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tar-oh · 4 years ago

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Pick a Pile: Who has a crush on you?

So, confession time. I’ve had this sitting in my drafts for about a month or so. The reason for not posting it until now is that a lot of the piles felt very similar to other piles? But, now that I think about it, it could just be that some people are called to more than one pile and they’re continuations or something along that line? Either way, they all blend a little, which was so weird to me. So, I am finally posting it. I thought it would be a cute fun little read, but it just became a little confusing towards the last few piles. Also, I’m not sure how comfortable I feel tapping into that kind of energy. I think it’s one thing to ask what’s coming towards you in love vs. who has a crush on you because then there’s like that whole consent thing. But, I already did the piles, and my reservations about it didn’t really pop up until the last two piles. It felt wrong to have spent so much time on 6 piles and not post it? Plus, with Valentines day coming up and my own love life being as dry as possible, I thought it would be fun to get nosy about your love lives! So I do plan on doing some more love-themed readings within the next week or so (HOPEFULLY! My second semester of school started this week, but I’m working on balancing school and my life outside of it!). SO. Choose a pile 1-6 below. Each is represented by some good looking gentleman (or lady) from some period piece. There’s no connection to the characters to the piles outside of just being shows/movies I enjoy. If you’d like a private reading, DM me! Tips are also appreciated (but obviously not necessary). cashapp $sararms paypal: paypal.me/sararms Another thing to note is that I really ask you to only take what resonates. There’s no way I can get every story possible within 6 readings, so there may only be bits here and there for you, for others there may not be anything that resonates. So, please be discerning. As I said, if you’d like a private reading, please DM me. Also, I gotta apologize, since I had started this nearly a month ago, there’s an obvious difference in the pictures of the cards because I’ve since gotten a new phone that takes way better pictures. But the layout, on the other hand, has no excuse... ANYWAY HERE ARE THE PILES:

1) Jem Merlyn (Jamaica Inn) 2) Anne Shirley (Anne of Green Gables) 3) Emma Woodhouse (Emma 2020) 4) Jo March (Little Women 2019) 5) Ross Poldark (Poldark) 6) Simon Basset (Bridgerton)

Pile 1: (Jem Merlyn)

cards: Peacock, 8 of swords, 3 of cups rx, 4 of wands, juno, hygeia, psyche First, I have to say that I have a feeling that this person feels you left them. I'm not sure what the context of that is, but from the song lyrics in Downfall by Matchbox Twenty ("If I could go back, would you have ever been with me?"), and then as I started thinking about that, the song Promises by Aly and Aj came on and there's a line in this song about how there is nothing left there anymore. "Guess I'll go back, guess I'll go home now. Gotta turn around, there's nothing here for me now", which, MOOD to be honest lol. So, it's like, maybe you left something behind, whether it be a home (like a city or a residence?), maybe a job? Something about you left and this person just feels that it's...Not over, but like, that there's something that's changed that will either make things harder or impossible? Also, on the bottom of my lyric deck there was the song Riptide by Vance Joy, at the part where he sings "I just wanna, I just wanna know if you're gonna, if you're gonna stay." So, maybe you're thinking about leaving something? A job? A relationship? I don't know, but that's what I'm getting. There’s something about leaving here, either way. Another thing I'm getting is that I feel that this is a little more than a crush. Or at least, I think they just feel a lot for you. Like, maybe you've taken up their brain space or something, especially since the song Eat, Sleep, Wake (Nothing But You) came on. It's basically about getting someone stuck in your head, so like no matter what you do, they show up in your thoughts. So, I definitely think you've done a number on them. Oh! "I may not say it outwardly, so all I have are memories. Those looks from at the start." I feel like this is definitely someone who is really into you but they haven't told you so - but I think you may get this feeling (like maybe you catch them staring from across the room or something, and with peacock, I feel like they don't even act embarrassed if you catch them). I'm getting a bit of regret with this, especially with 3 of cups reversed and 8 of swords. 8 of swords is almost always about someone who is stuck in their head about something. They're overthinking things and cannot see a way forward, so maybe this person feels like it's almost futile having a crush or feelings for you? I do wonder if for some, the 3 of cups reversed suggests that maybe they think you two are too different? But, then there's the 4 of wands, and these people on this card look really in love and its about balance and harmony...so, maybe they see you as someone they wouldn't mind ending up with, despite differences? But this is about WHO has a crush on you, so I want to describe them a bit for you. So, I pulled the peacock card for you. It's funny because the deck kept spitting out too many cards and when I finally said "only one please" it spit this one out. This is funny to me, because one of the ones I actually noticed that had fallen out before was one with a peacock. I personally have been kind of...haunted by them as of late, so I'm going to notice when they're present. I made note of it, shuffled and then pulled the actual peacock card. When I think of peacocks, I think of the way they strut around. Obviously, when we think of them, we think of how the male peacocks have those beautiful colors on their feathers. So, I think this is someone who stands out. I do also think they may have a certain walk to them, but I don't think they're exaggerating. I think they just...Are that way? Like, they don't have to try hard to get people to notice them, they're just naturally in the spotlight. For some, it could be someone that is kind of show-offy. But, I really don’t get that feeling. Moving on to the tarot, the 8 of swords tells me this person is in their head a lot. I already established you're one of those things in their head, but I also think there's a lot of other things they may overthink. They definitely could be someone who's just an anxious being - I almost feel that Hygeia supports that idea since it can be about your body and your health. The deck's booklet suggests that depending on the placement one has, it can lead to being a hypochondriac, so maybe they're just a giant worry-wart? With the 3 of cups reversed, I get a few things. There's one where it could be either 1 of 2 ways: the first being that maybe they're someone that parties a lot? Like, an excessive amount - and I'm only saying that because it's reversed. The other thought is that this person's kind of a kill-joy, like maybe they don't really have fun at all. Maybe they work too much or something? But I don't think that's it, because to me 4 of wands suggests that overall they're pretty balanced, so I'm thinking that this could be another possibility. One might be they just like to stay at home, like they're a lone wolf? Another one, I'm just letting this idea flow to me, is that maybe they're just super argumentative, and maybe that's what it's in reverse. Maybe you two argue a lot or they just like to start debates or something along those lines? I usually wouldn’t get that for 3 of cups, but that just came to my mind so I’m sure it’s for someone. Since I'm reading for a lot of people, I feel like there are just a lot of possibilities for these. And with the astrology cards, I only was able to pull asteroids, no signs or houses or planets. So, this makes me think a lot of people are choosing this pile, so pointing out possible astrological placements may not help you guys. But, if you want to know, I see air, water and fire with the tarot alone, and the bottom of the astrological deck was pisces, so that might be for someone. I do feel like this person has more of a balanced set of placements, so for example their sun moon and rising may not be in the same element, and maybe things balance them out. But with the overthinking element, I do wonder if there's a lot of air in their chart. I did mention that Hygeia was about the body and it can also be about hygiene, so I get that this person is just super clean? And, by that I mean, it's super noticeable. Maybe you notice that they smell like a specific soap or if they're someone that might grow facial hair, they keep it well-trimmed, or shaven completely. Their hair is probably kept nicely (like all pieces are in place), their clothes probably neat and never rumpled. Like, that kind of a person? Hygeia also focuses on how we treat our bodies, so...This almost makes me think back to how I mentioned excessive partying with the 3 of cups being reversed? I think they try to take care of themselves, but there might be a bad habit they have, like smoking or drinking more than they know they should. I don't get any huge red-flags about it, so take what resonates. Juno can talk about partnerships and what one's ideal partner is like, so I think this just says that one of you views the other as the ideal partner. I say one of you, because I was going to say they view you this way, but it's about WHO has a crush on you, so I do wonder if this is a two-way street here? Like, I think you may have a crush on them too, in which case, you're probably going to notice what they smell like lol. This could also suggest that they have boundaries that are clear to you and everyone else. So, maybe they're in the spotlight, but they only let people in so close? Like, they’re pretty selective about it? I think this person also comes off as being super empathetic and sensitive to people and their energies. The Psyche card can talk about this, so I think maybe they're someone who can just tell in an instant if you're just not feeling right? This could be why they hold boundaries - maybe sometimes they just get overwhelmed from how other peoples emotions make them feel? One of the lyrics I pulled for this pile was from Tiger's Jaw's song, Divide. The line goes: "You are drowning, it's in your eyes." - That line makes me think about someone who's extra sensitive to other people, and maybe also someone who has a lot of thoughts and emotions themselves. The bottom deck energy being Pisces makes me think of that too, especially because Pisces is a water sign (so, emotions), and the sign is 2 fish, so again, water - drowning. It's possible this person has a lot of emotions but no way to express them (8 of swords) so in return it feels a bit like their head is a prison? I'm not really getting much else about this person. I almost feel like this is just a sign that I should take to tell you that I think this is all you need to know? Like, I think, like I said earlier, you kind of had a feeling this person had a crush on you anyway. So, maybe this is more just a confirmation for you? Either way, I think this should be enough for you to know who I'm talking about. Oh! One thing, though, is that I think both of you, even though you both get the feeling that the other likes you, don't think it's possible? I just got that at the beginning because Movement's cover of Loosing my Religion came on first, and that song is basically about unrequited love. So, I think the 3 of cups reversed could also just be about miscommunication, or at least, misinterpreting actions and words on both sides? I don't know, something to think about. Music: losing my religion - cover by Movements promises - aly & aj downfall - matchbox twenty divide - tigers jaw riptide - vance joy eat, sleep, wake (nothing but you) - bombay bicycle club Pile 2: (Anne Shirley)

cards: queen of wands, ace of cups, queen of swords, elixir, anne carson (intellect), venus, 1st quarter moon, solar eclipse So, you got Queen of Wands AND Queen of Swords, AND Queen of Pentacles was on the bottom of the deck. So, there is a possibility that this is more than one person. For the sake of not confusing myself, I'm going to read this like one person, so, there's a possibility that you could possibly pick out multiple people being described. Or, if you felt called to another pile, maybe check it out to see if that can give you any more clarity. Remember! Take what resonates! Whoever this is THEY ARE SMART. And I don't just mean book-smart, I just mean INTELLIGENT. I got both the Anne Carson card AND Brainy by The National. The Anne Carson card's keyword is The intellect, and it talks about growing intellectually, but also the "delights of the mind", so I think this person also likes to pick other people's brains as a way to learn more about others and the world they're living in. I also think they're a student, and I mean, they could be any age, really. Like, maybe they're in graduate school or just still in High School. It could also just be that they’re not in school, but are just constantly seeking knowledge? So, maybe they read a lot of non-fiction? All I know is that this person being smart is probably something you've thought about, even if it's only a passing thought. Oh. But they're also maybe a little full of it, lol. (Full of It by DBMK came on, so!!!) Another thing is that the bottom deck energy for the astrology cards was Pallas Athena and that can talk about intelligence, so phew. Very smart. The venus card, to me, suggests that this is a really good looking person. Like, I don't want to say classically good-looking, but I think a lot of people notice this person. Also, Venus rules Taurus and Libra, and since you got Queen of Swords and Queen of Pentacles was on the bottom, I could definitely see this person having earth and air in their placements. But, kind of similar to what I saw in the first pile, I got a feeling of balance of placements (within the tarot I pulled, fire, water and air are present, plus bottom deck which was earth). So, like I also told the first pile, I think I'm reading for a lot of different situations, also if this is more than one person, the placements are going to be everywhere. I just want to say that you shouldn't get stuck on that, just take this as more of a confirmation if you already know their placements or something. First Quarter moon talks about transformation, so, maybe this is a very transformative person. Meaning, maybe they change their style a lot, or maybe they just seem to be changing a lot themselves? Solar Eclipse suggests something is being illuminated. So maybe they're someone that is really blunt? I think queen of swords definitely lends to this, because anyone in that energy can be seen as a very blunt person. I think they might be someone that says something that gets others thinking. Or, they have a way about explaining things that allows someone to see another side to things? The song Be Sensible by Jimmy Eat World came on, so I think this person is pretty logical and sensible, which is another Air-quality, so blunt, but logical. Like, they may not sugar-coat what they say, but they're also logical and see both sides of situations, in return, allowing you to see both sides to. To be honest, I feel like they're pretty sarcastic for some of you. And, I mean. The dryest of humor. The kind where you have to look up when they say something to see if they’re being serious or not, and sometimes it goes over some peoples heads. But, something tells me you’re able to translate it well. To be honest, I don’t think this person would have a crush on you if you couldn’t differentiate between their sarcasm and when they’re serious. So I said they were probably really blunt and logical, also possibly sarcastic. That's what I got from the Queen of Swords. From Queen of Wands, I also get that their really passionate. Like, I think this could be about anything? Maybe just life! But, I think there's a certain amount of creativity this person holds, and I think them being super smart gives them an interesting perspective on whatever they create? Maybe they write poetry or lyrics. Maybe they paint? For some reason, I always get a painter from queen of wands. I don't know, maybe I'm just imagine someone with a huge paint brush lol Like, really, in my mind I'm seeing someone with a giant paint brush, so maybe this person really does paint. The ace of cups is interesting to me. I think this might just say that their in the beginning of something that's emotionally fulfilling? Like, maybe a new course or a new job? For some of them, they just found the path they want to take. I know that sounds random, but the song (jogging) by Jetty Bones came on and a lyric really stood out to me, "All along, I thought I knew, but I had no, no idea where I was going at all, so I was going and going and going and gone." So, maybe they felt like they were in this endless loop of life until recently something dawned on them and they took a new path, which ended up being something really fulfilling emotionally? This could also just be someone who is really open about their emotions. I'd say they sound really emotionally balanced. And, this ace of cups is a hand pouring liquid from one container to another, so maybe they also are someone with a lot of love to give? I was trying to figure out what Elixir meant in this context, but I forgot that the bottom deck energy for this pile in that deck was Ghost, which can mean unfinished business. So, possibly this is someone from your past? Or someone who just thinks your time together isn't over. So if for some reason this is someone and you know who it is and you haven't seen them in a while, they don't think it's over. They think you'll run into each other again, and maybe elixir is like you two getting drinks (could also be getting coffee lol) - the song Take Me by Aly and Aj came on, so!!! Maybe they want to take you on a date to get drinks!? (Ace of cups!?). For the lyrics, they definitely are wondering how you feel about them since I pulled Downfall by Matchbox Twenty (First pile got the same song, different lyrics), "I wonder what you think of me." So, they definitely aren't sure how you feel. However, I think they can have a big ego (I think I mentioned this earlier), because I also pulled the line "You might need me more than you think you do." from Brainy by The National, so I think they're someone who can sometimes feel a bit entitled to other people? If that's the case, I'd make sure you set good boundaries. I don't get a bad vibe but I get a cocky vibe and sometimes cocky people can be total assholes. Strong boundaries are good for this person, but if this is someone who you actually want to accept the cup from, than I wouldn't build the boundaries too high, ya know? Like, still be open, but also be careful. I just don't want someone to feel entitled to you guys, okay? That being said, I think they loose sleep over you lol, because bottom deck energy for the lyric cards is a song by Now, Now called Prehistoric (so, also, thinking about someone from your past? But also, maybe they're into history?), " I will trade this sleep for you in a heart beat." Maybe they dream a lot about you? Either way, I think they loose sleep over you, so I mean, if they are really cocky, that's kind of something to be proud of lol You managed to take up more space in their mind than they themselves took up (Yeah, I'm seriously getting a cocky, full of themselves energy from this person). Oh! I just noticed that there's like a shape coming out of the cup on the Elixir card, and it looks a bit like a ghost, so definitely unfinished business with someone. I don’t know! I get good vibes from them despite how cocky they feel. I think that may just have come across so strongly so that someone can possibly confirm who it is? Just, remember boundaries! Music: Downfall - Matchbox Twenty Brainy - The National (jogging) - Jetty Bones Take Me - Aly & Aj Pile 3: (Emma Woodhouse)

cards: 6 of swords, king of pentacles, 3 of swords, capricorn, scorpio, psyche, wolf, Flannery O'Connor (Humanity) I get this sense that this is someone who doesn't say much. Like, I think they speak only when they have something of value to say. I don't know, I just get that feeling because I pulled lyrics from the song The Silence by Manchester Orchestra. These lyrics don't suggest this, but I was thinking about the song title and the fact that I pulled the Wolf card too. I got the saying "lone-wolf" in my head with that. Also, with Scorpio and Capricorn, I get a strong energy from them but like both signs can be observational. I think Capricorns get pinned into this stereotype of being workaholics and super-materialistic, but at the root of it all, their earth signs, so they're still grounded and logical. Not in the sense of an air-signs logic, but like, I'd say understanding. Like, I think they feel more and think more than they let on, but they don't see much point in expressing those things, which is the exact energy I get from this person. I wonder if maybe they just have a hard time opening up? Also, the bottom deck energy for the tarot deck was The Emperor, and even though that's technically the Aries card, I definitely get like a Capricorn vibe from it too. Like, I do think they're good at controlling themselves. Like, their sense of self-control is GOOD. Maybe they're a little lost and having trouble with that right now, but I think normally this person is good at that. And for water signs, I view Scorpios as being a little more closed off. They're known for being extremely observational, but their observations are also fairly insightful. So, I bet this person has a lot they could say, but maybe they just don't deem it as worthy - or at least, not for everyone to hear. As though they don't open up to just anyone. I get a similar vibe in this pile to pile 1, so if you felt called to it, I’d check it out. With the tarot, I see that for some of you this is someone who is moving away from a job or something financial. I only say this because 6 of swords suggests moving away from something and 3 of swords suggests heartbreak, but with the king of pentacles (and even an earth sign like Capricorn falling out) I do wonder if this was job-related. Though, this could be someone who is getting over someone who is in the king of pentacles energy? I think they definitely could be moving away from heartbreak of some sort, whether it's finances or romance. But, along with that, I can also see 6 of swords being paired with Scorpio as being super transformational. Like, I think they know when they need to transform and go through those death/rebirths. Like when a change is needed. The 3 of swords could just say they've broken a few (or a lot) of hearts, and I'd say with both scorpio and capricorn present, they must be a pretty intense person, so heartbreak might be a common thing they cause. Or, they themselves have had many heart breaks. I think, mostly, though, what I get is that right now they're going through one. This could also be that they felt rejected by you at some point? Like maybe you rejected them, or it was vice versa and maybe they regret that? Either way, they're into you now. Even if you turned them down or they turned you down, they're into you. I think they could be at a distance from you - whether physical or maybe they just can't get you alone? Or, just time with you in general? Because I pulled lyrics from Mat Beringer's song Distant Axis: "I feel like I'm as far as I can get from you." And if we pair that with the 6 of swords, I could see a distance. I'm not sure what category you fall under (the actual physical one, or the one where you two can't get time together), but they're feeling this. Oh, the song Seneca by Movements came on, and this song is about someone finding out that an Ex that they never quite got over is engaged, so I definitely wonder if for some this is an ex that never got over you. The song before it was Garden Eyes by the same band, and that one talks about staying in a situation you feel because you think it's the best there is for you. So, I do wonder if one of you is with someone else and there's pining? Also, while this person is intense, I do wonder if they have some intense self-worth issues. I also think that they have trouble with the world in general. Like, I think they see what's going on and aren't happy. I get that from the Humanity card, Flannery O'Connor's. This card has a peacock on it (again, check out pile one if you felt called to) Peacocks to me seem to demand attention, whether or not it's really what they want? Like, either way, you're going to see their colors, so I think this person could be someone that stands out to you - but maybe you also notice that they're kind of a loner too. Like, not quite, but definitely someone who isn't quite open to everyone. The Humanity card can talk about reckoning with failure. She's holding a broken egg (though it looks like it's bleeding), so I have to wonder if maybe they put their eggs all in one basket (so to speak...) and it failed them, and now they're having to deal with the fall out or regret. It can also talk about knowing oneself, so maybe it's also them being in a process of relearning who they are? So if we go off of my theory of them having to get through heartbreak and move on from something either financial or romance related, we could maybe assume that maybe they had started to build their identity off of this relationship or job? Maybe it consumed them to a point where they lost themselves in it but now they don't have it so they're just sitting there with that broken egg? OH! The wolf card can mean the self without others, so yeah. They definitely lost themselves within something for a bit. Maybe even within you? I'm not sure, I think there are a lot of different situations here. I do think they see you in a hopeful way though, like maybe them thinking about you gets them in a better mood? I think, like my comment about them having trouble with self-worth, I think they're just having a difficult time, and maybe they're trying hard to be grateful? I pulled the song, the Silence by Manchester Orchestra for you and the line I pulled was "Let me open my eyes and be glad that I got here." So, perhaps they're just going through a tough time and having trouble finding the good in the world. I also think with the Psyche card, they're pretty intuitive and empathetic, especially if they're a Scorpio or have that in any major placements, so It's definitely this thought in my mind of them kind of drowning in pain? I'm not sure, but I get sadness from them. An intense energy, but also an intense sad one. So, I guess if you know who they are, and you have feelings for them too, I'd give them some space to heal. The bottom deck energy for the Literary Witch Oracle was Saphho's card, which has the keyword of Love, so I think it's a pretty big crush that they have. Another key saying for it is taking flight, so I think this person is moving on from whatever happened in the past, but I see it as a thick energy. Like, slow moving. Like, when you're trying to walk through water or snow? Just. Slow. The King of Pentacles in this deck has a turtle, so I'd definitely say slow...The last song that came on for you was Wake Me by Bleachers, and it's a pretty romantic song, so yeah. They like like you lol. Music: The Silence - Manchester Orchestra Distant Axis - Matt Beringer Seneca - Movements Garden Eyes - Movements Wake Me - Bleachers

Pile 4: (Jo March)

Cards: wall, saphho, the fool, king of cups, page of cups rx, virgo, 1st house, hygea I think they're indecisive, I'll say that lol Lot's of cards that would flip and then flip back before I could grab them. So maybe in general they just have trouble making decisions or they're undecided about you. Like, they have a crush, but they're not sure how big it is or if they want to make a move? For some, how to make a move? Yeah, I did pull some lyrics from a song by Road Trip called Tokyo Hotel, "If I leave my love in your hands, tell me you'll keep it safe?" So, I do wonder if this person is just scared of being vulnerable, and so maybe they're going through a healing period and aren't able to make a move/don't feel capable so they're just kind of crushing on you from far away. I also pulled the song Shameless by All Time Low, which basically is just about how the narrator thinks this person is shameless: "You talk like you're famous. You're shameless," but I almost don't see this as a bad thing. Like I think they view you as someone who see's your self worth, so I'm reading this that way. So, wow, that first paragraph was so funny because I wrote that before I pulled the other cards? I pulled the lyric cards first, mostly because I felt called to, but I also was like "maybe this can give me the tone of this pile's reading?" And it sure did! Yes, this is someone who is currently healing. They have some high boundaries right now, I especially see that with the card "wall", so yes. They're very protective of themselves. I'd say they're guarding their heart pretty closely, and I think that Sappho (Love), and King of Cups is a dragon in front of that cup, looking a little fierce. Not really welcoming at all. Also, page of cups is reversed. That card came out sideways, and when I looked at it I really just felt that it was more reversed than anything? Like, I think they want to offer you a cup, like even that King looks a bit like he does, but there's just this sense of needing to protect themselves, so it's not offered. But I think a word that applies to this is yet, like they have the intention to - I definitely feel this, but they don't think now is a good time. You did get Sappho, which the main keyword is love. So? I definitely think they have feelings for you and they definitely desire something with you, but not now? (Hey, on a side note, if you know who this is and also have feelings, please don't put your life on hold for them? I just felt the need to say that.) And maybe that's like on both sides, maybe they have some shit they're dealing with and maybe you do too. I accidentally wrote page of pentacles instead of cups when I was writing out the cards, and I do get that feeling here. I think they're starting something new like a new job/career or class while also healing themselves? So, it's just not a good time for them to start something else too. Especially because I feel like with the King of Cups they want to put effort into it, like the king is someone who is able to balance their emotions and think with their heart and their mind. Like, not rule quite as logically as the King of Swords, but there still is logic involved. Which brings me to the astrology cards. I pulled Virgo, which is so interesting to me. Lately I've been noticing how many similarities to Virgo that the sign Scorpio has? And I definitely get scorpio vibes with this pile despite not pulling anything that was like SUPER scorpio? Like, yes, cups are dominant here, so there's definitely water, But, outside of that, the only actual one that I'd say is Virgo for sure. However, we have the fool card here - I'm not going to get to this one quite yet, because I'm still kind of feeling that one out, but I can say that it's ruled by Uranus, which in return rules Aquarius. But, this person I think can be detached. I know that sounds weird, considering that I said I got watery Scorpio vibes (though, another thing to add is that this deck has chosen to use a siren for the fool card, so definitely WATER ), but I mean, I think with Virgo, Aquarius and Scorpio vibes, there's a HUGE analytical trait to this person. I think they observe and take in all of the little details. This could also be another reason why they're not making a move on you yet? I think there are a few more details they want to "smooth" over so to speak, but also a few more things they want to know about you. Also, bottom of the deck energy was Page of Swords, so more page activity. This, I think, is them watching you. Like, not in a creepy way. Just in a way to gather knowledge on how best to approach this? Going back to the fool, I think usually this is someone who does take chances. With the Virgo and Airy/Aquarius element, I think they think about these chances, like maybe even too much, but I think with that King of Cups and Page of Cups (even in the reverse), they still allow their heart to mingle in this logic? Maybe when they were younger they were impulsive, and over time they've learned to like, tame the impulsivity? It's funny because even though there's a page here, I don't think they're that young. Yes, some of them might be, but I think the majority of you that picked this pile are older? LIke 20s+? I said they have have started something new recently, and I think there are a few set backs within it, like maybe it's taken a while to get there. So, while they're a King of Cups, they're also a Page of Cups. Something about this crush on you also makes them feel inexperienced. Maybe, with past connections they liked to jump in right away (that fool card), but now they're...Not feeling so confident? Maybe, going back to the lyrics by All Time Low, they fear rejection from you? Bottom of the deck energy for the lyric deck was the song Flowerchild by Citizen with the line: "I don't know where I went wrong", so perhaps you've rejected them already? Or, there's a sense that if they offer something they won't be good enough for you? But...They're a king...I don't know! This person has some insecurities. Also, I think the wall card could indicate this as well? Like, this insecurities are obstacles. There also could be physical obstacles, like maybe it's just not possible for either of you to work it out right now, so maybe they're bidding their time? I have a lot of questions about this and I think this is mostly because I'm reading a lot of different situations, so if you feel like you recognize this energy, take what resonates. I have a song stuck in my head called Intuition by The Backseat Lovers, and I didn't want to mention it because I thought it was mostly just me, but it didn't really get stuck in my head until I started this pile. Also, I couldn't hear the lyrics or remember which song it was until right when I wrote "resonates". The lyrics I hear are "Call it intuition..." so, I think for some of you this is resonating. Like you're just confirming something. I looked at the booklet for the Virgo card to see if there was anything I wasn't remembering about the sign, and it did remind me of a few things. First off, it's an earth sign (Capricorn is on the bottom of the deck, so I think this person has strong earth/water placements), and can be nurturing. So, maybe it's that their embodying a more nurturing energy right now for themselves? Like, I get this organized nurture. That's so funny to say because I think when people think of people who are organized and super analytical they definitely get like this idea of someone who is really serious and no-nonsense, right? But, I don't get that? In fact, even though I think they're healing and they have their walls up, I get this cheery sense to this person. I think they do like order and I think they are trying to take care of their health/body/mind/emotions (hygeia and virgo definitely suggest this), but I think they also are a nice person. Like a genuinely nice? (not that someone who cares for themselves aren’t, I’m just saying they like to help people as well as themselves, like a: “I give what I can when I can” kind of energy) Even though that dragon looks a bit suspicious on the King of cups and he's snarling, I think maybe they could give off a cold/harsh exterior? But, this could also be linked to those boundaries and those insecurities. Maybe this is how they seem, but if you get to know them, they're warmer than this. Oh, you know that's so funny, I forgot that we have the 1st house here. This is the house that is basically how we are on the outside? So maybe they're a Virgo or Aquarius rising? Or even a Scorpio rising? So then that would make those their first house. So I think maybe this cold version is their mask, but maybe their sun or moon is something like a fire sign or even water? I'm not sure, because this is such a general reading that I'm probably reading for several people, so these are just small possibilities. It could just be that at this point in their life, this is how their energy is. Also, going back to hygeia, I think this person enjoys working out? Or just staying active. I think health is really important to them, or at least right now it is because bottom of the deck for the literary oracles is elixir, which can talk about health. You know what I just realized? That's not a dragon, its some sea creature, which I've gotten two new things from: the first is that that if they do like to stay active, I think they swim a lot or do a lot of water-related sports/activities. It could also be that water just really calms them down because water is a huge aspect of all the pictures on these cards. The second is that, remember how I said it looked like this "dragon" is guarding the cup in front of him? Like, that his heart is a bit closed off right now? Well, I also think that because this is some sea serpent that appears to be underwater (pretty deep too, judging by how dark the blue is in the background), so I think this person is keeping these feelings for you down deep. Like, deep down in their own ocean. So, like, they plan to tell you one day or at least they want to, but haven't been able to surface yet, if that makes sense? A few more things: The moon seems prominent some how. I didn't pull any cards that REALLY indicate the moon, but the hygeia card looks like the moon to me, but then the page of cups seems to have 6 moons too. So, 6 could be something important too. Maybe age difference? Month you met? Day you met? I'm not sure, something about this is important. Also, the moons can just kind of point out how there's still an unknown aspect to this, like they still are trying to figure you out but there's also stuff about them you don't know? So, if you do know who this is and you feel the same, you're asked to kind of wait for them to come around (NOT WAIT AROUND, I MEAN DON'T PUSH ANYTHING) but also that there's still some stuff you're unaware of. The color red is important too. When I first was shuffling I like saw it in my head but I didn't write about it because it just was like, "Oh, random" ya know? But now that I'm looking at the cards, I see it on the 1st house card and the King of Cups has some red that almost looks fiery. Also the page of cups has a red thread wrapped around their ankle, which, could be that maybe you're supposed to learn lessons from each other? Like, that red thread of fate? I'm not sure I can tell you if this person ever will make a move, but they want to some day. Another thing is that outside of red, I also think the colors green and blue are significant, like, maybe someone’s favorite color or something? So, basically this is someone who's healing after something. I don't think I got into what that could be, and honestly I don't really see what it could be with these cards. I think that's a message and it's that whatever it is, it's separate from you. Which is also why this person needs time to heal so that they don't bring it forward with them wherever they go, especially if that's to you. You know what's interesting? A few months ago I did a similar reading on who was crushing on people, and I definitely had a pile like this. So maybe you picked that pile and this is the same person and they're still healing? I'm not sure, I'll link that PAP here so that if you're curious to see if you get that pile you can read it. (here's that reading, it was pile 5) Music: Shameless - All Time Low Tokyo Hotel - Roadtrip Flowerchild - Citizen Intuition - The Backseat Lovers Pile 5: (Ross Poldark)

Cards: Sun, Venus, Juno, Waning Gibbous Moon, Shirley Jackson (family) Alejandra Pizarnik (solitude), wolf, The Lovers, Nine of Pentacles, The Fool, and Page of Wands Pile 5, Your (I meant to put this, but it feels important to leave Your) person is trying to get over you. That's my first thought on this situation. Maybe, not really get over you, but maybe they think its best? I'm not sure if maybe they're thinking that it's kind of a futile thing or that maybe they don't think that they have a chance with you. So far in the shuffling process you guys have 2 extra cards, so I think this person talks a lot. Also, there are a lot of yellows and pinks I'm seeing with these cards. Tulips or roses may be of significance. This person might have a lot of earth or air in their chart. Like, I pulled the venus card, so they could be Libra or Taurus, but I also puled The Lovers and The Fool, so also maybe Gemini or Aquarius. I also think that their sun and venus placements might be important, like maybe they have them in signs that work well with your signs? With the Wolf card and the Alejandra Pizarnik (Solitude) card I definitely think this is someone who keeps to themselves. I don't really think they're an introvert (they could be) but with the sun and the venus cards I feel a definite sense that they're flirty lol. Like, I think they might not spend a lot of time with people, but they definitely can be charismatic? Also, I think its interesting that there are both the venus and the juno cards because venus is about love language and juno is also about relationships? I had a really weird 10 minutes where I spent a while trying to figure this out. First I thought maybe this was someone married or in a relationship who was into you or someone you once dated yourself? But, (and while that could be true, re: either versions), I don't think so. Even though I have cards like Juno, that means the partner, or Shirley Jackson which is a card about family/domestic life, I also have Wolf and Solitude and 9 of pentacles. Plus, with the lovers, I do think there's some genuine feelings here. I mean, it could also mean like, a choice this person has to make, but why not give me two of swords or another 2 card? Like, it could also mean that this person has a duality to them (so maybe they are really introverted but can be an extrovert when they need to be?). A weird thing is that I almost feel like telling you to look at the last pile (4) if you were drawn to it, because on the solitude card she's holding a heart that's broken and bleeding. So, maybe this person just went through a really bad break up (and maybe I'm getting weird mixed messages because maybe this is someone you thought was in a relationship, but has since left it? The spilled cup of tea/coffee on Shirley Jackson's card also suggests this to me - also the stain on the wall under the house.) I feel like, if you know who they are, you’re not sure what they’re up to. Maybe you’re in communication or something, but it’s surface level stuff right now? So, who they are as a person is that like I said, they could be both introverted and extroverted. Honestly, I think they're a complex person really. I think they may be romantic, but also maybe a flirt. I think they could be a really sunny person too, like this sun card is just really standing out to me. This could just mean that they're confident (I almost think that's like a definite with the fool card here), but it could also suggest that they have a big ego. The Waning Gibbous moon is about perfecting, so maybe they're perfecting something , like an aspect of them (taming their ego?), or a hobby or a job or just anything? Maybe they're a student and they're learning so that's what they're perfecting? I do think with the Lovers here, this could be them trying to perfect the balance within them, so maybe it's them balancing their emotions, or their confidence where they have a lot of it, but not to a detrimental point? And while I definitely associate this 9 of pentacles with their relationship status, just in the context of these cards, I also think this is like someone who's got their shit together, or at least working on that. I think they're stable financially, or their working on it/just about there. I think they're also independent and they don't rely on anyone. Maybe family is important to them and they are close to their family - and maybe because of that, they dream to have one, but right now they’re alone? I think with Juno there, maybe they see that you're someone that could fit into this idea though? Though, I do think they're still actively trying to get over you, so I still get that sense that they think this might never happen. I think the fool card suggests that they're willing to take risks. In the last pile, even though I said maybe you should read that one too if you're called to it, I said that possibly they're usually impulsive with connections with people, but that in that specific one, they weren't being impulsive. In this one, I do think it's not that they're impulsive per-say, but that they take risks. I almost see it more as calculated (which is funny because last pile got virgo and I'd definitely read that as calculated risk with the fool, but wasn't getting the vibe - this one I do). I definitely am seeing this with how this siren is kind of just waiting on this rock, studying something? Bottom of the deck for the astrological deck was Scorpio, so I think they like to observe people. So, maybe this siren on the fool card is observing before they make a move? I'm not sure why I still get the sense that they think this is futile...? Because I'd say the fool would eventually take the leap into the water, but I'm not seeing them do this. Then again, I did say they were perfecting something, so maybe its a waiting game until whatever this is gets perfected? Oh, I did just have a thought. I thought they were trying to move on from you but maybe they just went through a break up and its whoever they just broke up with? The lyrics I pulled for you are from Prehistoric by Now, Now: " I'll say that I've been trying to move on, we both know I'm not" - with, that one could literally be about you, maybe before they broke up, they felt guilty about having feelings for you (Because I almost wonder if this crush has overlapped within a relationship)? Or it's about the ex? It's going to differ for situations I think. The other was Divide by Tiger's Jaw "But it's too cold to walk home and I know I shouldn't call you". The song is about two people are into each other, and they can see it but they don't express it? It's almost as if they think its a bad idea to be together. I'm trying to figure out why they're trying to move on from you. Or if it is you... Something about this feels like I'm missing something? And I guess maybe that's a sign that you're not supposed to know everything about this person. That's another similarity to pile 4, they weren't really supposed to know either. So, I wonder if maybe this is also a reflection of you at this point in your life too? Maybe you're both learning on how to be yourselves and in order for anything to work between you two (if that's supposed to, but honestly with the lovers here I feel like maybe it is), you're supposed to learn how to be independent and what you want in life and a partner? One of the keywords for venus in the booklet is the Divine Feminine and as I started thinking about that, my ear started ringing. So, I think that one of you or both of you is supposed to get more in touch with the softer side of yourself. Like, the emotions? The bottom deck energy for the tarot is the Empress, so I do think there is something in that. Maybe both of you need to work on nurturing yourselves but also how to nurture others? Gonna be honest, this pile is really confusing me. It's so weird, I was getting stuff and getting stuff and now I feel like I'm hitting a wall. I'm going to try and pull a clarifier for the lyrics, because I think they're throwing me off the most. So, even the clarifier seems contradictory. It was page of wands, which normally I'd see that card as someone who's naïve and impulsive, kind of like the fool I guess. But, I think I'm seeing this now more as this person should be focusing on what makes them passionate, which very well could be you, but instead they're trying to let go. I think maybe they themselves are fighting this inside a lot. I'm going to stop reading this here, I think. I think this person has a lot to figure out, but I think you do too? I think this is a confusing situation where you both have feelings but someone wasn't available and now they're still not despite being single? I think whatever this is, it's going to take time. Sorry if this one seemed all over the place. I do think if you felt called to another pile you should try and check it out too because maybe it will give you more answers. But also, I need to remind you to take only what resonates. Do not try and make anything that doesn't fit, fit. I'm thinking it's so scattered because I think everyone is scattered? Like, I'm obviously reading for more than 2 people here, so I think its a bunch of confused individuals and I feel the need to really highlight the word Individual. So, my advice is to focus on yourself for now. I didn't give the other piles advice, but I feel the need to give it to you. Music: Divide - Tigers Jaw Prehistoric - Now, Now The 1 - Taylor Swift Pile 6: (Simon Basset)

Cards: Book, Wings, Bees, King of Swords, Queen of Pentacles, The Hanged Man, Chiron, Waxing Crescent Moon, First Quarter Moon, Scorpio Wow. I'm pretty sure all 6 piles had some sort of scorpio mention, if not a scorpio-esque vibe. Either we're all attracting scorpios or its just some message for me that I'm ignoring. I'm going to read it like its not that!!! The tarot with this pile is really powerful to me. You got King of Swords, so someone who is really logical but knows how to use this logic to rule. This might be someone who maybe be higher up in their job? I wouldn't say its the CEO, but the fact that you also got King of Pentacles as the bottom deck energy, it very well may be? Or at least a manager of some sort. I also think because the bottom deck energy for the literary oracles is the eye, this is someone who holds a position over you? I think its like a watchful eye, they pay attention to you. But I think within this pile you may find answers to some questions you have? Another thing about that eye card is that for some reason when I saw it, I saw green eyes? So for some of you this person has green eyes. But I think that's for a limited few. You also have the Queen of Pentacles. The Queen of Pentacles is a nurturer, but she's also practical and grounded. So this person is both logical and grounded and to be honest that sounds like a double threat to me. I think with the hanged man, its kind of like the hermit in this sense. This person goes within a lot to think through things, but I think there's also that observational element from this and Scorpio, like they hang back and watch. That watchful eye again. This person loves to watch you. Like, I just keep thinking about that eye card and I don't know why. But, the hanged man can also talk about a pause. Perhaps this person is in a stagnant period within their life? Or they're on pause. I think whatever this pause is, it's not keeping them from from watching you. WHY DO I KEEP CIRCLING BACK TO THAT? I definitely think this person has some obsessive tendencies and I know that’s kind of a stereotype with scorpios, but because I keep thinking the words "watchful eye" i definitely think they're keeping tabs on you. Whether it be in person or on the internet. I don't get any particularly bad vibes from them, but I do think if they wanted to, they could be manipulative, so keep that in mind. The wings suggest that they're a very ambitious individual. So, if they haven't gotten to the top of their company yet and that's where they want to go, they will. Kind of like how I feel that once they set their eyes on someone, its only a matter of time before they make a move. I get that movement feeling with the wings and the bees too. Also, the wings could suggest someone that travels or likes to travel. Maybe they're also in constant movement. The king of swords is a griffon in this deck, so I definitely see a lot of movement with this person. The book for this deck says it can signify hope, so like the star card almost. I think they are hopeful about you, but I also read this as history. Maybe they like history (I'm thinking like renaissance period stuff if so, just based on the dress on the lady in the hanged man card?) or you both have a history with each other? Take what resonates, guys. And the bees can talk about teamwork, so maybe they just make a good partner, whether its within business or in love. But, I also could read this as work, so maybe this is a manager or boss of yours? Kind of scandalous to be honest lmao, I definitely get this forbidden feeling with this pile, I mean one of the songs is called Separate Rooms, so there's a sense of like...propriety here? The lyrics that I pulled from that song are "If you don't mind, I don't mind", so maybe its like, they don't quite mind that they think this might never happen or can't happen? I think maybe they'd say that for sure, but is that how they really feel? Or, possibly, they don’t mind the forbidden aspect of it (maybe its a turn on?). I do think they're into you for sure. I mean, obviously its' a reading on who has a crush on you, but the line from the other song I pulled, Honeypie by Love Fame Tragedy is "Some feelings go but most find their way back in", so I do think they try to not think about how they feel about you, and yet they always find that their thoughts come back to you? Especially if you work together, but it's like a fight they loose all the time. It just keeps happening. With the King of Swords I definitely see this person as more cerebral and even if they think less with their heart and more with their head, it doesn't mean that heart doesn't leak through. I bet its a battle within themselves daily, to be honest. With chiron, I think this person has a healing energy to them. There is also a bit of self-doubt, but I think we all experience that from time to time. They could also be healing themselves too? But I get that they're more of a healing energy. Bottom of the deck is New Moon, so I mean, they could be starting something new, which could maybe involve healing. I also pulled Waxing Crescent Moon, which can be about taking initiative. I think they're fairly action oriented, and I think both the King of Swords and the Queen of Pentacles (less so than the King of Swords, and slow movement with this card, but movement within this specific version) can say that too. I see those two as movers more than the Hanged Man, but again. I think they're in a period of stagnation, so I don't think they're doing a lot of action-oriented things right now. First Quarter Moon can talk about growth, so maybe this stagnant period is really them just growing? Like, maybe they're looking inward at their own faults and stuff like that. I feel like Chiron hints at that too. Like, they're gaining more knowledge about themselves and the world around them by going inward. Which, really, is the message of the hermit card, but it didn't come out. I think the Scorpio card also might factor into that healing energy as well as the one of growth. Scorpios are known for being all about transformation, which is what growth is. They also are a water sign, so I think there's a lot of emotions here, but I think they know how to transmute them healthily. It's interesting, because even though I get that this is kind of a forbidden connection (like I get that vibe), I think they sound like a good person to be around. Like, they almost give off a mentor vibe, and I like that. Even though they may be a little creepy and have their eye on you, I think they're also not a bad person to have around? I think they give good advice and I also think you can learn a lot from them, especially with the way I think they heal themselves. AHH. The bottom deck energy for the lyric deck was Good Together by Shallou and the first line in the song is “We couldn’t love from a distance” So! I think whatever this is, they can’t stand not being with you? Like, I think they want so badly to tell you how they feel but circumstances don’t allow for it. I didn’t even notice this until I was linking the song down below!! Though, the rest of the song is about how this person’s ex is falling for someone else now. So? I don’t know. That first line does really stick out to me, but maybe the rest of the song has something for you. Music: Honeypie - Love Fame Tragedy Separate Rooms - Now, Now Prehistoric - Now, Now Good Together - Shallou

#pick a pile #pick a card #tarot #tarot reading

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bluejaytaco · 3 years ago

Text

What up? it DND wit Jay!

(We return to the realm where we are standing in front of a giant gold gate. There's a dwarf standing in front of it with a clip board in their hand, just flipping through.)

Alabaster: (walks up) H-Hail and well met, my friend.

Dwarf: Names?

Alabaster: Oh! Um, I'm fine.

Dwarf, flipping through his clipboard: Fine.... Fine.... Nope, not seeing any "fine" here.

Art: (Walks up)....What about Ebony?

Dwarf, flipping through: Uh, yeah. We got an "ebony".... He's an orc. And considering none of you are Orcs, I doubt any of you are Ebony.

Art: Uh, that's racist.

Theodora:... Quite a detailed guest list...

Koejin: (Walks up and points at a random name) That's me.

Dwarf, looks down at the name: Your Grenadine Ceriph? High priestess in Calor? (Context: Calor is a Tiefling city. Koejin is human... well... was)

Koejin: Yeah, that's me.

Dwarf, getting sick of us: Look, I don't have tie for you people messing... (looks up at Koejin and goes silent).... You're not supposed to be here. This isn't your realm.

Koejin: Uhhh... Well, I have business with the man in charge.

Dwarf: I'm gonna have to call Pelor.

The entire group: (various ways of saying, "You do that" From "yes, please do" to "yeah, get that fucking bitch here! I wanna speak to the manager!")

Dwarf, mumbling into a sending stone before looking back at us: Is one of you named Theodora?

Theodora: Uhh.... Yeah.

Dwarf: You guys can go in. That's all I needed because now I know your names. But thanks for lying to me!

(The gates open and we all walk through. It's less blinding, but only slightly less on the other side of the gate. We see people walking around and just enjoying their afterlife. In the far off distance, there is a silhouette of a giant castle. We can also see the opening to a large garden where Pelor is standing with his arms crossed. Some of us see Alabaster's daughter, Eris, stomping on the flowers.)

Pelor, voice booming towards us: Everyone, front and center!

(All of us go with different levels of reluctance. Hennessy leads the way while Art and Jaquine kinda trail back.)

Pelor: So, what is it you need from me? (He's still standing over us while Eris continues to stamp through the flowers.)

(For a moment, we're all silent.)

Theodora: We want to speak to Thia.

Pelor: Thia is not in a place to speak. She is in my castle now, practicing her abilities for the Cleanse.

Hennessy: Is she okay? You don't have her locked up somewhere, hurt, right?

Pelor: Hennessy, my dear boy. Would you lock up a tiger in a small cage? No, you would respect the animal. Thia is in a place of comfort and has free reign.

Hennessy: She's got free reign? So she can go smoke in every room of the castle?! Even your room?!

Pelor: uhh....yes...

Hennessy: Ohh that just won't do. That smell of recreational drugs gets into the fibers and it can be a bitch to get out.

Pelor, suddenly giving off the impression he would like to hurry this along so he could go clean: It doesn't matter. She is my key to cleansing the world and making it all light. And I can save you all, if you kneel before me and accept me as your true god.

(No one kneels but Hennessy does raise an eyebrow at the "kneel" comment.)

Koejin: So how do you promise our safety.

Pelor: Well, you are excluded from this. Your friends, however, are protected because my followers will all survive.

Art: Don't you need the dark to have the light?

Pelor:... You would think that. Ticket Master would have you think that. And you, specifically, reek of him.

Art: Uh, rude?

Pelor: You know what he wants, don't you? He wants me dead so he can be the god of light. His best friend being the god of darkness would mean the two of them would take over everything. The two of them would rule all.

(Art was trying really hard to not say how he didn't see this as a bad thing, considering his bias. But somehow, as everyone was arguing against the cleanse, it was returned to the subject of Art and Ticket Master.)

Pelor: I think we've had quite enough of this talk.

Art: Yeah, let's stop talking about Ticket Master and the guy who may or may not have had sex with him.

(Pelor reacted in disgust which just turned into Art shouting "Sex with Ticket Master!" at the god of light. The tiefling was really aiming to make the god throw up.)

Koejin, joining in: There were definitely tentacles involved!

Art: Lots of tentacles! Sooooo many tentacles!!!

Pelor: Enough! All of you! (grabs Eris by the hair) If none of you will take this seriously, there is no longer a reason to speak with you.

Eris, punching at the hand: Let go! (turns to Alabaster) Daddy! I don't wanna go!

(They walk through a wall made of marble that Hennessy tries to reach through to grab for Eris. He just barely pulls his hand back before the wall solidifies again and he loses his hand.)

Vincent, rushing up to Hennessy: What did you think you were doing?!

Hennessy: The girl didn't want to go with the man! And when the girl doesn't wanna go, you don't let her go!

Vincent: You're gonna make such a great dad!

(behind the garden and before the castle there was a massive labyrinth. We walked up to see two different entrances. Koejin ends up smelling something familiar but can't really pick where it's coming from.)

Art: Hmmm (turns to Red) think you can turn into a dragon and fly up? maybe we can see where to go.

Red, not all that enthused by the idea: Uhh, yeah, I guess. Step back.

(Everyone stands back to give her enough room to transform. She flies up to the edge of the maze, but once her talons hit the edge, they shoot up another hundred feet and knock her back down.)

Red, turns back into her base form and glares at everyone: Well, that didn't help!

Art: (shrugging) well, my plans aren't ever without fault.

(Hennessy casts detect magic and, aside from nearly having his brain explode from all the god magic around, he discovers on direction is dark magic while the other is light.

We end up going towards the dark side because we figure that's where Thia might be hiding.)

(First stop is a room with a sword in a stone. Hennessy can sense that the magic is dark, but it isn't the source.)

Koejin: (climbs up and pulls the sword from the stone and holds it up in the air. She then hears the sounds of us screaming in agony.)

What we see: Koejin pulling the sword out and standing with it like she's posing.

Art: Uhhh.... what is happening?

Theodora: Koejin? You okay?

Koejin vision! Art: (melting away and falling apart) You killed us!!!!

Koejin vision! Theodora: (Also melting) You let us dieeeee!!!!

Koejin, turning to see all this: No! No, I saved Art's life so many times! (Turns to Theodora) I'm sorry! I'm sorry!

Art: Koejin.... we're fine!

Koejin: (runs up to start trying to put Art's face back together. To everyone else, she'd just smooshing his face while still holding the sword.)

Theodora: (dispels the magic from the sword and a little imp pops free)

Koejin: (can now see that everyone's okay and it still just kinda groping Art's face.)

Art:....uh, Koejin?

Koejin: Yeah.... sorry. You were melting just now.

(We talk to the little imp briefly to find that he is a prisoner in the maze. He asks if he's free to go but as soon as he does, he's struck by lightning.)

(We continue down the path for a little bit before Koejin figures out that we're going the wrong way because she can no longer smell the "smelly smell that smells." In that time, Hennessy incinerated some talking furniture which the DM disappointedly let us know that we wouldn't be seeing the IKEA Lich. I have a feeling the IKEA Lich might pop up in a future one shot.

But also, we got this exchange.)

Theodora: (casts a spell in attempt to sober Koejin.)

Koejin: (starts screaming as her skin starts to burn) Stop!

Theodora: (stops immediately) I... I was just trying to help..

Koejin: I'm the God of intemperance, Theodora! You can't just sober me up!

Theodora: What?!

(This starts into a fight about how this isn't the weirdest thing we've been through while she continues to talk about how she wasn't expecting to hear her daughter was a god.)

Red: If I may, I can see where Theodora is coming from here. Be it the weirdest thing or not, finding out your child is involved in some affair with the gods can be surprising. (Shoots a look at Art) Like your son being intimately involved with a tentacle monster god.

Art:.... you weren't supposed to know about that....

Red: You were shouting about it just before while I was standing there.

Art:... right..... forgot you were there....

Red: Either way; something for us to talk about later, Sweetie.

Art rolling his eyes, sarcastically: But Mother, I love him.

((Koejin's Player: And I have to remember to write proper notes about what everyone knows and doesn't know.

DM: Eh, it's all out now))

(We head from the dark part to the light part and find ourselves walking down a hall for hours. It gets to the point where Mrs. Red starts to complain.)

Red: Ugh... when is this fucking thing going to end? Doesn't anyone have a way to move this along faster?

Art: It's going to feel like longer if you keep bitching.

Red: I don't even wanna be here!

Theodora: None of us want to be here!

Art, agreeing: Yeah, and yet, here we are! So, how about you shut your mouth for a bit while we figure out how to get home and make sure there's even a "home" to go back to!

Red:.... Actually, Art. Considering that, I think this might be a good time for you and I to talk....

(Art is pulled off to the side by Mrs. Red, Reita following. Theodora tries to usher everyone a respectful distance away to try and ensure privacy. She does her best, but pretty much everyone is still eavesdropping.)

Red: I know I haven't been the best mother... In fact, I might be the worst... But know that I will try to make this all better and I'm just looking for your forgiveness.

Art:.... you might remember us as a nice, happy little family, but let me tell you what I remember.

Koejin: You tell her, Art!

Art, ignoring her and pretending he doesn't know people are listening: ....you slicing off Reita's face, blowing up Thia's bar, threatening the lives of my friends, destroying the lives of countless different people; I could go on! You barely get to claim the title "mother!"

Red: I did what I thought was best!

Art: You entrusted your children to the God of Death and Deceit!

Red: I didn't do that! (long pause)....I did do that.

Art: Yeah, you did. So, this is how things are gonna go. We're going to go through here and make sure there's a world to get back to, we're going to go to Calor and you are going to fix this. Then we can talk about forgiveness.

Red: ....That's another thing I wanted to talk to you about. I would love... to return to our people. I know I'm a tiefling, but I still feel the rage... of a red dragon. Someone would need to take care of our people.

Art:.... the people that treated me like a pariah....

Vincent, butting in: Like Hell I'm gonna let that happen! (storms over to them and looks at Art) Look Art, I'm willing to admit you are not evil. But do you really think you can run Calor? As soon as everything gets hard you run away! Hell, you abandoned your own sister-

Reita, with a surprising amount of clarity: He didn't... abandon me. He thought I was dead.

(The remaining three tieflings turn and look at her.)

Reita: And you're not exactly one to talk; you created weapons for a tyrant and turned a blind eye to the problems in Calor. We've all done things we regret, but we learn and grow from them. How can you stand there and judge him from running from a bad situation when he was a kid? Hypocrite (shoves a slug into her mouth)

Art, smiling and a little misty-eyed: I'm so proud of you! (hugs Reita)

Reita: Uhhh, yeah. Sure.... (doesn't push him away, though)

Red:.... You're not supposed to be talking like that... how are you doing that?

Art, pulling away: Yeah, that was going to be the next part. You feeling okay?

Reita, shrugging: I feel good.... Like, really good.

Red: (grabs Reita and rips open the back of her cloak to see the stone in her spine is not glowing) This.... this isn't working. It should be working.

Art:....We should keep moving. Put a pin in this for now.

(We keep moving ahead with different twists and turns leading into random encounters. One of which is a growing garden gnome that we put Wreybar on top of so she could see over the walls. She tries to say what she sees, but speaks in a way only Wreybar understands.)

Theodora: Okay, but now how are we gonna get her down?

Red: I could probably fly up an-

Wreybar, jumping: Catch me!

Hennessy: (rushes to cast feather fall on her.)

(She floats down and lands nicely on the ground as we hear Thia's booming voice "Giant garden gnome? Goodbye giant garden gnome!" And the gnome just vanishes.)

(Wreybar starts talking in her gibberish and Koejin asks for a translator. Reita steps in and kneels down to her, nodding along by what she's saying.)

Reita: Wreybar says there's a latter coming out of a hole on the other side. It's right next to the castle. How do you guys not get that, she was speaking clearly.

Theodora: Maybe to you. Not all of us can speak Wreybar.

(We ended up getting into a few more shannanigans. At one point, Art attempted to use mislead in attempt to move through faster only to have Reita get impatient and run ahead. Art and Reita had a quick little spat about that along the lines of "by the time we find her, she'll have destroyed everything already!" "We can't find her at all if we're dead! No running ahead!" There was also a bit with Hennessy and Koejin teleporting out of the maze where they met a murder horse and a weird inky blob creature.

At that point the latter was the literally the next turn. But possibly the worst moment.)

DM: You guys come to a dead end. The smell is still coming from over it.

Koejin: Shit....

(We all check the wall to find no traps. But then... Alabaster touches it and a had grabs hold of him. It pulls itself out with his resistance and Alabaster is looking at a marble version of... himself.)

Alabaster: O-oh! Hail and well met... uh, me!

M! Alabaster: Oh! Hail and Well Met! How are you, my fine friend?

Alabaster: I'm quite well, thank you! How... who are you?

M! Alabaster: Oh, I am what remains of you. The you left behind when you left the Pelor faith!

Alabaster: Oh, I see.

M!Alabaster: Have you killed your daughter?

Alabaster: oh, no. That is.... no longer apart of the plan.

M! Alabaster: (grabs hold of Alabaster) I will do it then. I will kill your daughter. She is born of darkness, thus she must die!

(Everyone around him tenses up, but he somehow knows if he looks away, the creature will fade from his sight and go to kill Eris. He can only stare at it to hold it in place.)

Alabaster: (puts his hand to the copy's mouth and uses Create or Destroy Water)

M!Alabaster: (starts to crack and burst under the pressure. The amount of water forced inside kills the creature.)

((Create or destroy water has been a running gag in the campaign. It's been used a few times, but nothing really dark. Not like this.))

Alabaster:....(Still holding his marble copy with a stunned look.)

Art:....(walks up and pats him on the arm) You did what you had to do... Eris is safe now.

Theodora, nodding: Think of it as... you made the right choice.

Alabaster: (nods to both of them and closes the creatures eyes)

Koejin:.... we should destroy it. Just in case.

(They then proceed to break the thing into dust and we continued on our way.)

( We found the latter that brought us up to the castle. As we walk around to the entrance, Pelor stands by the door with his arms crossed.)

Pelor:.... what are you trying to accomplish here? Do you really think you can stop any of this?

Theodora: We're here to talk to Thia. Where's Thia?

Pelor, sighing: Look, last chance before I wipe you out of existence; kneel before me or leave my land and accept your fates.

Red, arms crossed(as is usual for her): Yeah, I'm not one for bowing to people. People bow to me.

Pelor: This goes for all for all of you?

(All of us agree. There will be no bowing.)

Pelor:....then so be it.

(Before he can move in to fight us, he is turned inside out and sucked into a little stone. Thia then drifts down, takes the stone, and crushes it.)

Art: ....hi, Thia....

Thia, glaring: Shut up, Art.

Art, nodding: Hmmm, mhm.

Thia: (turns to Theodora) Go home, Theodora.

(for a moment, her powers work on Theodora, but all of us stop her. This turns into a conversation about why the wipe is unnecessary. Koejin leads the conversation, then turned and asked for someone more "charisma based" to lead.

Art couldn't speak. Probably for the best. He and Thia have never really gotten along.)

Theodora: If you wipe out all existence, we won't be learning from our mistakes. Everything will end up being repeated! The war will be repeated!

Thia: Not if I don't allow free will.

Theodora: And then what is life? that's not a world; that's a simulation.

Thia:... better that than allowing a kid to grow up in the woods all alone.

Theodora:.... Thia, we can make this world better. Create a place where something like that doesn't happen. But this.... this isn't the way.

Thia:....Do all of you agree? Should I.... give up my power?

(This was a major turning point in the story. Because this is where the end boss was decided. And we told Thia to give up her power.)

Thia, nodding: Alright... let's go back home. No reason to strand ourselves here. (she opens a portal)

(We walk through to find ourselves in the tavern Thia owns. She wills away her power, but it's no big ta-do.)

Koejin: Did it work?

Thia:.... I don't know.... Art, give me some money.

Art:..... no....

Koejin: It worked!

(We all celebrate before we all notice the portal hasn't closed. When we turn and look, we see Pelor's face.... on Ticket Master's body. He throws it away like a mask and grins at us.)

Ticket Master: Guess who's the new God of Light? (smiles and waves as the portal closes)

(Outside, we hear loud banging. When we run out, we can see darkness and light bouncing off of each other before they begin to swirl and spread. They head for us.)

Theodora: (hears the voice of Bahamut and an open blue portal) Everyone! We have to go!

(Everyone dives into the portal. Art takes a moment before diving in with the group.)

(There will be one last session and we can all really feel it now. I'm kinda sad that Ticket Master is now the BBEG, but we all saw that coming. There's just a lot to figure out here.)

#adventures of art the bard #tiefling #dnd #dnd bard #dnd barbarian #dnd druid #dnd paladin #dnd cleric #dnd ranger #dnd wizard #homebrew gods #dnd gods #Art and Reita had a Blitzo and Loona moment and I don't think it was on purpose #That contract on Art and Wreybar's gonna screw them #Well... also Art's gonna be kinda heartbroken by all this #I'm feeling bad for my boy if you can't tell #shut up jay

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space-city-traffic · 3 years ago

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okie dokie! @ante--meridiem asked for advice abt character creation, and I am obsessed with making characters, so I figured I’d offer some! this is a long post so the rest is under the cut. but also, everybody please add on your own advice if you have any!

my advice for story/character stuff:

it can help to chat with the dm about what the vibe and/or setting will be, that way you don’t end up bringing a jokey character to an epic quest, or a water based character to the desert. (although sometimes stuff like that turns out great anyway, haha)

i usually start brainstorming by looking through class options and thinking “hm how would a person end up doing that job?”. if clerics interest you, maybe think about various ways a person could end up being a cleric, what deity you’d serve, etcetera.

a weird thing I like to do is to find a symbol for the character. for example: one of my characters is the moon in my brain, he’s associated with madness and secrecy but also quietness and aloofness. another one of my characters is a bonfire, he’s associated with energy and warmth and community, but also can get out of control and be dangerous. not everybody does this, but i find it fun to find an image/theme/brand/symbol and run with it!

knowing what your character wants out of life is important. it’ll make it easier for you you make consistent decisions as them, and it’ll also help you in role play.

also, probably don’t be like me and make your character want a quiet life with no one bothering them, because then it’ll be difficult to integrate them into whatever adventure your dm has planned, haha.

whatever you envision your character as, it’ll probably shift a bit over the first few sessions as you get used to how they actually work in practice. i was expecting my moon character to be really friendly and charismatic, but i quickly realized I was playing him as way more of the quiet type, haha. so it’s normal to take a while to really figure your character out and get into a rhythm. it’ll happen eventually.

making picrews and doing character questionnaires can help you develop your concept if you feel like it’s too vague.

make them a playlist. do it. i know you want to. don’t fight it. it’s great.

my advice about mechanical stuff:

your class is more important than your race, it’s where most of your abilities and cool stuff come from

some races go better with certain classes (tieflings boost your charisma, and warlocks need charisma to cast their spells, so they’re a good combo for instance.)

i tend to totally ignore the above. yes, some races and classes go slightly better together, but that doesn’t really matter in the long run. go with whatever is aesthetically coolest, or has the most story potential, or just makes you happiest. this is your dude, you will end up loving them. make that tiny gnome barbarian. live your dreams.

if there’s something you wanna do that isnt quite covered in the rules, ask your dm, they may bend the rules for you or homebrew something! but they may not, and it’s important to respect that too.

if your dm has homebrew races or subclasses, it can be super fun to play one of those—you’ll get a unique experience, and you’ll probably fit into their plans for campaign/worldbuilding extra well. but you may also want to stick to basic stuff if it’s your first time. so you can go either way.

a really helpful practical thing is to highlight or color code your character sheet. i like to make sure my AC and HP stick out. color coding what can be done as an action vs as a bonus action vs as a reaction also tends to help me. if there’s a cool feature you don’t wanna forget you have, highlight away. that way it’s just a bit easier to navigate in game.

my semi hot takes:

rangers are good actually. once in a while you’ll find someone who’s like “oh they’re bad in combat” but like. they’re great for travel. they’re fun to roleplay. all classes have their good points, pick whichever class makes you happy.

warlocks are so fun to role play. you’ve made a deal with something horrible that’s played by the dm! you could have any relationship you want with that patron! you could be in love with it, you could be secretly sacrificing stuff to it, you could be leading its cult, you could be trying to escape the pact, you could be trying to keep secrets friend your party, you could be trying to convert your party, there are so many possibilities.

that being said, you will only have two spell slots, and that will annoy the hell out of you. like, warlocks are great for rp and powerful in combat, but they don’t have much variety in combat. they’re my favorite class and I love them so much. but they do have their problems I will admit.

if you want to be really good at persuasion and get whatever you want, be a bard or a rogue. you can get expertise, which is a feature designed to make dm’s cry, and which gives you double proficiency in multiple skills of your choice. one of my characters added 8 to every persuasion check and successfully kidnapped an npc because of it. rogues and bards are great hehehe.

paladins are not boring actually. you live your life sworn to an oath, there are real in game consequences for breaking that oath, you get to smite things. it’s a delight. people like to be like “okay vanilla sunshine captain america lawful good” but you literally don’t have to play them that way. paladins are fun.

i don’t understand how wizards and sorcerers work and at this point I’m too afraid to ask

and this has been an extremely long thing so I will wrap it up there!!! but if anybody has other thoughts, or questions or anything, please add on!!!

#dnd #dnd shenanigans #thanks for the ask!!

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currywaifu · 5 years ago

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𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐥𝐞: mutuals 𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩: miyoshi kazunari/reader 𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: sfw 𝐰𝐜: 1.9k words, 2 images

𝐚𝐧: me? back w/ fluff? it’s expected at this point! his speech is hard for me to replicate, but I rly do love Kazunari so I hope I did this scenario justice! I, uh, got too excited at the prospect of “insta mutuals” oops~ hope you don’t mind the additional media TT

The Insta notification that popped up on the top of your screen distracted you from the game you were playing. Normally you’d flick the notif away, but as soon as you realised what it was about, you rushed to finish the rest of the stage.

You and Kazunari have been Insta Mutuals for nearly a year now, ever since he hit you with a follow and you proceeded to stalk his readily-available socials.

The two of you had been liking and commenting on each others’ posts for weeks on end, starting off with you praising his most recent graphic design work to him sending a paragraph of heart emojis on the most recent fan art you drew.

Somewhere in between following each others’ spam accounts to tagging each other on Insta story games, he finally slid into your DMs and the rest was history. Sort of.

You knew what people said about online dating, or even just long distance relationships in general, but try as you might it was hard not to fall for Kazunari.

The more you talked to him, the less he stayed as your “funny artist mutual” and soon enough he progressed into the “still funny but also really sweet and cute artist online friend, 10/10 would date if asked” category.

You didn’t bother stifling your laugh as you looked at the message he sent you, immediately liking his selfie before saving it on your phone.

Okay, no. He can’t just hit you with an “I do wanna meet u already” and then take it back but not fully commit to it!

You waited for him to respond through text, but instead got hit by your ringtone blaring loudly at such an ungodly hour. At the sight of your contact nickname for him, you eagerly answered his call. You rushed to get the first word in, him doing the same unbeknownst to you.

“Kazu-“

“Babe, I-“

The both of you paused, his eventual laughter easing up your tension as you let out a giggle of your own. You mentally told yourself not to be so nervous— Kazunari and you would have this conversation eventually anyway; besides, it wasn’t as if you didn’t want to see him in person. It was quite the opposite, actually. You just figured that conversations like this needed to happen in call, at least.

“Shoot, should probs shut up so Mukkun doesn’t wake up,” Kazunari commented, his voice volume already lowered, “do you wanna go first?” He asked.

“Yeah,” you replied with resolve. You gathered up your thoughts, formulating the next set of sentences that would leave your mouth, before ultimately deciding on one question. “I just need to know first… how serious were you about meeting up irl?”

“I mean, that wasn’t what I meant when I sent the message? But like, it’s still valid, you know?” he paused, but when you didn’t say anything he decided to continue, “it’s not the first time I’ve thought about meeting you. I think about it a lot, actually.”

It was a bit of a shame the two of you chose to voice call instead of video call. You would’ve loved to see your boyfriend’s face just about now, though you supposed it wouldn’t be a good idea to have a heart attack a quarter to 4 in the morning.

Plus, you weren’t sure you could handle him teasing and throwing compliments at you due to your clearly visible elation, if the upwards stretch of your lips was anything to go by.

“Babe? You still there? Did you pass out, or…” In reality it had only been a few seconds, but still you didn’t want to leave him hanging. Not when the two of you were talking about something that meant taking the next step in your relationship.

“I’m still here, Kazu,” you reassured him. Your voice shook slightly, a sliver of your excitement slipping through the cracks. “I’m the same. Like, no lie I was shocked we brought it up like this, but, um… I’m ready, and if you’re ready, too, I want to meet up with you.”

“Wait, wait, wait— hol’ up! So we’re finally going—“ he laughed for the second time tonight, a fuzzy-wuzzy warmth escaping as its sound equivalent. “Wahh! Of course I’m ready! Can’t wait to finally see what a cutie you are irl♪ Hngg, how am I supposed to sleep now? I’m too hyped up!”

You rolled your eyes, despite understanding exactly how he felt. His infectious cheerfulness amplified the blossoming commotion occurring inside your brain. Despite not making any official plans yet, the prospect of finally meeting up had you frenzied.

Still, one of you had to be at least slightly responsible. While you wouldn’t claim to know his daily schedule, if Veludo Arts was anything like your university, he should be as swamped with workload as you were. Actually, maybe that was the reason he was up so late? That’s how it was for you, anyway excluding the fact that you took a break to stamina clear.

“It’s nearly 4 am… do you wanna continue planning this tomorrow? Err, rather, in a couple hours? After our lectures end, maybe?” You asked, though by the tiny whine Kazunari let out you had a feeling he wasn’t going to agree so quickly.

“Ehh? Why don’t we do it now? I have so many ideas about where we could go, and what we could do… oh! I could introduce you to everyone in Mankai! I’m sure they’d love-“

“I’d love to meet them too,” you cut him off, tone as firm as you could manage at this time, “and I want to hear your ideas, really, but I just know if I let you keep talking the sun will rise before we’ve even decided on a date.”

You chuckled as Kazunari let out a sound of protest, though you had a feeling he knew you weren’t wrong about your assessment. “Zuzu~ Let’s go to sleep now, okay?”

His phone microphone picked up on an audible gasp. “Ehh, how come you rarely call me Zuzu? It’s cute when you say it!”

“Because it sounds like a nickname you’d give to a Pokemon!”

“Uwu, maybe I’ll get Itarun to lend me a copy? Then I’ll catch the cutest Pokemon and name it after you~” you nearly groaned at how fluffy he was being. Seriously, he was distracting you from your agenda of going to sleep!

“Kazu! Stop flirting with me at 4 am or we might not fall asleep!”

Though you couldn’t see him, you were 200% sure he had a wide grin plastered on his face right now. “Me? Using tactics to get you to keep talking with me? Never,” he claimed, professing his false innocence.

“Well, I’m not falling for it! I may not be able to physically tuck you in bed right now, but I can in spirit!”

“Oh!? Then can you give me a goodnight kiss in spirit, too?”

At this point, you were sure that even with just a poke on the cheek you’d be able to feel the heat beginning to envelop your face.

As Kazunari finished laughing, you let the quiet lull of the night seep in the conversation for a few moments before gently breaking it.

“I’d rather give you a kiss irl, though.”

And just like that, you claimed victory over the game he started. With how Kazunari sputtered, a part of you worried that he’d disturb his roommate’s slumber. Still, an even bigger part of you was smug to have him speechless for that much of a duration.

“Babeeeee,” he drawled, “you’re so, so, so unfair… I, like, really want to hold you tight right now…” he murmured, the rustle of his bedsheets discernible through the call. You found yourself nestling onto your bed, too, snuggling up to a soft pillow.

“Soon,” you suddenly yawned, your tiredness seeming to have settled in the comfier you got on the bed. “We’ll have a lot of time to plan tomorrow and the days after, yeah?”

Kazunari let out a hum in agreement, a comfortable silence following suit.

“Kazu?” You muttered quietly, careful not to disturb your peaceful atmosphere.

“Yeah?”

“I love you. Good night,” you said, heart aflutter as you heard his response.

“I love you, too, cutie~ sweet dreams♪” he said in an unbelievably soft tone, before ending the call.

After quickly connecting your phone to a charger, you fell back atop your bed and hugged your pillow tight, already anticipating the day you’d be able to hold Kazunari in your arms, and you in his.

…

Morning come, you hastily prepared for class as you always did. You fell into your usual routine— as soon as you were out of the bathroom, you selected an outfit and went over the things you needed to bring to uni today.

You stopped for a minute; taking a quick selfie to post on your story and emphasise your exhaustion to your close friends, before making yourself some breakfast. Within less than 5 minutes, your phone pinged— a recorded message from one of your favourite people this early in the morning.

"Mornin' piko☆ You're looking cute as always today♪”

There was no way you would admit to how many times you replayed it to Kazunari, but even so it was a good way to keep you positive for the rest of the day.

You don’t remember Veludo Way being this rowdy, though it was hard to trust your memory when it’s probably been years since you’ve last visited. Somehow, it was not tough to imagine Kazunari walking around and performing here— the liveliness of the streets difficult to not associate with one of the liveliest people you knew.

While the original plan was to meet up at a cute and trendy cafe you saw all over people’s SNS, the two of you agreed to meet up somewhere less crowded and more meaningful to him— the theatre which he’d performed at multiple times in the past.

As you saw the building from a distance, you wondered when you’d be able to see him on stage, too.

A shout of your name pulled you out of your thoughts, and you couldn’t help yourself from running over to meet up faster with the figure that was jumping and waving around in your direction.

Had you any sense left, you probably would have told him that you didn’t want him embarrassing himself in public, but in reality it was quite apparent that you were just as excited to finally see him in person.

“Kazunari!” you can’t help the little shriek you let out as you finally embrace him, only joyous laughter and each others’ names escaping the both of your lips. When you finally got a good look at Kazunari, you nearly wanted to bury yourself into his shirt again.

Everything still seemed so unbelievable. That this was real. That it was finally happening. It almost felt like the dreams you’ve had of this moment many times before.

“How are you so beautiful in person, too?! It’s totes like I’m falling in love with you again♪” Kazunari exclaimed, squeezing you one more time before finally settling on holding hands with you. “Ahh! I super, duper love you!”

Except it wasn’t. There was nothing imaginary about his warmth, and the way his words made you feel, and the beaming sunshine of a smile he aimed at you.

“I love you, too!”

want to order again?

#a3!#a3! act! addict! actors!#a3! kazunari #kazunari miyoshi #miyoshi kazunari #cafe: dessert menu #a3 x reader #a3 actor training game #a3! game #a3! actor training game

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elemental-daddy-neos · 4 years ago

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YGO! Questionnaire

Tagged by @cipher-wise

Pleasantly surprised to be in one of these, so let’s go

Favorite series: *Gestures to icon* Is it any surprise I’ll be picking GX? I love GX with all my heart and soul. The story’s pacing is very good and never feels like it’s dragging its feet to get to where it’s going, most duels are over in less than a full episode with the longest one being three, there are so many good characters to get invested in, and this boy right here is your protagonist.

Look at him blow kisses to the audience after beating Crowler, how could anyone not love Jaden Yuki? I care him so much. Even the filler episodes in GX are pretty fun to watch most of the time, and it’s the good kind of filler that may not advance the plot much or at all, but it’ll give you plenty of good memories to take with you. Who could possibly forget the eggwich thief? Not to mention the soundtrack fucking slaps.

Favorite protagonist: I mean...

Yeah it’s Jaden. GX hooked me immediately when I started watching it because of how much I loved this boy. He’s that perfect mix of cocky and sweet when it comes to dueling because he’s confident in his own abilities, but he never stops having fun and being amazed at what his opponent can do, he cares about all of his friends and does his best to help them with their problems, he’s kind to strangers, and he has exactly half a brain cell.

I feel the gif speaks for itself, but Jaden’s dialogue when he turns around here is “I’m such a sucker for things like this! I’ll help you, ma’am!” Dorothy says “No, you’ll be late... Don’t you have a test today?” And Jaden replies with “Who cares if I’m late? I couldn’t leave a lady in trouble!” Jaden Yuki is my absolute favorite protagonist.

Favorite rival: Oh man is that a tough one. Am I allowed to pick two? It’s a hard call to make between this dumb edgy bitch-

And this dumb gay bitch

Honestly they’re tied for favorite rival in my book. I absolutely loved Chazz when I watched GX, and I thought his arc about breaking through his inferiority/superiority complex and learning to accept loss as a part of life without letting it define him was wonderfully written, and seeing him grow as a person throughout the show just made me feel happy for him. Shark... I really thought I wasn’t going to end up liking Shark at first, but god he just gets so much better as Zexal goes on, starting out as this mean spirited middle school bully in episode one, and slowly ending up as Yuma’s boyfriend closest friend. It’s incredible to look back at how Shark acts when he’s first introduced and compare it to... season 3, I think it was, where just hearing the words “Yuma’s in danger” is enough to send him running to his rival’s side. Chazz and Shark. They are my favorites.

Favorite BFF: Him

Crow Hogan is an absolute treasure and he was my favorite part about watching 5Ds. This little bird man first gets introduced by stealing cards for his kids and clowning on Sector Security, and he’s a source of so much good throughout the show. Excellent best friend (technically brother but I’m counting him), wonderful father, 10/10 person all around. Plus the fact that the only thing stopping him from berating his bitchass brother even more was Yusei having to literally pick him up and pull him away is definitely extra points in my book. What a powerful little bird. His only weakness is people that are taller than him, which is unfortunately most people.

Favorite GFF:

Yuzu. Have I actually watched Arc V yet? No, but I’m still picking Yuzu for my number one here. Tea and Tori are just awful characters, I’m neutral towards Alexis, and Akiza... Did have potential to be something interesting on her own, despite how uncomfortable she made me in seasons 1-2 of 5Ds, but her relevance is alllll downhill from there. I’ve seen one clip of Yuzu yelling at a man eating pie and calling him a 100th rate duelist, and that was all I needed to know she would be my favorite. (Clip here)

Favorite villain: Oh boy

The fuckin carrot is my favorite villain, and I say this as someone who fully believes he didn’t deserve to be in the last episode. Vector did some fucked up shit in his day, and he only continued to do fucked up shit in Yuma’s day, but I have to say he was pretty effective when it came down to his goals. He got things done and went right for what he wanted by taking direct action to seize Don Thousand’s power, and he manipulated Yuma perfectly by preying on his kind nature and love for Astral to use him to further his goals.

...Plus I mean just look at his subbed dialogue God he’s such a slut. Evil slutty alien.

Tl;dr Vector was a horrible horrible person, but he was a good villain, and he was so entertaining whenever he was on screen that it was impossible not to like him. Still kinda wish he got what he deserved though, and what he deserved definitely wasn’t another chance.

Speaking of Don Thousand though, can we talk about how unfairly pretty he is? If I had to pick a runner up villain in terms of looks alone, it would definitely be him.

God it was not fair how pretty the big bad of Zexal was. He’s fucking gorgeous, and in my opinion, the best looking villain at the very least.

Favorite card: *Sweats in Duel Links* Favorite? There’s so many cards out there to pick from, but since I’ve already broken the rules with my two favorite rivals, I’ll be picking two of each card type: Spells, traps, and monsters. One for the aesthetic, and one for how often I make use of it.

First up, the Aesthetics group

What can I say, Vampiric Koala is such a cutie, Dwimmered Path has some really pretty card art, and Rainbow Life is an eternal flex on any heteros I may encounter while playing Duel Links. Nothing better than a gay trap card.

Now for usability

Dragon Knight of Creation is suuuper helpful in any dragon themed deck and has a permanent slot in my decks for Mokuba and Kaiba, PoG is always a fun way to boost up weak monsters to ridiculous heights, and Dark Bribe just lets you block your opponent like “Okay I know you wanna hurt me but I will let you draw another card if you do not do that thing”, and they can’t refuse you.

Favorite episode: I’ll be copying cipher’s format here and picking one for each series, but this will still only total out to five for me since I’ve yet to watch past Zexal ^^; Soon I’ll get to Arc V! One day...

Season 0: Episode 16: Turnabout by a Hair's Breadth - The White-Robed Crisis I’m a sucker for my son Joey, and this was a good Joey episode about him and his sister, plus it was nice seeing that doctor get what he deserved :) Duel Monsters: Season 5, episode 12-14: The Deciding Match for Duel King - Yugi vs. Leon/Golden Castle of Stromberg/KC Grand Prix Ends Probably a weird batch of episodes to pick, I know, but a lot of DM was kinda forgettable to me, and these are some of the few episodes I do recall. I just... really felt for Leon’s situation, and I wanted good things for that boy. I care him. GX: Season 3, episode 34: Dark Fusion! Inferno Wing!! Jim. Jim Jim Jimmmmm. This was the episode that finally made me understand why saviorshipping was a thing because it hits you with all these memories Jim has of Jaden and shows how they bonded before all this Dark World shit happened, and the whole thing was very emotional. 5Ds: Season 4, episode 2-3: Recollections, Entrusted with a Friend's Dying Wish God Crow, my precious bird son. I really liked the backstory they gave him, despite how much it hurt. It was probably the best character development he got in the whole of 5Ds, and let you see a side to him you probably wouldn’t expect. I loved watching him get his justice. Zexal II: Season 2, episode 5-6: Alito the Silent Fighter - Reunion of the Passionate Duelists!/ Be Revived! The Duelist Soul That Transcends Life!! I picked these episodes for Nistro and Nistro alone. He was one of my absolute favorites in Zexal, and seeing how well he and Dextra were doing was good for the soul. Just look at this good lion man right here.

Look at him!!!

Favorite decks to use: Elemental Heroes, Aromages, Red Eyes, Six Samurai, and Crystal Beasts.

Fusion, Ritual, Synchro, Xyz, Pendulum, or Link: I’m a simple girl, I love fusion/tributes for how easy they are, but synchro can be pretty fun, too

Years in fandom: ??? Even I don’t know the answer to this one, friends. I used to be in the fandom when I was in middle school, wrote/read a few fanfics here and there, but then I fell out of it for... Well I’m 22 now and only got back into things 6 months ago? I started rewatching the abridged series of Duel Monsters in March, and from there I just wanted to consume actual Yugioh content and never went back.

Who am I tagging: @finding-fallen-petals @dizziedaikonn @chazzaroo Go wild y’all

#ygo tag meme #ygo dm #ygo gx #ygo 5ds #ygo zexal #jaden yuki #judai yuki #chazz princeton #jun manjoume #shark kastle #ryoga kamishiro #crow hogan #yuzu hiiragi #ygo zexal vector #ygo zexal nistro #gauche #probably the longest post ive ever made on this blog jesus christ

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sophielovesbarnes · 5 years ago

Text

All or nothing, chapter two.

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Winchester!reader

Warnings: Fluff, pregnancy and cursing.

Author note: Alright, here we are, hot out of the oven! Sorry if it took long, I got stuck on a scene but I finally broke the writer’s block and was able to finish this chapter, we will get to see a bit more of SPN on this chapter.

I hope you enjoy it, please let me know what do you think, dm me if you want to be tagged and remember requests are open.

Chapter one

Masterlist

Chapter two

“Come on ladies! They are not called suicide running drills for nothing!” Your coach screams, you are beyond exhausted, your legs feel like they will give in, in any second now, you are covered in sweat from head to toe and your lungs feel like they are on fire. With the National competition getting closer every day your coach gets more demanding and the training sessions become more intense.

“So.” You manage to get out. “I don’t know if calling him is too straight forward.”

“Well.” Ingrid answers with her chest heaving. “It’s not like you have cared about that before.”

“Winchester! Fritz! If you are able to speak then you are not doing it right!”

Ingrid smiles at you and then you both get back to running, an hour; that feels like an eternity later, you are under the shower letting the water wash away your exhaustion, you still have two classes left and you need to mentally prepare yourself for them.

When you are changing into a pink dress Ingrid returns to the topic.

“So what are you going to do?” She asks while brushing her hair. “Are you gonna call the hot FBI agent?”

“I think I will.” You tie your hair up and close your locker. “There’s something really special about him, I just can’t put my finger in what.”

“Aww little Y/N has a crush.”

“Shut it Ingrid, at least I’m doing something about mine.” You say teasingly.

“Hey I’m your base, you don’t wanna bother me.” You both look at each other with serious looks in your face and then burst into laughter. “No but seriously, tell me how it goes.”

“Will do, bye babes.” You kiss her cheek and then leave the locker room.

During class you are barely able to pay attention, when your psychodynamic teacher is talking about the five stages of psychosexual development and the fixations in the oral stage your mind is traveling far away, focused on soft brunet locks and shy smiles.

After school you go back to your apartment, you order chinese for dinner and when the food comes and you are so distracted you are almost sure you gave the delivery guy a 50 dollar bill and told him to keep the change, you eat absentmindedly and then head to your bathroom toying with your phone, after taking a bath you are on your bed, dressed with clean pajamas and your hair wrapped up with a towel, then you finally gather enough courage to make the call.

The phone rings three times before he answers.

“Hello?” Your heart flutters at the sound of his voice.

“Doctor Reid?”

“Who is this?” He asks, you can hear the nervousness in his voice.

“It’s Y/N Winchester.” You answer calmly .”You gave me your card at the FBI lecture at Louisville.”

“Right, how- how may I help you?” He replies.

“I have a lot of questions, and you told me to call if I had them.” You take a deep breath and then say with a wide smile on your face. “But I thought it would be unfair to just ask without giving something in return, so what do you say about me buying you coffee tomorrow? If you’re still in town.”

Silence.

You mentally slap yourself for being too straightforward, what made you think that he wants to go out with you? He most likely has a girlfriend and here you are throwing yourself to him? God, you are so stupid.

“I-I yeah, that would be…” You listen to him taking a deep breath and then he continues. “That would be nice.”

“Great! We should go to Quills, they make this mean peach- lavender lattes.”

“Sounds good.”

“Does four o’clock work for you?”

“Yeah, that’s okay.”

“Hey pretty boy, who are you talking to?” Says a voice on the back, then the call ends.

You are smiling so hard your cheeks hurt, you have a date; well, meeting with doctor Reid, and you can barely hold your emotion. What are you gonna wear? What are you gonna say? Maybe this was a rash idea.

The ring of your phone snaps your mind out of it, when you pick up you see your brother’s face and on the back you hear the sound of vomiting.

“I’m guessing Jo hasn’t passed the throwing up all the time fase.”

“At this point I am pretty sure she kind of hates me.” Says your Adam.

“I don’t kind of hate you Adam, I hate you, hate you.” You hear Jo say, then the sound of vomiting returns.

Jo’s pregnancy had caught everyone off guard, she and Adam were always fighting or calling each other names, but then at the New Year’s Eve party Ellen threw on the Roadhouse they both had too much to drink and the next thing you knew was that you were going to have another nephew or niece in nine months, there was a lot of crying and at some point Ellen threatened to cut your brother’s balls off, now she was just happy with the idea of having a grandchild.

After the initial shock you were happy as well, this wasn’t your first nephew/niece though, Sam and Jessica had two beautiful daughters you adored, Dean had Ben; who was only a couple years younger than you, which was weird; and with Castiel, Dean had applied to be a foster parent, they now had a little boy; Leo, and were hoping to get another child.

You had such a beautiful family and were so grateful for it.

“How are you baby sis?” Adam asks, ignoring Jo’s comment.

“I’m good, very tired, our coach is killing us, and I have a duckton of homework, but in general things are going great, what about you, how are things going on Kansas?”

“Things are good, the workshop is getting a lot of cars, Sam, Jess and the girls visit us every now and then, and Dean and Cas are all about Leo.”

“That’s gonna be you in a couple months you know? Have you thought of any names?”

“Jo likes William or Genevieve, I like Magnolia or Jebediah, Jo doesn’t like them so we have reached an impasse.” You see Jo exiting the bathroom and standing next to your brother.

“Those are old people’s names, tell him Y/N.” Jo says. “Tell him they are horrible names and we are not naming my child like an old person.”

“Our child” He corrects, “And they are good names Joanna.”

“I hate to not be on your side bro, but Jo is right, they are horrible.” You say.

“Thank you Y/N at least one Winchester is using her brain.” Adam rolls his eyes and you laugh.

“They are good names!” Adam insists.

“No they are not.” You and Jo say at the same time, she was your best friend and somehow you were always in synchrony.

“Now if you can’t reach an agreement Y/N is always a good option, it has character, it’s pretty, and let's be honest, the world could use another Y/N Winchester.”

“We don’t need another traitor.” Adam answers with false hurt.

“Ugh, stop being such a drama queen Adam, you know what? Your baby wants an Oreo McFlurry.”

“Five minutes ago you were throwing up and now you want a McFlurry?”

“Yes, so better get on the road because they are going to close, don't do this for me Adam, do it for your baby.”

“So now it’s my baby?” They both start bickering and you swear they already act like a married couple, eventually Jo wins the discussion, because being honest there is no better argument than “I am carrying your baby” so Adam says his goodbyes and leaves grudgingly. You and Jo stay talking for hours, it’s almost 3 am when you hang up, and you fall asleep right after.

When you wake up you feel well rested and you feel like you slept for so long, the sun comes bright through the window and your whole body feels relaxed, which is weird because you went to sleep really late last night, which gets you thinking that you never heard your alarm.

Wait.

You take your phone and press the side button, but the screen doesn’t turn on.

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” You didn’t charge your phone, so the battery is dead which means that you are probably very late, you look up at the watch that’s on the wall, which indicates that it is already 12:15 in the morning, you are definitely very late.

You jump out of the bed and run to the bathroom, no time for showering, you brush your teeth and get dressed with a pair of jeans, plain white t-shirt and sneakers, you tie your hair on a high ponytail, take your bag and run to the kitchen, you grab a banana and a bottle of water and run out of your house.

You race on the road and make it to school on record time, at this time of the day it is barely impossible to find a parking space that is empty, when you manage to park it’s almost one, you mentally curse, get out of the car and run to the classroom, this promises to be a hell of a day.

*****

Spencer has never liked this kind of conferences, they bring him back to his college years, which are not something he likes to think about, he didn’t have the standar university experience, most of the time he was made fun of, being the target of stupid pranks or being just ignored by his classmates, so yeah, college wasn’t something he remembered fondly.

He was on edge until yesterday, when he saw you on the lecture; he had already seen you on the football field being thrown into the air and then landing perfectly with a magazine worthy smile, of course he thought you were pretty, because you were one of the prettiest girls he had ever landed eyes on, but you were also most likely the type of girl that only cared about vain things and would have never noticed him if you had been one of his classmates; he was proved wrong during the lecture.

You weren’t only pretty, you were also smart, probably the smartest girl in that classroom, you were informed and you clearly cared about the topic, and when the lecture ended you went to him, when all the girls went with Morgan or Rossi, you decided to go with him; he was in such a rush he even had the bravery to give you his card.

And then the impossible happened, you called him, and not only that, you asked him out and he hasn’t felt this nervous in ages.

“Reid, Reid.” Morgan’s voice brings him back to the room, he and Rossi are looking at him with worry. “Everything alright pretty boy? You have been acting weirder than usual since yesterday.”

“I am fine.” He answers almost automatically.

“Are you sure?” Rossi asks with an eyebrow raised. “We are worried about you kid.”

“Yeah.” He says. “Colleges just bring me to the edge.”

“Well, don’t worry about it pretty boy, we are just going to be here three more days and we are back to Quantico.”

“I know.”

*****

The whole day you feel like you are running, you are late for class which gets you a reprimand from your teacher, which gets you late to your next class, which ends up getting you late to cheerleading practice. Your coach is so mad she has you running suicides and practicing toe touches until your legs feel like jello.

“Point your toes Winchester! And smile, you have to sell it!” She screams at you, everytime you jump you feel your muscles pull and your empty stomach hurls, you are almost sure that if you keep jumping you might throw up.

When your coach finally lets you go it’s already 4:20, you mentally do the math, if you go to the locker rooms and shower you will be in the coffee shop at almost five o’clock, and agent Reid is probably already waiting for you, so you just grab your bag and run to your car mentally cursing yourself for not charging your phone.

****

Spencer manages to escape Morgan and Rossi, avoiding their questions and he makes it to the coffee shop you indicated by 3:45, minutes go by tortuously, he sees people coming in and out from the coffee with cups on their hands, he sees people laughing and students dragging their feet, the exhaustion of exams and projects reflecting clearly on them, he gets a lot of looks and he starts to grow desperate, he calls you over and over but the calls go straight to voicemail.

By 4:30 he decides you stood him up, this was most likely a prank, how did he not notice? He was a grown ass man, an FBI agent, he was a profiler and still he fell for it. He feels terrible, how could he believe such a beautiful woman would ask him out and actually show up? He takes his bag and gets up from the chair, when he is leaving he sees a car parking and a y/h/c haired girl wearing a Cardinals hoodie and grey yoga pants getting down and running to the coffee shop.

It was you, you didn’t stand him up, you were actually there, he can barely hold his emotion.

“Doctor Reid.” You say, your forehead is covered in sweat and your chest is going up and down rapidly. “I am so, so, so, sorry, did I make you wait too long? I’m sorry, my phone died, and my alarm never went off, and I’ve been late everywhere, and my practice lasted too long, and i didn’t have your card so I couldn’t call you from another phone, and I came here right out of my training, so I must smell like a monster and I am so sorry.”

“It’s okay, I didn’t wait for long.” He lies, and you smile at him, and he can swear it is the most beautiful smile he has ever seen. “Should we order?”

“Yeah, yeah.” You lead the way and stop at the bar. “Hey Lindsey.”

The redhead barista smiles at you and then you look at him and he notices how your y/e/c sparkle with the white lights of the coffee shop.

“What do you want?” You ask.

“You said something about peach lattes?”

“Peach-lavender lattes, it sounds weird but they are great.” You reply, and by this point he’s sure he would believe if you said the moon was made of tofu.

“I’ll have one.”

“Great, two large peach-lavender lattes and a bagel please, can I also borrow your charger?” Lindsay marks your order on the cash register and tells you the total, when Spencer takes out his wallet you stop him. “No, I said I was buying.”

“No, I insist.”

“Doctor Reid, put your wallet down, I was terribly late and I said I was buying, you can pay the next time.” The fact that you imply that there might be a next time makes his heart flutter.

“Alright.” He agrees, when you get your orders you sit on the table he was waiting on and there’s a moment of awkward silence he is not sure how to break. “So, so you said you had questions?”

“Yes, I do.” You take a sip from your coffee and then look at him, he is expecting questions about the FBI, but that’s not where you go. “You have three PhDs, three BAs and you are only thirty-four, how is that even possible? Are you like a genius?”

“I, I don’t believe intelligence can be accurately quantified, but I do have an IQ of 187, eidetic memory and can read 20,000 words per minute.” You stare at him with your eyes wide open and a smile on your lips. “...yes, I’m a genius.”

“That’s… wow.” The conversation flows after that, he talks about some of the most interesting cases he has had, you intervene every now and then making questions or comments that always seem to go to the correct point, and he feels like he can speak freely with you.

“Well, the vast majority of unsubs with a similar MO aren’t driven by the killing, they are merely fascinated by the body parts, it’s like they psychologically exist in a realm where fantasy meets delusion, it’s basically like the blueprint to create the perfect serial killer… I’m rambling aren’t I?”

“It’s okay, it’s fascinating, please go on.” You are one of the only persons he has ever met that reacts that way, most of the time he gets interrupted, he is about to start again when your phone rings, you take a look at the screen and then say. “Sorry I have to take this, it will be just a sec.”

He smiles and nods and you slide to answer.

“What is the point of having an expensive phone if you never answer? Do you know how worried I was?”

“Hi Dean.” You reply, internally laughing at the overprotectiveness of your brother.

“Don’t “hi Dean” me, where have you been? Why haven’t you been answering your texts?”

“I’m in a coffee shop, and my phone died last night and I couldn’t charge it until now.”

“Who are you with?”

“I’m with a… friend.”

“Friend? Are you out with a boy? Who is he? Let me talk to him.”

“Stop being so jealous Dean.”

“So you are with a boy.”

“I’m sorry I have to go, love you, bye.” You say and you don’t even give him time to protest before you hang up. “Sorry about that.”

“No problem.” He must have guessed you wouldn’t be single, he feels jealousy invading him, and he fiddled with his empty cup. “Was that your boyfriend?”

“Gross, no.” There’s a wave of relief when you answer that, and he probably shouldn’t feel it, he’s leaving in a few days, it’s not like there’s the possibility of a relationship. “It was my brother, he can get all Mama Bear when he is worried.”

“Oh, is he your only brother?”

“No, I have three, Dean, Sam and Adam, I am the youngest, like by far, Dean is 19 years older, Sam is 15 years older and Adam beats me by 8 years.”

“That’s a big difference.”

“Yeah, Dean and Sam are my half-brothers, from dad’s first marriage, their mother died when they were very young and dad took it very hard and started to move them around the country, that’s how he met my mom, he went to Minnesota they had a one night stand and she got pregnant, but she didn’t tell him about Adam until he was like six, then he went back to Windom, they fell in love, dad moved them to Kansas, he married my mom and then they had me, hence the age gap.” You explain. “What about you? Any brothers or sisters?”

“No, I’m an only child, I grew up with Doctor Who and Star Trek as my companions.”

“Doctor Who?”

“Yeah, it’s, it’s good.”

“I know, I’m not gonna act like I didn’t mourn for a week when Ten left Rose on the beach.”

“You like it?”

“I may look like your stereotype cheerleader, but I’m a huge geek, Dean and his best friend Charlie made sure of that.”

The conversation flows as freely as water after that, for some reason you find it easy to talk to him, you tell him so many things you haven’t even told Jo, you talk about everything, favorite holidays; yours is Christmas, his is Halloween; tv shows, characters. You delite with his rambling and pay attention to every word he says, when you finally realize it, the sky has turned dark and you are the last people in the coffee shop.

“I think we should probably let them close.”

“Yeah, we should.” You both take your bags and stand up. “Hey, when are you leaving town?”

“On friday.”

“Let me make you dinner, I make a killer lasagna.” You look at him expecting an answer but he can barely say anything, he just had an amazing evening with a gorgeous girl who is now inviting him to her house, he should probably pinch himself to make sure he is not dreaming. “Spencer?”

“Yeah, that sounds good.”

“It’s a date then.”

#spencer reid #spencer reid smut #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x winchester!reader #reid x reader #reid x you #Criminal Minds #criminal minds x reader #supernatural #supernatural x reader #supernatural x you #dean winchester #Sam Winchester #winchester x reader #winchester!sister #winchester!reader #all or nothing

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bmcrbb · 4 years ago

Text

artist claims

sorry for the delay, there’s some personal drama taking up my time to blame here & also a small bit of classic procrastination. but here we are, with ARTIST CLAIMS.

here’s how this works!

i’m gonna put a list of fics below the read more line, and they’re all numbered, but do not have author names on them. your job is to pick your favorite 3 fics, and then enter their numbers into this form. that’s it! a fic may end up with multiple artists, and we may do a round 2 for any unclaimed fics.

here we go!

1. Marked On My Grave

Summary:

Really, Christine hadn’t expected much to come out of her life after dropping out of Bard Highschool. Her job opportunities were low, and Bard College was out of the window entirely. Shady deals made by angry princesses didn’t exactly help, nor did the pillaging pirates and necromancers-for-hire. And the necromancer’s mechanical henchmen were just the cherry on top of the very, very dangerous cake! But Christine really couldn’t say no to an adventure, could she?

Ships: Hints of Christine Canigula/Jenna Rolan, background Jake Dillinger/Michael Mell, background Brooke Lohst/Chloe Valentine

Tags & Warnings: Fantasy Au (Inspired by DND), Minor Non-Graphic Violence, Mentions of Blood, Mentions of Unconsciousness, Brief Mention of a Concussion, Mild Cursing

2. Reconnect

Summary:

Jeremy is a single dad trying his best. Michael is also a single dad trying his best. After a falling out in high school, they haven't seen each other for years. When their sons become friends, they're forced to talk through their problems and figure out how to get along. Michael never really thought of Jeremy as anything more than a friend, but now...

Ships: Michael/Jeremy, Christine/Brooke

Tags & Warnings: Refrenced Abuse (from squip and from a parent), Slow Burn, Child Original Characters, jeremy heere fights the PTA

3. off key, but in tune (we reach a crescendo)

Summary:

Marching band! (No squips!) Rich has been in band since freshman year, he's been aware of Jeremy since they joined at the same time even if they played different instruments. They weren't friends but they weren't not friends. Eventually Jeremy brings another kid with him - they're sophomores now. Rich isn't necessarily good but he's the only other person who plays baritone. Michael picks it because no one else plays it. No one except Rich.

They spend their time at the back of the marching field, helping each other get their uniforms straightened out, crammed in the back of the band bus with Jeremy, falling asleep on the way home from a competition. Nothing becomes something becomes everything. Michael helps Rich read music, Rich helps Michael's form. Sophomore year turns to Junior year turns to Senior year. Long nights at competitions, winning awards, holiday concerts, state band competitions. At some point they realize that this might be what love is.

Ships: Michael/Rich

Tags & Warnings: Rich's dad sucks, implied self harm (nothing graphic), I'm not totally sure of all the details yet but they're sad and learn to navigate. Maybe past suicide attempts referenced. maybe underage drinking/smoking weed

Notes: the kids are all lgbtq and neurodivergent im not exactly sure on everything yet, rich has adhd michael is autistic and has adhd. slowburn all that good stuff, michael and rich play baritone, rich moves up to sousaphone and michael is a drum major senior year. jeremy plays flute. the others will be in it not totally sure whos where yet. jenna is yearbook tho.

4. Dead Poets

Summary:

Brooke loves poetry and dreams of becoming a poet herself, but when Chloe starts belittling her for it, she decides to leave it in the past. Flash-forward to junior year, and Brooke feels like her only purpose in life is to follow Chloe around while being constantly reminded that she's inferior to her. She could leave, but fearing what others would think and knowing that she's been in love with Chloe since kindergarten prevents her from doing so.

The only place that provides her solace is her favorite place behind the school, and one day, she stumbles upon someone there—Richard Goranski, a guy who loves poetry and literature as much as she does, and is also struggling with an unrequited love. Hanging out with him revives her will to create poetry, and together they learn how to cope with their problems. Unfortunately, things also get a whole lot more complicated, and Brooke realizes that perhaps that's how beautiful tragedies were written—they were experienced first.

Ships: Chloe/Brooke, Platonic Brooke/Rich, Rich/Jeremy, Christine/Brooke, background Jake/Chloe

Tags & Warnings: There are suicidal thoughts (Brooke seriously entertains the thought of killing herself at one point, but doesn't push through with it or even do self-harm at all. Meanwhile, Brooke discovers Rich's scars from doing self-harm, and learns that he's tried to kill himself before) and mentions of depressing things (like tragedies, so there will be mentions of blood and violence and stuff like that, but it's pretty brief), homophobia, Alternate Universe, Suicidal Thoughts, Self-Esteem Issues, Friendship, Inspired by Poetry, Hurt/Comfort, Heavy Angst, stuff like that. Oh, and there's a bunch of fluff at some point, and the S.Q.U.I.P. doesn't exist.

5. take my hand, take my whole life too

Summary:

Expensive Headphones fake dating AU.

Ships: Rich/Michael

Tags & Warnings: No Current Warnings, Fake dating, Wedding, Fluff

6. friended

Summary:

Focused mostly on platonic relationships and the aftermath of everything, i know one plot point that i wanna include is michael’s moms taking in jake after the house fire and rich + jer bonding

Ships: Jeremy/Christine/Jake, potential Rich/Michael

Tags & Warnings: Mentions of the squip abuse, Homophobia, Alcoholism, Platonic michael/jake, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort

7. love shack (that’s where it’s at)

Summary:

Brooke decides to capitalize on the annual Valentine’s Day Dance (the second most attended dance at Middleborough High, second only to the Freshman Fling. The prom DOES NOT COUNT, Jake.), and she sets up a little matchmaking stand outside school.

Two things she wasn’t expecting happen:

1) Matchmaking is a surprisingly profitable business

2) She doesn’t want a match of her own

Ships: brooke’s aro and that’s the whole point of this fic but, background Jeremy/Christine, Jenna/Thalia, & some very very background stuff

Tags & Warnings: Brief Homophobia, aro!brooke, figuring out your sexual identity, School Dance

8. Being Scared Keeps Us Alive

Summary:

Superhero AU where Jeremy is Spider-Man and Michael is like the blogger but anyway best friends turned boyf riends eventually with some twisty villainy occurring in the background

Ships: Jeremy/Michael

Tags & Warnings: Blood & Violence, Superhero AU

9. For The Better

Summary:

Chloe puts in the effort to change for the better, and her and Brooke find that maybe theres a little more than friendship between the two of them.

Ships: Brooke/Chloe, Jeremy/Christine

Tags & Warnings: None Currently

10. Let’s Get Inside Their Brains

Summary:

Jeremy Heere is a surgical resident. He’s the son of the now-deceased well-known surgeon Anne Heere. This is something he tries to hide from his peers. He falls for pediatric neurosurgeon prodigy Christine Canigula when he starts working with her. Christine is hesitant to start things with him because of him being a resident but she falls for him anyway. Jeremy also deals with trying to handle the legacy of being a Heere and the expectations that were set for him before he was even born.

Christine’s character is not just falling for a resident and that is not the only plot. She also struggles with the complicated task of discovering how to deal with a startling new epidemic of implants in people’s brains that change their behaviors. She can’t figure out how to fix the problem even with her prodigy level skills. Her attempts at removing the implant create strange behaviors in her patients that she doesn’t know how to explain. Sometimes the surgeries fail completely and people die on the table.

Jeremy has a knack for neurosurgery and is picked by Christine to work with her. Together they try to understand what exactly is going on and how to fix it without killing the patients or causing strange behavior that can’t see to be fixed.

Ships: Jeremy/Christine

Tags & Warnings: Medical procedures, mentions of past abuse, Dark, Alternate Universe

now, again, ARTISTS, please select your top 3 fics and fill out this form. first come, first serve! please have it filled out by JULY 23RD, or i will chase you around with a wooden spoon in your dms

#be more chill

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cabinboy100 · 5 years ago

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MR ROBOT: Welcome to Farth, the parallel…

Spoiler alert: This is being written after viewing season 4 episode 11, “411: eXit”, and will likely include spoilery references to events up to that episode. If you’re not caught up, proceed at your own risk!

PARALLEL VISION…

Let's assume that the parallel world that we saw at the end of 411 is not real. What it is is a vision induced by drugs and guided by suggestion given by Whiterose or one of her agents. Like DM Whiterose is taking Half-Elf Elliot thru a module, but it all seems real to Elliot.

A simulation delivered via VR or a brain-computer interface Matrix could explain the experience as well, but I don't love that because we haven't had any hint of that sort of tech or manipulation before. Sure, MAYbe the Whiterose's machine has been about that, but all we've heard and seen about it has hinted at many-worlds and/or time travel. We've seen Elliot experience an unreal world before in season 1, in the wack-a-doodle key-quest he embarks upon while going thru detox withdrawal.

NB. I believe that a simulated world or an imagined one can be parallel as well. But I’m 50/50 on whether the show will care about that distinction. =)

I can think of three real world moments when Elliot could have entered this state (assuming it didn’t happen back when Tyrell shot him—possible, but I don’t want to think about it).

1. At the end of 401, either when the overdose was administered or the resuscitative drug was. 2. Sometime between Elliot leaving Darlene at the motel and entering the Black Room at the Washington Township plant. 3. After entering the Black Room at the Washington Township plant.

Possibility 3 is the easiest to understand. Whiterose entered the room. She and Elliot exchanged words. Whiterose drugged him with gas or something that works on contact applied to the door or the chair or maybe everything in the room. And at some point—before Whiterose shoots herself—Elliot goes under. Maybe Elliot was chloroformed in his seat and then moved to a bed and set up with an IV of whatever cocktail Whiterose uses for this. I imagine the DM-ing going like hypnosis sessions I've seen on TV and in movies, only with intentional leading…

WHITEROSE: Whiterose opens the box and pulls out a pistol. She points it at you. ELLIOT: What are you going to do with that? WHITEROSE: She keeps the gun pointed at you and answers—I have learned to listen when time speaks. Our paths were too precisely linked to this moment for there not to be a reason. This is why. You get to decide. Elliot, what do you say? ELLIOT: Then I'm telling you, don't do this! WHITEROSE: She raises the gun to her temple and fires, shooting herself in the head. She collapses, dead. Elliot, what do you do? ELLIOT: I try the doors. WHITEROSE: You try both doors. They are locked. ELLIOT: I bang on the doors. WHITEROSE: There is no response. No one can hear you. ELLIOT: I don't know what the fuck to do. WHITEROSE: The alarm continues to sound. What do you do? (ROBOT: We need to figure out the code on this door. Try that phone. See if you can get an outside line.) ELLIOT: I pick up the phone. WHITEROSE: You hear a computerized voice on the phone speak in English—zero five zero nine. It repeats in other languages. You notice the title of the book next to the phone. Resurrection. What do you do? (ROBOT: Anything?) ELLIOT: Zero five zero nine. I try the code on the lock. WHITEROSE: The door you came in unlocks. The hallway is empty. You can leave the way you came. But you have a feeling about the book. You go back to the table and flip through it and find an floppy disk in a sleeve labelled "eXit". (ROBOT: Let's go! There's an access tunnel down the hall.) WHITEROSE: You realize that whatever is on the disk must be important. Whiterose said that you get to decide. Elliot, what do you do? ELLIOT: If we leave, the nuclear reactor's gonna melt down… (ROBOT: Which is why we need to get as far fucking away from here as possible.) ELLIOT: If we don't stop this, the meltdown will destroy the whole town. (ROBOT: You wanna top the meltdown? How the fuck are we gonna do that?) ELLIOT: She said she gave me a choice. WHITEROSE: That's right, Elliot. What do you do next? ELLIOT: I insert the disk in the computer. (ROBOT: We don't have time for this shit.) WHITEROSE: The computer takes a few seconds to read the disk and loads up a game called "eXit". In the expected color and resolution, you see an open door above the word "eXit" against a background image of Earth. You realize this isn't just a game. This is an override process for the machine. Elliot, what do you think? ELLIOT: I don't think this is just a game. (ROBOT: This place is gonna blow!) ELLIOT: This is an override process to turn off the machine.

And so on. Note that Mr. Robot's lines are internal to Elliot, he doesn't speak them out loud and Whiterose is not aware of Robot or his words and actions.

The experience may not be as granularly guided as this, and Elliot may not actually be speaking to Whiterose unless she prompts him to, but I figured I'd try to illustrate the process using actual dialogue. It could simply be Whiterose saying to the hooked-up-to-some-IV-drip suggestible Elliot…

Whiterose explains that you get to choose whether to stop the meltdown or let the machine grant everyone their dream life on a dream world. Then she points the gun at her temple and fires, killing herself. You are alone in the room and the alarms continue to sound. The doors are locked, so you try the blue phone. A computerized voice tells you "zero five zero nine" in several languages and repeats. You try it as the code on the door you came in and it works. The hallway outside is clear, but you can't leave if there's a chance you can stop the meltdown. Whiterose said you get to choose what happens, so she must have left you a way to do that. You flip thru RESURRECTION and find a floppy disk labelled "eXit". When you load it into the computer, it boots up a game called "eXit". You realize this is how you choose—if you play the game, you can shut down the machine and stop the meltdown.

Whiterose describes the experience in a general way and Elliot's brain fills in the details, dialogue, action, appearances, unless Whiterose gives him something specific.

Whiterose guides Elliot through game play, and it unfolds as we saw it…

WHITEROSE: The game tells you—The note says "Don't leave me here". Do you leave your friend or stay? ELLIOT: …Stay. WHITEROSE: You type "Stay" and hit return. The computer shuts down. The alarms shut off. The normal lighting returns. It seems like the meltdown has been stopped. The room is quiet… ROBOT: Did it work? WHITEROSE: But after a few seconds, the room is shaken by a tremor. You hear crashing and things falling outside the door. Elliot, what do you do? ELLIOT: I unlock the door and look outside… WHITEROSE: There are fires in the hallway. You can't leave. The first time you played you chose the new world. The second time was too late to shut down the machine. The meltdown has begun. All you can do is wait for the end. ROBOT: It's too late, isn't it? WHITEROSE: You have ten seconds before the plant destruction reaches the black room. When I reach zero, you will be consumed by the heat and fire and die. 10… ELLIOT: I love you. WHITEROSE: 9…8… ROBOT: I love you, too. WHITEROSE: 7…6…5…4 ELLIOT: It's an exciting time in the world. WHITEROSE: 3…2…1…zero. The world has disappeared, consumed by red nothingness. Red is all you see. All you hear is my voice. Now. Think back to when you were alive. Think about the world you would dream of when you were alive. The best possible world, with your best possible life, one that makes you happy, doing things you excel at and want to excel at and enjoy and want to enjoy. All of the people you know and love are there, too, living lives that make them happy, too. Do you remember that dream world? Can you imagine that dream life? Now, hold the dream in your mind, tightly. Imagine your home in it. Imagine a good day in it. Now, in your home, in this best life, wake up from the red nothingness to that good day and live!

And that would be the start of Elliot's day before he gets married on Farth, where it's always 11:16 on May 9.

Man, that was exhausting and I’m not sure I really got that much down. Blerg. Gonna snap this off here. Only a few hours to go before the finale!

By the way—FARTH?

Farth : Earth :: FCorp : ECorp =)

Keep on keepin’ on, Friend~

#MR ROBOT #MRROBOT #crazytalk #theory #parallel #411 #exit #Whiterose #elliott reeder #rambo

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nunaya-business · 5 years ago

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Hi, Let’s Talk About Some Controversial Shit Yeah?

So lately people have been telling Horikoshi Kohei to go kill himself, because they’re trying to be a shitty version of Shane Dawson exploring conspiracy theories that have no right to exist. I don’t even know where to fucking start, but since I’m not a YouTuber, but I’m a writer, I decided to ditch my phone for this one, and am currently typing this shit out on my laptop. Yes, that is how pissed I am.

A new decade and a new start to the shittiness that was 2010-2020. More and more people of the LGBTQ started coming out of the dark and trying to accept who they are to the chagrin of assholes who have no business in their lives anyway. I feel like there’s been a lot more racism here than there was from 2000-2010, or maybe that’s just me. I think it’s because people are getting more vocal with their opinions as the earth goes to shit. We are slowly killing it after all. Not only is there more racism, sexism, anti-LGBTQ pricks, and people prejudice against other religions (the prejudice against Muslims is a big one. Poor Muslims, it’ll be okay, Brookie’s on your side), but there are now people who don’t like freedom of speech, or the right to write a story, and people who are just plain pussies because they don’t wike dere wittle feewings huwt 😥.

I could write for hours about all of those subjects. But since I’m an aspiring writer myself, I picked the right to write. What do I mean by that? I mean the right for an author of any kind to write their story, their way, without these little pussies coming around and being like, “bro can you not mention the Mongols breaking through the Great Wall of China? Yeah, because I’m from a Chinese family and I don’t want to be reminded of my ancestor’s tribulations even though it was 800 years ago. Thanks”. Let me break this shit down like I’m in debate class and my entire University grade depends on me winning this “argument”.

Writing is an art. Duh. People don’t write because they had a good life, I don’t care what anyone says. Writers write because it relieves stress, allows them to get their feelings out in a healthy way, take them away to their own little world in their own special way to escape the hell they’re living through, lets them vent the dark desires and thoughts they may have, and get their opinions out there when they feel like no one listens. Writing is a cure for depression for some people. It’s a healthy kind of drug that doesn’t make someone overdose (unless they’re like me and write’s for hours on end losing sleep and starving themselves just to write an idea down before they forget it).

People write about what they can’t speak. My mom has this saying “say it forget it, write it regret it”, and in certain contexts that saying is a good moral to have, but that’s not always the case. My mom and I watched the movie “Her” the other day and (spoilers) at the end of the movie, the main character Theodore, who’s a writer, writes a letter to his ex-wife. He writes about how they met, how they grew up together, how they grew to be the best of friends, then lovers, then built a trust they couldn’t replace, and the sorrow he felt when the relationship started crumbling. Joaquin Phoenix did an amazing job lamenting about the character’s past, most likely because he’s been through a lot too, and the character did an astounding job putting his words to paper (or in this case email) and getting out years of stress and sadness so that he can start loving life again.

The point of me describing that scene was to show the impact writing has on some people. It’s the escape they need and sometimes the emotions they feel put into a context where they can explain it all they want without having to waste a breath.

Now, picture if you will, that you’re a writer down on your luck. You have an amazing story to tell and the audience in mind that you want to tell it to, but no one believes in you. They want to alter your story to suit a wider audience, but, you don’t give a shit about appealing to people, you’re telling a story that helped you and may help others too, no matter the money you might lose or recognition you’ll never gain. Imagine that you found a way to both appeal to a wider audience and tell that story you have in your mind’s view. It gets more popular than most media to come out of your country and helps you bring in more than enough money you need to survive. Suddenly people are falling in love with the characters you wrote in more ways than one. People are starting to call it a modern classic and then, you start getting letters from people all around the world telling you how much your writings helped them and that they’re living better lives because they were inspired or motivated by the words you oh so carefully put onto a page, with the art you spent hours, upon days, upon weeks on opening people’s eyes to what they’re capable of.

I may have put some personal shit in that last paragraph, but I was mainly talking about the subject of this... (essay?) Horikoshi Kohei. A man who never gave up because dammit, he had a story to tell and fuck anyone who doesn’t want to hear it. All that matters to real writers is that someone feels special because of the words you put together on a page. Horikoshi puts a lot of time and effort into My Hero Academia, and what does his fans do? They tell him to kill himself because he dared wordplay to get the names of some characters. Y’know it’s funny, I don’t hear a lot of Jews, trans, gay, or Polish people complain about the shit their ancestors went through 70 years ago during the Holocaust like they went through it as well, but I always hear about Korean, Chinese, and Black people (off the top of my head don’t @ me) complain about shit their ancestors went through from 70 all the way back to a thousand years ago. Not to say that everyone in those races do that. because they don’t. I’m sure a majority probably doesn’t give two flying fucks what someone writes as long as they aren’t being personally targeted or threatened. But go on Horikoshi’s Twitter once and tell me that you don’t see hundreds of his followers (mostly Asian) threatening him and criticizing his naming of his characters. If you’re Korean or Chinese and you find issue with the fact that Horikoshi named a mother fucking villain character after a place where your specific race was tortured and experimented on, decades before were even fucking thought of, please tell me why. If you feel personally attacked then you’re... (I don’t wanna use retarded because people will automatically stop reading and DM me about my word choice) doltish. That’s a fancy word for stupid by the way. Maybe if it were one of the heroes named that way then I would completely understand, but it’s not. It’s a fucking villain.

But hey, what do I know? I’ve never been through shit. I’m just a plain, short and chubby little white girl with a big mouth that’s never been the victim of prejudice or racism. No one’s ever taken a look at me and judged me based on my ancestors or religious choices. No one’s ever made fun of my accent or the color of my skin, or the birth defect that effected my feet and slightly effected my hands.

Oh by the way, my mom’s a closet Psychopath that wasn’t diagnosed because the rest of the family is too fucking psycho for anyone to notice her torturing animals at a young age. My dad was a Paranoid Schizophrenic with an undiagnosed Psychosis and severe PTSD (diagnosed) that grew up in a home with an abusive father and a mother that was too busy grooming her oldest son (take that how you will) to pay any attention to him. Not to mention she also killed him. It’s not like my dad’s dad was also a psychopath that purposefully killed my unborn brother and laughed when my mom miscarried It’s not like my life was at risk because there was people shooting at my house (where I lived with my grandfather) and I could hear the bullets bouncing off of the trees. It’s not like I was bullied when I was little leading to a brain injury that caused my memory to be fucked up and my speech to slur and stutter. Oh and I definitely didn’t have to start being a second mom to my brother, and an actual mom to my little cousin because my family doesn’t give a fuck how their actions effect others.

I didn’t have the worst life by all means. There’s a lot more people that I know personally that have had it way worse than I have. I’m just saying, don’t take shit so fucking personally. Grow some goddamn balls and stop telling people to go kill themselves because they named a character something you didn’t like. Stop bringing up shit from the past unless people ask about it, or you’re telling you life story. It’s 2020. It’s time to stop being pussies and act like functioning members of society.

Oh and one last thing. Ya’ll are telling a man to kill himself while the corona virus is spreading like the plague. I think we should be more fucking worried about the fact that humanity could easily be wiped out thanks to the Chinese government silencing a scientist who know about the damn virus a year ago. If anything, we should be targeting them and Trump for being awful, not a poor mangaka that was just word playing with the names of his characters.

#fuck this shit im out #horikoshi kohei #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #corona virus #shane dawson #japan #china #south korea #her #jaoquin phoenix #im taggin all this shit so people see this #go i hope it works #i spent an hour just typing this shit #rant over #*mic drop*

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bnhascribbles · 5 years ago

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hello!! i only recently joined the bnha fandom so i was wondering if you could share how active the bnha fanfic community is on tumblr? i highkey wanna start writing imagines for the characters heh, also do you have any advice you could share? Thank you!! :D

Hey there! Glad you joined us! I’d say the tumblr BNHA community is pretty active, but that’s just the perspective I get being primarily a reader-insert writer. That being said, I think it’s a great place to start! It’s where I started!

As far as advice, I’d just say write, write, write! This is rich coming from me, the incurable perfectionist. But because of that, I know what it’s like to look at something you’ve created and be super self-critical. The key is to keep going and keep writing. If you’re stumped for ideas, ask your friends or take requests. Take breaks if something really isn’t working, and don’t be afraid to scrap something if you don’t think it’s going anywhere—but be sure to keep a “graveyard” document! Sometimes, looking at things you’ve scrapped can inspire you for something new, or an old blurb can become part of a new story! Every experience can be something useful in the future, even if it feels like a waste right now! Oh, and don’t be afraid to go at your own pace! We are all busy people, and the bottom line is that you’re creating free content for a whole bunch of readers! You’re not obligated to publish every day or every week or even every month, although, if you’re anything like me, you’ll be daydreaming up ideas at all hours of every day! It’s fun, and it should stay fun. If it doesn’t bring you joy at some point, you need to look at what’s going wrong!

More than that, there is one huge thing I’ll advise you against: don’t compare yourself to others. I get it. We all wanna be awesome at what we do, and a lot of times, we do that by looking at numbers. We publish something we’re proud of and we find ourselves looking at the notes or Kudos and comparing it to others. Even if you’re NOT the sort to do this, you might be reading another person’s work and say “Man, they’re so good. I won’t ever be able to do that as well as them!” And that is self-destructive stuff there! It’s okay to read and pick out specific things you like about another person’s style so long as it’s a positive, learning experience. But all of this “they have more notes and they’re so good and I’ll never be like that” stuff will never help! Focus on you. The things you can improve about yourself! Remember, we are all just one community here that wants to improve however we can!

Someone shared an analogy with me recently: when we create, it’s like baking a cake. We pour our hearts into what we do and bake a cake we’re proud of, but the second we see the cake the person next to us has make, we freak out. Because it’s bigger, prettier, or just plain better in our eyes. We may start to hate our own cake or even give up on ever baking again. But like, the person next to us looks at their cake, then at ours and says “Oh boy, two cakes!” The reality is, you’re creating. You’re making something out of nothing and that means your brain-child isn’t something you should rip apart because you’re obsessively comparing it to others.

Can you tell this is something I’m passionate about, hahaha? Sorry if you wanted more practical “write like this advice,” but these are the big umbrella things that I’ve found it helps to think about the most. If you want more technical stuff, feel free to DM me or send another ask! Welcome!

#asks #advice #Welcome!#Anonymous

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creativerogues · 6 years ago

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Hunger of Yeenoghu: Turning Normal Monsters into A Full Campaign...

Hunger of Yeenoghu: A Campaign about Gnolls!

“-They see signs from Yeenoghu everywhere, even in blood splatter.-”

- Elminster

The madness of the gnolls spreads, their hunger grows and nothing shall satiate it...

Yeenoghu’s madness extends...

He yearns to create a world where his gnolls are the last creatures left alive, tearing one another apart for the right to feast upon the endless dead.

Hunger of Yeenoghu is a campaign I’ve ran several times in many different versions of D&D because not only does it take a pretty ‘meh’ opponent, a Gnoll, and make them a terrifying force of madness, but it allows for the campaign to span multiple continents and means players have the freedom to explore what the heck is making these gnolls so damn crazy and hungry, but also let’s them fight a demon lord at the end! Yay?

I’ve wanted to share this for a while now, but wanted to make sure I had as many resources to share as I could find to really help any DM out there create a Campaign centered around Gnolls and their endless hunger and devotion to Yeenoghu...

This is also a way to show people how you can make an entire campaign based around just a few creatures from the Monster Manual, in this case, Gnolls!

I’ve had many long chats with people in the Community saying “I wanna make a campaign based around this monster” and I thought I’d show how I would go about making a campaign...

Things you can do for this Campaign:

1. Show Gnoll Culture, Religion and Society

A lot of common folk see Gnolls as savage beasts with endless hunger, and while a lot of the time they are, they do have at least some form of order in all that madness.

Gnolls have placed a very strong value on family for instance, respecting blood ties perhaps more than any other aspect of a relationship.

They work in packs, and though gnolls within a pack will fight with each other for dominance, these battles are quickly forgotten after their resolution, and in most situations, gnolls of the same bloodline are loyal friends and allies to one another.

This loyalty to family was particularly obvious during combat, Gnolls who fight side by side regularly will throw away personal glory in order to help their brethren.

This is all from the ‘Gnoll’ section of the Forgotten Realms Wikia, but just from this you can see there’s more to Gnolls than simply just killing whenever they’re bored...

2. Show Variant Gnolls

It is believed by some that gnolls have traces of demonic blood, which may be evidenced by unusual features found among some of the gnoll bloodlines. These may include talons, gleaming red eyes, or black fur with fiery orange spots.

- Forgotten Realms Wikia

Gnolls, much like people in real life, come in all shapes, sizes, colors and personalities.

And even in 5th Edition there’s many different stat blocks for different types of Gnolls...

But you can see just from scrolling down and reading more of the resources I’ve put at the end of this post that there are many many different types of Gnolls from older editions that you could very easily create stat blocks for in 5th Edition.

Sure, your Players have probably fought a Gnoll or two before, but what happens when that Gnoll’s body suddenly shifts and twists into the form of a giant hyena, and starts pouncing on the party with it’s disease-ridden bite attack...

Not only does it provide a little variety in the Gnolls that you’ll be throwing at your Players, but it catches them off guard and makes them say “Wait. WHAT?” when you show them something they’ve never seen before...

Simply just take the stats of a 5e Gnoll, change nothing about them at all, but describe this gnoll as being unusually tall, with long thin talons for claws and deep black fur across it’s body, with fiery orange hyena-like patterns of spots across it’s back, and as the party stares they see in this gnoll’s skull two bright, gleaming red eyes staring back at them, as the head twists back and releases a howl...

Again, just a regular ol’ gnoll in terms of stats, but describing the varying appearance of a gnoll makes the players go ‘Oh neat!’ or even ‘That guy’s a badass, stay away from him.’ even though stats-wise it’s just a normal gnoll that looks different...

3. It allows a DM to be truly Mad and Brutal

You could literally start the campaign off with Level 1-3 Characters chill-laxing in a small town, and then BOOM! GNOLLS ATTACK!

BLOOD EVERYWHERE! Dead bodies hitting the ground left and right and the players realize they are not gonna get outta there alive unless they run, and only when they escape the town and look back do they notice the scale of the assault...

This kind of campaign lets the DM go truly mad, since all gnolls care about is trying to feed their endless demonic hunger with the flesh of sentient beings.

Gnolls are gathering and their hunger grows with each passing day. Sometimes the party will just have to run away because they know that not only are they outnumbered, but these gnolls are willing to fight to the death for food...

4. Show the ‘Madness of Yeenoghu’

‘A blood red sun hangs low in a sickly green sky, illuminating the slaughter...’

That’s just one line to describe how Yeenoghu’s madness begins to spread, and the gnolls only see it as a sign of love from their demon lord patron.

Perhaps even describe how the players themselves start to feel a sickly hunger building in their stomachs, one that can only be satisfied by drinking the blood of another, by consuming the flesh of their allies...

Show them what it’s like to feel the endless agony that is the hunger of a gnoll.

Gnoll Stats, Resources & The Different Types of Gnolls

5th Edition

Gnoll: If you’ve gotten to this point in the post and still don’t know what a Gnoll is, shame on you. But if you don’t know, well I’ll explain:

Gnolls resemble human-hyena hybrids, they’re carnivorous, brutal, savage and they’re always hungry.

Fang of Yeenoghu: Sometimes Yeenoghu rewards his Gnoll worshipers by allowing one of them to be possessed by a demonic spirit. Marked as Yeenoghu's favorite special good-boy gnoll, the lucky recipient becomes a Fang of Yeenoghu, the chosen of the Gnoll Lord.

Gnoll Packlord: The alpha of a gnoll pack is the pack lord, ruling by might and cunning. A pack lord earns the best of a gnoll pack's spoils, food, valuable trinkets, and magic items. It ornaments its body with brutal piercings and grotesque trophies, dyeing its fur with demonic sigils, hoping Yeenoghu will make it invulnerable.

Flind: A flind is an exceptionally strong and vicious gnoll that commands and directs the war band it is a part of. It wields a flail imbued with powerful magic by Yeenoghu himself.

Gnoll Flesh Gnawer: If any group of gnolls could be said to be more feral than the others, that distinction would go to the flesh gnawers. These gnolls eschew the use of ranged weapons in favor of short blades that they wield with speed and efficiency.

Gnoll Hunter: Hunters are the stealthiest gnolls in a war band, and they put their talents to use on the battlefield picking off isolated opposition while clearing the way for the rest of the force to run roughshod over the enemy's territory.

Leucrotta: A leucrotta is what you would get if you took the head of a giant badger, the brain of a person who likes to torture and eat people, the legs of a deer, and the body of a large hyena, put them together, and reanimated them with demon ichor without bothering to cover up the stink of death...

Gnoll Witherling: By invoking rituals to Yeenoghu, they bring the remains of a dead gnoll back to some semblance of life in the form of a gnoll witherling.

Shoosuva: A shoosuva is a hyena-demon gifted by Yeenoghu to an especially powerful gnoll (typically as a Fang of Yeenoghu). A shoosuva manifests shortly after a war band achieves a great victory, emerging from a billowing, fetid cloud of smoke as it arrives from the Abyss.

4th Edition

Gnoll Huntmaster: A Gnoll Huntmaster often delays its initial turn, waiting until its allies move in and attack. The creature stays at the edge of its range, attacking with its longbow and using its ‘Pack Attack’ feature to deal extra damage.

Gnoll Claw Fighter: This gnoll charges into the fray, using melee attacks to make claw attacks, positioning itself to reap the benefit of its ‘Pack Attack’ feature to deal extra damage.

Gnoll Marauder: Gnoll Marauders gang up on a single target to gain the benefit of their ‘Pack Attack’ feature. It uses its ‘Quick Bite’ against any foes on low hit points whenever possible.

Gnoll Demonic Scourge: This gnoll leads weaker gnolls into battle, imparting the benefits of its ‘Leader of the Pack’ aura while commanding nearby allies to concentrate their attacks on one target at a time.

Deathpledged Gnoll: A Deathpledged Gnoll vows to die destroying the enemies of Yeenoghu. Its dark oath and a thirst for blood make this creature a frightful foe. In return for its vow to its demon lord Yeenoghu, a deathpledged gnoll can temporarily shrug off death with potent demonic powers.

Gnoll Gorger: All Gnolls devour the flesh of sentient creatures, but Gnoll Gorgers gain strength in battle by feasting on their own kind...

AD&D First Edition

Ghuuna: Ghuuna (the form is singular and plural) are related to gnolls in much the same way that lycanthropes are related to humans. However, ghuuna are the result of a special type of quasi-lycanthropy created by Yeenoghu that affects only gnolls, causing them to change into a giant hyena-like form.

In their normal unchanged form, ghuuna appear to be large gnolls. In this form they shun armor and usually carry swords as weapons. In their giant, hyena-like form, ghuuna can deliver a ‘Crushing Bite’ for 4d4 points of damage.

In addition, their bite can inflict "ghuunism" among gnolls in the same manner that lycanthropy is spread by regular were-creatures.

Humans and humanoids (other than gnolls) who are bitten must succeed on a constitution save or be affected by disease, which can be cured by a healing spells or similar magic.

Each ghuuna can command and control hyenas, although they cannot summon them.

Wherever ghuuna to be present in a war band, they act as leaders and protectors. Only gnoll shamans and strong chieftains have more "push" in a gnoll band than ghuuna do.

Female ghuuna are nearly the only respected females in a gnoll band.

Ghuuna may communicate with hyena in addition to speaking the usual languages a gnoll may know.

They rarely intentionally spread "ghuunism" among gnolls, preferring to be "the few and the proud."

Gnoll Research Resources

There are many resources besides Wikipedia and Wikia that can give a BUNCH of info and lore on Gnolls, the different types, their mythology, culture, religion, society, their worship of Yeenoghu, the Demon Lord of the Gnolls and more...

So rather than name each of them and what each contains, I’m simply going to make a bullet point list of every resource I can find so you can do your own reading and research:

5th Edition: Volo's Guide to Monsters (2016)

5th Edition: Monster Manual (2014)

4th Edition: Monster Manual (2008)

4th Edition: Monster Manual 2 (2009)

4th Edition: Dragon Magazine #367, ‘Playing Gnolls’ (2008)

3.5e: Monster Manual (2003)

3rd Edition: Monster Manual (2000)

3rd Edition: Monster Manual III (2004)

2nd Edition: The Complete Book of Humanoids (1993)

2nd Edition: Player's Option: Skills & Powers (1995)

2nd Edition: Dragon Magazine #173 ‘The Sociology of the Flind’ (1991)

2nd Edition: Monstrous Compendium Volume One (1989)

2nd Edition: Monstrous Manual (1993)

1st Edition: Dragon Magazine #89 ‘Creature Catalog’ (September 1984)

1st Edition: Dragon Magazine #63 ‘The Humanoids’ (July 1982)

1st Edition: Fiend Folio (1981)

#campaign #homebrew #homebrew rules #dnd 5e homebrew #Homebrew Monster #d&d gnoll #Hunger of Yeenoghu

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spamzineglasgow · 4 years ago

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(HOT TAKE) Notes on a Conditional Form by The 1975, part 1

In the first instalment of a two part dialogic HOT TAKE of The 1975′s latest album, Notes on a Conditional Form (Dirty Hit, 2020), Maria Sledmere writes to musician and critic Scott Morrison with meditations on the controversial motormouth and prince of sincerity that is Matty Healy, the poetics of wrongness, millennial digression and what it means to play and compose from the middle.

Dear Scott,

> So we have agreed to write something on The 1975’s fourth studio album, Notes on a Conditional Form (Dirty Hit/Polydor). I have been traipsing around the various necropoli of Glasgow on my state-sanctioned walks this week, listening to the long meandering 80-minute world of it, disentangling my headphones from the overgrown ferns, caught between the living and dead. Can you have a long world, a sprawling fantasia, when ‘the world’ feels increasingly shortened, small, boiled down to its ‘essentials’? Let’s go around the world in 80 minutes, the band seem to say, take this short-circuit to the infinite with me. I like that; I don’t even need a boat, just a half-arsed WiFi connection and a will to download. I’m really excited to be talking with you, writing you both about this; it’s an honour to connect our thoughts. I want writing right now to feel a bit like listening, so I write this listening. When my friend Katy slid into my DMs on a Monday morning with ‘omg the 1975 album starts with greta?????????’ and then ‘what on earth is the genre of this album ?!’ I just knew it had to happen, this writing-listening, because I was equally alarmed and charmed by the cognitive dissonance of that fall from Greta’s soft, yet urgent call to rebel (‘The 1975’), into ‘People’ with its parodic refrain of post-punk hedonism that would eat Fat White Family on a Dadaesque meal-deal platter ‘WELL, GIRLS, FOOD, GEAR [...] Yeah, woo, yeah, that’s right’. Scott, you and I went to see The 1975 play at the Hydro on the 1st of March, my last gig before lockdown. I’d been up all night drinking straight gin and doing cartwheels and crying on my friend’s carpet, and the sleeplessness made everything all the more lush and intense. Those slogans, the theatrical backdrops, the dancers, the lights, the travellator! Everything so EXTRA, what a JOURNEY. And well, it would be rude of me not to invite you to contribute to this conversation, as a thank you for the ticket but also because of your fortunate (and probably unusual) positioning as both a classically trained musician (with a fine-tuned listening ear) and fervent fan of the band (readers, Scott messaged me with pictures of pre-ordered vinyl to prove it).

> It seems impossible to begin this dialogue without first addressing the FRAUGHT and oft~problematic question of Matty Healy, the band’s frontman, variously described as ‘the enfant terrible of pop-rock’ and ‘outspoken avatar’ (Sam Sodomsky, Pitchfork), ‘enigmatic deity’ (Douglas Greenwood for i-D), ‘a charismatic thirty-one-year-old’ and ‘scrawny’, rock star ‘archetype’, not to mention ‘avatar of modern authenticity, wit, and flamboyance’ (Carrie Battan, The New Yorker). ‘Divisive motormouth or voice of a generation?’ asks Dorian Lynskey with (fair enough) somewhat tired provocation in The Guardian, as if you could have one without the other, these days. ‘There are’, writes Dan Stubbs for The NME, ‘as many Matty Healys here as there are musical styles’. So far, so postmodern, so elliptical, so everything/yeah/woo/whatever/that’s right. Come to think of it, it makes sense for The 1975 to draft in Greta Thunberg to read her climate speech over the opening eponymous track. Both Matty and Greta, for divergent yet somehow intersecting reasons, suffer the troublesome, universalising label of voice of a generation. Why not join forces to exploit this label, to put out a message? I’ve always thought of pop music as a kind of potential broadcast, a hypnotic, smooth space for desire’s traversal and recalibration. More on that later, maybe. What do you think?

youtube

> You can imagine Matty leaping out of a cryptic, post-internet Cocteau novelette (if not then straight onto James Cordon’s studio desk), emoji streaming from his fingertips like the lightning that Justine wields in Lars von Trier’s film Melancholia (2011); but the terrifying candour of the enfant terrible is also his propensity to wax lyrical on another (bear with my clickhole) YouTube interview about his thoughts on Situationism and the Snapchat generation. It feels relevant to mention cinema right now, if only in passing, because this album is full of cinematic moments: strings and swells worthy of Weyes Blood’s latest paean to the movies, but also a Disneyfication of sentiment clotted and packed between house tracks, ballads and rarefied indie hits. Nobody does the interlude quite like The 1975. Maybe more on that later, also.

> Where do I start though, how to really write about this, how to attain something like necessary distance in the space of a writing-listening? Matty Healy, I suppose, like SPAM’s celebrated authorial mascot, Tom McCarthy, poses the same problem of response: how to write about an artist whose own critical commentary is like an eloquent, overzealous and self-devouring, carnivorous vine of opinion?

> Now, let’s not turn this into a discussion about who wears pinstripes better (we can leave that to readers - these are total Notes from the Watercooler levels of quiche). There seems to be this obsession with pinning (excuse the pun) Matty down to a flat surface of multiples: a moodboard, avatar, placeholder for automatic cancellation. He’s the soft cork you wanna prod your anxieties through and call it identity, you wanna provoke into saying something bizarrely, painfully true about life ‘as it is now’. Healy himself quips self-referentially, ‘a millennial that babyboomers like’. I don’t really know where to start really, not even on Matty; my brain is all over the place and I can’t find a critical place to settle. I’m lost in the fog and the stripes, some stars also; I haven’t even washed my hair for a week. Funnily enough, in 2018 for SPAM’s #7 Prom Date issue I wrote a poem called ‘Just Messing Around’ where the speaker mentions ‘pinning my eye to the right side / of matt healy’s hair all shaved / & serene’ and you don’t really know if it’s the eye that’s shaved or the hair, but both I guess offer different kinds of vision. Every time I google the man, IRL Matty I mean, I am offered a candied proliferation of alluring headlines: ‘The 1975’s Matty Healy opens up on his beef with Imagine Dragons’, ‘The 1975’s Matty Healy savagely destroys Maroon 5 over plagiarism claims’. Perhaps the whole point is to define (or slay?) by negation. Hey, I’ll write another poem. The opening sentence comes from Matty’s recent Guardian interview.

Superstar

I’m not an avocado, not everyone thinks I’m amazing. That’s why they call me the avocado, baby was a song released by Los Campesinos! in 2013, same year as the 1975’s debut. In the am I have been wanting to listen and Andy puts up a meme like ‘The 1975 names their albums stuff like “A Treatise on Epistemological Suffering” and then spends 2 hours singing about how hard it is to be 26’ and I reply being 26 IS epistemological suffering (isn’t that the affirmative dismissal contained in the title, ‘Yeah I Know’) I mean only yesterday I had to ask myself if it’s true you can wish on 11:11 or take zinc to improve your immune system or use an expired provisional license to buy alcohol like why are they even still asking I thought indie had died after that excruciating Hadouken! song called ‘Superstar’ which was all like You don’t like my scene / You don’t like my song / Well, if you Somewhere I’ve done something wrong it seems a delirious, 3-minute scold of the retro infinitude of scarf-wearing cunts with haircuts, and yeah sure kids dressed as emos rapping to rave is not the end of the world, per se, similarly I had to ask myself is there a life in academia is there a wage here or there, like the Talking Heads song And you may ask yourself, well How did I get here? Good thing I turn 27 next month Timothy Morton often uses the refrain, this is not my beautiful house this is not my beautiful wife to refer to those moments you find yourself caught in the irony loop and that’s dark ecology the closer you are the stranger it feels like slice me in half I’ll fall out with more questions you can plant in the soil like a stone or stoner, just one more drag of does it offend you, yeah? will I live and die in a band Matty sings the sweet green meat of my much-too-old -and-such-youthful experience of adding healthy fat to conference dialogue, like ‘Avocado, Baby’ was released on a record called No Blues I believe a large automobile is hurtling towards me now in negative space and the driver is crooning Elvis and reciting my funding conditions and everything feels like there aren’t not still people who believe the new culture of content is a space ‘over there’ and you can still have earnest power ballads about love if you want them =/ to cancel (too many tabs don’t make a tableau but in the future facebook has a paywall) and fame is a drag the pressure we put on the atmosphere, like somewhere you’re alive and still amazing asking wtf I’m reading this novel by Roberto Bolaño set partly in 1975 before we had internet it seems poets got laid a lot that year in Mexico City before I was born to pick up video calls with a spliff in one hand in the splendid, essential heat like a difficult knife in my side you can put me on toast, grind the pepper over me gently and say fucking hell this has taken forever.

> I guess I want or wanted to begin with this question of difficulty that rises when responding to Notes on a Conditional Form. How do you approach an album whose delayed release places it in a position of considerable hype, an album whose world tour and promotion is again delayed by global pandemic, an album shrouded in the ever-shifting controversy of Matty’s persona, an album whose length and sonic variety risks collapse into litanies of zany superlative and necrophilic attempts to revive musical category as vaguely relevant here? As beautiful as it is to catalogue the offbeat Pinegrove vibes of ‘Roadkill’, the shoegaze croons of ‘Then Because She Goes’ and the pop-punk, chord-bright euphoria of ‘Me & You Together Song’, I could keep going and going with this. I could just list and just list this. The album is a generous offering: a tribute to the album as form in an age where attention tapers away on high-streaming playlists set to conditioned, circadian moods curated by the likes of Spotify or Apple Music. The album is a Borgesian plenitude of multiple pathways, multiple timelines, infinite feed, choose your own adventure; a hypertext of cultural reference almost worthy of Manic Street Preachers at their Richey Edwards era of paranoid, intellectual peak; a metamodernist feat of oscillation between irony and sincerity, an extended tract, a drunk millennial ramble, a journey that loops from house party to club basement to the streams of sexuality repressed and expressed encounter...and yet. It is both more and less than these things. In trying to capture Notes on a Conditional Form with some pithy, journalist’s statement, I’m doing it all wrong.

> Sidenote: I recently listened to Rachel Zucker give a 2016 lecture on ‘The Poetics of Wrongness’ as part of the Bagley Wright Lecture Series. She makes a case for wrongness in poetry and critique, rejects the poem of pithy essence, the short, pretty and to the point lyric whose meaning is easily digested in a greetings card, or A Level exam paper, say. ‘Instead of the Fabergé egg of the short lyric, I prefer the aesthetics of intractability and exhausted exhaustedness’, the mistakes, lags or aporia made along the way in one of these long and winding poems. Notes on a Conditional Form is full of what some might deem mistakes, digression, exhaustion; but it is also peppered with the gloss of almost perfect pop ‘hits’ such as ‘Me & You Together Song’ and ‘If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know)’. A wrong poem should be, ‘ashamed and irreverent’, which feels like a decent description of The 1975’s general orientation towards artistic conception. There is cringe and incongruity, there is by all intents and purposes ‘too much of it’, whatever we mean by ‘it’. And yet, that is its beautiful poetics of wrongness, the sound of wrongness, which ‘prefers the stairs’ to the easy elevator pitch (as Zucker puts it), that ‘prefers a half-finishing crumbling stairwell to nowhere’. I like to think about this 1975 album as a kind of exhausting Escherian scene of shifting, crumbling stairwells, shuffling and reassembling against the glistering backdrop of the internet’s inverse void, where everything, literally everything is translated to a starry excess of 1s and 0s, our collective binary data, the white hot, unreadable howl of our noise. What do you think Scott, would Matty find this image agreeable? Does that matter?

> Pushing dear Matty aside, say what you like, let’s start (again) with the title: Notes on a Conditional Form. Following 2018’s A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships, it’s fair to position these records as gestures towards philosophical statements ‘of the times’. Important to recognise the resistance to total or dominating knowledge built into the titles: these are not complete tracts or theses, but rather ‘a brief inquiry’ and ‘notes’. It’s obviously the ancient yet *hip* thing to do in capital-P Philosophy, to put out your statement on aesthetics and ethics, and I think The 1975 are playing with that tradition and its failure. You can imagine if his attention span were different, Matty Healy would’ve already written a PhD thesis on this stuff and published it as drunken bulletins on LiveJournal in 2007. As it stands, we have the smorgasbord sprawl of this eclectic record to get through in this cursèd year of 2020 — it’s not like we have much of anything better to do right now, when everything feels so futile, beyond reason and even the greatest human endeavour. Haha, woo, Yeah :’(((.

> Let’s stay in that conditional space between crying and laughter. Conditional form is interesting as a term, often used in grammar to refer to the ‘unreal past’ because it uses a past tense but does not actually refer to something that literally happened in the past: If I had texted him back, we would probably have gone to the gig that night. There’s something about the conditional as the ur-condition of the internet, the proliferating possibilities it offers and the hauntological strains of what could have been had we chosen x option over y, z, a, b, c, infinity...As millennials, we often make decisions by hedging, always caught in the conditional state of what it is to be. Hovering in the emotional shortcuts provided by dumb yellow icons, the poetics of abstraction. A verb form’s dalliance with uncertain reverb; and so we live our conditional lives.

> To push this further, we can say the internet is, as ever, Matty Healy’s natural habitat. In a recent podcast interview with Conor Oberst for The Face, Healy tells his favourite emo-country hero that ‘my natural environment by the time I started The 1975 was the fucking internet’. So how does that ecosystem play into the music? In a damning review for The Line of Best Fit, Claire Biddles concludes:

The 1975’s first three albums are ideal and distinct worlds to inhabit, each individually cohesive but situated in specific contexts — the anticipation of the small town, profundity in the face of vacuous fame, and the horror and isolation of late capitalism. Perhaps because of its broken genesis, Notes has no such common context, and ends up feeling flat, directionless and inessential, where its forebears felt vital, worthy of devoting a life to. For a band with proven dexterity in deftly capturing the nuances and quick changes of contemporary conversation, it is disheartening to witness them with nearly nothing of note to say.

That description — ‘flat, directionless and inessential’ — is kind of how I experience the internet right now, in the paradox of Web 2.0 becoming utterly essential, somehow, to how I live my life, how I love, how I am with friends. The internet as my ecosystem, my utility, my complete environment, my Imaginary — beyond the mere utility of a WiFi connection. Broken genesis might well describe the childhoods of those of us who grew up online, whose platforms collapsed around them, whose adolescent data was lost in the great ~accidental annihilation of the MySpace servers, whose identities were always already fractured, performed, anonymised or exquisitely personalised, deferred into only the (im)possible keystroke of utterance and trace, the fort-da play of MSN sign-ins. ‘My life is defined by a desire to be outward followed by a fear of being seen’, Matty says in a new short film for Apple Music, released in tandem with the album. The internet requires this chiaroscuro destiny: not to burn always with Baudelaire’s hard and gem-like flame (O to be an IRL flaneur beyond times of lockdown) but to endlessly flicker between the bright green light of presence and the shade of what once was called afk, away from keyboard. To live and burn in the gap between extroversion and introversion, to live in this conditional state of tendency. To express with emoji, send pics, is to both reveal and withhold something else, essential.

> I like albums to feel like worlds; I appreciate Biddles’ evocation of the cohesion experienced in the first three 1975 records. But perhaps it is a kind of violence to assume a world must have cohesion to exist. What is even meant by ‘common context’? What pressure are we putting on a singer, a band, a cultural moment to produce something familiar and harmonious, and to whom, at what scale? What does it mean to be the biggest band in the world...for a bit? How does that work when everything is dissonance, transience, noise, interference; both this and not-this; when life itself is lived as the flat traversal of a millioning existential terrains that seem to collapse into this nowness in which I feel myself sliding forever? Can anyone weigh-in on what it means to make music, art or writing that’s ‘worthy of devoting a life to’, because the gravity and force of that condition for good art, good pop, seduces me so.

> Maybe the point is to always be in the middle, to never quite start to write about The 1975, to find yourself always already writing about this album because this album was always already writing about your life. I have said nobody does the interlude quite like The 1975, but I was being coy, because the hottest twentieth-century philosophical double act, Deleuze and Guattari (haters gonna hate), do the interlude rather nicely. The point of a rhizome being ‘no beginning or end [...] always in the middle, between things, interbeing, intermezzo’ as they write in A Thousand Plateaus (1980). I see the musical interlude of a pop record, the instrumental moment without lyric, as a kind of middling gesture that places the listener in that conditional state of presence and absence, a hinge between songs, times and narrative moments. Maybe my favourite moment in A Thousand Plateaus is the statement: ‘RHIZOMATICS = POP ANALYSIS, even if the people have other things to do besides read it, even if the blocks of academic culture or pseudoscien-tificity in it are still too painful or ponderous’. Painful or ponderous might be a fair critique levelled at the enfant terrible vibes of Matty’s lyrics and generic pick’n’mix, but isn’t this tactic a kind of swerving punch at the categorical violence that keeps people out of academia, that keeps academic discourse so often stale in the first place? Unlike most journal articles, let’s face it, pop reaches ‘“the people”’. Perhaps Notes on a Conditional Form is the rhizomatic sprawl of the myriad we need as an alternative to institutional hierarchy, ring-fencing and the language games of academia. Surely the title is a reference to the very ‘pseudoscient-tificity’ D&G mention? I’m gonna quote Richard Scott’s blurb to Colin Herd’s 2019 poetry collection, You Name It here (not least because the indie publishers, Dostoyevsky Wannabe, come straight out of Manchester, home to The 1975, and because Herd’s poetic spirit is pure pop generosity with a platter of theory on the side), because I want to say similar things of this album: ‘Colin Herd’s poems are masterpieces of variousness. They are talismans against Macho demons. They are snatches of theory operating under lavish spills of language’. The good thing about Herd’s poetry and Matty Healy’s lyrics is that the impulse towards romantic or florid expression is always tapered by an interest in the mundane and everyday. Healy is always singing about pissing or buying clothes online or, as on ‘The Birthday Party’, singing about ‘a place I’ve been going’ that seems to consist of the lonely, infinite regress of conversations about seeing friends and watching someone drink kombucha while buying, in the convenient life of rhyme, Ed Ruscha prints.

Ed Ruscher, Cold Beer, Beautiful Girls (2009)

> So what kind of listening does this rhizomatic sprawl demand — does it expand beyond the banal or find a holding space there, a heaven of affect chilled to late-modernity’s crisp perfection? ‘The End (Music For Cars)’ is a luxurious, Hollywood ‘soaring’ moment, all strings and swells, fucking woodwind, and comes as the third track on the album, where normally you’d place it as some kind of penultimate climax, the album’s landscape pan-out or big swelling screen kiss in three-dimensional rotation. The band’s ‘Music For Cars’ era comprises their two most recent records, and you have to take it as a nod to Brian Eno’s 1978 ambient classic Ambient 1: Music for Airports (Matty recently interviewed Eno again for The Face, cool). The thing about cars is you drive around in them, you follow rules but also whims and desires, convictions; you choose to join others or you pursue the selfish acceleration (‘People are afraid to merge on freeways in Los Angeles’ goes the laconic teenage refrain in Bret Easton Ellis’ 1985 debut novel Less Than Zero). You only listen to music half-attentively; you don’t listen close enough to trade in souls. Are we being invited to experience this album as an ambient disruption of figure and ground, presence and absence, here and there, space and place, intimacy and despondency? Driving feels increasingly ‘directionless and inessential’ when the scale effects and obscenities of the anthropocene, of covid and other late-capitalist crises loom in our vision, when the sign systems we used to navigate our lives by seem to shimmer out of focus, or pixelate and deteriorate through endless memetic replication... You can’t help feel like Biddles review kind of misses the point.

Sylvano Bussoti, Five Pieces for Piano for David Tudor (1959)

> What point would that be though, in a world of rhizomatic overlap and intersecting, middling lines, a direction without seeming end? I love the approximation at work when Biddles writes, ‘with nearly nothing of note to say’, because that seems to be a possibility condition for writing in the age of the internet. To write in a way that is almost less than zero and loop back upon some kind of infinity, yet keep it in 2-step. I think back to Rachel Zucker’s image of the half-finished crumbling stairwell, and feel an amiable sense of approval towards this band who always work between the registers of diary, confession, advertising, provocative sloganeering and faux-didactics, never quite settling in to specifically tell you this particular story. It’s all mess, and it’s awful and delicious, I’m sorry. ‘Nothing Revealed / Everything Denied’ is the title of track 13 on the album: that movement between nothing and everything feels like the absolutist, absurdist conditions of ‘truth’ possibility in the Trumpocene/age of so-called ‘post-truth’. ‘Life feels like a lie, I need something to be true’, Healy sings with strained conviction in the song’s opening. But what is at stake in this truth? ‘I never fucked in a car, I was lying’, goes the line, referring back to the dramatic in medias res opening to ‘Love It If We Made It’, notable banger from A Brief Inquiry…: ‘We’re fucking in a car, shooting heroin / Saying controversial things just for the hell of it’. If lying is a pun on telling a mistruth or laying back, practically sexless in a passive state, there’s a deliberate play on apathy, agency and distortion here. It’s something Matty seems snagged on. On ‘I Like America & America Likes Me’ he collapses aesthetic superficiality, capital’s lyric abstraction (‘Oh, what’s a fiver?’) and generalised crisis into this (un)conscious desire for shutdown, expressed in fragmentary bullets of needing-to-know-and-not-know: ‘Is that designer? Is that on fire? Am I a liar? Oh, will this help me lay down?’ And then that impassioned refrain, processed through vocal distortion as if to enact the difficulty in clarity as overcome somehow by the sheer making of noise: ‘Belief and saying something / And saying something / And saying something’. It’s the endless, driving recursion of our lives online, online.

> Back to ‘The End (Music for Cars)’ which really is the middle of the beginning. It’s weird to listen to songs about driving and lying down in the middle of lockdown, drowning in the bloat of social media, on top of our ongoing climate emergency (yeah, remember that, it’s still happening), where high-carbon travel feels like an exhausted, almost impossible concept. A musician complaining about travelling is an age-old subject for a song, but this feels just as much about living in the in-between times of the internet (remember the sweet naivety of the information superhighway) as much as the great Road, for which Kerouac longed as much as Springsteen, Dylan, or Lana Del Rey. Is Matty Healy homesick though? ‘Get somewhere, change my mind, eh / Get somewhere but don’t find it / I don’t find what I’m looking for’. It’s all ‘(out there)’ as the parenthetical refrain goes, but maybe ‘out there’, outside, is the maddening supplement, as Derrida would say, to our lives online, thus revealing their mutual, entwined dependency. Imagine the M6 but tangled up crazily, zanily, like one of those Sylvano Bussoti scores. It’s not like you’re trying to get home, get back, exactly. It’s not like you can just click back on your browser and erase that trace of the touch that enacts it. That’s the weird-ass sensation of being an ecological being: ‘Wherever you go, there you are’, writes Tim Morton in Being Ecological (2018). We’re all pretty alien, even to ourselves.

> If life feels like a lie, as Matty sings, does it matter anymore whether it is or not? Or, to pose the question differently, how do we feel into, attune to something like ‘truth’, a shared reality or feeling? ‘Out there’ is only a state of ellipsis [...] a vine extended, something for the listener, user, consumer and/or human to cling to — or be strangled by. In the aforementioned Apple Music video, Matty takes away the canvas and presents the frame beneath, in a gesture that is comically overwrought with Duchampian pretention around the state and context of the artwork itself. ‘Sometimes I think what is the point of...it’s not my atheism coming out, it’s just my being human coming out’, he muses. The phrase ‘coming out’, with its connotations of closeting, shame and cocoon-like emergence is intriguing here. In a dehumanising, post-internet world of neoliberalism and its attendant microfascisms, its commodification of all kinds of art, its easythink translation of poetry-to-advertising, what would it mean to come out as human after, or better still, in the middle of all this? It’s significant that he trails off after ‘the point of…’, for surely the point itself (of the art?) would be to find yourself here, there, right in the middle of it all. And then in ‘Nothing Revealed / Everything Denied’, it’s like Matty is calling us back from that epistemological and ontological boiling point of knowing and being, like in singing we could go along, we could feel present and ‘true’ again, even with friction and difference. We gotta take hold, cool ourselves down from the rhetoric and into warm emotion, the smell of paint, erotic vibration of bass, in a manner of speaking.

> What if the mode of inquiry were not to investigate but rather to follow the lines of flight, to riff on this world where narrative arcs and chains are replaced by the multiple possibilities of hallucinatory experience, what Deleuze and Guattari call ‘a continuous, self-vibrating region of intensities whose development avoids any orientation toward a culmination point or external end’? To just desire and trace it. This, Scott, is where you come in (and I finally shut up to listen). There is so much more to write about this album, echo for echo, and I feel like I’ve only begun the tracing which was already beginning: I want to know your thoughts on The 1975 and America, on gender and genre, on bodies and football and friendship, on political engagement, those house beats, on the beautiful, sultry appearance of Phoebe (fucking) Bridgers, on sincerity, on the question of ‘What Should I Say’...It’s been playing on my mind that I will never say what I want to, or should, or would say of this album, but this perhaps is what I would otherwise have said. I give you my notes in conditional form.

Read part 2 of our review in Scott Morrison’s response here.

Notes on a Conditional Form is out now and available to order.

Text: Maria Sledmere

Published: 23/6/20

#review #reviews #music reviews #album review #The 1975 #Matty Healy #Maria Sledmere #music criticism #Scott Morrison

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