#the motive is so simple but the instruments that play in in the original are so dynamic

[sleeveace22]

i continue to make fugue out of electronic tracks i like,,,,

[deathbxnny]

So tumblr decided to screw me over and posted the ask too early, which made me delete it in panic and lose the original ask. However!! I thankfully saved the first part of the ask, so here it is:

May I please request Yanqing learning to play a flute because he heard his s/o singing and wanted to be able to join?

Sorry again to the Anon. I also added/changed up the idea a little, so I hope you guys like it!!<33

Content: Established relationship, reader is a singer, teen reader, Jing Yuan being a smug menace, kind of unserious, sfw

Reader has no mentioned pronouns!

((Not proofread))

The trouble of young love. (Yanqing x GN!Reader)

"You... want to learn how to play the flute?" Jing Yuan muttered in near disbelief, his brow raising high as he gazed down at the determined boy, who gave him a simple nod of approval. "Yes. And preferably, by the end of this week." He stated as though it was the easiest thing in the world to simply just learn an instrument in under a week. The general unfortunately didn't doubt that Yanqing genuinely believed that, however.

Jing Yuan blinked in surprise before glancing around quickly in thought. Was this another prank of his? No, it definitely wasn't that simple.

"... And why?" "Oh well... uh..." Yanqing nervously pulled at the collar of his uniform, suddenly slightly flustered and unwilling to share what had gotten him so awfully motivated in the first place. Not that the older man really needed to hear it, as he already had an inkling on what, or rather who, it could be. "... Does it even matter why? I've just been feeling very... musically inclined lately." Jing Yuan snorted at that despite his better judgment, which made Yanqing scowl in offense.

"I'm having a hard time believing that, Yanqing."

The blonde crossed his arms in defiance. "You're not even taking my request seriously, Master." He said, watching as said man leaned back in his chair and near mockingly crossed his arms as well. "It's not that I'm not taking this seriously... it's just that you've never had an interest in such artistic things before." He clarified, even if Yanqing knew better than to believe that it was just an innocent inquiry. "Besides... learning to play a flute is the same as wielding a sword. You need alot of time and patience to hone your skills. A week won't suffice." "And if it is?"

Jing Yuan now grinned in amusement, having expected to be challenged on this. He supposed that this would make for a good teaching lesson in the long run and whilst it may not be the most responsible thing to do, he decided that this would also serve as a form of small punishment for disturbing his "work" in the grand office.

Ah, young love... truly a troublesome thing.

The older man figured that he was doing all of this for you only. Yanqing mentioned your fear of singing in front of large crowds before, and therefore, it didn't come as a surprise that he wanted to do everything in his power to make his lover happy. In a way, it made the general proud to see the boy slowly grow into a young man... even if it came at the cost of his sanity at times. You had changed the lieutenant of the cloud nights in many ways. Some good and some awfully questionable, to say the least. But he figured Yanqing would learn such things on his own in due time.

"Consider me defeated." "And I get a raise to my allowance?" "Perhaps I'll consider it, depending on how well you play." That's all Yanqing needed to hear, the excitement and fire that burned in him at the prospect of not only beating his own master and then also getting more money to share with his dear dove made him immideatly turn and filter out of the room with no further comment. Unknowing of the perilous path he'd have to take in order to learn the art of this instrument.

He was confident that he could make it in under a week so that he could accompany your singing during your first ever stage performance in the grand theaters of the Luofu, which is the whole reason he wanted to learn how to play the flute in the first place.

It couldn't be that hard after all, right?

---

Well, after a good 5 days of relentless training, he still couldn't play more than notes akin to demonic screeching. The general was fair enough to lend him a fancy flute from his own youth, alongside a guide and a couple of traditional music sheets. And yet, it all ended with him laying sprawled out on top of them, the instrument carelessly tossed onto a nearby pillow, whilst he stared up at the ceiling with a deadpan.

Perhaps he truly had underestimated the sheer power of the flute.

But he couldn't claim defeat. At this point, it had become something personal. A challenge that neared one of life and death. If he lost now, then the general would bring this up for centuries to come, and Yanqing did not want to live through that personal hell. Sighing deeply, he rubbed his tired eyes.

Surely, there had to be something he was doing wrong. And yet he just couldn't figure out what it was. He hadn't slept or rested properly in days either, having been too focused on this life changing mission that he just had no care for anything else. But the self-doubt was beginning to creep in, and he didn't know if he was more upset at himself or at the general. He simply wasn't as talented as you were musically.

And just as his eyes were beginning to flutter shut in defeat, your melodic voice breathed life right back into him. He inhaled deeply, quickly drapping a couple of blankets and pillows over the flute and music sheets before he quickly summoned a sword to act as though he was polishing it. Entering the room with an obvious air of worry and nervousness, you gave him a weak smile.

"Yanqing." You hummed gently, perhaps even nearly shyly as you approached him and took a careful seat next to him. His hand reached out and pressed it's palm against your warm cheek, a tired smile gracing his lips. "Hello there, my dove... it's late out. Why are you here?" He asked, nervous that you'd notice the golden flute that was sticking out from behind a pillow a couple meters away. But thankfully you only had eyes on him, as you fidgeted with your hands.

"The last rehearsal is tomorrow... and I'm starting to have doubts... especially after I heard the rumor regarding the general and the Master Diviner attending the performance as well! I didn't know it was going to be such a big thing..." And it wouldn't have been if Yanqing never mentioned a word of it. He should've guessed that his master would eventually figure out his plans and attempt to get first row seats to view his defeat. Something about it filled him with strong determination, the need to win resurfacing in his heart. If not for himself, then you.

"Don't worry about it. Just focus on your singing, and I'll take care of the rest." He said, a serious look on his face that made you raise a confused brow. Yet you thankfully didn't dwell on his cryptic words any further due to him swiftly changing the topic to more mundane things to keep you distracted.

He eventually walked you home, your hand in his, the sun having set completely hours ago. It was a calming moment that refocused his mind and soul on the task at hand, which he ofcourse immideatly resumed once he returned to the estate. It didn't matter to him if he had to stay up 2 more days for this to work.

He'd play the most beautiful sounds on the flute to accompany your singing and if it's the last thing he did.

At this point, he was perhaps just doing it to wipe that smug look off of his mentors face.

---

"Alright! All done... you look great, (Y/N)!" One of your friends grinned as she fixed up the last details on your rather lavish performance clothes. You tried to weakly smile back, unable to help the deep feeling of fear that ran through you. "Is the theater room full already?" "To the brim! And the General and Master Diviner have also arrived just now... man, it's a real fullhouse tonight." She trailed off, missing the way all color seemed to leave your face.

You had hoped that it was a simple rumour, but after sneaking a peek from behind the curtains into the grand hall, your fears truly did come true. Jing Yuan was casually leaning back in his seat as he conversed with Fu Xuan about a topic that made the woman deadpan at him in annoyance.

This is definitely going to be a disaster, you concluded with an affirmative nod.

"(Y/N)? Please get in formation. The performance is just about to start." The director whispered to you when the lights dimmed and you were pushed towards the stage. Your heart was beating against your chest, your mouth feeling dry. How were you supposed to do this? You couldn't do it. The fear was too great.

And it didn't help that Yanqing was nowhere to be seen in the crowd.

Gulping as the music started, you shakily opened your mouth when suddenly the most melodic symphony of a flute accompanied your at first trembling voice. You blinked in surprise, eyes glancing over to see your lover resting atop a fake tree as his fingers moved along the instrument. Finally understanding everything, you turned to the audience with newfound confidence. Your voice traveled throughout the entire stadium and bewitched it's listeners. No one could look away if they wanted to.

And by the end of the performance, no one could stay seated either, as they cheered and clapped loudly... except for Jing Yuan and Fu Xuan, who still looked hardly impressed next to the general. They watched as Yanqing approached you with a wide smile, your arms immideatly wrapping around him in sincere gratefulness. Giving the man an expectant look, the Master Diviner crossed her arms with a frown.

"Well? What type of teaching moment was this supposed to be?" She asked, not being convinced of his ways of teaching at all anymore. Jing Yuan kept staring ahead, a calm and victorious smile on his lips whilst he watched you and Yanqing happily talk on stage. "That he should learn how to be patient and not overdo things that take time, unless he wants to reap the consequences." Fu Xuan raised a brow, obviously very much unimpressed. "You do realise that this just proved to him that he doesn't need to do that?" "Ah no... he won't do it ever again. Just wait." He simply replied, his grin widening when Yanqing's face dropped. There was a pause... before the boy suddenly just finally collapsed into your arms and chaos broke out.

Fu Xuan gave Jing Yuan a near horrified glance, the older man only continuing to smile in content.

He did try and warn him after all.

Alrighttt... I hope this was fine, Anon!! I once again apologize for accidentally deleting your request and hope this was okay enough to make up for it!!<33

[cocoa-rococo]

Koopaling Headcanons: Ludwig

Larry | Morton | Wendy | Iggy | Roy | Lemmy | Ludwig

The composer of chaos and everyone's favorite general, Ludwig! What a guy.

Naturally left-handed, but trained himself to be ambidextrous

He's disturbingly good at discerning people's motives, personalities, and past. He claims it's simple logic, but no one really knows how he does it.

Whenever Bowser’s in a pissy mood or feels agitated, Ludwig sometimes gets called in to play something soft and relaxing to calm him down.

There's rumors floating around the army that he was originally a Paratroop General who sold his wings in exchange for arcane powers in a magical bargain with Kamek. He's yet to confirm or deny this. (It’s not true, but he likes to keep his recruits on their toes).

Partially deaf in his left ear, and uses a hearing aid to assist him. Fluent in sign language, as well.

Has a baritone voice, very rich and darkly colored. He can hit high notes with relative ease, but can't hold them as long as he can with his lower notes.

His singing is enchanted. It's something he was born with, and he's gotten very good at controlling it. He does forget sometimes, and before he knows it, his humming down the street has attracted a plethora of birds.

Also fairly decent at mimicking bird calls. Iggy is dying to learn his secret.

Likes reading mystery novels and detective stories, but spaces them out so he doesn’t read the chapters all at once. He also uses Morton as a soundboard for theories in each chapter, and relishes the feeling of being smart if he solves it before the end.

One of the most magically powerful out of his siblings. He’s fairly decent at a little bit of everything, but his siblings are stronger with their specialization. His best field is in Evocation.

While piano is his preferred instrument, he plays several: violin, cello, pump organ, pipe organ, guitar, flute, clarinet, harp, harpsichord, and ocarina.

He’s an ugly crier and hates it, which is why he tries not to do it often.

Fond of gardenias and wisteria flowers.

One of his favorite down-time, out-and-about activities is going antiquing. He’s found a nice gramophone, a few records, and some furniture pieces for his room by doing so.

Likes having a physical, paper to-do list. It makes him feel productive and organized as he checks things off.

He and Wendy have ‘Bitch Lunch' together, where they basically talk shit about their coworkers, spill tea about their friends, and gossip the whole time.

You can actually tell how long he's been composing by how dark his hands are with ink smudges. You can also tell how bad of a mood he’s in.

Loves the smell of coffee and vanilla, but leans more towards being a tea person. He's got an excellent palate for both, however.

Larry is persistently trying to introduce him to the keytar. Ludwig is persistently refusing to go near it.

Very much a morning person. He wakes up earlier than most of his siblings and likes having his hot drink and reading alone to enjoy the quiet hours before the rest of his family wakes up.

The ultimate master of time management. He gets kinda tetchy when others don’t respect deadlines or appointments dates, and heaven help you if you intrude on his scheduled self-care hours.

He snorts when he laughs really hard, and is terribly embarrassed by it, so he tries to reign it in when he can. Anyone who can do it who isn't a sibling is a special person, indeed.

He likes tall places, especially the views. Great for a bit of peace from his siblings and inspiration for his music.

When his siblings are annoying him, he likes bombarding them with music puns. He is well aware he's being an ass and does not care.

Leaned more towards science as a kid, but discovered the piano when he was twelve, and creating music felt right in a way that making little inventions never did. He never looked back, and he’s a lot happier for it, too.

Keeps a little pocket notebook on him for writing things down, and he's pretty dutiful about marking things in. It's a common gift his sibling get him on the holidays.

He doesn't have as much of a sweet tooth, but toffee — especially with almonds or coffee in it — is his weakness. His siblings have learned he can be bribed to look the other way if they have enough.

Also a fan of very dark chocolate, and his favorite pastry is a freshly-warm coffee cake.

He's pretty alright at art, especially with acrylic paint and sketchier mediums like charcoal and conté, he just doesn't like how dirty his hands get afterwards. He's got a side business doing murals.

Favorite fruits are cherries and plums, but he also won’t turn down anything with blackberry in it.

Likes watching regency romance dramas in his alone time, but loves dragging the shit out of reality TV shows with Wendy.

He also loves watching those foreign films with subtitles, very artful with a lot of emotion in them, especially if he's feeling spiteful and his little siblings are annoying, because "No, Luds, I don't want to read a film after two hours of paperwork!"

Has a small collection of model ships in bottles. He keeps them on a high, high shelf in his room, given his work environment. Ship kits are another common gift to him.

Looks at memes like an old man; both hands, squinting eyes, mouth slightly open. The others think this is hilarious.

[thethirdgenesisbooks]

How to Put Words in Your Book - 5 Tips to Actually Start Writing

There is a problem among a great many writers and aspiring authors: so many of us never actually put any words into a Word document. Some writers will spend years developing a story idea. They’ll think of everything; the world-building, the characters, moving scenes, but never actually sit down to write the story.

Sometimes this comes from a lack of confidence. Writers think, “What if my story isn’t good enough?” These writers need to realize that the only thing worse than a bad story is the story that’s never written at all. For other writers, the reason why they can’t seem to actually get anything written is because while they know where the story has to go, they don’t know how to start. For still others, the problem is simply a matter of motivation.

Here are five tips to help you get your story rolling:

1 - Read the Opening of Someone Else’s Novel.

Sometimes, it can be hard to know what sorts of details to introduce first in your story. Do you start with a physical description of the character? A quote? A scene with characters in peril? Seeing how other authors started off their books can be helpful in this regard. I’d recommend reading the opening of a novel in a different genre from the one you’re writing. That way, you aren’t tempted to borrow too heavily, and can focus on putting out your own material.

2 - Listen to Music.

My wife and I developed this game that we sometimes play that utilizes her skills as a musician and mine as an author. I’ll sit or lie down on the couch with my eyes closed, and she’ll start playing an original, improvised piece of music on the piano. As I listen to the tune, I’ll start to describe a scene that the music brings to mind and tell a short story. Similarly, whenever I sit down to write one of my books, I listen to instrumental music that’s appropriate to the story I’m working on. I recommend that if you choose to use music to inspire your writing, you make sure it has no lyrics, as your writing may start to reflect the words you hear. I also recommend not using music that you associate with a particular scene. For example, when I tried writing while listening to “The Barber of Seville,” all I could see when I closed my eyes was Bugs Bunny shaving Elmer Fudd. You want music into which you can put your own meaning.

3 - If You are Spiritual, Pray or Meditate.

This piece of advice is pretty simple. If you are a spiritual or religious person, then before you write take a moment to stop and either pray or meditate. There’s a reason the Greeks thought goddesses called “muses” inspired art. The right side of the brain is associated with creativity, intuition, and spirituality. So, activate that side of your brain by doing something spiritual. Personally, when I was writing the first novel in my Third Genesis fantasy series, I prayed every time that “words would flow from my fingers to the page.” Most days, I wrote around 3,000 words in that book.

4 - When Stuck, Get Up and Walk.

You’d be surprised what even the tiniest amount of exercise can do for you. Do you have stairs in your home? Walk up and down a few times. Do you have a stationary bike? Ride it a little. Any form of exercise, however small, can get your mind going.

5 - Act Out the Scene.

Do you know your characters well enough to know how they speak to each other, what their goals are, and what they want out of life? Then play pretend for a bit, as you might well have done when you were a child. Improvise the scene, and pretend that you are all of the characters in the scene engaged in a discussion or struggle. You may find that you’re not good at improvising their dialogue, but that’s alright. When you say it out loud, you’ll get a better idea of what’s natural conversation. You’ll also gain some insights into what the characters would or wouldn’t do, based on what they want.

These are just a few things you could try to get the creative juices flowing. All of these have worked well for me. Good luck and happy writing!

[bvannn]

Weekly Update March 8, 2024

I didn’t do as much as I had hoped over spring break due to still being sleep deprived, but tomorrow and the next night I should be able to catch up. I’m making a good deal of progress on stuff.

I figured out animation with Clip Studio enough to make a little gif of Romeo playing piano, to go along with his theme. I’m really happy with how it came out. That’s the biggest song I have ready, but I’m really close on another (unless I decide to get more ambitious, which I might), and I do have a smaller one scheduled to go up Tuesday. I’m feeling surprisingly good about music.

The main problem I’m having is kind of a ‘just finish it’ thing, where I’m just not motivated to go record melodies or melody parts for whatever reason. That’s what’s holding back a couple pieces now, but I’m hoping that I can do some tonight or tomorrow. I’m thinking tonight because I got hit with inspiration for another character theme melody, and I don’t want to lose it while I sleep tonight, but I’d feel bad starting in that when another character theme and some other miscellaneous pieces are also awaiting melodies and recordings. I’d like to knock a whole bunch out tonight, because theoretically they shouldn’t be that bad, the annoying part is dressing them up for use which doesn’t need to be done tonight. Im not sure if I want to tonight because I also want to draw, at a minimum I’ll record that character theme melody.

The other big music thing is a vocaloid cover of a song that I’m using to test out how vocaloid works. I got the audio back from the friend with the voicebanks, and it sounds a lot better than expected! There’s a couple things I do want to tweak, but I don’t think I’d be able to do it from within the program, it’ll probably be more me fiddling with the wav file. Idk song is going surprisingly well, shouldn’t be very complicated to round up instruments, I already got all the plugins set up it’s just a matter of recording. I’ve also managed to find a guy in my area who offers Guitar lessons for cheap, which I’ve been taking and I do think the two I’ve been to are helping. Maybe if I get really brazen I can record organic guitar instead of using a vst, since it should be mostly or entirely power chords, but it’s not the end of the world if I can’t.

I do want to figure out visuals to go with it. I was a little hesitant to really put in a big effort with it, until I heard that buying a license for cover rights is ‘not actually that expensive’. I don’t know if that means 10 or 200 bucks but worst case I can hold onto it until I’m comfortable enough to drop money if it’s really that expensive. I’d like to do a simple music video with the vocaloid character, since the original song’s video is also really simple, although I need to figure out character design. Might throw a few together and put up a poll.

I’ve been trying to get more drawing stuff done too, some miscellaneous animations mostly. I’m really trying to push myself to finish up the timings I need for my commission sheet, and honestly I’m pretty close. I feel bad because I probably will have to increase prices after all, but I’m also offering other options, which can still be cheap. I’m trying not to undercut myself for my level of work, but art commissions are so expensive that I don’t want to be overcharging either. Most of the comms I have done have come with tips, so I guess people are willing to pay a bit more than I was charging anyway, but even then I don’t want to crank the prices high just because a few people are willing to pay more. I’m charging based on time, I just need to sort out how long things take.

Final point, comic writing/thumbnailing is going well, I’m at 25.5/32. Unsure how bad editing is going to be, but I’m kinda editing as I go along so I don’t anticipate it’ll be that bad. I’m expecting to be able to actually start making pages soon. What comes next could either be a continuation or a pitch for the other story. I get more questions about the other story, so I’m tempted, but I also feel like it’s a harder sell than the first. Whatever I need to finish the first one first, and that’s what I’ll do.

I’m still messed up on sleep and flareups are also picking up pretty bad, but only in the mornings, so I bet if I get more sleep they’ll go away too. Either way I do have a consult for the next surgery to deal with that in a couple months, so I should hopefully be okay. Plan tonight is to either draw some more or record some stuff

[shabby-alonso]

part 2 of this

A Scattered Moment

OG2, K2

The end of Y2 finds us high over the city, in the snow, facing down for one final time none other than our first rival dragon - Goda Ryuji. Rather than the energetic and grinding guitars heard throughout the rest of the soundtrack, we are met with a solo piano. Rhythmically, A Scattered Moment fits in well with the rest of the game's soundtrack with clusters of chords in syncopation, but otherwise it stands out completely. 45s in, we hear dragon calls and the occasional percussion followed by sustained strings at 1m30s. To explain the musical dragon call, it’s expressed as a sustained high note rising in pitch before broadening as if in a roar. I’ve seen people describe this motif as a siren, or half a siren, but it reads quite clearly to me as a representation of the dragon call. This motif is heard throughout various tracks in all the games, but it is most notable for the first time at this point between Kiryu and Ryuji. Ryuji isn't just the loud, brash persona here; much like with Nishikiyama, he's stripped down and the fight is personal.

The opening piano gives us setting and motive. You can almost hear the cold and feel the snow start to fall as the piano melody rises and falls. Two dragons locked in combat high up in the sky overlooking Kamurocho. The Hills itself representing not only a symbol of oncoming change, but of loneliness. Ryuji is, in a lot of ways, quite lonely. Surrounded by compatriots and hangers-on, but yearning for the family he lost. As the track comes to a close, the piano falters, falling out of rhythm like a heart palpitation and slowly crawling to a resolution. We can look at the ending two ways, either Ryuji falls and dies with the music, or he stutters towards a new beginning.

K2 takes a similar approach to K1 in terms of "updating" the soundtrack. The texture here is much thicker with strings present throughout and the piano nearly drowned out by the accompaniment. Strings and percussion begin the track before allowing a few moments of solo piano before bringing in the whole orchestra. Like K1, I believe this was done to give a more "cinematic" feel as well as a grander sort of look at what we can do now with a bigger budget and a bigger orchestra. Also much like K1, however, I think this is to the detriment of what the song originally represented.

It no longer feels lonely and cold, but grandiose and almost self-important. Perhaps it is a more dynamic and exciting sound, but in that it seems to imply that Ryuji really is only as he seems. The dragon calls have also been removed and the piano never stutters. Ryuji doesn't fall musically at all; it all simply resolves nicely and prettily.

Fly

Y3

Y3 presents us with our most complex final boss theme so far, and our first planned for dynamic intro. The dynamic intro has since become a staple of the series visually, something countless fans look forward to, compare, and even swap out the original tracks for other songs in some strange competition of who can make this each scene look “cooler.” The addition of the intro changes how the theme is presented in-game and more greatly differentiates it from its soundtrack equivalent.

In order to accommodate for the dynamic intro, a short string version of the one of the main motifs of the theme is used while the characters are talking that segues into the theme as it appears on the soundtrack with the next cut. So far, the discussed themes have been fairly simple in terms of construction with two main sections, A and B. Fly, on the other hand, clocks in at arguably 4. Although, we could argue a bit in either direction, as none of the sections in Fly repeat perfectly – only in variation. To spare too much of a play-by-play, the ostinato bass of the opening section creeps in and vamps until the freeze frame of the intro ends as Kiryu and Mine’s feet hit the ground with the entrance of the rest of the instrumentation. What follows next is the fight, with the theme looping as need be, until the end where it switches to a music box version as Mine falls into Kiryu and onto the ground.

In very short, Fly is a meltdown. Each section builds on the last, never repeating with only a few moments of comedown until it finally crashes, adrenaline spent.

Mine’s mental state is reflected more specifically in the music as well through the use of guitars and a modified dragon call motif. The guitar solo is the most clear example, coming in at about 2m40s breaking over the accompaniment with an urgency unlike the previous sections and a turmoil that never resolves – merely being cut off at its emotional height. The modified dragon call, kirin call if you will, comes up throughout the theme much more even than dragon calls in the earlier themes. Unlike the others, the sound is different; Kiryu is nowhere to be found here.

Where previous dragon calls seem to roar, ending on a high note, the kirin calls switch between manic and mournful. At around 56s we hear the first of the more manic variety, short and open, roaring much like the dragon calls but not as sustained. At around 1m25s the second even more manic variety sounds, nearly a laugh. The more mournful kind can be heard clearly around 2m40s, crying out plaintively (and the first such call in the series to move downwards in pitch). These motifs can be heard throughout the rest of the track, but those are a few notable examples to listen for. In fact, one mournful call sounds only a few seconds into the in-game introduction behind the strings and piano.

It’s clear even just audibly that Mine is at his limit emotionally, moved past coherent thought by the weight of his grief and his shaky attempts to convince himself he can take control of the situation and right himself. At times, two guitars in concert take over the melody, signalling a moment of internal unity before returning to the duel between his will to rationalize and the chaos of his emotional state as the two guitars diverge again. The ending music box variation signals not just the end of the outburst but, in narrowing everything we just heard over the course of the battle down to one instrument, a moment of unity – a mind resolved.

[piecksz]

pet. | (m)

pairings: yelena x fem!reader

warnings: nsfw, non con, oral sex (female recieving), fingering, intoxication, gun play, violence, slight degredation, explicit language

words: 2.3k+

summary: hange sends you to investigate her suspicions about yelena’s loyalty to the military, but unfortunately for you, she’s already ten steps ahead. 

You should have known better.

Maybe if you’d been more wary she wouldn’t have had the advantage, but you weren’t. Instead you’d been unsuspecting, accepting her blithe invitation to talk about military proceedings over a drink when it hadn’t been your original plan because Hange’s directives were simple. Suspicions had been propagating amongst the higher-ups that the anti-Marleyan volunteers were planning an underhanded coup, and at the forefront of the insurrection was their ringleader, Yelena.

Your orders were to meet with her and solicit information that could have given Hange and the rest of the authorities a lead, so you thought nothing unsavory of Yelena suggesting you two meet at a bar. She offered to cover the tab, and you figured it would be easier to seek out details if she had some alcohol in her system, but Yelena was observant, much more than you had been. She knew the basis for the occasion, and so she coaxed you into one glass after another until you’d grown so tipsy that you didn’t realize she never took one sip.

Afterwards, it didn’t take much effort to convince you to come back with her to her place, accommodation she’d been provided as a guest on Paradis. The minute she lured you inside with the promise to take care of you until you were sober, she seized your arm and forced it behind your back into a nearly impossible position. With the weight of her body, she drove you into the wall, effectively cornering you with the threatening barrel of her gun pressed into the underside of your jaw.

She lowered her mouth to your ear. “The military doesn’t trust me, do they?”

You only grunted in pain, pointlessly writhing in Yelena’s hold.

“And here I was thinking we were just starting to become friends.” She sighed. “They’re smart not to.”

You said nothing, already realizing it was futile to try and prove that you had no ulterior motives for meeting with her, she already knew everything you presumed she didn’t.

“At least I weeded out their pet.” She prodded the hollow cavity where your jawbone met your neck with the cold metal. “What do you say to becoming mine instead?” She thumbed over the gun’s cylinder, clicking the plate into place before teasing the trigger.

You sent her a malicious glower over your shoulder, eyes blazing with animosity. “Go fuck yourself.”

Yelena’s eyebrows lifted in surprise at your rancorous choice of words, but her expression quickly melted into a duplicitous grin. “Is that a yes?” She nudged her gun against the side of your throat, an understated reminder that she still had the option to censor you with a single bullet.  

You stuck your chin out in resistance yet remained silent. Compliance was your only alternative, but nothing made you sicker than the thought of submission.

“Good girl,” Yelena chuckled. She released your arm and stepped back, continuing to stand with the firearm pointed in your direction. “Shirt and pants. Off.”

Her command was curt, and it had you carefully turning to face her. “Yelena—”

“Pets don’t talk.” She flicked her gun to the side, emphasizing her instruction. “I need to make sure you’re not concealing any weapons.”

You hesitated, but quivering fingers traveled to the buttons of your shirt, undoing each of them one by one. Your movements were slow while you tried to stall as much as possible. If you failed to report back to Hange in time, they would conclude that something in your job had gone awry, then they’d come looking for you.

“Faster.” Yelena’s eyes narrowed. She must have sensed your deliberate pace.

Calculating bitch.

You shrugged your shirt off, tossing it on the floor beside you before working yourself out of your pants and discarding them in the same heap.

“Happy?” You held your arms up, turning around once over so Yelena could see that you didn’t possess any visible weapons.

She flicked her wrist down to your feet. “Shoes too.”

Your irritated look slackened at her awareness, still, you slowly bent down, reaching your fingers into your boot until they closed around the smooth wooden handle of a switchblade. You pulled the weapon out, briefly considering the odds of successfully landing damage if you lunged at her from where you were. You decided against it, knowing that it would take less time for her to activate the trigger than it would for you to attack.

Yelena held her hand out, and you reluctantly pressed the blade into her palm. “It would be a shame if I cut you up with your own knife, wouldn’t it?” She snapped it open, studying its whetted edge with eagerness.

Your eyes widened at the mention of her threat, and you backed further up against the wall, arms wrapped about your body in a miserable attempt to offer yourself some decency.

“Don’t look so scared. I won’t.” She retracted the blade and slid it into her pocket. “I have other plans for you. You’re gonna tell me everything I want to know.”

“Or else?” you combated.

Yelena grinned with amusement. “Or else? Dauntless are we? I admire that.” She took a long stride, closing in on you with her imposing height. “You’re gonna tell me everything I want to know if you don’t want your brains on my wall.” She tapped her gun against your cheek.

“You’re not gonna kill me.”

Yelena raised her eyebrows at the way you underestimated her vice.

“Commander Hange and Captain Levi wouldn’t let you see the light of day.” You chuckled. “And after they’ve been such kind hosts to you, is that any way to repay them?”

She pretended to muse over your reasoning, and then she shrugged. “Should I get my information another way then?”

You tilted your head to the side, now at a loss for words. You drew your brows together and shook your head, unable to discern what she was hinting at.

“It was easy getting you this far.” Yelena’s rich voice was strangely comforting as she spoke into your ear, the melodic rhythm of her voice lulling you into relaxation. “Your heroism is cute Y/N, but you’re not as smart as you think you are.” She coiled a strand of your hair around her lithe fingers before her hands traveled down to your chest.

“You think all your decisions are yours, but they’re not.” Her touch trailed along your breastbone, ghosting over the skin of your stomach until she met the thin fabric of your underwear.

Your mouth ran dry at the feeling of Yelena’s fingers while they lingered along your waistband. You tried to protest, but your words were stilted.  

“Nothing is. Not even those thoughts in your head, someone put them there.” she whispered, dipping her hand into your underwear while pushing her gun’s end into your temple. She delighted in your afflicted expression, eyes welling with hot tears but still soundless. She skimmed over your clit lightly, watching how your body twitched in response, and she hummed at your quiet feedback before circling the sensitive swell of your cunt with her middle finger.

Fearful of grabbing Yelena’s hand to cease her movement, you cupped your unsteady hands over your mouth instead, trying to smother your panicked sobs.

Her fingers slid down to your pussy’s orifice, forcing just the tip of her finger in and growing amused at how your hole tightened desperately with every small ministration. “You’re merely a puppet on a string—easily controlled.” The mention of her last word had her pushing two fingers up into your entrance, eliciting a strident cry from you.

Yelena moved quickly, long and lean digits thrusting in and out of your hole while your body quivered under her commanding strokes. She worked you in steady pulls, curling her middle and ring finger up against the sensitive center of your core. Her movements were effortless and adroit, playing you like an instrument while listening to your airy whimpers of indulgence—the music.

“Not even a minute ago you hated me, but your lack of resistance says otherwise.” She sunk her fingers again until she was knuckle-deep.

Your feeble pleas for Yelena to stop suggested something entirely different from the way your wet and needy walls tightened around her touch while your vocalizations grew louder. You undulated your hips in tight, urgent circles, shameless in your pleasure until you felt your orgasm tickle the bottom of your spine. A sweaty hand slid over the lapels of Yelena’s blazer, gripping the fabric while you fought to keep yourself upright.

“Take my advice.” She brought her face closer to yours, lips hardly brushing over the streaks of tears that painted your cheeks. “Being so naive will only get you killed.”

She slipped her hand out of your underwear, her fingers covered in a gossamer layer of your arousal, and the sudden absence just as you had reached the cusp of your orgasm caused your pelvis to jolt. Through glossy eyes, you looked at her own, your hold on her jacket tightening. “Please—”

Your fingertips slid down to your clothed folds, gingerly skimming over the fabric to imply what you wanted. With a sober mind, you wouldn’t have dared admit that you were surrendering to the enemy, but the residual effects of the alcohol in your system blurred all your coherent thoughts, and all you could focus on was your desperation for a climax.

“Yelena, please—”

Yelena’s hand closed around your wrist, and she forcibly pulled you off of her. “Don’t beg. Have some self-respect.”

She withdrew her gun from your forehead, ungodly eyes never leaving yours. Her pinched expression relaxed back into her classic inscrutable appearance, and she slowly lowered herself onto her knees in front of you until the top of her blonde head just barely peeked over your midriff.

The sight of seeing her shorter than you for once would have been comical if it weren’t for the aching between your thighs that took priority.

Yelena wrapped an arm around the back of your knee, and hoisted your leg over her shoulder. The hand that clutched her gun pushed it into the curve of your hip bone, spawning a small whimper of discomfort from your throat.

She glanced up at you before leaning in and lolling her tongue out, delivering a long wet lick up from your entrance to your clit.

“Oh my god—” Your words were breathless and waned into a decadent purr as Yelena continued to circle the sensitive bud with the authoritative head of her pink tongue.

With a final and potent flick, she lapped your clit into her mouth, methodically oscillating between sucking and kissing your glistening cunt until she discovered the best combination to draw out the loudest moans. The fingers she dug into your thigh migrated to your backside and pressed into the skin of your ass instead. Yelena nudged you closer to her until her nose gently grazed the skin of your pelvis every time she shifted against your center.

You whimpered her name again while your restless hands slid over your chest, tugging at the sheer material of your bra and weighing your own breasts in your palms. “I’m—”

Yelena trailed down to your hole, teasing and prodding while she dragged her touch from behind. She rested her fingers against your clit, massaging it alongside her tongue’s performance to excite you into greater stimulation.

“Yelena—” You swallowed thickly. “I’m—close—”

Half-delirious with lust, the other half—inebriation, your hand settled behind her head and you rolled your lower body against her mouth, allowing the dual sensation of her fingers and tongue to send you over the edge. Your climax surfaced in two waves, first presenting itself as a tiny shiver that painted your skin in goosebumps, but the second had you crying out fervidly while your body descended into uncontrollable spasms.

“Yelena—fuck—”

Yelena continued to urge her tongue deeper, penetrating the depths of your cunt and relishing in the way your walls tightened around her slippery muscle before she withdrew from between your thighs.

The strength of your orgasm had your knees buckling, sending your back sliding down the wall until you collapsed on the floor. Your fingers scratched pathetically against the wood surface while you quivered from the aftershock of your climax, and your heavy breathing didn’t relent. You stirred briefly, drifting in and out of clarity until your eyes flitted open to see Yelena rising to her feet in a squatted position.

She observed you thoughtfully, her warped smile matching, yet at the same time contrasting, her seemingly kind eyes. It appeared she had discarded her previous plan to pry information out of you, and debriefing you wouldn’t have been worth the effort seeing as how you could hardly form an intelligible sentence.

Yelena reached out to grab your chin, forcing your lips to part wider with her thumb, just enough for her to slide the barrel of her gun into your mouth.

The metal was leaden against your tongue and it’s sharp flavor was unpleasant, making you tug your head in the opposite direction, but Yelena’s grip was unyielding. You looked onward at her as a new surge of tears flooded your waterline, and your helpless cries were muzzled by her weapon.

She rested the end of the barrel against the roof of your mouth before clicking the hammer and rotating another bullet into place.

You strung your eyes shut, waiting for the deafening sound of gunfire, quick pain, and then terrifying silence, but when nothing came, you carefully opened your eyes, wondering if you were already dead.

Rather, you were still met with Yelena’s squinting eyes, and she hummed before pulling her gun, now daubed with your saliva, from your lips. Her eyes drifted to the floor, and she stretched a hand out to grab your bundle of clothes from your side. She held them to your chest, and you hesitantly accepted them, hugging the articles to your stark frame, then Yelena rose to her feet, peering down at you with self-approving satisfaction.

“Give the military my best.”

[lisatelramor]

Crossing Borders Ch4

Conan was getting frustrated. At first sight, the case seemed fairly straightforward; someone killed the first victim, and whoever did that had likely killed the second victim. Based on Wei Ying’s reaction to the necklace, the victim’s friend who had died before was connected to the motive of the murders, but the exact details there were blurry.  The confusing things were both the method of death (because truly, what could have broken her neck like that?) and how this place was handling it. Put them in their rooms—okay, fair enough. Play music? Eccentric, but he didn’t know the customs here for the dead. Maybe playing music to the corpse was some sort of superstition. But the person who’d been guarding the building Conan’s room was in had put papers on the doors and walls. The same papers had been scattered around the room with the second victim, a few even placed on the victim.

It hinted at a lot of superstition, which felt at odds with the large library—even accounting for their supernatural references. Given how people dressed and the location, though, maybe this whole place was some kind of cult? But how did that factor into the murders?

Conan gripped his chin, thoughts running together. Kid seemed to be more in the know. But then, he’d been using the library that apparently needed a waiver signed to access. Then there was the mysterious disappearing—and appearing now that Conan thought about it—instrument earlier. Lan Zhan had clearly been playing it in person, not just using a recording, and it hadn’t been a small instrument. Where had it vanished to? Conan couldn’t think of a clear place it could have been hidden in the room or returned to.

Too many questions, and not enough answers yet.

Conan pulled his attention back together as they approached a paper-studded building. One of them was placed close to his height, so Conan studied it as Lan Zhan spoke quietly to the white-robed person guarding the door. (To keep people in or out?)

The characters were unfamiliar—Conan could read Kanji just fine, but the original Chinese characters were often a lot different or simplified in ways that the Japanese characters hadn’t been. At best guess, it said something about stopping something, but like heck if he could get anything else out of it.

A tap to his head had Conan flinching away from the touch. Kid looked down at him, one eyebrow raised.

“We’re moving on,” Kid said.

Oh. Right. The odd papers—wards? Talismans?—were set aside.

*O*O*

Wei Ying had a headache. Part of that headache went by the name of Edogawa Conan. The rest was the malicious spirit running around playing havoc in the Cloud Recesses.

He would think that, being in the middle of a great sect, one of the last few remaining in China, that it would be incredibly simple to catch a ghost. And yet there they were, minus one body, up another victim, and still no spirit caught…

The connection, he was sure, had to do with the beads. How was a question he didn’t have answers to yet. Like, was it the spirit possessing the bead, and then using it to hide, or to possess a victim? Had it used it to control the corpse of the first victim and kill the second? Or had the first victim become a fierce corpse all on his own, the talismans meant to prevent that somehow mysteriously vanishing from the body?

Ah, mysteries were not Wei Ying’s forte. He was the go-to resentful energy person, not the person you went to for solving murders. Not that he was incapable of such; in all honesty, cultivators ended up solving a lot of odd crimes. It simply was that they were not specifically trained for that, and Wei Ying called bullshit toward the universe for this improbable string of events that had landed him in the middle of a murder mystery in what should have been his nice, safe home.

“If I were an angry spirit smart enough to evade cultivators, where would I be?” Wei Ying muttered to himself. It would be great if he had his evil-seeking compass finished, but that was still in the planning and testing phases. It was about as likely to point to Chenqing as it would be to point to the fierce corpse of the first victim, or wherever the ghost was.

In the field, Wei Ying would call up spirits to help. There were a surprising—or maybe not too surprising given the last few hundred years of history—number of spirits lingering most places that could be used as another set of eyes. In the Cloud Recesses, on the other hand, there was basically nothing to work with. Between the amount of cleansing the mountain regularly got and the taboo on killing animals in the sect walls, Wei Ying had to practically scrape up resentment to use from anything dead. There was the current circumstances, of course, but the ghost of their latest victim wouldn’t be much help here. She’d be too busy trying to pull herself together after a violent end. Her corpse could have helped, but Wei Ying would get in so much trouble if he animated it for anything less than an army trying to murder everyone, so he was going to not do that.

The best he could do was try to call on whatever scraps of resentment he could find lingering, and try to follow them back to their source. Then, maybe he’d find the body or ghost and have a chance to try to force it calm.

It was best to go somewhere… less occupied to do this though. Fewer people to complain about him later, and less chance of scaring anyone if there turned out to be a lot of resentment.

Wei Ying double checked his pockets for talismans. His stock was down after the need to use so many, but his offensive talismans were still plentiful, and there were a few capture ones left as well.

“A probable ghost that died from a large fall, killed one victim with another fall, and the other a broken neck.” Not exactly subtle. Wei Ying was willing to bet that any other deaths—which hopefully there wouldn’t be—would be something along similar lines; things that could kill a person from a high fall. Maybe a bashed in head if the ghost was aiming for variety, or trying to reflect all of its wounds.

If Wei Ying took that into consideration…

His ghost probably went somewhere with a large drop. If it was possessing the first victim’s corpse, it’d probably escaped somewhere secluded. There were a lot of sharp drops on the Cloud Recesses, but the largest that Wei Ying could think of nearby was a waterfall in the back of the complex where the earth rose sharply. A lovely place to go and meditate by with the white noise of the falls, but it was just far away enough from the buildings to be somewhat secluded and was a lot steeper than it looked at first glance. Not something easily climbed, full of little hollows where water washed away minerals along the stream path, not all full at the moment as it wasn’t a rainy season or full of snowmelt.

Plenty of places to hide.

Plenty of places, he thought grimly, that a vengeful spirit could kill someone too. Wei Ying hoped that none of the younger disciples had searched this direction. It was unlikely; they tended to patrol the public areas, not deeper into Lan territory, but this wasn’t a weak spirit. It had to be strong to get past so many barriers and talismans and still have the power to kill.

Wei Ying took a less than direct path to the falls. No one was going to like what he was going to do.

Hell, Lan Zhan wouldn’t like what he was doing even if he let him practice less than approved cultivation methods. Wei Ying tried to draw as little attention as possible to himself when doing this kind of thing.

It took a few notes for the energy laying mostly calm—calm by the force of the barriers and seals placed around the Cloud Recesses—to build. Resentment calmed had to struggle to come back alive. It was wild and wicked and hard to control when left alone, but it tended to stay calmed once effort was made to do so. Wei Ying’s song was just reminding lingering scraps of resentment what they were resentful about in the first place.

The eerie sound of his flute paired strangely with the rush of water. Once, long before the Lan took over these lands, it might have been a place of turmoil. There were bits of resentment buried deep, victims of the falls’ thunder or maybe from some other natural disaster, so long ago that they didn’t hold any imprint of their cause, just restlessness left unresolved.

Resentment responded readily to Wei Ying. Always did. Always would probably, something in him matching it. He knew darkness. He knew anger and hate and fear and cruelty. He knew how to not let them eat him alive too though, which was necessary for working with resentment. Let it, and it would devour as readily as a spark near tinder.

Now, it gathered and built, tendrils reaching, like seeking like. Something at the top of the falls stirred, a hint of recognition in the feeling. Something responding to the call.

Anger and fear. A desperation of time cut short and pain, pain, pain that lingered even after death. Something like hurt. Something like betrayal. Wei Ying dug into those emotions and pulled, music swelling as the resentment tried to lash out.

In the end it broke, though. It always broke to Wei Ying’s will, and the corpse at the top of the falls came down with supernatural speed, still broken and bloodstained from its fall earlier, the eyes blank as ever.

Corpses never got less creepy, but he did stop feeling quite so horrified after a certain point. No matter who he had been in life, now he was just another dead man.

Wei Ying let his music die out. The corpse kept standing, not aggressive for the moment. “Hmm, and how did you even get here?” he murmured. Instinct? Was it directed here? He reached out and caught the corpse’s wrist.

The corpse didn’t resist as Wei Ying pulled it closer, the resentment in it a contained, circular system with Wei Ying cutting off its ability to escape at the moment. The thread, the one with the prayer bead, was no longer around the corpse’s neck.

“Shit.” That was bad, right? It felt bad. If the bead wasn’t here, if the ghost wasn’t possessing the corpse through it, then where did it go? What else could it influence the way it had likely urged this man to his death?

Damn, Wei Ying needed to get the corpse back, get it sealed and purged of resentment, and find out what happened to the bead—not necessarily in that order.

“Let’s get you back to the clinic…”

Naturally, the corpse didn’t respond. The resentment in it churned sluggishly, like an angry, drugged wild animal. Wei Ying pulled his flute back out and began playing a coaxing tune. It was a long way back to walk, and it wasn’t like he was going to be able to rest more tonight. As soon as all of this was over, he was taking a nap. Someone else could deal with problems; Wei Ying was more than meeting his duty here. And now he had a corpse to question about a certain ghost.

*O*O*

The worst part, Kaito thought, about dead people—besides the bodies—was the crying. It was pretty much guaranteed that someone would end up crying when someone wound up dead and it never got any less uncomfortable. Perhaps that was just him though, because Edogawa just looked solemn as the group shed tears over Chen Xinyi’s demise.

“I don’t understand,” Li Zihan said, face blotchy and voice stuffy from tears. “How could she have died? She was just here—she had to have just gone to look at the body. You don’t think someone is just… just picking off guests, do you?”

“We are still looking into the situation,” Lan Zhan said, his face a cold, blank barrier.

Kaito would think he didn’t care at all except he could read faces well enough to tell that it was all a mask to try and hide how uncomfortable he was. Not the best person for sympathetic explanations, but someone had to give them.

“You think they’re targeting us, not random guests,” Wan Haoran said with a frown, “am I right?”

“As two of your group have been victims, there is a possibility that you are being targeted,” Lan Zhan said, “and so we must ask that you stay here under watch for your own safety.”

“What’s being done to find this person?” Wan Haoran asked, looking more upset by the moment. “Is there anything even being done, or are you just keeping everyone locked up on the off chance one of us is the killer?”

“The best way to ensure safety is to keep everyone in their rooms for the moment as the compound is searched,” Lan Zhan said with a frustrated line between his brows like he couldn’t imagine how this would be hard to understand. “Until more is known, this is the best route.”

“Excuse me,” Edogawa cut in with wide—fake—innocent eyes. The English was jarring in the middle of the Mandarin conversation, but a relief because Kaito’s ability to understand was being pushed to its limit. “When did Miss Chen leave?”

Both of the victim’s friends blinked at him.

“So we know more to find out who did it,” Edogawa said. “We really want to help.”

“Who is this child?” Li Zihan asked, scrubbing her tears away. “And the other? Not more people from here.”

“The child is here as a guest, and Kuroba is studying here as a researcher. Both have experience with solving crimes from what I have gathered,” Lan Zhan said in Mandarin, this time with a slight wrinkle to his nose like he wished he could just send them back to their room. But since Wei Ying allowed them to be there, he wasn’t fighting it. It was funny how a man Kaito had seen be terrifyingly stern about rules of his own clan could crumble like a sandcastle at a few words from his boyfriend.

“The child does?”

“He’s very good at it,” Kaito offered. “Very smart.” His Mandarin speaking ability wasn’t good enough to properly express just how terrifyingly good Edogawa was at solving mysteries, and they wouldn’t believe him if he could. No one expected a child to have the amount of experience Edogawa did with murder.

“Can you please speak English,” Edogawa said in Japanese, like a hypocrite.

Kaito rolled his eyes. “Anyway,” he said, in English now, “he’s right that it would help to know the time between when Chen Xinyi left and she was discovered dead. Did either of you notice her leave?”

Li Zihan sniffled and glanced at Wan Haoran. “I did… I thought at first she was going to the bathroom, but when she didn’t come back, I knew she had to be going to see Shen Ming…”

“You should have woken me up,” Wan Haoran said unhappily.

She shook her head. “It was almost two in the morning. You needed your sleep.”

“Hmm,” Edogawa murmured. “That’s almost two hours in between when she left and was found…”

If it was a human being who’d killed her—correction, a living human being—then that would be a pretty large time gap for how many people were in this place. Unfortunately, they weren’t dealing with a normal human murder here. Any of Edogawa’s deductions were going to be skewed by personal bias. It was clear to Kaito that the first victim—or his body at least—killed the second. The how and why weren’t clear at all, but that knowledge still put him at seeing the whole picture better than Edogawa could.

“Ne, Mr. Lan,” Edogawa said, head tilted to the side. “There was someone watching the body, right? How did Chen Xinyi get past them with no one noticing?”

“Chen Xinyi took advantage of distraction when the shifts changed,” Lan Zhan said. “We will be changing the procedure to prevent future issues of a similar nature.”

Taking advantage of a shift change was something Kaito did on the regular. It was amazing how distracted people could be when they thought they could finally rest.

“Do you know when that was?” Edogawa asked.

“I am unaware of the exact time, but the change was scheduled for three AM.” Give or take a few minutes, in Kaito’s experience.

Hmm. Victim gets there at two, waits? Then sees the guards changing and takes the chance to sneak in. Somewhere in there, the victim takes off some crucial talisman from the corpse and gets killed… And the corpse escapes. There had to be multiple talismans removed. Would the victim have done that herself? Or had she been influenced?

“So no one noticed her be killed,” Edogawa said with a frown. “If the guard changed at three, wouldn’t they have looked and seen in there? Or heard her be killed? There had to have been a struggle.”

There had been one, Kaito thought, because the victim had signs of fighting before her neck was broken. It had to have been a short fight though.

“I will look into the exact times and individuals on the shift changes,” Lan Zhan said solemnly. “We will get to the bottom of these deaths and ensure their spirits are at peace,” he said with the kind of conviction that you had to believe in.

Wan Haoran shook his head, not mollified by the promise. “Someone is trying to kill us. There needs to be some kind of justice for that.”

“We will get to the bottom of it,” Lan Zhan repeated, “whatever that result might be.”

Yeah, good luck arresting a ghost. Kaito sighed internally. Edogawa was probably going to overanalyze and go down the wrong track.

*O*O*

There were too many questions, Conan thought, and not enough answers. It was like digging into a puzzle bin and coming up with a handful of pieces, but not knowing if they were even to the same puzzle. From what Conan could tell, this all centered around the first friend’s death. Unfortunately, no one was talking about said friend, or if they did, it was in a language he couldn’t understand. A friendship important enough to wear a memento of them, but closest to the two dead here if he was gathering the threads correctly.

Unfortunately, Conan couldn’t tell how either of the people here would have killed them. Li Zihan could have followed Chen Xinyi without her boyfriend knowing, but he couldn’t explain how Chen Xinyi’s neck had been broken the way it did. Then there was the missing body—why would it be moved? How would it be moved with so many people on high alert? The weight of a dead body wasn’t easy to move and Li Zihan wasn’t a large person.

Unless she and her boyfriend were lying and had snuck out together? And yet their grief didn’t look faked, and it didn’t feel like they were lying. Conan usually had a pretty good gut for telling when he was being lied to, and everything in the exchange felt genuine.

Honestly the only thing he could think of was that somehow there was another party in play, but who or how he didn’t know.

Maybe it was someone here at this place that did it. Certainly one of the robed people that worked here would be able to access the body to move it, or know the paths for a perfect place to push the first victim from. Without seeing the scene of the first murder or the body up close, he didn’t have enough clues to find commonalities and point him in the right direction.

He glanced toward the door. If he could get to the scene of the first crime, or even examine the second scene closer…

A hand landed on his head.

“Don’t even think about it,” Kid murmured out of the corner of his mouth. His expression stayed relaxed, the tone of his words light. Add to that the Japanese which none of the others spoke, no one would guess that Kid was giving a warning.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t play innocent, Tantei-kun, it doesn’t suit you. You’re obviously thinking about sneaking away on your own again. Trust me when I say it’s better not to wander alone right now.”

“Like that ever mattered to you before,” Conan said, failing to sound as relaxed as the thief. “You’ve let me go after murderers before.”

“That doesn’t mean I agree with you throwing yourself at danger. We still don’t know what we’re dealing with. I do know, though, that something that could mangle a woman’s neck like that could crush you just as easily.” Kid glanced at him, sidelong. “You’re a pain, but I don’t want you killed.”

Conan glanced at Lan Wangji who was speaking soft, serious words in Mandarin to the grieving friends of the victims. Frustration curled in his gut. “Well, I don’t want anyone else killed either. The faster we catch who is doing this, the better. I can’t just sit and do nothing. They don’t even have any detectives or police here besides me.”

“And your Sleeping Mouri Kogoro,” Kid said, though there was an undertone on how useless he found that fact. “Though you don’t have to be a detective by trade to have basic deductive reasoning, you know. The people here aren’t stupid.”

There was a knock on the door and Wei Ying poked his head around with a smile that was more than a bit strained at the edges. “Lan Zhan,” he said before saying something in rapid Mandarin.

Lan Zhan hummed under his breath before nodding to the grieving guests. “One moment,” he said, in English, likely for the rest of their benefit. Lan Zhan glanced to the side, meeting Kid’s eyes. “Please stay here, I will return soon.”

Conan almost shot to his feet in protest, bristling as he reigned himself in. “But we were going to help!”

“Hahaaa,” Wei Ying laughed with a strained sigh. “Ah, this is something only Lan Zhan can help with, so if you don’t mind?”

“We’ll stay here,” Kid said, like a traitor. Conan scowled at him and Kid pretended not to feel the hole burning in the side of his face at the force of it. Jerk. “Don’t worry; none of us will be wandering off into trouble.”

“He clearly found something!” Conan hissed in Japanese.

“And clearly it’s something we’re not allowed to know about!” Kid replied in kind. “Here’s a chance to ask questions without supervision.”

Conan looked at the door sliding shut and then back at the two people wiping tears and clenching hands like they were at the end of their ability to cope. Dammit. “I thought you liked breaking the rules.”

“I still have to finish my research. I can’t go around angering my hosts.”

Conan wanted to point out that it had never stopped him before, but then again, it was a bit of a different scenario being in a different country in a closed community like this place seemed to be. Kid could probably still impersonate someone and do his research that way, but there had to be a reason he was bothering to do all of this in a more legitimate fashion than normal. Still, it was annoying. What good were gray morals when Kid wouldn’t use them toward solving a murder?

He sighed.

“Ne,” he said to the others in the room. They looked at the child with all the wariness he deserved considering how he burst into the conversation earlier. “Could you tell us more about your friends? Maybe something will help things make more sense.”

Li Zihan sniffed and rubbed her red eyes. She looked like she needed a long nap, and maybe a week’s vacation to recover from all of this. Ironic considering the location. “Which one? Shen Ming or Chen Xinyi?”

“Either. Or your other friend that died before you came here.”

“You think that’s related then?” Li Zihan’s brow pinched, but she sighed. “Maybe it really is related… I don’t even know what to think anymore.”

Wan Haoran touched her arm.

She gave him a watery smile. “I was closest to Chen Xinyi. She was dating Shen Ming and introduced me to Wan Haoran, and we hit it off… The others had more history I suppose… Wan Haoran, you knew Shen Ming and Huang Fang from before university, right?”

“I did.” Wan Haoran looked down at where his hand rested on his girlfriend’s arm. “We were in the same club in high school. We made a pact to get into the same university. But Shen Ming and Huang Fang were inseparable…”

Conan hummed, latching onto a thread of thought. “Did that change in university?”

Wan Haoran grimaced. “They were still close. We were all close. But.”

Kid’s fingers tapped a beat along the floor. “Let me guess,” Kid said. “You met new people. And then dynamics changed.”

Wan Haoran’s eyes flicked toward Li Zihan. “Shen Ming met Chen Xinyi. He fell fast, and next thing we knew it was four of us, and then I started dating Li Zihan.”

“Huang Fang felt like a fifth wheel?” Conan guessed.

“That’s…”

Li Zihan frowned. “Huang-ge was always friendly and cheerful. He’d tease us if we were romantic, but he never looked uncomfortable. That’s why it was such a surprise…”

“Huang Feng and Shen Ming were close,” Wan Haoran said with cautious stress on the last word. Li Zihan and Conan both frowned at him but Kid let out a soft sound of comprehension.

“Shen Ming and Huang Fang dated,” Kid said. “Or at least were involved at some point, and Chen Xinyi messed that up.”

“That implies they ever put a label on it. As far as I know, Shen Ming saw it as friends who slept together. Huang Fang…”

“Was this still happening while Shen Ming and Chen Xinyi were dating?” Li Zihan asked, fingers knotting together in distress. “The whole time?”

Wan Haoran looked away, uncomfortable. “I assumed they had some kind of arrangement, but maybe they didn’t. Maybe it was too much for Huang Fang. Maybe…”

Conan frowned and Kid grimaced. Conan could almost understand it. People were attracted to what they were attracted to; you couldn’t always control the heart. But Conan couldn’t imagine ever going behind a lover’s back, or pursuing someone if it hurt the people involved. He might have lies heaped on lies, but cheating was something he’d never understand. Shen Ming should have either never started dating Chen Xinyi, or he should have cleanly ended things with Huang Fang.

“How could he?” Li Zihan asked, tearing up again. “If they’d just talked things out, maybe they wouldn’t all be…”

Wan Haoran shifted, hands clenching in his lap. “I don’t know what happened the night Huang Fang died. The only one who would know is Shen Ming. I just know that everyone wasn’t as happy as they looked from the outside.”

There was reason for why their friend died, and Conan could extrapolate a cause for killing Shen Ming, if he really had been selfishly ignoring how his desires impacted the people around him. But killing Chen Xinyi? Conan would have thought Wan Haoran had the most motive in all of this simply because he was central to the friend group, but neither him nor Li Zihan seemed to have had the opportunity to kill either person.

This whole case was more questions than answers.

“Was there anyone else close to Huang Fang?” Conan asked. “Or anyone else that knew about his relationship with Shen Ming?”

Wan Haoran shrugged, arms curling around himself. “He had family. A mother and an estranged father… We haven’t heard from them since the funeral, and I don’t know if they knew about Shen Ming. Maybe his mother knew something… She would scold him to cut his hair when she called, in between reminding him to eat more.”

“His hair?”

“Oh. Huang Fang had his hair longer.” Wan Haoran gestured about shoulder length. “I think maybe his mom was worried someone would realize he liked men and use it against him. He didn’t have his hair long because of that, but people make assumptions once they know that sort of thing.”

So the mother probably knew, or guessed her son was gay. But she couldn’t be a suspect if she hadn’t been in contact. That left Conan back at square one. Unless someone was lying and he just hadn’t caught them in the act yet. Hmm.

He had a few more questions to ask…

*O*O*

Wei Ying fiddled with his hair, picking at split ends as his boyfriend followed him. He was fine, definitely fine, not stressed at all, hahaaaaa.

“Wei Ying.” Lan Zhan said as they exited the building, all loving concern because he was great that way. “What is wrong?”

“Ah, so.” He stepped into the shadows of the building, away from prying eyes. “So, good news and less-good news. Haha. Ah. Good news is that I found the missing corpse!”

“The bad news?”

“…the cursed bead he had is missing.”

Lan Zhan frowned. “Inconvenient, but not worrisome unless it can affect cultivators.”

“Theoretically. Practically speaking, we don’t have any real idea what is going on with that bead or how it got enough resentment to influence people, possess them, or, I don’t know, become corporeal enough to push a man off a cliff, Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan, I can’t even use my compass prototype because there’s too many active sources of resentment between the corpses and my flute that it wouldn’t register the muted level of it not putting off death threats.”

“Wei Ying. Breathe.”

“I am breathing!” Wei Ying huffed. This was stressful, that was all. “And I questioned the first victim about his friend. Or I tried to at any rate. He got really upset and kept repeating apologies, which didn’t really help anything. I wanted to force an empathy on it, but that seemed like a bad idea to do alone.”

“Good,” Lan Zhan said emphatically, because he was always pushing Wei Ying to be more careful. ‘Don’t use too much resentment’ and ‘experiment with someone nearby’ and ‘no unsupervised empathy.’ Nearly get stuck in memories once, and Wei Ying would never live it down.

“Anyway, the bodies are back in the infirmary. I put on new seals, and they shouldn’t be able to come off unless a cultivator takes them off.” He sighed. “I still don’t know how or why she took those talismans off.”

Lan Zhan put a warm, supporting arm around him and Wei Ying melted into the touch. Just let Lan Zhan take his whole weight because he wanted to stay there forever. Or go back to sleep. Or just go back to sleep in the arms of his boyfriend, that sounded lovely. “Perhaps she removed the one on Shen Ming’s face to better look at him, and it weakened the others enough to be overpowered.”

“Hmm.” Sounded probable. It could even account for how there was a slight struggle, the scratches he found on the corpse’s arms and face. A struggle could have knocked more talismans free too. “Lan Zhan, I think we need the rest of the beads all in one place to catch our resentful spirit. It’s either spread out in pieces, or it can hop between them or something.”

“Mm, we can ask for the beads.”

“You really think they’ll hand them over?” he asked into Lan Zhan’s shoulder.

“We will convince them.”

He made it sound so simple, but the number of times they’d had to argue over the years to get cursed objects away from their owners was honestly far higher than Wei Ying liked to think about. People didn’t like to part from their belongings, especially not if they were sentimental.

“That still leaves us having to find the missing bead.”

“We can have juniors scanning the ground between the infirmary and where you found the body.”

“Ugh.” Wei Ying pushed his face harder into Lan Zhan’s neck. “About that. He was all the way up the far cliffs. That’s way too much for anyone to cover for something as tiny as a prayer bead.”

“Hm.” He could feel the rumble of displeasure in Lan Zhan’s chest and knew he had to be frowning.

“We could just forget about it and wait for it to cause trouble?” Wei Ying joked. “With how fast everything has happened it’ll take, what, half a day?”

“We will have someone look all the same.”

“Yeah. Good plan.” Wei Ying didn’t want to move, but he really should. He levered himself out of Lan Zhan’s comfortable hold and rubbed at the bridge of his nose where a slight headache was starting. “What do we do with the problem kid?”

“Return him?”

“To his guardians? Who’ve completely failed to keep an eye on him.” Wei Ying gave Lan Zhan a flat look. “Also, any luck feeling out the curse on him?”

“I could not determine its cause or anchor,” Lan Zhan said, ignoring the part about the guardians. “Kuroba Kaito could continue to watch the child.”

“Hmm, they do know each other even if they act like siblings that barely tolerate being in the same room. Somehow I doubt even Kuroba-ge will be enough to control the kid.” Still, send them both back to the guardian and then set an extra guard, maybe that could contain the cursed child until the whole vengeful spirit thing was resolved and Wei Ying could shove the tiny murder magnet at Lan Qiren and the Lan curse experts to figure out how to neutralize whatever he was doing to his surroundings. “If we can keep him far away from the ghost, maybe things can be contained…”

Lan Zhan stilled.

Wei Ying realized that they’d left the kid in the room with two people with cursed beads. Alone. With only a non-cultivator to mitigate any damages. “Shit.”

They both turned back toward the door at the same time only for a scream to come from the direction of the animal pens.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Wei Ying asked whatever power that was potentially watching. “Really?”

“Wei Ying.”

“Yeah, you go check on that while I get the problem before—”

Like the universe was intent on making things impossibly frustrating tonight, a small body shot out the door, the grasping hands of the disciple on guard duty and Kuroba missing by a hair’s breadth as the creepy kid hurled himself off into the night.

“Fuck.”

Lan Zhan didn’t even pretend to get offended at the profanity, which showed just how bad this situation was.

Kuroba staggered from the dorm building, clutching his gut. “Shit. He kicks hard,” he said, an explanation and excuse all in one.

“I can see that,” Wei Ying said humorlessly. “Well, Lan Zhan, it’s probably the bead, so might as well grab the other liabilities and get everyone in one place. Can’t get much worse than having all the cursed items at one place at the same time.”

“…I will see if they will part from the beads.”

“Great. Great… I’m just gonna…” Wei Ying gestured toward where the screaming was turning into shouting.

“I’m with you,” Kuroba said instantly, straightening out of his pained hunch.

“Fine, whatever, let’s go.” Wei Ying took off running without looking at who might or might not be following. Everything was a mess and he just wanted this day to be over. Please don’t be another dead body, he asked of any deity that might be listening. He didn’t think he could handle if a corpse of one of the junior disciples cropped up or something. The universe, as always, didn’t give him any hints of what he was going to find.

[fenoderee]

Shinya [Drums] Interview

Our fourth solo interview is with Shinya, who is the foundation of the band. Shinya has been focusing on simple phrasing and groove in recent years, so how did he approach his latest album "Oboro"?

Basically I don't think about the details, I just do what comes to my mind and I don't worry about it.

-It seems that the songwriting process started very early on, but did you have the new album in mind from the beginning?

Shinya: That's right. I've been working on the songs for the new album. So we decided to release a single, and we talked about which of our existing songs we should release as a single, and "Oboro" was chosen.

-In your case, I personally feel that you've always written songs with a lot of energy or beauty. When you were thinking about the album, what kind of ideas and images did you have in your mind in the early stages of composition?

Shinya:I didn't really think about it before I wrote the song, I just started writing it, and as a result, I couldn't write anything but intense stuff.

-When you say "intense," do you mean songs with a fast BPM?

Shinya: That's right.

-There are several ways to compose a song, how did you do it this time?

Shinya: Recently, I've been using a plug-in guitar instrument that I really like. It has a lot of heavy sounds in it, so I just play it and think about what I want to do.

-What kind of composition system do you currently have at home? It is known to your fans that you are an Apple fanatic, and you seem to be changing to the latest version every year. Do you use the same kind of system for your compositions?

Shinya: It's the other way around, I'm very minimalistic now. I only use one laptop for composing.

-Do you want to install all your DTM software on the computer?

Shinya: That's right. I don't play guitar anymore when I write songs, so I've removed the audio interface. It's a very compact period.

-At the time of this writing, you are touring the country with the "Meguro Rokumeikan Gig", but if you take that computer with you, you can compose music in your dressing room?

Shinya: If I wanted to, I could, but I don't think I will (laughs).

-Did it change the way you came up with the ideas and the process of shaping the songs?

Shinya: That's right. When I used to compose, I used to play my guitar at home and write riffs by myself. But now I don't have a guitar and I'm working on it, so I think the guitar phrases I make have changed.

-So the intense songs you wrote were not chosen for the single, but do you have any plans to make it into the album?

Shinya: The song wasn't selected when it was written, so it was probably rejected (laughs).

-That's not something to say while laughing (laughs). By the way, Shinya, you're the type of person who actively goes to see other people's live performances. I think the main reason is because it's your favorite band or artist, but I also think that seeing a live performance can stimulate you in terms of calligraphy and creative therapy. Now that I have become a member of Corona, I can no longer go to live concerts, and DIR EN GREY has almost completely stopped performing. What do you do for musical input in such a situation?

Shinya: Hmmm... I don't think so at the moment (laughs). Especially when it comes to music.

-Do you ever go through various albums and videos by yourself?

Shinya: No, I don't. I just use what I have inside me right now.

-Shinya's musical tastes are well known to his fans, but is there anything new that has resonated with you during this composing process?

Shinya: Hmmm... I haven't explored anything new in the other solutions.

-Did you go back to your roots and what you like?

Shinya: No, I didn't think about that too much, I just made the songs naturally.

-How did you spend your time at stay home, as a musician and as an individual?

Shinya: I was doing nothing but editing videos (laughs). That's why I was spending most of my time on my YouTube channel.

-I've been watching it for a while now, and I'm also a subscriber to the channel, so please answer me politely (laughs).

Shinya: Oh, thank you very much (laughs).

-Of course it's fun to do, but is there anything exciting about it?

Shinya: When I was working on it, I thought that it was very similar to songwriting. You can keep working on it, and it never ends.

-If you want to be particular, you can go all the way.

That's right, even for a single video, there are endless things you can do.

-The timing of inserting a subtitle, the choice of font, etc.

Shinya: Yes, yes (laughs). Once you start paying attention to the details, there's really no end to it. It's similar to songwriting..

-Is Shinya the type of person who spends a lot of time focusing on various aspects of a song, even when he's writing it individually?

Shinya : With DIR EN GREY, I always bring the original songs to the studio before I've finished them. I know that as the members' ideas come in, it will definitely change from the shape I've created. That's why I don't go into too much detail (laughs), I only make it to a certain point because it's going to change anyway. I try to make it so that the members can understand the side of the song.

-You said that when you select songs in the band, you don't know who wrote which song. Do you ever get feedback from the band members afterwards?

Shinya: I was asked afterwards about the songs I wrote this time. "That's Shinya's song." Then, he said, "Oh, I liked it."

-So you've had that conversation? If you listen to the demo, do you know who made it?

Shinya: Yes, you're right. Yes, I don't have a definitive answer, but I can vaguely tell.

-Although it wasn't adopted, it's nice to be told that it's your favourite song.

Shinya: Well...yes, but the song selection is a majority decision.

-There are always multiple layers to a song, but each time you're inspired to write a new song from a different angle?

Shinya: No, I don't have any particular plans at the moment, since I'm in the middle of an explosive screening (laughs ). Once the songwriting starts again, I'm sure I'll be motivated like you said. I still have my computer with me, but I'm not writing songs, I'm collecting videos (laughs).

-That's a good point (laughs). You've been working on the album for a long time, what do you hope to achieve with it?

Shinya: Up until now, I've been thinking of songs that can evolve in a live setting, but this time, even if we make an album, we don't know if we will be able to perform live or tour like we have in the past. So I've been thinking about it with that situation in mind.

-In other words, rather than evolving through live performances, do you have a sense of construction that evolves completely during the production process?

Shinya: Well, to put it simply, it's a nuance.

-Do you want to take a different approach to the drums?

Shinya: No, when it comes to drum phrases, I don't think about the details, I just do what comes to my mind. I don't worry about it too much.

-What was your impression of this single, "Oboro", when you heard the original song?

Shinya: Well... I was working on several songs at the same time, and I don't remember what the original "Oboro" song sounded like.

-Were the other songs that you were arranging and pre-producing at the same time too strong for you?

Shinya: It was all very strong. The drum approach for "Oboro" was just what I thought of when I heard the original song, without any worries.

We're going to do a live performance for an audience on the 6th of May, but we don't know what's going to happen after that, so we're going to do it as if it might be our last one.

-You said that you often set up an electric drum machine at home and make drum arrangements while playing, is this the same style you used for "Oboro" and the new songs you were working on?

Shinya: When I'm thinking of drum phrases, I don't use an electric drum but just use the mouse. In the past, I used to focus on the basic groove of the song, and I used to add drum phrases while actually playing the drums. But the period of thinking while playing is over now…

-I didn't know you had such a time frame in mind (laughs). Thinking with the mouse is a way of avoiding the first days of DTM, isn't it?

Shinya: Yes, it's the way we did it in the beginning. I think the period of time I was thinking about it while I was in the city changed my way of thinking about drum place. It's hard to describe it in words (laughs).

-I'll take care of that. I'm a subscriber to the Shinya Channel, so be nice to me (lol).

Shinya: Well, I guess I should say I've got it all figured out. I've learned about the advantages of using an electric drum and the differences between using a mouse and thinking with an electric drum, and now I'm able to create phrases and grooves with just a mouse while playing the electric drum, so I think it's not a problem. I can now type in rhythms and phrases with the same time signature as if I were actually playing.

-Do you find it easier to come up with something unexpected by not thinking of phrases as you play?

Shinya: Yes, one of the advantages of playing the piano is that you can create phrases that you can't edit. You can create phrases that you can't edit with your own hands. That's why I started thinking about drum arrangements by typing with the mouse in the early days. In this song "Oboro", I used the mouse a lot in the A melody and other phrases. The demo phrases that I came up with using only the mouse were much stronger and weaker, but when I actually played them on live drums, I couldn't get that level of intensity.

-Do you mean simply the volume?

Shinya: That's right. The core of each sound has to come out properly in live drums, so even if you add a strong instrument, if it's too weak, the core won't come out. The image was different from the one I had in the mouse, but it turned out good, so I didn't have any trouble. I also thought a lot about the guitar in the drum braise of "Oboro". It's the solo part.

-It's a drum approach that is making a difference.

Shinya: Yes. I tried to make a good movement when I hit it. The form of the striking and the movement of the arms are flowing.

-You have a large number of cymbals anyway, and they are set up around the effects cymbals. Effect cymbals have a shorter blue sustain than normal cymbals. That's why when you use a lot of cymbals, do you consider the tendency of the sound of each cymbal and the length of the sustain while constructing the phrase itself?

Shinya: That's what I'm trying to do, to make it so that it's smooth and the previous movements flow. But when we were recording, we didn't talk about it that much. At the live show, I think "I used this cymbal on the recording, but I'll use that cymbal at the live show", so at the live show, I try to pursue the movement more.

-You‘re a drummer who can go beyond. You mentioned that you bring the same cymbals and settings to your recordings as you do live?

Shinya: There are as many cymbals as there are live, but the tycoons are more like two thimbles, two toms and one floor. It's a set of two toms and one floor.

-I think it's important to be careful when making drum sounds.

Shinya: Yes, it is. The drums are the most important part of the sound. I leave it to the tuner. I asked the tuner to listen to a demo of a drum phrase that I typed in with my mouse, and then I asked him to create a drum sound that would fit the phrase. I didn't start working with the drum tuner on recordings until 2019 (The World of Mercy), and he also joined me on several occasions during the tour. The sound on that tour was so good that we started asking them to play on 'The World of Mercy'. It's easier to make a good sound in a live setting, but if the tuner can make a sound that I'm happy with, then I can trust him for the recording. For the recording of "Oboro", they tuned it to the sound I had imagined from the beginning.

-I get the impression that you always do your recordings without getting bogged down, but this time?

Shinya: Just like that. We also recorded the coupling song "T.D.F.F." at that time, but we didn't get stuck. But I recorded it part by part, so it took a bit longer. If I'm happy with the intro, I'll go on to the A melody, and so on, starting from the beginning of the song. It takes a lot of concentration to record each part. Also, sometimes the song isn't written until the day before, so I haven't memorised the phrases yet (laughs). The structure of "Oboro" wasn't even ready until the day before we recorded it. So when I played it, I put the recording side by side and concentrated on each part.

-What did you think of the coupling track "T.D.F.F."?

Shinya: I didn't change much in terms of drum phrases, but I tried to give it a bit more energy. As a result, there are a little less detailed snare phrases than on the original version.

-When you do a self-remake, do you tend to go in with a different stance than the original?

Shinya: It depends on how it's arranged. If the whole arrangement is completely different, I'll consider it a controversial piece and work on it. But basically, I try not to change the original phrases. When SUGIZO joined X JAPAN, he said, "Classical phrases are all different depending on the performer, even if the phrases are not changed“ . That's why SUGIZO said he was playing the same phrases as HIDE. That's why I want to show that although the phrases are the same, they are actually different.

-It's all luck. Even though the phrases are the same, each note is different, and this progression is the growth.

Shinya: Yes. It's a bit embarrassing to call it growth, but I think it's different even though it's the same phrase. But there are things that only the ward of that time could do, but there are also things that only the ward of today can do.

-What mode are you in as a drummer in 2021?

Shinya: I don't really think about it, I just want to play a good drum.

-When I started thinking about the phrases in Mouse, it was also the time when the Band started performing and touring overseas, and the Band's drummers and musicians that I played with at festivals and other events were always saying, "The drums in DIR EN GREY are so circular and amazing. I wondered if Shinya had some kind of special meaning behind the way he phrased the songs“ .

Shinya: Even if I say I've gone back, the way I put it on is completely different from back then. I was thinking of doing something complicated back then, but now I'm thinking of making it as simple as possible. I'm saying that now, but I think it will change depending on what kind of new songs I'm going to play. I'm going to release "Oboro" as a single, but I don't think you can see the spirit of the album from this song alone, in fact I think the album will have a completely different feel. In addition to "Oboro", the other songs on the album will have more impact in the direction of things. I may have done something uncomplicated before the drums... (laughs).

-By the way, today was the first time you met your fans in Osaka, are you getting more excited about the show?

Shinya: Yes, I am. We're going to play to an audience on May 6th, but after that we don't know what will happen. So I'm going to do it with the mindset that it might be my last live. I'm looking forward to seeing how it will be expressed in the actual live performance.

Text/ YUKINOBU HASEGAWA, HIROKI KATAGIRI [GiGS/Equipment]

Photo/ REISHI EGUMA [C-LOVe CREATORS]

Translations by me.

[atalana]

[copied over from my cr blog, also this is gonna get long, i’d apologise but im not sorry]

okay, so

this is a rant probably about 7 years in the making, bc when i first watched lok i had not done any music study, i had not done any composing of my own, my knowledge of music theory was at a primary school level and i still thought tv soundtracks were just made by one person composing a whole cache of music and then the audio editors pick and choose what track to place where

(spoiler alert that’s not how film and tv scoring works, i have now done a music composition course where we had to score a short film, among other things, and i have so much more respect for tv composers jesus christ)

but this one stuck out to me even way back then, bc me barely knowing what a leitmotif was was like “hey this one little refrain keeps popping up whenever bolin does lavabending, and i like it, i’m gonna see if it’s on the soundtrack”

it was not, and that’s sort of where i left it back in 2014, but i actually did a rewatch of lok pretty recently out of nostalgia, and then noticed it even more

and to explain why (and this is also a little bit why five’s stuck out to me in tua, i’ll get to that in another ask), let’s cover, leitmotifs, and tv scoring in general

so a leitmotif is basically just a short musical idea that represents something in a piece of music. when i studied motivic development we were encouraged to make that motif four notes or less, and then develop it into something longer (aka a theme), because if you can constantly come back to a really short idea while keeping the piece moving, that’s what makes a piece of music memorable

(you can ignore those rules on purpose but that’s a different essay)

so the most common way that a leitmotif shows up in soundtracks is to represent a character or a location - you play the motif when that character shows up or when you’re in that location and boom, the audience associates that motif with that person place or thing, and you can then use this to tell the audience things without actually telling them. for example, star wars playing the imperial march whenever someone does something darth vader related - darth vader isn’t on screen, but you can feel his presence, because his music is playing

and if we were a film score, where we have two hours to show one particular character’s development, great! we give them a simple motif, and then as they grow as a person we change their motif to reflect what is happening to them, until we end up with something that communicates on a subconscious level how much they’ve grown. we toss in as much symbolism as we can, and we have a really great soundtrack that’s instantly memorable

tv scoring, is harder. partially because of time constraints (have you ever composed half an hour of original music a week, and had to make sure it fits perfectly with every beat of what’s happening on screen? these guys have), partially because there’s a much larger focus on ensemble casts

so what atla and lok do, for the most part, is not score individual character motifs for everyone. this is fairly common in tv soundtracks, instead we score ideas, concepts, and feelings - these’ll come up a lot more and give you more information than just “oh hey this character’s on screen”

the avatar state, for example, has the strongest and most recognisable theme across both shows. i’m linking an atla track in here because it has the best example but you’ll know this shows up with korra too - and with particularly important moments for wan, for kyoshi, etc. they also appear in the opening of both shows, four strong notes that start and end on the same note (in the case of what i’m linking, it’s an F#)

the first part of this track is the more uncertain, pensive theme that comes up when both avatars are feeling doubt/worry/sadness, but then it transitions into the more recognisable four. worth noting though, those are both basically the same motif. if i write them out back to back, you’ll notice they both have four notes and start and end on F#. if i had to guess, four notes four elements, and it comes back to the start because the avatar is a cycle.

korra has a theme for when she’s fighting, but not an individual character theme. the airbenders as a concept have a theme, republic city has thematic instruments, as do some big name characters, like iroh and his tsungi horn (this is also a cross-series thing, he’s always playing it in atla, it shows up when zuko has to make big moral decisions, and when we first meet iroh in the spirit world in lok, it shows up there too, to let the audience know who this is before we properly see him)

so, if korra doesn’t get a single theme and instead has several for different aspects of her life, and mako and asami follow along with the mood of the story like all the other characters, the fact that bolin has a personal leitmotif at all, let alone a solid, developing one, is pretty remarkable!

now, granted, it mostly starts with book 3, before then he was like every other character, but it has clear symbolism through those last two books! and, initially i thought it was related only to his lavabending, since that’s most of when it shows up, but since my rewatch, i’ve started calling it his hero theme

see, when people wanna criticise mako and bolin, usually the comments they get are that bolin’s too immature and mako’s too serious/uptight. but like, that’s how they work, you can’t analyse either of them without the context of the other. since they were little kids on the streets, bolin chases his heart and mako makes sure they don’t die from it, that is their entire childhood. and neither would have got here on their own because mako wouldn’t take the necessary risks and bolin wouldn’t take the necessary precautions. (like. remove either one from the equation and they’d still be working for the triple threats bc s1 and their flashback miniseries make pretty clear that bolin got them out and mako kept them out)

and then book 2 proves it! because it splits team avatar up, and what happens? bolin is totally taken advantage of by varrick and used as a pawn in his evil plan and mako ends up in jail

so what’s book 3, to them? it’s, being able to find themselves without having that codependency. mako no longer has someone to protect, which is what he’s based his whole life around so far - bolin’s doing fine and he’s no longer dating either korra or asami. and bolin’s trying his hand at some of that responsibility (look at how he immediately adopts kai who is explicitly them but younger because he wants to be the older brother for once). most importantly, they find the rest of their family, and stop being defined by being orphans. they don’t have to be that singular piece of a puzzle, they can just be themselves. and that’s where bolin’s character really starts to shine, because that’s when they bring in the bending plot, and bending, perhaps more than any other character, really gets to the heart of who bolin is

if you want more of my thoughts on that i have an essay here, but tl;dr: bolin’s an extremely powerful earthbender, but he’s not a metalbender because metalbending requires you to double down on the earth characteristics and think like an earthbender, and bolin doesn’t, he’s too fluid for that, which is one of his major strengths, so of course he can lavabend

and finally - to his motif itself! (as a note, i’ve put all of these in the same key to show where it repeats, but there’s a variety of keys used in the show)

as far as i can find, it first shows up in s3e8, when bolin stuns p’li with this well placed shot

[Edit: it first showed up in the s2 finale, but again in a simplified version and again with him doing something heroic with earthbending, so we can still start the analysis here]

mako volunteers bolin for that job, because he knew bolin was capable of it. why? because bolin landed an identical shot earlier in the episode, after trying to metalbend, getting frustrated he can’t, and cheating with some extremely well aimed earthbending. it’s just a short refrain and you barely notice it, but it’s the first connection of this motif with the theme of bolin’s bending

it looks like this, and it’s always played on a trumpet, which is part of why i call it the hero theme, because, if you’re looking at music from a western perspective, trumpets were used to herald kings, and then used to represent military glory, and then when superhero themes started happening, they used trumpets too - it’s basically western music shorthand for hero these days

(it’s also symmetrical so that helps with the good vibes)

and he’s saving everyone here, so it’s linked to his bending, but it’s also linked to his heroism

it ties the two together, and they are tied together.

when’s the next time it shows up? episode 10, when the brothers are in prison in ba sing se, and bolin tries to metalbend them out. again, he’s doing this to save people, and this motif gets a few notes added on to the end in a raising pattern - they’re inspiring, but they don’t go anywhere. which is exactly what happens in the scene, because he’s trying to go about this in the wrong way. mako believes in him, but it won’t (and doesn’t) work

it appears in episode 12 when bolin saves everyone from ghazan destroying the temple, in a more fancy orchestral remake of the first version - it’s impressive, but it hasn’t actually developed yet, it’s just his discovery of it

the book 3 finale already has its own fucking amazing soundtrack, i love that entire episode’s score, but it gets its own moment there too, and the first real development!

because what we hear is not what we’ve heard before. we know it’s the same theme, because it’s using those signature trumpets, but it’s the second part of this phrase, the answer to the question supplied by the first one. why? because bolin’s figured out who he is and he’s starting to use it. it still hasn’t settled yet though, it’s early days and he’s still just turning ghazan’s lava back on him, so again, it raises, leaving it on a question mark

it doesn’t appear in s4e7 when he lavabends as a warning against the escaped prisoners, because he’s using it as a threat, not to help people. but it does later in the episode when he uses lavabending to save them from kuvira. and that’s when we get the first full phrase, question and answer

it keeps the first motif identical, takes out the first note of the second, and ties them together - except now it’s not open ended, now it knows where it’s going - it’s been three years, at this point bolin is confident in both himself and his bending

and then that phrase appears all over the place in the finale, because all bolin does is save people - everyone from the exploding building, he slows the giant mecha with lavabending, he saves opal, he slows the giant mecha again by collapsing a building on it, and most importantly, he’s the one rescuing his brother this time, instead of the other way around (though that one doesn’t get a motif appearance bc admittedly a fuck ton of other things are happening in the soundtrack at the time)

so to that question asked in book three - who is bolin when not next to someone else? well, funnily enough, we saw it in book two as well, just in a warped way, playing nuktuk. it just wasn’t truly him because it was created by varrick, and he needed to get away from varrick too. the question put forward by the narrative is who is bolin, and the answer given by the music is, he is a hero. and i don’t know why bolin is the only one to get a theme like this, but i think it may have something to do with the fact that, while everyone in team avatar has been a hero and saved people, he is the only one who has, from the start, solely been motivated by wanting to help people. he follows his heart, and his heart cares, about everyone. it’s been the driving force behind almost everything he’s ever done. and i love him so much

[neokad]

Touhou VI: The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil - or my first journey into a bullet hell game

Touhou is that one pew pew game series with cute anime gals, right?

Source: https://pixiv.kurocore.com/illust/54033795

Just like what I think are many people, that’s pretty much all I knew about the franchise as a whole! And to be honest, for a long long time, I was AFRAID of going any closer to anything Touhou-related! Because of them being bullet hecks, they seemed like the most frustrating and unfun games I could possibly be playing! But then... time passed... Fast forward to somewhere in 2020: I was watching the biyearly Games Done Quick event, and one of the first runs showcased during it was none other than Touhou Luna Nights! But while the speedrun itself was very impressive, the thing that really captivated me was well... everything else! Even though this was only a Metroidvania fangame, IT LOOKED LIKE SO MUCH FUN! The graphics, the special effects, the mechanics... everything just seemed like a dream!  In spite of that, I only picked the game up and played it about a year later, thanks to a Steam sale! And to keep things short, I ADORED it. It was a bit too short, but everything else was spot on, and even better than I thought it would be from what I saw at GDQ! But that’s sadly a review for another time :(  Because I literally fell in love in this game, well... I thought “screw it, I’ve been morbidly curious for years now, let’s actually try a freakin’ Touhou game!” 

And so, after some research I’ve learned that the sixth game - the first one released on Windows PCs! - was the one that served as inspiration for Luna Nights as a whole - its characters, music, stage aesthetics and more! It just seemed natural to settle with this one~

How did it go? What did I think about it? Well, that’s why we’re here: those are my thoughts about Touhou VI: the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil.

Now for a pointless history lesson: as I said earlier, Touhou 6 was the very first game published for Windows PCs, all the way back in 2002! The five previous games were actually exclusive to a Japan-only machine, the NEC PC-98, a line that prevailed strongly in Japan before Microsoft conquered the world. As such, it’s really the first game that’s still relatively accessible today, as PC-98 emulation is... not really a stable thing yet -_- So even though this wasn’t quite true, it’s as if I started my journey into Touhou with the original! And once I started playing, I was honestly surprised at one thing once I hit the title screen: this game actually has lots of options to make the experience easier or harder!

I know that being able to change your starting lives, starting bombs, choose your overall difficulty and such isn’t groundbreaking at all, but honestly? I didn’t expect things to be so customisable in a bullet heck game series - a genre that’s known for being merciless to players! I did decide to go on Normal to have the “intended” experience, but things aren’t as daunting as you may think!

This game also allows you to play as not only Reimu, the poster character of the franchise, but also Marisa! Both of these girls also boasts two different weapons each, with their own strengths, weaknesses and bomb attacks! Again, I genuinely did not expect so much breathing room even though looking back... I feel like I should have : P

Once I actually started playing the game itself, there’s yet another thing that surprised me: the difficulty curve... it’s... manageable??

Now granted, I’m a person that plays a *lot* of games, and on top of that, I play lots of action games as well, games that require quick reaction times, good pattern reading and so on so forth. So there’s a chance my judgement on the game’s difficulty might be wrong or biased... but to me? Embodiment of Scarlet Devil actually has a good difficulty curve! The first stage of the game has many enemies that can shoot many bullets, but they’re slow, predictable and relatively easy to avoid because you have lots of space to maneuver around! On that same train of thought, Rumia, the first stage’s boss, certainly doubles down on the number of bullets she can throw at you. But, their patterns are once again pretty slow and predictable, making things much more comfortable at the start of your adventure!

But hold on a minute here, how does this game actually plays? Well, this is where I need to let out a horrifying truth:

Touhou is actually really, REALLY fun.

At first it does seem like a pretty standard shooter: you shoot at things, dodge bullets, collect power ups to boost your weapon’s strength, and make sure you don’t die too much in order to reach the final boss in good shape. However, what I ended up loving about Touhou are its many, many mechanics that spice things up beautifully! The first one I wanna focus on is “Grazing” and it’s actually pretty simple: if you do your best to get close to a bullet or a laser without touching it with your (very small!) hitbox, you graze that bullet! Not only will a satisfying sound effect play out each time you graze something, you will also gain points each time you do this maneuver, making it essential for a high score, and especially, to gain extra lives faster!  Secondly, there’s bombing! I am totally repeating myself here, but while each character has a different kind of bomb to their disposal, they each function in relatively the same way: you get to launch a strong attack against your opponents, get invincibility frames, and on top of that, get rid of any bullets that are currently on the screen! I love bombs in this game because they create a great balance: you can totally use them for offensive purposes, buuuut they also serve as a great defensive clutch if you just find things too difficult at the moment.  Bombs even have two extra layers to them! When you will get hit and lose a life (and believe me, you will) your bombs will get refilled back to three, urging you to not hoard them too much even if you’d prefer to save them for a tougher part. Because if you die, you might just “waste” bombs in a way! However, here’s an advanced kicker: if you manage to hit the bomb button just as you are hit by a projectile (8 frames within death I think!) you not only are able to save yourself from losing a life, you also won’t lose a bomb at all, either! This is a very difficult trick, but a very cool and potentially important one if you plan things out in the heat of battle ^^

Then there’s a mechanic that, to my knowledge, got introduced in EOSD: the POC, as in Point Of Collection! Now, as you destroy the many enemies after Reimu or Marisa, they naturally drop many power ups and point icons, and because there’s many of these you’re bound to miss them. However, this is where the POC comes in: if you are at full weapon power, you will earn the ability to collect every icon on the screen! This makes sense and is actually very smart, because most players - myself included - tend to hug the bottom of the screen as bullets are more scarce and slower here. BUT reaching that POC close to the top of the screen is a great way to incentivise players to risk things in order to get a massive amount of points and gain extra lives way faster! And finally, as soon as you do reach that max power, the game will automatically wipe every single projectile off the screen, so it’s even possible to time when you’ll get your final power boost to make things easier on yourself!

All of those mechanics together make Touhou EOSD a pure joy to play! It’s simple on the surface but has such interesting mechanics and risk-reward elements that can push you out of your comfort zone, but never forces you to! And sure enough, I got addicted~

Even though I did say that the game had a good curve and started off not too difficult, it does not mean that your journey will be easy: even early game bosses such as Cirno and Meiling took me lots of practice to get consistent at, by studying their patterns and testing out which strategies worked the best for survival. And eventually, even Patchouli and Sayaka’s stages will test you out with lots of predictable-yet-deadly bullets to test out your screen reading skills and even reflexes.

Touhou may be more accessible than I thought, but do not be mistaken: on Normal, this game will still challenge you, and I absolutely love it for that <3 

Another thing that helps this game out is - please pretend to be surprised - the music. Touhou has always been known for bringing some very good tunes all around, but besides Luna Nights’s incredible soundtrack, I actually never got to listen to any of them besides Bad Apple and one fanime opening my bestie sent me one year ago. And well... it’s true!

The game uses some very artificial, even out-of-tune instruments for its music, but strangely enough, it REALLY works! It gives the music a very nostalgic, warm feeling that’s hard to describe, but it works so well at making those songs catchy as all heck! It also helps that the compositions themselves are pretty strong and surprisingly complex for its genre, too! I would pick a favourite theme to show off, but the soundtrack’s just really consistent and good all around!

Sadly, I mostly cannot say the same for the game’s presentation. This game is a PC app from 2002 and it sadly somewhat shows. I’ll even bring a special mention to the in-game portraits, which are hilariously HORRIBLE! Thankfully dedicated fans have made a patch to improve the game’s visuals so that they’re more in line with later titles, but at base it’s really not the prettiest gem visually...

...except for the spell cards, the bosses’s strongest attacks, which are genuinely gorgeous multicolored motives that will struck you in awe before you are inevitably destroyed by them, it’s great! My favourite is the one you get from Meiling’s mid stage encounter, pictured above!

Before wrapping up this long, long post, I do wanna add this: the game will unfortunately only give you the good ending only by playing on Normal and above, and only if you beat the game without using any continues. This is called a 1CC, or 1 Credit Clear. Even if I don’t think the bad ending’s actually that unsatisfactory, I did want to get better at the game! So I practiced for many hours a day for a couple of weeks, memorized each boss’s patterns, learned where to graze, when to optimally reach the POC to get as many points as possible... this game pushed me to get better with an incentive, a reward waiting at the end, on top of the satisfaction of simply cheesing what used to be so difficult at some point and... well, I think this is the proof of a well-crafted game right there. After many failed attempts, I finally managed to 1CC this game (pictures below!!) and it was, genuinely, one of the most satisfying moments in my gaming life <3 

So... yeah. I might be a Touhou fan now. Welp.

Touhou VI: The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil was such a pleasant surprise for me: I expected a game I’d find somewhat boring at best and frustrating at worst, but I ended up having a very, very good time, and honestly? It’s not as hard as you’d think it is! You can beat a Touhou game, so long as you are interested in practicing and getting better, and I promise it’ll feel rewarding in the best of ways <3

I just wanna say thank you to Luna Nights and Team Ladybug, because without them, I would have never been curious and then surprised by how cool this game is. Thank you <3 

And many thanks to you, the reading, for staying until the end! Thank you for reading!

[youcantfiremebecauseiquit]

idk if u care but crispin gray recently had an interview about his entire career and it kind of changed my perspective of queenadreena…idk if for better or for worse lol. it was weird to see him so dismissive of a lot of his catalogue w katie except for ‘love your money’ just because that was the only remotely chart successful song. i get you want to be able to sustain yourself but jeez him and katie really had a weird back and forth relationship

Sorry i'm replying late, i've seen the interview pop up on Youtube but honestly i was too invested in university shit recently & generally not in the good mood for that but i'm planning to watch. How did it change your view on Queen Adreena, did he say something mean specifically on QA or Katie? I mean i gotta watch it but honestly? Not surprised in the slightest. A few years ago he was asked to describe fave songs he recorded throughout the years and he listed more of Daisy Chainsaw ones than anything else, with Love Your Money as number 1. The differences in their points of view are real something, Katie Jane absolutely HATED Love Your Money, same as Daisy Chainsaw. Kinda apparent he wanted bigger fame but DC dropped fast and QA failed to live up to their predictions.

i had a time when i liked to dig up old Queen Adreena interviews that are lost in the old internet & generally not available for years (which i planned to post on is-she-suffering but my investment in that site is... varied in its intensity). Also that was back in the days when i wrote Queen Adreena book during manic phase and tried to sell it but lost motivation Well since i don't do anything with that knowledge anyway i'll put what i know here as i love fan discussions

So they sure had/have odd back and forth love-hate relationship & that's the reason why their career went how it went. There's been a huge tension between them at some point. I'm sure you know she had a major mental breakdown (probably schizophrenic episode) after Daisy Chainsaw, or even beginning before her leaving, and then she went into isolation and lived with an old woman in Lake District for awhile. She left Daisy Chainsaw cause Crispin didn't want her to come up with her own songs (all of DC was by Crispin except for Lovely ugly brutal world by KJ).

They almost split up as Queen Adreena after Drink Me. The material for The Butcher and The Butterfly was written at different times, originally it was meant to be called Atom Bomb at Bikini but it was constantly delaying and they eventually recorded everything they've got live. So that's obvious right? But i was surprised to find out they were writing songs separately. Some of them (i forgot which though) were written by Katie Jane and Pete Howard's sons band (they're even credited) + some with Melanie Garside, Richard Adams + some other musician. Katie Jane didn't like it. They intended it to be their last album at the time. She also hated live at ICA show but they released it cause they were broke

But that's a digression. I just wanna say that at this point they were done with each other but kept pushing it. Katie had her own art projects and stuff, Crispin started Dogbones with Nomi and i just remember how vaguely pissed at Katie he waas in the interviews. Like he stressed that Dogbones is his number one priority and if Katie wants to do something with Queenadreena, she must wait til Dogbones have a break first or something, and it sounded oddly bitter.

RaCH and Djinn era are just so weird, they had opportunities but let them go in a way. I don't think many people know but they were huge demand in Japan. They entered album charts and were interviewed by 11 magazines and 6 (!)TV stations there (wtf happened to that material i want to know???). But they only played 5 times or less.

Katie said she considers the band dead but they decided they can try to play for a couple more months. But aside from that she 100% lost the interest in the band around Djinn. There's an interview where she says "the overall image is Crispin but the shape will change again at rehearsals". And you can hear it, it’s more blues rock than anything. IMO it's their worst production wise. Instruments are fine but Katie's voice is so badly produced that sometimes i find some songs fucking irritating, cause they didn’t cut out her breaths and the vocals are TOO LOUD, to the point of distorting. As if she stands too close to the mic. The album is fine but it feels unfinished.

And here we come back to Crispin... here's what he said after the QA split:

Why the Dogbones started? “I needed to work more than the previous band I was in was working, the previous band who shall remain nameless, haha… um… Queenadreena. I wanted to work more than the singer of Queenadreena wanted to work… so that’s why it started. Fine by me… but I really like to be in a band, I’m not a solo project kind of guy. The last album (‘Djin’) did come out in the UK, but it was so low key because Katie kind of disappeared so there was little point in promoting it. Personally it’s my favourite by far so it was a shame but there you go… So here are Dogbones, it’s not been an easy ride but we are trying very hard.

Ok so the bitterness is kinda apparent isn't it. I think there were two reasons why they argued so much, first musical differences. Katie at some point lost interest in loud rock music for some years and went the folk way in Ruby Throat. I have a theory that Taxidermy and Drink Me are more influenced by Katie Jane and Butcher and Djinn are more Crispin. During first albums i think Katie more actively took part in music composition and choosing arrangements. She wrote lyrics, melodies but also composed a lot of songs on some little electronic keyboard thing and 4 track (Heavenly Surrender, Pray for me, My Silent Undoing, all Lalleshwari +more). Plus she wanted more peaceful/dreamy sound on Taxidermy than full on rock, Crispin complained about it in some 00's interview, that he'd like it to be more rock. Then there are 2 versions of Drink Me, the original has rough and alt versions of songs (it was sold by Katie and it's leaked on FB and probably YT). Crispin Gray apparently really hated the final Drink Me. Now next album is The Butcher & The Butterfly and it's more standard blues rock, no more crazy dreamy things of previous albums etc., Djinn is even more blues rock but darker. Djinn was his favourite at some point while KJ hated Butcher, not sure about Djinn. So i think they had different views on where they should go, Katie made her weird simplistic creepy tunes (like Lalleshwari) and folk melodies adding that strange things to noise rock. Crispin probably wanted blues & rock.

Other than that, i’m convinced they are bitter exes, lol. There’s been rumours about them dating during Daisy Chainsaw for years, plus Katie had a history of dating band members. Crispin wrote X-ing off the days about her. I don’t know if they dated again in Queen Adreena. Then there’s this interview, timeline is unclear, either The butcher & the butterfly or later:

„Katie writes all the songs herself and often looks for melodies and structure with the drummer. With Crispin - her husband or ex-husband, which is not entirely clear to me - for almost three years she has no longer been in a room. "Sometimes we send him a letter with a new song and that's all we can do. All we have are our lungs and our musical talent and we have to do with it. It is repugnant difficult life, I know most of the time how I should deal with it." But Queenadreena will still remain even exist? "I think so, we are now pretty busy and I see where the ship aground.”

I always wondered what exactly happened after Djinn, i’ve seen Katie Jane say „i think they gave up on me” while others said she disappeared. Other times CG said there’s no bad blood between them but at the same time there’s been some weird tension.  As of recent i thought they reconnected somehow through the internet and had a good relation but who really knows.s

I get why Crispin gets irritated when people compare everything he does to „stealing from KJ” but honestly, he gave them good reasons, at least in the 90’s. I can believe Starsha Lee singer isn’t copying Katie cause she’s from Brazil or something and she didn’t know Queen Adreena before. But everything else… Crispin’s problem is that he doesn’t know what he wants. He spent 90’s chasing something, tried singing himself, had girl singer replacements and even one KJ copy. Dogbones was ironically his most original non-Katie band, even with all their grunge influences. In a way he wants to be a frontman and at the same time doesn’t. Idk if he’s very controlling, but Daisy Chainsaw shows he valued his songs/lyrics first & in Queen Adreena he had to step back a lot, cause Katie’s condition was she would be in charge of the lyrics. I don’t think he realizes how strongly Daisy Chainsaw issues affected Katie, i mean from her own words you can read that aside from media attention/hate, her being unable to write lyrics had a role in her breakdown. I think she now let go but for years she hated remembering Daisy Chainsaw and she felt kind of worthless cause she was only somebody else’s mouthpiece. I’m not trying to say he’s cruel or anything, but i firmly believe rock lyrics writers should sing their own songs or else there are problems.

They both were writers-composers with different vision and i have impression they struggled a lot while shaping their songs, cause they both stuck to their ideas. Hence 2 versions of Princess Carwash maybe. Katie once said that he „gets terribly upset with her” cause she writes her songs on a simple wind organ and uses a few chord buttons only. Clash of writer ways/personalities/egos and at some point they had to let go.

Maybe he prefers music/bands where he was 100% in control including lyrics (note he wrote/sang some lyrics in Dogbones too). Daisy Chainsaw achieved bigger success US and UK wise as they were offered to play Top of The Pops, and they’re more well liked/remembered by „general alt public”. Queen Adreena however is way more valued as a cult band, with cult following and admiration in UK & France. Most people think Pretty Like Drugs and other QA songs are his best work and he probably finds it irritating cause truth is, he never managed to be more successful than Daisy Chainsaw/Queenadreena. Love Your Money is ironically the least Crispin Gray/DC/QA sounding song in my opinion. I kinda find it irritating that he downplays Queen Adreena cause it was probably his best work in this band but whatever

So yeah sorry for the word spill, that’s what i can think of it right now but as i said, i haven’t watched the interview yet, it’s just this kind of treatment is in a way consistent for him

[loveislattes]

NSFW Alphabet - Wilford Warfstache

THIS IS A REPOST DUE TO THE ORIGINAL GETTING LOST! This was originally written 2-3 years ago! 

These are all personal opinions of mine. Of course, others might see it differently, but I hope you all enjoy the read no matter what!

(Re-post! The original got removed because I had an actual sex gif in here, so now there’s just a link!)

A = Aftercare (What they’re like after sex)

Wilford will always cuddle his lover after sex, and do everything in his power to make sure they are comfortable and happy. Whether it be playing with their hair, rubbing their back, or whispering sweet compliments in their ear, he will never leave them wanting. He quite often falls asleep with them after.

B = Body part (Their favourite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

His favorite body part of his own would have to be a tie between his fabulous mustache and his hands. The first comes from a place of pride, knowing how unique it is and how well it suits him. The second comes from the strength and dexterity behind the fine sinews of his fingers and how well they play your body.

His favorite part of his lover’s body is their eyes. He loves seeing the depth of emotions swirling in the beautiful colors. No matter what he first thought his favorite color was, it instantly became your eye color the first time he made love to you and stared into your hooded orbs.

C = Cum (Anything to do with cum basically… I’m a disgusting person)

100% Wilford loves to cum deep inside you, just to pull out and watch it drip down your thighs. He might even scoop it up and offer it to you, watching with a patient gaze for you to take the offer.

Anytime he goes down on you, which is like every time you’re intimate, he pushes and pushes until you make a mess all over his face and he gets to drink you up.

D = Dirty Secret (Pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

Maybe not so secret, but he has a major daddy kink. He loves to spoil his lover with both material goods and physical affection, and loves to be in the position of the protector that they rely on.

E = Experience (How experienced are they? Do they know what they’re doing?)

Wilford is rather experienced. His charming and bubbly personality mixed with his good looks get him many fans, and while he’s now settled down with you, he took his fair share of romps with the women and men that fawned over him before. He knows his way well around the human body and knows just how to use hands to bring their lover to their knees.

F = Favourite Position (This goes without saying. Will probably include a visual)

Favorite Position Gif!

G = Goofy (Are they more serious in the moment, or are they humorous, etc)

Wilford goes back and forth depending on the mood. Sometimes he’s very intense and focused on the moment, other times he’s laid back and there’s a lot of tickling and giggling joining the pleasure.

H = Hair (How well groomed are they, does the carpet match the drapes, etc.)

While at one point he dyed his pubic hair pink, it’s now back to it’s natural dark shade. He doesn’t groom often but if his lover preferred it, he would.

He doesn’t particularly care about his lover’s grooming style either. As long as he gets to go down on them and make them cum, he couldn’t care less about appearance.

I = Intimacy (How are they during the moment, romantic aspect…) Wilford is extremely romantic, from sweet talking his partner to showing with kisses and touches, he always conveys his love for them thoroughly.

J = Jack Off (Masturbation headcanon)

He has a super high sex drive. As such, if you are busy or don’t feel up to it, he has no problem taking care of himself, and is still willing to go at it with you later. He takes his time as he would with you, all while picturing your hand or mouth on his cock, until he cums with your name on his lips.

K = Kink (One or more of their kinks)

Super huge daddy kink. (Not necessarily DDLG!) He loves having a protective position in his lover’s life, being able to provide for them and take care of them without them having a worry of their own. This translates heavily into the bedroom as well, giving every last bit he has to make sure his partner is pleased beyond their wildest dreams and taking his own selfish pleasure in going down on them for an unbelievable amount of time.

Oral kink like no other. While he enjoys receiving, he gets the most enjoyment out of giving. He likes getting to drive his lover insane with over stimulation, using his tongue and hands as blissful torture instruments. He’s not done until his mouth and jaw are covered in their cum, and they’re shaking from exhaustion.

L = Location (Favourite places to do the do)

As long as the lighting is good, he doesn’t have a strong preference to where it takes place. He just wants to be sure he can see every inch of his partner so he can remember it later.

M = Motivation (What turns them on, gets them going)

Wilford gets turned on easy, thanks to his high sex drive, but the surest way to get him going is to dress up. Whether it be a cute outfit he picked out for them, or them wearing one of his shirts or suspenders, he loves to see his partner in something that screams him. Short skirts/shorts and thigh highs on his lover would be the next best thing. Not to mention if you were to come straight out and tell him how badly you wanted him, it’d be like flicking on a switch and you’d find yourself on your back with his mouth between your legs faster than you could think.

N = NO (Something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

He absolutely refuses to hurt his lover. A light spanking, a love bite here or there, those are safe, but anything that would leave bruises or harm them, he is adamantly against.

O = Oral (Preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc)

He craves to be between your thighs, tasting how aroused you are for him as he makes you shake and quiver. He is more skilled than the best, having spent so much time crafting his practice and is willing to learn even more by testing out different techniques on you. While he won’t say no to receiving, he definitely prefers giving.

P = Pace (Are they fats and rough? Slow and sensual? etc.)

Wilford likes to take his time with his lover, going slow and easy as to appreciate every second he’s gifted with them. On the rare occasion he’s fast and rough, it’s usually if he’s been apart from his lover for a decent amount of time and he can’t wait to be in them.

Q = Quickie (Their opinions on quickies rather than proper sex, how often, etc.)

As stated above, Wil takes his time. He makes sure his lover is thoroughly pleased and sated before focusing on himself, and that can’t be accomplished in a quickie.

R = Risk (Are they game to experiment, do they take risks, etc.)

Wilford is up for some experimentation, such as a food in bed or a new position, but he’s not much of a risk taker. He’s more concerned with the safety of his partner.

S = Stamina (How many rounds can they go for, how long do they last…)

Wilford usually keeps it to one round at a time because of how long he takes, but given the opportunity, he would spend the entire day worshiping his lover’s body.

T = Toy (Do they own toys? Do they use them? On a partner or themselves?)

He owns some toys that he picked out for his lover, such as a vibrator, a small dildo, and fluffy handcuffs, that he delights in using on them. He will occasionally let his lover use something like a vibrator on him when he’s receiving oral or letting them work him up, but it’s more so for them.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

Wilford can be quite the tease. From a slap to the butt passing in the hall, to pulling you in a closet and grinding his thigh against your sex during a heated make out, he is insatiable but knows the big show has to wait. He just has to let out some of his frustration in little increments some how.

V = Volume (How loud they are, what sounds they make)

Wilford is veerry vocal. He doesn’t hold back on his noises of ravenous hunger when he’s going down on his lover, and when he’s buried deep in them, their name comes out just as loud from him as his does from them. He wants his partner to know how good they make him feel, because he knows he loves hearing it as well.

W = Wild Card (Get a random headcanon for the character of your choice)

When drunk, he can get a little more promiscuous than normal, dabbling in dressing up some himself for his lover. He keeps it simple, but he’s been known to strut around in pink short shorts with one of his lover’s pink garters or their thigh highs on, teasing them with how good his legs look in them. He seems to be more exhibitionist when drinking.

X = X-Ray (Let’s see what’s going on in those pants, picture or words)

Slightly over average in length and much thicker than average, he is hung to please the most picky of lovers but not harm them with his size.

Y = Yearning (How high is their sex drive?)

Insanely high, and he struggles to control it. He just craves his lover at every moment of the day, but keep just enough hold on his actions to make it

Z = ZZZ (… how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

Snuggled up to his partner, he falls asleep fast once he’s assured they’re comfortable and safe.

[bloodybells1]

ON SCORDATURA

When I was eighteen, I was really into heavy metal and had been practicing the electric guitar for four years. I was devoted to music theory and looked up to guitarists like Steve Vai. I played loudly and fast, emulating the popular style of playing when heavy metal was at its apex of popularity. You might say that I was a “shredder.” 

My passion for technique took an unexpected turn, however, when I became fascinated by the classical guitar. I don’t exactly remember when it hit me, the inspiration to explore this type of playing. It might’ve been born from reading the name of Andres Segovia in the magazine interviews of my favorite guitarists. (Also, I listened to a lot of Jethro Tull, and the intro to one of his songs is a quotation of a popular classical guitar score by Bach, the “Bourée in E Minor.” I started teaching it to myself by ear, but soon realized I needed help adjusting to the new technique). 

One day I made the decision that I wanted to take the plunge into the classical world. I purchased a cheap nylon string, looked for a tutor and, once I found one in Chapel Hill, NJ, I started taking lessons and practicing every day.

I was enthralled by the new possibilities in this style of playing. I was discovering a wealth of textures and styles I’d had no previous idea about. My parents had not listened to classical music, so all of this was foreign to me. But I fell in love with the genre all the same.

I loved how old this practice was, how its provenance dated back to before there was electricity. I loved the deceptive simplicity of paper scores, how the mere act of sight-reading might open up varied worlds of expression, limited only by the player’s willingness to learn the technique and the player’s ability to perform.

My tutor included Renaissance lute scores in his homework for me. These scores contained instructions for alternative tuning arrangements of the strings. This changes the whole grid of the fretboard. Each string has been tightened or loosened to different notes, so all the note relationships are changed. If you wanted to play the same material you would have to relearn it with new fingerings. 

But that wasn’t the point. The scordatura was designed to make available new sonorities. These lute pieces dating back to the Renaissance had a “harpier” texture, with open notes ringing out in different keys and mixtures of notes in registers I didn’t often hear in guitar music with traditional tuning. It was rather exotic, like the simple act of turning a screw on a taut string had turned this plain old Spanish guitar into some new, esoteric instrument.

My experience with classical guitar, and specifically the scordatura my tutor taught me, was a factor later in life when I played bass guitar professionally in the mid 2000’s. Not only do I think that it made me flexible enough to feel confident learning to play another stringed instrument, but it also influenced my tuning. I utilized what’s called Drop D tuning, a simple type of scordatura that lowers the heaviest string by two notes. It gives you two extra lower notes you wouldn’t normally have with the standard tuning—where the lowest note is E. 

Heavy metal guitarists love this tuning because of how much heavier it makes the music sound and because it ends up making power chord configurations a one-finger job instead of two, and you can play those heavy power chord riffs much more quickly with just one finger. 

Drop D was useful to me, however, because of how it enabled me to interact with the songwriting. My band’s music was dark and a lot of the songs were in D minor. So having a lower D available permitted me to create pedal tones and deeper support functions for chords and textures that were already using that scale a lot. It added depth and character to the music because of this sort of flexible shadow figure moving around underneath the guitars and the keyboards.

I had a profound experience with scordatura later in 2014, while I was in acting school. One of our school productions was a kind of fantasia on Nabokov’s Pale Fire. The novel is already a bit of a fantasia itself, so the production was very post-modern. 

The director, Alex Harvey, staged it brilliantly. One of his ideas was that my character would play passages on the piano between scenes. The score was from a series called Revelation by composer Michael Harrison. 

Harrison had contrived a bespoke scordatura for the score. An assistant, a specialist who could interpret unconventional concert pieces like these, was hired to transform the school’s simple upright Yamaha, an instrument more often used as accompaniment for students singing from the American Songbook, into a piece of avant-garde machinery. 

I had already begun learning some of the passages before the piano had been prepared. They sounded ok, but not extraordinary. Once the tuner was finished and the specific tuning had been accomplished, however, I began learning the pieces in earnest and it was, well, it was a revelation. 

Harrison’s scordatura was wild. Some keys adjacent to each other were tuned only fractionally sharper than their predecessor on the keyboard, thereby creating a tonal cloud or wash between the two that sounded a little like an untuned guitar, but in a shimmery, beautiful way. Other keys were tuned a whole fifth from their predecessor, thereby jumping up very far between two adjacent keys. The two extremities canceled each other out to create a distinct sense of balance and harmony, a kind of timbral mist floating in the ether. 

As I worked on the score I had a sense that I didn’t know what was happening. It was difficult for me to anticipate and conceptualize the piano with this exotic construction. Yet, reading through the score and performing it, the idea was actualized. A whole new musical sensibility was borne out of this tuning. It was thrilling to put into action such a strange and beautiful arrangement.

What would a trumpet sound like if one could alternate its tuning? It’s a ridiculous notion: it would require bending metal, destroying the instrument in the process. Scordatura is likewise impossible for woodwinds. Ditto, percussion. A timpani, the most obvious exception, is in fact quite flexible and can even be tuned during performance. The percussionist puts their ear to the skin and lightly taps so as to enable them to change the tuning without disturbing the performance of other orchestra members. But you can’t do that with, say, tubular bells.

Stringed instruments and the piano are different than all the other instruments. The oscillators, the strings themselves, are adjustable. Coupled with the fact of their polyphony, it’s plain why these instruments, especially the piano, are so popular. They are great adapters. They can be brought back to their mean and reset for future use in other circumstances. The ubiquity of these instruments, across genres, in barrooms and conservatories alike, is explained by their ability to avail themselves. 

And what about the voice? How supple are the cords? Can they be stretched or loosened like the strings of a guitar? Is there a scordatura possible for the human vocal mechanism?

It’s debatable: vocal training, primarily through work in breathing, does fortify ones range by bolstering the lower and upper parts of the register with more support. But your vocal cords are your vocal cords. Even on a guitar, you can’t detune the strings too much. It affects the timbre: the fretboard is designed with a natural state of tension and that string that is being detuned is only thick enough to perform in a certain range before the slackening of the string makes it flap against the fretboard—or before the tightening warps the fretboard. 

Vocal cords are similar in this way. Just like with a guitar, once you start “detuning” your voice, you invite corruption of the sound. Your voice cracks when you try to go too low. 

When Olivier tackled Othello he tried to lower his voice through vocal training. Obviously, considering all of the other garish and offensive effects—the blackface, the funny walk, the stupid dialect—he should’ve known better than to engage in minstrelsy, but he also should’ve known about the corruption of his voice. Not all instruments have that level of flexibility. 

He should’ve known that not everything is available. 

What about the human being itself? Can it be construed as an instrument? one that might likewise permit a certain scordatura? 

My feeling is that in this case the change is permanent. And, like with a trumpet, one risks destruction. The human being is not a stringed instrument. 

I can attest to a certain kind of “permanent” scordatura of the body and mind. It was possible for me to “detune” myself, but it was a commitment to a new state. I won’t ever be able to “go back” to my original tuning. It involved deep structural shifts and I came close to collapse—and in fact did collapse—many times. The instrument—the body and the mind—was constantly at risk of crumbling and warping under the stress of the transformation. Slackening a string is one thing. Shortening or elongating a valve is another. 

What is therapy but a type of spiritual scordatura? The patient comes in with a limitation in place and leaves with that “bar” set somewhere else. Thresholds are repositioned. Pain that was once unbearable can be stomached. New life experiences are   permitted because the mind has been opened to their possibilities. It is a fact that the change is permanent, but after we recognize the evolution we would never want to “detune” back to where we were. 

I have a long history with therapy and it is without question the source of all of the appetite for change that I’ve experienced. In teaching me about healing, it motivated me to seek out other forms of healing. I credit it with helping me gain acceptance to the prestigious MFA program in Acting which I entered in 2012 at NYU, the beginning of three years wherein this process of permanent scordatura would be hastened. 

I had many illnesses. Some would find treatment through the program’s vast assortment of exercise techniques addressing body misalignment and spiritual imbalance. Yoga classes, Feldenkrais, Alexander technique, chakra work, these were all deployed to “tune” the bodies in class. 

Voice and speech exercises as well helped bring awareness of lifelong limits, expressed through the mouth and in the breath. It was unnerving to encounter these intimate facts about how one walks, how one talks, how one moves, how one breathes. 

Most people would never submit themselves to this level of scrutiny. A fellow alumnus with additional experience in the military often jokes that an MFA at NYU Grad Acting is actually more oppressive than boot camp because at least in boot camp you let your anger and hostility grant you relief—you can growl and yawp and hunch over and adapt to battlefields—whereas actors, despite undergoing similar rounds of abuse, must look smooth and collected and relaxed in order to perform well on stage. It really was a double whammy of having my being constantly interrogated in various invasive manners, all while being denied any permission to sublimate the tension.  

I had my own motivations to undergo this training. I was desperate to have a classical training in the theatre. But I was also subconsciously motivated towards healing. Despite the horrors of these ordeals, the modalities that are therewith deployed are part of a healing experience that, having undergone them, I wouldn’t trade for anything. Had I known what I was getting myself into beforehand, I don’t know that I would’ve jumped in the pool. But I’m glad I didn’t know because I cherish the experience.

I had a problem with keeping my mouth only partially open which our singing teacher was constantly bringing my attention towards. She had taught me that this was a defense mechanism, a strategy of containment, a means of keeping the world from having access to my heart. (Of course, keeping your mouth closed is also a problem for sound projection on stage, but that’s more technical). 

During one afternoon class, singing “Lonely Room” from Oklahoma, I broke down into tears as the teacher kept coaxing me to open my mouth more and more. There I was, a man pushing 40, with tears streaming down his eyes, opening his mouth wide, not even singing the words, just the vowels, but doing something that was so psychically threatening, something that I could never bring myself to do, something simple, like opening a mouth. The limit had been expanded.

There was an element of bodily restructuring to all of this as well. I had done a number on my body during those years of my professional musicianship, when I toured the world in a famous band. And so by this point, I was aware that a shift was needed from the effects of years spent in front of cameras and abusing drugs and traveling and losing sleep. Alice Miller’s book, The Body Keeps the Score, is instructive in this regard. Somatization of traumas explain a great deal of certain physical ailments. In my case, they played out structurally, on my bones and on my muscles and in my central nervous system. 

These changes are subtle to the layperson. But they are profound for the student. When I look at how I held my body in old photos, it is obvious to me that there was something wrong. On the stage, with a heavy instrument hanging from my shoulder, it wasn’t perceptible. The lights and the postures have a way of masking the truth. But in the more candid and private shots—the Polaroids and the exposures from my disposable camera which my friends and I took in our apartments—I see evidence of a lot of tension. Shoulders crept upwards towards my ears; chest muscles held; an exploded solar plexus; a chin pointing up. It was a mixture of a lot of holding, a lot of somatization in the fibers, with a learned posture organized to communicate the persona I wanted everyone to see: a demiurge or rockstar. 

I came into grad school as though off an assembly line, where the factory had riveted and hammered onto my body and psyche its lessons. It was a capitalistic factory but it was also a societal one, one that bore the hallmarks of the dogged problems which elude solution: childhood trauma, dog-eat-dog meritocracy, bullying, etc. 

So now I was this product getting recalled, but I was going to another factory for refurbishment. One that also had rivets and hammers, but ones which were designed to break open the right parts.

I stretched and stretched. By the end of the three years I was essentially exiting with a new body. The myth about the seven year cellular regeneration in one’s body is instructive here. For it truly was the case that new grooves in my brain and muscular and skeletal patterns had taken hold. One of my teachers said during my final evaluation that I had come in to school looking like a clothes hangar with legs but that I now looked graceful. 

Even my scoliosis—a condition I was born with and which I will contend with for the rest of my life—was discovered in acting school. I had had no idea about it before one of the teachers told me that I persisted in leaning downwards to my right. My spine curves in the shape of a sidewards C. It’s a genetic condition. Of course, hanging a ten-pound instrument off my shoulder and letting the weight pull me down to the ground so that I could look cool every night didn’t really help either.

The modalities in the movement and vocal training classes in acting school are designed to build awareness and flexibility in the body and the mind. The purpose of this is to permit the actor to be resilient enough on stage so as to be present and believable. So it has a practical purpose and a real-world application. 

I had other problems which these modalities could not fix, but which their steady application, encouraging honesty and reflection, revealed. There were addictions and mental illness issues which I’d had no idea about before entering grad school but which were inflamed by the pressure inside. I then had to deal with them. Immediately, since they threatened the goal of getting my MFA. 

The cocaine abuse of my years in the music industry haunted me in the form of paralyzing panic attacks and circadian disruptions which complicated my ability to perform in school. The years spent pursuing rampant and anonymous sexual congress created inappropriate obsessiveness with orgasms and romance. Naturally, given that my peers were all considerably younger than I was, this last part wasn’t all that abnormal. But it interfered nonetheless. I was no spring chicken but I was acting like one. I had to double down on sex addiction meetings and on therapy.

It all came to a head inside the cloistered walls of the conservatory. It came to a head when Alex Harvey, the director of the Nabokov rendition, had to massage my shoulders backstage as I collapsed in tears during one of many nervous breakdowns. It came to a head when in a movement class, during an unfamiliar physical exploration, an early painful memory of abandonment that had long been forgotten had been recalled and sent me to the floor sobbing. 

I’m grateful that I had the means to address the issues. I had to juggle that with the demands of the curriculum. It was not easy. But I’m proud of my accomplishment and I’m proud of the new person this all made me become.

It is possible to “detune.” I think a better way of looking at it is “retuning.” It is a permanent scordatura and it therefore should not be taken lightly.

[calamity-jam]

Musical Motifs: Four

so, on the discord server Linked Universe Adventures, we started talking “what if the boys had a theme song?” music is one of my passions, and so here’s my headcanons as too what musical ideas and instruments would be used to represent four!! starting us off, the colors!! >:DD 

Blue: (snare/bass, percussion) 

 I headcanon him to be represented by percussion and/ or battery (the marching part of percussion). This is because the percussion is often the driving force in music, the heartbeat of the song pushing the tempo forward. In an ensemble, percussion is often used in tandem with the brass section (keep this in mind for later!! <3). In a marching band, the percussion guides steps and cues, having a percussion section going too slow or going too fast can result in a song that feels dragged or sloppy. I feel as though this mimics Blue’s role in the colors. His energy drives them forward to action and battle, but should this energy get out of hand, it affects the whole group, dragging them along and leaving little room for adaptation and teamwork. 

Green: (trumpet, brass) 

I see green as the brass section!! For some background, heroes are often associated with brass fanfare, this dates back well into the nineteenth century and hunting calls. However, for more recent associations, trumpet fanfare is popular to represent a paragon and hero (superman's theme anyone?) however, its paramount that the brass have *balance.* If the brass is too loud, it can drown out the softer woodwinds and strings. If it's too quiet, the music may not have a backbone, as melody, the main idea of a song, is often found in the brass section. Again, I think this is similar to Green’s role.  In the manga, initially, green sees himself as the original link, the hero of the story. He, in a way, is drowning out the rest of the colors. As the manga goes on, he learns teamwork, and learns to get along and let the others have their time in the spotlight. 

Red: (clarinet, woodwinds)

I believe the woodwinds would be a great fit for Red!! The woodwinds are often used to associate things as small or harmless. But we all know Red is far from that. The woodwinds can be used in a variety of ways, they can be light and airy like the flute and piccolo, but they can be powerful and strong like the bari sax and bass clarinet. Woodwinds are often used to add counter melody or flavor to the main melody, and complement and go well with other instruments, similar to Red! Red gets along with others more than the other colors, and while he may not be at the forefront or have a need to lead, his influence cannot go unseen. Without him, the group would be lacking depth and grounding.

Violet: (violin, strings)

Last but certainly not least, we have vio!! Who I headcanon to be the string section!! The strings have many *many* associations, but the most common ones are class, melancholy, and emotion. Vio, more than the other colors, has shown to be considered more well read, he’s cunning and adaptive, and it's those very traits that lead to his betrayal of shadow, and the guilt and grief that followed. The strings are also adaptive, and can be bass, tenor, alto, and soprano, they can lead or fall into the background, whatever the music requires. However, it's important for the rest of the instruments to *listen* for the strings, as they are easily drowned out. 

While separated, the colors are mainly represented by a single instrument, (the first instrument listed after their names above). I choose higher register instruments to represent fours youth and size, but not the highest register instruments available because while he is young, he is mature. He’s been through multiple adventures, and has had to grow up very quickly. 

With that being said, it's time for shadow!! 

Shadow: (bagpipes)

oKAY, I meme the bagpipes a lot, but there's an interesting fact and association with the bagpipes. Many composers have noted that the bagpipes go especially well with the string and orchestra! (it's all coming together) The bagpipes are rarely utilized in modern music, and thus when they are used, the music may sound strange and otherworldly. They represent the unknown! I feel as though this fits shadow, as he indeed is otherworldly. And along these same lines, as a villain, shadows motives come from a place of misunderstanding and *not knowing* how to act. 

Now for some miscellaneous musical ideas!!

Before pulling the four swords, Four’s motif would be well blended and simple. A basic build off a four note chord, like the cmaj7 chord!! The cmaj7 chord is an fairly upbeat chord with with just a hint of sadness

Immediately after pulling the four sword, fours theme would divide into four separate parts, each using a color’s instrument for the melody of that section and each based off of a note from the cmaj7 chord. Each time one of the colors is featured or doing something noteworthy, their instrument and “note” is played. (this is just done quite often!! Look up “azula’s chime” or “peter and the wolf!!”) 

As Four masters the four sword, his theme slowly stitches itself back together, but it still has recognizable sections to it, and those four instruments alternate for the melody!!

Shadow’s theme would be fours theme reversed and played on the bagpipes!! That way he would still have a connection to four, and be a part of him, while still being unique and his own person! I also think that while evil, his theme would be in a C#dim7 key and based on that chord, but as he switches to the side of good, his theme would become less ominous and gradually change to the cmaj7 chord like fours.

Also representing four before the four sword, I think a staccato beat would be best to represent the fun, upbeat, and exciting nature of his adventure with the minish, but as time goes on, the staccato beat morphed into a steady beating bassline, like a heartbeat. 

Links: 

The C#dim7 chord

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7WKalP8Exk

The Cmaj7 chord

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mKy-DfW0gE

Azula’s Chime

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIanHWbmKiQ

Peter and the Wolf 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Va8Uz6MoKLg

Example of strings and bagpipes 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeRR6O030v8

Examples of bagpipes being used to represent the unknown and musical growth and how themes can change

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVp_KdNQaRU&list=PL4D48F7B301C79783&index=3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUWBm0Z-Xww&list=PL4D48F7B301C79783&index=11

[trashassassin]

Two Halves of a Whole | 6: Impressions and Honesty (Vergil x Reader)

LORDT. The original prompt that inspired this one was “hairbrush spankings” and the idea got completely away from me, but in a good way, I’d reckon. I swear to god I didn’t mean to make it this long, and yet, here we all are.

In this installment, you and Vergil finally begin to reconcile after the mysterious happenings that have yet to be named that I’m sure everyone has already figured out by now, with the help of everyone’s favorite beverage: red wine. Or my favorite, anyway.

Extremely heavy on the fluff. Like, this is on par with some of my Leon stuff, if I’m being honest.

Word Count: 4780 (jfc)

Warnings: Mild Language, Suggestive Themes, Sweet and Fluffy as Cotton Candy

At last, the day had come that Vergil would return to your apartment, only this time, not in a dream, as he had the previous time. You'd finally gotten him to sit down with you and have an honest conversation about what happened, in no small part due to Dante's incessant urgings.

You were aware that they had been selfishly motivated. The fact of the matter was, he simply couldn't take the two of you constantly hovering around each other any longer, waiting for the other to speak first. 

You had also found yourself growing fed up with the whole thing, but Dante had you beat in the confrontation department by far, so he had been the first to speak up. And a part of you was glad that he did. But another part was terrified of where it would take you.

You were well aware of the fact that your coffee table had gotten suitably clean quite some time ago, and yet, you continued to rub the cloth over it as though a prize would pop out from its surface, stopping to glance up at the clock every so often.

How surprised you were to find that only another single minute had passed each time.

You'd been attempting to occupy your mind with meaningless tasks to stop it from racing. This would be the first time you would be properly alone with Vergil and this thought scared you, even if you weren't entirely sure why.

Your fear of confrontation definitely had a lot to do with it. Raw, honest conversation was no more a strong suit of yours than it was of his and you were worried that the two of you would spend the entire evening silently staring at the wall.

So, that was it. You were pacing around your apartment in terror, your heart beating out of your chest, because you were afraid of a bit of awkwardness.

Once you'd finally accepted the cleanliness of your furniture, you made a quick run upstairs to deposit the cleaning cloth into the laundry hamper before you forgot, because nothing would make him get fed up with you and go home like a single, out of place washcloth cluttering up your living space.

You rolled your eyes at your thought process, but if you left the cloth out, you knew that it would be the only thing you'd be able to focus on for the entire evening.

As you reached your bedroom, your mind was bombarded with another slew of issues.

Was it inviting enough? It had been a long time since you'd had anyone up there, so making it presentable wasn't at the forefront of your mind anymore. But it was a bit presumptuous of you to act as though he was going to see it, wasn't it? Was it even advisable for the two of you to sleep together at this point?

You suddenly had a great many questions, none of which anyone, least of all yourself, could give you an answer to.

You would have to play this entire thing by ear. There was no guide you could follow, and there was certainly no way you could predict his reactions to anything given the way he'd been behaving thus far.

Still, you decided it couldn't hurt to tidy up your room a bit just in case. You even brought out the scented candles again for the first time in quite a while and lit one before heading back downstairs.

You were reasonably satisfied that everything was in order, though you were sure that you would find something that was out of place after he'd arrived.

You had to stop and consider what your end goal was here. It wasn't as though it were necessary to impress him. If anything, he should be the one scrambling to make a good impression on you.

And yet, even after everything that had happened, all of your worries boiled down to the simple fear that he wouldn't like you anymore. You found him a bit intimidating now, even if it was irrational. For all intents and purposes, he was the same person he had been, but you found yourself questioning more often than you would have liked if you were still worthy of him. He was so powerful and you were so, well, ordinary, and that was a fact about you that would never change.

You did want to impress him; you wanted that very much. But you were also afraid of overdoing it. You didn't want to appear desperate.

You were even considering whether or not preparing a meal would be seen as excessive. Surely, that was the polite thing to do whenever one was expecting guests, so you put your insecurities aside in favor of common sense.

You'd hardly eaten anything all day, given the fact that your nerves had your stomach tied in knots, so this would benefit you as well as him. There wasn't a whole lot that sounded palatable right now, so you would have to decide on a dish that you had the ingredients for and would also be able to force down once it was finished.

You opened the fridge and sighed. How long had it been since you'd gone grocery shopping? Much too long, clearly. Such mundane tasks had fallen by the wayside as of late.

But, you did have a few things left. As you examined the ingredients before you, you came up with a plan. Spaghetti would be good. It was inoffensive, mindless, and not too showy.

You took out everything you would need—a package of ground beef, which you made sure to sniff in case it had gone off, a couple of onions, and some bell peppers—then brought them over to the counter so that you could begin to prepare them.

As you went to close the fridge, you noticed something else that may be of use to you: a bottle of red wine that you'd purchased quite some time ago sitting atop its surface. You'd never been much of a drinker, but you figured that there had never been a more appropriate time than now to break it open.

Perhaps this was a bit shameful, but at this point, you would have done just about anything to take the edge off while you waited. 

You opened the bottle and poured yourself a glass, then got to work. 

Cooking was typically a relaxing activity for you, one of several hobbies that whisked you away from the outside world, if only temporarily, but on this particular evening, it had no such effect. You took a large gulp of your wine and considered your options. 

Perhaps some music would help. You lifted your phone and scrolled through it a bit to find a playlist that would set you more at ease. 

You went with something instrumental before returning your attention back to your chopping.

You took a sideways glance at the clock on the stove once you'd finished with the onion. You still had a good thirty minutes left, and you weren't sure if this should make you feel relieved or concerned. What you did feel, however, was a healthy mix of both. 

At least you wouldn't have to rush through your cooking. 

You were already beginning to feel the effects of the wine once you'd finished chopping all of the vegetables. Your heart had stopped racing, at least, but you were beginning to worry about embarrassing yourself by the time you'd finished the entire glass. 

But, as you thought about it more, you supposed the time for embarrassment was over. The two of you had already been brutally honest with each other and you figured that there wasn't much either of you could say at this point that would drive the other away.

You tried to convince yourself of this as you continued with your cooking.

Is spaghetti too boring? What if he doesn't like it? Does he even need to eat? I've never seen him eat before. Dante definitely seems to like eating. But what if he only does it because he wants to appear more human?

You slammed your utensils down on the counter and took a deep breath, willing yourself to relax. You were going to survive even in the event that he didn't enjoy your spaghetti.

But it wasn't about the spaghetti, and you knew that. You recognized that your choice of what to serve for dinner was much less consequential than, well, everything else, so it was much easier to give that all of your focus as it was something you could easily control. 

You set the ground beef on the stove to brown, then finished off your glass of wine and contemplated getting another. No, you would save that for when he arrived, if he wanted one as well. You didn't want to be the only one drinking, and you certainly didn't want to be the only one drunk.

What would that be like? You had a lot of difficulty imagining a scenario in which Vergil would have the time, let alone the desire, to get drunk and you were very curious as to how such a thing would affect him.

You almost wished you'd asked Dante for advice before going through with this, but realized that you never would have, even when you had the opportunity to do so. You had too much pride for that, which you accepted as one of your weaker points. So much of your current dilemma would be easily solved by speaking up and asking the right questions.

You promised yourself that you would finally start doing this when you saw Vergil tonight.

The dinner preparations were going exactly according to plan and you were relieved that you'd managed to finish everything up with a little over five minutes to spare. You were even more relieved that you'd managed to make it all the way through without going for a second glass of wine.

You'd mixed together a salad while the sauce was cooking and were in the process of setting everything up on the coffee table when you heard a knock at the door.

Your heart leapt into your throat.

"Just a second," you called out.

He'd arrived exactly at your agreed upon time and not a single second before or after, so you were glad that you'd given yourself so much leeway in getting everything prepared.

You finished up the last of these preparations, then took a deep breath and went to answer the door.

You weren't exactly sure what you had been expecting to see on the other side, apart from the obvious, but you were immediately struck by just how ordinary he looked standing there. He was wearing much more average clothes now, his outfit consisting of a black turtleneck sweater and a pair of dark jeans.

So, he hadn't lost his propensity for all black clothing. This amused you, but you tried not to show it.

"Hi," you said, and he simply nodded in response. "Uh, come in."

You motioned him inside and he stepped across the threshold, still not saying a single word, or even taking a moment to acknowledge you.

Yes, the wine had been a good idea after all, it would seem.

"I made dinner, if you're hungry." You stood beside the coffee table and stared down at it. "To be honest, I didn't know if you guys eat, but I didn't want to be rude by not making anything."

You looked up at him and the expression on his face suggested that you'd offended him.

"I didn't mean-" This was going poorly already. "Not that there would be anything wrong with that. I just didn't want to make it weird."

Clearly, you were failing on that front.

He took a seat on the end of the couch and simply said, "Yes, we do eat."

You took the seat beside him and continued to stare at the coffee table as though it would be able to offer you a way out of this.

"I have wine too, if you'd like some," you said.

"Yes, thank you," he replied.

His response relieved you somewhat as it gave you an excuse to finally pour yourself a second glass.

You poured one for each of you and held yours in your hand, while his remained untouched along with his food.

"Look, I'm sorry," you said.

Was he still offended about the food thing? Surely there was some way you could get him to open up.

He finally glanced your way.

"Why are you the one apologizing?" he asked.

"I don't know," you said. "Maybe because you're acting like you don't wanna be here?"

He shook his head.

"I was actually a bit surprised when you agreed to meet me on these terms," he said.

"Well, I didn't even think you wanted to see me again, so that makes two of us."

"No, I wanted that very much."

He lifted the fork from the plate in front of him and began to poke at the noodles upon it. Was he nervous? You found the idea somewhat laughable.

"You could've fooled me," you said, and you regretted it as soon as it left your mouth. "I mean, you have to understand why I feel that way."

"Yes," he said. He continued to stab at his noodles without lifting any of them from their place. "I am aware that I can be a bit difficult."

A bit?

You managed to hold your tongue this time. It would not behoove you to make fun of him; he was trying, and you had to give him credit for that.

"Well, thank you for making it out here," you said. 

"Thank you for having me." 

He set down his fork at last and inched just a bit closer to you, looking as though he wanted to say something else. 

Instead, he returned his attention back to the plate and finally took a bite of the food you'd prepared. You held your breath as you awaited his assessment of it. 

"Did you make this?" he asked. 

"Yeah," you replied. 

"It's good." 

"Thank you." 

You could've cut the tension hanging over your living room with a knife.

"Are you going to eat?" he asked. 

You shook your head. 

"Maybe later," you said. "I'm not that hungry."

His lips curled into a nearly imperceptible smile. 

"So, you made all this food for me?" he asked. 

This was your moment to make good on the promise of honesty you'd made to yourself earlier. 

"Honestly?" you said, and your stomach flipped. "I've been really nervous about this whole thing." 

"About seeing me?" he asked. The smile was still there. "How foolish." 

"I know that. I don't know, I just get so worried that I'm gonna mess this up somehow." 

He turned to look at you with an expression of disbelief. 

"I know," you repeated. "It's not rational. I just… Well, I like having you around and I don't wanna lose you again." 

Even under your pledge of honesty, you weren't quite ready to express the extent of your romantic feelings for him. After a few more glasses of wine, perhaps, but not as things stood at the present moment. 

"That's certainly not something I hear very often," he said. 

"Well, I mean it," you said. 

You just couldn't take this distance anymore. You hadn't allowed him to come here so that the two of you could have a polite chat. The evening was turning out exactly as you'd feared and you had to do something. 

And so, without another word, you leaned toward him and rested your head against his shoulder. 

Part of you expected him to push you away or to ask what the hell you were doing, but instead, he simply allowed it. 

It was as though a huge weight had been lifted from your chest and suddenly, you weren't feeling quite so anxious anymore. And you felt that he had relaxed somewhat as well, his shoulder noticeably loosening the moment you touched it. 

This was all that you truly wanted. In that moment, you realized that all of the anxiety you'd felt while getting your apartment ready had been an illusion created by your mind to distract you from the truth: you simply wanted to see him and to spend time with him, no matter what form that took. But, deep down, you feared that none of the things you could come up with would be enough for him.

You leaned a little closer and nuzzled his neck. 

"I'm glad Dante didn't kill you," you said. 

"I'm pretty pleased with that fact myself," he said. 

You breathed a sigh of relief.

That simple, lighthearted exchange had dissolved so much of the tension in the room that you felt your anxiety starting to melt away, and your appetite began to return at last. 

                                                       *      *      *

Once the two of you had finished eating, you found yourself faced with the entirely new, albeit much less significant, question of whether or not you were going to invite him to spend the night. 

Things had been going well thus far. You'd managed to keep them from becoming awkward again, so it wouldn't be an inappropriate question. And he didn't seem to be making a rush to leave at the moment. 

You came up with a few different ways to ask, all of which condensed down into, "I'm starting to feel pretty tired." 

"I see," he said. "Then, I suppose I should be going now." 

You reached out your hand toward his arm in an attempt to stop him from heading out the door. 

"Wait!" you called. "I mean, I'm sure you're tired too, and you've been drinking, so it's probably not a good idea for you to drive home right now." 

"I metabolize alcohol more quickly than a human would." 

You stared at him, dumbfounded. Was he making excuses to leave or was he truly that dense?

You sighed and tried again. 

"What I'm trying to say is," you said. "Would you like to spend the night at my place?"

It was as though a light bulb had flicked on behind his eyes as soon as he'd processed what you'd said. 

"Oh," he said. "Yes, I would like that, if you're sure." 

"Yes, I'm sure. I asked you three times." 

"Did you?" 

You rolled your eyes. So he was that dense after all. You made a mental note to be more upfront with your propositions in the future. 

"Yes, I did," you said. "I'm gonna get ready for bed now, so feel free to join me whenever." 

You started up the stairs and weren't at all surprised when he didn't follow you. If he continued down his current trajectory, you feared he would try to sleep on the couch to be polite. 

Still, you'd managed to get your message through to him in the end. At least your efforts to straighten up your bedroom hadn't proven themselves to be a waste.

You began your usual nightly routine and had almost made it all the way through by the time Vergil had joined you upstairs. If it weren't for his reflection in the mirror in front of you, you never would have noticed him, as his footsteps were completely silent. He walked into the room and stopped just in front of your closet, then stared at it as though it confounded him in some way. You finished up brushing your teeth, then went to see if there was anything you could assist him with. 

"Looking for something?" you asked as you poked your head out of the bathroom. 

"I wasn't expecting this, so I didn't pack anything with me," he replied. "Would it be out of line to ask to borrow some of your clothes? I'd rather not sleep in this."

"Sure, that's fine. If you can find something that fits, that is."

You went to join him in front of the closet in order to help him look. You did have a number of oversized shirts that you liked to wear to bed, so perhaps he would be able to find something suitable among them.

He was taking his time in making a selection, so you decided to choose one for him. 

"How's this one?" you asked. 

You took a navy blue t-shirt from its hanger and held it out toward him. He took it from your hand and draped it over the front of his body. 

"It may be a bit tight," he said. 

"Well, I didn't exactly have your body in mind when I bought them, now did I?" 

He shot you a sideways look, but tucked the shirt under his arm anyway. You then made another selection, a pair of plain sweatpants that had always been slightly too big for you. 

"Thank you," he said.

With that handled, you returned to the bathroom to continue getting ready for bed and he began to change into the clothes that you had given him. 

You were on the very last stage of your routine, which involved finally letting down and brushing out your hair. You'd put it up in a simple bun as part of your attempt to impress him, so you got to work removing all of the bobby pins you'd stuck in it, accepting the fact that you would likely continue to find them after you'd woken up the next day. 

As you leaned closer to the mirror, it became apparent that you had a very clear view of Vergil in the reflection within it. You made a half-hearted attempt not to stare, but in between extracting bobby pins, you could stop yourself from glancing back.

His clothes may have been perfectly ordinary, but his body underneath them was anything but, which hadn't been apparent to you when it was mostly hidden beneath the thick fabric of the sweater. He was still facing toward the closet as he changed and you found yourself transfixed as you watched the muscles of his back flex with every movement. 

Even when you had long since run out of bobby pins, you found that you couldn't tear your eyes away. He had been right; your shirt was way too tight for him, particularly in the shoulder region, and it only served to emphasize his shape all the more. 

He put on the sweatpants and abruptly turned, prompting you to scramble in order to make it look as though you had been doing something other than shamelessly ogling him.

You made a grab for the hairbrush beside the sink and began to brush out your hair, perhaps a bit too aggressively to be convincing. 

He walked back toward the bathroom and hovered behind you as he examined the outfit you'd given him.

"You're right, that shirt is way too tight for you," you said. You turned around to get a better look at him. "Not that that's a bad thing." 

Perhaps it was the two glasses of wine in your system, or perhaps you were feeling emboldened by the positive turn the evening had taken, but regardless, you found that you were unable to resist the urge that came over you. 

"My clothes look pretty good on you," you said. "Dare I say, you wear those pants even better than I do." 

You walked around behind him and, without a word, smacked his ass with the hairbrush you still held in your hand.

His body tensed and he froze in place.

Oh no. 

Had you actually upset him? His eyes shot toward you and you weren't exactly sure what to make of his expression. 

He stared you down for a moment, then said, "give me that," as he made a grab for the brush. 

You somehow managed to move it out of his reach just in time. His second attempt was equally unsuccessful and you ducked beneath his hand, then took off running back out into your room.

"Give it to me!" he said. 

It came out as an order, but his tone was noticeably playful, removing the lingering concern that you'd caused any actual offense. 

He took off after you and paused just before you, freezing you beneath the door frame, blocking your path further out into the room.

"Make me," you returned, and you ducked beneath his arm before running back toward the bed. 

You were forced to stop again in order to avoid tripping on his clothes, which were now in a pile on the floor, and he took the opportunity to tackle you. 

"You're gonna regret that," he said, his breath tickling your ear as he pinned you down against the mattress and began grabbing at your wrist. 

In spite of all of your flailing, he finally got a good grip and brought it to a stop, then wrenched the brush free from your grasp with the other hand. As your body stilled and you turned to look up at him, you realized that he was laughing. 

For the first time since you'd known him, he appeared to be genuinely happy. 

You smiled as well, and giggled at the sight of him holding the hairbrush triumphantly over your head.

"You're ridiculous," you said. 

"I'm ridiculous?" 

He sat upright and placed the hairbrush onto your nightstand.

"Just can't let me win anything, can you?" you asked. 

You sat up as well and placed your head on his shoulder. 

"I have my dignity," he said. He sat quietly for a moment, then continued, "I can't thank you enough for having me over tonight."

"I'm glad you came back," you said. "I really did miss you, you know." 

He took hold of your right hand and held it to his chest.

"I was beginning to think that you would never find it in your heart to forgive me," he said. "Not that I really deserve it." 

"Oh, hush," you kissed his cheek. "What's done is done. You can't erase what you did. All you can do is keep moving forward, and that's what you're doing, isn't it?" 

"I suppose you're right." 

You brought your left hand up to match the right and gave him a gentle squeeze. 

"There will be more than enough time to talk about this tomorrow," you said. "For now, let's try to get some sleep, okay?" 

He nodded and you stood to turn off the light, then extinguished the candle before settling back into the bed. 

"Water under the bridge," you said. "I promise I'm not gonna lord this over you, or anything like that." 

"I wouldn't hold it against you if you did," he said. 

"Well, I'm not going to." 

You crawled under the blanket and laid down on your side. 

As soon as you closed your eyes, you realized just how exhausted you'd become. The adrenaline rush of the chase had masked it for a bit and it was all coming crashing down on you now.

You had just about drifted off to sleep when you felt him move a bit closer and work his arms beneath yours, wrapping them around you.

"I know you're probably asleep," he whispered. "But." He sighed. "You've been so good to me, from the very beginning. I don't think I could ever offer you a suitable repayment for everything you've done for me." There was a rather lengthy pause, and then, "you've shown me that, perhaps, humans can be kind after all." 

You had to smile at this. Even now, he was too ashamed to share his true feelings with you. You considered allowing him to believe that you truly were asleep, but instead, you turned over toward him and took his face in your hands. 

"That's really sweet," you said. 

Even in the darkness, you could see him turning red. 

"I didn't know you were still awake," he said. 

"Clearly." You smiled. "It's okay. You can be honest with me. I promise I won't judge you."

You gave a large yawn and snuggled up to his chest. 

"I'll try to keep that in mind," he said. 

And so, all of your fears had proven themselves to be unfounded. Perhaps you could find a way to make this work after all.

It was with this thought in mind that you finally began to drift off to sleep, soothed by it and by the feel of his arms around you. It just felt right, like this was the way things were supposed to be all along, even if it took a while for them to get there.

You could rest assured that, tonight, he was still going to be there by the time you awoke the next morning.