#it’s hard because I’m trying not to push myself too hard with mono

[pangur-and-grim]

every time I say “starting nooooow I won’t have any major expenses” something HAPPENS! there’s raw sewage backing up from my drains, and apparently the plumbers will need to break the floor and the wall to get to the pipes and fix it.

if the cat stuff hadn’t wiped out my bank account, this would be annoying but manageable. as it is…..I’m going to try to get everything up in the store for Friday.

[crimsonbluemoon]

71 minicat because i have no control over my need for steamy minicat content

Okay, last drabble! Thank you all for sending them in, and for those who didn’t make the timeframe, be on the lookout for next month when I re-open my requests. Probably will be closer to mid-may as I do plan to release the new story the first week of the month. 

This story is part two to this drabble, so read that one first!

Pairing: Minicat Number: 71 Prompt: “Don’t blame it on the alcohol, you tasted like you wanted me.”

Tyler had been patient, had been a fucking saint for the past week ‘giving Mini time’ as his asshole of a friend Brain suggested. Christmas was dull without being able to see Craig, and no contact from him during the lull between holidays sucked worse than getting mono before prom. He tried to suck it up, to pretend that he was doing fine, but it was really hard when everything was pissing him off. Brock kept trying to talk about ‘feelings’, Panda ribbed him for being an oblivious idiot, and Nogla...well he was Nogla. Everything sucked and even the four shots of tequila at Lui’s New Year’s Eve party wasn’t cutting it. 

Because Mini was there, was twenty feet away from him, and they might as well have been in different countries. 

The pain that had reflected in his friend’s eyes when he’d confessed his feelings had honestly stunned Tyler. He had no idea that Mini of all people saw him like that. It wasn’t that Craig never flirted with him; it was because he flirted with everyone with a pulse. Even now, laughing and slinging his arm around Vanoss’s shoulder to kiss his cheek, Craig was charming the whole room. That was just who Mini was. How was Tyler supposed to pick up the signs that Anthony said were clear as day? Sure, Craig always asked to drive to events with him, and holding hands was kinda common between the two. But Mini was just a tactile person, and Tyler-

He just liked to see Mini smile. Like he was doing now, though it pissed him off that none of the grins were aimed toward him. Craig was acting like Tyler wasn’t even there, not looking at him and making sure there were at least ten people between them at all times. As the hours and alcohol passed, the proximity shrank a bit, and yet again Tyler had to bid his time. By the time it was close to midnight, only Delirious and Nogla were between the two. 

And Tyler knew it was time to make his move. 

“You.” Nogla was a wimp and Delirious was scared of his own shadow half the time, which made it easy to push through them and snag Mini by the arm. He felt the muscles tense under his touch, but his irritation and liquid courage were too high for him to really care. “We’re going to talk.” 

“I really need to-” Tyler didn’t listen for the excuse when he pulled them away, weaving around the crowd in Lui’s living room to get to the patio outside. The air was crisp, and he checked the thickness of Mini’s sweatshirt before he closed the door behind them and leaned on it. Craig looked uncomfortable instantly, his hands twitching by his sides before shoving quickly into his pockets. “Look, I’m too drunk for this right now.”

“You’ve had two drinks and a shot, you’re fine,” Tyler snapped out, pulling back his irritation when seeing Mini flinch in response. “I just need some answers.” 

“I don’t know what else I can tell you,” Mini whispered, looking defeated in his stance.  

“Was it the truth?” Tyler watched Mini’s eyes round in shock, though a fire blazed with anger quickly took over his gaze. 

“Are you kidding me? Why would I-who makes up something like that? What am I, Nogla?” 

“Why do you always bring up Nogla?” 

“Because he normally fits well when I’m comparing stupid things! Why do you have a problem with Nogla? This is just like at the party-”

“When you claimed you liked me, but you said you’d kiss him?” Tyler asked, instantly regretting his lack of impulse control when Mini stopped talking. Too far to go back, Tyler pressed forward with his grumble. “If you liked me, you would have kissed me that night.”

“That’s what you’re stuck on? That I poured my heart out to you, made a fool of myself to you, ruined everything between us for you, but said that I’d kiss Nogla?!” Tyler’s scowl twitched at Mini’s questions, but he didn’t respond. No answer seemed to be the wrong answer, and Craig stared at him in disbelief before blowing out a puff of hot breath. “Fine!”

“Fine what-” Tyler’s shoulders hit into the firm surface he leaned against when Craig shoved them, a firm weight pressed against his chest. 

Before he could blink, Mini’s mouth was on him, kissing him hard enough to knock his head against the door. He could taste the mint of the drink Luke had made for Craig on his tongue when Craig deepened the kiss. His eyes stayed open for a moment, taking in the flush of Mini’s cheeks and the bittersweet emotion he could feel overlapping their connection. Then Tyler was closing his eyes, sliding his hands over the back of Mini’s arms and pull him closer and respond. He felt the moment Craig picked up on the change, mouth trying to pull away as if burned. But Tyler growled in warning, refusing the let the exchange end until he put his own feelings into the mix. His teeth snagged Mini’s lip between them, dragging him back into the kiss before soothing the bruised skin with his tongue. The arms he held trembled as Craig gasped, his open mouth allowing Tyler to slip in and claim it as his own. The cold from before was gone, his body boiling from the battle of their lips and the pressure of Mini’s body against his own. He was pinned between it and the door; yet he felt like the one keeping Craig captive when he finally pulled back from the kiss, feeling Mini nearly fall into him. Heavy breathing joined the music from the party inside, the two staying silent for a minute. Tyler felt Craig tense against him, trying to pull away despite the firm grip Tyler still had on the back of his arms. 

“Oh fuck.” Mini press his hand to his mouth, panic and pain rushing through his feature even as he laughed. “Wow, I really am drunk. So drunk. Very very drunk as a skunk-”

“Don’t you dare blame it on the alcohol,” Tyler growled out, making sure he made his point clear by pulling Mini back into him. He was pleased when Craig didn’t fight the touch, even as the confusion peppered his face. “You tasted like you wanted me.”  

“Of course I do, idiot. I like you, I already said I liked you.” Craig looked annoyed that he had to confess it again, but Tyler would take that over sad any day. “But that doesn’t mean I get to throw myself at you when you didn’t even say you-”

“What did I tell you at the last party?” Tyler interrupted, knowing he wouldn’t get an answer when Craig glanced away from him. “I said I don’t just go around kissing everyone. If I didn’t want to be here with you, then I wouldn’t have searched you out and dragged you out here to talk.”

“Well obviously you wanted to fix things. You thought I was mad at you.”

“Marcel’s been pissed at me for a month before and I didn’t give a shit!” Tyler replied, and both knew it was true. Tyler said what he wanted to say and rarely worried about how it made others feel unless he truly had crossed a line. Sighing and leaning his head back against the door, Tyler stared up at the cloudy sky above and continued. “But this past week’s been fucking miserable, and all I’ve wanted to do was talk to you.”

“We didn’t really do a lot of talking here, either.” Mini’s stupid joke made Tyler grin and groan at the same time, though he enjoyed the feeling of Craig’s head hesitantly leaning against his shoulder. Mini felt tired in his arms; Tyler could pick up on the fatigue without words. How much sleep did he also lose over this? How many times had his mind dragged him into negative spaces and vicious thoughts? Hating that he’d let this linger for a week, Tyler pulled his attention back down to Mini, letting go of one of his arms. Slowly, he slipped his thumb under Craig’s glasses, tracing the black markings of exhaustion laying under his eye. 

“If you hadn’t run off that night, we could have avoided all of this.” 

“Yeah, probably,” Craig admitted with a sigh, eyes not opening despite Tyler’s soft touch. “But put yourself in my shoes; if you were going to lose your best friend because you liked him, would you have been buying front row seats to that shitshow?”

“I might have tried to show him what he’d be walking away from if he didn’t get his head out of his ass and really look at me,” Tyler muttered, hating that the words were pretty close to what Brian had said to him the following day. His thumb found its way down Craig’s cheek, brushing the edge of the lips that quirked into a pained smile. 

“I don’t want to lose you, but...I don’t think I can really pretend I’m okay with seeing you with other people. Which is dumb, I know-”

“Shut up, Mini. I just got a buzz off the alcohol in your mouth from kissing you so hard; you think I’m interested in anyone else?” His palm moved to his jaw when Mini pulled his head up in confusion, making Tyler scoff. “You really must be drunk if I have to spell this shit out for you. I was pissed at the party because I had to kiss everyone but you. And I didn’t really realized that’s what I fucking wanted until you were high tailing out of the parking lot like Vin Diesel. Put it together, idiot.” 

“Wait, you like me, too? You’re not just like, really shitfaced or something?” 

“You’ve seen me drunk, am I the cuddly type?” 

“No, you’re the ‘fight frat boys when naked cause they called my friends slurs’ type.” 

“Half-naked. And see if I ever defend your shitty honor again.” He was never going to live that down, no matter how many times he swore off scorpion bowls. Craig’s smile, for the first time all night, bloomed with actual happiness at Tyler’s blush. It was as annoying as it was relieving, and Tyler didn’t pull away despite the slight pinch to his cheek. 

“I guess you’re not drunk since you’re still fully clothed. Shame.” Mini’s laugh made Tyler roll his eyes, but he didn’t pull away from the soft kiss pressed to his lips and words murmured against them afterwards. “So we’re really doing this?” 

“For some reason,” Tyler said, ignoring the skip of his heart when Mini jumped onto him. Quickly his arms grabbed under Craig’s thighs, securing him from taking them both down before he yelled. “What the fuck-”

“I’m really happy, Tyler.” Mini’s words against his ear stopped his snark, forcing Tyler to sigh and lean back against the door. He didn’t speak, letting himself stay warm in Mini’s arms. 

He was never going to tell Brian that patience paid off, but mentally, he was really happy he listened to the asshole.

[channelmono]

ANNOUNCEMENT! HIATUS AND EXCITING NEW PLANS

Greetings from the moon, my friends! If you haven’t already watched my last video, I’ll be going on break again from daily content (this is an important distinction), this time for an unknown length of time. Don’t worry, regular daily content WILL resume at some point, and I already have many plans of stuff I wanna work on ready to go! But I’ve realized: I need a break really badly, for a few reasons.

Let’s start with the logistics: filming has been an increasingly uphill battle. I’ve been doing this for a little over a year now, and in the process, I’ve continuously strived for improvement, both to make things more fun for you, the audience, and also to freshen things up and keep things fun for myself. Better editing, better filmmaking equipment, more costumes, more props, more intricate video ideas, and just generally trying to up my quality in all regards.

Recently, however, I feel like I’ve reached a peak where the quality of my work has started to negatively impact the enjoyment of it to a substantial degree. I can persevere through the hard work because I enjoy it, but something they don’t always tell you is that “hard work” is a constantly-changing standard that you must re-evaluate for yourself on a regular basis. What is a good day’s worth of work to you? Are the standards you put on yourself too much for any given time? Are you TOO hard on yourself?

As of the last few weeks as I was filming this continuous narrative arc, for the first time, I felt myself burning out because I was giving myself increasing workload to a standard of daily releases that was not made for it. I wish I was able to bring myself to gain more actual footage of my conversation with the moon in [Contact], but I couldn’t as I became so drained of creativity that I couldn’t figure out how to visually film that, and was just exhausted by previous filming sessions (it’s been really hot lately, and that kimono outfit is surprisingly really hard to get into, lol).

Speaking of difficulties in visually filming things, I’ve also struggled in resources and budget. As you could imagine, pandemic life has made it significantly slower to get better filmmaking equipment, more costumes, more props, and thus film more intricate videos, and also my ability to afford them has gone down dramatically. Finding work is also a pain, so I don’t exactly have as much financial freedom here.

Here’s a couple hard truths about what I do that I had to take into consideration: 1) filming content regularly in a way that’s fresh, exciting, continuously-improving is a monetarily expensive pursuit. 2) In this year-plus that I’ve been doing this project, it has NEVER been anywhere close to profitable. While I have a Patreon and Redbubble, they are very low-activity and I only make couple dozen bucks per month, which further decreases my options (I also can’t monetize my Youtube uploads, not that they get much viewership there anyway haha). I do this channel out of love and entertainment, but even I have a certain limit within realism that I have to work within.

So, what’s the plan for now?

Well, good news! While I will be holding back on mentally/financially intensive works for now, I will still be pursuing other projects aligned with NO SIGNAL STUDIO, and providing much-needed foundation for Channel Mono when it relaunches!

Within the next week, we plan to at long last have the NSS site up (we got the “nosignal.studio” domain!) to host our work, including Channel Mono. This will not only link our content onto an easily-accessible hub more sophisticated than linktr.ee, it will also also act as a blog/news outlet so we can make long announcement/update posts rather than crammed social media posts like these.

In addition, I’m pushing for more Patreon incentives, including a new set of perks I’m excited to try: CUSTOM MONO VIDS!

Starting from $25, you can send me a script every month for a short, simple video (dialogue skits, personal messages, video threats, etc.), and I’ll record it for you! There will be further tiers for additional complex features (different costumes, increased length, elaborate post-production, etc.), and depending on how it goes, I may pursue this even more!

I’ll also be opening more patron goals. Once I get past a certain budget threshold, I plan on holding monthly polls to decide what new outfits to get. Fun!

As for the future, the general trajectory for daily content will be more of a return to lower maintenance, less narrative-based skits, refreshing my work ethic and hopefully being less strenuous for me. I want to hit the ground running, but I don’t wanna quickly exhaust myself again haha.

This is only a respite for now. Once I recuperate and get my other endeavors finished, I should be returning to daily content soon. Thank you for understanding, my lovely monitors! 🖤🖤🖤

[inventors-fair]

Weird Commentary: Thanks

I would call this one of our most successful contests. Not every card was a gold standard, not every card made me squeal with glee, but every single one had love, thought, and heart put into them. I’m even more impressed with the fact that over 2/3 of contestants actually made their own art! As a not-artist myself, I understand how challenging that can be sometimes. I’m just having a moment where I’m proud of everyone.

Also, for this commentary, I’m trying something a little different. Tell me if you like it!

@3smuth​ — Burrow-Wing Amalgam

What I like: Besides the gorgeous art (look at the curve of the moon behind the wing!), the wording is great, and the abilities are well-rounded for an uncommon. I like how the flavor text builds up the “character” of the creature, making it seem more alive, and tying in to the abilities as well. That’s hard to do!

What we can improve: I find that the first ability giving it two mono-black abilities a little jarring. There are only two BG fliers in black-border canon, and that’s not to say that this couldn’t be added to that list, but it’s mildly off-putting; I kept thinking that this could be an Abzan card, maybe with G/W hybrid in the cost? But that’s entirely dependent on the environment. It’s hard to visualize one in which BG has an uncommon pseudo-flying beater, but it’s not to say that it’s impossible — just a hard sell.

Allison — Salheim, The Twisted Storm

What I like: This feels like a fun commander who would also be good in draft. A cheap body means that your spells can be small bodies that return at the start and huge potential bodies later. I like how it limits it to the first spell, so you can’t go infinite for less than ten mana with some other combo pieces. Honestly, this is a fantastic mechanical card.

What we can improve: There are a few grammatical mistakes to clean up, small pieces of Magic wording. “The” in the name should be lowercase, as should “Blue” and “Red” in the text box. “spells” should have a possessive apostrophe, and “it’s” shouldn’t. Don’t forget a period at the end before the quotation mark! I would also shorten the trigger: “...you may pay (X) [symbol], where X is that spell’s converted mana cost.”

@ceta-maelstrom​ — Camouflage Krasis

What I like: “Cat fish” is an awesome creature combo! Your art brings that across really well. With the new-ish arrival of Cat tribal and the rise in the creature type, I think that this is a welcome addition. I like the hexproof clause. It gives it a flavor of “as long as I’m small, I can’t be seen.”

What we can improve: Metamorph is a little hard to parse. Because of the “if” in the middle breaking up the sentence, I thought “it” referred to the creature entering the battlefield, and that that creature would get two counters. My mistake. Hm, how to reword it... “Whenever another nontoken creature enters the battlefield under your control, put two +1/+1 counters on this creature if it has no +1/+1 counters on it.” No, that’s a little awkward too... There can be a little more clarity. I think the mechanic is worth playing around with.

@dancepatternalpha​ — The Rat King

What I like: Simple, easy to understand, cool synergistic potential. I think this would be a fun build-around-me card. You mentioned something about Innistrad not having a rat king; would you believe they had one mechanically, in the form of Dark Imposter? I actually thought it was potential inspiration, different flavor.

What we can improve: Like Dark Imposter, I believe that the “all activated abilities” should be a separate line. When it comes to that, the similarities are a little stark, but I think the King distinguishes itself from the Imposter by its legendary status and the fact that it exiles your own creatures. I’m not getting a strong sense of either “ooze” or “construct,” though. “Ooze,” I would honestly just take off altogether. “Construct,” in Magic history, implies an artifact creature, something built by something else, and I’m not getting a sense of that either. “Noble” might be fun, if a little on the nose.

@dimestoretajic​ — Cryptizub, Steel Abomination

What I like: It’s certainly a limited beater, something that reminds me of Scuttling Doom Engine from back in the day. It can be incredibly powerful in the late game and can fit into any slot. Oof, give it lifelink? And you’re in good shape.

What we can improve: The first thing I got from this card that’s iffy is the name; it sounds like a legendary creature. “Steel Abomination” would be just fine. For the activated ability, I believe going off of Banshee’s oracle text, that you need to say “~ damage equal to its power to target creature, and damage equal to its power to you.” Not an absolute, but it’s one possibility. Don’t forget to italicize Threshold. The flavor text is a little on the nose. I would either shorten it or just leave it off. The card carries a world by itself as a magic beatstick.

@gollumni​ — Severed Stone-Seer

What I like: This is a card that would definitely get you a-head of the curve!..... Ahem. I think this card successfully fits into the world of Theros, with a little jank. The flavor text is really great. It’s a powerful card with a big butt. I can imagine this taking over games of limited quite easily.

What we can improve: Five toughness might be too powerful. A 3-mana 2/4 with deathtouch is pretty nasty as-is; at five toughness, stuff becomes a lot harder to remove. As much as I do like what you wrote here, I’m still having trouble fitting “Gorgon Hydra” into my mind as something reasonable, considering that the two have such distinct qualities already. “Gorgon Head” could be fine, maybe even “Hydra Head.” Both have great mythological flavor. Small note that I’m unsure of: would it be “create a token copy of” or “create a token that’s a copy of”?

@grornt​ — Carnivorous Multitusker

What I like: Yup, that’s a mutant boar hydra all right! It’s big, it’s bad, it’s green, it takes over games, and it’s a great bomb. This feels like a quintessential green creature right here, with the exception of the weird types. Maybe the Simic and the Gruul could come together to make something like this, yeah? I’d love to open this in a pack and/or add it to a starter deck. Wish it was powerful enough for Standard. Maybe it is, who knows? I like how your added aspects of both boars and hydras from Magic’s past.

What we can improve: This is a pedantic point, but I’d like to see “Mutant” at the end rather than the beginning. Aside from that, I think the flavor text, smirk-worthy as it is, doesn’t really add to the card or to the world. I’d rather see something like on Protean Hulk, a little more expanse. 

@i-am-the-one-who-wololoes​ — Apex of Evolution

What I like: Wow, you really went all-out with the creature types, huh? I think that you used the mechanics pretty well to get the feeling of “a creature that grows from your experience and also eats other creatures to gain their strength.” It’s a build-around-me card that’s fun if you can beef it up.

What we can improve: Firstly, the flavor text pushes the card from “wordy” into “too much.” I love adding it where needed, but with this much text, and with this strong a mechanical focus, you don’t really need it. I feel that in this instance especially it doesn’t add anything that the card doesn’t already have. For the second ability, it should be a full if-clause: “If a creature dealt damage by ~ would die, exile it instead.” And the game already knows that those cards are imprinted “with it” so you don’t need to add that. For the last ability... That’s way too many clauses. “Apex of Evolution has all abilities of cards exiled with it.” It does add some baggage, yes, but most creatures won’t have those negative effects, and, well, that’s a risk of combat to take. This creature already makes combat complicated.

@ignorantturtlegaming​ — Fabled Fox

What I like: Cool art, and cool combo! I think that two creature types works well here; it’s a Fox, and it’s a Dragon, and that’s that. This seems like a card that, when it hits, can really get you ahead in a game. I like how the last ability implies a world with Fox tribal; that’s grokable.

What we can improve: There are a few things that this card has that it doesn’t necessarily need. The mana cost has no reason not to be 3WRG; why the doubling-up? I don’t really understand the blue restriction. Is this card a bomb, or a hate-card? I don’t feel that it needs to be both. In the Cycling part, don’t forget to add the cycling cost inside the reminder text and add a colon. I believe the last ability could be — and be mindful of the punctuation — “When you cycle ~, you may search your library for a Fox or Dragon card, reveal that card, put it into your hand, then shuffle your library.” See Krosan Tusker. Small note: I believe the way that abilities go, it should be worded “Flying, lifelink, haste” in that order.

@industrialsalad​ — The Origin of Oddities

What I like: I find it a little hard to take seriously, but you went ham with the types here, and I love reading “Elder Vampire Sponge.” It’s an interesting take on fossils as a concept. I think that with the advent of ability word counters, this card could be a fun little build-around me. I also like how it can steal counters from your opponents’ permanents!

What we can improve: This card does not feel legendary. I understand that it’s “the origin,” but I mean more in terms of how Magic’s other legends feel, what this card brings to that set of established unspoken rules. Maybe some flavor text could have amended that, and it could definitely explain the Vampire type, which feels distinctly out of place, especially for a colorless artifact. Small grammatical notes: “Oddities’s” doesn’t need “’s,” and it should be “fewer than five” spelled out. 

@ishouldgetatumbler​ — Ash, Hydromorph Shaman

What I like: This is a distinct Simic feel! An elf shaman who becomes a hydra, who morphs themself into a mutant. Very nice. This is indeed a powerful card, and I think this is one of those legends that would be great in limited and in the other 99 in a commander deck. Or you could build around putting it into your hand! Fun stuff!

What we could improve: Not a lot to make better here. Firstly, though, this could be a rare in this day and age. It only brings it to hand, and you need to commit a fair amount for it to matter heavily. Small grammar notes: “counters on it” for the first ability, “its power” instead of “its,” and...that’s about it! Save it for a cube!

@jsands84​ — Dandylion

What I like: This was really close to being a runner-up. I love the types and how they come together, the use of a powerful hybrid card and the pushing of it to uncommon without it feeling OP, the use of spore counters, the aggressive P/T for limited, and man, there’s flavor in the fact that it doesn’t fog itself. It’s like, Everyone has allergies except for me! It’s super cool. Shoutout to @iguanamouth​.

What we can improve: Small notes. I think the name is a little cutesy for Magi, but that’s not a biggie, more of a personal quirk. I feel that “Cat Plant” parses better than “Plant Cat,” and maybe there’s alphabetical justification, idk. “Three” should be spelled out instead of “3.” I’d love to see flavor text here, just a line or so. Other than that, radical cat-ical!

@lyxine​ — Ahrizhel, the Wanderer

What I like: Now that’s a combo! It’s a bomb in limited to be sure, a great token-maker and legend to be reckoned with. I’ve always been a fan of Lure effects in green, even if they don’t always work out for me. Giving it to any creature you want is pretty neat.

What we can improve: My main concern is green fliers. I know that for dragons it’s an okay bend, but making more fliers as well? I think that’s too much of a bend; Hornet Queen is almost a break as-is, despite the massive cost. And the fact that this one can create 4-5 of them the turn after it hits the battlefield? That by itself is far too powerful. I would unfortunately call this one a break. Wording notes: “deathtouch” shouldn’t be capitalized, and there should be commas after the green mana symbols. The flavor text could use a little pizzaz, some more specific poetic words.

@mistershinyobject​ — Ludevic’s Familiar

What I like: That is indeed a weird zombie dog. The unique mechanical approach you took here is fascinating and experimental. It’s strange enough to warrant questions if it’s playable in certain formats. Modern Dog Mayhem? Hey, who knows. 

What we can improve: This is a weird targeting system, and I don’t know if it’s in the good way. The fact that you can pay BB for a redirect effect is potentially a break, but it makes sense otherwise. (B)(U/R) could have worked, perhaps? I’m not entirely sure why the hybrid was chosen in this way here. It’s probably for the best, honestly, but it’s still a little iffy for me. I like the flavor text in a memetic way, but a) I don’t think I can see Ludevic saying this and b) it really toes the line. I think it would be best not to have it, or to have more wordplay and not a quote. I would also put the types as “Dog Zombie Weird” personally, but there’s probably not precedent for it.

@nine-effing-hells​ — Chalkyri Resplendent

What I like: Bonus points for having me learn a new word and new creature type. I had no idea the name was an actual thing! It’s useful for getting something like this, I suppose, and you did an amazing job with the art and flavor text. This does indeed seem like an awesome angel serpent thing.

What we can improve: My main concern is giving the permanents hexproof. It works for white, but not RW multicolor, in my opinions. Seems a little too powerful, despite the flavor work-in. I’m 65% sure the wording should be “it’s not your turn” instead of “it isn’t your turn,” but don’t quote me on that. See oracle text on Angry Mob. Aside from that, this is a fine beat-worthy beast.

@real-aspen-hours​ — Octothreat

What I like: Octopuses and spiders go hand in hand in hand in — etc. This is a huge limited card that reminds me of Pelakka Wurm from Rise of the Eldrazi when it first came out: big beefy boy. I think that it would be an interesting card for sealed, a huge blowout, and a great body. Very powerful card. Oh man, blinking it? Lordy.

What we can improve: Most of what we can improve are minute wording things for presentation. Keep in mind that if you do a text submission, your wording is copied exactly. The types should be capitalized, there doesn’t need to be a period after “Trample,” and there should be a period at the end of “step.” Mechanically, the text should say “up to eight target creatures.”

@shakeszx — Wyrveplasm

What I like: A big oozy boy! This feels appropriately like a drake and appropriately like an ooze. It’s a complicated card that works just as well on its own as it would in a deck centered around it. And I think that mythic is the right choice here, honestly. This thing can run away with games.

What we can improve: ...except for the death loop. If it had no counters on it when it dies, then it creates a 0/0 who dies and creates a 0/0, ad infinitum. Infinite death triggers on a single card, well, that’s a no-no. So how do we fix it? Change the last ability: “When ~ dies, if it had any +1/+1 counters on it, create a token that’s a copy of it, except that token’s base power and toughness are equal to the number of +1/+1 counters on ~ when it died.” ... Okay, it’s not perfect, but the token wording is right and the “base” is there. Modern Magic, woo.

@snugz​ — Chronocular Bivalve

What I like: Chronocular is a brilliant word. This card was super close to being a runner-up/winner as well. This is a control card for limited to the max. It’s powerful, it’s super complicated, and it exists in a world of theoretical phasing that’s, well — I might not want to play in it, but I know people that would. Super cool.

What we can improve: Not much to improve here. “Non” shouldn’t be capitalized, and I’m not entirely sure what the point of that second ability is, but that’s just about it. Sorry there’s not a lot to say here, but you did a fine job and the card speaks for itself.

@starch255​ — Roving Squidtaur

What I like: It’s strong! It’s tentacled! It’s...got nipples? Squipples? Right, before I get any more sexually confused, let’s talk about the card. This is a world of sentient half-squid monstrosities. And I kind of love it. I think that mechanically you did some really neat things with this card. You included all aspects of the colors together, and they make for a three-colored beater that’s just plain good in the formats it would see play in.

What we can improve: I’m super bugged by vigilance in a way I shouldn’t be. Yes, I know it’s green, but it just feels...off?? Like, why is a berserker vigilant? I always got the impression that they would be more tramply, that they wouldn’t be as keen-eyed or direct. But that’s just me being weird. There’s nothing “””wrong””” with it. This one could definitely 10/10 have used some flavor text, though. I want to know more about this roving squid-person!

@tmstage​ — Bandicooze

What I like: Whoa! Yep, that’s a five-mana 3/3, but it’s a fine limited beater for its cost. Instant counters in the right deck and it’s good to go! I’ve only tangentially been connected with Crash games, but I get exactly how you tied it together nicely. This card just makes me smile.

What we can improve: I might make it a 4/3, or give it trample or haste or something. Aside from that... It’s a meme, and memes get what they deserve: a nice chuckle.

@whuh-oh​ — Arctic Narwhuck

What I like: The simple two-type “Whale Bird” aspect fits pretty well here. Other people did a diving/burrowing theme, and I think yours works well here. Four mana for a 3/2 flier with potential upside is pretty great in limited for an uncommon!

What we can improve: Islandwalk and landwalk in general hasn’t been in the game for a while, and I don’t know if this card needs that throwback. I get how it works flavorfully, and I like that part a lot. It’s just that modern sensibilities would let it just have hexproof. See Canopy Dragon’s oracle text as well; I think it gains things before it loses things. The flavor text is fine, but very vague, and doesn’t necessarily add to the card.

@woman-of-the-fen​ — Goldenhump Camelsaurus

What I like: Naya dinosaurs are always welcome! I also like the way you tied camels and deserts together to make a hybrid. The ape and rampage go together, I assume, and you conveyed that well in the art. 

What can be improved: Rampage, well, hasn’t been around for a while, just like landwalk, and for good reason. It’s simply not a great mechanic. I can see it working as a one-off in a Horizons set, but it’s still not the aspect I would have chosen. The first ability creates an infinite loop that lasts until the Camelsaurus dies; you fight, get dealt damage, then fight again, etc. Give it indestructible and it’s a boardwipe. Wait, and it creates an infinite loop; if it survives, then it’s forced to target itself. “Enrage — Whenever ~ is dealt damage, you may have it fight target creature you don’t control.” Still doesn’t fix the board-wipe issue. Might need to take this one back to the drawing board. For the flavor text, don’t forget that if you’re quoting someone, their name belongs on a separate line.

@wpandp​ — Apaprik Muster

What I like: Gosh darnit. Deviled eggs. C’mon man... I do love it, though. I like the concept of an egg filled with demonic creatures, imps and whatnot. It’s a scary thought! I like how you played around with mutate here. I personally don’t like mutate as a mechanic, but it’s not a huge issue. You used it well.

What can be improved: I’m still a little uncertain as to what world this card is inhabiting and what the name is implying. Why are devils and demons mutating? Why is “Muster,” an abstract noun, being used as the naming convention for an egg? Why does it have the food ability? I mean, I know, it’s all part of the play that this card is making, but it doesn’t really make mechanical sense.

~

Thank you all for your entries! Get ready to make cards for tomorrow.

[gra-sonas]

1"Let's do Alex proud" That is such a sweet sentiment and I love you for being a voice of positivity. Full disclosure, I ship Malex HARD, they are cosmic, written in the stars soulmates and are heads over heels IN LOVE with each other! But I reblogged some forlex posts too. S2 brought me to angry tears more than once, and yes I did initially support Forrest out of spite, but you're right in saying he did make Alex smile in times we needed him to smile the most and he grew on me because of that.

2I will say that if the writers didn't write Michael so inconsistently in S2 vs S1, I might not be supporting F at all. S2 Michael was almost unrecognizable just bec they wanted to push the agenda w/ M and it hurt his character. It hurt the fans too so I guess that's why some are lashing out a bit, esp since he never officially apologized. You're right in saying reading spite fics help too & for some it might be just that. For me though, I still love Michael and I want Malex to work at their

3 their relationship together. I like Forrest, and how he makes Alex smile, and I don't want him to get hurt but for me at my core I want Michael to look at forlex, realize he might actually lose Alex and step up to be the man Alex deserves. Alex has made his stand clear, it's time for Michael to meet him in the middle. Malex has hurt each other sure but there isn't a doubt in my mind how deeply they love each other and we've already seen them heal their relatuonship together. As awful as I may

4 sound to Forrest, that's the part I hope he plays. And if he makes Alex happy while he's at it then all the more power to him bec our Capt. deserves to know he is amazing and loved. I just want Michael to apologize and woo Alex and sweep him off his feet like we all know he wants to!! This got away from me, anyway a little spite may be helpful to some but hate, esp in the tags, is not cool. I don't know what the anon was referring to but maybe the post they saw was not rly hate but more of

5spite to help them process feelings? I understand he was giving way to Forrest bec he thinks it'll make Alex happy, but I was disappointed Michael walked away. I read fics but some may cope diff.  If it's too harsh ppl should tag properly tho & posts shld be valid not just bec you want to fluff a character up. W/ever you ship, I can assume we all love Alex Manes. Can we pls not fight? Most forlex shippers are malex shippers too and some are creators, I just don't want to alienate (ha) anyone.

I know it was a corny thing to say, but I genuinely meant it. IDK, I’m honestly just so tired? After the first hiatus from hell, S2 was such a miserable experience for me personally (as an outright Alex fan and mono Malex shipper, it was a pretty sad and kinda wasted season), and the current situation is the very situation I’ve been worried about all season:

Another unusually long hiatus, another triangle, and the potential for new shipping “wars” (I say potential, I hope it won’t come to that). With happy Forlex shippers on the one side, maybe “rubbing it in” a little on occasion how “unproblematic” and “healthy” their ship is, on the other side somewhat “smug” Malex shippers who can be 99.9% sure that Forlex in canon likely won’t last past S3.

I’m not saying this is what's currently happening in fandom, I just worry that things could turn “ugly” real fast if we don’t pay attention. And I’d hate that, for all of us. The last hiatus fractured the fandom in ways I haven’t seen in all my years in fandom before. All I want is to avoid for that to happen again.

Especially since it seems that ultimately many of us share a common goal: we want to see Alex happy. I also think that there are still a lot of fans who want Michael to get his shit together, and in the long run, be the guy who makes Alex happy.

I’m not saying people should forget about what Michael said or how he behaved in S2, nor that no one should ever say negative things about him or any of the characters. Far from it (I’m not the fandom police, in fact no one is the fandom police, I’m only speaking for myself here).

All I’m asking (I’m begging, really), is for a little more kindness and awareness all around, a little more “meeting in the middle”, and for all of us to try “not keeping score”. I hope we can all have a good hiatus!

❤️ 

[hmel78]

In conversation with Anthony Phillips ...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

HR - Did you teach, at some point?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

AP - [laughs] Yes …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

HR - What’s your favorite instrument?

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

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

AP - Aww thanks …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

HR - Would you re-record it, now?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[wammys-house-a]

Page CXXI  ⎯  Secrets

Awoke 5:49  ⎯  Late again.

  Another promise to myself broken

 The room is faded in dawn's bleaching white radiance.

  Spring's heat raises from the folds of my sheets, the collar of my shirt, sweat trickles down my spine as I breath slow, shallow. 

   Luminated dust meets my slumber-drunk vision, floating on my breath, flickering like earth bound stars, like sparkling embers from dragon maws, burning through my dreams.

 ⎯  The illusion is still on my fingertips...

   But slipping away like sand though a glass, 

  In my dreams,

   our home was lit by an unseen power. 

   The walls unmarred by the feeds of electric lines, without outlets, the lamps glowed on golden perches like pygmy suns. I had not believed B, when he said it was the result of a tsuki-mono, a curse passed down through  b l o o d l i n e s...

   But when he held one of the glowing orbs in his hands and I looked into the ivory light, I saw there was nothing there to keep it alive... 

At the heart of this structure, the source of it’s power.

      ⎯   Beneath the house, a secret .

  Ecclesiastical fenestrations cast prismic light into the scaffold ribs like captive rainbows but could not penetrate the underbelly, where stone walls wept ⎯ windowless, their long alleys, narrowed like spires until they converged to a single door  . . .

           Behind it,    truth.  

  B led me down, down into the quiet core where the tear drop lanterns grew dim and died in the night held hostage in our home’s roots. We groped along the walls together, blind but emboldened by the other’s company until he found   it  and pushed open the door.

   Within ⎯  a curtain of light bleed inexplicably from the basement ceiling, like daylight piercing a forest canopy. 

  Resting beneath it’s glimmering veil was a long, polished  b o x  perched on spiraling iron legs that penetrated the concrete floor like the roots of Methuselah. 

    ⎯    Richly veined, it’s scarlet mahogany surface was like that of the floorboards in the halls above, making the  c o f f i n  both familiar and as disquietingly foreign as friend that one has not seen in many years.

    As I drew up to it’s side, my perspective shifted as though I was sinking imperceptibly into the ground, until my line of sight was even with the base of the smooth varnished lip. 

I was suddenly small... Like a child.

    I pressed my weight onto my toes and reaching out blindly, my fingers meeting the chilly facade of the closed lid.

   Dust or static created a strange, phantom-velvet texture, overlaying the polished surface beneath my touch. 

Then, I glided them down,   d o w n

  until my fingers met an indentation . . .

      ⎯  The edges sharp as engraved stone.

  Foreboding grew as I followed the carved line, it enlarging, 

  e l o n g a t i n g , 

            the size of it traced beneath my fingers,  a trail that for an instant I thought might stretch all the way to the foot to crease down it’s throat  ⎯       

           But then ...  I felt it curve ,    slope .

    It was an answer waiting.

         What   l e t t e r   was cut  into the wood⎯ ?

   Startling awake, I opened by eyes to the shimmering sunlight that had penetrated my dreams ... 

 My body, hot and aching with words left unsaid,

       ⎯  " ... I don't want to know . . . "

   ⎯   11:13

   Can I even call what he is doing to me betrayal?

  The desperate hammering of my heart is the same ear filling thump, coming hard against the door as I hid behind it’s brass lock ⎯  Backup’s heel; the buckling, booming rattle of his rage in the background of my agonizing desire to  

just.  

       be.   

                   a l o n e  . . .

                I suppose, I may finally have it. 

This is my fault.    

   In my desperation to delay the end of this game we've spent half our lives playing, I lost sight of my principles. Perhaps, my escalating insincerity and his giftedness, made this ultimately inevitable.

Experience has left me few doubts of his semi-clairvoyance but only now am I considering what his precision implies...

  That there is a fated nature to it all. 

  That I never had a chance.

 It took two ego-bruising weeks, driving my exhaustion bone-deep, before I began to consider that the passion that had sustained me for nearly two decades was fading. My spirit had withered with the effort to reach it more depleting. I began to wonder, if I simply wasn’t good enough to solve this one. 

    Just as despair took hold of me, B's index finger came uninvited over my shoulder and pressed into the screen ⎯ creating a rippling prismatic bulls-eye over one photograph in a sea of over one-hundred-twenty.

 The answer.   The next fatality.

 He handed it to me, without having asked.

 ⎯  Cooperation is forbidden;  it complicates the variables and the validity of the existing hierarchy, it obscures where our loyalties truly lie... 

     I knew it and took it anyway.

      Because I am not who I should be.

   They wouldn’t be questioning him now, if I had not created a trail in retrospect, justifing my  intuition . 

    A thread of truth could be enough to hang me.

   Facing the possibility of losing all that anchors me, I am  on the precipice of a terrible epiphany — choking on the question;  ⎯  " Where does the person I’m trying to be end, and who I am begin ? "  

    I once believed that who I was could be distilled down to it’s essence, that if the parts that did not matter could be cut away;

    the fingers that brace me,

    the feet that carry me,

     the sight that leads me --

   What was left would be  me  ,  a tiny piece of the universe that had becoming miraculously and unmercifully aware of itself...   And, that I could never truly lose myself.

    I am beginning to doubt that.

   And with a fascinated horror, I am beginning to realize that I simply don't know how to be anything other than what I have been trying to be for the last seven years... I don't think I would know who I was if everything but my life was taken from me.

`

   Staring down the barrel of a derelict future, the prospect of my life coming to an abrupt end is disconcertingly comforting...

    Actually,     in the darkness of a loss of this depth,   the alleys that pave the way to massacres are unnervingly clear ...

   and I don't know if who I am beneath Alternative is above  k i l l i n g    y o u    a l l  ...

      That prospect is no longer unthinkable.

    I once asked a senior pathologist if the difficulty of dismembering a body was a limiting factor for suspects, to which they warned me to be careful of assumptions because   almost  anyone  is capable of  almost  anything — given enough time and determination.

    It is particularly poient in this moment as I contemplate how long it would take me to pick all your locks and strangle you in your sheets ...

  Slip thallium into the soup, listen to you all miserably puking out your corroding insides as metallic venom slithers into your brains before they can get it  o u t.

     Trace the opulent halls with ignition fluid following up to your doors with you barricaded inside ... praying for smoke to coat your lungs, to smother you from the inside.

       Watch B crawl out to see the carnage.

      see it dawn on him that this is no accident,

      see a genuine response  — unadulterated by his intellect or prevarication — just raw, bleeding instinct from this animal I've called my friend, becoming at once so mortal and so equal to me, that we can end this era of our lives together in violently, intimate truth ...

   Maybe you would understand, if everything you were was on the brink of utter erasure. You might find that you aren’t who you thought you were either.

  The truth is, I am afraid that if I cannot have it, I can't find it within me to recognize that I owe it to my species, to civilization itself, to let B take it from me.

     Not in this way.

      I don't know how I thought this would ultimately end,   If B would wrench victory from me or if I would wait on a tragedy to eliminate my part in all of this...

  But not betrayal, not when it's my fault.

   I think I was resigned to carry forward indefinitely,   — losing pieces of who I thought I was to the current I've been fighting against,  believing that if I only kept going, and never stopped, I might outrun regret and what could have been.

  Maybe I believed I would rekindle faith again — in myself, in this path, in leaving a better world for the next  A .

  Maybe a world one step closer to not needing an L at all.

 If nothing had stopped me, one day there would have been nothing left but Alternative.  He is not a mask one can take off when it becomes inconvenient, he is a skin you sew yourself into slowly, until his integrity is what's keeping you intact..  A has become a deathbed I realized too late I was making.

        But,  it isn't that I never thought of leaving.

   I could walk away...

   Wandering like a ghost, unhindered by past or societal taxonomy, exempt from the yokes placed on young men to make them whatever is most useful; armed with bibles or guns or shovels to do what needs to be done.

  But, my freedom is overshadowed by the total absence of certainty, my purpose swallowed up by a life concentrated on survival. — Adrift, I know there will be no rescue when any there was lies six feet under and rotting.

        I have no one.       I am no one.

  I know many resent their safety nets while accept cliff sides nesting sleepless vipers. I don't envy them, despite being in freefall myself.     —  At least, I don't have to go home to fight more battles than those I am already losing... 

   That is why I don't resent Wammy's House.

 This path spared me what will haunt so many others — I've no memories captured in the immoral chirons of media posts or infinite digital clouds.

 The voices and faces that once comforted me have been slowly pulled ever-deeper into my conciousness, my mind quietly eating itself alive,   —  

the way nature intended

   I never had the opportunity to agonize over unwashed sheets, holding the last trace of their scent, because there was nothing left for me to hold onto.

  My loss left no footprints for me to follow.

  All I have is the implicit memory of sunlit lilies draped over searing black coffins and the lingering hope that it would mean something ... someday.

 Maybe that's why this is so hard to give up.

   I don't want it all to amount to nothing.

     I have become nothing but    t h i s  , now.

        I am nothing without   t h i s . 

        If he takes everything from me,

         I will leave L nothing to salvage.

I don't want my motives misconstrued.

   What I will  do  with the Backup does not make him collateral damage in my private catastrophe.

                   He is   not   a martyr.

 I am not inspired by a hatred of B for his opportunism,

   It is not that he doesn't deserve victory, it is that, if he turns on me now, he has proven he has no honor.

  An L without honor is a monster of limitless evil.

  I am recovering my friend's body

   and incidentally sparing you an incomparable tyranny.

  I cannot speculate on how Wammy's has shaped B's psyche, but he has always had a recusant character  ... and he knows I can keep a secret.

⎯  "Why did you do it?..."    He sucks his teeth at the question as though there's room for doubt, as though he could delude me too.   ⎯  "You didn't have a good time at the party, Alt’ ?"  I watched him begin idly digging into his coat, the collar billowing around his face, his complexion is a sickly pale against it’s dark grey tweed   ⎯   "You've gone too far this time. "  He knew it, but I wanted nothing to be ambiguous about where I stood.     ⎯   “You're not taking this seriously. Someone could have been killed. You could have been, I could have been- What is wrong with you? ”   He pulled something from his slacks and only when he struck it against his heel did I recognize it was a match. He shook his head at my indictment but gave no indication of noticing that I had taken a step back.    ⎯   “No, you wouldn’t.”   His face turns, dark lashes casting sleepy shadows over the clinquant daylight caught in his eyes.     I'm struck by how young he looks    For a fleeting instant, I'm acutely aware that the teenager I'm standing next to is the same boy that played hide and seek with me in the meadow, long before we cared where this path was leading us.   And, I am scared that if he turns a meager smile on me, I might forget all the heart ache he's caused. I might remember ... what it felt like to meet my wild-eyed friend at the fenceline and escape what brought us here, immerse ourselves in a world far away from the homesickness and disappointed adults and the fear of what would come apart next. When our hands would meet on the sun-warmed bars, metal and skin becoming homogenized heat that bound rather than separated us in a way that felt timeless to my seven year old senses, when it never crossed my mind that one day our fingers would grow too big to fit between the gaps...     Standing together on the grassy nole, the breeze combs tender fingers through my hair and I sigh quietly as we watched the dining hall being assessed for damages, the smoldering aftermath of what should have been a re-birthday now the scene of a bottle rocket's explosion.     The blossoming, radiant morning rang with shrill alarms and the sharp scent of flash powder like heaven at war.    B lit a cigarette and perched it on his lip,   allowing the silence that fell between us tell me everything I needed to know.   Outrage swelled within me like a rising tide.  He didn't think I deserved an explanation, I'm just another pawn caught up in whatever game he's playing,

     ⎯   "Why are you-?...           Are you trying to tick me off ? !" He inhaled.      soft, unruffled. 

      Uncaring.   Not even meeting my eyes.   ⎯  "You are .... your most endearing when you're angry, you know that?"  His words carried on the smoke exiting his lungs, mirroring that pouring out of our home's windows between crashing booms.        — "Direct and honest. ... For once. The right girl will appreciate that about you, you should stop wasting time and find her."   He smiled around the smoldering stick in that way he does when he knows he's made a clever move and wants to say without saying ‘what now?’   I could viscerally feel my flushed rage. He's the only person I know that can belittle me with such a thorny effect, making me feel petulant and ridiculous for expecting anything from him, like he owes me.  ⎯  "You'll put yourself into an early gave with those, B."   I wanted it to be true.    I want to spite him.

Maybe I want him to die right now.   If one of the agents mistook us for intruders and shot him here in the blood-velvet reeds, then my company would be all he had. Then, maybe, he would appreciate that I’m here and what that really means, in spite of it all.    Instead, B pulls the cigarette from his lips and flicks it against his fingers, letting ash fall like loose petals to the breeze.    Careless.    —  "Ironic you would say that ..."   Cryptic.  It's as though he wants to rile me up. He should know by now where he is provocative, I am unrelenting — because I have to be, because I have to survive him.   In my periphery, I take notice of the unfamiliar security moving in our direction and feel a twinge of fear that I should be more careful of what I wish for.  But I don't move, there's nowhere to go and I admit there is an unexpected ounce of relief in the approaching danger. Though I'm not certain where it's from...  — "There are so many... did they bring them here for us? Do you think it has to do with the bioterror case?"  ⎯  " I considered that."    He said with another flick of his cigarette.  —  " But, there's not enough unrest.         No lock down, no interrogations, no medical testing, no travel bans. We’re going head-long into this, it's inevitable. It's a matter of when, not if, but we aren’t there yet... I warned him— about K, about X, about Y— but he won't listen.      I did it, so when this is all over, he'll know I was right and he was wrong."    "He's unreachable..."

—  "He is. But, he would notice I breached security and slipped into his case files and left him a puzzle to follow. If he pieced it together, he knows someone's predicted who won't make it out of this alive."   More than the fire and the guards, I am astonished by his lack of concern for self-preservation.    "Christ— He might think you're part of it!"  — "Maybe. Maybe that's why they are here, because as far as I can see I've either failed or he was never here to begin with."   Bewilderment is followed by a surge of understanding that spreads over me like ice water,     "You did this to flush L out..."         ⎯ " P r o r s u s. "    Exactly.

This is what it feels like to wait for the end of the world  Only for it not to happen...         —    B said nothing.     Battling a remarkably bloodless gratitude, I stumble to find something to say — anything in my lightheaded shock that's replaced the black-buzzing distress... but nothing comes.    He begins to walk away, just as  thank you  begins to form unsteadily in my throat, but there emerges the smallest prick of dissatisfaction at this outcome that leaves me feeling too ashamed of being ungrateful to speak above a whisper .        ... it's a macabre disappointment.     I realize I have been holding onto a poisonous hope that B would show his true colours, that I would be exempt from our abiding alliance, I would have enough reason to take control, —  that my end would be a turning point, that I could choose to burn it all down and not be fated to disappear quietly...      Now, I've returned to the same indecision that will most likely lead to exactly that.       But...  I cannot ponder further how I may outmeuver fate, why he chose to continue a more difficult path with me as an obstacle, nor confront the calamitous fear lurking within me —   I cannot risk the possibility that this will ever be seen.   I cannot justify condemning us both,       though that was my original intention.    In the end,    I didn't want my last chapter written by speculators.  I didn't want the flaws in their design to go unaddressed, the way they must remain while I'm alive to suffer the consequences of failed propriety.        I wanted them to know why.   Now, no one can know these things ...       I'm afraid that no one ever will,         that by the time the real end arrives,           I will not recognize it's here... 

   Of all the secrets I've kept, I think those that I know will die with me terrify me the most. 

[doodles-arts]

Sarcastic!DonatelloX Reader

Type: one shot

Pairing: DonatelloX Reader

Description: your a real hardcore kinda of gal, a real Raphael type without the short fuse. Though the rough housing you liked was too much for the witty and solitaire Donnie. So he kept his distance as much as possible, but maybe one night changes all of it!

And thank you so much @incorrecttmntquotes for inspiring me with a, as you said, bitchy Donatello! I love you content! Please give this story a reblog if you like it!❤️

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

If there was one thing that you and Donnie had in common, it was the sarcasm. The differences were a much LONGER list. You were an extreme badass and Donnie was a nerd. Where Donnie was technical, you were cynical. Where Donnie was soft spoken and well mannered, you were loud and straight to the point. You spent most of your time with Raphael and Mikey, rough housing like a delinquent. But it seemed to be your home, it was what you were best at.

So when the turtle family begin you spending more time with the nerd of the family, at first they were confused. But as time went on, they started to catch on to what was worming it’s way through.

Being rough was all you ever knew, with 4 of your own brothers at home, and being the youngest. You were the runt of the pack and learned from a young age to fight or be fought, and possibly bruised. All of Your brothers were big and burly boys, they got it from your dad. So keeping up with Raph and Mikey was a breeze, considering the boys were a lot more gentle with you unlike your own brothers.

As you can imagine, being hardcore can be very exhausting and leaves lots of scars and bruises. You however had no shame showing them off. Donnie didn’t really pay you any mind at first because of the way you carried yourself. It wasn’t really something he could keep up with.

One night, when all the other boys were asleep and Donnie was working through the night, you called. Unusual for you to call his phone this late, or his phone at all. You were close to the turtles but were more intimately engaged with Raphael and Michelangelo. Though noticing how late it was and in desperate need of a distraction he picked up your call.

It was weird enough you had called, but even weirder that you sounded in shambles. Sitting up in a concerned way Donatello asked what was wrong. You pleaded on the phone for him to come over, that you were in desperate need of medical attention. Claiming you couldn’t even make it down to the lair. Refusing to go to the hospital. That was what sold it for him, and possibly scared him.

When Donnie made it to your bedroom window and knocked on the glass he could see your shadowed figure limping to the window. “Oh my god.... what-what happened?” He asked sheepishly. Not knowing how to act towards this. Not use to this banged up version of you.

You were quite beat up with your bruised cheek, almost ripped shirt and cut up leg. The way you were holding your arm was his first concern. A broken arm could get serious- QUICK. You replied to his question with, “I don’t wanna talk about it.”

He wanted to point out that he didn’t really care, he was just being polite, but your current expression made him keep his mouth shut. Keeping his eyes on the task and being as gentle as possible. Thankfully your arm wasn’t broken but simply dislocated. Popping your elbow back into place as you swore in pain and checking the cuts on your leg after picking out the shards of glass from your leg. As he stitched up a pretty deep cut, you groaned and sucked in your breathe. That’s when he really saw and studied your face, your cheeks were reddish with swollen eyes and wet from recent tears.

Whatever happened to you, shook you up pretty bad. And for once Donnie felt bad for you. You were always so rough that he never really cared for the bruises you sported before. He always kept his distance, thinking you’d simply try to overpower him the way you did with his brothers.

You felt bad for snapping when he questioned you and felt your heart tug as he gently spread a numbing salve on your wound before continuing to stitch your wound up. He took great care with each cut. You took a deep breathe and confessed.

“Two of my older brothers got in a huge fight. Fists and all, they were tense about some disagreement and it spiraled out of control. I was the only one in the room at the moment and tried to separate them myself. I’m not sure what I was thinking, I should have called for my other brother’s.” You took a breathe as Donnie listened, looking intently. You could tell he wasn’t judging you for once. He had a tendency of always giving quick, witty and sarcastic comments under his breathe to just about everything.

You cringed at your own weakness and looked away. “They didn’t mean to hurt me, they tried to push me out of the way, that’s how I got my elbow all banged up. But I guess at the time I didn’t feel i-it”, you choked on a sob. Wallowing in your own self pity and disappointment. Still shaken up from the situation.

Donnie placed a gentle hand on your own, “you don’t have to force yourself to explain it. I’m just glad your alright”. You smiled while the last of your tears dried up. You weren’t angry with your brothers or even upset, you were angry at how weak you felt from the incident.

Perhaps it was the fact that no matter what you did you were still vulnerable and could still be hurt. Maybe it was the fact that no matter what you did, how tough you acted, or worked out. You would still be the runt of your family. You were still just a tiny, insignificant sister who would always be below her brothers. Maybe that was hard for you to swallow, maybe it had always been hard for you accept. But at this very moment where Donnie brushed it off as if it were nothing and helped you anyway. The feeling was rejuvenating.

Having someone finally see the part of you that you tried to hide so hard was very satisfying. A weight that was lifted off your shoulders, even if Donatello didn’t exactly understand what your were so conflicted about. All he knew was that you weren’t exactly acting strong right now and he wasn’t phased by it.

“You feeling better?” He asked as he wrapped the deepest gash on your leg. You gave him a lop-sided grin and said, “i just love emotions, I have them all the time.” He chuckled at your mono-toned voice and sarcastic remark.

Since that night, you spent more time with Donatello. He appreciated your sarcastic remarks and had a few of his own to throw back. You didn’t have to act strong around him but you didn’t have to tip toe around him either. Just because he was shy and soft spoken didn’t mean Donnie couldn’t be a smart ass! He caught you off guard multiple times!

~

One time you were in the lab watching Donnie work as you two simply talked, chewing on bubble gum as you swung your legs from the table you sat on. As he worked on some wires the lights in the lair flickered and shuttered. You laughed it off with him and kept talking until Leo walked in. He demanded to know- “Donnie, what are you even doing?”

And your Donnie boy didn’t even falter in his response, “Leo, when you ask that you really just mean stop, you don’t really wanna know my thought process.”

Turning back around and continuing to work on whatever he was trying to do. You couldn’t even hold back your roar of laughter as Leo rolled his eyes and reminded Donnie to warn them when he was gonna mess with things like that. From that day forward, you noticed how quick wit Donnie could be. Even if he was a dork sometimes!

~

There was another day in which you walked into the lair, sweating from the surface sun, bringing in some things he ordered online with your address. while walking into Donnie’s lab, which was stuffier than the rest of the lair, exclaiming “god, it’s going to be so HOT today!” And Donnie hadn’t even skipped a beat when replying with, “yes, it’s good practice for hell.”

You snorted and laughed so loud that he looked at you and smiled. You just had to ask, “do you even believe in god?” You asked in between laughs. While gesturing to his lab he replied, “I believe in hell, and it feels like I’m in it”. He turned his chair fully around and watched as you laughed.

He found that cute...

~

Donnie had always had a smart mouth, but being around you made him think that it had encouraged him further. He couldn’t help it, things would just slip.

He was more sarcastic around his brothers as well, more than usual. And voiced them louder at times. A perfect example would be the current moment that the boys were trying to fix the TV and Donnie tried to do it by himself.

“We can help Don, ya know”, was Raph’s very gruff response to Donatello hogging the TV. As much as Donnie appreciated the help, he’d be better off doing it on his own. He just thought better that way.

“It’s alright, I always take care of it anyway”, he never meant it in an accusing way, but it was true and he was simply calling it out. Mikey was quick to try and hit back.

“Hey! You know what, we’re clever too, smarty pants.” Donnie snorted and already knew what to say, never turning his back as he spoke and continued to fix the TV. “What’s the difference between a gamete and a zygote?” The silence that filled the air made him smirk.

Raph tried to reassure his little brother, “don’t fall for it, Mikey, he’s just making up words”. Donnie almost felt the nerve of making another quick wit remark, but the sound of the TV turning on beat him to it. And filled him with all the satisfaction he needed.

~

However you found his remarks very funny and always knew how to give a come back. He started noticing how different you acted with him than with the others. And he found that very reassuring, special even.

He watched as you played with Mikey on mario karts and walked slower to the kitchen for his glass of water as you won and jumped up. Rough housing with him in until he let you topple him over. Laughing but punching him on the shoulder.

Thinking it over as you walked over to his lab and walked over to his desktop and gave him a quick side hug. Something you rarely did with Mikey or Raphael. Than you dragged a seat you brought from the living room to his lab and pulled out his spare laptop to play a game. Watching him from a distance, he could feel your eyes in him.

You sat quietly next to him playing a quiet computer game next to him. Watching him was relaxing, even when he pushed his adorable glasses up his snout or mumbled to himself. You were never this way with the others, though you shared a harsh joke or two now and than with Donnie you never really rough housed.

He liked that....

~

Days like that he treasured, though he did like the ones where you distracted him. With flirtatious words and offers like watching movies on his huge computer screen, or play games together, never the competitive ones. You were fine playing things like Gary’s mod or Minecraft. Pretty boring but it had its highlights. The days were you stayed up late texting nonsense and illogical conversation, that for some reason he tolerated and enjoyed.

He liked the ones where you’d force him to eat with you and take more breaks from his work, and to sleep and take even more breaks. You were sort of a slacker but Donnie was stubborn so it worked out. He never really had anyone think of him, in that kind of manner. A mother hen would just piss him off and you understood that. So sometimes you’d just left the food on his desk and brought him plenty of water every so often. He found it endearing, you were never this kind to the others. You were like a pufferfish, they never knew when you’d spike up, but never with Donnie.

His favorite memory so far he had of you was when you and asked him advice for pranking Mikey. He was the brains of the family after all! “I think I worked out a plan..” he mumbled while working it out in his head.

His remark sounded like Leo and you snickered while replying, “All right count me out.” He snapped his vision to you and laughed, enjoying your very well thought sarcasm. “You haven’t even heard it yet!” He said knowing he sounded like his elder brother and mimicking his voice when answering.

You stood up with a huge grin, enjoying his dorky laugh very much. “See how I’ve learned?” You laughed as you walked over towards him and resting your right elbow on his left shoulder. “Alright Doll, let’s hear it.”

Doll? He blushed and blabbered his plan, thinking and overthinking that one nickname you had given him.

~

Though just like the good days came, so did the bad ones. You were a tough cookie, no one could deny it. You loved training at the gym and taking kick boxing lessons. You always sported a bruise Donnie couldn’t help but look at, sometimes they looked serious, And they could be! Though it was the days you trained with Raphael that put Donatello at most unease. It’s not that he didn’t trust you could hold your own, but at what cost? Another bruise? A cut? A sprained ankle?

Though he never interrupted or interfered. He knew better than that. But one night you came to the lab, littered in cuts and a big shiner on your left eye. When you explained you had gotten in the middle of a street fight that had bets involved and got a good 70 bucks from it. Donnie had almost lost it. He couldn’t believe how careless you were being with your own well-being.

“You could have gotten really hurt! That black eye could have been a broken eye socket or a dislocated jaw! You could have been shanked!” You tried to brush it off, saying they were no match for you. The big grin still shining on your face.

But Donnie had had enough of ‘turning his right cheek’, he had to address this. “Do you hate yourself?”

You were dumbfounded at this question, “no?” You answered carefully. He had to hold back the edge in his voice, “You sure as hell don’t act like it. You could have killed yourself tonight. Your brothers would have been devastated and for what? 70 bucks? That’s no where near how much your worth” he grumbled while examining your black eye.

Something clicked... did he?

Did you?

“I’m sorry Donnie-“, this gave him pause, “-but why? Why do you help me so much? Why do YOU care?” He looked at you fondly and your heart drummed, something definitely not unwelcome, and it wasn’t unusual either nowadays. He snapped his gaze somewhere else when replying, “because my life is a mess right now and I compulsively take care of other people when I don’t know how to take care of myself”. You stared at him, knowing that was just a witty joke. “Really. That’s all?” You asked knowingly.

“Because your special to me- to me a-and my brothers of course..” he stammered and tried to cover up quickly.

Donnie didn’t want to overstep on something that may just be in his head. You grabbed one of his hands and looked at him smugly, “why? What’s so special about me?” He sighed, picking up on your facial expressions, he couldn’t believe what he was about to say.

“How long you got?” He answered with a raised eyebrow (bone?). You chuckled at his sarcastic remark that showcased his New York accent perfectly before realizing what he meant. You looked up adoringly, while he looked away bashfully. “Donnie.. do you actually like me?” He sighed while shrugging, “I don’t see why not?-why I shouldn’t” he answered while nonchalantly putting two medical butterfly clips on your busted chin.

You smiled with wide eyes, “wait. So was that a confession?” He answered quickly, “well it wasn’t some-some kind of political hearing, so I’ll assume it was.” You laughed at his joke, he was trying to keep calm, but his soft voice and tiny stutters while his hands trembled softly when putting away his medical supplies threw off his facade.

You smirked while hopping off his examining table and while he set down his medical box next to you. You slid under his left arm and hugged his plastron. “Your the only person I can really relax with. It would be an honor if you’d let me find peace with you there to help me. I’d love it if you told me off like that more often, I sorta need it” you finished with a sly smile. Donatello was frozen in his spot. So you hugged him tighter.

Donnie was speechless but slowly wrapped his arms around you. He could get use to this, you were just so different than him, but so warm. So small. Did you really want to be his? “You sure about that? You don’t always wanna hear my opinions” you grinned up at him chuckling to yourself as you replied, “if you voice them like that hell yeah!”

He chuckled along knowing you were up to something but decided to play along. Feeling strange but oddly at peace as you swayed him while you held each other. “And why’s that?” He asked, already regretting it as you smirked. “Because it’s HOT” he laughed but blushed and looked away.

“Your a handful!” He softly exclaimed while looking away. You chuckled and stood on your toes to press your lips to his cheek. Laughing again as he became even more bashful. If he could, he would of hide his face in his shell right at that moment. It was strange to see the gloomy and witty turtle so bashful, shy you were use to- but bashful? It was adorable!

As you pressed against his plastron you commented, “it takes a real man to love me even when I’m THIS fucked up. Black eye and busted chin, the whole package!” Donnie knew you were joking, but it still rubbed him the wrong way hearing you talk like that. Not able to hold back his mouth.

“They don’t bother me, I know what your really like, that’s what re-really all that matters to me.” Your heart drummed as you smiled and reached up to clasps his cheeks in both of your hands. What a sweetheart! He really was strangely-dorky adorable.

You leaned upward while he fumbled on what to do, you fluttered your pretty lashes closed and puckered your lips to meet his. Donnie’s height making it difficult for you to take the whole step, he would have a to meet you halfway. Mirroring everything you did and leaning down to you, your soft lips brushed his and he almost pulled back. Unsure of himself and his ability to even be near you in this kind of way.

From the outside of the Lair you could hear Raph yell, “MIKEY YOU OWE ME 5 BUCKS!!!” Donnie jumped backwards and when he came back to his senses flared at his older brother. You laughed, “it’s just a dumb bet they had, something about who would kiss who first.”

He looked down at you with an accusing look, “what if I just knocked him unconscious?” You gave him a look before responding, “that won’t change the past!” He snorted when saying, “but it would make the present so much nicer”.

You leaned closer to him one more time before nuzzling his plastron.

“Thank you for letting me be soft, nerd”

“Shush you big softie, I still can’t believe you got in to a street fight”

.....

.

.

“How many did you win?” You laughed while hugging him harder. You would like this very much.

[asroarke]

On the subject of GMYF

It has not been lost on me that there is a sizable population of readers who are genuinely upset with me for starting new projects when I still haven’t finished Give Me Your Fate. I’ve tried to ignore this fact, but it’s hard to when these frustrations are sent directly via comments, tweets, and asks in my inbox.

So, to start things off, if you are one of these people who are sending me these frustrations, cut that shit out. I get everything from outright anger to guilt trips where people mention how disappointed they are to see a fic like they love on the “backburner again” when I start writing a new work. If the lack of updates on this one specific fic in a fandom with 11,815 other fics to read is truly devastating you at the level that you’re telling me it is, vent to a friend in a private chat so that they may console you in a way that I never will.

Now that I’ve gotten my salt out of the way, I think it’s only fair that I explain why Give Me Your Fate is taking so damn long to complete.

As many of you know, my father almost died in November of last year. It was a journey full of surgeries, overdoses, a few instances where doctors incorrectly thought he had a stroke, and an incident at least once a week for two months straight where he almost died. I started GMYF just a month before this started, and if I had known this was coming my direction, I never would have started posting it because I don’t like leaving works incomplete for too long.

The surgery left my dad disabled, and I’m one of his caregivers. It’s not too bad. Life has gotten more normal since he returned home. He will eventually walk again. But being a caregiver for someone who can do very little for himself doesn’t leave much time for writing. And GMYF is a hard af fic to write when constantly being interrupted. The plot in the fic now is not the plot I originally wrote. I’m going down door number seven now after the six previous drafts hit snags and I had to go back and replot. Wouldn’t be a big deal in a 20k fic like Drag Me Down, but this fic is closing in on 100k, so every time I sit down to write, I have to constantly remind myself which plot I’m writing now. I have to go back through the whole fic, taking notes on what the audience knows at this point and what has to be revealed when. There is so much I have to remember and keep in mind so I don’t fuck up an update, and so often when I do get into a place where I’m all caught up and ready to slam out an update, my dad needs help getting into bed or help on his physical therapy exercises. I don’t mind the interruptions, obviously. I love my dad and want to help him in any way I can. But the interruptions make writing an intricate story like GMYF so goddamn difficult. I’ll either be too worn out to return to the update or confused about where I am in the story, making me have to start the whole preparation process all over again. In other words, GMYF is not the kind of fic I can write while interrupted regularly, and I don’t have a lot of days where I am without these interruptions.

Meanwhile, shorter fics without as much background information are easy to write in these situations. I worked on Drag Me Down during my dad’s rest periods between physical therapy exercises. I’ve been working on All That Glitters in the half hour before he wakes up every morning. I’d much rather write something that I can pick up and put back down easily instead of getting frustrated every time I can’t get back into GMYF because I’m getting confused about a discarded draft I wrote or not remembering if I revealed this one important detail yet or not.

(And then there’s WtLWFY, which was complicated and difficult to write, but I pushed through anyway because my mental health needed it. I was triggered and I needed to get all my feelings in order in the only way I know how. I know a lot of people were upset when that fic got update after update while GMYF fell to the wayside, but it was either write WtLWFY or ghost ao3 for months while I got myself back together)

Now, I’m dealing with health problems. I have a procedure coming up in October, and now I’m also fighting off some illness with the intensity of mono that is not actually mono according to the results this morning. I want to write the rest of GMYF, and I will... eventually. But right now, I have very few usable hours in the day. If I have time to write, I may choose to work on All That Glitters (though with the feedback I’ve been getting, I may just stop that one altogether) instead of GMYF. Or maybe a small fluff thing. Or that canonverse AU I’ll probably never finish but it makes me happy to try to work on it anyway. My priority is not GMYF. It’s doing what will distract me from pain in that moment. Sometimes, GMYF will be what will best distract me. But not always.

Look, I want to complete GMYF as much as you guys want it to be completed. I’m very close to the ending of it. Some of you have been waiting patiently since I started this fic almost a year ago, and I appreciate you so much. We will get to the finish line, I promise. But I’m not going to apologize for working on new projects while GMYF remains unfinished. I’m doing what’s best for me.

[softxharry]

Blacklist (two)

Harry Styles, one of the FBI’s most wanted criminals turns himself in– and all he wants to do is speak with one rookie agent.  

It’s her job to figure him out and it’s his to protect her from her past, but all secrets have to be told eventually.

AN// You can keep up with this story here via the tag HSBlacklist or on Wattpad at brutallybeautiful !

Chapter Two

Grace

I am startled awake by a loud banging on my door and a man's voice yelling from the other side. Oh fuck, I am late to my first day. I push my hair out of my face and scramble into a pair of sweatpants laying on the floor next to my bed.

But I'm not because when I look at the alarm clock on my side table, it's only seven a.m. and I don't have to be in until nine. I shake my head as if somehow that would eliminate all of the confusion inside, my feet pad loudly against the floor as I rush to slide the chain off the door and open it. I can feel my stomach flutter as the wood glides open, creaking and groaning from age. On the other side, two men stand with their hands on their holstered guns, annoyance written all over their faces.

I don't have time to question why they're here before they're speaking. Their voices are so deep that it rattles me.

"Agent Tyler, Adam Hunter. Washington Field Office," the man on the other side of the threshold said, pulling a badge out of his coat pocket and showing it to me for a brief second. "I need you to come with me right away."

-

I sit in an old, and very ugly orange chair across from a solid wooden desk, glancing around the office while I wait impatiently, my leg bouncing up and down nervously. I was trying to keep calm after Agent Hunter informed me that Harry Styles was asking for me and that's why they showed up at my door at seven. I stop on a picture frame that sits on the bookshelf behind the desk.

It's a photo of a man, his wife, two little twin girls. They're bundled up in scarves and toboggans and ice skates. The girls clinging for dear life to the man's legs, like if they would let go he would be lost forever. I smile at the photo and imagine what it must be like to be in a family that happy. The woman is kissing the man's cheek, love is evident.

I'm shaken from my thoughts when the sound of the door opening fills the room. I stand from my chair and flatten out my blazer before holding my hand out to shake his.

"Agent Tyler, Owen Cooper," he said, grabbing my hand firmly. I smile at him and take a seat.

"Nice to meet you, sir."

I knew exactly who Owen Cooper was. Assistant Director of Counterterrorism. I learned about his work in Quantico, how he stopped a second 9/11 in 2011, how he helped find the coordinator of the Paris attacks in 2015. He was the real deal, the big shot and I was sitting right in front of him.

I sit up now and force my leg to keep still. He's a lot taller than he looks in the photo, his skin is darker and his hair more grey. The twins in the photo must be much older now, too.

"I understand it is your first day as a profiler," he said. I nod, fidgeting with my hands in my lap.

"Yes sir," I smile, almost proudly. "I was reassigned from San Francisco, I graduated Quantico last month. I've been vetted by the agency, just as everyone else same background checks, same profiles-"

"So why does Harry Styles want to speak with you?" he said, interrupting me. He seemed genuinely curious rather than accusatory. He leans back in his seat, legs crossed, hands clasped. He looks at me like I should know, but I don't. I've never spoken with with that man in my life, never seen him, never heard of him until this morning. I have absolutely no idea what he wants with me.

But I'm about to find out.

Less than an hour later I'm siting in a chair, a mere ten feet from a brilliant criminal. A criminal whose evaded capture for more than five years, went off the radar, avoided detection. A criminal who wants to talk to me. It's silent for a moment as he stares at me, a smirk plastered on his face.

"A pleasure to meet you Agent Tyler," he said, giving me a smug grin. He leans forward in his seat, to the best of his ability because his arms are secured to the chair. I glance around at the many guards, the many agents, the many faces watching us intently, watching to see what this man is going to say, watching to see if I'm going to mess up. I swallow hard and straighten my shoulders.

"How is Washington? Do you miss San Francisco?" he asks. I almost jump out of my seat. I don't know this man, but he surely knows me. I take a deep breath to calm my nerves. I have to remain calm, I remind myself, dozens of eyes are watching me.

"Tell me about Weber." I said, my voice even yet firm. Kurt Weber was who Harry promised to give information on whenever he first entered the black sight, Cooper tells me.

The black sight is a secure location owned by the FBI where they work on confidential cases, hold confidential criminals. This one just so happened to be an old Sears warehouse before they shut down.

I imagine the workers, packaging and ticketing merchandise before it even hit the shelves. Probably sweating in the heat of the summer, keeping cool in the cold of the winter. I imagine them letting out a sigh of relief when they finally got to sit down for their 15 minute break and I compare it to where we are now, how this came to be, what's gone on in here.

Harry is smiling again, tugging lightly on the confinements that keep him in the chair. The air around us feels everything but easy. It feels like the moments before a storm, when the trees are rustling and the sky starts to get dark. It feels much like that only 1000 times stronger.

"Did your boyfriend move with you?" he asks. His tone is so mono that it sends shivers down my spine, I shift uncomfortably in my seat.

"Cut to the chase Styles, I don't have time to banter," I tell him, my tone more harsh than it was a second ago. He looks a bit taken aback by it and shifts in the wooden chair that he's occupying, staring at me bemused. "Why did you want to talk to me? It's my first day, nothing special about me."

He laughs a hearty, deep laugh and shakes his head at me.

"Everything is special about you, Gracey."

My breath hitches in my throat at the nickname. The one my dad used to sing whenever he'd call me to his office, the one he'd exaggerate in the stories he told me as he sat on my bed at night, the one my mom would hum in the kitchen when dinner was ready. He knows, I know he knows by the look on his face.

He places his hands on his knees.

"Within the hour Weber will abduct the daughter of U.S. General Kalmin Brown. He wants to be out of the country within 24 hours. If you don't move quickly, that little girl's blood will be on your hands."

The way he talks so confident, so smoothly is rattling. A part of me wants to believe what he is saying, but another part of me reminds myself that he is a criminal and criminals are notorious for lying.  But something inside my gut tells me he's not bluffing. I am about to speak again when Harry casually leans back in his chair.

"But you don't have to believe me," he said.

"Why should I?"

He laughs again. "You shouldn't. I am a criminal. Everything about me is a lie," he looks down at his fingernails. "But I guess that's what we have in common, lying. You being raised by a notorious criminal, your mother dying for it..." he trails off and shrugs. Then he looks around at all of the agents in the room. Unbeknownst to them, this is news.

"Oh!" he exclaims finally catching on. If he wasn't confined to the chair, I'm sure he'd be clapping his hands together.

"Oh, they don't know, do they." He makes a I'm-sorry-I-totally-knew-they-didn't face and frowns at me. "Well," he smirks.

-

The door to Agent Cooper's makeshift office slams loudly, with such force that I swear my bones are rattling inside my body.

This office is different than the one at the branch. This one holds no comfort, no pictures, just an old bookshelf and a desk with a computer.

"Why didn't your father's criminal record show up up on your screening?" Agent Hunter demands, his hands resting on the desk. It irks me to know that he- someone who is nearly as a rookie as I am- wants to demand things from me. I stand up from my seat. Cooper gives him a stern look and his eyes advert to the ground.

"We need to order a SWAT and get to that girl now," I said, avoiding the question entirely. Agent Cooper looks at me warily, like somehow he didn't trust me. Hell, I didn't even trust myself right now, but something inside me said that Harry wasn't lying. And I needed to know why.

[letstalkpoly-blog]

003. I was mono2hispoly

Being inherently emotionally mono leaning until my first poly relationship fell in my lap unexpectedly, there have been many disagreements because I just. didn't. get. it. “What do you mean XYZ? How is ABC even possible? I'm supposed to just QRS what?” 

You see, his first “official” poly girlfriend was toxic. Not just to him. Not just to me. But to us. She wasn’t out for more love, she was out for HIS love.. All of it, without me. He and I were new to poly. I was reeling. I was told by our poly friends and by books & websites they suggested: “You have to let him be poly. You have no say in the matter. You can’t tell him no about any of it.” So she would ask him for something and HE would say no, or say not yet, and she would come to me and ask me, knowing that I was under the impression that I couldn't say no, ever. 

I didn’t know about boundaries. I didn’t know how to properly distinguish or request the necessity between her time (always) and my time (when I lost my shit). And to be fair he didn’t either and he was so caught up in NRE (which was and still is beautiful on him) that he didn’t even realize that she was coming to me to ask for things he said to wait on. He just heard me say, “Hey, why don’t you go ahead and….” and thought it was just me being more giving, just to see him happy. 

After even more pushing from her, specifically trying to push the one and only boundary I had even though I didn’t know they existed, I came to a point where I felt I had to leave. I couldn’t be a part of it anymore. And I did it in a horrible way. I gave him an ultimatum of me and our family, or her, Boo! Hiss! I KNOW!!! It’s horrible looking back. But he took it and we communicated (loudly and badly) until we realized most of the things that had happened, happened specifically because she refused to take it slow, accept no, or just wait for any amount of time when either of us asked for it. It hurt him that his relationship was over. It hurt me that he was hurt. But we both realized that if it continued, we were letting her do what she seem to have planned, and that was tear us apart.

I was burned bad by poly. No, i was burned bad by that specific poly experience, and I didn’t have the foggiest idea what to do about it. It took me to a very dark place inside a depression and anxiety problem I already had. So we came to the conclusion: no poly. It was too much for me to handle. He loved me and did not want to ever see me in that much pain again. No matter how much pain it caused him. He was gonna keep it locked up and if he ever felt that way about anyone again (“crushing”) we’d gently ease away from that person.

But I knew that it was a part of him. He knew it was a part of him. But for over 5 years we were at this standstill. We still loved each other, but we didn’t LOVE each other. We cared about each other, but we weren’t caring TO each other. We were going through the motions. Him waiting on me to give in and resenting me for making him choose. And me waiting for the other shoe to drop, a new crush to arrive, and that pain to start all over again. No one knew. No one saw. We apparently internalize amazingly.

During that time, I read. I read. I read and read and read. And I read some more.

About 3 years after the break up, he, without malice or knowledge, developed a new crush on a swinger friend. One day, I asked him if he had a crush. And he said no because to him he didn’t. He wasn’t allowed to. He couldn’t. So he didn’t. I took him at his word. Determined to trust him, nothing changed. We’re swingers. He had favorite play partners (don’t we all?) and that was it. 

Until one evening about 2 years later while hanging out, it hit him like a ton of bricks - he DID like her - a lot. But he squished it down and went about business as usual… for about 5 hours until I saw the look on his face while he was staring at her. (He’s one of those guys, at least to me. I can read his face like a book.) We were out with friends. I asked quietly. He denied. During the ride home, I brought it up again. He begrudgingly told me all about it. He told me how hard he had tried, so hard that he didn’t even realize he cared for her, and that he just couldn’t try any longer.

Discussions, disagreements, and arguments happened for days, weeks... but I knew that there was no turning back. I couldn’t stop him from being him. I read more, and more, and more. I told him it was up to him. He just wanted, maybe needed, to hear me say that I was okay with him pursuing a relationship with this woman he really cared for. I couldn’t say it. I still didn’t want it. I just wanted him to do what he needed to do. I finally came to him with. “This is your decision. Emotionally, mentally, I can't give you my "blessing" to love someone else - my brain won't work that way, but I can give you my blessing to be you... whatever it takes to make you happy. I'll deal with me.”

Even that was hard for him, and he continued to wait for me to say it was ok. It was hard for me for me as well, it took all my emotional strength to say as much as I did to him, but once I gave my heart that power over the brain that didn't get it, things got easier for me. That made it easier for him. 

His crush went through some personal things. We, as long-time friends were asked to help her. He decided to not pursue anything until she was ready. And I got to know her more. And I fell for her too...and she for both of us. Organically. Quickly, but without rush. Without asking. Without.. Anything.. Talk about one very open, very loving, very giving man being overfilled with love and a passion for everything he hoped life could be. <3

But even while we were in our triad, I had disagreements with myself. My emotionally monogamous brain going.. “HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND!?!! HOW CAN YOU DO THIS?!?!” was something I had to deal with internally so frequently. It was like I accepted he could love her and me. And she could love him and me and them, but I my brain still said I couldn't love him AND her. 

Yet when that relationship ended nearly a year later, over a year ago it hurt. It still hurts. That relationship I never wanted.. that relationship that just fell into my life, and turned everything I thought I knew about love upside down… that relationship that was everything I never knew I wanted... that still makes me think about, “IS okay for ME to be polyamorous?” No matter how hard I loved, I worried.

I'm here to tell you that having an internal disagreement with your monogamous brain of now 40+ years is harder than your monogamous spouse of then 10 years coming to you to say they're poly. Them coming to you may FEEL like the hard part - the hardest thing that will ever happen to you, but the hard part is redirecting your brain away from ingrained societal standards of “one love”. We’re not hobbits, love isn’t a ring, and we can have all we want, and so can our lovers!! We just have to convince ourselves… THAT is the hard part.

So I’ve kept reading. I still read. I read everything I can find about polyamory. The good, the bad, the ugly, the enlightened… and now I write also. 

But even now, when I get asked "Oh, you're poly?" my brain goes “WHAT DO YOU MEAN?!?” faster than my mouth says, "Yes, but not actively."

Yours,

PS. Oh yeah, and I really WAS @mono2hispoly, on tumblr, a loooong time ago. Don’t hold anything I said there against me. I haven’t been back in years. <3

© Anne M. Freitas and “Let’s Talk Poly”, 2019.  Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Anne M. Freitas and “Let’s Talk Poly” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

[bougiebutbalanced]

An Apology & Cease-Fire

I try hard to love myself. It’s something that I actively practice everyday. Now before pass judgement, roll your eyes and think “its easy to love yourself when you look like that” I’m gonna stop you right there.  This isn’t how I’ve always looked. And certainly not how I always felt. I’ve battled the demons in my mind and mirror for as long as I can remember. 

I grew up in a time when everyone wore extra low rise jeans and tiny tops that displayed their belly rings. Xtina was dirrty, Paris Hilton was hot, 00 was the ideal size and the resident It Girl informed us that nothing tasted as good being skinny felt. 

But.... I wasn't built to wear 00 jeans. While my peers struggled to find jeans that were small enough around their waste yet long enough to cover their ankles, I fit comfortably into a size 6. I had an hourglass figure for as long as I could remember. But since I’m not Latina and those only person who it was acceptable to have curves was JLo, I began to develop some insecurities about myself. 

From the time I was about 12 I began every morning on the scale. Not my idea, non-optional, and overseen by my mom -one of my main demons disguised as a guardian angel. 3 little numbers would dictate whether I would climb into the shower and danced (150-151lbs) or cried (152lbs): for reference I was about 5’7-5’8. Thus began my war against my body. And I lost every battle. 

Growing up, I became aware that every group of friend had a fat friend --And when the DUFF book/movie eventually came out I began to think maybe I wasn't alone-- I had originally noticed this because that friend was always me. I had a habit of scanning whatever room I was in and mentally sorting the girls from best body to fattest. And being excited when I wasn’t in last. Albeit i was usually second to last. 

I began to binge. However the only eating disorders that existed were anorexia and bulimia- there was no such thing as a disorder where you ate copious amounts of junk food without the purge part (which for me came later). I was consumed with shame and guilt

The root of my shame and guilt stemmed from my mom. She has a my way is the best way attitude. With everything in life. She has an opinion on everything and if you don’t respond with “wow best idea ever how would I live without you” she gets upset. Those are her own insecurities, but they manifest in unhealthy ways towards me. Having a mom who judged everything I ate created constant shame and guilt around food. But when I wanted to do some kind of diet, she was supportive until it was inconvenient for her. Like if we were going out for dinner or if she was having people over then I should “just have a little.”  Or that time everyone was going vegetarian so I tried too and she made ribs and tacos and other things I loved trying to “break” me. Thanks mom 

This also led to my distain for exercising. Actually, just my distain for running. I hate running. Always have. It hurts and it’s boring and I’ve never been great at it. But my mom became a runner in her 20s and therefore it’s the only way to get healthy. I would’ve preferred spin classes or to try Pilates and I love swimmning but she didn't like those things and therefore in her mind they were inferior to the almighty option for weight loss: Running. Not cardio in general, just running.  

Then, in my early 20′s I got sick. I had a flare up of PCOS (super common auto immune and if you have it go to a naturopath and follow the diet- you’ll feel sooo much better I promise) I gained weight uncontrollably. But I also binged uncontrollably so I’m sure that contributed. I was also dangerously anemic which caused major depression. However I’m going to skip over most that time because it was a long and painful process of recovery. 

Before I lost all energy to do anything all I knew was that I was gaining weight and so I lived on celery and hummus and went to the gym twice a day.  I also tried to push thru my exhaustion, resting in my mom's eyes in lazy and therefore unacceptable, in her eyes you couldn't possibly heal if you were just laying on the couch, you should be up and moving. A prime example of this is when I got home from Australia, I’d drive the 20min in from our house to her office and I’d be so tired I’d have a headache from keeping my eyes open. But she told me it was jet lag just go to the gym and work it off... it was mono. We found out after it got really bad. I’d helped to unload 200 bails of hay and that night my glands swoll up to golf balls. The next day I was diagnosed and the dr said no impact sports or heavy lifting or my spleen could burst, it was pure luck that I was okay after lifting those bails.

Anyway, I was in my early 20s and now the Kardashians curves were envied and Kate Upton was the epitome of gorgeous, times had changed...but so had I. I was at my sickest, and my heaviest (260lbs) looking back at my high school pictures and wondering why I thought I was fat. If I could just get back to that weight, I’d be so happy. Yet, I’d cry when I saw memes about having a fast metabolism in high school because I never had one. So the war raged on, I hated how I didn’t look like I did in high school, yet I hated that I was skinny in high school....and I never saw the link.

Eventually I healed, and  went on a diet (its called Ideal Protein and its Keto). I did this diet 3 times. The first I went back down to 180. Then went off it, and gained back up to about 220. Then I went back on it and dropped to 195, went off and gained back to 210...then slowly over the next year I gained back up to 220. And then I tried to be bulimic. Turns out I like the feeling of throwing up (ya    that might be weird) so I’d binge and binge and then throw everything up. I’d go shopping and try things on and when they didn't fit, I’d swear to myself that I’d “commit” to being bulimic, and do it twice a day. But it didn't help me lose weight, it just slowed down the gain. 

The third time and final time I did the Ideal Protein I was in a different (and much better) place mentally thanks to the therapist I was seeing at the time. I dropped to 165, and when I went off it I went vegan. I bought my own groceries and even though I live with my parents they work out of town so I’m mostly on my own for meals too. Sometimes I go through phases where I eat unhealthy and I go up in weight and then I go through phases where I eat very healthy, i.e: vegan (not preaching for everyone to be vegan but I’ve found that it works well for me personally) gained up to 175 and then lost (on my own). I’m currently in one of those going up phases and whatever. It started when I went to Bali and enjoyed myself, then I was unemployed and stressed so not a great reaction (I sprained my ankle in Bali so no dynamic exercise and even a lot of yoga poses I couldn't do) and now I’m on vacation for Xmas. I don’t enjoy what my body looks like right now but I’m trying not to care. I know when I go home I’ll choose healthy foods again. When my ankle heals I’ll go back to dynamic execrsices and when I get a new job I’ll begin going to barre classes because they’re my fave. 

Most importantly, I recently realized that I had been so wrong. I thought because I’d tried starving my body or tried throwing up everything that wasn't healthy for me, but that didn’t help me to lose weight so I thought I’d lost that battle. I tried to exercise everyday and often I’d push till I couldnt go on, but I didn't see any progress so that didn't work for me and I’d lost that battle too. For reference, the first time I did Ideal Protein I went from 260lbs - 180lbs and even though my jeans were smaller I couldn't see a difference in my reflection....so body dysmorphia was at play. I lost the battle when I tried to be healthy so I’d binge and binge and go months without any form of exercise. And it didn't matter. Because when I was losing weight (minus this last time), or when I was eating chocolate and pizza in the dark, I hated myself. I hated that I had to wear clothes that were “flattering” (I word I despise because in my moms world thats a compliment) instead of clothes that were trendy. And every time I’d see my reflection or a picture of me I’d feel like I’d lost or failed. But I was wrong. But I was wrong in thinking I was the loser in this war.  Because I controlled the shots and my body was the one that had to adapt to the restriction or the overload. It was the one that shrunk and grew in response to my actions that were all done out of anger, frustration, and hate so even when my body was getting exercise or nourishment it was always starved of love. 

So this decade. And those that come after it. It will be loved. There’s no wagons to fall off of or tracks to get back on. They’re all phases. Like seasons of the year or phases of the moon, some are darker than others but all are necessary for life and all have their good and bad characteristics. I love that I sometimes  allow myself to indulge (such as my current choices). But I also love that I choose to supply nourishment and movement to my body. I love myself enough to supply my vessel with nourishment. Now I move my body in ways that feel good i.e. low impact(yoga, barre, walks with my dog). And I also recognize that sometimes its better that I don’t move at all. Such as, it’s better to take 1-2 days of nothing but Netflix and delivery in order to recharge then to push through stress and exhaustion and struggle through before I eventually burn out, where I spend 2-3 WEEKS watching Netflix and getting delivery but hating myself while doing so and feeling like a failure. 

I’m so sorry to my that it went so long without love and validation. I promise to fill the rest of them with compassion and fun and understanding. Here’s to end of 2019 and good start to 2020; the end of a decade, but the start of an age (yes that’s a TSwift lyric) 

Love Me <3 

[spectorbarnes]

If You Leave Me Now | Part 7

summary: you realized your marriage with your husband Henry had run its course when you discovered his various love affairs. you wanted to leave him but not without giving Henry a little taste of his own medicine involving his preferred mechanic Sebastian.

pairings: mechanic!sebastian stan x reader, husband!henry cavill x reader

warnings: facetime sex, mutual masturbation (18+ ONLY!)

a/n: forgive me if i’ve used this gif before.  i can’t help myself

Henry rolled over on the strange but familiar bed and lay on his side. Small pecks were left on his neck as a hand ran through his bare chest down his abdomen. Teeth sunk down onto his skin as the hand continued to run further south and disappeared under the soft white sheets. Henry grabbed the small hand through the fabric and pulled it away from him before it was too late.

“Don’t.” He said in a serious tone. The woman pulled away and propped herself up on the bed with her forearm, taking a good look at him. 

“Baby, what’s wrong? You’ve been awfully quiet all night.” She pouted. Henry’s gaze was at the ceiling fan. 

“This is the last time we do this.” Henry turned his head to look at the shocked reaction on her face. He sat up on the side of the bed and bent down to pick up the articles of clothing on the floor. The woman stood up and stormed her way around the bed and faced him.

“Are you fucking kidding me? You must be crazy if you think I am going to let her win.” She hissed. There it was the same sharp pain in Henry’s heart every time she mentioned you. He didn’t want her to even think about you, you were this sacred thing to him that he didn’t want her to ruin.

The woman grabbed his shirt and tore it to shreds. Henry’s jaw clenched as she took hold of his blue shirt. He yanked it away from her before she could rip it into pieces. His dark curls fell over his head as she shoved him a few inches from where he was previously standing.

“She is my wife and you were nothing but a waste of time,” he said. That only angered the woman more as she thought Henry loved her. But materialistic affection and a few rounds on a sloppy bed wasn’t “love”.

Henry put on his pants and took his wallet and watch from the bedside table and shoved it into his pocket. The woman grabbed the pair of Louboutin heels Henry bought her as a gift for her birthday a few months ago and swung them at him.

The six-inch heel only managed to give Henry a small scratch and a bruise in his cheekbone that would be sure to show up later. 

“Well, you’re shit in bed anyways!” She followed him out of her bedroom in her small apartment. “I don’t know how she fucking puts up with a piece of shit like you.” She threw a punch at his bare back, Henry stopped in his tracks and she froze still.

The woman instantly regretted throwing the punch as Henry turned around slowly with a hateful glare. Henry wasn’t violent and he would never raise his hand at a woman. He turned back around and exited the house.

“Erase my number will you?” He said before slamming the door shut. the woman fell to the floor and screamed in fury. She was going to get him back.

You waltzed around the room with your phone in hand, Sebastian’s face filling up the screen.

“Stop shaking the phone around, I’m getting dizzy.” You giggled and stopped moving around the room. 

“I’m sorry, I’m just so happy I finally get to get out of this hellhole while Henry’s out working late.” You laughed. Suddenly, Henry’s lame work excuse as he was sleeping over at his lover’s place didn’t bother you as much.

Sebastian's gentle smile now became forced as he heard your husband’s name. You had met with Sebastian a couple of times throughout the week but never managed to talk about your husband and he preferred it that way. Sebastian wanted to forget his existence. 

The small guilt you had by seeing Sebastian behind Henry’s back was now almost completely gone. Now all that was left were fluttering butterflies in your stomach every time you got to see Sebastian. It had only been a couple of days since your first encounter and you felt like a teenager in love with her high school sweetheart. 

Your phone was always flooded with good morning and goodnight texts which weren’t used much since you texted almost all twenty-four hours. Sebastian got to the point of even sending you risky text messages during the middle of the night while your husband slept soundly beside you. 

You felt like life had a purpose again.

Sebastian took a look of your cleavage on the screen and a smug grin formed on his face.

‘I like your tank top.” He said. You gave him a playful glare.

“If you want me to go over sooner, you’re going to have to let me change.” You said, already knowing what was on his mind.

“Can you leave the camera on? I wanna see,” he said. Your jaw dropped in shock. “Sorry, I’m just really turned on.” He groaned.

“I’ll be over there in a bit, hold on.” You said. “Did Chris leave yet?” You asked.

“No, the son of a bitch is still here.” You saw Sebastian get up, from what seemed to be his bed and run to the bedroom door to open it, “Even though I paid him to leave me the apartment for the whole damn night,” Sebastian called out loudly to make sure Chris was listening to him.

“I’m going, I’m going! Just give me 20 minutes to pack my shit.” You heard Chris call out. Sebastian walked out in the hallway and saw Chris’s door creaked open. You couldn’t see much after that, you just heard Sebastian curse out loud at the same time as Chris and a woman scream could be heard in the background. “Close the fucking door!”

Sebastian ran back to his bedroom and locked himself in his walk-in closet. The screen on your phone now focused on Sebastian who’s face was bright red. 

“He wasn’t packing.” He said in a mono-toned voice.

“Oh my god,” You realized what Sebastian had walked into moments before. The look on his face let you know that image was going to be on his head for a while. “Well you know, I can warm up for you before I head on over there..”

Sebastian’s face quickly changed as he realized you had accepted his earlier offer of seeing you change. 

“You have to be patient with me because it’s my first time and I’m not sure how to do a striptease in front of a camera.” You padded barefoot to your bathroom and shut the door, placed the phone on the sink counter. 

“Shit,” He muttered, “Your first strip on facetime, a few days ago you had the first car sex and office sex. Is there anything you have done?” He asked. 

“Don’t get all crazy with me,” You stepped away from the camera to make sure he had a full body view on his end. You turned sideways and pushed your bottom up, making a small pose on the tip of your toes. 

Sebastian rested his head against the wall of his closet and slowly sunk down slightly to grab his junk through his pants. 

“I want to make you crazy and show you all the fun ways you can have sex.” He smiled. You felt that sentence in your core and squeezed your thighs together, something that didn’t go unnoticed by Sebastian. 

You grabbed the hem of your tank top and threw it over your shoulder. You were left in your pink, velvet loungewear shorts and a black bra. Sebastian’s favorite. Sebastian groaned as he recognized the piece and you pulled the waistband of your short down to prove you had the matching set.

“Fuck-Fuck-Fuck.” He ran his hand through his bulge as he tried not to pull his cock right out and jack off. No, he wanted to go at the same pace you did. Your pink shorts were now at the bottom of your feet as you kicked them out from under you.

“You like what you see?” You asked. Sebastian slowly nodded and you noticed his arm slightly moving out of frame. You felt your panties get damp as you imagined what he was doing. “Take it out, it’s okay. Let’s warm up together.” You closed in on the frame as you got closer to the frontal camera, making sure to squeeze your breasts together as he took in the sight.

Sebastian unbuckled his belt and took his length in his hand as the other hand turned the phone around to show you his hard on. 

“Look at what you did to me,” he said. You licked your lips as you saw his stiff cock in his hand. He turned the camera back on him just in time to watch you unhook your bra and drop down to the floor. Your hands ran along your breasts as you took your time to show them off to him.

You took the phone from the counter and lowered it to your region as you pulled your panties down to give him a view.

“Darling, you’re drenched. Did my big cock make my girl wet?” He asked. You hummed in agreement. “Ruin your panties for me, sweetheart.” He ordered.

“Look at what you did to me.” You brought your fingers to your folds and gathered the slick between them, spreading your lips apart. Sebastian gripped his shaft tightly as he started taking shallow breaths, trying to calm down. 

“Pretend those fingers are mine darling, dip them inside your sweet hole.” He said. You did as you were told, moaning at the sensation of your walls closing in on your finger. “That’s it, good girl.”

Sebastian started to stroke himself as he watched you please yourself. Pre-cum accumulating on his tip as he saw you insert another finger. His pace quickened at the same time yours did.

“A-Are you close?” You asked, letting him know you were approaching your climax. Sebastian’s eyes fluttered shut and his grip on the phone tightened as his cock twitched for a small moment. Your palm pressed against your clit as Sebastian’s moans got louder. 

You were just about to find your release when you heard a car pull up on the driveway. Quickly you started to put your clothes back on. Sebastian opened his eyes and saw you scrambling around the bathroom, he immediately stopped his actions and heard Henry’s voice on the other end. 

The last thing he saw was you struggling to turn off the phone when Henry walked into the bathroom.

[gul-dukat-cc]

PT Barcelona Report

Shoutouts to Detective Dhaliwal/David Rood for lending me a bunch of cards for the PT, and to Callum Smith for lending me Seasoned Pyromancer on Magic Online. Notes on my modern decklist / choice : I felt with open decklists + london mulligan you had to know your deck inside and out to fully use those systems, you had to know what the mus were about as you had so much agency so I chose UR Phx, I played seasoned pyromancer to work with my leylines vs hoogak so I could mull to 4/5/6 and not die to random bloodghasts which is a real issue as thing/arclight are very weak on very low cards. pryomancer is just very good with leyline. I played gut shot over surgical main because my sb had almost no removal and my deck just wouldn’t sb smoothly without gut shot. plus gut shot is fine vs hoogak stops them convoking and fine in mirrror kills thing. I tried desperate ritual/noxious with aria so I could goldfish turn ¾ vs hoogak but gave up on this cause lazy. I tried dreadhorde arcanist main so I could keep more hands but I found the effect is kinda weak, without open decklists I value cards like flame slash/sinkhole pretty low sine I am mulling to goldfish but with opendecklists I can value these powerful but narrow effects properly, basically like having sb cards main. I played 2 aria main 1 side since I found it is tough to split payoff/enablers, but I felt 3 aria was a bit too much and I would draw aria too much when trying to go off, and it made more hands mulls with the red finale and it being clunky but it was a close call. I also thought about set adrift cause hits hoogak/chalice/aria but My experience in the best with it was not great. I tried titanshift but 0-2d a league vs neoform and mirror, I tried burn but it felt kinda weak to me 3-2d a league lost to uw with timely and rug where they force of negation to blow out my searing blaze on their goyf when I swung with spearo.

I did ~280/300 matches of MH1 Limited in prep for the pt including a trip to GP Seattle where I was granted a nice 12-3 finish (1 bye). I am a newer limited player having only begun really playing it about last year, but since then I have mostly been playing limited as I feel I have a lot more agency in the games and prefer the format. However, since I am relatively new to limited I don’t feel I was able to truly process the amount of information I was receiving as most of what I was learning about in my games, is just what drafting a “master” set is about, and how to handle combat and complex boards in this type of limited environment, so a lot of my attention was drawn away from the actual evaluation of cards and trying to understand how to maximize my value in the game in-game decisions. My plan going into the PT was to soft force black, I wouldn’t just force it if it clearly wasn’t open, but I wouldn’t be shocked if your win rate would be higher taking any black uncommon, or even common over the best green rares and blue mythics p1p1. I found the black decks had so much more synergy and power than the other colors, (I felt the snow decks could trainwreck quite easily and just wasn’t very impressed by springbloom druid) Br and Bu being premium whilst the other black decks were about the same as any other archetype, I wasn’t sure about my read on the format since I am not a limited master and I saw players had different evaluations, but in a practice draft the day before Max Mick agreed this strategy seemed fine, and Malavi/Lars Dam had hit a 2030 elo drafting black every single time. I just found I would win a lot more with black decks and they felt much better, with my previous experience I felt soft forcing black was a reasonable approach. First Draft I get a pretty good BR deck, p1p1 raredraft w6, p1p2 Bogardan Dragonheart p2p3 feaster of fools, black and red cards kept flowing and I didn’t pick up any particular signal except ninjas might be open, pack two I got a pick 4 pashalik mons, but at the end of the draft I probably could have a had a simliar power level ninjas deck but I prefer BR slightly. Round 1 vs Van Vaals, Michael (1966) Michael was in the same Canadian Group chat as me, I was not happy to be paired vs him as in the draft I felt too many good cards were going late and it implied to me the pod mostly consisted of primarily constructed players. Luckily for me he got a bit manascrewed g2 and g3 so I was able to win, he had a BR deck splashing blue for the uncommon ninja and keranos, he also had two hoogaks, indicative of my weekend to come. Round 2 Verdiani, Luca (1869) Versus a UW Flicker deck, not much happened just curved out and stomped. g3 we both mulled to 5, I also played really poorly g2… wake up call for me to not be a doofus. Round 3 Rask, Love (2008) Michael told me there was some insane snow rare deck in the pod his opponent told him about, filled to the brim with rares, I looked at my legion of putrid goblins and they didn’t look too happy, but I trusted in that feaster of fools. My opponent cast a turn 2 bladeback sliver and i’m not feeling afraid anymore, later he curves out hermit druid + dead of winter and I won pretty easily, so I was feeling pretty confident for g3. I had passed a dead of winter in the pod so I messed up a bit g1, it was a bit of a complex line of basically using my Munitions Expert on myself to grow my Scavenger past Dead of Winter, but it could also have backfired in some cases to so it was reasonably hard. After the match my opponent says my deck is insane and his deck is garbage nice.. iirc feels good man. 3-0 Round 4 Maynard, Pascal (1967) Open decklists cool, I see a hoogak deck and look quickly at the manabase and removal spells, g1 Pascal mulls to 5 and I am luckily to kill him on turn 3 or 4 with arclights at 1 life, lucky lucky. G2 my hand was just obscene, looting + 2 arclight + leyline… think there might have even been a force, Pascal just had pretty weak hands so I was able to win. Round 5 Busson, Etienne (2006) Recognized this as the Mono Red player, I was sitting at table 4 and feeling if I win another game or two I could get a feature match maybe so was happy, but wasn’t happy to see this mu. g1 I mulled to 5, game was kinda close, coulda made some slightly different decisions maybe, if I was a bit luckier and hit an extra arclight could have won. g2 turn 1 critter into turn 2 eidolon, coulda maybe ignored the first creature but killed it, interesting choice perhaps, needed to hit an extra arclight or two to win, game was super weird and I tanked the most here, basically opp had an eidolon and I had 2 arclights and I had to decide how to attack and block with the arclights, for example when opp was at 20 life and Iwas at 12 I just attacked with 2 arclights as I felt that was my best chance tow in, was pretty hard, think I made the correct choice, opp agreed game was pretty tricky after. Round 6 Futamata, Yojiro (1798) Open decklists opp is on Hollow Gaak, kinda scared and would prefer a normal Gaak list so I don’t sb poorly or whatever, a bunch of cryptbreakers main and even push. g1 I can’t remember exactly but I think my opp might have mulled once or twice, I had a thing in the ice but opp had push so we move on. g2 I kept with a leyline, opp mulls to 5 I believe, my hand was pretty good, 5 or 6 can’t remember exactly, however as the game progresses I feel I run a bit poorly not being able to trigger arclights or flip my thing for a while,  my opp casts a cryptbreaker and just make zombies and I just whiff and whiff but they mulled to 5 and my hand was good so it runs even plus doesn’t matter to my decisions, coulda made some slightly different decisions in relation to fetching to thin which I normally do aggressively, but not sure felt I played fine at worst, in the end I need to dodge either fatal push or bloodghast for one turn to untap and win but opp topdecks the ghast for exactsies feels bad man but feel I played fine. Round 7 Luong, Marcus (2019) Hoogak Dredge, g1 I needed opp to whiff on their last dredge, they had bloodghast conflag and creeping chill as outs, sadly for me they hit and I died. g2 I kept a 5 or 6 with rav trap and the card just sucks vs hoogak so I fire it off a bit early to not get gaaked and die horrible. maybe Rav Trap gamed me as I kept hands assuming it would do stuff and then it just makes me die. Round 8 Nass, Matthew (2015) Table 69, I tell Matt we have the nicest table in the room, I think he agrees. He is also on Gaak, I lose g1 pretty quickly, g2 I keep a hand of like thing + force of negation, maybe was too weak, I tried to bluff I had a leyline by having 1 card I was about to slam in play. Matt keeps a hand with a lot of removal and floods out pretty hard so I am able to win a game I felt I got pretty lucky to win. but idk. g3 I just have 2 leyline + seasoned pyromancer. Feels bad to go 4-0 into 5-3 but I feel I played fine in my losses, didn’t play perfect but I mostly play magic online and find it hard to process information irl and didn’t feel I made too many savage punts. DAY TWO My draft pod has Javier Dominguez, Raph Levy and various other pros. I am sitting next to vidi, p1p1 I take urza over mob mostly due to being 50$, p1p2 I slam a manowar, rp1p3 there is goblin war party lightning skelelemental and ninja removal spell entwine. I think wow br seems open. I remember the lr advice, I can take one of these nut br cards and get passed an a+ br deck potentially or stay on ninjas and get a maybe b ish deck on average. I took skelelemental but some of my friends who are better said first of all there aren’t many rare blue cards better than manowar so manowar is a light blue signal, second of all they said skelemental isn’t that good and they said thirdly the two blue cards are too good so they’d try really hard to play it. Might have messed up my draft as RB was very very not open, I continued taking UB cards but Vidi was also in UB, p2p1 I took a fallen shinobi and didn’t feel black was being cut til mid pack 2 but was too late then, still I feltmy deck could win games. Round 9 Wijaya, Vidianto (2013) We play a Ninja Mirror, I just wait til he taps out both games and use fallen shinobi, I accidentally stole one of his lands and when I return it to him later he says fucking fallen shinobi. Round 10 Levy, Raphael (2112) g1 was pretty close, I had a choking tethers and every turn just needed him to have 1 less spell to get lethal, he had a marit lage enchantment and kept playing snow lands every turn, I Had 2 strings so I wasn’t too scared but cascade sliver + lots of removal was enough to kill me in a close game. g2 I had 18 lands due to 3 cycling ones, I side out a talisman for a spell snuff since talisman is in my deck to ramp into cards liek pondering mage/urza/first sphere/other nonsense vs more aggresive decks where I need to get on the board, here I want to be aggresive but those cards aren’t that aggresive and I felt spell snuff would be good. I keep a 2 lander with choking tethers as the hand is just good with an urza in it but sadly I get stuck on 2 lands and draw both spell snuffs, i’d sb the same again but felt kinda bad. Round 11 Matsumoto, Yuki (2000) vs BR, g1 my opp casts a silumar scavenger I spell snuff and untap, my board is urza + 5/6 lands with talisman and 2/2 token, my opp has like 4ish cards in hand and board of changelign outcast + bladeback sliver + 5 lands, my hand is like fallen shinobi + strings, can’t remember exactly what else I had in hand, I believe I also might have had a preordain in my graveyard. My deck doesn’t have much removal really outside of 2 strings and choking tethers so I try to be aggresive and close game quickly, I bounce the bladeback with strings and fallen shinobi the urza, Ken Yukihiro sitting next to us laughs,I hit a land and volatile claws *fuck* and pass. opp hardcasts an igneous elemental killing my 2/2 token, I can’t attack with shinobi so I cast urza and pass, they now goatnap shinobi I chump with token they cast dragonheart and suddenly i’m way far behind and feeling terrible, I feel I prob messed up this game somewhere, I just saw an insane line and went for it, coulda thought more but honestly likely would have came to same conclusion, g2 is pretty close but pretty much my opp casts a bunch of big creatures and removal and I die since my deck is just very medium and leaning on fallen shinobi or smoke shroud to win. Feeling pretty bad since my winrate in MH draft is muuuuchh higher than modern but I felt I just need to learn more for next time, feels bad but here we are. I felt my choices were mostly reasonable even if they might not have been the best I tried. Round 12 Vorel, Andrew (1847) VS Hoogak, can’t remember much, just leyline g2 and g3. puts me to 3-2 vs hoogak and I was doing well vs it on modo idk close mu. feels good to win Round 13 Jones, Derrick (1817) Izzet Phoenix Mirror, g1 I go turn 2 thought scour myself mill phx I scried on top, gut shot + bolt your thing in the ice and end up winning by goldfishing better I suppose. g2 my opp has to surgical random things to protect his thing from my flame slash but I am able to have a nuttier hand and win. feels good to be winning in modern atleast today. Round 14 Prosek, Dominik (1969) We get into a disagreement late into g2 whether a card was in my hand or graveyard, I believe I went to cast bolt and grab dice for aria and when I looked again my bolt was in my graveyard and I didn’t say I cast it, but it is possible I just messed up somehow, we end up with like 7 judge calls and with diminishing time extensions get a draw in a g3 I felt very far ahead in (two arias on 5 on turn 5 of time) but opp didn’t slowplay as they also believed they would have won close game, my first really fun game of teh weekend as g2 and g3 were just extremely grindy both players slamming haymakers, mostly said my favorite cause I was just winning a long game. Round 15 Wijaya, Vidianto (2005) I get pretty lucky and win a PHX mirror, I make a small misplay maybe g1, drew my 1 of rav trap g2 and draw pretty nutty, but that’s what I signed up for. Round 16 Stihle, Julien (2008) For 750$, I didn’t know at the time but I sure did after, g1 and g3 I mull to 5 vs UW, still kinda close, feels pretty bad wish I would have shuffled more idk, think I played the games fine,g2  felt pretty good though as I get to use the gy ability of two seasoned pyros and win a drawn out game. kinda bummed at myself for getting a draw in round 14, but I think I played fine, got slightly sloppy when time approached but that is fine by me considering the circumstances, I shouldn’t have spammed the judge calls so much but I don’t play much irl so I learned my lesson. a painful one. also I felt kinda dumb about the second draft but I still liked my decisions based on my previous experience even if I got a 1-2 record. happy with 9-6-1, felt I played ok but I feel next time if I can queue I will be able to focus a lot more. PT was overall more fun than I expected, the venue was a lot nicer than a GP one, you also get to spend a lot of time around die hard mtg players whereas at a GP I feel more like an outcast since I play way too much mtg, here I felt most players also do so. You get lots of cool stuff and etc. Also drafting is fun and you don’t even need to day 2 sealed to do so.

[drkungfus-customs]

Mtg Custom Card Competition Round 1: Rabiah

Hello everyone and welcome to the first custom card competition for mtg cards that I have judged. For this round, submissions were gathered from a discord server and the results have been judged by myself and my partner in crime Alyssa. The theme this week was Rabiah. Participants were asked to design a card that could have been printed if the set Arabian Nights was designed in 2019 with modern design sensibilities.

Alyssa says:

Flavourwise, it’s real fun! Trade as a method of getting white card advantage is really nice, and the art, name and flavour text all flow together. It’s not really that exciting, though. There’s nothing particularly mystical about the capitalism of antiquity!

Remember to capitalise Human and Treasure. Is it meant to scale to every Human everyone else plays too? If so, that’s a little too strong. Keep it to Humans you create.

The draw effect being “free” mana-wise isn’t that much of a problem. I’d add a tap to the ability so you can’t abuse it so freely. If this were blue, and cost 3 mana, then that effect would maybe fly, but white doesn’t get that.

Michael says:

So this card seemed a slam dunk at first, it has excellent flavour, very pretty art, and an appropriate white effect as we have seen the colour move into treasure generation a lot more in recent sets to compensate for its core weakness of mana ramp. This was until I got to the last line. Card draw in white is something that must be carefully monitored as it is one of the fundamental aspects of colour balance in magic. A good litmus test for this kind of effect is mentor of the meek, if a card can draw better or draw easier than mentor it probably crosses the line from a bend to a break in white.

Because the card itself produces treasure at a considerable rate, on a good body (thankfully still within bolt/push range), there is no real opportunity cost to the drawing as the treasure tokens also come incidentally by doing things a mono white deck wants to do. If this was a tap ability or had some kind of limiter the card would probably be acceptable but as it stands it represents a potent draw engine in any creature heavy deck, and god forbid what would happen in a Selesnya token strategy or an EDH deck running smothering tithe.

While the human type rider does help to limit this card, it is the most common creature type and so more often or not this card will provide good value even in decks not built around the card. Overall I really dig the treasure creation as a reward for building to a theme but the card draw is far too powerful and generic to be considered acceptable in mono white.

Possible improvements:

o   Currently this card is a break in white, either adding blue or limiting the rate of card draw would bring it into line with whites modern design philosophy.

o   It shouldn’t activate from your opponents Humans, symmetrical tribal effects have been retired due to poor gameplay.

o   It feels a shame to tie it to Humans, which are such a supported type. Making it rewarding to a more obscure tribe such as Advisors could be interesting.

Grades:

Formatting – 4/5

Function – 2/5 (would be a 4/5 with the drawing ability fixed or removed)

Flavour – 4/5

Alyssa says:

The formatting here has several notable issues:

o   As-written, the cast from hand effect gives temporary unblockability but the combat damage Treasure-making effect is permanent because you haven’t given it a duration.

o   Every time you define a token on a card, unless you’re writing a modifier for how many of the same type of token are produced by the same effect under different conditions (like Increasing Devotion, Gather the Townsfolk or Saproling Migration) you need to define those tokens again, so you’ll need to write out the Treasure text for the second effect. Make space on the card by omitting the reminder text on Flashback.

o   Magic uses numerals to refer to life, damage, stats and costs, but everywhere else they write out the numbers, so you create five Treasures rather than 5.

o   The destroy effect on casting it from the graveyard should just be sacrifice. You don’t need to make it a targeted destroy just because the original effect destroys, because you can use the cast-from-graveyard replacement effect to override its targeting, just like how Overload makes a targeting spell into a non-targeting one.

It’s fine as a card, but it feels kind of weak and the two effects don’t feel connected. The first cast feels like a good effect with good flavour ties, but I’m not sure how the second effect ties into it. The first incentivises high creature quality (giving a big beater evasion) while the second incentivises low creature quality (sacrificing a worthless token to get advantage) and while the environment for those two interacting can exist (read: Rise of the Eldrazi) it’s rare.

Triple black feels far too colour-intensive in an effect we’ve seen at 2B and 1B before. I am also not entirely sure what is happening from a flavour perspective when the creature gets destroyed. If it’s being closed off in the Cave of Wonders, how the hell do you get the treasures out?

Michael says:

The flavour on this card is very apparent, showing off an iconic scene with using the alternate flashback effect to progress the story of this card. I very much enjoy how well the flavour and mechanics have been integrated on this card especially in a way that is in-colour for Dimir. However the templating very much needs work, the effect can be unclear on a first read. Something as simple as a paragraph break between the regular and flashback effects would do wonders to the overall card. 

In addition when designing black costs, sacrifice is usually a preferred choice both flavourfully and mechanically as the flashback just becomes a seething song when you possess an indestructible creature. I think this card has very strong flavour and story but has a few formatting concerns that take away from its impact. While the card can go mana positive I think the card is balanced well enough to not create any dangerous situations. Solid workhorse uncommons are just as important as flashy mythic rares and this card could help to signal a more aggressive or saboteur based blue black deck in the limited environment, although the card is a little disjointed in effect possibly due to it being created to match the flavour rather than the other way around.

Possible improvements:

o   Formatting changes as Alyssa has acknowledged.

o   Changing the effect so that it doesn’t split the card’s focus. If you want to get increasing Treasure value, perhaps just make it mono-blue, the flashback cost 2U and make the damage dealing effect create three Treasures instead.

o   Perhaps a small pump of +1/+0 to help solidify its role in limited decks.

Grades:

o   Formatting 3/5

o   Function 2/5

o   Flavour 3/5

Alyssa says:

Flavourwise it’s fine, but not particularly imaginative. Genie wishes have been done before a lot and this doesn’t really do anything new with the effect except some ridiculous efficiency. (I’ll get into that later.) Formatting wise, it’s mostly fine. “It gains suspend” should be its own sentence. You missed “on it” for the land card drop.

Are the extra cards put on the bottom of your deck? I feel like you’re trying to make the “cost” of the effect be that it mills you slightly, which isn’t really that dangerous for reasons I’m going to get into, because the card is ridiculously strong.

It’s not hard to just casually spin this in your opponent’s end step with basic tutors or Brainstorm-like effects to find your best card, put it on top of your library, exile it with suspend and one time counter on it and just drop it like it’s hot. Five mana Emrakul, the Promised End with its cast effect? Anything that isn’t a land obtainable for free as long as you wait till your upkeep for it?

The second effect really doesn’t need to be there and is still really strong. Even though you can whiff, it can still effectively mean colourless 0 mana ramp every turn even if you lose the lands eventually. But it’s not like you’ll really want an effect like this when you’re doing top-deck manipulation to drop your biggest and best cards for free. It’s just overkill at that point.

Michael says:

This card feels intended to be fun but I believe has accidentally became far scarier than intended. I believe this card is firstly a lot more complex than it needs to be. The second ability that searches for lands adds a lot of extra complexity for this card and doesn't really add much to the overall playability. I believe it could be cut without losing the core effect of the card.

I would express serious concerns over power level however. Its nature as a colourless artifact means any deck can include it, miracle shells and cards such as sensei's divining top and scroll rack allow for significant levels of top deck manipulation which would make its random nature a lot more controlled especially in older formats and EDH. Being able to activate this card in your opponents end step for almost no cost also takes away any kind of risk to playing this card as even played fairly this allows for serious cheating on mana costs with a bit of luck.

There is also the slight problem that there is no rider to return the exiled cards to the bottom of the deck which would be standard for this kind of effect. While I assume this was accidental, it means that as submitted this card can mill your entire deck for a jace/lab man kill. There is clear potential in this card as a fun semi-random value piece but as it stands right now it has too few safety valves, and there is a clear risk of variance where one game you mill twenty cards to get to a one drop and the next where you rip Ulamog off the top on turn four. If anyone tried to play this card unfairly, as competitive players will certainly try to, this card will fundamentally break the mana system. Adding a mana cost to the effect and possibly increasing the casting cost is going to be the easiest way to preserve this card's intended purpose without being used as a combo piece, or just tying the suspend cost to cmc as opposed to how many cards milled. Also don’t forget the artist credits, that’s always important to have on custom cards.

Possible improvements:

o   Remove the second ability entirely. It’s superfluous at the best of times.

o   Jack a hefty mana cost on that ability. To keep the artifact at 4 mana, I want to make the ability cost 5 or 6. Alternatively, make you shuffle your library as part of the effect to make it a bit less spooky. Compare to Temporal Aperture or Mind’s Desire, which have a similar effect but deliberately shuffle your library beforehand. One thing you could do is make it a static suspend value, maybe 3, rather than however many cards you flip, because if you have to shuffle your library for that you might get stuff exiled with suspend 7 or whatever.

Grades:

o   Formatting – 4/5

o   Function – 1/5

o   Flavour – 2/5

Alyssa says:

Beautiful flavour. This card looks gorgeous and makes me very happy to read. Your formatting is flawless as well. The flavour clearly stems from his portrayal in the original arabian nights stories so I appreciate the top down design here.

Unfortunately, this card kind of pays for itself with what might amount to an upside in a bad spot by making additional chump blockers/sac fodder, like a bargain bin Bitterblossom. Additionally the downside is also relatively small, as is the payoff. I wouldn’t have a problem with leaving him tapped for a few turns which I feel isn’t good for a sexy black 4 mana 6/6: those stats and that colour want to have a stronger downside for a stronger payoff. Think Phyrexian Obliterator or Death’s Shadow: Black’s big creatures go hard on the pro and harder on the con. I don’t feel like I’ve lost anything if he doesn’t make a big splashy impact on the board.

Michael says:

This card I quite like. While it’s unusual to see humans as powerful as a 6/6, that is about the maximum I would realistically expect to see for the tribe so that isn't too much of an issue. The flavour of a mono black king who uses his subjects is absolutely on point though and feels very in fitting for the feel of arabian nights so good job on that front. My foremost concern with this card is that there is no real downside to this card, while the king requires a sacrifice in your upkeep he has a built in method to mitigate this in his automatic ability to create soldiers. However there is a really easy fix to this, just include a cost to his ability to create tokens. Replacing this with a repeatable activated ability for an amount of mana feels too white so instead I would propose adding a cost to his end of turn trigger, possibly discarding a card to ensure that there is a price to splashing the king. Although given humans are the most popular tribe and many cards are incidentally human, I imagine that there will be plenty of sacrifice fodder in both constructed and limited. Overall good work on this one, a strong design that just needs a few tweaks to be good to go and really screams arabian nights flavour (in a good way).

Possible improvements:

o   Include a cost for the human token production. Perhaps “At the beginning of your end step, you may discard a card. If you do, create a 1/1 white Human creature token.” The card disadvantage is a real downer, but you have an option not to if you can’t.

o   Go a bit harder on his power level. Something on the level of a keyword ability such as menace for example wouldn’t hurt.

o   Make the damage life loss. Possibly amp it up to 3.

Grades:

o   Formatting – 5/5

o   Function – 3/5

o   Flavour – 4/5

Alyssa says:

The flavour is nice, perfectly evocative of what Aladdin is. Perhaps it’s a bit too safe? This is what I’d expect Aladdin to do: maybe I was hoping for a little more. The formatting is mostly good, but as of now the steal effect is permanent and not tied to Aladdin staying in play. Was this intentional? Permanent steal effects are Blue’s wheelhouse, not Red’s, making it a colour bend. (Red does get to steal stuff, especially artifacts, but it very rarely gets to keep it.) I wouldn’t be averse to seeing this effect on an Izzet Aladdin for example.

It’s a simple, clean effect that has the potential for sick card advantage. I like it! It feels like something you could open in an artifacts matter set. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a similar card when we return to Kaladesh.

Michael says:

This card is interesting. As a four cmc legendary creature that fixes a core problem with mono red in an in-colour way, this card is clearly very good in EDH. However this card also is a significant tempo play and value generator in an environment that is heavy on artifacts which would probably give it legs in standard, albeit constrained thanks to the legendary supertype. My main concern with this card is that there is no condition or limitation to the steal effect. Indefinite stealing of cards is a very blue effect, while playing with artifacts is red, so I would like to make this an izzet card, but the flavour clearly does not support blue. Therefore to make this card more in line with the colour pie I would add either an end of turn clause to the steal, a limit on the cmc of the artifact, or at the very least have stolen artifacts return when this card leaves the battlefield. Return on leaving the battlefield seems the most appropriate option to me to help avoid flicker abuse in commander while still preserving the flavour of the card. Other than that good job, this is an excellent effort to provide a balanced and flavourful red card that I believe would excite people to play with.

Possible improvements:

o   Address the colour pie bend, or otherwise tie the stealing effect to Aladdin’s survival.

Grades

o   Formatting 5/5

o   Function 4/5

o   Flavour 4/5

So congratulations to Shanobi and her submission of Aladdin, Prince of Thieves as the winner for this week. It was a close race between Aladdin and King Shahrayah but where we could point to a few areas of improvement for the King, Aladdin felt perfect with just a minor tweak to bring his effect more into red’s area of the colour pie. 

It has been a fun week to judge and hopefully we should see these competitions continue if there is renewed interest in our judging. If any of you have any feedback or improvements to our judging style, please don’t hesitate to let us know.

Thank you all for your hard work and submissions!

As a bonus Alyssa and I worked briefly on what our theoretical submission could have been to this contest which we based off a monster from Iranian folklore and posted for fun here in Zahak, Hunger-Cursed.

[chimfires]

cliche // Jackson Wang

genre: honestly, idk at this point

pairing: Jackson Wang x reader (college au, athlete jackson)

*requested

You sighed, sitting back in your seat. Something was off about the photo spread for your section, and you couldn’t voice what it was. The photos contrasted too much with each other, and once they would be printed, it would only intensify the colors, making it even more obvious. You groaned, putting your face in your hands at the sheer thought of having to put your name on something like this. Writing was your passion, you loved doing it, it was the way you got to express yourself without ever having to speak. You loved telling the truth in your writing, helping people see a different side of things. Yet here you were, working on the photo editing team. Your college paper was a comfortable size, everyone helped push things along like a huge machine. Everyone had a set job, and it worked. However, it often times left you irritated, how would any self respecting news paper or magazine take you serious as a writer, if you never got the chance to. 

“y/n, my office please” your professor called. You nodded, following him in as he shut the door behind you. 

“I have a new project for you.” he said. You straightened your posture, causing him to chuckle.

“I know that photo editing isn’t exactly your cup of tea, but I’m not sure if you want this either. You know Hannah, our head of our sports section?” he asked. You slowly nodded.

“Well, Hannah withdrew from our school, and I thought you would be interested in trying to write a piece for this section. Now if you don’t like working in sports, consider this your trial piece, I’ll take it, and see who else would want sports and see if they’ll switch with you.I just want you to be able to express yourself. Are you interested?” he asked. You nodded.

“Great! Have a seat” he said, gesturing towards the chair in front of his desk. You nodded, sitting and tucking a piece of hair behind your ear. 

“The next piece is on Jackson Wang, it’s basically a profile, and general spread on him. You have a month, I want you to get to know him, and show everyone who Jackson really is. I spoke with the coach, and he knows you’re going to be around a lot, and he invited you to the pre game prep today for the team. You’ll be able to introduce yourself there. Show the coach this, and you’ll be able to get in” he said, handing you a laminated card. It read your name, as well as “editor for the post”. It was basically a press pass. He gave you a warm smile. 

“I know you’re probably jittery for this, and I know you’re on the shy side, but I think you’ll do well.” he said. You nodded, slipping the card into your pocket. 

“I won’t let you down chief” you said. He smiled, nodding. 

“Get to it then” he said. You exited the room, collecting your items. A spread on Jackson Wang.. Alleged school playboy. How interesting was this going to be?

________

“How can I help you miss?” the coach asked. You gave him a polite smile, and relayed the story the coach said. 

“Oh okay I understand. You can head on inside the gym, and if any of the boys give you a hard time let me know. I’ll get on their asses” he said. You smiled, nodding and entering the gym. Laughter filled the gym and immediately you were sent on edge at the sound of a familiar laugh of your ex. 

Kai glanced over, smirking immediately as you walked in the gym. 

“Hey y/n” he said, plush lips formed into a sickening sweet smile. 

“Hi Kai” you replied in a mono tone voice, looking over him trying to find Jackson. 

“Came to pay me a visit?” he asked, a smug look on his face. You scoffed, shaking your head.

“I’m here to see Jackson actually, have you seen him?” you asked. 

“Wang?” he scoffed, not bothering to hide the distaste in his voice. Kai couldn’t stand Jackson, he was his absolute competition, and everyone seemed to favor Jackson over Kai surprisingly . 

“yoo” Jackson yelled, looking up from the floor. He was stretching his legs, and Kai shook his head, walking away. You walked up to Jackson, heart seeming to pound in your ears. All eyes were on you. Every single player on the team watched in curiosity as you walked up to him. 

“y/n?” he asked, a small smile forming on his lips catching you off guard. How did he even know your name?

“um.. yeah that’s me... how’d you know my name?” you asked, feeling warmth spread from your chest towards the root of your hair.

“We have English and Psychology together” he said, a slight rosy tint forming on his cheeks as well. Had you really never noticed him? You glanced around at the other members of his team, all eyeing you. 

“You’re right..” you said, a slight chuckle leaving your lips. 

“Look Jackson I don’t know if your coach told you but I’m basically here to write a spread on you for the paper. So I’ll just be around, and wanted to introduce myself so it doesn’t seem like I’m stalking you” you said. Jackson smiled, nodding. 

“Of course. I wouldn’t mind if you stalked me though” he said playfully. You let a nervous smile play on your lips and tucked a piece of hair behind your ear. Immediately, he felt bad. You were clearly uncomfortable and he didn’t wanna make it worse. He placed a hand on your shoulder, giving you a sweet gaze. 

“hey.. I’m sorry.. I’m just teasing.. Thanks for the warning.. How about we get a bite after the game, that way you could ask me anything you want.” he said. You nodded.

“okay.. thanks” you said, giving him a reassuring smile. 

______

“So what do you want to know?” he asked, giving you a warm smile. Another victory had been earned to the team, Jackson scoring the winning shot. 

“Anything you feel comfortable sharing, and anything you feel comfortable with everyone knowing. I just really wanna know what everyone else wants to know.. Who is Jackson Wang?” you asked, in a fake interviewer voice. He laughed, sitting back in his seat. He brought you to a diner that had a fifties theme to it. It was basically empty, and the waitress knew Jackson by name. 

“interesting question.. but I’m not sure if I’m comfortable with a complete stranger knowing everything about me” he teased. 

“so let’s do this. For everything I tell you, you tell me something about you in response” he said. You tilted your head to the side.

“Why do you want to know about me?” you asked.

“Why wouldn’t I?” 

_____________

And this is how it went for a month, your hangouts becoming more and more frequent. Walking to class together, walking him to practice. Walks home, movie nights, dinners. You learned that he loved music.. dancing.. rapping... he loved basketball because his late father and him bonded over it, but he only played for the school team because they gave him a full ride, and it took a load off his mothers back. Spending time with him, you grew to know that he was a kind soul, he just wanted to make his mother proud overall. You also learned that people often times took his kindness for flirting, which explained how he got his playboy title. You grew to learn the difference between his flirting, and conversing. It was strange to think about, but he was becoming your favorite part of your day.

“So how’s the article about me coming?” he asked. You sighed, throwing your head back in response. 

“Jackson Wang you are a complex character. Butttt it’s coming along.” you said. he nodded, playfully shoving your knee.

“stop it” you groaned, lightly kicking him. He smiled, putting the laptop on the table. 

“You need a break...” he said.

“I need to finish.. I have what.. four days before it goes out?” you asked.

“And you have everything you need.. you’ll fry your pretty little brain out” he teased. You sighed, tucking a piece of hair behind your ear. 

“shut uppp” you groaned. 

“you’re just mad I’m right” he teased again. A comfortable silence fell between the two of you. You looked down, realizing that his hand hadn’t left your knee. A faint blush began to creep up  your neck, when you realized the close proximity between the two of you. he had an arm around you, letting his hand rest on your knee, and you were tucked into his side. Any closer, you would be sitting on his lap. He absentmindedly moved his thumb in circular motions, watching whatever film it was he chose to watch that night. He was chewing on his bottom lip, completely immersed in the film. You knew Jackson was handsome, anyone with working eyes knew he was. But there was something about seeing him like this, in his natural element. He wasn’t Jackson Wang star athlete around you. He was simply Jackson Wang.. son.. and friend... His raven colored hair parted in the middle, slightly covering his eyes, but leaving enough room for him to see the world around him. There was something about him.. Was it his laugh? His smile? Was it the way he cared for his family, or the way he cared for his team? Or was it everything combined that had made you fall for him. 

It sucked. 

You had fallen for him. Just like every cliche movie and romance book. The quiet smart girl, falling for the star athlete. But in your case, you weren’t likely to have a happy ending. 

“You know.. I’m excited for your article to come out” he said, glancing down at you. 

“You are?” you asked.

“mhmmm.. it’ll be interesting..I hope you wont forget about me once you become a famous writer and stuff” he said, giving you a coy smile. 

“How could I forget about Jackson Wang, star athlete that got my career started” you teased. He smiled, eyes not leaving yours. 

“I hope you won’t.. because that would suck.” he said. You gave a soft sigh, reaching to tuck a piece of hair behind your ear, and having him beat you to it. His fingers softly dance across your cheek, both of your breaths slowing down. He softly ran his fingers along the shape of your lips, softly caressing your bottom lip. his gaze flickering from your eyes to your lips, then back up to your eyes. It was a waiting game, trying to see who would give in first. Something pulled both of you in, lips softly brushing each others, you could feel his breath agsint your lips. Noses softly bumping each others, making you smile. Placing your hand on the back of his neck, hoping to bring him closer, only for Jackson to be pulled away by the sound of his phone. You sighed, hand resting on his shoulder

“Fuck” he whispered. Pulling back.You could hear Yugyeom on the other end, telling him he was outside, and that they had to go to some random ass party.

“I can’t- Yug- oh my god shut the fuck up im coming” he groaned, hanging up. 

“i’m sorry.. I have to go.. please meet me at this party.. We can talk there” he said, softly stroking your cheek. 

“Promise me you’ll come” he said. 

“Fine fine.. go before Yugyeom has a heart attack.��� you teased. He smiled, quickly exiting your apartment, and leaving you in a daze. 

______

You entered the house, trying to squeeze yourself past body after body, people dancing. The house had a cloud of smoke covering it. The smell of alcohol mixed with the scent of marijuana seemed to set the tone for a classic college party. The lights were off, and the only source of illumination was that  of LED lights, casting a crimson glow in the room. 

“y/n? at a party? On a monday night?” a familiar voice said. You sighed, continuing to walk.

“Stop walking away from me” Kai said, stepping in front of you. He eyed you, a smirk playing on his lips. 

“ooooh you’re looking for Wang.. hmmm” he said, looking around the room. 

“ I think I saw him with Jennie a few moments ago” he said, running his fingers through his hair. 

“kai let me through: you said, trying to push past him. Kai looked back, a smile forming on his lips.

“You like him don’t youuu” he teased. You frowned, ignoring his gaze.

“I know that look.. you used to look at me like that... Aaaaah good times” he said. 

“Kai you’re literally talking to yourself.” you snapped. 

“You know he won’t take you serious right?” he asked.

“You’ll just be something to do, when theres nothing to do” he said, finally moving aside to reveal what his frame was covering. Your heart seemed to to drop. 

Jennie had just pulled back from Jackson’s lips, he looked up, gaze meeting yours. 

“y/n!” he shouted. You turned, quickly waking towards the door, vision becoming glossy. 

Don’t cry

“y/n please!” Jackson called, catching your hand as you stepped outside. 

“please let me go” you said. 

“Let me explain.” he pleaded.

“There’s no need.. trust me Jackson you’re cool. Thank you.. for everything and for your time.. I appreciate it.” you said, forcing a fake smile. The tears pooled in your eyes as you fought to blink them back. An uneasy feeling sat in the pit of your stomach. It wasn’t his fault, it was simply who he was. His expression was beginning to mirror yours. Tears brimmed his eyes as you pulled back. He watched as your bottom lip quivered. That was when he realized he hated seeing you cry.. He hated you hurting.. especially if he was the one causing the pain.

“please.. please let me explain” he whispered. Jennie had kissed him, and what you saw, was the end of it. He pushed her away, it wasn’t what he wanted.. He wanted to talk to you.. He wanted to find you. She threw herself on him, hearing from Kai that he was into her.  a complete lie. 

“Seriously... no need... I hope you’l like the article.. and good luck with everything Jackson.. and thank you again” you said, walking off. He threw his hat in frustration. 

What had he done. 

______

“y/n.. this article.. is fantastic..” Chief said. You smiled, thanking him. Monday night was a blur at this point, and you just wanted to get the article out of the way, that way you wouldn’t have to even think about Jackson again. You’d done well with avoiding him. Getting to class early, and leaving as soon as it finished. Avoiding him on campus, and having your roommate tell him you weren’t in. It was simple, and easy to do till the end of the semester if you had to. 

“And you’re sure you don’t want to do sports?” he asked. You shook your head. 

“Well, Mike that runs News and Opinion said he’d be happy to switch with you for photo editor and Sports” he said. He could see you perk up immediately. 

“Yes.. I’ll be happy to switch..” you replied. He smiled, nodding. 

“well the congratulations y/n” he said. You thanked him, leaving to head home to celebrate. 

Sitting on your sofa with a glass of wine in your hand, you smiled at what you managed to accomplish. Hearing a knock on the door, you opened the door, smile leaving your lips immediately. 

“is it true?” he asked.

“is what true Jackson?” you asked, voice coming out in almost a whisper. 

“Is what you wrote true?” he asked, holding up a newspaper. You stood silent. 

“Jackson Wang, star athlete, loved by many. Wang is known to many for continuously taking his teams to victory, while keeping a humble attitude. The love he has for the game, is nothing in comparison for the love he has for those around him....- Jackson Wang is a force to be reckoned with. With his drive for success, and positive attitude on life, there is no doubt that this kind soul will ever fail those around him’ he read the last paragraph of your article, looking up at you. 

“You know I don’t lie in my writing Jackson...” you whispered. He swallowed, running his hands through his hair. 

“I was expecting something different..” he whispered.

“I wouldn’t bash your name Jackson.. It’s not who I am and it wouldn’t be the truth.” you said. 

“That’s why I like you.” He whispered. You chuckled, shaking your head. 

“And please let me explain the other night..” he whispered with pleading eyes. 

“Kai had told Jennie I was into her.. She kissed me, and I pushed her away.. that is it.. I wanted to talk to you that night.. I wanted to ask you out on a proper date.. I wanted to tell you that I’m absolutely crazy about you.. I’ve been crazy about you since you sat in English the first day of school..” he whispered. You looked up at him, trying to register everything he was saying.

“so please... please believe me..” he whispered. You stared at him for a moment, looking him over. You carefully put your hand on the back of his neck, bringing his lips to yours. 

“When’s that date?” you asked. 

And just like that.... You had fallen for him. Just like every cliche movie and romance book. The quiet smart girl, falling for the star athlete. 

And just like the cliche romance movies and books...

he had fallen for you.  

__________

Honestly, I feel like my writing is so shitty lately.. I suck at writing and describing thingsss butttt I’m trying to work on it. Remember requests are open. We aren’t taking requests for BTS at the moment, but we are for any other group. If you want something form this list, message us a number+ member from a group.

masterlist

~Lia