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fandomtrumpshate · 3 months

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FTH 2024 Unlisted Fandom Challenge!

All right, there was a peek at the leaderboard in yesterday's numbers post. Today we're giving you the whole thing. The list below contains all 84 write-in fandoms. The majority of them have only one offer —so far. One more signup for them will jump them onto the leaderboard. Two more signups will put them in a tie for second place. Any fandom that gets an additional 4 signups will challenge for the lead ...

And we've had fandoms in years past that went from not on the list at all, to nearly the top of the leaderboard in the time between numbers updates. Will that be your fandom this year?

Signups are OPEN!

One quick request - when writing in your fandoms, please avoid using the ' | ' character. It gives google sheets (and your mods) a headache.

And now, on to the numbers! At not quite 48 hours of signups, this is the complete list of write-in fandoms -

5 YuYu Hakusho 3 Ace Attorney 3 Bungou Stray Dogs 3 Dragon Ball 3 For All Mankind 3 Realm of the Elderlings - Robin Hobb 3 The Goblin Emperor Series - Katherine Addison 2 Ancient Greece Religion and Lore 2 Buffyverse 2 Detective Conan 2 Dune 2 Guardian/Zhen Hun 2 HBO War 2 Imperial Radch Series 2 Tortall 1 Among Us 1 BBC Ghosts 1 Blue Beetle 1 Buzzfeed Unsolved/Watcher Entertainment RPF 1 Cherry Magic 1 Chronicles of Narnia 1 Cobra Kai 1 Criminal Minds 1 Danny Phantom 1 Death Note 1 Dice Punks (podcast) 1 Digimon 1 Donten ni Warau / Laughing Under the Clouds 1 Dungeons and Daddies (podcast) 1 Endeavour/Morseverse/Inspector Morse (ITV/Dexter) 1 Falsettos 1 Farscape 1 Fire Emblem (4-10, 13, 14, 16) 1 Five Nights at Freddy's 1 Formula 1 RPF 1 Glee 1 Grantchester 1 Greek Mythology 1 Grey's Anatomy 1 Gundam 1 Hawaii 5.0 1 Honkai Star Rail 1 Jeff Satur - music videos 1 Law and Order 1 Legend of the Galactic Heroes 1 London Spy 1 Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic 1 Magnificent Seven 1 Mob Psycho 100 1 Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury 1 Mrs. Davis 1 My Little Pony 1 Narcos (TV) 1 Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint 1 Omori 1 Orphan Black 1 Pacific Rim 1 Professional Wrestling - New Japan Pro Wrestling 1 Professional Wrestling: All Elite Wrestling 1 Re-Animator 1 Riverdale 1 Shades of Magic - V. E. Schwab 1 Simon Snow Series 1 Slam Dunk 1 Slow Horses (TV Show) 1 Super Sentai 1 Sweeney Todd 1 Ted Lasso 1 The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension 1 The Adventures of Tintin 1 The Bear (TV) 1 The Empyrean Series - Rebecca Yarros (Fourth Wing) 1 The Good Place 1 The Last Kingdom 1 The Lunar Chronicles 1 The Mummy (1999 franchise) 1 The Pairing (Casey McQuiston) 1 The Radiant Emperor Series 1 The Saint of Steel 1 The Stanley Parable 1 Voltron: Legendary Defender 1 Wayfarers (Becky Chambers) 1 Wolf Pack 1 Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters

#fth 2024 #fandom trumps hate #fanworks charity auction #unlisted fandoms #long post

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lacklusterhero747 · 1 year

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Sic Semper Tyrannis

In my experience, just as many TTRPG campaigns focus on war and conflict against the powers that be as focus on exploring the wild and untamed places of the world. From stories of the companions of The Inn of the Last Home in Dragonlance to the punk rock rebels and Anarchists of Shadowrun, many times the motivating force of the story is the direct fight for survival in a world that is hostile to the very people and heroes that inhabit it. It's a well tread set of story tropes that offer clearly defined goals and villains and in built sense of drama, so it's understandable why so many stories would choose to focus on these themes.

And sometimes, if you're lucky, you get to fight those battles from the cockpit of a giant robot.

Armour Astir: Advent is a high-fantasy roleplaying game about striking back against an authority that seeks to control you. It is a game of rival pilots clashing in steel-clad Astirs, of soldiers holding their own against the odds, and of spies and diplomats twisting the world to their ends. It is not a game of careful preparation or pleasant truces; It's hard to change the world without taking a risk.

I first became aware of this game because of the excellent podcast Friends at the Table, when they played the game as part of their Road to Palisade series of games, leading up to the third season of their ongoing Divine Cycle of games. Immediately I was taken by the combination of high fantasy magic merged with the classic tropes of mecha anime that were apparent in the game as written, even if the cast was hacking the material to make fit into their more futuristic world they had built.

I felt compelled to track it down to read it for myself.

Inside the PDF, written by Briar Sovereign, I found a love letter to the Mecha Genre, drawing inspiration from such luminary series as Mobile Suit Gundam and Escaflowne, putting you in the cockpit of giant suits of armor as you stride across the battlefields of a war against an evil power. But like the series it draws heavily from, it does so with a distinct focus on the pilots inside their Astirs, rather than just focusing on the mecha and the carnage they can bring. This is a game with stakes and in interest in the relationships between people. It's a game that, as the intro to this latest season of Friends at the Table puts it, is about Empire, Revolution, Settler Colonialism, Politics, Religion, War, and the many consequences there of.

Running off of a modified version of the Powered by the Apocalypse system, Armour Astir is built on already accessible system with a distinct interest in narrative storytelling. You work together with your group to define your Authority--the oppressive power that the group of players are fighting back against--and your Cause--the group that backs and hands orders down to the player characters--and build a world around these two groups and their seemingly irreconcilable differences. From there, the players build their characters from the available playbooks--The Arcanist, The Imposter, The Paradigm, The Witch, The Captain, The Diplomat, The Artificer, and The Scout--and collectively define the Carrier--their White Base or their Normandy--from which they launch their sorties against the Authority and where they spend their downtime between missions. It's an elegant way to frame a world in conflict, and once again as I will always point out, it's a game interested in the collective construction of the world in which you're going to play, thereby creating a sense of player buy in from the jump.

Still, even as a PbtA game, AA:A still manages to bring its own novel concepts to the table.

Presumably drawing inspiration from 5e D&D, the game introduces the concept of Advantage and Disadvantage to the system. Where normally you would roll 2d6+Stat in a PbtA game, hoping to roll a 10+ and succeed without a cost, Advantage and Disadvantage allow you to roll more dice, keeping a number according to their respective rules. And they stack! If you find your self with 2 advantages, for instance, then you would roll 4d6 and keep the best 2. Or if you had 2 advantages and 1 disadvantage, you would roll 3d6 and still keep the best two as advantage outnumbers disadvantage. The only caveat is that you can never roll more than 4 dice for a move.

Then there's the idea of acting with Confidence or Desperation. Certain moves, approaches, and situations can cause you to act with either of this conditions, and they fundamentally change how the dice are read. If you're acting with Confidence in a scene, any 1 you roll on a d6 is instead treated as a 6, while acting in Desperation makes any 6 you roll instead be treated as a 1.

These two rules alone could be enough for me to really consider the game an evolution of PbtA, as using the mechanics together allows you to deeply calibrate the odds of success or failure of a given move to really match the fiction of the story your telling, but the interesting ideas don't stop there.

The game asks you to define your character by a set of Hooks, which are short phrases that define how your character acts and thinks about the world and the people around them. They're guide posts for the player, reminding them what their character is about, but they're also guide posts for the GM and for the other players. They show what kinds of situations you care about and want to be drawn into, and they can be rewritten as needed, and deepened or loosened by various rules interactions that make the hooks easier or harder to change in play. Hooks can even be sacrificed permanently, crossed off your sheet forever and buying you a new advancement for your character and the ability act immediately with Confidence as your character commits themselves to the fight and how the war has changed them.

Meanwhile, the concept of Gravity Clocks, presents an incredibly dynamic way to represent the relationships between characters. Representing the attachments you have with people and groups, these clocks are countdowns to when a relationship might be challenged, confronted, or addressed. They can be one-sided, or they can be shared between two characters, and evoked to add numerical bonuses to rolls, the clock ticking forward every time it gets used in this manner. And when the six step clock fills up, the game asks you to Redefine, Commit, or Abandon the gravity between you and the subject of the clock. Each option presents its own ramifications, in addition to allowing you to take a new advancement for your character, and I could gush about them in detail for hundreds of words more, but I think it's better to simply let the game speak for itself if you choose to read it.

Finally, and perhaps most interestingly to me, is the concept of The Conflict Turn. Played out between Sorties by the player characters at the Carrier level, the Conflict turn is meant to zoom out and show the greater context of the conflict. Here players direct the broader course of the struggle by playing out Conflict Scenes, directing challenges at one another through role-played scenes, reminiscent of Mobile Frame Zero: Firebrands by D. Vincent Baker. It allows you to shape the course of the war and the world at a truly macro scale, and depict scenes and conflicts that might otherwise get lost in a narrow focused game about a single group of pilots on a single carrier, acting on a single front in the war. It invites players to step back and look at the whole picture and really think about what two deadlocked factions can do or must do in order to win a broader conflict. And what the consequences of those actions might be.

All in all, Armour Astir is a fascinating game that takes Powered by the Apocalypse in new and interesting directions. It offers novel new mechanical concepts to the system, while also featuring the familiar Playbook driven structure. The party's Carrier and their Astirs feature a refreshing amount of build it yourself by hand customization, and the freedom to craft your own world with a conflict you and your players will care about really makes the game shine in my opinion. Not to mention it's in built focus on both the micro and macro scale aspects of the greater conflict, each in their own time, without getting so lost in the weeds of spreadsheet style attention to detail of other mecha focused games like Lancer or Battletech.

If you've ever wanted to suit up in a giant robot and take the fight to the enemy, Armour Astir: Advent is an excellent option to fulfill that narrative fantasy.

#Armour Astir #pbta #indie ttrpg #role playing games #mecha #fantasy games

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augment-techs · 1 year

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Hurt and comfort 3. Bulk and Skull

There was no food in the cupboards. The fridge only had a third of a stick of butter and a half gallon of untouched milk that would expire in two days. And Bulk knew for a fact that the trash containing nothing but an empty can for condensed milk, wax paper that held the other stick of butter, and the leftover dust from cornstarch for the cookies Skull had made him as a 'thank you for seeing me through the worst of the aftermath of my girlfriend being an alien' was a really bad sign.

Sliding over to the drawer that time forgot nearest the back door in the kitchen, Bulk squeezed his eyes shut and truly hoped that when he opened them, what he expected waiting for him to be there not be so.

No dice.

Taking a deep inhale, counting to four, and then releasing, Bulk lolled his head back on his neck and let his shoulders sag as he looked through the glaring orange bottles that rattled here and there, but not in the ones that he picked up, hoping to find one lonely refugee amongst the chaos.

The migraine meds were reasonably up-to-date, though a refill was on the horizon.

The little blue pills for Skull's revisiting Black Dog were stocked and only slightly out of sync with what Skull should have been taking (Bulk gave them a quick once over and mentally tagged the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday skipping from the week before as the days the Eltarians decided to duke it out with the Rangers and also use the two punks to send out a viral video on their intentions; the following days were correct at least).

Every one of the bottles for Skull's anxiety, however, were completely empty; the little warning stickers glaring up at him as he maneuvered them all into their own separate corners and then shut the drawer as carefully and quietly as he could.

He counted to ten in the back of his mind and, though he really, really didn't want to, he also knew what needed to be done; so he shifted his shoulders and posture back up into his usual way of being and marched (quietly) back into the living room.

The living room that had all the windows blacked out and all the pillows piled onto Skull as they both counted down the minutes until the migraine medication he'd taken twenty minutes earlier at least made an effort in making an dent in the way Skull had dissociated at the Juice Bar because some girl had walked by wearing Zelya/Candice/The Liar's favorite perfume.

(Ernie actually saw it happening before Bulk did, on the other side of the room as he was, winning at one of the video games and trying not to think about the ramifications of that asshole Brady having circulated images of Skull kissing Zelya/Candice before she beamed up to the mothership. Billy's group had already basically carpet bombed the ginger--lead by Kimberly and Aisha, strangely enough--so situational awareness wasn't on Bulk's mind at the time. Just the bright lights, cheerful arcade sounds, and finishing his own drink.

Skull had been trying his best. His usual mask in place of cheerful smiles, joking, being supportive of Bulk in their podcast; just sitting at the counter desperately trying not to think of anything but the present and the tiny little malt he'd bought with extra cherries.

And then Marleau and her little minions had wandered by, talking about their hopes that instead of rebuilding the health food store that had been demolished in the Eltarian invasion, there would be another pool building so they could tone their legs before summer.

The slightly nicer of the three girls--at least, the one who had kinda-sorta been nice enough to bail Marleau out of getting injured during the failed homecoming and had tried to tell Bulk Marleau wasn't joking about ruining things for him--had passed by, paused for a little too long to check the menu to see if Ernie's shipment of toasted marshmallow flavoring had come in, puffed a little perfume onto her wrists, and then followed Marleau out the door.

The scent had lingered and Ernie, while commenting to Skull about the good taste in the odor, had looked up to find the skinny of the duo wrapping his arms around himself; malt forgotten and eyes blinking in that little twitchy tell he had that spoke to counting to ten in his head.

Skull didn't seem to hear him when the Juice Bar proprietor waved a hand in front of him and said his name a couple times. If anything he looked much less in the moment as worry filtered through Ernie's voice and he waved one of the Stone Canyon new kids over to please get Bulk.

Bulk just barely restrained himself from picking Skull up like a little kid and driving straight to his own house because Skull was still cognizant, he'd just gone non-verbal. And he'd pulled out his one-from-empty pill bottles.)

No pills, no food, not much other option than himself.

Sighing and making sure his weight didn't settle wrong, Bulk draped himself over the awkwardly comfortable edifice, like some jungle animal on the chest of a small giant. A tried and true method when the two were still in grade school, Bulk's body over Skull's was basically a better weighted blanket than hundred's of dollars could buy.

And it seemed to work too, as Bulk shifted his hand under the pillows keeping any scintilla of light away from Skull's face, fingers searching out the back of his neck, finding his hair, and weaving fingers through black strands.

"Breathe, Eugene, breathe. You'll be okay, I'm right here. Breathe for me."

It took a few repeats and a few more minutes, but Bulk could feel some of the pillows collapse properly where Skull's shoulders bent, stomach folding inward and and outward as he took in air.

One shaky hand slithering out of the fort to grab at the free hand Bulk offered up, palm to palm, looking for Bulk's heartbeat to get back into the now.

He couldn't talk yet; verbal ability was still locked up, but Bulk had gotten rather good at speaking for him when he needed to. At least, in this.

"You're here, I gotcha. You're with me."

#ask fill #prompt fill #farkas bulk bulkmeier #eugene skull skullovitch #bulk and skull #boom! comics power rangers #mmpr #mighty morphin comics #ggpr #go go power rangers comics

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amateurnouns · 9 months

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Hello! Can I get two pronoun checks? Both with the name Robbie. One with he/him and another with a few neopronoun sets of your choosing, please. I like D&D, the podcast Just Roll With It, and the band Waterparks. Thank you!

This is Robbie! He sounds pretty cool- he's entrusted me to pick out a couple pronoun sets for him to try, which is an exciting opportunity! Apparently he plays D&D- I wonder what his character's like? Is his character like him, or is his character very different? And what alignment is his character (mine always end up chaotic neutral-good)? Robbie says he likes the podcast just roll with it, which I've never listened to it, but I assume is either a DnD podcast or a general board game one- I wonder, does he listen to this podcast by himself, or does he have other friends who listen to it that he can talk to about it? And same for Waterparks, the band Robbie likes. Is it his favourite band, or is it just one he likes? I've never heard of Waterparks, so I'm curious if he'd recommend it? I generally listen to punk music- what's his favourite genre? Anyway, I hope he has an excellent day/night, and I thank him for this ask!

This is Robbie! Ze sounds pretty cool- ze's entrusted me to pick out a couple pronoun sets for zir to try, which is an exciting opportunity! I've gone with ze/zir, which is a classic option, void/voids, which is my friend's favourite, and de/dir, which reminds me of dice! Apparently void plays D&D- I wonder what voids character's like? Is voids character like void, or is voids character very different? And what alignment is dir character (mine always end up chaotic neutral-good)? Robbie says de likes the podcast just roll with it, which I've never listened to it, but I assume is either a DnD podcast or a general board game one- I wonder, does de listen to this podcast by dirself, or does ze have other friends who listen to it that ze can talk to about it? And same for Waterparks, the band Robbie likes. Is it voids favourite band, or is it just one de likes? I've never heard of Waterparks, so I'm curious if ze'd recommend it? I generally listen to punk music- what's voids favourite genre? Anyway, I hope de has an excellent day/night, and I thank void for this ask!

#pronoun check #pronoun validation #pronouns #pronouns: he/him #pronouns: ze/zir/zir/zirs/zirself #pronouns: void/voids #pronouns: de/dir/dir/dirs/dirself #name: robbie

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smlpodcast · 11 months

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The SML Podcast - Episode 875: Brace For Food

Download Episode 875 --

We've got a PartyCast filled with reviews, but first a chat with PR specialist Sam Brace!

The show kicks off with Sam Brace of Decibel-PR joining the show to chat all about his history in gaming and PR. Working for companies like Capcom and Bethesda, creating Decibel-PR, and maintaining a PR company all while touring around the world because Sam is ALSO a musician! Formerly of folk-indie band Skinny Lister, Sam joins to talk about his own debut album, some of the songs, and tons more! We end the chat with a song with a few more to come at the end of the show!

After the quick interlude, it's PartyCast time with Brooke Poole, Pernell Vaughan, Chris Taylor, and Aki all on hand to chat about food. We're all hungry, we're reviewing games with food in it, and we just can't catch a break. All we want to do is eat something and you have Pernell scarfing down broccoli while everybody else just sits there podcasting. Oh yeah, we also talk reviews!

0:00 - Intro/Sam Brace Interview 37:33 - Sam Brace - Year of Punk 40:58 - PartyCast Banter 46:22 - Monster Menu: The Scavenger's Cookbook - Nippon Ichi Software, NIS America (Brooke) 1:01:13 - After Us - Piccolo Studio, Private Division (Aki) 1:08:42 - Cook Serve Forever - Vertigo Gaming (Brooke) 1:23:50 - Bat Boy - X PLUS Co, Sonzai Games (Pernell) 1:31:38 - Zool Redimensioned - Sumo Digital Academy, Secret Mode (Chris) 1:44:11 - VIVIDLOPE - Jaklub (Pernell) 1:54:14 - Miracle Snack Shop - Talesshop, CFK (Aki) 1:59:25 - Dice Legacy Definitive Edition - DESTINYbit, Amplifier Game Invest (Pernell)

The show ends with three more tracks from Sam Brace off of his debut album Fever & Bones! Grab it now!

2:13:20 - Sam Brace - Ultraviolet 2:17:58 - Sam Brace - Brave 2:21:26 - Sam Brace - Panic

https://www.sambrace.com/ https://www.decibel-pr.com/ https://www.nippon1.co.jp/ https://www.nisamerica.com/ https://twitter.com/piccolo_studio https://www.privatedivision.com/ https://www.vertigogaming.net/ https://xplus.co.jp/en/ https://www.sonzaigames.com/ https://www.sumo-academy.com/ https://wearesecretmode.com/ https://twitter.com/jaklub_ http://www.talesshop.com/ https://www.cfk.kr/ https://destinybit.com/ https://www.amplifiergameinvest.com/ https://sambrace.bandcamp.com/ https://www.keymailer.co/ https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-sml-podcast/id826998112 https://open.spotify.com/show/6KQpzHeLsoyVy6Ln2ebNwK https://twitter.com/theSMLpodcast/ https://www.facebook.com/theSMLpodcast/ https://store.streamelements.com/thesmlpodcast ALL REVIEWED GAMES HAVE BEEN PROVIDED FOR FREE FOR THE PURPOSE OF ANY COVERAGE ON THE SHOW #PS5 #Xbox #Switch #Keymailer

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screamingbluepanda · 1 year

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Interests

Not everything will be listed (because sometimes I forgor) All things associated with tags I have posted will be listed

General

Art Digital & Traditional

Fanfic/Writing/Reading

D&D/Dungeons & Dragons

Furry/Fursuiting

Red Pandas

Space/Astronomy

Cosplay

Crafts

Crystals & Gemstones

Wicca

Cooking

Cartoons

The Owl House - #toh

Helluva Boss - #helluva #helluva boss

Ninjago #ninjago - #lego ninjago

Animaniacs - #animaniacs

Kipo: The Age of Wonderbeasts - #kipo

Dead End: Paranormal Park - #dead end #de:pp

Inside Job - #inside job

Gravity Falls - #gravity falls #gf

She-ra and the Princesses of Power - #shera

Steven Universe - #steven universe #su

Invader Zim - #invader zim #iz

Star VS. - #svtfoe

Aggretsuko - #aggretsuko

The Cuphead Show - #cuphead

MLP - #mlp

Anime

Digimon (Adventure, 02, Tri) - #digimon

Beastars - #beastars

Brand New Animal - #bna

My Hero Academia - #bnha

Death Note - #death note

Fruits Basket - #fruba

Danganronpa - #danganronpa #dr2 #dr

Mob Psycho 100 - #mp100

Soul Eater

Promised Neverland

Blue Exorcist

Assassination Classroom

TV Shows/Movies

IT (2017 & 2019) - #it #it 2017 #it 2019

Luca - #luca

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish - #puss in boots

Stranger Things - #stranger things #st

MFKZ - #mfkz

Video Games

Psychonauts (1 & 2) - #psychonauts

Pokemon - #pkmn

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon (Red/Blue, Darkness/Time/Sky, DX) - #pmd

Sam and Max - #sam and max

Undertale and Deltarune - #undertale #deltarune

Hades - #hades

Cookie Run: Kingdom - #crk

Epic Mickey (1 & The Power of Two) - #epic mickey

No Straight Roads - #nsr

Splatoon - #splatoon

Monster Hunter (Ultimate, World, Rise) - #mh #mhw #mhr

FNAF - #fnaf #fnaf sb

Friday Night Funkin - #fnf

Animal Crossing - #acnh

Little Nightmares (1 & 2) - #ln #ln2

Bugsnax - #bugsnax

Cuphead - #cuphead

Bendy and the Ink Machine/Dark Revival - #batim #batdr

Okami - #okami

Spyro/The Legend of Spyro Trilogy - #spyro

Zelda (mainly Twilight Princess and Breath of the Wild) - #zelda tp #zelda #botw

Night in the Woods

Portal (1 & 2)

Terraria

Stardew Valley

Subnautica

Oneshot

Inscryprion

VRChat

Among Us

Monster Prom

Sims

Skyrim

Hollow Knight

Ships

(Romantic implied, but if Platonic/Familial/ect. will be stated c: no incest/pedo/toxic ships 🤢)

Lumity (Luz/Amity) - The Owl House

Raeda (Raine/Eda) - The Owl House

Fizzmodeus (Fizzarolli/Asmodeus) - Helluva Boss

Stolitz (Stolas/Blitzo) - Helluva Boss

Moxillie (Moxxie/Millie) - Helluva Boss

Verbie (Barbie Wire/Verosika) - Helluva Boss

Pixane (Zane/Pixal) - Ninjago

Jaya (Jay/Nya) - Ninjago

Polyninja (Kai/Jay/Cole/Zane) - Ninjago <Platonic or Romantic>

Barnlogs (Barney/Logs) - Dead End

Breagen (Brett/Reagen) - Inside Job

Rongan (Ron/Reagen) - Inside Job

Entrapdak (Entrapta/Hordak) - Shera

Haidano (Tadano/Haida) - Aggretsuko

DevilDice (King Dice/Devil) - Cuphead

Komahina (Nagito/Hajime) - Danganronpa

Chimondo (Chihiro/Mondo) - Danganronpa

Reddie (Ritchie/Eddie) - IT

Luberto (Luca/Alberto) - Luca

Sasha/Milla - Psychonauts

Freelance Husbands (Sam/Max) - Sam and Max

Suselle (Susie/Noelle) - Deltarune

Zagnos (Hypnos/Zagreus) - Hades

Purecacao (Pure Vanilla/Dark Cacao) - CRK

Espresseline (Espresso/Madeline) - CRK

Black Pearl/Captian Caviar - CRK

Wildchip (Wildberry/Crunchy Chip) - CRK

Teaclair (Eclair/Tea Knight) - CRK

SeaMoon (Sea Fairy/Moonlight) - CRK

Shercotton (Sherbert/Cotton) - CRK

Sun/Moon - FNAF: SB <Platonic or Romantic>

Sun/Moon/Monty - FNAF: SB

BF/Pico - FNF

GF/BF - FNF

Flick/CJ - ACNH

Snorplo (Chandlo/Snorpy) - Bugsnax

Lizbell (Lizbert/Eggabell) - Bugsnax

Taakitz (Taako/Kravitz) - TAZ

Blupjeans (Barry/Lup) - TAZ

Youtube/Twitch/Podcasts

Markiplier

Jacksepticeye

Game Grumps

cr1tikal / Charlie / Moist / penguinz0

The Adventure Zone / The McElroys / MBMBAM

Saberspark

Watcher / Shane and Ryan from Buzzfeed: Unsolved

AstralSpiff

Call Me Kevin

vinesauce

MissJackieCR

Music (its alot and not even everything lol)

Twenty One Pilots / TOP

Panic! At The Disco

Fall Out Boy

Daft Punk

Ninja Sex Party

Starbomb

Tom Cardy

The Gentle Men

Bo Burnham

CORPSE

Lemon Demon

The Scary Jokes

Tally Hall

Scarlxrd

Kordhell

Porter Robinson

ODESZA

Madeon

Yung Gravy

MGMT

The Oh Hellos

Savant

Glass Animals

Miike Snow

Woodkid

Two Door Cinema Club

----

Comfort Characters

Hunter - The Owl House

#hunter toh

Stardust Cookie - Cookie Run: Kingdom

#stardust crk

Sorbet Shark Cookie - Cookie Run: Kingdom

#shark crk #sorbet shark crk

Sun and Moon / The Daycare Attendant - FNAF: Security Breach

#sun fnaf #moon fnaf #eclipse fnaf

Hypnos - Hades

#hypnos hades

Mono - Little Nightmares 2

#mono ln

Scorbunny / Raboot / Cinderace - Pokemon Sword and Shield

#scorbunny #scorbunny swsh #scorbunny pkmn

Hawks / Keigo Takami - My Hero Acadamia

#hawks bnha

Spinel - Steven Universe: The Movie/Future

#spinel su

Nagito Komeda - Danganronpa

#nagito #nagito dr

Llloyd Garmadon - Ninjago

#lloyd ninjago

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit - Epic Mickey 1 & 2

#oswald #oswald the lucky rabbit #oswald epic mickey

#interests #hyperfixations #fandom masterlist

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yurkovichdredhorn · 3 years

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I look fucking good in printed resin. What ya think @polyphonic-prairies ?

Shout out to Deadmyth.com for the awesome print! If you visit them and use code practicalfriends you can save 10% on your order!

#dnd #dnd ocs #dnd dice #not another dnd podcast #roleplay #gaming #minifigs #its punk rock to care about the environment #tabletop

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kedreeva · 2 years

Link

Hi. I know that this isn't a fandom that you are in because it's pretty much just me and *maybe* a handful of other people, but I recently posted the first fic for the Dice Punks fandom (though I've posted a bunch of art before) and if you would be willing to boost it, that would be awesome.

It has a kind of crack-fic feel due to the setting and POV, but hopefully some of your followers will like a story about creating a kiss of greeting custom, with brief discussion about consent and the difference in romantic and platonic displays. It's only 1,600 words long.

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fellfirst-fellharder-fight · 7 months

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Round 1: Fight 7

Ramnet/Dask Tyr (Dice Punks Podcast) vs Janai/Amaya (TDP)

Propaganda under the cut!

Ramnet/Dask Tyr:

Spoilers: Dask fell first. He craves knowledge, has pledged himself to shady organizations that may or may not be cults (they were) for access to libraries, wants to know everything and be everything. So when he meets Ramnet, a prophet who is sometimes the literal voice of a god and has mystical and magical ways to know the unknowable, his eyes grow beyond the comprehension of mere mortals and he falls. Total elapsed time approximately 15 minutes Ramnet fell harder. His craving is in physical, human connection. Not necessarily long lasting, many of his dalliances are one night stands and that's fine by him. When he meets Dask, he's partway through his goal of bedding the entire adult male population of the city. As he sets his sights on wooing Dask, his interest in other men fades. When Dask leaves him for minor things like saving the world (by becoming a god), he spends a bit of time in a furious depression about the abandonment. He ends up working for Dask and as he deals with the entire situation, he returns to being free with his physical affections, all while working to find a way to save the world again and remove the power imbalance between him and Dask. In the end, he walks to the moon and murders the concept of divinity by ripping divine shards from his heart. Unfortunately, in the newly un-divine world, Dask does not return with Ramnet and their other found-family members. And Ramnet is left to search the world for his return. Total elapsed time: as long as it takes to get him back.

Janai/Amaya:

First of all, they're an awesome warrior lesbian couple and Janai is a literal queen. Amaya DEFINITELY fell first, and Janai fell HARD. They love each other so much and I NEED them to make it into a tournament

#dice punks podcast #ramnet x dask tyr #dask tyr #ramnet #damnet #janaya #the dragon prince #janai x amaya #tdp #tumblr polls #poll tournament #tournament bracket #tournament poll #polls #tumblr tourney #tumblr tournament #fellfirst fellharder fight #round 1

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dicepunks · 3 months

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New Episode: 2.0 - Session Zero - Borrowed Light

At long last, here we are: the beginning of our second full campaign, this time in Hard Wired Island by Paul Matijevic, Freyja Erlingsdottir, and Minerva McJanda!

Join us Punks for retro-future cyberpunk action, intrigue, and more in the coming episodes, but we kick off Borrowed Light this time with a bit of an experiment:

2.0 - Session Zero

For those who may not know, a "session zero" is like a planning session before play starts, and once we got to talking about doing one off-mic, our players were interested in the idea of putting ours out, since they'd read about doing one, but hadn't come across anyone actually doing one where it could be seen/heard! So here it is, with the start of play in episode one still to come right after Valentine's Day.

We can't wait!

#actual play podcast #ttrpg podcast #actual play #podcast #ttrpg #dice punks #indie ttrpg #hard wired island #borrowed light

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fandomtrumpshate · 2 months

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Unlisted Fandom Challenge

Two days ago, at our last Unlisted Fandom Challenge update, we had a 3-way tie for first. Today? One of those fandoms has taken the lead AND a new fandom that hadn't had even a single signup before has jumped all the way into a 4-way tie for second. Your fandom could do the same, in the hours still left before signups close!

At present, our leaderboard looks like this:

7 Danny Phantom

5 Carmen Sandiego (2019) 5 For All Mankind 5 Tortall 5 Yu Yu Hakusho

4 Ace Attorney 4 Alan Wake/Remedyverse 4 Formula 1 RPF 4 Ted Lasso 4 The Goblin Emperor Series - Katherine Addison 4 The Stanley Parable

3 Greek Mythology/Religion 3 Buffyverse 3 Bungo Stray Dogs 3 Call of Duty 3 Detective Conan 3 Dragon Ball 3 HBO War 3 Kingdom Hearts 3 Persona Series: 3-5 3 Professional Wrestling 3 Realm of the Elderlings - Robin Hobb 3 Shades of Magic - V. E. Schwab 3 The Mummy films 1999-2008 3 Undertale

Given the way Carmen Sandiego came from *nowhere* to tie for 2nd place, a single signup really can shake things up! And for the next few hours, signups are STILL OPEN! Do the thing!

The rest of our unlisted write-in fandoms under the cut for length -

2 Ghosts (TV) 2 Black Sails 2 Cosmere 2 CSI 2 Cyberpunk 2077 2 Dead Friend Forever 2 Death Stranding 2 Dice Punks (podcast) 2 Dimension 20 2 Donten ni Warau / Laughing Under the Clouds 2 Dracula 2 Dune 2 Firefly 2 Glee 2 Guardian/Zhen Hun 2 Hermitcraft/The Life Series SMP 2 Imperial Radch Series 2 Inception 2 JoJo's Bizarre Adventure 2 Mob Psycho 100 2 Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury 2 Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint 2 Ordem Paranormal Quarentena 2 QSMP / Quackity SMP 2 Riverdale 2 Saw 2 Slow Horses (TV Show) 2 South Park 2 Stormlight Archive 2 The Bear (TV) 2 The Empyrean - Rebecca Yarros 2 The Folk of the Air (Holly Black) 2 The Radiant Emperor Series 2 Venture Bros 2 Voltron 2 Wolf Pack 1 1670 1 A Court of Fey & Flowers 1 a league of their own (TV series) 1 A Plague Tale (Videogame Series) 1 American Gods 1 Among Us 1 Bandom RPF (Bad Omens) 1 Bandom RPF (Lorna Shore) 1 Bandom RPF (Motionless In White) 1 Beastars 1 Bendy (and The Ink Machine/Dark Revival) 1 Horror 1 Bioshock 1&2 1 Blue Beetle 1 Blue Eye Samurai 1 Books of the Raksura 1 Boondock Saints 1 Breakfast With Scot 1 Bunny - Mona Awad 1 Buzzfeed Unsolved/Watcher Entertainment RPF 1 Cabin Pressure 1 Cats the musical 1 Charlie's Angels (2019) 1 Cherry Magic 1 Chronicles of Narnia 1 Cobra Kai 1 Coffee Talk (Video Game) 1 Criminal Minds 1 Death Note 1 Devil May Cry 1 Dexter 1 Digimon 1 Discworld - Terry Pratchett 1 Disney Theatrical Animated Universe 1 Divergent 1 DMBJ (Grave Robber's Chronicles) - Xu Lei 1 Dream SMP 1 Dungeons and Daddies (podcast) 1 Endeavour/Morseverse/Inspector Morse (ITV/Dexter) 1 Ensemble Stars!! 1 Fallout Video Game (Bethesda) 1 Falsettos 1 Fargo FX 1 Farscape 1 Fire Emblem (4-10, 13, 14, 16) 1 Five Nights at Freddy's 1 Friends at the Table 1 Game Changers Series - Rachel Reid 1 Grantchester 1 Green Creek 1 Grey's Anatomy 1 Grimm 1 Gundam (see below for details) 1 Hatchetfield 1 Hawaii 5.0 1 Hello From The Hallowoods 1 High School Musical 1 Higurashi no Naku Koro ni 1 Hollow Knight 1 Honkai Star Rail 1 Horizon Zero Dawn 1 Infinity Train 1 IT (Movies - Muschietti) 1 Jeff Satur - music videos 1 Julie and the Phantoms 1 Kushiel's Legacy 1 Law and Order 1 Legend of the Galactic Heroes 1 Live Free or Die Hard (Die Hard 4) 1 London Spy 1 Lovecraft Mythos 1 Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic 1 Magnificent Seven 1 Mary Grant Bruce's Billabong series 1 Mrs. Davis 1 My Little Pony 1 Nancy Drew (CW Series) 1 Narcos (TV) 1 Nine Worlds Series - Victoria Goddard 1 NU: Carnival 1 Omori 1 One Direction 1 Orphan Black 1 Outlast 1 Paranatural 1 Phantomarine 1 Re-Animator 1 Resident Evil/Biohazard 1 Sex Education (TV) 1 She-Ra and the Princesses of Power 1 Simon Snow Series 1 Skins (UK) 1 Slam Dunk 1 Starry Musical 1 Succession 1 Sunless Sea 1 Super Sentai 1 Sweeney Todd 1 Team Starkid 1 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1 The Adventure Zone: Balance 1 The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension 1 The Adventures of Tintin 1 The Artful Dodger 1 The Good Place 1 The Greenhollow Series - Emily Tesh 1 The Hollows - Kim Harrison 1 The Last Kingdom 1 The Left-Handed Booksellers of London - Garth Nix 1 The Lunar Chronicles 1 The Mechanisms 1 The Pairing (Casey McQuiston) 1 The Saint of Steel 1 The Shadow Campaigns - Django Wexler 1 The Terror (TV 2018) 1 Three of Hearts 1 Tin Can Bros 1 Tower of God 1 True Detective 1 Twilight 1 Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold 1 Wayfarers (Becky Chambers) 1 Weak Hero Class 1 1 Westworld (TV) 1 Yellowjackets 1 Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters

#fth 2024 #fandom trumps hate #fanworks charity auction #unlisted fandom challenge #signups are STILL OPEN!#do the thing!

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brokenbuttonsmusic · 3 years

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Eleni Mandell: L.A. Singer-Songwriter with Smoky Chrissie Hynde Vocals and a flair for Tom Waits’ Influenced Experimentation

This post is a near- transcript of the Broken Buttons: Buried Treasure Music podcast (episode 5, side A). Here you’ll find the narration from the segment featuring the L.A. singer-songwriter, Eleni Mandell, along with links, videos, photos and references for the episode.

Listen to the full episode on Spotify, Apple, Anchor or Mixcloud.

Have you ever bought the wrong record? Like, you intended to buy something that sounded like one thing and you accidentally grab something that sounds very different.

I don’t know if this happens anymore, but I believe it was quite common years ago. Imagine hearing an artist on the radio and being blown away. You go to the record store, find the plastic divider with the name of whom you’re looking for, but you can’t remember the name of the album, or even the song. Remember, you don’t have a tiny computer in your pocket. You’re too nervous to ask the store clerk for fear of looking stupid. So you roll the dice.

“I know it was someone called Neil Young, but there are a thousand Neil Young records here.”

“Hey, this pink one looks cool.”

That exact scenario didn’t happen to me, but that album, Neil Young’s Everybody’s Rockin’, happened to be the most played Neil Young album in my house growing up, so for years I thought Neil Young was a rockabilly revival act. In reality, that was one of several oddball records Young released during a tumultuous period with his record label to fulfill his contract demands. I still love that record.

Eleni Mandell did live out the scenario of buying the wrong record though. She shared the story during a segment of the show Bullseye with Jessie Thorn, where she describes seeing Tom Waits on MTV late at night—back when MTV still cared about music. It was either 120 minutes or IRS’ The Cutting Edge. This would have been around 1984 or 1985, so right around the time of Wait’s masterpiece Rain Dogs. When she went to the record store though, she picked up the 1976 Tom Waits’ Asylum release, Small Change instead. Now Small Change is still a great Tom Waits album, but it sounds nothing like the drastically reimagined sound and musical approach he had begun to employ starting with 1983’s Swordfishtrombones. Something Tom Waits called his “junkyard orchestral deviation.” The spare, off-kilter percussion. Moaning trombones and muted trumpets. Marimba. Plenty of marimba. Experimental instruments mixed in everywhere. Megaphones and CB radios. Trash can lids.

This is the sound Eleni was looking for.

Instead she got lush strings. Delicate piano. Cinematic swells and a melancholy wail.

She got this.

Still awesome, but not the same. She credits the experience with changing her life. She grew to love both sides of the Tom Waits coin. The jazzy piano man in the smoky, whiskey-drenched nightclub and the eclectic, experimental carnival barker that she had her first encounter with on late night MTV.

You can hear that deep appreciation and influence for the full Tom Waits spectrum injected and swirling through Eleni Mandell’s own spectacular catalog that spans more than 20 years now.

She’s got plenty of experimental Waits, especially in her early catalog.

And quite a bit of the jazzy nightclub vibe.

There’s also plenty of folk-y Eleni mixed in, and even some country.

You’ll notice that Eleni’s voice doesn’t sound like Tom Waits though. Did you notice that? It’s less of a deep, gravelly howl and more of rich Chrissie Hynde croon. Spin compared her to Chrissie Hynde and PJ Harvey. Rolling Stone compared her captivating melodies and witty lyricism to early Elvis Costello.

While she doesn’t have the Tom Waits’ wail, she does specialize in his particular brand of character song-study. Like this first song we’re going to hear. The first track off of Eleni Mandell’s second album Thrill. Released in the year 2000. This is Pauline.

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Pauline, from Eleni Mandell’s second record, Thrill. So how did this remarkably unique singer-songwriter get her start and pull together so many interesting influences to create the sound we just heard.

Eleni grew up in the Sherman Oaks region of the San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles. She started playing music when she was just 5, beginning with the violin and then piano. Eleni didn’t love playing either, but continued to take lessons until she was thirteen. She remembers wanting to learn to write songs early on, but didn’t have the first idea of how to approach it, especially on violin. She jumped from violin and piano to guitar as a teenager. Her parents exposed her to a variety of musical styles. Her mom would take her to musicals and her dad, a serious record collector, played her Hoagy Carmichael and plenty of jazz standards. She loved the Beatles and remembers Diana Ross making an early impression.

Another early life changing moment came when she discovered the Los Angeles punk band X.

X were huge in LA, and their first album (called Los Angeles) was the first record Eleni ever owned. Or maybe the first she asked to own. The first record she was ever given was Shaun Cassidy’s greatest hits for her 4th birthday. The first she ever purchased with her own money was X’s third release, Under the Big Black Sun. She tells a story of when she was out record shopping at a place called Aron’s Records, located on Melrose, and to her utter befuddlement came face to face with John Doe, lead singer of X. He was shopping for records too. She quickly snapped up a copy of the band’s third album and asked John to sign it. He did. She still has the signed album, which reads “Yours” complete with a big X “-John Doe.” That was the last autograph she ever asked for. It was not, however, the last time her path would cross with that of the band X.

When she was a little bit older, she met Chuck E. Weiss, songwriter, rock n’ roller, beat poet and peculiar Tom Waits associate. Also the subject of the song, Chuck E.’s in Love.

Yes, that Chuck E. Weiss. Waits was in a relationship with Rickie Lee Jones. Waits, Jones and Weiss all lived at the seedy Tropicana Motel in Los Angeles. One day Weiss up and left out of nowhere. Some time later Chuck E. called the apartment where Jones and Waits were living. He explained to Waits that he had moved to Denver because he had fallen in love with a cousin there. Waits hung up the phone and announced to Jones, “Check E.’s in love. Rickie Lee Jones liked that so much that she it turned it into the song we just heard.

Who is this episode about again? Oh, right. Eleni Mandell. Anyway, Eleni Mandell met THAT Chuck E. Weiss when she was not yet 21. Still, she had a friend who was able to get her into The Central, a Sunset Strip club that would later become The Viper Room. This would’ve been around 1990. Weiss was playing there every Monday.

Here’s how the write up on Eleni’s original website describes her first encounter with Weiss.

“The first time she ever saw Chuck E. Weiss perform, he walked right up to her and smiled like a cross between The Cheshire Cat and an escaped mental patient. She met him a month later at Musso and Frank’s.”

Eleni says she was at the famous Hollywood restaurant and recognized Weiss. She worked up the courage to approach him and told him how much she loved his show. He asked if she wanted to accompany him to meet up with a friend at Canter’s Deli. She agreed. When they settled into one of the landmark eaterys iconic red, vinyl booths in walked her hero. Tom Waits. What a night. Tom asked Chuck how he and Eleni had met.

“Hebrew school,” he declared.

Here’s a tune from Eleni’s debut album, Wishbone, released in 1999. This is Sylvia.

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From Eleni Mandell’s first album, Wishbone, that was Sylvia.

Under Chuck E. Weiss’ mentorship, produced by Jon Brion and self-financed by Mandell, Wishbone, as well as her next several records, received strong reviews and drew comparisons to Waits and PJ Harvey in style.

Before Weiss mentored Mandell, he hired her as a door person at his club. She said he would test her to see how tough a door person she was by trying to grab money out of her hand. Weiss would continue to mentor Eleni over the years and they’re still friends to this day.

For her fourth album, Mandell shook things up by diving into traditional country. A mix of covers and originals, 2003’s Country For True Lovers is an exciting update to her sound. And one of her life changing moments came full circle. Weiss introduced her to former X guitarist Tony Gilkyson, who produced the project. She also stacked the sessions with all star players, including Nels Cline from Wilco, and another X hero, drummer D.J. Bonebreak.

Eleni continued to mix and mesh genres on her next release, 2004’s Afternoon.

From the No Depression review of that album:

“Last years Country For True Lovers found Los Angeles chanteuse Eleni Mandell turning her sights on twang rather than her previous more PJ Harvey-oriented material, and she received plenty of critical acclaim in the process, sharing the LA Weekly 2003 songwriter of the year award with the late Elliot Smith.”

“On Afternoon, her fifth album, Mandell combines her love of various genres, including country, pop, jazz and rock, to stunning effect. Produced by Joshua Grange, who also lends his considerable talents on guitar, pedal steel, Hammond organ and piano, Afternoon mostly takes the slow and sexy approach. I’ve Been Fooled and Can’t You See Im Soulful give Mandell the chance to show off her breathy but passionate alto, which can devastate in a heartbeat.”

“Mandell does rock out from time to time, as on Easy On Your Way Out, which has a grungy Elvis Costello-gets-on-with-Liz Phair feel to it. I wanna be your afternoon/I want you coming back for more, Mandell sings on the sorta fun/sorta sad title song.”

She can also write catchy singles. Like this song from Afternoon, “Let’s Drive Away.”

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That was Let’s Drive Away from Eleni Mandell’s fifth album, Afternoon, released in 2004. That song was also featured on the TV show, Weeds.

And here comes the challenging part of covering an artist like Eleni Mandell, who’s put out consistently solid albums for over two decades. There’s not enough time to feature all the good stuff she’s produced, but trust me, over her eleven albums, she always delivers. From the diverse shifting sounds of Artificial Fire [play clip] to the smooth and breezy Dark Lights Up [play clip], Eleni whirls a magical combination of jazz, folk, pop, country and rock, with just enough experimental twists to keep everything fresh.

She’s also branched out from her solo artist gig to release two albums with her band The Grabs. The Grabs allows her to exercise more of her pop side and features Eleni on vocals, Blondie bassist Nigel Harrison, and Silversun Pickups’ drummer Elvira Gonzalez.

And, she’s also released records with the Andrews Sisters inspired supergroup, The Living Sisters, with Inara George, Alex Lilly and Becky Stark.

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I’d recommend checking out all of this.

So now that we’ve established that the Eleni Mandell road is paved with the goods, let’s skip ahead to focus on her most recent album: 2019’s Wake Up Again.

Here’s what Eleni and her website have to say about the latest release:

“For two years or thereabouts,” Mandell says, “I taught songwriting at two colleges and a women’s prison.”

The prison gig came about via Jail Guitar Doors, the organization founded by Wayne Kramer, guitarist of the vaunted Detroit band MC5, in partnership with English musician Billy Bragg. “I don’t know why exactly I was drawn to that work,” Mandell says. “But I had a family member who had been in prison in the 1940s. He wasn’t around when I was growing up, but that sort of fascinated me and I was always curious about what kind of person disappears and what kind of person commits crimes — what are they thinking?”

Working with the inmates also provided many epiphanies for her as a person, and proved fertile for her as an artist, as captured in the 11 songs on this album, her 11th studio release. In many ways it’s the culmination and fulfillment of all the strengths as a writer and performer going back to her start under the tutelage of Chuck E. Weiss, Tom Waits and other top chroniclers of people in the shadows.

“I really enjoyed it,” she says. “I was inspired by the stories, and surprised by the laughter I heard there. And I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was, by how many different kinds of people were there: teachers, lawyers, nurses, and also people who grew up in poverty.”

Here’s a song about one of the woman she met during those songwriting classes she taught. This is Evelyn.

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Evelyn from Eleni Mandell’s most recent album, Wake Up Again. Another great addition to her expansive, impressive catalog. The album is filled with rich character studies and deeply personal self-examinations.

Her early Tom Waits inspiration continues to ignite and propel her, even after 11 albums. Only now she can call Tom a longtime friend.

And she went from obsessive punk rock X fan to counting a member of X as a member of her own band. What a cool, thrilling ride she’s had so far. Eleni Mandell.

References and other stuff:

Eleni interview with Luxury Wagers

Eleni interview with Mr. Bonzai

Eleni interview with Tyler Pollard on Timeline

The bio from Eleni’s current website has a great write up on her most recent album and I quote from it in the episode.

No Depression review of Afternoon that I quote in the episode

Here is the original bio from Eleni’s old website that is now archived. I also quote from this

Eleni has been featured on NPR segments over the years. I did not use anything directly from these, but they are good and informative

Pop Matter review of Dark Lights Up

Good L.A. Times article about Eleni teaching songwriting to female inmates and her latest album

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yousayparty · 4 years

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The right place, the right time, and the right amount of exclamation marks

The history of Vancouver via Abbotsford British Columbia’s You Say Party is a storied one. Imagine this: trapped in a never ending nightmare of suburban dystopian hell, you form a band. With the simple adjective of having fun, spreading a message, making people dance - you leave the confines of a religiously stifling community. Within a few years you’re playing the world’s top festivals, winning awards, and wooing critics.

But now I find myself piecing foggy bits of memory fragments together with duct tape and hairspray. Like stickers on a dive bar bathroom stall, I know I was there. But why and for how long? I feel like I’m sifting through a shoebox of handbills and press clippings like some True Crime podcaster placing myself at the scene.

I’m not sure where I first heard the name You Say Party! We Say Die! but it caught my eye. It was an era of exuberant band names. !!!, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Shout Out Out Out Out, Hot Hot Heat, Fake Shark- Real Zombie! And my own band GoGoStop! It was also a time when bands out Vancouver’s sleepy conservative suburbs were starting to break out: Witness Protection Program, The Hand, Fun100.

It was exciting. There was a sense of community. Of people just wanting to have fun. Perhaps we were shaking off the anxieties of a post 9/11 world, or shrugging off the self seriousness that was emo and hardcore. We still made mix tapes and zines- scoured Terminal City and The Straight for new bands. There was this new social networking craze called MySpace that had yet to be a ubiquitous omnipresent corporate behemoth that dominated every corner of our lives. We were called Scenesters not Hipsters. Everyone was in an art collective.

Adorned with white belts and one-inch pins; asymmetrical hair cuts and red velvet blazers we set out to prove Vancouver wasn’t No Fun City at now long shuttered venues like the Marine Club, the Pic Pub, and Mesa Luna. I didn’t drink at the time so dancing, and by extension dance punk, had become my saviour- bands like The Rapture, Les Say Fav, Pretty Girls Make Graves to name a few. When Mp3 blogs became a thing, I immediately downloaded The Gap from their 2005 debut Hit The Floor! and loaded it on my 100 song iPod shuffle. I like so many others, became an instant fan.

I moved into what could only be described as a punk rock compound- 3 houses that were owned by a former Christian sect that we dubbed Triple Threat. Members of Bend Sinister, No Dice, Witness Protection Program, and Devon Clifford from You Say Party and Cadeaux (and Whiteloaf) all lived there. He drove an orange 1981 Camaro Berlinetta to match his bright red hair and big personality. We would walk to the greasy spoon Bon’s Off Broadway to get terrible but cheap breakfast and to watch The coffee Sheriff pour undrinkable refills of sludge. It was like living in the movie Withnail and I, but funner. We all wore pins that said Do You Party? on them.

It felt like Vancouver was blowing up and You Say Party was the hand-clapping drum majorette leading the pack. Ladyhawk, Black Mountain, Radio Berlin, New Pornographers, Destroyer, S.T.R.E.E.T.S., The Doers, They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? And The Organ highlighted just how tight-knit and diverse our scene was. Relentless touring and glowing reviews for You Say Party’s sophomore Lose All Time ensured they were head of the class, despite being unable to tour the US due to a previous border snafu.

Lose All Time sat on top of the Earshot charts for what seemed like forever. Famous for their frenetic live shows, and aided by stunning videos, their sophomore effort was a clear progression from Hit The Floor! It still harnessed the visceral rawness of their origins, but hinted at a confidence and maturity that was to come. The title of Lose All Time was a reference to the discombobulation of constant touring and it too was a hint of what was to come.

The touring would take its toll. Fuelled by Chinese Red Bull; a well document public dustup between band members at a bar in Germany would throw everything into uncertainty. But it was that turbulence that would set the stage for XXXX and after a restorative tour to China, the stage was set for the penultimate You Say Party record.

Flash forward to 2009 and the city was on edge. Everything was about to change. Vancouver was preparing to host the world amidst the unfolding Great Recession. Anti-Olympic protests ramped up. A gang war raged in the streets and made international headlines, tucked behind Swine Flu hysteria and the ongoing imperialist war on Iraq.

It seemed like all the venues started closing and all our friends were moving to Berlin or Montreal. We starting looking in. Is this the city we want? Was it just growing pains? This kind of introspection is clearly reflected in XXXX. If Lose All Time was a record the band wanted to make, XXXX was a record for the people; a record for the city of Vancouver; a record for 2009.

"I finally feel like a singer, rather than a dancer who loves being in a band" said Becky Ninkovic at the time. It’s a perfect quote. One that succinctly captures the maturity and focus of the record. After a breakdown for Ninkovic, a year of rest and vocal lessons, Exclaim! announced XXXX to be a career resuscitation.

And it was. Going back now and rediscovering the record is such a magical thing. Opening for You Say Party with my band Taxes in 2008, I was impressed with the new material even if was a little jaded (I mean I was almost 30). But now with time and space I can see the songs they were working on were truly timeless. Laura Palmer’s Prom could so easily slot in with the latest 80s synthwave revival along alongside bands like Lust for Youth, Lower Dens, and Chromatics.

Overall, XXXX sounds like an exhale. A moment of stillness when you know you’ve made something extraordinary. When you know all those moments combined; moments of sheer terror, adrenalin, elation, boredom, and longing- culminate in a piece of art that once you let go of it- you just know in your gut that it’s right. It draws you in, wrestles with a brooding tension, then sends you into a churning whirlwind of tight drums and buzzing synths. It’s a remarkable achievement.

There’s plenty of vintage YSP sass throughout. “She’s Spoken For”, “Make XXXX”, and “Cosmic Wanship Avengers” are all classic synth punk gems, but the it’s in the subdued that the album really grips. “Dark Days”, “There is XXXX (Within My Heart)” and the sprawling Kate Bush like ballad “Heart of Gold” are the hallmark of a band that is comfortable exploring the limits of their genre. While lyrically quite positive, the melodies are daunting. Indeed, as Pitchfork put it, “the slower pace and more sentimental outlook of XXXX gives listeners the necessary space and encouragement to surrender to the band's emotional message”.

And it was a message they would finally return to the US with in 2009. The band was poised for mainstream breakout success. They were long listed for the Polaris and they won a Western Canadian Music Award for Best Rock Album of the year. Much has been written about what would happen next. I don’t want this article to be about the tragic onstage death of drummer and friend Devon Clifford, but it’s inexorably linked to the band’s story.

And I can only really tell it from my point of view. I wasn’t sure I would go to the funeral but a mutual friend told me that Devon would want me to go. Portland Hotel Society, a local housing provider which Devon had thrown the weight of his passion behind, rented a bus to drive out to Abbotsford. I held up pretty well until my friend Al Boyle got up to play. Then some yelled “Spagett”. Then Krista and Becky sang “Cloudbusting” and I lost it.

The band would try to carry on. Krista would leave the band and Bobby Siadat and Robert Andow of the band Gang Violence would fill in for touring. When that didn’t go as planned Al Boyle who had been in the punk band Hard Feelings with Devon would replace Bobby. They officially went on hiatus in 2011 only to reunite a year later with Krista back on keys and a drum machine in place of Devon.

And while the band’s self titled 2016 release would be their moment of closure, the reissue of XXXX is one of celebration. Celebration of what they made with Devon. Celebration of a near perfect moment in time. A capsule of a entire city at it’s peak. The band has changed. The scene has changed. And I’ve changed. But there will always be XXXX within in our hearts.

'Cause every time it rains

You're here in my head

Like the sun coming out

Ooh, I just know that something good is going to happen

And I don't know when

But just saying it could even make it happen

Sean Orr Vancouver, BC January 2020

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We are so excited to reissue a limited run of XXXX on clear vinyl through Paper Bag Records Vintage for Record Store Day on August 29th! Support your local stores & grab this album on vinyl for the first time in 10 years! https://recordstoredaycanada.ca #yousayparty #YSPWSD

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About Sean Orr Sean Orr is a writer, musician, artist, activist, and dishwasher living and working in the unceded Coast Salish territories of Vancouver, B.C. Besides his twice weekly news column in Scout Magazine he writes for Beatroute and has written for Vice Magazine and Montecristo among others in the past. He’s the frontman in the punk band Needs and also has a pickle company called Brine Adams. Twitter | NEEDS | Tea & Two Slices | Flickr

#yousayparty #xxxx #vinyl #reissue #paperbagrecords #yousaypartywesaydie #dancepunk #seanorr

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ostrichmonkey-games · 4 years

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RPG Highlights: Shadowrun

Ah, Shadowrun. I have a lot of complicated feelings about Shadowrun. This one might be is a bit rambly. Shout out to the anonymous suggestion for this one.

So, first off, I’ve mostly played 5th edition with some slight dabbling in 4th. So those editions are what informs my opinions on Shadowrun.

What Is It: Shadowrun is a d6 dice pool, skill-based, fantasy cyberpunk/corporate dystopia rpg. You can play an ork decker (hacker). Or an elf marital adept. Or a chromed up street sam(urai). Get hired as corporate disposable assets, but a shit ton of gear, and go cause a ruckus.

The Sixth World (the world of SR) is, easily, one of my all time favorite rpg settings. For those not familiar, SR is a fantasy cyberpunk. The long and short of it is that in 2012, magic came back into our world (though the timelines between the real world and that of SR split a bit earlier than that, mostly concerning the rise of megacorporations). It’s very fun to just, get lost in the SR wikis or peruse the more setting focused books (which is all of them really). Everything you’d expect from modern cyberpunk you can find in SR. Now just add fantasy. Magic, orks, elves, overpowered mages, etc, etc. (There’s arguments to be made that, the “punk” part of a lot of current cyberpunk products is kind of lost, and its more of a “corporate dystopia”, but there are better informed people out there who can write a lot better on that than me. Minimum, SR contains at least the aesthetic you’d be looking for in cyberpunk)

At one point, an actual dragon was the president of the “US” (technically UCAS if I’m remembering my lore correctly, but you get the idea). It’s a blast. That being said, there is some, problematic writing. Again, I’m not the expert on this, but you will probably come across some stuff that leaves a sour taste in your mouth One major examples is how the game mechanically deals with cybernetic augments. The more chrome you pick up, the less Essence you have. In-lore, Essence is more or less described as one’s “humanity” or connection to the earth/world. The lower your Essence, the less “magical” you are. If you get too much chrome, you can go full “cyberzombie”. So, from a pure gameplay mechanic, I get it. You need to balance cybernetics with magic otherwise you’d have chromed up mages running around and it would probably be a mess. But it’s, kinda messed up that if you want just a regular not-fancy prosthetic leg you have to mechanically lose some of your humanity.

There’s a few other bits and pieces of lore writing that is also not super great, but I also don’t have any of them on hand, so just kind of a warning. There’s a tone of cool stuff in SR but be prepared to come across some not as cool parts.

Playing The Game: Okay, so moving on to the mechanics as I understand them. And I am by no means an expert.

At it’s core, SR is a pretty simple classless d6 dice pool. You make skill/action rolls which are based off the points you have in an attribute plus the points you have in a skill. It can be remarkably flexible. I honestly like this core.

On top of that, when you build a character you have a massive pool of positive and negative traits to play with. You can make very unique characters, and a lot of them. I mentioned classless but there are some general archetypes you can build toward, like mage, adept, street sam, decker, and others.

Where things can get messy is where the more, “simulationist” begins to come into play. So, your character is just as much defined by the gear they have as the skills they possess. Gear is very important mechanically. And it’s also once you start to get into gear (and to an extent the pos/neg traits) that you begin to run into a lot of the situational modifiers that makes SR difficult to learn. There are rules for, a lot of things. Rules for different bullet types, firing mechanisms, explosive calculations, magical strain, summonings, astral projects, falling, jumping, skydiving, basically an entirely different game for decking (hacking), and more.

This sort of style suits some people! If you love to optimize and get really granular, there’s a ton to work with here! But for me, this is where the game starts to break down. Just personal taste.

All the extra rules and exceptions is also where mechanically, the game can start to feel kind of broken. In my experience, mages are overpowered, with adepts being even more overpowered. I never really look for a perfectly balanced game (if such a thing is even possible), but it can get out of hand in SR, again at least in my experience.

The RAW intended “core loop” of SR (if that idea can be applied to ttrpgs) is basically, get a job, do the job, try not to die, get paid (hopefully), buy knew gear and repeat for as long as you’re having fun. And let me be clear, you can easily have a blast in SR. I had fun, even with all my personal issues with the mechanics. Just keep in mind what kind of game it is if you’re thinking of picking it up. There is also Shadowrun: Anarchy, which is billed as a more rules-lite and narrative focused version of SR, but I’ve only barely skimmed it so I can’t offer much on it.

Production Values: So, the SR books look nice. Plenty of nice art, interesting layouts, packed full of lore and world information. They’re nice to read like a book. Where they utterly fail is a game tool and resource. The books are riddled with errors requiring pages of errata, are horribly, unintuitively organized, and occasionally hide rules and mechanics in little sidebars. You will be flipping through the books a lot when making a character. The whole book. Hope you’ve picked up a character builder too.

Why You Should Play It: The cyberpunk base provides a unique foundation for telling stories. Cyberpunk can be a lot of fun to explore, the addition of fantasy just helps set SR apart from other cyberpunk products. But you can also just put on some mirror shades, straighten up your pink mohawk and have some wild adventures if all you’re looking for is explosions and action. That’s totally cool too.

End of the day, SR is worth checking out. It will require some effort, Catalyst Labs doesn’t make it easy. And it may not be the system for you. But the setting can carry it pretty far. Also, I recommend checking out the podcast Neoscum if you want an actual play example. It’s on the zanier (pink mohawk) side of things, but it is seriously great, and an equally great examples of what you can do with SR.

Where You Can Get It: Various editions of Shadowun, including the most recent sixth edition are available on DriveThruRPG and Catalyst’s website.

#rpg highlights #this has been sitting in drafts for an age now #time to post

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