#personally i called them the legendary dogs for years!

[daily-pokemon-trivia]

While the most accepted term for Raikou, Entei and Suicune is the legendary beasts, many people also call them the legendary dogs or legendary cats. Depending on what they see them as.

What do you call them?

[jeremywhitley]

Canonically trans pirate: Alister St. Marina

So, when we first started the Sea of Thieves comics, the game was still in alpha testing. I got the incredibly cool privilege of rolling up on the Golden Shores before other people even had access, because we were basically launching simultaneously. One of the really cool things about the set up was that we got to create our own crew from scratch and tell a story on the sea when it only had a few legends in it, so we were given free reign. I knew we had a handful of issues to tell the story and I hoped we'd get to come back to them, but nothing was certain.

Some of the characters, namely DeMarco and Lesedi Singh became regular characters in the game, which was something I had never even realized was a possibility. Then, of course, DeMarco's death as a big story in the game. It was the first big mystery. And Lesedi was part of it. We even got to hear Lesedi's voice (I was quietly VERY excited they actually cast a South Asian woman in the part).

That led to a new opportunity! Years after their initial adventures, we got to make a new mini-series called "Sea Dog's Search" which centers Lesedi on her quest to find her brother's lost soul. We wanted to change things up and show that it had been years of adventuring on the Sea of Thieves, so even though we hadn't written years of comics, we wanted to show that their lives had kept on going. Since Lesedi was our focus in the series, updating her look was important to me. In the first comic, she started out looking like this:

Then, in the game, she and her brother founded The Sea Dogs and got sharp matching outfits:

Obviously, she stay's looking fly, but it's worth noting that this was a matching outfit with her brother and much more his style than hers (DeMarco loves clothes and dressing sexy, Lesedi has always been a little more no nonsense). So now that she's out from under the shadow of both her brother and legendary father, we've done some updating to her look. First, she had to get rid of the old one and do a bit of fighting of her own:

Over the years, the variety of what you can wear in SoT has improved so we wanted to give Lesedi something that felt like it had a little bit of who she is and a little bit of her home.

But there was somebody else who hadn't really been in the game whose evolution was perhaps more important to me.

When we had done the first miniseries, I talked with the crew about the possibility of having a trans character in the books. They were excited, but one thing they really wanted in the comics was to make sure that things that characters did in the book were more or less achievable in the game and, at the time, there was no way in the build to change your character's look or gender once you started.

But now, there is! There is a potion that allows you to change the look of your character including their gender. Rare and co was very supporting of us then following through with an idea we had during the first fun that was now possible. I had originally written the character of Alessia St. Marina as a person who was not comfortable in her own skin and had used costumes and espionage as a way to cope with that. She was especially fond of going undercover pretending to be male.

At the end of the mini-series, Alessia ended up getting together with her partner in crime, but she was never able to come out as trans. But it has been a few years both in our world and in the game one, so allow be to introduce you to Alister St. Marina.

He's a smooth talkin swashbuckler who just happens to be married to one of the most dangerous cutthroat women in the world, whom our crew has to rescue from her most recent scrape.

So, thank you very much to Rare, Titan, and everybody else involved for letting us tell this wonderful story and bring the first canonical trans masc pirate character into the Sea of Thieves.

See you out there, you salty sea dogs!

[neoninky]

TWST Shenanigans: League of Antagonists (and some actual Villains)

I'm back with another long winded, stupid thought that I may draw some day but in the mean time, here's this lol (also spoilers for my Sacred Crown fics if you haven't read them?? Just FYI)

Scene: Antagonists from canon TWST side events all hang out in a bar and talk about how they fucked with the main characters for reasons unknown

Ashton Vargas: *reminiscing about the Camp Vargas event(s)* HA HA Man you should have seen their faces! We gave those punks a good ol' fashion trauma haunt in the woods. Classic. Divus Crewel: And we looked damn good doing it too. *Camp Vargas Part 1 and 2 Crewel definitely made those costumes* Vargas: Sigh...of course we got a temporary dock in pay to help provide the whimpier ones with therapy sessions but eh totally worth it. Random group of fairies all sharing a bar stool: *makes a bunch of tinkly noises talking about the Fairy Gala* Translation: That's cool but we almost ruined the entire school's ecosystem because we gave into our baser instincts and stole the mage stone cuz it was shiny... damn those kids for crashing our party with their incredibly well made outfits and near flawless sashays (Crewel: I would be more upset if not for the fact I finally got Kingscholar to have proper posture for at least 14 hours.)

Ghost Princess Eliza: *still boohooing over the Ghost Marriage event though technically she is happily married in the end* I just wanted to marry my perfect prince after years and years and YEARS of waiting!! What's a little first-degree murder in the name of true love?! (Fairies: damn gurl / Crewel: that's a mood.) And those horrible boys just kept coming to ruin my wedding! Accosting me with their unprincely behavior! What kind of man doesn't have a legendary sword or a faithful dog that comes at his beck and call?! (Vargas: she does make a good point...) Oh well, in the end, I did find my real prince so it all worked out. We'll be returning for the baby shower they promised to host! (Crewel: the school and every person on campus has at least three restraining orders against you...) - jaunty music suddenly starts playing out of nowhere and the entire room groans - Fellow Honest: *cane twirls his way on screen, ready to spill the deets on the Playful Land event* Trauma, theft, delusionally murderous courtship? That's cute. I suckered a whole group of those dumbasses into a human trafficking con disguised as a theme park! And I did it so well that I basically hijacked 90% of all social media for MONTHS while doing it! Everyone: *disgruntedly* we KNOW Fellow Honest: *much smug* Did I mention how I also cursed the whole place to turn them into wooden puppets if they broke the backward ass rule system I put in place as well? (Vargas: dude what the actual hell?) Sigh...and it would have all gone off without a hitch if it weren't for those damn kids fucking up the entire park (Crewel: our students are pretty much all assholes, yes.) ...I mean sure, in the end, I did tell my shitty boss to suck it and encourage those brats to do exactly that. But then they dared to extend a hand of friendship and understanding to ME?! Entitled, fancy boys with their fancy schmancy education *grumble grumble* Vargas + Crewel: *side-eye glance at each other at the mention of a shitty boss* ..... *both take long sips of their drinks*

Rollo: *appears with sudden intense mood change in the atmosphere* Hmph. I understand your contempt for those frivolous magic users completely... (Fellow: THANK you!) ...I invited a select few of them onto my campus under the pretense of uniting our schools in harmony and camaraderie. In actuality...I wanted to destroy them by taking away their magic and then wiping magic off the very face of the planet. Fellow Honest: ...ok well damn that's a bit harsh- *the group of fairies moves as far away from Rollo as possible*

Rollo: and I would have gotten away with it too. Had it not been for that Malleus Draconia *name said with such distain Rollo might as well be a friggin Batman villain* ...on the other hand, I did completely get away with it. Cuz they tried to guilt trip me by letting everyone believe I was this upstanding person who isn't capable of heinous acts. (Fellow: HA stupid) ...that is until karma bit me in the ass and then my childhood magical dragon friend that I don't absolutely abhor ended up bonding with the magical dragon that I hate with every fiber of my being... *talking about my OC in Her Devoted Throne hitting it off with Malleus lol* Crewel: To be fair, if watching your BFF get with your sworn enemy after you tried to commit mass genocide of magic is the worst thing to happen, you are one lucky bastard.

Rollo: Oh I'm barely as horrible as they are... *scene pans over to another group seated in the Really Fucked Up OC Villain section*

Queen Alva from Her Ivory Crown: I not only gaslighted and emotionally abused my own daughter into working herself to the bone to prove herself as the heir to my throne, I then threatened her and tried to take everything she fought for away from her the minute she had a meltdown and wouldn't marry the boy I picked out for her. Not to mention potentially damning my own Queendom by trying to deprive them of a far better queen than I in the future....now I'm divorced, shunned from society, and living alone in the countryside, forced to do my own housework *has to fetch her own fainting couch so she can dramatically swoon* Zehn Cavaliar, the 'boy' in question: ...yeah I wouldn't take no for an answer so hard that I harassed the crown princess into an Overblot state which could have killed her. I also attacked and injured her while she was in that condition. Her new boyfriend got all his friends to kick my ass before and after I lost everything.... *has the expression of someone going through a Vietname flashback* Don Muraeni from Her Lost Voice: *sitting in a large fish bowl on the counter as a shriveled up sea polyp* I literally paid and sometimes forced several women to bear my children - who I let abuse and murder each other all in hopes of earning my approval btw. I even killed a guy who owed me money and then took his wife and child, made said wife have another one of my kids - who I also abused and forced to do underhanded tasks through the majority of her childhood. I also tried to use my son to get at my sworn enemy after not shedding a single fucking tear after his brother was brutally murdered by said enemy...*stops to think* More child abuse. Collecting siren mermaids and forcing them to be sex workers. Trapping my wife for several years while letting her children believe she was dead....so yeah all that backfired horribly and now I'm trapped as this weird lil slug thing until I die. Or something. Ghost of Don Muraeni's right-hand guy, Proteus: I was a total creep who abused his power and was brutally murdered for it in the end. Also I stole magic from a defenseless, traumatized child. Everyone else: *staring at all of them in horror* .....JESUS CHRIST

Dark Fire is hot but Hell is hotter *sips tea*

Also tagging people for reasons @iscarlettappel @foxwitchaine @wysteriadelights @nuitthegoddess @victoria1676 @1ndigowitch

[anqelically-archived]

moment 2 · ͟͟͞͞➳❥ tetcho suehiro x gn!reader

word count: 1.1k

content: manga spoilers (the hunting dogs), fluff

navigation | event masterlist

peace in a world with unusual ability-using people was hard to find. working all over the place as keepers of this rare peace was even harder. there were rarely days to rest, considering how few there were.

the legendary hunting dogs, the strongest unit of the military police, only had 6 members. only having that few amount of hunting dogs had you, the 6th member of this unit, working around the clock.

there was also seldom a holiday where you had done nothing. that is, until today. the day of love had come by, and, strangely, you had not racked up a case to work on. the same had applied to the others, so most of you just lazed around the building in case.

you sat in a meeting room with most of the other members, folding paper roses due to your boredom. you were playing cards with fukuchi, teruko, tachihara, and jouno, but you lost first. tachihara had followed you in losing, so he just watched the final three

after finishing your 6th rose, a question you’ve had in mind spilled from your lips, “hey, do you guys know where tetcho is? he’s the only one not here.”

tetcho suehiro, a man of justice, was missing from the group. it wasn’t that you weren’t up for the other’s company, but you wanted tetcho’s the most. it was a given considering your relationship and the plain fact that it was valentine’s.

with a sigh, you listened to what they had to say. both teruko and fukuchi said they had no clue, jouno said he was “a dimwit you shouldn’t bother with”, and tachihara said he only saw the ravenette briefly in the morning. according to the man that could manipulate metal, tetcho and he had a short conversation before he left headquarters, still in his uniform.

“ah, so maybe he’s coming back,” you hoped.

as if it were timed, jouno’s face scrunched up, “and now you’ve summoned him.”

“huh? what are you talking about?”

“tachihara, (y/n),” jouno called, “don’t open the door.” the two of you shot a look at each other at his comment.

“um… why wouldn’t we?” tachihara asked.

“because-“ there was a light slam at the room’s door, “he can handle it.”

at the door was tetcho himself, carrying… well, carrying a whole mountain of things. everyone was dumbfounded at the large pile of things he left by the door.

“oh,” he finally noticed everyone else in the meeting room after he dusted his hands off, “you guys are here too.”

“we’ve been here, but where have you been?” you asked, getting up from your seat and standing in front of him. you tilted your head towards what he brought, “and what’s all that for?”

“right, i got you something for you. come,” he gently took hold of your hand and led you towards the pile of stuff.

the simple reason that tetcho had come late was that he was trying to get a gift for you. you two have been seeing each other for a little less than a year, so this was his first valentine’s day with you. unsure of how to make a good impression on such a day, he asked his co-workers for help. however, they all said different things.

the first thing that tetcho gave to you was a bouquet of your favorite flowers. after taking a whiff, you smiled at the familiar scent. tetcho watched you closely, remembering how hard it was to get the bouquet. since he was one of many buying flowers, he visited multiple shops before he could get what he came for.

“what should i buy (y/n) for valentine’s day?” was the question that tetcho had asked everyone.

the first person he went to was fukuchi because he was the oldest among them all. he probably had some romantic experiences in the past… right?

“well,” fukuchi twisted the tip of his mustache between his fingers, “flowers never hurt nobody! but listen close, if they don’t like the flowers, get them chocolate. what if they don’t like chocolate, you ask? then, you get any of their favorite snacks. if you really love them, just get them all.”

tetcho handed you a big bag of snacks and a large box of assorted chocolates after you set the flowers aside. “thank you, tetcho. i love it. so i’m guessing the rest of those bags and that huge bear is for the other? maybe?” you guessed skeptically.

“huh? no, it’s all for you.”

“all of that… for me…?”

“yes.”

the innocent expression the black-haired man had made your heart swell. although you didn’t know what else he had, it was unexpectedly nice to know that he was thinking about what to get you all morning. you had occupied tetcho’s mind while he had a grasp on your heart.

the next person he asked advice from was teruko, a woman in a child’s body. and, deadly serious, all she said was, ”a giant teddy bear.”

the third person he went to was jouno, the blind man that wanted nothing to do with him. although tetcho did not pick up on it, jouno’s expression said it all. every time tetcho asked him for advice, he had the same look. yet every time jouno gave the look, tetcho ignored it.

“why are you asking me? it’s your relationship,” jouno sharply replied.

“i know, and i want (y/n) to be happy. i just don’t know what to get them. do you know?”

“no, i don’t. now leave me alone.”

“are you sure?”

an irk mark appeared on jouno’s forehead, “i already said i didn’t, did i not?”

silent, tetcho continued to stand by jouno’s desk. it wasn’t too long until the pen in jouno’s hand had snapped, and the spots of black ink splattered on the report he was writing.

“just write her a letter about your feelings or something, alright!? now go away!”

finally, tetcho asked tachihara in the morning.

“well,” the ginger cupped his chin, “it’s your first valentine’s together, so it should be something special that they’ll remember forever. maybe a ring or something? sorry, heh, i’m not really a romance guy.”

once everything was shown to you, you could only hopelessly rest your head on tetcho’s chest. “oh, you’ve really done it now. you went all out with the gifts, huh?”

he gently placed his hand on your chin and lifted your head up. after that, he slid it from your chin to the back of your head, placing a kiss on your forehead.

“i love you,” he nonchalantly declared, “so i’ll get you anything”

it was from that moment on that you were sure that tetcho suehiro is a keeper.

note: i got a bit carried away, but tetcho is the love of my life so please send requests for him omg 🙏🏻

please reblog for more!

[allthedoorsareopennow]

Hereward The Wake and the story behind it!!

more research has occurred

so, background info:

- Hereward the Wake (also known as Hereward the Outlaw or Hereward the Exiled) was probably a real person, a landowning noble who (according to Gesta Herewardia) was exiled by the king (Edward the Confessor) at 18, then later led a local resistance to the invading Norman forces

- there are several accounts of Hereward’s life and story, many of which have fantastical elements suggesting that at least some parts are unreliable and inaccurate

- the most detailed account of Hereward’s life is Gesta Herewardia

- there was also a fictional 1886 book written about him, which was what is believed to have raised him to his current romantic, legendary status

- there was a bbc show about him in the 70s, which the bbc destroyed after broadcasting, so it is now lost media

lyrics

‘A child he of noble stock’ stories say he was a noble and there is evidence of a man called Hereward owning land in around that place at around that time

‘Held up a holy man who chose to flash his wealth around’ it appears he held land from abbeys and parishes, which could link to the ‘holy’ bit

‘But for his crime was exiled, sent out into the wild’ according to Gesta Herewardia, he was exiled for disobedience to his father and disruptive behaviour

‘Along his way he came across a princess duty bound/And saved her from betrothal to the master of the hounds’ Gesta Herewardia claims that in the intervening years after his exile, Hereward rescues a Cornish princess from an unwanted marriage. due to this part’s fantastical nature, it is believed this did not happen.

‘She asked that he would stay a while and she would be his bride’ I cannot find accounts of this, in most versions Hereward marries Turfida, a separate woman, who fell in love with him after hearing about his exploits

‘But he loved his servant Martin, so they left her far behind’ most accounts do mention that Hereward has a dedicated servant called Martin Lightfoot, though I can find little more about him

‘On every station, men and dogs, they rallied to his band/They joined him on an asteroid, where they could make their stand’ this probably refers to Hereward and others gathering in the Isle of Ely to fight back against the Normans

the tyrant likely refers to William the Conqueror

‘Until at last a holy man betrayed the safe way down’ the Normans bribed local monks, who told them a safe way across the marsh, allowing the Normans to capture Ely

‘They say that Hereward escaped, for his corpse was never found’ Hereward and some of his followers supposedly escaped into the wild fenlands and continued their resistance against the Normans. this escape is mentioned in all the earliest sources

‘Also he fought a bear’ this refers to an earlier part of a story, after his exile but before the battle at Ely, in which some accounts claim he fought an enormous bear. this is believed to be false.

I haven’t really talked about the chorus because it mostly details how Hereward is scary and a good fighter

I hope this was interesting :)

[magpies-gold]

Back From Mysterium

I did a very small couple of posts before this, but Saturday at Mysterium blew my expectations out of the water, and so I decided I needed to circle back around and try again as a much bigger post.

First, foremost, and coolest - yes! I got to meet Rand Miller (bonus infamous RAWA just to the left as well)! Even better, for once in my life my social anxiety didn't turn me into a non-verbal lump and I was able to say a grand total of two full sentences and a greeting. If you know me at all, then you know that that's quite the accomplishment. Usually @timmcosplay has to do the talking for me when I inevitably choke on my own tongue, but by a quirk of fate we got separated (he wanted to get our Book of Ti'ana signed and got yoinked into a different line up from me, who wanted photo evidence) and I had no choice but to attempt to be a functional human. My theory is that I've talked to Rand's face so many times during the intro to Riven (I always talk back) that it was just second nature to say hello the second he looked at me. Genuinely, though, he's so kind and so patient and I'm stoked that he made time to meet all of us and then spend a couple hours even after that being a presenter and answering heaps of questions.

Tim may have not been with me directly, but he was still creeping in the sidelines getting photos of me getting photo'd and briefly chatting. ;)

Ultimately, we were split into three groups and everyone ran through the events of the day in a different order.

Tim and I were on Team Ytram (or Team Forg as I insisted on calling it) and had little Rivenese froggos on our badges.

After the meet and greet, we got lunch. It was simplistic fare, but the fact that we got hot dogs and Cool Ranch Doritos out back of the Cyan HQ means that they were very special hot dogs and Cool Ranch Doritos. Legendary!

And then... they actually allowed my wee goblin self and Tim to go through the iconic archway entrance and to scramble around their actual studio. I've seen pictures of the place on the internet before and knew how neat it would be to some degree, but now I know where everything is!

In no particular order....

Iconic signage and that giant honkin' Moiety dagger that Adam Savage apparently worked on?? It is truly large in person!

Costumes from Riven! Including Catherine's dress, which I remember my mom was always cooing over when I was playing the game on my clonky PC in the late 90's, and Gehn's costume, with Tim posing (and having not totally slightly held up the rest of the group by getting detail shots for cosplay purposes, no, no, he wouldn't do that....)

Art! Design sketches and THE MAP.

The infamous elevator wherein you'd better know your D'ni numbers if you want to get anywhere (I would get stuck).

And then... artifacts!

They had THE LEVER from the beginning of Riven. Did it never occur to me that the lever was a real lever? THE LEVER IS A REAL LEVER.

Plus there were goggles and books and Gehn's gun (AKA the only Game Over inducing object in Riven) and more character design sketches with actual costume fabric swatches! That last bit made Tim make high pitched glee noises, as someone who both designs and makes costumes himself.

There were presentations after all of that. Trailers, talks, a non-profit project to digitize over a hundred hours of behind the scenes footage from the making of Uru and Riven and other things, which we got a sneak peek of. They showed off a snippet of the remake of Riven. There was just so much. It was hours and hours and I was practically vi-bra-ting by the time we finally were ushered back to the bus and back to Spokane.

I will never entirely get over the fact that I was able to go see all that with my own two eyeballs. As someone who's been enamoured with the universe surrounding Myst island for the full 30 years of its existence, ever since I was 8 years old, who used to make big calligraphy posters of passages from The Book of Atrus and The Book of Ti'ana and tape them up all over Thorhild Central School whether my fellow students and teachers wanted me to or not, and who was so solidly influenced by the idea of books as literal doors to other worlds that it became a foundation for how I view my own characters and stories (namely that I'm no god, and they do have a life all their own), this is a treasured memory.

[catofadifferentcolor]

Terrible Fic Ideas #40: BST, but make it f!Jon Snow/Viserys III

One of the things I've noticed is that even in Game of Thrones fics where Rhaegar wins, his brother Viserys is an unlikable - if not outright villainous - character. This is understandable, as the books make it clear that Viserys in exile is a desperate, angry, bitter, and cruel man willing to go to any lengths for his crown. Any good traits he might have once had have been long lost by the time we meet him.

Which got me thinking: what if Viserys was slightly less of a terrible person? Or: what would it take to have a believable female!Jon Snow/Viserys III romance?

Aka: The Dyanna the Defiant Fic

Just imagine it:

Brandon Stark finds out about his sister's abduction two weeks later than in canon. This changes nothing about his death, but it is enough for him to marry Catelyn Tully and leave her carrying his heir. Their son Rickard is Lord of Winterfell for all of his brief life but dies six months after the Rebellion ends, leaving his uncle and regent Ned Stark the new Warden of the North.

This changes everything as far as f!Jon Snow - let's call her Dyanna - is concerned. Ned claims Dyanna as his trueborn daughter with Ashara Dayne. Ashara still dies as in canon, and afterwards Ned takes "their" daughter north with House Dayne's blessing.

Ned ends up marrying his brother's widow. It's an amiable enough marriage, but Dyanna being trueborn doesn't stop Catelyn from taking out her bitterness over Brandon's abandonment and baby Rickard's death on her. This turns into genuine loathing of her stepdaughter over the years.

Dyanna grows up passionate and kindhearted, skilled with a sword but equally skilled with the herbal remedies - and poisons - she learns from Old Nan and the "witches of the wolfswood." Her temper is legendary from a young age - and no one rouses her temper like her stepmother. It's she who coins the nickname Dyanna the Defiant.

Then the Greyjoy Rebellion happens. Dyanna, impetuously, decides she's not going to stay in Winterfell and put up with her stepmother's treatment. She runs away to White Harbor with the intent of taking ship to Starfall. Instead, by whim or misfortune, she winds up in Pentos.

In Pentos, she is taken in by a pair of elderly lesbian midwives who pass along their knowledge and treat her like the granddaughter they never had. She takes over their business after they die, and it is for this reason that when Daenerys suffers a female complaint some months before she is set to marry Khal Drogo, Dyanna is brought in to treat her.

Which brings us to Viserys.

Viserys is still very much on track to become the man we see in canon, but about six steps removed. (Perhaps Willem Darry lived longer in this 'verse, giving him a more stable childhood and time to learn how to use a sword before they end up on the streets?) He still can very much become the man who threatens to cut out his sister's unborn child, but not yet.

Dany's marriage to Drogo here is less selling his sister for an army Viserys too stupid to realize he'll never get as much as it is finding a husband who will give Dany the life she deserves in exchange for the gold for Viserys to buy an army - gold he'll only get when Dany births a son, which is why he hires Dyanna to ensure Dany won't have the same obstetric troubles many Targaryen queens do.

Dyanna and Viserys fight like cats and dogs, but Dyanna likes Dany well enough, so she agrees to accompany them for the time being.

While Dany's plot proceeds as in canon, Dyanna and Viserys have a belligerent sexual tension side plot that could easily fall into masochism tango. Dealer's choice on the details, but I envision the course of their relationship being genuine hostility to reluctant fondness to oh shit, I'm in love with them.

Viserys, stung by Dyanna's well-aimed barbs, seeks to prove her wrong about him and, in the process, becomes a better person. At least as good a person as a Targaryen can ever be - more Daemon than Aerys, at least.

Drogo dies. Dany becomes the Mother of Dragons. Rather than continuing to head east, the three of them decide to head back to the Narrow Sea and plan their conquest of Westeros.

I say the three of them because it's around this time Viserys and Dyanna get their act together. Viserys asks her to be his queen, Dyanna tells him he needs a kingdom first, and Viserys replies that he'll reunite the Seven Kingdoms for her dowery.

There's a long reconquest sequence with Dyanna very much leading the fighting and strategizing, but they eventually succeed. Viserys is crowned king, Dyanna his queen, and Dany gets Storm's End after they bring an end to House Baratheon.

Bonuses include: 1) Nobody finding out - even suspecting - Dyanna is really Rhaegar's daughter until Ned Stark comes to Dragonstone a la season 7 Jon Snow seeking aid to fight the White Walkers. Viserys should claim to have suspected it all along, as a dragon could only love a dragon, and be very blasé about it. Dyanna is less pleased, mostly because it means she'll likely have to spend much of her recently revealed pregnancy on bed rest instead of at the front; 2) Catelyn Tully as a truly evil stepmother, her hatred driven to its highest heights by Dyanna's combination of dragon and wolf blood; 3) Dany claiming her dragon as her second husband to avoid remarriage and having several children who later historians claim were truly fathered by Aurane Waters; and 4) Viserys and Dyanna continuing their tradition of cat and dog fighting at court, to the extent where many think they're about to watch one half of the royal couple murder the other, and making up just as publicly.

And that's... really a lot more than I was expecting. As always, feel free to adopt this bun, just link back if you do.

Other Jon Snow Headcanons: Aegon the Undying | Aegon the Unyielding | Aemon the Adventurous | Baelor the Brave | Daeron the Desired | Dyanna the Defiant | King of the Ashes | Lady Arryn | Lady Baratheon | Lady Lannister | Lady Stark | Prince Consort | Prince of Summerhall | Queen Mother

More Terrible Fic Ideas

[zedxspacess]

My controversial wrestling take tonight is I liked Ospreay v MJF for what it was. Y'all say yall are sickos until its an actual weird/fucked up match up, and for me, I was always morbidly curious at what the hell kind of match their styles clash would create.

This got really long, but tldr; good match that could've used trimming and editing to get the point across.

I'm weirdly invested in a career long rivalry between MJF and Ospreay. I have a VISION, there's so much juicy character/story meat there that I don't think ppl realize (even TK, Ospreay, and Max) but I See It and go in detail in the read more, but that tldr is:

There were def points where the match dragged on, but I didn't notice until like 30-40mins in. Sure, they played to the crowd a bit much and lots of stalling with them rolling on the floor. Both of these guys' previous long matches were aided by the veterans they shared the ring with. So I'd say for a match they called on their own, they did pretty good all things considered--these guys are 28 and 31 years old respectively, like come on. Commentary said it was hot and humid as hell in that arena, so the fact they went that hard for so long is respectable. I also thought they wanted to challenge the idea of "Ospreay can't sell" by making it such a focal point, but imo they over corrected it at times to where it felt less believable the longer he sold the shoulder. If the match was shorter, I think they would've been able to hide it better or Ospreay could've remembered also selling the knee, but it is what it is to make it believable MJF could beat someone as athletic and powerful as Ospreay.

I think the beginning, parts of the middle, and ending wrestling moments were where a lot of the real meat of the story was that got buried in the downsides/all the stalling. I've seen some ppl say the match felt half MJFism, half Ospreayism, and finally a weird mix of both, and I think that's what they were going for: purposefully highlighting their staunch differences, the strengths and weaknesses of their respective styles, then forcing their opponent to dip into the others' style to meet in the middle. It's not just a clash of styles, but and ideological clash of what wrestling can be. Ospreay doing his athletic performance, but MJF being really pragmatic and countering in simple, creative ways. Max then gets too caught up in character, gets cocky, and lets his guard down where Ospreay's skill and power bulldozes him. So it forces Max to wrestle seriously and meet Ospreay on the mat and in athletics, while also forcing Ospreay to understand the way Max wrestles behind the theatrics, psychologically.

Also for Ospreay, its his ongoing story of "am I willing to bring out my darker instincts to win the match?" if MJF is willing to play so blatantly dirty. It's the conundrum with the Tiger Driver, but also with his matches with Kenny Omega and the Dog Pound Steel Cage match where he was pushed to an emotional limit where we saw a viciousness never seen before. I don't think they quite achieved this with Ospreay in AEW yet (minus the Kenny match), but Max as the top heel definitely has the potential to really get Ospreay down to his level in the future.

I overall liked all the highspots, MJF showing he could keep up with Ospreay's athleticism, Max's heelisms are missed, call backs to Cody/AJ Styles, the Ospreay/Ibushi landing on your feet spot. God, and Cole/Ricochet. Which btw, holy shit the connection between MJF-Ospreay tracing back to Max's friend and Ospreay's friend/mentor's legendary match; if we want to get real crazy, tag match between MJF-Cole vs Ospreay-Ricochet could be something.

Idk, I'm embarrassed to say it, but. I'm just personally super intrigued by the concept of Ospreay and MJF clashing--potentially for the rest of their careers--because of what they represent feels so diametrically opposed, they have to be at odds. But the irony in all of it is, at their cores, they are very similar.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: MJF is a pure acting, soliloquy-giving theater kid; Ospreay is the dance/choreography theater kid--which is a shoot, they legit have done those things irl, but it's also their characters. They care so much about story and emotion and performance. They go 100% in their preferred way of doing it and face heat because they do "too much" in their respective ends of the spectrum. As a result, they are so prideful and defensive about their favorite method. Max as a babyface was so extroverted, super loyal friend, outgoing neurodivergent kid and Ospreay's current character as a genuine, kinda dumb but passionate, golden retriever neurodivergent kid have similar energies. Both have the tendency to speak before thinking too. When you look at their heel characters, Max goes out of his way to embody all the spoiled rich kids of Long Island, while Ospreay tried to embody half chav-half spoiled rich kid culture in England. They're similar kids at hearts, it's just one of them had a diet of 90s Best of the Super Jrs+DragonGate, and the other had a diet of NWA territory+Attitude Era, and thus were sent on different paths.

The other main differences are Ospreay always had the United Empire with him who truly trusted him as brothers. When he left Japan, all the fans showered him in love, and arriving in AEW, fans continued that praise and acceptance. While Max never trusted anyone, even when surrounding himself with people. And the moment he did trust and tasted acceptance by fans, it bit him in the ass, got rejected by the fans, and it all only reassured his worst insecurities. Max is doing a lot of projection onto Ospreay for being accepted so easily, for taking his spot as top dog, for what he represents as his ideological opposite, for having it so easy. But Ospreay wears his heart on his sleeve because it wasn't easy for him, just watch the promo he did against Omega before Wrestle Kingdom. That fighting spirit has tempered him where he can handle the blows, he has the support system with him. He lacks the fear that makes MJF take on such an abrasive persona as a defense mechanism. Ospreay's genuine person, charm, outgoing energy is all what MJF could be or secretly wants to be--as seen on his face run--but was rejected. And he cannot stand it.

Personally, I think they should kiss fight forever about all of this.

[bloodycyrano]

DATV releases today, and while I've been trying to avoid spoilers like the plague in order to raw dog the game, here's my entire concept for my Rook because I just couldn't help it! Plus, it'll tide me over because I can't play today.

A Grey Warden! Mentored and trained by my very own Hero Of fereldon.

They were born in an alianage, into a broken home, with the biggest facination with the tales of the grey wardens. They idolized the wardens to a point of becoming somewhat of a fan-creature (They're nonbinary, and i feel like Fancreature is a great androgynous term for fangirl/fanboy) about them.

They were still a child when the fifth blight was ended, but the stories of the Hero Of Fereldon circulated far and wide, and Rook was quick to build Her up to be this ultimate hero and unstoppable force.

By 14, They had enough of the Alianage. Poverty, listening to their parents fight violently every day.. They ran away, hitching a ride across Ferelden from various travelling carts and eventually finding Bodahn Feddic, and his Son, Sandal; who were more than happy to tell them all about the fantastical hero Rook had idolized for years- Good and bad.

When Rook showed up at Soldiers peak, in search of their beloved hero, the HOF was quick to try and send them home. Several times. Rook kept coming back.

Eventually, HOF took them in, realizing they truly didn't have a home to go back to at this point, considering HOFs own disdain for the Alianage. However, HOF's intentions were far from entirely selfless.

My hero of fereldon was always a very manipulative and two faced anti-hero, constantly at war with the demons (figurative) in her own head. She was made an honest woman in her time as a warden, but her power complex and narcissism remained. She, more than anything, desired a mind to mold into the perfect warden in her stead. After all, she never wanted children of her own. But a student, to carry on her legacy as being what she thought was the most legendary warden of the dragon age? Say less.

Starting out, they had a complex relationship of teacher and student. HOF was fiercely protective over Rook, but also took measures to mentally and physically harden the child including harsh words, bitter truths, and physical labor. She took training to extremes, telling Rook that if they could not spar like the other recruits, they might as well stop wasting the HOFs time. That being a child wasn't an excuse, and if they wanted to be her student, they had to prove themselves- often resulting in a very battered and bruised child.

While she was never truly abusive, she was harsh and cruel at times, while also managing to Validate and fill the void of a mother figure in Rooks life.. Giving them gifts, comparing Rook to herself, teaching her about dalish culture as if Rook was her own child, eventually even sending Rook to learn from her very own clan Sabrae for at least a month out of every season. And when the time came, HOF was proud to personally give Rook their very own Vallaslin.

They fought empty handed until Rook was 16, because even in HOFs cruelty, she did not actually wish to harm them, and by 19, she finally decided that Rook could undergo the joining ritual as she had around that age.

Rook always had their fair amount of macabre interest, and varying morality, but HOF pushed it even further, instilling her own bad habits in the mind of the child. The obsession with blood magic and the blight, the power of blind rage, and the 'anything to win' mentality, even at the expense of other people.

The only thing HOF could not beat into them was the idea that manipulating people to get what you want was okay. Extortion? Sure. Threats? Sure. Violence? If the situation calls for it. But Rook was honest, and they always had been. Lying was something so far off the table that it became the one thing that began to crack the perfect image of their idol that they had in their head.

Long after the HOF made like my dad and went to get the milk, Rook continued trying to contact their lost mentor.. They had stopped receiving letters back soon after they began, but somehow, they just knew she was getting them anyway.

Rook does not believe the HOF will fall victim to the calling.. Perhaps it's delusion, or putting their idol on a pedestal, but they believe that if there is a single warden who could overcome it, it would be the hero of Ferelden.

Rook does have an inflated ego simply from the idea that they, themself, were the only person the HOF ever took under her wing. In their eyes, Rook is the perfect warden, trained by their very own hero and the hero of Ferelden itself. Therefore, they feel superior to all other wardens, largely because the HOF treated it this way.

Bonus!

Rook got Barkspawn hooked on eating raspberries. Barkspawn never would've gone into the gardens for sweet treats if not for Rook showing Barkspawn that they were yummy.- It became a near constant problem when HOF had to pull Barkspawn out of the thorny bushes.

Imagine having to pull a dog that's taller than you when it stands on its hind legs *out* of a viney bush full of thorns and fruit.

[oasis-nadrama]

"The Alien is cooked": A Theory of Franchise Renaissance

Oasis Nadrama, 23/09/2024

[Warning: Body horror, general spoilers for the Alien movies and for Prometheus]

H.R. Giger's Alien Monster IV

In 2014, early in the preproduction stages of the Prometheus sequel which would become Alien: Covenant, Ridley Scott declared "The beast is done. Cooked". He then gave in to fan and studio pressure and gave the new movie the "Alien" label, commenting "I'll give them fucking aliens!".

It may be a mistake.

What if the Alien franchise let go of of Aliens altogether?

Giger's painting Necronom IV, the ancestor to his legendary "Big Chap" creature design, better known as "the Alien", "the xenomorph", "the adult drone" or "Kane's Son"

When Alien hit the silver screen in 1979, a huge part of its impact was due to the fact Kane's Son was a never-seen-before creature (both aesthetically and conceptually), an unknown entity, and a total Eldritch abomination. It was inspired by a variety of real animal species, including parasitoid wasps, and various previous tales and flicks of space horror (Van Vog's The Voyage of the Space Beagle, Planet of Vampires and It! The Terror From Beyond Space are the most commonly indicated influences, although O'Bannon didn't have a specific source in mind when writing). But it was still a powerfully original entity, further strengthened by H.R. Giger's nightmarish and subversive creature design.

In the first movie, we don't know the limits of the Alien's life cycle. Alan Dean Foster, in the novelization, suggests that the crew of the Nostromo has no reason to hope that what we call today the "adult drone" form is the final stage, an idea I always found striking. And indeed Giger designed an unseen Alien Monster IV, which seems to be the hypothetical stage IV (and later was used by Cameron as an inspiration for the Alien Queen). There was also the suggestion by Ridley that Big Chap was about to naturally die by the end of the movie - it was oxydizing, and retired to the Narcissus for its last moments. We don't know the limits of its intelligence. O'Bannon thought the star beast was from a population which once had a developed culture, while Ridley had this unused idea for an epilogue where the Alien would use Ripley's voice to contact Earth (strangely reminiscent of a scene we would come to see in The Terminator five years later). We don't know its history, if it was a specimen, a weapon or even somehow part of the same ecosystem as the Space Jockey. we don't know its resistance. Until the all-new interquel, we didn't even know if Kane's Son survived the reactor burn or not.

This mystery is a huge part of the appeal of the movie, a titanic part of its sheer heaviness, and strangely part of the enigma remains intact even after seeing the entire series.

Big Chap, the face of the unknown

It is hard to deny that James Cameron's angle for a sequel banalizes the Alien. Love or hate AlienS, it is just a fact: we now know the Alien can be killed, and even killed by things as mundane as bullets, grenades or flamethrowers. We now know the limits of its intelligence, it is similar to a dog or a chimpanzee maybe, and only interested in killing and reproduction. We know it has a social structure. We know a gestation will always result in the same creature. We see an apparently closed life cycle, both in terms of successive transformations and reproduction. We see a complete hive, the endgame of the cycle, and the Queen reigning over it all. (I personally think Cameron's entire approach is a large mistake, which had sad consequences on the entire franchise, but I understand people who absolutely love this movie, and I think it's a matter of taste.)

Since then, the creature kept appearing. In the extended universe, it "diversified" into various castes generally playing with the same limitations, or simply trying to imagine "stronger Aliens" - the Praetorian, with all due respect, is just a Big Chap with more muscles. In the movies particularly, the classical Alien became the absolute star and the focus of the franchise.

The Alien hive: an iconic idea with diminishing returns?

By this point movies containing the original Alien (or a close approximation) are generally good DESPITE featuring the original Alien creature and close approximations, not BECAUSE it features it. (We will count the Neomorphs, Praetomorph, Newborn, Offspring and even the Deacon as "close approximations".)

Prometheus had it right all along. Despite its writing flaws, and the erratic quality of the creatures featured - we all hate Zombie Fifield, and regarding the Space Jockeys retconned as almost entirely humanoid Engineers, your mileage may vary -, the Prometheus project had its heart in the right place: it is time to look elsewhere.

But to look elsewhere does NOT mean to lose the focus. It does NOT mean the Alien movies should stop being about the main threat. It does NOT mean they should now propose corporate thrillers, fights against random and unrelated extraterrestrial lifeforms, etc.

It merely means to explore the same concepts from different angles. Do you remember what you felt when you saw the Trilobite serenely collapse upon the vainquished Engineer, and you recognized its typical posture?

Would ANYONE deny it was an incredible moment? Like, you may not like anything else in Prometheus, the themes, photography, bestiary, characters, etc, may not speak to you, but would you deny the power of this instant? When we finally see the facehugger in the Trilobite?

Don't you want more of it? Don't you want creative explorations of body horror, other disgusting biological processes - as Engineer bioweapons, as new stages of the Alien creature, as different incarnations of Plagiarus praepotens, whatever?

We could have creatures like the Vang which are created through the assemblage of multiple repurposed human beings. We could have parasites similar in process to the Half-Life headcrabs, who take control of a human body by merging with the head and then work from there. We could have creatures which eat human beings by vomiting their stomach in our mouth, starfish style. We could have anything.

Why not head towards a larger Alien universe, a sea of unknown nightmares which, while closely tied to the mythology as we know it, would make the experience alien once again?

Detail of the cover for the second book of The Vang trilogy by Christopher Rowley

[chanshoesunite]

24 Days of CHRISMAS: Day 19

Content info: YN is on a winter holiday with her uni friends and their friends, among them the distant but incredibly hot Chan. Chan and YN end up having to share a room. And there’s only one bed. The actual one bed problem will be solved in Part 2.

Word count: 1984

Warnings: none

When you hesitatingly agreed to share a room with Chan, nobody mentioned that there would only be one bed.

You never liked the idea of going away for New Year’s Eve. People always act like this particular night needs to be super special and super fun, which is an idea you find inherently depressing. After all, trying too hard never works, anyway.

You have only been friends with Jisung, Minho and Hyunjin since the beginning of the summer semester, meeting them in the university library in a little adventure that was caused by Hyunjin illegally sneaking his dog in, but it has been true platonic love from the beginning. So, when they announced that they would rent a cabin in the mountains for New Year’s and that you absolutely HAD to come, you said yes.

It’s early in the morning of the 30th of December, and you’re wrapped in plenty of layers as you’re waiting for Minho to pick you up. You’re going to be ten people at the cabin, apparently, so you’re taking two separate cars.

A silver Hyundai approaches you and honks, and you excitedly wave as the car comes to a stop in front of you. Hyunjin jumps out, happily hugging you before grabbing your overnight bag and tossing it into the car boot. You add a box of groceries you said you’d bring and climb into the back seat to find only Jisung there.

“Good morning,” you greet your friends, hugging Jisung and fluffing up Minho’s hair, “I thought someone else was driving with us?”

“Changbin and his girlfriend are sick,” Ji explains sadly, “which means we’ll only be eight people in total. But we called ahead, and they’ll actually get their money back, so I guess that’s worth something.”

You fall back in your seat. “But now I’m the only girl!” you pout, not actually worried – it’s not like it mattered before.

Hyunjin turns around to raise his eyebrows at you. “Don’t be a wuss,” he says. “We’ll have so much fun!”

You nod in answer. Your boys always have your back, they won’t be suddenly weird about you being the only girl. “I made us a road trip playlist,” you announce, and a minute later, you’re all happily singing along to a Charlie Puth song. Any reservations you might have had about going away for the weekend as the only girl among seven boys vanish as you spend the next two hours singing, sharing cookies and chatting with your three friends.

…

You are the second car to arrive, but only by a few minutes – the other four boys have only just picked up the keys from the reception hut. The huts, which are actually rather large wooden houses, are arranged in a loose circle on the side of a smaller mountain, facing a wonderful view over the snow-covered valley. They are far enough apart for privacy, but only a few minutes’ walk from the main building.

You all jump out of the car to greet the others, but you hang back a little because you’ve actually never met them before. Jisung quickly realizes what you’re experiencing, though, and, grabbing your hand, pulls you into the circle.

“Everyone, this is YN,” he announces lovingly, like a grandpa showing off his newest grandchild. “YN, this is Jeongin, our youngest. He looks very sweet, and he will be, but likely only to you.” He points at a boy with blond hair whose grin is both charming and evil.

“And this is Felix. Felix is our sunshine and the person you’ll want to ask about breakfast because his brownies are legendary.” “Hey, YN, I’m so excited to finally meet you! The others have kept you to themselves, but I can’t wait for us to be firm friends!” The freckled boy comes up to hug you, and you are touched by the kind gesture, embracing him back.

“This is Seungmin, he looks serious, but don’t worry, he’ll make fun of you, too.” Seungmin smiles shyly, and you smile back, not knowing what to do with that introduction.

“And this is Chan,” Jisung concludes, pointing at the guy who comes out of the hut, apparently already busy carrying the luggage inside. “He’s kind of the dad of the group.”

Chan only gives a quick nod before grabbing more luggage and going back to the hut. Weird. It’s almost as if he doesn’t want you there? Which would be too bad – the bit of face you can spy between beanie and scarf looks kind.

“Happy to meet you all,” you announce, trying to shake the awkwardness of Chan not really greeting you.

“It’s so cool that you actually came, Noona,” Felix says, grabbing your arm and pulling you towards the hut. “We were afraid you wouldn’t want to be the only girl here.”

You don’t have the heart to admit you might have given this more thought if you’d known earlier and simply smile at your new freckled friend. “I wouldn’t miss all the fun!”

Felix squeals and grabs to help you with your luggage. Together, all of you haul the backpacks and provision boxes into the wooden hut.

Once inside, you are surprised by how much bigger it feels on the inside. From the outside, it looked like the perfect gingerbread house, dusted with snow, but you find yourself in a little hall where you can store all of your shoes and jackets that opens into a huge open space with couches and a big dining table. With everything being made of wood, it could have felt overpowering, but there are lovely accents of colourful rugs and cushions as well as pictures on the walls and a big bookshelf so that the room feels extremely cosy. There’s also a decently sized kitchen with all the newest appliances, a big bathroom and a bedroom with a queen-size bed in it. A set of stairs leads to the first floor where you expect the rest of the bedrooms to be located.

“This is wonderful,” you exclaim as you wander into the kitchen where Minho is already putting away the food. He smiles at you. “I’m glad you like it,” he says. “Want to help with lunch?”

Minho knows you enjoy cooking, so you agree, and soon you’re both cutting veggies for the pasta dish you’ll be having, humming along to the music coming out of his Bluetooth speaker.

“Noona?” You look up to see Felix standing in the doorway. He looks a bit nervous. “There seems to be a slight problem, but it doesn’t have to be, not really?” He sounds questioning, so you stop cutting to properly look at him. “What’s wrong?”

Hyunjin comes into the kitchen, followed by Jisung. “Well,” he starts, “we expected to get a six-bedroom cabin, but with two people missing…” He glances at Ji, who blurts out: “You’re going to have to share a bedroom!”

You blink. “Oh-kay?” you say, because that doesn’t sound that dramatic. “Are there only four bedrooms?” Hyunjin nods sheepishly. “And we’ve sort of already though about it. I am staying with Felix, and the maknaes want to stay in a room together, and you know how Jisung and Minho are besties, so…” He hesitates. “Would you be cool sharing the room with Chan?” Uff. That is slightly awkward. But at the same time, is it really? You don’t know him yet, maybe he’s a laugh and you’ll have a great time. And you also don’t want to make this difficult for everyone – you’ll literally only sleep in the same room. “I don’t mind if he doesn’t!” you say, smiling brightly.

Chan enters the room, having heard your last words. “If I snore, you can kick me out and I’ll take the living room couch,” he promises, meeting your eyes for the first time. There’s a little twinge inside your heart as he does, and he blushes. You smile slightly. “I’ll take you up on that,” you mock-threaten, and the boys all guffaw, relieved to have solved the potentially troubling situation. “I’ll bring your bag to the room, then,” Hyunjin promises, and they all leave hurriedly, worried you and Minho might give them something to do in the kitchen. The last one, Jisung, doesn’t get spared, though, and Minho makes him set the table.

“That was sweet of you, YNnie,” Jisung says as he grabs the cutlery. “I’m sure it’s awkward to stay with someone you don’t know. But trust me, Chan is the best person ever. He is just a tiny bit shy in the beginning.” He gives you an encouraging pat on the back, almost stabbing you with eight forks in doing so.

“Ya!” Minho yells, throwing a wet dishcloth at him. “Don’t you dare stab the only person here who actually lifts a finger to help me!”

…

After lunch, someone gets out the boardgames, and that is the exact moment that ends all of your plans to explore your surroundings. The gaming frenzy grabs the eight of you. The boys are all extremely competitive, one round of Codenames turns into ten rounds, and people only leave for short bathroom breaks or to get more water from the kitchen. After hours of laughing and screaming and friendships almost ending multiple times, Minho disappears for a bit to make all of you cheese toasties, which you eat while playing Activity, and the game afternoon turns into a game night.

You all also have a drink or too, but not too much, because who wants to be hungover on New Year’s Eve? Nobody, that’s who.

Weirdly enough, it’s almost always the maknaes and Chan against you and your trio of uni friends, so it’s really hard to bond with your roommate when you’re constantly trying to defeat him at various games. You have a lot of opportunity to look at him, though, and what you realise is that this boy is fucking ripped under his clothes. The fireplace makes it warm enough so that you’re all wearing short-sleeved t-shirts, and Chan’s is obviously working overtime to contain his broad shoulders and muscled arms.

Chan is also incredibly sweet. Maybe not to you, he is civil, sure, but not more. However, he really cares for his friends, especially the younger ones, making sure they’re always comfortable. He’s a good hyung, and it endears him to you even further.

Basically, at the end of the day, you’ve barely talked to your roommate, but you’ve stared at his arms for hours. And you’re also just slightly tipsy. That’s not going to be weird AT all.

At around midnight, Minho calls it a day, and you get first slot at the downstairs bathroom. Coming out changed into your pyjamas with brushed teeth and cared-for skin, you notice you actually don’t know which room you’ll be staying in. You tell Jeongin, whose turn it is to use the bathroom after you.

“You’re staying down here, Noona,” he says, smiling at you, before he closes the door behind himself.

Downstairs.

Wait.

A distinct memory of one (1) queen sized bed surfaces in your mind.

The size of bed you’d only want to sleep in with someone you know well.

You stand there alone in the hallway, contemplating feigning a sickness and having to leave. You can’t even anticipate how awkward it is going to be to walk into the bedroom and slip into bed next to Chan, possibly having to climb over him as the bed is set against the wall. Chan, who was so quiet, so distant and who is also so. Fucking. Hot. ???

Fuck.

You accept your fate and march back into the bedroom. At least you’re not embarrassed of your pyjamas – the plaid trousers and black tank top are fine. You find Chan, sitting on the bed, in nothing but grey sweatpants.

As in, shirtless. What the actual fuck. How are you supposed to survive this?!

~Day 20, Part 2~

[my-emily-gilmore-era]

Halston's Kelly Bishop on Playing Powerhouse Fashion Publicist Eleanor Lambert

Plus, the Gilmore Girls actress reflects on the enduring appeal of Emily Gilmore.

BY CAROLINE HALLEMANN MAY 21, 2021 | Town & Country

Kelly Bishop loves to play a woman with a mouth on her. Known to many as Emily Gilmore, Gilmore Girls's haughty matriarch, who was rarely without a quip (or a cocktail), Bishop appears this month in Halston, the Netflix limited series chronicling the legendary rise and abrupt fall of one of America's most iconic designers. In it, she plays powerhouse fashion publicist Eleanor Lambert, who had, as Bishop puts it, "a mouth like a sailor."

Here, Bishop talks with T&C about the trendsetting Lambert, her new dog named "Baby" (yes, that is a Dirty Dancing reference), and if we'll see her play Gilmore again.

Why initially drew you to playing Eleanor Lambert?

I didn't even really know about Eleanor to start, but I loved the role. This one had a mouth on her, and I just got so tickled by that. The fact that she worked and lived in such an elegant world with so many influential people, and she's got a mouth like a sailor, as they used to say. And then, I did more research on her, not enough I'm sure, but the more I thought about her, the more I learned, this woman was ahead of her time. She was a real trendsetter.

Kelly Bishop as Eleanor Lambert and Ewan McGregor as Halston.

What was essential for you in creating the character?

The script was wonderful, and it was all there in the character and the exposition. I loved her forcefulness and her real dedication to American fashion. I'm always impressed with people who have a vision, and a determination, and she made it work. She was a remarkable woman. I was really honored to play her.

And she cared a great deal about fashion. The fact that she came up with this idea for Versailles, it means that she had her connections in France as well. She'd been there, she saw that it was falling apart, and came up with this idea that she wanted the world to know about American fashion. If I recall, in those days, it was all French fashion. If it was couture, it was French. And so she's going, "No, no, no, no." The stakes are very high for her. She said this is going to be my defining moment—and then she pulled it off.

She has a line in the show, asking if Halston can be a businessman and an artist. Do you ever think that way about your acting career?

There's no reason not to. I have a very strong philosophy about work: if you love it, you're usually good at it, and if you're good at it, you can make money. And so, I don't see why that can't happen. I would feel so badly, especially when I was younger and contemporaries my age were doing things that they didn't want to do, and were a little afraid to follow their dream. I would say, "Follow your dream. You don't know where it's going to take you. And if you're not successful, you might see an offshoot that you didn't even know about. So go for it." I always just went after it. When I saw opportunities, I jumped at them, and fortunately, I've been very, very lucky.

"I’m just saying this woman was ahead of her time. she was a real trendsetter," Bishop said of her character, Eleanor Lambert.

Halston started filming pre-COVID, and then you all came back after a break. What has the past year been like for you?

It's been a really tough year. On a personal level, I'm a fairly recent widow. It's been two years, but any widow will tell you that's nothing. And then, I had my dog who kept me going, and last of February, she was quite old and I finally had to let her go. That was a week, maybe two weeks, before I started filming on Halston.

I only did one scene, and of course, we were hearing a lot about COVID. It was really coming around, and then, when I called to find out when my next shoot day was, I was told that we were closing down. That was so dreary because then, the shelters were cleaned out of dogs. You couldn't find a dog. By May, I was thinking, "Okay, it's time," and there was still nothing, nothing, nothing. So that was really hard, because dogs, they give you a schedule. They give you a whole routine that keeps you going—and I didn't have that.

But it was a terribly hard year for everyone. I felt so badly for the children, of course, and the old people. I mean, I'm in that category too. It was just so hard for people and so isolating. It's a good thing we didn't know how long it was going to be. I think a lot of people would have just given up, I truly do.

And then the relief of getting the vaccine. It's been an unbelievable time that we've gone through, and now we're just climbing out of it. I just wish more people would embrace the vaccine. I don't get that. That's a whole other conversation, but I just don't get it.

Kelly Bishop and Jerry Orbach in Dirty Dancing.

I have to ask, do you have a new dog?

Guess what happened? Monday, I adopted a dog. They say she's six years old, and I'm taking her to the vet tomorrow. But my dog walker, she said, "I think she's older than that." And I said, "That's fine with me, because I'm not that young, so I don't mind."

Have you named her yet?

Well, this is silly. I kept referring to her, as you do very often with animals, as Baby. "Come here Baby. That's good, Baby." And then finally, I thought, "You know what? Her name is Baby." I wrote to Amy Sherman-Palladino, and I said to her, "Well, I'm calling her Baby. It's probably about as original as Max and Lucky." But, I did Dirty Dancing and they had that line that everybody holds on to, ‘Don't put Baby in the corner,’ So I said, "Okay, she's Baby."

Ryan Murphy [the executive producer of Halston] recently said he acquired the rights to do an adaptation of A Chorus Line. Had you heard that?

I haven't heard anything. I honestly tell you, I did not like the film. When it was all said and done, I said, "It was okay as a film, but it didn't have anything to do with A Chorus Line." And in the film, so many of the things that they did were things that we had tried in rehearsal and they were scrapped because they didn't work. So suddenly there's a film and I'm going, "No, no, no, no, that's wrong. That's wrong. That's wrong. That's wrong." So I would love to see that. I'd love to see a presentation that was closer to the original, because it was such a truly brilliant show. Oh, that's exciting. I hope it pans out for him.

Kelly Bishop, pictured here second from the left, won a Tony for her performance in the musical A Chorus Line in 1976.

I have to ask you about Emily Gilmore and why do you think people still have such an affinity for her, long after the show aired?

Once Netflix got the whole shebang, it seems we developed a new audience. And it's the teenagers; it's another generation; it's the daughters of the women who first used to watch it.

Emily Gilmore, well, she's such a piece of work isn't she? And I love playing women who aren't wonderful, sweet ladies, because frankly I find them a little boring. She's so complicated. And of course, the more I worked on it, the more I found myself digging into her backstory.

I don't think I asked Amy much about her because she was so evident on the page. I looked at it and I knew how I wanted to play her, and I think people kind of get a kick out of the fact that she is so tough.

She's got her standards and of course she's so hard on her daughter, which is terribly unfair at times, but then adores her granddaughter. And in fact, she actually adores her daughter, but she just can't let go of this very stiff cultural life that she had and she expects everyone else to have. And well, the whole show's funny. That always helps no matter what you're playing, if it's funny, it works.

Kelly Bishop as Emily Gilmore.

Would you play her again, if there's an opportunity?

Yes, I would. But we've already kind of done that, with those four extra episodes. And I honestly think it's very unlikely that kind of a situation could be pulled together because so many of the important actors in it, they've all gone their separate ways and have other projects and other things to do. It would have to be like a continuation of those four extra episodes, but I just don't see it happening. And I don't see Amy being interested in it, because Mrs. Maisel is such a huge hit and deservedly so. I just don't see her wanting to go back and revisit it. We all loved it, and there might be some opportunity, but it doesn't seem too likely. But sure, I’d play her again. I'd love to.

[roosterbox]

So. Hannibal. I watched Episode one.

I took notes.

Apéritif

WILL GRAHAM MY DARLING MY LOVE

ach, such blood already. Nice.

This is my design *hypes*

Y’know, I’ve shipped Hannigram for years, never actually heard their voices.

On that note, Will’s voice is like HONEY.

Jack Crawford! Idk if I’m supposed to like him, but he’s played by Laurence Fishburne, so I can’t fully hate him.

Will Graham. Every time I see his face, I’m filled with love. Baby boy.

CAT! as a cat person, I love to see it

Oh, now where is this going???

Oh my god Beverly

All these dudes just barging in. Jackie, I thought you said Mai boi wouldn’t be interrupted?

WINSTON!!!!!1!11 ❤️❤️❤️

Will’s dogs ❤️❤️❤️

Jesus Christ Will, I’m not sure it’s normal to sweat that much while sleeping.

Jackie what did that crime board ever do to you?

USE THE LADIES ROOM lmaooo

Will sure loves his plaid shirts

This is one of the nicest bathrooms I’ve ever seen

Bev’s back, and being science-y

Ah, Alana. I like you. You kind of come between the hannigram at times, but I do like you.

“He won’t get too close” cut to Will at the autopsy. Very nice, Jack.

“He’s eating them”

Is this who I think it is?

AHHHHHH Hannibanni at last!

Oh god Hannibal has a honey voice too! I am not going to survive this series.

I have a man in a fancy suit weakness and Hannibal is like kryptonite

HANNIGRAM MEETING FOR THE FIRST TIME - an absolutely legendary moment

I can’t fucking breathe these twooooo

Oh my goooood Hannibal is *heart eyes motherfucker*

Will ‘the Hulk’ Graham apparently

Minnesota Shrike, eh? Interesting…

I love a man who cooks, lol

Moar cooking, yesssss

Abigail… *sigh*

Oooooh Will you sassy bitch ilu

Hanni, i adore you but wtf is that tie?

Ahhhhhhh house call

Hanni is smitten already

Will no don’t….. he ate it, lol.

“I don’t find you that interesting.” “You will.” *high pitched screaming*

Fragile little teacup lol

Mongoose

These two have the most interesting endearments, lol

And now they’re best friends

Investigating together, very nice

Hannibal what are you doing

They know.

Will, nobody should look that good spattered in blood

This is pretty intense

Hannibal says “you and I are her parents now, Will.”

Alana called you out, Jack. I knew I liked her.

Abigail has two daddies

So that was fun. My years of reading Hannigram have suitably hyped me up for this show. I’ll watch more tomorrow, perhaps.

[misanthropecopy]

So thoughts on Pokemon scvi, or in just my case violet. Warning there are major spoilers below:

I personally enjoyed it, more so than I did with the last gen at least. Though I must confess that I am what you call a casual gamer, who focuses more on the story than the actual gameplay so the obvious glitches didn’t bother me too much. I actually found some of them to be funny. That being said, I know if my filthy casual eyes noticed them, everyone else probably saw them too. Personally the only glitch that bothered me was the elite four soundtrack going on like a broken record as I battled them. It did produce some kind of urgency within me, but it was a shame that I didn’t get to hear the full theme. With that out of the way, lets get on to what I enjoyed the most about it the story. 

Now when I purchased Violet I was set on doing all three paths, which seemed to be the right decision. I really enjoyed how the stories addressed different kinds of trauma. Arven with his parents, Penny/Team Star being bullied into becoming a lowkey gang themselves. Heck even Nemona despite her happy-go-lucky and frankly fearless nature probably suffers from having a lack of real friends. Since it’s apparently implied her battle-loving nature often drives people away. Then there is Miraidon or the main box legendary, whose dealing with not only losing a territorial dispute, but also LITERALLY WATCHING THEIR “CARETAKER” TAKE A FATAL BLOW FOR THEM. I CANNOT stress enough how scarred they must have been from that.

Another thing I enjoyed was that in the climax we actually STOPPED some human innovation here. In Pokemon science is often praised as seen with the npc in each starting town claiming “Science is amazing” and all that in every generation. But Pokemon doesn’t often address the price you pay for “progress” and how easily it can lead to hubris before an inevitible downfall. It’s part of why I like both Mewtwos stories/origins so much, as they are living testaments to the cost of humans trying to play God. Both Turo and Sada were so consumed with their work and seeing their dreams fulfilled, that not only did they neglect their son they failed to see the consequences of what their goals might do to the environment. Sure they protected Miraidon/Koraidon in the end, but did they ever learn their lesson? This we are not given an answer on. 

Speaking of the Pokemon, let’s talk about them. I or was leaning towards Sprigatito when the first trailer came out and while I was a little disappointed that it stood up, I have to admit it was the cutest of all the gen 9 starter evos for me. I love my Modest-natured girl named Spring and will take down anyone who gets creepy with her. The tinkatink line is freaking hilarious and there are plenty of weird, new mons that I caught simply because I wanted to know more about these funky little creatures. There were very few designs that I didn’t like in this gen, which is pretty sweet. The fact that you interact and actually get the box legendary in the beginning of the game is great, as it let’s you really form a bond with it. You may not be able to use it in battle, but it’s with you when you picnic, it’s your main mode of trasportation, you share your meals with it and frankly it has a cute, almost dog/cat-like personality. It’s really fun, to be around and use.

Now let’s talk about the implications of the future Pokemon found in area zero.

I’m fairly certain that in both version of the games these paradox Pokemon are violent and can be beyond anyone’s control. As seen with professor Turo/Sada. Now in Sada’s case, that would seem obvious right? She literally took Pokemon that were from a million years ago, during a time where humans probably didn’t exist yet. Of course these Pokemon unfamiliar with mankind in general would be prone to lash out at them, right? So what’s the deal with the futuristic Pokemon? All of them seem to be robots of some design, so wouldn’t it be logical that they obey human commands, like most current Pokemon do? Why are they so volatile then? Well I have two theories on this. One is that humanity died out and left the planet in an almost uninhabitable state. So much that some or many Pokemon species had to become more mechanical to survive. Who knows? Maybe even some Mewtwo had a hand in altering their genetic structure, so they might live? The second theory I have is basically just that humans in the future are made of far more sturdier stuff then present people in Pokemon. 

Either way, I had a fun time. Though I probably won’t bother with the post-game stuff until Gamefreak updates the scvi to fix their blatant bugs.

To any Gamefreak/Nintendo person who may be reading this: Please, there’s no need to rush your games. Take time to have a break once in a while. Spend time with your friends and family. An overworked head will not bring out the best you have the offer. We don’t need a Pokemon game every year. Heck you don’t even have to release any side games for a while. Just focus on the next gen for now and if you need to delay a game, do it. I at least will understand.

[blossomingbooks]

Book Review: Arturo's Island, Elsa Morante

Here's my blossoming book review (English version) of my favorite Italian novel: L'isola di Arturo by Elsa Morante. For the original review in Italian, click here!

Plot summary

Arturo's Island (L’isola di Arturo), a masterpiece of Italian literature from the 20th century, is set around 1938 and talks about a 15 year old boy, Arturo Gerace, born in the island of Procida, near Naples. This island encloses his whole world; he spends all of his childhood and youth there, in a solitary idyll. His mother died at childbirth and his father, Wilhelm Gerace, a shady Italo-Austrian who he idolizes like a hero, travels a lot out of his own will.

During his long periods of absence, Arturo lives exclusively in the company of his dog Immacolatella in the "House of the guaglioni" ("young boys" in the Neapolitan dialect). This house where he lives is so named because it was inherited from an old misogynist friend of his father, Romeo l'Amalfitano, who hated women and used to make many banquets and masked balls where no woman was admitted. As a result, Arturo has never met a woman and lives with a negative and hostile idea about them.

One day, his father takes home his young new wife, only 2 years older than Arturo, called Nunziata. He feels contrasting things that he can't explain: between hatred and empathy, between desire and jealousy. And here begins a journey of 2 years that can be translated as a initiatory voyage of a boy towards life. In fact, the book has for its subtitle "Memoirs of a Boy", because it narrates the maturing of Arturo and the crises derived from it.

A coming-of-age novel

As Cesare Garboli writes in the Introduction to this edition of the book, “loves and furors burst, defeats and gallantries approach”. Arturo discovers, “as if they had never existed before him, (…) the eternal themes of living (love and boredom, desperation and jealousy, friendship and pain)”. Life, for him, “recovers its first songs, its primitive, extremely fresh accents. The state of unawareness of boyhood, in which he lives at the beginning of the book, like an absolute and unrepeatable Eden, is gradually replaced by the bitter awareness of reality, while he opens his eyes to existence".

Because of this, Arturo's Island is considered a Mediterranean “coming-of-age”. In German, a Bildungsroman: a literary genre that concerns itself with the evolution of the protagonist towards maturing and adulthood. As Morante says:

"I wanted, with this book, to write a story that resembles a bit in certain things to Robinson Crusoe — that is, the story of a boy that discovers for the first time all of the biggest, most beautiful and also the ugliest things of life. For him everything is adventure, amazement, beauty, because he sees things for the first time and has no experience neither of good nor of evil. And since he lives in one of the most beautiful islands that I've ever known, that is the island of Procida, everything that falls under his eyes is of a particular beauty."

Arturo and the island

There's an individualist trait that's very present on the character of Arturo. His idyllic and supreme solitude brings him closer to the island itself. The choice of an island as the setting for the narrative is very allegorical: the latter, in geophysical terms, is detached from the continent, immersed in the silence and the vastitude of the sea; it's a secluded space that represents the isolation of Arturo himself.

Maybe the consequence, as well as the cause of this isolation is the fact that the protagonist is characterized by a great narcissism. In fact, the book begins, in its first chapter called "King and star of the sky”, with the phrase: “One of my first vanities was my name”. He explains that his name, Arturo, is also the name of a star from the constellation Boötes and the name of a legendary king from antiquity. This vanity for his name is just one indication of his very egocentric personality, deriving from his solitude. This narcissism, however, culminates, later, in negative passions such as jealousy.

Afterwards, between the discovery of love through Nunziata and the ruin of the heroic figure of his father, some say that Arturo can be interpretated as a a case of Oedipal complex. However, I think that his psychology is more complicated than that, because the essence of the story isn't as much his relation to either of them, but with himself. He says once that he awaits "the full day", the perfect beauty of life, that he believes will arrive when he becomes older; but instead reality reaches him like a shadow.

The "full day" was his boyhood; night comes with awareness, like Adam and Eve after having eaten the apple. Cesare Garboli says that "Arturo's Island is a small and cryptic resurrected Achilleid. The hero, warlike boy of star name, Arturo-Boötes (…) is granted to live only a shining morning, an instant of solar and glorious splendor" because "the novel (…) implies through all of its duration, making it clear only at the end, a dark, hidden theme of narcissistic neurosis”.

Misogyny and homossexuality

While I read this book, many things disgusted me. Since the beginning, this theme of “hatred towards women” was presented with the story of Amalfitano, the previous owner of the House of guaglioni; but here it seemed almost like a comical concept, so I thought that it would have some kind of feminist critique.

However, with the introduction of the character of Nunziata, Arturo's father, Wilhelm, treats her in such an abrupt manner that sometimes I'd write him insults in the margins. Here's an example: right before their wedding night, he tells her “now, get ready to pay me" and then the narrator describes how he “grips her in his chest, without, however, giving her caresses or kisses, but, on the contrary, almost mistreating her and ruffling her hair", while she was visibly afraid of him.

This behavior remains throughout the whole book, she submissive, and even Arturo treats her during most of the time in an angry way and with violent words — for other reasons, but obviously as a consequence of the example of his father. These disgusting and misogynistic attitudes, which I hoped would be a social critique, aren't even explained and Nunziata's role doesn't change.

On the one hand, this aversion can be explained by Wilhelm's obvious repressed homosexuality. His marriage to Nunziata is clearly an attempt of fighting against these desires and of hiding the life he leads when he's absent from the island. His chauvinism can be interpretated, then, as a symptom of his internal battle. On the other hand, this seems like a bit of a prejudiced and harmful perception of homosexuals, as if their self-expression would cancel the rights of women.

Morante's relation with gender

Elsa Morante was severely condemned by the radical feminists of her time for her failure in outlining female characters that could be considered "strong" and taken as models by new generations of readers. Her work was defined as anti-women or even misogynist, and often accused of chauvinism. She never chooses an emancipated woman (like she was, from very early on) for a heroine; instead, her female characters are always feeble, illiterate, stupid, mean, unfaithful or submissive to men like Nunziata.

The only positive thing that I found from the point of view of gender studies was the idea that, although not talking about the effects of chauvinism on women, she evokes its effects on men. The need to reach his virility for self-affirmation is, indeed, an explicit theme in the character of Arturo. And if women, who can't leave the asphyxiating mother-daughter pairing, become mothers in their turn, men remain forever sons, marked indelibly by a desire, a need for love eternally lost.

Moreover, Elsa Morante also wrote many times with male pseudonyms and she said that, for Arturo's Island, “the choice of this male protagonist is born from my ancient incurable desire to be a boy”. Hence, being a chauvinist or not, it seems to me that she had a certain psychological fascination, conscious or not, for the male gender...

[sinceileftyoublog]

The Children's Hour Interview: The Right-sized Clothes

Photo by Dan Osborn

BY JORDAN MAINZER

As guitarist Andy Bar is figuring out his preferred Zoom settings, the rest of The Children's Hour are talking about animals. David Pajo's impossibly white cat Snowball has joined the picture. Josephine Foster shares a recent dream she had where she had acquired a similarly white, fluffy dog. Pajo reminisces on playing with Superwolves for actual wolves at a sanctuary in southern California. Foster remembers a time she played a show for donkeys in Spain; two of them copulated during the set. The band continues to share unique life experiences--wildlife-related or otherwise--that, were they merely the versions of themselves who had made the album we're about to talk about, even they wouldn't believe.

In what is currently being immortalized in a Bar-drawn comic on the band's Instagram page, the unlikely story of The Children's Hour is as follows: Opera school dropout Foster and School of the Art institute of Chicago student Bar were in a trio called Golden Egg that disbanded before even finishing a song. The two decided they liked writing together, so they continued as a duo, for fun. Foster would craft a song around Bar's written riffs and chord progressions. Eventually, they had some songs, settled on a band named after a Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem, and played at open mics, bars, and basements around Chicago. They released a self-titled EP, and then an LP called SOS JFK. Legendary venue The Hideout invited them to play a variety show hosted by none other than Zwan. (That was the night they met Pajo, who lent Foster his guitar.) Zwan liked them and asked the very band who at the time were playing tiny venues, to open for them on their tour. In order to fill out The Children's Hour's sound for larger venues, Pajo played drums with them every night. The chemistry then was as palpable as it would be on a Zoom call twenty years later. Though Foster and Bar were set to move from Chicago, they liked their new sound with Pajo, as the now-trio was transforming the old songs and writing new ones. In an effort to capture lightning in a bottle, they recorded with Paul Oldham in Shelbyville, Kentucky.

Over the next twenty years, the band didn't see each other much, and nobody could find the recordings, until Oldham stumbled upon them in his archives. So the three met to mix and master at The Bomb Shelter in Nashville. Pajo asked Drag City--the same label that approached an already signed Foster and Bar that fateful night at the Hideout--whether they'd like to release Going Home, the long-awaited second album from The Children's Hour. That's how we got to where we are, with the album coming out on Drag City tomorrow.

"To me, it's a 20-year-old record," Pajo said of Going Home. "It's a document. I can't comprehend how people will take it." Listening to the record, you can certainly hear the artistic trends of the early 2000s and the indie folk of today it would go on to inspire. The interplay between Foster's wincing lead guitars and Bar's acoustic strumming on "Dance With Me" leads a slightly twee indie pop duet, an anthem for the shy. "Adoption Day", which appeared on SOS JFK, gets a spritely guitar line and coasts along Pajo's bossa nova-esque rhythms. It's also immediately apparent how the band saw their expanded sound. The slow-burning "Rainbow" builds up like Songs: Ohia, while the gentle acoustic strums, wiry bass, and whistles of "Anna"--another rerecord--becomes an upbeat rocker that's closer to that dog. than it is to Joanna Newsom.

Going Home is also a product of the band's inner monologue circa the early 2000s, especially Foster's, as she was living in a major city following upsetting events both personal (a breakup) and collective (9/11). As such, there's a sense of urban loneliness that pervades the album. Foster yearns for the wilderness on "Anna" and "Wyoming" and pokes fun at celebrity culture on "Leader Soldier". Breezy lead single "Bright Lights" is nonetheless dark, like a diary from someone's final hours on Earth. And the title track, which Foster describes as an "old-fashioned pop song," sees her screaming her words of devotion, something that could cause current devotees of her arty folk to double-take.

As it happened between albums one and two, however, songs of The Children's Hour have the potential to grow, to take on a life of their own. They'll be playing at the Hideout on March 26th, with Sabrina Rush on bass, filling out their sound even more. "Music isn't limited by things like time," Pajo said. "One could argue no music is ever finished. You could always pick it up again. There's certainly some music I'm happy to leave behind. But The Children's Hour never felt resolved. Even now, it doesn't have to be a resolution. It's got new legs."

Below, read my conversation with Foster, Bar, and Pajo, edited for length and clarity.

Andy Bar's album art

Since I Left You: A few of the songs from The Children's Hour EP and SOS JFK ended up on Going Home, rerecorded with David. When you recorded this, with a mix of new songs and old songs, were you trying to see what you had with the three of you as opposed to just the duo?

Josephine Foster: I feel like we had made our first record in sort of a rush and weren't very comfortable with the recording process. It was a lovely opportunity, but we had never done any recording in the studio or had a label. Everything felt a little unnatural, if that makes sense. It was formative to...tour with David, for me, because it felt like we finally had the balance. The songs felt in their natural position. The new songs came forth, and everything started to feel confident and make sense. The reason we made an EP first was it was a lovely introduction to this label, Minty Fresh, but we were a really new group. We were very casual. All these things happened to us swiftly, but we hadn't really had a lot of time as a band. It was just our little friendship and fun project. I hadn't sung in a microphone before. Scarcely.

David Pajo: Wow.

JF: I didn't know how to use headphones. I was trying to find my voice after opera singing. I was super self-conscious. We went to the studio, and the gentleman from the record label was well meaning, and not that he was ordering us what to do, but he was an authoritative presence. I was like, "What is this? I don't get it." I felt super nervous the whole [time]. Then, we brought in a couple drummers we had never played with. Our friend came and played bass. [We used] a click track. All of it was new to me. I didn't know Andy as well. Honestly, I never listened to records, really, in my life. I listened to classical music. When you're starting out, you don't know because you've never tried. We made the record, but it was a patchy conglomeration of these sonic experiments. For me, [the songs on the debut are] kind of a prequel. I don't even regard them as finished products. When we met David and played them on tour every night, then we became a band. Then, when we [were making Going Home], we thought, "What are the songs [best] for this trio?" It didn't matter if we had recorded one or two of them on an EP or the [first] record. That was like the wrong-sized clothes.

DP: How did [your experience with the first engineer] contrast with the engineer we worked with?

JF: I never worked with someone again who sat there as a producer in a concept role. I was really uncomfortable with that. I know it's very typical.

DP: Hearing yourself in a microphone, especially with everything you went through, there's no brochure that explains the recording process. Everything sounds so sterile and gross.

JF: It's totally sterelized.

DP: It's really a jarring experience entering a studio like that for the first time, with all these strangers telling you what to do. I'm glad that the Shelbyville recording was the opposite. It was super relaxed. It wasn't labored at all.

JF: Just live in a room together.

Andy Bar: I don't think we did that many takes of any particular song.

SILY: Does Going Home feel like your debut album, then?

JF: To me, it does. When you make a record, you want to listen back and say, "Yes, that's what I want to hear." [laughs]

DP: Also, I think having the digital files transferred to analog tape and mixed analog brought out the best of the recording. It makes it a really pleasing listen. I listen to it all the time. I almost never listen to the records I played on for enjoyment, because I can't objectify myself and separate myself from the recording. [Going Home], I'll put it on, and it changes the atmosphere in the room for whoever is present, even for my kids or anyone who has never heard it.

Bar's comic

SILY: You've said this record is a moment in time. Since this was recorded twenty years ago, you've all released a large number of records, especially Josephine. When you listened to these recordings for the first time after twenty years, were you immediately transported back to when you recorded them?

JF: I was transported back. I felt a sort of longing to share it. There's no smoke and mirrors. There's no studio tricks. It sounds good.

AB: When I was listening to the old stuff for the first time in a while, it did transport me back to the band that I remembered.

SILY: When I listen to it, I definitely hear the sound of other music at that time, not to say that if this was recorded in 2024 it would sound out of place. Maybe this is hindsight, but it sounds like a record from the early 2000's. For someone my age, that carries a ton of nostalgia. It's a formative era in music for me. Do you remember what inspired a lot of the lyrics and narratives at the time?

JF: There are several songs where the lyrics are about living in the city. That was towards the end of all of us being in Chicago. Andy and I, not long after, maybe within the year, moved. After [our tour with Zwan], we didn't do a whole lot. I was in other bands. I was feeling that the city, as much as I love it, was not my habitat. So there's a song about leaving Chicago, called "Rainbow", that's directly about leaving town. "Anna" is about going to live out in the wilderness alone, without a boyfriend.

DP: What's "Going Home" about?

JF: "Going Home" is an old-fashioned pop song, not too specific. "Are you going home, my darling? / Wait for me." A classic folk pop song.

DP: The eternal drama.

JF: The longing for home. "Leader Soldier", however, was a little tied into the idea of fame. That's a lyric that's a bit joking, a satire. "Hey there celebrity, lost your anonymity, cannot do so easily, the things you used to do. Can you walk in company of idleness or frivolity / Can you maintain your privacy?" or something like that. "And we can tell by your color you are of the highest order / You are now a leader-soldier." The absurdity of elevating one person over the other.

DP: The weirdness of notoriety or fame. That's super cool. I didn't realize [that's what it was about.]

SILY: You mention specific places like Chicago and Wyoming on the album, which gives a specific sense of time and place. There are also some narratives, like "Adoption Day", versus something that's more intentionally vague or universal. Was that contrast, between specific and universal, something you consciously put into the songwriting?

JF: When we first were together making songs, it was very therapeutic. We had been in a band with my ex-boyfriend, and there were all these dramas and breakups, and Andy and I stayed friends, so we thought, "Let's just play music together. A gentle place where there's no pressure." We both realized we had this thing in common: He had all these foster kids in his house, and I grew up with adopted kids. We made this song about adoption, because we were thinking of all of these themes of innocence and experience. It's a very bizarre song, in a way. The lyrics are from the point of view of me when I was adopted by my father. "Happy are we / Now we are three / A family / Mother, father." Andy would come in with these hooks, an atmosphere, and I would think, "What is this conjuring up?" I'd try to find a lyrical theme, which I hadn't done much of in my life, working with someone else's raw materials. I find it very hard. Andy's got such a beautiful, colorful, rich ideas as the compost. What do you remember about "Adoption Day", Andy?

AB: I was excited when we decided [to write about] what Josephine was talking about, because it was personal and special to me. My parents were foster parents who took care of a lot of kids.

SILY: "Adoption Day" is one of the songs on both records. I don't know whether this is merely a product of David joining, but the huge difference to me between the records is the use of dynamics on Going Home. There's a little bit of that on SOS JFK, but I was really taken by it on this record. Can you talk about the main sonic differences from your perspective?

JF: I feel like that record was sort of demos that were being supervised by some manager you don't know. There was a stiffness that loses the coherence [from splicing takes.] I don't do that at all anymore [when recording;] I just listen for the best take. We'll look for the most interesting blemishes. David is so musical and dynamic, he's feeding this brilliant energy, this thing that gives life. His presence is transformational.

AB: He just added so much. There were new songs like "Dance With Me" that we were working on that we couldn't have done without the confidence we gained on the tour and playing with David.

DP: You go from playing the Hideout to on tour with Billy Corgan. It's intense. I feel like I had the best job of all. There was the songwriting collaboration and the relationship between you guys and just the vibe. In that time, I was living in a really jaded, music business-oriented way I'm really happy to never have seen again. Children's Hour was this ray of hope and light. I felt like my job as a drummer was just to stay out of the way, almost to just be a metronome. To not caricaturize the dynamics just because we were going to be on bigger stages. Just keep it steady and quiet. I could lay into it a little bit more [live] to wake people up because they get bored and fall asleep easily. [laughs]

It was really perfect. It was done with zero ambition. It wasn't like, "We have to make a record with pop songs and make everything hi-fi." It was, "Let's record what we have because we're not going to have much time after this." I guess we knew that we were all going our separate ways afterwards or had seen we didn't have time to play together. The recording seems really light-hearted and pure in that way, too. It's what I needed at a perfect time for me, personally. Music that comes from a pure place to center me again so I'm not distracted by the garbage that comes along with being a musician. [laughs]

SILY: It's come full circle: You're playing at the Hideout next month! What's the experience been like trying to "adapt" these songs to the live stage? Are you playing songs from the first record in addition to this one?

JF: That's a very good question.

DP: I don't know if we've even gotten that far yet.

AB: We're at least playing most, if not all of the songs on the new album. From there, we'll decide how to fill out the rest of the setlist.

JF: Andy's a standup comic, so he needs to start getting some jokes ready.

DP: That's a great idea!

JF: Sabrina will be playing, so we'll be able to have David's wonderful bass lines represented live. That will be the first time we'll have heard it all live in that sense. That's the only thing we didn't record live. David put the bass lines on [separately]. I think it was in the same session, though, so it was all coherent to that moment.

DP: My idea was to put bass on all the songs. I was like, "You know what, I might have to come back to this." 20 years later, I came back to it. They were all complex to me.

JF: It was just "Rainbow" that you put bass lines on 20 years later, right? Like a little cherry on top.

SILY: This might be premature, but do you think you'll write new songs together?

AB: We're definitely gonna jam with each other and be creative together. You don't know what will come from that, but that's how we are.

DP: Relearning the songs is going to be the priority and take up most of my time. Once we're at that point and confident again, it doesn't seem like anyone's against learning a cover song or playing new songs.

SILY: What's the background behind the album art?

AB: In my head, it took place in the Hideout. It's the best I can remember, an image of playing a random club in Chicago.

DP: There's no pictures of the three of us together. You were actually drawing from memory. It's really cool. It's a nicer way than promo photos.

AB: We're relying on our mental photography. I'm also doing comics for this release drawing on our memory.

JF: We ran into this thing where Drag City kept going, "We need a photo of the band!" We couldn't photograph ourselves. We must have been right on the cusp of the digital explosion. I found one grainy photo my mother took of us all that's the only photo of us playing live. We were playing in a massive place. Nowadays, you'd have tons of photos no matter what. We must have been right before that. The Zwan fans were just jamming to us and brought their cameras out later. There's not any documentation of us live.

DP: The Internet hadn't really taken over yet.

AB: There are still pixelated pictures coming out from the time.

JF: Zwan was in the tour bus, and our car broke down after the first show. Some girl lent us her car for the whole tour. She was like, "Just take my Jeep!" We had a big atlas, would look at the city part of the atlas, go downtown, and just ask directions to get to the venue. We didn't have any GPS or anything. When I think about that, it just cracks me up.

DP: There were some soundchecks where you barely made it. You were always on time, but you had just gotten through some huge drive. Did you ever have to leave after the show while Zwan was still playing?

JF: Yeah, to go to a motel closer to where we were playing the next day.

DP: You were thrown into touring having barely played actual rock shows. It's remarkable.

JF: We regarded it as a once-in-a-lifetime thing. We weren't looking for it, and it was probably never going to come again.

AB: You guys were incredibly sweet. Of course, you probably liked our music. I liked you guys personally.

DP: For all the bands that opened for Zwan, The Children's Hour was the only one we always wanted to see and hang out with. It was always a breath of fresh air when you guys were there.

SILY: So what's this press photo taken by Dan Osborn?

JF: He photoshopped David in the doorway!

DP: Theoretically, you could have any drummer. You could photoshop John Bonham in there.

SILY: Or Neil Peart.

AB: I'll photoshop a four-armed drummer in there, Neil Peart and John Bonham.

DP: Or [Def Leppard drummer Rick Allen's] arm.