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mid-sweettalk · 29 days ago

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Forget Me - Chapter 1: Even After All This Time

Ship: Gelphie (Wicked)

Rating: E (Omegaverse smut)

Chapters: 1/?

Summary:

It's been three years since Elphaba left Galinda in the Emerald City--three years of barely surviving, barely managing to stave off her heat. But now, her luck has run out, and her only option is to find the Alpha that Marked her all those years ago--her Alpha. or Alternative post-Stuck Safe where Defying Gravity still happens. Set post-intermission.

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Author's Notes:

This fic brought to you by parentheses because holy wow did I go a little overboard with them. And also thanks to @divorcedmoonlight for bribing convincing me to push this chapter to the top of my list over the three others I’m already working on lmao. PLEASE NOTE this is a very very angsty fic where Defying Gravity still happens after the events of Stuck Safe. I am not considering this true canon for the Stuck Safe verse. I still plan on writing oneshots/future fics where literally none of this happens so please don’t fret—i’ve had this doc (affectionately) titled “Stuck Safe Dark Timeline” and that’s exactly what it is, so just think of it as an alternate to the actual stuck-safe-future canon. I just can’t keep from writing canon divergences of my own fics apparently. (tl;dr: gelphie will still get their babies in the countryside, just probably not in this particular story) Chapter and story title from Forget Me by Lewis Capaldi! With all that said, enjoy some angsty reunion smut <3

It starts out of desperation.

Elphaba has just barely been able to manage her cycle since becoming Oz's Wicked Witch. She'd stretch out whatever little supply of suppressants she did have, and when her heat would finally catch up to her, she'd get lucky—she'd come across a pharmacy she could break into, a doctor she could persuade (after disguising herself a considerate amount). There'd been one time when she'd found another actual Omega and—guiltily, knowing first-hand how difficult they could be to come across—swiped some, leaving a few coins in their place. As long as she caught it early enough, her heat would end before it had truly begun, and she'd repeat the process for months at a time.

Apparently, her luck only lasted about three years.

It's been days now, since her heat started, and there's been no trace of Omega suppressants anywhere. Her body seems to be seeking revenge for its poor treatment, as the symptoms struck her quickly and harshly. She’d barely had any warning before the cramps started.

When she first attempts to take care of it herself, like she had in her Shiz dorm room what feels like a lifetime ago, she tries her damnedest not to think of blonde hair, brown eyes, that scent of vanilla and caramel—because she can't have it, because she can't have her without putting both of them in danger, without risking the new life she knows her Alpha has built in the Emerald Palace.

(And she is still her Alpha, will always be her Alpha, no matter the time or distance between them. That is a truth that will be as forever ingrained in the fabric of Elphaba’s heart as it is in the scar that lies in the dip between her neck and shoulder. It’s a painful truth, but it’s all she has left to hold onto.)

And so she can't help it, and the thoughts come unbidden, and the mating Mark on her neck burns as she comes desperately around her own fingers.

Of course, it doesn't work, part of her knows it will never work, but still she tries—again and again. Four fingers are nothing compared to the feeling of her Alpha's knot, nails digging into her Mark do not equate to her Alpha's mouth on her skin.

She comes, and comes, until she reaches the point where nothing can bring her over that edge anymore.

(She misses her so much. Memories echo in her ears—a sweet, high voice turned desperate.

I could make you stay, her Alpha had said.

But you won’t, she’d replied.

And it’s not just because of her heat, it’s not, because Elphaba has wished every Oz-damned day since she left that her Alpha had dared—for once—to order her around.)

And Oz, the pain.

At first, the pain comes and goes in waves, sometimes briefly—but mildly, never completely—sated by an orgasm. But the fifth day turns the cramps to an all-encompassing ache, one that brings tears to her eyes.

Elphaba hasn't cried in years, she hasn't allowed herself. So, once the first drop falls, a torrent of emotions comes with it that has her sobbing as loudly as she dares, curled up on the floor of the abandoned building she's holed up in.

She occasionally, briefly, thinks of another option: she knows there are brothels she could find. She knows, logically, that all she would need to end this torture is one night spent beneath someone else; she wouldn’t even need an Alpha, necessarily, just someone with the right tools and knowledge to trick her body into feeling sated. But the thought of anyone except her Alpha on top of her, inside her, filling her whether it be with a knot or a hand or some other device—well, combined with the cramps, it's enough to make her retch. Her Mark pulses sharply at the unwanted image in her brain, her body shivers with revulsion, and she knows that is not a true option.

Elphaba has to find her.

(She’s hated herself ever since she left, but the shame she feels at the fact that it’s this that makes her return, it’s this, of all things, that breaks her resolve to stay away—well, she’s never loathed herself more.)

She can barely stay on the broom, head foggy with the haze of pain, but she flies for over an hour. It's impossible to ignore the pressure between her legs, and the wind stinging her eyes makes it difficult to see into the many windows of the Palace.

She finally catches the sight of blonde curls and nearly falls from the sky at the pulse of wanting that wracks through her body.

She crashes onto the balcony—and it's truly crashing, not graceful in the slightest as she tumbles and lands on her side. The pain emanating from her lower stomach distracts her from the pain of the fall. She swears that, even from outside the closed glass doors, she can smell that vanilla-caramel scent, and it has her absolutely throbbing between her legs. She is barely able to make it to her knees, arms wrapped around herself in pain.

Her vision is hazy, and she can't see any movement in her peripheral vision. She's doubled over, biting her lip to keep from groaning, and hopes to Whoever is listening that she's truly found the right room, that nobody but her Alpha has heard her clumsy arrival.

Then, after what feels like hours but has probably been merely a few clock-ticks, the light shifts in front of her—the balcony doors open.

She peers upwards through her tears, sees a figure cast in shadow standing in the doorway. That scent is definitely real now, vanilla and caramel wafting over her. She swallows down a sob and just barely manages to croak out:

"Glinda?"

***

Glinda hates the life she’s built in the Emerald Palace.

And she does go by Glinda, now, to everyone in Oz. It hadn’t been her idea; Morrible had said that Glinda the Good rolled off the tongue more pleasingly, and at the time, she hadn’t been strong enough to argue. She’d thought, back then, that maybe it would be nice, to have this small piece of Elphie wherever she went, this constant reminder of the Omega she’d lost to the skies.

(She’d been so, so wrong. It ached—still aches—every time, just like her Mark did and continues to do every time it’s plastered and hidden with makeup, hidden because the citizens of Oz will love her more if she still “appears available.” Galinda Upland is damaged, heartbroken,abandonedgoods, and that won’t appeal to the masses, so Glinda the Good is the virginal, chaste Alpha dutifully waiting for the perfect prince or princess to come along.

Perpetuating the lie, acting along—she does it so well—and hearing her Omega’s name for her in every voice but the right one? It makes her sick.)

It’s been long enough now—has been for nearly two years, apparently—that Morrible has been pushing the topic of her finding a Mate.

“Bites can be remade,” she says. “Really, you can claim as many others as you’d like, no one would blame you for keeping your options open. It’s a shame you let that one bite you back.”

“The people would adore an Emerald City heir,” she says. “If it’s women you prefer, I’m sure there’s no shortage willing to mate with you.”

“Or what of that Winkie Prince?” she says. “Ozians love him; you’d be the most adored couple in history. I know he’s an Alpha, but there would surely be so many volunteers for surrogacy.”

Morrible says, and says, and says, and it all makes Glinda utterly nauseous with fury. She denies and distracts and excuses it all away, but she knows that there will come a time when Morrible will no longer give her a choice.

She already tried to take that choice away, once. Glinda can’t prove it, but it’s the only thing that makes sense—she’d been taking her suppressants as always, and yet she’d gone into rut just when the Wizard had decided to throw a ball to which all of Oz’s finest maidens and bachelors had been invited. Morrible had denied replacing her suppressants with placebos, of course, but there was no other explanation Glinda could think of, as without her Omega around, nothing should have randomly triggered her rut.

She’d been encouraged to attend the ball, to find a partner with whom she could satisfy her needs, because Glinda the Good would have an untold number of willing participants if she’d only travel downstairs to the ballroom. And if she were to find a Mate in the process, well, that would just be icing on the proverbial cake.

She’d denied, of course. She’d stayed sheltered and locked in her room for nearly a week—a long, miserable week of painful orgasms and painful heartache and burning tears and wishing more than anything that she had just gotten on that damn broom.

(But she hadn’t, and so she was and continues to be alone. She fears she will be—no, she’s resolved to be—alone for the rest of her days. She tells herself that her dreams of blonde-haired, green-skinned children running around the Gillikin countryside are as good as dead, a life no longer possible.)

So, when something—someone—crashes onto her balcony after three years alone in the Emerald City, it seems much too good to be true.

The sound is alarming, at first, of course—you’d be alarmed, too, at a loud, sudden noise outside your balcony doors when it was nearly the thirteenth hour. When Glinda sees a hunched figure, however, one that is clearly a person, she knows immediately who it has to be, as only one person would be able to reach a balcony this high.

Well. The hat gives it away, too.

Glinda’s heart thumps heavily in her chest as she moves to open the balcony doors. She’s moving more slowly than she means to, as if time has stilled or the air has become thicker. Part of her wants to leap for joy at the idea that her Elphie has returned to her, and yet another part is terrified of what she’s going to find on the other side of the glass.

She opens the doors and nearly collapses as she is suddenly surrounded by the sharp smell of cedar and pine and crisp winter air—her Omega.

Her Omega in heat.

Elphaba has landed hard, as that horrendible broom has tumbled to the edge of the balcony. Glinda takes in the sight of her—hunched over on her knees, arms wrapped around her middle, that same hat and cloak Glinda had given her what feels like a lifetime ago that are now tattered and filthy from years on the run. Her face is thinner, and she seems smaller beneath all the black layers than she had when she’d left.

(I could make you stay, Glinda had said, desperation causing her to grasp for any option that would keep them together.

But you won’t, Elphie had said, and she’d been right. Glinda would never abuse her Status, use her Alpha tone of voice to order Elphie into doing something she didn’t want to do.

She also, apparently—stupidly—wouldn’t leave with her, either.)

It all feels unreal, impossible, and Glinda briefly thinks she’s fallen asleep without realizing, that this is just one of many, many dreams she’s had over the years where Elphie reappears.

But then, not-possibly-Elphie looks up at her, flushed and feverish, and calls out her name.

Glinda?

And oh, it is her Elphie, because no other voice could bring Glinda to her knees as this one has right now. That low voice she’s longed and ached to hear is filled with exhaustion, with torment, with need, and Glinda is next to her because there is nothing else she could possibly do, no other option exists in this moment.

“Elphie?” she breathes, as though she still cannot believe it. But she reaches out a hand and cups a green cheek and Elphaba Thropp is real, really here, kneeling on her balcony and exuding heady pheromones that already have Glinda stiffening between her legs. Elphaba clutches desperately at the hand now on her face and presses it close, inhaling deeply at her wrist. It sends a throb of want through Glinda’s body, shooting up her spine in a way she hasn’t felt in years.

She’s dragging Elphie to her before she can stop herself.

Their lips collide in a frantic mess, hands roaming and grasping wherever they can reach to pull each other impossibly closer. Elphaba is quickly crawling into her lap, straddling her hips and grinding down against her. Both of them gasp into the kiss, and their teeth clack together as their tongues find each other. Glinda feels hands pulling at her hair and wet heat pressing against her through her nightgown and groans, the sound feeling foreign as it leaves her throat as it has been so long—

A pang of terror shoots through her heart at the thought of them being caught like this, and she pulls back from the kiss as much as she dares—she fears her heart will burst if she moves too far away. “You shouldn’t be here,” Glinda breathes without thinking, but it’s true. Her Elphie is not just Her Elphie, she is the Wicked Witch of the West, and as much as she has dreamed of this happening, it is so incredibly dangerous.

She regrets saying the words when Elphaba looks as if she’s been slapped across the face. Green fingers twitch in her hair. “I—I know,” she stammers breathily. “I’m sorry, my sweet, I’m so sorry to put you in danger like this—”

“Me?” Glinda interrupts incredulous. Realizing her voice has raised too loudly, she lowers it to hiss, “Me, in danger? Elphie, they will kill you if they find you here.”

Elphie opens her mouth as if to say something, but Glinda moves into action before she can. She glances back into her chambers to make sure no one has entered since she came out here—it’s rather late for one of the servant girls to randomly show up, but she can’t take any chances right now, not when it’s her love at risk. She reluctantly pushes Elphie off her lap and stands, pulling her Omega up with her. Remembering at the last moment to grab the broom, she drags Elphaba into her chambers and closes the balcony doors.

She lets go of Elphie—again, very reluctantly—and stuffs the broom into her closet to keep it out of sight should anyone happen to enter. Regarding that, though, she turns to wave a hand at the door, making the lock turn with a click. Then, with both hands out, she mutters an incantation she’s known since their Shiz days and is satisfied when the acoustics of her chambers are ever-so-slightly muted.

“Did you just…?” Elphie says from behind her.

“Silencing spell,” she says to answer the unfinished question. Glinda turns around to face her and just barely manages not to break down at seeing her once more, now fully bathed in light.

Elphaba sways a bit where she stands, eyes blown nearly black, arms wrapped around her stomach again. “O-oh.”

Glinda knows there must be questions swirling through Elphie’s head—Glinda was never able to do that spell on her own, back then. She supposes there must be things about Elphie that Glinda doesn’t know now, either. It aches in her chest, knowing that her Mate stands in front of her at long last and yet they are practically strangers to one another.

“Gone for years, and you come back because of your heat,” Glinda says, and it’s not a question. Elphaba winces, guilt marring her features, and it spurs forward something angry within Glinda. “Not because you missed me, not because you love me, but because you want me to fuck you.”

She nearly spits the words, heartache infusing every syllable. Elphaba shrinks further into herself at the sound, and Glinda wants to scream.

You left, she wants to yell. You left me here alone and now you can’t even admit the truth?

“My sweet, I’m here because I love you—I stay away because I love you,” Elphaba says pleadingly, like she’s begging for Glinda to believe her. When Glinda only scoffs, she continues, “You know as well as I that if Morrible or the Wizard knew you were even speaking to me—”

“I can handle myself,” Glinda snaps, though she knows what the Omega speaks is truth. She doesn’t realize that her voice slipped into Alpha territory until she hears Elphie whimper, sees her eyelids flutter as she leans forward subconsciously. Her stomach twists uneasily at the realization, and she tries her best to calm down.

“I—I couldn’t risk you. I tried to last without you,” Elphie confesses, blinking through the haze that must be clouding her mind. “I tried so damned hard to stay away, to keep you safe, but I couldn’t—I can’t—” her voice chokes on a sob as she grasps tighter at her stomach, knees wavering.

Glinda moves forward, instinctively reaching out to steady her, but she stops herself before making contact. Her erection throbs between her legs at the pheromones Elphaba is putting out. She is so, so angry—perhaps unrightfully so, but it’s there—and yet her chest still aches simultaneously with years-old heartbreak and the need to comfort her Omega.

Her Omega, who is right here in front of her, needy and wanting and in pain.

“Why are you here?” she tries again, making sure her voice is more neutral.

Elphaba meets her gaze, chest heaving as she tries to breathe through the cramps. “Because I need you,” she whines.

Glinda feels herself harden further at her Omega’s tone. “Need me for what?” she pushes, taking another step closer.

Elphaba’s breath hitches. “I need you to fuck me, Glinda.”

That sends a thrill tingling down her spine, but it’s still not enough. Another step closer, and now they are mere inches apart. “Why?” she insists.

Elphaba whimpers, eyes briefly darting down to Glinda’s lips.

“Because you’re my Alpha.”

Glinda breaks, leans forward and kisses her, pushing that old hat off her head so she can tangle her fingers in messy black braids and devour her. One hand goes to Elphie’s waist and pulls her close until their hips press together, and she can feel as well as hear the moan her Omega lets out when she realizes how hard Glinda is for her.

“Oz, please,” Elphaba whines against her lips as she clutches at the backs of Glinda’s shoulders.

Glinda hisses as nails dig into her skin. She bites at Elphie’s lower lip in retaliation before spinning her around until she’s falling back onto the bed. Her sheets are as grand and pink as they had been back at Shiz, and the familiar sight of black and green atop them makes her heart want to burst. She only allows herself a short moment to stare at Elphaba as she lies there, flushed and panting and wanting, lest she burst into tears and ruin the moment. Then, she is above her again, kissing every inch of skin she can reach and searching for the buttons of her dress so that she may reach more.

Elphie helps her as she gasps into Glinda’s ear, and her sweet breath against her skin sends a shiver through Glinda’s body.

“Tell me again,” Glinda says lowly.

Elphie whimpers as Glinda moves her kisses down her neck. “My Alpha,” she moans. “My wonderful Alpha, I need you inside me.”

Glinda can’t hold back a growl and sucks harshly at a spot beneath Elphie’s jaw, barely deigning to soothe the abused skin with her tongue before moving down to repeat the process elsewhere. The buttons are finally undone, and Elphie quickly shucks it off her shoulders along with her cloak. Glinda’s hands move to roam over the newly-revealed skin, groping a breast in one palm and grasping at her rib cage with the other.

Her kisses make it down to a familiar scar—the Mark that matches her own. She mouths at the spot as her hands roam further, pushing Elphie’s dress down past her hips until her Omega is able to kick it away. She doesn’t bite into it again, not yet, just kisses and licks and sucks at the spot so she can enjoy the way Elphie writhes beneath her at the sensation.

“You’re mine,” Glinda growls, sliding her lips over to Elphie’s throat. She can feel her swallow harshly as she fights back another moan. Displeased, Glinda moves up until she can look into those forest-green eyes again. “Let me hear you,” she says, just a bit softer.

Elphie nods, and when Glinda’s hand palms her soaked underwear, she tosses her head back with an unabashed whine. “I’m yours!” she says unprompted, sending a pulse straight to Glinda’s cock that has her hurriedly dragging the ruined underwear down green thighs.

She has to stand briefly to take off her own undergarments, dragging her nightgown over her head. Elphie looks up at her as she does so, and Glinda sees her eyes focus on the space between her legs, where her erection is painfully straining against her underwear. Something softens in Elphie’s expression, and Glinda hurries to take them off before she can see—but it’s too late.

“Oh, my love,” Elphie breathes, reaching out even though she’s too far away. “My sweet, are they hiding you?”

Glinda tries to hold back a wince and isn’t quite sure if she succeeds, but she manages to squeeze out of the compression underwear and climb back on top of her Omega. “Please,” she says before kissing Elphie deeply, hoping she’ll drop the topic. “Please, not right now.”

Elphie hesitates, but nods in the end, drawing her into another kiss and lifting a leg to wrap around Glinda’s hip. “Okay,” she whispers. “Take me, my sweet.” Glinda’s breath hitches, her hips bucking so that she slides against her Omega’s wetness.

“Fill me,” Elphie continues between kisses. “I’ve missed you so much. Please let me feel you. Make love to me.”

How Glinda has seemingly become just as desperate as her Omega in heat is beyond her. She quickly reaches down, aligning herself with Elphie’s entrance and, with an open, messy kiss, pushes inside.

They groan loudly into each other’s mouths as Glinda fills her easily, as Elphie pulses around her to accommodate the stretch. Long nails are clawing at Glinda’s back again, and she tugs at Elphie’s lip with her teeth as she pulls back with a hiss.

“Fuck, baby,” Glinda moans, gripping tightly onto her Omega’s hips. She hooks an arm beneath the knee Elphie has raised and lifts it from her hip up over her shoulder, stretching her open beneath her. She pushes in further as a result, and Elphie gasps and digs her nails in.

“Glin,” she cries out, making Glinda’s heart soar at the pet name she hasn’t heard in years. Her hips buck upwards, and the Alpha starts moving within her.

“You take me so well,” Glinda praises, kissing down the side of Elphie’s face once more. As she thrusts in and out, she can feel wet walls clenching around her, trying to draw her in further. She groans and slides out almost completely before snapping her hips forward, driving deep into her Omega and drawing a cry of pleasure out from that beautiful green throat.

Glinda is overcome with a possessiveness the old her would never have allowed herself to display. Thrusting into her steadily now, driving her cock deep inside her, she leans up to Elphie’s ear. “You’re here because I’m the only one that can do this for you,” she pants. She feels Elphie nod as her hips buck upwards and takes it as a sign to continue. “I’m the only one who can fuck you like this.”

“Shit, I—” Elphie cuts herself off with a gasp, and when she doesn’t continue speaking, Glinda does instead.

“I’m the only one who can make you feel this good, right darling?”

Elphie nods frantically. “Yes, yes, yes,” she chants into Glinda’s ear, spurring her on. “P-please, I’m—ah!”

Glinda’s thrusts don’t slow, but they are getting shallower—her knot is forming, triggered by her Omega’s heat. She tilts her hips to hit that one spot inside Elphie that she knows will drive her closer to the edge, grasping tightly at the thigh slung over her shoulder. Leaning back so that she can see her face, she growls, “Please what, Elphie?”

Elphaba stares at her through half-closed eyes as she struggles to keep them open. They flutter with each thrust, her lips parted tantalizingly as she pants with pleasure and need. “Please, I need—I need you to knot me,” she begs, hand sliding up into Glinda’s hair. “I need you to make me come—I need to feel you come inside me, please, my Alpha—”

Glinda feels her hips stutter and reaches down with her other hand to rub at Elphaba’s slick-covered clit. Elphie moans as Glinda circles the sensitive nub, tightening around Glinda as the tension grows within them both.

“You’re going to take my knot, darling,” Glinda says, Alpha tenor ringing through her voice. She leans down to nuzzle against Elphie’s neck, lips brushing the Mark there. “You’re gonna take it all, and I’m gonna claim you all over again.”

“Y-yes, please!” Elphie moans, head tilting to the side to allow her Alpha closer. “I’m yours, I’m yours, please—Glinda!”

Glinda bites down, teeth perfectly matching the Mark that’s already there, and feels her knot slip inside her Omega. Elphie cries out as she pulses around her, clenching with each brush of Glinda’s finger over her clit, and clutches the back of her head to bring her closer.

Then, Glinda feels a sharp sting at the side of her own neck, her own Mark now redone, and her hips twitch forward as she empties herself inside her Omega. Wave after wave of pleasure rolls through them both as Glinda fills her, her knot sealing every drop inside.

They stay like that for a long, long moment, eventually releasing their biting holds on each other in favor of languid, wet kisses along necks and shoulders. Glinda eventually finds Elphie’s mouth again and relishes the feeling of their tongues pushing together, relearning each other.

“I love you,” Elphie whispers against her lips, making Glinda’s heart leap in her chest. “I love you, I love you, I love you, my Alpha, my Glinda…” She continues to ramble between kisses until Glinda leans down to press her face into her neck and just breathe in that sharp, woodsy smell.

She can’t bring herself to say it back. Not just yet.

Another moment passes where they simply hold each other, stuck together at the hips by Glinda’s knot. She eventually lets Elphie’s leg lower itself from her shoulder, and then she doesn’t have time to react before green thighs are bracketing her hips and she is firmly, but carefully, tossed onto her back.

Glinda looks up in surprise at the Omega now straddling her, the Omega who is still filled with her knot and is now grinding down against her with a slow rock of her hips. Green hands reach out to scratch at her chest, and she can’t help but hiss at the combination of sensations. “E-Elphie…?” she says, embarrassingly close to a whimper.

“I’ve missed you, my love,” Elphaba says lowly, “and I want my fill.” She’s still rocking her hips back and forth. Glinda bucks upward before she can hold back, and Elphie gasps before leaning down to breathe over her lips. “Tell me you love me.”

“Oh, fuck,” Glinda says, definitely whimpering now. She does, she loves this woman so much it’s unbearable, but the words won’t come out, shuttered away by years of heartache and broken dreams.

Elphie’s tongue sticks out to slowly lick along Glinda’s upper lip, making her shiver. “I know you do,” she says, hands squeezing Glinda’s breasts as she rides her carefully. “You’re my Alpha,” another roll of her hips, “and I’m your Omega.” Another, and Glinda grabs onto those hips tightly. She leans up to try and kiss her, but Elphie pulls back to stay just out of reach. “I haven’t had anyone else, you know,” she continues. “You’re the only one who’s ever been inside me.”

Oz, Glinda’s so sensitive, still surrounded by her Omega’s wet heat, and Elphie’s voice, breathy and low, makes her head spin. She’s not sure at this point if she’ll come first or go mad instead.

“You’re the only one who’s ever fucked me,” Elphie says with a slight bounce, making them both groan as Glinda’s knot tugs at her entrance. “The only one to make me come apart.”

Glinda’s not sure if she’s holding onto Elphaba’s hips to keep her still or to make her move faster, but whatever she’s wanting to do, Elphie isn’t letting her have any control. She leans down and takes Glinda’s lower lip between her green ones, sucking harshly before releasing it with a pop.

“You’re the only one I’ll ever love,” she says, breath ghosting over Glinda’s swollen and spit-soaked lips.

“Fuck, Elphie!”

Elphie presses a hand to Glinda’s chest and grinds her hips down harder, keeping her still, taking her pleasure. Her other hand moves to rub at herself, and the moan she lets out is delectable. Glinda can feel her tightening around her cock with every pass of her finger over her clit. “Tell me you love me, and you can fill me again,” Elphie says through hitching breaths. “Tell me I’ll always be yours.”

Something breaks in Glinda’s chest, tension rising within her body so quickly that her vision blurs, and she’s crying out before she can even think. “I love you!” she moans desperately. “My Elphie, my perfect Omega, mine, I love—ah!”

“Glin!”

And then they are coming together once more. Glinda sees white as she tosses her head back, hips pressing up to push as deep into her Omega as she possibly can. She vaguely feels a rush of wetness spill onto her thighs as Elphie pulses tightly around her, drawing out every last bit of her seed. Then, those perfect lips are on hers again with a kiss so soft and full of love it makes her heart sing. “I love you,” she murmurs over and over again, the dam now broken, her head spinning every time Elphie says it back.

She can only take a moment more of Elphie moving her hips before she holds her tightly enough to make her still, true overstimulation now threatening to take over her body. Elphie takes the hint and settles down, laying her full weight against her and nuzzling into Glinda’s Mark. It’s grounding, and Glinda had forgotten how it feels to be so, so full of love.

“Oz, I missed you so much,” she confesses. She’s completely exhausted, too exhausted and satisfied to be angry anymore, at least for now. Her hands roam slowly across her Omega’s back, nails ghosting over her skin and leaving goosebumps in their wake.

Elphie presses close and kisses her Mark. “I missed you, my sweet,” she whispers. “Unbearably so.”

“Please stay,” Glinda begs softly as she struggles to keep her eyes open. “Please stay with me.”

Elphie stills for just a moment, then kisses her Mark again. “I’m here, baby. I’m right here.”

She relaxes fully on top of her, and the rhythm of her breathing lulls Glinda into sleep.

***

Elphaba can’t stay.

She shouldn’t, at least; there is nowhere she could stay in the Palace where she wouldn’t eventually be found by someone who would surely immediately rat her out to Morrible or the Wizard. Oz knows what they would do to her, what they would do to Glinda for harboring her and going behind their backs. She can’t risk it. She can’t.

But lying there next to her Alpha, that familiar sweet scent filling the air and making her feel so whole and loved—it’s incredibly difficult to leave.

(I could make you stay, her Alpha had said.

But why couldn’t Glinda have gone with her, instead?)

The sun is coming up, shining through the balcony doors. Glinda’s knot disappeared hours ago, and so Elphaba has been lying here simply staring at her Alpha as she sleeps. She studies every mark she’s left upon pale skin, scratches from her nails and bruises from her love bites. She relishes in the soreness she feels, herself, can tell even without checking a mirror that her own neck is mottled with marks, as well.

She wonders how long these reminders will last.

Something shifts in the air, and Elphaba’s head perks up as the sound of morning birds suddenly enters the air—Glinda must have only done a temporary silencing spell, and now it’s worn off.

Elphaba stares longingly down at her Alpha and knows that this is when she has to leave.

She slips out of bed as smoothly as she can and starts redressing, retrieving her broom from Glinda’s closet. She lingers, wanting more than anything that she could stay, or that Glinda could come with her—but she knows if Oz’s beloved Glinda the Good were to go missing, the literal witch hunt for her would increase tenfold.

Elphaba steps closer to the bed, feet silent against the plush carpet. She merely wants to place a gentle kiss goodbye to her Alpha’s temple as she sleeps curled up on her side, but as she leans down, her nose twitches as a scent stronger than caramel and vanilla hits her—something sharp and peppery and oh-so-familiar.

Oh, no.

Her eyes widen as she looks downward, to where Glinda’s hips are covered by the blankets—and where the outline of a half-formed erection is visible.

Glinda’s in rut.

A rattling of a doorknob startles her, and she nearly has a heart attack at the thought of being caught like this, the Wicked Witch of the West standing over Glinda the Good’s naked form. But it seems Glinda’s locking spell was not temporary like the silencing spell, and the door doesn’t open.

“Your Goodness?” she hears faintly from the other side.

“Shit,” Elphaba hisses, starting to panic.

Glinda starts stirring a bit below her, face scrunching up and eyebrows furrowing together.

Elphaba reaches down to cup her cheek and shake her gently. “Glinda, wake up,” she whispers sharply. Brown eyes flutter open, seeking her out and then widening as they meet hers.

“Elphie?” she says dreamily, as if she’d thought the previous night had been a figment of her imagination.

Elphaba’s heart warms, but the panic is still there as the doorknob rattles again, a more frantic call of “Your Goodness?” coming from outside the bedroom.

The sound seems to register to Glinda, too, as she quickly sits up. Only then does she notice her state of arousal, glancing down to her covered erection and then looking back up to Elphaba with a blush heating her face. “E-Elphie?” she says again, and the fear and uncertainty in her voice makes Elphaba’s chest ache. “You’re—you’re leaving.” It’s not a question, and Elphaba’s heart shatters.

She quickly finds the Alpha’s nightgown and hands it to her. “Glinda, I have to,” she says apologetically. There are knocks banging against the door now, and more voices have joined the original. “I’m so sorry, my love, but I have to.” She cups a pale cheek in her hand again, feels tears pricking at her eyes as Glinda clutches desperately at her wrist. That peppery scent fills her entire being with want, and she leans down to kiss her deeply.

She tries to push all of her apologies, all of her love and reassurance into this kiss. She breaks away only enough to speak. “I’ll be back to help you, I promise. Do you trust me?”

Glinda’s eyes are wide and watery, her other hand is now grasping at the back of her head in an attempt to keep her close. “Elphie…” she says, and Elphaba tries to ignore the pain she feels at the non-answer.

But there’s no more time. “Hold out, my sweet,” she begs before kissing her again. “Hold out, if you can.” One last kiss, heady and longing, and then she tears herself away before she loses her will.

Elphaba sprints to the balcony, throws open the doors, and leaps over the railing. It’s only once she’s in the sky once more that her tears finally fall.

#stuck safe #omegaverse #smutfic #smut #fanfic #writing #gelphie fanfiction #gelphie fanfic #wicked fanfic #wicked #gelphie #galinda x elphaba #galinda x elphie #glinda x elphaba #glinda x elphie #my writing #ao3 #prompt

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maspers-reads-subspace · 17 days ago

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So, as previously stated, before we get truly started on the behemoth that is The Subspace Emissary's Worlds Conquest...

Speedrunning The Bond of Aura

We're going to be covering the entirety of The Bond of Aura, the prequel to Worlds Conquest, in one post, so try to keep up, this is gonna go fast.

First thing's first: this is, unfortunately, not the original version of The Bond of Aura. After being somewhat dissatisfied with the original work and noting the attention Worlds Conquest was getting, AuraChannelerChris decided to start rewriting it, to expand on some scenes and otherwise do some cleanup. His plan for the remade Bond of Aura was 19 chapters... the 17th of which was published in November of 2020. Yeah. I was surprised too, I didn't even know about this until like. A couple days ago. But the fact remains that this fic, like its sequel, is incomplete and dormant if not dead. Good thing that doesn't matter to me!

The Bond of Aura has a pretty simple premise: regular high-schooler Chris is a Pokemon Fan whose DS gets hit by lightning, and this results in the Lucario from his game being brought into the real world. Shenanigans ensue. All the shenanigans. All of them.

An Aura Sphere, the artwork that is cropped to serve as The Bond of Aura's cover image on FF.net. Lucario is on the left, Chris is on the right. This and a ton of other official artwork was made by the author AuraChannelerChris himself, and they all can be found on his DeviantArt page! ...So go check out his art, if it's not a public fic cover I'm not going to repost it for you.

Chapter 1: A Fateful Event

A recurring theme in both Bond of Aura and Worlds Conquest is the narration framing itself as if it actually were a visual medium like a video game or movie, even though it's fully prose. This can be a little difficult to get used to (For example, any time a character has an internal monologue they use parentheses as if it were a visual novel) but once you adjust it's not so bad. Since Worlds Conquest really leans into the video game theme, Bond of Aura is more like a movie, starting with first-person narration as Chris provides the exposition introducing himself, before the narration switches to third person for the remainder of the work.

Chris doesn't introduce himself in full so that later chapters can reveal stuff about him, but seeing as I have the power of knowing all that stuff, I can just tell you everything straight-up. Our protagonist is Chris Garcia Bennett, an 15-year-old lad living in Los Angeles, California. He's of mixed descent (he later explicitly identifies his mother's family as Mexican and his father's family as Native American), and his parents are extremely talented freelance computer technicians. So talented, in fact, that their family is able to own a pretty large house with a pool and other luxuries, at the cost of the parents being away for work pretty much non-stop since Chris was in kindergarten. He was mostly raised by his uncles, and now that he's preparing to start high school he lives completely alone.

Yup. Chris is a lonely rich kid. Yes, it's convenient for the plot (especially that of Worlds Conquest), but Chris's parental issues are one of the main driving features of Bond of Aura. The other two being Lucario's identity crisis and (most importantly) dealing with the fact that Lucario is there to begin with.

Chris is a huge geek, and he's excitedly starting his summer vacation by playing Pokemon Diamond Version on the Nintendo DS. We're given a brief insight as to how his game is progressing, and he specifically makes note of the Pokemon he currently has in his party. Including a Lucario which just received a Burned status condition. Noticing that it's late and stormy outside, Chris saves his game, closes his DS to put it in sleep mode, then goes to bed.

Pokemon Diamond Version and Pokemon Pearl Version: The first set of games in the Fourth Generation of the Pokemon video game series, released in Japan in 2006 and in the US in 2007. Pokemon is a franchise based around collecting magic creatures and training them to engage in epic battles, and is the most lucrative multimedia franchise in the world. Diamond and Pearl were also some of the first games in the series to introduce deeper plotlines into the Pokemon series, with an overarching plotline about the in-universe mythology and what it truly means to have a perfect universe. The enhanced version of these games, Pokemon Platinum, was the first mainline Pokemon game I ever played!

Naturally, what follows next is an epic Pokemon reverse isekai! Lightning strikes through Chris's window and hits the DS, then the DS also starts emitting lightning, and then BOOM. Cue a Poke Ball sitting in Chris's room. He opens it, and out pops his Lucario. The same Lucario from his game. Including the Burned status condition.

The rest of the chapter is tense. Chris is able to help Lucario get better, but not only is Chris scared out of his mind with no clue what's going on, Lucario is also panicking and is also a giant bipedal jackal with magic powers. This does not a calm situation make. Not in the slightest.

Chapter 2: A Fateful Encounter

Eventually, Chris and Lucario are able to sit down and have something resembling a civil conversation. Lucario just wants to know what's going on, and Chris (being the geek he is) puts things together pretty quickly. Lucario is from another world based on Chris's video game, Chris explains, and Chris doesn't know how to send Lucario back, so for now Lucario needs to stay with Chris. This is also when Chris explains his living situation to Lucario, and the fact that Pokemon don't exist in this world. Lucario takes it surprisingly well, considering how much he was panicking earlier.

The two of them (somewhat reluctantly) agree to be friends for the time being, and then the two of them go eat a late-night meal and Chris introduces Lucario to anime. It's sorta fluff, but not quite. The author makes it very clear through the characters' words and actions that the two definitely are NOT comfortable with each other yet, and even when they go to bed Chris's internal monologue is split between "oh gosh there's a Lucario in my house this is so cool!" and "oh gosh there's a Lucario in my house what the heck".

We also get the first glance at Lucario's main problem for this story: the fact that he's from a video game, and the resulting identity crisis. While Worlds Conquest will eventually reveal that the game worlds ARE real to some extent, and Lucario isn't just some kind of artificial construct, Lucario's own understanding of his history in the Pokemon world is primarily based on Chris's own playthrough of the games. Lucario knows all the stuff a Pokemon would be expected to know by default, but he doesn't know his own personal history (since he's based off of an in-game Pokemon egg given to the player) and while he feels intensely loyal to his trainer he can't remember anything about her (since she's not really a person, just a player character controlled by Chris).

Spoilers, but eventually Lucario and Chris will become the bestest of buds, reconcile their differences, and grow to view each other as partners, with Lucario explicitly identifying Chris as his trainer. But for now, he needs to get over his attachment to his previous trainer first.

Lucario, the Aura Pokemon. A Fighting-Steel Type that can and will beat you up. Imagine a monk from D&D crossed with an anthropomorphic jackal and that's Lucario in a nutshell. Their "Aura" powers and the lore connected to them is something that Pokemon fans have taken and ran with (you name it, Aura's done it in a fanfic), but it does have explicit canon abilities. Conveniently, one of those abilities is established to be the usage of human speech, something most Pokemon are unable to do.

...This is taking too long. Time to pick up the pace. Things get much smoother, simpler, and fluffier for a while, so it should be easy to rush through the next couple of chapters. You all should know what a slice-of-life story is, right?

Chapter 3: A Very Calm, Relaxing Approach

After waking up and slowly getting to know each other better, Chris abruptly remembers hygiene exists and very sternly instructs Lucario on how to use a shower. Lucario, being a Pokemon, has no idea what a shower is. Shenanigans ensue.

Once all that's dealt with, the two of them have breakfast, and then go to water the flowers in Chris's garden while discussing Lucario's Aura powers. There's a very deep discussion about the ability to sense life and what it means to Lucario, as well as how cool Aura is in general. I'm beginning to suspect the author is a huge Lucario fan or something.

Chapter 4: A Carnivorous Aura Pokemon

Chris realizes that the animal Lucario's design is based off of is, in fact, a carnivore. So he makes steak! Lucario greatly enjoys the steak. I don't blame him, steak is fantastic. Afterwards Chris remembers ANOTHER aspect of hygiene and instructs Lucario on how to brush his teeth. Something something very wholesome moving on.

Chapter 5: A Gamer is Born

While Chris is asleep, Lucario does some very serious pondering about the posters in Chris's room and the frankly absurdly large video game collection the boy has, wondering if his entire reality was just being puppeted around by human children. But then Chris wakes up, introduces Lucario to his game collection, and explains how much his games mean to him, how he enjoys living vicariously through the game worlds because his real life is so dull.

Then he gets Lucario addicted to video games. VERY addicted.

Chapter 6: An Unbelievable Strength

Okay time to slow down a bit again. This chapter is pretty short, but its contents carry some pretty important backstory that WILL matter in Worlds Conquest. Namely, Chris and Lucario realize that the latter is way larger and way more powerful than a normal Lucario is supposed to be.

Regular Lucario are around four feet tall. Chris's Lucario is 6 foot 7 inches, a head taller than Chris himself is. He's way stronger and tougher than the average Lucario as well, lifting Chris's bed like it's nothing and doing push-ups under it, and chopping wood essentially with his bare hands. His Aura senses are stronger too, being able to detect stuff within multiple miles as well as a couple other tricks that usually fall within the range of psychic powers, such as telepathy or being able to see out of another person's eyes. And as for his Aura Sphere projectile attack... we'll get to that.

No ifs, ands, or buts about it: Lucario is overpowered. Greatly. I find it amusing how the author is very defensive of Chris and OCs in general, adding a disclaimer at the start of Worlds Conquest talking about how he's going to great lengths to ensure Chris doesn't fall into the trap of becoming a dreaded "Mary Sue/Gary Stu", yet he seems to completely overlook how if anyone's going to get accused of being a Sue it's not going to be Chris; it's going to be Lucario.

I don't think either of them are a "Gary Stu", for the record. Not only is the term extremely subjective to begin with, but with a story as massive and multifaceted as Worlds Conquest there's only so much you can really do with raw power. There's plenty of situations where it doesn't matter how strong you are, it won't help you win. If I were to guess, I'd say that the depiction of Chris's Lucario stems disappointment. The idea of the Pokemon Lucario is rad as heck, but when you compare its epic marketing to the actual in-game Pokemon it's rather... lacking? It's cool, but it can't normally go toe-to-toe with gods the way the marketing makes it look like it's capable of. I suspect Lucario's absurd Hercules-level strength in Bond of Aura and Worlds Conquest is a "correction" for this, bringing Lucario back in line with its public image.

For the record, there is a reason why Chris's Lucario is overpowered. His backstory (which at this point is unknown to him) is revealed more in full later on in Worlds Conquest. But hilariously, as of the game Pokemon Legends Arceus released in 2022, there doesn't need to be a reason. Lucario's drastically increased size and strength is a perfect example of an Alpha Pokemon.

An Alpha Lucario positioned next to a human for scale. Chris's Lucario is likely to actually be a bit shorter than this one, if you can believe it. Image courtesy of ShackNews's article on Alpha Pokemon.

Alpha Pokemon are exactly what they sound like: Pokemon that are significantly bigger and tougher than most examples of their species. Considering the existence of Chris's Lucario predates the existence of Alpha Pokemon by over a decade, it's entirely coincidence, but I still find it amusing.

So yeah, Chris and Lucario figure out that Lucario has insane stats. Moving on.

Chapter 7: A Very Odd Team

Chris and Lucario go back to gaming. Specifically, this time they're playing Wii Sports! Annnnnd Lucario keeps breaking the controllers with his absurd strength. Fortunately Chris has copious amounts of wiimotes but it still takes a while before they're able to find a game Lucario can play without getting so distracted he crushes the controllers. Eventually they settle on Wii Sports Baseball.

Along the way they discuss the possibility of Lucario becoming a "Renaissance Pokemon". Like a Renaissance Man, who's good at everything, except as a Pokemon. Spoilers: Lucario is not going to become a Jack of All Trades, Master of All. Sure, at this point he starts aspiring to become one, but once Worlds Conquest rolls around he'll mostly settle into the role of providing raw muscle and being Chris's main confidant, if I recall correctly.

Chapter 8: A Reading Experience

Chris decides to teach Lucario how to read! It's... pretty slow going. While Lucario presumably used Aura to learn how to speak properly, knowledge of reading and writing is entirely different. This poor 'mon is illiterate and does NOT have a brain that adapts to reading easily. Fortunately we have Chris there to help Lucario out in a way that's quite wholesome!

Unfortunately, Lucario's identity crisis acts up and he briefly panics and attacks Chris in the confusion, so they go for a week of things being tense between them before Chris relents and forgives Lucario for it, and goes back to teaching Lucario how to read.

Chapter 9: A Hot Summer Day

Exactly what it says on the tin! It's hot, and it's Southern California so it's dang hot. So Chris and Lucario get the pool set up, and then there's the usual sort of pool party shenanigans that happen in fluff fics involving pools. There's discussion about how a Pokemon with steel literally grafted into their body deals with heat, and cool experimenting with underwater telepathy.

Lucario also brings up the fact that he doesn't know how to use Aura Sphere yet, a move heavily associated with the Lucario species, and resolves to try and learn in. Spoilers, he'll get it down before the fic is over.

Chapter 10: Movie Night

Okay this one's kind of funny. As the title implies, Chris and Lucario watch a movie together. Their choice of movie?

The eighth Pokemon movie, premiering in July of 2005. As part of the advertising for the soon-to-be-released Pokemon Diamond and Pearl, the movie featured the debut of various Pokemon from those games, including Lucario. If you listen closely, you can hear all the Pokemon fanfic writers hurriedly taking notes on everything in this movie that involves "Aura" and "Ash Ketchum".

Rather an appropriate choice, I'd say. Chris and Lucario spend most of the chapter just commenting on the movie and raising questions about the way the Lucario in the movie uses Aura, but eventually all the plot holes are ironed out ant Lucario is satisfied. The movie's Lucario isn't what I find funny about this chapter, though, what I find funny is Chris and Lucario's discussion about Ash Ketchum and Pikachu. Chris describes Ash as "the face of the anime" who will "never, EVER leave the position". He and Lucario also complain about how Ash never wins any big tournaments, and how if the trend keeps up then Chris is planning to stop watching the Pokemon anime entirely. Modern fans know that while it took a while for him to get there, Ash eventually became a Pokemon Champion in 2019, and eventually left the show entirely to give rise to a new Pokemon anime with a new cast.

Lucario also calls out Ash for not evolving his Pikachu, insulting Pikachu for choosing to stay in a weaker form. This is already funny, because at the time this chapter is written, Worlds Conquest has already been chugging along steadily, and Lucario and Pikachu have met and become pretty good allies. Guess I'll have to look into that when we finally catch up on the reread, and see if Lucario and Pikachu actually talk about it at some point.

Chapter 11: A Pokemon Cook

After learning that Lucario doesn't know what fireworks are, Chris and Lucario briefly chat about what Lucario's childhood was like, and what Lucario's previous trainer was like. As I've previously established, Lucario's "previous trainer" wasn't really real, and he doesn't remember them at all. So he makes up stuff and lies about it. Deciding that Lucario needs to have more happy memories to look back on, and realizing that Lucario's going to need to be able to feed himself while Chris is at school once summer ends, Chris decides to try teaching Lucario how to cook.

A knife gets destroyed in the process.

Chapter 12: A Day of Training

ALSO exactly what it says on the tin. Lucario does some more exercise, including doing push-ups underneath Chris's bed. While Chris is still asleep. This leads to a funny moment where Chris wakes up and mistakes the push-ups for an earthquake. A little bit more Lucario angst happens as he realizes how attached he's getting to Chris.

Reading this fic in the year AD 2025, my brain is seeing all these scenes of Chris and Lucario enjoying each other's company and going "wow, there is a hilariously unintentional gay subtext here". Like, the bond between Pokemon and Trainer is completely different from romance for VERY OBVIOUS REASONS, but the way Chris and Lucario are written has hilarious levels of "Does This Remind You of Anything?" in hindsight. Definitely not intended by the author in the slightest, and definitely shouldn't be interpreted that way. But once you see it it's really hard to unsee it.

Chapter 13: An Aura Sphere

Frustrated with his lack of progress with Aura Sphere, Lucario (with Chris's help) decides to focus on honing his Aura detection skills specifically so he can better understand what he's doing wrong. Eventually he's able to get it to work, and since it's his Aura, he's even able to temporarily hand the ball of energy to Chris without harming him! It's a very cool and powerful moment, ending when they decide to dispose of the Aura Sphere by launching it into the sky.

Big mistake. Lucario's overpowered-ness comes back to bite them when the Aura Sphere explodes and the neighborhood is put under lockdown in fear of a terrorist bomber. This would be a hilarious scene, except Chris has to explain to Lucario why everything is under lockdown, which includes a brief discussion about terrorism that... really hasn't aged well. It's a small moment, but it serves as a good reminded that Bond of Aura and Worlds Conquest were primarily written in the late 2000s and early 2010s, with a lot of the unintended biases that come with that era.

Chapter 14: A Day at School

Summer vacation has finally come to an end, and Chris has to go back to school, leaving Lucario at home. Alone. And not coping well. I haven't mentioned this yet, but pretty much every time Lucario has his identity crisis about his origins, he ends up arguing with himself. Lucario staunchly believes he needs to be loyal to his original trainer, even if he doesn't remember them at all, and that by getting too close to Chris he risks "betraying" his original trainer. Arguing in favor of fully accepting Chris as a "new trainer" is an imaginary Riolu that's taken form in Lucario's mindscape and pretty much acts like a very needy puppy whenever Chris is around, trying to annoy Lucario into caving and fully being with Chris. This causes Lucario to react badly and push down any positive feelings he has towards Chris, leading to some of the chaos in earlier chapters.

Riolu, the Emanation Pokemon. A Fighting-type. Look at this precious little baby fella. More huggable than you'd expect! Can also beat you up! Evolves into Lucario, hence why Chris's Lucario's subconscious seems to manifest as one; he WAS a Riolu when he was young.

So now Lucario is trapped, at home, by himself, with Riolu driving him crazy in his mind. He tries to distract himself by using Aura to see the world through random humans within his Aura perception radius, but soon he ends up fixated on Chris again. A couple hours later, Chris walks outside for lunch and finds Lucario in a tree, and gives the latter a very stern-yet-kind talking-to.

Chapter 15: A Birthday

...Oh frick um

[Content Warning: Attempted Suicide and Self-Harm, and discussion of topics????? Skip to the next red text if you want to avoid it.]

Yeah, I'm as surprised as you are. Genuinely! I hadn't read this chapter before! I'm not even sure it existed when I last reread Worlds Conquest, or maybe it did and I just didn't bother to check if Bond of Aura had new chapters. Either way: what the heck?

Well, apparently, "the heck" is "Chris does not cope with parental abandonment well". The main lead-up to this chapter is that Chris's Birthday is coming up, and his parents are planning on coming home to visit. Chris hasn't seen them in over a year. Then a couple days before his birthday, they call to tell him they'll miss it again because another job came up. Chris snaps, yells at his parents, and hangs up, which is extremely jarring because Chris has been pretty much an endless beacon of sunshine up to this point. Lucario even notes that Chris's Aura is WAY out of wack. And it's a good thing that Lucario notices because Chris then proceeds to make a dash for the kitchen knife to try and stab himself in the chest. Lucario stops him just in time, and Chris completely breaks down in tears, explaining how he feels worthless and unvalued by everyone in his life, and that this isn't the first time he's snapped like this, though the last time he tried to kill/seriously maim himself was when he was in Kindergarten and his parents left the first time. Lucario helps Chris calm down and reassures him that his life has value, and that even if his family can't be with him, at least he has Lucario with him instead.

This caught me completely off guard. As you've noticed, the tone of this fic has been pretty light-hearted and fluffy so far. There's been a bit of angst on Lucario's end, but mostly his mental arguments with Riolu have been played for laughs. Suddenly shifting to suicide prevention came completely out of left field. And from what I can recall of Worlds Conquest, this is a pretty jarring contrast to that work too. Don't get me wrong, there are gonna be some dark moments, but... nothing like this. Worlds Conquest usually stays on the side of comedy.

I don't think I really like it, from a writing standpoint, but I don't know if I'm supposed to? The author clearly is trying to handle the subject with utmost seriousness, and it really puts a lot of Chris's behavior both in this story and Worlds Conquest into perspective in a new way for me. This scene will probably be in the back of my mind going forward, when before I didn't even know it existed. But because this is a rewritten version of the original Bond of Aura, I don't even know if I should take it into account. What if it was just added for additional shock factor, or to give Chris some depth the author felt he was lacking? Regardless, it's here. I think the author handled it the best he could, but I genuinely question if he needed to handle it at all. I think I need more context here.

[Okay we're done with the content warning stuff you're good now]

So Chris's Birthday finally happens, and after spending the morning visiting relatives he returns to spend the rest of the day with Lucario... and he brings gifts! Turns out that Lucario's theoretical birthday (the release date of the game he's from) was a couple days ago, and Chris realized that he didn't get anything for Lucario. They then agree to celebrate their birthdays together, Chris briefly calls his parents to apologize for snapping at them (while still respectfully calling them out for their neglect), and then the two of them have tacos.

Chapter 16: A Few Memorable Holidays

And by "a few", I mean "Halloween and Thanksgiving". Halloween has a funny moment come to pass when Chris dresses up as a Lucario for Halloween, and Lucario briefly panics and wonders if the costume is made from authentic Lucario fur. Chris has to once again reassure Lucario that no, the fur isn't real, because Lucario is the only real Lucario in the world. Then they eat a lot of candy. And steak.

Thanksgiving is exactly what you'd expect Thanksgiving in this fanfic to be. Lots of the warm fuzzies, with Chris and Lucario being appreciative of each other and eating some really good food, including Turkey (if you're not from the US and aren't somehow arne't familiar despite us Americans having a tendency to loudly broadcast everything we do, traditionally turkey is eaten as part of the thanksgiving dinner). The fic once again shows its age when Chris shares the story of the so-called "first thanksgiving" with Lucario (I can't tell if Chris being part Native American makes it better or worse) but thankfully they don't linger on it too long.

Chapter 17: A Christmas

It's Christmas! Which, like the Halloween and Thanksgiving scenes, is about what you'd expect from this fic's fluffy slice-of-life vibes. Chris gets to educate Lucario on what Christmas is, and they go about setting up the tree and decorations in a festive manner. There's a bit of a humorous-turned-cool moment when Chris accidentally gets jumpscared by a small spider (big mood, spiders are the worst) and is about to be crushed by boxes of decorations when Lucario manages to use ExtremeSpeed for the first time to catch the boxes. Very nice. Then Christmas proper rolls around and Chris give Lucario a scarf. Lucario doesn't have money to buy a gift, so he just promises Chris his eternal moral support. Which then turns into an absolutely delightful scene of them hyping each other up.

And then there's also THIS:

Mister author are you SURE you know what kind of relationship you're writing here??? Are you SURE??? Please tell me I'm not the only person seeing this, I haven't even gotten to the fic this blog is actually supposed to be about and I'm ALREADY going mad-

The chapter closes with the promise that New Year's Day is coming, and with it, a final challenge that only Lucario can overcome, to determine whether his future will truly involve him becoming Chris's Pokemon or not...

And then that's it. No more chapters. I did warn you! But figuring out what happens next is kind of easy to determine. Considering Chris and Lucario are still best bros living together by the start of The Subspace Emissary's Worlds Conquest, my guess is Lucario has his final emotional crisis where he finally learns to accept that Chris is his trainer (and in a sense has always BEEN his trainer), and they resolve to be a Trainer-and-Pokemon partnership from here on out. Possibly with a guest appearance by Chris's parents so that side of the plot drama can be wrapped up before Worlds Conquest too.

My personal verdict on The Bond of Aura: Eh. It's not bad. The writing is consistent with the general quality of what I recall Worlds Conquest being like. Not necessarily up to my usual standard nowadays, but I've grown to become exceptionally picky with fanfiction I read, especially when it comes to grammar and formatting, to a level that I am well aware is pretty unrealistic. It's probably better than most fanfics, tbh. The story is very good at keeping its focus on the two main characters and only them (unless you count Imaginary Riolu as a separate character), which makes sense. This story is their backstory, at least in part. It solidifies who Chris and Lucario are, and why by the time of Worlds Conquest they've become so devoted to each other. Their relationship is then used as a bedrock for the network of relationships they'll then form with the other members of the Smash Bros. cast, which becomes a self-sustaining engine of character dynamics.

But for me, starting with Worlds Conquest way back then, and then coming back to this, I have trouble getting the vibes, I guess. I really like Worlds Conquest as a kid because it was action-packed, and because it was full of so many characters who would interact with each other and have their own arcs. Just focusing on two of them is a drastic change in scale for me, and while I think the quality is good, I don't think pure slice-of-life fluff is where AuraChannelerChris really shines in his writing. I know it's going to get better than this.

Which is really unfair to The Bond of Aura, which is pretty charming in its own right. That's part of why I've gone out of my way to include a summary of it before diving into Worlds Conquest proper, instead of just going "by the way here's the basic gist Chris is lonely rich kid and he has this extremely powerful Lucario in the real world don't worry about it". Backstories are important, and if I want to judge Worlds Conquest objectively I need to take The Bond of Aura into account. I know you don't have the time to read Worlds Conquest, seeing as you're here, but if you ever do... make sure you read The Bond of Aura first.

Alright. Obligatory predecessor work summary done! Now let's dive into The Subspace Emissary's Worlds Conquest. For real this time.

Starting here.

#maspers reads subspace #the bond of aura #the subspace emissary's worlds conquest #chris garcia bennett #lucario #fanfiction #fanfiction analysis #pokemon

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heygirltimeformorning · 5 months ago

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HI. I HAVE to ask about "housewife buck girlfriend salary"? and also, "dragon buck"? the parentheses have intrigued me greatly 🧐

-- oshaskell :-)

hello!!! thank you for the ask!

I'm just going to answer one & I hope you don't mind!

dragon buck!

So. Listen. Apparently I thought this was common lingo but everyone I've said this to is like "ali i have no idea what you're talking about" so uh.

I SWEAR I've heard the term "dragon" used to describe a bisexual man who is brought into a failing marriage to like, keep the spark alive or whatever -- usually referred to as "unicorns," but I SWEAR i've heard "unicorns" for women and "dragons" for men. I also could have dreamt this -- that's very possible.

None of dragon buck fic exists yet, but @distractionpie made this AMAZING post, and so. Dragon Buck is an AU where Bi Buck Buckley is brought in to save Abby and Tommy's marriage and everything crashes and burns!

ty for asking 💙💙

(wanna play?)

#Ali writes #kinda #tag games #ask games

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rexscanonwife · 1 year ago

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Ok I feel a bit unwell tonight (gee I wonder why ._.) So since I can't do much else I gotta spew my thoughts and be a little insane about this song for a while

Ramblings under the cut ofc

OUGGHGHH OKKK this whole song is so fucking good but I'll start with this bit for now but my god the whole song has this theme of someone singing TO Achilles, begging him to come away from some edge or precipice. Ofc there's lots of ways to look at this but I choose to think of it as Anakin teetering on the edge of falling to the dark side, thinking that he has no choice.

'The self is not so weightless; nor whole and unbroken' UGHH Anakin carries so many heavy things in his heart. His pain, his grief, his GUILT, his conflict. Yet he's not ONLY these things. I'll never be an Anakin apologist PER SE (except when it's funy) but every bad thing he does can usually be tracked, and so can his deterioration THATS THE WHOLE POINT. Despite all this he's been a great friend and brother, he has love and hope and faith in his heart as well as all these bad things.

'Remember the pact of our youth' the unyielding loyalty and affection that Brea and Anakin have for each other!! But it's true, she'd follow him anywhere, not only because she trusts him and knows what a capable leader he can be but she literally wouldn't be who she is today WITHOUT him. Without his friendship and without the ways they've encouraged or allowed each other to grow 😭😭😭

I'VE SAID NUMEROUS TIMES ON THIS BLOG THAT LOVE TORE ANAKIN APART. More accurately his inability to keep holding it inside him, his fate not letting him express it properly, the fear that he'd lose it and the grip he has on it eventually crushing it UGH MY GOD and I didn't screenshot it but the first verse has 'all of us, some of us love you/it's not really much but there's proof' BUT HE COULDN'T SEE IT 😭😭😭

And maybe the second part of the chorus is more Brea being OPTIMISTIC, maybe in a state of denial.

OK so the song does this cool thing where it switches back and forth in a couple verses to the 'inner voice' of 'Achilles' that berates and criticizes him, but obvi in my narrative I'm choosing to see it as literally Palpatine 😂😂 and ofc the parentheses would be both Brea reaching out to him, but ALSO everyone who loved Anakin, and the tiny glimmer of him that still remembers who he was. I love also that while trying to ease him with words of encouragement the parentheses also just like...basically tell the other speaker to shut up 😂 like yeah Brea WOULD straight up just tell Palpatine to go fuck himself!!

Ok and this bit gets me SO hard. Cause if u listen to it (which I highly recommend but it's ok if u don't 🫶) the opposing voices harmonize and then sing in unison, and to me it gives me a really strong visual of Anakins inner turmoil!! And not only that, it makes me think of my AU where instead of fleeing the temple during Order 66 in the confusion she sees that its Anakin leading the attack and decides to try to confront him!!! And I can see it being something she says to him, and their one on one fight that would ensue 😤😤

Ugh and not to mention how brilliant an Achilles comparison is, as I've mentioned I'm a sucker for religious and mythological imagery. Achilles. The PERFECT warrior, powerful, and NEARLY flawless. Emphasis on nearly. His end being brought upon him by that one thing.

I could go on and on about EVERY verse and little bit about this song tbh but this post would be forever long but my god. My fucking god. I've been thinking about this a lot today as u can see 0_0

#jane journals #self insert talk #platonic self ship #🔥 general hothead 🔥#UGGHHHH #MAN WHAT MORE IS THERE TO SAY #oh yeah that i misspoke in another post i made earlier!!#i said that ani was 'if satan got to jesus first' but thats not entirely true #jesus was hated for what he preached sure but he DID have disciples. not to say anakin was totally alone ofc he had people #but the people who were MEANT to be his disciples. the jedi order who were supposed to be counting on him to save them pushed him AWAY #time and time again they said we do not want you WE DO NOT TRUST YOU #how do you think that feels. no wonder the devil took him #lying in a pool of my own tears 🫶 sorry #uhhh #religion cw #religion ment #i guess #ok byeees waiting for my loving husband to come home ao we can eat mac and cheese #and AS ALWAYS NO ONES OBLIGATED TO READ THIS BUT IF U DO I LOVE YOU ALWAYS #i bake u cookies #Spotify

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lemonhemlock · 1 year ago

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A Comprehensive (Long) Critique of HoTD

https://www.reddit.com/r/HOTDGreens/s/qfRwIOOK9L

I was browsing the HOTDGreen Subreddit and found this long post about the show, and I thought you might be interested in reading it.

so i finally came around to reading this and. how do i say this. OP could use an editor. they themselves make some inaccurate statements that suggest a misunderstanding of feudalism and their wordy presentation, with many superfluous parentheses, is not helping either

[...] who exactly is benefited by the decision to ingratiate Alicent with Rhaenyra as friends? Who is benefited by stripping Alicent’s proximity to Jaehaerys and the Grand Council? Who is benefited by vastly simplifying Criston Cole to a point where he seems more of a historical caricature than the living, real thing? Some of these may be clearer to you than others; for Alicent, her moral justification in the book had no relation to Rhaenyra as a person. It was not about who Rhaenyra was, nor who she was to Alicent, as it is in the show; that sort of personal, emotional, almost vaguely sapphic plot line might be sensitive enough to tug at the heartstrings of young viewers, but it does not actually contribute anything to a Green justification in Westeros. What it does is erode the Greens’ /precedent/, which is the entire basis of their argument and coup in Fire & Blood. It makes Alicent more personally likable perhaps, at the expense of the entire reason for Alicent becoming an autonomous political leader. Good justifications make good characters, not cheap likability.

who is benefiting? alicent. alicent is benefiting. the plain truth is that many people are casually misogynistic or carry internalised misogyny and, if a female character doesn't tick some boxes widely accepted for validation, she is not going to be sympathetic to the viewer. sometimes people are way more likely to show their entire prejudiced ass when it comes to fictional situations, because they think they can say anything they want about imaginary scenarios. whereas, in real life, they put on a filter of respectability.

but, yeah, people have an unhealthy relation to fiction where they are way less forgiving of female characters than they are of male or male-coded characters, i.e. female characters that exhibit traits stereotypically associated with men, like some form of combat skills or 'kicking ass', aggressiveness, lack of emotionality etc

for the record, i don't believe there are such things as "female" or "male" character traits, but many people force themselves to conceptualize the world within these gender binaries and in this context, book!alicent would have been viewed as just another cersei

if strong characters had to be likable, all conflicts in the history of fiction would be muddy, unclear, impossible to navigate and overly sentimental to an almost bipolar extent, as is Alicent’s trajectory in Season 1. This same mistake is extended to Aemond Targaryen and the death of Lucerys, which is enough to affirm that this is a unique view of Ryan Condal, and that probably this creative opinion will resurface throughout his tenure with HoTD.

there isn't a relation of causality between how likeable a character is and how "right" they are. not sufficiently building up the greens' legal argument is a separate scriptwriting decision from having aemond regret killing lucerys or softening alicent

What the Greens needed, whether Rhaenyra was right or not, was independent justification. In the book, they had it in the form of the Grand Council, which simultaneously was later the rallying-call that brought Rhaenys and Meleys to Rhaenyra’s side. The Grand Council serves as the key platform that the Greens weaponize to establish Aegon II, and its existence is enough to /show/ (rather than vaguely hint) that the feudal strata of Westeros has chosen men, and will choose them again. It gives Rhaenyra the practical claim to reform by violent means, and it gives Alicent’s belief that men rule and will /always/ rule enough weight to sound like a real opinion, rather than an empty excuse to justify something she herself didn’t even agree with.

i think OP is making a confusion here. there was no "grand council" during the dance. the green council was just the small council in KL deciding to crown aegon as king. the small council comprises a few noble lords who act like ministers in a pseudo-government, it isn't a representative body of the nobility to the extent that an ad-hoc, one-off legislative body is (such as a great council)

based on Otto, Vaemond, and Jason Lannister, who all describe some vague ‘precedent’ or ‘tradition’ for male primogeniture that is /never actually proven or described to us/, we can see that the Grand Council was neither replaced nor erased, simply poorly adapted and inadequately conveyed. Unfortunately, without it, the only vaguely legalistic and justified argument that exists is Rhaenyra’s, claiming Viserys’s appointment as heiress. Whereas discourse between Fire & Blood readers was about ‘who is justified’, discourse in HoTD is simply about ‘who is cooler’—whereas F&B was ‘Viserys named Rhaenyra heiress’ vs. ‘Jaehaerys & the Realm set this precedent’, HoTD lacks the depth of context and thematic interest in politics to base these conversations on.

the legal argument is both simpler than OP presents and more complex of a discussion than that. in the case of rhaenyra vs aegon, simple andal law suffices: a son before a daughter. the "precedent" of jaehaerys' great council does not function in the way OP suggests

in any case, a great council involves the establishment of a legislative body for a limited amount of time, tasked with one specific question, which is solved via a vote, after which said body is dissolved immediately. it doesn't automatically mean that the result will be the same every time, hence the whole purpose of voting would become irrelevant. it's very likely that had an ad-hoc committee been asked to vote in the matter of rhaenyra vs daemon in the line of succession, they would have chosen rhaenyra. it is also very likely that they would have chosen aegon, had the question been rhaenyra vs aegon. it's very likely they would have chosen true-born rhaenryra, had the question been rhaenyra vs her bastard son jace.

jaehaerys' great council does not even solve the same legal dilemma: in that case, it's daughter of eldest son vs son of second son, with both the king's respective sons predeceased.

i guess the point is not to say that the lords of the realm would never willingly pick a queen for themselves, it's more that they sometimes would. female inheritors do exist in westeros and they have peers who accept and defend their right to rule, even if there's always some entitled arsehole who'd like to weasel himself in their seat (see lady jeyne arryn)

For Martin, it was legalistic arguments partly built on prejudice, and partly on practicality, which go on to overshadow countless lives and culminate in vast legal disagreements which spark continental conflicts and change history. For Condal, it was a teenaged friendship between two adolescent girls going sour, a relatively framework friends-to-enemies plot.

i was tempted to disagree, but i suppose there is some truth in that the fumbled legal argument on the greens' side kind of makes this whole thing look like alicent is just pissed at rhaenyra and is doing it because she cut her off. at least to the casual viewer, who is not going to be watching with the eye of the hawk to remember a casual explanatory statement made as an aside several episodes ago

Condal seems to take the view that Westeros feudal succession is vague (it wasn’t), that royal succession was mostly a matter of might-makes-right (it wasn’t—Maegor learned that lesson), and that politics is a matter of people not getting along when if they’d only sit down and talk it out, everything would be fine. One thing to expect from Season 2 is a reversal of audience sympathies. Condal will weaponize B&C against the audience to make them twist with guilt for supporting Rhaenyra, again using personal rather than contextual arguments to define the audience’s support. Aegon will receive audience sympathy without truly earning it. Rhaenyra will simply become the product of negative creative direction; because Condal has a point to make about ‘talking it out’ and (anticipating it now in the after-show talks) ‘choosing revenge over diplomacy’, though her justification and character in the overall picture remain almost unchanged, Rhaenyra will find herself cast as a darker character—an antihero if she remains a protagonist at all, and a half-antagonist if Condal insists on the ‘both-sideism’ that Abramson critiques. The problem is that, upon any given rewatch, removed from the immediate emotional reaction scenes elicit, this will not actually change whether Rhaenyra or Alicent are right or wrong; the Greens have no firm justification for their coup in HoTD whether or not they become victims of an overzealous revenge plot or brutal, no-holds-barred warfare, and therefore from a thematic approach can’t really be all that sympathetic as characters. In the end, choosing sides in HoTD is an arbitrary process because it is not a conflict of competing claims or justifications, but of ‘who you like better’. For this reason, I can’t help but feel that HoTD would fail the overall point of F&B.

yeah, i agree with this / kind of expect this to happen, but this point is buried too deep within that wall-of-text it becomes challenging to pluck out.

i will always insist on first watching the show before appraising it with any degree of authority, but i do find interesting the observation about aegon receiving audience sympathy without earning it. because it is true - at most, he will be doing nothing and bad things will happen to him, inviting the viewer to engage with his pain. it is basically a lazy way to make the public connect with a character - more tragedy porn than actual characterisation, but here we are. the decisions they made for aegon in s1 don't really leave them with much choice

#hotd critical #ask #anon

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therecordchanger62279 · 1 year ago

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163 PLAYLISTS

My listening habits are changing. The real evolution began when we were forced to move to a small two-bedroom apartment from a three-bedroom, two-story house. Living in an apartment complex with neighbors above you, and on either side requires a bit of consideration, and discretion when it comes to noise. As a result, I’m finding myself listening to music more often on my computer, and my iPod. My records still get played on my turntable, of course, but my cassette deck, and CD player often go unused for weeks. The new CDs, or those I’m playing more often get downloaded to my iTunes program. And the cassettes usually are limited to accompanying me on walks when the weather is friendly, and whatever I’m in the mood for is only available to me in that format.

But the availability of a computer program allows me to listen to music in a new way because I’m able to organize it. No longer do I have to listen to my collection one album at a time. Now, in order to get the most out of my collection (especially with time always at a premium), I’ve taken to creating my own playlists, and I’m particular about what goes in them, and always trying to think outside of the box so that the playlist can give me a completely fresh listening experience. That’s why I don’t use the streaming services. I don’t want to pay them to make playlists that aren’t as interesting or comprehensive as those I can make for myself.

I’ve done a few posts here about specific playlists, but this time I thought I’d provide the entire list. I’ve given each playlist an appropriate name, with a brief explanation of what’s in it, and how many songs (in parentheses) make up that playlist. I won’t list every artist in every one of the mixed artist lists, but you’ll get the idea anyway. So, here, alphabetically, is the complete list as of March 2024. Playlists come and go, and nothing is immune to changes, and tweaks. That’s what makes this so much fun.

…and Friends (115) I wanted a playlist that brought together a group of musicians who often played with one another, and whose music was somewhat similar. The title, and the concept came from the Delaney & Bonnie & Friends On Tour album where they were playing with Eric Clapton. That group of musicians, together, and separately also played with Joe Cocker, and Leon Russell who are here, among others. Clapton played with them and Duane Allman which opened the playlist to The Allman Brothers. I added J.J. Cale as well. The Band was also included because they played with Clapton on his No Reason To Cry LP. And, of course, Delaney & Bonnie, and Derek & The Dominos appear along with Blind Faith. Bobby Whitlock of The Dominos, and Rick Danko of The Band also appear as solo artists. Anyway, you get the idea. And the music fits together beautifully.

Alive/Total Energy (136) The first of many label playlists. Label playlists are open to any artist on that particular label. This list features everyone from The Black Keys to Datura 4 to Buffalo Killers, and more. It helps if the label does a particular type of music, and, if not, that you restrict the playlist to music that fits together.

Alligator Blues (457) Another label list drawn from all of the anniversary releases (there are 7) by the Alligator label along with a few artist collections, and a series the label did called Crucial Blues. Every artist who ever recorded for the label is represented (except one I don’t much care for), and because of the label’s consistency over the past 50 years, is a perfect playlist for the contemporary Blues fan.

Allman Brothers Band (44) A collection of my favorite songs by the band along with some of the solo stuff members did as well. It could be much bigger, but since the band is represented on a few other playlists, I limited this one.

AM Gold (1,404) A massive collection of artists and songs spanning AM radio in the 60s and 70s.

AM Soul (553) Same concept as AM Gold, but this one is strictly Soul music from the same period.

America (80) Songs from 7 different albums by the band America.

Americana (310) A genre playlist bringing together what I consider to be American Roots Music. So anyone whose music fits that description is on the list. So there’s Rock, Blues, and Country from artists ranging from Los Lobos to Johnny Cash to X to Doug Sahm to Ry Cooder to The Byrds, and so on.

Asylum Records (432) Not strictly a record label collection – although many of the artists included were on the Asylum label. But the focus is, instead, on the West Coast singer-songwriter movement of the 70s with room for a few artists who might well have spent time or should be in an Asylum. So there’s Linda Ronstadt, Eagles (group and solo), Little Feat, Tom Waits, Van Dyke Parks, the Buckingham-Nicks Fleetwood Mac, Frank Zappa, and so on.

Bang Yer Head (778) Exactly what you’d imagine – 778 of my favorite Hard Rock/Heavy Metal songs.

Bangles (226) Every Bangles group and solo recording I own.

Bar None (84) A label collection that features, so far, four of the artists who record for the label.

Beach Boys (114) My favorite songs by the band, along with some solo work by Brian, and Dennis. The surf stuff is not represented. You’ll see why later. This list focuses on the period after they stopped making surf records (although it does include a few early non-surf favorites.

Beatles (88) My favorite Beatles songs spanning 1963-1970.

Beatles Early Years (28) Star-Club and early Decca recordings only.

Beatles Solo (173) My favorites from each of the band member's solo catalogs.

Beck, Jeff Beck (37) Not to be confused with that other Beck. Favorites spanning his career.

Beserkley (77) A label playlist featuring the usual suspects – Modern Lovers, Greg Kihn, Earthquake, The Rubinoos, and more.

Bird (27) My Charlie Parker playlist is simply a digital version of Warner Brothers 2 record set The Very Best of Bird issued in 1977. It was never available on CD, so I reconstructed it from a box set I have. Same running order, same songs. By far, my favorite Parker recordings.

Bizarre/Straight (86) A label list featuring Frank Zappa, early Alice Cooper, Captain Beefheart, and the G.T.O.’s.

Black Sabbath (54) All drawn from the post-Ozzy era. The Ozzy stuff is represented in the Bang Yer Head playlist.

Blood, Sweat & Tears (45) The band’s first five albums complete.

Blues (319) My favorite Blues records minus anything on the Alligator label which has its own playlist.

Bomp/Voxx (258) A label list with artists ranging from The Barracudas, to The Crawdaddys to Iggy Pop, The Last, Paul Collins, Romantics, Shoes, Flamin’ Groovies, Zeros, and more.

Bowie (104) All my favorites. I’ve tried to make it smaller, and I just can’t.

Boz Scaggs (28) Drawn from his career-spanning My Time anthology, and his Memphis blues album.

Brian Auger (24) From a career-spanning Best of.

British Blues Boom (337) A who’s who of the British Blues movement from the beginning.

Bruce Power Trios (67) The Jack Bruce trios with Cream, BBM, West, Bruce & Laing, and Robin Trower

Buddy & Co. (103) A mix of Buddy Holly, Del Shannon, Roy Orbison, Bobby Fuller Four, Tommy Roe, Bobby Vee, and Marshall Crenshaw. If you know these artists, you know they fit together beautifully.

Cactus (30) Drawn from a career-spanning anthology, and the reunion album V.

CD5’s (368) A playlist of every CD single I own – all in one place.

Chick Corea (58) Drawn from 6 or 7 of my favorite Corea albums.

Chick Corea Elektric Band (67) The band’s complete catalog of studio recordings.

Christmas (150) Best Christmas and Holiday songs from every genre.

Chuck Berry’s Golden Decade (76) Modeled after his three volumes of Golden Decade collections along with the Blues collection, some rarities, and his final album CHUCK.

Clash (35) My favorites with some interview snippets thrown in for variety.

Clive’s World (266) One of my more inspired playlist ideas. Designed to chronicle the period at Columbia Records when Clive Davis took over the label, and remade it as a contemporary giant in the music business by signing artists the likes of Laura Nyro, Sly & The Family Stone, Chicago, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Taj Mahal, Johnny Winter, Electric Flag, Janis Joplin, Santana, and many more. It all fits together beautifully, and recalls an era (1968-1974) when Columbia really was one of the great record labels. Based on Davis’s first autobiography, Clive.

Coltrane ’61 (50) Every Coltrane recording live and studio from the calendar year 1961.

Coltrane ’67 (25) Every Coltrane recording live and studio from his final calendar year 1967.

Columbia Classics (180) 15 complete album favorites on the Columbia label from a dozen different artists (Miles, Sly, Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, Santana, and more.)

Coolest Songs (141) Features 8 volumes of the Wicked Cool label series The Coolest Songs in The World, along with a collection they did called Halloween a Go-Go. A real mixed bag of cool stuff.

Country (551) All my favorite Country songs in one place.

Creem (817) Based on the artists written about and reviewed over a 20 year span in Creem magazine. All were welcome provided the song in question was true to the magazine’s style and mission statement. This was a challenge, but I got it right. Listening to the playlist reflects my experience reading the magazine. And this is the kind of playlist no computer program or algorithm could ever provide for you.

Cruisin’ (105) The Cruisin’ series 1955-1963, and a Wolfman Jack CD titled Howlin’ On the Air. Basically, radio shows from the Golden Age of Rock n’ Roll.

Dance/Pop/Hip-Hop (311) A mix of contemporary radio fare from the late 70s into the current century. There’s less of this kind of thing in my collection than most genres because my interest in and tolerance for it has limits. But the best of what I heard is all here from Kylie Minogue, and The Spice Girls to Beyonce and Amerie, Madonna to Taylor Swift, etc. there’s even some hardcore Rap.

Deep Purple (81) The Blackmore classic era is represented in the Bang Yer Head file. This one focuses on the Steve Morse years, and I threw in Slaves and Masters with Blackmore, but with Joe Lynn Turner on vocals just for fun.

Disaster (110) Punk from the Disaster label drawn from four volumes of the Old Skars and Upstarts CD series.

Discreet (57) Label playlist that features Frank Zappa, Zappa with Captain Beefheart, and Ted Nugent & the Amboy Dukes. Odd collection, but, like all the others, somehow it works. It helps they all come from the same time period.

Donna Summer (30) About a decade’s worth of her best. I wasn’t into Disco, but I was into Donna.

Doors (40) Just my 40 favorite Doors songs on one list.

Doug Snyder & (17) Doug Snyder was a regular customer at a record shop I worked at many years ago. One day he handed me two CDs, and a cassette of his own music. He was such a quiet, retiring guy, that he’d never even mentioned to me before that he was a musician, and had made some records. It’s all experimental noise Rock (a genre I love), and so I used the two CDs, and found a free download online of the cassette, and put it all together. It plays for 2 ½ hours, and you can get lost in it. The CDs are Daily Dance and The Rules of Play credited to Doug Snyder and Bob Thompson. The cassette is Interference by a band Doug was in called Sick Dick & The Volkswagens. I wonder what he’d say if he knew he’d made my playlists collection.

Duffy (20) The two records by British chanteuse Duffy, a favorite of mine.

Dylan (55) Cherry-picked collection of my favorite Dylan songs.

ECM Radio (206) A collection of songs drawn from the Rarum series of CDs on the ECM label, along with a couple of label samplers. Virtually every Jazz artist in the label’s history is represented here.

ECM Touchstones (156) 50 of the label’s classic albums in one place.

ECM Touchstones II (167) 50 more of the label’s classic albums in one place.

Elmore James (73) The essential recordings from my favorite Blues artist of all-time.

Eric Clapton (56) My favorite Clapton stuff, but excludes his ’74-’77 years. For that go to….

Eric Clapton & His Band (55) All the recordings, live and studio from his ’74-’77 band. He’d kicked the heroin to become an alcoholic, but it seemed to lubricate his creativity. That was his best band.

Film Music (96) My favorite songs from my collection of film scores and soundtracks.

Fleetwood Mac (75) Group and solo favorites spanning the band’s entire career.

Folk (198) My favorite British and American Folk music from the 50s to the present day.

Garage Rock (1,024) Some of the greatest music of my lifetime made by kids not much older than me. Primitive, raw, energetic, and irresistible. Drawn from a variety of compilation series such as Nuggets, Back from The Grave, Pebbles, Teenage Shutdown, Psychedelic States and more.

George Jones (39) Favorites from Country music’s greatest voice. Tammy Wynette guest stars.

Georgie Fame (65) Primarily a download of a vinyl boxed set titled The Whole World’s Shaking. Includes a few extra tracks from my collection. Fame is one of the great voices in British Blues and Jazz.

Glenn Hughes (66) Hard Rock’s MVP award goes to this guy who has had a long solo and band career making music with some legendary names. Includes tracks from Trapeze, Deep Purple, Black Country Communion, Dead Daisies, and his solo career. Wall-to-wall great.

Gliiter & Glam (94) Platform shoes, capes, teased hair, makeup, and electric guitars fueled this 70s Rock movement. Bowie, T. Rex, Roxy Music, Sweet, Queen, Suzi Quatro, Slade, Mott The Hoople, and more.

Grand Funk Railroad (104) The people’s band live and studio best. I still listen to them.

Guess Who (32) Among Canada’s best exports. Hit after hit after hit.

Herbie Hancock (32) Drawn from his late 70s Jazz records with V.S.O.P., some 60s Blue Note favorites, and a one-off with Michael Brecker & Roy Hargrove.

Immediate Records (162) An overview of Andrew Oldham's Immediate label during the Swinging London period of the 1960s.

InsideOut (161) The best of the 90s European Progressive Rock label. Squire, Howe, Hackett, Flower Kings, Pallas, and more.

Jackie ’60-’67 (59) Eleven of the best of saxophonist Jackie McLean’s albums for Blue Note during the sixties. All of them gems.

Jazz (250) My favorite Jazz in the traditional mode.

Jazz Christmas (91) The best Christmas music is Jazz Christmas music.

Jazz Fusion (356) Miles, Weather Report, Return To Forever, Mahavishnu, Coryell, Herbie’s Headhunters, and more.

Jazz Is (671) The more commercial stuff drawn from the late 70s to the 90s, and beyond. The GRP artists, Bob James, David Sanborn, Candy Dulfer, Bobbi Humphrey, Crusaders, Chuck Mangione, the CTI stable of artists, Earl Klugh, Eric Gale, George Benson, Grover Washington, Jr., Joe Farrell, Joe Sample, John Klemmer, Rippingtons, Spyro Gyra….you get the idea. The stuff the Downbeat critics hated. No Kenny G, or other junk like that. Just the best musicians in the world cookin’, and groovin’. I built this from the ground up just a few years ago because I wasn’t buying it or listening to much of it back in the day. But it sure sounds great now.

Jefferson Starship (76) One of the most underrated bands of the 70s and 80s.

Jersey Shore (273) New York and New Jersey music – Billy Joel, Springsteen, Four Seasons, Rascals, Mink DeVille, Genya Ravan, Patti Smith, the Dolls, Ronnie Spector, Southside Johnny, and more.

Jimi Hendrix (55) All his best.

John Mayall (81) I have more than 40 Mayall titles in my collection. So I pared this down to his anthologies on the Deram, ABC, and Silvertone labels which covers about 40 years.

Joni Mitchell (26) Only the very best.

L.A. Witch (23) The catalog from the edgy all-girl band.

Led Zeppelin (86) The studio catalog – all of it.

Live! (72) A mix of favorite live albums. This is constantly changing.

Lorrie Morgan (47) Country music’s greatest female voice – to my ears anyway.

Michigan Rocks (523) Covers the cream of the Michigan Rock scene from Garage to Punk to Metal to Glam to just plain ol’ Rock. Seger, Nugent, Ryder, Quatro, MC5, Stooges, Frost, SRC, Third Power, and all the rest. No stone left unturned.

Midnight Oil (86) The best from one of my all-time favorite bands.

Miles Davis 1957-1991 (59) The focus is on his 80s work with just a few tracks from the 50s, 60s and 70s. The rest is elsewhere.

Mod Revival (169) The best of the bands who formed in the wake of The Jam’s success in England. Mod style. Mod sound. Late 70s period.

Moondog Matinee (1,309) named after Alan Freed’s radio show, this is (I swear) every great record from the early days of Rock ‘n’ Roll. R&B, Doo Wop, Rockabilly, and that demon Rock ‘n’ Roll.

My Jukebox (1,000) My 1,000 favorite songs of all-time.

Nanci Griffith (209) Most of the catalog from the best artist of the past 45 years.

Neil Young + Friends (51) The absolutely essential Neil Young solo work and his stuff with CSNY, Buffalo Springfield, Stephen Stills, Crazy Horse, and The Stray Gators.

Nightclubbing (112) Live sets from bands of the New Wave, and Punk era.

No More Wars (63) A collection of anti-war songs.

Norman Whitfield (80) A collection of the best from Motown producer Norman Whitfield.

Norton Records (164) Some of the best from NY label Norton records.

NWOBHM (182) A generous sampling of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal movement of the late 70s, and early 80s.

Ono (67) The first four solo albums by Yoko Ono, and some rare singles.

Ornette Coleman (137) My favorite Coleman records beginning with his mid-60s Blue Notes, and continuing to his final recordings before his passing in 2015. Also includes tribute albums from Tim Berne, and Aki Takase & Silke Eberhard as well as five tracks from his funeral service by admirers, and fellow travelers.

Outlaws (117) Waylon & Willie, and a few others.

Ozzy Osbourne (107) All his best solo records in one place.

Paisley Underground (263) The best of one of California’s coolest musical movements. Bangles, Dream Syndicate, Three O’Clock, Green On Red, Game Theory, Long Ryders, Rain Parade, and many more. This took a lot of work. Much of this stuff had gone out of print. There really should be a box set. Are you listening Omnivore, or Rhino Records?

Patti Smith (48) All of her groundbreaking stuff in one place.

Paul Weller (34) The Jam are elsewhere. This is all Style Council, and solo work.

PJ Raw (117) The edgiest, and best of PJ Harvey’s amazing catalog.

PJ Stripped (92) Every track here comes from Harvey's demos series of albums.

Pop TV (100) The Monkees, Cowsills, Partridge Family, The Archies, and Josie & the Pussycats. A sugar overdose.

Post Modern (317) The best of 80s Modern Rock.

QSKY Radio (89) Soundtracks for Almost Famous, FM, and Dazed and Confused – all in one place, and all hailing from the same era.

R.E.M. (43) The cream of Athens, Georgia’s finest band.

Radio London (136) British Pop, and Rock from the Pirate Radio era in England.

Rainbow (67) Ritchie Blackmore’s other contribution to head banging.

Redbeard (1,544) FM radio in the 1970s named after its greatest DJ. Every great record is here – I swear on my stack of Circus back issues.

Reggae (153) A healthy sampling of Jamaica’s greatest export. And only 16 of the tracks are by Bob Marley & the Wailers.

Return To Forever (36) Live and studio very best.

Riot Grrrls (232) Begins with Joan Jett and The Runaways, and includes Bikini Kill, L7, Sleater-Kinney and many more.

Rolling Solo (153) What were the Stones up to when they weren’t rolling? Begin here.

Rolling Stones (136) The best studio tracks.

Rolling Stones Live! (64) Betcha can’t guess what’s in this one.

Ronnie Spector (91) Most of the Ronettes, and Ronnie solo recordings.

Rosanne Cash (40) Her very best as chosen by me.

Rush (34) Comprised of the ‘74’-80 Retrospective, Moving Pictures and Vapor Trails – my favorites.

San Francisco (289) The best music from one of America’s greatest cities. Dead, Airplane, Starship, Hot Tuna, CCR, Doobies, Groovies, Santana, Steve Miller, Youngbloods, Tower of Power and more.

Santana (98) The very cream of the band and solo albums.

Scorpions (47) These will indeed, Rock You Like a Hurricane.

Simon & Garfunkel (37) Just the duo’s best. The solo work is elsewhere.

Slash/Los Angeles (345) A killer collection of the best from Slash Records, Slash magazine, and the Los Angeles scene of the late 70s and early 80s.

Slayer (41) For my money, the last great Metal band.

Sleater-Kinney (40) A mix of live and studio stuff.

Softcult (19) Most of the catalog from this Bandcamp favorite.

Sonic Youth (38) Noise merchants live and in the studio.

Southbound (117) Songs by mostly Southern artists about living in, going to, or from the South. Great road music. From the bluegrass of Kentucky to the Voodoo of New Orleans to the Florida Keys. Just take 75 South.

Southern Rock (245) All the finest music from artists of the Southern United States.

Steely Dan (77) The entire catalog through Gaucho, amigo.

Stephen Stills (54) Best band and solo work, similar to the Neil Young playlist, but nothing repeated.

Steppenwolf (45) Like Grand Funk, a sentimental favorite, and a band I still listen to.

Surf & Drag (733) An entire playlist of surf and car songs. This is where The Beach Boys surf records are hiding.

Suzanne Vega (67) The best of her studio work.

Taylor Swift (42) Eleven early favorites, and the entire 31 track The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology.

Temptations (53) Motown’s finest.

The Mooney Suzuki (38) Garage Rock for the new century. Three studio records and one live. A wall of noisy Rock.

The Reivers (29) As Americana music goes, this is as good as it gets.

Todd Rundgren & Utopia (50) The absolute finest Pop Rock you’ll ever hear. Has both his solo work, and his work with Utopia.

Tom Petty (169) Live and studio masterpieces.

Top 100 (100) My 100 most played songs. I update it monthly.

Troubadours (403) Singer-songwriters, King, Taylor, Paul Simon, Souther, Stevens, Croce, Buffett, Denver, Mitchell, Collins, Nyro, Loggins & Messina, Carly Simon, Newman, Vega, Waits, and many, many more.

Trouser Press (715) Like the Creem playlist, this is based on the magazine that ran from 1974 to 1984, and covered both the British music scene, and the blossoming Punk and New Wave movements. I did a brilliant job with this one as well. It’s like having your own Time Machine.

Van Halen (66) Probably all anyone needs.

Van Morrison (119) All solo work, and all essential.

Velvet Underground (64) 31 Velvets tracks, and 33 more from Reed, Cale, and Nico solo.

Vinyl Masters (398) Complete albums from the golden age of vinyl records – all personal favorites.

Voices (393) The greatest voices in popular music from Sinatra to Streisand to Bennett to Celine Dion to The Carpenters, and more. Not Rock. Not Folk. Not Blues. All stuff your parents loved. All stuff that anyone with an ear for quality will recognize as worthwhile.

Weather Report (87) Most of their brilliant catalog in one place.

West Coast Jazz (242) You thought I forgot about the other coast, didn’t you? Never. All great Jazz music from the Pacific coast state. Essential. Drawn from two boxed sets, and book of the same name along with a variety of things from my collection.

Who (33) 16 of The Who’s best and 17 more from Townshend, Entwistle, and Daltrey solo.

Wilko (46) Not the band, but the late ex-Dr. Feelgood guitarist. Includes his work with the Feelgoods, Roger Daltrey, and some solo stuff. I miss him.

Willy DeVille (65) Includes the best Mink DeViIle, and solo work as well. So underrated. And still missed.

Winwood (36) Career overview featuring Traffic, Blind Faith, Spencer Davis, and Powerhouse along with some sterling solo work.

Woodstock (28) A hodgepodge of my favorite songs from ��3 Days of Love and Peace.”

Yoko (50) No, you’re not seeing things. This is the other Yoko Ono playlist. This one picks up with the Double Fantasy sessions, and runs through her 1995 Rising album. I love Yoko’s work. No, seriously. Stop laughing. I’m not joking.

Yuja Wang (95) Everything I have to date from the greatest pianist I’ve ever heard.

That’s it. Check back for updates now, and again. I’m always making playlists because I have nothing better to do. I hope this list gave you some ideas of your own.

#playlists

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