#whenever i write i normally put on instrumental music to help me concentrate and just for an overall soothing background

[aria0fgold]

I need to write but I've no brain power to do that I'm so sleepy and my brain is lagging so badly I cannot think of Words.

[works-of-fanfiction]

“He’s the Best.” - 90s!Graham Coxon x Reader

Summary: Graham struggles with his self-esteem within the band and the reader tries to cheer him up.

Requested by: Anon. I hope you like this <3

Warnings: Swearing (literally once).

Word Count: 3.3k - a bit of a longer oneshot from me! I didn’t mean for it to be this long.

A/N: I’ve been writing this and putting it off for days because I just don’t know if I like it, but I don’t want to restart it. Argh… I hope someone enjoys this cheese fest.

* Gif credits to the linked creator

_______________

No one in this life is born ‘better’ than anybody else. It’s not a competition or a game of comparison. Every single human on this planet has their own unique qualities that make them interesting and most importantly, worthy. However, humans sadly aren’t wired to see those qualities in themselves. They spend the majority of their lives obsessing over others; wondering if they’re as talented as the next man, or if they’ll ever look as good as whatshername. Sometimes, it gets to a point where even the deepest of friendships can become strained due to one or more parties comparing themselves to another’s achievements.

And seeing Graham go through exactly that, has been killing me. There was a time when everything Graham and Damon did together, was truly that - together. Every single melody, riff, lyric - it was theirs. Neither one did more work than the other, neither was more musically talented. They were both kids crammed inside a Portakabin with their very first instruments, strumming and plucking and making probably rather bothersome noise. They had no idea what was to become of their lunchtime jam sessions and after school practices. Both were just excited to have a friend that liked the same things as them, and enjoyed the noise the other was making.

But Graham has since become a shadow of who he once was around Damon - he’s become Damon’s shadow. Or so he thinks.

Being in a band with a boisterous frontman like Damon was bound to become hard work for the other members at one point or another, but I never thought it would affect Graham like this. It’s getting harder to communicate with him, and I know it’s not his fault but I’m running out of things to say to fill the silences. There’s only so many times I can ask if he wants a cup of tea, or tell him about the encounter I had at the bus stop earlier that day. I’m sick of hearing my own voice, so I can’t imagine how he must feel. The silence seems to be the only thing he wants; he doesn’t write anymore, he hardly plays guitar outside of work commitments, and he hasn’t picked up his sketchbook in weeks. He just seems to stare at the TV or sit on the sofa with his head buried in a book that’s stuck on the first chapter. I watched him the other day and in forty-five minutes, he turned the page once. I bet if I asked him about the story he wouldn’t be able to recall a single character’s name, never mind the plot.

Watching him struggle with his self-esteem is crushing, and I don’t want him to live another second feeling the way he does. I know it may take a while for him to find himself again, but if I can do anything to help move things along, it’s worth a try. I’d drop everything for Graham in a heartbeat.

“I dropped those music stands off today. Did you get them?” Dave asks, his voice a little crackly on the other end of the phone.

“I did, thank you!” I chime, balancing the phone between my shoulder and ear as I assemble the very same stands.

“Oh, good. I was a little worried about leaving them outside. I thought somebody would take them… What do you need them for anyway?”

“That’s something for me to know and you to find out, Dave.” I laugh, tightening one last knob on the second stand and straightening it out. I stand back and admire my handy work, smiling at the prospect of what they are to become.

“Alright, alright. Well, I hope they come in handy! I’ll see you later.”

“Thanks again. See you next week!”

We both hang up and I grab the stands, climbing up the stairs and into the spare room, placing them in their desired places. Grabbing two pieces of sheet music, I slot them onto the stands neatly and adjust them until they’re perfect. With one last thing to check, I turn on the projector I borrowed from an old university friend and let the film play out on the blank wall opposite. I mess with the sound a little, making sure it’s loud enough before rewinding the footage to the beginning and turning it off until later.

Standing in the middle of the room, I turn around and admire everything on the walls. Everything from lyrics to old album art concepts, to still life paintings from Graham’s time at Goldsmith’s. Beside the music stands, there’s crates filled with records, decorated with lyrics scribbled onto scraps of paper, some in Graham’s handwriting and others in mine. I of course, couldn’t resist writing them out in various colours and covering them in star-shaped stickers. The finishing touch is a large beanbag against the wall for us to sit and watch the projector from. I fluff up the beanbag for the thousandth time before heading downstairs to wait for Graham to get back.

It takes around two hours for Graham to arrive home. As soon as I hear his taxi pull up outside, I jump up from the sofa and head into the kitchen to flick the kettle on. Nerves bubble through me as I anticipate his entry. It’s impossible to predict how Graham’s going to be feeling on any given day. He could come through the door and speak to me as normal, or he could disappear into his studio until he’s tired enough to head to bed. Through the rumbling of the kettle I listen out for the door, fingers impatiently tapping on the counter as my gaze fixates on a magpie outside, shakily balancing on the washing line. A second joins it and I smile, muscle memory taking over as I pour the boiled water into two cups, not taking my eyes off of the birds.

“Hi.” Graham’s voice peeps behind me. Putting the kettle down, I turn around with a warm smile on my face. Despite everything Graham has been going through, seeing him come through that door every day is still my favourite sight. Having him come home to me will simply never get old. I don’t know what I’ll do when he has to go out on tour again in a few months.

“Hey.” I breathe, the sides of my face already beginning to feel sore from the ridiculous grin stuck on it. He smiles back, the expression not quite reaching his eyes but I know he means well. He’s trying. “You go and sit down. I’ll bring these in.” I gesture to the brewing teas on the counter and he nods, hanging his bag on the nearest kitchen chair and leaving the room without another word. I finish the drinks as quickly as possible, grabbing the stack of takeaway menus from the junk drawer and bringing them with me, the pieces of paper clamped between my teeth as I concentrate on carrying the two steaming hot cups in my hands.

Setting the cups down on the coffee table, I toss the menus onto the sofa next to where Graham is very aggressively, trying to pull his Docs off. “Need a little help?” I ask, laughing as I kneel down and bat his hands out of the way. “It would help if you untied them.”

“It’s easier to leave them tied.”

“Oh, really?” I scoff, gesturing to his feet still stuck in the cherry red boots. The laces are a complete mess with three bulky knots in them. I sit down cross-legged on the carpet, carefully plucking and unravelling each knot whilst Graham buries his head in the takeaway menus. “How do you even - “ I struggle, pulling at the frayed shoelace whilst trying not to damage it further, “- get these things on?” With one last tug, the first lace loosens and I’m able to slide the boot off with ease. Graham’s face pops out from behind the menu, a side-smile plastered onto his lips and a cheeky glint in his eyes. I know he wants to laugh.

“Shall we get Indian tonight?” He changes the subject, flipping over the tatty piece of bright orange paper as he squints at the options. He always orders the same thing, yet still insists on reading the whole menu front to back. He does it for every restaurant.

“Indian sounds good.” I nod, pulling the second boot off and shoving them to the side. “I’ll call them now.” Jumping up to grab the phone, I type the number in from memory and hold it up to my ear.

“What’s the rush?” Graham mouths and I hush him when somebody answers. I order the usual along with some extras and give them our address, despite them not even really needing it anymore. The phone call is no longer than a minute and Graham sits staring at me, nose scrunched in confusion. “Are you going to tell me what’s going - “

“Follow me.” I blurt out, stretching my arm towards him and rising onto my tiptoes out of excitement. He stands slowly, shrugging off his jacket and leaving it on the sofa. “I was going to wait until we’d had our food, but I have to show you now.”

“Show me what?” He asks as I grab his wrist and drag him up the stairs. We squeeze up the narrow staircase, almost tripping each other over a couple times until we stop on the landing, feet overlapping one another’s on the small square of carpet.

“I know you haven’t really been yourself lately.” I start, my fingers slipping from Graham’s wrist to entwine with his. He looks down, sucking his bottom lip between his teeth. His eyes watch our hands as I lightly stroke the back of his thumb in an attempt to relax him. He has a habit of tensing up whenever I broach the subject. “So I wanted to remind you just how great you are.”

I watch his face intently, the corners of his mouth twitching and trying to smile. With my free hand, I open the door and flick the light on, pulling Graham into the room with me. His hand slips from my grasp and I back up to stand against the wall, watching as he takes in the room around him and everything in it.

He walks to the music stands first, fingers tracing the notes on the pages, flipping them over then back again. He walks towards the canvas on the back wall - a woodland painting he’d won a prize for back in college - running his hand over the textured patch of paint that forms the trees. I nervously bite the back of my thumb as he kneels down to sift through the records in the large black case below, flicking through every Blur album and single released to this day. My favourite lyrics are scattered on sheets of paper all over the ground, and he picks up the second verse from Coffee & TV. “You’ve always loved this one.” He says, turning to me and smiling.

“I happen to really like the guy who sings it.”

“He must be pretty good then.”

“Oh, he’s the best.” Resting my foot against the wall, I kick my body forward and stand straight, joining Graham beside the projector.

“What’s this for?” He asks, hands hovering near the buttons but not daring to touch anything. I take his hands in mine and give them a loving squeeze.

“Sit down and I’ll show you.” I chirp and he sinks down onto the beanbag. I mess with the projector until the sound starts to creep in, stretching over to switch off the light. Graham shuffles to the side to make some room for me on the beanbag and I flop down beside him, nestling into his side.

The image from the projector is surprisingly clear against the wall, although could’ve been improved had I borrowed a screen from somewhere. A variety of different clips play out in front of us, ranging from Graham performing onstage to snippets of his band members talking and praising their guitarist. I try my hardest to focus on the film in front of me, but I can’t help glancing over at Graham to see his reactions. His brows are furrowed, but not necessarily in a bad way - he’s focused, fully concentrating on everything he’s seeing and hearing.

I fidget with my hands, twiddling my thumbs and quietly cracking my knuckles. Graham notices this and grabs my left hand, squeezing it tightly and bringing it over to rest in his lap. Laying my head on his shoulder, I press a kiss onto his sleeve, rubbing my head against him and breathing in his familiar scent. He lays his head on top of mine, but never looks away from the video playing on the wall. Absentmindedly, his fingertips dance on the back of my hand, the drumming following the beat of Song 2 as it plays from the projector. I too can’t help bopping along to the beat, my foot tapping softly on the carpet.

The video closes with one final clip, a message I recorded for Graham. Too embarrassed to watch myself, my focus stays on him as I squeeze his hand a little tighter and snuggle up as close as possible. The picture begins to fade and the sound plays out until there’s no footage left, and the whirring of the projector becomes background noise in the room. Graham doesn’t say anything at first, but as I try to stand to turn the projector off, he pulls me back down onto the beanbag and rotates his body to face mine.

“Hey.” I whisper, my right hand supporting his cheek as he leans into me, his eyes closed and lips pressed into a line. Our bodies slot into one another’s on the beanbag, the very little space between us growing warmer by the second.

Graham releases a deep breath, his eyes slowly opening again with a small smile spreading across his face. It’s hard to see him properly in the dimly lit room, but I could never mistake those big brown eyes staring at me. “I can’t believe you did all of this for me.” He says, his voice low as he leans in close to speak like we’re the only two people who matter inside a crowded room.

“I wanted to show you how incredible you are. You’ve been so hard on yourself and I just - “ As I speak, tears start to well up in my eyes and I look up to the ceiling to try and stop them from falling. I’d already told myself earlier that I wouldn’t cry, because I don’t want Graham to think he’s upset me. I press at my eyes lightly with my fingertips in an attempt to push the tears away. “I can’t stand seeing you this way because you don’t deserve to feel like this. If it wasn’t for you, Blur wouldn’t exist! Everything you’ve all achieved wouldn’t have happened.” My voice begins to shake and I feel Graham’s hand on my arm, rubbing it gently to try and calm me down.

“Y/N.” He starts, before reaching up to turn on the light. It takes a second for my eyes to adjust, before my gaze falls to the ground to avoid his. If I look at him properly, I know I’ll start bawling. “Look at me. Please.”

“I can’t. I can’t because I’ll cry, and then you’ll get upset and I don’t want to make you feel any worse than wha - “

“You won’t upset me. Y/N, I’m sorry I’ve - “

“No, Graham. Don’t apologise.” I grip onto his shirt tightly, my fingers tangling in the fabric. Graham bows his head and nudges it against mine, edging closer until he pushes my head up with his and our noses are almost touching. We both open our eyes, our faces too close that my vision is distorted and I’m seeing double. I pull back, sniffling once and dabbing at my eyes again, still not allowing any tears to actually emerge.

“I’m sorry,“ he starts and I sigh at his words, but he hushes me by holding his finger up to my face, “for putting you through this. I was so caught up in my own head that I didn’t realise how it was making you feel.”

“Graham, this isn’t about me.”

“But it affects you. Bloody hell, if I had to live with this miserable twat - “ he points to himself and I scoff, slapping the back of his hand playfully. “ - I’d have given up by now.”

“I would never give up on you.” My voice is barely above a whisper, the lump in my throat making it difficult to speak. Graham goes silent again, staring down at our joined hands and moving his thumbs around. I nudge his head with mine in the same way he did previously and he sniffles, his chest rising and immediately falling again. “Graham?” I bring my hand to his chin and push his face up to find his eyes watery, and cheeks significantly more red compared to a moment ago.

“God, look at me. What the hell are you still doing with me, ay? I’m a bleeding mess.” He sniffs, roughly wiping tears off of his cheeks with the backs of his hands.

“Because I wouldn’t want to be with anybody else.”

“Not even - “

“Ah! Stop right there. There’ll be no more of that.” I take his hands away from his face, holding onto them loosely. “Graham Coxon, you are the best thing to ever happen to me. And I’ll give you a free pass to slap me silly for being so cheesy.” I laugh, his grip on my hands tightening as he awkwardly slides closer on the beanbag, his body sinking into it at a strange angle and pulling me with him. “I love you.”

Within a second, Graham’s hands are on both sides of my face, pulling me in for a kiss; the kind of kiss that feels like the person is pouring their entire heart out to you. Like the kiss between the main characters of a movie, when they’ve just ran across a field or a busy road to collide with another at the centre. His lips messily press against mine and I can feel the stray tears running down his face as they dampen my cheeks. My hands rest on his legs, holding on firmly as his thumbs dig into my face a little. It doesn’t hurt, but he soon pulls away and swipes at my face softly as if to apologise for it. He uses his sleeve to dry my face and I do the same for him, small gasps of laughter exchanging between us.

“Thank you for doing this. If you can’t tell, I really love it.” He says sincerely with a genuine smile, the biggest smile I’ve seen from him in weeks. The expression is infectious and I can’t help mimicking him as I grin back like the Cheshire Cat. The faint sound of knocking from downstairs pulls us out of our romance film-esque daydream and we both clamber to our feet.

As we approach the stairs, Graham stops and spins me around, pulling me into him. I land against his chest with a huff, before adjusting my hair and looking up at him. “After we eat, can you show me the film again?” He asks, his hand meeting mine to help me fix the loose hairs falling in my eyes.

“We can watch it as many times as you like.”

[ezekielbhandarivalleros]

Little Handstrings

Paring: Logan x Colt Kaneko

Summary: Colt teaches Logan how to play the guitar

Second Chapter of Gay Bad Boys Series

Another day, another rain-washed street and a looming grey sky, predicting thunder.

Colt strummed mournfully, absent-mindedly, at his guitar. Normally he didn't mind the rain; the sound of it hammering his window made a nice backing track to his often rather somber music.

Today, however, it was draining him of inspiration, as if every drop of rain was a piece of his head. He couldn't explain it.

He plucked at a single note repetitively, until a voice from the corner of his room piped up.

"God, at least play something."

He'd almost forgotten his friend Logan was even in the room. He had been sat quietly flicking through his dusty assortment of old CDs and cassette tapes, nosing curiously as he did whenever she came over. It seemed the rain was causing him to be irritable as well.

"Sorry." he muttered, not really meaning it.

"What's this?" Logan asked, waving a blank tape at him, whilst inspecting another.

Colt tilted his head, as if that would help him to remember. He recalled that his blank tapes were ones he'd made himself when he was much younger.

"I dunno, give it here," he said taking it from Logan, without waiting for her to reply.

Bluey scowled but said nothing as he put the tape into his CD player and hit play.

A few moments of silence, the fuzzy crackling of ancient technology, and then the mumbling of a young boy.

"... um... I'm Colt. And uh... this is "Her Blues"..."

Logan snorted and covered his mouth when Colt shot him a look, but he blushed furiously when his childhood self began to play his guitar with youthful abandon... and little talent.

"She's gone, gone, gone away

She's gone away

I thought she would be here to stay

But she's gone away-ey-ey!"

Logan could no longer contain himself and toppled backwards in laughter, as little Colt began howling like a wolf. Seventeen-year-old Dom groaned loudly and flicked the stop button, drowning behind the blood that filled his face. Bluey sat up, grinning and wiping tears from her eyes.

"Oh my dear Colty," Logan chuckled. "What in the blue hell was that?"

Colt looked sheepish. "It was an entry for a competition when I was a kid."

"And you wrote it about your father leaving?"

"Yeah," Colt shrugged. "I was upset, who else was I gonna write a song about, huh?"

Logan looked as though he was itching to go into hysterics again.

"Just so you know, I never sent it in." Colt said, relieved now that he hadn't.

Logan smiled, almost sincerely, "Ah, I've heard worse. It was kinda cute anyway."

He looked at Logan and he nodded.

"So you've been playing guitar for a while then?" He asked.

"Pretty much."

"And the singing?" He enquired.

"I don't sing much anymore." He smirked slightly, running his fingers up and down the strings of his guitar. He'd stopped singing aloud since he'd played that tape to his brothers and they'd pounded him for it, calling him "gay". Now he only sang, mostly hummed, to himself, or when no one was in the house.

He looked up at his friend, who was deep in thought.

"Logan?" He mumbled, uncertainly.

"I'm struck by a thought, Waston." He said.

"My God, is that your first one, Holmes?" He replied cheekily.

Logan frowned but there was the slightest hint of a smile on her face. "Very funny." He reached over and took his guitar, then fingered the strings. "I was just thinking you could teach me to play guitar."

"Teach you?" He said, raising an eyebrow. He had never thought of Logan as being interested in music, other than having loud rock songs blaring out of his bedroom window till three in the morning. And he'd heard his singing, it wasn't great.

Logan shrugged, "Sure, why not? You can play, I want to play, and we're both bored. And there's not much we can do together when we're bored." His mouth curled into a demonic grin. "Well, except sex."

Logan was taken aback for a moment and his face turned hot, but Bluey eased up on him. "It was a joke, y'idiot."

He stood up with the guitar and lifted the strap over her head. Colt, being as tall and lanky as he was, had made the strap rather long, and Logan, being a good foot shorter than him, struggled to play the instrument when it dangled near his knees.

Colt rolled his eyes and got up to fix the strap for him, consenting, he decided, to teach her to play a few notes.

"Hold still." He muttered, as Logan continued strumming. The guitar lifted to his hips and she was able to play it more comfortably. He played a slow, often note-perfect rendition of "Highway to Hell", and he sat and listened.

"Where did you learn that?" He asked, mildly surprised.

Logan shrugged and sat down on the bed with him, "I did start learning a couple of years ago, until some little shit broke my guitar when I took it to school." He looked peeved. "You know my dad, he was too stingy to pay for it to be fixed. Then I just forgot about it."

"That wasn't bad." Colt smiled. "Know anything else?"

Logan shook his head; Colt couldn't help noticing that Logan looked like a small child who was trying hard to remember her ABCs. "But you're gonna teach me, right?"

Colt sighed in mock-exhaustion. "I guess." He stood up and circled him, trying to figure out the best way to go about teaching someone else to do something he'd always been adept at. Logan gently fiddled with a tune patiently as Colt pondered.

"I take it you know all the chords, then?" He said finally.

Logan nodded, "Kinda. All I really want... is to know how to play like specific songs."

"Like?"

"Well, whatever. Metallica, HIM, whatever. You pick."

Colt knew what to pick, but he took a moment to look as though he was in deep thought; he knew the song he was going to suggest would make his grimace, but it was perfect.

He moved behind him and put his arms around her shoulders so that his hands hovered above him over the guitar. Bluey raised an eyebrow.

"This how you teach?" He asked, unconvinced.

"Just work with me here," Colt snapped, feigning lack of enthusiasm. "I've never had to 'impart wisdom' before."

"There's a surprise." Logan snorted, but he ignored him.

"I'm gonna teach you a slow song, m'kay? We'll move on to the heavy stuff later."

Logan grunted, disappointed. He looked down at his guitar, barely registering how his fingers twitched near his, or how his breath ruffled her azure hair gently while he showed him the notes.

But Colt noticed everything about him. How soft his pale little hands were when he moved them about; how his tongue peeked out of the corner of her mouth when she was concentrating really hard; how his sank comfortably into his chest, or how his hair smelled of gel.

Deep down his ulterior motives for teaching Logan this way became apparent to him, as he realised that the sight, the sound, the smell and touch of his playing to him one of his favourite songs wouldn't leave him for a while.

He began to feel hot under his clothes, and his mouth dried up, and Logan played on, oblivious to the fact that he was rapidly falling for him.

The way his nose twitched adorably when she scowled at her mistakes...

The way he hummed so out of tune, yet not caring...

The way his hair brushed his neck and left him smelling of him...

Colt jumped back abruptly, knocking him forward onto his knees.

He turned and scowled at him, "The hell?"

"I thought I saw a spider!" He gasped, quickly, knowing he would accept that as he jumped onto his bed.

He glanced around, looking for the culprit and muttering about Colt and his "bloody phobias".

He lay back on the bed, his hands on his face, beads of sweat leaving him dizzy. Surely, it was just a heat of the moment? The romantic song? The close proximity? The fact that he hadn't had a Boyfriend in weeks?

As he forced himself to believe that that must be it, and that he wasn't falling in love with him, there was a little voice in the back of his mind, reminding him that he had felt this way before, and perhaps it was happening again.

Logan, meanwhile, had given up her search for the phantom spider and had seated himself on the floor, beginning to play the first few notes of the song.

"Y'know, I think I've pretty much got it now. Listen..."

And Colt listened with a tight knot in his stomach as Logan began to mumble the words he felt himself want to say.

"I don't know why this took so long.

It wasn't hard for me to see.

It wasn't that I didn't notice.

It was just hard to believe."

Colt sat up slowly and watched Logan fumble over the strings, her freckled face contorted in absorption.

"But this is what you did.

What you did to me."

He had no idea what he was thinking, about him, about the lyrics, about how juicy his lips were when she sang, even if she wasn't the greatest songstress.

"You put resin on my heartstrings. You make 'em sing.

You put resin on my heartstrings. You make 'em sing.

And it's about time that I told you everything.

You put resin on my heartstrings. You make 'em sing..."

He moved over to her and put his hand on his to stop his playing, she looked at him, those big blue eyes rolling over his face curiously.

"Was it bad?"

"No." Colt answered quietly. She was watching him with such an unnerved expression that he took his hand off of hers quickly. "I just... I think you've got it, Logan."

He beamed and flexed her fingers in front of his face. "Knew these babies wouldn't let me down. What's next then?"

Colt was standing by the window. The rain had stopped and he was willing it to stay that way. "I think that's enough for today." He muttered.

"Y'reckon?"

He looked at her, his heart aching so feebly at the sight of her pouting that he couldn't bear to look at her anymore. Not until he'd had time to think. He turned back to the window. "I'm pretty tired, you should probably leave."

Logan stood and eyed him. He reached for his shoulder and turned him to look at him, narrowing her eyes at him, inspecting his face. Colt tried to look as nonchalant as he could, but Logan's face softened on him as she noticed how upset he seemed all of a sudden.

"What's wrong dude?" Logan asked softly.

He shrugged her off, frowning slightly, "Nothing."

Logan wasn't convinced, but he felt it was pointless to pry if Colt didn't want to talk to him. He could be moody on his own.

"Fair enough. Same time tomorrow?"

"Maybe." He replied.

He didn't watch Logan leave the room; he could tell he did it in a strop because the door was slammed. But he watched Logan cross the road outside of his house and slouch off in the miserable weather.

Colt was determined he wouldn't know about his feelings, not until he was certain of them at least. After all it was probably just a little crush, nothing too serious.

[luccislegs]

Lol I'm glad to be of help! I'm looking forward to the requests you get published. You probably don't write for Law, so I should ask for Zoro in that case. Could I please have a scenario for Zoro with a reader who's a brilliant actor/imitator but they're v shy? They want to be helpful aboard the ship and have a big crush on him, but they end up getting flustered whenever he come near. If I can add, a significant height difference would be cute lol.

sorry it took me so long to answer this lol i was hella partying this weekend and i’m pretty sure there’s still alcohol in me even a week later

anyway, my first ask! also thank you again for letting me know my asks were turned off, you rock!

–

A sigh escaped your lips for what seemed like the hundredth time that day as you watched Zoro train down on the main deck. You, on the other hand, were hidden away in Nami’s tangerine grove, scribbling away at a new musical composition piece. Or you were supposed to be, anyway. It seemed like every few seconds your concentration was stolen by the aforementioned swordsman.

“Hey, _____! Whatcha doin’?” Luffy shouted from behind you. You had been in the middle of writing and he scared you so badly that now there was a large score down the page. Some of it was ripped now as well, ruining the work.

You sighed, staring forlornly at the destroyed paper. It had taken you ages to finally work up the motivation to write, and just like that it had gone wrong. You turned to look at your captain, saying, “Nothing, Luffy. Just writing some new music.”

“Huh,” he said, staring down at the sheet music. “It looked like you were staring at Zoro more, _____.” A large, mischievous grin spread across his face as he locked eyes with the other man, who turned an even brighter shade of red than he already was.

You missed the exchange entirely as your eyes were locked on your paper in horror. Could he have said it any louder? Embarrassment and fear flooded through you and you barely glanced up at Zoro, just enough to gauge his reaction to Luffy’s words, but he wasn’t looking at you. In fact, he was no where to be seen anymore.

It was a few hours later when you finally felt the courage to show your face on deck again. You had initially decided that you were just going to hide out in your room for a few days, but you had managed a complete rough draft of your composition and wanted Brook to play it out, so you could hear what needed to be fixed.

Plus, you were starving.

The sounds of the others filtered out of the kitchen, typical in that you could hear Luffy and Usopp above all the others, but it was comforting because it was familiar.

The door creaked open and a chorus of greetings to you filled the room, and you flushed slightly. Waving back, you sat down in an open seat, and your eyes made a sweep of the room, looking for familiar green.

“Zoro isn’t here,” Luffy said around a huge mouthful of meat. He struggled to swallow it for a moment; you could see the way his throat expanded to accommodate what was surely too much food. “He’s sleeping in the crow’s nest.”

Your cheeks really turned red at that, and you couldn’t meet anyone’s eyes, but you heard the tell-tale sounds of Nami knocking him upside the head.

He whined and rubbed the back of his head, frowning at her. “What was that for? She was looking for him, right? She likes him, so I figured I’d tell her!”

“Luffy, you idiot,” Nami said with a huff. She looked like she was going to hit him  again, her fist raised in a threatening manner. “You aren’t supposed to point it out. They need to figure it out for themselves.”

“Well, they’re taking too long!” he whined, holding his hands up to defend himself. He looked around at you then. “_____, why don’t you just tell him?”

You couldn’t help but give him an incredulous look as you sputtered out half-formed excuses. Finally, you took a deep breath and calmed yourself, managing to say through grit teeth, “It isn’t that easy, Luffy. I’m not sure he feels the same.”

“You should just ask him then!” He was so naive it would be cute, if it wasn’t so embarrassing.You rolled your eyes as Nami continued to yell, with Sanji joining in after a moment. Things settled down after that, returning to normal levels of noise which, with your crew, were still extremely loud.

“Does anyone know where Brook is?” you asked when everyone was finished eating. “I want him to play this new piece for me.”

“I think he was talking about practicing on deck,” Robin piped up. She had been so quiet all night you had forgotten she was there, but as soon as she spoke, Sanji was swooning.

That signaled you that it was time to book it– whenever he got like that, you knew it was only a matter of time before he took turns around the room.

The cool air and quiet were a welcome relief from the stifling noisiness of the kitchen. Off towards the front of the boat came the faint sounds of guitar. Brook was just starting out on the instrument, and so the music wasn’t as smooth as it was when he played the violin or the piano. But he seemed to be picking it up quickly and, if he kept it up, it would give you yet another instrument to write music for in no time.

“Hello, _____. What can I do for you?” Brook’s voice broke through your stupor.

You hadn’t even realized you had made it to him, and you gave him an embarrassed smile. “I have a new piece I was hoping you would play for me. I’m sure there are kinks. But it’s for the violin this time.”

You put the paper into his expectant hand and waited as he scanned over it, bouncing back and forth on your feet.

“This will sound marvelous when it’s done, _____!” he said at last. “I’m going to get my violin right now so you can finish it up as soon as possible!”

You flushed at his praise. Although he said that about all of your work, it was still nice to hear. Sometimes you wondered what the point of you being on the boat was, and having that little bit of reassurance was nice. Besides, most of the music Brook was playing here lately were pieces you had created.

Footsteps sounded behind you, but they lacked the usual creaking that accompanied Brook when he walked. You nearly had a heart attack when you turned to look and found Zoro standing behind you. You could feel the heat flood your cheeks, and prayed it was dark enough that he couldn’t see. On the other hand, he was fully displayed in the moonlight and you could see that he was as red as you likely were.

“Uh, hey,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Could we talk?”

Your heart, which had already been beating harder than was normal just by being in his presence, almost exploded in your chest. You could feel it thundering away behind your ribs so hard you felt a little lightheaded for a moment.

“U-Um…sure?” you said, and cursed yourself for being so shy. It was hard enough having a crush on someone, let alone someone like him, but the whole thing was compounded by the fact that you could barely talk to him like a normal person.

“Sorry about earlier. Luffy can be a bit a of an idiot,” he said. He smirked a little when he heard you giggle.

You had to steel yourself for your next words, because you weren’t sure if you were bringing up something that you didn’t really need to, but you couldn’t keep a lid on it without feeling uncomfortable. “I’m sorry about…about earlier. I hope I-I didn’t make you uncomfortable.”

His posture changed, you could see tension come into his shoulders and for a moment you thought it had backfired. But his next words made you feel like you would burst into flames.

“That’s okay. I wasn’t getting much training done anyway. Someone was up in the tangerines distracting me.” He wasn’t looking at you, and his hand was fidgeting with the swords attached to his hips.

You were a fool if you thought you couldn’t turn any more red. You would swear that you were going to be permanently stained, Sanji could use you as a tomato in his next meal. “W-Well…um…”

Words were escaping you, and it was just a relief that he didn’t find you weird because of Luffy.

“Brook is coming back,” Zoro said suddenly, shifting to look over his shoulder. You couldn’t hear anything, but trusted his word. “The next island is coming up in a few days. Do you want to go into town with me?”

You giggled again, giddy at the fact that Zoro had just asked you on a date, and nodded. “Yes, I’d like that.”

He smiled and lifted his hand, setting it on your head gently. Then it was sliding off and he was walking away, just as Brook came back into view.

“Alright, let’s see what we’ve got, _____. _____?”

–

this was unbelievably harder than i had initially thought it would be. i had to change the actor/imitator detail bc i absolutely could not figure out a way to incorporate that into any of the ideas i had, at least not without it getting severely out of hand, so I hope that wasn’t an extremely important detail. if it is, just let me know and i can whip something else up, but it’ll probably be way more involved and stupid long.

on the other hand, i do hope you like this!

[hellyeahheroes]

Building Emiko Queen in D&D 5e

As we all know by now, I’m inspired to do these builds by those made by Tulok the Barbarian. But after a few of those (we had Cass Cain and Static for DC and Nico Minoru and Laura Kinney for Marvel) I wanted to try to challenge him somewhat. There is his Hawkeye build which is veeeery good and could work perfectly with almost any comics archer, be it Kate Bishop or Green Arrow. A challenge I want to give myself is to make a build that could function similar but does not use the same baseline, so no Arcane Archer. And I have a character I think can be perfect for exactly that.

First, let us write down our goals for this build. We need to make Emiko an archer so good even her own brother admitted she is better than him. Then we need to make her stealthy - she is a former assassin and you don’t put an arrow through Deathstroke’s head by loudly announcing your presence. Finally, we need to get our own equivalent of trick arrows.

For Ability Scores, I’ll be using standard points array, if you or you DM prefers to roll or use point buy, treat this as a guideline. Dexterity is our top priority since this is the basic of archery in the game. Wisdom next, Emiko surprises her enemies, not the other way around. Constitution next, we will need it for concentration. Intelligence as Emi isn’t known for bad grades. Charisma is on the low but, in all fairness, she can come off as abrasive or arrogant at times. And we will dump strength - you either go all-in with it or you drop it. The Stats should then look like this: STR 8 DEX 15 CON 13 INT 12 WIS 14 CHA 10

Now for species, or how D&D likes to call it, Race.  Emiko is a Human, there is nothing meta or alien about it, it’s part of the whole badass normal appeal. So we will make her the most badass human, Variant Human. Add +1 to your Dexterity and Wisdom, choose Athletics for your bonus skill, any language of your choice and Sharpshooter for a feat. It lets you make long-range attacks without disadvantage, ignore half and three-quarters cover and take -5 to the attack roll for +10 to damage if you hit.

For the Background, we cannot choose assassin but Urban Bounty Hunter will work just fine. It lets you choose proficiency with a musical instrument and a set of gaming tools and two skills. We will go for Deception and Insight. It also gives you an Ear to the Ground feature, which allows you to have contacts in every city, which you can use to get information on criminal activities. I assume Emiko gained a few of these during her time under Simon Lacroix, in Team Arrow or Teen Titans.

For the Classes, we are multiclassing two classes, one of which is Rogue. And if there is one thing that has been true in D&D even waay back during 3rd edition, it is this. If you’re multiclassing with Rogue, start with the Rogue. First level gives us proficiency in all simple weapons, light armors, thieves’ tools, secret Thieve’s Cant language, Intelligence and Dexterity saving throws and four skills - choose Acrobatics, Stealth, Perception, and Investigation. We then get Expertise in two of those, letting us double the proficiency bonus to them and you should pick Stealth and Perception.

We also get Sneak Attack, which allows us to deal an extra 1d6 damage on a hit with finesse or ranged weapon, as long as we either have advantage on the attack or the target is standing no less than 5 feet away from someone hostile to them who isn’t incapacitated and we do not have disadvantage on the attack roll.

You might have noticed that this does not give us one crucial thing - proficiency with the longbow. Let us fix that. First level of Ranger gives us proficiency with it and all martial weapons, one skill of choice, choose Survival. You also get two features. 

UPDATE Since this was published a new Unearthed Arcana presented variant features for the Ranger that let us replace the shitty ones from main build and still stack with prestige class we’re using, we’ll take them.

Favored Foe lets you cast  Hunter’s Mark, with a casting time of 1 bonus action and a concentration time up to 1 hour, lets you mark a single target, deal 1d6 extra damage whenever you hit them and gain an advantage on Perception and Survival checks to find them. If the target dies before the spell's duration ends, you can move it to another one. This spell does not count against the number of spells you know and you can cast it without expending a spell slot (more about that in a moment) number of times equal your Wisdom Modifier per long rest.

Deft Explorer lets us choose one of three options. Tireless let us remove one level of exhaustion whenever we finish short rest and let us heal 1d10+WIS modifier as an action, usable equal amount of time per long rest as your WIS modifier.

ALTERNATIVE: You might have noticed I’m using standard Ranger and not a much better, revised version. This is because we will be taking an archetype that officially cannot be combined with the revised Ranger. If your DM would let you combine them then a) cherish your DM like a fool they are and b) you get to choose only one type of humanoid for favored enemy but get +2 to damage rolls against them and you natural explorer gives you an advantage on Initiative rolls, advantage on attacks against creatures that have not yet acted during your first turn of combat and lets you ignore difficult terrain.

Second level Ranger gets to choose a Fighting Style and Archery gives us +2 to ranged attack rolls, helping mitigate that pesky -5 from Sharpshooter. We also get to learn our first two spells. Ranger’s spellcasting works like Sorcerer’s - we get to know a number of spells according to the level and have a number of spell slots and we have to burn to cast a spell. You can cast a spell using a higher level spell slot to give it a bonus, you can change one spell you know for another whenever you take a level in Ranger and you cannot learn a spell of a higher level than your highest spell slot available. If a spell allows a saving throw, the difficulty is your Wisdom modifier + your Proficiency Bonus and if it asks for an attack roll it’s those two +8. And thanks to Spell Versitality from Unearthed Arcana, you can replace spell you know with another spell of the same level every long rest.

We get to know two spells on the first level and we will pick two to make our first trick arrows

Ensnaring Strike - next time you hit a target with an attack, they must make a Strength saving throw or be restrained by magical vines until you break concentration, after a minute of time or whenever they or another creature wastes an action to take another Strength check to free them and actually succeeds. Also, the target takes 1d6 poison damage at the beginning of each their turn. This is our net arrow.

Fog Cloud creates a sphere of fog 20-foot radius, in which the area is heavily obscured. You can concentrate on it for up to 1 hour or until a strong enough wind blows it away. This is our smoke arrow.

Now back to Rogue at second level we get Cunning action, letting us take hide, dash or disengage as a bonus action.

3rd Level Rogue updates their Sneak Attack to 2d6 and gets to choose a Roguish Archetype. And we will, of course, go with Assassin. I mean, Emiko is one, it kinda goes without saying. 3rd Level gives us proficiency with disguise and poisoner’s kits and a creatively called feature of Assassinate - it gives you an advantage on attacks you make during the first round of combat against enemies that haven’t acted yet and makes any hit automatically count as a critical hit.

Neat, huh? Well, let us make it even better. 3rd Level Ranger gets to choose their own archetype, Ranger Conclave. Gloom Stalker gives you Umbral Sight, which grants you Darkvision up to 60 ft - you see like normal in dim light and like in dim light in darkness - AND in darkness you are invisible to any creatures trying to see you with Darkvision.

But the real treasure of this archetype is Dread Ambusher lets you add your Wisdom modifier to Initiative rolls. And during your first turn of combat your speed increases by 10 feet, as long as you won’t interrupt your move by any other action (eg. if you move, attack and move again you’re back to your normal speed) and lets you make an additional attack as a part of that turn and if that attack hits, you add 1d8 to the damage.

Let me lay it down for those who were not paying attention. You add two your highest modifiers to Initiative, you get to make two attacks with advantage and if you hit you add 1d8 to one and your Sneak Attack damage to both AND then roll that damage twice for an automatic crit. On top of having Hunter’s Mark

Gloom Stalker also adds Disguise Self to your Spells know, without it counting against the maximum number of spells you can know. It allows you to change your appearance for up to an hour without need for concentration and you cannot change your body type (in a sense you cannot grow extra limbs, horns or wings, not making yourself look more muscular, thinner etc.) and you cannot make yourself look more than 1 feet taller or shorter than you already are. It’s an illusion and falls doesn’t hold to physical inspection. I don’t know if it is an Emiko thing, you can always keep it to exchange for something else later.

Strategy: At your first turn pick up the most dangerous-looking soon-to-be-dead enemy, put Hunter’s Mark on them and make them take 26 on first and 34 on second attack on average, 52 and 68 respectively maximum. And that damage will only grow with the levels. Now imagine you also get advantage on Initiative rolls and +4 to that damage and you understand why a DM that lets you combine this with Revised Ranger is a fool.

You also get a rather mediocre and situational Primeval Awareness so we will exchange it for Primal Awareness from Unearthed Arcana, which allows us to add following spells to spells you know, without them counting against the limit of spells you know, on top of the one you get to pick. on this level

Detect Magic allows you to sense magic around you up to 10 minutes on Concentration, within 30 feet but blocked by 1 foot of stone, 1 inch of common metal, a thin sheet of lead, or 3 feet of wood or dirt. You see aura of magical objects and beings and can recognize what school of magic it is. Some sort of radar or scanner maybe?

Speak With Animals - up to 10 minutes, no concentration, you can communicate with animals and convince them to do you small favors or ask minor things like the location of monster they’ve seen within a day.

Hail of Thorns has concentration-time up to one minute and casting of 1 bonus action and lets you make your arrow burst with thorns. When you hit a target, it deals 1d10 (+1d10 for each higher level of spell that it is cast from) piercing damage to them and everyone within 5 feet of them, half on successful Dexterity saving throw. Exploding arrow.

Fourth level Ranger gets an Ability Score Improvement or a feat. We will pick Weapon Master, which lets us increase our Dexterity by 1 and get another Fighting Style out of Fighter’s list - Close Quater’s Shooter from Unearthed Arcana grants you +1 bonus on ranged attacks and lets you make ranged attacks within 5 feet of enemies without disadvantage on the attack roll.

Alternative: If your stats are high enough you do not need an extra point here to round everything up and prefer to stay away from enemies at all times, pick up Alert instead - you get +5 to Initiative, cannot be surprised and hidden enemies do not get an advantage on attack rolls against you.

Fourth Level Rogue gets their Ability Score Improvement, letting us add +1 to two stats and round up Dexterity and Wisdom.

Fifth Level Ranger gets an extra attack, letting you attack twice as a part of the same action. Making it three attacks on your first turn. You also get to learn a new spell and it can be a 2nd level spell even. 

Cordon of Arrows lets you place up to 4 arrows as an action in an area, protecting it for up to 8 hours, and whenever another creature will get closer to it than 30 feet to any, it will fire and force a Dexterity saving throw or deal to that creature 1d6 damage.

And of course, Gloom Stalker lets you learn another one - Rope Trick. It lets you turn a rope for 1 hour into a way to another dimension, where up to 8 medium or smaller creatures can rest protected from attacks or spells and invisible to anyone. Between these two spells I assume Emiko is paranoid about being ambushed.

Primal Awareness gives us two more Spells, Beast Sense has a concentration time up to 1 hour and allows you to touch a willing beast and on action hear and see all it does. I guess you put a small camera on it?

Locate Animals or Plants allows you to describe a specific kind of animal or plant within 5 miles.

But if we need something more defensive in combat, we should head back to the Rogue. 5th level Rogue rises our Sneak attack to 3d6 and gives us Uncanny Dodge - whenever you get hit with an attack, you can use your reaction to half the damage you’ve taken.

(Just to be clear, this is THE OPPOSITE of what she’s doing here)

6th level Rogue gains expertise in two more skills, Acrobatics and Survival will nicely fit the build so far.

7th Level Rogue gets Evasion, meaning that whenever an effect would call for a successful Dexterity saving throw to take half damage, you instead take no damage as long as you pass the saving throw. And Sneak Attack increases to 4d6.

8th and Final level of Rogue gains Ability Score improvement, you should be able to cap out Dexterity

6th Level Ranger gets boring extra favored enemy and favored terrain. 7th level is better, you get a Gloom Stalker feature, Iron Mind, which gains you proficiency in Wisdom Saving throws so that Count Vertigo won’t trap you in fantasies about Nightwing again. 

You also learn a new spell but honestly and Unearthed Arcana added few good ones. While usually, I’d go with Enhance Ability, Gust of Wind feels like a better fit for trick arrows theme - it’s a concentration for up to 1 minute and creates strong wind in 60 feet long and 10 feet wide radius in any direction you want (which you can change on each of your turns), removing gas and vapor from it, extinguishing all unprotected flames and having 50% chance on doing so to protected ones. Creatures in line move with half of their movement speed against the wind’s direction and on the beginning of their turn they must make a Strength saving throw or be pushed 15 feet away. Wind Arrow?

8th Level Ranger gets an Ability Score Improvement, raise your Wisdom. You also get Land’s Stride, letting you ignore the effects of nonmagical difficult terrain and advantage on saving throws against plants magically made to impede your movement.

9th Level Ranger gets to learn 3rd level spells. Chances are you might also want to replace some less than useful ones you picked so far, so I’ll list all best options here

Conjure Barrage lets you throw an arrow in the ait to make it rain arrows, dealing 3d8 damage to every creature in a 60-foot cone, half on a successful Dexterity saving throw. Less a trick arrow and more you replicating that time Ollie fired five arrows at different targets all at once.

Flame Arrows - concentration up to 1 hour to let you make your arrow deal extra 1d6 fire damage. Heated arrow, if that is a thing.

Lighting Arrow allows you to transform your arrow into a freaking lightning bolt, dealing target 4d8 lightning damage on a hit, 2d8 on a miss and whenever you hut or not every creature within 10 feet of it takes 2d8 lightning damage, half on a successful Dexterity saving throw. Electric arrow.

Gloom Stalker adds to this Fear - every creature in a 30-foot cone must succeed a Wisdom saving throw or become frightened of you for up to 1 minute (requires concentration) or on successful Wisdom saving throw granted if the affected creature loses the sight of you. Frightened creatures drop whatever they’re holding and must spend their turn taking dash action to move away from you, if they can. “I Borrowed a Page From Scarecrow’s Book” Arrow.

10th Level Ranger gains another favored terrain and Fade Away from Unearthed Arcana, which once per short or long rest allows you to as a bonus action become invisible until start of your next turn.

11th Level Gloom Stalker gains Stalker’s Fury - from now on once on each of your turns if you miss an attack you can make another one as a part of the same action. Meaning if one of your 3 attacks with advantage and auto-crit won’t hit, you can just add another one to it.

Our Captsone is 12th level of Ranger, letting us cap that Wisdom.

You are Rogue 8/Ranger 12, let us consider the pros and cons of this build. First of all, you go first. With +10 to initiative (+15 with Alert) you plain and simple go. First. You go first and someone dies when you put three arrows in them and throw a fist full of d6 and d8 dice at the DM. With Sneak Attack, Dread Ambusher, Hunter’s Mark, advantage on attack rolls, automatic critical hits and an ability to reroll a failed attack because you can deal from 2 to 4 d8 + 10d6 damage. Second, you have multiple ways to ambush or sneak upon your enemies and make sure they do not sneak up on you. Finally, Hail of Thorns, Fear and Lighting Arrow give you something against a group of enemies.

Now for the cons. First of all, you’re pretty much a one-trick-pony, focused on taking an enemy down fast, before they can even act.You drop someone on the first turn but are not that effective on the next ones and DM can quickly learn to simply add more enemies to every encounter. Second, your Constitution is not that high and both your HP and Concentration are lacking, while you need the latter for many spells and the former...you’re not within the Power Word: Kill range, but a single attack could drop you there. You also deal piercing damage and even the alternate types of damage you can deal are ones that many high-level enemies will have resistance or immunity against. Finally, you are all about stealth so you may not work well with a group more about full-frontal attack. But you still work best with a team. Be it Team Arrow or Teen Titans, you are most effective when you keep your distance and support first-line fighters with deadly strikes. Remember, you took down the world’s deadliest assassin when he was preoccupied with Robin.

Suggested choice of partner to team-up with.

ALTERNATIVES:

If your stats are good enough you can max DEX and WIS with just 4 Ability Score Improvements, consider 2 levels of Fighter to gain action Surge - suddenly your 3 attacks in first round become 5 and you can still pick second fighting style without taking Weapon Master feat.

If you want to sacrifice your stronger trick arrows to be stealthier or deadlier, consider replacing 4 levels of Ranger with Monk - you gain unarmored movement, add Wisdom to your Armor Class, get an unarmed strike to defend yourself in close-combat. Pick Way of the Shadow for a set of spells that make you stealthier. 

If you want to say fuck off to the trick arrows aspect completely, be Rogue 8/Ranger 6/Monk 6 and pick either Way of the Kensei, letting your arrows become magical and allowing you to spend ki points to add even mroe damage to them or Way of Shadow for freaking teleport.

Mind you, do not pick Way of the Kensei for 4 levels of Monk, you can only add 1d4 to your ranged damage for a bonus action and Hunter’s Mark and Hail of Thorns just do it better.

You have any suggestions of criticism? Or maybe a character you would like to see turned into a D&D build? Always open to constructive criticism or ideas.

ERRATA: Since the publications for new class options from Unearthed Arcana I have updated the build to include them.

- Admin

[meddows-theblondebastard]

Cocky Teaser (70s!Roger Taylor Imagine)

If you came across this imagine, don’t forget to comment or heart it if you like. Feedback is really helping me and giving me the power to continue what I’m doing. Hope you’ll enjoy your reading!

Also posted on AO3.

Warnings: teasing, we all like teasing, don’t lie to me, swearing and I think that’s all, ha. 

Additional details:  → Action taking place in the mid 70s or so.

                                         → 70s!Roger Taylor is how was in my mind writing this, but you can also imagine BoRhap!Roger Taylor.

                                         → There is going to be a part two coming soon. :)

PLOT: It’s nothing new for you. Just Roger Taylor being a cocky teaser in a live interview when he’s asked about the two of you. After all, could you ever complain?

                                                        Imagines

(Credits to Mel for the picture on Pinterest.)

After a hot, almost one hour long shower, you wrapped yourself in the blanket of your bed and turned the TV on. You are wearing fluffy pajamas and can’t feel any trace of cold air brushing your warm skin. The feeling is very satisfying. You let your wet hair hanging loosely over your shoulders and it smells like freshly green apples while you’re doing the channel surf. Roger texted you fifteen minutes ago to tell you that the interview will begin in a short time. Your phone almost slipped between your fingers in the water while you tried to read that message, but it turned out okay. So now, you actually found the right channel on which the interview would be broadcast and you are waiting for thr boys to be live. You wanted to watch this, Roger, Freddie, John and Brian will talk about the album they’ve just relased and it is very nice to see it. They are funny and full of jokes on TV, just like they are face to face. You thought about going to grab a snack or something to drink, but it was too late when you heard the show intro and saw the presenter. Watching carefully and already entertained, you remained on top of your bed, knees pressed against your chest.

„... As we announced last week, here we are tonight with the Queen herself.” The young women did the introduction gesturing toward the four men sitting on a couch and the camera was immediately focused on their faces. They already seem amused.

„Hello everyone.” They greeted and added something about how nice it was to be there.

„You seem very ready, what keeps you all so energic?” The beginning was always long and in slow-motion and still you had to wait until they would start the real talk. Your eyes were mostly on Roger and how he was reacting to everything. He had the usual messy, blonde hair hanging freely on his shoulders, wore a black, slightly unbuttoned shirt with matching color jeans and last but not least, a soft smile on his lips. That aspect made you smirk unwittingly.

While one after the other, each of them began to answer questions about music, future plans and concerts, you turned the volume up and searched for the brush to comb your hair. While doing that, you could hear their voices and how they would laugh ocasionally at the presenter’s choice of words. You have always appreciated that about them, how they were so natural and honest, not even trying to give tons of details to ruin future surprises. Or personal things. They are smart, classy and modest.

„Roger, may I ask you an innocent question? It’s for purely wise purposes.” Said the woman, putting her hands on the table she was sitting at. Roger was already on position and you became suddenly more concentrated than you were five minutes ago.

„Only I get to decide that, darling.” He says, but he isn’t concerned, he has a nice expression as always, trying to make everything be more true, if it was even possible. „But of course, I wouldn’t mind at all. What is it?” He continued. He’s a well-bred person, you can say, but if you reach too much of his territory – that strictly in a personal manner – he can become very observant. Distant and a little bit rude even. You got to know that about him within the time spent by his side.

„We’re all aware of the fact that you’re spending time with Y/N. You and her seem pretty close to each other, right?” Your eyebrows raised when you heard the words coming out from the woman’s mouth. Wasn’t that something too personal to ask? It is obvious that those people want to know, but is it necessary this way? Is it even polite? You sit on the bed again, your eyes being stuck on the TV’s image.

Roger didn’t even seem surprised when he heard that. He didn’t look pissed or confused, instead, he grinned. What? What is he doing?

„May I ask too, what are you trying to say?” He says.

„Oh, I bet you know it already! How are you two in terms of a relationship?”

This woman is a little too excited about that kind of detail.

„We are trying to figure that out too. It was last year when she started to study at Medical College while Roger himself was finishing it.” Freddie added, smirking in the blonde one’s direction.

„Is that so?” The presenter asked.

„Yes, mostly.”

„Oh my God.” You managed to whisper, shaking your head. He’s doing it again. Again.

„Are you two good friends?”

„We kind of fight whenever we get the chance, but otherwise, yeah, we get along pretty well. She has little interesting things in her character, it gets catchy to be around someone like her.” Roger details, looking like he was in deep thoughts. You can see the rest of the boys slightly giggle at him and the woman who asked all of this stuff seemed too content with what she was receiving.

Roger has a point. Anyway, thinking about the bound between you two is surely strange. Because you never understood how things were happening and never wanted to overthink just to make a sense. You two weren’t the absolute perfect definition of the word ‚friends’, it was always a middle point in which no one was getting closer and no one drifted away. Last year, you remember what it was like to be a proud student at Medical College. Your first days were so full, you barely had time to take breaks or meet new people. Roger was studying dentistry and came out of nowhere when you were trying to figure out your classes and where were they located. It is a big school and he helped you and said that you look new around there. He explained you almost every single detail you needed while you asked him who he was and what was his name. You would laugh right now. He couldn’t stop staring at the height difference between you two. Later on, he would’ve made fun of it without any problem. He was twenty-three that time and you were twenty. You would see him in lunch breaks and around the campus carrying different documents with him and being particularly distracted. He would’ve often offered to hang out with you in your free time, including weekends, so as you and him got to know each other. He’d told you that he’s having little performances with this band of his, in small locations around the town you were living in and one day he even got to invite you to one. From the start, Roger was a mysterious kind of guy, choosing his words with caution whenever he spoke. He was funny and always managed to have a small grin drawn on his thin lips. He is a skilled drummer, he has that spark in his eyes while he talks about music and you could always see how much he enjoys singing and playing instruments on stage. He even told you that he would’ve dropped college for a music career when both of you became comfortable enough in each other’s company. Luckily, he doesn’t have to worry about that anymore now; after settling everything with Queen, the boys get more and more recognition, they are working on the upcoming album, planning tours and … Roger’s been privileged lately.

This interview seems to be in his favor. He doesn’t avoid certain questions and isn’t afraid to speak about you, since it is clear how was it between you two. And he definitely knows that you’re watching, that’s why he has this kind of reactions.

„How well do you get along, if so?” The presenter’s voice is heard again, but you’re not so concentrated on her anymore. You watch Roger and how the boys react to his words. He shakes his head and laughs a little, then he shifts a bit on the couch.

„Honestly, she wouldn’t like me to answer this question, but I hardly ever listen to what she says. She gets red in the cheeks or starts to talk fast and all that. All we do is tease each other. Anyone of us is going to say anything.” You couldn’t believe what you heard. Actually, you could, it is just out of blue in Roger’s case. Why is he still blabbering about you? Live. While not only you yourself, but a lot of people are watching. Your relationship with him needs to be a thing of yours only.

Oh, you know him. You know him enough. He enjoys to piss you off, although it’s rare when you really do that.

„So you mean she’s watching us right now?”

„Yeah, she is.” He answered. „Hello there, Y/N.” He waved at the camera and on your TV’s screen, that was a hilarious moment. Damn.

You let yourself fall on your back on the bed, hands on your forehead and feet cold. A weak smile appeared on your lips suddenly and it was awfully wrong. No, don’t do that. You’re being a fool and you will never let Roger Taylor fool you. You were almost as good as him at this aspect. You played each other before, it is normal by now, but your ego needs to be fed. You don’t give a fuck about how that looks like, Roger doesn’t care either when it’s a win-win thing. He’s too full of himself sometimes. Well, you weren’t the kind of person to take that as it was. It was something in the air, you could say, you felt that numerous of times. And you will test that, just as Roger likes to tease you. Because he was a cocky teaser since day one. When he hangs out with you, when he’s drumming and you’re watching, when he makes you dress like him, when he gets both of you drunk … these are just a few of those moments. They’re memorable, but they show just a little part of you and him. There’s a lot more.

„We should really let these freaks alone. They’re special in their own way and you can’t understand that. Believe me, we can’t either.” You heard Brian’s voice but didn’t mind to look back at the TV.

„We can. Instead of that, we chose not to, because they might as well kill everyone around them with just a single glare.” John added and somehow, he was right. The woman laughed.

„Haha, good to know then.”

The rest of the interview was forgotten in a moment. You couldn’t concentrate on it anymore and chose to lay on the bed, underneath the blankets. But because you didn’t want to be rude, you let it finish by itself and after that, you turned off the lights and the TV and tried to sleep. Your phone buzzed somewhere in the room, it was Roger for sure. With a cunning smile on your face you ignored the sound.

You were both teasers.

                                                              *

The next morning, you still didn’t respond to his text. But he didn’t insist. After you woke up and ate your breakfast, you dressed in your already common black jeans, white T-shirt and leather jacket, tied your Y/H/C hair up in a not-so-neat ponytail and looked into the bathroom mirror. You never apply make-up, it’s not something you’d prefer so much. Some people along with your mother and some friends told you that you have beautiful features and that you don’t need any trace of make-up on your skin. You decided to believe that for good because it was actually true, though you never really appreciate details like these ones. Brian, John, Freddie and Roger used to compliment your clear skin when you would catch them staring at you. Besides Roger, who would try to look careless but smile after all when you would catch just a bit of him looking at you.

His house is almost an hour away and that’s a good thing right now. It would’ve been awkward to live close to each other and it would’ve gave him opportunities to try and visit you frequently. Or ‚check on you’, a comment which he used often to make you slap his shoulder or stick your tongue out.

Because you didn’t own a car, you had to simply walk the distance to Roger’s. It was good, you had the chance to think about what you needed to tell him, or how were you supposed to act. Last night, the thought of you two being  more than weird friends who fight and purposely snap at each other was the main topic which made you be convinced that your indifference and eventual avoidance doesn’t really exist. You enjoy Roger’s company, even with his ego, behaviour and way of speaking. He is the first new pal you met in your first year as a student and he made sure, somehow, to make that worth it. Your personalities fitted well. Sarcasm, dirty jokes here and there, subtle looks, crazy and loud nights with the band, bold music, trips, hangovers … As much as you could say, these boys made gold out of your most important moments going through a totally new level of your life. You took all that fun in, knowing that you need to welcome it in order to create memories and things to last. The dangerous feeling of the unknown never really pushed you away from anything and that’s why you and the blonde bud’ kind of clicked.

Needless is to say that you would never take that back under any circumstance.

As soon as you got in front of the house he lived in, you heard powerful bangs echoing all the way to the yard. Early rehearsals, that was it about. Roger usually does that on free weekends. You didn’t knock on the door because he wouldn’t hear a single thing. Instead of that, you just entered the house and went straight to the kitchen in order to reach the garage where he was. You went to the stairs passing the dishes in the sink and even from the top of them, the drums were so powerful for your ears. Slowly getting down, you could see Roger behind his drum kit. He has his eyes closed and big headphones on his head. You don’t make a sound while you remain in the back of the room, watching him. He’s always so concentrated while drumming. The veins on his neck look like they might explode in any minute and his hands move in fast motion. You like the image very much.

With one more hard bang, he stops, finally opening his eyes. He exhales and puts up a big smile dropping the drumsticks somwhere near him and taking off the headphones.

„Nice view.” You ‚welcome’.

„Thanks.” He answers and gets up from the little chair he was sitting on. He pulls on his hair with a hand, messing it a little. „You didn’t answer my text last night.”

„I didn’t, yeah. I fell asleep.”

„Oh.” He said, opening a bottle of water and taking a sip from it. „What did you think about the interview? ’You liked it?”

„No, Roger, I didn’t like it.” You answered, anger being visible in your tone. You crossed your arms to your chest when you got closer to him, looking between the drum kit in front of you.

„I see. Your eyebrows are already frowned.” He added like it was an accident or like it wasn’t something new on you.

„What was that about?” You started „It gets catchy to be around someone like her … . All we do is tease each other. You know, I figured that out already. You did that on purpose.”

„Y/N, are we going to make a scene out of that?”

„You won’t stop, right?” You weren’t pissed because his strategy got to your mind in no time. You grinned a little at him as he was about to open his mouth again. But he was anticipating you.

You moved closer to the drums and searched for the drumsticks. When you noticed them, taking them into your hands, you banged a cymbal. And then another. And another, trying to recreate the beat and sound of something Roger once thaught you. You are too curious sometimes and you definitely can’t keep that to yourself. The drumsticks feel so big in your hands, you’re not used to them and it seems odd to try and play like Roger. He’s too good at this for you and it is a strong point for him. No matter how anxious you were to learn more from him, his technique is quite difficult for you, it's an art that only he can hold onto so well and you think it's better this way. Noticing your attempt, he swallowed his words and watched how you moved your hands, somehow like a proud teacher eager to congratulate your progress. Only that, it wasn’t about progress here. You positioned yourself on the little chair, thinking about your next moves. You banged to the left and right and the beat was built-up pretty good. You were kind of proud while your eyes found Roger’s. Your breathing fastened and you bit your lower lip.

Roger suddenly came behind you, leaning down on his knees, eyes locked on your frame. These drums are hugging you, literally, because you are still a short person and the sight of you behind such powerful instruments makes him wanna clap his hands for you.

„Center.” He murmured and instinctively, you banged just above your knees. „A little bit longer to the right,” he continued, his deep accent lingering through both of your ears. „Then to the left.” Your hands did exactly what Roger said to you and knowing he was behind your back made you tense up. You straightened your back but the warmth of his body kept reaching to your skin through clothes. You felt his hands taking a gentle grip on yours and he started to guide your movements. A little more bold as you were before, along with your own hands he banged continously to the right, then center and to the left and then a cymbal to create the slightly slow beat of ‚I’m In Love With My Car’. You smiled to yourself but Roger’s breath was hitting your neck and that made you so damn distracted. Swallowing hard, you wanted to keep your body as strong as ever, not going to let him take control over you. A few more bangs and you stopped, making Roger step back, but not getting up. Anything could happen and it was very hard for you to think about it. You wipe your hands off your jeans and finally get up from the chair, but Roger has other ideas. When you turn to face him, kind of unprepared, he’s looking at you still being on his knees. His naughty hands go up you legs and he’s slowly getting up right now, resting his palms on your waist. You feel a strong pressure on your shoulders and in your chest. Roger is now, and again, taller than you, a fact which only gets on your nerves. You try to keep any specific expression away from your face with eyebrows still frowned.

He wants to do something, but he does nothing still. He is looking down at you and you won’t dare to look back. It’s about you two. It’s about teasing. It’s about everything and anything you never said to each other. Trying to explain things was boring, always boring for both Roger and you. You would just show up into the room with messed up hair, accelerated breathing, but you would never forget to smile or laugh. You would take his leather jackets and wear them in his spite. You would laugh in his face, scoff him, yell at him, punch him in the stomach playfully or stick your hands into his sweaty hair. You would argue with him about being too noisy, annoying and not too serious for his liking, but you wouldn’t have a care in the world because at the end of the day, he would still throw a hand over your shoulder to drag you closer to him. He is so, so stubborn. So heated up, so ready to knock you down just to help you get back up. He loves when you listen to his songs and drumming, he loves when you want him to learn you what he does, but in your own way, you are a little bastard. And since this feelings thing started to go on and off between you two, what you did was only to make him want to make a move just to back off shortly after that. And looking into your eyes right now, at your baby face and big, confused eyes … It was so fucking tangled. Roger could feel this in his whole body. It took a good amount of confidence to close the distance between you two. Your noses touched and you felt as nervous as you don’t even remember being before.Trying to kiss you, you lifted one drumstick up and shoved it lightly in his abdomen.

„What are you doing?” You asked, not being able to hide the smirk starting to form on your lips. Roger laughed a little and snatched the drumstick from your hand, throwing it on the floor. He wouldn’t answer. You waited. What he did was to cup both of your cheeks with his hands and smash his lips upon yours rapidly. Your breath stopped in your throat and you froze. Your eyes widened while looking into Roger’s whose weren’t still closed as you expected. You did that before. This wasn’t the first time kissing Roger, it was actually the first time it felt like this. The real first time you two kissed each other was when you were both shitfaced along with Freddie and the others and he asked Roger if he would ever just kiss you. He never even thought about it. He’s said yes and then kissed your lips sloppily, fast, just like a simple peck. You didn’t feel nothing back then, because it was nothing serious.

In this moment, his hands went to touch your neck slowly and his eyes closed. You relaxed a little, but still managed to breathe in a fast manner, too nervous to make a move by your own. The only thing you could do was to let him do whatever he wanted. At some point, he stopped, opening his eyes again, puffing cold air right in your face. He seemed unsure and somehow uncomfortable, like he was afraid that he forced the note. Oh, screw it. Just screw it.

You shook your head and places a hand at the back of his head, pulling him too close. You were the one who started the kiss this time, moving your lips and feeling a big tension building up in your stomach. You encouraged him to open his lips and then he was in control. His tongue reached yours in gentle motions, his hands finding their way back to your reddened cheeks. With fast breathing for both of you, he ended up hugging you tightly through the kiss, something which felt so unusual for the way he previously acted around you. Who would’ve thought Roger Taylor is such a sweetheart? A crazy, furious, but cute sweetheart?

The intensity of the moment almost killed you and when both of you stopped for air, your lips remained slightly parted.The first instinct that came to your mind was to slap him in the face. Then, looking into his eyes, you wanted to smile. No one was saying a word and staring was ridiculous. Roger tried to smirk, it was visible on his face, but footsteps started to be heard upstairs. In a blink of an eye, you backed away from the drums you were almost laying on while Roger looked down at his feet. This is stupid. It was stupid to let him kiss you. It was never a game and you were convinced that you could beat his own arrogances, but  now, that kiss softened you in a way which scared you. You hate the feeling.

„Did we interrupt something?” Freddie’s voice was heard in the room and when you looked in the stair’s direction, he was there with Brian and John.

„Hi boys.” You greeted them. „I didn’t know you were coming.”

„Roger invited us this morning. Hey, did you see the interview?”

„Yeah, it was funny.” You mumbled, not being in your scene anymore. Your lips were aching for a certain touch and that was beginning to piss you off. „I’ll leave. ’See each other around.” You announced and looked at Roger from over your shoulder. You could say he was analyzing you by his blue eyes glued on your body.

„Don’t you wanna stay? C’mon, we have to practice and you can watch and maybe sing with us!” Freddie added, smiling at you in a very sweet way. The boys were always excited to have you around when they were rehearsing.

„No, uh- … Maybe another time, okay? Good luck.” You wished them and then left the room. You could hear John whispering back: „What’s up with her?” to the others.

You wanted so bad to snap at Roger back there. But it wasn’t appropriate. It wasn’t okay and now you tend to overthink the situation. Really, what’s up with you? You don’t do this, you swore you would never overthink on Roger. Something burned in the back of your mind and you couldn’t name it. He would better explain himself quickly, you aren’t going to do this over and over again.

Thank you for reading! Thoughts? Are you excited for part two?

Read the other imagines that I posted if you still didn’t and don't forget that I accept requests!

xoxo, D.

[sisunotess]

Study tips! - 2017

Hi guys! These are the tips that I have for now, the truth is that they work quite a bit at the time of studying and I hope they do the same for you.

1.      Make summaries and/or schemas:

I’m a girl more of summaries than schemes (concept maps, or mind maps), but any of these are good to analyze, understand and remember better what one is studying at the time. I know that many people, like me, have the problem to put what they were studied in either of these two methods, for example, I’m not very good with the schemes, therefore I support more on summaries and to make them as small as possible, carefully not to forget anything about what I am summarizing; This is why I want to advise you that no matter how difficult and complicated it seem any of these methods, try it. Eventually, you will handled the way to do it and you’ll not realize when you will be all experts.

2.      Uses colors:

Yes, I won’t deny it, I’m 100% a girl of colors. I feel incomplete, weird, as if something will miss me when my notes do not have color, at least highlight my titles, I need it, it’s something that is a part of me.

Careful! Use colors doesn’t mean that our notes are freshly come out from a fairy oven and it looks like a rainbow, no. Use them, but sparingly, as fair and necessary to put your notes look cute and you can difference the titles of the rest, or the term of its meaning… and of course the most important thing, that are organized and clean so that when it comes the time for studying, you can understand everything.

More than for aesthetics, I occupy the colors in order to have a more dynamic vision in my notebook, allowing me to better understand, memorize better and above all to find what I want more easily. However, I won’t deny that I also like to have my notes beautiful and colorful, I say, who don’t like to have their notes organized and beautiful? To nobody.

3.      Organize your time:

Sometimes when we sit at our study site we spend hours on the same subject, without advancing in others that also we have to study, so to avoid these types of mishaps that make our work to study more heavy, because it leaves all for after, we must organize our time of study. Some occupy the “bullet journal" method for studies, others, the timer. I used the timer until I met a wonderful applications that help you concentrate and at the same time, takes your time. For example, we have a well known application called “Forest” which is available for both IOS and Android, with the difference that in Android you can download the free version, which in IOS is not yet available, but there are other applications that are similar to “Forest” that are free, such as “Be Focused”, an application that also helps you manage your time , where you can save time and designate them for return to them whenever you want, you also have the option to have breaks. The only difference between “Forest” and “Be Focused” is that the first you have the option of listening to sound of fund for greater concentration, while the second handles you only the time, without the option of background music. These two earlier applications are part of many more that you can find both Android and IOS (if you want, later I will let a post with a list of applications to study that I personally find the best of them).

To organize your time, you must rely on what you are studying, because it all depends on the amount of content. For example, in biology is usually much content, concepts or terms to memorize and understand, so I left a full hour to study everything and make sure that I understood. If the content is very complicated, I can add a couple of more minutes, but without passing me in the hour and a half, because you have to keep in mind that there are more to study.

4.       Explains what you studied:

That’s right, explain in your own words what you studied. This may be by voice or video recorder, the idea is that once you’ve explained everything in your own words you can hear the audio, and ensure that you’ve understood all or at least the vast majority. So you will see your failings and strengthen your weaknesses., correct your mistakes and learn from them. Personally, I recorded my voice explaining the best that I can what I’ve understood, and if I’ve doubts about having it explained well or have covered all, I send the audio to my friends or classmates, that way I can have a second opinion and make sure I have done well.

5.       Record your classes if possible:

If you need to take notes in a class, but for various reasons, are a - b or c, you can’t be able to complete them, I recommend that you carefully get your cellphone and begin to record the class quietly, and when you will be already at home can play the audio and complete your notes without missing anything.

Although, to tell the truth, I recommend over talking to your classmates and ask for

permission from the Professor, and then record the class, both in audio as an image. If the teacher still not authorized it (because it’s supposed to record the classes within an establishment is not allowed), can get a little rebellious and record, put your cellphone somewhere in the room where it isn’t seen. Sometimes be a little rebellious is not bad, it all depends on the reason why you are, right?

Carefull! This doesn’t mean that you don’t take notes in class or not pay attention because you are recording, if you don’t understand the class less you will do it through an audio or video, where you don’t have the support of your present teacher.

6.      Creates memory cards (flashcards):

Although it seems typical, they are quite effective. There is the option of to make them yourself or you can download any application that can make them, as for example Quizlet, an application that is available both IOS and Android. This will help to quickly memorize definitions of concepts, or important dates, people and their works, etc.

7.      Transfer your notes in order, rewrite:

If you are one of the people who, like me, prefer to make a draft of his notes, and then pass them in clean (rewrite them), you’ll know that this tip really works. I won’t deny that it is more work, but everything has its reward, isn’t it?

Personally I’m of people who have better visual memory, which read and write helps me to memorize better. Thus I memorize and order my notes, both at the same time. In addition, it said that rewrite is equivalent to five readings, I don’t know if that is true, but I at least feel that I memorize best rewritting, well in my time to study I remember things I’ve written and I can understand them better.

8.       Listen to music to concentrate:

The truth is that this tip is pretty ambiguous and personal, because it depends on each person. Many people can’t concentrate with noise, so they only can study in complete silence, and others simply cannot withstand be studying with so much silence. I’m of people who are in the middle.

For me is inevitable listen classical, instrumental music, rain, nature or just a relaxing study melody sounds. It helps me enough to concentrate and accompany me at the time of study. There are a variety of videos on YouTube with relaxing music, classical or instrumental music, or sounds of nature to study, as well as on Spotify playlists that are pretty good.

Personally, I listen to music when I do exercises such as mathematics or physics, and as for readings or review, normally I do without music or with one that does not have too much rhythm, as sounds of rain, wind, etc., to be able to concentrate.

9.      Search material of support:

If you feel that you still don’t understand the subject, either because it is very difficult or because you don’t understand your teacher, you can’t stay still and do nothing. You have to auto-teach you, learn and learn any other way what you are passing in classes.

For example, looking for videos that teach you what you are going through, search exercises online, Power Point presentations, PDF documents to help you supplement your notes or your knowledge. There are many channels on YouTube that can help you to study, as also pages with books, exercises, and documents about what you’re going. The idea is to find supporting material that will help you to understand what you’re learning in class, so to be able to reinforce.

10.   Stay away from your social networks:

I know that many of us it has happened that from being studying we went from one second to another to be checking our Instagram account. Best for these cases is to put the cell phone as far as possible, if needed elsewhere in your home (obviously, if you’re studying at home), and in airplane mode so that nothing interrupts your time of study. Now, to avoid entering your networks through the computer or laptop that you are using at the time of study, you can download applications that will block certain pages by a certain time, and once activated cannot be it reversed, yes or Yes you should spend that time so that the pages are unlocked. These applications exist for both Windows and Mac.

11.  Uses Post-it (sticky notes):

These help me to write down something that perhaps the teacher said in class and would not have seeing completely with the theme that we’re passing, or be any possible question test, any dimension, a concept that I don’t know.

12.  If you have any doubts, questions, ask:

As they say the teachers, or at least of my school, “There no are silly questions, only fools who don’t ask”. So, if you have doubts, ask. No matter if you make a mistake, you must solve all your doubts because that will help you better understand what you are seeing. If you are in classes and you don’t understand, ask, solve all your doubts with the professor, because once you get home to study you won’t understand almost nothing, if it is that it is absolutely nothing, by not having asked.

If you’re at home or out of classes, studying, grab your cell and ask your classmates. The idea is to clear your concern in one way or another.

Personally, I really like to be able to solve my doubts with my classmates, because in addition to answer all my questions, we can exchange notes, complementing our notes, we can learn new techniques to solve exercises, etc.

13.   Review constantly:

I know that the work of reviewing every day is quite heavy, but it works. It’s truth. At least in my experience constantly review has helped me be able to memorize better what are passing to me in classes, since the constant review helps to retain longer the lessons learned, and a day before the test it doesn’t need to study too hard, ‘cause everything I learned it was be engraved on the head, and just only a small study session will need. Therefore I recommend that when you get arrive home after school review your notes at least 15 minutes that day, and everyday, in that way you will retain in your head more time what they are seeing.

14.   Gets emails from your professors/teachers:

In my case, some of my teachers send us documents PDF or PPTs we use during their classes, to study and reinforce what we saw, as well as complement our notes. Course, I recommend that if you are still in school, you can put on agree with your classmates and create an email as a group so that way you will not have problem in contacting your teacher. This is 'cause in some schools have problems for contact their professors outside the establishment, and there are some schools that are quite strict in that area. If you’re in university, I don’t think that will be a problem to contact you through your personal email.

Carefull! Teachers are not always so cool, or so nice, to give you their mail, some of they put many excuses since in some schools the teacher-student ethics is fairly strict with contact outside the establishment, so they are usually quite reluctant to give them, especially if the teacher is handsome, so you have to prove that you are really interested in the material support and not in him, or in harass him (even while actually are haha, the key is prove otherwise 😉).

15.  Lean on your textbooks:

Many times in our schools deliver us books of the subjects that we will see that year (either whether we should buy them or they are delivered by the same school), and either that the professor uses them little or nothing within classes, we must have in mind that the book yes serves us and helps, or at least the vast majority of them because it is a support material that contains descriptions, images and vocabulary, and to answer key in some, that helps us to know in what we were wrong (for example, the books of mathematics, following exercise can confirm your answer with the solution key), this can serve when you are studying for a test, and also the test obviously. So it is best to always bear in mind that texts that give schools if you serve, independent of whether the teachers based their class in them or not, there will always be material that will help you to complement what you taught the teacher in class.

16.  Have a fixed study site:

To study well and be able to focus without any impediment, we need a fixed and comfortable place. This place has to be clean, orderly, and as much as possible wide (extended desktop), so we can have all our scope and not deconcentrate us to go for something that you need or miss. The best thing is study in a desk in your room, or in the table of dining room of your house, but is completely forbidden study in bed, as to be overly comfortable us enters laziness and sleep, interrupting our study session, and practically ensuring a long nap.

17.  Keep a schedule of fixed study:

Personally, I’m kind of people who aren’t very organized when it comes to schedules or events. Simply plans and me not get along very well, but I don’t deny that for a time I tried it, being constant in my moment of planning what to do later (in my bullet journal) and I found it quite beneficial. Apart from planning everything and organize my time, and comply with what I should do of course, I could see the progress of my studies, but as I said the plans and I don’t we get along very well. But that doesn’t prevent that recommend you organize your time, plan what to do, and between that define a time of day that is dedicated only to study. It can be in the afternoon after school, can be in the morning before going to school, or can be at night before going to bed, no matter the time, what matters is that you should defined a time to study and you can’t move that time, this will help to discipline your brain and accustom him that in this period of the day must be aware, attentive and concentrated to absorb everything, of course without forgetting small breaks in the study session. Over time you’ll see the results, giving you features that you do better absorb the information, that in that period of time your brain will be more attentive to what he reads or exercises, so you can understand much better than before.

+ Bonus: Organize your times. For this, the best is do the technique of bullet journal, you can also go to the planner, but personally I like the BJ more, although like I said, I didn’t last long because a I’m really bad in planning constantly, but during the time I did it worked perfect, so I recommend that even if you are just as bad planning constantly, like me, try it. Who knows? Perhaps you become experts in the bullet journal.

Regards! 😄✌💕

{Photos: Pinterest and Google]

[trevorgjmm235-blog]

Why You Never See A Music That Actually Works

Motivation helps to ensure that things get done knowning that first work is followed up by additions, revisions, and expansions. Songwriters can get caught inside the trap of falling in love with the initial draft, deeming it eternally great and unchangeable. When the song is heard objectively later, there could be silly lyrics which don't correspond with each other, if not the chords and melody are lazy and seem like some other three-chord wonder. Blues and country music are often suffering from the restrictive nature in the basic chord pattern, except when you'll find skilled instrumentalists involved who can fill inside gaps with other elements including adding several minor chords, key changes, inversions, major seventh chords, and changing the number of beats in a bar. When a country song uses three chords, there are only several melody options, and they have all been used many, many times before with the exact same resolve to the end of the verses and choruses. The resolve about bat roosting songs invariably wind up with the root note with the key signature. That limits the melody possibilities for any unique work.

If technical terms baffle those not schooled in reading score, rest assured that receiving a good song structure doesn't require tremendous knowledge or training. Keep a book of chords taking place, and possibly a rhyming dictionary for reference in case you are confused for words. Those people who are trying to write songs must clever by definition; they're already armed with influences, favorite styles, as well as the wish to create original material. If you're in a computer, you'll find many free services about the Web supplying everything from scales to some digital metronome. For the purpose of this short article, the assumption will probably be the songwriter is using an instrument or piano to compose the song.

Where will the seed be found? I will use some examples from my own experience. At first, the well-known first theme would be to express your love for someone real or imagined, as well as to pine over a lost love. Ballads are really simple to write and perform, and that was my logical kick off point. The songs were slow and sappy ? full of exaggerated emotions that got magnified from just what the feelings were originally. I discovered lush major diminished chords that dominated the sound and allowed to get a good melody to get suggested, nevertheless the temptation to make use of a lot of minors or diminished chords can make the song overly-sleepy and amateurish. If you strum the same chords frequently you risk putting your listeners in a coma.

I was writing some mediocre songs a long time ago in Boston, making notes as I rushed around, after which settling down in a coffee shop to start the initial line. It doesn't matter if you start from the 1st word of the 1st line or if you work backwards, thinking about a rhyming word that might result in the second line sound right to see the storyline. My normal way of writing is that this: latch onto a phrase from my thoughts, take a moment and write two verses along with a rough idea of what sort of chorus might start. Personally, I do the words first, and they also supply a suggestion of your melody. The next step is usually to put everything aside and soon you will get for your instrument and work it out. Recall the bits of melody how the lyrics suggest, and discover the true secret that will fit your vocal range in this melody.

When I developed writer's block in Boston, I hitch-hiked to Newburyport Massachusetts and met a lot of people who let me stay at their empty cottage sailing. I thought that the seclusion and wistful cloudy setting would help me write masterpieces as I sat wrapped in the blanket searching in the ocean. The effect was just the opposite; I couldn't think of an single thing to write about, with out melodies will come to me through the weeks I stayed there. Without activity taking place around me, there were a lull within the creative process and I drew a blank.

Rock music is dependant on the three-chord pattern with the Blues in leading or seventh chords. The Blues turnaround is a basic two bars scaling down in the root note on the seventh, that's, a song inside key of G will resolve its run and turn out for the D chord, seven semi-tones up from the root G note. In Rock, the pattern of three chords might be expanded to feature other major chords. Put simply, greater chords inside a song, greater room you need to form a unique melody. A necessary portion of Pop or Rock music is named the bridge, which provides listeners a break from the verse-chorus, verse-chorus structure. The bridge will relate musically towards the main melody, but expand into it with assorted chords, a rise to your higher melody line, or even a key change. Key changes have to be written for them to integrate seamlessly back into the original step to begin the next verse or the refrain. There's also the choice to be inside the new key until the end in the song.

Structure is normally create as two verses, then your chorus ? also know as a refrain. After the second chorus, a band is going to do instrumental solos and go into the bridge, then on the last verse and refrain. An ambitious composer may wish to extend the song to more verses. To get away from the ballad style, force yourself to concentrate on upbeat chord changes and look for lines that might be considered universal. Laziness or convenience lead to songs that repeat words like "baby" and phrases including "all my heart", "until the end of time", or "in my dreams". I once wrote a song to rid all future songs from the term "baby" and referred to it as "Baby, You've Been Cancelled", a comedy send-up of country music. You can hear some pop songs where "baby" could be the only word within the song that might be constructed. Some people just have not even attempt to say and earn word sounds to fill within the singing. Other songs have words and lines which don't mean anything when used in combination (see "Whiter Shade of Pale" by Procul Harum). Even the band America admitted that this words to at least one of the most popular songs, "Ventura Highway" were just a smattering of rhyming words that sounded great while using music, but had no meaning. The "alligator lizards in the air" were a handy rhyme to "seasons crying, no despair" but had an understandable not enough meaning. I still love the song in addition to their live show, even if they crossed the desert with a horse without having name. Water will be a more urgent need, but water doesn't rhyme with anything. They thought we would rhyme "name" with "rain", and after that "name" again, then "pain". You can't argue which has a hit song, the ones lyrics can't be changed 'cause they're inside the hall of fame with the rain as well as the pain as well as the name with the sane brain gone lame inside game ? I claim there's no one to blame whenever you can't ride the tame train with all the creative flame. Where's that rhyming dictionary?