#because music is both A) very easily accessible as an art form and also almost universally enjoyed in some way shape or form | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mileshehimwhite · 6 months ago

Text

ok i know this is played out but i wanna touch on how music is generally seen as one of the most socially acceptable art forms. it is impossible to live as a human and escape music, its everywhere. however, that really doesnt mean that music is upheld as an art worth discussing.

id say its pretty fair to point out poetry and music are fairly similar mediums. they cross over all the time, and the distinction of the two is more of a matter of subjective taste than concrete lines. something interesting ive found with poetry is that its not as easily accessible by the masses as music - why not? much of poetry is melodic or could be easily transformed into song. the iambic pentameter is infamous for its specificity when it comes to syllables, very akin to how lyrics in music must conform to certain tempos or become a noisy cacophony.

the kendrick vs drake beef has brought the idea of music being poetic back into the mainstream. i say "back into" but any kendrick fan can tell you that hes always incorporated poetic devices into his lyrics and instrumentals to illustrate the theme of his song/album better. its fun! its a way for him to showcase his skills while also making the music a participatory act for the audience. almost like a scavenger hunt, you know everything is THERE, its up to you to find WHERE. however, the beef has far surpassed kendrick and drake fans, hiphop/rap fans, and has become a discussion point for those who have absolutely no background in these mediums. this is not a diss, its an acknowledgement that for those of us who have and do revere music as an artform, a lot of the talking points can come off as very beginner - because they are, they're made by beginners who are finding their foothold in this new world, just like we all did at one time whether we were 5 or 50 when we first started.

disclaimers aside, my grievances aren't with the people intrigued by accusations. i mean, i dont like 2010 pop very much but if katy perry called pink a pedophile you bet your ass id have tuned the fuck in. im not even sure if thats a comparable accusation, as i think katy perry was more popular than pink? i dont know, you get my point. the accusations are more indicative of the system they're both existing in than kendrick saying this one guy sucks and if we get rid of him and his groupies hollywood will be rainbows sunshine and happiness forever. like, we should still get rid of him, but the systems in place that let drake rise to the level hes at and profit so widely from the communities he claims to represent wont disappear with him, they'll just find the next drake, or taylor swift, or james corden, literally fucking whoever fits the mold they need them to fit into, and if they dont, then adapt to the mold assigned to them. the system continues, the gears keep turning.

i dont even want to talk about the beef necessarily, though i do want to talk about the two songs meet the grahams and Not Like Us. meet the grahams was the heavy-hitter. the one that got everyone talking. Not Like Us was the chaser. a sweeter mixture to dull out the bitterness in the audience's mouth. there's been more controversy about the lyricism in Not Like Us than meet the grahams, and i find that it comes from a lack of understanding of what artforms really are - communicative devices. they're not trying to TELL you something, as something like a report or spreadsheet would with its analysis of sourced data, but it's trying to make you EXPERIENCE something. you can hear the sentence "Treat others the way you want to be treated." all your life, but if you've never experienced a situation where you need others to treat you with the same humanity they hold for themselves, it's a lot less impactful.

Not Like Us showcases exactly what kendrick lamar has already shown us repeatedly: he not only understands people, but he knows how to get through to them. meet the grahams will inevitably go down as one of the most vicious disstracks of all times, yes, but who's bumping that shit? nobody. its not supposed to be bumped. people discuss how it sounds very eerie and frightening, and its SUPPOSED. TO. BE. the instrumentals weren't picked for no reason. the unintelligible yelling in the background? purposeful. the vocals of kendrick going in and out of rage, of him simultaneously saying he wants drake dead and also that he wants him to improve himself by going through ego dissolution? purposeful. this is not just kendrick showing his own emotions regarding the scenario, he's priming the audience to be on his side by proactively aligning himself with their emotions - which leads me to Not Like Us.

okay. like, even the title you see it clearly. Not Like Us. kendrick, even before the song begins, has the audience creating an Us VS Them dichotomy with drake and his crew. kendrick also doesnt define a clear 'us' within the song - he does directly call out drake's culture vulturism in his music, but notice how deliberate he is with it. kendrick points out how drake uses "the people" to get himself a larger paycheque. that is, purposefully, relatable to every working class person regardless of race or location. he uses specific black people in his examples because of drake's anti-blackness, and while he mentions drake being half white in a few of his songs his criticism is always very carefully cushioned by the fact that kendrick DEFENDS drake's white half. he says hes a culture vulture for profiting off of such an important artform made by and for black america, yes, but he also points out that the inauthenticity towards his mother's side of the family and his nationality as canadian is pathetic and disloyal. he SPECIFICALLY MENTIONS how drake lied about his religious views not because kendrick hates the jews secretly but because DRAKE CAN'T PROFIT OFF OF BEING JEWISH THE SAME WAY HE CAN BEING BLACK. that's why he doesn't claim being jewish as hard as he does being black, if the inverse was true i doubt drake would EVER try to 'fit in' to the hip-hop crowd, in the same way he rarely if ever mentions his upbringing in a jewish household.

this is very important and VERY strategic of kendrick. he CANNOT be making enemies in this stage. kendrick has been banking on this reaching far past hip-hop/rap crowds. drake is fluid and, to the core, mainstream. therefore, kendrick NEEDS his lyricism to be just as easily approachable. think about the difference between kendrick's double entendres. "Tryna strike a chord and it's probably A Minor" has been a joke since, probably literally the day we quantified the concept of chords in music theory. some people criticize the line because of that, accusing kendrick of being a hack for using such an easy joke. what they dont understand is, THE JOKE HAD TO BE EASY. it had to simultaneously be easy to access for the general public and also still somewhat biting. kendrick already planted the seeds of drake being a pedophile in meet the grahams, and he's reaping his harvest by dropping that line and "Certified Loverboy, Certified Pedophile". they not only dont have to be clever, THEY CAN'T BE. they can't be more clever than what the layman would gather with one listen, they're his hooks in the song.

some people use Not Like Us as kendrick stepping up to the dick measuring contest on drake's terms. "oh, you think you so good cause you can write something that'll get em jumping? not only can i do that, i can do it BETTER." and i do agree with them! Not Like Us was incredibly well thought-out. it gives us basically no new information, but it doesnt need to, Not Like Us owes its purpose to beating people over the head with a few of the concepts addressed in euphoria. and meet the grahams, yes, and also to prime the audience against drake, yes, and also to show the audience that anything drake does you can get somewhere else and done better, YES! even the beat is produced by DJ Mustard, whose works are both familiar to rap fans, and widely loved. DJ Mustard producing it reinforces the Us VS Them. i mean, even casual listeners of rap have heard the notorious tag "Mustard on the beat, ho!".

im not going to claim this hasnt been pointed out before, i havent seen it, but im sure it has. kendricks discography has primed old fans to indulge in every lyric to make sure no nuance is missed. i dont think kendricks artistry has been in doubt once the entire time this beef has been widely popular. so it seems a little silly then, to start this goddamn dissertation off with a criticism of how music isnt treated with the same consideration by its fans like how a similar artform, poetry, is. and thats because... well, 1: music is way more popular than poetry, like i said. and that leads into 2: people dont recognize music as... important.

some music is. that's true. i mean, remember during the pandemic when celebrities were singing john lennon's Imagine from their mansions while the working class were dying from completely preventable causes? we can say what we will about that era, and oh boy do i have a lot to say, but it does prove that we on some level acknowledge the impact of music. why else choose a song? why not literally just say the words, or words to that impact? because music is better? well, no. people say impactful shit everyday - sans music. Inspirational speeches are a type of communication basically always devoid of music and yet they serve very similar purposes. so, no. music isnt always better. in fact, during the situation i outlined above, i could not think of anything WORSE than breaking into a little tune and jig. there is some tact necessary.

music, however, does excel in one thing inspirational speeches don't: community. this may make little sense, because inspirational speeches are notorious for being purposeful in their bonding of individuals into one united movement. but i want you to consider this: what role does the speaker hold? in inspirational speeches, they're on the same side as the crowd, yes, but they tend to hold some position above or differing from them. a figurehead or trusted authority figure to a movement. they're fighting for the same thing, but they're in a unique position to the crowd.

think about music in that same concept. the singer doesnt tend to hold that same difference. how could it? the audience sings along, the audience dances, the audience taps their foot or bobs their head, whatever participation is included, its necessary. kendrick's Not Like Us, no matter how eloquently reworked, would have NEVER gained the same traction as an inspirational speech. it would make kendrick seem too different from the masses. it would remind us that... he's a celebrity too. he isn't working class. he isn't the one getting affected most by drake's culture vulturism, misogyny, or alleged pedophilia. which would then ask the question: well... why didnt he point this out earlier?

some people are still asking that question, which i think does hold merit. kendrick lamar is not our friend. he has done amazing things for his community and black americans at large and we absolutely cannot discredit that, but kendrick lamar could personally fund my lifestyle forever and that still wouldn't mean i know him or his mindset. he is much more impactful to me because a lot of his songs about growing up in poverty or in crime-ridden environments resonate with my own upbringing, and hearing his experiences heightens that level of relatability because kendrick DID experience what he's writing about, unlike drake, but i also know me. i know people from my block, people who died or got on drugs. im aware that it isnt a black and white scenario, that someone could do amazing things in one area and hurt people in another, and that both are true simultaneously. kendrick himself is obviously aware of this, he addresses it routinely in his music.

i truly believe that kendrick lamar showcases an incredible wisdom of people in his music. i believe that is more necessary to contributing to music than having a good ear for what sounds right. music is a communicative tool, and kendrick knows exactly what to say, how to say it, and when, to elicit the response he wants. THAT is why the people who thought drake would ever win the beef were, at the very best, not paying close enough attention. roasts are not just insults, they're insights to another person's flaws. a metaphorical airing of dirty laundry to the public to initiate change. kendrick can get away with outright admitting he hates shit about drake for no reason and not be seen as petty because he articulates it in a way that has the audience agreeing with him. sometimes you hate somebody for a reason you can't pinpoint - and the funniest part is that kendrick CAN pinpoint exactly why he hates, for example, when drake says the n word. he literally goes on to say why! very explicitly! but now he's made it more comfortable for people to start bashing on drake for any given reason because "the vibes are off".

TLDR; be careful what you listen to, because theyre definitely listening to you.

2 notes · View notes

vawsculturecorner · 11 months ago

Text

My Musical 2023: Musings by a girl who can't stop getting high and tweeting

PART 2: Seriously are you fucking stupid this year was great for music.

Relentless Replays:

These albums could have made the all-star list because I played them enough for it. Consider these projects as taking the silver medal on the podium; albums absolutely worth listening to and if I could chuck everything into the all-star list, I would. Alas, artificial limitations.

Antarctica - Bayang (tha Bushranger) Not content to leave 2023 without spoiling his fans, Bayang makes his catchiest, most optimistic project yet. "GANGA" is my favourite song he's released period and it sits aside a bevy of songs where you can hear how much fun went into it. Give it a bit of time to process (it was a December release after all) and this could easily be my favourite Bayang project and definitely the one that will get the most playtime because of how accessible it is.

I Was Mature For My Age But I Was Still A Child - Grouptherapy Do you also miss BH because they were formative to your growth as a person and all the allegations coming out against them have you down? If so boy howdy do I have the album for you! IWMFMA reels you in by reminding you of the Saturation era (in particular the first instalment) but doubles down on the fundamentals, swapping DIY coarseness for polished technical prowess. Bombastic, chock full of personality and incredibly versatile, there is a track for every person and every occasion here.

Beloved! Paradise! Jazz!? - McKinley Dixon Mckinley Dixon made For My Mama and Everyone Who Looks Like Her, so I should not have been caught as off-guard as I was when this project was released. And yet, the first time I heard this album I was already convinced it was practically flawless. In its brevity, BPJ doesn’t skip a single beat nor miss a lick of detailing and polish, as each song feels vibrant and full of the essence of living.

April Mixtape 3 - Snow Strippers I have never been an EDM girly, but this album makes me want to go to raves, drop a tab and just space out for hours. Endlessly replayable with beautiful vocals soaked in distinct internet electronics, this album will make even the most intense introverts want to take caps and stare at glow sticks for a night. The Aux - Blockhead A cavalcade of creatively assembled instrumentals featuring a highlight reel of the underground hip-hop elite. Blockhead casually reminds you why he is one of the best producers working right now.

Shapeless - Daine I read a lot of think pieces about the death knell of hyperpop in 2023 but with releases like Shapeless, I think people are opting to be wilfully deaf. Daine puts their whole chest into every hook on this album with beats that flutter with technological clangs and heaves. Exhilarating hyperpop euphoria Quaranta - Danny Brown Danny Brown returns with an album that has supposedly been finished for a few years - telling, considering that the emotional poignance of the album feels very specific to a point in time. Fantastic and highly consistent, it is a much more mellow album for Danny but no less quality than what we have come to expect. Guts - Olivia Rodrigo You motherfuckers tried to write this girl off as making teeny-bop music and I won't forgive you for it. Olivia Rodrigo is one of the most promising pure-pop artists of this generation. She says it on the opener - she knows her age, acts like it, and makes music that perfectly encapsulates it to boot. Sundial - Noname Lmao im sorry fuck Fantano, Noname is one the most important artists of the current day and Sundial is a testament to both her intellect and spirit, with words that prick the conscious like spears. I genuinely do not have the words to describe the beauty of a track like gospel?, nor her second verse on "balloons" which tactfully breaks down the voyeurism of black art. You almost have a responsibility to sit with this album properly.

Bite-sized Brilliance

2023 was the year of the EP and I'm so glad because they are great introductory pieces to artists or just compact packages of enjoyment.

Violet, Zion Garcia, Darling - LITERALLY EVERY FULL CIRCLE RELEASE For my coldest take so far, 2023 was the year of Full Circle. With growing attention on Western Sydney, this clique absolutely spearheaded it. Every single release from every single artist was fantastic and at least one song off each made my year favs. (there is another project that Im gonna mention in my all-star list hehe). If you want grungey RNB with vocals that smother in sensuality, listen to Dylan Atlantis. If you want creative Jazzy hip-hop from one of the brightest upcoming rappers in Aus, Zion Garcia. If you want a digital genre collage dedicated to the sounds of the city, FRIDAY* is your man. Anticipating everything this group does for the foreseeable future. GUILD I - SEVY x GRASPS x BAYANG x UNCLE KAL They really got Kal rapping again - with tracks that are this undeniably infectious, I can see how! Feel-good fun for late-night activities Another Triumph of Ghetto Engineering - Open Mike Eagle and Lilac Diesel - R.A.P FERREIRA A couple of short but sweet releases by two underground hip-hop legends that should keep fans satiated until their next major releases. Reflections on the Water, ONE7OVE, Michelangelo - Gian Santorno One of the most promising discoveries I made this year, Gian raps on the perfect instrumentals to suit their vinyl-crackle rapping and the unashamed self-dissection of themself is enthralling.

The Singles!

There were a lot of good single tracks this year! Here they are below! Yes, it's a tidal playlist - if you actually want to download it I might port it to Spotify but we really gotta stop using Spotify gang it's a 2024 out.

VAWS 2023 TOP PICKS The bolded ones are my all-stars for 2023 Again - Snow Stripers Babylon by Bus - hot take, its the best song on the standard version of Maps Be Like U - Sidney Phillip Among many of Sidney’s strengths is her ability to be so fucking endearing jesus fucking christ this song is so cute Black Knight Croatia - Too Birdz Blocked call - ARMAND HAMMER MY HEART PUMP KETAMINE Blood on my grails - Goyard Ibn Said

Bring Wet Cunt - Zheani bugging! - brakence Burn City Linkup (Hell) Butterflies- Skrillex, Four Tet, Fred Again CARDIO - 1300, SOLLYY Celibate - Danny Brown featuring MIKE The Cellar Dwellas Knew - Blockhead featuring Quelle Chris Dang - Caroline Polachek Mother made a beautiful tropical album and said hey you want some of that PC music shit too? DELRESTO (Echoes) - Travis Scott x Beyonce Dexamphetamine - BAYANG x NERDIE Double Trio - By Storm Dying in the City - FRIDAY* Technologic disassociation and the city’s chaotic casing as you miss your last bus out for the night ealthystay - lil ket featuring Sidney Phillips A certified hood classic banger. SELLING PGR BUT IM SMOKING MEDS ON MY OWN

Effy - Sidney Phillips I really do be Effy, I really do be Cassie. Eternally Hateful/Young Drunk Drivers - Kirin J Callinan I could not pick because both of these songs are weirdo pop bangers and I love him for it. Fried Ice Cream - Wiki and Tony Seltzer featuring ZelooperZ GANGA - Bayang (tha bushranger) featuring LIL PIXIE I fucking love Bayang (tha bushranger) - BOYS BE YELLING GANG BUT STILL TOO BITCH TO HANG WITH GANGAS GIMMIE UR LOVE - GUILD God Loves You - Danny Brown x JPEGMAFIA The Gods Must be Crazy - ARMAND HAMMER El-p must be crazy for this beat YOU FEEL ME

Got Me Started - Troye Sivan Fantano made me mad when he said this was a cheap interpolation it's brilliant and much like the other singles from this album, quintessential summer hits for your inner gay gospel? - Noname featuring $ilkmoney and billy woods Half-Life - Slauson Malone Homeostasis - Gian Santorno He left Nothing for the Swim Back - SKECH185 x Jeff Markey The first single I heard this year, I told you then that nothing was going to top this. Cataclysm rap for a dying century. how i'm feeling - grouptherapy. Pretty good hbu I Believe - Caroline Polachek Rest in peace SOPHIE - I love you, thank you. I Know? - Travis Scott I'VE BEEN YOUNG - George Clanton Lethal - Frost Children Living Curfew - Aesop Rock featuring billy woods An all-star pairing with a witchy, woozy and lingering fear that tiptoes through the instrumental. Those haunting background vocals make me forget I'm even listening to a song. One of my favourite songs by both artists. Love is Embarrassing - Olivia Rodrigo She's right you know. What's not embarrassing is singing this on top note in your car to get over your ex Making the Band (Dainty Cain) - Earl Sweatshirt Acid Hip Hop draws Earl into an era of cosmic future hip-hop - the upcoming album is shaping up to be something special Mungu (God) (Remix) - Blu, Notzz, Black Shakespeare, Bloodmoney Perez No Assumptions - SOLLYY Featuring Dylan Atlantis OPPBOY DOW - OPPBOYZ Pits of Hell - JSV The strength of empire at odds with maniacal chaos. Machiavellian rap perfection plz don't cut my wings - MIKE stuns with tragic, breathtaking beauty. The instrumental is a matrimonial fit for both his style and more solemn emotional side and he glides gracefully on this track like an angel on ice skates. An earl feature doesn’t hurt anyone either.

Prim Proper Freestyle - Zion Garcia A perfect introduction to one of the most promising rappers in Eora, if not Aus. RENO - Teether x Kuya Neil The Roach - Genisis Owsusu Running Out of Time - Paramore An ode to perpetual lateness but making your best attempt anyway Satisfy - Dylan Atlantis The sensuality of this song drips from every word like beads of sweat. An incredible song by an incredible artist Scandalous - Kavi This song could literally turn you into an internet micro-celebrity you can just breathe the controversy. Vibrant and fun as fuck, stream Kavi cause this boy is a future icon. Slap (Telegram) - Sidney Phillips, lil ket, Skracha This song is like a hybrid of three completely separate strains of internet music smashed together and turned up to 11 and its fucking beautiful and I love it So You Are Tired - Sufjan Stevens The fatigue of love in all its terrible beauty. A quiet whisper for love that lingers through the toughest of times. I hope you are ok Sufjan. START A RIOT - Breakfast Road Stay Close - Daine stunt - (when I see u) - They Hate Change The future is offering you a sneak peak, don’t avert your gaze

Sucker Free - Key Glock Sunset - Caroline Polachek Take Me There - Fielded featuring Teether Take Off - Breakfast Road That Cunt - Bootleg Baby, lil ket, Sidney Phillips Touching Yourself - The Japanese House Intoxicating sapphic serenade about women loving women (ME AND FUCKING WHO) Track one from the new Andre 3K record These song names are fucking ridiculous and I'm not as sold on this album as the rest of you but fuck me if this opener isn't soul-affirming. Troy (Cover) - TROPHIE Trophie is another artist I discovered this year and I’ve seen her perform this song about 5 times live already and it Is awe-inspiring every time I hear it Tyler, Forever - McKinley Dixon

The Well - Behind You featuring Rako, Teether and BAYANG) where's my head at _ Basement Jaxx x 100 gecs I can’t explain to you why this is quintessentially Australian mid naughties electro-pop if it was brought screaming into 2023 but it sounds way too fucking good

You Can Be Mean to Me - Indigo De Souza Men suck and ex's also suck and we girlies deserve better. A perfect encapsulation of the part of moving on where you just roll with the gut punches, absorbing power in passing politeness

#best of 2023 #aus music #my music #music 2023

0 notes

thatndginger · 1 year ago

Note

Happy WBW! What role does music play in your world? Does it keep history and legends alive? What genres are popular? What situations do people sing or listen in? Are there concerts and stars or is it more localized? How has it changed over time?

First off, I apologize profusely for how late this is! I felt like this question deserved more effort than I’ve been able to really put into things lately ^.^||

That being said, I’m answering this for War Witch - since Shapeshifter’s music scene is almost exactly like our real world one - so buckle up!

In terms of sound, Aeterre [War Witch’s planet] is somewhere near our Romantic Period of music. It’s all acoustic - electronic instruments have yet to be invented - but highly varied in style depending on the region. Take Korin. In the main hubs, the typically ‘Koric’ cities and population centers along the coast, there’s a focus on modern music and keeping up with modern trends. ‘Good’ art - and by extension music - lays emphasis on emotion and a glorification of the past and magic at the current time. Popular musicians tend to eschew traditional ideas of structure and convention when creating music, creating elaborate pieces that evoke intense emotion and imagery. Attending operas and concerts is a pastime enjoyed by both the upper classes and the growing middle class. Some of the most popular operas tell the tales of heroes from the Unshattered Age, when magic still lived in everything and “things were better”. A lot of these operas have fairly… loose interpretations of events. It’s primarily a form of enjoyment.

But for the lower classes, music tends to be a little ‘dated’. The poor aren’t able to easily access modern composers and musical trends, so their music tends to be from an earlier time, and simpler in scale. There are no grand orchestras in the poorer parts of Koric cities, after all. In these parts, music is usually found at festivals and dance halls, large celebrations or special events. An important addition: protest songs have always been important for the lower classes, and there is a well documented history of protest music especially in relation to the organized labor movements and industrial workers.

If you move away from the coastal civilization centers, into the farmlands and areas that haven’t always been under Koric rule, music becomes much more ‘folksy’, but also much broader in variety due to a wide array of cultural backgrounds. Music tends to be more ‘useful’ for lack of a better term in these rural areas. It passes on knowledge, preserves history. Depending on the region, some songs may only be sung at certain times of year, during certain festivals. There are work songs, rhythmic melodies meant to keep workers moving in time with each other. Music is still entertaining, yes, but it feels much more like something that binds a community together in these rural areas.

In the Tirallfain Valley, music has a very unique sound. Because of the region’s geography - straddling the border of Korin and the Suaythen Empire - the music there has hints of both traditional Koric and Suaya sounds. But, because of the region’s general isolation, the music generally sounds unique from either. Most famous songs tend to tell the tales from the Unshattered Age - battles won and lost, heroes and villains, great witches and gods - or detail natural events and seasonal changes. In more 'modern' songs, there is a distinctive thread of 'fuck the Koric' that isn't always subtle, as many in the Tiraillfain valley resent Korin's colonization both during and after the Unshattered Age.

#worldbuilding wednesday #WIP: War Witch #i am not sorry for the length lol #music is really important to my writing process #and it's importance has infected my wips lol

0 notes

kylosgenesis · 4 years ago

Text

Teardrops on Fire

Synopsis:

Steve Rogers is the last Alpha of the an almost extinct Lycan pack. With only less than 100 members left. Steve must produce an heir to ensure the species survival and reduce the chance of attacks from others. Omegas are rare, and betas have a hard time producing children. Steves reality is finally setting in as his obligation of producing an heir faces a major set back.

Reader is the last suitable omega to mate with Steve, due to the fear of her daughters fate in the pack, her mother kept her hidden from the pack after her own exile. Only her mother, and Bucky's family know of her existence. Bucky is Steve's right hand man, and the packs best warrior! He and the reader developed a friendship and bond over the years, but age forced them to become distant.

What happens when she presents and her first heat cycle comes? Her body is in excruciating pain and a strong fever quickly overcomes her body. Facing the fear of her daughters possible death, her mom calls on the only person who can save her at this point, Alpha Steve! Bucky and the alphas friendship will be tested. The reader will be faced with her love for Bucky or her duty to the pack.

Chapter warnings : descriptions of death, abuse, blood, and mentions of miscarriage.

Chapter 2: Honey I tried

“When did it start?” Bucky was holding on to the edge of his kitchen table.He felt nauseated with the thought of her, sick and yearning, He couldn't even picture what she had grown up to look like, A part of him was scared of his own emotions.

“It hasn’t yet!”

“ At least not as of this morning.” her mother was breaking apart! Bucky could tell she was very scared and exhausted! He knew that her daughter's well being must've weighed heavily on her, he could see the physical manifestation of her pain. In just a few hours her nails had been bit to the core, and her tears streaks had left vivid and raw tracks around her cheeks.

“Buck! I know this is a lot to ask, but you have to tell Steve! Were worried she wouldn't make it otherwise. This will be her first heat”

He’d almost forgotten his mothers presence in the room, cause he turned around and met her eyes, tears streaming down her face. She'd grown fond of her friend's daughter over the years. After her own kids had left to form their own lives, she could still go to her and relive some memories of her little ones' younger days.

“I know! I'm still wrapping my head around it, but I know what I have to do” agitation surrounded his voice. He didn't know when his heart started to feel like it wanted to jump out of his chest or when he gripped the glass of water that was left on the table so hard it shattered, but it was evident that he wasn't going to be getting any rest that day.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bucky parked his pickup in front of Steve's house. It was the largest house in the village, it wasn't Steve's choice, but he'd inherited it from his father, and his father had inherited it from his father before him. Being the house farthest away from the city limits, but right in the middle of the village meant Steve was protected, but could also be easily accessed.

Looking back at his passenger seat he saw Winnifred with her mom cradled upon her shoulder, comforting her best friend through the probably the second hardest day of her life.

“You should stay here Ma, I'll go get Steve” I know he’ll be happy to see you, but I still don't know how he'll react to her'' He opened his tool box on the bed of his truck and pulled out a large fleece blanket. Neatly folded he handed it over to his mother.

“Just keep her company till I come back”

The lights in Steve's house were on, but Buck could hear the sound of wood being shopped and Steve's grunts coming from the back of the property. As he reached his best friend's view, he took a deep breath. It was all gonna be different now, for all of them.

Steve had a large pair of headphones in, and was clearly a few songs deep into his playlist because when Bucky came around the corner; Steve almost lost a hold of the axe he was holding! Lookin at Buck he lowered his bulky headphones and stabbed the axe to the soft moody ground next to the small uncut piece of wood he was about to turn into lumber.

Steve's hair was not as long as Bucky's, and he had taken a liking to a neatly kept beard.

He grew it out as a joke at first! Clint dared him to grow it for a month, and after a month he'd grown fond of the style.So for the past year now, Steve looked less like a young soldier, and more like those lumberjacks from the cheesy romance novel covers his sister Rebecca loved to read.

“Hey Buck, didn't expect you around so late” Steve combed his hair back with his fingers. A nervous habit Bucky had noticed since childhood, especially when he had a lot on his mind.

“Couldn't sleep?”

Bucky was concerned for his friend, momentarily forgetting the reason for his sudden visit.

“ Banner called! Wanda was there earlier today, she wasn't feeling well. Turns out she was pregnant, and didn't know it!

“Steves that's awesome, when is she due ? we need to celebra…” as he looked into his best friend's eyes he saw the pain behind his look.

“She was miscarrying at the same time she found out she was pregnant, Buck. That's the third pup we've lost this year.I don't know how we're gonna get through this, It's getting harder and harder to keep everyone safe, and pretend we're not gonna be extinct in 50 years”

“Steve…” Steve's gaze was filled with a mixture of tears and rage. He took everyone's pain personally. And hearing about Wanda had awoken an unease within his soul. He couldn't fight the problem! How could a man used to protecting and fighting, deal with a problem that didn't require a fight?

“There’s an omega! She presented this morning!

“Who is she?”

“Remember Katerina? She … uhh … after she was exiled from the pack, she had a daughter!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 20 years ago

“We can't just let him die! We have to take him outside the walls! Someone out there can help him”

Joseph was the second in command to Benjamin Rogers. Two of the strongest alphas the entire western district had ever known. Both feared together, but explosive apart.

Benjamin had fathered a son 7 years earlier, a frail boy. He was often sickly and his future wasn’t promised! He wasn't meant to live much longer, the boy had once again woken up sick. A high fever overcoming his small body.

Benjamin had changed after his wife's death, he blamed the boy for Sarah’s death. A man that was once kind, and dedicated to his family, now lived like a wandering dark shadow inflicting cruelty against anyone that disagreed and crossed his path. His pack was strong! But there was no harmony, only fear.

Sarah had been a beautiful alpha as well as Benjamin. She had a hard time carrying Steve to term, at 7 months she fell bedridden and two weeks later, she had a seizure that compromised her pregnancy. Benjamin himself had to cut the boy out of his dying wife. That choice, as his wife laid there lifeless , covered in blood, and cut open like an animal awoke a demon in Benjamin. He saw death in his son's eyes, that is why he could never love him. He could never care!

Katerina took care of his young baby like her own, she had struggled to have a baby of her own so when Joseph came home holding a still bloody wailing baby, she fell madly in love with the small bundle in his arms.

The boy was small, but smart! He picked up words as young as a few months, and as a toddler he was incredibly gifted. Steve excelled in art, and even knees bit of music. Katerina loved to sit down and play piano! A young Steve would lean into her side and follow suit to her fingers on the side of the pano with his small hands. Joseph and Katerina watched him grow up, and took care of him.

Steve got sick often, but nothing too serious!

One day as she prepared breakfast she had a feeling of dread on the pit of her stomach, she ran upstairs to check on Steve and found him comatose on the bed!she wailed as she held her adopted infant son to her chest. Joseph came running to her after hearing her screams. He picked up the boy from her hands and loaded him into the car, with Katerina at his side he headed to Benjamin's house.

That was the first time Benjamin had seen his son since his wife died, his son himself nearly dead!

"Please Ben! He needs help! There's another pack two hours away, they have a doctor that can help him. She can heal him for good, please open up the walls so we can go to her! They both pleaded with Ben for hours, but to no avail!

The man was already covered in anger and reeking of alcohol, “Don't you dare challenge your alpha Joe! If I find out you defied me and left this territory you will never be allowed back”

Katerina couldn't let her boy die! With that warning in heart, she and her husband plotted to get little Stevie outside the pack territory, and to that doctor.

Behind Ben’s back, and knowing the consequences in his heart Joe called the Alpha from the neighboring pack, the other alpha had the resources ready for them to arrive in the morning. His doctor, a witch, was ready to give little Steve the life he deserved.

In the early morning of the night they sped their way through the woods. Once they reached the border a car awaited Rina, a beta from the fury pack was ready to take them to their pack.

Ben had closed the pack off to treaties when his wife died, he believed the world was dangerous and the pack was better off without interruptions, he couldn't even save his wife! His pack did not deserve to be mercied, they didn't deserve to live if she couldn't. So Ben slowly watched his pack become secluded and lost.

In the morning Ben, even drunker than the night before, had shown up at Joe's doorstep demanding to see the boy. Fully convinced he'd be dead by now, when Joe failed to produce an explanation as to why his wife was gone and so was Steve.

Ben lost it!

He called a pack meeting on which he publicly executed Joe, whether it was a display of power or just pure psychopathic joy. Joe’s death left the town broken, when Katerina came back with a healed Steve, she found herself widowed and exiled.

As a last sick jab into Joe’s heart even after his death, Ben took Steve!

As the years went by Steve forgot his early years, he forgot Joe and Katerina!

Steve remembered stories of his betrayal, her exile! How their actions forever changed a pack. He grew up kind, giving, and strong! Even if Steve didn't experience or know much love from his father, he was full of it!

And thanks to that witch both Katerina’s little growing heartbeat and Steve were stronger than ever!

Tags:

@austynparksandpizza @exposition-belongs-somewhere

#alpha steve x omega reader #alpha bucky x omega reader #bucky barnes x reader #steve rogers x reader #omegaverse #a/b/o fic #a/b/o verse #steve rogers #bucky barnes #alpha steve rogers #alpha bucky #alpha bucky barnes

121 notes · View notes

passionate-reply · 3 years ago

Video

youtube

This week on Great Albums: a fresh look at quite possibly the 80s’ most hated band, A Flock of Seagulls! Spoiler: their music is good, people in the 90s and 00s were just mean. If you want to find out more about how having the absolute best hair in the business ended up backfiring on these poor sods, look no further than my latest video. Or the transcript of it, which follows below the break!

Welcome to Passionate Reply, and welcome to Great Albums! Today, I’m going to be diving into a discussion of quite possibly the most derided and lambasted music group of the 1980s: A Flock of Seagulls. With a strange name, a perhaps painfully stylish aesthetic, and equally trendy and of-the-moment music, that was, for a time, inescapable in popular culture, their legacy forms a perfect target for the ridicule all popular things must face in due time. But even moreso than that, I think A Flock of Seagulls have become not only a punchline in and of themselves, but also a summation of everything that was dreadful and excessive about the early 1980s, with its “Second British Invasion” of synthesiser-driven New Wave. I can think of no better example of this kind of abuse than a famous line from the 1999 comedy film, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. The film is largely a love letter to the 1960s and its Mod aesthetics, and the protagonist, a super-spy unfrozen from this era in time, dismisses the history and culture of the 1970s and 80s as nothing more than “a gas shortage, and A Flock of Seagulls.” But at the time of this writing, we’re about as far away from Austin Powers as the film was from the release of this album, the band’s 1982 debut LP, so I think it’s been long enough that we can start to re-evaluate A Flock of Seagulls’ rightful place in music history.

While this self-titled album was the group’s first long-player, their first release was the 1981 single “It’s Not Me Talking.” Notably, this track was actually produced by the legendary Bill Nelson, who also released it on their behalf via his personal label, Cocteau Records. Ever since discovering this for myself, I’ve found the connection between Nelson and A Flock of Seagulls fascinating, and also satisfying. Despite the gulf between their respective reputations, I do think their work has a lot in common, at the end of the day: swirling washes of synth disrupted by screaming guitars, not to mention that shared interest in Midcentury rock and roll aesthetics.

Music: “It’s Not Me Talking”

These two acts would, of course, go their separate ways shortly after, and they ended up in completely opposite camps, with Nelson becoming a cult favourite with little crossover success, and A Flock of Seagulls going on to create what is, undoubtedly, one of the most iconic songs of the entire decade.

Music: “I Ran”

What does one even say about a song like “I Ran”? Over the years, it’s certainly gotten somewhat overplayed, but I can’t really hold that against it. It’s just a damn good song. Both ethereally menacing as well as catchy and rather accessible, “I Ran” takes the atmosphere suggested by “It’s Not Me Talking” and kicks it into another gear, with a harder-hitting hook and the introduction of that highly distinctive and of-the-moment echoing guitar effect. Some will hear it as little more than evidence that the song is hopelessly dated, but I’ve never thought of it as anything other than satisfying to listen to. If you ask me, I figure all art that exists is essentially “a product of its time”--nobody ever said Michelangelo Buonarroti’s David was a lousy sculpture, just because you can easily tell it was made during the Italian Renaissance. At any rate, I’d encourage everyone reading to go back and listen to it again, trying to maintain a little neutrality. I’d recommend the album cut of it, which is significantly longer than the single version, and features a rich intro that sets the scene before that famous guitar ever makes an appearance, which I think really adds to the experience. By some reckonings, A Flock of Seagulls are sometimes considered a “one-hit wonder,” but while they certainly are remembered chiefly for “I Ran,” this album’s other singles were moderately successful as well.

Music: “Space Age Love Song”

“Space Age Love Song” is perhaps the band’s second best-remembered single, and takes their sound in a markedly different direction than that of “I Ran.” “I Ran” won popular acclaim by finding a new home for the guitar, in the midst of a sea of synth, and pushed A Flock of Seagulls into a similar space as acts like the Cars and Duran Duran, who had enough mainstream rock sensibilities to sneak a lot of synthesiser usage onto American rock radio...much as one might sneak spinach into tomato sauce when feeding picky children. But I think “Space Age Love Song” is much more palatable to listeners of pop, synth- or otherwise. It’s softer in texture, and really almost dreamy, capturing the hazy, buoyant feeling of limerence as well as any pop song ever has. I’m tempted to compare it to another synth-driven classic, whose influence towers over this period in electronic music: the great Giorgio Moroder’s “I Feel Love.” Much like “I Feel Love,” “Space Age Love Song” combines simple, almost banal love lyrics with an evocative electronic soundscape, painting a picture of an enchanting, high-tech future where human feelings like love have remained comfortably recognizable across centuries or millennia. A similar theme of futuristic love pervades the album’s second single, “Modern Love Is Automatic.”

Music: “Modern Love Is Automatic”

While “Space Age Love Song” uses simplistic lyricism to portray the relatable universality of falling in love, “Modern Love Is Automatic” gives us the album’s most complex narrative. In a world where “young love’s forbidden,” we meet a pair of star-crossed lovers prevented from being together by some sort of dystopian authority. The male member of this union, introduced as the “cosmic man,” is apparently imprisoned for the crime of loving, but the text suggests that he may escape from this prison--or, perhaps, even be freed from it. The title, repeated quite frequently throughout the track, is perhaps the mantra of this anti-love society, a piece of propaganda being drilled into us as thoroughly as it is into these subjects: Modern love is automatic, with no need for messy, unpredictable human input.

It’s also worth noting that the song is consciously set in “old Japan,” deliberately locating it in the “exotic” East. While East Asia was strongly associated with refined, perhaps futuristic culture, I can’t help but think there’s a more pejorative sentiment operating here, rooted in stereotypes of Asian cultures unduly policing sexual freedom, and other forms of personal expression and self-determination. Ultimately, despite its futuristic trappings, “Modern Love Is Automatic” isn’t really a song about technology at all, but rather authoritarianism. “Telecommunication,” on the other hand, engages more directly with that theme.

Music: “Telecommunication”

“Telecommunication” was also released prior to the self-titled album proper, and was also produced by Bill Nelson. While structurally similar to “Modern Love Is Automatic,” with an oft-repeated title, brief verses, and a generally repetitive musical structure full of meandering guitar, its text quite plainly discusses the titular field of technology, in a seemingly non-judgmental fashion--though it could be argued that the fairly upbeat music suggests a positive outlook on things like radio and TV. The one hitch in all of it is the very end of the last verse, which sets the song in the “nuclear age”--a nod, perhaps, to the darker applications of 20th Century technology. “Telecommunication” is perhaps indebted less to figures like Moroder, and moreso to Kraftwerk, who first solidified the rich tradition of stoic synth thumpers about everyday machines like cars, trains, and, of course, nuclear energy. I’m also tempted to compare it to an earlier work of Bill Nelson’s group Be-Bop Deluxe, “Electrical Language,” another bubbly number that playfully bats this concept back and forth.

The theme of “quotidian technology” is also present on the cover of this album, which features an interior shot of a living room, centered around a television set. The TV displays a figure playing guitar--perhaps one of those heroic rock pioneers of the Midcentury like Buddy Holly, whom Nelson was so keen to imitate. But what’s most immediately striking about this cover is its beautiful colour palette, full of deep, saturated jewel tones, treated softly with an “airbrush” style effect. Despite being a somewhat mundane scene, the image also features fanciful, imaginative touches: the floor of this room is actually a miniature beach landscape, with the “floor” beneath the TV actually being the surface of the ocean, and the TV appears to be surrounded by a colourful, glowing group of birds. Given the beachy surroundings, we could perhaps interpret them as the titular seagulls. It’s tempting to think of this scene as a representation of how technology can sweep us away, out of our everyday existence and into something richer and more exciting.

But perhaps it’s not so simple--note also the open window in the top left, whose curtain appears to be agitated by some sort of motion in the air. Perhaps these birds are not the products of television fantasy, but rather have flown in from the window, and hence hail from the “real world?” Given how tracks like “Space Age Love Song” and “Modern Love Is Automatic” tackle the theme of the mundane meeting the fantastical, I think this complex and arresting image is a great fit for the album.

While their self-titled debut spawned multiple recognizable hits, A Flock of Seagulls never came anywhere close to recapturing its success. For the most part, they struggled to remain relevant as time wore on, largely abandoning the sonic footprint of their first album, and chasing after new trends in music technology such as digital synthesisers. They would eventually break up during the mid-1980s, and though they’ve reunited in order to perform live several times, the book is probably closed on A Flock of Seagulls. Personally, I can’t help but wonder what might have been if they had stuck to their musical roots a bit more. You get a bit of that on their third LP, 1984’s The Story of a Young Heart, which thankfully brings back that iconic echoing guitar, and does so without sounding too much like a simple retread of “I Ran.” Out of all their other work, it’s the album I would most recommend to admirers of this debut LP.

Music: “Remember David”

My favourite track on A Flock of Seagulls’ debut LP is “Messages”--not to be confused with the track of the same name by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark! Moreso than anything else on the album, “Messages” has this aggressive, insistent, driving quality, and feels less like yacht rock, and more like punk rock. Despite not being released as a single, I think it’s a very strong track that’s quite easy to get into. That’s everything for today--thanks for listening!

Music: “Messages”

#music #album review #album reviews #great albums #a flock of seagulls #flock of seagulls

16 notes · View notes

the-apocryphal-one · 4 years ago

Text

Ebb and Flow

Summary: She has always been watching him, hasn’t she? From the moment she met him. Maybe it was inevitable she would start seeing other things. Astarion x Isaniel

Also check it out on AO3 here and ff.net here!

A/N: whelp, here I am. writing fic with my OCs. that never happens. but this cheeky little bastard left me no choice. I fell in love with him so quickly, I had to write how my character did (or is starting to...getting there...feeling feelings...look we're still in EA and I love slow-burn enemies to lovers).

Minor spoilers ahead!

A mix of old paranoia and carefully-honed insight tell Isaniel, from the moment she meets him, that Astarion is suspicious. The only reason she even approaches the grass is because the risk of leaving an intellect devourer on the loose is far greater than the risk of exposing her back to a stranger. One is a dangerous beast that could quickly kill her or innocents if left unchecked; the other, she believes, is just an elf she knows to be wary around. He cannot do anything she is not braced for.

She is wrong. He is far stealthier than she’d expected.

After she diffuses the situation and they agree to work together, Isaniel subtly flexes her left hand. His dagger had cut into her palm as she’d struggled to pull it away from her throat. It was deep enough to merit healing, and she knows it’ll scar. A lesson.

It’s not an easy thing, to watch your surroundings and look for other survivors and keep someone in your peripheral vision, but she manages.

That night, everyone at camp is wary, watching each other, gauging their trustworthiness. They’re all newly acquainted, a collection of cast-off captives with bombs in their heads. It’s simultaneously the most ironclad and the thinnest of bonds. But gradually, one by one, they drift off.

Isaniel tries not to. Decades of learning to embrace Eilistraee and lower her guard around others have vanished tonight. She sits, staring at Astarion across the fire, and he stares back. His eyes are somehow both jeering and flirtatious, the planes and shadows of his face even more beautiful in the firelight. They sit for hours, just watching each other, her quiet declaration that she wouldn’t turn her back on a stranger heavy between them.

But eventually, exhaustion creeps up on her and slips the trance over her head, and then it is morning.

His smugness is unbearable.

Isaniel considers herself a practical woman. You can’t not be and survive the Underdark. She will refuse to give up on a cure until her body physically starts to change, but she knows that the second it does, she wants the others to cut her down—the same way she’d cut them down if they began to transform.

So when Astarion asks how she wants him to kill her should she sprout tentacles, she’s not affronted. She sees it as professional courtesy.

After some thought, she decides on a knife. Poison is not gentle, nor quick. Neither is strangulation. A good, clean thrust to the heart or head, though, will be fast and painless. The best result for her and those around her.

His eyes light up with enthusiasm as he discusses her choice, and Isaniel remembers how quietly he’d snuck up on her. This is not just professional courtesy, she realizes. This is a man who intimately knows the art of death, and loves it. And at that realization, the walls that had started to cautiously lower, just a tad, jerk back into place.

When he finishes, she crosses her arms, cocks her head, smiles coolly. “And you? How shall I kill you?”

His teeth flash an almost unnatural white when he grins. “Oh darling, I’d love to see you try.”

The night they gain some leads, she finds him stargazing while doing the rounds of the camp. When she pauses to speak with him, it is surprisingly nice. His quip about “taking or leaving” her chin makes her lips twitch, despite herself. And she can’t help but approve of someone who can also appreciate the beauty of the night sky.

Her eyes seek out the moon instinctively. Her hand closes around her sword pendant for a brief moment. Eilistraee, watch over me.

For a brief heartbeat, an echo of a song floats through her mind. It’s the same music that stopped her dead in a marketplace in the Underdark, so beautiful and ethereal and divine it almost brought tears to her eyes. Isaniel would later learn that Eilistraee was always seeking to touch the hearts of the drow, and had been beyond grateful she’d listened. But at the moment, all she had known was that she could not rest until she’d found that music again. Hearing it again now is a promise.

The notes fade, but she doesn’t feel empty like she did that day in the Underdark. Her goddess is with her and loves her, and there is nothing more comforting in the world than that. Even Astarion seems not so bad in that moment, and they bask together in the companionable silence.

But then he wonders aloud what will happen in the future, and the illusion of safety breaks. She briefly mourns its departure; then, she straightens her shoulders and looks back at reality. And reality includes him.

She gives him a taste of his own medicine: “What? Would you miss me?” He laughs, rises, and compliments her. She accepts it, and in doing so deflects. He flirts, invades her personal space. Out of sheer stubbornness, she refuses to step back. To do so would be to admit that he has unnerved her. It’s not just his proximity; it’s this undercurrent of something.

The dance ends; he leaves. The tension drains out of her body.

When she emerges from a restless, unsuccessful trance and finds Astarion leaning over her, Isaniel lashes out. Her elbow catches him square in the jaw; he curses and stumbles back, and she almost attacks while he’s off-balance. But she’s a follower of Eilistraee, and somehow, she’s become the leader of their group. Both of those factors give her a responsibility to hear him out. So, she stomps down on those old, false instincts and lets him talk.

It’s almost a relief to find out he’s a vampire. The secret is out, and now she can deal with it. Really, Isaniel feels like a fool for not putting the pieces together. The sun doesn’t burn her eyes anymore, thanks to the tadpole—why shouldn’t a vampire be able to walk in it as well? But she’d just assumed that his red eyes were indicative of drow blood somewhere in his family, the fangs some form of genetic defect.

Astarion asks her to trust him. Incredulously, she counters that he tried to bite her. He retorts that they need each other. And then he begs for a sip of her blood.

Isaniel takes a deep breath. Looking around, she realizes that their brief scuffle woke the others up. She decides to give them the benefit of the doubt and assumes that they only watch because they’re too surprised to actually do anything. But that’s irrelevant right now. She turns her focus inwards and analyzes exactly how much they need Astarion.

He’s the best among them at picking a lock. His speed is blinding. He’s deadly with his daggers. And he moves so silently…

Losing him would be bad, she has to admit. So: keeping him means feeding him. And logically, it makes sense that a vampire would not find animal blood as nourishing. Oh, she knows he’s manipulative, she doubts he’s telling the whole truth with his “I’ve never fed on humans!” spiel—but she does believe him in that, at least.

She certainly can’t half-starve him, but she will not let him eat innocents. So…what other options are there? Letting him feed off their enemies? Plausible; but that is a question for the morning. Because Astarion is ultimately right: it really comes down to whether she can trust him.

Isaniel doesn’t know what surprises her more: that she does trust him, or that the events of this night haven’t cost him all of it.

Well, she trusts him to an extent. She gives him his share of night shifts, she relies on him in battle, and he has easy access to their food. But that’s trusting him not to kill them; keeping him, knowing what he is, requires trusting him to not lose control. It means trusting that if an emergency happens and he needs their blood, he won’t go into a frenzy and drain them dry.

A test, then. If he reverts to a creature of base instinct, if he cannot be reasoned with, if he tries to kill her, she will kill him. Better to discover the extent of his self-restraint now, while she’s alert and prepared to stop him, than later, when circumstances might not be so fortuitous.

So she sends up a quick prayer to Eilistraee, bares her neck, and lies down.

He gets caught up in the moment, but her command to stop brings him out of it easily enough. He lets her go, breathless and smiling, thanks her, and stalks off.

Isaniel can’t be angry at him; after all—and this is very hard to admit, even to herself—she almost got caught up in the moment too.

Sometimes she would catch him gazing at the sky, during the day, open wonder on his face. Now she knows why.

Isaniel can understand that. With her eyes no longer burning, she can drink in the tableau around her in a new way. There are shades of color she couldn’t quite discern before, and everything seems so much richer in the sun. How many drow have been able to do this? Very few, most likely.

It’s not enough to make her want to keep the parasite—it could never be enough—but it is something she can’t help but appreciate.

The day the sickness strikes, Isaniel gives the order to make camp where they stand, long before night falls. They’re all just too exhausted to keep traveling, even to search for a suitable place to rest.

That’s not the only thing they’re too exhausted for, as it turns out. Not one of them can muster the energy to scout for nearby threats, or camouflage, or stand guard. Even Lae’zel’s attempt at a “mercy kill” is sloppy. They’re all so pathetic a kobold could walk into their midst and kill them.

Between talking Lae’zel down and doing her customary rounds of their parody of a camp, Isaniel’s low energy reserves are completely barren. As she crawls into her bedroll, for some reason, her mind turns back to Astarion’s panic.

He’s usually so self-assured. Smiling in the face of anything. Ready with his rapier wit. The complete unraveling of his composure is…alarming.

But before she can think much more on that, a fresh wave of tremors hits her. She squeezes her eyes shut, curls into a ball, and prays.

The next morning, Isaniel wakes up with heartache—and fury.

How dare it? How dare that parasite approach her in the guise of her dead husband? How dare it speak with his voice, ignite her skin with his touch, dishonor his memory by wearing his face? The sickness of the previous night is completely forgotten; instead, she shakes with rage as she brushes her hair, checks her equipment, gears up. Her fingers itch to play her lute and vent it all out in jagged, discordant music—but no. Astarion’s pale form is up and about, but the others are still sleeping.

She pauses and subtly studies him. He looks much better now; his movements are fluid again, his step springy. Even his hair somehow seems extra fluffy.

He turns, catches her staring, and winks. She rolls her eyes, but her lips twitch, damn them. Definitely back to normal.

At that, the memory of the dream rears its head. Her anger, which had started to simmer down, flares up anew. Isaniel scowls as she struggles with her sword belt, her normally dexterous fingers made clumsy by emotion. Curse that tadpole to the Hells—

“Well hello! Feeling better, are we?”

Astarions voice rings from right next to her, and she jumps. Eilistraee’s sword, how did she not realize he was a vampire sooner? No one can move that silently and swiftly and still be mortal.

“I certainly am,” he continues, without waiting for her answer. “This morning I find myself free of pain and with a new trick. A new power. Last night, the risk of transformation—it all feels like some terrible dream now.”

A dream…

Isaniel doesn’t know why she opens up to him. Maybe it’s because he’s around and she needs to get it off her chest. Maybe it’s because his witty tongue actually does make her chuckle, despite herself. Maybe it’s because he draws her eyes like the moon draws the tide.

Regardless, she ends up spilling the contents of her dream, anger and pain leaking into her voice. Astarion doesn’t really say anything; he just listens, eyes bright with curiosity and intrigue. But just listening is enough; she can feel an invisible weight lifting off her with every word out of her mouth.

When she finishes speaking—with an exhale of relief—he asks if she enjoyed it. Her fists clench at the memory of that intruder’s touch on her skin. “No, it felt invasive. Uncomfortable.”

“We had the same dream, then. The worm’s trying to be…enticing.”

Had he also seen someone he’d loved? But that blank look, the flat voice…there’s more to it than that, she’s sure. Isaniel hesitates, then pushes him to share. He lent her an ear, in his typical flippant fashion, but an ear nonetheless. It’s only fair to return the favor.

The truth of what he really dreamed about surprises her. She finds herself blurting out, “Your old master? That doesn’t sound ‘enticing’.”

“It was not,” he says, voice raw and low. “I—we don’t need to talk about it.”

And—oh.

That flash in his eyes. That pain.

Her throat closes.

It was brief, but she saw it. She would never mistake it.

It’s the pain of someone who has been trapped in darkness for so long they don’t even know light exists. The pain of someone who lived with cruelty every minute of every hour of every day. The pain of someone who does not let themselves feel pain, does not even acknowledge they are in pain, because that would be weakness and wolves would descend on them if they admitted to that.

It was her pain, before Eilistraee.

Isaniel is not good at comforting people. She knows how to talk people into doing what she wants and how to keep their group more or less from killing each other. But put her in a room with a crying woman or a scared child, and she’s just lost. Emotions are messy and difficult to deal with.

But at this moment, she wants, more than anything, to brave them. To let him know he’s not alone.

She can’t think of anything to say, can’t figure out how to put this epiphany into words, so hesitantly, she reaches out a hand—

And he recoils like a snake. Then, he strikes like one, eyes and fangs flashing, venom flying from his mouth as he renounces her pity.

It’s not pity, she wants to say. It’s not pity, because I know how hard it is to survive an environment that wants more than anything to break you. To pity you would belittle your strength. It’s empathy and support.

But she’s so stunned that by the time she’s able to begin, “It’s not pity,” it’s too late; his retreating back is the only thing that hears her.

One of Isaniel’s first memories is of her mother killing her pet bat, then slapping her until she stopped crying.

It was as a lesson, of course: that love was something that would only be exploited. The sort of lesson that every drow child learned young. Other lessons included how to think creatively, hurt others, scheme, and be paranoid—Isaniel still remembers carefully pouring poisons and potions into large, hollow glass beads and stringing them into her jewelry.

The lessons that had really struck a chord with her, though, had been how to create. Her family had been artisans, and had held a relatively secure position as employees to a well-off merchant clan. The plotting hadn’t been as intense as among the nobles, but it was still dangerous. After all, there were rival artisans and rival merchant clans to watch out for or destroy, and Isaniel had done her share of participating in that.

But oh, she had truly loved art, beauty, music. Eilistraee used that to reach her, and through it Isaniel came to love Eilistraee in turn. But it took a long time. Secretly seeking information about that music, a flight from the Underdark, and decades of studying the teachings of Eilistraee, testing them, putting them in practice, before the scars the Underdark left on her had begun to heal. Decades in which she found companionship with others of her faith, met her husband, became a mother…lost her husband to the ravages of time…

And now, after such a long time away from the toxic mindset she grew up with, she has come face to face with someone who embraces it. And she is torn.

There is a part of her, one that Eilistraee has grown and nourished, that is appalled in the face of Astarion’s casual cruelty towards others.

There is a part of her, one that Eilistraee has also grown and nourished, that begs her be compassionate and forgiving.

There is a part of her, one that she has abandoned but clings to her like a ghost nonetheless, that screams at her to end the threat before he ends her.

There is a part of her, one that has been with her as long as she can recall, that sees his trauma, and remembers, and empathizes.

Their experiences are not the same. But the darkness is the same.

She does not know what to make of him. She does not know what she should believe or do about him. So she watches, and speaks with him, and tries to understand.

Their travels eventually take them to a swamp, and there, they find a Gur. A monster-hunter. That in itself wouldn’t necessarily mean anything, but it’s foolish not to gauge his intentions, considering her company. So, in-between Astarion’s light insults, she inquires.

He says he’s hunting Astarion. Not to kill him, but to capture him.

Ice settles in Isaniel’s belly.

Capture him. And bring him to his “associates” in Baldur’s Gate. Back to Cazador. Back to the bastard who scarred him down to his very marrow. Back to chains and torment.

That’s not going to happen, she thinks vehemently.

Astarion is practically vibrating in place, his red eyes hard and uncompromising, his hands hovering close to his daggers. And yet, he still waits for her order. Out of genuine respect for her authority? Trust that she’ll neutralize the hunter? She’s not sure, but something about it is…a little touching.

She gives the word, and he lunges.

The battle with Auntie Ethel is tough, but manageably so. They all stay away from the cliff edges and destroy her illusionary copies as soon as they appear, they put out the fires near Mayrina and keep her out of harms’ way, and while the hag’s spells are powerful, they all somehow manage to avoid the worst of the damage.

But Auntie Ethel is one of those types. The type that likes to taunt and mock with a loud, clear voice that rings across the battlefield. And through some hag witchery, she knows how to hit where it hurts.

“Is there still rat stuck in your teeth, slave?”

She’s not near him, but Isaniel can see Astarion’s flinch—then his strikes resume, much faster and more furious than before. Her own teeth grind with outrage and sympathy, and she redoubles her efforts, and soon the hag is brought down.

She is not feeling quite as sympathetic when, after bidding a crestfallen Mayrina farewell, Astarion blithely remarks that it was a pity the young mother-to-be couldn’t see the funny side in her husband being resurrected as a zombie.

And yet, he voiced his approval back when they helped Karlach.

It’s not like that outweighs it. Life isn’t a set of scales. Helping one woman doesn’t balance out being amused at another’s pain. The people Isaniel hurt back in the Underdark wouldn’t care or forget just because she helped someone else now. Words and actions have permanent, tangible impacts.

It’s not like she wants to “fix” Astarion, either. People can’t be “fixed”. They can be broken or damaged by others—but never returned to who they once were. They carry the scars and lesions on their heart, like Isaniel does. With time and support, they hopefully heal, but that’s only if they want to.

It’s more like—and she might be projecting a bit, or biased because of her past—remembering Karlach gives her hope that Cazador didn’t destroy Astarion’s humanity.

Maybe it was inevitable.

Isaniel weaves throughout the party, smiles freely, even dances and sings. It’s impossible not to—the tiefling’s joy is infectious, the gentle warmth of the wine is infusing her body, and the moon is full and smiling overhead. All of her problems will still be there tomorrow, but tonight is a night for forgetting, and celebrating, and living.

The back of her neck prickles, again. This time she doesn’t ignore it. This time, she turns, somehow already knowing what she’ll see.

Sure enough, there’s Astarion, lurking on the fringes of the party, a glass of wine in hand, eyes fixed on her. Under the moonlight, his hair is practically glowing, his skin silver-tinted. He looks like some ethereal king of night and winter, standing there silhouetted against the darkness. It’s striking.

Striking. Oh.

She has always been watching him, hasn’t she? From the moment she met him. Maybe it was inevitable she would start seeing other things.

A jostle jars her out of her thoughts; she’d stopped moving right in the midst of the dancers. She mutters an apology to the tiefling couple and hastily clears the floor. Glances up again.

Astarion is still watching her.

Before she consciously decides to do it, her feet take her towards him. She falters when her mind catches up to her body, almost turns and runs. There’s something in his eyes, something in the air, something between them that crackles with intensity and promise.

But it’s too late to run—he’s coming towards her, too. Her heart lodges itself in her throat. Stay strong, she tells herself.

Whether she wants that strength to resist the shifting currents in their relationship or to swim towards them, she does not know.

#baldur's gate 3 #astarion #astarion x mc #astarion baldur's gate #astarion bg #astarion x charname

37 notes · View notes

masterhandss · 4 years ago

Text

Hamefura♪ Idol AU! (part 3)

Thank you so much to the people who have voiced their interest for this AU! I honestly wouldn’t have planned on writing any of this and just planned to keep it all in my head if no one asked :’’DD Special thanks to @ineedglassesalways for the song reqs for this one! please check her out she has amazing art!

Please bare in mind that my thoughts are an absolute mess and that what i’m talking about switches between Fortune Lover and Hamefura at the snap of a finger. Most info is the same, so just try to understand which i’m talking about while reading fjhgsdjhfg

(Also i’m gonna start calling this “My Next Life as an Idol?! All Routes lead to Doom!!!” or HameFura♪ now hgfjsdgf)

Directory: Hamefura♪ Part 1 - Fortune Lover || Hamefura♪ Part 2 - hamefura

Edit: I added a cut bc i’m starting to sympathize with the people who has to scroll passed all this gjshgf

Random Plot and World-building stuff

Sorcier Entertainment is the biggest entertainment business for the past 2 decades, bringing out and producing the best quality of idols, actors, models, composers, musicians, DJs etc. It is a parent company to a lot of branches and agencies.

Sorcier Pro. is the main sub-branch of SorEn, being the most popular agency for producing the current hit in the market, which are idols. There a few other agencies within SorEn, but they wont be important until later. Geoffrey Stuart is the president of Sorcier Entertainment, and is the overseer of the main idol branch (no one knows why though, probably bc his lil bros are there). Entertainment is such an important and prevalent part of Society that the combination of the Stuarts holding power of the the entertainment industry, as well as Mr. Stuart being the prime minister, they are truly considered to be the most influential family in the country, which is added by the fact that every member of the family is an outstanding and well-respect individual.

Sorcier Pro. has a variety of high quality facilities for their idols, and even had a dormitory where they can stay in. This was done for the sake of maximizing the idol’s work hours while giving them a comfortable and accessible place of rest. Not all idols are living in the dormitories, and is usually just housing the popular ones at the time.

All of the main characters (except Sirius, and Villainess!Katarina) are living in the dormitory during the events of the “game”. Nicol and Sophia has rooms there, but they usually return to their home because they are more comfortable there. Katarina and Keith also regularly visit their parents whenever they are free, so their stay is a 50/50. Maria doesn’t visit her mother often (as her house is too far from her private school and work) so she’s always at the dorms.

A lot of the well known powerful, political and celebrity families (that are the equivalent to “nobles” in this world) are collaborators and sponsors of the company, one of the main sponsors being the Claes Family.

I thought of just making the setting an “Idol Academy” like in Aikatsu! and EnStars!, but I though nah, that’s just too easy. Industry idols are much more interesting to me, and that plot works better for a “idol rhythm game/producer simulator”, specifically for what M.C. gets to do in the game (plus I was listening to IM@S when writing the first part so hgfsdjhfdgsj)

Most prestigious families has their kids be home-schooled, especially ones that are involved in the entertainment industry. This is so that they can focus on their career while they are still young. The exception to this was Maria, until she became an idol and had to take a hiatus from school as Sorcier Pro. expects her to focus on expanding her career. She takes supplementary classes on the weekends.

Katarina’s solo unit name in Fortune Lover is Nobelia (a combination of “nobilis or noble” and “lobelia”, the blue flower of malevolence or evil). She sometimes gets temporary teammates to join for tournaments and projects, but she is a solo idol.

So the units are Fortuna (Gerald, Keith, Alan and Nicol), Amour (Maria, Sophia, and Mary), Nobelia (Katarina solo), Picotee (Sophia solo), Marigold (Mary solo), Alcea (Maria solo), Regalis (Gerald and Alan), Edel Herz (Keith and Nicol).

The name’s origins being: Fortuna as the greek of ‘Fortune’, Amour as the french of ‘Love’, Picotee as the dual colored flower (that can be white and red), Marigold (bc obviously) as the flower of passion, Alcea from alcea rosea (the pink hollyhock, which almost means strength and healing), Regalis as a root word/synonym to royal/royalty, Edel Herz being just a google translate of “noble heart” in german teehee (pls appreciate all the googling I had to do dhfgsjhfdg yes it’s mostly flower names bc I have no originality)

yes i changed the names form my original post, don’t call me out asdfgh

Idols don’t really need a stage name if they are a solo idol, but most popular idols are associated with one so it just became a trend to have both stage names and unit names.

In the original game, Maria’s default stage name is “Cinderella”, which you can then change into the username or player name. This is so that Maria can keep her name while still giving the players a custom name.

Maria’s original stage name is a nod to a lot of things: the “Cindrella syndrome” that her character is based on, The name of Fortuna’s fans/fanbase (as most players really are a fan of the boys), and is also a reference to how you are the main love interest for the boys (as you are their true Cinderella)

Katarina doesn’t retain the same stage name “Nobelia” as Villainess!Katarina does, in fear that it might her more similar to her, leading her to a doom end. She doesn’t have a stage name, unlike her friends. Her fans would call her “Bakarina” online though, but she never finds out about it jhagjsfg

Fortuna is an all-around male idol unit, one that can take on different images and genres with ease. The image of the unit changes depending on which boy is the center/lead of the song:

With Gerald, the music focuses on the instrumentals or the orchestra, giving a royal or heavenly vibe. The songs have an emphasis on righteousness, the beauty of life and a prosperous future. The songs for the fans usually has a theme of “reminiscent love” or “looking forward to a future with their partner”. A good example of a unit center song for his is Genuine Revelation from EnStars, and Flower as a solo song from his VA

With Keith, the music becomes more mature. The songs have more seductive lyrics, and has an emphasis on “forbidden love” or “having a secret relationship” with the fans. The lyrics are usually innocent in nature, until you read in-between the lines. Sometimes, his center songs throw a curveball and becomes about a “pure and innocent love” or “longing to be loved”. A good example for his solo song is Gekkoujou no Aria from A3 (please listen to it, it’s by Keith’s VA and the lyrics screams “Keith”)

With Alan, the guitar, violin and piano take the center stage.The music usually has more instrumentals than lyrics. The songs are primarily about being one’s true self, loving who you are and looking back at the past. Friendship and Identity are common themes in his songs. Sometimes, his center songs would throw a curve ball and be about something like “not acknowledging one’s feelings until it is too late”. A good song that represents his usually themes is Bokura no Kizuna from A3

With Nicol, the music is more slow and deep. The songs are usually about self-conflict, self-development and change. His songs sometimes have a theme of having an extreme adoration for the fans, a love so strong that time nor age can make it falter. “Being the only one for him” is the theme of his more popular songs. A good example for his solo song is Sword and Soul from his very own VA!

Yeah, basically the image of the center idol is reflected in the performance.

I don’t have a full list of idol song recommendations yet, but my friend who i mentioned above already recommended a bunch of good duo songs for the boys!: (feel free to suggest stuff if you guys have any :DD)

Gerald/Keith - Es No Yutsu from A3

Keith/Nicol- Plastic Poker from A3

Alan/Nicol - Don't Cry from A3

In the original game, all four boys we’re scouted while the girls all auditioned to become idols. Now, since they are all close friends, Gerald was able to market the talents of his friends and was able to get them all scouted into Sorcier Production.

Fortuna has a producer before Maria, but by the beginning of the game, he had to leave due to health reasons, leading to the sudden application for a new producer. While many producers offered to take care of the boys alongside their other idols, Fortuna insisted that they want a new producer who would focus solely on them.

Mary and Sophia also have their own producers, but they are barely present because they are busy handing other idols (and eventually, will let go of Mary and Sophia once they decide that they want Maria to produce them)

While Fortuna, Mary and Sophia’s careers were able to skyrocket quickly do to their appeals and talents, Katarina’s career grew slowly compared to her friends. This is because, despite to protests of her Producer Anne, she usually takes smaller gigs in far away towns, malls and small live houses. This is because Katarina wanted to perform in front of people who can’t easily access or attend live performances outside of the internet, just like her own small town in her previous life. She knew how happy she’d feel if there was an idol performance near her area, so she wanted to share that joy to other people.

Katarina doesn’t join her friends in doing acting and modeling jobs until much later, when Maria joins their group.

Anne Shelley acts as Katarina’s fitness instructor, personal health manager, and producer. She was brought into Katarina’s life even before she regained her memories, only exclusively as a health manager recommended to the Claes Family. She ended up taking on more jobs that involves watching over Katarina as the years pass by, as the young girl started gaining more and more interests and hobbies. Katarina wonders how Anne is able to be qualified for so many jobs, but she just sums it up as Anne being amazing! (Katarina: I guess she’s kind of like a maid!... or a babysitter...) Anne was (somehow) able to become a producer in Sorcier Productions and was easily recommended for Katarina due to their history. Anne cares a lot about Katarina in her happiness, and will do anything to support her (both version of her, in fact), so much that she is willing to juggle so many careers in order to stay by her side.

Katarina has a small farm that she tends to in her free time (since she doesn’t get a lot of job offers in the first place) that is located in the garden grounds near the main office of Sorcier Pro. Her visitors/helpers differ each day, depending on who is available (and who intentionally made themselves available to make sure they can spend as much time as they can with Katarina)

While her friends constantly get fan mail, the delivery man is always wondering why Katarina always specifically gets a small light box. In reality, it’s packages sent by Tom the gardener, from the Claes Mansion, showing her all his new prototypes for the snake toy. While Katarina first started out as making them out of paper before deciding on buying them online, she knew her family would be suspicious and question why she’s making such a purchase, so she was surprised when Tom started joining her in making fake snakes, until the snakes started to look even more realistic than the plastic ones online!

Maria Campbell: A Girl Chosen by Destiny

Since “Maria” is an involved protagonist, she gets to keep her name in the game, with her idol alias being the “username”of the player

Just like in HameFura, the game doesn’t give much on Maria’s actual history.

The game does have an implied personality for her, being a kind and hardworking girl who puts all her focus on the task at hand. The game implies that she is also a bit introverted, with her personality becoming more open and outgoing as the game progresses (implied through the slight changes in dialogue choices).

She’s a bit of a country bumpkin who moved into the big city in order to experience the world outside her town. She was able to gain a scholarship to a school in the city, and moved alone to stay with her aunt from her father’s side.

Due to her father leaving the family when she was young to due to rumors that she might be the daughter of a different man, Maria’s relationship with her mother is still very strayed. Thanks to these rumors, her father left her and her mother when she was young, and her town heavily criticized the two for the adultery that her mother apparently committed. These rumors stemmed form the fact that even as a child, Maria was beautiful (with clear blue eyes and bright blonde hair, that are in contrast to her mother’s dull eyes and dull hair). While her mother was fare-faced, the appearance that Maria had was usually associated with celebrities or artists, making people believe that Maria didn’t come from her father. Despite Maria’s mother claiming that none of it was true, the rumors got so out of hand that Maria’s father became ashamed of his family, leading him to leave without a word.

In the beginning of the game, she stayed with an Aunt from her father’s side, on the condition that she somehow pays the bills by herself, leading her to want to get a job.

Maria saw the announcement of Sorcier Production being in need of new staff, so she applied quickly in order to start saving money. Thanks to a set of misunderstandings, she accidentally got the role as a producer, despite her lack of credentials (not knowing that she was the beginning of a big project of SorEn)

Maria is an extremely hardworking person, believing that if she worked hard enough, she will be one day rewarded with the love that she’s always dreamed of receiving. Fortune Lover makes you think that Maria is naturally able to produce 7 idols, but in reality, it’s at the expense of Maria overworking herself to the bone, with almost no time for herself at all. Sometimes she sleeps in her small desk office instead of the household that she’s paying the bills of, in order to maximize her work hours. She dedicates every second that she has on the four boys, so when they shower her with love and attention, she was able to easily fall in love with them as well (and sadly becomes dependent on their validation as a personal reward for her efforts).

A month before one of Fortuna’s biggest live performance (or a little bit after Maria joins them as their producer), Maria oversaw the training of another idol who came to her and ask for help (not knowing that she was just trying to get close to Maria to get close with the Fortuna boys). Maria helped her train her dancing and singing, and even memorized her choreography in order to critique her steps. She became too dedicated in helping that idol improve, thinking that the girl wanted to be friends with her. When the event happened, the female idol was hit with bad karma and injured her leg just as the live started, leaving her unable to perform. This causes an uproar among the staff, as the set list was too complicated to change in such short notice. Gerald, who is aware that Maria has been helping their colleague, encourages Maria to take her place since she knew the lyrics and the dance. Thanks to the encouragement of the boys, Maria debuts in front of a huge crowd, gaining instant popularity as the cinderella idol that saved the live event.

Most of Maria’s job as a producer in arranging the schedules of the boys, staying in contact with their costume designer, staying in contact with their personal composers and lyricists, sorting through job offers, keeping watch of their health, watching them while they practice and accompanying them in their jobs. When she isn’t there to accompany any of them, another producer temporarily takes her place.

As Maria’s popularity increases, she is given job offers that prevents her from focusing on being a producer. Since the boys are very fond of Maria, they are very encouraging of her desire to become an idol too, and offers to help support her and themselves moving forward.

The game itself doesn’t make the changes in Maria’s occupation obvious, since Maria’s idol life is only prevalent in the Idol Rhythm Game Mode, but in reality the increase in workload is slowly eating her up (not that she’d let anyone know that)

Maria, as an idol, gets constantly harassed by her peers (especially Katarina) for being a nobody idol who took the spotlight away from them, as well as for being a close ally to Fortuna. A lot of scenes in the story mode is the boys saving her from the harassment (leading to a lot of good CG art that are sold as posters :P)

Depending on whose romance route you are on, Mary and Sophia start out as very hostile towards Maria, as her existence takes away the attention that their loved ones were supposed to give to them. Sophia warms up the fastest, as Maria’s lack of hostility towards her makes both her and Nicol easily attached. Even after the three starts as unit as Amour, Mary’s relationship with maria is mostly professional, before she slowly warms up to her somewhere near the end of the Alan Romance Route. The three can be considered friends, but they still seemed more like colleagues in the eyes of other people.

When Katarina meets Maria, she was very surprised to know that the Maria she played as in the game was a more humane person than the game shows up (somehow who isn’t perfect in every way, and works hard and long to be able to provide for both herself and the four boys)

Their meeting and friendship bloomed in the same way as the Otome Game version (because i’m too lazy to jot down every minor difference hgfjsdgf), surprising Katarina that baking hobby that was just mentioned in text or used as a plot device is actually real and flourishing, and is something she actively supported Maria.

Due to Katarina’s slow popularity gain, and Maria being a novice idol, they usually took and accepted jobs together since they both needed a boost. Instead of the quick burst of popularity that Maria has in the game, this time she wants to take each step slowly with Katarina, with the desire for them to grow at the same time.

Since Katarina is now aware of the hardships that Maria must be facing as both a producer and an idol, this time Katarina and Anne often help Maria with her paperwork and organization. Whenever Maria isn’t there to follow Gerald, Keith, Alan or Nicol, Anne now takes over if she’s available or she’d recommend a colleague that she knows would assist the boys like a pro.

Katarina insists that Maria doesn’t have to shoulder all her burden alone, and that she has all their friends around to help her and support her as they do with each other. Katarina tells her that it’s okay to ask for help and even offers her hand constantly (wow, Katarina can easily carry all these boxes of documents? My hero~) and Maria takes this lesson to heart.

Even though Maria felt nervous about joining Katarina’s friend group so suddenly, which even includes the very idols that she’s meant to watch over, Katarina was very insistent that Maria’s wonderful and warming presence would let her blend in so easily (Katarina isn’t aware of how the relationships of the characters were like in the original game since she never finished). Maria is eventually able to become friends with everyone, and is easily able to hold conversations with Mary and Sophia without Katarina around. Maria is there to act as a straight man to Mary’s exaggerated attempts at hindering the boy’s time with Katarina, and Maria often acts as an ear to Mary’s gossips about other idols. Maria, while not an avid fan of novels as Sophia and Katarina, can still join conversations about books by asking details, recommendations and insights on books she’s already read. Maria can easily get along with the boys as well, since they are in each other’s presence most of the time due to her role. They don’t hesitate to help Maria whenever they can (despite her resistance), and she’s usually the one who stops the arguments between Gerald and Keith whenever they are in the middle of a job.

Since Katarina ended p being so attached to Maria, the boys sometimes takes advantage of Maria’s role as a producer to have her work instead of attending to the woman of their affections (of course they feel somewhat bad about it, but it’s better than watching them look so love-struck with each other!) but it ends up backfiring when Katarina lets go of all her activities in favor of assisting Maria with her job as a producer.

Whenever Maria is free, she insists on borrowing the small kitchen in the Office in order to use the small over to bake some pastries and treats for her friends. Katarina constantly endorses the amazingness of Maria’s sweets, and they are both happy whenever their friends compliments the results of Maria’s hard work.

Compared to her work schedule in the game, Maria can now work comfortably as both an idol and a producer, thanks to the support and help of her friends.

Sirius Dieke: The 5th Love Interest

Sirius Dieke is a non-payable character in Fortune Lover, who usually appears in Gerald and Nicol’s stories and side story events to explain things about the world and the past relationship of the characters.

He is another idol in Sorcier Pro, and is an old friend to Nicol.

In reality, he’s actually a hidden character within the game that can only be playable if you get a Friendship Ending in the first playthrough. Getting a neural ending is already super hard, so Sirius being playable wasn’t revealed until two months after the game initial release. The game is so good at hiding this fact that not even the dataminers were able to find evidence of his existence outside of being an NPC.

Getting a Sirius Route is only possible in the New Game+ Mode, with story events and side story events dedicated to him alone. He only comes with only one new song though, so people in forums usually don’t recommend going to the Sirius Route in the second playthrough (unless you’re a completionist dgjfd)

There’s also the fact that Sirius’ Route has a completely different tone than the rest of the game. The developers of the game planned on removing his route in their game update, but due to the outcry of his fans, they kept it in, and even included a payed DLC where you can instantly unlock his route on your first playthrough.

In Sirius’ Route, it’s revealed that he was the son of a former celebrity and one of his maids, and that his real name is Raphael Wolt. His mother quited her job just before he was born. They were ultimately hunted down by Mrs. Dieke, who refused to believe that her husband had a mistress.

Raphael and his mother were kidnapped by people payed by Mrs. Dieke, and as his mother begged for her to spare their lives, Mrs. Dieke’s plans were revealed: Her own son is ill and was slowly dying from an illness, and in her jealousy of Raphael’s strong physique and health, she has decided to take Raphael as her own son, as both him and her original son both looked like their fathers more than their mothers.

In front of his eyes, Raphael’s mother was murdered in cold blood and Raphael was left to suffer from various degrees of shock therapy and blunt forces to the head in order to forcefully induce amnesia without killing him. He wakes up in the hospital bed with no memories of who he is, and Mrs. Dieke graciously plays the part of a concerned mother who is visiting her own son in order to sell the idea that Raphael is her own.

In the background, a news headline states that a mother and son was found dead in an abandoned warehouse.

The doctor tells Mrs. Dieke that her son “Sirius” might not recover his memories, and despite the glee in her voice, Mrs. Dieke acts and pretends to be devastated by the news. Unbeknownst to both of them, Sirius did eventually regain his lost memories over time and realizes that the woman claiming to be his mother is in fact the very person who had killed his only family.

Sirius learns that the reason Mrs. Dieke is so insistent on having a son was to be able to nurture and create a new star that would dazzle the entertainment world, with hopes of being able to live vicariously through her son’s career and success. Feeling disgust and hatred towards the woman that he is now forced to call “mother”, he plans to enact his revenge by destroying the entertainment world from the inside, exposing its ugliness to the world.

Sirius ends up becoming an idol because of the encouragement of his “mother”, leading him to be affiliated with Nicol and Gerald. He had already met them when they were all young, and he even planned to have them as allies in his quest to destroy the entertainment industry, only to find them as disappointingly bright eyed teens when they reunited.

When Sirius finds out that it was the effect of Maria Campbell, their new producer, he decided to wage war against her for acting as a thorn to his perfect plans. It’s revealed that a lot of the bullying scenarios in the story mode was orchestrated by Sirius himself, in an attempt to get maria to lose her reputation and her job.

Maria was able to trace back all the incidents to him, and confront him alone in the Office at night, before he left to go home. Sirius laughed and admitted to all of his past and crimes, and mocked Maria for having no proof against him. Instead of condemning him, Maria hugs him while telling him to change his ways. Despite the violent ways that he tries to get Maria off him, she doesn’t let go, trying to convince him that his way of acting in correspondence to his grief is wrong. Sirius cries as Maria spoke sense into him and dissected the flaws in his grand plan, until only the sound of his crying is left in the cold and empty office that day.

In Hamefura, When Sirius finds out that this was the effect of the “saint” Katarina Claes, he had orchestrated various events that could lead Katarina to being condemned by the public through her supposed “bullying” of the public darling Maria. This plans fails, so he plans on using Maria as a form of blackmail to get Katarina to leave the entertainment world in exchange for her friend’s safety. Maria disappears for a few days, causing her friends to be very worried for her, especially Katarina who is somewhat aware of the events that were occurring. During the search, she was able to find Sirius and tried to engage in some small talk, until she remembered a detail that her old friend Acchan said about a dark and secret love interest. Without any thought, Katarina questioned Sirius about Maria’s disappearance, surprising him with her sudden awareness.

Sirius admits to his crimes, and before Katarina can escape, Sirius hit her on the head so she can lose consciousness, but not before screaming about how he hates her ignorant enthusiasm, how she changed his pawns and made them better people, and how he wont let her take his heart and change him as well before he could enact his revenge, with tears in his eyes. This act leads to Katarina going unconscious for a few days. In this come state, Katarina was able to gain information from her old friend Acchan that she can use to save Sirius and Maria.

In the abandoned warehouse where “he” and his mother supposedly died, Sirius has Maria locked up, with no plans of letting her escape until he can guarantee that Katarina is out of the picture. He is shocked to find out that Katarina and her friends were able to find both of them; he goes on a rampage about how he wants to destroy the Dieke family and everyone associated with them and the cruel world they have created, before the feeling of despair and fear for his future leads him to almost taking his own life as a final escape.

Katarina stops him, and tells him that both of them has no future, as a secret love interest and as a villainess, and how she can’t save him the way Maria can. But that if anything else, she can a least stay by his side and take some of the weight off his shoulders, like what her friends have been doing for her since the beginning. Katarina calls him by his real name, Raphael Wolt, leading him to unlocking the final memory that he had lost from his temporary amnesia:

A memory of his mother, in her final moments, telling Raphael that she will always be by his side, and that she wishes for him to have a happy future, even if it wouldn’t have her in it. Katarina’s words made him realize that this wasn’t what his mother would wanted for him, leading him to see the error of his ways.

In both versions, it ends with Sirius turning himself in and confessing to the crimes of both him and Mrs. Dieke, leading to both of their arrest and the return/resurface of the Wolt Family murder case investigation. Sirius’ contract with Sorcier Entertainment gets terminated, and heavy manipulation of the media was used in order to prevent the story from coming into light.

Since Raphael lacked any crimes that would have him arrested, he was set free and left the Dieke family as it slowly fell apart from the controversy. He announced that he wants to spend his freedom as himself, but will one day come back to all of them as a better person.

Without Katarina realizing it, Raphael confesses that his rampage was caused by his fear of his desires for her and her company, and that he was scared that if she continued to open her arms to him in such an easy-going and warm fashion, he would lose all his will to have his revenge on the entertainment industry. Much to the annoyance of Katarina and Raphael’s friends, he takes her hand and promises to come back, to stay by her side, like she had promised to him.

In the Raphael Ending, Maria and Raphael meets again years later as both were on the way to work. Maria has already left the entertainment business and had no plans of returning, while Raphael became a changed man with a good heart and a steady job. Eventually, Maria was able to fall in love with the good man that Raphael was always meant to be/has become, and Raphael was able to rekindle the love and affection that he felt for Maria when they were still idols together.

Raphael had declared that he will back, better than ever! As an idol? who knows :3c But where will he go from here...?

Fortune Lover 2/Fortune Lover Re:Dive

Spoilers for Volume 3 of Hamefura and beyond, since this is about FL2

I’ve had a bunch of ideas that I’d like for Fortune Lover 2, but I’m not really sure if I want to put it out there because it seems too fanfiction-y in a way?

I feel like my ideas are straying far away from the original version, which disappoints me in a way, but then again, My Idol Game version of Fortune Lover is nothing like the Otome Game counterpart, so I’ll still write about it.

If you like the premise for an Idol Game style Fortune Lover, then feel free to just absorb the content above because for (my version of) Fortune Lover 2 to happen, Katarina will still get her bad end: Public Humiliation and Self-Banishment. I’ll save how it happens in part 4

In Fortune Lover 2, there would be 3 new produce-able idols, but in My Next Life as an Idol, there will be 5 new idols:

this is what i meant when I said the plot is gonna feel like a fanfiction :DD

Fortune Lover 2 isn’t really a sequel, as it is like a bulkier and softly rewritten version of FL, like how Persona 3/4/5 remakes are to their original games.

FL2 introduces a new Idol Agency that is affiliated with Sorcier Entertainment: Mahouka Production (also known as MahoPro), a recently established talent agency created by a mysterious Director. Despite being new, they were able to quickly gain a following through the eccentric idols in their line-up.

With a longer story, halfway through the game you start being introduced to three new male idols: Sora Smith, Cyrus Lanchester and Dewey Percy. They are idols that are under MahoPro, who dislikes the idols of SorPro and claims to be their rivals.

They start out as rival characters in the game, taunting you (Maria) and the idols of Fortuna constantly for a few chapters. Some time after your initial introduction, you slowly get to know the boys, until you’re finally able to gain their trust. You can then start to secretly “produce” them without their Director knowing (just like Shika from IM@S Stella Stage), which leads to gaining events, scenes, idol clothes, songs and CGs of the three new boys.

As the new character gets introduced later into the story mode, they are more of an optional route, as the game still prioritizes the original 4 boys over the new cast. You can still “romance” the 3 new characters, but since they are introduced late, it can only be done at the expense of focusing on them almost exclusively during story events and side stories so that you can quickly gain Relationship Points for them.

So basically, halfway through the game, you have the option to produce 11 idols: Yourself (Maria), Gerald, Alan, Keith, Nicol, Mary, Sophia, Raphael, Sora, Dewey and Cyrus. The first 5 being obligatory, while the last 6 are optional

Rufus Smith (or “Sora”, as he reveals to you his real name during the story) is new idol in MahoPro who was able to quickly gain a female following due to his attractive figure and maxed-out sex appeal. Many compare him to Nicol Ascart due to the fact that he is slowly taking a lot of his jobs (or works alongside him at times) due to his handsome face. While both of them are handsome models, the public is aware that there is no point in pining the two against each other since their beauty works in different ways.

In the story (and as hinted in a few side story events), he was a slum rat who didn’t have much for himself. One day, he met a man who had join him and his fellow slum dwellers into their territory, a man by the name of David. The man was able to give Sora a new perspective on life, his new name, as well as how to sing. After David died, he wandered around the country, doing dirty jobs for shady adults for money. A few years later, we was caught singing in the streets by a man who offered to take care of him and cultivate him as an idol at the age of 13, complimenting him for his beauty and his singing. While Sora rejected the offer, the man’s words never left his mind. He started out by singing in the street for change, then getting singing jobs at cafes/live houses/restaurants for money, until he suddenly got a small following as an underground idol. The Director of MahoPro offers a place for Sora, alongside with giving him jobs as a full-fledged idol that can help him provide for himself, leading him to be affiliated with Sorcier Entertainment.

Sora starts out having a rather sarcastic relationship with Maria, thinking that she is one of the many women who throws themselves at him to get his attention. He always gives her back handed compliments as always has a vicious tone when speaking. As the story progresses, Sora realizes that Maria isn’t disgusted by his history, and realized that Maria is truly a good and kind person. Sora starts to unconsciously seek her out, trying to reverse the bad impression that he must have left on her and to be with someone who doesn’t look at him lowly, like the other adults and idols of SorEn who dislikes people that aren’t of celebrity-upbringing.

Dewey Percy is a young idol that auditioned for Sorcier Pro. and won, but was rejected at the last minute in favor of a less talented wannabe-idol who was related to a famous actor. The Director of MahoPro came to Dewey with an offer as an idol, acknowledging his talents in music and dancing that he evidently have been polishing for years. In his town, Dewey was known as a Music Prodigy, as he was talented in singing, dancing, acting and playing instruments, though that’s not to say that those weren’t the effects of his own hard work. Because his family wasn’t the absolute best financially, he decided to audition as an idol in order to get jobs despite being young.

Dewey is revealed to be somewhat of a childhood friend to Maria, as he lived in the same town as her. Despite this, he is very wary of her due to the bad impressions left on his by Sorcier Pro. after he almost lost his chance at becoming an idol. Dewey absolutely hated asking for help, even when it was draining him down. He is very desperate to keep his title as a music prodigy, even though he knows it’ll be drowned once he’s in a battlefield of idols. (Also he tries very desperately to be seen as a mature and hot idol, despite his youth and appearance giving him a cute one instead lol)

Maria realizes how hard Dewey is pushing himself, and convinces him over multiple instances that he doesn’t need to be hard on himself and suffer alone. Maria offers herself as a shoulder to lean on, making Dewey embarrassed but happy at the idea that he can finally have someone to rely on, and that he doesn’t need to be alone anymore. They were also able to bond about their similar upbringing, making Dewey feel at home in the arms of Maria despite being miles away from their town.

Cyrus Lanchester is an idol from a different agency, who was transferred to MahoPro by the time the events of the game began. He has a very strict personality, and is an overall perfectionist as an idol. He was let go from his original Agency because his strictness and tendency to scold his fellow idols caused his peers (who are a bunch of lazy and stuck up children of celebrities) to take him out because they didn’t vibe with his attitude. Before his original producer was able to tell him that he was done as an idol, the Director of MahoPro offered a place for him in their new agency.

While being grateful to the Director for taking him in, he does not hold back in letting everyone know about his distaste for their odd Director. While is he very talented as an idol, he is just using it as a chance to learn more about the industry and gain connections that he can use to be a part of it in the near future.

While he doesn’t start as wary of Maria as his fellow male idols, he insist on keeping distance with her due to the fact that they are of different agencies, as well as the fact that he is not good at dealing with women.

Notes

(I’ll have to rewrite Cyrus and Dewey’s descriptions after Volume 7 comes out, since I don’t have much to work with. I’ll add the Sora, Cyrus and Dewey endings in the edit as well.)

I know some part of Maria and Sirius’ backstory doesn’t make any sense but just use your imagination lol hgjgfjsfgd

More about Katarina, the silhouettes, the Director, and how it affects the story on the next part :DD my fingers really hurt from all this typing hgjsdgfjs

If ever i’m dissatisfied with what I have here and end up changing things, don’t be surprised jhfjshdgfs

Next Part is gonna be plot points that I want for this AU and a bit of FL2, so sorry if the next one might not be that exciting fsjhgfjsd

feedback and suggestions are very much appreciated! Thank you to the few people who are interested in this AU :DD

94 notes · View notes

but-first--tea · 4 years ago

Text

LFRP: Omori Kaya

THE BASICS

Full name: Omori Kaya

Pronunciation: Oh-Moh-Ree Kay-Uh (Omori is her surname, Kaya is her given name)

Nicknames: n/a

Height: 5'6" (quite tall for a midlander hyur)

Age: “A lady never reveals her age.” (adult)

Nameday: 32nd Sun of the 3rd Astral Moon

Languages: Doman, Common

Occupation: Not getting caught.

Current Residence: "Traveling abroad.“ (Basically living a tourist’s life in Eorzea, hoping to never be called out as the fraud she is. She’ll spend time as someone’s guest here, staying in a hotel elsewhere the next month, etc…)

Relationship Status: While she has never actually been married, the identity of the woman she pretends to be is a young widow and heiress. (Single)

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS

Hair color: Black

Eye color: Pale, silvery grey

Skin tone: Fair

Body type: Slender, athletic but not in an obvious way.

Scars: none

Accent: Doman

Posture

Poised, athletic– though she’s no master shinobi, she is her mother’s daughter. Her training began at the age of four, and it’s still evident in the way she moves, observes, and behaves. Others who have trained would likely notice it easily. She carries herself with quiet dignity, and moves (or refuses to) deliberately, as if she expects each action to be read for significance, and takes great care not to reveal too much unintentionally. Though, in the very rare instances when she lets down her guard, this facade can fade away, revealing that she’s still a girl who can be amused, and charmed, and is easily mesmerized by beautiful places and things.

Accessories

She’s almost never seen without jewelry, though all of it is merely decorative– the trappings of the life she’s stepped into. None of it is personal, or carries meaning beyond appearing as she’s expected to.

Apparel

Her taste ranges from the classically dramatic to the outright exotic- not out of a sense of vanity, but in an appreciation of what is more or less wearable art. She most frequently wears black and white, though she also favors blue and occasionally red. In keeping with her heritage, she tends toward modesty in her dress. Of course, most of these clothes once belonged to a woman whose identity she has stolen, and she’s begun to add Eorzean fashions to her wardrobe to stand out less. The more she blends in, the fewer questions about her past she needs to dodge...

CHILDHOOD

Place of Birth: Doma

Siblings: none she knows of

Parents: The samurai Masanari and an Imperial Shadow named Harue, though Kaya has never known her biological father, as she was still less than a year old when he disappeared.

Upbringing: Raised initially by her mother, and later trained by grandmother once her affinity for magic became apparent. (More details can be found in her character history.)

PERSONAL

Personality

Outwardly, she is polite and mysterious, with a demeanor ranging from businesslike toward strangers, to an unexpected sort of mischievous and rebellious streak around the rare soul she’s begun to feel comfortable around. She’s evasive and distant. She rarely connects with others easily, which leads to most people assuming she’s either very shy, or rather snobbish, at first impression. She doesn’t trust easily, isn’t prone to showing any emotion in public if she can avoid it, and is often the one who, from an outward appearance, seems to be just another quiet wallflower enjoying the view.

Beneath the surface, however, she feels everything perhaps far too much, watches everyone with the wariness of someone who knows all too well what people are capable of, and deeply craves the connections to others she doesn’t seem to be able to form easily. She’s always searching for the few who can see the world the way she does- as something equally beautiful as it is deadly, meant to be lived in, not just endured. She’s a powder keg of passions always kept under a tight lid, hidden away for safe keeping.

Still, she is difficult to anger, and it’s a cold anger when it happens. She knows that engaging in violence and revealing her training would likely break character entirely, and being discovered as a fraud wouldn’t end well for her. As a result, she’ll try to think her way out of any situation, instead.

Motivations/Goals

If asked what she wants more than anything else in the world, she’d probably say to be able to do what she wanted, not what she was told, or allowed, or expected to. She craves freedom in all its definitions, but nearly always denies it to herself out of fear or pragmatism. While playing the role of a young, noble heiress she feels the restraints of her gilded cage all too keenly. She must behave in the way one raised to the role would be expected to. As a result, she finds small ways to rebel that aren’t likely to be noticed. Her fierce and defiant nature, thus repressed, will see her doing seemingly pointless things like rearranging the furniture in hotel rooms, stealing small items she could easily afford, or finding ways to secretly get even with those who have behaved poorly.

Financial Status

Ostensibly wealthy, though not one gil of it was ever truly hers. Still, she feels no guilt in obtaining the Omori family’s accounts considering they would have otherwise been seized by the Garlean government following Lord Omori’s assassination.

She has been quietly seeking a way to invest ‘her’ money in a way that would divorce it from her stolen inheritance, make it more truly hers, and greatly reduce the risk of losing everything should her false identity be uncovered.

Weapons

While she was raised to the blade and bow for most of her childhood, she hides her training and doesn’t carry a weapon openly, if at all. If cornered and forced to defend herself, she’d mostly likely attempt to disarm an opponent and steal theirs, or improvise.

Vices

Seemingly none, as she has striven to present herself as a woman of proper graces. However, she is prone to self-indulgence and spending far too much gil merely because she can, which she considers a vice in herself and tries to resist.

Likes

People who are intelligent, interesting, vibrantly passionate and alive. Watching people do things that require specialized skill, especially combat training or constructing something.

Constructive debate and interesting challenge. Trying/learning new things.

Music, dancing. She’s often wished she could play an instrument, but has never learned to.

Nature, gardens, fireflies, birds, waterfalls, the ocean/seaside. Traveling to anywhere with a spectacular view or vibrant culture. Learning about said cultures.

Exotic spiced foods or just about anything she hasn’t tasted before that doesn’t look absolutely disgusting. Tea. Fruits, chocolate, and spiced cider or tea. Have I mentioned tea?

Unusual crystals and/or gemstones. While she’s generally unfazed by wealth or status, she appears to be positively mesmerized by sparklies.

Dislikes

Politics, rumor mongering, cattiness, insults, and general poor behavior.

People who think getting drunk is the best kind of fun to be had.

Addictive drugs, and those who sell them.

Being forced to do anything, feeling not in control over her own life.

Overly objectifying unwanted attention, awkward social situations/obligations/expectations.

Being cold, biting insects.

Hobbies

Reading, especially the arcane.

Learning the history of different places and cultures.

Collecting small, easily transportable items (generally clothing or jewelry) in local styles from each new place she visits.

Pets: None, currently. She once had a magpie as a pet when she was younger, and maintains a fondness for birds of all kinds.

RP HOOKS

She’s looking (quietly) for a way to launder, er... invest her money to gradually eliminate the need to rely on her stolen identity and foreign contacts for access to funds. Have an opportunity?

A trusted lady’s maid, retainer, or guard type to help her maintain appearances.

It’s possible that someone from her past in Doma might recognize her, or perhaps have known the real Omori Kaya.

The woman she is impersonating is an ill-fit for her. She is fierce, independent, and rebellious... the exact opposite of the demure and soft character her stolen identity demands. But, her mother risked everything to secure her new identity, and she won’t cast it off unless forced to. Still, she isn’t perfect. Someone could catch her in a mistake, and become curious...

The Lady Omori Kaya appears elegant, mysterious, ...and wealthy. Potential suitors aren’t unlikely. (Romance is an option, though she’ll be hard to pin down at first, for obvious reasons.)

She has a (stolen) soulstone in her possession, and has been working to unlock its secrets.

Open to brainstorming other connections, past associations, or jumping into -your- existing plot!

OOC

I make my own schedule. I can be available pretty much any time from 8 am to 9pm CST. Sadly, I can rarely do late nights because I need to do that sleeping thing.

OOC communication is a priority for me.

I have been RPing for 20+ years. I am comfortable with both in game or Discord RP, and anything from short, quick posts to multi para. I do this because I enjoy writing!

I am not interested in random ERP outside of a long-term character interaction. I do love writing ships as long as there's strong chemistry between the characters, and both the character and the writer of said character are mature adults. However,I will not consider ships with alt or AU characters, as this is my one and only RP character. (No multi-shipping.)

I prefer a RP style that works with what is plausible within the scope of the lore. I'm open to creativity, as long as it makes sense. I prefer to stay away from void-heavy, AU, inserts from other universes, and anything involving cross-breeding with non-playable races/beings. (These are only my personal preferences, and everyone else is free to do whatever they like!)

Absolutely no: rape, harm to children, or graphic torture.

I do enjoy game content as well, and prefer company over doing so alone! I am currently sitting in my own personal FC house, but would consider joining a real FC if it makes sense for my character.

Confession: I probably spend way too much time decorating virtual houses.

#ffxiv rp #updated character sheet #Omori Kaya #hyur midlander #Doman

64 notes · View notes

stygiantarot · 5 years ago

Text

Modern Divination Methods

(originally taught in The Alexandria Archives on 4/9/2020)

Divination is most certainly one of the oldest practices of witchcraft. Reading omens, trancing for prophecy/scrying, and using tools to read symbols or patterns have all been used in some form for practically as long as society has existed. Many people are familiar with the mainstream ones: Tarot, runes, tea leaves, scrying, etc. Last time I went over some more unusual methods. Today, in light of the current global situation having many person’s stuck in limited spaces with limited supplies, I thought we could touch on some modern methods. Most require nothing more than what you already have at your fingertips!

We will explore in some detail:

Shufflemancy: divination using randomized songs

Stichomancy: divination using passages in a volume of writing

Traffic omens: Modernizing weather style omen reading using things like cars, stoplights, types of buildings passed, etc.

We’ll also touch on a couple other ideas you might try expanding on:

Online Randomizer: Think like the old web extension Stumble upon or even those websites that give you random quotes, images, names, etc.

Social Media Image Scrying: using a collection of images online to select a particular one for interpretation.

~~~~~~~

Shufflemancy

Many of you have probably heard of this method, likely even tried it! Shufflemancy is the method of divination that uses a platform or application to randomize a selection/playlist of songs for interpretation. You can either just hit the shuffle button once and go with that initial song or you can incorporate a more personalized experience by having the querent choose a number of skips to hit. It can also be tailored by using specific playlists you’ve compiled or certain genre options on applications like Spotify or Pandora.

You can expand on this with applications like Youtube to include videos. It’s my fantasy that platforms like Netflix or Hulu will come up with a “randomizer” or shuffle type option someday. It would be such a blast to play a random video and then use that for divination!

It’s important to take into account both the lyrics and the melody/mood of the music when your selection is being interpreted. If you aren’t sure if you’d be comfortable with that initially, I recommend building a “beginner’s” sort of playlist that is filled with songs you know very well and have personal feelings about. It makes the interpretation that much easier. Much like using a Tarot or Oracle deck that has art styles or characters you’re familiar with. You may also incorporate the visuals of a music video if there is one for the song. Shufflemancy usually works better for more expansive readings rather than just yes/no questions. Although you can sometimes get that sort of immediately “positive” or “negative” impression from many songs, assuming it doesn’t have both!  

This method is a therapeutic way to delve into some modern divination. The emotional and cathartic aspect can be soothing for both the reader and the querent. Not to mention the connection it builds as you share music between you. A feel good way to practice some divination with no physical tools beyond some technology access.

~~~~~~~

Stichomancy

This method of divination, sometimes called bibliomancy, uses a book or similar volume of writing to select passages from to interpret. Most people use the page number as the way to select, telling the querent to select a number between the first and last page (and what the highest number possible is). But there are intuitive methods as well. Using the physical shuffling of pages until it feels right to stop rather than a selected number. I find the latter method more useful when reading for myself and the former method more cooperative when I’m reading for others.

Like with shufflemancy, stichomancy is much affected by your personalizing of the tool. Use books you love! Use books that have specific genres for specific queries (a romance book for a relationship reading?). Use anthologies (short story or poetry collections) to get a variety of styles and language to work with.    

You can also use books that are more visual, like my headstone symbolism book pictured above. It makes the reading more akin to Tarot, but you can use captions to help expand on the interpretation. Practice trial and error with multiple books until you feel comfortable and confident that the results are accurate enough. The books I have in the photo I shared are the five I’m comfortable using in regular readings. I play with others for myself or specific queries for friends or family but often I’m not comfortable adding them to my regular repertoire. I have a series of dimestore style paperback mysteries that love to give readings for a dear friend but are useless in accuracy for anyone else. Books have personalities- if you didn’t already know that this method will teach you that fact quickly. You can also create your own specific stichomancy book using a notebook with numbered short passages and poems of that have significance to you. It can be an enriching process to collect all the passages to add to your own book and you can give them more specific and more easily remembered associations when compiling them yourself. Do remember to give proper credit/sourcing to all your collected passages though! 

You don’t need the largest book possible to be effective with this method of divination. “Desperation” and “Chilling Ghost Short Stories” are my thickest books, but honestly I’ve gotten more insightful readings from my two slim fairy tale volumes. It’s truly a method you make your own. I have friends who prefer to exclusively use books of poetry rather than fictional prose. That is good too!

A note: don’t feel like you need to have a physical book- I’ve had some success with ebooks! It can be trickier to do the flip-through for sure, but not impossible. 

 ~~~~~~~

Traffic Omens

I was probably about 8 years old when I first played the “If, Then” game. “If this next light turns green before we reach it, then I’ll get McDonalds for lunch.” A simple and almost childish game of course. But essentially, traffic omens. I expanded on it as I got older to include seeing certain makes and colors of cars during my commute. Or a certain number of common buildings like churches or banks. A type of architecture or statues featuring certain things. It can be as common or uncommon as your needs require.

This is a method that’s a little trickier to lay out for others in step-by-step ways because it is omen based and therefore requires you to select what works for your specific area/region, what type of commute based omens you feel comfortable noticing, what meanings they have for you, etc. And since this is omen-based, it isn’t exactly ideal for actively standard divination reading. It’s more ideal for a passive style, or personal predictions in your own life.

You can build a system that works for you and could predict luck in a career, prosperity in the home, or a new friend. I recommend starting a journal of the sort of “omens” you notice on your commute. Follow up with a short blurb about how your day went and how you felt. Then you can refer back to it and create the personal system from there. You can vary the more common with uncommon omens- just remember to ascribe the appropriate association. Seeing a certain number of bank buildings can be good for meaning an increase in general finances but you’d likely want something more uncommon like an usual make and model of a single car for snagging a dream job. You can also create variations for when you’re walking during your day instead of commuting! 

 A bit more involved but something interesting to experiment with in our modern society. And keep a bit of that childlike wonder!

~~~~~~~

Online Randomizer

Did you ever play with the web extension “Stumble Upon” back when it existed? The idea was that you installed it in whatever web browser you happened to be using and then clicked it to get directed to an entirely random website. Though it’s intention was obviously to curb boredom, it is definitely something interesting to try as a divination tool. Stumble Upon no longer exists (as far as I know), however there are similar extensions or webpages that let you do the same thing (this one comes to mind: https://theuselessweb.com). There is also options like Wikipedia’s “random article” ability that works along the same lines. This method is similar to stichomancy in that you’ll likely be working with text a lot of the time. But be aware of the medium you’re working with- a webpage is more than just a page in a book. What is its purpose? How well is it designed? What sort of visuals does it use? What emotional impressions do you get from it? It can start simple, but you can see the options are there for expanding an interpretation pretty elaborately. And again, a number of clicks can be incorporated if you like.

~~~~~~~

Multi-Image Scrying (Social Media Image Scrying)   

It’s hard for me to come up with a concise name for this. But it’s possible you’ve come across persons doing this on various platforms like Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, etc. There is a selection of images in a format similar to a moldboard to view. The reader has a querent select an image that stands out to them and builds a reading based on the selection. Similar to a random draw from a Tarot or Oracle card with symbolism and art imagery lending itself to the interpretation. This can be great to try if you are into color symbolism or can easily see how certain artwork evokes certain emotions. Similar to what websites like Buzzfeed or the astro.com color chart quiz is! Almost like an alternative horoscope based on visual selections you are drawn to.

Be sure to ethically collect images for something like this if you plan on offering it to others. There are many websites that have royalty free images you can use for projects like this. Or you can even use ones you have yourself! These don’t have to be high art photographs, simple ones on your phone can absolutely work. The biggest goal is to make sure they are varied so a large amount of interpretation is possible.

There is a version of this using face down Tarot (or oracle) cards as well. You take a photo (or have video) of them face down and then have your querent select one at random without either of you knowing what it is. Then once you flip it over you can giving a reading based on that. It’s not especially different from a standard long distance Tarot reading except it can be used on a mass scale. For example, I’ve done this for my business Facebook or Instagram where I have a grid of numbered face down cards. Then I put the meanings of each card in the comments so someone can select the card before reading the comments and get a low-tech daily reading without an app.

~~~~~~~

Even though many of these methods evoke playful games of childhood, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have potential as a valid form of divination. Many forms of divination in the past started as games or ways to pass time before they were built into the forms of divination we know today. A modern technique may seem “sillier” to traditionalists but just like younger generations are proving the further reaching use of modern technology to previous generations; it is time to prove the modern forms of divination as valid to the traditionalists!

#divination #stichomancy #shufflemancy #types of divination #witchblr #TAA #fortune telling #witchcraft class #witchcraft 101 #modern divination #modern witchcraft #witchy #modern omens

117 notes · View notes

legobiwan · 5 years ago

Note

I was going through your musician tags the other day and wondered which instruments you think The Lineage would possibly play? Let's make that the extended lineage, from Yoda to Ahsoka, including Rael.

Ohhhhh hahahahah first of all, I am so sorry anyone has to deal with my #musicianbullshit although the first thing about being a musician is bullshit, obviously. :D

I had a post a while back concerning my opinions on what instrument Dooku played, but I can’t seem to find it. Damn it, Tumblr!

Anyway, I’m going to assume non-gffa, real-life instruments because there are a lot of instruments in Wookieepedia and without knowing them, their mechanisms, their history, etc. intimately, I can’t make a sound value judgment (ha! that was a pun) as to how they would or would not fit with our favorite lineage.

Yoda: So the first thing we need to take into account with Yoda is his physical stature. He is not a large being, so he’s probably not going to play cello or any other instrument that requires wide breadth of motion. We need a small instrument, handheld and I think the perfect match for Yoda would be the mbira (sometimes referred to as a kalimba or a thumb-piano):

Hand-held, its range is limited, between an octave (8) and 23 tones. But within these limitations, the mbira can be re-tuned to different sonorities, or modes depending on the type affect one wants with the instrument and if one deals in microtones (not half and whole steps, which are the foundation for the Western classical canon but by no means the only tuning system out there), then the permutations get pretty exciting. In addition, using two hands, there are nearly limitless variations for polyrhythm, for instance, playing a duple with the left hand and triplet in the right. (A simple example.) And I think this fits Yoda perfectly because the instrument itself is so self-contained and yet has so many possibilities that belie its appearance, much like Yoda himself, and I think he would enjoy the challenge of creating new music within the physical limitations of the instrument.

Dooku: So I have no idea where that post went with my original Dooku idea, but what do we know about Dooku? A proud man with a strong connection to his Serennian ancestry and someone who is deeply interested in history. He’s a student of Yoda, so his instrument needs to connect in some way to him, but be distinct, aesthetic, and as non-tangible as possible. So in my mind, Dooku would play the hammered dulcimer.

The hammered dulcimer requires a deft hand, accuracy, and an awareness of the heft and location of each strike of the string. In this way, it resembles the finesse of the Makashi form, and I can’t imagine Dooku playing a “messy” instrument that would require him to use his fingers, hands, or even mouth (Force forbid). In this way, he can create, but keep a distance. In addition, the instruments themselves can be works of art, as shown above, which is in keeping with Dooku’s aristocratic bent and his appreciation for high aesthetics. The instrument itself is interesting, in that it is versatile, like Yoda’s mbira, in terms of the tuning and potential for polyrhythm, but with more strings come more possibilities, overwhelming possibilities, at times, and a traditionally Western-tuned dulcimer never quite encompasses the entire chromatic scale (the 12 notes spanning an octave), which somehow seems to fit Dooku. In addition, it’s an instrument with strong ties to folk traditions in Europe and Asia, but also has quite the reputation in Appalachia. This kind of fits with Serenno’s status in the GFFA, an Outer Rim world with strong traditions. The sound is quite haunting, quite beautiful, and I can imagine Dooku by himself in his large office, moon shining through tall transparisteel windows, playing an ancient Serennian folk tune.

Rael: Ohhh, Rael. Down home country-boy from Ringo-Vinda. I may be playing into some stereotypes here, but I really think Rael is suited towards the banjo.

Of course, many of us associate the banjo with the country, with folk music, which seems in keeping with Rael’s background on Ringo-Vinda and his whole “cowboy Jedi” aesthetic. What I also like about Rael and the banjo is that it is portable, it sticks in the string family in keeping with Dooku, and it is a much more complicated instrument than it is sometimes given credit for. The banjo can be an incredibly virtuosic instrument in the right hands, and I would have no doubt that an older Rael wouldn’t mind showing off to a few people in in the local cantina, all while keeping up his “image” as the displaced, country boy Jedi.

Qui-gon: Qui-gon, on the other hand, doesn’t care about showing off. Because he is the second student of Dooku and had close contact with Rael, I can see him sticking in the string family, but with an instrument both more challenging and more esoteric. I feel like the Erhu would be a good fit for Qui-gon.

Like Rael, Qui-gon would want to play something more visceral, more involved. The erhu is vaguely reminiscent of a violin or cello except that it has only two strings and a more mellow, almost human-voice than most western string instruments. Capable of great slides a wide range of emotions, the erhu easily flits from somber to gay, an all-encompassing disposition which fits well with Qui-gon’s preoccupation with the Unifying Force and all that lies within.

Obi-wan: Unlike Qui-gon, Obi-wan has no desire to play a stringed instrument, likely because he once saw his Master with his erhu and decidedly immediately he needed to pick something else. In fact, a young Obi-wan may not have played anything at all. But we know from A Certain Point of View that Obi-wan does carpentry, so he is good with his hands and, I imagine, quite exacting in what he makes as that would seem to fit his personality. And because of this, I think he’d play some sort of flute (I know, I know, but I swear this isn’t self-indulgent nonsense, hang with me here a sec), as he could fashion one for himself easily from wood, or even bamboo. And I like the idea of Obi-wan playing (and making) a shakuhachi as a) it’s very difficult to make a good one and b) the damn instrument is hard to play well.

There is a long history of breath-meditation in connection with the shakuhachi, not to mention its use by the wandering komusō (“priests of nothingness,” or “emptiness monks”) in Ashikaga Japan, which is very much in line with Obi-wan’s later exile on Tatooine. (Not to mention that some komuso were disguised former samurai and some sources said the bell of the shakuhachi was made thick and heavy enough to be used as a weapon. Again, this feels very much like Obi-wan on Tatooine and I can imagine him whittling away in the Dune Sea, creating some form of this instrument, doing breath meditation as he tries to heal, an outcast monk, now having nothing except his one duty to protect Luke.)

Anakin: Anakin, as we know, grew up a slave on Tatooine. While the cantinas boasted third-rate jizz bands (I will never be over that term), a little slave-boy is not going to have access to any kind of fancy instrument or training. But a little boy’s well-meaning mother might gift him with a small pendant, a piece of desert ceramic, perhaps, with small, weathered holes.

A small, unobtrusive ocarina, sweet little desert sounds for little fingers at the end of a long day.

Ahsoka: And then finally Ahsoka. She’s an interesting case as she would probably have inherited the wind predilection from Obi-wan and Anakin, but a subset of Togruta were accomplished artisans, so I could see Ahsoka going for an instrument a little more complicated and technical than either Obi-wan or Anakin. And, to be honest, I could see Ahsoka having a “let’s start a band” phase at some point in the Temple. So because of this, I think she would play some iteration of melodica.

Perhaps a melodica is starter instrument for the Togruta people, as it is in some countries in this galaxy. Easy to pick up, the melodica is at once strident and able to cross multiple musical boundaries, and I can very see Ahsoka accompanying some ribald vod drinking songs with the instrument, much to the delight of Rex and the others.

44 notes · View notes

bigskydreaming · 5 years ago

Note

Garrett is definitely obnoxious enough to where he would have his shadow do pantomime annoyingly. Garrett definitely plays up how dangerous his shadow is, lets rumors spread about how it totally assassinated some rich fuck when really it was Violet. Theo is rubbing his temples because he won't shut up

LOLOLOL. And everyone who really knows Garrett and how his magic works knows that he’s full of shit and Violet’s the real dangerous one of their duo. And Theo’s constantly mumbling to himself, like, arguing the pros and cons of just fucking killing Garrett despite how useful he is. He’s like ugh, if only I could just figure out where the seat of his magic is so I could steal his shadow for myself, and he’s always contemplating like….okay, there has to be someone down in Answers Alley who could tell me how to kill that little asshole in such a way as to let me absorb his magic….I just can’t decide if its worth admitting that I don’t actually know how to do it or how to figure it out for myself, or potentially risk letting someone in on how my own magic works if they don’t already know that.

Plus he’s aware of the possibility that like, even if he did find someone who could give him the right answer there, they might just lie or not tell him because y’know….they don’t like him either.

And some days he’s just like fuck it, I can’t listen to one more word from that little shit, I’m just gonna kill him and be done with it, nothing’s worth this and there are plenty of changelings with like, scrying magic. Only stopped by Tracy pulling him back and pointing out; “Yeah, but you’d have to convince them to work for you first, and that’s easier said than done. I mean, I’m your right hand lieutenant and I’m mostly just meh on you myself.”

Theo, acidly: Thanks ever so much for that.

Tracy: Any time, boss!

Anyway, speaking of Answers Alley, the street sandwiched between Mercy Row and the edge of the Seventh Circle district, with one end of the Alley running all the way up to the Rose’s Garden right at the very heart of Bordertown, and the other end letting out in Shadowsmeet (the roofless warehouse turned ampitheatre that houses Jake the Drake, and where changelings gather for a kind of 24/7 street fair that showcases all kinds of art from the tangible expressions like painting and sculpture to music playing, dancing and storytelling and theater) -

Some of the Changelings found in Answers Alley - Aaron, Melody, Eloise, Rashid, Hiromi aka Compass Rose, and Jackie:

Aaron - an eighteen year old black boy whose body is covered in scrolling gold script from all kinds of different languages, the texts of books, scrolls, and tomes that have been lost to history. The text on his body is always relevant to whatever question he was just asked, information that’s applicable or relevant if not the direct answer itself, but it will vanish and be replaced by new words the second another question is posed to him, and even re-asking the first question isn’t guaranteed to bring back the original text instead of more linked text pulled from other sources.

Aaron always knows how to read or understand the words on him, even if they’re written in a language that he doesn’t otherwise know, which means that he’s still usually the only one who can give a person the answers they’re seeking (and assuming he even wants to). But just sneaking a peek at his arm isn’t going to help anyone when the words on it are from a dead language that hasn’t been read or understood in millennia. Aaron’s both the answer and the key to understanding it.

Melody - a twenty-two year old, mostly mainstream appearing Latina changeling with brown skin and eyes and dark, curly hair offset by two sharp silvery horns that make a V shape like a kind of stylized tuning fork. Her only other visible change is that her ears have a pointed elfin shape and natural holes in them up and down the cartilage like she has multiple piercings in them and just wears no earrings. But with her, the true change and magic isn’t seen, but heard - its almost never completely silent when she’s around, because the very air around her seems to constantly hum when anyone is speaking in her vicinity at all. How harmonious or not the ambient music her magic produces around her is though, is entirely dependent on whether its truth or lies that are being spoken within her exceptional hearing range.

Like most changelings, her magic is only fully accessible to her….to everyone else, the song surrounding her might be pleasing or not, but only she has the magical sensitivity needed to detect the slight changes in her song, enough to pinpoint when a lie is spoken or a truth is told. But the real gift of her magic is that its attuned to universal truths rather than just perceived truths….meaning she can detect whether something said to or around her is true or not regardless of whether or not the person who says it believes it to be true…..thus making her a sought-out changeling not just for settling disputes, but for anyone who seeks to know whether something they’ve been told or believe is actually true or not.

The more specific the question though, the more definitive her answer for them is. She’s not good with settling matters of philosophy or religion, because as she puts it, most everything stemming from those have at least an element of truth to them, and so those kinds of questions usually prompt a veritable symphony around her, with so much harmony and discordance both, that its all but impossible for her to declare anything definitive. But personal truths, especially ones with a finite yes or no answer, she excels at - such as if someone relates a memory to her and asks if they’ve remembered it correctly or if there’s something about what actually happened that eludes them, that sort of thing.

Eloise - a dreamy, absent-minded seventeen year old white changeling of French descent, whose ‘shop’ is set back from the rest of the street a little ways, intersecting with one of the many canals that criss-cross Bordertown and allow the aquatic or amphibious residents to come and go between the mainland of it and the undersea neighborhoods that make up Sub Francisco. Her skin tone is a pale pink coral hue, and instead of hair she has a voluminous head of white sea-foam that appears and acts as if its a long, thick tangle of hair. Her shop is a fairly large one story room that’s mostly filled by the waters from the canal with the exception of just enough floor by the front entrance for most visitors to stand on while visiting her, assuming they’re not aquatic Changelings themselves.

Her magic, and the reason for her almost constant daydreaming, is that her magic makes any water she touches a scrying pool that plays out visions of whatever location she pictures. She doesn’t have to have visited herself, she only needs a point of reference for her magic to hone in on…..which can even just be someone’s description of a place they wish to view. Then all it takes is for her to sweep one languid hand through the water around her and the whole surface will shimmer and then show that place and whatever’s happening there, not as a static image but as though watching it on video.

There are a couple of caveats to her magic, same as anyone else’s…..people have to be careful when asking her to show them what’s happening currently in a place, that they describe something about it that’s true of now for her to hone in on…because her magic can just as easily show those places in the past, and if they’re describing from memory, what Eloise shows them might actually be something out of date or no longer relevant. But then again, this also allows her to show specific events that have already happened, as long as someone provides something specific to that point in time for her to hone in on as well as the place. Also, there’s no sound to her moving images, which is why she usually just says something like “people are boring” when asked to hone in on what a particular person is doing right now instead of asking about showing a specific place. Only a few Changelings have figured out that Eloise is a lot sharper than she pretends to be and is perfectly capable of spying on any individual from the safety and privacy of her scrying pool….and does, for the right price or her own personal agendas.

Rashid - a twenty-year old blind Lebanese-American whose change takes the form of glowing beads of orange light that wrap around his arms and all the way up to his neck in double-banded spirals that usually take people a minute or two to place as just vaguely familiar, before the realize that the sight reminds them of a DNA helix.

Just as all Changelings’ magic takes something about who and what they are and just….amplifies that, externalizes it, makes them more of it in some kind of unique magical expression of that, Rashid’s natural scientific curiosity resulted in his magical ability to touch a thing and feel the building blocks that make it what it is, and if he wants to, break things down into those individual components.

There’s a wide array of ways he’s able to use this, beyond just exploring his own personal studies of things…..bring him a bloody weapon, and just by touching an unbloodied part of it he can name where the ore that weapon was made from was mined, as well as name whose blood is on it, and even whose fingerprint, if someone left one and it was handled by gloves afterward. The answers just come to him as names and place names, etc, and they don’t usually have context, so he can’t help beyond that if the names he mentions are unfamiliar to him or the person asking, he can’t tell where they are now….just that these are the basic truths he’s reading off the weapon he was handed, the things that combine to make it what it is now…the blade made of metal from this location, the fingerprint of this person, the blood of this person, etc.

And then on the more physical side of his magic, the breaking things down into their individual building blocks, one example of this is he can kinda distill something down into just what he or someone else wants it to be….like if he touches water that’s been poisoned or drugged, he can split it into just the pure unaltered water and then with the poison or toxin bubbling up to the surface like separating oil and water, easily then filtered out. Or he can touch a complicated piece of machinery or construction of some sort, and make it just tumble down into pieces of its individual components.

As with many other residents of Bordertown though, he’s got his secrets and his true limits are known only to a few. He’s one of the town’s earliest arrivals, back when they were all still fairly few in number and shaping their new society and what roles and degree of influence they would all occupy within it….so only a few remember that he early on established himself as being in the way of certain agendas of Theo’s, and in response, Theo sent one of his most dangerous assassins after him, a Changeling no one ever knew by any name other than the Doppelganger. Unfortunately for the Doppelganger, his own magic required putting his hands on his intended target to activate it…..and that was all Rashid needed to feel the essential building blocks of the Doppelganger and use his own talent first…..to strip the Doppelganger of his magic and leave him separated from it and as he was before his own Change.

Those who were aware of this feat have been careful not to speak of it since, or the reason Theo and his people so carefully avoid Rashid now. Leaving him as he likes it, sought out for his help in reading truths and other aspects of his skills, rather than known as one of the more dangerous Changelings and capable of something no other Changeling has ever managed. But that doesn’t mean nobody knows or remembers - after all, the Doppelganger hasn’t forgotten. And as far as he can tell, that magic that was stripped from him had to go somewhere….and he wants it back.

A quest that has him give Answers Alley a wide berth, as instead he seeks out Madame Midnight and promises any favor she wants from one of Bordertown’s most dangerous residents, if she can just help him regain his Change and his magic first…..

Hiromi, aka Compass Rose - a sixteen year old from Chicago originally, and a third generation Japanese-American, she shares a loft in the Aerie with five or so friends with their own flight-capable Changes, and just pops down to the small stall along Answers Alley that’s all she needs. She’s got a sign hanging on the front of it that declares “Don’t bother me unless you’ve already got your own ride back. Round trip service not provided.”

Hiromi’s Change makes her a mish-mash of flora and fauna….she’s got hawk-like eyes and her eyebrows are feathered, and she has short, dark hair that’s crowned by short, branching antlers between which sits her signature rose. From her back sprout two large, bat-like wings whose skeletal frame are actually made of branches rather than bone, and with the material of her wings being more akin to green leaves than feathers. Her wings are the largest thing about her, as she’s fairly tiny except for them, only about five feet tall, and nobody has any idea how they fly aerodynamically, other than well…magic.

But other than the innate magic powering her flight, Hiromi’s actual gift is a form of teleportation with very specific parameters….hence why she sends away anyone who hasn’t first procured the help of some other teleporter or transportation inclined Changeling before seeking her out. Once they do come back with another Changeling willing to help them return later, someone asks for her help finding something….could be a person, an item, or even something ephemeral, like the solution to a problem…..and Hiromi’s magic, a combination of teleportation and dowsing rod, activates upon her command and whips up a tiny miniature whirlwind around the asker and whomever they designate as their company for the trip, like another teleporting Changeling. And when her whirlwind dies down, they’re gone, having been teleported to the location of whatever it was they asked her help in finding. Even if it is something ephemeral like the solution they need to something….her magic can’t spell out for them how its the answer to their problem….just send them to where it is that they’ll find it, as long as they can figure out from there what it is about their surroundings that will help them.

Jackie - a twenty-one year old agender Native American of the Choctaw tribe, originally from Mississippi before coming to Bordertown, Jackie’s magic and Change make them the sum of not just their parts, but all their possible parts. Basically, Jackie’s appearance is like a flipbook, constantly flickering through all possible appearances they might take, making them a somewhat dizzying blur of constant albeit low-intensity motion. Even when they’re sitting totally still, their appearance isn’t, shifting hairstyles, colors, accessories, all without them doing anything at all.

The constant motion of their appearance does slow however, depending on how many aspects of themselves they split off to go accomplish various tasks…usually in pursuit of some knowledge, information or answer. Whenever they want to, they can kinda….shrug off one of the many dizzying possible appearances they have….which splits off to become another Jackie, standing right next to them, but with a steady, static appearance….as they’re only one of the seemingly infinite possible selves contained within Jackie.

This version of them has the same experiences, knowledge and even priorities of the original Jackie, as they’re all them, the same single person…..the second Jackie is just a specific iteration of the many possible ways they could be….them. And then these other Jackies, however many of them there are, can act independent of the original and go anywhere and do anything the original can. There’s no limit to how far they can range, or limit to how long they can remain separate, and they can fairly easily go about in mainstream public without attracting much attention, as they don’t have a Change of their own….they ARE the Change.

But then at any point they can and do all eventually return to the main Jackie and add their accumulated knowledge and experiences to the whole, and reshelving their appearance within the flicker-book of possible appearances and selves contained within Jackie.

#changelings 'verse #garrett and violet #assassination tango #cast of characters: answers alley

3 notes · View notes

maxg-longform · 5 years ago

Text

Outer Wilds

A new frontier for the interactive experience

Moments in gaming which are truly ground-breaking are rare, and they are only getting rarer. A dual axiom of diminishing technological returns achieved by the jumps between console generations and the rampant predatory monetisation of the games as a service modal have had many despairing and looking to games that denounce photorealism and market trends for inspiration , in much the same way those in the art world despaired at the first cameras. As they could no longer make art more detailed technically, meaning and artistry moved from technique to statement. Why is it not photorealistic? The question posed today is the same. You could make a game that is an accurate reflection of life – or a biased reflection of a certain kind of life (Military-industrial complex funded shooters I’m looking at you) – so why have you chosen to instead create something with a particular art style? What is the combination of your narrative and design choices trying to say?

In the case of Far Cry 5, when particular attention is paid to the fact that the cultists are under the influence of drugs for the game’s entirety in addition to Obsidian’s claims that their new game concerning corporate exploitation of space colonies is written apolitically with empathetic and ‘good’ characters on both sides, the aim is all too often to actively stop you from drawing any meaningful conclusion at all, or at the very least to give the impression that there is nothing to draw.

What is the aim of this spiel then? In reality, you don’t need context to enjoy Outer Wilds, but only within the nexus of the modern games industry can you see why I’ve grown to love it so much. It also lets me talk about the game in more abstract terms without spoiling it – as it is very hard not to spoil it in talking about it, as knowledge is the only progression system within the game. The game itself, mechanically, is very stripped back. You have a spaceship to explore the solar system with, a spacesuit with thrusters for exploring each of the planets you can land on, and a translation device, which allows you to understand the language of an ancient alien race which inhabited the solar system many years prior. The story orients you as the first of your race to explore the stars with this new translation device. Explorers has previously visited each planet in the solar system, but contact with them has been lost, and they cannot translate the language there. Your objective, insofar as you are given one, is to find them and learn about the ancient aliens. In an age where open-world games have quest markers and some, such as Skyrim, have a spell which paints a trail on the ground in the direction of the next objective, the handhold-free nature of Outer Wilds is charming and arresting.

Whenever you discover anything important, it is stored in your ship’s log at the back of your small spaceship. In a way, it reminded me of Morrowind, one of Skyrim’s forebears, with the journal giving hints as to where you ought to look, but no real help beyond collating what you already know so that you can easily reference it in future. You are free to explore any of the planets at any point, and follow any lines of inquiry you see fit. In a lesser game, this would lead to a disjointed narrative experienced so out of order that it would give Tarantino a headache. However, this leads me into talking about the level design. I could not laud any higher the way in which the planets are designed. Every planet has a dynamic twist to it you need to learn in order to be able to understand how to access information on it and each planet has areas that require you to piece together learnings from around the solar system in order to access. In every sense, the game rewards exploration and understanding as a means of progress, rather than giving you new tools and telling you how to use them. This is evident in each of the planet designs – which I will briefly explain in the order I visited them (there is no ‘proper’ order).

Giant’s Deep

A swirling, green water planet with four islands, which are continually tossed around by an endless stream of cyclones which make the planet hard to navigate. The pole is protected by a ferociously large cyclone and a strong current prevents underwater exploration of a porous, but fiercely electromagnetic core. The sheer size and oppressive atmosphere is compounded by the strong gravity making it almost impossible to jump, incentivising careful exploration.

Brittle Hollow

A hollow planet built around a black hole and beset by fiery meteors from its volcanic moon. With an inhospitable surface, much of the challenge comes from discovering how others adapted to these conditions previously, and how to use the gravity of the black hole to navigate a planet that slowly falls apart and disintegrates as the game goes on due to the constant meteor bombardment.

The Wanderer

A frozen comet with an elliptical orbit that takes it within a lethal range of the sun, and covered in mysterious ‘ghost matter.’

The Hourglass Twins

Two planets orbiting each other as they orbit the sun. One starts as a bare rock with many caves to explore; the other as a perfectly round desert planet, with absolutely zero to explore. Then, a large column of sand starts flowing through space from the desert planet ‘Ash Twin’ to the bare one, ‘Ember Twin.’ This means areas of each planet are only accessible at certain times, and you need to beware of the sand level when exploring caves.

Dark Bramble

A planet consisting purely of thorny branches wrapped around a core that pulses with white light. Enter the hole, and caverns that bend the laws of space and time fill massive areas within. A Tardis of horrors, this planet scared me like no jump scares could. A truly eerie vibe – a memorable and haunting level unlike anything I’d ever played before.

While every one of these planets is in its own way unique and memorable, as are the moments when you discover how to access parts of them you couldn’t before – the best example of the game’s genius comes in the form of a location known as the Quantum moon. Before you go to this location, there are three pieces of key knowledge you need. Without them, you shouldn’t even be able to land on it. Nevertheless, I accidentally managed to land on it early in the game. However, because I hadn’t yet solved how to get into the tower of Quantum knowledge on Brittle Hollow, I didn’t understand how to access where I wanted to go. The moon has a secretive ‘Sixth Location’ you wish to explore, but every time I tried to leave the control room, the way was blocked by rocks until the moon moved back to one of the five locations in our solar system. It wasn’t until a few hours later, when I was following a different lead on another planet that I figured out how to avoid the rocks, and also where I needed to go once I had made it out.

The game is filled with eureka moments, and the lack of handholding makes you feel like you have genuinely accomplished something when you solve a puzzle. For example, I discovered a much quicker shortcut to a key area called the Black Hole Forge. The game doesn’t penalise you for this; much of the beauty of the game comes in the journey. Translating the alien scriptures in each area contains hints as to the overarching story – which I won’t in any way spoil, except that it is moving, inspiring and heart-breaking in equal measure – but also contains deeply personal stories about the people who made these structures, these homes, these technologies. The tension among the clan as they tried debated their plans to achieve what they came to our solar system for. The romance and feeling amongst those who worked on their projects. The jubilation of breakthroughs and the let-downs of defeat. The struggle for life and the joys of overcoming the hostile worlds of the system. The heart-wrenching story of the Quantum moon. All pieced together in bitesize chunks, out of sequence, displaced. Abstractions anthropomorphised because we don’t know enough about them to truly contextualise them. You never even find out what these aliens looked like. But you discover their hopes, their aims, their dreams and their death – as you, the traveller from an antique land, stare at the vast and trunkless legs of stone.

Rather purposefully, I have been abstract in my descriptions and generalised the experience. In a game where knowledge is the means of progression, and real detail would be a spoiler, and its best to come into this game blind. So, I’ve chosen to focus on the feeling the game instils in you. It has a charming art direction, understated yet distinctive music that complements every area perfectly and a real warmth and passion that oozes from every pixel. In a world where every new innovation is immediately copied and run into the ground by every game in the same genre – the camp clearing from Far Cry 3 is now a chore in every vaguely open world game- or climbing the conveniently placed towers to gain map vision a la Assassin’s Creed – or that very same game series doing its very best Witcher 3 impression in Origins and Odyssey – there is an incorruptible heart to Outer Wilds. There will be games inspired by it, no doubt, but there won’t be other games that weaponise knowledge in quite the same way, or use it to explore the same themes. It’s a game about futility, about facing death but choosing to explore and challenge yourself and improve and, most importantly, to enjoy the little things and cherish the detail, to find pieces of light in that endless, futile dark.

Games like this have always been few and far between, and are becoming even rarer now. That’s why it’s essential we cherish games like Outer Wilds. There is no formula for creating a masterpiece but when a game really connects with you, you know it, you feel it. My list of favourite games I’d consider a masterpiece is quite incongruent – SSX 3, Tony Hawk’s Underground, Assassins Creed 2, Halo 4 to pick out a few of the rather different ones – but Outer Wilds has topped all of them, and I only spent around 12 hours with it. It strips gaming back to its essentials, while bringing new ideas to the table and presenting them in charming and arresting ways. You will never have another 12 hours like it. Its heart, soul and message are inimitable, and I sincerely urge you to open up to it and give it a try.

10/10

Played on Xbox - the game is available through Xbox Game Pass

@CoreLineage on twitter

#Outer Wilds #Outer #Wilds #Outerwilds #Space #Sci-fi #adventure #skyrim #morrowind #witcher 3 #games #gaming #review #game review #thinkpiece

2 notes · View notes

axemetaphor · 6 years ago

Text

OC Masterpost

I need an organized place to put info about all my OCs so that’s what this post is gonna be for!

In addition to basic bios and some reference images, I’ve also got links to Spotify playlists for every character, because music is a strong association with personality for me. (If you don’t use Spotify, or if you know of a streaming platform more easily accessible than Spotify, send me an anon and I’ll duplicate the playlists to that service then add a link here!) I also have moodboards for every OC.

This post will be rather long so I’ve put in under a readmore for the sake of convenience.

It’s also important to note that my OCs exist in an AU where some things are a little different. For example, Infinite in this AU is 17 and that’s definitely not because I assumed he was an edgy teen like Shadow, and after Robotnik’s defeat in Forces, the Resistance became the Restoration. All the troops who had been battling were reassigned to rebuilding whatever town they happened to be in at the time of victory, with extra troops being redistributed as needed (leading to the formation of small roving teams traveling from place to place to help out).

It’s a little bit of an unorganized info-dump at some points, but I’ll update it to be more organized at some point.

Updated 01/20/2019

Rhys the Serval

Spotify playlist | Moodboard

Rhys was designed by @creative-sanic and she also came up with most of his backstory!

Rhys is a gender-nonconforming cis gay dude. He was born to a ‘feral’ mother in the wilderness closest to Central City (between the City and Mystic Ruins, far enough away from civilization to be undetected for a majority of his early life). At age 7 or 8, a massive fire swept the forest, putting him and his mother in massive danger. Officials sent to contain the fire discovered that she and Rhys were living alone in the forest, and took the two into protective custody while working through the devastation caused by the fire. The city pressured Rhys’s mother to join civilization, but she adamantly refused, and as a consequence, Rhys was stolen from her and put up for adoption, leading to her having a violent breakdown. She was moved to a containment facility and hasn’t seen Rhys since; he has only the faintest memories of her. He was adopted at age 13 or 14 (having been shuffled around in foster care before then) by a family of bears, and went on to be a fairly average Mobian citizen, working as a waiter at Penne For Your Thoughts. That’s where he met Vitriol, who is now his boyfriend. After dating for a few months, they decided to move in together, with Vitriol moving into Rhys’s apartment, which was the larger of the two. Rhys is now roughly 19 years old (18 or 19).

Rhys and Vitriol have a steady relationship relatively devoid of problems. They love each other enough that no problem is too big for them to tackle, and when Vitriol became part of the Restoration (the collective effort to undo the damage done by Robotnik and the Resistance), Rhys moved with him all over the world, glad to have a reasonable excuse to travel. Neither wanted to attempt a longstanding long-distance relationship; their being separated briefly during the Resistance was frustrating enough for the two of them.

Rhys is unaware that he possesses Empathic abilities, and simply assumes he’s very good at figuring people out/being sympathetic, but in truth, the forest fire in his youth served as the catalyst for his abilities. Since his Empathy doesn’t require the same physical drain as, say, Vitriol’s Strength, Rhys mistakes his Chaos-Energy-related fatigue after using his powers to be emotional exhaustion. When he’s that tired is roughly the only time he can show unprovoked anger, but he’s also in-tune enough with himself to recognize when he’s being needlessly mean, and he’ll usually apologize right away. This happened most frequently during the events of the Resistance, where Rhys was tasked with helping to get survivors to safe places; he was very good at comforting those who may have lost friends/family in the attacks. From that, he’s begun to entertain the idea of becoming a therapist someday, though he’s not sure how he would afford the college degree for that.

He gets along very well with Unknown due to them both having rather upbeat personalities. Though Unknown can be a little overbearing sometimes, Rhys likes talking to them and sometimes they’ll gush about how cute Vitriol is.

As mentioned previously, Rhys doesn’t conform to typical gender norms; he’s a fashionista of sorts and doesn’t care what gender clothing is associated with. He thinks skirts are cute and feel nice, and he thinks makeup is a lot of fun, though he doesn’t do either every single day, just every now and then. For the most part, unless he’s feeling adventurous, he wears a hoodie and jeans, though his work outfit is a fancy suit. So, it’s often nice for him to just wear something low-effort. That being said, he always jumps at every opportunity to do his boyfriend’s makeup, and though Vitriol isn’t the biggest fan of it, he likes seeing Rhys smile, so he usually gives in.

Rhys often prompts Vitriol to keep up with his health, and the two go on camping trips whenever Rhys can convince Vitriol to go. He’s very good at camping; he can build a shelter easily, knows which plants are edible, etc.. Vitriol, by contrast, is pretty clueless, but Rhys is more than happy to teach him.

When speaking, Rhys normally has a somewhat-formal tone, and he uses little to no slang (usually just words like “gonna,” and he almost never drops the G’s at the end of words). He’s very polite by nature (and some of the formality was ingrained by his job), and he tends to not talk a lot. When he’s really comfortable around someone (like Vitriol), he can chatter a lot, but if he catches himself, he’ll get really embarrassed about it. He has a soft, lilting voice that many find pleasant to listen to and soothing. When he gets excited, or raises his voice, it gets slightly higher in pitch. He’s not an anxious person (as in, he doesn’t have an anxiety disorder) but he’s rather shy and awkward around new people. He’s more of a reserved person than an anxious one, and he is by no means meek; having been raised (post-adoption) by a family of bears taught him how to roughhouse and hold his own against bigger enemies.

For the most part, Rhys isn’t bothered by his past. His life in the forest is far enough away, mentally, that to him it doesn’t feel like it even happened to him. However, the fire was a traumatic event for him, and to this day he has a deep-seated fear of fire. It’s rare, but on occasion, he will have nightmares about that day, and he doesn’t handle that well when alone. Fortunately, Vitriol is fairly helpful to Rhys—his simply being there is very comforting, even though he never really knows what to say.

Toxic the Porcupine

Spotify playlist | Moodboard

Note: while this character started out as a sonicsona of sorts, they’ve somewhat evolved from that and I don’t see them quite so much as “me” anymore. They do, however, share my name (or rather the name I’m using currently, as I write this). To further complicate things they also look the way I do right now and I use them for vent art lmao so, if I happen to draw myself as a mobian ever again I’ll tag it as #not oc. That way it’s clear what’s Toxic the OC and what’s Toxic the...uh, human being I guess.

Toxic is an agender porcupine who hasn’t settled on their sexuality yet--they know they’re asexual, but they haven’t thought any further into their romantic orientation. They were born in a tiny unnamed village settled in the shadow of Scrap Brain Zone, and only recently did they leave after a majority of it was burnt to the ground...by them. They showed signs of being trans at a young age, and were subsequently bullied quite harshly by both their peers and their family. They came out to their family at age 17, which only deepened the rift already forming, and subsequently Toxic ran away for a week, spending that time in Scrap Brain Zone. That was their first overnight foray into the Zone, something that would eventually become a staple of their life.

At age 19, they discovered an abandoned prototype Wispon in Scrap Brain Zone (devoid of Wisps), which they then decided to retrofit with the flaming spouts from Scrap Brain Zone to make their own strange hybrid flamethrower. A few nights later, after a particularly awful verbal spat with their family, they decided to fake their own death by setting fire to their own room. However, things quickly got out of hand, and the whole town ended up in flames. They fled, unsure if anyone made it out alive that night...and a little less than sympathetic if they didn’t. (Fortunately, a majority of the little village’s populace wound up trickling into neighboring villages and towns)

Since then, they’ve been absolutely destroying almost everything in their path. With no direction and no impulse control, they are a complete loose cannon throwing a wrench in both Eggman’s plans and Sonic’s adventures. They live by a motto of recklessness and “I’m here for a good time, not a long time.” Being an un-powered Mobian, they can’t do much of anything with the Wispon taken away, but taking that Wispon away is much easier said than done. Shortly after their ‘debut’ as a villain-of-sorts, Eggman reached out to them with a message essentially reading, “hey, do you want a direction in which to burn everything down (that is preferably not my everything)?” Since joining forces with Robotnik, though, their chaos has become much more controlled, and now incidents of mass fires can usually be linked to Eggman sending them off somewhere. They are a persistent thorn in the Freedom Fighters’ sides as they just love to fight and don’t really care who they fight.

They will not, however, attack civilians directly. Their fires might pose a threat to cities, but they don’t outright attack people unprompted--their chaos isn’t fueled of malice but rather of recklessness and an extreme lack of forethought. If harassed, however, they aren’t above punching someone in the face, and civilians are warned to just stay the hell away from Toxic. Their behavior overall is best classed as “more of a danger to themselves than others, even when provoked.”

Toxic only owns one jacket and one pair of boots, as well as no other accessories save for the spiked bracelets and collar, since everything else was burnt. One item they are occasionally pictured with, but rarely wear, is a long ankh necklace, the origins of which they refuse to elaborate on. However, it’s clearly important to them… Prior to burning everything, they often wore ripped jeans, loose half-torn-up tank-tops with a variety of detailed patterns, and lots of bracelets. They despite feminine-coded clothing and would rather die than wear it. Overall, they’re fond of clothes that look like they’re being held together by safety pins and hope.

Their speaking pattern is completely all-over-the-place. Their accent is untraceable, they mix slang from a variety of regions, and mix pidgin street-slang with oddly formal sentence structure or complicated words. They alternate between dropped G’s at the end of words and dropped H’s at the beginning, but inconsistently; rather than being a sign that this accent is faked, it’s more a reflection of how scrambled they are on the inside. Toxic’s voice is prone to cracking, especially when they yell (which is very often), and it has a certain hoarse quality to it most of the time. It rests in a midrange between stereotypically “male” and “female” voices, and can be mistaken for a young boy or slightly-older girl interchangeably. This irritates them to no end—they’re no stranger to yelling in demand for their proper pronouns to be used.

Toxic has frequent nightmares, but never speaks of them. They often suffer from broken sleep, only getting a few hours at a time, and on occasion are struck with insomnia. During that time, they doodle or write, dealing with rather dark subjects, but never share this willingly. Oddly enough, they have a rather intense fear of fire (ironic given their Wispon) and of heights. Strangely they seem to use their fear as an adrenaline boost of sorts, embracing it to use as a motivation. (It’s somewhat similar to how Batman uses bats as his main motif, despite having been traumatized by an experience with bats in his childhood.)

They cannot be swayed to being “good,” because they truly believe they are an awful person who could never be good even if they tried. So, they just do what they want out of a very specific, Nihilistic worldview, and truth be told they’re simply a chaotic being who’s in way over their head. Despite being a villain, however, they are a big fan of Sonic and his friends, and they consider it a huge honor to be able to fight him. They’ve created an odd sort of parent-child bond between themselves and Robotnik, adopting him as their dad (he didn’t really get a say). Robotnik isn’t exactly doting but he does view them as his child in a sense, and often makes them new weapons to use alongside their Wispon (which they refuse to part with; he repairs it fro them as-needed).

Vex the Cat/Fox Cross

Spotify playlist | Moodboard

Vex is a bigender aroace genetic experiment who most closely resembles a fusion of a fox and a cat. (Any pronouns are applicable to them, but I use she/her most, because I have a lot of “he” and “they” OCs already) She has lived roughly 17 years, the first 14 of which were spent in the facility that created them. Partway through what would have been the 15th year, a catastrophe occurred at the facility, giving Vex, Vitriol and Unknown a window to escape. During this process, Vex and Unknown became separated from Vitriol, escaping the facility and winding up on their own. They traveled in a world absolutely foreign to them for months, eventually, through a strange turn of events, joining a thieves’ guild in an attempt to forge new identities. They had great success as a thieving duo up until the unfortunate disappearance of Unknown, after which Vex abandoned the guild to search for them. Instead of Unknown, however, Vex ended up reconnecting with Vitriol in Central City, after which the two worked together to find Unknown, eventually finding their sibling in the Resistance. Since finding each other, the three have not been separated, and now form Team Motley.

Vex is generally regarded as the smartest of the trio, having a sharp wit and capacity both to plan ahead and think on their feet. Her Manipulation ability makes negotiations and covert ops very easy for them, with its one flaw being that it doesn’t work on others with similar abilities, such as Empathy. All three experiments possess low natural levels of Chaos Energy, below what is healthy, and their bodies cannot contain it well, so their abilities rely on the Energy around them, both in the environment and other people. Mobians often report “a strange sort of tiredness” after being Manipulated by Vex, as her power functions by draining a bit of Chaos Energy from the target and matching its wavelength.

Due to her affinity for making others do as she says, Vex is the leader of Team Motley, and, despite being the ‘middle child,’ the other two often go to her for advice. She is the organizational backbone to the team, a natural leader with a kind heart hidden behind a few layers of selfishness. Vex values family and friends above all else, and has a keen sense of right and wrong, even if she doesn’t always do what she knows to be right.

Vex is aware of her Manipulation ability, and does her best to curb its effects when she isn’t intending to use it, but given that it’s activated by her voice, sometimes she can’t control it very well. In addition to that, Vex is more than a little greedy; coming from a background where she didn’t even own her own life, Vex fell in love with her life in the thieves’ guild, mainly for the riches they earned and the thrill of the escape.

She’s a fan of loud, gaudy jewelry, luxurious metals, and other frivolous high-class things, though she doesn’t wear them in public. During their time in the thieves’ guild, Unknown and Vex lived in a network of caves, where many of the things they stole during their heyday are still hidden. While she misses those days, she doesn’t regret leaving them behind, and rather considers it an... option for future employment, once the Restoration is all said and done.

Despite her love of jewelry, Vex prefers not to wear clothes at all. They’ll wear their binder or a sports bra, and that’s about all; if necessary, they’ll wear baggy army-pattern pants or a baggy jacket. They don’t like the feeling of most fabrics on their fur, and don’t care a lot about fashion, but they tend towards more masculine clothing, often for its less-skin-tight properties. They also don’t mind skirts, but only wear them casually, as sometimes the extra fabric can get caught on things or be uncomfortable for them to sit on.

All three experiments tend towards more formal speech, but of the three, Vex has been trained out of that habit the most. She’s a real smooth-talker who adapts her speech patterns to mirror those of the person she’s talking to. When speaking casually, Vex is fairly neutral and doesn’t have any specific quirks to their speech pattern. When she’s comfortable around someone, she speaks in a rather husky voice, but not a very deep or gruff sound. It’s more of what would be described as “butch,” because their voice is closer to the stereotypically “feminine” sound than the stereotypically “masculine” sound.

Vex’s main phobia is having their mouth covered by something—anything from someone’s hands to fabric to a muzzle. This is because when her Manipulation was discovered by the scientists who created her, they immediately recognized it as a threat and she was kept muzzled for extended periods of time. The muzzle had supposedly been ‘humanely designed,’ but if at any point she frustrated her keepers, they were no strangers to shutting or covering the air-intake of it until she cooperated. Of the three, Vex has dealt with her trauma the least, and her sleeping pattern is just as broken as if not more broken than Toxic’s, and she tends to grind her teeth when she sleeps as well. She doesn’t speak of it much, but she and Vitriol have really bonded the most over their shared trauma. He is, essentially, the only person remaining who knows what they went through.

Because they’re aroace, they have little concept of how flirting works other than when they’re using their Manipulation ability (which isn’t really calculated, more an instinctive knowledge that saying or doing certain things will achieve the effect they want). In other words, they’re extremely oblivious. The only thing they really care about is family, and they will do anything to protect them--when fighting they have no qualms about “fighting dirty” and will use anything to their advantage. Unusually, Vex has the ability to climb along walls quite easily using their claws, practically like a lizard. This combined with their night vision makes them quite formidable to fight in the dark.

Vitriol the Ferret/Porcupine Cross

Spotify playlist | Moodboard

Vitriol is a gay cis guy who most closely resembles a fusion of a porcupine and a ferret. He has lived roughly 18 years, the first 15 of which spent in the facility that created him. During the calamity leading to his escape, Vitriol separated from Unknown and Vex in order to give them a chance to get out, taking on the officials sent to stop them. He ended up leaving via a different route, resulting in him coming into this world in a completely different place from Vex and Unknown. Vitriol spent the next half-year wandering across Spagonia’s countryside, often stopping to spend a night or two on a farm in exchange for helping its owners, who never questioned why a mysteriously-strong stranger would be wandering the wilderness. Many took him to be some kind of nature spirit, and treated him kindly; he realized through this little pilgrimage that he quite liked helping people out, though he never stayed more than a week in one place. Searching for his siblings was his main priority.

Eventually Vitriol came across a little town, the port of which was a dock for ferries to and from Central City (primarily used by high-end citygoers for transportation to their summer homes). He was told that Central City was a place many people lived and an even larger number of people visited; Vitriol resolved that, if Vex and Unknown were to wind up anywhere, it was likely a place like that--a place people are expected to wind up at. Not understanding the concept of having to pay for things, Vitriol snuck aboard, and managed to go undetected for the entirety of the trip by packing himself nicely into a tiny corner belowdecks. The night before the trip was to end, he snuck off the boat and swam to shore in Central City. Immediately enraptured by the city’s many brilliant lights, Vitriol decided to stay there and do his best to keep an eye out for his siblings.

He spent his first two weeks sleeping on the streets and wandering through the city, until one evening, allured by the glowing neon signs on the inside, he found himself inside a rather lively nightclub/bar. One thing led to another and Vitriol ended up breaking up a fight, catching the attention of the bar’s owner (who was, at the time, half of the staff, as well). Vitriol was offered the job of security officer, no questions asked, and, having begun to come to terms with the fact that money wasn’t just something that one town invented, Vitriol accepted. For the beginning of his ‘career’ he still lived on the streets, but eventually he saved up enough for a tiny postage-stamp of an apartment. It’s only enough space for him to just exist, but that was plenty of space for him. Over time he earned enough money to live comfortably—comfortably enough to get gauges and a septum piercing, both of which helped him in his line of work immensely (as most of his ‘security’ work was simply to look scary enough to keep people from misbehaving).

Vitriol worked there for roughly the same amount of time that Vex and Unknown “worked” as thieves, and it was during this time that he met and started dating Rhys, moving in with him after roughly three months together. He only reunited with Vex upon happening to run into her when wandering the town one weekend night. The next day he quit his job and left to travel with her, searching for their last remaining sibling. Now that the three are reunited, Vitriol serves as the muscle of the team, doing all the heavy lifting and door-kicking necessary. While he vastly prefers sitting on the couch and watching TV with plentiful snacks nearby (preferably cookies), he’s not the type to shirk responsibilities. He’s just looking forward to going back to relaxing in Central City with Rhys when the Restoration is over (and, though he won’t admit it, he does miss when his only job was looking mean).

Vitriol doesn’t have a lot in his wardrobe. His usual staples are a crop top and leather pants, though he also wears skinny jeans and ripped t-shirts. Sometimes he wears pants without a shirt, and, overall, he doesn’t care a lot about fashion. He just picks up what he thinks is cool, which is usually a t-shirt or crop top with a few words on it (his favorites are “BORN FOR HELL” and “LIFE RUINER”). From there, he’ll often tear off the sleeves of the t-shirt, or cut holes and slits into the body of it. The only thing he always wears are the red fingerless gloves with lightweight chains dangling off the backs.

He tends to mumble the most when he speaks, unless he’s angry or using his “Work Voice.” His “work voice” is the particular loud, gruff tone he takes that he picked up from his job; an intimidating deeper and more snarling version of his voice, often accompanied by a very stern or frightfully blank expression. This is made more intimidating by the fact that all 3 of the genetic experiment characters have a habit of needing to initiate conversation through eye contact, much in the same way that a small child might gently rest their hand on the arm of an adult whose attention they want, albeit much more unsettling. So often if one of the three wants to speak to someone, they’ll stare very intently at the person’s face until acknowledged (Vex has adapted the most of the three and therefore only does it to the other two and Rhys). When not using his “work voice,” Vitriol has a rough undertone to his voice, not necessarily a snarl so much as a growl. His voice is naturally deep, and lends itself well to singing his favorite music—rock music.

Vitriol often suffers night terrors and nightmares* linked to his trauma. When living alone, after waking from a nightmare, Vitriol would pace his apartment or wander around Central City to cool off, but after moving in with Rhys, he’s processing his trauma a bit more as opposed to just avoiding it. He hasn’t told Rhys much, just that he came from “a horrible place, where [he] was trapped,” and Rhys doesn’t pry; oftentimes it’s enough to just be reminded that he’s free for Vitriol to calm back down.

Despite his prickly exterior (both literally and figuratively), Vitriol is much more cuddly than Rhys is. Perhaps it’s from being touch-starved in the facility for so long or perhaps it’s just part of his nature, but either way, Vitriol is no stranger to snuggling up against Rhys (most often) or his siblings (slightly less often as Vex is somewhat touch-averse). Rhys isn’t exactly annoyed by this, and often finds it endearing, but on occasion Vitriol has been known to act like a housecat--flopping down right in Rhys’s way to get his attention. He’s also a bit of a jokester, but only around Rhys and his family.

His deepest fear is of being helpless. He doesn’t tend to show much external emotion besides smiling at Rhys or his siblings, or glaring if he’s annoyed by something, but if he’s being dragged along the floor—especially if he’s being dragged by his underarms, as was his keepers’ favorite way of moving him from place to place—he will absolutely lose his mind in a panic. He also panics if cornered, lashing out with uncontrolled strength to get away, which usually doesn’t end well for his captors.

*Nightmares are your standard bad dreams that occur during REM sleep. Usually when waking from a nightmare, the person remembers what they were dreaming about. Often someone suffering from a nightmare will toss and turn, and maybe sleep-talk. Night terrors, however, are somewhere between dreaming and being awake; someone suffering a night terror might yell, thrash, kick or scream, or sit upright in bed with eyes wide open. They cannot, however, see or be woken from the night terror, and will flop back down anywhere from ten minutes to a half-hour after initial panic. They can often be confusing to the person suffering them, and only a vague recollection of what was going on remains when the person wakes up.

Unknown the Raccoon/Hedgehog Cross

Spotify playlist | Moodboard

Unknown is an agender bisexual polyamorous genetic experiment most resembling a fusion of a hedgehog and a raccoon. They have lived roughly 16 years, only four of which have been spent outside. When Vex and Unknown ended up on their own, Unknown took on a role of the silent intimidator between the two. Vex’s Manipulation came in handy most times, but when necessary, Unknown could provide some intimidation.

Unknown was a vastly different person then from who they are now. They were far more focused, and taught themself parkour, as well as having put themself through rigorous training to maintain a good physical health. They rarely spoke, and refused to give themself a new name, unlike Vex and Vitriol. They weren’t interested in the riches, though they did suffer from a bit of a hoarding impulse, enjoying the feeling of owning something. They didn’t care for jewels or finer things, unlike Vex; they were more participating for the adrenaline rush. At that point in time, they fully understood the brevity of their power, and it was imperative for them to keep a calm demeanor at all times; they were far less animated than they are now.

Then, about a year and a half after they’d escaped, Unknown abruptly went missing. A heist went sideways, the two became separated, and suddenly Vex couldn’t find them. A few months after that, Robotnik began taking over the world, and shortly after that, Unknown awoke in a dumpster somewhere in Park Avenue, with no memory of any life prior to that. They gathered all the information about themself from this police flyer:

From there, Unknown wandered the city amidst the chaos, confused and curious. Through that, they met Sonic when they helped him fight off a few robots. Impressed with their skills, he asked them to join the Resistance, which they cluelessly agreed to, definitely not because a cute boy was offering it to them. Unknown ended up being quite helpful to the Resistance, despite presumably having no Chaos Powers. They got along well with virtually everyone save for Omega and Vector, as they have a slight fear of people taller than them.

After being reunited with Vex and Vitriol, Unknown has stayed relatively close to them; the three are inseparable, traveling in a group for the Restoration. Shortly after the final battle, as the Resistance members were celebrating for the night, Unknown stumbled across Infinite while walking home. Unsure whether to turn him in or not, they decided to take him home and let him heal from his wounds first, then figure out who to turn him in to. In the end, after two weeks of Infinite recuperating (during which he revealed his name to be Zero), Unknown decided instead to keep Infinite in their home, unsure what would happen to him otherwise. For a short while, they didn’t tell anyone else, but once they told Vex and Vitriol, they were urged to tell the Resistance as well. It wasn’t taken well at first, but eventually the issue was settled—Unknown would take care of and reform Infinite, because having him close by and watched over is better than having him roam around unsupervised. Despite that, Unknown doesn’t treat Infinite like a child or prisoner but rather a friend. Currently, Infinite resides in the home Unknown was occupying during the Resistance, which was rather close to the site of the final battle.

Unknown’s usual ‘work clothes’ are a leather bodysuit of sorts with buckles similar to an airplane seatbelt’s buckles (and a hole for their tail) and combat boots as well as padded gloves that help absorb shocks), but in the past, they would wear a large cloak. It’s not clear where this went during their disappearance. In their free time, they prefer to wear clothes with deep v-necks to let their neck/chest fluff breathe, and they often wear ripped clothing like Vitriol. Unknown’s thick fur makes them more prone to overheating, but despite that, they enjoy running as a hobby and a way to stay fit. They often wear fitness clothes (a tank top and gym shorts) when they’re in an urban area, though if in the wilderness, they’ll just wear running shoes.

Typically, their voice has a bright and happy tone to it, all the time, and they’re very good at faking it when they’re actually not okay. Vex and Vitriol can usually pick up on when they’re lying, but most others can’t, something Unknown is actually very happy about. When it comes to negative feelings, Unknown is very secretive, but with positive feelings, they love to share—and overshare. (The only exception to their secrecy is anger; an angry Unknown is frightfully quiet and cold, and painfully obvious.) Oftentimes they don’t realize they’re oversharing, but Vex (or Sonic, if present) is more than willing to quickly interrupt and divert the conversation. Unknown tends to use overly-familiar language with just about everyone, especially words like “buddy” or “pal.” It’s unclear if they’ve picked this up from Sonic.

They often suffer from night terrors, similar to Vitriol, but they claim it has no effect on them, as they don’t remember the trauma giving them nightmares. In the beginning, this was the truth; however, they refuse to open up to anyone, even their siblings, about what’s going on in their head. They’re well aware that they’re the most positive of the trio, and part of them doesn’t want to ruin that idea. Another thing they never tell anyone is that they often suffer from sleep paralysis*, wherein they often see strange things from their past, but existing still in the present. They don’t really know how to verbalize the experience to anyone else.

Unknown doesn’t have many fears, but they are downright petrified of needles and electricity—not in the sense where they’re scared of electronics, but they’re more frightened of visible electricity, like a fizzing outlet, lightning, or the Electric Wispons.

That being said, they do have a few insecurities, namely their sharp teeth. They’ve accidentally frightened people with them in the past, so when they first meet people nowadays, they try to smile with their mouth closed only. The anxiety dissipates eventually, as they’re more concerned about first impressions.

*Sleep paralysis is an event where a person is mentally ‘there’ but unable to move or speak at all. It occurs when they are falling asleep or just waking up, and episodes usually last less than a few minutes, but can occur multiple times, not just once. It’s thought to be linked to a dysfunction in REM sleep, and is caused by sleep deprivation, psychological stress, or a poor sleep schedule.

Extra stuff:

Files from the experimentation: Basic knowledge on Vex, Vitriol and Unknown, as they would’ve been presented to their guards.

Scrap Brain Zone (writing from Toxic’s perspective)

Unknown meets Infinite (Comic) Part 1 | Part 2

Experiment origins (Flipnote) [old] (Flashing light warning)

Unknown waking up (writing from Unknown’s perspective) [old]

OC Voiceclaims (video)

Chaos Vision (superemeralds’ idea) doodles | Click bold text to see his post on his blog.

Chips Ahoy (goofy non-canon animatic that im just really happy with)

Test animation for Toxic (Flicker warning)

Pride (doodles of 4/5 OCs for pride [toxic didn’t exist yet])

Moebius AU (Drawings with short description) | Moebius!Unknown video (Flash warning)

First Punch (Animated comic feat. @creative-sanic ‘s Aurora) | Still version

Rough concept writing - Toxic’s powers [will be removed when I decide on their abilities and how they get them in canon] (Writing)

Character Turn-Arounds (Comic/Animation ref) (Includes colour hex keys!)

41 notes · View notes

lucy-in-the-house · 6 years ago

Text

☆~Oc info sheet~☆

So I decided to get off my lazy @ss and post this :b

^^^sketch of my oc(tails and ears not included)doing one of her favorite passtimes, free-run parkour in search of a wall to graffiti^^^

☆*Full name*☆

Lucy Jeanette Eileen Giroud

☆*Nicknames*☆

"The fox"

☆*Sign*☆

Scorpio

☆*Birthday*☆

16/11

☆*Age*☆

17 (physically)

☆*Status*☆

Alive

☆*Race*☆

Half human/half demon

☆*Ethnicity*☆

French-American-British

☆*Gender*☆

Pineapple. Just kidding, Female

☆*Height*☆

1m62

☆*Weight*☆

50kg

☆*Blood type*☆

HH, also known as 'Bombay Blood'

☆*Eye color*☆

Hazel

☆*Hair color*☆

Orange/Red

☆*Occupation*☆

2nd year highschool student, or in France: Terminale student. And the personal bodyguard of the heir to a worldwide criminal organization.

☆*Relatives*☆

-Eliott Giroud (older brother).

-Lisana Teatly (Lily for short, childhood friend).

-Thomas Carlson (childhood friend)

☆*Hobbies*☆

Drawing, 'performing arts' (dancing, singing, theatre,...), playing video games, watching anime and listening to Kpop.

☆*Favorite food*☆

Chocolate and any soft, and not sour, candy.

☆*Favorite drink*☆

Powerade

Bubble tea

Iron bru (for the meme)

☆*For dem shipzzzz*☆

I like to ship her with Laito :3

/(0^0)/

☆*Quotes*☆

"Crazy is such an ugly word. I prefer... mentally unstable."

"I ain't no fox!"

"You vamps are literally oversized mosquitos"

"*Irish accent* you wanna go mate? You wanna fight? I'll bash ye 'ead in! I swear on meh mom I'll destroy ya!"

"Well imma just skiddadle the heck outta here"

"Hon Hon Hon I am very française!"

"GO GET DESTROYED!"

"*T pose* I'm the meme Lord and punmaster. Fear my powerrrrr..."

"If you're feeling suicidal you came to the right place! Cuz I'm gonna f*****g kill myself as well"

"BTS are true Gods. No need for Jesus when I got these sunshines."

☆*Clothes*☆

She will usually wear a red or purple hoodie with black shorts (sometimes jeans) with pink thigh highs and white shoes. She always has three hairclips to hold up the right part of her fringe. She has a pair of red glasses but doesn't wear them often because she forgets. She is very pale (mostly because of her unbalanced health) and is a bit chubby, she's a bit too busty for her age (but seriously doesn't give a damn).

☆*Personality*☆

She's a really laid back and bubbly girl, who has a bad case of swearing, and talking about morbid subjects with problem. She a good person, though she might be psycopathic. However, she's absolutely horrible at socializing, as a child she never had the chance to, so she has difficulty opening up to others, or speaking to people she isn't familiar with. Apart from that, she can get very sassy and sarcastic with a pinch of salt. She gets easily triggered like say sh&t about her fam and she'll diss yo @ss. She's also a 'daredevil', and will never say no to a challenge. She a kind soul with a pinch of spicyness and MEMES.

And although she's a weirdo, she a good and respectful student.

And I almost forgot, she a Kpop fan and an otaku (not a weaboo) so her social life is n o n e x i s t a n t.

☆*History*☆

(Note: her history is long, but if you read it all you'll get a cookie🍰🍩🍰🍪🍪🍪🍪)

Lucy was born in an average family. She grew up in france, though she was born in america. Her life at home was pretty normal, though she didn't get along very well with her father or siblings, but Lucy was pretty close to her mother who was like a best friend to her. At school however, she was constantly bullied, both mentally and physically. The reasons were one because she was the only child with red hair in her school (and they thought she had some contamination), and because she didn't fit in any social groups.

She grew up thinking she was a freak of nature and a disgrace, cursed to be alone, that love was something she'd ever experience and learned that the only way to be left alone was by being creepy and/or violent.

However, she managed to make friends with two people, and she made her mind to protect them no matter what. The bullying went on for 10 years. Her parents tried taking her to therapists, doctors, psycologist, but not one could fix her broken mind. So the only option they had left was to send her away to her Uncle and Cousin, after that day, she never saw her biological family again. (Except for her brother)

Her cousin Caitlin (who is now dead) was like an older sister, and was nice to her. She soon found out that her family came down from generations of monster hunters, her uncle was one, and so was her cousin, her cousin taught her how to fight, and the weakness of practically every monster that she could remember. But her cousin's intentions behind educating her on this topic was to find herself a replacement, to kill a demon she had summoned a few years back. Caitlin had sacrificed her soul to a demon to obtain the weapon needed, which she gave to Lucy.

After her cousin dissapeared, she went back to her hometown and reunited with her friends. She spent the next year hunting the demon her cousin was aiming for, but little did she know that the demon was also looking for her. When they finally encountered, it was a hard battle. Lucy won, but barely alive, having a big scar going across her torso. But before the demon died, it infuses its soul into Lucy's body, giving Lucy it's powers and cursing her with immortality. After that fight, she went back to her friends. They traveled down to the South of France and settled there, trying to live 'normal' lives... Until one day, she received orders from [...] to live with the sakamakis.

☆*Relationships*☆

-Eliott: they almost never interact, although they are family. They only speak when it comes to business or important matters.

-Lily: they are very close, Lily is one of the only two people who know Lucy inside out. Lucy has sworn to protect Lily even if it would cost her life. They love to hangout together and cry over fandoms.

-Thomas: same as Lily, except he's like a mom, always taking care of Lucy, even when she says she doesn't need help, they both share a love for kpop and anime. Lucy's emotional bond with Thomas is stronger than anyone else she's close to, even Lily.

☆*Abilities*☆

As Lucy is half demon, she gained most of the abilities of the demon who infused itself into her, who was a shadow demon:

-increased strength and hearing

-teleportation

-she can sorta float

-the shadow realm: by jumping into a shadow (a person's shadow, object's shadow, any shadow at all) she can enter an dimension called "the shadow realm", a place only shadow demon may access

-a little thing I like to call Katherine: Katherine was the 'name' of the demon Lucy fought with, this ability activities when she deadly mad or under too much stress or pressure that she just snaps and goes psycho. She has strange black tentacles (like a kagune from Tokyo ghoul). She will attack anything around her. Only Thomas and Lily can control her under this form.

Lucy has been fighting since as long as she can remember, so she is very skilled in the domaine.

Although she might not have all the abilities of the demon, she's still more powerful than a demon, as the fact she has emotions (which demons don't) has a great impact on her powers.

Lucy can't die from age ot sickness. But she candie from bloodloss and getting wounded, as she heals only slightly faster than a human.

☆*other info*☆

1-Lucy was the second eldest of her biological family.

2-she enherited half of her father's company (the other half her older brother) and her family's mansion.

3-she an absolute virgin :/ *le sad music*

4-She's left handed, therefore her capacity at cutting meat is non-exigent (true story, left handed people struggle more at cutting meat, and I'm talking out of experience because I am left handed)

5-she speaks fluent English and French (Those were the two languages she spoke throughout her childhood), she also learned German, Japanese and is trying to learn Korean. She's also fluent in Shakespearean and in both English and Australian slang.

6-in the south of France, she goes to a highly reputed international campus.

7-lucy doesn't like physical contact whatsoever, except for Thomas and Lily, and she can just about tolerate Laito but She gets really flushed and embarrassed. She gets uncomfortable when people touch her hair, shoulders, lower back and thighs, if someone does touch her there she'll flinch and try to pry them off.

8-she only wears clothes that fully cover her body because she's a very self aware person and she's covered in scars because of her sh&tty childhood.

#oc #diabolik lover oc #diabolik lovers #diabolik lovers meme #oc x canon #oc rp #memes are my life #memes are great #memes are how i cope #memes are cool #memes are good #powerade is my life support #fite me

12 notes · View notes