#do i wanna be his friend??? maybe. then again his source material is so complicated that i cant really put a label on anything since it's | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

frankiefellinlove · 3 years ago

Text

THE STEVIE FILES PROUDLY PRESENTS - THE AMAZING ROCK & ROLL ODYSSEY OF STEVEN VAN ZANDT

From The Source to Soulfire via Springsteen and Sam & Dave

Recorded, transcribed, edited, written, produced, mixed and mastered by MIKE SAUNDERS

SIDE TWO (1975-1983)

Track 6: Miami Steve, The Asbury Jukes, Tenth Avenue and Hammersmith

In early 1975, Steven returned to New Jersey from Florida, inappropriately dressed for the winter weather. “I came back with the flowered shirts and the Sam Snead hat and continued wearing them in the snow.” For the next seven years, he was known as Miami Steve. He joined Southside in the Blackberry Booze Band and within weeks they’d altered and expanded its line-up (adding keyboard player Kevin Kavanaugh from Middletown and bass player Alan Berger from The Dovells’ backing band), transformed its musical direction, changed its name to Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes (referencing their mutual hero Little Walter’s band and first single release) and established a successful three-nights-a-week, five-sets-a-night residency at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park.

“Just before that, me, Southside, Bruce and Garry went to see Sam & Dave. A life-changing moment. So me and Southside basically decided we were gonna be the white Sam & Dave, with rock guitar. So the horns came in and although we didn’t know it, we would change the entire concept of what a bar band sounded like and the respect a bar band would get by making it creative, soul meets rock. ‘Bar band’ was an insult. ‘You’re a bar band,’ which means you can’t make it in the real music world. After the Jukes, they started using ‘bar band’ in reviews and they meant it as a compliment, with Graham Parker and Elvis Costello and Mink DeVille. We changed the way people thought about these things.”

The Miami Horns were a vital component of the new band. Steven composed the horn arrangements, but although he’s always possessed a natural ability to imagine horn parts, he doesn’t read or write music (“never have”) and has always required a little help from his friends to transcribe them. “I have people write ‘em down, to this day. I like that actually. You have to do a lotta things yourself so any excuse I find to collaborate I do it. I find other people will bring something to the party usually. That’s why [I’ve] used Eddie Manion for I don’t know how many years. He knows how I like to voice things. Once I think of something and create the parts, I get bored if I have to voice every part, exactly right. If I hear a voicing I don’t like, I will change it, but I get bored by the mechanics of everything.”

While the Jukes were building their reputation and growing their audience, Bruce invited Steven to hang out at the Born To Run sessions in New York, where he was working on “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out.” David Sanborn and The Brecker Brothers had been hired to play the horn parts, but Steven created a spontaneous new arrangement. He’s told this anecdote countless times, but I ask him to repeat it because it provides perfect examples of his innate musical talents in action (“I can hear the parts, who knows why?”), the nature of his friendship with Bruce (“I still am the only human being not afraid of him”), and his no-bullshit attitude (“I didn’t know anything about diplomacy”).

“So he says, ‘Whaddya think?’ I said, ‘It sucks, that’s what I think!’ I didn’t know how uptight everybody was. I didn’t give a fuck either. The managers and producers were all afraid of him already. He asked me a question, I’m gonna be honest. I’m trying to help my friend here, not make points with some fucking record company guy. Moment of silence. ‘He just said it sucks, which means we all suck.’ Bruce [says] ‘Alright then, go in and fucking fix it.’ So I did. I went in and sang the [new] parts. I didn’t know they were the most famous [session] guys in New York. It wasn’t insulting them, the chart was ridiculous. That was my thing, just from the Jukes being around maybe six months.”

“I wasn’t really feeling the pressure that Bruce was at the time. I didn’t realise his life depended on this album. His first two records hadn’t done very well. They wanted to drop him. I don’t know how aware I was of any of that. He invited me into the session and I’m laying on the floor. All I can think is, we’ve been hoping to get into recording our whole lives, I’m listening to this and it sounds fucking terrible. Not just the horn charts, everything. It was the worst period of recording in history. Virtually every record from the 50s and 60s sounded great, virtually every record from the early 70s sounded terrible. Because engineers took over, started close miking, padding the walls. Separation, separation, separation, all the things that make rock ‘n’ roll suck. The idea was, you isolate everything and make it sound exciting in the mix. Which they managed to do, miraculously, with the Born To Run album. Because it was pieced together in a bizarre way. Bruce made that record 100% out of willpower, he willed that into existence!”

Soon after making his instinctive artistic contribution (and singing backing vocals on “Thunder Road”), Steven was invited to join the E Street Band. It was a chance to complete the circle, play with his old friend again and settle any unfinished business from three summers earlier, when he’d been sent packing at the Greetings sessions. He made his live debut on the opening night of the Born To Run tour, which ran until New Year’s Eve. His input and influence over the next decade, onstage and off, would prove invaluable. (Bruce even began playing The Dovells’ “You Can’t Sit Down” as an occasional encore). In the fall, the tour took everyone to Europe for the first time, where the culture shock was off the charts. “There was no hamburgers, no peanut butter. The only place you could get a hamburger in the whole of Europe was the newly-opened first Hard Rock Café. There was a line around the block even then.”

Culinary deficiencies aside, Bruce also had to endure the overblown hype surrounding his first UK gigs at London’s Hammersmith Odeon, where Columbia had displayed the legend “Finally London Is Ready For Bruce Springsteen” on every available surface prior to his arrival. “[It was] completely obnoxious,” says Steven. “[Bruce] spent half the time ripping down posters. It was an embarrassing time for him, between that and Time and Newsweek. He didn’t like that stuff. You wanna be in charge of your life, that’s why we get into rock ‘n’ roll. Suddenly it was slipping out of his control. We made the mistake of playing a place with seats. It just made the show that much harder. But by the end, we got ‘em outta the seats. We went to Amsterdam, Stockholm, and back to London. The second one was a bit easier.” The experience had a prolonged effect on Bruce. “He was uptight in those days and would remain so through Darkness into The River, until he asked me to produce the record and we found a way to have some fun.”

Track 7: Epic Records, Steve Popovich and The Stone Pony

Back on the shore, Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes continued the Stone Pony residency throughout 1975, gradually consolidating their line-up. For the next three years, between Springsteen commitments, Steven worked as their producer, arranger, manager, part-time guitarist and principal songwriter. In early 1976, after circulating a demo tape, they signed a recording deal with Epic, with assistance from Steve Popovich, the label’s Vice-President of A&R. “I Don’t Want To Go Home,” the song that Steven had kept in his back pocket since his days on the oldies circuit, became the title track of their debut album and their first single. Ben E King’s loss was Southside’s gain.

“I produced [the song] in a way which was appropriate for the Jukes. They didn’t have a big background vocal thing going on,” explains Steven. “I was very conscious of being able to try and do most of it live, although I put strings on it, on my very first production! There was no synthesiser in those days that could play strings. That’s why I re-cut it [on Soulfire] the original way I pictured it, with the singer and background vocals answering. That idea of writing for someone else is extremely important, critical and essential. It changes the way you write completely, from when you think of writing for yourself, which is extraordinarily complicated and confusing. It’s not easy, but easier, to write for someone else. There’s their identity in your mind at least. I’m writing them a song. That’s a wonderful exercise for songwriters.” I Don’t Want To Go Home was released in the summer of 1976 (“I’ve never received one penny of royalties, but whatever!”). The Jukes later began their first national tour and made their European debut in 1977.

Recommended by Bruce, Steve Popovich was one of a kind. “The last of the real music guys in the business. The only other person I can compare him to would be Lance Freed on the publishing side, who’s unique. He’s actually into music and songwriting and the things you’re supposed to be into when you have a job description like that. And Frank Barsalona, the only agent who really did his job and would set the standard for everybody to follow. Those three guys, really quite historic. [It was] Popovich’s idea to launch the record with a broadcast from the Stone Pony. Never been done before. Popovich loved the local scene idea and he largely made it happen. It never would have been recognised nationally, I don’t think, if it hadn’t been for Popovich, who had the vision to say it’s cool if you’re not from New York. Rather than being embarrassed if you’re not from New York, LA or Nashville, it’s actually cool.”

Track 8: Production Credits and Political Awakening

Steven developed his talents as a producer and songwriter with the Jukes in the late 70s, following I Don’t Want To Go Home with This Time It’s For Real and Hearts Of Stone. Successive releases featured greater quantities of his original material, which included “I Played The Fool,” “This Time Baby’s Gone For Good,” “Take It Inside” and “Some Things Just Don’t Change,” apparently written for another of his heroes, David Ruffin of The Temptations. During this period, he also produced the “Say Goodbye To Hollywood” single for Ronnie Spector and the E Street Band and provided production assistance on Darkness On The Edge Of Town. His relationship with the Jukes ended when they left Epic for Mercury in 1979 and he went on to co-produce The River and two comeback albums for Gary US Bonds, Dedication and On The Line. It was an impressive fast-track apprenticeship. Steven had no production experience when he began. He acquired the skills and learned from his mistakes in the studio. “That’s why all three Jukes albums are different,” he says. “By the time we did The River, I knew what I wanted to do. I got it all down by then. That’s how I tend to do things. I can picture what I want. Jump in, do it, let’s see what happens.”

Steven also kept his promise to himself to bring his musical heroes out of obscurity, initially as guests on the first two Jukes albums. “I did what I could, but I wanted to do so much more,” he admits. “First time I get in a studio, got Lee Dorsey out from under a car, where he’s a mechanic. Got Ronnie Spector out of retirement. Second album, we reunited The Coasters, Drifters and Five Satins. Me and Bruce worked with Gary Bonds. We got Ben E King and Chuck Jackson on that record. Those artists had a talent level noticeably above everybody that followed. I wish I’d been insistent on doing more of them. In those [early] days, you actually had to have talent to make records. You had to be able to sing a song, beginning to end, perfectly in tune, perfectly the right melody, and if you fuck up one word, you gotta do the whole thing again. Couldn’t do enough for those people, they were so much fun to produce.”

In addition to his studio accomplishments, Steven played more than 300 shows with Bruce and the E Street Band between 1976 and 1981, primarily on the Darkness On The Edge Of Town and River tours. The majority took place in North America, but the River tour included a European leg that took the band away from home and out of their comfort zone for nine weeks. Much longer than their previous visit in 1975, it was their first significant experience of foreign countries, languages, cultures and political perspectives. They received rave reviews wherever they played, but Steven gradually became aware that not all Europeans viewed the United States in a favourable light.

One particular encounter was pivotal in dramatically reshaping Steven’s worldview. “A kid asked me, ‘Why are you putting missiles in my country?’ I said, ‘I’m not, I’m a guitar player.’ I realised, for the first time in my life, at the age of 30 I’m embarrassed to say, that I’m an American. What the fuck does that mean? I managed to grow up in the middle of civil rights, the Vietnam War, demonstrations about every fucking thing and had no interest in any of it. Amazing when you think about it. Redefining tunnel vision. Suddenly, the tunnel is gone. We’re now successful. Who would have ever figured that would happen, right? Now it’s like, uh-oh, what did I miss, the last 20 years?”

Track 9: Men Without Women, Motown and Mixing In Mono

This revelation accelerated Steven’s growing political awareness, one of two important developments in 1981 that would change the course of his life forever. The second came when he returned from Europe and was approached by EMI America about making a solo album. Having spent six years producing and writing for others, he welcomed the opportunity to have his own creative outlet, which soon expanded into a separate career. In the fall, he enlisted musicians from the E Street Band and the Asbury Jukes to record most of the material for his debut album, Men Without Women, using his established rock-meets-soul sonic blueprint. Including “Lyin’ In A Bed Of Fire,” “Princess Of Little Italy,” “Angel Eyes” and “Until The Good Is Gone,” it remains an undisputed career highlight for Van Zandt devotees, but Steven feels that an outside producer might have helped him make a more commercial record.

“Conventional wisdom is you never should produce yourself and I have to say that’s correct. The only exception I can think of in the history of the business was Prince, who was an extraordinary genius, but other than him, I don’t know anybody who successfully produces themselves.” Describing himself as “extremely schizophrenic, I’m twelve different people, never mind two,” Steven explains how his inner producer failed to control the whims of his inner artist. “Without knowing it, the artist takes over. I was into this extreme naturalism, no logical reason why. I did the whole album live in one day. Came back the second day, did it again, beginning to end. Couple overdubs, that was it. There’s one guitar. The horns aren’t doubled. Nothing’s doubled. Bruce did all the harmony on that record but we couldn’t use his name. We [did] a similar thing with Born In The USA, where we just recorded live in the studio.”

“I made Bob Clearmountain mix ‘Forever’ in mono, to try and achieve the perfect Motown record. It’s never gonna be exact and it shouldn’t be exact, why should it be, but I wanted to capture a Smokey Robinson Motown record. The only way I could do that in my mind was to make it completely mono. He was so good in those days. I mean Bob’s still the best, but in those days he was beyond the best. He was something else when it came down to that Neve board that wasn’t automated, and he’s feelin’ those faders. I made him do something he’d never done before, which requires a whole different way of thinking. You’re now thinking depth-wise and vertically, not horizontally.”

“That’s where my head was at. Can I achieve the emotional communication that my heroes had provided me? My heroes being Motown in general, 10 acts there. Or my heroes at Chess, another 10 acts. Sam Phillips did ‘Rocket 88’ for Ike Turner (Jackie Brenston) and ‘How Many More Years’ for Howlin’ Wolf, three years before Elvis Presley. Unbelievable genius. [I’m] trying to achieve that level of quality in my own world, in my own little bubble, which has these ridiculously high standards. I’m absorbing the 50s and 60s and then trying to integrate them in my head and reproduce them in my own way, not the least bit interested in what’s going on in the 70s or 80s certainly, because it was shit to me, comparatively. An interesting moment here and there. Punk was certainly interesting. But mostly it’s all coming from what I call the renaissance period, ‘51 to ‘71, where it all was created. And that’s true to this day. That’s all I was interested in and that was enough for 10 lifetimes. I didn’t need another bit of input after 1972.”

Track 10: Little Steven, Little Richard and Bob Dylan

In 1982, after recording with Bruce and Gary US Bonds, Steven completed his album, formed the Disciples of Soul (which included Dino Danelli from The Rascals on drums, Jean Beauvoir on bass and Eddie Manion, Mark Pender, Stan Harrison and La Bamba on horns) and played a debut concert at New York’s Peppermint Lounge. Released in October, a month after Nebraska, Men Without Women preceded his first national tour and was credited to his new professional name of Little Steven, which would be used for all future solo activities. “I just wanted separation [from] being the sideman,” he explains. “Each of my personalities required a different name, in order to keep it straight in people’s heads and my own head.” The name referenced his early heroes Little Walter, Little Anthony and Little Richard. In his role as an ordained minister, the latter officiated at Steven’s wedding to Maureen Santoro in New York on New Year’s Eve. Percy Sledge sang “When A Man Loves A Woman” as they walked down the aisle and the reception included performances from Gary US Bonds, Little Milton, The Chambers Brothers and the wedding band from The Godfather. “Little Anthony was doing a cruise at the time or he would have been there.”

“All I can think is, we’ve been hoping to get into recording our whole lives, I’m listening to this and it sounds fucking terrible. Not just the horn charts, everything. It was the worst period of recording in history. Virtually every record from the 50s and 60s sounded great, virtually every record from the early 70s sounded terrible. Because engineers took over, started close miking, padding the walls. Separation, separation, separation, all the things that make rock ‘n’ roll suck. The idea was, you isolate everything and make it sound exciting in the mix. Which they managed to do, miraculously, with the Born To Run album. Because it was pieced together in a bizarre way. Bruce made that record 100% out of willpower, he willed that into existence!”

Steven toured internationally in 1983, then dropped the horns, adopted a more contemporary rock sound and made his second album, Voice Of America. It was an explicitly political record that featured “Solidarity,” “I Am A Patriot,” “Out Of The Darkness,” “Los Desaparecidos” and “Undefeated.” Triggered by his River tour experiences in Europe, this radical transformation was completed with a long period of self-education. “I read every book about post World War Two [US] foreign policy. [It was] shocking how often we were on the wrong side. All of these bad things were happening behind the scenes and nobody was talking about them. No political consciousness whatsoever in the country. I decided I have an obligation to say something about this stuff that we’re all paying for with our taxes.”

“Being conscious of the fact that everybody needs their own identity, I figured who the hell needs another love song from a fucking sideman? I’ll be the political guy. Nobody else is doing it. There were people demonstrating of course. Jackson Browne, John Hall, Bonnie Raitt, Graham Nash, those guys. The Grateful Dead were doing a benefit every week, but rarely did it end up in the work. In general, people weren’t putting much politics into the lyrics of their songs.” For artists with commercial aspirations, he concedes, that’s a smart move. “Jefferson Airplane being an exception with ‘Volunteers.’ Big exception, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, with Neil Young’s ‘Ohio.’”

Steven contends that Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” introduced the idea of political consciousness in rock ‘n’ roll. “His first electric song. It’s not given enough credit. The first sentence from Bob Dylan’s electric period, ‘Johnny’s in the basement mixing up the medicine, I’m on the pavement thinking about the government.’ What? You’re doing what? You’re thinking about the government? Excuse me? Who does that? Whoever did that before, in a song, no less? There in that one sentence, Bob Dylan communicated what his entire career was gonna be about, which was having fun with language, with inference, symbolism, metaphor and nonsense lyrics that rhymed. ‘Johnny’s in the basement mixing up the medicine,’ what does that mean? It means whatever you want it to mean, right? Then ‘I’m on the pavement thinking about the government.’ Holy shit! You mean we’re supposed to figure out the government? That, to me, is the most important sentence in all the history of rock ‘n’ roll, right there.”

All photos below by Mike Saunders

7 notes · View notes

kuriboo · 4 years ago

Text

Hugsaku 2021

Day 5 - Awkward Hugs | Dueling But The Final Blow Is A Hug

I’ve been writing a continuous story with prompts for Yusaku. This part is getting close to the end of the story. If you’d like to read the whole thing, you can read my previous posts or read the whole thing on ao3; I’ll link the ao3 in the notes. The general story is this: Yusaku finds himself in Heartland with no memory of how he got there, and Yuma decides to help Yusaku figure out how to get home.

As you can guess by the prompts I used, there’s a duel in this one. Probably most of this is actually the duel, and the duel made this pretty long compared to the other days I wrote. I probably actually spent two or three weeks working on just this part because of the duel. I’ve held onto 40 different screenshots to plan out this duel, I had to watch a specific episode of Zexal twice and track down part of an episode of Vrains that I rewatched a bunch of times. I also had to rewrite this duel probably around twice because I used the wrong cards and misread card effects. All the work paid off, though. The duel should all be correct now, and this was one of my favorite parts to write.

⁂

The four of them were doing research together in a park when another one appeared.

It was Tori who had taken the books out from the library. Given she was the biggest reader out of herself, Bronk, and Yuma, she was the only one with a library card. She brought the books to the park and the three of them, alongside Yusaku, read through them.

All the books looked like they discussed the idea that other worlds existed out there somewhere. Their hope was that they discussed how to get to those worlds so they could find a clue.

To help Astral remember his past. To help Yusaku get home.

A lot of books on the subject weren’t really intended for a younger audience. Yusaku seemed to be having an easier time reading through his book than everyone else was. Everyone else other than maybe Yuma, who was cheating and having Astral read his book for him. It wasn’t that Yusaku was overly interested in the subject, Astral was definitely more interested than he was. But Yusaku had read through lengthier, more complicated material to learn the knowledge he needed to see his revenge through. He was used to this.

The book was deep in an explanation of the possibility of other dimensions and what they could be like when they all heard the commotion.

That’s when they chased after its source, and that’s when they found another Number.

Yuma took the Number on, of course. His opponent didn’t take long to summon the Number. Rank 2, 100 Attack. This Number didn’t seem that threatening on the surface, but Yusaku knew better. XYZ Monsters were always more than just their stats. That’s what they had Overlay Units for, and this Number still had all of its own.

Yuma summoned Utopia on his next turn. Immediately after, he entered the battle phase. His victory seemed assured in his eyes, but Yusaku wasn’t so sure about that.

Neither were Yuma’s friends. Bronk, Tori, and Astral each yelled out their own warnings, but Yuma ignored them all. He declared an attack with Utopia against the other Number and…

The monster was destroyed, the other duelist’s life points dropped to 0, and the duel was over.

Yusaku blinked. Surely that Number had an effect. An effect that probably could’ve saved it, he guessed. Why didn’t the other duelist activate it? Why did they let themself lose?

Bronk confronted Yuma about his reckless play, but Yuma didn’t want to hear it. Apparently, as long as he won, he didn’t care about the possibility that his plan went horribly wrong. Yusaku sucked in a deep breath. He was definitely on Bronk’s side on this one, but he also still had to live with Yuma. Joining the argument would just make life more annoying.

Eventually, Yuma and Bronk’s yelling reached a boiling point. The two of them turned around and left in opposite directions, leaving Tori and Yusaku by themselves.

“I don’t know how he doesn’t understand how dangerous that move was,” Yusaku muttered.

“Yuma never thinks things through like that. I mean, he focuses more on the victory he sees in front of him than the possible obstacles in the way. It helps boost his confidence; if he worried about the roadblocks too much, he’d give up every time. Plus, if that Number used an effect, Yuma could’ve saved himself with Utopia’s ability to negate the attack. Anyway, it doesn’t matter anymore. The duel’s over. We can’t let their friendship end like this,” Tori fretted. “Bronk and Yuma have been best friends for a long time. I don’t know if we can get them to see eye to eye on this, but we have to do something…”

‘We’. Right. Yusaku wasn’t one to care about friendship and friends, but after everything Tori, Yuma, and Bronk had been doing to try to help him, he owed them. Besides, Yuma wasn’t like Yusaku. Yuma deserved to have good friends. But what could Yusaku do about it? It wasn’t like he had much experience with this kind of thing.

What would Kolter do if Yusaku was stubborn like this? The two of them had a different kind of relationship than Bronk and Yuma, but…

“You try to talk to Bronk. I’ll try to talk to Yuma. If their friendship should be stronger than this one argument, we’ll try to remind them of that. You know Yuma better than I do, so maybe you can get Bronk to see where Yuma’s coming from.” Yusaku had a feeling that would go better than him trying to convince Yuma to see Bronk’s point of view. “Maybe we can get them to talk after they’ve cooled down a bit.”

If it didn’t work out, though, then it didn’t work out. If they were determined to be mad at each other, Yusaku didn’t know if he could stop them.

“Yeah…” Tori nodded. “I know they can work it out if we can get them to talk. Thanks, Yusaku.”

Yusaku shrugged. He didn’t feel like he was really doing much.

Tori ran after Bronk, while Yusaku headed back to Yuma’s house. Yuma had gone off in that direction, and Yusaku didn’t know where else he might go. If Yuma wasn't home, though, he’d have to go home eventually. Yusaku would be able to talk to him either way.

Luckily for him, though, Yuma was already at his home. As soon as Yusaku walked through the door, Yuma pulled Yusaku into his room to rant to him.

“Who cares if my attack in that duel didn’t work? It did, and that’s all that matters!” Yuma was still really worked up about this. “I know Bronk’s better at dueling me, but that doesn’t mean he has to put down my successes as much as my failures! I’m trying to get better, and he knows it because he’s been trying to help me. Doing a pretty lousy job of it right now, though.”

“Maybe you both have different dueling strategies,” Yusaku suggested. He was having trouble figuring out what to say, but he thought back to Tori’s words. “Sometimes it’s better to declare a reckless attack than to never do anything because you’re afraid of what could happen.” Yusaku knew from experience that that line of thinking would definitely lose you the duel.

“Exactly! I have to attack if I want my opponent to lose life points! If you were in my situation, what would you have done?”

“I would’ve been thinking about what that Number’s special ability could be. I would’ve felt safer with Utopia than most other monsters in that situation, since Utopia can negate the attack if it looks like it’s going to go back. But it’s always possible the opponent had an effect that would’ve prevented Utopia from using its effect, so I would’ve been cautious. I definitely would’ve wanted a Spell or Trap card backing me up. There’s a possibility I could’ve declared an attack, but I’m not sure.”

“It’s not as black and white as Bronk made it seem, anyway. He doesn’t need to be so high and mighty about it!”

“I don’t think it’s that,” Yusaku said. Not fully, anyway, he didn’t know Bronk that well. But Bronk knew Yuma better than Yusaku did, which meant Bronk probably had stronger feelings about this than Yusaku. At the very least, Yusaku had Kolter’s reactions to help him out on this, whenever Yusaku’s grades slipped or he skipped a class or he skipped meals for Playmaker business. He’d already had this discussion with Kolter multiple times. Yusaku’s relationship with Kolter was still different from Yuma’s relationship with Bronk, though. “I won’t say I know how he’s thinking without any doubts, but…he’s pointing it out because he cares about you. He was worried about you. Not because he thinks you’ll give up if you lose, but these duels involving Numbers are different from duels against your friends. You want to get all the Numbers to help Astral, and Bronk wants you to succeed because he cares about you so… He wanted you to win, and he was afraid you might not. He’s afraid that this could happen again and not work out for you. Or, uh, something like that, I think.”

“He’s not just trying to be mean?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t think friends are like that.”

Yuma sighed. “I was feeling the flow in that duel. Felt like I could do anything and it couldn’t go wrong. All I could think about was how I was gonna win. When I feel like that, sometimes it feels bad when everyone around me’s not supporting me.”

“You don’t always think ahead as much as other people tend to do. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. It can be good to be in the moment and to enjoy the moment while you’re in it.” At the very least, Yusaku did miss that.

“I don’t wanna lose Bronk, but I don’t know what to do…”

“Talk to him. Communication is important in any kind of relationship working out. Figure out where you’re going from here. He probably doesn’t want to lose you, either.”

Yuma agreed to it, and later Bronk agreed to it, and they met up again after school. Tori went with them, while Yusaku met the group there.

However, it didn’t go well. The meeting turned into more fighting and arguing, and Bronk pushed Yusaku away from him. When he did so, he accidentally disconnected the key hanging around Yuma’s neck from its rope. The key went flying, landing near Yusaku. Yusaku bent down and picked the key up, not sure what else to do in this situation.

Astral was present for this meeting, floating silently next to Yuma. Since the most recent duel against the Number, he’d kept to himself and stayed fairly quiet. But now he was staring at the ground next to him, no longer absorbed in his thoughts. “Yuma, what is that?”

Yuma looked down as well and yelped when he saw it. Black slime was creating a puddle around Yuma, oozing around his shoes. Yusaku looked around the slime for its source; it appeared to be dripping out of Yuma’s deck. That was strange, considering Yuma did not coat his cards in black slime. Everyone else noticed this at the same time as Yuma before focusing their attention back to the slime on the ground. Now it was flowing towards Astral. Astral screamed in pain as it began to envelope him.

“Astral!!” Yuma reached a hand towards Astral, but didn’t make contact.

“Number 96… It is trying to take control of me!” Astral’s body started to turn dark as more of the slime reached him. He opened his eyes and looked towards Yuma. “Yuma… give Yusaku… card…”

Yuma blinked. “What card? Why?”

“Just do it!”

Yuma reached into his deck and pulled out a couple of cards. Briefly, he looked at them as if deciding which one to pick. Then he tossed them to Yusaku, who caught them easily.

Yusaku glanced over the cards Yuma had just given him. One of them he recognized as Utopia. Another he recognized as.... the card he’d found when he first arrived in Heartland…

Were these the cards Astral wanted Yuma to give him? Why did Astral want Yusaku to have these?

Then Yusaku heard laughter, and he looked up from his cards. Astral had been completely overtaken by whatever that darkness was; even his eye that was normally all white was now all black. His lower body turned into long tentacles that curled around Yuma’s arms and torso. Yuma was lifted in the air.

Yums screamed. “Who are you? Let me go! Let Astral go!!!”

“I am the strongest Number of them all. When you dropped your key, you allowed me to escape.” Not-Astral was smiling coldly. The strongest Number? Astral had mentioned a Number when this started happening. Was this Number 96? “Now onto step two: acquiring Number 39, Utopia!” He glared at Yusaku. Yusaku took a step back. 96 already knew Yusaku had Utopia, then? “You will give him back to me.”

96 stretched his arm forward towards Yusaku, intending to grab the card out of his hand. Yusaku held the cards close to him to make them harder to grasp. 96’s hand came closer but something stopped it before his hand could get close enough. As if an invisible wall was protecting Yusaku. Yuma’s key, still in Yusaku’s other hand, glinted in the light. Did the key protect him?

This all started when the key was separated from Yuma… Was that how 96 had been able to gain control of Astral?

“No matter.” 96 pulled his arm back until it was at its normal length. “If I can’t get it back by force, then I’ll get it back with a duel. All this is is delayed satisfaction.”

Yusaku snorted. Bold of this Number to assume Yusaku would lose. “I’ll take you on to free Astral and Yuma.” Yusaku only dueled when he had to, so luckily for 96, his hand had already been forced. He glanced over at Bronk and Tori. “Stay out of this. I’ll get them back.”

Thankfully Yusaku was able to keep cool under the pressure. Link Vrains had given him experience dealing with people who seemed menacing and talked a big game. Tori and Bronk weren’t so lucky. They were both clearly worried and panicked. The two of them nodded and moved to be more on the sidelines. Their eyes barely left Yuma, still trapped in the air.

“Excellent.” Number 96 lowered Yuma to the ground. Yuma then proceeded to put on his duel gazer and draw his starting hand. “Oh, and by the way… Yuma will be dueling for me. Not his mind, but his body, so be careful..”

Yuma stared at Yusaku. Yuma was definitely scared, Yusaku could tell, but he knew Yuma wouldn’t lose his determination, either. “Can you duel?” Yuma asked. “You don’t even have a duel gazer…”

“I can duel without it.” Yusaku drew his starting hand as well, after sliding his cards from Yuma into his extra deck. It wasn’t like he could use his Link Monsters, anyway. “I have my deck, and that’s all I need.”

It’s all he ever needed. All the other students at his school had fancier duel disks and everything, but this duel disk that Yusaku had had for years still worked fine. The rest of his apartment had older tech anyway, from his phone to his kitchen appliances. It fit the aesthetic, as if that mattered.

“I’ll go first,” Yusaku announced before looking down at his hand. When he did, he could feel his stomach drop.

Maybe he should’ve asked to borrow Bronk’s deck, or something like that. For just a moment, he’d managed to forget the way his deck was built. It wasn’t just that he couldn’t use Link Monsters. A lot of his cards worked well with Link Monsters, many of them even having effects that required him to have one on his field. He wouldn’t be able to use some of his cards at all. He could win like this, right?

“What’s wrong? Ready to give up already?” Number 96 taunted.

Yusaku shook himself out of it. He could still win. Of course he could win. He couldn’t lose. Especially not now. “Because I have no monsters on my field, I can special summon Linkslayer from my hand.” He normally could start to pull combos in his first turn, but these conditions made it more difficult. “I place two cards face-down and end my turn.”

“A weak start.” Number 96 chuckled. “My turn now.” Yuma drew a card, grimacing. “First, I will place two cards face-down. Next, I am summoning Acorno. I can summon this card by sending one card in my hand to the graveyard. And, you see, since the card I sent to the grave is Pinecono, it sprouts back up right on the field. Next I summon forth Darklon. And now, since Darklon was summoned, all my monsters increase their level by 1. But, I am not done yet. Next, I am overlaying these 3 level 2s to XYZ summon a copy of myself. Number 96: Dark Mist!”

A Number card already? 96 didn’t like to waste time.

“Wait, how is that thing Dark Mist?” Tori asked. “It’s completely different from before.”

Yusaku didn’t notice any difference, but that was because he couldn’t see Dark Mist at all without the Augmented Reality system. That seemed to be working in his favor right now: Bronk, Tori, and Yuma seemed far more intimidated than him by the newly summoned monster.

“That is because this is Dark Mist’s true appearance. And now, Dark Mist, attack Linkslayer!”

Yusaku frowned. Dark Mist only had 100 Attack, but 96 was still declaring battle. 96 must have something up his sleeve; Yusaku knew there was more to Dark Mist than first appeared.

“I activate Dark Mist’s special ability. By using 1 overlay unit, Dark Mist can steal half of your monster’s Attack points in order to power itself up.”

“So as long as Dark Mist has overlay units, it’ll always be stronger than any of my monsters.” Yusaku grit his teeth. This wasn’t good.

“You catch on quickly!” 96 grinned back at Yusaku. “Now, let him have it.”

Dark Mist started to unleash its attack on Linkslayer, but luckily Yusaku was prepared for an attack, even if he wasn’t sure how. “I activate my trap: Three Strikes Barrier. Linkslayer isn’t destroyed.”

“But you still take the damage! Now, I end my turn,” 96 finished.

Yusaku drew his next card. “Since Linkslayer’s Attack is different from its original Attack, I play Cyberse Cache and draw 2 cards.” Perfect. “Now I activate Linkslayer’s special ability. By sending two cards to the graveyard, I destroy your two face-downs.” Destroying the cards themselves wasn’t too important to Yusaku’s plan, but it was a bonus. “I summon ROM Cloudia. ROM Cloudia allows me to add Latency to my hand from my graveyard. And since Latency was added to my hand from my graveyard, I can summon it right away.” Latency went to the field on defense.

Yusaku stared at the cards on his field. Dark Mist should have 1100 attack right now. Linkslayer couldn’t beat that, but ROM Cloudia was a different story. “Now, ROM Cloudia attacks Dark Mist.”

“I use another overlay unit to use Dark Mist’s attack again!” 96 smirked at Yusaku.

“So you can use that effect during my turn as well,” Yusaku mused.

96 laughed. “Perhaps now you see. For every move you make, I can make one better.”

At least Yusaku knew for sure now. “From my hand, I activate Security Block. Neither of us take damage, and ROM Cloudia isn’t destroyed.”

Dark Mist should now be up to 2000 Attack. This wasn’t looking good, but Yusaku could work with that. “I place one card face-down and end my turn.”

“Stay tough, you hear me?” Yuma called out to Yusaku.

Yusaku nodded. He had a plan in mind by now, since he was sure how Dark Mist’s ability worked. He wasn’t coming out of this duel with anything but a win.

Now it was 96’s turn. He looked over the card he drew, and smiled. “Let’s have a do-over. Black Mist, attack ROM Cloudia. Black Mist’s ability activates once again!”

That brought Black Mist up to 2450, if Yusaku’s math was correct. Yusaku frowned. Why was Number 96 so fixated on ROM Cloudia? He couldn’t save ROM Cloudia this time, but he’d already…

96 laughed. “It’s pointless to keep fighting.” He turned to Yuma. “Do you have any insights into what he’s planning?”

“I wouldn’t tell you even if I knew, but I’ve never seen Yusaku duel.” Yuma shrugged. “I’ve never seen his cards, either. It’s all as new to me as it is to you. I’m on the edge of my seat, I can’t wait to see how Yusaku pulls off a victory!”

“He won’t. Not like this,” 96 muttered.

Yusaku looked over his cards. He could make this work. Everything was coming together. “I summon Draconnet. And using its ability, I can summon Dotscaper from my deck.”

“I hope you’re planning something with all these monsters,” Bronk commented.

“I always have a plan.” Normally, it’d be a Link Summon, but this time Yusaku had something different up his sleeve. “I overlay level 1 Latency and Dotscaper.” Yusaku held both his hands out, palms forward, and crossed them over each other. The number 13 appeared, glowing, on his right palm. “Appear, Rank 1, Number 13: Embodiment of Crime!”

As the Embodiment of Crime took the field, Yusaku felt the same feeling he did when he first picked up this card when he arrived in Heartland. Revenge. An overwhelming desire to lash out, get revenge against the people that hurt Yusaku and the people he cared about. It threatened to consume him, just as before. But this time he could direct it. Number 96 had hurt Yuma, taken him hostage, and like this Yusaku could clearly see how much he cared about Yuma. He could direct it at 96 and still do exactly what he intended to do before he had been given any Numbers.

Yusaku had been fueled by his revenge before, and now once more he would direct it to achieve his goals. He still felt that strong desire, but it stopped trying to overtake him as he committed himself.

Number 96’s eyes widened. “That’s not Rank 4… That’s not… Utopia… What is this?”

“You thought I was trying to summon Utopia?” Yusaku rolled his eyes. Did he look like Yuma, always trying to win his duels with Utopia? “If it was convenient, maybe. But I’m not done. Embodiment of Chaos uses one overlay unit to change all your monsters to Attack mode.”

“Black Mist is already in Attack mode,” 96 pointed out. “I’m starting to wonder if you should have placed your hopes in someone else, Yuma. Someone whose deck you were familiar with and you knew could win, perhaps?”

“I know Yusaku can win. I don’t need to know his deck to know that.”

“And I’m still not finished. Since Dotscaper was the overlay unit I used, its ability activates, allowing me to Special Summon it,” Yusaku went on. “Next, I play Cynet Defrag. I Special Summon Protron from my graveyard. Once again, I overlay both my level 1 monsters to XYZ Summon Number 31: Embodiment of Punishment!”

This time, during Yusaku’s XYZ Summon, the number 31 glowed on his left palm.

“Another Rank 1 monster with only a seemingly worthless ability to help you,” Number 96 mused. “If you want to win, your next move better be good.”

“I end my turn,” Yusaku said.

“You pulled off two XYZ Summons and you aren’t even gonna attack?” Yuma puffed his cheeks.

“Why would he? Check you math, Yuma, Embodiments of Crime and Punishment both have only 500 Attack,” Tori pointed out.

“Why summon monsters with almost no Attack??”

As confused as Yuma was, Yusaku wasn’t going to explain anything. Not until Number 96 entered the Battle Phase, anyway. 96 was cautious about the new Number, but Yuma wasn’t about to let him get away without battling.

“I use one overlay unit to activate Embodiment of Punishment’s effect. Dark Mist is forced to attack Embodiment of Punishment. As long as Embodiment of Crime is on the field, Embodiment of Punishment isn’t destroyed as long as it still has one overlay unit, and you take the damage I would take!”

“I do not like this,” 96 said. Even if Black Mist had an overlay unit left, it would only make the situation worse for him.

“Well, you’re going to positively hate what’s coming next. Do you feel it, Yusaku? I sure do!” Yuma yelled.

Black Mist had 2,450 Attack. Embodiment of Punishment had 500, leaving 96 to take 1,950 points of damage, and all the monsters on Yusaku’s field had enough Attack to take out the rest of 96’s Life Points.

96 scowled. “I suppose I have no choice but to end my turn.”

From there, the duel was practically over. All he needed was Cyberse Wizard’s effect, and his monsters took care of the rest.

And as they attacked, he ran forward. He ran towards Yuma. Once he was within reach, Yusaku threw his arms around Yuma. After a moment, Yuma hugged him back. And while they stood there and hugged, Yusaku tied the key’s rope together around Yuma’s neck, allowing him to wear the key just like he had before.

The hug had started out awkward. Yusaku couldn’t remember the last time he gave a hug, he only ever remembered receiving them, and the way he’d wrapped his arms around Yuma definitely didn’t seem how it felt whenever Yuma had hugged him. Not to mention the difference in their heights. But Yuma did hug him back. And hugged him back. He didn’t let Yusaku go for what seemed like a long time. From behind him, Yusaku could hear Tori and Bronk running towards them as well. Resigning himself to his fate, Yusaku braced himself for a group hug.

Once the key was securely around Yuma’s neck once more, Astral reappeared beside them. He reabsorbed Number 96, and obtained Black Mist once more.

“Only friends so close fight so much...” Astral mused to himself.

Only seconds later, Yusaku could feel himself being hugged by three people at once, and he was starting to regret some of his decisions.

Bronk and Yuma immediately started apologizing to each other for everything.

“I’m so glad everyone’s getting along again,” Tori sighed. “Of course, we have Yusaku to thank for that!”

“Yeah, that was awesome! I know you said you could duel, but you did so many cool moves, and you totally had a plan the whole time that you made work no matter what, and you saved me and Astral, and I wish I could watch you duel again!”

“Not interested.”

#hugsaku #hugsaku2021 #yugioh vrains #yugioh zexal #tater writes #i said in the first part that this whole thing takes plac before episode 20 of zexal right #well here is where that becomes important

9 notes · View notes

all-you-need-is-paul-mccartney · 5 years ago

Text

The Couple Next Door VII(Roger Taylor x Female!Reader)

Find Part Six Here

A/N: So, I kinda split this chapter into 2 parts bc it was so long. I’ll post the second one as soon as I post this one. I was also kinda upset bc I posted something this morning and there’s like… 2 notes on it (Thank you, fellow bloggers <3), so I’m trying to keep my mind off that.

But yes, you guys have been waiting for another chapter since February, so I’ve come to save the day (and your Quarantines)

Summary: John asks Roger for a favour.

(Read Roger as canonical, or Hardy!Roger, whatever brightens your day)

WARNINGS: Mentions of oral sex, implications of sex, swearing probably, and maybe some errors bc I don’t wanna edit this

I’m putting the fic at a T, bc nothing really happens, but I advise to read at your own risk if you’re under 18

(Also, been waiting FOREVER to use this gif)

Roger hadn't fully crossed the threshold of the door to the control room at the studio when both Brian and John, both there way before him and Freddie, turned to him and called him over.

"Roger, do you know any sitters? Veronica and I are planning on going up and visiting her parents this weekend and we can't take Bobby with us."

The look on John's face was clearly upsetting. He loved his son with all his heart, especially since Bobby was his first kid. It also probably didn't help that he was only a month or so old.

Roger wondered if there was ever going to be a day where he'd feel sad having to look for a nanny for a kid of his own.

"Just ask Brian to watch him. Surely Bobby would find entertainment in ripping all that hair from his scalp."

"Ha-ha. Very funny, Roger," Brian called back to him, arms and legs crossed as he spun around in his chair to face Roger head on.

"Chrissie and I are sharing our one year and I wanted to take her out this weekend." Roger shrugged. "Try Fred, then. He and Mary won't have a problem sitting for you, surely."

"Already asked, my Love," Freddie responded for John as he walked into the room, tossing a (fabulous, may I add) jean jacket down on the sofa pushed up against the back wall.

"Mary's visiting her father then, and I couldn't possibly care for a child on my own."

"You have like... fifteen cats, and you can't take care of a baby for a night or two?"

Fred just shrugged at Roger's question before taking a seat next to John. "Roger, do you think maybe you and Y/n could take him?"

Roger's face twisted in confusion.

"Wait wait wait... us? Why us?!"

"Roger," John sounded desperate. "We will pay you guys! You can stay at our house! Everything you'll need will be there!"

"John, I don't know..."

"Roger," Brian interrupted. The three other heads in the room turned to the curly-haired guitarist as he rose to his feet and crossed his arms over his chest.

"You can use this chance to prove yourself to Y/n."

"Prove myself? What are you talking about?!"

"Don't tell us you've forgotten about that whole family issue you've been having," Freddie tisked playfully.

"This is your chance to show her you're father material," Brian explained, slapping Roger on the back.

"Look, I get you all love Y/n, and you think it's funny if I make a fool out of myself,"

"It is pretty entertaining," John defended with a smile on his face, to which Roger glared back.

"But," Roger continued as Brian's hand fell back to his side. "The situation is between me and her. Not you guys."

"... But have you even spoken to her about it?" John asked quietly, to which Roger sighed. "It's just... It's complicated," Roger combed his hair back with his fingers.

"We're just trying to help, Rog. We all know you're dying to marry this girl."

"Shut up, Fred," Roger mumbled through his teeth.

"I'm just saying, marrying her would be a real problem-fixer with the whole... condo situation."

"They're not even dating," John reminded.

"Pssh. Yeah. And I'm not a Hysterical Queen," Freddie finished, kicking his legs up on the console, being mindful not to hit any buttons with the soles of his shoes.

"Besides, I can't think of one person I know who fucks their best friend and doesn't end up dating them in the end."

It was Freddie, John, and Brian who pushed Roger to even begin that arrangement with you.

He'd set the both of you up, all along!

Roger opened his mouth to give Freddie a piece of his mind, and Brian's hand was already gripping onto the drummer's shoulder to hold him back from literally throwing himself at the other, entertained, quarter of the band.

"Hey guys," all four of them turned quickly to the source of the sound, and it turned out to be you, peeking out from behind the doorway, and revealing five paper cups of tea. "Woke up and figured I'd be nice today."

"Aw, could you hear your ears ringing, my Love? We were just talking about you," Freddie drawled happily. Roger glared at him as he spoke while Brian and John watched the situation unfold.

"Me? What for?" You began pulling each paper cup from its place in the tray, and handing them out to each band member one-by-one as John cleared his throat to explain.

"Well, you see, Veronica wants to visit her parents this weekend, and we can't bring the baby with us. On top of that, we can't find a sitter."

"Well, why didn't you ask Roger? We'd be happy to take care of Bobby!"

"Is that so?" Freddie sarcastically asked, taking a sip of his tea before setting it down and dramatically throwing his hands behind his head. He leaned back into a relaxed state, giving Roger an amused look.

"Well we tried asking your Honey over here, and he said you two wouldn't be okay with it." Fred, Roger thought, is really asking for it.

"First of all, very funny," you smiled as you began counting on your fingers, clearly unaware of the depressing look on Roger's face when you dismissed Freddie's label for the drummer.

"Secondly, I love Bobby, why wouldn't we be okay with sitting for him?"

You glanced back at Roger before facing John again. "And thirdly, even if Roger doesn't wanna come, I will."

John's eyes widened as a smile broke out onto his face. "So is that a yes? You'll do it?"

"Of course, Deaky!"

"Perfect! You can stay at our house and everything so we don't have to send the crib or anything with you! You're a lifesaver, Y/n!"

"Anything for you and 'Ronica, Johnny."

"Well," Freddie clapped his hands once before kicking his legs off the console table and onto the floor. "Are we all good to practice now?"

"We should be," John confirmed as he downed some of his tea before standing up from his chair and stretching.

You turned back to Roger, taking a sip of your tea."I gotta go to work, Roggie. I'll see you tonight, 'round dinner, yeah?"

"Sure," he nodded as the room around the both of you bustled with the other three members of Queen preparing to enter the recording room. You nodded, and you turned to leave the room.

Roger watched you disappear behind the door, and Freddie called him to help record.

Despite this, Roger set his cup of tea down on the coffee table next to him, and actually took off out the door after you.

He assumed you'd be taking the lift, and knowing there were some issues with its mechanics, he knew for sure he could beat the lift to the bottom floor just before you could leave if he took the stairs.

Sure enough, when the doors to the lift opened on the ground floor, Roger was waiting for you on the other side.

It startled you, and before you could chastise him for scaring you, he stepped into the lift.

"Quick talk before you leave," he mumbled hurriedly as he shut the lift's doors.

"What?" You frowned in confusion.

"Look," he sighed. He tried to ignore how quiet it was in the lift, but it was hard to do that when he was the only one talking.

"That whole thing... with John and his son... I panicked."

God, he could hear himself thinking.

"I don't know anything about kids, let alone babies. I didn't wanna take responsibility for something I don't know how to care for."

"And I do," you responded, offering a warm smile to Roger before taking another drink of your tea.

"Love, you've nothing to worry about. I cared for my cousin in high school when he was just a baby. I've no issue in showing you the ropes."

"I thought you were iffy with kids, like I am."

"I'm just “iffy” with the idea of becoming a mother, and having children of my own," you corrected, nudging him in the arm when your comment didn't gauge a reaction from him.

You just figured the neighbours and their expectations of the both of you were on his mind.

"Hey, it's not like any of our neighbours are gonna see us with Bobby. We'll be at John's the whole time, right? Out of sight, out of mind."

"Yeah, I guess." Roger shrugged.

"Don't think this will change anything. We're doing this for a friend, not to appease the old people surrounding our condo."

Roger didn't say anything, his eyes cast to the floor. Of course this was bothering him, and although you thought it was for all the wrong reasons, he never admitted to you why he was actually uneasy about the whole thing.

"Roger," you sighed, rubbing circles on his back with your free hand. "We'll be okay."

You held out your pinky from your paper cup as a promise. "... Trust?"

Roger looked at your innocent eyes and hopeful smile, and that boy caved in so fast he hadn't realized he solidified the promise until after speaking. "Trust, Y/n," he breathed gently.

You unlinked your pinky from Roger's, and you caught him frown.

"Better not be moody when you get off work," you warned playfully to him, opening the lift's door.

"And why is that?" Roger lightly challenged back, trying a smile, and offering it to you when it felt right.

You turned on your heel as you walked out, eyelids lowering as you lazily grinned at Roger.

"Because dinner and a blowjob will be waiting for you at home this evening," you said matter-of-factly.

You almost laughed at the starstruck look in the blond's eyes, mouth hanging open, and face burning a deep red.

You tapped the lift's button to send Roger back to the floor he needed. As the lift's doors began to close, Roger watched you turn and make your way to the building's entrance.

"See you tonight, Drummer Boy," you called over your shoulder to him. The lift's doors finally shut completely, and Roger stood in absolute dumbfoundment until the lift opened again.

He really couldn't believe how lucky he was to be able to have you.

As a friend, and, of course, as a stress-reliever.

He made sure to keep a smile on his face the rest of the day.

When any of the guys questioned him, he'd just respond with a shrug, the tips of his ears flushing the same colour as his shirt.

And when Roger got home that night, dinner was most definitely ready for him...

Though with the look you were giving him as soon as the two of you sat at the table, you both made a silent agreement to head upstairs and just skip to dessert.

______________________________

A/A/N: I’m so sorry this took so long to post. The next one will be up within the next 2 hours. Thank you all for being so patient. I love Y’all.

PERMENANT TAG LIST

@culturefiendtrashqueen

@rogermeddow

FIC TAGLIST

@luvborhap

@amy-brooklyn99

@scarsout

@kimmietea

@ohtheseboysilove

@demo-wise

@suavishowell

@bohemianahoy

@pippin248

@maisielou

@hardyshoe

@queenlover05

@imjustboredso

(Leave me a message if you wanna be added to either of my taglists)

#Queen #queen fanfiction #freddie mercury #John Deacon #Brian May #roger taylor #roger taylor x reader #ben hardy x reader #ben hardy #gwilym lee #joe mazello #rami malek

65 notes · View notes

notsoharsh · 4 years ago

Text

The Scholarly Adventures of Brain Girl and Blood Dude || Morgan & Harsh

TIMING: Mid July LOCATION: The Scribe HQ PARTIES: @mor-beck-more-problems and @notsoharsh SUMMARY: Morgan and Harsh take a little field trip to read a lot of dusty old books.

Thanks to her super-strength, Morgan was able to pull more books for Harsh’s soul problem than she ever could have on her own. She lead him down the dusty shelves with the glee of a suburbanite at the fancy grocery store, plucking everything that seemed remotely tied to the subject at hand. “This place is pretty amazing, right? I mean just look at everything you can accomplish with some collective organization and, well, deep pockets, probably,” she said, smiling. “We’re casting a wide net, but, obviously, indexes are going to be our friend, so if you can’t find any of our keywords inside, just move it into a nope pile. I went ahead and put it on a flashcard.” She turned and passed him one. “I hope you don’t mind my getting a little excited. I get it, why you might not be, and it’s not that I don’t appreciate the gravity of the situation. I think I just really miss having a reason to come back here.” And something concrete, even tangible, to hope for.

So this was the Scribe HQ. Harsh hadn’t really thought about the place before, but somehow he had expected it to be harder to get into. Not like he was about to complain about that. He trailed after Morgan, eyes scanning the shelves. “It’s really… something.” He should probably be impressed, but with each title, he had to fight to keep his eyes from glazing over. There was so much. How were they ever going to find anything in here? He took the flashcard with a little nod. “It’s fine. Honestly, I was kinda surprised you were so up for this. And I get that. There’s… a lot in here. Did you come here a lot for witchy stuff?” He grabbed one of the books Morgan had selected, blowing the dust from the ancient cover before opening it and squinting at the writing. “This one looks like it’s just philosophy, ‘what does it mean to be ensouled’. I’m guessing there’s not really a section here with a bunch of how-to guides?”

Morgan continued to look, climbing onto stacks of books on the ground to reach higher ones. “Nope, just my curse. It went back over a hundred years deep so I had to trace back all these obnoxious second and third hand accounts to all the terrible things that happened to my ancestors trying to get down to the source. My mom had a lot of faults, but enforcing a well rounded magic education wasn’t one of them.” She balanced on the tips of her toes to get another book, On the Metaphysical Material of Human Essence, and jumped back down, grimacing only a little when she landed off and had to knock her ankle back into place. “Magic is complicated, Harsh,” she said. “In a good way! Say your magical heart’s desire is the number 20. You can get there by ten times two, or five times four, or fifteen plus five, or nineteen plus one. Lots of roads can get you to twenty. Also, witches are, historically, protective of their grimoires. And some spells are too sacred or too dangerous to really want to pass down, you know? Ooh, seriously, check the index of that philosophical one, though. There might be some reference to some, I don’t know, random Romanian death cult that was known to help vampires restore their souls. That would give us a lead to follow up on.” She moved on to the next shelf before popping her head around the corner again. “I’m kidding about the death cult, by the way. I don’t know if that’s a real thing. But it would be pretty cool if it was, right?”

“Shit. Y’know, as long as I’ve been dealing with this stuff, the whole ‘ancient curse’ thing is still kinda wild. I guess I need to expand my horizons a little more,” Harsh said, watching her scramble about. He should probably offer to help, but… she seemed pretty content. Even he could understand needing a project. That was a lot of numbers, but it sort of made sense. Kind of. “I’ve picked up on the protective thing. That coven weren’t the first ones I tried to go to. A bunch of them would’ve rather staked me than let me see any of their dusty old books. Yeah, got it.” He flicked through the book, finding the index number before scanning the pages again. “I’m not seeing Romanian death cults, but there’s some Latin stuff in here. Well, I think it’s Latin, but all I know is audio, video, disco, so we’re gonna need some translating if that’s actually gonna help much.” He chuckled as he set the book down and grabbed another. “Hey, trust me, death cults are very real. They throw some banging parties, but you never wanna stay too late. There was this one I ran into in Spain, and--well, that’s kind of a long story, but they would’ve been very into you. They were all about the brain eating stuff.” Trailing after her, he scanned the top rows of the shelves. “How about that one,” he said, pointing at an especially thick, black covered book. “Looks like it’s got little skulls on it, that’s gotta be good.”

“Well a hundred years and change isn’t ancient-ancient,” Morgan admitted, still pleased to have impressed a vampire as old as Harsh. “But brain eating death cults? That’s kinda hot. Scary, but I’m okay with side hustling as a cult maiden. But the not staying too late, is that because after midnight is when they start to get actually all murder-y?” She laughed goodnaturedly at his suggestion about the skulls on the book. “You know, I have started coming around to the idea of skull iconography being a good omen, but this could just as well be about fun curses or potions.” She tried to climb up for it, but her short arms weren’t quite up to the task. She gave Harsh a sheepish look. “Maybe you could, uh--? And then we can start unpacking what we’ve bothered before we start looking again? I think thirty books makes for a solid beginning.”

“The ones I ran into always treated their zombies pretty well. One of them even made this cool throne for them, it was pretty badass. But yeah, usually they start the murdering right after Cinderella turns into a pumpkin. You get extra drinks if you bring someone to add to the murder pile.” Harsh decided to leave out just how many extra drinks he had managed to earn. Morgan was strangely cool with the soulless thing, but adding a couple dozen murders to that might push things a little too far. He snorted. “You don’t want to spider monkey your way up there? Yeah, I’ve got it,” he said. It was a little out of reach, even for him, but getting a leg up on one of the lower shelves was enough to grab it. The book was weirdly heavy. Maybe that meant it was extra full of magic or something. Hopping down from the shelf, he brushed the dust from the cover. “Yeah, seems like a good place to start. Which ones look the most ritual-y?”

Morgan pouted as she reached for another, closer book. “I want a throne.Can it be made of bones? My girlfriend has a huge thing for bones. We’d look pretty together on a bone throne.” And for ceremonial purposes, maybe with the right amount of discretion and care with, well, offering selection, it might even be a halfway decent time. She smirked at the thought, wondering what kind of coronets death cults might make for their zombies. She laughed at Harsh’s joke and carried their haul to the nearest desk. The books tumbled from her stack and spread themselves over the surface. “Well, here’s the thing: a ritual with full instructions and ingredients is an endgame, a big ol’ golden goose. But, you know, this might start off with something a little more broad, a little more sketchy. We don’t want to turn our nose away from death cults or norwegian summoning stones or...whatever. Because some weird reference might lead us to the golden egg. And the actual golden egg might be buried in some other archive. And then, because we followed the breadcrumbs, we’ll find it in that other archive faster, and...sorry, I’m mixing way too many metaphors, huh? Anyways, I can start on the books on this end of the table, and you can start on the ones on that end? You read fast, yeah?”

“I’m pretty sure making it out of bones is required actually,” Harsh said, with a thoughtful nod. Honestly, it was a little surprising that White Crest didn’t have any death cults, at least as far as he knew. They didn’t tend to be very public. Attention moving to the books, he grabbed a few and pulled them close, scanning the titles. There were some promising ones in there at least. “Right, it would be boring if it was that easy anyway. This kinda thing seems like it needs a lot of bits and pieces before it goes together. The coven said something about ‘proving myself’ so if you see anything like that, just, I don’t know, highlight it or something. I read pretty quick, yeah.” He flicked through the pages of the first book, an older one laden with dust. The cover might have been green at one point. “Don’t think there’s any eggs in this one. It does have a spell for cooking them though. I think this one’s more basic rituals than the big one we’re after. It does have a little thing about summoning, but mostly just bats and rats and stuff. Any luck over there?”

Morgan was running her finger down the index of the volume in front of her, picking out anything that looked remotely undead or soul related and flipping to the corresponding pages. There were a few technical magic terms that stuck out that she wanted to look at as well before she wrote off the reference as a dead end for this volume. She reached for another and started the process all over again. “Not yet, although, you know, lots of fun stuff about necromancy. And vampire cults, although I guess you already know whatever you want to about that stuff.” She balanced the next one precariously on her lap and started flipping back and forth, one section after the other. “This one looks like it has lots of serious lore, though. We’re talking old myths, druidic shit, some stuff I...can’t actually read. Do you know this language?” She passed the book over to Harsh, finger hovering over the photograph of some runes.

“I guess necromancy is sort of near what we’re looking for,” Harsh said a little dubiously. Honestly, he didn’t know nearly enough about magic to be sure. It seemed to make sense though. They both had to do with souls and restoring them. Or something. “Vampire cults can be kind of cool, but most of them are pretty anti-soul, so I don’t know if they would be super helpful.” He reached for the book, brow furrowing as he scanned the runes. “Sort of. It looks like Sanskrit, just a little off. I wonder if it’s like some ancient dead version.” His fingers trailed over the letters as he muttered to himself, working to muddle through the meaning. “I think it’s talking about a ritual. It’s a lot of sorta spiritual stuff, but… I think some of it sounds pretty legit. Some of the words are kind of weird, but I think it’s saying there are three, uh, three pieces you need to retrieve a soul. And then there’s some words I don’t know, this one just means really, really old. What about the other bits, the druidic stuff?” he asked, passing the book back as he moved closer to read over Morgan’s shoulder.

“You never know. Maybe understanding more about how you get rid of them could help us understand how to get one to come back.” Morgan said. Harsh couldn’t afford to turn down any possibility, and neither could she, if she wanted to be good for more than just cheerleading. But as Harsh looked over the text and translated, Morgan started to wonder if the search would be so hard after all. “That...that might just be what we’re looking for! Look, this sigil here, means spirit, but it’s sort of a vague all encompassing sort of an idea, it could me soul, intuition, intention, but when you look at these wrapped around it, you get a soul’s last regret. And when you look at its placement in the circle, it's on a material vector, an ingredient. But it’s also in the center, where you do the conjuring for what you want to accomplish. And in that place it’s also joined by this little squiggly? It signifies a joining, of two planes or two pieces, you see it sometimes in certain kinds of alchemy circles and binding magic.” Her face cracked wide into a smile. Harsh, it’s a spell to bind a soul to a body! It’s real!” Morgan shot up from her chair, almost toppling the book to the floor. “Harsh, your cure is real! I mean, I’m going to need to do more work to figure out the other ingredients, and we need to follow up on that Sanskrit, because that might be important, and who even knows how we’re going to even get some of these things once we know what they are, but still!” She jumped on her toes to give him as strong a hug as her arms could manage. “It’s possible. And that’s what matters most right now, right?”

“That’s a good point, actually. I sort of always thought of them as being two really different things, but… I’m not really an expert on any of this. I should’ve done way more research ages ago.” Harsh had thought as much before, several times… and then done basically nothing. He’d had two hundred years to learn this and he had thrown all that time away. Oh well, he was doing it now. That had to count for something. He nodded vaguely as Morgan went on, doing his best to follow along. It was a little beyond him, but the pieces he could parse were encouraging enough to make a grin slowly spread across his face. “Holy shit--Morgan, you’re amazing!” Meeting her halfway, he locked his arms around her with enough force to lift her off the ground, spinning the both of them in a circle. “You figure out what we need and I’ll get it,” he said as he set her down, still grinning widely. “Whatever we need, just leave it to me.”

#wickedschatzy #writing #chatzy #morbeckmoreproblems #c: morgan

6 notes · View notes

tartareus · 4 years ago

Note

Do you condone/ship incest? I was reading your rules and got confused about your sentence where you said if people are uncomfortable with fictional consensual incest this isn’t the blog for you. Except Incest is incest regardless of if it’s fiction

hi there, friend, how do you do?

while i'm not particularly fond of anons (nex time you'd like to discuss something regarding my rules and/or character portrayal, i strongly encourage you to do so via ims - i don't bite, and if our points of view don't quite match? that's alright, i promise i'll leave you in peace :) ) for various reasons, i'm so glad you've read my rules (that probably makes you one of the few who follow me - at least i presume you do, idk - who has done so, so thank you so much!), i cannot stress enough how important they are to me. if i happen to follow you, rest assured that i have read yours (unless, ofc, i couldn't find one in your blog - in any case, if i happen to accidentally break one of yours, just hmu or gimme a nudge).

considering that you've asked more than one question, i'll answer to you in separate sections - needless to say that while i break it down your questions, the answer might become a little longer than usual (again, i'm sorry). i'll keep this tagged, in case any of my followers don't feel like reading about this. without further ado, let’s dive in.´

“do you condone/ship incest?”

short answer? nope. but that is not a black or white question i’m afraid. no, i – nox, the human behind this blog of fictional characters – personally do not condone incest , never have and never will, and don’t ship it. i do, however, ship consanguinamory on rare occasions, and when i do happen to write it i never do it in a good light.

for those who are not familiar with the term, here’s a little bit of info about it x && x. in short, the key difference between them is: incest is usually linked abuse (a fictional example that can be used, taking in consideration one of my very own muses, in this case is margot verger – who was sadly abused by her brother in the hannibal books) while consanguinamory (the lannisters, for example, or even the sharpe siblings from crimson peak are examples of consanguineous relationships) is the consensual romantic and/or sexual relationship between members of the same family who are of consenting age.

[ personally, i find both of them gross as fuuck irl but when it comes to fictional works i may get over this first disgust and ponder more on that && take in consideration the characters arch, plot, thoughts and the whole world they are set in. ]

i suppose the turning point here is the consent. i never, never, condone any sort of abuse – not in fiction and neither in real life – and while it’s a subject that bothers me to no end in real life, when it comes to fiction i am less inclined to project into them. i may write dark and toxic relationships, but i obviously do not condone them. that’s the point here – people on this hellsite usually mix the two together (condoning something and shipping/writing it, that is) when in fact they shouldn’t even be in the same box to begin with.

let’s say you write a fictional serial killer – norman bates, tate langdon, hannibal lecter, catherine tramell (that chick from basic instinct), patrick bateman, mrs lovett and sweeney todd, kai anderson, bellatrix, grindelwald and voldemort (the list of plausible examples could go on forever…) – here and ship with them; does it mean that you, the writer, condone every single action and choice your muse does? if writing something purely fictional equals to condoning it in real life, well… the world is even more fucked up than i first thought.

you see, in this little exercise in imagination, you could’ve easily picked a good guy or gal to write, the hero; the goody two shoes. why didn’t you? well, it’s complicated to pin point why some are drawn to darker works of fiction and characters while others are not, i suppose each individual has their own reasons && i can only speak for myself when i say that i am drawn to these sort of fictional works because they the safest way to explore dark topics that pertain to human society. on my side, it’s nothing but raw curiosity.

there’s also the issue of how different cultures see these relationships. in case you haven’t noticed, i am not from the states but actually from brazil. especially in the rural area, it’s not uncommon for second cousins to date or even marry (ew, i know, pretty gross). that’s something that is luckily falling out of practice, but you can easily find it, more so in the poor rural areas that are really far from the cities.

you may have noticed that most of the sources for the terms come from a blog that advocates real life consanguinamory – but make no mistake, i don’t support it. these were the only places i’ve found as sources in a quick look online. i don’t support it irl, but whatever consenting adults are doing amongst themselves is no concern of mine – i have no say on the matter and all in all, i don’t give a damn. i just don’t like it. everything i’ve discussed here is related to fiction, consent and is only ever related to people of consenting age.

“i was reading your rules and got confused about your sentence where you said if people are uncomfortable with fictional consensual incest this isn’t the blog for you. except incest is incest regardless of if it’s fiction”

to be honest with you, anon, i couldn’t possibly see how you’ve got confused with this. i thought i was pretty clear with that, but perhaps not. sorry, my english is not perfect. however, with the risk of sounding like a meme, i said what i said. if you personally feel uncomfortable or even triggered with fictional consensual incest otherwise known as consanguinamory, maybe my blog isn’t for you. not because i – as the mun – condone it, but because i might mention it or even allude to it when i write certain characters. again, consent is the main thing here – you won’t ever see me writing that awful part of margot’s past, but i might mention it on some threads as it is part of her trauma but i will write jaime’s feelings regarding cersei and joanna’s love for tywin – and that should not be overlooked.

“except incest is incest regardless of if it’s fiction”

so far so good, am i to assume that you also believe that “murder is murder, regardless of if it is fiction or not”? should we call the police on, idk, george rr martin for killing....hell knows how many characters...at this point i’m sure not even he knows. leaving my petty comment aside (it’s the arthritis, i’m always annoyed when in pain), i see where you’re coming from; fair enough. but you missed a big point here – consensual. i do not write abuse, even to the muses who – in the canon source material – have done so ( like jaime lannister himself – who’s in a consanguinamorous [therefore, falling under the category of fictional consensual incest] relationship with cersei – who abused his sister next to their son’s dead body [ yeah, jaime apologists, i’m out to get y’all...jokes aside, i do not acknowledge people claiming that cersei manipulated him into going to bed with her, while they are both shitty and toxic as fuck people, their relationship is mutually messed up – gag if you must but jaime lannister is far from innocent angel ] ) in the past. i. don’t. write. it. but i do write jaime’s feelings for cersei because they are canon and are also a big part of the character he became.

all of that, of course, has to do with my own position on the “war” between the people who believe fiction has a great power and influence over reality vs the ones who do not believe in that. personally, i find it hard to believe that fiction is a brainwashing tool rewiring people’s brains - i find the idea itself ludicrous, the ones who strongly stand for that aren’t that different from flat-earthers and people who believe in reverse racism tbh – but i do acknowledge the influence media has on society. its not nearly enough to turn someone to the “dark side” alone by itself – those who claim that videogames, for example, made them violent most likely already had something different and perhaps wrong with them before the games triggered something. i don’t believe that media creates things on people, but brings buried things (fears, feelings, emotions, hopes) back to the surface. it’s all about the stimulus.

if you wanna be scared, watch an horror movie; if you wanna be happy, a comedy video. wanna feel warm inside and live unrealistic romantic expectations vicariously through fictional characters? read a 50.000 words slow burn fluffy happy fanfic of your otp at 3 am even though you gotta wake up early in the following morning....

point is, they are not creating things, they are bringing forth responses from you that were already there in your brain (everybody has laughed before and felt fear, it’s part of human development). and how you react to certain content is entirely to you and your past. say, if you drowned as a kid on the sea - and had trauma from that - the idea of watching titanic is not so fun, is it?

it’s not my place to decide what you should do, that is entirely your own choice to make, just be aware that, as i’ve stated before countless times, i may write dark topics that may or may not be triggering to some. i do so because it is my blog, and i don’t react so harshly to this content (in fact, i love horror, thriller and dark fictional stuff – meanwhile i dread the thought of rom coms, hell knows why??) for i am lucky to be able to separate fiction from reality. basically, whilst writing a villain, i myself do not become one in real life – that part remains in fiction only and doesn’t affect me.

that is not a constant, sure. i don’t just write dark shady stuff – there’s plenty of fluffy shit on my blog, but i like to warn people beforehand to make sure we are all on the same page. it’s for your own comfort, i suppose, because i may not understand certain points of view on fiction but i will always defend your right to be comfortable and safe.

so yes, if you aren’t feeling well at that notion, please unfollow and block me if you must – i never wish to cause any discomfort to anyone – however, before you do so (that is, if you do so) i beg you to just send me an im warning me beforehand, please? that way i can block you – and your other blogs as well – so the chances of me running into you again and causing you discomfort will be minimal. that way we’ll both be on own respective lanes and happy about it. i mass follow very often and don’t usually know which blogs belong to whom (uh, did that make sense? my latina ass is not used to using whom in a sentence....), i may follow another blog (or the revamped blog) of someone who has blocked me and never even realise it – that’s not me following you around and stalking like a total creep, that’s probably me not even remembering who you are. again, sorry – i don’t mean for this to come off rude or anything but???? its the truth? you know the drill, big following list, big followers list (well, big for me tbh, i cannot remember the name or alias of 600 people for the life of me, excuse me if my memory doesn’t serve me right), hard to keep track. there will be no witch hunts, at least on my part, because i deem them to be childish and way too dramatic for my taste. if you’d like to speak in private, adult to adult, i’m always game – i dread vague posting, i personally see it as a pathetic and weak trait.

as long as you’re civil, so am i.

either way, do whatever makes you feel comfortable and safe on your blog – your mental health is far more important (to me, and hopefully to you as well) than a hobby, than tumblr, rp or whatever fictional stuff someone’s writing or reading; you are responsible for your own online experience, and i am responsible for mine. that’s an empowering thing that should be reminded more often.

i truly hope i’ve managed to answer whatever doubts or questions you had in mind, if not my ims are always open and so is my discord. once again, thank you for reading my rules and stay safe!

edit; my dumb ass forgot to drop my disco handle, since i change often. it currently is DOCTOR BITCHCRAFT !!! | 𝒏𝒐𝒙#1398

3 notes · View notes

indecisivebreadpeas · 5 years ago

Text

Hollow Knight & My Hero Academia crossover idea

Note: I’m mostly gonna wind up plain rambling & get off-topic, plus all I’ve read of BNHA is from fanfics & the fandom wiki, I’ve never watched/read official sources, so disclaimer on that.

Hear me out, the Radiance’s fluff is a similar color to Himiko’s hair & I mistoke Toga’s eye color for orange when they’re actually yellow according to the wiki, but the hair part still holds true. If we do some cannon divergence, maybe change up Himiko’s quirk into being able to turn into a moth, a moth goddess, or maybe the Radiance just winds up infecting Himiko, unless you wanna use the Infected Radience theory, in that case, whoever’s using the Radiance as a puppet infects her & she gets it willingly or something like that.

Wait, Hollow Knight, but w/ quirks, that makes things so much more interesting. Getting back on topic, however, may be the Radiance is actually a sibling of Toga & they had the Moth Goddess quirk, wind-ups, perhaps even loses their memory, in what is now Hallownest, the other higher beings: Pale King, White Lady, Nightmare King Grimm &/or Nightmare Heart, Unn, God of Thunder & God of Rain (what if we threw Godseeker in there?), Wyrms, Lord of Shades & The Abyss Creature were all just humans w/ shapeshifting/mutant quirks that maybe even forgot they were humans & forgot how to turn back. Imagine the mental whiplash when even one Higher Being finds out how to become human again & word gets out. A Higher Being has a form that is some pale pink to dark brown squishy being. Imagine if they remembered their memories w/ the human world & some of them were friends! PK & Radiance were the closest besties & now their enemies.

Now, are we doing the Big Bugs, Bug Tank, or the Human Sized AU? I’ll provide an idea or more for all 3!

Bug Tank AU: That GIANT squishy thing a Higher Being turned into! The Abyss creature is the first one to regain their memories & the forgetting mist doesn’t affect humans for some reason, it’s too low. They’re benevolent & worried for Hallownest & it’s neighbors they do the most logical thing. Put them in a giant tank & care for them. They’ll protect them with their life, & the insanity of the other Higher Beings having to adjust to this.

In a nutshell (if we make the Godseeker’s previous gods alive), like at least 9 people are living in this house maybe they have to have a schedule of ‘who gets to be human when,’ as they decided to live in a single house, & only some people can be in public. The villain & hero chaos doesn’t help, it’s hard enough hiding Hallownest in the usual day.

The shock of everyone else, their lives were a lie! What if the entirety, of Hallownest’s ancestry, was humans that could turn into bugs & they could become humans, or half-human, half-whatever species they are people, maybe their size is a balance between their the small bug & large human height? Quirked Hollow Knight AU!

Human Sized AU: Mosscreeps & other adorable bugs get domesticated, heck though, what would they think of their smaller unintelligent counterparts? Anyways, let’s focus on the “Radiance was sealed & it worked for some time” era. The cultural whiplash (that should have already been brought up), & the technology gap here. There’s also a possibility there’s a gap between how long the humans & bugs have been sapient for. Not to mention the shock of all the laws & the whole quirk stuff, & there are so many meetings between official leaders & ambassadors. I’m not sure if the maggots were slaves, but if slavery was a thing & the fact especially the upper class will have to think “I’ll have to pay everyone I want to work for me”. The possible tension between the two! They hear the story of the first quirk & they may be torn between “Did the Pale King/the Radiance/some other light Higher being create quirks?” The language gap, how could I forget that? Assuming the more people that believe in you the more power you get as a higher being, humans w/ permission explore this alien world & find out about almost every Higher Being we know about, & the population is like in the billions, everyone’s power level, skyrockets, whomst has awakened the ancient one skyrocketing. Hallownest’s reaction to nukes . . .

(I just made a whole branch AU) I wanna focus on the Mantis Lords tho, assuming the brother was yet to betray his tribe, what if they pushed the disabled to be as equally strong as the abled? What if they looked down on most of humanity for regressing practically just because they by chance got powers that could be greater than what could be done w/ soul by chance? What if word got out of their opinions and the quirkless flock to becoming mantis tribe citizens because they have a chance at being equal not because of their birth state, but because they worked for such a state? The Mantis Tribe population becomes large as heck since 20% of the human population is almost 1,600,000,000 likely, maybe not the whole percent but a large majority. The economy on a positive note maybe becomes Mt. Everest on the charts for both groups & it doesn’t crash hard.

The introduction of Void & Soul to humans may be a bad thing tho, what the difference between human souls & bugs? Does the murder rate especially towards bugs goes up, does a war break out? Multiple? Does the relationship between bugs & humans stick on the edge of breaking? Does Hallownest split into several groups & countries with different opinions thinking humans should be wiped out, they should be lower than them, they should join them? Do even the maggots join the “I don’t feel like praising the Pale King anymore” squad since humans without much direct contact with gods have gone so far they think “We don’t need gods, we need masks.” The Mask Maker now has a business & several apprentices making masks. This branch AU has the most opportunities for drama, that’s for a fact. The whole opinions split large populations happen w/ the humans too. Criminals may see Hallownest as an easy target for a mass steal meaning security & law enforcement will have to be increased and improved, they’re given aid but this also to an extent makes them dependent on humans.

What if the Kingsoul’s discovered & it’s mass-produced, killing’s not necessary guys! You can stop now! What if the same happens to the Dreamnail?

The Howling Cliffs is certainly an obstacle here tho too, whether you go the easy or complicated route, that’s up for debate, does being outside of Hallownest effect Higher Beings, do Higher Beings also naturally have sapience & language as well?

Human Ancestry AU part tho, bugs went from having their exoskeleton outside, to having them inside, every bug needs clothes now (Editing this for a second time I thought that on the spot, why would they all have to wear them now?), not to mention, the different foods they’ll sometimes be able to consume & sometimes not- CORDYCEPS! It messes up non-sapient bugs but has medical properties & is edible to humans if it can affect the big bugs, perhaps a quirk made, scientific &/or magical vaccine will have to be made, maybe a quirk w/ time reversing effects are used to cure a victim. Some bugs try to even make their human form permanent if we’re in the “Pure Human form” side of the AU. If not, more debate between the two groups~! Heck, a cure’s technically impossible meaning bugs would have to wait for a vaccine to be made & it may likely take a really long time since vaccines for bugs are likely rarely be focussed on, & pray they go their life never contracting it. We can also just go the “the sapient bugs are unaffected enough/immune“ route to make things easier or ignore Cordyceps altogether. Would bugs have a coffee equivalent or could take just some coffee before it’s too much, pure human sub-branch tho, heck yeah. Does the whole food & drink stuff means bugs have to wait till they fully digest food then they’re safe to shift to the other form? Is soul needed to shift? Does the body know when it’s safe to shift after eating/drinking food deadly to the other form?

Anyways, this AU also means bugs have to learn their bug language & human language in human tongue. Some bugs like the Mantis Tribe will stick as a bug as much as possible as an exoskeleton is more appropriate with a culture like their’s but even the Mantis Lords seem to have just a single claw, the equivalent to a single finger, they definitely shift when in need of hands. People like Quirrel & Monomon have 4 fingers per hand/many limbs to get the job done, so shifting is much less likely for people like them.

If the Higher Beings has quirks humans, chances are there were missing searches for them, they remember everything & they go “oh.” Even w/ any AU if this is the case, even more, legal stuff happens. The family reunions could be every awkward.

Big Bugs AU: Mt. Lady would quickly be considered a candidate for ambassador thanks to her quirk, however, that’d be shot down. Likely she’d speak the actual ambassador’s mind if they decided to have meetings. Humans may also help with technological progression though the main issue comes with materials available on Earth, time to mine the other planets & go to other universes.

That’s enough of those three AUs & branch AUs I feel like thinking about, however, the Human Ancestory AU+Human Shapeshifting Higher Beings can both individually be their own separate AUs w/o the whole BNHA Crossover stuff.

It’s amazing how much came from me mistaking Himiko’s eye color. This is why you twist even the tiniest detail for no reason or remember what you made a mistake about in a show/game etc. & think, “what if that was actually the case?” Edit: Frick, mistoke Mosscreep for Mosskin

#Hollow Knight #My Hero Academia #BNHA #boku no hero academia #HK #The Radiance #Himiko Toga #AU #Alternate Universe #HollowKnight #Rambling #Crossover #Canon Divergence #longpost #Quirked Hollow Knight AU

3 notes · View notes

pokefanbri · 4 years ago

Text

https://www.facebook.com/540333002743372/posts/2796680837108566/

👏 ty!

But not to blow it out if proportion, there's huge similarities between a leo sign & a possible narcy in general, though im not sure which or both characteristics are the case 🤔 Both show signs of being closed off & are slow to open up for example, which i found intriguing. Both together represent positive vs negative & everything in between. I wouldn't want to make an excuse for myself to be okay with his behavior in any way, but ive accepted he is who he is 🤷‍♀️ & love him anyway regardless of what he may think of me or the bad I may think of him. There's alot of good underneath the mystery, & its that goodness on the inside that attracted me to him in the 1st place. It makes me wonder though how complicated of a person he really is on the inside 😅 Im not saying he is a narcy, only that its a possibility & doesn't hurt for him to look into it to maybe be more knowledgeable of a person for his own benefit.

Yes i do ache for him still, whether its due to being under a narcys power, or that we didn't get to experience what being a real couple was really like & missed out on alot, & the breakup in general...im hurting, & i will be for a while. And maybe i am making every excuse whether hate him or not, idk. Im a confused mess & im just trying to figure it all out with what 0 to little closure i was given

Shouldn't be stressing about it at all but I cant help myself with all the good from it I choose to see it outweighs the bad...which it did, not cuz im passive af lol,but cuz I wholeheartedly see the best in them even now. I even fueled their ego cuz it made em happy to see em smile & in turn made me happy, I was completely genuine but I know now I was enabling it lol. I know they tried their best but in the end things fizzled out for themselves to where I became the source of their problems, my worth to em just wasn't enough supply anymore for them to be happy. Maybe they didn't wanna hurt me & themselves anymore, technically both were suffering in diff ways & he thought we'd both be better off? I didn't think so though & was willing to see it through & improve on my end..step into gear the last few weeks to show how great I was doing lol, I didn't wanna lose him. Aight ima stop talking about him from now on b4 i get in trouble 😅

Granted I have my issues yes, but I know exactly who I am after years of figuring myself out lol.

I put myself into these positions cuz I have alot of love to give & become in denial of whats actually happening, i end up being a pushover to make someone happy. But I love & care so much even as a friend, that I still want to help even after the fact 🤷‍♀️ I don't put anything against them at least not anymore as I know its just the way they are. I've accepted it.

Sorry but let it be known for their own benefit, I've done extensive research for months now on this cuz knowledge is power, without the other knowing 😅. But i mean well 100% & with love for the other.

I knew deep down it wasn't going to last, I saw it all happening right infront of me & i couldn't do anything about it.

There's diff levels ofcourse, my own mother was the worst of it 😒 why years ago I went back to her like a lost puppy dog & I didn't know any better. Bringing it up to these people are a challenge in itself as most if not all don't know, why I keep things to myself for the most part & endure through my pain. But I know now for future reference to surround myself with people who love me for me faults & all, i have a lot of that already 🥰 I am for a fact relationship material, & anybody especially from now on...has to prove to me, show me they're worthy 1st b4 i ever jump into a relationship again. Which is why being friends 1st for yrs even with someone has always been the best thing for me to pick a suitor. Though idk how much time I have now in finding some1, but thats God's plan

Know your own shortcomings if u want to become a better u, dont put it on someone else to lift u & themselves up with little to no effort to do the same for them...its alot of weight for 1 person lol.

Aight ima stop talking about him from now on b4 i get in trouble 😅 I'm moving on, but with 1 last thing I want to help him with.

Dont have to come back to me, as a friend yea im keeping that promise. but U be good as well darlin ❤ love u stupid

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/20kz6N5J5G5SpXW1kgUnqE?si=r_3pVFFuRw6g_xbpjilJNw

#Spotify

0 notes

zvaki666-blog · 5 years ago

Text

Glenn’s story

Glenn's Story

A couple of months ago, I received an e-mail from Gleen, a guy from London.

He contacted me by recommendation from his friend, originally from Croatia.

He was thinking about full sleeve tattoo and was wondering if we could arrange the design and other details by e-mail.

Negotiations by e-mail were never quite my thing. I prefer to communicate with my clients face to face, which turned out to be more efficient and practical. That's why I advised Glenn to book two VIP REVOLT appointments.

If a client lives near, I suggest one VIP REVOLT appointment for the start, but for the ones coming from other countries, I advise booking two.

It's because you can never tell how long will INKDIVIDUAL consultations and planning of tattoo last. Sometimes we can finish it in a couple of hours, but sometimes, believe it or not, it can last as long as eight hours.

And that's exactly what I want to write about.

To make a long story short, I advised Glenn to study my web site Anubis-tattoo.com, read what and how I do, to check out VIP appointments and a gallery of my works, so he could be sure I'm the right choice for what he wants.

A couple of days later, Glenn confirmed he's sure I'm the kind of tattoo artist he wanted and was looking for a long time. He paid part of the cost in advance and I booked his appointments.

For me personally, conversations by e-mail have a big flaw because I can't tell what kind of person is gonna knock at my door.

Why flaw?

Because things work quite differently at my studio.

Most tattoo artists choose their clients by the tattoo they wanna have done, how much they wanna pay or by tattoo style they prefer.

Nothing of those things matter to me.

That's why all my clients pay the same and they all go through INKDIVIDUAL consultations.

I choose my clients by their personality and their approach to tattooing. It may sound bad or even arrogant, but put yourself in my shoes - how would you like to spend eight hours with a person you usually wouldn't even have coffee with?

To paint a picture a bit better, these are the types of people tattoo artists encounter regularly:

• they enter the studio as if they own you, and that's exactly how they proceed to act

• they see you as a tool, not a person

• they set limits but expect you to do wonders

• they're insecure in their decision and submissive to other people's opinions

• have weak intellectual abilities

• they're physically and mentally ill

• they have wrong approach to tattooing

• they're presumptuous, annoying, arrogant, angry, without character...

After 15 years of working with that kind of people, I have no interest in having any kind of contact with them anymore. I believe many of You can relate.

But, let's get back to the story...

Two months later, Glenn's calling: Hello! I'm in front of your door, can You let me in? I came for my appointment.

Glenn traveled almost 2000 kilometers because he was sure he wants to work with me, but even at this moment, he still didn't know what he was getting himself into. I already had great respect for him because he put so much effort from the start, and when I opened the door and saw him, I was sure he was my type of client.

I showed him the way to the kitchen, made us some coffee and we started talking.

Getting to know each other

I don't like going into details right away. Instead, we talked in general about ourselves, what we do, how was his trip and about tattoos.

The more detailed conversation comes later, during the process of tattooing.

Whishes and ideas

I got comfortable in my chair and asked Glenn to tell me more about his idea. Not because I could put it into practice later, but to see the level of his expressing, his expectations, understanding and knowledge of tattooing. If I hear something unrealistic or something I'm not in a position to offer, I like to say it right away so we wouldn't waste our time on something that's not gonna happen.

Description of the idea

Glenn put about 20 pages of paper on the table. They were all covered in coloured drawings of mythological creatures he wanted to put on his arm. In addition, he wanted to have silhouettes of people fighting each of those creatures.

What is so great about our brain is that it can imagine unimaginable. But once we got back to reality, we started seeing flaws in Glenn's idea. To make this happen, and to transfer all the creatures credibly from the paper, we need a certain body surface. We can put a couple of the creatures on his arm, but not all 20 of them. Maybe if he would agree to tattoo his whole body...

Tattooing is therefore limited by style and technique, the medium it is performed on (skin), and artist's skill and experience.

Glenn quickly realized we had a problem and started worrying because that was the only idea he had.

INKDIVIDUAL consultations

I told him to relax and that it's normal for everything to crumble right at the beginning of the process because a person who isn't completely familiar with tattooing and it's possibilities, can't make tattooing plan all by himself. It's kind of as if you draw a house and take it to the construction company to build it. Can't be done. There is a whole team of people, from architects to builders, who will help you with the idea, design and construction.

Well, when it comes to your tattoo, I'm your architect, builder and everything in between.

People don't get this, and that’s why I designed INKDIVIDUAL consultations.

I asked Glenn what is important to him when it comes to tattoo, and what isn't. I explained when it's OK for him to dictate the direction we’re gonna go, and when it's better to let me be in charge. Simply put - we agreed on what is his, and what is my role in the process of making his tattoo.

I explained it on everyday life examples and Glenn offered all the right answers by himself.

Once we found a mutual language and he understood how to approach tattooing, Glenn clapped his hands and said: OK, I'm ready, let's move on!

The beauty of INKDIVIDUAL consultations is that they allow you to create something you're not able to imagine by yourself. They help to create a symbiosis between a client and the tattoo artist. You become an extension of me, a fresh source of ideas and creativity, and I become yours - source of knowledge and experience. Together we create unthinkable.

Fresh start - reference

Trough INKDIVIDUAL consultations Glenn understood what he was actually paying for, and what is in fact completely irrelevant. One of the most important things in the process is the reference. We spent next hour searching the Internet looking for as much material as possible to work with. We're still at zero and don't know what we're gonna do and how. But, if we only have one reference, we have only one choice. That reference is supposed to fullfil all our wishes and combinations we imagined, what is as possible as winning the lottery. More references for one character offer us more possibilities and more combinations, which also means a greater chance of success.

Process of elimination

So we collected about a hundred references and Glenn was once again stunned. What now? Everything looks great, how to decide how to proceed?

We began the process of elimination which is actually pretty short because I lead you trough it using your emotions and taste. In the end, you get the tattoo you want – the one you'll want for the rest of your life.

Every day I hear or get messages 'I want to have this tattooed', and my question is always the same: how do you know you want something for the rest of your life?

By eliminating things, we're getting rid of stuff you don't want. Once you've thrown away a whole bunch of stuff, you start realizing what you actually do want. What is left is the right option in which you are certain because you have just eliminated everything that's wrong for you.

Styles and techniques

Every reference is doable in more than 20 different ways and each of them demands minimal size and sets certain boundaries. At the moment we have a huge amount of options, but we'd spend too much time if we started trying them all out. That's why I have prepared a folder with different styles and techniques for my clients. I explained all their benefits and shortcomings to Glenn, and we started eliminating once again.

As a result, we now have great references, style, and technique we're gonna use. We're ready to start planning the tattoo.

Planning

We've been working for three hours and we still don't have tattoo design. But Glenn isn't disappointed. In fact, he's full of adrenaline and excited about the next step. He understands the importance of preparation and that tattooing is not simple nor should it be treated as such.

Great thing is that I use a tablet so clients who aren't visual types can see and understand what I'm talking about, how's tattoo supposed to look like and direct me to their desires.

As I have already said, ever style demands minimal space and sets certain boundaries. At the same time, every reference has its own shape and position. Once again we have a lot of options and it's impossible to try them all. We have to eliminate some of them, but this time, I choose which. I have no feelings towards Glenn's references, so I can see the situation from a different perspective.

I put my focus on the appearance of the tattoo and offered Glenn options with the references and style he chose. I explained what is possible to do and how - I offered him the simplest, more and the most complicated execution. I never force my clients to choose the fastest or the most complicated process. Instead, I offer a couple of options and explain them step by step, so a client knows what to expect.

And as most of my clients do, Glenn chose the most demanding execution.

And why shouldn't he, when all of them cost the same? That's the point of VIP appointment.

I asked him to take his shirt off so I could photograph his arm and place a sketch of a tattoo on it.

And there it was - a whole new set of problems. Glenn has many moles which would ruin most of the images he wanted to have tattooed. Even though this new info could seem like an unsolvable problem, it's just another challenge which allows us to demonstrate creativity and resourcefulness of client-artist symbiosis.

Brainstorming

We poured ourselves a new cup of coffee and started brainstorming how to carry out our mythological creatures without ruining them.

Half an hour later, we had a new idea how to adjust style and technique in a way that won't be affected by moles. We decided to do our best references in semi-realistic style, cb technique, and position them in places where moles won't ruin them. Around references, we'll place the Polynesian tattoo.

Polynesian tattoo is made of symbols which clients choose from book. Each symbol has it's meaning so it allows them to create their own story. I always do it freehand so I can adjust things during a process if necessary.

We both loved the idea about Polynesia, but I was a bit restless and I could tell Glenn was feeling the same way.

'Buddy, I love where this is going, but don't you think it's wrong to mix mythological creatures from every civilization with Polynesia? It's like we're putting them into the same basket, but Polynesia is not a myth. It's real. I do want this tattoo to be great, but I wouldn't like to destroy certain values in the process', I told Glenn and he agreed. Meaning of Polynesian symbols has nothing to do with mythology which was Glenn's primary wish.

At that moment, I had an idea - to do Polynesian style tattoo but with symbols from mythology.

Glenn loved it. He never saw something like that before and he got a new rush of adrenalin. We were brainstorming once again.

The process of inventing symbols from mythology

We agreed on four motives, realistic style, which seemed most doable and would look good (Eye of a dragon, Medusa, Manticore, and our favourite - Cockatrice).

There were couple more of them which we wanted to fit in this big story about mythology, and for which we also had to invent symbols (Fenrir, Scylla, Hydra, Kraken, Cyclops, Griffin, Basilisk, Naga, Golem...).

We studied narrative about each of them, drew inspiration from there and invented symbols which reflect their story.

What that actually means?

Let's take Cyclops for an example.

Cyclops are mythological giants known for having just one eye. Best known are the sons of Uranus and Gaea. They made weapons for gods (Poseidon's trident, lightning bolts for Zeus, helmet for Ares...).

What we did is we invented the symbols for Cyclops, Uranus, Gaea, forging weapons, trident, lightning, helmet... We could go even further, but 7-9 symbols for every creature was just fine for the beginning (at the end we had about a hundred of them 😊 ).

Glenn also asked if that's not a bit too much, but it's always good to have more options.

It took us two more hours and three coffees to finish this part.

Next big step was to present mythological symbols in Polynesian style.

I've been working with Polynesian symbols for years so I'm quite familiar with the topic.

I told Glenn to get comfortable and enjoy, it was time for me to do my magic. The only thing he had to do is say 'yes' or 'no' to my drawings.

I drew each symbol in Polynesian style on paper. I could tell Glenn was thrilled while the idea he came up with, got real. He saw what it means to create your own tattoo. Creativity was all over the place, so it took me only half an hour to finish everything.

Brainstorming, planning, talking from 10 am to 4 pm got us pretty tired, but it was totally worth it.

We were ready for the next step.

Size and position

We printed our references to decide on their size and position on Glenn's body. Once again we had to adjust our plan so all the mythological creatures would be perfectly set on his arm. I told Glenn what needed to be adjusted and where I wanted to put which character. He agreed and we could proceed.

Freehand drawing of the whole hand

Polynesian style and the way I do it was completely new to Glenn. He had no idea how I'm gonna merge realism with Polynesia. His curiosity was at its peak and he couldn't wait to discover this unknown area.

This wasn't the first time he was getting a tattoo. He did his homework researching tattoo artists, their work, he visited many tattoo studios, but still he was experiencing something completely new right now, something he couldn't imagine he'd experience when he chose me, and he was fascinated with what was happening.

I told him to enjoy the process and that I'll guide him all the way, telling him exactly what I'm doing so we can react right away if there's something he doesn't like.

After I washed and shaved Glenn's arm, I drew the contours and size of the surface with markers. He approved and we moved on.

Combination of mapping and freehand drawing is always tricky. If I drew full mythological Polynesia and start mapping after, images will ruin many of the symbols, which I really don't want.

Another way is to use mapping first and draw symbols around. But, this way symbols won't look like the background as I want them to. It would be obvious I drew around images, and it would ruin Polynesian style which always has to follow body contours.

As long as I'm combining styles, I thought, why not combine the way I'm gonna position images.

As always when I do Polynesia, I started drawing fields in which I was going to place symbols. I always draw them on muscle or curves of the arm so they are positioned in the best possible way. But again moles got in the way. If I try to bypass them, the tattoo will be discontinuous and it won’t look good.

F..k it, I said and explained to Gleen we are once again in an unknown area. Once again I had to improvise.

The poor guy looked at me and nodded in approval, pretty much exhausted from all the changes.

I decided to do double lines between the fields following the trajectory of moles, instead of curves of the hand. Glenn was confused but aware of kind of the skin he has, so he completely put his trust in me. When coming to my studio, he was scared I would turn him down because of the moles. But that was not an option because my clients are open-minded and creative, so together we always find the way to the final goal.

After this, I mapped the references and started drawing the symbols. First I sketched where I wanted to place them and got another approval from my investor 😊

With a marker, I thickened all the lines and sketches, polished everything and finally finished the design.

It was already 6.10 PM, end of our appointment.

Usually, when I finish the design, I outline it with a light colour so I can see shapes and can continue at a second appointment. But we were so tired that we decided to wrap it up for the day. I explained Glenn how to preserve the design for next two days when we had the second appointment and sent him to his apartment.

If something gets wiped out, we'll draw again 😊

Second appointment

Two days later Glenn returned rested, smiling and ready to continue.

We had coffee and talked about how the first appointment wore us down, how he smeared all the bed sheets and about methods he tried to keep as much design intact as possible.

After half an hour, I couldn't wait anymore, I had to see how much design we had left.

The result was much better than I expected. To be honest, I expected it all to be ruined, and was ready to spend another five hours drawing. Lines of mythologic Polynesia were smudged, thick and sloppy, but I still had what I needed the most - position, symbols and ratio of the sizes.

To end my short story, which turned out to be a long one - I drew back missing symbols, fixed smudged lines, connected my equipment and finally started tattooing.

I outlined the whole design with light colour so we can continue next year. I also started tattooing the image so Glenn can get the picture of what it's gonna look like, but the most important thing is that we set the grounds and there'll be no more complications when we see each other next time (or at least we hope so 😊 )

To conclude...

Usually, the whole process is not this long or complicated, but you have to be prepared for everything if you want your own unique tattoo.

I just wanted to show you a couple of things that you might encounter on your way of getting a tattoo no one else has.

I wanted to show you why my clients change their minds once they step into my studio.

Explain what VIP treatment is.

That at my studio you don't pay for a tattoo, but service.

Demonstrate the effort both by my clients and I invest in this process.

Getting a tattoo for me is everything but simple and it doesn't work by the principle 'I want that, how much?'. I'm sure you'll find someone who operates in that manner, but I've specialized in creating your stories, designed and made only for you and in line with your standards. The only thing that is important to me is that your tattoo is beautiful and that you love it.

Glenn's story is not in class by itself. I had many situations like this one, but I wanted to use Glenn's story as a symbol representing experience my clients and I go through in the process of getting a tattoo.

How much all of this is important to me is supported by the fact that I've spent four hours writing this article. And it still has to be edited and translated 😊

If you want a tattoo that's only yours, that is unique, pretty and it suits you - I'm here for you.

Žvaki

Questionnaire

1. Have I managed to demonstrate how much effort we invest during the process?

2. What impression did Glenn's story have on you?

3. How important it is for you to create a symbiosis with your tattoo artist?

4. Have you ever encountered this kind of work?

5. How much did you invest in planning your tattoo?

0 notes

tumblunni · 7 years ago

Text

More minor thoughts and things for the Dragon Mom Game! Its not super developed yet, but I’m thinking more on what sort of gameplay it should have. And can i just say THANK YOU SO MUCH for the positive reponse on this idea!! I’ve never got 8 notes on one of my dumb idea posts before!! Usually at best I just get 2 likes by my close friends, lol

* I’m still having trouble settling on a design for the main character species, I’m even not sure anymore if I want it to be an insectile dragon or just a complete dragon or just a complete insect or a dragon or insect mixed with something entirely else AAAAA And even just amoung the different cool caterpillars i was inspired by, I can’t decide!! * So i definately think I’m gonna go with the idea of a magically evolving species with a big ol skill tree of player choices. Even if it makes no sense! But i mean, dragons can do anything! XD So maybe your various skills and stuff could also give you appearance traits of all different cute and cool insects! BUNNI NEVER HAS TO CHOOSE EVER AGAIN

(post is getting long so more under the cut)

* Relatedly, I’m wondering whether I should give the player a ‘respec’ option? Cos.. I mean.. it would be even more immersion breaking if you could de-evolve at will, I think. it at least could make some internal sense in-universe if we say that evolving is a natural part of this creature’s life cycle. And it would seem a bit overpowered if they could freely discard and re-evolve whenever they felt like it. You could just defeat any problem you encountered, and not even have to worry about making a skillset that functions well at everything necessary to survive. BUT on the other hand, permenant choices in a skill tree with a lot of options can be a big problem depending on how much the player gets to know about each option beforehand, yknow? It sucks when you play a game and you find out you have to start all over when you;’re six hours into it, cos you somehow screwed yourself over with one bad choice and had NO WARNING. I’ve been recently playing the (very fun!) remake of Sonny for steam, and in that game every boss is so wildly different that you often have to respec your entire build to find a way to beat them. Which works well with how its basically a giant boss rush game where grinding is optional and respeccing is available whenever you want for a small amount of ingame currency. The no-respecs achievement is possibly the most difficult one! So yeah, I’m kinda worried I’d accidentally create a game like that, even though this genre doesn’t work as well with that level of difficulty. But also infinate respecs don’t work for this genre either... So I’m thinking maybe respeccing WOULD be possible, but it would be in a very limited quantity and you’d have to go through some hidden sidequest to get it. Maybe there’s one special plant that causes these dragons to reset to their basic state? And maybe it could have a cost, like it makes them very sick so you sleep through like a week or something. Or your stats are lowered for a few days, or your overall lifespan is decreased? I’ll have to think more about balancing it well!

* I’ve been thinking more and the cache-based gameplay could really be really cool as the primary form of challenge in the early stages. Your biggest obstacle is knowing that food and materials can expire, and that your ability to carry things is limited, and that you only have a certain amount of time each day to go around and then find your way back to a safe shelter to sleep. At first you might be quite desperate, eating everything you find as soon as you find it, and only being able to venture out a little way away from your nest. But then you start building cache locations and temporary shelters around the world, allowing you to move further and even be able to slowly carry some rare distant item back all the way to your main nest. The epic three week quest to move a single log! Being dragonmom is suffering! XD But it could be really rewarding to see that early difficulty be flushed down the toilet as you develop your skills, opening up the world and presenting new challenges to replace it! * And there could even maybe be multiple ways to solve the problem! This could be the first opportunity to make the choice between being a herbivore or carnivore, carnivore would be adapting more towards the ‘eat it now, constantly be searching for new food’ play style. You’d be stuck living within that limitation forever, escaping it just through becoming way better at dealing with it. You get a food source that’s basically everywhere, and gives you more nutrition, you turn the terrifying enemy predators into nosh and get to feel the ultimate catharsis of dooooom~! And you can become powerful enough to carry more stuff, and to affect the environment more and create shortcuts, and you need to worry less about finding a perfect shelter cos you have less enemies and you’re more hardy against the weather.

* Thoughts about the basic animal language system! I’m wondering about what sort of symbols it could use? Like, maybe it could just be intuitive pics of items and lil stick figure dragons and stuff. Here’s a few examples of default rpgmaker MV icons:

(tho these were some of the only ones useful for a dragon game so I’ll have to make my own) Alternatively, they could be like actual runes or heiroglyphs or made up fantasy letters. I tried googling around for something similar from a game, and all I could find was this thing thats apparantly from Spyro Skylanders? The disadvantage of that system is that it’d be less instantly intuitive what symbol means what. But that might even work to its advantage, cos it encourages the player to get started memorizing all the symbols instead of being complacent that everything will always be obvious. I wanna ease them into the puzzles, but I still do want there to be puzzles, yknow? i just think it would be a very cool concept! Oh, and of course having it look like a real language makes it feel like a real language. Woo! But maybe it could put more emphasis on the unusual nature of the language if its more pictoral? I DUNNO!! I’m bad at choices!! I’ll just have to work hard to make some endearing lil dragon doodles of what everything looks like to them. Thats the best compromise!

* oh!! A cool and unusual idea for one of the evolution skill branches!! Maybe you could take deliberate penalty devolutions? Maybe picking one of them gives you extra skill points to spend on others, or maybe its like.. sacrificing the ability to learn a new skill in favour of some additional stat boosts instead. And maybe even certain penalty evolutions could lead off into a longer tree of penalties with an unexpected bonus at the end! i was thinking a good one of these could be the ability to lose your sight. It could lead to boosters to all your other senses, and even the ability to eventually gain some sort of complicated telepathy sense that’s even better than eyes! Gotta put up with a while of waiting though. oh, and cos you’’re like a buggy dragon thing, maybe eye evolution would be Lots! Evolved eye! evolved eye! evolved eye! evolved eye! next evolution: eye!! achievement unlocked: spider. Oh, and actually the placement and type of eyes could adjust depending on what other evolution route you’re on! Thats be a cute bit of aesthetic. or maybe you could just choose the eyes regardless of what bug you are, and make the google eyed moth of your dreams~! It could be more tricky to make a fully customizeable character model though, rather than just a bunch of regular bugs. I mean, this is gonna be a pixelart game, its not like Spore with its big ol animation engine for all kinds of crazy leg combinations.. RANDOM THOUGHT! a dragon with eyes all down the sides of its body would be mega scary. maybe that could be part of the herbivore side evolutions? Realistically, scary appearances are more common for non-scary animals that evolve them to frighten off predators. Lots of caterpillars are actually kinda body horror disturbing looking, I cant stop being scared by the one with the huge swollen head with an optical illusion to look like a snake. It even manages to scare the predators of the predators of its predators! O_O Also actually having eyes all over your body instead of just markings would probably be really useful for spotting all those enemies. Spooky baby is the biggest fraidy cat ever!

* If I go with the idea of you gathering more children as the game goes on, then it could be cool to have all sorts of different sidequests to find the different eggs. Like maybe you can’t adopt the egg of a snow dragon unless you relocate your nest to a colder area where it could grow up healthy. Tho it’d suck if the game was forever limited that way and you had to leave your kids alone in various areas around the world or else they Die. So maybe its just for while the kid is a newborn, or maybe its that you have to nurse the egg in a certain environment in order to hatch it. i’m gonna say for the sake of gameplay conveinience that these magical dragons can just go into stasis in their eggs and survive forever, only hatching when they get their daily dose of mom hugs. Cos it would kinda suck if you had to make the decision IMMEDIATELY when you find an egg, especially if the eggs required certain things in order to be hatched. It would be super tragic to find this baby struggling to live and then you have to watch the egg go cold and die just cos you didn’t progress your stats fast enough. Magic eternal eggs is the best solution! Actually, maybe that could even be a good plot for a super rare egg you could unlock! You could find an ancient dragon species that was thought long extinct, and then get to raise a cute lil fossil son. Could be funny if they’re like an ancient megafauna version of your species! ‘My son iz larj but i luv heem’ He could carry the rest of his siblings around :3 Oh and maybe one of then could actually be an older child that you adopted after you found it cold and shivering next to its dead mother. It could be after you defeat some big boss, and find out that you were too late to save this poor fellow dragomom :( So then maybe that kid would start off more distrusting and disobedient at first, but to make up for it they’re already a fairly high level with some skills already. And maybe your choice of name for them would be limited at first, and then you can rename them properly once you finally win them over. You only get to choose one symbol at first, the kid is automatically named like.. Other [name]. Otherleaf, my smol untrusting beb!

* A SUPER SAD POSSIBLE IDEA Maybe there’s a small chance of finding the ghost of your kids when they die? There could be some sort of super mysterious and spiritual part of the forest that you can explore later on in the game, and there’s a random event to find a little baby shade in the fog that seems to remember you. And you can bring them home and its just like they never died, except they look a little spooky and they can only appear when the sun goes down. So you might wanna evolve the nocturnal skill so you can be with them. oh, and maybe when you get them back their name would change? Adds or replaces part of the symbols. they become Empty-[name]. And they can never grow up :( But still, imagine this lil ghost puff all happily curled up in a big hug pile with all their siblings, after so long wandering lost and alone!

#dragon mom game

3 notes · View notes

salty-dracon · 7 years ago

Text

Feathers- Testing, Testing

While Julien “interns” at the local police station, Brooke reads a mysterious book she picked up at the library. They meet up later and realize that they’ve found another piece of the puzzle.

-----

“What’s the ink?“ Julien asked.

“It’s regular old printer ink. But the paper’s... been wet and dried out.“ The forensic scientist showed off the paper to Julien. “You see that? The wrinkles?“

“They’re only around the sigil, though.“ Julien traced it with their finger. “See? Someone traced the sigil with water. Probably the victim.“

“That’s correct.“ The forensic scientist studied the sigil. “Now our techsperts ran this thing through various image searches, but they couldn’t find any match. Our guess is that it’s some kind of demonic summoning circle.“

“Wasn’t Viola Christian?“

“That’s the thing. But then again, people who are restrained to one side of life often like to dabble in the other.“

“And you’re sure it’s standard printer paper?“ Julien asked. “Have you performed a burn test?“

“Nope, and we don’t need to.“

“What do you mean, you don’t need to?“

“Because it’s clear that the sigil was printed on printer paper.“

“Have you checked her internet history?“ Julien asked. “Maybe there’s a link to the sigil online.“

“Tried it. Nothing.“ The forensic scientist turned to Julien. “You’re sure interested in this case, aren’tcha?“

“I’m... just trying to help.“ Julien blushed with embarrassment. “Suicide is an issue close to my heart.“

“You ever try summoning demons to cope?“ the scientist asked.

“No,“ Julien said. “I know I seem like that type of... er... um... person, but it’s better to have faith in tangible things.“

“I see, I see.“ He smiled. “Well, I’m sure you’d like to see other evidence from the place.“

Julien nodded. They followed the scientist to another table, where they saw a crucible filled with black material.

“This is obviously burnt something. We believe it’s burnt plant fiber of some sort. It’s not a cigarette, otherwise we’d’ve see some cylindrical shape in the embers.“

“Was there any burnt stuff in any of the other homes?“

“Not that we could tell. One of the other houses did have a small cup filled with this stuff, though. And it’s easy to dispose of it. Fireplaces and such. Actually, one of the other places! The family that lived there didn’t use the fireplace, but we found embers inside.“

Three times isn’t a coincidence. “What about the sigil?“ Julien asked. “Has that been seen anywhere else?“

“Nope.“

“Okay.“ Julien looked disappointed. “Anything else I should know?”

“Nothing you should. Everything I’ve told you is classified.“ He smiled. “But it’s fun having a shadow. Hey, wanna grab lunch together? I know a great place down the street.“

“...No thanks.“

----

Brooke’s eyes scanned the book.

Ascension Fifth Edition 1945

She opened it up to the first page.

Table of contents

“Why did I feel drawn to this book?“ Brooke asked herself. “Heh. I guess I just like old stuff.“ She flipped the page.

Introduction to Summoning Supernatural Beings

Since the dawn of time, there have been three creatures with the ability to think- demons, angels, and humans. Summoning the first two is not for the faint of heart, and summoning the third? It is as simple as writing them a letter and posting it. But you are reading this book to learn how to summon the first two.

Brooke raised one eyebrow. “Okay.“ She flipped the page.

Part 1: Summoning Demons

Demons are obviously creatures of hellfire and brimstone, et cetera, but they’re more than that. Demons are useful. By simply offering a demon your soul in the afterlife (and really, why not? We’re all going to hell) you can receive a number of powers that will aid you in the future. But be warned that not every demon can make you immortal or provide infinite wealth. Some are only useful as tiny, hissing, fire-breathing cats. I should also note that summoning demons is not for the faint of heart, as a summoning gone wrong could potentially start World War III (as it did II).

There are a number of types of demons, listed here. This book will teach you how to summon all of these types.

Brooke read through the list. Some of the names were in different languages and seemed impossible to pronounce. What the hell is a dagwanoenyent?

As Brooke was reading, Julien walked into the room. They threw their hat down on the ground and curled up in bed next to Brooke. “What’cha reading?”

“This book I picked up from the library.“

“Looks old. Dude, 1945? That’s... old.“

“Yeah.“

“Care to read with me?“ Julien snuggled against their friend. “I learned some pretty weird shit about the crime scene.“

“Like what?“

Julien kissed Brooke’s temple. “They think they’re summoning demons.”

“Demons?“ Brooke asked. “How?“

“Printer paper and... burning shit.“

“Printer paper?“

“The person had some sigil traced out on piece of printer paper and they traced it with water.“

“... Weird.“

“Spoopy.“

“Where’s Arthur?”

“He’s sleeping. He told me his dad didn’t tell him anything useful.”

“Yikes.” Julien pulled the book out of Brooke’s hands. “Let’s see what else’s in this piece of shit.“ They flipped through the book, humming to themself.

“Well, I’m pulling out some ice cream.“ Brooke pulled herself out of bed and walked to the kitchen. “Want some? We’re out of sprinkles.“

“Yeah, sure. Just don’t forget the chocolate sau-“ Julien stopped when they landed on a certain page. “Brooke, get your ass over here.“

“What?“ Brooke ran up to her friend. “What is it?“

“That one.“ Julien pointed to a picture in the book- a square circumscribed inside a circle, with circles in the space between and another circle in the middle with more tiny circles. “That’s the symbol I saw.“

“Where?“

“When the forensics scientist showed me that goddamn sigil, you dumbass! This is the one that chick traced in water!“

“That’s it?! What’s it do?!“

The two pressed their heads together to read the text.

Angels are easier to summon than demons, requiring less effort and obviously no blood, but nonetheless are difficult to control when summoned. My experience with summoning angels is that they express quite a bit of displeasure over the world, and when I ask them what they’ve been doing about it, they can’t say anything. I mean, just smiling at someone? Giving your mum a hug? That’s something you can do! But nope, can’t even give one person a penny because of morals and whatnot and end up complaining about it.

Anyway, the sigils are more complicated. Whereas demons require complicated geometric shapes, angels are easy. Or hard, depending on what kind of angel you want and which one. For example, the symbol on the left is for summoning two servants of the archangel Daniel. The symbol on the right is for summoning the nearest angel to your position. These runes, as you can see, are much more customizable!

“You’re sure that’s it?“ Brooke asked.

“I know that’s it.“ Julien pointed to the lines. “If they were symbols I would have known, and there’s no mistaking it.“

“The nearest angel to our position?“ Brooke asked. “So an angel that hangs out on Earth?“

“The feathers!“ Julien jumped up. “Remember we were wandering near the victim’s homes? And we found striped feathers?“

“You think those were from an angel?“

“That has to be it!“ Julien jumped on the bed. “This lady summoned an angel for whatever reason, and it killed her!“

“No.“ All of a sudden, Arthur stumbled into the room. “It’s not an angel feather. It’s a barn owl. I was just looking it up.“

Julien stopped bouncing.

A sudden rush of air poured through the window, flipping pages in Brooke’s book. It landed on one. Brooke’s eyes darted back down to the text.

Angels cannot visit Earth directly unless summoned and cannot travel for long periods on Earth without using an animal or person as a vessel. The ones I’ve summoned used cats, although I’ve heard that they prefer birds because they like to fly.

“There’s your answer.“ Brooke pointed to the passage. “An angel possessing a barn owl.“

“So people have been summoning angels... “ Julien said, “and then the angel kills them and escapes using his barn owl?“

“That might be it.“ Brooke said. “But there’s only one way to find out. We have to summon the angel ourselves.“

------------

(AN: In my work, summoning holy beings is the literal exact opposite of summoning demons- demons require fire, blood, sacrifice, etc, while holy beings require water from a natural source and plant seeds. The plant seeds have to be on fire for the ritual to begin, however, and while you need a lot for a demon, you need only a few embers for an angel. Some sort of chemical reaction needs to happen to those seeds- fire is just the easiest.)

#feathers #tmx

0 notes