History Literature / DestructiveHarmonics

''Destructive Harmonics'' is a currently mostly unpublished writing project by Tropers/{{Floria}}. It takes place in DarthWiki/TheHarmonicsverse, a sort of MundaneFantastic-meets-PlanetEris version of early twenty-first century Earth, and can be described as "''{{Metalocalypse}}'' [[XMeetsY meets]] one of those [[{{Moe}} cutesy]] SliceOfLife [[ AzumangaDaioh anime]] [[LuckyStar series]] [[about {{K-On}}]] [[PinkBishoujoGhetto a bunch of quirky high school girls]]," although in this case the "girls" are five rock stars in their twenties and thirties. The project is mostly concerned with Maenad, a popular all-female heavy metal band that's difficult to precisely classify by subgenre, and whose members are, to a woman, WeirdnessMagnet {{Bunny Ears Lawyer}}s, the band members' daily lives, their odder adventures, and the many ways they drive their [[OnlySaneEmployee long-suffering]] [[TeamMom manager]] to distraction.

''Destructive Harmonics'' is a currently mostly unpublished writing project by Tropers/{{Floria}}. It takes place in TroperWorks/TheHarmonicsverse, a sort of MundaneFantastic-meets-PlanetEris version of early twenty-first century Earth, and can be described as "''{{Metalocalypse}}'' [[XMeetsY meets]] [[AzumangaDaioh one]] [[LuckyStar of]] [[{{K-ON}} those]] [[{{Moe}} cutesy]] SliceOfLife anime series about [[PinkBishoujoGhetto a bunch of quirky high school girls]]," although in this case the "girls" are five rock stars in their twenties and thirties. The project is mostly concerned with Maenad, a popular all-female heavy metal band that's difficult to precisely classify by subgenre, and whose members are, to a woman, WeirdnessMagnet {{Bunny Ears Lawyer}}s, the band members' daily lives, their odder adventures, and the many ways they drive their [[OnlySaneEmployee long-suffering]] [[TeamMom manager]] to distraction.

* HotterAndSexier: if you believe that GirlOnGirlIsHot, Maenad would qualify, as the show that inspired them is rather low on lesbians.

* AbuseIsOkayWhenItIsFemaleOnMale: Valerian ''does not'' believe this, and at one point explains to her friends that she can't just punch her {{Jerkass}} celebrity boyfriend because that would be domestic violence. Yanang, by contrast, believes that [[HeroicSociopath All Violence Is Okay When It Is Directed Against People I Heartily Dislike]].

* * CanonWelding: Maenad was originally in a different continuity from Venus Envy and some other parts of the Harmonicsverse.

* CloserToEarth: meta example. While the Maenad girls aren't notably wiser, more sensible, more emotionally intelligent, etc. than the major male characters in this universe, they are rather more advanced in these areas than the all-male band that [[CaptainErsatz inspired them]]. But then again, that band is {{Dethklok}}, so this isn't necessarily saying much...
** Lily Mandrake plays it straighter, as both she and her [[DitzyGenius erratically brilliant]] supervillain husband acknowledge that she's the one with the common sense.

* CreativeDifferences: one of the reasons Valerian left [[DeathMetal Fetal Distress]] (the other was strained vocal cords). Val was beginning to develop her fondness for weird religious imagery at the point when the other band members wanted to make things [[DarkerAndEdgier heavier and darker]] in ways that didn't include songs about, for example, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_of_Arc dead French Catholic teenagers]].

* GeniusDitz: the girls in Maenad are mild versions who simply don't have much sense.

* MarshmallowHell: Valerian is very tall, full-figured, and of a physically demonstrative nature, at least with close friends. Of course this happens!

* [[MistakenForRacist Mistaken For Antisemite]]: for some reason, Violet's grandmother has developed the idea that all Scandinavian metal musicians (including Lilja) are Neo-Nazis. This makes things awkward when the band meet each other's families.

** Fetal Distress and Aortic Dissection's songs fell into the 9-10 range when Val was a member.

* ThemeNaming: Maenad and many of the people around them (their manager, the producer they work with, the members of Musa's former band, their doctor, their shrink, and some of their family members) all have plant-themed names. All of Valerian's named exes (and several other minor characters) are named after bands.

''Destructive Harmonics'' is a currently mostly unpublished writing project by Tropers/{{Floria}}. It takes place in a sort of MundaneFantastic-meets-PlanetEris version of late twentieth through early twenty-first century Earth. The main cast consists of four main clusters, who mostly interact among themselves, although there are occasional overlaps:
* Venus Envy: a four-piece Canadian all-woman punk band, most active in the late 1980s through the 1990s. Consists of a RedOniBlueOni lesbian couple, a transgendered drummer who's the closest thing a Scottish-Canadian punk rocker can get to a YamatoNadeshiko, and an EruditeStoner werewolf who can see ghosts. Very loosely inspired by HardCoreLogo.
* Maenad: [[{{Metalocalypse}} Dethklok]] meets [[{{K-ON}} Afterschool Tea Time]]. A FiveTokenBand of WeirdnessMagnet {{Bunny Ears Lawyer}}s form a world-famous all-female heavy metal band and have adventures driving their [[OnlySaneMan long-suffering]] [[TeamMom manager]] to distraction. And their record producer is a vampire.
* Seax: Multinational Scandinavian [[FiveManBand five man]] Viking Metal band, noteworthy for the fact that their normal lineup is all guys, although they do have a female manager and had a female guest vocalist on one album. They're not weirdness prone in the way that Maenad is, but they do have an odd habit of accidentally summoning things.
* The {{Differently Powered Individual}}s: Venus Envy's bassist is a werewolf (which is treated like an exotic medical condition in this universe) who can see ghosts, Seax's guitarist and drummer can sense spirits and the drummer can also astrally project (powers he inherited from his Siberian shaman ancestors), and Maenad's record producer is a FriendlyNeighborhoodVampire. Then there's Mockingbird, a music savant mutant with sound-manipulation powers, who sometimes hangs out with Seax, and Karma, a mutant healer who manages to benefit from both sides of her EquivalentExchange based healing powers. There's also a quirky group of low tier semi-superheroes who occasionally do in fact fight crime, although they spend more time on various sorts of mercenary work and exploring their own interests.

* AbusiveParents: Dani's stepfather, Delilah's dad.

* AllDrummersAreAnimals: averted across the board. Zandra of Venus Envy is the sensible, feminine TeamMom, Musa is Maenad's SmartGuy, and Hallbjorn of Seax is a relatively calm and spiritual GentleGiant.

* AlwaysChaoticEvil: averted. Vampires, werewolves, and demons are all capable of being perfectly nice people, although you wouldn't want to push them too far.

* BlessedWithSuck: Delilah's HealingFactor has saved her life on multiple occasions, but having a body that heals away any alterations and processes drugs super-efficiently is a mixed blessing for someone contemplating gender transition.

* CooldownHug: Delilah winds up giving a lot of them, since if the person she's trying to calm down winds up violently freaking out on her there won't be any lasting damage.

* CreepyChild: Violet Aciano and Billie Jiang were both mild examples in their youth, due to odd mannerisms and an aura of eeriness rather than anything actually dangerous. Didrik might also have qualified, given his OracularUrchin tendencies, except the adults around him were too wrapped up in their own affairs to notice any subtle weirdness about him. Perhaps surprisingly, all these characters grow up to be rather {{moe}} as adults.

** Also, the ''Anna: She Wolf of the GOP'' series of porn movies, which feature a NoCelebritiesWereHarmed [[StrawmanPolitical evil Republican]] [[TheBaroness dominatrix]] having her evil way with a wide variety of victims before [[{{Ryona}} dying in a spectacularly gory way.]]

* EveryoneIsBi: or at least most of the women.

* ExtremeOmnivore: Shogglets. They have a particular fondness for oatmeal soap.

** Dee Savage's movie career, from soft-core Swedish PlotWithPorn to HairMetal {{Mockumentary}} ''There Will Be Glitter.''
** ''World's Cutest Deadly Predators,'' a TV show dedicated to the {{Badass Adorable}}s of the natural world.

* GeniusDitz: Amalthea Hunter would be an extreme example, as she's a musical savant but actually mildly developmentally disabled. The girls in Maenad are milder versions who simply don't have much sense.

* InspirationallyDisadvantaged: as a disabled celebrity, Amalthea Hunter gets a lot of this sort of treatment from the media. She doesn't usually mind, except when reviews of her latest album spend six paragraphs talking about how darn inspirational she is and only one on the actual music, but sometimes she finds it confusing, since having Williams Syndrome doesn't make singing any more difficult.
* IntelligenceEqualsIsolation: Niobe Hunter has, at times, resented the fact that her younger sister Amalthea has half her IQ but twice as many friends.

** Venus Envy is less of a DysfunctionJunction than HardCoreLogo, even allowing for the fact that the Hard Cores didn't have to deal with a band member's lycanthropy.

* {{Moe}}: Violet, Didrik, and Amalthea are the most overt examples, but even the less deliberately adorable characters can have their cute moments.
** Sigyn Solefald is a subversion, as she looks girlishly pretty and can be quite charming when she's is a good mood, but is also an unstable sociopath with prejudices against most human ethnic groups (including other Scandinavians) who, despite her talent and charisma, wound up alienating most of her friends and attempting to murder one of the few who continued to put up with her.

** Amalthea's work is generally a 3-5, although her collaborations with Seax are at 7.

** Most of Venus Envy's songs would fall at a 6.

** Sigyn Solefald's early works are at 9 or 10, her later experimental stuff is all over the map.

* CanonWelding: Maenad and Venus Envy's stories were originally in separate continuities.
* MundaneUtility: standard for {{Differently Powered Individual}}s in this setting.
* NorseByNorsewest: the Venus Envy cast is the only group that has no connection with Scandinavia.
* NorseMythology: the boys from Seax are fans of it, as is Lilja.
* OscarBait: discussed by Amalthea. "So, does that mean that if I played a tone-deaf person who was good at math, they'd give me an award for it?"
* TheOtherRainforest
* OurMonstersAreDifferent

* PinkBishoujoGhetto: the Maenad and Venus Envy stories in particular, but women in their mid-thirties and younger who range from "attractive in their way if you like that type" to outright beautiful do make up a rather large proportion of the cast.
* PlotWithPorn: Delilah's brief career in "Swedish experimental films."

* SeinfeldianConversation: especially in the Maenad stories, such as the conversation between Violet and Musa about what cleaning products from different countries would, theoretically, taste like.

** BlackMetal fandom as well, despite the fact that nobody believes that Sigyn Solefald et al are going to bring about the end of the world anytime soon.

* StealthParody: despite their PunnyName, some intentionally ridiculous lyrics and the conspicuous levels of {{Camp}} in their stage show, some people believed that Aryan Heresy were actually Neo-Nazis.
* SuperWeight: for individual major characters, ranges from Type 0 through Type 2. Maenad as a whole is suspected by some to be a Type 4, but so far they've shown no direct evidence of this.
* TakeThat: an in-character example occurs when Amalthea's watching a friend play ''MetalGearSolid.''
--> "Honesty, stop whining about how horrible it is having recessive genes. I have ''deleted'' genes, and I'm pretty sure that's worse, and you don't hear me complaining."
** Since Amalthea has [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williams_syndrome#Cause Williams Syndrome]], this is technically true.
** Violet doesn't think much of {{Moe}} fandom, either. To be fair, when you already have problems being taken seriously as an adult "real musician" even by your closest friends, having your girlish innocence fetishized by strangers on the internet ''does not help.''

* TeamMom: Zandra Mackenzie, for Venus Envy, and Artemisia Mandrake (and occasionally Valerian) for Maenad.
* ThemeNaming: Maenad and many of the people around them (their manager, the producer they work with, the members of Musa's former band, their doctor, their shrink, and some of their family members) all have plant-themed names.

** Kate Cadaver and Zandra Mackenzie
* {{Transsexual}}: Zandra Mackenzie of Venus Envy, Lilja Lakebetonika of Maenad, Delilah Savage the DPI.
* UglyCute: the Shogglets, blobby cat-sized extradimensional {{Eldritch Abomination}}s that will eat just about anything.
** Also, the Malagasy Death Rat Lemur, "the world's ugliest prosimian," an EndangeredSpecies that Maenad unintentionally discovers. They look like a cross between opossums and [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Si_rex.jpg Devon Rex]] cats and have long knobbly fingers and mildly venomous saliva, but are actually very intelligent and playful.

''Destructive Harmonics'' is a currently unpublished writing project by Tropers/{{Floria}}. It takes place in a sort of MundaneFantastic-meets-PlanetEris version of late twentieth through early twenty-first century Earth. The main cast consists of four main clusters, who mostly interact among themselves, although there are occasional overlaps:

* TheMoorcockEffect: Maenad and Venus Envy's stories were originally in separate continuities.

* TeamMom: Zandra Mackenzie, for Venus Envy, and Artemisia Mandrake, for Maenad.

* MiseryLit: most of Erica Hawthorne's more critically well-received books would count.

** [[{{Pantera}} Pain Terra]], a bakery/gourmet sandwich shop.

* ThemeNaming: Maenad and many of the people around them (their manager, the producer they work with, the members of Musa's former band, their doctor, and some of their family members) all have plant-themed names.
* ThereAreNoTherapists: averted, although plenty of characters who probably need help still aren't getting it.

* FictionalMedia: quite a bit of it, mostly music, but also a few movies and other things.

** One of the FakeBands mentioned in passing is called Rosa Sanguinea Gothica, i.e. [[MyImmortal Bloody Gothic Rose]].

* BrandX: Glacial Geyser bottled water.

* CrossesTheLineTwice: the Megatherium throw rug. At least that's how the girls see it.

* ApronMatron: Valerian's grandmother is a formidable old lady.

* InspirationallyDisadvantaged: as a disabled celebrity, Amalthea Hunter gets a lot of this sort of treatment from the media. She doesn't usually mind this, except when reviews of her latest album spend six paragraphs talking about how darn inspirational she is and only one on the actual music, but sometimes she finds it confusing, since having Williams Syndrome doesn't make singing any more difficult.

* ThemeNaming: Maenad and many of the people around them (their manager, the producer they work with, and the members of Musa's former band) all have plant-themed names.