & Rising — Be different from the sake of being better.
5. 180 — Getting the world talking.
6. 22squared — We help brands become a welcome intruder.
7. 23red — We change behaviour for the better.
8. 34 — We believe in creating bold, curious, effective work.
9. 360i — Powered by curiosity.
10. 4août — Useful and pleasant.
11. 72andSunny — Make brands matter in culture.
12. 99 Enterprises — We design experiences that connect with people.
13. 99c — We believe in work that sells.
14. Above & Beyond — The creative agency for the audience age.
15. Accenture Interactive — The world's largest digital agency.
16. Achtung! — Agency for the connected era.
17. Ackerman McQueen — The most expensive marketing is marketing that doesn’t work.
18. adam&eveDDB — Make brilliant work that works.
19. Adex — We create dreams.
20. Adjust Your Set — Content at the speed of culture.
21. ADK — Motivating consumers.
22. Advance — Care more. Nothing less.
23. Advance comunicação — We combine data, brain and heart.
24. Africa — Relay and Shift.
25. Agencia Tudo — Think. Do. Propagate.
26. Agency Brazil — Creative pragmatists.
27. Agency Sponge — An ad agency, a design house, an ideas factory.
28. Agency3 — Best is possible.
29. Aggrey & Clifford — Unexpected, pioneering and above all, relevant.
30. AJF Partnership — One of Australia's most effective agencies.
31. AKQA — The imaginative application of art and science.
32. Alfred - Everything begins around a table and ends with a glass of champagne.
33. All Contents — We like to cultivate singularity.
34. Allen & Gerritsen — Creativity is no longer king. Our new king is inventiveness.
35. Alpha Century — A creative agency for entrepreneurs.
36. Altmann + Pacreau — An agency of ideas.
37. Amazon — Bonding progressive brands with forward-thinking consumers.
38. Amelie — Make a positive impact on people's lives.
39. Amélie Company — Good works.
40. Amsterdam Worldwide — We create cultural connections for brands.
41. Amusement Park — We're not an ad agency, we're a manufacturer of creative content.
42. AMV BBBO — UK's most creative agency.
43. AnalogFolk — Use digital to make the analog world better.
44. Anomaly — A deviation from the norm.
45. Anorak — Be straightforward and to the point.
46. Another Company — Exceed client expectations.
47. Antidote — Dare mighty things.
48. Aqua — Making it awesome.
49. Aquatro — Modern. Simple. Advertising.
50. Arcade — Creative entrepreneurs.
51. Archer Malmo — Big ideas don't require big heads.
52. Argonaut — We make things that surprise and delight the world.
53. Armando Testa — Cross vision.
54. Arnell Group — To get consumers to say wow.
55. Arnold Worldwide — Great work works.
56. Artbox — Centre for creation.
57. Artplan Agency — Ideas that open conversations.
58. Arts & Letters Creative Co. — We don’t know what we’re doing, but we’ve done it a thousand times.
59. Asahi Agency — Applying Japanese spirit and Western intelligence.
60. ASDG — We think out of the box and experiment.
61. Asterix — Heart and soul can transform your brand.
62. Atnetplanet — Innovate and adapt to create viral ecosystems.
63. Atomic — Never quiet.
64. Austin & Williams — Come for the ideas, stay for the results.
65. Australie — The agency that sees things differently.
66. Avail — Taking brands to new heights.
67. Avrett Free Ginsberg — Championing the sometimes sideways, sometimes straight up best ideas in the world.
68. Avrett Free Ginsberg — We inspiring brands to own who they are and live it bravely.
69. AZE/FBR — Create work that sells.
70. B.B.E — Driving growth through creative technology.
71. Babel — Give back to communication the power to create value.
72. Badkoobeh — Go beyond your farfetched goals through our creative, scientific and authentic advertising methods.
73. Bailey Lauerman — Made for America.
74. Baldwin — Don’t do anything just for the money.
75. Baldwin& — We're not really sure, and we'd like to keep it that way.
76. Bandujo — We give smart, unexpected, creative solutions that get results.
77. Banjo — Independent in spirit and thought.
78. Banujo — Be imaginative.
79. Barbarian — Break conventions.
80. Barker — A true alternative to the big slow battleships.
81. Barker & Christol — We believe in world peace, rainbows and fluffy kitties.
82. Barkley — Add something good to the world.
83. Barnes, Catmur & Friends — Do whatever we can to help our clients do whatever it is they want to do.
84. Barton F. Graf — The enemy is irrelevance.
85. Bates United — Let our ads speak for themselves.
86. BBDO — The Work. The Work. The Work.
87. BBH — When the world zigs, zag.
88. BD — Murder the mediocre.
89. BDDP — Breakthrough ideas.
90. Beber Silverstein — Weaving brand stories into the personal culture.
91. Becon — Humankind.
92. Being There — For brands that love people.
93. Berlin Cameron — A boutique agency for building brand cultures.
94. Bernstein-Rein — We care about impact.
95. BETC — Great work. No nonsense.
96. Big — Turning ideas into reality.
97. Birdman — Create something no one has ever experienced.
98. BJL — Stand for something. Take on anything.
99. Black Labz — We deliver with creative care.
100. Black River FC — Work that's not only remarkable, but worth remarking about.
101. Blackbird — Prepare to take off.
102. Blast Radius — Creatively driven. Digitally focussed.
103. Bleublancrouge — We're more than just an ad agency.
104. Blue 499 — The open source media agency.
105. Blue Pencil — We will help you get straight to the point.
106. BMB — We create ideas that generate their own energy.
107. BMedia — Happy combination of multiple skills.
108. BMF — The home of the long idea.
109. Bob — Dialogue is at the heart of everything we do.
110. Bob the Robot — Because creativity is the most important single success factor for companies.
111. Bold + Beyond — Inspire and connect.
112. Bolero — Round ideas for a square world.
113. Bonjour — Forward-thinking ideas for premium brands.
114. Boomtown — Creativity. Possibility.
115. Bounche — Deliver wow.
116. Bowery — We can help you.
117. BPD — Making brands beloved.
118. Brave — Because courage counts.
119. Bravo — Win tough fights.
120. Bray Leino — Whatever it takes.
121. Brilliant & Million — Passion drives everything.
122. Broadbent & Williams, Inc. — Defining. Focusing. Establishing Direction.
123. Brokaw — We help brands rise above the blah blah.
124. Brothers & Sisters — We help revolutionise our clients' businesses in revolutionary times.
125. Brown — Success depends on the success of our clients.
126. Brunner — We're in pursuit of what's next.
127. BSUR — Be yourself to be original.
128. Bunglow Circus — We create emotions driven by data.
129. Bunglow25 — Do not sit still.
130. Burrell Communications — Creating transcultural work.
131. Burns — Strategically led. Creative at heart. Forward thinking by nature.
132. Buutvrij for life — Make nice things.
133. Buzzman — All advertising is unwanted, so if you're going to crash the party, bring champagne.
134. BVK — We believe in the refreshing power of honesty.
135. BWM Dentsu — Creativity transforms brands.
136. Camden — We're a human-scale agency.
137. Camp + King — We made brands conversation-worthy.
138. Campbell Ewald — We create emotionally charged, culturally relevant ideas.
139. Campbell Mithun Esty — Achieve dominance.
140. Carmichael Lynch — We create unfair ideas that give our clients an unfair advantage.
141. Cerebrus — Branding worth loving.
142. Cernuto Pizzigoni & Partners — We love to say that we make ideas, something rather different from having ideas.
143. Change — Benevolence.
144. Channel T — Be bold, be brave, be brilliant.
145. Chapter SF — We exist to solve wicked problems facing pioneering businesses.
146. Cheetham Bell — The power of simple.
147. Cheil — Ideas that move.
148. Chemistry — We tell stories that create a reaction.
149. CHI&Partners — Game-changing creativity.
150. CJ Worx — The new breed of agency for the digital era.
151. Clarity Coverdale Fury — Feeding the emotional connection between brands and people.
152. Cloudfactory — Creativity is collective.
153. Code d'Azur — Stand out. Fit in.
154. Cogent — Built on the power of togetherness.
155. Cole & Weber — Strategically focused. Creatively ambitious. Digitally accomplished.
156. Collective London — We create powerful, emotive and cut-through digital experiences.
157. Conill — Propelling brands into the heart of the conversation.
158. Contagion — Change today to own tomorrow.
159. Contagious Communications — We help companies create braver marketing.
160. Contagious London — The all-in-one creative agency.
161. Contract Advertising — we believe in building brands from the heart.
162. CoolGraySeven — Great work comes from collaboration.
163. Copacino + Fujikado — Find that thing.
164. Cossette — To go beyond.
165. CP+B — To create outrageously dramatic work.
166. cramer-krasselt — Made friends, not ads.
167. Cream — Creativity is our effectiveness strategy.
168. Creative Mindworks — We offer not just services. We create solutions.
169. CreativeRace — No barriers.
170. Creativos & Medios ��� Let's make mischief.
171. Creature of London — The home the intelligent misbehaviour.
172. CRI Agence — Incite interest.
173. Critical Mass — Relentless focus on the customer.
174. Cubo — Outsmarting problems by making brands stickier in the mind.
175. Cult — We're at the intersection of creativity and technology.
176. Cummins&Partners — Nothing's more valuable than independent thinking.
177. Cutwater — We build brands to move quickly through culture.
178. Dada — We craft bold, creative and strategic business solutions.
179. Daiko — Ideas win.
180. Dailey — We love advertising.
181. Dare — Digital design engineering.
182. Darewin — Helping brands reach their targets with entertainment.
183. David — A first-name agency that believes in the personal.
184. David Guillaume — Killing indifference.
185. David&Goliath — We help challenger brands outsmart and outperform the competition.
186. Dawn — Make stuff people want.
187. Dawson Pickering — Great creative ideas drive exceptional business results.
188. DDB — Imagine. Inspire. Influence.
189. DDFH+B — Ideas company that delivers great work that works.
190. Deloitte Digital — The creative digital consultancy.
191. Delphys — Don't be bound by rules.
192. Des Cheval — A no-limit agency that takes a fresh and impetuous view of everything.
193. Designate — The agency that lives, thinks and breathes brand.
194. Deutsch — Human spoken here.
195. Devito / Verdi — We give our clients what they want but never what they expect.
196. Dewynters — Experience is everything.
197. DF London — For the age of influence.
198. DGWB — The values economy.
199. Different — Together we make a difference.
200. DigitasLbi — We're a modern, data-inspired agency.
201. Dim Canzian — Make it deep.
202. DiMassimo Goldstein — Inspiring action.
203. DMC — Access to success.
204. Dolly Rogers — Be human.
205. Don't Panic — Contagious ideas.
206. Doner — We do audacious things for ambitious brands.
207. DPS les indés — Dependence leads to indifference, independence creates difference.
208. DPZT — To join the right letters.
209. Driven — Creating ideas that sell.
210. Droga5 — Creatively led. Strategically driven. Technology friendly. Humanity obsessed.
211. Drummond Central — Takin' care of business.
212. Duke — Fight indifference.
213. Duncan Channon — Unearth, unfurl and unleash truly distinct identities.
214. DWGB - The power of shared values.
215. East House Creative — Madison Avenue creative without the Madison Avenue attitude.
216. Ebony & Ivory — Making a difference to brands and people's lives.
217. Echo — Communication that resonates.
218. Edelman — Connecting, informing and creating inspiring work.
219. Ego White Red & Green — Without narration there is no communication.
220. Elvis Communications — We turn audiences in fans.
221. Energize — Humanise brands.
222. Ensemble — Creating content that people want to watch, experience and share.
223. EON — We believe in upholding truth for good.
224. EP+Co — Unthink everything.
225. Epicosity — An idea factory that gives brands a voice.
226. Escala — Connecting companies to their audiences with impact.
227. Essence — Making advertising more valuable to the world.
228. Et Vous — Transforming brands.
229. Exp — We create energy.
230. F.biz — Early Adapters.
231. Fabrique — Challenge reality.
232. Factory — We'll make things.
233. Fair&Square — Less money requires more guts.
234. Fairly Famous — To improve the world by amplifying the messages of progressive companies.
235. Fallon — For clients who'd rather outsmart than outspend the competition.
236. Famous Innovations — Innovation is the difference between popular and famous.
237. Fancy — Great work can do great things.
238. Farrelly — Beyond expectations.
239. FCB — Never finished.
240. FCB Inferno — The world needs more interesting.
241. FICC — Leading brands to digital.
242. Figliulo & Partners — Agency for the information age.
243. Fischer — Innovative solutions.
244. Fitzroy — Make brands adaptable to change.
245. FKC — Might to will. Think to do.
246. FleishmanHillard — The power of true.
247. Fold7 — Relentlessly relevant.
248. Footsteps — The motion and culture agency.
249. Forever Beta — Relentless improvement.
250. Forsman & Bodenfors — The Floor: Swedish consensus.
251. Fortune — CORE (Connected, Organised, Related, Effective).
252. FOTW — A blend of creative excellence.
253. Founded — We move people.
254. Fox Kalomaski Crossing — Small but mighty.
255. FoxP2 — Chemical. Here atoms and ideas collide.
256. Fred & Farid — State something.
257. Freeman — Building meaningful relationships.
258. Friendship — Unboring life.
259. GA — Brands that resonate.
260. Geometry Global — We help brands thrive in an omni-channel world.
261. George & Dragon — A family business.
262. Giant Spoon — Ideas through the lens of culture.
263. Gish, Sherwood & Friends, Inc. — We expose the truth, create an experience around it, and make consumers want to act.
264. Gloo — Onwards and upwards.
265. Glory — Audacity is a vector of efficiency.
266. Golin — Relevance obsessed, relevance equipped.
267. Good — We work for good.
268. Goodby, Silverstein & Partners — We make things that reach millions, but seem to speak only to you.
269. Goodness MFC — Uncover the goodness.
270. Goodstuph — Never 'no' but 'why not?'
271. Grabarz & Partner — Participative creativity.
272. Grafik — We define and develop great brands.
273. Gravity Road — Clever with content.
274. Greatest Common Factory — Make things better.
275. Grenade & Sparks — We support companies in their transformation.
276. Grenadier — Creativity and innovation can change the world.
277. Grey — Famously effective.
278. Grid Worldwide — Disruption for brand.
279. Grok — We create emotional connections.
280. Growmint — We're creative adventurers and changemakers.
281. Grupo Gallegos — Fortune favors the brave.
282. GSD&M — Purpose-driven creative agency.
283. GTB — Artful. Stealthy. Unexpected.
284. gyro — Create ideas that are humanly relevant.
285. Hakuhodo — People centred, data-driven creative agency.
286. Hamiltons Advertising — The Jill-of-all-trades agency.
287. Happiness Brussels — Spread happiness.
288. Happiness Saigon — From 30 to 3.0
289. Hasan & Partners — Make our clients famous.
290. Havas — Creating meaningful connections between people and brands.
291. Hellocomputer — More human.
292. Hello Monday — Happy people create joyful digital experiences.
293. Herewecan — Connecting creativity and digital business.
294. Herezie — The power of choice.
295. Hey — It's a fun corner.
296. High concept — More fun. More smart.
297. HighCo Avenue — The power in big, the agility in more.
298. Hill Holliday — Humble, hungry, humans.
299. Home — Feel good.
300. Hometown — Move at the speed of culture.
301. Hot Mustard — Intelligent communication.
302. HS AD — A creative agency with a difference.
303. Hub — We provide world-class creative across every channel.
304. Hudson Rouge — We are pioneers who never settle.
305. Huge — Make something you love.
306. Humanaut — A creative agency making things that humans love.
307. Humanseven — An agency on a human scale.
308. Humdinger and Sons — A creative agency for the common good.
309. Hummingbird — Where ideas fly.
310. Hungry & Foolish — Less blah, more action.
311. Hunt Adkins — We blow shit up.
312. Hunterlodge — We start at the end.
313. Hyde — Creative thinking always.
314. HZDZ — Your best story, simply told.
315. IBM iX — We study the intersection of strategy, creativity and technology.
316. Ici Barbes — Start social.
317. iCrossing — At the crossroads of pretty and gritty.
318. Imagination — Transforming business through creativity.
319. Impero — We make tired brands famous.
320. Indie — Fresh views on all kinds of issues.
321. Innocean Worldwide — Discover beyond.
322. Inside Out — Driven by passion.
323. Insign — Business hacking.
324. Instinct — We find unconventional solutions to common tasks.
325. Intermix — Create value for our clients.
326. Interplanetary, Inc. — We find the humanity at the heart of your brand.
327. Intro — Get noticed.
328. Invnt — Challenge everything.
329. iProspect — Giving businesses a tangible advantage in today's world.
330. Ireland/Davenport — We create amazing things.
331. Iris — We build participation brands.
332. Isobar — Ideas without limits.
333. Isobel — We supercharge brands.
334. IW Group — Crafting content for diverse consumers.
335. IXM — Creative Engineering: design and devise ideas that create wealth.
336. J. Walter Thompson — The world's best-known agency.
337. Jack Morton — Do something extraordinary.
338. Jacobs Agency — Here's to the idea.
339. Jandly — We break boundaries.
340. Jesus et Gabriel — The agency for anything drunk and eaten.
341. JLA — We solve marketing problems for a living.
342. Joe Public — The audience is everything.
343. Johannes Leonardo — The consumer is the medium.
344. Joint — We're a creative business.
345. Josiane — An agency. With lots of ideas in it.
346. Joy. — Make brands into favourites.
347. Jung von Matt — Emotional is the only rational.
348. Karmarama — The home of good works.
349. Kastner & Partners — We build.
350. KesselsKramer — Make it meaningful.
351. Ketchum — Break through.
352. Khanna \ Reidinga — Be interesting or die.
353. Kindred — Understanding people.
354. Kinetic — Connecting with audiences on the move.
355. King James — Making brands spectacularly memorable.
356. King of Hearts — To the point.
357. Kingdom — We are the agency because we build relationships.
358. kirshenbaum bond senecal + partners — Inspired by tough.
359. KKBC — Keep moving.
360. Kokoro — Heartvertising.
361. Kolle Rebbe — Quite simply, believes in common sense.
362. Krieg Schlupp Partner — Change the world with ideas.
363. Krow Communications — Where leaps are made.
364. KWP! — Ideas that are impossible to ignore.
365. La Chose — Indefinable.
366. La Comunidad — Cultural fluidity.
367. La Famille — A great family of talents.
368. Lachlan McPherson and Friends — Create positive change.
369. Lateral Aspect — This way to intelligent creativity.
370. Laundry Service — Make amazing sh!t.
371. Le Fil — Agile agency for creating lasting relationships.
372. Le Nouvel Opera — We believe French brands could have Frenchitude.
373. Leagas Delaney — Smart thinking. Beautiful work.
374. Leith — Bold ideas that work.
375. Lemni Scata — Using the head.
376. Lemon Scented Tea — We use stories to build brands.
377. Leo Burnett — Creating stuff people love.
378. Les Evades — Great big ideas.
379. Les Fraises Sauvages — Smart agency for smart brands.
380. Les Gaulois — An agency on a human scale.
381. Les Gros Mots — The problem with the little words is that we do not see them.
382. Les Pirates — The agency for sports and extreme sports.
383. Libertine — The free-thinking agency.
384. LIDA — Powered by data, technology and creative prowess.
385. Lime — The boutique creative agency.
386. Linney — Restless.
387. Little — Design is everything.
388. Live & Breathe — Considered maverick response.
389. LMWR — Be work and roll.
390. London Advertising — Be Brilliant.
391. London Strategy Unit — We stop companies sliding into irrelevance.
392. Lopez Negrette — Powered by cultural insights.
393. Loveurope — Producers of great advertising.
394. LRXD — Two weeks to truth.
395. Lucky Generals — A creative company for people on a mission.
396. Ludwig — Reveal creative value.
397. M&C Saatchi — Brutal simplicity of thought.
398. Mad & Woman — The future is female.
399. Made — The audience is in charge.
400. Mademoiselle Scarlett — When nothing goes right, go left.
401. Madras — We seamlessly weave together story and delivery.
402. Makheia — To win the battle of commitment.
403. Manasian — A project based agency.
404. Mangos — Helping brands participate, boldly, in the world.
405. Marc USA — Uncovering radical insights that incite powerful reactions.
406. Marcel — We make things that change things.
407. Marcus Thomas — Seeking impossible.
408. Markvardig — Crazy but sensible ideas.
409. Martin Agency — Good and tough.
410. Martin Williams — Create activists for brands.
411. Marvelous — Entertainment is king.
412. Matador — Ideas for all places.
413. Maxmedia — Bring the best together.
414. Maxx — Make everything greater.
415. MBA — Where digital and direct connect.
416. MCC — Building thoughtful brands.
417. McCann — Truth well told.
418. McGarrah Jessee — We create emotional connection between consumers and brands.
419. mcgarrybowen — Clients deserve better.
420. Mediar — Our clients come first.
421. Meerkats — Purposely successful.
422. Mekanism — To create shareable and provocative campaigns that engage audiences.
423. Mendeleiev — People belong to categories of know-how.
424. Merkley+Partners — We make connections that stick.
425. MetropolitanRepublic — Do things differently.
426. MillerVolpe — Giving life to brands.
427. Mindgruve — Expect amazing.
428. Mintz & Hoke — We create ideas so powerful they change the way people think and act.
429. Mirum — A borderless digital agency.
430. Miss Noï — Creative cell with free spirit.
431. Mistress — Brand building in modern media culture.
432. MKTG — The power of shared experience.
433. MNSTR — Opposites attract.
434. Moblaze — Agency for the mobile age.
435. Modern Climate — Be significant.
436. Moma Propaganda — A disciplined agency.
437. Mondo — Search for solutions through analysis and meditation.
438. Monumenta — The world is fluid. So are we.
439. Moreandme — We bring sexiness, desirability and modernity to brands.
440. Mortierbrigade — We fight creative mediocrity.
441. Mortimer Harvey — We put heart and smart together.
442. Moses Inc. — We solve problems before most realize there is a problem.
443. Mother — Make great work.
444. Mr. President — Question bravely. Answer boldly.
445. MRY — Rooted in Culture. Enabled by Technology. Driven by Relevancy.
446. MSI Advertising — Experience matters.
447. Muh-Tay-Zik / Hof-Fer — Professionally outrageous and outrageously professional.
448. MullenLowe — A different kind of beast.
449. Mutt Industries — Beauty. Truth. Simplicity.
450. MXO — Enrich and simplify.
451. N=5 — No-nonsense.
452. Naked Communications — Challenge conventions.
453. Natwerk — Absurdly effective.
454. NBS — No bullshit.
455. Needleman Drossman & Partners — We believe in the power of an idea.
456. New Digital Noise — A collective of creative minds who strive to produce the very best.
457. Nexlabs — Make a measurable difference.
458. Nikkeisha — We connect people with fresh ideas.
459. Noble People — Straightforward, upright and no-bullshit.
460. Nomads — For borderless thinking and ideas that travel.
461. Nova/SB — The popsynergy agency.
462. Now — The advertising agency for a restless world.
463. Nuworks — Storyteching.
464. O'Keefe Reinhard & Paul — Big brand creativity, startup ingenuity.
465. Odd London — Beautiful effectiveness.
466. Ogilvy — We Sell. Or else.
467. Oliver — Inside intelligence.
468. Olson — Think like people.
469. One Show — Don't get lost.
470. OpusMultipla — Creativity is the best way to generate results.
471. Organic — Everything is interactive.
472. Oricom — Communication that grasps moving consumers .
473. Our Man in Havana — We're not for everyone.
474. Out of the Box — Bullshit in, bullshit out.
475. Pable — Home of the humble radicals.
476. Pablo — Creating brands that come alive through radical ideas.
477. Partners & Partners — Boston Consulting meets Ideo meets Droga5.
478. Partners Andrews Aldridge — Rethink.
479. Penguin — Helping our clients sell more products, to more people, more often.
480. People and you — Develop brand values to create valuable brands.
481. People Culture & Ideas — Be small and nimble not big and bloated.
482. People Ideas & Culture — Agency for the 21st century needs.
483. People we like — We blend sense and style.
484. Pereira & O'Dell — We creating cross-disciplinary campaigns for progressive marketers.
485. Perfect Fools — Agency for the digital era.
486. Perfect Storm — Be useful or be obsolete.
487. Periscope — Do things people love.
488. Phelps — We help deserving clients find their voice.
489. Phibious — Playful and thoughtful / Be the unfair advantage.
490. Pilot PMR — Tell your story in a compelling way.
491. PIMO — Welcome to the age of real.
492. Piston — Where strategic leadership and start-up mentality intersect.
493. Plan B — Big enough to do it right. Small enough to do it better.
494. Poke — An ideas company for a connected world.
495. Pool Worldwide — Bringing the Internet to advertising.
496. Porter Novelli — We find greatness in everything.
497. Possible — We create experiences that keep brand promises.
498. Preston Kelly — Home of iconic ideas.
499. Principles Agency — More than just a name.
500. Prodigious Norge — Brand logistics.
501. Promise — Let the most effective idea lead.
502. Proof — Nothing watered down.
503. Propeg — We sell ideas.
504. Prophet — Grow better.
505. Proximity — Creative intelligence.
506. Psona — Can do.
507. Publicis — Lead the change.
508. PwC Digital — We drive business transformation.
509. Quai des Orfèvres — Goldsmiths of communication.
510. Quaras — We enhance corporate value.
511. Quiet Storm — Purveyors of exquisite mind bombs.
512. Quirk — Brave curious minds.
513. R/GA — Agency for the connected age.
514. R9 — Post-digital thinking.
515. Rabbit's Tale — Break the norm, build the tale.
516. Radioville — Radio is a different place.
517. Ramel — Made to measure.
518. Rapier — To make customers' lives better.
519. Rascal — Think curious.
520. Razorfish — Here for tomorrow.
521. Recess Creative — Play is built into our day.
522. Recipe — The UK's freshest independent agency.
523. Red — Everything begins with an idea.
524. Red Baron Werbeagentur — If you want to be sure you score, then you've got to think focussed.
525. Red Brick Road — Go above and beyond.
526. Red Fuse — It's a brave new world.
527. Red Lion — We believe that the best advertising isn’t always advertising.
528. Red Urban — Strong ideas that work.
529. Redder — We make brands redder
530. Republik — Produce outstanding work.
531. Resn — To infect minds with gooey interactive experiences that amaze and stupefy.
532. Rno1 — Together, we can make waves.
533. Robert/Boisen & Like-minded — Together we're better.
534. Rockfish — We are born out of technology, embedded in start-ups, and fueled by strategy.
535. Romance — We work hard and we are nice to people.
536. Rosapark — Fresh ideas for great business.
537. Rosbeef! — We are creative and we have common sense.
538. Rothco — We produce ideas that change fate and fortune.
539. RPA — People first.
540. RPM — We believe brands connect with people when they entertain.
541. Rubin Postaer and Associates — People first.
542. Saatchi & Saatchi — Nothing is impossible.
543. Sanders\Wingo — We use behavioral science to hack the human operating system.
544. Santa Clara — Intelligence is a transforming factor of people, brands and businesses.
545. SapientNitro — Redefining storytelling for an always-on world.
546. Satumaa Family Business — Nordic thinking.
547. Schafer Condon Carter — Think again.
548. Scholz & Friends — We are the orchestra of ideas.
549. School Boulder — Purpose in action.
550. Seagull — Ideas that soar
551. Select — We deliver magic with logic.
552. Selmore — The small big agency.
553. Serviceplan — Turning brands into best brands.
554. Setu — Bridging the gap.
555. Shout — We create conversational topics.
556. Showpony Advertising — We make ads that people talk about.
557. Sid Lee — Agency for the modern age.
558. Siren — Advertising that works.
559. Sivans — Because we're different.
560. Six Tokyo — Mixing unconventional and cool.
561. Smith Brothers — Deliver big ideas with flawless execution.
562. Snap London — Ideas that bite.
563. Socialove — We help customers fall in love with your brand.
564. Solve — We sell solutions not services.
565. Somo — Rapid actionable innovation.
566. Southpaw — Caution doesn't make headlines.
567. Spark Foundry — We bring heat to brands.
568. Spawn Ideas — We don’t settle for good enough.
569. Special — Make things that matter.
570. Spirit — We love to start fires. We ignite emotions.
571. Splash — We believe in the power of connections
572. Sponge — Where brand narrative, creative firepower and innovation absorb into one.
573. Spring — We brands at the forefront of cultural conversations.
574. Squat New York — The brand crafters.
575. SS+K — Born to lead brands through moments of change.
576. St John's — Restore integrity in communications.
577. St. Luke's — Home of agenda setting ideas.
578. Stack — We turn time into money.
579. Steve — Pop culture agency.
580. Stevens & Tate — We make things happen.
581. Stink Studios — A creative studio for a digital-first world.
582. Story — The best selling agency.
583. Story Worldwide — The world's first content-driven agency.
584. StrawberryFrog — The world's first cultural movement agency.
585. Sugar & Partners — Making brands famous.
586. Sullivan Higdon & Sink — Stand out from the flock of sheep-like advertising.
587. Sunday — We create beautifully crafted, brilliantly effective brand stories.
588. Sunshine — A next-generation entertainment company.
589. Super at the Spree — Super is not just a name. It's what we claim our ideas are.
590. Superhero Cheesecake — Raise the bar.
591. Superheroes — Save the world from boring advertising.
592. Superunion — Agency built on a spirit of creative optimism.
593. Sylvain Labs — Our tools are science and whimsy.
594. Syzygy — We create happiness.
595. Tabasco — Be real.
596. Tank Top — Put simply, we add value to brands.
597. Tattoo Projects — No, we're not a tattoo parlor.
598. TAXI — Doubt the conventional.
599. TBWA — Disruption.
600. TBWA\CHIAT\DAY — Be more human.
601. Team One — The new affluence is calling.
602. Terri & Sandy — Woman-owned, strategic & creative advertising agency.
603. The & Partnership — A modern communications agency fueled by the power of '&'.
604. The Ad Store — We are the human network.
605. The Adventures Of — We have no use for rules, they only rule out the brilliant exception.
606. The Allenby — We make campaigns that change the world or put a smile on your face.
607. The Brand Agency — We're agents of change.
608. The Brooklyn Brothers — Home of blockbuster branding.
609. The Cheese has Moved — The small agency that thinks big.
610. The Circus Works — Make people stand up and take notice.
611. The Clan — We're an agent of change.
612. The Community — We build brands for a culturally fluid world.
613. The Corner — We will.
614. The Creative Council — Making ideas happen.
615. The Escape Pod — We bring your brand propositions to life in the most dramatic manner possible.
616. The Full Service — Bold. Brave. Beautiful.
617. The Gate London — Breakthrough work. Boundless culture.
618. The Good Kind Of Crazy Inc. — No secret formulas.
619. The Hallway — Creativity is effectiveness.
620. The Hardy Boys — We're problem solvers at heart.
621. The Hub — Good things happen when unexpected things come together.
622. The Jupiter Drawing Room & Partners — Beautiful mayhem.
623. The Magic Pencil — Meticulous with details.
624. The Minimart — Good people, fierce thinking.
625. The Mission — Concinnity.
626. The Monkeys — Creating entertaining and provocative ideas.
627. The North Alliance — We create new paths to growth.
628. The Old Shanghai Firecracker Factory — Small agency with big ideas.
629. The Partners — We create, cultivate and inspire brands for those who aspire to lead.
630. The Secret Little Agency — We move culture everyday.
631. The Union — Where effectiveness meets creativity.
632. The Works — The creatively-wired agency.
633. They — Be seen.
634. Think — The digital transformation agency.
635. Thinkerbell — Measured magic.
636. TM — Woman-owned indie agency.
637. TM Advertising — Independent, female-owned creative agency.
638. Tokyu Agency — Create amazing experiences.
639. Tongal — Crowdsourcing creative work.
640. Tracy Locke — Applying design thinking to motivations.
641. Trailer Park — All brands have a great story to tell.
642. Transform — Creative entrepreneurs.
643. Tree — Be specific.
644. Tribal Worldwide — Creating the world’s most loved digital experiences.
645. Tricycle — We make stuff people want to watch.
646. Triverse — Ideas cause change.
647. True — Being true.
648. TSR & Partners - Defining experiences for the digital age.
649. TUX — We are a fearless partner in creativity.
650. Über — Over, above, beyond.
651. Ultrasupernew — Free-thinking but focussed
652. Uncle — Simplicity and creativity have the same mother.
653. Uncommon London — Building brands that people in the real world actually wish existed.
654. Union — The ad agency build for where our industry is going. Not where it has been.
655. Urja Communications — Distinctive, digital, fast.
656. Utopia — Changing the fortunes of brands, people, and planet.
657. UWG — We are insight driven storytellers.
658. Valuklik — Delivering digital performance.
659. Vandejong — Dream, experiment and realize change.
660. VCCP — Transformation partners.
661. Venables Bell & Partners — Honest. Fearless. Independent.
662. Verygoodchoice — An idea tank.
663. VIA — We help clients grow through creativity.
664. Virtue — The creative agency by VICE.
665. VML — Champions of the human spirit.
666. VMSD — Create something extraordinary that tells a story.
667. Volontaire AB — Our work never interrupts people.
668. Volt — Moving brands and people.
669. Voskhod — To move beyond.
670. VSA Partners — There's always a better way.
671. W — Start with the reality.
672. Wieden+Kennedy — Find the brand's soul and reveal its truth.
673. Walker Agency — We like to keep things creative.
674. WARL — First person conversion.
675. we are pi — Never settle.
676. We Launch — We launch everything.
677. We, The Citizens — To create interesting communications that'll make stop.
678. Weber Shandwick — Engaging always.
679. Wetpaint — The little big agency.
680. Wexley School for Girls — We're simply an ad agency.
681. What's Your Problem — Creative brand solutions for a digital world.
682. Who Why What — Three times the question brings a real answer.
683. Will London — There's always a way.
684. Williams Lea Tag — To create value for our clients.
685. Willis Collaborative — The agency for progressive marketers.
686. Winter — We push digital boundaries.
687. Woedend! — Relentlessly curious.
688. Wolfe Doyle — If you're comfortable with your advertising you should be nervous as hell.
689. Womenkind — Built soundly on the authentic desires, opinions, insights and wisdom of women.
690. WPN Chameleon — We move people.
691. Wunderman — Creatively driven. Data inspired.
692. X3M Ideas — Change perception.
693. XXS — Challenge conventions.
694. Y&R — Resist the usual.
695. Ymer — Make you shine.
696. You — An ad agency that thinks about what is best for you.
697. Zambezi — Take bigger bites.
698. Zimmerman advertising — Welcome to the growth machine.
699. Zubi Advertising — To erase stereotypes.
700. Zulu Alpha Kilo — We're the 10% more agency, charge and quality.
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