#our other history

[dustedmagazine]

Ned Collette — Our Other History (Sophomore Lounge)

Back in 2018, Ned Collette released an astonishing double album called Old Chestnut. Across the album’s four sides, Collette laid out a mesmerizing patchwork of folk, prog and jazz that felt intimate yet expansive. On his new album, Our Other History, Collette has invited a host of luminaries to color in his compositions — including Jim White and Mick Turner of Dirty Three on drums and electric guitar; Leah Senior on backing vocals; and Chris Abrahams of The Necks on piano — while the songs themselves feel more traditional in flavor, rooted in folk, blues and country influences.

The heart of most Ned Collette songs is his robust finger-picked nylon-string guitar playing, and his nasal, conversational vocal delivery. On the opening title track, limpid cascades of synthesizer connect a throughline from Old Chestnut, while each of the guest players takes a turn to shine. Senior’s airy vocals and Turner’s subtle guitar work flesh out the song so effectively that the eight-minute run-time flies by before gently closing with an elegant fade-out. This tendency towards fading out several of the songs on the track list gives the impression of listening in to a room full of excellent musicians who are unselfconsciously feeling their way through the performances. On “Little Hans,” however, the song is cruelly faded out just as it threatens to boil over into a sizzling jam session.

Given the caliber of players on this album, each take of the songs no doubt yielded unrepeatable magic, so it must have been hard to settle on the versions that would not only work best as individual songs, but also play off each other as a collection. For this reason, it seems like either the players were being polite and restrained in their contributions, or takes were selected that have the same subdued, easy-flowing grace.   

“Bridges of Sunlight” and closer “Blue Rooms” seem to take up the same cosmic, incandescent thread introduced on “Our Other History,” while “Athens,” “Endtimes Boogie” and “Shot Through” take on more familiar, grounded idioms that are as well-worn as a beloved piece of furniture. Then, to lend an authentic “album” feel, Collette includes guitar instrumental “Friendly Fucker” and a spoken-word piece called “The Kitchen Tunnel.”

Collette toured with some of the line-up featured on Our Other History back early in 2023, and it’s only now we’re hearing the fruits of the recording sessions. It’s incredibly exciting to witness the product of these collaborations, but also tantalizing to imagine where the sessions may have ventured given freer rein.

Tim Clarke

[prolibytherium]

Just in general I think trying to look to pre-late modern period history for validation of LGBT+ identities is an absolutely useless venture. Every single underlying human experience defined through the lens and framework of LGBT identity has always existed, but it's impossible to pin down Exactly who and what a figure might have been if they existed in this contemporary context and decided to self identify via these labels.

It's also a wildly reductive lens that flattens the complexity and variety of how sex and gender has been constructed across time in different cultures, how sexual norms have varied, etc. This is not a constructive approach to learn about history and you're never going to be able to fit historical figures neatly into little identity categories.

[qwantzfeed]

Mario 34 is absolutely the logical midpoint between 4/World and 64, and it is exactly analogous to how the Ambassador-class Enterprise C is the logical midpoint between the Excelsior-class B and the Galaxy-class D, arising not from chronological progression but from being filled in, in retrospect, as the shortest distance between two set points.  i may have just written the nerdiest sentence of my life and i have no regrets

[3-aem]

thinking about touch starved touch sensitive gojo again. Absolutely desperate for even the most grazing touches from getou and yet overwhelmed by it all.

[endlesslytired]

Penacony.

more from the post looooop:

[bixels]

I'm obsessed with your rarijack post. I would love to hear your thoughts on flutterdash. That one was always my favorite but rainbow was often a victim of the new writers not understanding her and writing her weirdly

SHE SOLD HER INTO SLAVERY!

[cringefail-clown]

when you create a character and want to give them a nickname, it might sound ideal to call them something cute or cool like nightshade or candy or other stuff, but i think its inherently more realistic and way more funnier if you have in mind that most of the times nicknames come from other people, like your friends or family, and they can be straight up violating

from what ive gathered throughout the years of living amongst people, there are a few "nickname categories", and they are as follows:

your surname has a somehow funny word in it and its now your nickname for forever

youve had a misfortune of reminding someone of some fictional character and now you are called by that characters name

actually, youve had a misfortune of reminding someone of anything, be it a plant or an animal or an inanimated object, and it is now your nickname

youve misspelled/mispronounced a word and everyone collectively agreed that its how they will call you from now on

(the last one is personal bc i legit didnt know how "auchan" is pronounced and i said it wrong in front of my friends (rookie mistake). ive been auchan (the mispronounced way) for a long, long time)

obviously do what you want with your characters, but i highly encourage the funny nicknames. they can add so much to the oc, both in the dynamic they have with their friends/family, and also in terms of a backstory for them

[sea-changed]

"For what they are worth, or for what they may recapture, here they are, period pieces, fairy tales, half-meaningless memories of a time and of attitudes which have gone forever from the world, a sad and jocular recording of a little part of a war I saw and do not believe, unreal with trumped-up pageantry, so that it stands in the mind like the battle pictures of Crécy and Bunker Hill and Gettysburg. And, although all war is a symptom of man's failure as a thinking animal, still there was in these memory-wars some gallantry, some bravery, some kindliness."

John Steinbeck, in the 1958 introduction to his collected 1943 World War II reportage Once There Was a War

[soulless-bex]

i think Tim deserves to do a little fratricide. as a treat.

(edit: link to the fic)

[justsalpals]

stizzy AU where Ed actually stays gone after being banished. he's off finding himself and learning how to exist outside of piracy idk, this isn't about him

bonus if when he leaves, in direct mirror to Calico Jack, he turns to Izzy and without discussion just expects him to follow Ed off the ship in exile

because of course Izzy will follow. that's who he is. that who they both are. blackbeard and his first mate. no matter what he's thrown at Izzy, no matter how hard he's tried to gouge out that love, Izzy always follows.

unlike Jack and Ed, Izzy stays on the ship. with his crew.

and Stede sees that.

[franklyimissparis]

analysing mclennon feels like being an academic and pouring over historical texts and connecting the dots between passages because you basically are doing exactly that

[introspectivememories]

tim and bernard who break up and it's nothing big, no one cheated or anything. it's just their lifestyles didn't work out well together. tim cannot give up vigilantism currently and bear cannot handle the level of danger tim puts himself in. and on the other hand, tim cannot handle the fact that bear chooses to run into danger as an emt bc he already worries about everything but now he has to worry if he'll find his boyfriend convulsing from fear gas in a random alley but also bear who felt the life drain out of darla cannot stand the thought of not helping people and runs headfirst into dangerous situation after dangerous situation hoping that every person he saves can somehow make up for the fact that he could not save darla.

(he very pointedly does not think about the fact that there was nothing he could do because if he thinks about that, he'll spiral until they have to lock him in arkham too)

and so they break up but they were tim & bernard in high school and when they started dating they balanced out the worst of each other and they became tim&bernard. and everyone who knows them, knows that they're better together but they cant be together, they refuse actually because they cannot lose another person to the violence of gotham and by the time they figure out that they cant work together as long as the other is an emt or vigilante, it's too late for both them. they've already left too many pieces of themselves in each other.

tim still knows what bear means when he says "tim" in that exasperated voice. tim still goes boneless when he hears bear say "baby" in that firm tone. bear can still read tim like a book. he still knows the right way to massage tim's neck so that tim can go to sleep. everyone at the first responders gala knows not to bother ceo drake-wayne and senior emt dowd when they're talking.

(and if they're standing a little too close to each other than what is normal, who are they to judge? everyone knows that dowd and drake-wayne have history)

and if everyone on the night shift has caught red robin with his head tucked into the crook of emt dowd's neck as emt dowd runs a soothing hand up and down the vigilante's back, well then, they just quietly back away.

(after all, dowd's one of like, five, emts that can get the bats to receive medical treatment so if turning a blind eye to whatever the fuck they have going on is what allows them to give back to their heroes, then the night shift will do it every time)

and of course, tim and bear are practical people. they loved (love) each other sure, but when your lives are fundamentally incompatible, well, you cant get too stuck on the what-ifs, that's for sure. and so they do find love with other people and yeah, maybe it's not what they expected love to be when they first fell in love with each other. it's not the bubbly, stomach-swoopy, cant stop grinning, feeling that permeated tim&bernard's early days or the i Know you/you Know me that was their middle or the quiet despair that was their end but it is contentment. and in a life with as many losses as theirs, contentment is something they hold dearly

and they're happy! truly! but sometimes, at galas when they're making each other snort champagne out their noses or in darkened alleyways when their clothes are both stained with blood or at rallies for stricter gun regulations in gotham where they both sit too close to each other, fingers enclosed around each other in a death grip, when the presenters inevitably bring up grieves

(worst school shooting in gotham in decades, there's blood on their hands and blood in their mouths and darla is dead in between both of them and there is a chasm so wide that they are screaming to get their voices across and she will always be dead and maybe this had always been the problem that she is dead and there is no coming back from that and that there is blood on their hands and blood in their mouth and blood on their han-)

but sometimes, most especially on opposite sides of the street, as life pulls them in different directions, just sometimes, they see each other and just for a second, nothing too long, the flap of a hummingbird's wings, the time it takes to blink, an electron's orbital, they look at each other and for the briefest moment, blue on brown, a barely noticeable stutter in their steps, the space between heartbeats, because this is all they will give themselves because they do not dwell on what-ifs or what-could-have-beens, or what-should-have-beens, or delusions of a softer world, their eyes meet and they think to themselves, god, in another life, i would have really liked just doing laundry and taxes with him.

[necrotic-nephilim]

au for the ask game: omegaverse where omega dick grooms ealry-presented alpha tim in "prodigal son"

dick is going through one of the worst periods of his life after breaking up his wedding with kory (maybe she, like a tamaran, couldn't understand the secondary gender of humans and during the breakup said something bad about dick as an omega) and then tim appears with stars in his eyes and believes that dick is the best human being on earth.

bonus points if the society has progressed enough and mating with children is strictly prohibited, even if they present early.

for the ask game!

gdfdsfdgbf anon i'm kissing you on the mouth. this is my favorite flavor of Omegaverse, especially for DickTim. i'm a proud believer in the dominant omega!Dick/submissive alpha!Tim propaganda. also a big fan of how terrible Dick's life is during Batman: Prodigal. and i just. man i love the Omegaverse concepts of alien characters like Kory not understanding secondary gender and it causing rifts.

what's fun about the Prodigal era is just how isolated Tim and Dick are during it. Bruce is off.. being fucking Bruce, and Alfred is also away, so it's really just Dick and Tim for a bit. they've always worked with each other and have a repertoire, but a lot of the conversations they have about each other's pasts are happening for the first time. so it's such a fun time for Tim to present as an alpha. and of course, his hero worship for Dick (especially after having to deal with Jean-Paul) makes it so *easily* for Dick to just. slip his fingers into. Dick's isolated from the Titans, he's lost Kory, he's on the rocks with Bruce, and so there's just something so nice about this kid who still holds utter faith in him. he doesn't see any of the societal stereotypes about omegas in Dick, he just sees Dick. and then, he presents and he trusts *Dick* with that information, lets Dick guide him through the most awkward parts of presenting. how can Dick not want to take advantage of that? a young, fresh alpha who he's currently in charge of mentoring, with no one to stop Dick or notice what he's doing.

it's still tricky, of course. Dick not only has to make sure he's not breaking the law, but he also has to keep Tim from noticing, immediately. Tim's hero worship crush is the most obvious thing about him, but that doesn't mean Dick can jump on him. it needs careful time and planning. Bruce might not be around, but Tim still has his dad who could notice the scent of an omega on Tim. so instead of marking Tim, Dick starts marking himself with Tim's scent. it starts small, using the same blanket Tim has used in the Batcave, grabbing a couple of Tim's oversized hoodies and wearing them. things with plausible enough deniability, but enough that Tim starts to subconsciously associate his scent with Dick. when he can't smell himself on Dick he feels like something is wrong. and when he's finally brave enough to bring it up to Dick, Dick is able to spin it on Tim. make it seem like Tim is the one coming onto Dick, assuming things. Dick plays it cool, pretending to be shocked by the idea of it. he gently explains to Tim what he could be implying about their relationship and Tim is *mortified*, apologizing and tripping over himself to try and fix it. but Dick just calms him down, promises Tim he isn't mad bc hey, Tim is a fresh alpha and he presented so *young*, it's difficult to navigate.

so you have Dick offering to help navigate this with Tim and using it to get closer and closer to Tim. grooming him into the type of alpha that Dick wants in a relationship. anytime there's behavior in Tim that Dick doesn't like, Dick can pretty easily redirect by dropping comments about how Tim just "can't help" acting like this because of his alpha nature, which instantly makes Tim scramble to fix it. Dick likes Tim for who he is, this cute, sweet kid who's such a handsome little alpha. but he's rough around the edges and Dick puts it on himself to smooth those edges over. he's playing the long game with this, and he doesn't mind waiting it out. and Tim can't complain when Dick pushes the boundaries, making him uncomfortable, because he doesn't want Dick to think he's a *pervert* for thinking that way. it's one big mind game.

i do think, Dick would cave and sleep with Tim before Tim's an adult. he's smart enough not to mate Tim, and he's definitely smart enough not to sleep with Tim enough for Bruce, a beta, to notice what's going on. but when some sort of sex pollen incident triggers a simultaneous heat and rut for Dick and Tim respectively, it's the most convenient in that Dick needs. Dick acts like they're doing this out of necessity, that he's giving in even though he doesn't want to, just because of how Tim's acting under the aphrodisiac. it gives him complete control over the sex because Tim is so desperate to not give in to his "alpha ways" and hurt Dick by being violent or animalistic. Dick gets to pin Tim down, possibly even tie him down "for his own safety" and ride him until Tim is a crying mess under Dick. after the first time, if Dick orchestrates more scenarios where they end up in "fuck or die" situations well, it's not like anyone's noticing. at the height, he even manages to have sex with Tim without that sort of pretense, he just has to act like he can tell how needy Tim is and sigh, pretending he's the one doing Tim a favor "just this once" by letting Tim fuck him.

in the end, it's a long con that pays off. it takes until Battle for the Cowl but Tim's a legal adult. and Dick is Batman again, which really does feel like everything coming full circle. part of the reason Dick makes Damian Robin is to remove the pretense of Tim and Dick being sidekick and mentor. it makes it easier for Dick to insist he really does see Tim as a full adult (even if he doesn't, deep down. Tim is still a fresh teenager, just because it's legal doesn't make it any less morally questionable) and something more than Robin. Dick makes a comment about them being mates so offhandedly it makes Tim stop in his tracks. Tim, who's about to go on his Red Robin arc and isolate himself, now has a chance at being mates with his hero. a chance to smooth over their differences and be actual equal partners. of course, Tim jumps on it. maybe deep down, after they mate and Dick is all too pleased with himself, it clicks for Tim that this was all a set-up. he puts the pieces together while they're cuddling in bed. he knows deep down that Dick will never *actually* see him as an equal. but, the deed is done and if Tim is going to give himself over to anyone, of course it's going to be Dick Grayson.

[ingravinoveritas]

I recently had this link shared with me by one of my lovely friends here in the fandom, and found it so compelling that I wanted to share it with all of you.

This is a recent article from Vanity Fair about Cary Grant and Randolph Scott, both iconic actors from the era we now call "Old Hollywood," and it details their extremely interesting--both by the standards of the era and today--relationship. It's a long read, but more than worth it.

For those who may not know, Cary Grant was an English-born American actor and iconic leading man, and Randolph Scott was an American actor most known for appearing in Westerns. Both men were married to women/had children at varying points in their lives, but by some accounts (and especially what is chronicled in this article), they were the loves of each other's lives, even though being openly queer was next to impossible at the time, and would've been looked at as a career-ending (and maybe even life-ending) move.

There also seem to be quite a few parallels between Cary and Randolph 90 years ago and Michael and David today. The two men actually lived together for a number of years, during which the press of the day chose to portray them as "just two fun-loving bachelors waiting to find the right gal," all while Grant in particular starred in films with queer-flavored undertones that were both bold and downright dangerous in the era of the Hays Code. They continued living together when Grant was first married to his first wife, Virginia Cherrill (and after they divorced), and fun fact: While Grant was married, Scott moved right next door...so they were, in fact, neighbors.

Here are a few other excerpts that very much reminded me of Michael and David, for your consideration. (FYI that "Archie Leach" was Cary Grant's birth name before he changed it to his stage name.) This first one calls to mind the Radio Times calling Michael and David a "handsome couple" on the night of the NTAs in 2021:

This next one of course made me think of Michael and David talking on David's podcast (skip to the 1:25 mark) in 2019 about hating photo shoots and how Michael flat-out refused to answer questions at one point and only got through it because of David:

And this last one features a quote from a close friend about Grant and Scott that nearly made my heart skip an entire beat. For reasons that will soon be very, very obvious:

(I mean...)

What is also remarkable about this article (though not necessarily in a good way) is the mention of how little has changed since Grant and Scott's time. How even today, any actor who comes out as any flavor of queer is immediately looked at differently, and how the fear of both professional and personal repercussions keeps people in the closet for so many reasons.

These were the parts of the article that stood out to me the most, but as always I would love to hear from my followers with your thoughts and takes on the parallels above or anything else that you find interesting...

[lazykurocat]

it honestly baffles me that Transphobes or general anti-LGBT will be pro Israel anti-hamas... it makes no sense, and as glad as I am people support Israel it confuses me... all the people who hate me stand for a place I could be safe. yet all the people who should love me stand for a place we would be killed... we live in a mad world... it makes me feel so lost... I don't want transphobes to have my back in one way and then not in another... because I'm scared of transphobes for how they see me and treat me and how much trauma they've caused... but I'm also scared of my own community for playing into their hands and giving them a valid reason to think we're insane when before they had none... I don't know what to do... I feel like as soon as the world moves on from the war the transphobes will just turn on me as they always have... so I find it hard to accept they support Israel and hate Hamas...