#whatever its fern its good regardless

[flippyplush]

hi ummm lighting practice. i think.

[pinksilvace]

MY TIME HAS COME... TIME FOR ALONZO CATSTHEMUSICAL PROPAGANDA FOR @eggcrackerbracket

Watching Cats 1998 as a child fundamentally changed me as a person. I don't even know where to start with Alonzo, but every few weeks, I introduce a new group of friends to Cats 1998. Not a SINGLE viewing session has gone by without a trans/enby friend pointing Alonzo out with statements like, "He's pretty gender," "I want his gender," "I like the vibes of that one," or, I kid you not, "That's the gender cat!"

"But Fern," I hear you cry. "He's a cat!"

Look me straight in the eyes and tell me that the trans community doesn't have a large furry population, then look me even straighter and try to tell me that the furry community doesn't have an enormous trans population. Heck; regardless of the costumes, every actor in Cats is at peak physical performance.

What is it about Alonzo, specifically, that makes him such an excellent egg cracker?

1: The Design

Alonzo's costume is very striking. Many of the cats - especially those in major roles - have costumes with some semblance of symmetry. This is not the case with Alonzo. He's also one of the few cats that has a solely black and white design. The pattern of it creates a special illusion with his body lines that alters the effect of his performance.

When a costume is symmetrical down the center, it gives an impression of where an actor's sternum and spine are located. Alonzo's design has led to him being commonly referred to as one of the "boneless" cats; his center lines are not well defined, so his movements feel less constrained by biological factors. A good example of this is located two gifs up from here; see how the white stripe going down his center to his right leg seems to warp an unnatural amount? It's a gorgeous effect that makes him stand out.

Additionally, I KNOW a lot of us like half & half characters. Even without moving, you have to admit that he's got a pretty cool look.

2: The Actors

Every role in Cats has specific demands; in Alonzo's case, the actors must be very good dancers. Here's a snippet of his casting call:

5'10"-6'0", excellent ballet technique, good partner. Strong presence, attractive.

There are a few important things to note here. First, all of Alonzo's actors are pretty tall. Second, they have to have a "strong presence" - the kind that, say, could catch the attention of young eggs. Third, the actors literally have to be "attractive." We'll never truly know how many people look at this character and think either "I want him" or "I want to be him," but I'm willing to bet that it's not an insignificant number.

In some older productions of Cats, Alonzo's actors also played a more androgynous role. During the "Macavity" number (a number well-known for its involvement of the female cast), Alonzo used to "shadow" the dance movements of Demeter and Bombalurina, two of the most feminine characters in the show. To my knowledge, no other male character does movements like these.

(^In this second video, an older Broadway-based design is used for Alonzo.)

3: Projection

Alonzo is a chorus character. He has no song. His entire character consists of three adjectives: vain, uncertain, and bravado. In most productions, he's played as a potential successor to Munkustrap, but that's as far as the show goes to develop him.

What does this mean? The field is WIDE OPEN for him to be whatever kind of character the audience wants him to be. You want him to be the Gender cat? By gosh, then, he's the gender cat.

In conclusion: ALONZO SWEEP

[darkx-the-dragon-kn1ght]

Pokémon Reborn Screenshot Let's Play: Chapter 7

Hello everybody, and happy holidays, whatever you may celebrate! I’ve been having a good time playing around in the Indigo Disk DLC, but luckily it hasn’t stopped me from working on Chapter 7 here! And it is a beefy chapter indeed, but for good reason- not only because we’re finally back on track with the timeline of these chapters after the weirdness of 5 and 6, but in this edition, it’ll be time for the very first Gym battle! 

After all this time and buildup, we’re finally going to be challenging Julia herself- will it go well? Will the reload counter increase by tenfold? We’ll just have to see! Consider this an early Christmas present from me, and if you don’t celebrate that, then just consider it a present in general.

But before we get into that, let’s go over the events and revelations of Chapter 6:

Having been forced to pair up with Fern, Xera and him properly begin the investigation/raid into Team Meteor’s activities in the facility known as Mosswater Industrial.

Entering the central room, Xera and Fern encounter Ace- an eccentric magician, possibly a Gym Leader, and one of the leading figures of Team Meteor. They’re in the midst of clearing out all the data Team Meteor’s gathered and order the Grunts to slow the two Trainers down.

Xera and Fern fight their way through the Grunts, going through remaining computer files along the way. These files contain clues to a code to an elevator to the second floor as well as bits of information regarding suspicious-sounding “Projects” Team Meteor have been undertaking.

These battles with the Grunts act as Xera’s first exposure to Field Effects, a staple of battling in the Reborn region.

With the complete code, Xera and Fern take the elevator to the factory’s upper floor…only for Ace to cut its power and trap the duo. 

After taunting the two and making an offer for them to join Team Meteor, claiming Team Meteor is actually acting for the benefit of the region, Fern understandably rebuffs the offer. Then, Julia and Florinia bust into the room, the latter restoring power to the elevator and freeing Xera and Fern.

Finding themselves outnumbered, Ace flees through a nearby gates, which seals itself shut behind them. While Florinia tries to hack her way through the gate, Julia opts to blow it up, tasking Fern and Xera with retrieving some explosives from Team Meteor’s storage.

Xera and Fern explore the second floor of Mosswater Industrial, fighting more Grunts in order to obtain the code to the storage room. Succeeding that, they take down the last of the Grunts to get some explosives and return to Julia.

With the bombs, Julia is able to set them up to blow down the gate…only for Florinia’s hacking to open the gate at the last moment, meaning the bombs blow up little more than the surrounding walls. Regardless, the gate is open, allowing the four to pursue Ace at last.

The group enters the building’s headquarters; not only is Ace there, but they also encounter a pair of Team Meteor Privates (not Grunts) and their superior officer, a man dubbed Commander Redeye until further notice.

Commander Redeye explains the group didn’t really accomplish anything with their raid, as their collected data has already been safeguarded. Additionally, he calls Team Meteor the “shepherds” of the Reborn region, going on to explain alongside Ace that Reborn City has been monitored by Team Meteor for quite some time now.

After dropping the exposition, Redeye orders the two Privates- a young man named Aster and a young woman named Eclipse (which might be codenames)- to deal with Xera and Fern while he and Ace take on the two Gym Leaders. Fortunately, both groups are successful in their battles.

Realizing battling all four Trainers at once would be detrimental, Commander Redeye orders a retreat via Ace’s magician stuff. Even so, Redeye claims the group have not truly won, dubbing them “enemies of the region.”

With the last of Team Meteor gone, Julia activates a self-destruct sequence to destroy Mosswater Industrial. Fern departs after this, with Florinia planning to do the same- after all, something is happening in Obsidia Ward regarding the plants.

Before she leaves, Florinia tells Xera more about Field Effects, adding a new app to her PokéGear: the Field Notes app, which provides information on Field Effects (as long as Xera’s found the necessary data readouts, anyways).

After Florinia leaves, Julia thanks Xera for her help with the raid and insists she challenge her at the Gym before also departing.

So now, it’s time to take Julia up on that offer…after making some final preparations, of course! There’s still a lot to do before challenging the Gym Leader, so let’s get started!

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Part 9

Part 10

Part 11

Part 12

Part 13

Part 14

Part 15

Part 16

Part 17

Part 18

[of-hopes-and-daemons]

Fuzzverse Assorted Lore

Crystal Hosts • Lacedrace and Sanya: differing opinions • Concerning Inquisitor Guy

Everything you didn’t want to know about the Fuzzverse also known as my midnight ramblings. Three topics to cover today.

Crystal Hosts

So about these crystal "hosts" Fuzzes use.

As far as I know, being in realspace is really hard on daemons, especially Greater one, if they can even manage it in the first place, so Fuzzes use these crystal-based bodies to loophole around the laws of the universe. They do limit what unreasonable daemon stuff they can do, but pretty useful regardless. Originally invented by Lacedrace, but eventually adopted in some shape or form by all four.

They all also put their own unique twists on the formula, so in the end we have: - Lacedrace has classic, but refined option of this pure warp-infused crystal. Good conduit for magic, easily reassembled in case it gets shattered and gives her easy opportunities to temporarily manifest in her true daemon form, but very bad at providing sensory input and very obviously a crystal on close inspection, unless glamoured specifically and heavily against this. Also due to how heavily infused it is with magic it is far easier to notice and pick up. And it also chips.  - An'Hangra has one with pretty significant traces of metals and especially good old brass. It is very durable, dense and strong, surprisingly heavy, harder to repair on the fly, but it is still possible to an extent, specifically made to actually bleed, because Khornate shtick, so-so at providing sensory response, aside from basic stuff. It is surprisingly (or not so) resistant to any kind of “witchcraft” as well, making An’Hangra a nightmarish opponent for any psyker.  - Balthrag is semi-amorphous and squishy, her take on the thing is having host to be, probably assembled from either semi-fluid crystal or smaller particles or whatever. Squishy blob. Has its own ecosystem of fungi and ferns and flowers, all growing, wilting and rotting in an endless cycle. Somewhat complicated to repair on the spot. How solid she is seems to be closely related to her emotional state or how much conscious effort she puts into it. And yes, she can squish herself into ridiculously tiny openings.  - Shanakay is extra, putting unreasonable amount of work in perfecting each of hosts used to be an ideal representation of yours truly. Most refined and detailed of the bunch, almost ideal mimicry of how things would feel with an actual body, definitely has greatly enhanced senses for the ideal enjoyment of stuffing her face with sad soggy fries from McNurgle. Some bits are created and added purely for aesthetic perfection, where other Fuzzes tend to go for more practical and utilitarian approach. Due to it all - incredibly hard to repair and so any damages do piss her off. Where her host luck in sturdiness or reparability, they however do win in agility, finer control and sheer speed.

Lacedrace and Sanya: differing opinions

So, few notes I wanted to share about their relationship is that, despite the fact that they absolutely do get along amazing, there are quite a bit of points they do struggles to find common ground about. 

One of those being the fact that Lacedrace is still a pretty ruthless being, that would not hesitate to bring down entire worlds to achieve her goals. This being said, for the time being their goals seem to align and they both work hard to make sure their little rowing band of renegades (and some other stuff in Lacedrace’s case) survives and prospers, but the amount of collateral damage each of them is willing to tolerate is very different. 

More or less it can be summed up as Sanya being of the “we must do our best to help others or at least do not cause harm” and Lacedrace seeing things more along the lines “this hope’s survival is paramount, I will not hesitate to bring doom to ensure it” when it comes to achieving their goals. 

In the end they mostly try to find some kind of compromise and so it would be fair to say, that in the end Polaris is, indeed, not intentionally causing any sort of stuff, for the most part, but their arrivals tend to stir things far too strongly here and there, And for better or for worse is entirely subjective. 

Another fun example of their opinion differences is after the “Severed Hand” when it becomes apparent that Sanya by using athame against Erebus did ended up signing for untimely end due to rancid Chaos vibes. Well, untimely in this particular case being “a few decades if he would survive initial trauma of being slapped around by a Dark Apostle and would get adequate amount of wards, bionics, medicine and rejuvenat” which he did. 

And Sanya was largely okay with it, as long as Polaris would be alright after his passing and would continue to grow, into a tiny nomadic fleet perhaps. Lacedrace however was largely not okay with this and was very much ready to go and gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss Sanya’s way into survival by any means necessary, and I am still not sure how they figured that out, especially given how all Sanya’s buddies largely split 50/50 on the issue and certain someone even found the napkin with the description for the Davin ritual. Because it worked so well back then.

Concerning Inquisitor Guy

So, pretty early on I figured that during the events of the main story of Fuzzverse there will be some kind of daemon-hunting crew on Lacedrace’s tail. Pun is not intended. And initially I assumed to represent them as classically outrageously evil Inquisition. 

But then I got a thought - wouldn’t it be more interesting, to give this group a central character, who can be understood and in who in different circumstance could have been a protagonist of his own story of hunting a dangerous daemon, who might cause a lot of problem for the Imperium, you know. Guy is just doing his job based on the information he has and is not being too much of a prick about it.

Because, seriously, to an outside observer whatever is going on with Sanya and his fun found family of daemons, renegades, xenos and one c’tan shard would probably be pretty horrifying. And expanding on what was said before about Lacedrace not concerning herself with collateral damage all too much - Sanya might be genuinely well-meaning and trying his best, but they do end up stirring up a lot of shit. 

So they have this Inquisitor Guy (yet to be named) always on their tail and trying his damn best to save the Imperium from the dreadful Alexander the Accursed and Crystal Sage, the vile Lord of Change being the seeming mastermind behind the despicable heretic, who have turned his back on the light of the God-Emperor. And Crystal Sage also being indirectly responsible for Inquisitor Guy’s family demise. 

All meanwhile Sanya is having a grand old time making dumplings for all his new friends. If they would ever meet face to face it is going to be hilarious. 

[featherwurm]

The plant kingdom has many familiar and unfamiliar species within it. It's diversity is incredible, but the core function of its members is clear within the cycles of animal life. Overall the plant cards focus on life and the myriad of things needed to build and maintain its cycles. When one finds many plant cards in a reading one should consider the core functions and processes of life on earth, and how they are created, maintained, and eventually destroyed.

Anthocerotophyta – The Hornwort card represents softness. Softness is a quality of many things, of heart, of feeling, of mind. To be soft is to be gentle, but it is possible to be too soft and forgiving. In a reading this could be a positive quality to be embraced or a negative one to be overcome. Softness is not idleness or laziness, but it is possible to be too soft to those needing sternness. It is also at times necessary to break through sternness with softness. Physically very soft, this phylum is easily mistaken for mosses, as it often grows in the same biome and is similarly green and low growing.

Bryophyta – The Fern Moss card represents retention. Holding on to the critical and taking in the ephemeral are both qualities of retention, and one should consider that one may need to pay close attention to their surroundings, or give more weight to their studies as they observe this card in their reading. One may also want to look at that which they have retained, their knowledge, skill, and memory, and how it may aid them in relation to the subject of their reading. This phyla is full of a variety of species with different adaptations, but one that is common and important is the ability for moss to retain a tremendous amount of water, up to twenty times its weight, assisting in is survival and growth.

Charophyta – The Charophyta card represents scaffolding. A scaffold is something which reinforces a structure until it can stand on its own. It may be prudent to consider what support is needed, physical or otherwise, before something can come to fruition. It is important to create the framework needed for the final piece, even if it may need to be taken down or destroyed so the creation can finally exist. Look to where support is needed before something can be completed, and consider giving the appropriate development before launching into final conclusions. Charophyta can be difficult to describe as their own phyla, but one unique trait is that in many species, there is the use of phragmoplasts in mitosis (essentially a scaffolding developed to help set the shape of the final cell).

Chlorophyta – The Green Algae card represents a battery. While something with such electronic connections may seem out of place in relation to living things, many species within this phylum serve as a source of energy within other organisms. Their photosynthetic abilities support the animals they live in and are essential to the lives of. So it should be considered in a reading then, where is a support of power, a source of energy needed, or how might energy and inspiration be stored for later use. Consider how a battery powers a device, while existing as a single and independent thing from that device (although it may have no use of its own alone). Is the battery dead or missing? Is it time to consider placing a battery within a device to bring it new life? The meaning is left up to the reading.

Cycadophyta – The King Sago card represents the primeval. Cycads are noted for their persistence throughout the fossil record with very little change to their morphology and evolutionary strategy, what has worked for them throughout their history continues to serve them. In this way, one should look to the adaptations our own kind has employed since its own evolution. Look to whatever 'gut instinct' might apply to the situation at hand. Trust in the nature of basic emotion. Consider the response of instinct when approaching something that has caused vexation.

Ginkgophyta – The Ginko card represents dignity. Stately, beautiful, and long lived in the right circumstance, ginko trees have an air of ancient authority. While sometimes circumstance dictates a loss of dignity, it can always be carried within. To have dignity though difficulty is a feat, and one that should be lauded. In a reading a call for dignity may take different forms, but one should look to maintain the actions and outlook that retain both their own dignity and decency, and those around them that might suffer a need of it too. While only one extant species remains of this Phylum, its ancient lineage is clear, and its unique nature only makes it more stately.

Glaucophyta – The Blue Green Algae card represents a catalyst. Whether this is the subject of the reading or something the subject should look for is a question left up to the reader. A catalyst is something that creates great change, for good or ill, or perhaps of neutral value, but something that makes for a very different situation from the starting point regardless. The catalyst may be some other element of the reading, or it may be an outside force ready to act upon it. Containing what are likely remnants of an early fortuitous union with cyanobacteria, blue-green algae carry within them something that literally once completely changed the face of the planet itself, developing the atmosphere as we now know it and making a world familiar to all life now living on earth.

[halothenthehorns]

All in the Family

Chapter 90: Flesh, Blood, and Bone

"So, does this mean Hufflepuff won?" Peter asked groggily. Even having landed upside-down in a warm, plush chair, the vibrant yellow walls with little badgers painted on them and the earth colored carpet gave it away. "How utterly rude," he finished in a mutter, thinking Harry had been slighted if that were the case. A tie was more than fair-

"Prongs? Moony, you two alright?" Peter flipped out of the chair and landed even more painfully than when he'd been upside down, but ignoring any cricks in his body he'd get for that later, he quickly scrambled around to see Sirius bending over the two in concern, rightly so. James's leg was still smoking slightly, and even as he watched, Remus lost the battle of keeping his eyes open, they rolled back into his head and he passed into sleep right on the table he'd landed on.

"We'll live," Prongs groaned, ignoring Padfoot's outstretched hand and inspecting the rest of his leg for further damage. Thankfully for now it just looked like a really bad sunburn, rather than charred flesh. "Remind me to kill Hagrid though."

"Don't think that'll be top of my list," Sirius crouched down beside him instead, casting a healing charm for him. "Even you wouldn't take those odds mate."

"I still owe him a good one," James returned sourly, still prodding the angry flesh until Sirius slapped his fingers away. "Only reason that blasted skrewt didn't kill us was the sphinx got territorial."

Peter choked in further concern and made his way over to Remus to check he really was asleep. Despite the slight snoring, he easily could have been dead.

Sirius didn't wait for permission this time and grabbed Prongs under the arms, hoisting him to his unsteady feet despite his protests and dragging him to the chair Peter had vacated. Then he came back and Peter was quick to help him get Moony to the couch, he didn't so much as twitch as they sort of half-dropped him down, he definitely wasn't light.

"Probably best we all get some sleep while we can," Alice agreed, standing surprisingly close to Sirius. "What with the tournament being over, and who knows what's coming for us next." Then she patted him lightly on the arm and whispered for him alone, "just remember what I said."

Sirius gave her a strange look as she went back to Frank's side, not quite in agreement, but he'd think about it regardless. For now he shoved Remus's legs at least slightly out of the way and claimed the other end of the couch again, ignoring the strange looks he got from Peter and James for this as there wasn't a lack of seating, but both of them were clearly just too exhausted themselves to care enough to ask, thankfully, as they tried to make themselves comfortable.

Frank watched the exchange with bewilderment, eyeing the shirtless stud of Hogwarts as it was clear some kind of interaction had happened between them, but brushed it off even before she slipped her hand into his and smiled for him alone. "How do you like my common room?"

"Lovely," he complimented with a genuine smile as he looked around once more. "I'm honestly jealous we can't switch houses now." It was a round, low-ceilinged room with a colourful profusion of plants and flowers that seemed to relish the atmosphere of the Hufflepuff common room: various cacti stood on wooden circular shelves (curved to fit the walls), many of them waving and dancing for no apparent reason, while copper-bottomed plant holders dangled amid the ceiling caused tendrils of ferns and ivies to brush your hair as you passed under them. James Potter seemed to be eyeing them with a careful eye Frank couldn't blame, he remembered the Devil's Snare as well, even if such a thing would never be here.

A portrait over the wooden mantelpiece (carved all over with decorative dancing badgers) showed Helga Hufflepuff, toasting her students with a tiny, two-handled golden cup. Small, round windows just level with the ground at the foot of the castle showed a pleasant view of rippling grass and dandelions, onto the grounds beyond. These low windows notwithstanding, the room felt perennially sunny.*

"I hope we get to go to the dorms as well at some point," she nodded to the rounded doors that led off. "But the couches are plenty comfortable," she squeezed his hand and the two curled up under the mantle and began to have a soft whispered conversation of what the other had done while separated in the maze. She never really got around to saying what she'd talked to Black about while stuck around him, but Frank hardly noticed that. He squeezed her tighter and shivered with distaste at the trap she described, while Alice smiled even broader he'd managed to have at least a semi-normal conversation with one of the Marauders, like her. They really weren't so bad individually it seemed, they just all enhanced the worst in each other apparently, she laughed to herself without sharing that thought aloud.

Only Lily and Regulus didn't seem to want to settle, though neither was acknowledging the other anymore despite the fact they shared the exact same thought. It was too easy.

All throughout this tournament Harry hadn't really had much of a struggle, now apparently it was just over? Lily kept flipping the blank pages of the book, it had landed right on top of someone's potions homework this time, but with at least Lupin and possibly Potter already asleep, no words were appearing. She'd seen how far along Regulus Black was though, and there seemed a decent chunk left, more than just the wrap-up of him going back to the Dursleys. You-Know-Who's plan hadn't seemed to come to fruition at all...

Alice had been right about one thing though, they both acknowledged to themselves, may as well catch some sleep now before they added any new nightmares to the mix with whatever did happen.

The floor was so soft Lily was tempted to just curl up right in front of the fireplace, but instead levitated a couch over there instead, mentally apologizing to whomever had been sitting here. She wondered once more what happened to these places once they left, and if a poor group of students would find themselves on the floor with no idea why their couch moved when they left once more.

Regulus curled up uneasily in a chair, not expecting to be able to sleep much in the bright common room, but his traitorous body was already listing to one side before he'd even finished the thought.

Lily was trying to walk her dog around her favorite forest spot, and doing a terrible job of it. The black beast kept tugging her in all sorts of directions no matter how much she scolded, and then when she finally got him to sit, he had a bone in his mouth, and he began chewing on it, loudly. Disgusted, she backed up and heard the crunching intensify, and suddenly the bright forest faded all around her, and she was in the Chamber of Secrets again, the dog had turned into a stag, still chewing on that bone that she now saw had a human foot at the end-

Potter stood before her chewing obnoxiously on some crisps, his hand holding out an unopened bag to her. "Alright Evans?" He asked cheerfully, not even spraying any of it on her, a small miracle. "Better enjoy that while you can," he said quickly to the indignant look she gave to him, though it was more for him hovering over her while she slept than the offered food this time. "It's the last of the food we've got on us, hopefully we get sent to the feast next."

She snatched it away and flounced over to where Alice and Frank were untangling themselves from each other, yawning and holding their own bags with bewildered faces as if they had no idea how that had happened.

Sirius had successfully summoned the bag back to him again and lobbed up for another throw. Regulus's reflexes were still on autopilot though, and he swatted it away once more, still snoring softly. Snickering in delight at the game, Sirius summoned it back for a fourth try when James circled back to him and snatched the bag into his hand.

"I should have woken you up last," he rolled his eyes, "now you've probably gone and crushed them all."

"They're still edible as dust," he shrugged without remorse.

James snatched Sirius's still mostly full bag and left the now abused one in its place, ignoring Sirius's mutters of daddy syndrome setting in as he changed the subject, "have you even tried waking him up yet?" Needlessly gesturing to Remus still snoring loudest of all.

Sirius hadn't, their feet were still tangled together and he was enjoying that too much. Aloud he said, "I'll certainly give it a try. Now that he's had some rest, at least we should only have to threaten bodily harm rather than acting on it."

James left him to it and went over to drop the bag gently on Regulus's face. That finally snapped him awake, and the bag fell to the floor, where he proceeded to crush it under his foot as he stood in surprise at how close Potter was. James sighed for the wasted food but turned away and left once more, grabbing the book and settling down next to Peter just a hair's breadth farther apart than he normally would have and flipped the book open, waiting patiently for the words to appear as Remus was finally roused.

When he saw them at last, a crisp lodged in his throat, and Peter reached over to thump him on the back in concern, but stopped just as quickly when he saw for himself.

"That's, not what I would have expected," he whispered to no one, flinching back away and studying the common room around them with new, worried eyes.

James completely agreed, as he had no idea why he was saying the words, "Flesh, Blood, and Bone."

If anybody had still been groggily waking up before, he had all attention on him now.

Lily heard about Harry and Cedric finding themselves in a graveyard instead of school with such a tight pit in her stomach, she wanted to demand from Potter what he'd really fed her. Surely this was all his fault, he was making this up just to scare them, he'd fed them something to make them all nauseous, he'd started all of this by bothering her at the end of class!

Her anger at him just didn't last though as a figure approached the boys, she knew this wasn't anyone's fault but You-Know-Who's. Sometimes she hated to be right.

Regulus watched and listened with abject horror only on Peter as Potter said the words. Kill the spare echoed in the room, it didn't even sound possible that had come from a teenager's mouth. The spare, what could that possibly mean? His brain shut down, even as he looked at all the older kids around him, their faces pale and looking sickly. The spare, what? He looked around again at the common room, and now refused to let it click together.

Potter wasn't letting anyone live in denial for what that could mean. He read in a rough, unrecognizable voice of the light coming out of a wand, and leaving Cedric Diggory's eyes.

James wanted to put the book down. No, more than that, he wanted to tear it into a million little pieces and then set each one ablaze and throw the ashes at Peeves and see if he could incinerate them further somehow. Nobody had actually tried that, he realized in near sudden hysterics. Why hadn't he thought of that, he was the most destructive person in the castle! Surely, if they just blew up this ruddy book, they could all just go home!

Before his hands could even twitch to begin though, he looked up at those around him. What would happen to them, even if it worked? Would they be trapped here forever without their means of escape? Trapped inside, though Cedric would never be able to come back here. He wondered if his homework was lying on one of those tables, never turned in. What was the point of all of this?!

Sirius moved so fast Peter barely had time to see him coming. Even if he had though, he'd do nothing to stop him, he hoped James wouldn't this time either. He deserved whatever thrashing that was about to happen, he'd actually killed someone, in cold blood, no hesitation. He was a monster, beyond redemption- He wheezed when Sirius's arms locked around him, unable to stop himself from tensing and pulling away on instinct, but found no force constricting the air out of him. Instead Sirius was holding him like a child, the muttered oaths under his breath were directed at himself.

"-never going to turn into that- won't let him be such an idiot again-"

Peter looked around wildly to see James and Remus too looked far more concerned for him, than about him, for once.

It took all he had not to burst into tears all over again as James forced out every cruel deed of this future. Hitting Harry! Creating that potion, using his own hand to bring You-Know-Who back to life...it never seemed to end, and it was all his fault! He'd do anything to atone for this...

HPHPHPHP

*The description of the common room came from JK herself. I don't know where she would have slipped it into the series myself, but I forever wish she'd gotten the chance.

[aha-my-villainous-thoughts]

Please, keep me. (Good Omens)

Part 2. Part 1 here, if you fancy it. Mostly more world building, this part isn’t the fun part yet. 

Crowley liked his duties, when all was said and done. He liked being outside the confines of Paradise’s many rooms and hallways and spaces, beautiful and comforting as they might be. Climbing the many, many curved stairs upwards he always looked forward to the moment when the steps gave way to nothingness and he was lifted only by the sweet cool air of space. His dark blue robes fluttered as he pushed himself away from the stairway and moved into the open expanse. Up here there was only rolling colours and gigantic planes of howling wind, buffeting storm systems and cosmic dust this way and that. Many of the angels in his rank were already here, all moving effortlessly against the wind towards their star systems, paintbrushes and stars tucked into their pockets ready to start their work. They were easy to see, with their long white wings against the backdrop of darkness. Crowley looked away, and looked towards the rough thing that the others of his unit were working on - something huge and ugly and without any real form. It was being built from molten rock and metal, plastered with layers and layers of stone and dirt. The Builders had been with it all day, heaping stone upon stone to form mountains, splitting the rock in two to make something they called ‘countries’. Now the Carvers were there, armed with pickaxes and lances to score the earth with lines and ridges and dig into the valleys. They wore shades of brown to match their frequently sour expressions, their work constantly undone by eager Builders. He didn’t envy them - there didn’t seem to be much fun outside of smashing through a mountain or two. 

With a sigh that seemed to be snatched from him by the wind, he pushed forward towards his little area of the sky. Without using his wings he found himself working a little harder to get there but with persistence he was soon back amongst his work from the previous night. He reached into his robes and pulled his paint brushes free, reaching into another hidden pocket for his ink pot. He had already positioned the two larger stars, a product of a collaboration of himself and one of the less irritating Builders. He held the smallest star in both of his hands and looked at it carefully, studying it for any faults. The little star glowed in his cupped hands, the light casting off of it coming as a white tinted with a warm hue. It reminded him, inexplicably of his little angel from the refectory. Small and unassuming, but so bright. He swallowed down a strong feeling that threatened to bubble up inside of him, and instead blew gently on his cupped hands, encouraging the star to flare a little brighter. 

“Glow better,” he muttered as he reached out and positioned it to complete the triplet star. 

There wasn’t a blue print to be followed out here in the surrounding skies; he and the other Starmakers had simply been sent to make the heavens as pretty as possible, a vast pleasing light show for whatever She was planning next. Everything was meant to be seen from the lump of dirt nearby. He wasn’t sure, thinking back to the colourful animals in the murals, if any of those dull looking beasts would really appreciate the work they were doing up here. Regardless, he was here to do his duty, and his duty was to paint. He loosened the cap of his ink pot, licked the end of his brush to make it smooth, and began to paint. 

The sounding of a celestial horn signalled the end of the Dusk to Dawn shift, along with a purple faint glow that made it harder to see the nebula he was painstakingly stippling. The time had gone quickly, and he put away his tools, sighing critically at his ink stained hands. He held back from the rest of the Starmakers as they made their way back towards the staircases downstairs, doing his best to ignore the way they called out to each other cheerily. Moving back from the colourful nebula he had been working on, he looked out to take it the entire dome they had been tasked with. It seemed endless, but slowly the dull blacks and greys were being filled in with patchworked areas of deep blue and violet, speckled with stars and planets and asteroids. There were colours hidden amongst them, a flash of brilliant green here or a glow of acidic yellow there. It was peaceful even with the riot of colour. 

“Oi, Crowley! Paradise waits for no angel!”

Crowley heard a voice call out, and frowned before turning to look. One of his unit, someone he didn’t remember the name of even after many decades, was staring back at him from the staircase with a look of bemused irritation. He gathered up his tools and thrust them into pockets as he pushed himself through the wind towards the staircase. He avoided the angel’s eyes even as he got closer, frowning to himself. 

“Why don’t you just use your wings?” asked the angel, and his voice made Crowley’s mood sour even more. He shrugged in lieu of giving an answer. The angel in front of him made an exasperated noise.“Whatever,”

Crowley waited a minute after the angel went down the staircase, wanting to keep some distance between them before following him down back into Paradise. 

There was no point staying in the hall once they came out into its broad space again. He wasn’t hungry for bread or honey, he didn’t want to sit with the rest of his unit while they talked and he didn’t want to simply go back to his room and wait the hours before the day started again. Very soon the Dawn to Day angels would fill the hall on their way to their work, the Lighters in their red robes who always seemed to talk the loudest, laugh the longest. The Cloudmakers weren’t so bad, even if Crowley didn’t care for their pink robes. They painted some beautiful sunrises to go along with that burning gigantic star the Lighters seemed to think was really the best thing ever created. Of course they would, they’re the ones who made it. 

Instead of doing any of unappealing options open to him Crowley slipped away through one of the doors on the far end of the hallway. This part of Paradise would be quiet during this shift, the Growers wouldn’t be coming into the green houses until after the third bell chimed.

He pushed open the heavy glass door carefully as to not let it squeak in protest as its hinges grated on each other. Moving into the humidity of the greenhouse was a world away from the cold sky he was used to. In here it was crowded with life, and Crowley walked deeper into the bustling space. Lush green plants burst from every surface, hanging from the ceiling, trailing vines along the brightly lit glass walls, reaching for him as he slipped further into the green maze. 

His fingers reached out and trailed along a row of ferns curling to greet him. He cursed under his breath, seeing the ink stains on his hand pass through his fingers onto the fern and colour the centre stem a deep purple. Looking at his hands he found them seeped in deep purple and blue still, swirling with glittering light that etched into every crease. 

Moving through the layers of green life he found himself in an area filled with beautiful and small creations, dozens of what he had heard described as ‘flowers’. They numbered in the thousands, and not even in his colourful work station upstairs had ever seen such a variety of colour and vibrancy. He moved along rows of gigantic yellow and brown disc shaped flowers that seemed to follow him as he moved, stopping to trace the smell of a  series of deep crimson curled buds with thorns tucked under their leaves. There were bushes of dozens of tiny pink blooms all crowded together on each stem, and unusual looking spiky red leaves that slotted together like a spear. Tousled haphazard petals that started one colour and ended in a brilliant blue. Everywhere he looked there was a new creation to see and he was greedy, wanting to see them all. 

He stopped when he reached a row of flowers that seemed to stand out to him for the wrong reasons. Somehow, in this lush green landscape populated with endless colour, these pure white flowers seemed wrong. Maybe it was the startling lack of colour compared to the banquet he had taken in, or maybe it was the shape the petals suggested as they fanned out. They looked like angels in white robes with their white wings spread wide, rising up from the stem in a defiant manner. 

Whatever it was about them, he didn’t like it. He didn’t enjoy the feeling that swirled in the pit of his stomach looking at this stark white flower - not even a beautiful cream that he could relate to the little Keeper and his curls. No, just cold, lifeless white. 

Frowning he reached for the flower closest to him and pinched it. Rubbing his thumb down the middle of the petal he left a wide stripe of gleaming purple stardust. It shimmered lightly on the petal before sinking in and spreading like ink along the lines of the flower. He repeated the motion on the remaining petals. And then again, on another flower head. And again on another. He kept going until his hands were free of ink and every white flower was printed with his glittering purple fingerprints. 

Standing back he smiled. 

“Better,” he muttered. “Keep it up,”

The flowers shivered in agreement, the petals spreading in appreciation of their new colours. Crowley felt a ghost of a smile creep across his face. It didn’t occur to him that whoever had spent their time carefully crafting these flowers might have something to say about his messy fingerprints all over them, but even if it had he wouldn’t have cared much - this was definitely an improvement, even if an unplanned one. 

With one last look at his handiwork, he retreated back towards the door and the solitude of his room. 

[radiojamming]

Are you open for requests? Sorry to bug ya if you're not. I find the lack of love for John funny so here is my 2 cents. Deputy and John havin a moment, probs sittin on the front porch of an abandoned countryside home or on one of those little porch swings, watchin the fireflies while talking shit about life/past? Probably end up with mutual quietness, arguing, or that rotted, weathered porch step/porch swing giving out underneath both of their asses and sending them sprawling like dummkopfs tbh.

dummkopf activate! (and omg this prompt is gr8) i’m also using the ages given in absolution, since they make more sense. i like the idea of the seed brothers being way closer in age.

also catch me dodging the ‘how did they get here/when did this happen’ point like a professional. 

- - -

Summer was fading in the Whitetails, only appearing when the sun poured golden light through the ridges and trees, before giving way to fall in the blue shadows. The last few warm evenings were clinging to the season like trembling leaves on a branch. 

Rook was almost loathe to admit that they were enjoying their evening; it was the deep blue kind that turned pine trees black and made mists rise under their boughs. Fireflies flitted through the woods and hovered above the piles of rotten leaves and toppled logs, appearing to dance like golden constellations in flight. Idly, they sipped at their beer (some hipster-label IPA they found in the back of a gas station cooler) and used the heel of their boot to give a little extra push to the porch swing, causing it to creak mournfully on its rusted hooks. 

The part they should have loathed was that John Seed was their sole company. He took up the other end of the swing with a casual stretch of limbs, his legs stretched out and knees bending with the rhythm of the swing’s movements, an identical beer loosely held in one hand. His eyes were half-lidded, watching the fireflies with hazy interest. 

Fate or stupidity (or some combination of the two) had led up to that moment, but Rook wasn’t partial to dwelling on it any more than they had to. What mattered more was that John wasn’t howling mad or doing anything John-like. He almost came across like a regular person, relaxed and slightly buzzed off cheap, watery beer, enjoying one of the last hurrahs of summer with the air of a man on vacation. Once in awhile, he’d roll Rook a look like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop, for them to pull a pistol on him and finish things up neatly with a nice little bow on top for emphasis. And every time, he was met with them looking back at him with the same sort of summer-induced sleepiness. No man’s land was the term that came to mind, like the porch swing was a no-combat zone, for reasons beyond either of them. Maybe there was a little residual Bliss in the air.

Rook barely registered the soft hiss of a mosquito hitting the buzzing lamp beside them, but the sound seemed to induce something in John’s head, earning a soft, short laugh from him. When Rook looked at him in curiosity, he shrugged with a crooked smile.

“At my foster parents’ house–the first one–we had one of those lamps on the porch, and I used to count every time a mosquito ran into it. One of the farmhands even had one of those stupid tennis racket types, and I was allowed to take it and, I don’t know, declare war on them or something.” 

He talked about his past so sparingly, only allowing bits to come through when they were painful enough to relate to on a torture basis. It was strange to hear outside of that context, especially when it showed a little bit of what life was like for him and his brothers.

Then, he cleared his throat and his smile dropped slowly. “I don’t know why I brought that up,” he said, sounding like he was scolding himself for it. 

Rook indulged him with a smile over the top of their bottle before they took a sip from it. “It’s fine. I kind of like hearing about it,” they replied. It was honest, though. The moments where John seemed like a well-adjusted human being seemed few and far between, especially when his particular brand of mania kicked in. 

The smile that returned to his face came back faded; a secondhand, overwashed kind of smile. “You wouldn’t like to hear all of it, Deputy,” John said, his voice catching on each syllable in a sardonic downward descent. “Most of it isn’t pleasant.”

“I figured,” Rook replied, nudging the porch swing a little more. “If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s cool.”

They fell back into silence, but were surrounded by all the soft sounds of a dying summer; a symphony of crickets in the ferns, the gentle creak of old floorboards and rusty hinges, a night bird trilling in the pines. Then, John sipped his beer, cleared his throat, and kept his gaze steady on a pair of fireflies turning flickering spirals around each other. 

“You might not believe it, given your… rigid position on your opinions,” he said with all the measured carefulness that Rook was sure he learned as a lawyer. “But if I have to consider any memories you’d call ‘happy’, they’re all ones I have with my brothers.”

“I can believe it,” Rook replied. And they could; it wasn’t as if Joseph and Jacob Seed had been children fascinated with the idea of a murderous religious cult in the mountains of Montana. They were kids once. They must have done things that kids do, regardless of the nightmares brewing around them. John was no different.

John nodded, the drowsy expression coming back over him like a misty veil. “Jacob used to be the only one with a bike, and it had those pegs on it–” His brow furrowed, searching for the word. Then, he shrugged. “I don’t know. The ones you stand on. You know what I mean.”

Rook smiled behind the neck of their bottle and nodded.

“Sometimes he would let Joseph ride it, and I’d always get to stand on the pegs. Sometimes we could manage to get all three of us on the bike at once, which was probably really stupid. I’m surprised we didn’t fall off more.” He laughed softly, although it wasn’t much more than a soft sigh with a smile curled around it. Honestly, it was like talking to another person entirely, like Rook had been given a pass to see what John could have been like, before– 

Rook didn’t dwell on it. That was for a time and place that wasn’t then and there.

“There was a scrapyard about a mile and a half from our house that we used to ride to. No one ever supervised it, so we would just climb around like it was a playground. Everything was rusted and crumbling, but we didn’t actually know what tetanus was, so it didn’t matter. And there was this huge steel coil that had probably been there fifty years, and I’d hide in the middle of it, because kids don’t get killed like that or anything,” John said. The laugh that came after that was stronger, more authentic. “We each had a spot, actually. Joseph liked this steel girder that hung about six feet above the ground. He’d sit on the edge and watch us all the time. And Jacob’s was an old Volkswagen that he’d pretend to drive. Sometimes Joseph and I would get in the backseat and Jacob would say we were driving to Maine or Texas or wherever. We didn’t have family vacations, so that was about as close as we could get.”

His voice sounded so unguarded, and his expression matched suit. Nostalgia softened the cold, hardened edges of his face, making him look boyish, bringing warmth back into his eyes. As the evening turned deep ink-blue around them, he seemed to blend into it like he was part of the scenery.

Then, Rook watched him stiffen a bit, his shoulders rising as he let out a soft sigh through his nose. “That was a long time ago, though,” he said, like he was releasing that particular memory out into the wild. “I haven’t had many chances to make memories like that.”

Whatever terse, cold thing he meant to say next was interrupted by an odd, heavy creak from somewhere above their heads. There was a low cracking sound, and only a split second where Rook and John looked at each other before John’s end of the porch swing suddenly gave way, dumping both of them onto the rotten floorboards. All Rook registered was John’s yelp of surprise before they fell onto him, colliding hip to hip in a way that would certainly hurt in the morning. 

The only thing John had a chance to do was put out his other arm to keep Rook from rolling off the porch entirely, effectively locking the two of them in a half hug. Soaked in cheap beer and already aching, they looked at each other for a long moment before Rook broke up into hysterical laughter. It only took a moment before John followed suit, only to look at his other hand, holding his beer aloft, still half full. Rook followed his line of site before completely losing it, their forehead pressed against John’s shoulder as they laughed so hard that tears formed in their eyes.

“Oh thank God,” they said. “You saved the only thing that mattered.”

“My atonement paid off,” John affirmed with perfect solemnity, only for both of them to burst out laughing again. 

Tomorrow could have brought them to blows again, back on their cat and mouse chase through Hope County. But at that moment, if it were all to fall on a case of John making something like a good memory again, Rook figured it wasn’t a half bad start.

[theavengingmusicjournalist]

EXTRA EXTRA! NOISE IN THE ATTIC IS BACK!

Modern Crowds (interview with Charlie Kupilik)

Together, Charlie Kupilik, Adam Baczkowski, Doug Gatta, and Joseph Pellegrinelli birth Modern Crowds. A local, Jersey Shore indie rock band, who have just released an incredible eponymously titled  record.

Just to quickly recount, Modern Crowd’s band name is inspired by, well, modern crowds.  

Our band name, Modern Crowds, was mainly derived from the current concert going experience. It is very common to see everyone either staring down at their phones, taking selfies, or filming the show rather than living in the moment. This is the modern crowd that many bands and artists have to learn to adapt to, shared Baczkowski in our last interview for Noise in the Attic.

Having their record eponymously titled is, therefore, interesting to me. This record resonates the band living in modern crowds, audiences, as if to say, This is the way it is now. I feel like this record allows me to feel close to all natural things: I feel like I am living in a time where organic processes of creating, of listening, of writing are without the technological realm. And I believe this is why I think of Jack Kerouac when I listen. I feel like he would have enjoyed listening to you on the road. No matter how you feel about Kerouac, each band mate is writing their on the road story.

As young guys in our twenties we all have our personal lives, a lot of ups and downs, learning who are becoming as people, and we feel like that all got put into this record, said 25-year-old Charlie Kupilik of the band.  Kupilik said that this record is like a personal time capsule between the four band mates. He continues to say that creating the record Modern Crowds along side, producer, mixer, and engineer of the record, Paul Ritchie, is something the band will never forget.

With this said, audience members can expect this record to be played stripped down. Not only has the band played some of the songs off of this record the last time they came around, but have been able to practice unplugged versions of the songs at The Asbury Hotel.

Kupilik shares how much it means to play a show which gives back to those suffering from cancer. It makes us feel even better to know we are doing what we love to help out others. We would do this any day of the week if we were asked to help out the way we are on Sunday, said the musician.

As a band, Kupilik, says the adrenaline and the overall great feeling of performing, as well as, watching live shows is what excites the band to do as they do. The Jersey Shore local music scene takes refuge upon the shore together. The playground of Asbury Park makes for countless shows each week and as a result of this, the support each musician and band has for one another is immense.

The bandmate brings up artists amongst the scene that make a difference such as Matt Dubrow, The Mercury Brothers, Avery Mandeville, The Burns, Dead Poet Society, Foes of Fern, The Tide Bends, We’re Ghost Now, Cranston Dean and The Cranston Dean Band (just to name a few). “Just meeting all around good people who give us good honest feedback and tell us how much they enjoy our music is just adding the fuel to the fire to keep us doing this,” shares Kupilik

Music has always been a sanctuary for us, says Kupilik.

Making music takes a lot of time and work. In these modern times, it seems the average, middle class twenty-something year old is set up for failure, or it at least it feels like one must work triple as hard to receive the minimum in return. Nevertheless, the band is a family, they work as both individuals and a group to assure their art reflects their aspirations for quality. Modern Crowd’s new record is an example of their passionate work, and yes, it does show. Hopefully, one day, the big record labels will get off their high horse and see that too.

Kevin Daly

Music to me is community, said 21-year-old Kevin Daly of the Highlands, Its a sense of identity that I never had before. The artist speaks about finding himself through the music he and the people he has met creates.

Imagine a person grasping their voice through the output of sounds, instruments, technologies, lyrics, etc.? one’s own vulnerability starts to become them. It seems for Daly, he has been able to direct the person inside of him to his audience—that’s quite beautiful.

Daly said that it gives him great joy to play for the benefit of the Ashley Lauren Foundation. Both my mother and father have been lucky enough to beat cancer and I’m happy to help fight for a cause that I have such a personal connection with, said the artist.

Having the opportunity to play for the sake of children with cancer and their families, Noise in the Attic will be a place local music lovers should go to see Daly. A lot of his heart shines on that stage. What excites about music is performing. There is something about getting up there and pouring your heart out and leaving everything you have on that stage. It is the most wonderful pleasure on this earth.

With that said, Daly’s hometown, Highlands, is where his inspiration flourishes—a place in his life that takes precedent in his music.

I have always held music near and dear to my heart, and, yes, I would say music is very sacred, says Daly. The musician explains that his music is very personal. He hopes that, as a result of this, people can connect to his craft.

Since music and art is vulnerable, or as Lady Gaga puts it, as though open heart surgery, I sincerely believe that being a performer—an artist—can be brutal in a way. You put your heart and soul into what is your heart and soul, out for the world to see, judge, but more importantly, embrace.

The advice Daly gives to up coming artists is to never give up. I know it sounds lame and corny or whatever, says the musician, “but you have to keep writing and playing. He continues to say that it only takes one song, one person to hear it—that music is a beautiful chain reaction.

The respect local musicians have for the local music community is truly admirable—something unseen in the larger music world of production. Nevertheless, Daly feels the music industry at large should adopt the comradry brought on the local scale. He feels this can come from the support of the artist’s supporters: Regardless of what you play, or what scene you are looking to be a part of, go to your friend’s shows. Support local music. Buy their demo.

Matt Dubrow

When I sit down with an idea I know that the next 10-15 minutes are going to be a creative orgy in my brain, Says Matt Dubrow, 26-year-old local musician from Oceanport, when discussing his excitement for music.

Dubrow is the type of person you smile at on the street and can expect a smile back from. As for his music, he shows that same regard and respect. The musician, who yes, is indeed playing Sunday, Sept. 24, says I resort to music as a means of translating those feelings, and thoughts. Dubrow says that these can often be thoughts and feelings that, if vocalized without music, would turn into a mess of hoopla.

The musician even gives an example, saying that for years he has been feeling that there is a dimension so close that it is beginning to bleed into the dimension he lives in. He continues, saying, that his inner monologues shepard him to places in his mind, that conclusions (I imagine of his thoughts), garner chords, while feelings of resolve, unfold as lyrics.

A song you can expect on Sunday, “Come Around” can exemplify—even clarify—what all these thoughts have manifested into. With that said, be preapared for a good sense of humor—music that, overall, gives the audience a sense of the thoughtful human that is  Dubrow as a musician and human.

Music has always been something I can use to just be sardonic, irreverent, quirky, all the things that made me a weird kid in school can come out and play in my songs, says Dubrow.

The Ashley Lauren Foundation, the foundation Noise in the Attic will be hosting this Sunday, is a federally recognized non-profit organization in Monmouth County. The foundation gives back to children and their families fighting cancer—helping financially to emotionally.

Dubrow describes playing to raise money for this foundation as exciting, but very personal. The musician continues, When you hear a word like “cancer” each human on earth will have a different emotional response, different memories, different tragedies. Since Dubrow acknowledges that everyone has their own personal pains, he shares how this is something he keeps in mind anyway—that everyone is carrying something so very personal, something for which is sacred.

To the Jersey Shore musician, to play Noise in the Attic is to keep that awareness of everyone’s personal difference, and put on a performance that distracts the crowd from anything that is negative.

Unapologetic about his craft, the musician will also take inspiration from anywhere, anyone, and anything. Music, or it seems most artists, gather their inspiraiton from just about all that surrounds them, for as Dubrow says, Sometimes I’ll conceptualize an idea for a song and it won’t manifest ‘til after I’ve helped a friend move out of their apartment and I’m sitting in a chair on the street catching my breath and I pick up a ukulele they hardly keep in tune.

Nevertheless, I have asked Dubrow if his craft has ever defeated him. He says his music only defeats him when his musicianship is not on par with what he is writing. Although the musician would not necessarily call this defeat, he says it’s nothing that doesn’t take a little practice. It seems Dubrow would say this about any human looking to become a musician too.

The musician encourages other musicians to play the music they like. Laugh at yourself for getting the lyrics all fucked up, says Dubrow, Hate yourself for fucking up the G to a D chord. Don’t worry about people around you just wail on the thing. They’re not judging you, they’re jealous.

And if you ever need some recording time, Dubrow will trade you for a little bit of grub!

All interviews done over social media or email

Write ups published as written for each artist

[abirdandabeast]

Unorthodox Sleeping Arrangements

“The best solutions are often simple, yet unexpected.”-Julian Casablancas

“Uh, Rae? I think we’re lost…” Beast Boy trailed off, glancing around them with wide eyes. Looming up all around them were massive redwood trees, with a canopy so thick, it blocked out the sun. Every direction looked the same, no matter which way he looked.

They were lost. He was certain of it.

“No. We aren’t,” Raven growled. She stomped onward, trampling the ferns in her wake. Beast Boy heaved a sigh. She’d said that an hour ago. And the hour before that.

And yet, there was still no sign of their teammates or their camp.

Beast Boy had to give her credit for her determination. She was the one that kept insisting they forged onward, after all. But as far as he could tell; her efforts were in vain.

The whole reason for the expedition was, of course, a hunt for a criminal. Apparently Seattle had a serial bank robber that had fled to the woods, and the cops had requested their assistance. Robin had decided it would be best for them to split into teams to better canvas the massive forest; a great idea, in theory.

Of course, no one had planned on Beast Boy dropping his communicator down a ravine, or Raven’s running out of battery.

It was a stupid mistake, really. The wooded area they were in was hilly, and he and Raven had hiked up a pretty steep hill. With a cliff. That had a good couple mile long drop.

All he’d wanted was to take a picture of the view. The next thing he knew, he was blinking at his empty hands and watching his communicator disappear among the trees below.

Now they were lost, with no way to contact their friends. And it was starting to get dark, fast.

“Rae, seriously. I think we should stop.”

She came to a halt, throwing him an exasperated look. “We need to find the others!” Her voice held an edge to it, and he could see the irritation dancing in her eyes. Beast Boy breathed a sigh and ran a hand through his hair.

“I know, but it’s getting dark. Last time I checked, you didn’t have night vision.” He paused, dropping his gaze to the earthy forest floor. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? But romping around in the dark won’t do us any good.” Beast Boy raised his gaze, shooting her a pleading look. “Let’s just chill for the night. We can look for them again tomorrow, okay?”

Raven pursed her lip, her brow furrowing. He shrunk under her scrutiny, shuffling his feet. Beast Boy wished he wasn’t such an idiot; they wouldn’t have been in this situation had he not dropped the damn communicator.

“You’re right.”

He blinked, his mouth dropping open. “I...I am?”

Beast Boy could have sworn that a smile had flickered across her lips, but it was gone as quickly as it had appeared. Raven sighed, looking anywhere but him. “Yes, you are. Happy?”

A grin quickly worked its way onto his lips. He didn’t speak though, choosing instead to bob his head. At this, her expression softened. She adjusted her hood, clearing her throat. “So. What now?”

Beast Boy shrugged. “Well, we need a place to sleep. So, I guess we set up camp.”

The two decided to settle down among the roots of a nearby tree. Beast Boy scrounged up some dry twigs and managed to start a fire, and Raven scraped away enough debris so they could be comfortable. Beast Boy pulled a meager blanket from his small pack, draping it over the cold ground. He risked a glance to her, and provided a lopsided grin.

“You uh, wanna share the blanket?”

Raven huddled by the fire, swaddled within the depths of her cloak. She shook her head. “No, I’m okay.”

He shrugged. “M’kay. Well, night.”  Beast Boy curled up in a ball, basking in the heat from the fire. A light sleep quickly caught ahold of him, and Beast Boy dozed peacefully among the trees. It was only the sounds of teeth clattering some time later that awakened him.

Beast Boy blinked, stifling a yawn. The fire had died down some, but was still crackling defiantly. He rolled over, his gaze catching sight of the pitiful shape of Raven. She was curled up, much like he, but he could see her shivering from across the fire. Beast Boy frowned.

For whatever reason or another, his body maintained a temperature quite a bit higher than most normal humans. Cyborg said it had something to do with his incredibly high metabolic rate, which made sense. Higher metabolic rates meant more energy turned into heat, which, gave him a higher body temperature. Regardless, Beast Boy often found himself relatively unaffected by the cold.

Raven, however, seemed to be freezing.

Without even thinking, Beast Boy clamoured to his feet and stumbled over to the empath. He scooped her up and carried her to the blanket, ignoring the surprised squeak she uttered.

“W-what are you doing?” she asked through chattering teeth. Beast Boy merely plopped her down onto the blanket beside him.

“You’re shivering,” he said.

“S-so?”

Beast Boy bit back a smirk. She wore an adorable expression as she tried to scowl through her trembling. It was endearing.

“So we’re gonna share this blanket, ‘cuz I’m not gonna let you freeze to death.”

She blinked, hugging her cloak tightly around herself. He could see the uncertainty dancing in her expression, and he bit back a sigh. “Look, I’ll stay on this side and you can have that side. Better?”

Raven nodded slowly. “Okay. T-thanks.”

Beast Boy nodded, stifling a yawn. “Welcome,” he murmured, curling up on the far side of the blanket. There was a moment of silence, before the distinct rustling of Raven’s cloak echoed in his ears. He felt her brush against his back as he laid down, and his breath caught in his throat.

Oh.

He tried scooting further away, to give her more room. But the blanket was too small. He remained as still as possible, trying his best to make this situation as un-awkward as possible. Unfortunately, the feel of her back against his was enough to dispel all sleepiness, leaving him wide awake.

Raven shifted, the movement making his heart stutter in his chest. There was a sigh, and Beast Boy felt his face burn as Raven snuggled up against him.

“You’re so...warm,” she murmured sleepily.

Beast Boy gulped. “Y-yeah, I know…”

Raven’s cold, slender arm suddenly draped itself around him, making him freeze. Raven was cuddling him. Raven was cuddling him.

The world no longer made sense. Beast Boy stared out into the dark forest, his mind turning to mush. The concept of Raven snuggling against him was so utterly baffling; he couldn’t even register it was happening.

Ever so gently, he turned to face her, letting her snuggle up against his chest. Beast Boy remained as still as possible, fearful any sudden moves would wake her and send her teleporting off to some deserted island somewhere.

He forced himself to close his eyes. And breathe. And not think about how perfectly Raven fit into his embrace.

Eventually, Beast Boy drifted off to sleep, with Raven cuddled happily in his arms...

BBRae week begins! :D I love this prompt. I love it so much. XD Can’t you tell?

-mod vixensheart

[withasmoothroundstone]

Sam, eager to see more, went now and joined the guards. He scrambled a little way up into one of the larger of the bay-trees. For a moment he caught a glimpse of swarthy men in red running down the slope some way off with green-clad warriors leaping after them, hewing them down as they fled.  Arrows were thick in the air. Then suddenly straight over the rim of their sheltering bank, a man fell, crashing through the slender trees, nearly on top of them. He came to rest in the fern a few feet away, face downward, green arrow-feathers sticking from his neck below a golden collar. His scarlet robes were tattered, his corslet of overlapping brazen plates was rent and hewn, his black plaits of hair braided with gold were drenched with blood. His brown hand still clutched the hilt of a broken sword. It was Sam’s first view of a battle of Men against Men, and he did not like it much. He was glad that he could not see the dead face. He wondered what the man’s name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart, or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would not really rather have stayed there in peace – all in a flash of thought which was quickly driven from his mind.

J.R.R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings book 4, chapter 4 - “Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit”

Sometimes you can be pretty sure that something conveyed in a book was, at minimum, an emotional reality the author was familiar with.  Tolkien was a veteran of World War I.  World War I changed the way everyone viewed war -- the scale and destruction were totally different.  And while he hated people trying to find exact symbolic parallels between things in his work and things in his writing, the way he writes about war would be impossible prior to World War I.

If you want to get an idea of how World War I changed the world, I can tell you what finally got it through to me, and it’s likely a surprise to anyone who hasn’t read the series:  L. M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables.  The whole series.  In chronological order (not order they were written in, but order according to the storyline).

Because most of the series is written in a pre-WWI world.  But one book — Rilla of Ingleside — takes place during World War I.  And everything changes.  Everything.  Reading the loss of innocence that happens at that point in the series mirrors the loss of innocence of a lot of the world after that war.  Having been born during the last part of the Cold War,  I’ve never known a world with the kind of innocence that came before World War I, World War II, and the Cold War with its constant neverending threat of nuclear war.  I’d been told how World War I had changed things, but it frankly hadn’t interested me.

Rilla of Ingleside, by the way, is the only book about Canadian women’s experience of World War I, written by a Canadian woman who had lived through World War I.  It really deserves more fame — and reading — than it gets.  It charts what happens to Anne’s family, particularly her spoiled daughter Rilla, during the war.  Their collective loss of innocence, Anne’s lament that the only use for her famously vivid and fanciful imagination now was to constantly imagine her sons dead in a foreign country, the sheer number of men lost, people abandoning babies leaving them to die because they can’t cope with the stress anymore, and even body lice(!) make their appearances in this book.  

It’s still an Anne of Green Gables book, but it takes the characters, treats them like real people, and puts them through the situation of World War I in a way that is startlingly realistic.  And knowing those characters, having grown up knowing those characters, knowing everything about those characters before the point of that book — watching the changes in each of them showed me the impact of WWI in a way little else ever has.  Sometimes it’s easier to see something through the eyes of one tiny place and time and one tiny group of people, than it is to see it written about broadly.  It makes it personal.  It shows you how real people were affected.  And L. M. Montgomery does an amazing job with that book.  I got the impression that, some fanciful elements aside, the things she wrote about were the things she’d seen.

Anyway, back to the quote of Tolkien’s...

It’s Memorial Day.  And it’s supposed to be a day of honoring our soldiers who died at war.  And…

Everyone says that you can’t honor soldiers and criticize their actions at the same time.  That you have to just say, “They sacrificed their lives to fight for American freedom,” and leave it at that.  And I can’t say that — not exactly.  Because I don’t believe every war has been about protecting our freedoms or anyone else’s.  I don’t believe every war has had noble motivations.  I don’t believe ever war has had good consequences.  I don’t believe that Americans are always the “good guys” in a war.  I don’t believe that there is always a side that is the “good guys” in a war — Tolkien said to his son who was in World War II, that one of his inaccuracies in Lord of the Rings was, to quote him directly:  “Not that in real life things are as clear cut as in a story, and we started out with a great many Orcs on our side.”  

In other words, there’s good and bad people, and everything in between, on every side of every war.   People’s reasons for fighting are so varied and complex that you can’t sum it all up as self-sacrifice to defend freedom.  But I guess I can say — whether or not a war has actually been about defending our freedoms, I can appreciate the sacrifices of people who went and died in wars of all kinds believing they were protecting freedom, or honor, or their homeland, or other important things.  I can understand and honor their sacrifice even if there are cases where I don’t believe what they believe about the exact nature of what they were doing in any particular war.

And we can’t forget that many people are forced into wars.  People get drafted.  People (especially poor people and other people without a lot of power) get lured in with the promise of a free education or other such things, never believing they’ll really have to fight, then they go off and fight and die.  Some are more aware of the risk but take that calculated risk, and it kills them.  Some get expertly lied to by recruiters who specifically target poor people and people of color and have learned what promises to make to lure them in.   And let me be clear:  Being lured into this is not a sign of stupidity and I’m not looking down on people it happens to.  Everyone is susceptible to persuasion, and believing yourself not susceptible (because you’re “smart enough to know better” or whatever) only renders you more susceptible in the end.

Some people go to war because they are conscience-free adrenaline junkies who have found a place where killing is honored and danger keeps them in a hyped-up state they find thrilling.  I have no desire to honor them, regardless of what they do or don’t do.  They didn’t die for a noble cause — not even for an imagined noble cause — they died because they liked killing and got into a dangerous situation they couldn’t get out of.

Anyway, I have a huge respect for anyone who dies in a war believing that they have sacrificed their life for their country or for a good cause.  I respect their intentions — whether or not what they thought they were doing is actually what they were doing.  It takes a lot of courage to put yourself in that position fully believing in what you are doing.

I also have a lot of respect for soldiers who die trying to keep other soldiers, or civilians, from getting killed.  Regardless of other context.

So in my own way I do honor most dead soldiers.  But it doesn’t mean I have to agree with the wars they were in.  It doesn’t mean I have to agree that their belief they were fighting for freedom actually meant they were fighting for freedom, serving their country, or any of the other cliches that are trotted out to justify every war, even wars that are clearly about power and conquest and money more than anyone’s freedom at all.

Mind you, I think even necessary wars are horrible.  It doesn’t mean I wouldn’t go to war in certain circumstances — if people were invading my country to conquer or destroy it, I would probably fight in any way I could, if I thought it would be constructive to do so.  But there is no real winner in a war, both sides lose important things.  And war in general is awful and you can’t sugarcoat that with tales of heroism and sacrifice.  But I can fully appreciate what that sacrifice means to those who believe in it — whether they are right or wrong.  And that includes many people on both sides of any given war — not just the side my country happens to be on.  I’m not one of those people who thinks my country is always on the good side of wars, somehow.  I don’t even think it’s possible for any country to be consistently on the good side, and I don’t think there is always any good side at all.  And to think what the USA has been doing to other countries lately is good, is stretching the meaning of good well beyond the breaking point.

But I can still honor the fact that people have given their lives for their country, for many different reasons, whether or not I think they should have been there in the first place.  And like Tolkien, I think if I were in a war and met with the other side I would not see only evil — I would see good and evil on both sides, and I would see otherwise good people (on both sides) pushed into situations where they’re doing evil things.  War can bring out people’s best qualities sometimes, but it frequently brings out our worst qualities as well.

And I think pretending that every time Americans go to war and die, they’re sacrificing their lives for the wonderful American ideals of freedom and democracy and etc., doesn’t help anyone.  And doesn’t really more than superficially honor dead soldiers, because many soldiers die horribly disillusioned after seeing what’s really going on, and many soldiers aren’t there for those idealistic reasons, and many soldiers are there for idealistic reasons but their idealism doesn’t match the reality of what the war is really about because they’ve been sold a line of BS somewhere along the line.

So my thoughts on Memorial Day are complicated at best.  But don’t ever mistake my lack of belief that everyone who dies in a war is sacrificing their life for a beautiful heroic ideal… for the idea that I think soldiers are stupid or worthless or something.  Or for the idea that I don’t recognize that when they sacrifice their lives for an ideal, they’re still doing something important for what they believe in, even if I don’t agree with their belief that the war is really about that ideal at all.

At the same time, don’t mistake the fact that I truly do honor dead American soldiers, for being against soldiers on the other side of whatever war is in question.  And don’t mistake it for the idea that I somehow really do support every war America has ever been involved in.

And yes, it’s possible to have complicated beliefs about these things.  And yes, I have relatives who’ve been in the military, some survived and some didn’t.  

Among those who didn’t survive:   A cousin of my dad’s father, who enlisted for who knows what reason, and ended up dying at the hands of his own side.  I don’t mean “friendly fire”.  I mean something much worse than that.  I mean that he was unwittingly used to study the effects of nuclear bombs on human beings and died of the biological consequences of severe radiation exposure.  

I don’t know why he enlisted.  I don’t know if he thought he was serving his country, or if he was there for economic reasons (most of my family has been poor, for generations), or something else.  All I know is they put him and other low-ranking soldiers in a trench in Nevada and exploded a nuke in front of them to see what, if anything, it would do.  

He died as a result of his military service, he probably thought he was serving his country, but he sure as hell didn’t ever voluntarily agree to be a guinea pig for the effects of nuclear bombs on human beings.  So on Memorial Day I remember him most of all, and it feels like such a fucking destructive devious disgusting waste.  And pretending that my country was honorable in killing him and that he somehow sacrificed his life for American freedom doesn’t seem to honor his memory whatsofuckingever.

[juniperallura]

Voltron Hogwarts AU

part 6/?

“You guys can’t be serious-” Lance’s face twisted with a mixture of incredulous nerves. He perched at the edge of the couch, hands gesturing wildly as his eyes alternated between narrowed in suspicion and bulging in indignation. “Keith. My worst enemy— and even worse, a Slytherin!”

Pidge and Hunk exchanged flat glances. Pidge closed her book, covering the face of a carved badger as she set it down on the wooden table. “C’mon, Lance, your worst enemy? You two are together all the time.” She adjusted her glasses, sitting back against the plush low chair with a shrug, “It’s pretty obvious, even to me.”

Lance turned to Hunk for support, but Hunk held up his hands in defense. “Look, we’re not saying you’re in love with the guy-” He tapped his chin, looking into the fire as he tried to choose his words carefully, “You guys just have… chemistry. And sure, he’s a Slytherin, but they’re not all bad— Keith’s a cool guy.”

“Keith’s emo!” Lance cried, laying back against the couch as his mind raced to justify the heat that rushed to his face at the thought of him liking Keith. He reached up, poking the end of a spiral fern that draped down from its hanging copper pot. “Rubbish. We have nothing in common! We fight all the time! He’s got a mullet— I can’t like a guy with a mullet.” 

The other two suspected that the last part was more to himself than anyone else. They left him to stew and returned to their homework, agreeing it leave it where it lay.

| h | o | g | w | a | r | t | s | 

“-Lance!”

Lance stopped before the entrance to the Great Hall as a voice echoed down from the stairs. He saw the glint of a green tie, and gestured at the boy he had been walking with, a friend from Transfiguration, to go ahead of him.

Keith jogged over to meet him, a bright smile lighting up his features. “Hey! You weren’t in Potions yesterday, I have your essay-” He handed Lance the folded piece of parchment. Something in Lance’s face, the unfocused eyes and the pink tinge in his cheeks, prompted Keith to reach out, laying his hand on Lance’s shoulder with knitted brows. “Pidge said you were sick, are you okay?”

It took Lance a second to respond. Keith didn’t smile very often, but when he did it radiated a striking warmth; and his eyelashes were so long- had he never noticed them before? The conversation with Pidge and Hunk flashed before Lance’s eyes. A violent, panicked heat rushed to his cheeks. He stiffened under Keith’s touch, the skin under his hand burning. He immediately looked away, muttering a quick, “Yeah, I’m fine-”

Keith blinked in surprise. He followed what he thought was Lance’s gaze over to a red tie and blond undercut that waved at them from the entryway to the Great Hall; suddenly, something tight and dark knotted itself in his stomach. He quickly withdrew his hand from Lance’s shoulder. “Oh, sorry,” he pressed his lips together tightly, clearing his throat, “I guess I’ll see you in class.”

Lance knitted his brows, ice creeping into his countenance as he met Keith’s cold gaze. See? He told himself, emo. He nodded and they parted without a word, each crossing his arms over the growing storm in his chest.

| h | o | g | w | a | r | t | s | 

Even for a Quidditch Championship night, it was a miracle that the Gryffindor Common Room didn’t get raided by the Curfew Police (aka Head Boy, Head Girl, and some overzealous professor). Although, maybe it wasn’t so miraculous considering Shiro and Allura were also co-captains of the winning team— and could be easily spotted snogging among the party-goers. Regardless, the cacophony of music and overlapping chatter, punctuated by the occasional victorious chant, bled into the hallway and it was clear that there was more than Butterbeer sloshing around in the cups that littered the room.

Students from every house packed into the room— Keith was a shoo-in, on account of Shiro, Pidge, as someone else’s plus-one, had been coaxed into socializing, and Hunk was such a sweetheart that it didn’t seem to matter that he had tried his hardest to knock out every one of the Gryffindor players just a few hours ago on the pitch. All in all, it had the makings of an epic night; except—

Lance took another swig from his drink, keeping his arms crossed as his eyes swept across the room. For a Seeker who had just clinched the Quidditch Cup for his house, he was in an awfully bad mood. He wasn’t sure why he was continually pricked with annoyance, or why his gaze wouldn’t stop being drawn to the fireplace. It definitely had nothing to do with a certain black mullet leaning against the wall across from a certain Gryffindor Chaser named Max. Lance hadn’t even considered how close they were standing, or how he could hear Keith’s laugh echoing over the rest of the party. Never. Even. Thought. Of. It.

Pidge and Hunk came sidling over from his peripherals, having just escaped Matt’s drunkenly rapturous Pidge-I’m-so-proud-of-you-my-beautiful-baby-sister clutches. “Lance!” Hunk beamed at him, clapping him on the shoulder, “Why all the lurking? It’s your celebration, man, what’s up?”

Lance rolled his eyes, blowing a dismissive breath through his teeth. “Lurking? Why would I be lurking? I’m not even lurking-”

Pidge raised her eyebrows. “Wow.”

Hunk glanced in the direction Lance was still glowering toward. “Ah-” he couldn’t help a smirk as the realization dawned on him, “C’mon man, have some fun! Let’s dance, the music’s good!”

Pidge chimed in, “Yeah, I’ll even dance with you guys- and we can crash into whatever’s happening with those two.” She nodded toward Shiro and Allura.

A slow smile spread of Lance’s face. “Okay,” he acquiesced, “Only because I love watching you try to dance, Pidge-”

She let the dig slide, she and Hunk pulling him toward the messy cluster in the middle of the room with a rousing cry of, “Gryffindor!” 

Keith looked up in time to see them moving into the crowd. “Hey!” he called, waving at Lance. He moved toward them, Max following behind him with a smile. 

A hot feeling rose again in Lance’s stomach; he was pretty sure it wasn’t the Firewhiskey. With a laugh that sounded strange even to him, he yelled over the music, “Sorry Keith, we’re having fun-” 

For the rest of the night Lance tried to throw himself into the celebration, but somehow it was easier said than done. Any other night he’d be basking in the toasts and chants and claps on the back, but he just couldn’t stop his eyes from sliding over to the drink table, where a slender figure was still leaning against the goddamn wall. 

Eventually the party had thinned out and quieted enough that Lance could find himself sitting on a loveseat, facing a Ravenclaw girl who had been talking about how great the match was for who even knew how long. She was cute, and was sitting very close to him, and kept reaching out to touch his arm. Lance’s eyes slid away from hers. Keith was across the room, chatting with Shiro and Matt. And for whatever reason, his shadow had morphed into the spitting image of Max. Lance turned his gaze back to the girl- Ada, he was pretty sure. Maybe Adele. He smiled, leaning a little closer to her. “Well, y’know I could’ve taken the Snitch about twenty minutes earlier, if someone hadn’t been so clumsy with the Quaffle…”

His eyes flickered back to the far end of the Common Room. Keith was looking at him. His brows were knit. Ada touched Lance’s arm again. “I’m sure you could’ve,” she giggled. Lance could still feel Keith’s eyes on him. He leaned in, and their lips met. 

His hands found her waist and she leaned into him, every touch sticky with Firewhiskey. After a few minutes they pulled apart, breathless. “I should probably go home,” she giggled. 

Lance nodded, planting a few more kisses on her jaw as she assured him she’d be safe getting back on her own. She gave him a parting wave as she hopped out the painting door, and Lance sat back with a self-satisfied smirk. 

“’Night, Keith-” Lance turned as Shiro’s voice echoed through the now nearly empty room. He caught Keith’s glance as he walked by the sitting area on his way out; his face was cold. Lance glanced back— Max was nowhere to be found.

Pidge and Hunk followed close behind, strange expressions on their faces as they congratulated Lance again and wished him goodnight. The smirk faded slowly from his face. The churning feeling returned to his stomach, this time accompanied by a tight feeling in his chest. Suddenly angrier than he had been earlier in the night, he pushed off the couch and strode toward his dormitory, swatting away Allura’s hand when she reached out to say goodnight to him. 

| h | o | g | w | a | r | t | s |

A couple weeks passed without a word between Keith and Lance; of course, had anyone asked them about it, they’d claim there was absolutely nothing going on. Shiro and Allura tried to, once, but Lance saw it coming a mile away after he spotted Shiro in some deep-looking conversation with Keith and Allura suddenly started pulling her ‘older sister’ routine on him. Keith was equally slippery when it came to Hunk and Pidge’s attempts to pin him down. This was just what friends/nemeses did, right?

Eventually, the silence of their non-fight was broken when Keith arrived late to Potions class and the only open seat was next to a familiar back. He dropped into the chair, briefly meeting Lance’s cool glance. His stomach dropped but his chest fluttered, all of him torn between dread and excitement.

Lance’s eyes bore into his parchment. It had been awhile since he and Keith were less than a few feet apart. Lance hadn’t realized how familiar his scent had been — and that he’d never seen his hair pulled into that little ponytail. Lance tugged at the collar of his robes, the weight of their silence now pressing down on him. The first thing that came out of his mouth dripped with sarcasm. “Nice ponytail.”

Keith’s eyes flashed to him. He couldn’t name all of the things that bubbled up in his chest. He cleared his throat, answering curtly, “I’m going to the pitch after class.”

Lance rolled his eyes and scoffed; the sound seemed to startled Keith, who jumped a little in his chair. Lance raised a brow and reached down to open his messenger bag, revealing the red and gold of his Quidditch uniform. His tone came out like a challenge, “I’m running drills.”

“Good thing there’s room for both of us.” Keith’s lips were pressed tightly together.

They turned, red faced, to the front of the class as the professor began lecturing. 

Somehow, they managed to avoid walking to the Quidditch Pitch together but met in the center of the field, two spots of red and green in the silver mist that clung to the grounds. Keith unfurled his fingers to reveal the Snitch, its delicate wings unfolding and beating fitfully against his grip. He raised a brow at Lance. “Ready?”

Lance mounted his broom with a nod. Keith released the Snitch and the two of them shot after it into the fog. 

The low visibility made it imperative for them to keep their eyes trained on the Snitch, but neither could help glancing over at the other as they sped around the pitch. They lost each other in the mist when the golden ball made a sharp turn, but practically collided when they recovered its track. Lance turned to glare at Keith, urging his broom forward as he stretched out his arm. Keith strained to inch in front of Lance, returning his look and throwing out his own hand. They jostled each other’s shoulders as they raced side by side through the air. Lance leaned just slightly to the left, nudging Keith at the elbow. Keith responded with more force, knocking into Lance’s broom. The Snitch took them into a dive, and soon they were skimming the ground, veering into one another with venomous glares. 

Lance stopped short as the Snitch flitted up into the fog and out of view. He tossed his broom aside, throwing an accusatory finger at Keith, who had skidded to a halt. “What’s your problem, Kogane?”

“My problem?” Keith jabbed a finger toward himself. “What’s your problem? I didn’t do anything to you-”

Lance scoffed contemptuously, his eyes flashing. “Are you serious? One minute you’re all nice to me like we’re friends and then you ice me out, I know you talked about me to everyone else-”

“-Because Pidge said you thought I put mugroot in your draught just to fail you,” Keith cried, “You’re always so suspicious of me!”

“You can’t stop trying to one-up me-” Lance threw up his hands, “You’re so competitive you couldn’t even say ‘congrats’ when I won the Quidditch Cup!”

Keith’s face flared with color. “Well maybe I could’ve if you hadn’t had your tongue halfway down Ada Patterson’s throat the whole night!”

“Augh, you drive me crazy!” Lance hadn’t realized how close they had inched toward each other until he was close enough to drive a finger into Keith’s chest. His blood pounded wildly in the tip of his finger. “Why do you even care?”

Keith’s steely eyes flashed. He cried, “Because I like you, okay?”

Keith’s nails dug into his palms. Every nerve in his body was screaming. His eyes were glued to Lance’s azure gaze, trying to unearth some reaction from their depths as the sparking silence stretched on for agonizing seconds. 

The air between them crackled. Lance couldn’t breath as something deep inside him broke. All the heat in his body was suddenly focused on the point where his flushing skin met Keith’s. Keith’s eyes seemed to burn into his, framed by those dark lashes; Lance couldn’t look away from his lips, parted just slightly after delivering that thunderbolt. For the first time he realized, really, truly, fully, how he saw Keith— what all those twisting, knotting, churning feelings in his gut had been trying to tell him for so, so long.

Lance lurched forward, shattering the sparking tension. His hands reached out to clutch the folds of Keith’s uniform. There was no hesitation before their lips crashed together, eyes squeezed shut and hearts pounding. Keith leaned hungrily into Lance’s kiss, his hand flying up to curl perfectly against the Lance’s jaw. Lance’s hand snaked around Keith’s waist, drawing him closer and nipping lightly at his lower lip, as if they could never be close enough. Their legs entangled and they stumbled backward, their lips never parting as Keith’s back hit against a wooden post at the edge of the pitch. Lance made an apologetic noise in the back of his throat, but Keith just sighed into him contently, the chilled wood only making Lance’s touch warmer and softer. 

Lance began to pull agonizingly away, meeting Keith’s lips again, and again, this time tenderly and sweetly. A breathy laugh escaped him as he pressed his forehead against Keith’s. “Well, fuck-”

Keith leaned back to look at him, a sheepish smile pulling at his features. “Yeah.”

Lance lowered his head for a second, reaching down to entwine his fingers with Keith’s. “I shouldn’t have hooked up with Ada like that.”

“I shouldn’t have tried to push you out of the sky for hooking up with Ada,” Keith conceded with a sly smile.

“You’ve already done that, remember?” Lance snickered, “Semi-finals?”

“I have no regrets about that,” Keith snorted.

A smile spread over Lance’s face as their eyes met, drinking in each other’s gazes. “Me neither.” 

[ajoraverse]

I have no idea where to put this, tbh. Maybe a side story? Beta AU; regarding a few quartzes and their relationship with Mother.

Confessions:

Once it was confirmed that the green gem creature had made them and her form was corrupted, a slow change came over the gems. There had always been those who sought out the green gem's company, but now it seemed that everyone had something they wanted to share with her regardless of her capacity to comprehend anything. Jasper had to set down rules about when and where it was okay to accost the corrupted gem, and drew a hard line on the visitations once Mother started looking overwhelmed. If she was in her alcove or next to Jasper, she was off limits. If she sought out other gems, they weren't allowed to vent to her. They could only do so if she was perched on the hatch of that one strange injector that had its innards pulled out, and they had to leave her alone if she decided to wander off. If some other gem was already occupied with her, the visitor had to keep their distance until she was free. And so on. There were complaints and arguments, but Jasper would have none of it.

Stoneshaper visited her in the mornings, in that time when the sky lightens just before the sun peeks above the horizon. The tiger's eye had to work a little more to get up to the top of the injector's hatch, but she never complained. She usually showed off her work, which ranged from making stone tools to delicate artwork. Sometimes she might even demonstrate. "Isn't this razor amazing," she asked one day, holding up a prismatic obsidian blade for the corrupted gem to get a good look. "And all you do is shape the core--this thing in my lap--and you can knock off as many as you want with just the right pressure and tools. Here, lemme show you." Stoneshaper never expected much of a response, and she didn't think Mother understood anything, but it was nice to have someone to share things with.

Aster came once or twice, when the other gems were otherwise occupied, and sat at Mother's side in silence until she could finally find the words. "I can't see colors," she confessed at last. "Dandelion says it's no big deal, but I can't help but feel like I'm missing so much." During her last visit, she apologized for taking up Mother's time, for there were surely other gems with bigger problems. Mother only tilted her head in response and blinked. Aster wasn't sure how to interpret that.

Carnelian only visited right after socializing with Amethyst, and her words ran together as she rambled excitedly about the Crystal Gems and horsing around with Amethyst. And she fused once! With Amethyst! And it was amazing and Mom was the first one she told so far. She never reported joining the monster hunts. Towards the end of her visits, she always tried to hug Mom before running off. Carefully, of course, and only if she looked comfortable with it.

Early on, Egret attempted to bond with her. Her hand fell on her absurdly long neck as her chat devolved into bitter recrimination. "Why did you create us like this? Deformed? Fern doesn't even have legs and she has to shapeshift to get anywhere. Wren's back is so twisted that humans stare at her. My neck... Why?" She didn't know how much Mother understood, or whether it was her words or her tone that sent Mother running off into her alcove. She didn't try again.

Twig only vented when Jasper wasn't around to hear, usually about Jasper expecting her to handle things when she just wanted to relax and work on her sculpture. "I can't be in charge! I don't *want* to be in charge." Honestly, she wanted to be an irresponsible little brat half the time, but noooo. And Mother put up with it gamely, which she appreciated. And, rarely, it was more serious. "Mom, I think something's wrong with Jasper," she whispered one night. "I mean, she's always pretty blunt and that's *normal*, but... I dunno. She's been getting meaner. She *yelled* at *Sage*! She never yells at Sage! She's probably sick of us. *I*'m sick of us, and I'm only her second in command." Mother didn't say anything, but just having someone to work things out to helped.

Jasper never visited Mother while she was perched on that injector. "You don't need my problems," she said once, though she was unsure of why she was explaining anything to a corrupted gem. Maybe a little part of her thought something might get through the corruption to the gem Mother used to be. "Everyone else dumps their crap on you." Whatever their relationship was, it wasn't about words. Not really. It had always been enough just to sit with each other in quiet companionship. Words just muddied things up.

[theallingoodtaste-blog]

Fucking Monday

Liv Liv Pain-in-my-ass,

The day is coming to an end and I’m fucking tired. What have I accomplished today? Fuck-all nothing, that’s what. I told myself I was going to be good and run, today would be the day I’d start getting back into shape. Well, today is not that day and I pretty much spent the day stuffing my face with whatever the hell I wanted to. One day closer to our marathon, yeah we’re walking this bitch. 

Fucking rain all day everyday. If it was sunny out guaranteed I would of got my run in, but since Fern goes with me I am not subjecting her to the wet cold. I personally love to run in the rain. The smell, the brisk cold there is something freeing about it that pushes me to keep going. But right now I could go for some sunny days the winter was entirely too long. We got snow last week, in April! There has been so much rain that its depressing I want to be out side.

So I’m sitting on my living room floor thinking I should plank it out before I go to bed, something is better than nothing, right? Wrong! Fuck you planks I don’t need sweet abs. I think that but in all reality I miss my flat stomach. What’s more important abs or sleep? Fucking sleep. My bed and pillow call my name as I sit here. They sing sweet lullaby’s like a siren calling sailors to their death. Only going to bed is a lot less dramatic. I miss the BMD (Before Mom Days) when I could come home and go straight to bed, do whatever the fuck I wanted to when I wanted to. Those days are long gone, responsible grown up here. I even bought myself a mom car and my life has become routine, make dinner, eat, bath time, play then off to bed, repeat. See what you have to look forward too…(insert sarcasm)

On the couch sits Owen, my adorable boyfriend. He’s watching golf videos while I type. How romantic he just farted. I have to laugh, Owen is the male version of me. We work together, only guy in my life that has ever understood my job and isn’t jealous of all the guys I work with. Probably for the simple fact that we are friends with most of them out side of work and he knows I love him more. Weekend golf, BBQ’s, birthday parties and TURKEY HUNTING! We have a nice life together. Sometimes I wish I could of met him sooner so I could of skipped all the heart ache. Then I think I would of never appreciated him as much as I do now. That all the fucking ridiculous bullshit that I’ve been through brought me to this point and that is what connected me to him. An invisible red thread connects those who are destine to meet, regardless of time, place and circumstances. That thread may stretch or tangle, but will never break. Poetic isn’t it.

Okay, time for bed.Goodnight.

Pen-J

[jemmasmithinterior]

She Spaces: The Rise of the Woman-Focused Room

Many of us are familiar with the term “man cave.” A personal den for watching the big game, a work studio or just a place that helps the guys in your life relax at the end of each day. But in the last year, we have seen a growing trend of women-centered spaces like “She Sheds”. An area in the home where women can go to focus on themselves and their interests or hobbies.

We want to help you create those spaces of relaxation. At Ashley HomeStore, we aim to inspire you to create a home that is uniquely true to you. One that reflects your lifestyle, your aesthetic and your house. If you are creating a secluded area in your home just for you, you’ve come to the right place. Transforming the spare room into a boss babe office? Constructing a She Shed from scratch? Whatever the project is, you deserve to make something that you can enjoy.

What is a “She Shed”?

Like the slightly more menacing term “man cave,” She Sheds can be created in any home as a space to seek recreation and relaxation. Mentioned in the Pinterest Top 100 Trends, She Sheds are dedicated entirely to the woman of the house, regardless of the size of said household.

Over time, the She Shed has evolved from just a decorated utility shed in the backyard for gardening tools and seasonal items like patio furniture. The term now broadly relates to a portion of your home that was meticulously designed to bring you comfort and joy. We like to call them She Spaces. Even if you live in a studio apartment downtown, you can create your own She Space in your concrete jungle. 

Give Yourself Shelter

Ready to create your special nook? Before you begin, remember that She Spaces are meant to inspire creativity and promote relaxation, so identify function first when creating your own. Ask yourself the following:

How is this space being used?

Is there a way to maximize its function?

What are the important things to include?

What brings me joy?

How can I add that to my space?

What is my design style?

Since the point of building this space is to recharge and remove yourself from stress, set up guidelines for yourself when in the room. Stay active in your time of recuperation. Here are some examples:

This is a phone-free space.

To keep this an open space, I will speak positively during my time here.

I will take time to reflect on my day.

I will make the most of this space.

Designing Your Dream Space

Find Inspiration

Liven up your room by converting it into a She Space. Dedicated to what brings you joy and relaxation, so leave it up to your imagination. If you are converting the area into an art studio, create a gallery wall with inspiration from your favorite artists. 

Also take note of other spaces made by fashion-forward women whose style you’d like to remake in your home. We’ve worked with content creators like Hey Wanderer and Meggie Truelock to help build spaces that brought joy to their spaces. Find a space you are interested in by checking out those posts!

If you are still struggling to find the perfect look, make a mood board. This can be focused on all the activities and interests the space will serve, or can feature your interior design ideas. Pinterest is overflowing with design concepts for She Sheds and other woman-centered spaces. You can also use Shop By features on our site to discover your perfect aesthetic, whether that is fresh farmhouse or eclectic mid-century.

Organized and Orderly

To keep your space functioning for your home and you, keep it clear! You will not be able to make the most of a space that is full of clutter, especially one that is meant to be a sanctuary of self care. For many of us, cleaning is a skill that needs to be acquired, and that’s okay! Here are some tips for tackling any mess in your home. 

Strategic space layout can also help prevent clutter and promote healthy energy flow. So, if you are looking to create a space of productivity and good vibes, follow ancient feng shui principles when crafting your room. For more tips, click here. 

A Pop of Color 

Finishing touches help bring spaces together and add life to the decor landscape. Set the area apart from the rest of your home with colorful accents and features. Vibrant tones will welcome you into this nook and aid in the rejuvenation process. 

If you prefer to keep your spaces neutral, let your She Space be your entrance into the interior design realm of color! Start small by incorporating nature into your space with houseplants. Using ferns and ficuses in your She Space will add an eye-catching, yet neutral tone of green. The foliage will promote relaxation and can provide air purification benefits. However, if you are unsure of your green thumb, we also suggest less-demanding succulents.

For those of you who’d like to keep the space serene and minimal, try layering subtle shades and texture to create dimension! If you are building an office space, lay a table runner down to add color to the larger furniture piece. Additionally, it’s a great way to protect the wood from damage! Create a collage of comfort on your sofa or accent chair to turn up the coziness. Blankets and throw pillows are a great way to create a relaxing mood, especially for nap time!

Create spaces in your home that speak to your lifestyle. If you build your own version of a She Shed, share it with us! Use #MyAshleyHome on Instagram to possibly be featured on our feed. To find more inspirations for any area in your home, check out our Pinterest boards!

The post She Spaces: The Rise of the Woman-Focused Room appeared first on XO Ashley.

fromhttps://blog.ashleyfurniture.com/she-spaces-the-rise-of-the-woman-focused-room/

[topfygad]

The Ultimate Safari Packing List

When I went on my first safari way back in 2014, I went a tad overboard when it came to following the packing list Shadows of Africa had sent me.

I didn’t just buy the binoculars and the headlamp and the first-aid kit, I bought a whole new wardrobe of safari-friendly clothes.

I had a broad-brimmed safari hat, heavy-duty hiking boots, a kit to let me wash my clothes in a river, and even a pocket knife in case lions gave me grief.

Suffice it to say, I came back from the safari realizing that 90% of the stuff I’d packed wasn’t remotely necessary.

I’ll let you in on a little secret: unless you’re camping, going on safari isn’t so different to any other vacation.

The sleeping leopard wakes to regard me with disdain from his lofty perch.

What to Wear on Safari

You don’t need a brand new wardrobe of you beaut outdoor gear for your safari.

The truth is, you’re likely to spend 50% of your time comfortably seated in your safari vehicle and the other 50% of the time snug and warm in your tented camp or safari lodge.

While there are undoubtedly opportunities to get down and dirty gorilla trekking or going on a walking safari, most of the time you’re going to be able to wear the same kind of clothes you’d wear at home.

Clothes to Pack for Safari

Obviously, you need clothes to go on safari.

As comfortable as those lions and giraffes look buck-naked, you’re just going to look silly with your tallywacker flapping about like a frantic leech.

As a good rule of thumb, you’ll want to pack:

T-shirts and shorts for warm weather;

Jeans or slacks for cool weather;

A lightweight windbreaker;

Something smart casual for dinner at fancier lodges;

Comfortable walking shoes;

A warm sweater or jacket;

Underwear;

Socks etc.

As you can see, it’s a pretty pedestrian old list. There’s nothing super fancy in there.

No water-proof trousers.

No state of the art hiking boots.

No safari shirt with eleven pockets.

Just regular, run of the mill clothes.

The colours are right, but what was I thinking with that hat!?

So, I can wear whatever I want on safari?

Not exactly.

There are two factors you’re going to want to take into account beyond the obvious concerns such as weather and temperature:

1). Cultural Respect

Regardless of where in the world you’re from and what might be acceptable ‘at home’, you need to be respectful of the culture you’ll be immersing yourself in.

Many African nations are more conservative than the footloose and fancy-free west, so dressing appropriately is a great way to show respect.

Don’t wear revealing clothes or clothes with offensive slogans or images.

Many African nations also take their religious beliefs more seriously as well, so be wary of that when packing.

Inquisitive giraffes rubberneck at us as we drive back to civilisation.

2). Neutral Colours

While the animals in safari parks are quite used to seeing tourists, you’ll stand a better chance of spotting the Big Five if you’re dressed appropriately.

Neutral, natural colours such as greens and browns are recommended, as brighter colours are likely to alarm animals not used to such garish displays.

If you’re in tsetse fly country, be wary of wearing black or blue – both of which are attractive to these painful little bastards.

A hippo doing its trademark yawn in a pool by the Serengeti Four Seasons.

Shopping for Safari Clothes

You might be lucky and already have everything you need for your safari, but on the off chance you don’t, sites such as LYST can be a great resource.

With a selection of more than 11,000 retailers and the ability to search by keywords such as ‘natural colours’, this site can be a godsend when doing your shopping.

Better still, it learns from your tastes and puts together curated lists for you. If your first safari turns into a second and third, you’ll have recommendations tailored to your tastes.

Sun Protection on Safari

Another vital part of your wardrobe for your safari is likely to be appropriate sun protection.

The sun out on the Serengeti or the Maasai Mara can be absolutely unforgiving, so you’ll want to make sure you’re adequately prepared.

A good, wide-brimmed hat is a good starting point, although you don’t need to get anything too dramatic.

You’ll also want sunscreen, sunglasses, and a little aloe lotion in case you do get a bit pink.

A lioness sleeps under a tree to escape the scorching Serengeti sun.

Electronics on Safari

Let’s be honest, most of us would be hard-pressed to survive a week or so without our electronics.

As enchanting as the idea of a digital detox might be, does a safari really happen if you aren’t able to Instagram it, share your thoughts on Facebook, and Skype home?

(Obviously, yes, but bear with me)

We’ve become reliant on our electronics, and a safari is no different.

Camera and charger;

Smartphone;

Flashlight or headlamp;

Travel adapter;

Battery pack.

A camera is not only vital for snapping photos, but it’s also a good substitute for binoculars if a certain someone is hogging them.

A flashlight or headlamp is a good idea even if you aren’t camping, as many tented camps may not have 24 hour electricity.

This female elephant came up to our truck to play in the puddle we were parked in.

Charging Electronics on Safari

Many safari vehicles have charging stations as a standard inclusions these days, but it pays to make sure you have a good universal travel adapter or, failing that, the right adapter for the country you’re visiting.

Check out this guide to power outlets around the world to figure out what you’ll need for your trip.

On the off-chance your vehicle doesn’t have a charger or your hotel doesn’t offer 24 hour power, it might be a good idea to buy a good, heavy duty power bank as well.

Staying Connected on Safari

If you can’t bear to be away from your online life while you’re on safari, it’s relatively easy to get connected.

Despite the perception that Africa is somehow behind the times, many countries are every bit as connected as we are used to being in the west.

In fact, with infrastructure for fiber connections a rarity, you’ll be surprised at how good the 4G coverage can be even at the heart of the Serengeti!

Local SIM cards are easy enough to obtain, although it can be a bit time-consuming to wait in line while they scan your passport etc.

A lonely hyena is spoiled for choice by the impala surrounding him.

First Aid and Medications for Safari

Heading to Africa isn’t quite the journey to “deepest, darkest Africa” that it might once have been, and while the continent undoubtedly struggles with health problems that we don’t experience in the western world, it’s still quite safe to travel if you take appropriate precautions.

Vaccinations for Safari

Exactly what vaccinations you’ll need will vary from country to country, so it’s always a good idea to consult your doctor about requirements for the specific country you’re visiting.

However, the below vaccinations are a good rule of thumb:

Hepatitis A & B;

Yellow Fever;

Typhoid Fever;

Meningitis.

Depending on where you are traveling (and your previous vaccination history), you may also want to look into Polio and Rabies vaccines.

Another shot of the leopard as it surveys its domain from its treetop roost.

HIV, Ebola, and Zika

It would be remiss of me not to mention these three intimidating diseases, even though your chances of encountering them are slim.

Unless you’re engaging in dangerous behaviour such as unprotected sex or drug-use, your risks of HIV exposure are no greater in Africa than they would be at home.

Ebola, which affected small pockets of the continent in 2014, is not a major concern as of the time of this writing.

The Zika Virus, which is prevalent across Africa, is a risk to pregnant women. While there is no vaccine against Zika Virus, taking precautions to avoid mosquito bites will protect you.

Hard to believe the Cape Buffalo is such a dangerous animal as it munches on ferns by the road.

Medications to Pack for a Safari

In addition to the above vaccinations, you’ll also want to pack a few specialized medications for your safari that you might not normally pack when you travel.

These includes:

Anti-malarial medication;

Anti-diarrhea medication;

Antihistamines for allergies and bites.

The risk of exposure to Malaria can be quite high in humid climates, so the side-effects from anti-malarial medication are worth it to avoid a long and potentially expensive hospital stay.

With mosquitoes, tsetse flies, and other biting insects likely to be a problem, having a cream or medication to reduce itching is a good move as well. Especially if you’ve got delicious blood like mine!

Lastly, a good anti-diarrhea medication is a must! While food safety is of a good standard in most lodges you’ll encounter, roadside restaurants may not have the same cleanliness standards. Likewise, water quality in Africa is generally poor, so even brushing your teeth with it can lead to some uncomfortable situations.

Trust me, you don’t want to be hunkering down on the savannah ‘bush toilet’ worrying about lions and hyenas while doing your business.

First Aid Kits on Safari

Any safari company worth its salt will have a fully stocked first-aid kit in your safari vehicle, but it doesn’t hurt to carry your own small kit with band-aids, rubbing alcohol, tweezers etc.

You never know when you might need a first aid kit.

Don’t forget your insect repellent!

Seriously, mosquitoes are a pain in the ass no matter where you go, and when you factor in bloodborne diseases such as Malaria, it’s not worth taking the risk.

Tsetse flies, which can carry sleeping sickness in some countries, deliver a painful bite even without the risk of disease.

Pack insect repellent and plenty of it, trust me.

Danger! Danger! This bull elephant let us know in no uncertain terms that we weren’t welcome.

Don’t Panic

The above may seem like a daunting list, but going on a safari isn’t so different than any other trip you might take.

Sure, you need to take a few extra medical precautions and you’ll have to leave your hot pink tank-top at home, but you’re not packing for Everest.

Just remember: natural colours, something warm for night, a travel adapter, and plenty of insect repellent.

You’ll be fine.

I’m a safari expert at Shadows of Africa and I plan and book safaris in Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Ethiopia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe.

If you’re looking to make your African adventure a reality, get in touch!

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source http://cheaprtravels.com/the-ultimate-safari-packing-list/