#voodoo hussy

[weaversweek]

#Uncool50 - Say you love me

Part of the #Uncool50 project, because pop singles evoke memories, and form the backbone to an autobiography. This one is from November 2010, when it was cold.

"Say you love me" by Voodoo Hussy. It’s a watershed moment. On one side, the 20th century top-down love-what-your-given style of music appreciation.On the other side, the 21st century bottom-up we-love-our-faves style.

Voodoo Hussy was a scuzzy underground punk band, who played to audiences of about 20 on a good night. They’d split up around 2009, but gave it another go after lead singer Shabby did some television work in the summer.

Voodoo Hussy fans were loud and emotional and in-yer-face, and loved their band with a passion. Being mostly late-teen girls, they could be an intimidating crowd – large in number, vocal in support of their passion, and didn’t give a toss about cultural norms. VH fans were all completely lovely and caring and wouldn’t actually hurt a fly, but any large group can appear intimidating.

We join the story in early November 2010. The fans are giddy with excitement, whipped into a frenzy because there’s a new single looming, and it's going to be premiered on the wireless. It’s the first time ver Hussy have been played on the radio anywhere. Ever. The premier is on Kerrang Radio, in a slot called "Rate It or Slate It".

In this feature, the presenter solicits listener feedback on two new releases. According to the announcements, the presenter - a no-nonsense chap called Luke Wilkins - takes feedback while the song is playing. Whichever song gets the better listener reaction is deemed the winner.

We think that Kerrang wanted listeners to hear the song, and then to make a judgement. We think that, but Wilkins didn’t actually say it. Voodoo Hussy fans respected no boundaries, and shared their love for the band right from the off.

The presenter noted before playing the track that he'd already received feedback on a song he hadn't played. His instinct is to be suspicious, and believe in a convenient conspiracy theory. Luke Wilkins said that Voodoo Hussy's record company had wheeled out astroturf, and that this was all part of a promotional campaign by some PR person.

Young and eager and highly-involved fans? Simply not possible. Not in the host's world, he's too deep in the major label scene to believe in grassroots rock 'n' roll. Maybe he’s forgotten what it was like to have the blood run hot, to have a passion for music.

Luke Wilkins eventually determined that he could not separate "real listeners" from "the label's fans" and deemed the record "disqualified". By default, listeners had preferred the prior track, a release by 1970s warhorses Motörhead.

Ouch. “Disqualified”, “not real listeners”? That's emotive language, setting himself up to be attacked. The fans rose to the obvious bait, and attacked both the presenter and the station. The presenter refused to back down, and decided not to air a pre-recorded interview with the band.

Luke Wilkins made the assumption that Voodoo Hussy's record label and/or public relations company was responsible for the flood of pre-emptive comments. His position was completely undermined by the facts: the group did not have a PR agent, and was not signed to any label.

There was a wider point - Kerrang Radio had always assumed that everyone operated in the narrow confines of the for-profit record industry, with all the hangers-on to suck from artists. (It’s one of the reasons why Kerrang Radio was always a disappointment and never as good as it really ought to have been.)

Mostly, it was a clash of styles. Wilkins and Motörhead came from the regimented world of formal singles and release dates. Voodoo Hussy were the modern anarchy of bottom-up songs. Mötorhead fans have other interests. Voodoo Hussy fans had their one passion.

At twelve years’ remove, we can see how Kerrang Radio was on the wrong side of history. The people won out with their anarchy. Listeners decided what would be a hit record – Justin Bieber's "Love yourself" became a huge hit after being the most-streamed track from his album. I'll come back to this meta-point in entry 50.

Because there was a premium-rate phone-in, regulators OFCOM got involved; because he hadn’t got the authority to “disqualify” the record, this incident cost Luke Wilkins his job. (Contrary to rumours in the fandom, not because they had played the rude version of "Say you love me" at 7.15pm, which begins with an MF-drop.) Last I heard, Wilkins was pottering about with motorbikes.

Voodoo Hussy played together for another year but split up as real-life careers intervened. The band's nucleus went on to form Legend in Japan, whose "Absent friends" was on this list - until I twigged it had never been promoted as a single.

[dingodad]

my beautiful little mutual spencer asked a really interesting question which is that IF the subjugglators are responsible for the nightmares that trolls have, are the trolls going to still have nightmares with the subjugglators gone, and are they still going to need sopor slime to deal with those nightmares. so i checked my little sources. and this is the closest thing to an explanation andrew gives on formspring:

For the subjugglators in their small numbers to keep such a large population under their control, it would be very useful to have the ability to psychically amplify fears through dreams. They may have directed their chucklevoodoos on every susceptible mind in the population. Each lowblood may have a little highblood voodoo doll lurking in their subconscious, making them too terrified to organize any sort of rebellion.

we might guess from this that trolls' nightmares stem from a chucklevoodoo doll, which makes sense bc it's also where john and dave's nightmares et al. come from. so the next question might be whether we presume a clown's chucklevoodoo doll sticks around if that clown dies. and since gamzee never REALLY dies, i guess there's no way we can answer that for certain. but im going to go with yes, it sticks around? for a couple reasons.

chiefly that because of the whole dream self thing, there's not really any clear difference between a 'dream object' and a 'real object'... like, dream selves can dissolve into smoke, but generally speaking if you grab something from someones dream room and take it out of the dream room, it still exists as a regular object. an obvious example of this is lil cal; if gamzee got sucked into lil cal at the end of the comic, would that count as gamzee still "being around" to maintain lil cal's existence? it's interesting to think about it... but it's also implied to some degree that gamzee didn't even "create" lil cal, he just used his powers to pull him out of the void... so is that true for all chucklevoodoo dolls? kind of besides the point but still worth thinking about

there's also a question of practicality. like, if subjugglators are constantly controlling the fears of the population at all times, and a subjugglator dies, does another clown have to take over that guy's job and re-curse a bunch of kids... it would be stupid. but. pretty funny to think about. like having to cover your friend's shift at the nightmare factory. funny.

so im going to say the answer is that if you already had a nightmare doll when troll society blew up then you would keep it. and you might need therapy or maybe the good version of an evil clown to get rid of it. but if you were born after the collapse of alternia youre probably fine.

2 more questions though. what about ghosts. ghosts dont really have dream rooms cus they kind of ARE dream people? and we also dont know if they sleep at all. BUT we DO know kurloz could still fuck with meulin's brain while they were both dead. so do the ghosts on earth c for example still have evil fleas.

second question. more of a thought. in his formspring answer hussie also suggests gamzee could have been fucking with everyone on the meteor with his powers, i.e. messing with vriska's luck or terezi's investigative abilities. this has to make you wonder whether gamzee is messing with the voodoo dolls they presumably already have in their minds, or if he is like, adding them? like does your dream self bed just become one of those huge plushy walls over time as you get more and more traumatised

[themageofblood]

I’m begging you to read the damn webcomic again because these takes are ass. Yes the black coding of Strilondes, Makaras, and Peixes are negative stereotypes of black people. However that is how Hussie wrote them and we can’t change the fact that they’re black coded. Also you’re out your monkey ass mind for thinking WHITE people can practice voodoo. Literally nothing about these characters scream white. None of them are white coded except for maybe Doc Scratch. Read the shit again and if I could I throw the damn webcomic at you if it was a hardback copy.

So you decide to be racist? Ok . 1st of all I never said yt people can practice voodoo. 2nd yall don't know what black coding is. You see a stereotype and automatically assume they are black. If you really believed they were black coded the Fandom would be upset about kanaya and sollux. Also homestuck is my special interest I've read it over 29 times. It's always nonblack people that have the most to say.

[candyvoncaramell]

just gonna list some of the antiblack stereotypes in the Makaras and in Meenah/HIC off the top of my head

Gamzee: his way of speaking, his dad not being in the picture, being a drug addict, abusing his girlfriend, (i'm not sure if this is a stereotype but often black men are emasculated and part of that is making them seem/be gay because straight people think being a mlm is emasculating so:) his crush on tavros, being violent as fuck, being dirty/messy/lazy

Kurloz: ok he's like some bastardized evil voodoo master so pin that.

The Grand Highblood: He's just angry and violent as fuck too so pin that as well.

Meenah: so first off is her way of speaking, then her ‘sassy black girl’ personality, how she is reckless and violent, the rap music video aesthetic thing of being the rich bitch with all the gold and the hoes too

Her Imperious Condescension: everything the same as meenah plus her SHAPE. like, the way she's sexualized as being curvy and sexy and shit? yeah.

_separate note bc they all share this but all these characters are portrayed as being evil, and also worth mentioning how the adults turn fully black, only retaining their blood color as their lips and still having yellow eyes, and how their society makes them be more violent and evil as they grow up because of the influence of condy and the grand highblood

now. don't take me wrong. this isn't an attack on the characters because i really like most of them BUT we shouldn't fucking ignore how antiblack their characterization is. 

other ppl please feel free to add any more things i probably missed. white people also feel free to interact but don't clown and i'd supper appreciate people reblogging this because i don't hear people talking about it and i've seen a LOT of nonblack headcanons/drawings for them.

yes, they are stereotypes. yes, you should still draw them black. yes, you can and should be more respectful than hussie when you characterize them.

[gamzee]

eat-a-dicker replied to your post “I think a lot of the anxieties around gamzee rn are about him being...”

it's sad, because he could have been really great representation for a problem that nobody and their grandma will even bother acknowledging, and then we get what we got because i guess religion and the minorities subjugated into appropriating it are just a joke huh

It is-- references to voodoo get thrice removed from their inclusion into the horrorcore genre so now what we have is just uh, the initial estrangement of racialized religious motifs via ICP filtered through horseman’s utter lack of curiosity. If you just tip it sideways out spills a whole story about Lord English (colonizing language, duh!) encroaching and creeping and infesting minds with an agenda of its own, which synergies with Aranea’s particular disdain for how he speaks, not anything in particular that he says. ...Actually, I’m suddenly really into understanding LE via the political, psychological and cultural impacts of language itself as a method of orienting the thinker in time & space, to the point where I feel really stupid for not thinking of that before. All characters and their relationships to language might be a good lens, even. This deerstalker has legs.

Thankfully he can still be that in fanwork, if you’re not afraid of hussie being salty at you in his books, which I’m not. C’mon, horse man! We don’t have to fight. You want sugar cubes? I got cubes for days.

[homestuckexamination]

Talking about The Felt's, I'm sure Die is Space-related since he can teleport his teammates with his voodoo doll

Actually, Die’s Voodoo Doll transports HIM to a Timeline where the people the pins represent are dead/alive accordingly. They all just sort of appear when Jack pulls the pins because he’s doing it from Hussie’s Home, which is bizarre and meta and outside canon, as well as a place the Felt had never been to previously, so having no Timelines with either of them apparently just means they manifest automatically.

[aura-loveshine]

Minnie Marks - Young Talented Australian Queer Musician

How can there be nothing about Minnie on tumblr until now!!!

Minnie Marks is a singer/songwriter/guitarist/multi instrumentalist, bringing out her first album when she was 16. She toured Australia with her parents until she moved to Germany at 17, playing in different cities for a few years. Her second album came out when she was 21. Minnie has been performing live solidly for 10 years at least, has played live hundreds of times, playing for small town fans all over Australia multiple times as well as at larger festivals like the Australian Blues Festival, Byron Bay Blues Festival and soon, the 2020 Brisbane Mojo Burning Festival.

She describes her music as dirty sweet rock & roll.

Her younger years inspired by the sounds of Sarah McLeod, Baby Animals, Muddy Waters, Ray Charles, BB King, Neil Young, Stevie Ray, Hendrix, Daddy Cool, Concrete Blonde and more.

“Her first performance was at the age of 10 at a local club jam session. Nervous, young Marks pushed through to discover performing was not only a hobby, but a life ambition. “I just wanted to try something new, at the time I did a few rounds in Australia and it was a lot of fun, but why not travel a couple of hundred kilometres and play in France or Switzerland. During my time there it worked really well and I was able to knuckle down,” she said” After 5 years, She was homesick for Australia's Blues and Rock community. Minnie brought out her 3rd album last year.

She toured recently with Hussy Hicks, playing at Mardi Gras 2019. She's played along side Luca Stricagnoli, Michael Fix and Matt Zarb amongst others. She has had an eclectic mix of musicians around her since she started gigging. Multiple Australian artists have praised her:

“Minnie Marks, she plays guitar like nothing I’ve ever seen before, she sings like Janis Joplin, she’s going to blow the world apart.” – Kim Churchill

"Damn, I don't think I've ever seen a female shred harder than you in the flesh" - Dallas Frasca

“You’re awesome, Let’s jam again soon” - Joe Robinson

“So I heard you’re better than my brother” - Phil Emmanuel

“You rock..man. It's not easy to fill that much space with only an acoustic, but you were killing it! I hope we get to jam in the future” - Tyler Bryant

“You rock baby, you’re killing it. The world is your oyster. If I were an army lieutenant with a shirt full of medals I would give you one. You’re my hero, I’m shakin’ in my boots. One word, PRODIGY!” - Sarah McLeod (ex Superjesus)

“One of the finest young guitar players in the country” - Julz Parker (Hussy Hicks)

“SHREDS!” – Mama Kin

“Minnie Marks is an extraordinary performer, I have never seen or heard anything quite like her, Minnie plays guitar, sings and stomps like her every breath depends upon it, her passion and wonderful sense of fun is refreshing.” – Michael Barker (John Butler’s ex drummer, touring drummer for the Split Enz)

“You have to come and see this girl, she makes every other musician look ordinary” –Gypsie Howls

“Lloyd Spiegel introduced Minnie as one of the best guitarists he's seen, full stop. High praise from a man whose flying fingers have people standing up shouting for more.”

Ive been loving this artist since 2012 at least, seeing her live a few times. After being introduced to her by a friend, I saw her live at the Byron Blues fest in 2012. I instantly had a musical crush, admiring her amazing skills, her raw and powerful voice, her down to earth presence and her overall beautiful and bewitching self. That year I was involved in a youth festival called ‘Vibadelix’. I pushed for Minnie to be included in the line up. She performed, at a lower fee than her usual, as it was a fundraiser and youth event. I celebrated as she publicly shared of her lovership with a woman, celebrating that she had finally found someone who genuinely loved and treated her well and that she had finally come out to the world as apart of LGBTIQ community. 

Some of my fave songs are One in a Million, Voodoo and Honey, Jack in the Box and Lady Luck, but what I appreciate is that her songs in general are unique and relatable. I am loving seeing her journey and looking forward to hearing new songs as she passionately continues. 

has anyone else on tumblr seen Minnie live already??

[xtruss]

Meghan Markle Being a Black Woman in the Royal Family Was Never Going to Work — Opinion

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown | January 10, 2020

In a totally unanticipated public statement Wednesday, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex mutinied against the monarchical institution, confronted vicious media outlets and common disparagers, and chose a little more freedom for themselves and their baby boy.

Horrified traditionalists blame the uppity, black American wife. Harry was their darling, Officer Prince till the hussy got under his skin and into his head and heart. The best-selling English novelist Sir Philip Pullman named and shamed their racism in a tweet and concluded: "What a foul country this is." So why should they not escape from it?

When Harry wed Meghan in 2018, the sun shone, birds sang, crowds cheerfully waved their wee Union flags. The whole world loves performative British royal weddings, but this one came loaded with symbolism. Idealistic white people and minorities whipped up fantasies about a post-racial and post-colonial nirvana. For biracial Bernardine Evaristo, co-winner with Margaret Atwood of the Booker Prize, the marriage was as significant as Barack Obama winning the U.S. presidency: "It's a sign of how far we have come as a nation." Not quite, not at all.

White Royal Filth Vs Decent, Well Educated and Civilized Black!

We realists were wary of the mass buoyancy and delusions. As I wrote in Newsweek in May 2018, "The family and country [Markle] is joining are not what they appear to be." Most Americans don't know the U.K.'s true history, its politics and society. To them, this is a fun kingdom of crowns and grand houses, quaint traditions, country pubs, Richard Curtis movies and, also, great pop music and counterculture rebels. I assume this is what the lovely and talented Meghan thought she was coming into.

The couple met in July 2016, just a month after the June Brexit referendum, which split the nation irrevocably. Overt hostility against immigrants and Britons of color leached out from those cracks. Brexiters declared a culture war on diversity, equality and liberal values. The public space, which had got more civil over the decades, turned nasty, felt unsafe for those of us who had roots elsewhere. Meghan, black, modern, feminist, was a loadstone for seething xenophobes, macho men and some hateful women too.

During the buildup to the wedding, prejudiced journalists opined that she was more mistress than wife material or that she was from the "wrong side of the tracks." One male commentator told me he believed voodoo had been used by the "sorceress." Harry objected to the unfair treatment of his fiancée. That only encouraged the brutes. Meanwhile, palace enforcers started pulling feathers from her wings: She was to quit social media, learn to not be herself, to be a royal. I felt for her and wanted her to fly off then.

After the wedding, there was a brief lull, and then the hounds began barking and nipping again. Everything she did was wrong. Meghan likes avocado on toast, so a newspaper accuses her of encouraging murder and droughts; she wears jeans to Wimbledon, so offends turgid All England Club members; as guest editor of one issue of Vogue, she celebrates inspirational women for the cover, but not the queen, scream crazed monarchists, and so it goes on. Social media attacks have been even more toxic. Conservative courtiers too recoil from this Duchess, who is demanding and knows her own mind.

Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex depart Canada House on January 7 in London.

This woman turned Harry from a wild, partying young man to a responsible and sensitive adult who talks about his mental health and his beloved mum. He, for his part, just wants to protect his wife from the dark powers that crushed his mother. Diana was a naïve, damaged, trusting young woman picked to breed by Charles and his then-mistress, Camilla. She would be alive today if she had refused the arranged marriage. (She did try to get out in the days before the wedding but was pushed to go ahead.) Meghan is no Diana, but there are similarities, mainly openness, inclusivity and vulnerability. Such women have no place in our undemocratic royal family, which is often arrogant, greedy, self-serving and cold.

In December's issue of the Tatler magazine, I speculated that 2020 would be crunch time for Britain, as well as Harry and Meghan. After we leave Europe at the end of January, I predict more racism and white nationalism on these isles. The Sussexes will escape all that for half the year. Good first decision. Diana left her boys money. Next, they should liberate themselves from all royal trappings and live happily ever after. Good luck, guys. May the force be with you.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is an award-winning journalist who has written for The Independent, The Guardian, The Observer, The Sunday Times, the Daily Mail and The New York Times. Currently, she is a columnist for I newspaper, the International Business Times and The New European. She has twice been voted the 10th most influential Asian in Britain. The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.

— Newsweek

[hivedent]

i promised first guardian chat and here it is

so cats are often seen as the opposite to dogs even though thats due to completely arbitrary reasons

but because of this id decided to try the same with the troll first guardian assuming they had one. assuming you can even have a session without a guardian

anyway

i looked at doc scratch and i said “whats a fitting opposite to that then”

and i had the result of the opposite to “creepy adult who meddles with EVERYTHING” is “irrelevant child who has 0 influence on the world” (effectively making them a null first guardian like they didnt even have one to begin with)

the first guardian, who would bear a strong resemblance to “truth” from fullmetal alchemist would reside in a black pocket dimension and kind of observe things without interfering. which is doubly fitting imo because scratch is to caliborn as “truth” would be to calliope

but “truth” wouldnt have any first guardian abilities. so theyd be stuck in their home pocket dimension (wonk)

thus all things first guardian related would also be powerless like the cue ball

itd be black and hollow as if its “light” were turned off (think fenestrated plane being unplugged etc)

itd later be revealed that the pocket dimension is somewhat related to other first guardians

like where jack stored all his trophies. basically what im saying is more ultimately they would find lil cal at some point while in there

anyway

they would be created from (as i remember) a powerless cueball and horuss or perhaps some sort of horuss soulbot or something

but it wouldnt be a direct relative of horuss, thats not what im getting at. though it would still be fitting considering equius became a component of lord english who is also a component of doc scratch

it would be the combination of the “void” inside him (to deprive “truth” of powers) as well as calliopes soul that was symbolically inside him

thus. an opposite to doc scratch in almost every way. a little rude but not malicious, an observer who doesnt know all the facts, an inability to interact with the world, and a result of calliopes soul

 i mentioned earlier that the felt jujus would be made via... eridan? lil cal? SOME kinda how? and theyd be used by the alpha trolls throughout their session

well aranea comes into possession of quarters’s coins

aranea mentions the last time she and meenah saw each other they had been having a fight

i decided this was about the afterlife

meenah received information from [UNNAMED SQUIDDLE 3;)] about the tumor. but aranea didnt trust this information and thought it was better to just scratch it. theres more to this but its in my notes and this isnt about that

(but ps i also decided the placements of the trolls on the lillypad decided who they sided with in the argument. ill post my file about those events later)

basically meenah and aranea are tied and cant choose. they decide on a coin toss. aranea flips sn0wmans coin because HAHAHAHA SPIDERSSSS

someone, likely cronus, is annoyed and shoots the coin mid toss with... a gun? a wand? whatever, its in part a reference to wizardy herberts short patience and blah blah blah

anyway he shoots it right through the center. so it is a black coin... with a hole in it

this summons “truth”

doc scratch was present since the early evolution of trolls but only ever was in the felt manor or RARELY places on alternia. he was present throughout all TIME but not all SPACE.

“truth” on the other hand would not be capable of being “ALREADY HERE” and thus would only exist for a single moment, almost no TIME at all, but exist nearly everywhere AT that time, thus all SPACE

while meenah prepares to blow them up anyway, the powerful force of being ripped from the first guardian teleportation dimension shoots “truth” super fast

they zap around the whole session collecting things (namely the felts’ jujus. u could argue they always envied them bc they could use it all as furniture in their pocket dimension to make a proper house)

at just the final moment when theyve collected them all, the scratch finalizes and with their last bit of energy, tosses them into the dimension. which maybe lets say in that last second connects scratch and “truth” by mutual guardianship and it all gets spit out into his foyer and voila now the felt have juus except they always seemed to have them so I DUNNO

(ps: meenah’s oven, rufioh’s egg timer (for games), kurloz’s voodoo doll, damara/mituna/or latulas crowbar? for cosplay or because of half life? idr. horuss’s gloves for cans?? etc)

anyway i read some stuff later about how it was probably a rabbit tho

because dogs were associated with jade, cats were associated with rose and puppets were associated with dave (and they all were prototyped as their sprites at one point or another) leaving either rabbits or jesters for john

so that could have been like. created from the corpse of lil sebastian or liv taylor or something and continued the... very weird and abrupt alice in wonderland themes hussie had going for like a dozen pages

and usagi-chan would be associated with damara bc witch affinities with first guardian related creatures (jade with bec, fef with scratchs gift glbgoylb)

but i hadnt really gotten to plan that much stuff out for that version of the first guardian if it would even be that different

[ask-zeebros-playlist]

since the respOnse has been favOrable, I’ll talk abOut my OCs.

And I’ll even drop the quirk for a moment. I’ll put the whole business under the cut so that your dash doesn’t get too filled up.

Alright, first things first, one thing to know about me is that one of my favorite tropes is Theme Naming(tm) and themed characters in general.

Now that this is out of the way, know that if you also like these tropes, you won’t be disappointed.

Another thing to note is that my fanventure is happening after the events that occurred in Homestuck, and that Hussie’s characters will at one point in time join the story, but I’ll come back to this point later on.

Firstly, let’s divide my characters into groups. These groups being :

The Humans

The Trolls

The Divinat

The Maggedon Cavalery

The Proxies

The Antagonists

(The Antagonists’ group will, of course, omit some characters to leave some things uncovered, but you are free to message me to talk about it.)

The Humans and Trolls are self-explanatory, but let me develop onto them for a bit. Themed Characterization applies here, and it is shown differently both for the Humans and Trolls : The Humans are four goofs named thusly :

Alex Castella

Yann Cizarei

Sara Guglielmi

Mona McFinny

Those four are all based around times of day, as is shown through their lands, like the original Homestuck’s beta kids.

Alex’s land is the Land of Night and Ruins (LONAR)

Yann’s is the Land of Dusk and Chess (LODAC)

Sara’s is the Land of Midday and Frogs (LOMAF)

Mona’s is the Land of Dawn and Highlands (LODAH)

The Trolls, however, are based around music genres due to their appearances and/or interests. Here are the twelve goofs and the signification behind their names, as is needed for respectable trolls (P.S.: They’re in order of blood color from rust to tyrian, except Ophius who is a mutantblood):

Wesson Tucony: First name based on the gun-makers Smith & Wesson, which follows his cowboy theme. Last name is an anagram of “County”

Yperos Ischyr: First name is based on the greek word υπεροχή (=yperochi), which means “Excellence”. Last name is based on the greek word ισχυρός (=ischyrós), meaning “Powerful”

Delpix Ectrel: First name is an anagram of the word “Pixel” with an added “D” to follow the 6-6 rule. Last name is an anagram of “Electro” / “Electric” following the same rule.

Bankaz Moolon: First name based on the word Bank with an added -az suffix. Last name based on “Moolah”, slang for “Money”, and “Oolong” a kind of chinese tea.

Ophius Gyvate: First name based on Ophiuchus, the 13th Zodiac represented by a snake. Last name is the lithuanian word for “Serpent”.

Tatsel Lurdac: First name is an anagram of “Lestat”, based on the famous French Vampire Lestat de Lioncourt created by (ugh) Anne Rice. Last name is an anagram of Dracula made to fit the 6-6 format.

Tagmea Eropyt: First name is an anagram for “Tea Mag”, and here’s the context = Me and a friend were discussing rapper names and the subject of abbreviations came up. My friend said “wouldn’t it be funny if the abbreviation in a rapper name was short for something completely unrelated, like, for example, the T in T-Mag wasn’t short for tiny but for tea ?” and it stuck with the character. Last name is an anagram for “Poetry” and the one I’m most proud of.

Tumblr Fandom: (This one is one of the few characters, beside Hussie’s that I didn’t create. It is based around a fantroll a now-deactivated tumblr user named “dickleer” made. The fact that I now use said character is in no way a form of demeaning towards the original creator, I simply liked the design of their fantroll a lot and wanted to do a similar one.)

Blaise Damesi: First name is just the name Blaise (to be pronounced as “Blaze”). Last name is an anagram of the word “Samedi” which means “Saturday” in french, but also refers to the Baron Samedi, the Loa of Death in voodoo beliefs.

Zelota Circeo: First name is the word “Zealot” in italian. Last name is the same as the enchantress Circeo, whom Ulysses met during his travels, as well as being a reference to “circus”, with her being a purpleblood.

Cheops Maliko: First name is a reference to the pyramid of Kheops, situated in Egypt. Last name is a variant of the arab word “malik”, meaning king / sovereign, with an added -o suffix.

Kranae Leviat: First name is a modification of the word “Kraken”. Last name is a modification of the word “Leviathan”.

For the character’s themes, here they are:

Wesson: Country

Yperos: Traditional music / Mythological odes

Delpix: Dubstep

Bankaz: Jazz / Swing

Ophius: Metal

Tatsel: Classical

Tagmea: Rap

Tumblr: Musical Memes / Pop

Blaise: Soul

Zelota: Opera

Cheops: Anime Music

Kranae: Shanties

I’ll make a separate post for the typing quirks and for the rest of the characters, tell me if you want to know more after this preview.

[weaversweek]

Fear of Music index post

This is an index post for the #FearOfMu21c exercise.

In it, I'm listing the best 50 singles - in my opinion, in no particular order - released from 2000 to September 2023. It's the follow-up to #Uncool50 last year.

See also - the top 450 from which my top 50 was derived.

"Reach" and "Over the rainbow" (S Club 7 and Eva Cassidy) ELF "The middle" (Jimmy Eat World) "Someone to you" and "Mourir demain" (Banners and Natasha St Pier & Pascal Obispo) "Chewing gum" and "On your head" (Annie and Tiffany Page) "Take me to church" and "Take me out" (Hozier and Franz Ferdinand) "My star" and "IDGAF" (Brainstorm and Dua Lipa) ELF "Bulletproof" (La Roux) "About you now" and "Aimer jusqu'a l'impossible" (Sugababes and Tina Arena) "Anti-hero" (Taylor Swift) "The climb" (Miley Cyrus) "Fallin'" and "Not my soul" (Alicia Keys and Destiny Chukenyere) "If you love someone" and "Sk8er boi" (The Veronicas and Avril Lavigne) "Say you love me" (Voodoo Hussy) "Summer girl" and "Turn off the light" (Haim and Nelly Furtado) "This is the life" and "Bring me to life" (Amy MacDonald and Evanescence) "The fear" and "Grace Kelly" (Lily Allen and Mika) DOUZE POINT "Snap" (Rosa Linn) "You're the storm", "First day of my life", "Tonight and the rest of my life" (The Cardigans, Melanie C, Nina Gordon) ELF "With or without you" (Scala and Kolacny brothers) "3sex" (Indochine & Christine and the Queens) "Drops of Jupiter" and "Blank Space" (Train and Taylor Swift) "Toxic" and "Can't stop the feeling!" (Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake) "Anyone I want to be" and "Chained to the rhythm" (Roxie Węgiel and Katy Perry) "Bad romance" and "Royals" (Lady Gaga and Lorde) "Vampire" and "No degree of separation" (Olivia Rodrigo and Francesca Michielin) "Baby shark" (Pinkfong) "When we were wolves" and "Portions for foxes" (My Latest Novel and Rilo Kiley) ELF "New Americana" (Halsey) "Closer" and "Year 3000" (Tegan & Sara and Busted) "Downtown" (Saw Doctors and Petula Clark)

The top 50 is not ordered; however there are bonuses to be given. One bonus point to the four ELF singles, and two bonus marks to the best single of all - the DOUZE POINT.

I was not surprised to find nobody else nominated "With or without you", and only mildly surprised that "New Americana" had no other lovers. There was one other nomination for "Snap", which failed to make the top 250.

The final top 250.

During September, Billboard magazine published their top 500 of all time. I've pulled a hypothetical top 50 from the current century.

In November, WXPN in Philadelphia listed their top 885 songs sung by women. Again, a hypothetical top 50 from the 21st century is available. (WXPN is a non-commercial indie-leaning station, quite close in playlist to BBC 6 Music, which in turn seems to be the station of choice for Fear of Mu21c posters.)

[fantroll-insp]

how do chucklevoodoos work?

an attempt at explaining how these voodoos work in the homestuck universe, as a reference for myself and anybody else! 

hmu if there’s anything I missed/you feel I got wrong.

what can they do?

1. straight up mind control. we see in the openbound flash that kurloz can mind control meulin. during this time, both of their eyes flash in the voodoo colors, meulin speaks about the mirthful messiahs.  none of what she says during this time is really her own feelings, and while being mind controlled, she’s essentially kurloz’s slave or tool who will do whatever he wants her to. 

when he’s done, meulin has no idea what happened. she can tell time’s passed and probably feels disoriented, but doesn’t suspect it was kurloz at all. 

2. causing mental instability.

TC: THERE'S SOMETHING I DID AT YOU WHAT'S MINE. TC: i did something that's motherfucking atrocious to your posse. TC: MADE YOUR WHOLE CREW OF JOKERS GET TO BEING KINDA MENTALLY MOTHER FUCKIN TC: unstable. TC: IN FUCKING FACT TC: that atrocious business i got to doing TC: I DID THAT SHIT TO YOUR WHOLE UNIVERSE AS A MATTER OF MOTHER FUCKING FACT.

- 005928

after gamzee’s breakdown, he contacts (past) dave. in his own wacky way, gamzee explains that he understands what his faith is all about, and reached inside himself to dig up his “ancestral chucklevoodos.”

TC: i focused on them through the rage you made me have

TC: AND I WENT AND MADE YOUR UNIVERSE...

 TC: terminal. Bo)

gamzee used his rage* to reach into the kids’ universe and influence their dreams. as a result of bad dreams, john drew clowns all over his walls and was unable to see that he did that until after his mental breakdown.

TC: as if i'd forget to do my chucklevoodoos to you too. 

TC: TO FUCK UP YOUR DREAMS. 

TC: make your worst fears come alive and get up on their haunts in your naphappy pan. TG: what

*it’s really unclear if voodoo that goes this far is a result of gamzee’s bard of rage powers. hussie talked about this some on his formspring, but like many other things, he doesn’t really give a yes or no answer. he just says that it would make sense. so, it’s definitely not wrong to say that gamzee was able to reach that far because of latent powers, and the same could be true for other trolls, with their voodoo’s powers or effects being based in their god tier.

either way: voodoos can be used to create effigys in one’s dream room that then cause bad dreams, to terrorize people. 

where does this fall into alternian society?

we don’t know everything in this section for sure. if the comic had spent more time with feferi and eridan, we’d probably have some answers, but most of this is information gotten from scraps with some inferences added.

1. highbloods after a certain caste don’t sleep in ‘coons.

in all we see of our two seadwellers, there’s no implication of them having cocoons. that’s a fact. it might not matter much, it might just be because that corner of either of their rooms weren’t shown.

orrrrrrr, as tumblr(tm) user lime-bloods points out in the post that made me think about this whole subject to begin with...

2. this is because voodoos get used to keep the lower castes under control. higher castes don’t use ‘coons because they don’t need them.

in the formspring linked above, hussie says that these dream dolls are used primarily on lowblooded trolls.

For the subjugglators in their small numbers to keep such a large                    population under their control, it would be very useful to have the ability to psychically amplify fears through dreams. They may have directed their chucklevoodoos on every susceptible mind in the population. Each lowblood may have a little highblood voodoo doll lurking in their subconscious, making them too terrified to organize any sort of rebellion.

subjugs use their voodoos to keep the lowbloods from rebelling, as a way to make sure the caste system stays in place, because there’s more lowbloods than subjugs. the subjug cult is described as “obscure” in gamzee’s intro, so that means there’s really not a lot of them.

seadwellers don’t sleep in ‘coons because they don’t need them. the supposed daymares the troll species sleeps in coons to prevent are a result of mass voodoos making anyone under a seadwelling caste too scared to NOT sleep in one. and yeah, technically, a seadweller could tell this fact to a lowblood. but keep in mind, that wouldn’t destroy the whole system. within the comic’s canon, outside of more expanded one we’ve made in tumblr rp, seadwellers are fairly rare. so the chances of this scheme being exposed are pretty low! and who would believe one lowblood, anyway?

(if seadwellers don’t sleep in coons, alternia probably has beds or some other furniture for that, but that’s a minor detail.)

how does one get them?

this is where i’m coming to a blank. I've heard some say that it’s a subjug thing, not a thing of gamzee’s caste, but I forget where a source on that is. we know that you don’t have to be of gamzee’s caste to be a subjug, but are the voodoos subjug or purple??

i want to say it’s a thing exclusive to purple subjugs, since if anyone can become a subjug and get powers to do this, that’d disrupt the caste system. but i’ve nothing to really go on, and how one “gets” voodoos is still as vague as ever. maybe hiveswap will give us something to go on?

that’s all i got, folks.

[icarusfrommars]

If Hiveswap comes out on 4/13 I am going to make a Hussie Voodoo doll and murder it every way that a character was killed in Homestuck

[themageofblood]

Let’s talk about this fandom’s implicit bias:

So, in recent events I have made posts talking about how harmful it is that Roxy’s pesterquest sprite was black coded. Despite the character herself being white coded. I got a lot of hate for it and was even told to die. So let’s unpack why head canons of the striders/Lalondes as well as Gamzee and meenah being black is harmful to the black community. Because there is a toxic pattern between these characters and the way that they are the characters most likely to be drawn black.

This fandom’s demographic is mostly white and the fact that a lot of you who aren’t black are using your white savior complex to speak over black voices is unacceptable. A lot of the reasons why the fandom headcanons these characters as black are problematic in their own ways so I’ll be going over why I’ve been told these characters are black.

Dave and Roxy use AAVE: Dave actually uses very little Black vernacular through out the whole comic. The most common ones are Hella and dope which in the year 2009 were common phrases used by everyone despite it being taken from black people. While Roxy uses quite more than Dave her whole quirk is using internet speech in her writing and talk but other than those two things neither of them give off any black indication. And y’all forget that AAVE is used by everyone no of days and some of you use it without realizing.

Dirk and rose: Dirk is canonically white. John himself makes fun of Dave for having a white ventriloquist rapper brother. So there is literally no reason why people would say he is black same goes for rose. So far I have only seen people claim the derse kids as black because of Dave and Roxy.

Gamzee Uses voodoo: this is actually a valid point! Except, how many times have you seen fan art of human stuck!Gamzee using voodoo compared to him smoking weed or being stoned? Red flag right there. Not to mention he is a racist juggalo. Have you ever seen a group of juggalos? They are mostly white.

Meenah has braids: another good point! Except that y’all are confusing braids with braid ins. Which isn’t even the hairstyle she is wearing. Those are twists. And her character is the stereotype of a black woman “who don’t give two shits about others”

All of these characters (if they were black) portray negative stereotypes of black people that if the creators would confirm their race as black would be super problematic and racist to the black community.

Trickster mode: A lot of people have told me that along the characters look white in trickster mode was to make fun of the fandom about the race issue so their race isn’t “canon” However, trickster John came out in 2009 in the flash game “You There Boy” before the fandom had a huge fan base so that doesn’t make sense to me.

It’s the art style: Lame excuse. Bill Cosby could have been drawn with paper white skin and we’d still be able to recognize him by his features.

Pesterquest: A lot of you claim Roxy to be black because of her sprite in her route and harass others for drawing her white completely ignoring the fact that she was drawn with Eurocentric features in Rose’s route.

If the creators of hs2 were to confirm the striders and Lalondes to be black they would be pulling a Disney. Which is basically making black characters everything but black. We might know they are black but they do everything in not actually showing it. (Ex: Princess and the frog, Soul) This is extremely harmful to the black community because we aren’t getting proper representation. Dave, Rose, Roxy, And Dirk all have blonde hair and light colored eyes and while there are black peoples like that realistically it is obvious that wasn’t what hussie was going for. It isn’t their fault though because it’s natural for people to make there characters look like them, it’s the way it is.

Another point I wanted to bring up is the fact that Dave at one point said the N-word. That doesn’t mean headcanoning him as non black makes him racist. He grew up in a household where he had to learn what a fridge was from a movie. He was a kid he probably heard snoop dog and other of his idols use that word and thought nothing of it. Kids make mistakes. I used to say homophobic shit all the time as a kid but now I think about beautiful women on a daily basis. Kids can do/ say stupid stuff it’s how you learn and grow tha matters same thing with Karkat making fun of Nepeta’s autism.

A lot of you are speaking over black people about something you have no say in. And the fact that some of you went to the extreme of PRETENDING TO BE BLACK AND USING RACIAL SLURS is not ok.

I’m not saying don’t head canon them as black. Do what to want. But I’m asking you to re-evaluate why you headcanon them as black because whether you realize it or not a lot of you are using internalized racism to do it.

Homestuck 2 is a good opportunity to introduce new kids with appropriate racial representation and actually making them look the part. Without stating Roxy as black “because she’s always been black” Because imagine if trickster mode Roxy had dark skin and in pesterquest she had Eurocentric features like rose. This fandom would go apeshit.

Anyways, sorry for the long post. Please take this into consideration. If you read this till the end thank you. If you have any questions I’d be willing to answer as long as you are respectful about it.

[siderealscribblings]

The Perils of Fake-Dating a Superheroine (Nathanael/Queen Bee!Chloe)

@casual-voodoo

@mlsecretsanta

Nothing had brought more peril or bother to Nathanael’s life than the day Hawkmoth got it in his head that he was dating Queen Bee.

It had started with a chance rescue, the black and yellow heroine scooping him up as he fell from the claws of an Akuma that dangled him over the Seine. And at the time, it had been thrilling; to be scooped up by Paris’ latest heroine and whisked away over the rooftops away from danger. There wasn’t a teenager in Paris that hadn’t idly fantasized about being rescued by one of the four superheroes that saved their city on a regular basis.

Then the kidnappings started.

“This is so fucking cliché, dude.”

The one plus side to being used as a human chess piece in Hawkmoth’s game was the fact that Nathanael now knew Nino better than he ever had before. Volpina’s boyfriend sighed through his nose, head resting against the conjured railroad track as the phantom steam engine rocketed closer and closer to the two figures bound back to back.

“I mean this is some genuine Snidely Whiplash bullshit,” Nino grumbled, trying to wriggle free of the thick, coiled rope that bound him and Nathanael to the track. “Like, I don’t know if we need to call Ladybug or the fucking Dover Boys at this point, you know?”

“I know,” Nathanael said, watching the opera cloaked akuma cackle and rub his hands together a few yards away. “No one has an appreciation for the classics more than me, but that doesn’t mean you have to rip them off.”

“I…I beg your pardon?!” Vaudevillain screeched, pulling a nearby level and grinding the train to a screeching halt. Dust shook down from the tunnel roof as the akuma rolled the boys off the track, planting a boot on Nino’s chest. “There is nothing cliché about my performance villainy! If anything, I’m subverting the traditional damsel-in-distress narrative by pursuing Volpina and Queen Bee’s boy toys.”

“I’m not her boy-toy,” Nathanael mumbled into the dirt floor.

“Wow, you’re such a progressive murderer,” Nino snorted, rolling his eyes as the boys were rolled back onto the railroad track. “You want a BAFTA for this?”

“Ideally, yes,” Vaudevillain sighed, rolling the train back on its tracks. “Sadly, performance crime is tragically underappreciated in this city.”

“Maybe the next boys you murder will net you a seat at Cannes,” Nathanael snorted, leaning his head back to talk to Nino. “Hey, did you finish the science homework?”

“Just got to do the lab writeup,” Nino shrugged. “Why, you want to look at it?”

“Just to double check,” Nathanael said, kicking his feet back and forth. “Gotta bring my science grade up or my dad is gonna disinherit me.”

“Dude, don’t you have a B+?”

“Might as well be an F according to Dr. Kuntzberg.”

“Rough, man,” Nino clucked. “Yeah, I’ll email you the report when we get-”

“AHEM,” Vaudevillain cleared his throat, tapping his bootheel against the rail. “I’m sorry, aren’t you two supposed to be pleading for your lives or something?!”

“Is that what you want?” Nino asked.

“I would appreciate a little begging, yes.”

“Or what?” Nathanael snorted. “You’ll kill us?”

“Well…well, obviously I’m going to kill you anyway,” Vaudevillain said, taking his top hat off and running a hand through his greasy black hair. “But this is sort of my first big performance villainy piece and I was expecting more…pleading? I mean-”

The akuma gestured to the menacing freight engine puffing steam and waiting on his command to crush the boys tied to the track.

“Shouldn’t you be terrified or something?!” Vaudevillain spluttered.

Nino and Nathanael glanced at the demonic looking train with a small shrug and a half-hearted “eh.”

“This isn’t our first hostage situation,” Nino said.

“And as thematic as this whole “silent movie star” gimmick is, you’re not exactly the most terrifying akuma to hold us captive,” Nathanael sniffed, rubbing his back up and down on the railing to scratch an itch.

“Yeah, remember Deathman?” Nino said.

“Now there was an akuma,” Nathanael said. “Raised hoards of flaming phantom skeletons to fight Chat Noir and Queen Bee.”

“Or Sharkfist?”

“Literal hands made out of sharks.”

“Monkey Kong?”

“Still can’t eat a bananas.”

“The point we’re trying to make, Charlie Chaplain, is that this isn’t our first rodeo,” Nino said. “I don’t know if you thought you were being original kidnapping Volpina and Queen Bee’s boy toys-”

“I am not her boy-toy,” Nathanael muttered.

“Okay, dude, what the hell is up with that?” Nino asked, craning his neck over his shoulder. “This is literally the eighth time you’ve been personally singled out and kidnapped by some akuma looking to get at Bee.”

“Yes, I just assumed the pair of you were together like the tall boy and the fox girl,” Vaudevillain said, leaning on the lever.

“Guilty,” Nino shrugged with a lopsided grin.

“Not like I could very well kidnap Ladybug or Chat Noir,” Vaudevillain continued. “So…I-I mean naturally I need to use someone as bait so-”

“Look, I appreciate the sentiment and commitment to supervillain clichés,” Nathanael sighed, trying in vain to blow his bangs out of his face. “But you’ve been gravely misinformed about my boy-toy status, especially with regards to-”

SMASH

“Right on time,” Nathanael said, watching a streak of black and yellow collide with the akuma at full speed. 

  “Have you been telling people we’re dating?”

This was the question that greeted Nathanael as he closed the door to his bedroom and saw a pair of perturbed blue eyes glaring at him from the edge of his bed.

“How did you…” Nathanael sighed, dropping his backpack in a chair as he sat down at his desk. “You know what, never mind; I don’t want to know.”

“I didn’t break in,” Queen Bee sniffed. “You just didn’t lock it properly.”

“Clearly I need to put up a bug zapper too,” Nathanael said, spinning around in his chair to look the superhero in the eye. “Can I help you?”

“Have you been telling people we’re dating?” Queen Bee repeated, arms crossing and foot tapping against the side of the bed. “That stupid 20’s movie akuma today said something about you being my boy-toy while I was closing a door on his head.”

“Wasn’t my doing,” Nathanael sighed, shrugging helplessly. “Hawkmoth must’ve got it in his stupidly dressed head that we were a thing after you saved me from Clock-twerk back in March.”

“So, wait, I save your ginger-ass from getting plastered on the sidewalk and somehow Hawkmoth got it in his head that we’re-” Queen Bee gestured back and forth between them with her finger.

“Why do you think I’ve been kidnapped eight times in four weeks?” Nathanael said.

“Because you’re a bright red, slow moving target?”

“Because Hawkmoth knows he can’t use Chat or Ladybug as leverage, so he goes after me and Volpina’s boyfriend,” Nathanael sighed.

“Oh…well, that’s annoying,” Queen Bee huffed.

“Thank you.”

“I meant for me,” Queen Bee clarified. “Can’t you just…you know…stop?”

“Stop what?”

“Stop getting kidnapped or whatever,” Queen Bee said, wrinkling her nose. “Every time you do, I have to save you and it’s getting really annoying.”

Nathanael blinked, squinting at Queen Bee for a long second before turning back to his desk. “Right…I’ll just…try not to be abducted from now on.”

“Good.”

“I was being sarcas-” Nathanael turned around to see Queen Bee gone and his skylight open above his bed.

“Yeah…definitely need a better lock,” Nathanael said, reaching up tugging the skylight closed.

  “What was the one thing I asked you to do?”

Nathanael chewed the inside of his lip as he dangled upside down from a thick mess of spiderweb.

“My hero,” Nathanael said flatly. “My personal savior and messiah, please deliver me from cruel cruel bond-oomph!”

The top ripped from Queen Bee’s hand, severing the string in a single cut and sending Nathanael tumbling to the ground in a heap.

“One job,” Queen Bee said, holding her finger up. “You had one job and that was not to get kidnapped.”

“Sorry I’m such an apparently vulnerable target,” Nathanael sighed, brushing his shirt off.

“Well you’re clearly doing something wrong,” Queen Bee huffed, tapping her foot against the ground. “Have you considered moving?”

“Yeah, let me just call my Dad and tell him I want to move to Belgium because a supervillain in a cheap purple suit thinks I’m dating one of his nemeses,” Nathanael said, picking a loose strand of sticky thread off his shirt.

“Belgium probably doesn’t have spider themed hussies kidnapping people’s boyfriends,” Queen Bee said. “Just sayin’”

“I’m not your boy-”

“I know you’re not my boyfriend!” Queen Bee snapped. “But she still thinks you are, which means she thinks she can kidnap my boyfriend whenever she wants to!”

“That’s…insulting?” Nathanael said.

“It is to me!” Queen Bee said with a dark scowl. “Like, who the hell does she think she is, kidnapping my not-boyfriend like I’m not gonna do anything about it?!”

“You’re really taking this personally, aren’t you?”

“Of course I am!”

“We’re…not dating though.”

“That’s not the point!” Queen Bee snapped, jetting off in the direction of the eight-legged akuma who had Ladybug in her jaws.

“…isn’t it?” Nathanael asked.

  “…sooooooooo what’s up with you and Bee?” Chat Noir asked as Queen Bee kicked an akuma off a bridge into the Seine.

“We’re not dating,” Nathanael sighed as Chat carried him away from the action.

“Are you suuuuuuu-”

“WE’RE-”

 “-NOT DATING!”

“Okay, okay!” Volpina said, holding her hands up. “Fine, fine, sorry I asked.”

“You can see how we might get that impression,” Ladybug said, raising her hands placatingly as Queen Bee sulked on the corner of the rooftop. “And he is a sweet guy…f-from what I’ve heard, I mean.”

This was getting badly out of hand. It was one thing for her worst enemy to think that she had a thing for Nathanael; the worst Hawkmoth could do was kill him. But once her partners had caught the smell of romantic blood in the water, they started to circle like hungry sharks.

“You should have seen his face when you saved him from the last akuma,” Chat snickered. “Soooooo red.”

Chat leaned out of the way of the top Queen Been whipped at his head with a sharp laugh. 

  “They’re staring at me,” Nathanael mumbled, raising his menu to block the curious patrons glances.

“Please; they’re not staring at you,” Queen Bee snorted, offering a magnanimous wave to the rubbernecking restaurant patrons. “And if they do, it’s because you’re here on a date with me.”

“Date…right,” Nathanael sighed.

“Don’t look so disappointed,” Queen Bee said. “I’m sure there’s hundreds of guys who would lie, cheat, and steal for a chance to go on a date with me.”

“I thought we were supposed to be an unhappy couple,” Nathanael said.

“We are,” Queen Bee clarified, glancing around the restaurant surreptitiously. “But save it for when that busybody from the Ladyblog shows up.”

“How do you know Alya is going to-”

“Her mom’s the head chef here,” Queen Bee said with a smirk. “And she does her homework at the table in the corner every day. So just pretend to talk to me until she gets here and then I can dump you publicly.”

“Why can’t I be the one to dump you again?” Nathanael asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Because no one would believe that you would actually throw away a chance to date me,” Queen Bee scoffed.

“They would if they knew what it entailed,” Nathanael muttered.

“Don’t look so glum,” Queen Bee chided. “Do you know how much your dating credit is going to increase after this? I mean, granted, you’re not going to trade up or anything, but the fact that everyone thought we were dating is going to pique some interest.”

“Honestly, I’m only doing this so Hawkmoth stops snatching me off the street every other day,” Nathanael grumbled, taking a sip of his water. “I’d like to go through a week without getting abducted by the minions of a man who chooses to dress like a butterfly.”

“Oh god, right?” Queen Bee snorted. “The guy looks like a refugee from Candyland’s Comicon.”

“He looks like a luchador attending junior prom,” Nathanael added. “Or if someone drew a humanized version of Grimace from the McDonald cartoons.”

Nathanael couldn’t help the smile tugging at the corner of his lips as Queen Bee covered her mouth to keep from spraying water all over the table.

  It was hard to get to know someone when they couldn’t really tell you anything incriminating about them, but over the course of the night, and despite their best intentions, the pair learned a little more about each other.

He learned that she loved her father, but wished he had more time for her.

She learned that he didn’t want to tell his dad that he had no interest in going into medical school.

He learned that, despite her haughty exterior, she could be one of the crassest people he had ever met.

She learned that he was nowhere nearly as milquetoast as she had assumed he was.

And very soon, it was closing time. Alya hadn’t showed all night, and as the distant clock struck midnight, Nathanael’s feet touched down on the roof of his house.

“Thanks for the lift,” Nathanael said, brushing his shirt off as Queen Bee hovered behind him.

“I don’t know where blog-girl was today,” Queen Bee huffed, folding her arms. “Kinda spoils the whole ‘public break up’ thing, doesn’t it?”

“Nothing we can do,” Nathanael shrugged. “Just have to try again.”

“I guess,” Queen Bee huffed, eyeing Nathanael curiously. “What are you gonna do in the mean time?”

“I guess I’m gonna have to try not to get kidnapped,” Nathanael said with a sheepish smile.

Queen Bee rolled her eyes, mostly to avoid lingering on the bangs she had had the urge to brush out of his face for blocks. “Yeah, well, see that you do. I might not be able to save you next time.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” Nathanael said, glancing back as he popped his bedroom hatch open. “Queen Bee wouldn’t dare let Hawkmoth get his hands on her boy-toy.”

His teasing tone, and casual wave over his shoulder let her know he wasn’t serious, which led to a strange wash of disappointment that Chloe didn’t quite know what to do with. She hovered above his roof for a long moment before taking off, twirling in midair and streaking down the block as fast as her wings would carry her.

 “This is your fault.”

Alya blinked, opening her eyes to see a black and yellow clad figure hovering over her bed and glaring down at her.

“W…what the-” Alya mumbled, glancing around in a half-woken daze.

“You were supposed to be a the restaurant today, so you could see me break up with Nathanael, but because you weren’t for some stupid reason, I went on a stupid date with his stupid pretty face, and now, instead of breaking up with him, I now actually have to entertain the idea of actually dating him!” Queen Bee hissed out in one, long breath. “So thanks Alya!”

“Wh…what did I do?” Alya mumbled as Queen Bee turned around and zipped out the window. For a moment, she worried it had been some strange sleep-paralysis induced hallucination, until Queen Bee flitted back in, glanced around the room for a moment, and then knocked over a cup full of pencils in an act of pure spite.

“It is way too early for this,” Alya grumbled, burrowing back under her comforters.

AN: Happy (Belated) Christmas! I was your backup Secret Santa! Sorry this is tardy and hope this fills your ChloNath needs!

[rasekstories]

I’m Still Here

It is roughly 30 years after the last war between the Horde and the Alliance.  The Shadowpine Amani were the first to submit to the Horde afterwards, being the closest to Quel’thalas and the most susceptible to attack from the combined forces of the Darkspear and the blood elves, and many of their children having already taken up the banner of the Horde.  It was only a matter of sending these children home with promises of glory, safety, and of course the lack of invasion from the elves should they submit.

The Amani are a proud race, but their numbers had been dwindling steadily since the elves had begun repopulating, and with so many of their children leaving, the elders of the tribe had grown weary and eventually agreed.  Their broken spirit was and is still despaired by many in the villages, who long for Zul’jin to return and lead them to victory as he tried in the past, but he never comes, and more and more of their children are heading into Silvermoon City to make their fortunes.  Only the eldest Shadowpine remember warring with the elves at this point, who to their credit understood the value of trade, and eventually the barrier of hatred between the two races begun to soften, as these things do in an urban setting.

The Mossflayers were next.  The Forsaken made to take Arathi as they had Hillsbrad.  Sylvanas claimed it was the ancestral land of her people, many of whom had been raised by Arthas after the fall of Alterac, and many more still by the Val’kyr after Southshore and the farming town of Hillsbrad proper were taken during the fall of Gilneas.

The Mossflayers were on the brink of losing not only their homes, but having the land of their own ancestors leeched of life and desecrated by the reckless use of toxins employed by the Forsaken.  Vol’jin, not wanting to approach a northern troll as a southern “savior”, sent Primal Torntusk in his stead to treat with the Mossflayers.  Their initial stubbornness melted away into submission after Sylvanas captured refugee point and turned it into and the Alliance cavern leading into Alterac Valley into a gruesome checkpoint for her own decayed troops.

The Witherbark were the most stubborn of the northern tribes, having spent years at war with both Revantusk and the Wildhammer dwarves, though with the loss of Jintha’alor and the encroaching Forsaken troops from the Hiri’Watha station, they had no choice but to submit or be extinguished.  They chose the latter, and no Troll now will claim having descended upon them (Excepting TIombi, who despite what she thought, wept for the loss of her people but did not speak of it, as they had not been her tribe for quite some time).

There were a few years of peace in the region.  Vol’jin had duties elsewhere, contacting the other tribes on Azeroth in an attempt to unite them under one banner, which he called the greatest empire any troll has seen in history, and all but the Farrakki joined forces with him.  To this day, they are the only “savage” tribe left, though concessions were made in the ways of cannibalism and voodoo as a means of appeasement for the newer tribes in the Horde.

The Ghostlands were still gloomy, but populated by a few elves wishing to make the best of it, the Shadowpine Amani who had always called it home, and quite a few Forsaken who had grown attached to the elves and rather enjoyed the depressing rot and fog that seemed to come from the very soil.

Zul’Aman remained closed.

Eventually, the Regent Lord decided that the entirely of the Ghostlands truly belonged to the blood elves, who had suffered much to keep it safe while the Shadowpine only fought against them, and a political rift was born between the two groups once again.  Once Vol’jin passed, the bonds that had brought them together weakened further, especially after a few offhand comments made by Lor’themar at the Jin’s funeral.  The two nations are still allies, but only technically.  Trolls are once again unwelcome in the city if they even look slightly Amani, though the more obviously Darkspear are still accepted.

And so, another strain between the Darkspear and Amani began to pull as well.

Revantusk has expanded beyond the small fishing village on the coast, extending its borders further than they were even during the second war, when the tribes in the area were united under a different Orcish Horde.

The whole of the Hinterlands belonged to General Yarbo Irontusk for a time, who, after the death of his father, refused to use the title “Warchief”, saying politics did not suit him, and if the war was over so was he.  Regardless, nothing was done that would displease him, though he grumbled to himself and lost interest in the things that used to keep him occupied.  He had one stillborn daughter and a son after that, though Tiombi suffered greatly during the second birth and passed away shortly afterward.

Zaezha did everything she could to assist Yarbo in raising his child, partly at Rasek’s request.  He grew up beside their small litter of children, each enjoying the comfort and relative ease of living in a peaceful time on their father’s income, which was often described as “elven” due to its size, though the major general was closer to a Goblin than anything else.

Yarbo passed away in his early 40s, his boy in his late teens, and Rasek followed shortly after, a victim of high blood pressure and extreme alcoholism.

Jin’taza moved to Silvermoon to study, taking a rather impressive entourage of educated and interested Trolls with him.  Eventually he took over one of the run down observatories in the Ghostlands that reminded him of his youth, where he studies to this day as the headmaster of a respected university that even the elves let their children attend, if they can pay the handsome tuition of course.

His former flame Kelikei left the village to deal with her own ghosts.  The two remained friends, but their passion for one another had long since withered away, and when she left the Eastern Kingdoms she sent a few letters and eventually fell out of touch with the rest of the world.  Jin’taza has named what he believes to be another planet after her.

Urukal works in this university, although she never made the rank of a full professor.  She works as an assistant to an elven professor who is nearly 300 years older than her and has grown kinder to her in her old age, but still remains relatively cold.  Urukal’s husband, Kazzok, is a rather hopeless and terrible fisherman, who takes their two tomboy daughters out on trips often enough that they have surpassed him, and bring in most of the food for their family.

Athena took up residence in Arathi, working closely with the Trolls there, as she is used to, and she still sends letters to Nang, who can barely read at his advanced age but responds just the same from his home in Orgrimmar.

Nydairus became a sort of lost soul. With the warband at peace and his old comrades from Lordaeron either dead or missing, he felt without purpose, and succumbed to a bit of brain rot.  He remained a steady shot, but ventured off into the woods alone to pretend to fight the bad guys whenever he pleased.

Zurrock took pity on him and shot him in the head 15 years after the war ended.  Zurrock had gotten his own woman; a very poor elven woman who he thought to be the most beautiful creature on the planet with a wicked fine ass.  They did not have any children together, but she had one with some other lover that he took notice of from time to time.  He died 29 years after the last war, leaving his hussy with quite a bit of gold and a place for her son at Jin’taza’s academy (which he declined to become a ranger).

Vesdemona and Ratapumpum happened to travel the same route quite often, between Orgrimmar, the Undercity, and Silvermoon, though he would take the extra step and head down to Revantusk to see the turtles.  She lost control of her demons and as a result lost half of her face, which was replaced but looked a mess, and she became rather bitter as a result.  Ratapumpum was eaten by a spawn of Gammerita, and if Vesdemona found him annoying in life, she found him even more so in death, simply because he was not around to keep her company.

Gazrak went missing in the twisting nether.

Yirna and Rasek had an affair sometime after the birth of his second child, which he never told Zaezha about but she suspected, which led to Yirna’s first child and her hurried departure from Revantusk.  She joined the Earthen Ring full time, and while Rasek sent her money to better care for their child, they rarely spoke out of shame.

BUT THAT’S NOT WHAT THIS FUCKING STORY IS ABOUT.

Juzmik and Sarjen have lived together in a permanent home for roughly 10 years.  Once he was convinced there would be no further war for him to worry about, the knight got down to a deeper concern:  Keeping himself fed.

Juzmik had wanted to live above or beside their bar in an urban area, but his duties as a general didn’t give him the time he wished he had, and Sarjen was too busy with his own work to ever get started building it.  Peace between the Alliance and the Horde was still strained, and neither side made any secret of spying on the other.  Besides, there were still elves to watch.

During this time, Juzmik had taken a liking to the orphans who were growing into their teenage years. They regarded him as an older brother, and many of them went on to be scouts and members of the military (as orphans are naturally good at hiding, fitting into small spaces, stealing, and shooting lasers from their eyes).

A younger boy, not old enough to participate in the rougher games they played or their practicing, always came to watch.  Juzmik grew especially fond of the kid and wanted to adopt him, but Sarjen grew more and more fearful of his own state, with the land at peace and himself unable to find enough things to remain mentally well.  He grew more and more violent and unstable, his drawings and calculations becoming strange, and his schedule and methods more erratic.

Juzmik did adopt the boy, but Sarjen spent days and days away from home just to keep himself well enough to be around a child.  Eventually the two began to grow apart.

The work of a general seems endless, but old men have their limits.  Juzmik retired in his early 40s, a few years after the death of Yarbo and Rasek.  His adopted son was only a few years older than Zaezha’s eldest, and the two of them got along well enough to act as a pair of mentors for the rest of the younger kids, though at the time of Juzmik’s retirement they were old enough to be considered men themselves.

He watched with pride as his son earned a sergeant’s rank in the military, and though he visited Zaezha often (she was in her late 40s and was lonely despite being friends with nearly everyone on the continent), he lived alone in his modest apartment.  He saw Sarjen rarely, and the knight barely spoke.

So anyway, Juzmik is now 56 years old. His adopted son is around 30, and a senior sergeant in the Combined Troll Forces.  He’s married to a much younger Revantusk native, who is expecting their first child.  

Sarjen has not been seen in Revantusk for some time, having left a letter of resignation on his desk one morning in July, and no letter for Juzmik at all.  The old general spends his time spoiling orphans, though there are considerably fewer of them than there used to be, walking Zaezha around town, and drinking coffee.  He has a little garden outside his window which he tends, but it grows smaller and less comely every year.  He has a stiffness in his back and a pain in his joints that he can no longer ignore, so he sighs at his window and sips his coffee, looking out at his meager garden and wishing he could still do it all himself.

On the eve of his 57th birthday, Juzmik falls from a stool while attempting to get his last container of coffee from the highest shelf.  Zaezha would not be there until tomorrow, and his son was busy enough with his own family and work that he would be even later.  When he tried to call for help, a sharp pain in his chest made him reconsider.  Even drawing enough breath to yell hurt more than anything he’d felt in his life, so he tried his best to remember his training, lay very still, and attempted to keep his breathing even.

Zaezha found him the following afternoon and called for a doctor, but the old scout was in terrible shape.  He was given comfort and enough medicine to keep him out of pain, but he’d be asleep for ages before he woke up, if at all.

Juzmik did wake up, though not as he remembered himself being.  He was young again, his hair still a darker blue than the deepest part of the ocean, his golden eyes still bright.  His limbs didn’t ache and he wasn’t coughing.  He was moving, but not of his own accord.  He was being carried, though through the fog of medication he couldn’t quite see where.  The man carrying him was a figure from his dreams; tall, broad shouldered, with leathery brown skin and red hair so faded it was almost pink. The piercing light from his blue eyes was as sharp and cold as ever, but there was a warmth in the way he held Juzmik that couldn’t be felt through his skin.

Juzmik asked where they were going and tried to move, but when he did his vision spotted with pain, and for a moment he was an old husk of a Troll again.  The knight held him closer and said nothing.

He couldn’t say how long they traveled.  A first it was in the knight’s arms, then sitting in front of him on a bike, always held close, then in his arms again as they climbed a ways out in some of the outlying hills in what smelled like Arathi.  The tree line gave way to a grassy clearing overlooking the ocean (he could smell that too), and at this point the knight set Juzmik on his feet, though he still held the man up by his waist and arm.

A modest cottage was situated at the top of the hill.  It had tall, arched doorways made of stone and a peaked roof with grey shingles.  Most of the main body was made from the deep green rock that formed in the caves near Hammerfall, with swirling white and gold veins that would made it so desirable in Stromgard and Alterac over half a century ago.  To the left was a smaller, more modest addition made from wood, sporting more windows than the main building but being lower and less extravagant as a whole.  It had a very homely feel to it, with meticulously cared for flower boxes in the window and a neat vegetable garden in the back. A tin sign over the door was engraved with the name Juzmik had always wanted to give his bar, and as he smiled he couldn’t contain the tears that had begun to form at the corners of his eyes.

Sarjen led him through the interior slowly, making sure to stop every time Juzmik needed rest or another dose of his medicine, which kept him so fuzzy he could scarcely tell what was real and what was just a dream.

Indeed, as he lie in bed, his hand on the side of the old knight’s face, he asked if he’d really come back to live with him.  Sarjen smiled and promised he’d always be there, the cold gravel in his voice quelling any emotion that might have betrayed at him.

“You haven’t looked at me that way in years.”  Juzmik mumbled, the dense fog of his drug and the friendly hands of death already pulling at his hands and the hem of his tunic.  Sarjen smiled and kissed the general’s forehead, pulling the covers up over his chest as gently as and sweetly has he possibly could.

He let out a ragged sigh as Juzmik closed his eyes, mouth slightly open, the steady rhythm of his breathing becoming slower and slower until it was no longer there.  He kissed the boy’s knuckles, warm but no longer responsive, and buried his face in the cover, whispering between his sobs.

“I’m still here.”