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gottawriteanegoortwo · 4 years ago

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Yancy x Illinois - First Impressions Aren’t Always the Best

I decided to try properly writing Yanois, just to see how I’d manage it. After rewatching Illinois’ scenes, I think he would get on the nerves of the Yancy I write at first.

Word Count 2,122

(Read more because Illinois talks so much...)

Happy Trails Penitentiary was renowned for its rehabilitation initiatives. They had a wide variety of classes and visitors to help prisoners. Educational courses, chances to learn new skills, pen pal projects. Many prisoners would never have the opportunity for such experiences, and it was an integral part of helping them prepare for a better life outside of prison when their sentence was finished.

There was one visitor that most prisoners in Yancy’s ‘Gang’ adored. His name was Illinois, a renowned adventurer and archaeologist. Between his job in the university and research trips, he only had time to visit once every few months. It worked in his favour, as those that wanted to visit were able to to hear the various stories that Illinois was more than happy to tell. Not only that, it would encourage the small ‘fan club’ among the younger prisoners.

It was one of the few events that Yancy avoided. Something about Illinois rubbed him the wrong way. He was so arrogant and cocky, acting like the world revolved around him. It wasn’t an act, either. Yancy had spotted Illinois speaking to the Warden on his first visit two years earlier, and he acted the exact same way as he did in the talk that happened that day. After that, Yancy decided he didn’t want anything to do with the adventurer. But if Illinois were to ever become an inmate? Yancy would make sure Illinois had the snot beaten out of him within the first week.

Unfortunately, a lot of the Gang were of the opposite view, especially those around Yancy’s age. To them, Illinois walked straight out of an adventure movie and lived the ideal life. What prisoner didn’t dream of going exploring in uncharted territories? It meant that they would frequently share Illinois’ tales in rec yard when he came to visit. Yancy would roll his eyes, but keep quiet. Let them have their fun.

Today was the day that Illinois visited the prison. It had been over three months since the last visit, so there was an excited buzz among individuals in the Gang. Yancy spent the morning bracing himself. There was a talk after lunch that the others would go to, which would mean the rest of the afternoon and evening would be nothing but historical chatter and “Illinois is so cool!”. He would grumble, but he would keep that to himself. It wasn’t fair to deflate their excitement. He went to the library, found some random book and focused on that for the day. Then, once they had their excitement, it would die down and Yancy could enjoy more casual conversation.

Which was the plan… Until Bam-Bam pleaded for him to go to the last talk of the day. It turned out that his shift clashed with the talk everyone else they knew went to, and he didn’t want to go alone. Begrudgingly, Yancy closed the book, returned it to the shelf, and followed Bam-Bam. A flaw of being a loyal friend was knowing when to swallow your pride and do something you would rather not do.

When you go to something with low expectations, it can be incredibly difficult to feel the time was used in a worthwhile manner. Some might have memories of a teacher they hated, or a family gathering they had been dreading. This was a similar position to what Yancy found himself in. One of the ‘classrooms’ had been adjusted slightly to allow various displays to take center stage, with the chairs in neat rows in front of it. Bam-Bam and Yancy claimed two seats at the back, allowing the greaser to slouch in the chair with his arms crossed. Then, once more prisoners had arrived, the talk began.

On and on Illinois went, droning endlessly in that slow drawl. Yancy wished he had a TV remote to speed up the talking a fraction. Was Illinois focused on making sure everyone could understand him, or did he want to prolong the joy of hearing himself talk? It might have been more tolerable if Bam-Bam wasn’t genuinely engrossed in the lecture. They could have made amusing comments throughout. Instead, Yancy was stuck. Sure, history was interesting, but Illinois really drove home the stereotype of boring history teachers. The ‘adventures’ even sounded cliché and fake. Maybe he should have taken the book with him after all...

A painfully slow half hour passed. Once the talk was over, Illinois would literally open the floor to the other prisoners. The chairs would be pushed aside and those that wanted to look at the items Illinois brought were welcome to do so. Yancy was dragged along to view the pieces. Most of the articles were dated to be approximately eight thousand years old. What caught Bam-Bam’s attention was a stone carving that vaguely resembled a cat.

“Ahhh, I see the ‘White Jaguar’ has caught your attention.” Yancy had to repress a shudder at the smooth voice interrupting their own questions back and forth. Illinois stepped over, resting an arm against the perspex container. “She’s a beauty, isn’t she? A miracle we even found her in the first place. She was why I wasn’t able to visit like I said I would last month.” Bam-Bam’s eager question had Illinois chuckle and shake his hand dismissively. “Oh, I’m sure you two gentlemen have much better things to do than hear about how I nearly lost my right hand in my most recent adventure.” When Bam-Bam insisted otherwise, Illinois smirked (and Yancy nearly gagged).

“If you insist. While on our recent dig, I noticed one of the ruins had a floor panel that looked a little different from the rest. It took a little persuasion, but I got that pesky stone up. There, sprawled out before me, was a staircase leading down into the earth. I picked up one of the torches and made my way down. Slowly, I delved deeper into the darkness. One step gave way under me to set off a series of poison-dipped darts, but I was able to dodge them all without breaking a sweat.” Illinois continued, dramatically regaling every single trap that he encountered until he found the White Jaguar. When taking everything around it, he surmised that the owner of the house had been a thief. The jaguar motif was familiar, as he had noticed something similar in a nearby cave that had been repurposed at the time as a sacred spot.

“- Now, this heart of this cave was still guarded by ancient jaguar spirits. They rattled the large statues as I approached, obviously sensing the treasure I carried. In the middle, there was a jaguar’s head carved out of stone. Its jaw was open wide and I couldn’t help but feel as though it was just the right spot for this precious lady. But then, skeletons of what I assume were magic users from an era long gone by pounced and tried to wrestle the statue off me, but I was too fast for them. At last, I reached the carved head, put the White Jaguar in the mouth… and the stone head moved, trapping my arm in a ferocious bite!” He gestured to the cloth wrapped around his right wrist. It was unwrapped just enough to show the healing bite marks. “It had the strength to bite it clean off, but relented when it realised what I had done by offering my arm as blood payment to return -”

“Wait wait wait.” Yancy’s interruption had Bam-Bam elbow him, but it didn’t stop the objection. “That can’t be right. If youse managed to bring this back to where it’s meant to be, why the fuck is it here?”

“An excellent question. This is my recreation of it. I am no thief. I return artefacts to where they belong. Archaeology has a rotten connection with thievery, and I try to rectify the mistakes of my predecessors.”

“So then this entire thing could be bullshit!” Yancy scoffed. “Bam-Bam, this guy just got bitten by someone’s dog and has made this pile of baloney to hide that.”

“Are you accusing me of being a liar?”

“Well, I ain’t calling you a ‘truther’, that’s for sure!”

Yancy was ready for a proper argument. In fact, he was hoping for one. Instead… Illinois laughed, and it wasn’t that typical ‘cocky chuckle’. It was a bright, genuine laugh. He could almost see Bam-Bam go starry-eyed at such a rare moment. Typical Yancy. Getting more attention from Illinois when he wanted to rile him up.

“I suppose it all does sound rather suspicious when you put it that way. Let me show you something.” Illinois gestured for the pair to follow him toward a display of photographs. Instead of pointing to these, he instead reached for his briefcase. A small photo album was pulled out. Yancy noticed that it was dated three months prior. While Illinois flipped through it, both prisoners could see what looked like an area that had been dug up. It matched the pictures in front of them of an excavation site. At last, Illinois found what he was looking for.

“One Guardian Jaguar, complete with the White Jaguar in its mouth. As you can see, the teeth have fresh blood on them. It was an… Oddly tranquil sight, despite the unfortunate situation.”

“So then why act like these are the real deal? People just take youse’s word for it?”

“Normally those that attend my talks know that what I show are my artistic recreations for purely educational purposes. I suppose I do take for granted that those who attend here are invested regulars.” Illinois gave a small shrug. “It’s an easy mistake to forget to remind people who might be new to my talks. I’m sorry if you thought I was a fraud, but I am the real deal. Too good to be true, yet here I am.”

“Yeah yeah, ‘sucks that I’m perfect as shit’, I get it. Least you knows not to make that mistake again.” Yancy rocked back on his heel with the intention of turning and walking away.

“Now now. I can’t let you walk off like that. Take this.” Another item was pulled out of his briefcase. “I made this smaller model of the White Jaguar as a ‘first draft’. I was intending on using it as motivation to my first-year students but… I think it should stay here with you.” Illinois took the opportunity to reach for Yancy’s hand. The small clay model was gently placed in it before Illinois curled Yancy’s fingers over it to keep it in place. His hands stayed where they were as he continued, “We think the White Jaguar was a symbol of good fortune. Perhaps it might bring you some good luck.” He smiled at Yancy, only to have the moment broken by the guard announcing that there were five minutes before the prisoners had to return to their cells for the afternoon count. Yancy took the chance to quickly leave the room without as much as a ‘goodbye’. At least his friend, who introduced himself as Bam-Bam, quickly thanked Illinois before darting out.

A few more questions were asked of him by other prisoners and curious staff; and then it was time to tidy up to bring everything back to the university. It was only when he reached the White Jaguar model did Illinois hesitate. There was something about that abrasive prisoner he couldn’t put his finger on. Was it because he seemed uninterested in the adventurer? Or was there something else? It was a rare moment that Illinois wished he’d had an excuse to chat to the prisoner longer. Maybe not here, but somewhere quieter. Just the two of them.

Huh… Was this what an attraction felt like? He joked about others falling in love with him so often, he wasn’t sure if this was payback for never returning interest in others. He was drawn toward a prisoner that seemed keen to dismiss his hard work and reputation. And worse! Illinois didn’t even know his name!

Then again… A good adventurer always loves the thrill of a mystery. Maybe he could try and find that prisoner next time he visited. Now that the university was open again, he’d be able to drop by more frequently…

For what it was worth, Yancy also had a mystery on his hands.

Namely, how to get away from Bam-Bam - who would not SHUT UP about their prolonged conversation with Illinois - and half the gang - who were incredibly jealous Yancy got a gift from the Illinois!

He dropped his head against the chow hall table with a low ‘thunk’. This was the opposite of getting the others to stop talking about Illinois around him!

#writersofmark #yancy #illinois ahwm #yanois #markiplier egos #(read-more is for tidiness! :D )#dramatic prisoner (Yancy)#cocky adventurer (Illinois)

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gnarf · 4 years ago

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Gnarf’s 2020

and what a fucking year that was... Anyways, let’s talk about the good things, shall we?

I made it through 2020 alive and without going insane! Yay! So lets see what else I did. (This is a long post)

In the beginning of 2020 I said I won’t participate in many fests. Only three or something like that. Lets check how that went!

Fests Gnarf participated in: 9

@lockdownfest @lcdrarry @hd-wireless @hpfluff-fest @hd-hurtfest @hd-fan-fair @hd-erised @gameofdrarry in drarropoly @wireless-festive-minifest

Haha yup, three. Sounds legit. I also wandered off to try if I can art! No worries, I gave that up :D Mad respect to all Artists, arting is exhausting and the progress is too slow for me.

If you really want to check out my attempts, here’s what made its way onto AO3:

Dont Blink! for LCDrarry, it includes the Angels from Doctor Who and was a pain in the arse.

If you knew... was made for H/D Wireless and has the armiest arm i ever saw, very proud of that one. Its also the last thing I made.

Home Sweet Home was also made for H/D Wireless, and the first bigger art piece I tried my hand on.

A muffled groan which is rather explicit and I entirely forgot about making it :D it has a ficlet going with it too.

(I think theres other Art stuff here with the tag #gnarf draws or something)

I reached my yearly goal of writing 100k words once again!

Fics and Ficlets I wrote this year: 20(ish)

Better Side of the Bed (Lock Down Fest, T, 2k)

It was all Malfoy's fault. Harry could be at the Burrow right now, but instead he was trapped in Malfoy's tiny flat. All because that dick couldn't stop bothering him about a stupid life debt he didn't even care about.

Doing What's Best (G, ~800 words)

Lucius looked down at the little bundle currently sleeping in Narcissa's arms and felt terror shoot through his body. A little boy, his hair so white it was nearly invisible. Born only a few hours ago, taking his first breath in the light of the rising sun. Narcissa had whispered a welcome, her eyes wet, her smile bigger than ever. But they both knew, even though temporarily safe, he really wasn't. Draco was born into a world ruled by war. If only it'd end soon.

I better be hallucinating this (T, 3.8k)

After the war Draco Malfoy is sentenced to Azkaban for a really long sentence. Apparently aiding in Dumbledore's death overrules any argument Harry could put up for him. After the trial, as the days pass by, Harry is more and more outraged at the sentence. He can't stop obsessing over the fact that Draco Malfoy saved his life and aided him during the war and is very much capable of redemption. Not to mention that Malfoy has always been a delicate git and would never survive Azkaban. After a few weeks obsessing Harry decides that Malfoy indeed can't remain unjustly in Azkaban and starts to plot a way to break him out of jail and hide him in Grimmauld Place. When Hermione finds out she's not amused. Ron is horrified. Draco still thinks he's hallucinating.

Keep Holding On (Wireless, M. 33.333) A collab with @maesterchill who surprised me with lovely art for it!

After the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry and Draco both fall into their own battles with their mental states. Draco is sent to Azkaban, and Harry turns to drinking, hoping to forget. Months later, Harry visits St Mungo’s new ward on the request of a friend, only to find Draco in a deep vegetative state. Not willing to give him up, Harry stays by his side, while simultaneously dealing with the Ministry's newest grand idea to make everything worse. Making new allies, and losing old ones along the way, will hopefully be worth it in the end.

Age is just a number (Fluff Fest, T, 1.5k)

Married for decades, their life is perfect. Until Harry gets a call and hears the following words: "Mr Potter, we caught your husband stealing ten large packs of King Sized condoms."

There was still hope (Hurt Fest, M, 3.1k)

Draco winced as pain shot through his leg with every step. This secret, back-alley laboratory had been his last chance, last hope, to find the potion. But nobody had it in stock, and there was no time left to brew it himself. Panic was slowly overtaking his entire mind as he crept out of the store and back to the nearest alley to Apparate back home. He already felt off, and it was still early in the day. Of course this thestral-shit had to happen to him, of all people. As if life wasn't bad enough for him already.

Desire (E, 1.7k)

"Auror Potter, what a pleasant surprise to meet you here. What can I do for you?" "Stop the show, Malfoy. There's no one around, and I'm not here as an Auror." Draco watched Potter move closer until they were nearly nose to nose, only the small counter of his shop kept Potter at distance. Potter's eyes were dark with something Draco couldn't exactly name, his face was flushed and the air surrounding him felt somehow static. Draco felt the urge to lean further over his counter, to drink in his sight, to touch the man on the other side—but he didn't.

Drarropoly 2020 currently holds 7 ficlets and is in a Series. The highest rating is Mature and its 3.2k in total at this point.

Let's not wait for France (Fan Fair, T, 17.7k)

All Harry had wanted from his Eighth year at Hogwarts was a little peace and a little privacy but, from the moment that he stepped onto Platform 9 3/4, it was obvious that nothing was ever going to be that easy. An accidental bond with Malfoy that resulted in them having to stay together at all times was the final straw. Things couldn't be worse. So much to a quiet year in Hogwarts.

Love letters for the oblivious (Mini Wireless, T, 716 words)

Draco had gotten the strangest letters all week long, which wasn't what anyone needed at Christmas. Especially not him. Either someone was taking the piss, or he had a very dumb and inefficient secret admirer. And Draco didn't know which would be worse.

Double-Booked (Mini Wireless, T, 2.1k)

Finally, peace and quiet, and— "Malfoy?!?" Or the one where Harry thought he could enjoy a quiet Christmas far from everyone, just to find out that the cabin he had booked already accommodated another guest.

The best Christmas he ever had (Mini WirelessT, 1.9k)

Christmas had never been less appealing to him than this year. That was until Arthur Weasley showed up at his door, dressed as Santa, inviting him to the Burrow.

Anon Fests to be added

Whoever made it to this point: yoooo! Friend! Lots of love to you! I also got tagged in many get to know me posts, plenty of love in my Inbox giving me love slaps left and right (honestly, im bruised, stop slapping me), amazing person awards, top 5 fics, and whatever you can think of.

To make up for not answering most of them because I’m a horrible person:

My favourite colour: purple My age: I’ll be 30 next year in April, I expect gifts, I don’t accept first borns My favourite trope: eight year My favourite animal: cat My favourite ice cream: Ben and Jerry’s Cookie Dough Here’s my writing Playlist, it’s the worst you’ll ever see, and yes, I use YouTube, I’m old.

Other things that happened in 2020 that made me happy:

I kicked out my mentally/emotionally abusive partner of 7 years in January

I kept my grandma alive through this *waves hand at world*

I was able to share my birthday cake with my family becaus I got to leave my first quarantine a few days before my birthday

I got to keep my job

I found a lot of lovely friends in this fandom, and got to keep them through this year

My cats are their usual little jerks and actually enjoyed me being at home due to the raging pandemic

I finally cut off my hair

I’m about to hit 3.5k followers here and I love you all

I’m also tagging everyone who sees this and wants to do something similiar! Show us what you did in 2020, the things you’re proud of, and the things you loved! Let’s spread some happy for the end of the year 💜🥰

#gnarf writes #gnarf draws #gnarf rambles #personal #gnarf's 2020

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moon-lily · 4 years ago

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Treasure Hunting

(In which an Au Ra WoL drags a certain red-haired catboy onto a hunt.)

“And where is your hero? Did she wander off when you weren’t looking,” asked Y’shtola, arms crossed as she smirked at G’raha Tia.

“I’ll have you know that she mentioned having to drop off some provisions to the Immortal Flames,” he replied, keeping in mind to be as calm as possible. He already made the mistake of letting it slip of how he looked up to the Warriors of Light, he can’t give her another.

“And what of the other two? Could they not have taken you along with them to wherever called them?” Now she wasn’t as teasing, genuinely curious instead.

“Sariel and Amaris had said they were going to the First to check on Ryne and Gaia. Apparently they had been making progress on restoring the elements to the Empty.”

“That’s... A relief to hear,” Y’shtola muttered, smiling sincerely. “I did hold apprehensions that Norvrandt would be the only remaining inhabitable region after we left. But with their mission... The First would be restored beyond the balance of light and darkness.”

G’raha nodded in agreement, adding, “They truly bring hope where they go. It took but one look into Sariel’s eyes to know they were nearing the end in their mission for the First. There was.. resolve within them.”

Before Y’shtola could add anything further, the front door of the Rising Stones burst open as a familiar black-haired Au Ra ran in, wearing a gray urban coat, blue trousers, and black boots. Her long hair flowed behind her as she ran, holding up a piece of parchment in her hand.

“Look! Look,” she called as she approached them, waving the paper. “I found.. a treasure map!” She held the paper out to them as she caught her breath, but it was fairly obvious to the other two Scions that this map seemed... fake. The crude drawing of landmarks on it was reminiscent of a young child’s artistic work, the parchment looking fairly new and not worn out as most maps were.

“Surely you’re aware this isn’t authentic,” Y’shtola asked deadpan, gazing at the Au Ra.

“Bah, that’s just what they want you to think,” she retorted, tapping at her elegantly curved horn. “I’m sure this is a ploy to throw any would-be treasure hunter off.”

“But did you see the illustration on it,” asked G’raha, pointing at the crude attempt of drawing landmarks. “It isn’t very... ahm... well done.”

“See? You two are already dismissing this map! Well, I for one am not about to give up on this. It was fate that this map flew into my face while I was in Ul’Dah, so I’m certain there’s bound to be something at the location. If I must hunt on my own, so be it.”

“All right, I’ll see to it that you aren’t harmed should it prove to be a trap instead,” G’raha offered, earning a look from Y’shtola.

“If that’s the case, I’ll remain at the Rising Stones,” Y’shtola said with a shrug. “Personally, I was never one to be infatuated by treasure or the hunting of it. And I’m sure G’raha would prefer to have more quality time with his hero. Do take care, Lilith, on your next attempt of adventure-hosting.” She smirked as G’raha’s tail and ears perked up out of surprise, the man quickly looking away and fidgeting his hands sheepishly. Y’shtola then gave an acknowledging nod to the two before walking away to grab some tea, leaving the two alone for now.

“She’s not going to let up on that, is she,” Lilith asked, chuckling. “But I’m glad you still want to join, despite your doubts on the quality of this map.”

“Truth be told, I’ve never gone treasure hunting before,” G’raha admitted, still sheepish. “I doubt our explorations of the Crystal Tower count, considering that was done in the name of knowledge and not riches. An opportunity, really, to have that experience and ensure you won’t get harmed if the map held malicious intent behind its making.”

“Is that so? Well, I feel safer already - you’ve saved my life on more than one occasion,” she said as she lifted a finger in a matter-of-fact way. “Hm, with that in mind... would it not make sense that you’re my hero too?”

“I-I doubt it works in the same way! Compared to you, I-I haven’t - I mean, that is.. You’ve done far more than I have!” He was red in the face, hands up with his palms out as he shook his head in denial, tail raised.

“Must you be so modest? Or can you not handle some praise being thrown your way by me,” asked Lilith, rubbing her chin as a mischievous glint flashed in her blue eyes.

“The map! Let’s focus back on the treasure to be found!” He was too flustered to allow this to carry on, hoping and praying to the Twelve that the map would pull her attention away from him and onto that instead. The Au Ra would blink and then glance back down at the map in her hand, excitement filling her eyes as she was reminded of treasure.

“Oh, right! How could we get so side-tracked? Especially when we can find Gil, jewelry, or who knows what else!?” She did a twirl in place while holding the map close to herself - he wondered if that was done out of habit from being a dancer - all while she started to name several things she would buy with the newfound wealth. This was.. a side he hadn’t seen of her before, his hand coming up close to his chin as he observed her. Try as he might, he couldn’t recall a moment where she so openly admitted to wanting treasure or fortune. Or perhaps she simply hadn’t done so in front of him? There was also the possibility that he didn’t notice despite the obvious fixation on money - unlikely but still possible.

Her hand suddenly grabbed his, surprising him out of his contemplation as she pulled him along. She certainly was a lot stronger than her petite appearance implied. “C’mon, enough wasting time here,” she said as she pointed with her free hand to the front door. “There’s treasure to be found!”

One hour later...

“This can’t possibly be right,” Lilith said with a shake of her head, eyes glancing from the map to the area before her repeatedly. “This.. this is too easy! It can’t possibly be this easy!” The location of the X on the map was fairly close to Scorpion Crossing, and even figuring out the location didn’t take too long as she recognized the area. After all, Ul’Dah was where she first started her adventuring.

“Would that make the map a hoax,” asked G’raha, half hoping she’d reach that realization soon.

“No way! Look there,” she told him, pointing to the ground near a rock. “The earth looks disturbed there, so someone definitely buried something here. At least.. this doesn’t make it a complete waste of time.”

“It’s curious, though... You were in Ul’dah when you found the map, correct? Why is it that you went through the trouble of returning to Mor Dhona when you could have found the treasure on your own?”

“Hm,” Lilith hummed, walking over to the area where the treasure was presumably buried. “Honestly, I really was tempted to find it and keep whatever I found to myself but-” She crouched down to one knee, staring at the ground a moment before looking back up at him. “Well, it’s not about just me now, is it? The old me would have done exactly that, thinking she couldn’t rely on anyone else but herself.”

G’raha’s eyes widened slightly out of surprise, quietly chastising himself for even thinking she was infatuated with money for the sake of greed. But now this raised another concern, the Miqo’te approaching her and crouching to be eye level.

“Pray if this is prying, you need only say the word,” he started, ears lowered slightly as he hesitated to continue. “Why would you have the idea that you could not trust anyone else?”

Lilith’s gloved hands scooped some of the moved dirt, her brow furrowed, as she started to slowly dig. Silence hung in the air between them, Lilith eventually pausing and sighing.

“I suppose... It was because my parents never supported my dream,” she replied slowly, hesitating. “Their reasons made sense... They only wanted to protect me, keep me safe from the dangers of the world.” She dug more dirt off, G’raha soon following her lead to help. “Which also meant that they kept me from knowing too much about it. To keep me from getting too curious.”

“That would explain why you were very unfamiliar with Eorzea,” he mused, Lilith nodding in response.

“Yes, exactly. All I wanted was to explore the world, see everything there was and learn what I could about it. If my own parents couldn’t support that, couldn’t let me be... myself, then I was better off on my own.” Her hands were still over the small hole she had made so far, staring hard at the earth. “I didn’t need anyone else to help me nor keep me from what I yearned to do.” G’raha’s hand reached out, palm and fingers dirty from digging, and rested it gently over hers, Lilith looking up to meet his crimson gaze.

“It’s a relief to know that your old self had grown from that, to see that there are many who support you and your dreams,” he said softly, warm smile on his lips.

“Mn, I’ve - no, we’ve come a long way. Amaris, Sariel and I... After what happened on the First, I know for a fact I have that support, and I won’t give that up.” She smiled back at him and looked back down, G’raha pulling his hand away so they could get back to digging. “Thanks for hearing me out.”

“Of course.. Any time you feel the need to share your burdens, I’ll be there to ease some of it off your shoulders. That is, if you trust me enough to do so..”

“Oh, when haven’t I? You could give yourself a bit more credit.” She chuckled as she now started to dig faster, glad that he was here with her. With her fellow Warriors of Light, of course there was an understanding between them - there were things that only they could do. For the longest time, she believed it would only be them, that no one else would truly understand what it was like to bear the weight of worlds on their shoulders.

But he knew.

He had lived it. He bore the weight of the Crystarium’s hopes for a better tomorrow, surviving and rebelling against sin eaters and annihilation. And despite it all, he still held that inner desire to adventure, just like she always had. A kindred spirit. Perhaps that was why she found it easy to speak her mind around him? Her gloved fingertips brushed against something solid, Lilith soon realizing that it must be a coffer.

“Ah, there it is,” she said excitedly, picking up her pace. G’raha nodded and picked up his own pace to help her. They’d dig around some more, try to lift it, dig again to loosen it, before the coffer finally became free. Though, once it was lifted out of the ground by the two, Lilith noticed that it wasn’t really a coffer. No, it looked like a sealed crate, and barely held together at that. Settling the crate down, Lilith used her gloved hands to grab the top of it and pull, slowly prying the lid free to reveal...

“Toys? It’s just toys,” she asked, staring in disbelief at the contents. G’raha dusted his hands off as best he could before reaching in and pulling out a chocobo plush toy, squeezing it to check for anything suspicious, his ears twitching to listen carefully.

“‘Twould seem so. A crate full of ordinary toys,” he muttered, setting the plush toy back and inspecting the others. “No enchantments or suspicious items within them either. Who would go through the effort of burying toys?” A snap of a twig caught their attention, both turning their heads to see a young Hyur boy peeking at them from behind a rock. Though, he looked surprised and scared that he was caught.

“You there,” Lilith called, taking a few steps forward and bending down a bit so the child wouldn’t be so intimidated. “Is this yours by any chance?” She reached into the pocket of her coat, pulling out the map.

“I-it is but... another kid was supposed to find it, not a-” He stopped and blinked, eyes widening in realization as he realized whom he was speaking to. “Y-you’re...! A Warrior of Light! The Au Ra one!” Suddenly his eyes seemed to brighten as he ran up to get a better and closer look at her, gazing in awe at her. Lilith could only smile and chuckle sheepishly, the boy taking a moment before taking the map from her.

“You started here in Ul’Dah, right!? Helping people around before you became a great adventurer,” he asked, looking absolutely star-stricken.

“That is her origin,” confirmed G’raha, stepping closer to them. “Helping your fellow man is what set her on the road to being a hero.”

“I-I’m trying my best on that,” the kid explained, though his downward gaze seemed solemn. “But... What if you can’t help everyone?”

G’raha and Lilith exchanged looks before turning their concerned gazes to the boy, Lilith crouching down some to be eye level with him. “When you reach a situation like that,” started Lilith, voice patient and gentle. “You look for help. Not even the most valiant heroes can stand alone.”

“Even you?” The boy was surprised to hear this, before his eyes widened in realization. “The other Warriors... They help you too, don’t they?”

“Indeed, and we also have the help of the Scions,” she added, looking to G’raha to accentuate he was one of them. “So what is it that troubles you? Surely we can offer some assistance for whatever plight you have.”

“W-well... All those toys in the crate were supposed to be a treasure to a lucky kid,” he started, pointing at the crate they dug up. “I... I couldn’t just pick random kids to give my old toys to. It didn’t feel right to pick who gets one and who doesn’t... So I thought leaving it to chance and luck would be better.”

“I see, then you made a map to guide one to this location,” G’raha asked, glancing to the crate. “Understandable that such a decision would be difficult. I’ve made some similar decisions myself, though not in regard to toys. I digress.. Have you only made the one map? The one Lilith found?”

“No, I made more but... I don’t think that would have worked because some kids could have fought for it,” the boy sighed, shaking his head. “I didn’t.. think that through til now.”

“Well, there’s really one solution to all this,” Lilith said as she straightened up, dusting off her hands as she turned her head toward G’raha. “Get what gil we can gather and buy more toys. I’m sure I’ve saved up enough for that as is.”

“Wh-what!? Are you serious!?” The boy’s mouth was open in shock, not expecting for them to make such a generous donation.

“And why would I lie about that,” teased the Au Ra, pulling her gloves off to rest a hand on the top of his head. “Trust me - trust us. Though, I will add that I need your help to point us in the right direction of where all the kids you want us to give toys to are at. Can we trust you with this part of the mission?”

“Yes! I won’t let you down!”

“That’s the spirit, we’ll collect this crate and then head for the closest shop that sells more toys like this.” Moving her hand away, she looked at G’raha with a little smile. “I do hope you’re ready for a bit more work. Helping the less fortunate is all part of the job.”

“I’m confident I can handle that,” he said with a chuckle, picking up the crate of toys. “Though perhaps it’d be wise to call on the other Scions and Warriors to help with carrying around all the toys?”

“Ah, good idea! I’ll give them a quick call on the linkpearl.” As she turned away to get a hold of their friends, G’raha quietly sighed and smiled. He came into this little adventure with thoughts that she was driven by a desire for wealth. Well, she did seem in love with treasure, but unlike some, she didn’t give in fully to her greed. No, there was more to her than he thought, than what he had seen. And it filled him with a curiosity to know more about her than what he already read about.

#ffxiv #ff14 #final fantasy xiv #original character #G'raha Tia #Y'shtola Rhul #writing

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jokertrap-ran · 4 years ago

Photo

(未定事件簿) 莫弈 [剧情: 第1章] [Tears of Themis] Mo Yi Private Story Translations (Chapter 1-5)

*Tears of Themis Masterlist / Mo Yi’s Masterlist is under construction. *Spoiler free: Translations will remain under cut *In which, Ran attempts Chinese… *(y/n) is your name when in direct referral; otherwise referred to as MC.

Location: Mall

Mo Yi: (Y/n). You're here.

I had just walked into the entrance of the mall when I caught sight of Mo Yi, standing on the stairs.

The sunlight refracted strangely on his silvery hair and his golden eyes were full of happy mirth, as intoxicating as champagne itself.

MC: Sorry to keep you waiting, Doctor Mo.

I had actively pursued the term PUA yesterday but came up pretty short, with a bucket full of questions. I had originally planned to give him a call, in a bid to have him explain the foreign term to me. However, I didn't expect him to be one step ahead of me, calling first.

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MC: Doctor Mo? Did something happen for you to be calling me this early?

Mo Yi: I apologise for having disturbed you during your rest.

Mo Yi: I've subjected Lin Yunyun to Sand-play Therapy, proceeding your findings. There's been results.

Mo Yi: She has unconsciously selected a couple of tools which has a strong aggressive image whilst laying them out.

Mo Yi: However, her aggression is a form of self-protection. Her heart is one that's extremely fragile. Hence, she is doubting the value of her existence.

MC: ...She doubts her own existence? Is this why she turned to self-harming?

Mo Yi: That's right. Based on the results of this, we can say that Lin Yunyun has suffered mental abuse from that boyfriend of hers. And that she has lost the ability to save herself from her own person.

Mo Yi: She is like that of typical PUA victims. Most of their Sandboxes tend to turn out the same way.

MC: PUA stands for Pick-up Artists, right? I've researched about it, but I'm not entirely clear about what it entails...

Mo Yi: Some things are hard to explain in just a mere line or two. How about we meet up if you've got the time to spare?

MC: Sure. How does the mall sound? It's along the way for both of us.

Mo Yi: Alright. I'll get ready to leave immediately.

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I thought that I'd be the one to arrive first since I lived closer to the place, but Mo Yi was already there before me.

Mo Yi: I've only just reached as well. I apologize; I couldn't really explain everything to you over the phone call this morning.

Perhaps the topic he was about to approach next was a grave one, for the gentle expression on his face darkened.

Mo Yi: Lin Yunyun's boyfriend utilized the typical techniques of PUAs. I thought they had already broken off with each other.

MC: I looked it up yesterday, but isn't PUA just a way for introverted boys to improve their emotional intelligence?

Mo Yi: At first, yes. Back when it was first founded.

Mo Yi: However, PUA started diverging from its original intention along the way as it developed; from a method of actively changing oneself to a means of satisfying one's selfish desires.

Mo Yi: Men who find themselves unpopular in real life use PUA to create different personalities for themselves. Emperors, Prodigal Sons, Poets...

Mo Yi: Equipped with a complete set of varying personalities, it is easy for one to build up a facade in the virtual world.

MC: Prodigal Sons and Poets are easy enough to understand on their own, but what exactly is an Emperor?

Mo Yi and I were walking alongside each other and I could occasionally feel the eyes of the passerbys on us.

He only smiled at my question.

Mo Yi: The Emperor persona in the harmful version of PUA is something that's different from the well-known concept that the public attributes it to.

Mo Yi: They look as if they're doing well for themselves on the outside. But after successfully netting a girl, they'll reveal that they didn't come from a good family background, and that they've always been looked down by others.

Mo Yi: A hardworking, motivated man who has suffered but yet succeeded in life. This image is one that simple girls will fall for with no problem at all.

MC: But it's not like girls are stupid either. Why would they fall for something so obviously fishy and flimsy?

Mo Yi: This might come as something rather sudden, but I wish to hear your thoughts on me, (y/n).

MC: Huh? My thoughts...? Someone with a successful career...a very good and talented Psychiatrist? I don't think any ordinary person can live up to what you have.

Mo Yi: I see...so that's what you think of me.

A lonely look suddenly appeared on his face.

Mo Yi: I'm not as great as you think I am. I am but a stupid bird that had flown the nest too early.

Mo Yi: No one really appreciated me in the past, but their attitudes all changed once I worked hard and got some achievements under my name.

Mo Yi: The title of being a genius has never belonged to one like me. I can only hope that there'll be someone who doesn't care about titles by my side. Someone who appreciates me from the bottom of their heart, supports me and sees me for who I am.

MC: ...Doctor Mo...I...I didn't know that you came from such a situation.

I didn't know how to react to his unexpected revelation.

MC: I cannot become the person by your side...but you'll always have my support; so you're definitely not alone.

After hearing my answer, Mo Yi's saddened expression of loneliness faded and morphed into that of a quiet smile.

Mo Yi: And you've just fallen for the trap of immoral PUA schematics.

MC: Huh!? Wait, you...you were just acting???

Mo Yi: That's right. People tend to feel a kind of compassion, wanting to help those in a disadvantaged position. This is especially so when a mature person shows their fragility in front of them.

Mo Yi: This immoral version of PUA takes advantage of this kind of mentality, using it as a way to score.

MC: ...And here I thought I definitely wouldn't fall for something like that.

Mo Yi: Now, if I were to carry on with this method that the immoral PUAs use, I'll continuously try to demean your self-confidence. And eventually, deny you of your own value and self-worth.

Mo Yi: And when you feel worthless before me, working so very hard to gain recognition...

Mo Yi: You'll become a complete puppet in the palm of my hand.

MC: A puppet in the palm of your hand...You mean, Lin Yunyun also fell for something like that; that's why she's slowly edging towards suicide?

Mo Yi: Yes.

MC: ......

The "Person" will lose their sense of self and forgo their own opinions; entrusting themselves to a fake person and would choose to sacrifice themselves on a single command. This wasn't love; this was voluntarily lowering oneself to a slave towards the other party.

Mo Yi: This twisted form of PUA causes devastation. It turns a girl, brimming full of life, into that of a puppet, or even a pet. One that satisfies their own selfish desires.

Mo Yi: It leaves them begging the other party for mercy under the facade of this so-called love.

He suddenly lowered his voice and bent down slightly. The couple of silvery, moonlight-like strands fell out of place as he bent down. Seeing them dangling before my eyes made me tempted to reach out and grab onto those scattered strands of moonlight.

Mo Yi: True love will bring hope and light into a person's life. It'll turn them into a much, much better person than before.

The distance between us was so close that I could catch a whiff of the scent that lingered on his clothes without even trying.

Mo Yi: You might meet the one that'll turn you into a better person at any point in your life, but you might not realize it at the time.

Raising my head, I could clearly see the looks of warmth and gentleness that resided within his eyes. And reflected in those depths, was me.

MC: ......

I patted myself on the cheek, trying to snap my slightly confused brain that had found itself momentarily attracted to Mo Yi out of it.

MC: What if the girl manages to see the man's true colours? We might be able to put a stop to it before it goes too far.

MC: Is there a way to deal with men who are PUA? I want to help Lin Yunyun get rid of him.

Mo Yi: Men who utilize the methods of immoral PUA are normally not satisfied with having just fulfilled a single goal.

Mo Yi: They're well-versed in hunting for targets. Especially young girls who've never fallen in love or those who've been emotionally hurt before.

MC: That's to say that I can chat him up and pretend to be interested in him?

Mo Yi: I am still unable to ascertain just how far Lin Yunyun's boyfriend has taken the PUA methods to. Thus, it'll be dangerous if you choose to take action now.

I couldn't help but to feel a little embarrassed at my insistence of wanting to take the initiative when I had just fallen for Mo Yi's invitation of immoral PUA not too long ago.

MC: ......

Just as I was thinking how to approach this mysterious boyfriend of Lin Yunyun's, Mo Yi suddenly spoke up.

Mo Yi: How about we act as a couple, (y/n)? That way, it'll be easier to lead the snake out of the hole.

Mo Yi: And I'll have a reason to stay by your side and watch the other party's every move, effectively preventing you from facing any danger whatsoever.

MC: P-Pretending to be a fake couple!?

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Previous Part: (Chapter 1-3) | Next Part: (Chapter 1-6)

#Tears of Themis #Mo Yi #Translations #Otome #未定事件簿 #莫弈 #Mo Yi Private Story #Tears of a Personal Psychiatrist

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hmel78 · 4 years ago

Text

In conversation with Anthony Phillips ...

1967 – the World watched on as San Francisco experienced it’s ‘Summer Of Love’, and listened on as music reached the dizzy heights of psychedelic rock; Classical music seemed to be drowned out by the screams accompanying The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who … Meanwhile, at Charterhouse school - one of Great Britain’s finest ‘public’ educational establishments in the idyllic English county of Surrey - a handful of budding young musicians, were busily trying to prove to their masters that banning guitar practice as a punishment for missed homework, would not stop the musical revolution that had begun to happen within it’s own splendid Gothic walls! Unsurprisingly, there is a noteable list of ‘Old Carthusians’ – including the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, amongst numerous artists, actors, poets , sportsmen, TV personalities, journalists, politicians, and Bishops! – but we doubt that they could ever have imagined that they would also nurture, and eventually include in that list, the founder members of a band called … ‘Genesis’. Perhaps you have heard of them?

Peter Gabriel, Michael Rutherford, Tony Banks, Christopher Stewart, and … Anthony Phillips. Despite his departure from the band in 1970, Ant has never strayed from his musical path. His solo discography boasts in excess of 30 albums; in addition to that he enjoys an incredibly busy, and successful career as a TV and ‘library’ composer; and has been involved with a number of musical projects including collaborations with fellow ‘Genesis’ band mates Mike Rutherford, Phil Collins, and Peter Gabriel - but it hasn’t all been plain sailing … Helen Robinson, caught up with him to find out more : HR - So where did your musical journey begin?

AP - I was pretty much self taught at school. I studied music later, but in the beginning I was self taught. I briefly had guitar lessons from a chap who was very impressive. My mum used to buy me the Beatles sheet music, and kindly send it down to me at ‘Charterhouse’ – and this chap would just look at them and read from the piano score, with guitar ‘shapes’ written in fret numbers as opposed to tablature – and he would play the chords and the melody on this beautiful classical guitar. I just wanted to be able to strum the chords to the songs and sing along really, and I think at the time he was a bit disappointed that I wasn’t prepared to go the classical route … Anyway I didn’t. Then formed a band at school – doing Rolling Stones, Beatles, Kinks, Animals, The Shadows - Hank was a big influence - and that took me up to starting to write my own stuff; A lot of it with Mike Rutherford. I met Mike when I was 13 – the other Genesis guys were quite a bit older so we didn’t get together with them for a couple of years. The school band – The Anon - was people more my age. I was the babe of Genesis!

HR - Indeed – and with that in mind, how much input did they allow you to have on the debut album – “From Genesis To Revelation”?

AP - The first album I didn’t do an enormous amount of writing – it was very much dominated by Peter Gabriel and Tony Banks. The second album – “Trespass” - was much more of a ‘group’ album. In fact, myself and Mike were responsible for the basis of 3 or 4 of the tracks on “Trespass”. “Visions of Angels” was my piano track originally. Songs like “Looking For Someone” were Peter Gabriel songs that the rest of us developed the instrumentals around. I had a reasonable amount of stuff on “Genesis To Revelation”, but Mike had very little – we came much more into play on ‘Trespass’.

HR - You’d left the band by the time their 3rd album was released. Did they take any of your ideas forward into “Nursery Cryme”? AP - Actually, I was responsible for mucking about with a few ideas that ended up on the album, way before I left - Mike had this weird tuning of F# which we played about on. That song became “The Musical Box” later – so, yes, a couple of ideas made it.

HR - Do you ever listen back to the first two albums, and hear things that you would change?

AP - I don’t often listen, no - and I haven’t listened to them enough to have any really strong thoughts. I think if you don’t listen for a while then it’s quite pleasant. If you have a period away from these things, you tend to forget what you thought was wrong, so then it’s not so bad – but I must say that when you listen repeatedly, then you start to think “oh dear”, I could have done that differently. We all felt that the business of putting strings on “Genesis To Revelation” - which necessitated reducing the backing track to mono -was a bit of a disaster. Whilst our playing wasn’t the best, the album had a rough, raw power to it which, that process of adding these high wheeling strings to, made it lose something, and anodyne, perhaps. I know that our producer was trying to give it a more commercial edge, which I understand, but I don’t think it really came off - and it was at some cost too!

HR - Would you re-record or re-mix any of it again now, in your own way?

AP - No I don’t think so. I think it is of its time really. The other thing of course is that it’s physically impossible now. That reduction process, means that things were erased, so we can’t get back to the original stages even if we wanted to. That’s all changed now, mercifully, with computers . You can get back to any stage these days – providing you remember to save it!

HR – Ah, yes! The wonders of modern technology. And … NOT saving things! [laughs]

AP - Yes – we’ve all done it!!! It’s all so easily done. We take too much for granted with technology. You can become over reliant on it, and lazy! I do fall into that trap myself sometimes actually – musically. I don’t think enough about original sounds I just tend to buy virtual instruments. T hey are wonderful, but if you think back to albums like [The Beach Boys], “Pet Sounds” and [The Beatles] “Sgt Pepper”, those sounds were created, they weren’t just there at the push of a button!

HR - I know you’re quite experimental with your solo work … Once you’d left Genesis , how easy was it to move into a more classical sound with your compositions?

AP - I found it difficult! I could play by ear, but learning to read music at the age of 18 was incredibly hard to grasp. It was a different discipline of course, of not looking at the guitar or the piano, whilst reading music. My motivation in doing it, was because I wanted the ability to orchestrate ; Not having had that set of skills in Genesis , we couldn’t really have any input into the orchestral approach because we simply didn’t really understand it. Tony Banks did more than the rest of us, although he wasn’t orchestrally trained, but he could read music. So I wanted the power to orchestrate. It wasn’t simply about being able to read music, or being able to play piano pieces – It was definitely to understand notation, so that I could write orchestral pieces. I had a ‘Road to Damascus’, if you like, after I left Genesis, and listened to all sorts of composers. “The Karelia Suite”, by Sibelius, was my epiphany. I suddenly thought “this doesn’t sound like classical music!”. I must have listened to the wrong things, or maybe my ears weren’t ready to listen as a child, so I had a lot of catching up to do. There was a huge ‘pop’ / ‘Classical’ divide as I was growing up in the 60s – it was rancorous between the establishment and the young tear-aways, and hippies. It was a wonderful voyage of discovery though, but frustrating at the same time – technically - I loved doing Bach ‘Chorales’ and things like that, but some of the exercises I had to do, I found quite dull.

HR - Having honed your skills then, did you find that it made a difference to the music that you wanted to write? Did you find yourself wanting to bridge the gap between pop and classical – through a ‘progressive’ angle?

AP - Hmmm, Bridge the gap is interesting. It didn’t make a great deal of difference to me in terms of the progressive wing of my writing – I think I would have grown into that anyway.

With Genesis - There were some moments which were quasi classical, but I don’t think they bridged the gap really, no. Tony Banks was very familiar with the classical repertoire, so you could argue that his chord sequences were classically influenced. What studying did for me, was give me the ability to do - with the more markedly classical wing of things (although you may argue that it’s a fine line to distinguish which bits are prog, and which are classical!) – was cope with them better.

On “The Geese And The Ghost” for instance, having studied orchestration, and knowing how to write the parts, I didn’t have to get an arranger in. I could think for myself and make my own judgments on which instrument to add where. Plus – arrangers inevitably, like anyone else, tend to have their own styles which then reflect on the piece, which might be good, but it might not be necessarily what you want. So it really did help me in that respect.

HR - Genesis certainly didn’t carry any of that vibe forward, into their commercial phase …

AP - No! Well, the post Gabriel group gradually became more and more commercial didn’t they. Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel were quite different animals really - Obviously Peter did some successful commercial things afterwards. To be fair to them [Genesis], it would have been very difficult to carry on that way – especially post punk, and disco eras. There was almost a unilateral, multilateral, Palace revolution, that everyone had to start doing that! It became very unfashionable to be ‘prog’ and have such complicated long and drawn out pieces of music.

My timing was peccable - I’m not sure there is such a word, but I like it anyway! - coming back into the business, because I walked straight into the teeth of punk! Whilst I had nothing against it, in the sense that if I had been 10 years younger I would have been doing the same thing –what I did object to, was being asked to go into reverse gear, and start doing simple pop stuff, because I’d out grown it.

So I think it actually, for the purposes of the market, became very difficult for groups to stay true to their former selves and continue to produce classically based music. I don’t think it was a conscious direction on behalf of a lot of groups to start to simplify their music, they just were not given much choice. It didn’t do England a great deal of credit the way that everyone cashed in on that - there was so much clichéd nonsense around and people were saying “this music hasn’t got any balls!”. In a lot of European countries and the States, different styles were able to co-exist much better, than here in the UK. It was the fault of the record companies rather than a lot of the punk musicians really - they were just happy doing their own thing, but there was a lot of unpleasantness at that time. There were a lot of people who were heroes one day, and then being knifed in the back the day after by the people who had been adulating them! Which wasn’t anything to be terribly proud about …

HR - Not at all! But, something to be proud about is this lovely re-issue of your debut solo album “The Geese And The Ghost”!

AP - Yes! Absolutely! It’s just come out again, and in surround sound too, which is the first time I have had a surround sound album, and they have done a fantastic job with it! Particularly the instrumentals – it really does make a difference to have that experience of surround sound. And they’re releasing limited editions on Vinyl too, which is fabulous because that is when the artwork really comes into it’s own. Vinyl seems to be having a bit of a revival, which is great! MP3s are OK, but the sound is pretty impoverished really one you’ve narrowed the bandwidth of the sound. It sounds like a different album really, with that treatment! HR - When you started work on “The Geese And The Ghost” originally - Did you write it from a fresh perspective or was it something that you had brought forward from Genesis?

AP - It was actually written from a period as far back as 1969 / 1970. Things that Mike [Rutherford] and I had played around with then. There were some additions and refinements made between 1973 / 1974. Recording began in 1974, although the main body of it was done in 1975 – which is actually 40 years ago, isn’t that terrible?! And then, because they were now unfashionable times, we really struggled to get it released - so it didn’t come out until early 1977, by which time some of that material was over 7 years old!

HR - When you were selecting musicians to work with, what influenced your decision to ask Phil Collins and not Peter Gabriel?

AP - Well, Mike and I wrote together, and Peter and Tony [Banks] wrote together - when we came together as a group, that modified a little, but that initial pairing pretty much stayed the same way. So, because Mike and I had all this unreleased music – which was frustrating –at the earliest opportunity ; at a time where solo albums looked like a possibility - we wanted to use this material. We had done a single with Phil in 1973 which ironically was written about the previous Genesis drummer, Jonathan Silver, who was on the first album. I had written this with Mike – a very uncharacteristic kid of loose country song called “The Silver Song” and Phil came down and sang the demo and did such a great job of it. You see, Peter was married, so whenever we had any time off - he went home to spend it with Jill ; whereas Phil was foot loose and fancy free and had tons of energy. The single never got released for various reasons, but when it came to “The Geese And The Ghost” he was the obvious choice because the three of us had worked together before. HR - I’m glad you mentioned Jonathan Silver there – with regards to him, and John Mayhew – were they just hired guns for the early Genesis albums or did they have creative input?

AP - No, they weren’t hired guns as such, but by the same token they didn’t have a huge input, but we did group compositions on all the tracks on those first 2 albums – so whilst they weren’t writing huge swaythes of chord sequences, they were putting in little bits here and there. Jon Silver was full of energy and ideas about arranging and how things were connected. HR - We never really get to know the dynamics of the early stuff, which is why I was curious. It has always seemed to me, that Phil Collins became Genesis … or is that an unfair judgment?

AP - Well he had the big commercial success and I don’t think it would have been easy to keep him unless he had the lion share of the writing credits, although I think they’ve shared the credits pretty well … I think it’s sad to see him fall so far from all of that these days, with the press in particular, but he was colossally successful, and I think the group would have been looking the gift horse in the mouth if they hadn’t run with Phil.

The media can be so cruel. I remember a duel review of “The Geese And The Ghost” being handed to me from the states. One called it a “mellow rock classic”, the other said it was “music to wash dishes to” … and sadly you seem only to remember the bad ones!

And do you know, that it was the album that very nearly never came out?!! It sat on a shelf whilst punk roared away, and I’d given up on it to be honest. It was 15 months between finishing it and it being picked up to be released. For the first 3 or 4 months I was quite hopeful; by new year 1976 I was beginning to lose hope, and by the summer I was definitely starting to think about other things, and applying to go to music college full time.

It was a pretty soul destroying time – I’d spent a lot of time and energy on it; a lot of angst , and thought, apart from hard work, had gone into it … And then right at the 11th hour, while I was going for auditions to music college for the following year - suddenly it was picked up by an American record company. It was never actually released on a formal English record company label - it was released by the Genesis management company with whom I was with at the time – ‘Hit And Run’ – so like I say it’s the album that nearly never was!

HR - If it hadn’t been picked up then, do you think you’d have given it another shot down the line?

AP - No … I don’t actually. I think I would have gone to music college, and ... Good point! What would I have done at the end of it? I think I would have carried on composing, definitely, but I’m not quite sure where I would have come out at the other end, because the progressive scene had long gone, when I finished college in 1979– [laughs] Yes - in a parallel world what would I have done? I have absolutely no idea! I would probably have ended up as a music teacher.

HR - Did you teach, at some point?

AP - Yes … yes I did funnily enough. Whilst I was studying, I taught classical guitar - which helped me a lot. I had always played acoustic guitar, but didn’t play proper finger style - my right hand was quite basic, so I studied classical guitar as well as piano when I left Genesis, and teaching then helped me to pass the Classical Guitar teachers exams (as opposed to the performers diploma). I taught at a couple of different schools. One was Pepper Harrow ; which was like a progressive borstal for kids who were very bright, but who’d fallen foul of authority - not so badly that had to be interned, as it were. A great number of them had come from some pretty horrific backgrounds, but a number of them have gone on to do great things. Some of them were brilliant musicians! I remember wondering what I was letting myself in for initially, but it’s something that I look back on with a great deal of affection. They weren’t just guitar lessons – they were much more - the music was a vital part of these guys rehabilitation.

HR - Sounds like you’d have made a fantastic teacher, had all else failed! Given that “The Geese And The Ghost” almost didn’t happen – did that fill you with confidence to carry on to do the next album straight away, or had it discouraged you a little?

AP - Oh I’ve had more than my fair share of discouragement over the years! The album that came directly afterwards was “Wise After The Event” and I was immediately told that it had to be an album of songs – the writing was on the wall for these straggly instrumental albums - and it was time to crank up the electric guitar into a heavier rock genre, or don’t bother turning up, kind of thing.

“Sides” was originally going to be called “Balls”, which was cocking-a-snook at people for saying that my music didn’t have enough balls! At the time it seemed to me to be so ludicrous to have this blanket approach across all music - so that’s why we had the cover with the table football table on it - But the powers that be, over-ruled “Balls” and we had to change it to “Sides” ; because it did have one side that was more overtly commercial than the other, which is a little more instrumental.

I was lucky at that point, because the “Private Parts and Pieces” idea just came out of the blue really. I had been recording and stockpiling quite a lot throughout the year when nothing was happening with “The Geese And The Ghost”, and I asked if it might be possible, as a foil to this more rock orientated stuff, to be able to release an album of piano pieces, guitar pieces – sort of home recordings, which made up in their atmosphere and mood, what they lacked in technical perfection - and they said yes!

The first X of “Sides” was released as “Private Parts And Pieces” - as a freebie. It wasn’t actually “Private Parts and Pieces I” because it was a one off, but that numbering thing became sort of a generic term for my albums which were more homespun and simple – you know, small scale, as opposed to the more magnum opuses.

Not that I was able to do a Magnum Opus for quite a while! There was the “Invisible Men” album, which had a certain amount of record company backing, but that was again released around the time of the ‘New Romantics’ – more bad timing! I’d just bought my first house, and was under huge financial pressure with about 18 lodgers to pay the mortgage! So there was big pressure on to have hit singles and get paid, and so I didn’t do another full scale album for about another 6 years. I was lucky to still have this ‘outlet’, with the small scale releases, to continue to get some music out there during the 80s - when the climate was very much against the more classical stuff - at least I did continue to get piano, guitar, synth - slightly more imaginative stuff - out there, but all very much on a small scale.

Thinking about it, it was actually a full 7 years gap before I had the opportunity to do another large scale album at the end of the 80s. It was a frustrating time that too, I can tell you. I had rather a chequered career for a while. I was doing a lot of songwriting, and aiming it at other artists. We would keep getting close, but then, the management would lose the artist, or the album was canned. They weren’t collaborations or anything, but we had some placements in the works for Sheena Easton, Roger Daltry and people like that, but they never worked out. We had a song covered by Bucks Fizz – who promptly had a coach crash! So I had a run of bad luck with that really. It was an interesting time – I was trying allsorts of different things whilst my own music wasn’t making much money, and whilst trying to pay for the new house. It didn’t quite come to being a cat burglar, or an assassin, but I did give it some serious thought!

HR - Your celebrity friends could have hired you to assassinate the music press …

AP - [laughs] Yes …

HR - Is there anyone in particular, that you would like to collaborate with? AP - I thought you were going to say Assassinate! I don’t know these days … about collaborations … Mike and I were always a good team but we have gone in different directions now. I’m not sure that he’s interested in doing complicated instrumental stuff any longer. He did ask me if I wanted to be involved with the Mike and Mechanics albums, but I knew that I couldn’t see the whole project through with the touring and everything, which is what he needed. And it’s not necessarily my bag if I’m honest, although I very much respect what he’s achieved. I think maybe we’ve gone too far down different roads now to make anything work. Steve Hackett and I have talked about writing together a few times, but it’s always risky when someone is your friend. Working relationships do change things, and I’m not sure I’d want to risk my friendship with Steve!

With my TV library music, I do collaborate with quite a lot of people then anyway, so I’m not one of these musicians who doesn’t want to work with anybody else.

HR - When are you at your happiest then? When you’re working on solo stuff and you’re completely in control of it (and I’m not insinuating that you’re a control freak!) …

AP - Ha, NO! Actually, a great friend of mine calls my studio the spaceship! And I’m completely happy in there when I’m just mucking about with all the wonderful synth sounds, creating tapestries of colour with sound – Love it!

And also playing guitar, which increasingly seems to happen late at night in front of the TV. Just picking up a guitar – 12 String or Classical – when these ideas enter my head at absurd times of the day. On the recordings you can invariably hear Alan Hansen and Match Of The Day commentary in the background! And I do actually present demos to my library producer, with TV programmes going on in the background.

HR - What sort of boundaries are in place with your Library writing? Can you remain true to your ‘album’ style, or are you tied to a brief?

AP - I have a lot more freedom these days to create some varied pieces – guitar, synth – it’s very varied, and that’s what I love about it, but it’s hugely competitive, and the recession spawned a lot of ‘under-cutting’ - the market is flooded, and the rates of pay have dropped! I feel very fortunate to have done well at a time when it was less competitive, and to have continued to do it. It’s incumbent on me to keep writing as much as possible - I can’t afford to take my foot off the peddle. So when things come up, I don’t ever really have a blank page because of the stockpile of guitar, piano , synth, and orchestral library pieces already down – I have all of this material ready to go, rather than start from scratch. Some of them are slightly rough and would need to be redone, but the mood is there, and if someone came to me tomorrow asking for such and such, I would hope that I have something that would suit. Unless they asked for a bagpipe concerto. I haven’t got one of those. It’s unlikely to happen, but you never know …

HR - So when we end this conversation, you’re going to go and write one …

AP - [laughs]They’re not a pretty sound when people turn them off you know! What they don’t tell you is that when they’re warming up and cooling down they sound like a sick cow! It is a racket! We had a funny incident on the road with Genesis actually. Peter Gabriel was a little bit accident prone, and slightly absent minded on stage, and used to play the accordion in Stagnation, a bit – in quite an unconventional way, not like jolly French stuff with the onions and the beret - but he would put it down during a very quiet section and if he didn’t put it down properly, it would make this kind of squealing noise going off into the distance, and suddenly we would sound like a John Cage outfit! People would look up completely startled! Another thing he would do – he was a good flute player but struggled with an A flat in “The Knife” which was our closing song – and Tony Banks had to remind him before we went on, that you had to tweek the flute to tune it by a semi-tone. Occasionally Tony would forget to tell him, and Peter wouldn’t remember; The lights would dim, and we’d be ready for this lovely moody bit, and BANG! He would come in a semi tone out! That was pretty tense I can tell you! I love all of those instruments …

HR - What’s your favorite instrument?

AP - Ooooh Tricky. I think pushed to answer that, I’d have to say 12 string guitar 1st, followed very closely by piano, Classical guitar 3rd, and underwater sousaphone 4th …

HR - And, may I say you play all 4 brilliantly!

AP - Aww thanks …

HR - I’ll look forward to your underwater sousaphone symphony at some point, amidst the forthcoming re-releases! Were you looking at reworking your back catalog, or was it something that you were approached to do?

AP - They approached me! [Cherry Red / Esoteric Records]. Not to put too finer point on it but I make the majority of my living from my TV music, and the album work has always been a very nice foil to that, but it’s not been my bread and butter, as it were. I’m probably one of the only artists who has ever said to a record company – “are you really sure you want to do this?” And they did, so I was a bit surprised really! I gathered they were in the business of picking up back catalogs– and I hate the world ‘cult’ – but of people who have ‘cult’ followings, and it felt like entirely the right thing to do. It feels a safe place to be, and with a decent company who have their act together; after having had so many years of uncertainty with this stuff.

HR - How much influence did you have over the way that the 2014 anthology “Harvest Of The Heart”, was put together?

AP - Not a lot actually, but entirely by choice. I wrote a little bit for the blurb on the boxset, but as far as choosing what songs to include – I couldn’t make the decision. It was too difficult – I mean, I dither anyway, at the best of times! And I’m not in any way trying to imply with arrogance that this is all so wonderful, but it was just too hard for me to decide. I’m not a good judge of what other people would have wanted, and to be frank I don’t like listening to a lot of it anyway, once I have done it, otherwise I start to pick it all apart and convince myself that I could have done better … So I was very happy to leave it up to Jonathan Dann, who runs my website ; and Mark Powell (Boss of Cherry Red), who went through all of it. He deserves a medal for that!

HR - I know it’s unfair to ask an artist what their favourite piece of their own music is, but – do you have one?

AP - The albums I’m most proud of , would be “The Geese And The Ghost”, and an album called “Slow Dance” ; which was the first album that I did when I came back after that 7 year hiatus in the wilderness, as it were …

HR - Was that [Slow Dance] released under your own steam outside of record label jurisdiction?

AP - It was actually! I did that off my own bat, and once again ended up having a bad time of it! We’d done an album called “Tarka”, and there was a bit of an upturn in the 80s with the ‘new age’ boom. I’d been doing what was effectively ‘new age’ for a while, but suddenly people realised that, after about 5 years! So I borrowed some money from my management company to crank up my gear, in order to enable me to do a larger scale record. This was in lieu of a small advance from the record company, who then went bust! So the rights to my songs were impounded, under US laws, and my catalogs were frozen (as assets) in the states for a number of years and I couldn’t get them back - so it was a pretty chaotic period in terms of America, but also I had to finish what I had started here! So I pressed on with this album, very much in debt, because I’d bought the gear, but then hadn’t got the advance to pay it off! Looking back I’m not sure how I kept going really because the record was very complicated … But I did have an ulterior motive which was to try and secure a publishing deal with the then’ Virgin Publishing’ under Richard Branson. I don’t to this day think he realises what he let go of when he sold it on to EMI – it was such a wonderful company to be a part of. Ultimately, I got a deal, which got me out of the mire; I finished what became “Slow Dance” and then Virgin came in and released ALL of my albums onto CD for the first time, so I was very fortunate then. I owed a lot to that record in the end. But it was a real blood, sweat, and tears album, and it wasn’t just mentally painful to listen to afterwards – it was literally physically painful too ; I would writhe around and cringe listening to it because I spent too long on it, and it sounded awful to me. It tried to do too much. It’s quite filmic, and unabashedly lyrical - It’s very orchestral at times and some of it is artificial; the sounds at that stage weren’t particularly brilliant and in hindsight it would have benefitted from more real orchestra. I think I could listen to it now … There is a two year rule – don’t listen for something you did for two years, and you’ll forget what was wrong with it!

HR - Would you re-record it, now?

AP - Well – it’s one of the things that will come up for discussion, funnily enough, because we are planning to release some more in surround sound, but it has to be practical to do because it’s a very expensive process, and Cherry Red are very fair, but they know we possibly won’t sell a million copies. I would like to do “Slow Dance” yes. I think any of the orchestral albums would really benefit from being in Surround Sound. The bigger it is, the more there is going on, and the more you can throw around the room. The re-release schedule is a bit torturous actually. Up next is “Private Parts and Pieces” with a bonus CD of material from the time, and … I don’t want to give too much else away really, but we will be doing more … maybe “Tarka”, eventually.

HR - Would you like to get any of your compositions to a point where an orchestra could perform it live? AP - Oh You bet! I’d love it!! There was a performance of “Tarka” in Australia, but it was with a scratch orchestra, so a rather mixed affair. It’s quite hard [Tarka] although it’s not an incredibly difficult score, but it needs some very good players to do it justice. These things are just so incredibly expensive to put together though, aren’t they?

HR - Yes, they are! Do you ever perform?

AP - I don’t … no. My experience with Genesis made me very tentative about performing, but to be honest - the thing that I enjoy most is composing. I’m a terrible practicer! The process of playing something over and over again, just bores me to tears!

HR - How about conducting then? AP - Gosh no, I’m not a good enough conductor – I did study it for a while, briefly, but I’d be much better on a bus! I know the moves, and the beats, but it’s that business of making the left hand totally independent of what’s going on with the right hand – that’s really difficult. It’s an extraordinary art! And when I go to see an orchestra, the conductor always seems to be so far ahead, that I can’t ever put it together!! When I was first studying I used to get the orchestra seats behind the Albert Hall proms, which are the ones behind the Orchestra where you’re looking directly at the conductor – and some of the conductors seemed to be so far ahead of the orchestra, that we used to joke that the conductor would be in the dressing room toweling down, whilst the orchestra were still finishing off! I don’t understand it!! It’s one thing that I do regret in life actually – I would have loved to have been in the middle of a big phat orchestra when something like the “Rites Of Spring” [Stravinsky] or “The Planets” [Holst] is being played. That must be amazing! Even to just play the triangle or something! I’d love to do that …

HR - There’s always time! What about your life outside of music? Do you ever divert from your musical routes?

AP - [laughs] It would seem not to the untrained eye eh? I have a lot of friends and probably spend too much time socialising, and eating out, so I burn the candle at both ends too often. I spend a lot of time with my nieces and nephews, and God-children – I don’t have kids of my own but keeping up with all of them makes life pretty full! It is a difficult balance to keep because I really can’t afford to fall behind with work stuff and that involves an endless amount of mind boggling admin with the album career, and for composing for the library - I have to keep up with all the new technology in the studio, and the new sounds – endless changes! I love sports ; all sorts of sports … I’m a big film man - love films. Probably my favourite music is in film scores these days. My big musical heroes are film composers – amongst many, my favourites are Ennio Morricone : particularly ”Cinema Paradiso” and the wonderful ”Gabriel’s Oboe” from ’The Mission; John Williams, ”Schindlers List”; George Fenton , ”Shadowlands”; Thomas Newman , ”Shawshank Redemption”; Hans Zimmer, James Newton Howard, Alan Silvestri and many others … so, yes! How do I actually find time to work? That is the question ... Not too long after we’d had this chat, Ant got the opportunity to work on a re-release of “Slow Dance” ; here’s the verdict ... HR : So the ultimate question is, forced to listen to it again, have you grown fonder of Slow Dance during the re-mastering, for this re-release?AP : My own view in general, which I appreciate may be very different to that of other musicians, is that when you come back to an album not having heard it for ages, it has novelty value and you think ‘that’s not bad at all’….! That’s why i prescribe the ‘two year rule’. Don’t listen to a piece, album, whatever, for a while and you will forget what it was that you are aspiring to that made you feel dissatisfied with its original outcome !Alas, repeated listens gradually bring back the issues that worried you at the time ! And the more time spent on an album (in my case Slow Dance, Geese were particular long campaigns) the worse it is. QBG and I flew through PP3 in the lovely summer of 1981 and it all remained fresh and therefore untarnished in one’s memory. This naturally makes us completely unobjective when it comes to judging our work ! Slow Dance was such a painstaking haul that when I finished it I found it excruciating to listen to.You have a mystical image of how a piece should sound and capturing this remains tantalisingly elusive ! Perhaps this very frustration is what drives you on to try and do better …?So yes, at first pleasantly surprised, with a few reservation, then gradually I began to feel ‘could have done that better - in many instances !But there are sections that I am still quite proud of and I know it is a piece that has been a moving experience for number of people……. HR : When last we spoke, You were enjoying the opportunity to take your recordings into the surround sound arena - has this one surpassed your expectations?AP : The Surround was a tough one : the toughest of all the re-releases thus far….Perhaps not harmonically but certainly in terms of the arrangement, the album was in parts very intricate and both the balance and flow hung by a thread. Any slight change and the wheels would come off. And they did ! It presented an almost insurmountable challenge to Simon Heyworth and Andy Miles, as there were effects on outboard gear (now either absent or defunct !) that weren’t recorded to tape and therefore had to be somehow ‘reconstructed’. On the other hand instrumental albums such as this and particularly 1984 ( a feast for the guys with all the weird, tricky sounds lending themselves well to sonic spatial manipulation !) do benefit from the size and ambience that 5.1 affords. So my considered view is that the more ambient, floaty parts benefit greatly whilst other sections slightly less so….But what does the musician / composer’s view count…..? It is only the audience’s opinions that ultimately counts ! I am happy that we try to give anyone repurchasing these albums enough extra material to make it feel worth it !

#genesis #modern classical #anthony phillips #ant #cherryred #cherryredrecords #esoteric #prog rock #prog #classical #composer

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carlyfrombleachers · 4 years ago

Text

Liveblogging of TS6 (reputation)

Okay. Let me preface this by saying I don’t like Taylor Swift. I think she’s a boring artist, who brings close to nothing to the table. The reason I’m even listening to Reputation is because I keep getting recommended an interview of Jack Antonoff where he talks about New Year’s Day (which is a song on Reputation) and I really want to watch that but I also want to know what the fuck he’s talking about. So here we are. Don’t expect more stuff like this from me. I expect this to be just a one-off thing. Swifties, don’t fucking come after me or I will cry. The only other TS album I listened to was Lover, and I thought it was trash. Absolute garbage. And apparently this one is worse than Lover. I don’t know if I’ll regret this.

Let’s begin, I guess.

...Ready For It?

I keep thinking of that one voice clip from the Hannah Montana intro (?) where you faintly hear a girl say “are you ready for it?” and that’s my first impression just by looking at the title.

I’m hitting ‘play’ right now.

Oh nevermind, I forgot to pay Deezer this month. YouTube it is.

Hey look, Ajay is in my recommended. Queen of reactions.

Help what is this

rockstar taylor??

what the fuck is up with the beat

chorus felt weak. this is my first opinion im not done with the track

i looked at the music video for 3 seconds and i saw a horse bye

i was distracted by the music video help i dont like this

since i looked at the music video for just a lil while i should say it looks weird. it is weird in a bad way it looks like some knockoff cyberpunk thing.

why didnt she just name this “Are You Ready For It?”

I’m... not particularly blown away by this track. It’s fine. I wouldn’t bop to it but I wouldn’t object to it playing somewhere. It’s like... it’s decent.

End Game (ft. Ed Sheeran, Future)

I don’t know who Future is.

she said reputation haha thats the name of the album

ok future is a rapper i dont listen to rap thats why i dont know him

after listening to lover i cant believe this is the same woman this is so weird

not looking forward to the ed sheeran part

“i wanna be your end game” this wasnt really what i was expecting

fuck off ed sheeran (i just reached his part)

according to some tabloid lady gaga mistook ed sheeran for a waiter? i would do the same thing if i saw this redhead fuckface on the street as well lol

“big reputation, big reputation, you and me got a big reputation” so deep!!!

I guess I should take this time to-- is she rapping?

Sorry, I got distracted. I don’t think every song needs to be this huge deep piece that must be deeply analyzed for centuries, but I do expect some interesting message or context for a track at least. If it sounds good, I’d also give it a pass.

This one? This was boring. I would not verbally object to this playing close to me, I would just have a grossed out look on my face during the chorus.

I Did Something Bad

I keep reading the title in Akasaka Sad’s tune. You know the part where Rina says “A-ka-sa-ka sad, I’m a sucker”? I keep thinking “I did-I did something bad”. I don’t expect it to be like that.

“i never trust a narcissist but they love me” taylor talks about her fanbase

sorry to drag swifties publicly but i will forever take an opportunity to drag a swiftie

predictable antithesis use there with “i did something bad so why does it feel so good” but okay

why was taylor branded a snake again? she pretended it was “””gone””” with lover but like. it’s weird. its not like she punched kanye on stage in 2008 or something. i dont care enough to search for evidence that taylor is a snake so lol go off i guess

dont enjoy the post-chorus part where she’s like drddddddd dddddddd it feels so distracting the gunshots were more than enough

Yeah, this one was fine. My favorite up to this point, I think.

Don’t Blame Me

lol she said “dont blame me” then it buffered bye

i was showering for the past 25 minutes hello i was listening to track 10 and melodrama

i am enjoying this one kinda

“dont blame me love made me crazy” haha wait until you find out what your next era is

“i once was poison ivy now im your daisy” this is a pretty good line honestly

obligatory katy flop moment: haha taylor could hit the high notes in daisy

this sounds like a country song especially in the chorus i dont know what to really make of it

“loooord save me” this is why your female fans are called horse girls

This was... pretty good. The chorus weirds me out still, but it had its good moments. It was nice.

Delicate

stop saying reputation in the reputation album

this autotune voice bits of hers are so distracting

i say as i listen to how i’m feeling now by charli xcx

yes i did just roast myself. gotta leave the swifties with nothing

god the music video for this track has 400m views this woman is making my faves look like indie stars LOL

I keep getting distracted because this song is boring. It’s... okay. I guess. The music video was pretty cute. Nothing caught my attention in the track, but it sounds like gym music. It would play on a gym owned by a 30-something white woman during the yoga classes and you know it.

Look What You Made Me Do

We’ve all heard this song. I’m gonna listen to it and then be done with it.

I guess I’ll just watch the music video.

ONE BILLION VIEWS????????????

Okay. I watched the music video.

Really? All the fem guys dancing with her?

I’m not going to sit here and be like “fem guys are BAD and should all die and never be represented” because… lol. But it is kind of annoying how it was literally just fem guys dancing with her and doing all those faces because you KNOW she was looking for the impressionable gays to go “omg taylor progressive!!!!” and go talk about it on social media.

But am I saying that because I don’t like Taylor? Yes. But that doesn’t make my point less valid.

The music video was pretty good, the production on this track is really good (thank you Jack Antonoff xx) and the track itself is good. Not outstanding or perfect or a serve, it’s good.

Also the ending with all her previous eras? That was cool. The uncool part is most of the “look how rich I am” parts… because we all know you’re rich, Taylor. Nice SFX.

So It Goes…

i got an ad whyyyyyyy

fuck this shit i cant keep up with what shes saying im pulling genius out for this one

this is not lyrically deep i can tell already from genius

im not a fan of love songs i already have CRJ to cover that base and Lorde covers breakup songs I guess and this song is just. boring. lol

Nothing really shocking or noteworthy here, it’s just.. okay.

Gorgeous

I got another ad FUCK

i got a boss baby ad help

god boss baby really was something huh i completely forgot about that

why am i talking about boss baby

okay. reputation

why did a baby say gorgeous

HELP i am so disappointed this is the one track with the lyric video and god this is disappointing

i saw this and i was like “oh shit shes gonna talk about how its gonna be gorgeous when u die” or smth and

lol. LOL. the depth is nonexistent and the bar is in hell

who wrote this? you lied

This song is so boring, LOL. I expected so much from it and was instantly disappointed when the pre-chorus hit. You had everything on your plate and you ate the plate itself. Girl. What the hell. Why. You could’ve given us an anthem about hating your man, and you took the easy route.

Getaway Car

im intrigued

okay im listening and this sounds very jack antonoff? the shotgun thing made me immediately go o_o

it felt a bit weak at the end but at the start i was enjoying it quite a lot… i think this is my fave

I enjoyed this one quite a lot :) It was pretty good but not an amazing masterpiece. It was better than LWTMMD and that’s all I have to say.

King Of My Heart

sounds boring haha

taylor keeps putting these trap beats in things sister youre not lorde LOL

yeah this is kinda boring

WAIT A MINUTE NEW YEARS DAY IS THE LAST TRACK???? IM GONNA HAVE TO STICK UNTIL THE END oh my god please no

i dont. i .. i knew this would be happening but i didnt expect it to be the last one

i guess the timing is accurate ha ha ha ha

i just heard ariana grande

I keep hearing Ariana Grande on this track. Is that good? I don’t know.

Dancing With Our Hands Tied

why are there so many songs in this fucking album

the beat is.. okay. it is catchy

oh i like this i think. its pretty nice

the chorus is nice. yes. i do kind of enjoy this

Yeah, I liked this one. Pretty good writing, and it sounds great.

Dress

wtf is this song why is it so horny

horny taylor is weird stop being horny please

this song is okay i would not revisit it because its just weird. do not like this!!!

when carly rae jepsen says slide on through my window it is funny but when taylor sings i bought this dress so you could take it off i die

oh that second of silence was really good

[looks at the producer] [it’s jack antonoff] :)

This song weirds me out. I don’t like it. It had its moments production-wise but it was... weird.

This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things

I expect good things from this. With a title like that? Give me a bop.

Currently not being a bop.

Okay, it was cute. Nothing amazing. Just… fine. Cute attempt.

oh i liked the spoken part thats what i expected from this song

Call It What You Want

this is about genitalia this is my prediction

It was not about genitalia.

This song is pretty good if you remove all the mentions to her lover and her man and her baby, which are all the same person, I guess.

This is disappointing.

JACK ANTONOFF BACKING VOCALS

I LOVE YOU JACK

umm anyways

OH HE DID IT AGAIN IM GONNA CRY i love this man

I expected so much from this track and the chorus just… disappointed me.

JACK!!! I LOVE YOU!!!! KEEP SINGING!!!!!

i love this man im gonna cry

The highlight of this song is the part where Jack Antonoff sings.

New Year’s Day

wow the reason why im doing this shit

look at him. :)

this song was cute. nothing special. just cute. very okay.

just. okay. yeah. pretty fine.

nothing special.

Final Thoughts On The Album

It was better than Lover.

I expected this to be a concept album, all about the drama she’s gotten into? But it was just boring love songs with some extra flair. I expected great things from this album, having only heard LWYMMD from it before this. A concept album that’s just an answer/clapback to everyone’s who wronged her à la Yellow Flicker Beat (I know it’s for a movie but that song slaps and I don’t know a thing about Hunger Games) would’ve been PERFECT but it was just... love songs. I need Taylor to stop singing about love and start serving us big meals.

I would not like to revisit this. Like, 5/10. It could’ve been a lot better, but it wasn’t because you’re too afraid to cross some lines, Taylor.

Final Ranking:

Dancing With Our Hands Tied

Getaway Car

Look What You Made Me Do

I Did Something Bad

Don’t Blame Me

New Year’s Day

Call It What You Want

...Ready For It?

This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things

So It Goes...

End Game (feat. Ed Sheeran, Future)

Dress

Delicate

King Of My Heart

Gorgeous

taylor flop stream gone now

#taylor swift #liveblog #liveblogging #reputation #swifties dont kill me thanks #i dont like taylor swift why did i do this #music

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carlatsukinamistolemyhamsandwich · 5 years ago

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Yandere!Shin x Reader piece that just sort of happened.

In retrospect, you probably should have realized something was wrong sooner.

It had started off with smaller gestures, things that were easy to write off or forget about. A too tight grip on your hip when you were out in public together, bite marks left in places that made them difficult to hide, a low growl in his voice when he’d asked what you said to that boy from school.

But that was just Shin being Shin, wasn’t it? As much as you loved him, you knew how rough he could be.

Sure he had been spending more time with you recently, to the point where you couldn’t remember the last time you had a decent hour to yourself. But that was what people in love did, if anything, you should be happy about it.

But that sort of blissful ignorance could only last so long.

The day had started out innocuously enough. You’d been in Shin’s room, reading a book, while he lay with his head in your lap, strangely subdued as he toyed with the fingers on your free hand.

Turning the page with your thumb, you frowned a little as you tried to work out what was going on in the story. Whether it was because the book was poorly written, or because you kept getting distracted by Shin bending your fingers just a bit too much the wrong way, you weren’t entirely sure.

All you did know was that you’d reread the same page roughly three times, your mind wandering as you struggled to focus on the words.

With a heavy sigh, you shut the book and glanced down, catching Shin staring at you with an odd sort of intensity. Something about it felt vaguely unsettling but you decided not to pay it any mind.

“Hey Shin, would you mind getting up a sec so I can fetch a different book from the library?” You asked, attempting to pry your hand from his.

The first blood only tightened his grip as he looked up at you with a frown. “Isn’t this enough? Spending time with me? If you’re bored then-” he lifted your hand to his mouth and ran the tips of his fangs over the skin of your finger “-there are other things we could do.”

You gave him a wry smile. “Somehow when we spend time together it always seems to end in other things. And I don’t think you’re really going to take no for an answer are you?”

“At least you understand that much,” Shin said, giving you a flash of a smirk before biting down on your finger. You winced slightly at the burst of pain, but you didn’t try to fight him.

No sooner had his fangs left your finger than the first blood was suddenly leaning over you, lips distractingly close to yours.

“So, where should I start first?” His eyes raked over your body in a way that made you feel exposed. And given the glint in his eye, you guessed you probably wouldn’t be leaving his room for a while after he was finished.

Unfortunately there was just one little thing niggling at the back of your mind. “Shin wait.”

“What is it?” He asked, impatience clear in his voice.

“Can you at least let me put this book back before I forget? Carla was very unimpressed the last time I lost one and he still scares me a bit,” you admitted sheepishly. While it was hardly an urgent task, it was certainly true that a couple of hours with Shin made you forget pretty much everything else. That and you were craving a little alone time, even if it was just a couple of minutes to gather yourself before the veritable onslaught that awaited.

Shin’s eye narrowed at the mention of his brother but then he glanced at the book.

“Ha, you sure can kill a mood quickly. Fine, it’s better when you don’t have any distractions, but hurry back or else-“ he licked the shell of your ear “-I won’t be in a very generous mood when you get back.”

“I will, I will,” you replied, as you got to your feet, giving him a quick smile before you left the room.

In spite of your promise, the library was still quite a walk from Shin’s bedroom, so even though putting the book back on its shelf took no time at all, a bit of a wait was inevitable.

On the way back, one of the many paintings on the wall caught your eye, you couldn’t recall seeing it before, but then Carla had so many paintings, it was impossible to remember all of them.

The piece in question was of a garden, likely located somewhere in the demon world, given the inky black sky in the painting, eerie blue flames pouring out from stone chalices acting as the only sources of light.

You weren’t sure how long you spent staring at it, admiring the artistry.

“Do you like it?” A deep voice came from behind you and you spun around to find Carla. You rarely spent much time with the founder king these days and truth be told, he still made you a little nervous.

“Yes, it’s incredible,” you said, turning back to take in the artwork once more. “The way the artist has captured the flames, the texture of the paint… It’s truly beautiful.”

Carla stepped forward to look at the painting beside you. “You have a good eye. It’s done by a famous artist in the demon world, I have a couple of his other works in the castle but this one is particular sort after.”

You turned to look at him. “Did you get it recently? I don’t remember seeing it here before.”

“Yes, I had Shin fetch it for me just the other day.” Carla’s gaze suddenly snapped to the hallway behind you and narrowed slightly. You turned to look but found only an empty corridor.

“I have important matters to attend to. You should hurry back to Shin’s room.” You glanced back to Carla, only to find him gone, your conversation apparently at an end.

Muttering something under your breath about the pains of living with beings that could teleport, you trailed back to Shin’s room.

As you reached his door, you noticed that it was slightly ajar, even though you were sure you’d shut it behind you when you left. Shrugging it off, you went to push the door open further when a hand reached out and grabbed hold of your wrist, pulling you into the room with so much force that you went stumbling into someone’s chest.

“Shin what-“ you started, but broke off abruptly as you looked at his face. Rage, pure and seething, coated his features. His single pupil was a thin slit, showing more of the golden iris and making his gaze all the more piercing. The door closed behind you with an ominous thud, the lock turning as Shin used his magic to seal the room shut.

Instinctively, you tried to take a step back but were stopped by a firm arm around your waist, keeping you trapped against Shin’s chest.

“What the hell did you think you were doing?” He snapped, voice louder than was comfortable when you were standing this close to him.

“I told you, I just went to put the book back…” you said, trailing off at the end as the anger in his expression only seemed to grow more intense.

“Oh, but that’s not all you did is it?” Shin’s tone was positively nasty and you winced as he tightened his hold on your wrist. “Did you enjoy it? Flirting with my brother the second my back was turned.”

“Shin I wasn’t-“

“Don’t lie to me!” He yelled, his fingers digging into your side.

“Shin, please stop, you’re hurting me.” It was a pathetic plea, especially given how little trouble he’d had hurting you when you first met, but your wrist was throbbing to the point where your eyes were filling with tears.

“Oh.” Shin lifted your wrist so you could see it. “It hurts does it? Maybe I should just snap it. This is your dominant hand, isn’t it? If I made it completely useless, so you had no choice but to rely on me, would you only look at me then?” The pressure on your wrist increased and you cried out.

“Shin please stop!” You screamed, shaking from pain and fear.

For a tense moment, Shin’s expression remained that same mask of anger and you were sure he was going to break your bones like they were no more than twigs. And then, mercifully, something in his eye froze over and he let go of you. The arm around your waist loosened too, allowing you to back up against the wall as you cradled your bruised arm.

“Ahh, that’s right. Are you doing this because of all the things I did to you in the past? I thought you’d come to love me in spite of it, but was it all just an act so you could get your own back?” He made no move to step any closer to you, instead he just watched your reaction.

All you could do was blink at him in disbelief, completely lost for words. You knew Shin had issues when it came to his brother, but right now he seemed... unhinged. That single golden eye gleamed with a sort of madness that made you instinctively want to back away even further.

When you failed to respond, he let out a broken laugh. “I see, that is it, isn’t it? Tell me, did you ever want to be with me at all?”

You had no idea what to do. While you knew you should stand your ground as you really hadn’t done anything wrong, you couldn’t bring yourself to. Shin looked so wild, so close to breaking that you couldn’t bear the idea of doing or saying anything to make it worse. And that was assuming you could even get him to listen to logic in the first place. Your relationship with the first blood had never been picture perfect, but this was a whole new level of unhealthy.

Even though the pain in your wrist had yet to even start to fade, you braced yourself and hesitantly took a step towards him. Lifting your hands in the universal sign that showed you meant no harm, you continued that slow steady pace towards him. Shin remained still, watching you with a degree of wariness.

When you were within arm’s length, you steeled your nerves as you carefully wrapped your arms around him, pulling him to you. He stiffened at the contact, as though he couldn’t quite decide whether to trust the gesture or not.

“Shin, I do love you and I’m sorry,” you said, although you shouldn’t be apologizing, it was all you could think to say to calm him down. “I should have considered your feelings before I spoke to Carla, but that’s all we did. We just talked about paintings, that was it, I promise.”

Shin’s breath was ragged in your ear. You stood like that for a moment, terrified that he wouldn’t believe you and you’d then have to deal with the consequences.

But then his arms were around you, holding you to him in a bruising grip. Shin pressed his face into your neck and inhaled deeply, taking in your scent. He let out a shaky laugh before speaking again, his tone softer than before.

“You probably don’t know this, but you’ve been with me for long enough now that my scent has soaked into your skin. It’s faint, but it’s still there. It’s proof that you’re mine, and that you haven’t been touched by anyone else.” You shuddered slightly as his breath fanned over your neck. “But even so, swear to me that all you did was talk. That I’m the only one you care about like this.”

“I swear,” you replied, barely loud enough to hear but it seemed to be enough. Shin pressed his lips to your skin, trailing kisses along your neck.

“I don’t want you to talk to him anymore,” he muttered, almost more to himself than to you. “I don’t want you to look at him… or for him to look at you.”

Before you had chance to react, Shin released you only to push you onto the bed, gripping your shoulders as he pinned you down.

“Tell me that you won’t leave my room without me from now on,” he said, the strength returned to his voice.

You thought he couldn’t possibly be serious, but one look into his eye told you that he was. “But I-”

“Promise me!” He yelled, hands tightening on your shoulders to the point where you were certain that if he gripped any harder, your bones were going to splinter.

“I, I promise,” you said quietly, choking back a sob. This was madness. Complete and utter madness and you were powerless to do anything about it.

You were barely able to blink before he was at your throat, fangs sinking roughly into your skin. It’d been a while since he’d bitten you quite this hard and it hurt. Your hands went to his sides, nails digging into him as you tried to cope with the pain. It didn’t seem to deter him though, he just kept roughly sucking at your neck.

By the time he finally drew back, running his tongue over your skin one final time, you felt light-headed.

The pressure on your shoulders lightened and when you got a look at his face, you saw that his gaze had become softer. He moved one hand to your cheek, running his thumb over it gently, such a contrast to his behavior just moments earlier.

Shin lowered his forehead carefully to yours. “I love you,” he said softly, his lips a hair’s breadth from your own.

The silence dragged on for a moment too long as you fought past the feeling of wanting to break down into sobs. “I love you too,” you replied, your voice shaking as you finally managed to get the words out. But you meant it. Perhaps that was the awful part. That even though he was terrifying you, a part of you just wanted him to feel okay.

You felt Shin’s fingers trailing over the bare skin at your side, where your shirt had ridden up when he’d pushed you onto the bed. He lifted his head so that you could look at him.

“Show me,” he said, his hand dipping underneath your waistband. “Prove that you mean it with your body.”

You paused. Any other day, embarrassment aside, you might not have minded, but right now, being pinned underneath him, you couldn’t help but feel afraid. And as much as that made you want to say no, you couldn’t shake the thought of what might happen if you didn’t just do as he asked.

Hesitantly, you pressed your lips to his. Shin was quick to respond, returning the kiss with such fervor it almost hurt, like he couldn’t get enough of the feeling of your lips.

His hand dipped completely beneath your clothes, grasping roughly at the flesh of your inner thigh.

Shin broke away from you briefly, allowing you a moment to catch your breath. “That’s right,” he said, nails indenting your skin as he seemed to forget the strength of his own grip. “Focus on me. You should only ever focus on me.”

*** I wish I could say this is the only yandere!Shin piece I have in mind but no.

#my writing #own post #drabble #Shin's a little different from how I normally write him here because he's super unstable in this one #Whereas before when I've written Shin a yandere he was still very much in control #Here I wanted explore the idea of just a complete descent into madness #I'm so tired I can't tell if this is any good or not so if not I might delete it later #good night everyone

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tillidontneedfantasy · 5 years ago

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Post Malone Willingly Bleeds for Hollywood: ‘Hollywood’s Bleeding’ Review

As mere mortals, we can never truly understand the life of a celebrity. Sure, they’re just like you and me, but they’re not, really. They live in a separate plane of existence, where many laws don’t apply and money is the stem of their problems rather than the solution. When you are a working-class citizen in financial debt struggling to obtain a decent job with health insurance, it is very easy to listen to the woes of a famous person and scoff at them; but the reality is that such a lifestyle can cause a level of psychological pain we cannot fathom, and wounds that are constantly hashed back open by the public’s claws, never able to fully heal.

These wounds are what Post Malone’s Hollywood’s Bleeding centers on, or attempts to, at least. It is most effectively conveyed in the opening titular track, “Hollywood’s Bleeding,” portraying consumers and fellow Hollywood populace alike as vampires feeding off the lives of artists, turning them forever, gone from who they once were, the shells of their old selves wandering intoxicated and lost around a graveyard for the immortal. “It seems like dying young is an honor,” he observes, wondering who will attend his own funeral. Although it sounds like he is lamenting the way drugs consume so many of the greats, in almost every track that follows, it seems as if Post Malone has decided to willingly bleed for Hollywood, and that an early funeral and being sucked dry might be sad but ultimately worth the cost.

Probably because he knows he will never have to worry about the cost of anything else ever again as a result, as he celebrates his financial success in “Saint-Tropez,” “I’m Gonna Be,” and “Wow.” He swears in “On The Road” featuring Meek Mill and Lil Baby that he will never sell his soul, and then reasserts this claim in “Take What You Want,” featuring Ozzy Osbourne and Travis Scott, but admits to giving his heart away, which is not much different. The idea that he hasn’t sold his soul, or heart, or whatever manifestation of the human spirit and morale you choose, sounds especially contradictory in the song “A Thousand Bad Times,” where he sings, “You make my life so hard / but that’s what gets me off.” Despite enjoying the difficulty, he also grieves the loss of real friends in “Enemies” and the inability to truly take in the luxuries of this lifestyle in “Myself.” Beneath all the talk of riches and bitches and drinking, there is still a piece of Post’s heart in the music, not completely lost.

BEST TRACK: “Circles”

On this refreshingly gentle and soothing track, Post is at his most vulnerable. You can feel the emotion in his voice, the exhaustion of being trapped in a destructive cycle you don’t necessarily want to break though you know it’s what’s best. It sounds like something John Mayer could have a credit on, both musically and lyrically, and the style suits Post well. Co-produced by Post himself, the music’s production is one of the most pleasant and satisfying of the album, with a clever play on the word “echo.” It is the only track on the album where he has a producer credit, but it proves on the next record he should have many more.

WEAKEST TRACK: “Goodbyes” featuring Young Thug

Though the sentiment is there, it doesn’t stick the landing the way it should. Young Thug doesn’t add much, other than the pointless line “Can you not turn off the TV? I’m watchin’ the fight.” Other tracks on the album tackle the subject matter of not being good at goodbyes much more effectively and eloquently (see: “Circles”), but I guess this song makes it easy for us to take his word for it.

THE IN-BETWEENS

“Sunflower,” featuring Swae Lee, released for the fantastic Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, is a sweet song that has proven thus far to have the biggest impact and will most likely continue to prove its longevity. The most beautiful instrumentals are simply wasted on the short and ineffective “Internet” about Instagram and deciding to abstain from social media participation (though his very active Instagram account would suggest otherwise). “Die for Me” featuring Future and Halsey falls flat, the highlight being Halsey’s quip to her cheater ex, “caught the girls in your DMs and took all them home.” One particularly high point of the album is the track “Allergic,” which showcases Post’s vocal abilities and is melodically intriguing throughout, almost reminiscent of early 2000’s alternative pop-rock, yet oddly fitting in 2019.

BEST PROSPECTIVE SINGLE: “Staring at the Sun” featuring SZA

“Staring at the Sun” provides a possible answer as to why Post Malone and the subject of these songs keep going in circles: because they are staring at the sun rather than addressing the problem itself. Love is blinding, so it doesn’t matter how many warning signs you see. SZA delivers gorgeous vocals, and their voices blend surprisingly well, and with harmonies like that, how could they not get the airplay?

***

It feels as if Post Malone has been occupying the celebrity sphere for quite some time, as his accumulated success displayed in these tracks would prove. But as he reminds us in “On the Road,” he is only 24. Hollywood’s Bleeding is Post’s 3rd studio album effort, and though it has only elevated his public acclaim, he still has a ways to go. This album shows glimmers of untapped potential in the young artist, of which he has plenty of time to channel, as long as he doesn’t completely bleed himself out first. Grade: 2.5/5

DISCLAIMER – REVIEWER’S BIAS: In the past, I never had any interest in listening to Post Malone’s music. I heard his radio singles over the last few years and never felt inclined to hear more. I enjoyed “Sunflower” when I saw Spider-Verse but not enough to investigate further. Since this album’s release, it’s been virtually impossible for me to ignore Post’s popularity. He is so young and so commercially successful. Ever since I walked through Penn Station not realizing it was the night of his sold-out MSG show, I have been curious as to what all the fuss is about and finally decided to give him a shot. I still don’t get all the hype, but some songs on the album made it easier to understand. Overall, I think he’s just fine. But he definitely has potential, and I think understanding the success of “Sunflower” could be a good starting point for him going forward.

#post malone #hollywoods bleeding #hollywood's bleeding #young thug #halsey #da baby #future #meek mill #lil baby #ozzy osbourne #travis scott #SZA #swae lee #spiderverse #spiderman: into the spiderverse #music #review #blog

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sonxflight-a2 · 5 years ago

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☯ Gemstone Headcanons ║ @kathexismania ☯

Agate: What or who will your muse protect with their life?

Given the fact he’s incredibly self-sacrificing, it can be pretty much anyone (that also can explain why he chose such a spectrum of professions in Modern AU rather than follow the path of his passed father in politics). But his beloved ones and family, either by blood or found one, will obviously be in the first place. This is one of the few matters he considers himself to be selfish about, as he knows he would rather take damage/die in order to save and thus nonetheless hurt them, but be certain they’ll remain alive.

Amazonite: How do they go about comforting or calming down others? Are they good at it?

Jack/Ryou’s way of comforting/calming down is mostly non-verbal, for he considers the words can do more harm than good when it comes to such matters, yet it doesn’t mean he won’t be able to give advice/reassurance once he sees the other is in need or straight out asks for it (his modesty will always demand him to firstly listen and then talk). His acute empathy serves to be a great assistance in it + nurtured wisdom allows him to say the right things, so he can be mostly good at it both in general and when it comes to the people, close to him.

Amethyst: Do they have a good intuition? If so, do they typically heed it or not?

Definitely so, and he’ll always make sure to heed to it rather than doubt it, as his sixth sense appears to be right about the most of matters, especially when it comes to the possible dangers (about which he can be both grateful and jaded with). Still, it doesn’t mean he can’t be an unheeding dumbass at times yet is luckily prone to make the right conclusions from life’s harsh lessons, no matter the verse.

Apatite: Do they find it easy to communicate with new people, or do they avoid it as much as possible?

Despite Jack/Ryou having an undeniable introvert nature, it doesn’t exactly hard for him but certainly can be very wearisome, especially when he needs to make an effort to maintain his calmness if he feels it's tested (one of the reasons he initially couldn’t stand Hanzo’s impulsive nature in Modern AU as it totally drained him out, till they knew each other better and he grew somewhat adapted to it).

Aquamarine: How insightful are they?

His insightfulness will be related to the way he perceives his intuition + its strength will depend on how well he recognizes the situation or person (for example, when he hid the fake swords all over the desert, thus outwitting Aku while allegedly getting caught into his trap), even though he will nevertheless appear to grow more insightful as he/his mind will age.

Aventurine: Are they the opportunistic sort, or do they typically let chances slip by?

It would all depend on circumstances tbh, as one time Jack/Ryou can be resolute to take the immediate risk and at other will be prone to develop a solid plan, due to possible inability to solve the problem head-on. His both adaptive and steadfast character allows to explore either of such ways.

Blue Topaz: Are they the courageous sort? Do they find they can overcome obstacles in their way with relative ease?

Yes and no. He’s an obviously courageous, at times straight out bold type when it comes to the obstacles (both in actions and words; his pokerfaced ‘I fear no man’ he threw at Scotsman once he claimed him to be a coward + ‘Come get me’ catchphrase is more than enough to be a proof), but is more than aware his path is far from an effortless (he’s just not that kind of the man who’ll look for easy ways, which is both his blessing and the curse tbh).

Cat’s Eye: What sorts of things soothe them when they’re worked up?

Besides the quiet peaceful environment and tea? Anything he can get his hands to be busy with, without him being actually mindful about what he does due to having sufficient skill and motoric memory (for example, he tends to weave to soothe his mind / at times play electric koto in Modern AU once stressed) + quality time with his beloved one if he appears to have such (either sexual or not) as their presence is already enough to somehow soothe him.

Chalcedony: How do they consider their allies in regards to themself? Do they reach out to them, or do they typically keep to themself?

Most definitely keep to themself, not because of his pride but due to his protectiveness and unwillingness to burden/bother them with his own problems/distress (make them feel his pain if you’ll add his empathy here). Although, Jack/Ryou won’t deny the help once persuaded enough / knows the situation and believes it won’t go out from the control once he’ll accept it.

Citrine: How open are they to new ideas or cultures?

He’s very traditional while being rather open-minded as he treasures his culture and nonetheless respects the other ones he was lucky to be introduced to during the years of his training / his family’s journeys across the world in Modern AU when he was young. Moreover, his curiosity towards them allowed him to gain a sufficient amount of knowledge not only in foreign languages (which he canonically knows over 5, including Greek, Russian, Mongolian and English) but about different traditions and customs in general (which played a significant role during his time as PSIA agent in Modern AU).

Diamond: Do they find themselves getting sick often or do they have a relatively strong immune system?

Absolutely has a strong immune system, while having a rather hard time once he will get sick. He’s either a feverish mess (which is very seldom but still present, especially in verses where his partial divinity is able to act up) or as healthy as a bull, there’s no in-between.

Diopside: Are they a creative person in any way? How so?

He’s musically-inclined regardless of the verse, both in vocal aspect (which demands me to provide an example of how I imagine his full singing voice to possibly sound like) and in relation to the musical instruments (koto & bamboo flute for main verse / electric koto & piano for Modern AU). He’s not a very good artist, however - most of his drawing skills are related to draftsmanship and calligraphy since the prior purpose of his training was to get a decent warrior, able to repel the demon and get back his homeland by oneself.

Emerald: Do they suffer from any sort of mental illness?

Obviously PTSD in relation to 5th season, Post-Aku, Modern and Akira verses + there are definitely some signs of masked depression in Modern AU.

Fluorite: Are they able to concentrate easily no matter where they are or do they need a quiet space with little distracts?

He’s very quick-witted and able to think on his feet, but still needs to get a better focus in some situations, thus enough quietness and detachment. His need for undistracted concentration will mostly relate to the circumstances when he needs to approach and overcome the obstacle/problem that seems to be completely new for him to solve (for example, when he sought the way to reach enchanted well, without being pierced by arrows of guarding it blind archers).

Garnet: What are they most passionate about and who are they most devoted to?

His goal/work/purpose and the ones he’s close with (family, friends, beloved ones, etc.). He’s very dedicated and loyal to either no matter the verse, and, even though his choice between them may appear to be obscure at first, he still tends to favor people over the ambition (there are so many times he sacrificed the chance to go back in time in order to help someone else, g d i b o i).

Iolite: Are they financially responsible or do they tend to blow their money as soon as they have it?

Despite his family being the high-class individuals, Jack/Ryou isn’t attached to wealth yet not exactly a wasteful type either - that one kind of people who tend to live a rather modest yet at the same time quite an elegant life once circumstances allow it, even though he can manifest some of ‘rich people quirks’ in Modern AU (an example is him having his own special sort of jasmine tea which is cannot be obtained in ordinary supermarkets).

Jade: What are their opinions on luck? Do they believe in it?

He most likely believes it to be one whimsical force and relies on his strengths rather than the fortune intervention, even tho there were definitely the moments he considers to be nothing but its pure manifestation.

Jasper: What do they typically do to relax?

Same that he does in order to soothe oneself + meditation and cooking also seems to relax him once he has a necessary amount of time for either.

Kyanite: What is their temper like?

I often compare him to the ocean, as Jack/Ryou appears to be very patient and not so easy to irate, yet his temper can be incredibly devastating once he’s not able to contain a tsunami which is his repressed emotions, specifically his anger. In general, he’s an epitome of Bruce Lee’s quote about the nature of water ’...Now, water can flow or it can crash’, with addition it can also terribly burn you once boiled (aka he can endure a lot of bs, yet still has his limits and is wise to be mindful).

Lapis Lazuli: How aware are they of others and of their surroundings?

His awareness of the environment is mainly high, both in relation to his empathy and nonetheless acute senses. Jack/Ryou is exactly that kind of person who appears to be very seclusive and quiet, yet sees and hears everything and thus isn’t prone to be caught off-guard (while he also might be paradoxically oblivious when it comes to the other’s evident romantic interest in him lol).

Moonstone: What inspires them? Why?

His mentor and parental figures, either blood parent(s) (especially his father, who he considers to be his role model both in his main verse and Modern AU) or the one(s) he has in particular verse. Even though Jack/Ryou knows he’s his own person, he nevertheless looks up to them and tends to reminisce given by them life lessons once he’s in need of guidance/advice.

Onyx: How do they handle hostility from others, whether verbally or physically?

While he can tolerate verbal hostility more than well (thanks to the Scotsman), he tends to grow disgruntled and taciturn if he has to witness such behavior for too long (not to mention he’ll put the person at their place once it will overcome the limits of his patience) + when it comes to physical hostility, his combat skills are more than enough to cease such treatment. However, he won’t tolerate either of such once it witnessed in relation to his family/beloved ones and is prone to get protective of them no matter the situation (just imagine Ryou hearing as someone talks unfair shiet about Hanzo and straight out roasting them back while being completely unperturbed at the outside, he can and will do such no matter of verse).

Opal: Are they the emotional sort?

Not exactly. Jack/Ryou is obviously not an emotionless automaton (I would even say quite far from such if consider how actually gentle and soft he is), but tends to be very watchful towards his already restained feelings once he’s not comfortable/well-known with the environment, especially in the verses where he appears to be older than the age he found himself in the future (aka 25 years old). Once appearing in the company of the person he completely trusts to, however, there can be seen much more vibrant variety coming from him, even though he still doesn’t like to show his sorrow/anger openly.

Peridot: Are they open to new growth and change in any way, or are they resistant to it?

Certainly open. If he wasn’t able to grow and change in some of his aspects, he would never make this far in the future (for example, his temper was much more impulsive at the start of the series, but he grew to be patient the longer his journey went) and eventually defend Aku, same goes for all of his other verses.

Prehnite: Do they find it easy to recall their dreams or do they hardly remember them?

Dreams or nightmares are easy for him to remember once he has them. Jack/Ryou’s mind and memory are more than vibrant enough for him to have quite vivid visions and he can recall them pretty accurately if the other will ask about it, even tho he tends not to focus on.

Rose Quartz: Do they typically hold grudges? Are they the type to compromise as best they can during a conflict?

It really depends on the relationships Jack/Ryou has with the person and how heavy their fault towards him is. Some light misdeeds he can forgive without the actual confrontation and any grudges; others, heavier ones, may distant him away or even force him to cease any companionship he has with that person. If Jack considers the other his family/beloved one, however, he will always try to find out the actual reason for their misbehavior and at the end forgive them and/or make a compromise, no matter how hard and long it will require for his forgiveness to come (if it will be possible for Jack/Ryou to do this, of course; there are some things he can’t fully forgive even to people, dear for him).

Ruby: Do they typically keep their heart on their sleeve?

Only with his most close and trusted circle as Jack/Ryou knows he may not be afraid to seem vulnerable among them (even though ingrained reticence still can force him to be quite defensive, especially in Modern AU).

Rutile Quartz: Do they have a habit of looking for the source of a problem? Are they the type to attempt to solve it if they’re able, or do they try to avoid it?

He does seek the root of a problem and is persistent to try and solve it, especially when it comes to the important matters of people he treasures, yet nevertheless neglects his own troubles and is prone to avoid them if they’re not so significant.

Sapphire: What makes them happiest? Is there a reason why?

The stable and content wellbeing of his loved ones + the fact he knows he has an actual home where he’s waited and welcomed are sufficient to bring him serenity and peace in any verse, even when it lasts for a rather short while. He strives to reach at least some semblance of stability/be reassured he’ll reach it at one point, for it helps him to maintain the balance and is certain to turn either very restless or numb once there’s none of such reliance in his life (the sword and its significance, as well as its loss e.g.).

Smoky Quartz: How is their physical endurance? Are they the active sort of person or not?

His endurance is high no matter the verse + he’s clearly active sort of person and can’t stay completely immobile for too long, even when he needs his time in peace and quiet (except for the period when he’s asleep, of course, but even this is not so passive due to the fact he’s a fairly light sleeper).

Spinel: Are they a worry-wort or are they carefree?

Oh, definitely a worry-wort due to a number of reasons regardless of the verse, let him try and maintain enviable composure / appear to be unperturbed.

Tanzanite: Do they heal quickly or do bruises and cuts tend to heal slowly?

His regeneration is evidently much more accelerated than it for ordinary human no matter of the verse, even if there are still scars that remain after both relatively deep injuries and shallow cuts (the most evident and agonizingly gained one is located at the right side of his lower abdomen, which he sewed up himself both in 5th season’s verse and in Modern AU).

Tiger’s Eye: Are they self-confident or wracked with doubt?

Oddly enough or not, diffidence is his tragic flaw. The bitter truth is, even tho Jack/Ryou always tries to aid/emotionally support people close to him, he doesn’t actually believe in himself very much (just look what his conscience produced in 5th season y e e s h) and is full of self-doubts despite him often claiming otherwise. That’s also one of many reasons he priors the others before him (’I believe in myself... because they believe in me’).

Topaz: Are they the type to cheer on others or do they prefer to be center stage?

He actually prefers to play an encouraging/supportive role, but still can accept the leading position and is able to handle it pretty well once necessary, thanks to his responsible solemn character (after all, he’s the prince/heir of the noble clan and had been raised as such).

Tourmaline: Are they the understanding sort or do they have trouble connecting with others?

He’s both, in a way that Jack/Ryou can be incredibly socially awkward (mostly relates to his main verse due to the differences in eras and his solitary tendencies) yet is surprisingly good when it comes to the understanding of others (his politeness and caution can also help when he needs to approach someone).

Turquoise: Do they strive for success or do they typically prefer to go with the flow?

Obviously strives for success in his own ‘watery’ way, cos again ‘water can flow or it can crash’ aka ‘if I can’t destroy the obstacle, I’ll find the other path or mean’ (same goes for his relationships; if he cannot make his beloved one change some of the aspects he’s somehow bothered with, then he’ll eventually accept them rather than remain stubborn and thus harmful).

Zircon: How wise are they?

Jack/Ryou is fairly wise, however, his wisdom manifests itself at its most high point in his Post-Aku verses (where he nevertheless has a sage mind despite remaining in the youthful body), while in Modern AU he claims to lack the necessary amount of such (tho I believe he’ll be prone to gain it over time as he will lean more towards his flexibility rather than obstinacy).

#✧ 𝕗𝕖𝕝𝕝𝕠𝕨 𝕕𝕚𝕤𝕔𝕚𝕡𝕝𝕖 ✧ ║ ooc #kathexismania #answer #✧ 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕤𝕠 𝕚 𝕛𝕠𝕦𝕣𝕟𝕖𝕪 𝕠𝕟 ✧ ║ headcanons #{{ O O F AND Y E E T BUT THERE U GO }}#long post //

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geminiamethyst · 5 years ago

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Possession. Chapter 9 (FINAL CHAPTER)

FINALLY! AFTER ALMOST A FULL YEAR, I have finally reached the end of Possession. Sorry it took so long to get to the end of, I just didn’t originally plan for it to be this long. But, you know what? I’m glad it did anyway.

Okay, because this is the final chapter, I can not stress enough to tell you guys to skip this chapter and read the previous chapters using the links below if you have not done so already. If you don’t, trust me, you will regret it.

I’d also like to say a final big thank you to Schusseltier, avril-circus and laambart for allowing me to write this story as they are the ones that came up with the original comic strips that inspired me to write this. Please give them all your love as they are amazing artists.

Enjoy the chapter.

The road to recovery was easy enough physically for Snufkin. All the bruises had cleared up and his body no longer felt like fragile glass that threatened to break at every move he made. However, it was mentally that was the challenge. For a whole week straight, he woke up in the night screaming from the nightmarish memories of when he was possessed that plagued him. Joxter was by his side at every scream he made and comforted him back to sleep, but it did nothing to help sooth his mind from going haywire. Though it was only for a week that the nightmares had gone on for, to Snufkin it felt like months. He hated feeling trapped like that. The spirit was gone, he knew that. But he had suffered so much when he was a prisoner in his head. He would look over his shoulder at every noise behind him when he walked and if someone had snuck up behind him without saying something, he would either flinch badly or scream in a panic when they place a hand on his shoulder. It had gotten terribly bad when Stinky (who in no time at all learned about what had happened somehow) played a nasty prank on him when he was in the forest getting some supplies for his winter wandering. He had frightened him by using a horn to project his voice around the area, making it impossible for Snufkin to pinpoint where it had come from. If that didn’t freak him enough, Stinky had then screamed down his ear so suddenly that it almost gave the poor traveller a heart attack, literally. It was so bad that Snufkin was curled up like a frightened child and wasn’t willing to move until Moomin, Joxter and Little My found him.

He was that scared of being possessed again.

Madame Portia had been doing everything she could to help him through the healing. She had been making him come up to Moominhouse daily to make sure that he was fine. Results were the same with physically, with the mental recovery becoming slightly better each passing day. She feared that the encounter with Stinky’s bullying would have set him back terribly but he surprised her greatly the day after the incident.

“He truly is you brother, isn’t he?” The medium had teased a bit at Little My that day, further commenting that Snufkin was stronger than he looked.

“You should never doubt my family!” Little My only smirked, earning a smile from Snufkin. Ever since that night, even after all the secrets that were kept, Snufkin felt like he was closer than he ever was with his family since he was reunited with them. It made him all the more determined to see his mother during his Winter wandering with Joxter.

Madame Portia had left a week after that, feeling the need to leave the valley before Winter and help another household with a spirit problem. The family said their goodbyes to her, with Moominmamma giving her some Jasmine tea to have on her travels. Madame Portia too had left some gifts with the family. She gifted the Moomin family a talisman to hang up on a wall to help protect the household from evil spirits and a beaded bracelet made out of turquoise for Snufkin with the same purpose. Despite Little My teasing him a little, Snufkin gratefully slipped the spiritual jewellery on, again fearing for him being possessed again. Feeling that she had done enough for the family, Madame Portia left, promising the family that if they ever meet again, she’ll only bring good fortune upon the family.

Sadly as the time went, Winter had finally creeped in. It felt like it had come quicker than it should have. The frost remained permanent on the ground, making the once lush, soft, green grass dry up and become nothing more than had brown coloured stems. Flowers wittered and died, driving off all the insects that had decorated them in the Spring and Summer. The trees were striped completely of their leafs, making them look like nothing more than tall, menacing figures, especially in the dark of the long nights. Clouds covered the sky, blocking the sun and the beautiful blue that was the sky. The air constantly looked like it was damp and it was also bitter, the wind becoming harsh and icy. No matter where you stepped in Moominvalley, it felt like the Groke was standing right next to you, or it felt like you were looking into the eyes of the Lady of The Cold.

Everywhere you looked in Moominvalley, it seemed like Summer was no more than a distant memory.

Snufkin sat on the handrail of the the bridge, just like he had started doing, waiting for Moomin to come out to say goodbye (A/N For those that don’t know, I’m referencing back to episode 85 of the 90’s series). His camp was packed up, leaving behind nothing more than a rectangle of flattened and worn out grass. A circle where he would have his campfire stayed, blackened permanently on the ground. His things were packed into the knapsack that was beside him. The only difference was that Joxter was standing by, waiting to go. He blew out a puff of smoke from his old pipe. He looked up at the clouded sky, noticing that the smoke blended well with the grey that blanketed the sky. He impatiently tapped his foot, knowing full well that it’ll start snowing any second. As much as he didn’t mind waiting, he’d rather get going before the snow gets too deep to walk through. His prayers were answered when he heard the sound of running feet coming towards the bridge. Snufkin stopped playing his harmonica, hearing Moomin approaching as well. He looked towards the young troll, feeling a smile spread across his face. Moomin stopped on the bridge, catching his breath from the running. He glanced at Snufkin’s knapsack, noting how full it looked despite Snufkin not owning very much. His heart sank a little, remembering that he wouldn’t see Snufkin until he awoke from hibernation and Spring had once again returned, bringing the valley back to life.

“Time to leave?” Moomin asked, feeling a little stupid as he already knew the answer.

“Yes. Everything is just going as they should now that some things are back to normal.” Snufkin smiled sadly, hopping off of the handrail. He slipped his harmonica in his pocket before looking a little sadly at Moomin. “Just remember that I’m going to be a little late coming back.” Moomin’s ears drooped a little and his tail became limp. With everything that had happened, he had completely forgotten what Snufkin had told him on Halloween.

“You’ll be seeing your mother though. Like I said, it’ll be worth the wait for you coming back. I hope everything goes well with meeting your mother.” He smiled a little, trying to make himself feel better. Snufkin only smiled at him a little, trying to reassure him that everything will be alright. He grabbed his knapsack and slipped the burden on his back. Moomin could do nothing more than watch sadly at this sight. He hated this time of year to say the least. He hated to see Snufkin leave for the Winter, knowing that he would never see him until Spring. It eased him a little as he reminded himself that he would be hibernating during that time. However, it still felt heavy on him. To him, it was not fair. But he knew that it would be unfair to Snufkin to force him to stay. Snufkin, after all, was a vagabond, a free spirit. It would be cruel to chain him to one place. He knew that it would be better to let Snufkin go, but it still didn’t stop him from being sad.

“HOLD IT!”

Snufkin, Moomin and Joxter turned to see Little My running towards them from Moominhouse. With the speed she was running at, you’d think the Groke was chasing her. The trio caught sight that she was carrying something in her hand, but her arms were going so fast that all they could make was a blurry white object. She skidded to a very sudden holt on the bridge, almost slipping on the frost that had remained on the bridge.

“You weren’t going to leave without saying goodbye to your sister, were you?” She shouted after catching her breath.

“Sorry My, but usually you don’t do that. I thought you were asleep already.” Snufkin said as he knelt down to her.

“Yeah, well, I’m only doing this once! So don’t expect me to do it all the time.” Little My smirked, hands on her hips. She suddenly looked at what she was holding. “Do me a favour will you?”

“Of course.” Snufkin said before the small girl thrusted an envelope into his hands.

“Give this to Mother for me. I owe her a letter.” She said, her face softening a little, her cheeks turning a light shade of pink. “And.....be careful out there, okay?” Snufkin smiled. He surprised her by pulling her into a hug as a thank you. At first, the older sibling was stunned, but patted his back a little. “Yeah, yeah. Just get outta here before I get too soft. And you!” Joxter jumped a little as Little My pointed at him after Snufkin let him go. Little My’s features turned serious but meaningful. “You had better take good care of my brother. If something happens to him I will personally hunt you down myself!”

“Of course.” Grinned Joxter in amusement, his pipe held between his teeth. It faded as soon as something small, soft and white made its way to the top of his nose. Everyone looked up at the sky. Snowflakes had finally started to fall, twirling and spinning gracefully to the valley, almost like a ballet dancer performing on stage. At first, they fell thinly, only one snowflake coming down once every second, before they multiplied. The snowfall had started to become so dense that Joxter started to worry that he and Snufkin might have to wade through ankle deep snow before they could leave the valley. As Snufkin placed the letter delicately in his knapsack, his father placed a hand on his shoulder, telling him that it was time to go. Snufkin stood up and slipped his burden back on his back.

“So long, my friend. And I promise that I’ll be back before Spring is over.” He smiled sadly, extending a hand out for Moomin to shake. Instead of shaking it in his paw however, the young troll pulled the traveller into a heartfelt hug. He wrapped his arms a little awkwardly around the knapsack, but he still held a little tight. Snufkin stood a little shocked at this sudden interaction.

“Come back safe.” Moomin whispered, his voice a little hoarse as if he was going to cry. Snufkin blinked, then brought his arms around his best friend, giving him a reassuring hug. It felt warm despite the cold chill in the air.

“I promise.” He whispered into Moomin’s ear before the best friends released each other. It felt empty now that they had let go. Became colder all of a sudden. Little My climbed up onto Moomin until she stood on his shoulder, holding one arm around his head to keep her balance. Moomin, unfazed by this, watched with envy as his best friend and Joxter walked away, leaving shallow footprints in the thin layer of snow that had already started falling. They slowly became nothing more than two green dots. Moomin promptly wiped a tear that had trailed down his cheek.

“GOOD LUCK, SNUFKIN!” He shouted at the top of his lungs. He wasn’t sure if it was the snow making him think it or not, but for a few seconds, he believed that he had seen Snufkin stop, turn and wave back at those he called family. Moomin and Little My waved back. They continued until Snufkin and Joxter disappeared for good. Now Winter has officially come to Moominvalley.

And Moomin couldn’t wait until next year, when Moominvalley is blessed by the return of Spring.

And Snufkin to come back with it.

The End.

That’s it everyone. Final chapter. I hope you all enjoyed it. Sorry if it feels anticlimactic, but I don’t care. I don’t know where to go next, but I’m sure I’ll figure something out. If you guys want me to do a short story where Snufkin meets his mother or something like that, feel free to let me know.

In the meantime, have a nice day.

Here are the rest of the chapters, for those that are late to the party.

Chapter 1: click HERE

Chapter 2: click HERE

Chapter 3: click HERE

Chapter 4: click HERE

Chapter 5: click HERE

Chapter 6: click HERE

Chapter 7: click HERE

Chapter 8: click HERE

Links to the original artists:

Schusseltier: click HERE

avril-circus: click HERE

laambart: click HERE

#possession #snufkin #moomin #little my #joxter #moominpappa #moominmamma #oc #madame portia #ending #finally

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artificialqueens · 5 years ago

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Fall in Time (Branjie) - somesilverreply

A/N: Brooke has always been a perfectionist. A dancer. It was as if her long legs had an agreement with the Earth beneath her to paint it with her plies. Dance, to her, has always been about poise and grace. So when she meets Vanessa - a dancer who possesses anything but - she’s left wondering how she managed to get it so wrong. Read on AO3 here.

When Brooke Lynn Hytes was seven years old, she tripped.

When Brooke Lynn Hytes was seven years old, 8 days, 2 hours, and 13 minutes old her mother told her she should be more graceful.

When Brooke Lynn Hytes was seven years old, 8 days, 2 hours, and 14 minutes old she was enrolled in her first ballet class.

She still remembers every detail. The smell of her teacher’s perfume as she grand jete’d across the room. The way her feet felt like they didn’t belong to her the second she went en pointe for the first time. The way the other boys and girls in her class watched with envy as she was the first to land her pirouette. It was as if her long legs had an agreement with the Earth beneath her to paint it with her plies.

Even her mother began to appreciate her beauty. It was as if she had finally felt free enough to be successful and accepting of the warmth around her instead of the icy cold she had trapped herself in.

Because Brooke was beautiful. She wasn’t just a good dancer, she was an artist. She created feeling with the nuance of her footwork. She was articulate, intelligently elegant, and proud.

She was.

When Brooke Lynn Hytes was 33 years, 3 months, 19 days and 1 hour old she was tired.

Minutes blurred into hours and it felt like the sensation of her foot falling asleep had taken it upon itself to bombard the numbness in her brain. It wasn’t that she didn’t like her job, per say, she liked it just fine. Soon after it became clear dancing professionally didn’t seem like it would quite make into her thirties, she had to start planning and make choices. It wasn’t easy, though. From the time Brooke was old enough to comprehend the fleeting nature of having a career in dance, she told herself she was ready to accept the limited timeline. Work her ass off as a young adult and thrive in her twenties, and slow down by the time she was approaching thirty.

But it hadn’t been such a natural transition, as life never goes exactly how you plan – a nightmare for Brooke, who’s entire existence until that point had been centered around perfection and precision.

When she was 29 years, 3 months, 6 days, and 21 hours old, admittedly hungover and practically injecting espresso in her veins, she was on tour with her dance troupe. They had been touring all over the country for the greater half of a year, and they were about three-quarters of the way done with this leg before they were to head to Europe, one of Brooke’s lifelong dreams. She’d formed an early fascination with European culture and had taken it upon herself to memorize the capitals by age 9, impressing no one but patting her own pride on the back nonetheless.

She and her troupe were sat in a Starbucks of some Who Cares town, Ohio when she finally felt herself feel her age. She was tired and a little nauseated, the growing twinge in the crux of her foot finally making its appearance loud and clear.

Brooke was all about perfection. All about poise and obsessed with maintaining the only thing in life she’d ever felt like she belonged to.

But that night, for the first time in a long time, for some reason unbeknownst to her, she let it go.

Maybe it was the sliver of monotony she’d felt in the middle of the Act 1 closer last night. Maybe it was the unwelcomed heat she felt watching one of her costars undress at intermission because damn, when is the last time she’d had sex?, or maybe it was just the clock she’d set for herself chiming incessantly and she thought if she just hit snooze for a night, maybe it’d be okay.

As she was getting ready backstage, applying her makeup in artful strokes in the rehearsed manner she’d done since she could hold her mother’s lipstick, the blurry memories of the night before came rushing back to her with a simple pounding in her head, as if the headache was actually pushing the memory to the forefront of her brain.

“To Ballet D’Amérique, to Europe next month, and to Brooke finally letting her hair out of that tight ass ponytail!”

One of her fellow dancers, Alyssa, had begun a chorus of laughs in Brooke’s direction as they all raised their glasses in messy unison, laughing without a care in the world. Brooke smiled as she too raised her conservative glass of chardonnay with her fellow dancers, giving them a few warning glances followed by a smile.

It wasn’t that she didn’t like to have fun, she just couldn’t exactly keep up with her fellow girls like she used to, especially considering many of them were in their early twenties. Brooke had watched many of them come and go over the years. Some had gotten caught up in relationships, marrying, having children. Brooke had the occasional hookup here and there, gone on a date or two in cities she couldn’t remember. But nothing stuck. She wasn’t going to be one of the girls that left. She’s not like them. She’s better than them, as she’d let herself believe. She was proud that she had taken care of herself enough to stick it out this long.

So approaching thirty, Brooke decided she’d racked up enough hypothetical universe points to finally let her hair fall by her shoulders. She deserved it.

It’d been so long she wasn’t sure she knew exactly what deserving meant.

Nonetheless, with a kick of the warm, bitter confidence flung into her throat like it was an anecdote to the poison she’d been drowning in, she let herself flick her hair back in a dramaticized shake, eliciting “oohs” and “ahhs” from her troupe.

“Well you got me out, at least let me do what I do best!”

The girls led Brooke out to the dancefloor, and it was almost as if years of internalized self-doubt and criticism had washed off her shoulders with the warm burn of a stranger’s whiskey. She was dancing like she hasn’t been dancing all her life, like her body could only replace words with less than delicate movement. She was moving her body in positions her classical ballet training would be baffled by, and she loved every second of it. Maybe because she liked the attention from the crowd around her, or maybe she just liked to be free.

She let herself trip, really fall. But this time, no one was there to tell her she needed to fall in line.

Brooke sits in her dressing room and hears over the monitor that they were to be in places in five minutes. She hears the cacophonous “thank you five” coming from all different directions and the room spins around her. She glances down to her foot and over to the pointe shoes beside her dressing table like they’re suddenly the scariest thing she’d ever seen.

“Brooke, you good? You don’t have your tights or anything on yet,” she’d heard Alyssa say, barely making its way through the headache of memories.

“Yeah, yeah… um… Alyssa?” She’d asked, snapping her head to the right, hoping to find her friend there to alleviate some of the questions swirling around her mind. But she was gone.

You’re fine, she thought to herself, almost coming out aloud as a pleaded whisper. She was Brooke. She was healthy. No nights off for 12 years, and tonight was not going to be any different.

She joined the others backstage, giving a light squeeze to her friends’ hands as they took a collective breath, just like they had done for years, every night. If Brooke had known this would be her last time living in the comfort of the tradition she would’ve tried to shut her mind off and savor it. But she didn’t know.

Torn Achilles tendon. Torn Achilles tendon. Torn Achilles tendon.

She kept saying it over and over out loud to herself as if it would somehow make it go away.

It burned off the tip of her tongue as she delivered the news to her friends. It pounded in her head as she felt the effects of the bottom of the bottle of wine in her apartment. It stabbed her through the chest as postcards came rushing under the door from Paris, London, Stockholm, Helsinki, Oslo -

She felt the twist every second. The harsh strobe of the dance club.

The way she fell.

The way it came flooding back to her in warning the second it was too late in the middle of her pirouette.

She knew it was over, but she didn’t think it’d be so abrupt. She felt like she was watching her world collapse underneath her every time she reached up to grab the glasses on the top shelf. It was like the tops of her feet felt her heartbreak too.

When Brooke was 33 years, 3 months, 19 days and 2 hours old and heard the dizzying ‘ping’ of new emails pouring in, she felt the familiar surge of caffeine kick in from the espresso beside her, giving her a sense of empty adrenaline. She had an appointment with a client at 10am who was seeking representation.

Shortly after Brooke was forced to end her contract with the troupe, she luckily enough had held onto a connection with the director who booked all his dancers through the same talent agency in Chicago, where she found herself residing now. She’d started out as a receptionist, quickly climbing her way to assistant casting director, charming her way through the chain of male superiors and had a comfortable, powerful position in just four years. She had to be proud - she was born to be in control, precise, and poised. But something about it didn’t settle right in her stomach.

Thousands of applicants, young actors, singers, models, and of course, dancers had submitted every day with few even making it to the interview process, likely because they had some type of connection with the agency. Brooke found no satisfaction in turning young people away, and hated herself when she had a particularly cold interaction with a dancer. Young and untouched by the years of work, bright eyed and naiive as Brooke had once been.

But it was her job. Just like dancing had been, ultimately, a job. Put on the tights. The lipstick. Pirouette. Smooth your skirt.

Hire talent.

“Brooke, your 10am is here,” Brooke’s secretary, Scarlet, had tentatively called into her office after a few knocks. Her promotion was recent, and she could feel the burning glares of the other young women in the office as she strode in every morning. She tried not to let it affect her, as this was the nature of the entertainment world, but she’d be lying if she didn’t feel the waves of isolation she’d fought so desperately to get over.

Brooke had been so caught up in her work she hadn’t even bothered to glance at the file, complete with headshot and resume beside her desk. She fumbled with papers to make room on the opposite side of the desk, taking a deep breath before hearing the soft click of the door opening. She barely had a second to feel the breath escape her chest as she glanced up from the headshot to the woman in front of her, just as bright eyed and naiive as Brooke expected with this time, instead of a cool chill of resentment it was replaced with a warm rush through her hand, reaching to connect with the girl’s outstretched one in front of her.

“Hi, ma’am, I’m… my name’s Vanessa, it’s nice to meet you.”

#rpdr fanfiction #brooke lynn hytes #vanessa vanjie mateo #branjie #slow burn #eventual smut #lesbian au #angst #fall in time #somesilverreply #tw mentions of injury #tw depression #concrit welcome

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imagination-of-a-melted-bitch · 6 years ago

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Wicked Games || K. Taehyung

@1lsans

Prompt: FTTA said something about Taehyung’s blue hair against her thighs, she’s a POC, I absolutely love her and I’m an absolute slut for Tae at any time of the day, let’s get it!

Pairing: Taehyung x reader

Word count: 1.824k

Warning: cunnlings,

"Taehyung!" You gasp, eyes lowering to focus on his hand buried between your thighs, his index and middle finger parting your swollen lower lips. "We can't-we can't, not here!" You feebly assert, teeth clamping down on your lower lip, eyes shifting toward the unlocked door. "What if someone walked in?" Taehyung chuckles darkly, the sound making the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, goosebumps rising across your heated skin.

"You'd liked that," Taehyung's voice passes through his wet lips in a low hoarse tone, rattling you to the core. "No, you'd love that," His voice is taunting, poking at one of your deepest desires, lips curling into a smug smirk, eyes flickering from the door to the way your thighs tightened around his wrist, trapping his hand where you supposedly wanted him least. "No need in hiding it, we both how you're a slut for getting caught,"

"Tae," You let out a quiet shrill, the feeling of Taehyung's fingers pressing into your clit catching you by surprise. "We shouldn't," Taehyung notices the change of your words, knowing you were going to cave in no matter what words or actions he displayed. "We really shouldn't," You pant out, resting your weight on your elbows, legs complying to his wishes, opening for him to have better access to what he wanted most. "What if someone walks in?"

"Something's telling me you aren't too worried about someone walking in," Taehyung shifts to his elbow, watching you with an amused grin. "I think you're too selfish to stop me," Taehyung licks a bold stripe along the shell of your ear, fingers stilling in their play against your bundle of nerves. "I know how naughty you are, I know what you're willing to do," Taehyung chuckles once again, the sound rattling you, shaking you to your core, "to make sure you come,"

“Tae!” His fingers slide down the heated softness of your heat and push into your clenched hole, teeth gritting at the stretch. “Fuck Tae!,” You cry out, hips pushing against his hand, as you humor yourself with the shifting of your eyes toward the door. You made no effort to be quiet despite your wishes to not be caught, enjoying the feeling of his fingers pushing into your hidden heat, brushing against your velvet walls. “More!” You plea, hips moving desperately, “More!”

“What do you want me to do baby?” Taehyung’s lips graze your cheek, hot breath fanning over your already heated skin. “Come on, you got to tell me,” Taehyung’s fingers continued their play, his features contorting based on how you reacted to him. “Do you want just my fingers or-“ Taehyung pulled his hand from your heat, pushing his soaked digits into his mouth, eyes rolling back as your arousal hit his tastebuds. He wanted to seem in control but he was more turned in than he cared to admit, especially with the possibility of getting caught.

“Don’t sit there with your fingers in your mouth,” your lips become a pout and your head nods toward where his hand had previously been, “assume the position,” you and taehyung stare at each other for a few seconds before he’s shaking with laughter, steadily moving down the bed as he makes you promise to never say those words again, especially not in the bedroom. “Whatever,” you mumble, adjusting your legs to fit taehyung between them. You watched Taehyung with an adorable pout, letting your face paint your confusion as he made no efforts to move. “What are you doing?”

“Just admiring the sight, thinking about how I was right,” Taehyung parts your lower lips once again, teasing by blowing cool air on the heated, hidden flesh. “Are you done pretending?” His eyes flicker from your heat to your face, chuckle racking his body once again as he finds you staring down at him with a mixed expression of anticipation and faux anger on your face. “Come on baby,” he blows cool air directly on your clit, other hand coming up to press against your pelvis, an honestly pathetic attempt to keep your hips against the bed. “Let me make it up to you?” He teases, gallantly swiping his tongue over your quivering nub, head becoming trapped between your thighs.

“Oh,” you make an undistinguishable noise, admiring the sight before you. You release your grip on his head and push your fingers through his thick blue hairs, drawing it away from his face. “Your hair, it’s so vibrant against the dark complexion of my thighs,” you giggle as he giggles, neither of you thinking of it before. “It’s artistic,” You note the contrast of the hairs against your fingers, but don’t get to dwell on the newly found aesthetic before Taehyung’s swiping his tongue along your heat again. “Warning next time?” You let out a shaky moan of his name as his tongue traces the same steps of his fingers, pushing into your restricting hole, licking into your velvet walls. “Fuck!” You tilt your head back, thighs having a mind of there own as Taehyung adds his thumb to the mix, using it to push into your delicate bud, entrapping his head once again.

Taehyung’s hands come up and push at your thighs, pushing them open to free himself. “I want you to watch me,” he whines, tip of his tongue moving against your slit, before slurping your clit into his ravenous mouth, arms moving to encircle your hips, keeping them from trapping his head once again. Your head snaps down, hand in his hair making it easy for you to stare into his eyes. You’re easily distracted by the rash difference of his skin against yours, once again admiring the beauty of his olive skin against yours. He doesn’t attempt to use words to get your attention, his tongue doing the job just as well. He presses the muscle flatly against your clit and begins to move his head back and forth, eyes staying focused on yours the entire time.

“Tae!” Both your hands move to the back of his head, aiding in the moving of his head going side to side. “I need more,” You were always so greedy, also so willing to do whatever it took as long as you got to come. “Your fingers, please, give me your fingers,” you have no time to play the ‘big girl’ game with him and use your words before he has the chance to stop his tongue against your core. Taehyung hums against your core but complies, unraveling his arm around your thigh to readily push two of his digits into your core. “Thank you!” You cry, pushing yourself firmly against his mouth, losing control of your lower half as his touch become intoxicating. Your mind was no longer worried about consequences of someone walking in or of someone hearing you. You were genuinely selfish when it came to orgasms and cursed Taehyung for knowing you so well.

Taehyung only hummed in response, tongue beginning to form a routine. His mouth suckled on your clit, the top of his tongue brushing under the hood directly against your bundle of nerves. His fingers expertly curled into your walls, ears perking up at the change of pitch in your moan and he know he’s found your spot. You were close, he could tell by the way your eyes lowered and your hips pushed into his mouth, asking for more of what they already had. He pushed his fingers into you harder, mouth watering at the lascivious sounds of your juices gushing out around his fingers. His mouth had settled for sucking on your clit, teeth grazing the bud to add spice to the simple action. “I-I,” You cry, hips lifting off the bed, straying away from his mouth and fingers, “I’m gonna-I’m,” You whimper, swiveling your hips against his mouth. “Fuck!” You can’t help the hearty moan that slips past your chapped lip, the sound possibly waking the neighbors. Your eyes screwed shut, the feeling of his fingers, of his mouth becoming too much, pushing you into an abyss, allowing your orgasm to swallow you, pulling you under a wave of pleasure, suffocating you as you struggle to breath, Taehyung’s actions proving relentless as he makes my effort to stop even as you’ve come.

“Once more,” Taehyung explains, replacing his mouth with his thumb, his fingers never stilling inside of you. “I’ve just got to see it one more time,” you can barely hear him over the sound of your heavy breathing, hands moving to cup the sides of his face, framing the smug look on your face as he drags you to another orgasm. “You sound so raw,” He breathes, shaking your hands from his face, pressing his cheek against the inside of your thigh. “You sound so broken,” His lashes flutter against your skin, the touch gentle and light in comparison to what he was doing in-between your legs. “I just have to hear it one more time,” his voice is guttural, dark and deep, seeping into your already sex intoxicated mind, his eyes watching you like a predator watched it’s prey, he had devoured you and was watching the aftermath. “Come on,” his firnly presses his fingers against your patch of nerves and massages the rough patch, thumb quickening its pace. “Can I hear it just once more?”

Your second orgasm hits you harder than the first, thighs clamping shut, devising a death grip on Taehyung’s wrists. Your back arches of the bed, eyes rolling to the back of your head as your body begins to shake. “Tae!” you cry, feeling his fingers still move against your overly sensitive core. “It’s too much!” You thrash against the bed, hands finding solace in his hair. “I can’t!” You sob, his fingers still keeping up a steady pace. “Please!” Your hips betray you, rolling into his touch, body still quivering from your previous two orgasms. “I can’t!” Taehyung chuckles and pulls his hands away from your quivering core. Taehyung moves to his knees between your thighs and holds his hands up, admiring the way they glistened with your juices.

“Suck,” He holds his two fingers out and watches with an amused grin as you take his fingers into your mouth, sucking your arousal off his fingers. Your eyes are wide, blown with lust at the lewd actions, and he has to snatch his hand from your mouth before you can do any more damage. “You’re so fucking hot,” he growls wiping his chin with the back of his hand, covering your body with his.

“And I’m tired,” you yawn, knowing what he wanted, even humoring yourself by closing your eyes.

“Oh no you don’t!” He growls, fingers wrapping around your throat, “I have a problem,” he rubs his bulge against you, “and I think you’re best suited for the job,” his head drops so his lips are next to your ear, “so assume the position,”

#admin tay #on my phone #kim taehyung #taehyung #bts #kpop #kim taehyung smut #taehyung smut #bts smut #kpop smut #kim taehyung scenarios #taehyung scenarios #bts scenarios #kpop scenarios #kim taehyung fanfiction #taehyung fanfiction #bts fanfiction #kpop fanfiction

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superman86to99 · 5 years ago

Photo

Adventures of Superman #504 (September 1993)

REIGN OF THE SUPERMEN! The three weakest Supermen team up to take on the most ridiculously overpowered one! Last issue ended with Superboy, the Man of Steel, and the long-haired Man in Black flying towards Coast City (or what used to be Coast City), and this one starts with... the same thing, because it's a long-ass trip. At least they use this time to ponder on important matters.

When they finally reach the Cyborg Superman's city-wide robo fortress, the Man in Black loots some giant guns and ammo from an alien mook. You know, just in case you forgot this comic came out in the '90s.

(Needs more pouches, though.)

While trying to hide from the 800 aliens shooting at them, the Super-Trio bump into a giant missile that's about to be launched into Metropolis. The Cyborg Superman wants to nuke the city and replace it with another giant engine, as part of his plan to turn the Earth into a massive evil spaceship (Warworld 2.0). While the Men (in Black and Steel) continue infiltrating the fortress, Superboy manages to latch on to the missile to try to stop it from reaching its destination. It's not an easy task, but after a Spider-Man #33-esque effort...

...the Kid manages to change the missile's trajectory, taking it away from Metropolis. He saved the city! And then the missile blows up anyway, right in his face. Good thing he wasn't wearing his cool jacket in these pages, because there's no way it could have survived that one. It remains to be seen if HE did.

Character-Watch:

OK, he did. I seriously feel like turning that missile is Superboy's "Spider-Man lifting the rubble" moment. He's trapped in an impossible situation and doubts himself, but then gets his shit together and pulls it off because he has no choice. It's interesting that Karl Kesel made the Kid particularly punny and vapid at the start of this issue, almost like he was daring us to be annoyed by him, only to level him up at the end. I bet a lot of Superboy haters were converted right here.

Plotline-Watch:

Superboy's Platonic Friend Tana Moon breaks down and cries on camera about Superboy's sacrifice, probably earning a juicy raise in the process.

When we get to Superboy #60 (the kickass “Hyper-Tension!” storyline), someone remind me to check my suspicion that the page with the big multiverse-crossing missile looks exactly like the page with the regular missile in this issue.

There’s a quick cameo by journalist Jack Ryder (secretly The Creeper) as a talking head on Lois Lane’s TV, alongside Superboy’s manager Rex Leech and one of the wacky Superman cultists who paint their face like the Cyborg. Look at this guy. He shaved his head but only painted the face part? Come on man, you either commit to it or you don’t!

In Engine City, Mongul gets snappy with the Cyborg Superman again, and again gets humiliated in front of everyone (Cyborg calls him a “dog”). Why do you do this to yourself? Dump him, girl!

A robot sniper almost headshots the Man in Black, only for some invisible force to yank his gun at the last moment. Hmmm. In unrelated news, Don Sparrow says: "Interesting note that Luthor II can’t find Supergirl -- I wonder where she is?" Hmmmmmmmmmm.

Don also points out: "The Man in Black asks if he can call John Henry ‘Steel’ because the Man of Steel is too much of a mouthful on their mission, setting up for his permanent name change." Steel should have said "OK, then I'll call you Black."

I'll stop cannibalizing Don's section and just hand the mic over to him. Click "read more" to keep reading!

Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):

We start with the cover, and it has a unique heritage. This cover was sketched and laid out by Karl Kesel, penciled by Tom Grummett, and then inked by Doug Hazlewood, and it’s a good, accurate description of what we find in the issue—our three Supermen fighting their way into Engine City. Added points for bringing up the pre-Crisis concept of the Superman Revenge Squad, which was actually a grouping of Superman rogues (an updated version would appear in a few years). Weirdly, editorial is still seeming to hide the Fabio-hair on Superman proper on the covers—I wonder what that’s about!

Inside the book we get our first look at a trait that defines this issue visually: grease-pencil clouds!

Max pointed this out to me when we were chatting about the issue, and I think he’s right—this book doesn’t look like it was inked in Hazlewood’s usual way. It’s 1993, so it’s hard to imagine they could pull off “digital inking”, the practice of just darkening the pencils, but we see a pencil-like texture so often in this issue, a guy could begin to wonder if that’s maybe what they’re up to. So for the whole issue, there is a slightly looser, rushed feel, especially in the backgrounds. Then on the credits page, we notice a special thanks for Mark Heike—who google reveals to me is a comic artist in his own right. Maybe he pitched in with some semi-credited inks? Smokey clouds aside, it’s another nice splash, with the returned Superman leading the charge.

A common critique of Tom Grummett’s Superman is that the way his face is drawn can look a little Conan-like, and the new long hair doesn’t help that, though in these early pages Superman is looking very on-model and handsome.

The fight (and flight) choreography as the Superman trio enters Engine City airspace is well done, and while it couldn’t be more 90s if it tried, the image of Superman double-fisting blasters and ammo belts is pretty awesome, I must say. Plus, Superboy’s assessment that it’s “slammin’” might replace Robin’s “totally rad!” as a new catch-phrase in these reviews.

The reveal of the giant rocket has a great sense of scale (and is another example of pencil-like lines still popping up on finished art). Great sound effect there, too.

As Superboy heroically climbs up the rocket, Tom and co give a great sense of the speed, and g-forces the kid is experiencing. And there is such a great sense of drama in these last pages, as the celebrations for the missile having missed Metropolis quickly turn to grief, as Superboy is for sure, definitely dead. [Max: Forever.]

STRAY OBSERVATIONS:

Interesting to hear Steel use the phrase “a bursting shell” in relation to piercing Superman’s skin, a callback to Action #1’s description of Superman’s invulnerability, which apparently was known in-universe as well.

I love how unequivocally “Superman” they write the Man in Black in these pages. On his first day back to civilization, he’s already saying he’d gladly die again in order to stop Warworld from taking over Earth. Goosebumps, man!

Does Kesel have dogs on the brain? First Henshaw calls Mongul a dog (ouch) and then just one panel later, Superboy makes his Dalmatian joke. (Note: Dalmatian is actually misspelled in the comic!) [Max: “Dalmation” does sound like some sort of Jack Kirby thing. Maybe it’s something the Kid saw at Cadmus?]

Superboy is pretty much a non-stop joke machine in these pages, as just about every panel he’s in, he’s cracking wise, so it’s hard to highlight all of them. Some are better than others—I get that hearing the phrase “full frontal” puts Michelle Pfeiffer into his head, but “full frontal assault” just isn’t sexy. [Max: You know, 26 years later, I JUST got that one.]

GODWATCH: Steel invokes “God” when he thinks Superboy might have been burnt up in the rocket launch, and then a page later, Superman does the same when he sees the charred corpses of Henshaw’s minions. [Max: Also, I don’t think I caught the significance of John Henry’s “I know” as a kid.]

I love Superboy’s self-talk as he climbs the missile, particularly the Caddyshack-like “crowd goes wild”. This is exactly how a kid his age would act in that crazy moment.

Lois and Clark was airing in this period, so Perry White is legally required to use Lane Smith’s “Great Shades of Elvis” catchphrase. [Max: Unfortunately they don’t have the rights anymore, so they had to change it for the collected edition...]

#superman #karl kesel #tom grummett #doug hazlewood #superboy #steel #coast city #tana moon #hank henshaw #mongul #rex leech #ron troupe #creeper #supergirl #dalmations #totally slammin'#reign of the supermen

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