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btsslowburnfic · 4 years

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The Arrangement Chapter 5

Series Summary: Desperately in need of money, you answered the questionable ad. AKA-Arranged marriage AU featuring Y/N and Yoongi.

Chapter Summary: You go to BigHit for your second interview and are surprised to learn the client is a familiar face.

Author’s Note: TY everyone for reading <3 I am here for the awkward flirtation in this chapter XD

Previous chapter here ---------

You returned to your jobs for the next few days without hearing anything. On Tuesday you received an email **Google Calendar invitation: Audition/Final interview. Very Personal Assistant. BTS Corporate Accept/Decline**

You found yourself strangely nervous as you prepared for the interview. You didn’t actually think you would get this far. You picked out a basic black dress and some cute flats for the day before you left the house. Personal assistant/girlfriend/wife wasn’t exactly a job you had interviewed for before. You found it difficult to focus at your desk all morning; your stomach doing flip-flops. Would you be meeting with Dimples...er...Namjoon again or would you be meeting the client? You had said you didn’t care what the guy looked like, and that was true, but you would like to meet a person and speak to them before making such a big commitment. Before you knew it, the time had come. You hopped onto the subway and headed for the middle of the city.

You entered the BigHit Building with sweaty hands and were waived over to the front desk where a Security guard verified your information. Your throat was so dry you had difficulty answering basic questions. Great. You headed over to the elevator. As you were waiting for it to come down you noticed a tall man wearing a baseball cap stride confidently into the building and right past security. He walked over to the elevators and stood next to you. You glanced up at him. Holy shit that was the famous model, V. You quickly looked back at the elevator door. You had totally forgotten that models worked here. I guess If I end up working here stuff like that is just normal, you thought to yourself. The two of you entered the elevator.

“What floor?” He asked, his voice deeper than you would have guessed. You had only seen him in print ads, although you knew he had done some commercials as well.

“22nd please.” You willed your voice to stay calm. How dare a super gorgeous model invade your space and make you nervous when you were already nervous.

“Me too,” he flashed a smile. A very cute smile that made him almost look like a little kid. He turned back to face the doors saving you from making any awkward small talk.

The ride lasted about a minute, with a few other people entering and exiting. By the time you arrived at the 22nd floor it was just the two of you again. V was a gentleman and gestured for you to exit before him. You did, but then you had to pause and decide which way to go. You looked for a directory.

“Namjoon’s office is on the right, Jin’s is on the left. And since Jin is out of the country, I’m guessing you’re on your way to Namjoon’s.” V said as he strolled off the elevator and to the right.

“Thanks.” You follow him. “I am meeting with Mr. Kim today. I appreciate the directions.”

“Any time. Hey Jimin.” he said as the two of you entered a wide open area with couches, window views, and a large reception desk. A man who also looked like he could be a model was sitting there, his blonde hair styled absolutely perfectly. “Hey V.” He responded without looking up.

V looked over at you with a grin, pointing to Jimin, then shrugged his shoulders . He found this situation funny. You walked over to the desk. “Umm Excuse me. "

Jimin jumped back in his chair, very surprised. “Shit. where did you come from?”

“I’m so sorry,” you said, covering your mouth with your hands. V laughed in the background. “We got off the elevator at the same time. You must not have seen or heard me.”

“V. You did that on purpose!” Jimin shouted around you, pointing his finger. V cackled and had a seat on one of the sofas.

You were beginning to apologize again when you heard the office door open. You all froze.

“What the hell is going on out here?” Namjoon asked, one hand still on the door. “[Y/N] I should have known.” Jimin turned around surprised that his boss was speaking to you so rudely and casually. “Get in here,” he gestured to the door opening. Jimin opened his mouth to try and explain the commotion, but you were already on your way to the door.

“Oh my God I’m here for an interview, not to get called into the principal’s office.” You responded as you passed Namjoon and into his office.

Jimin and V both stared at each other, determined not to laugh.

Namjoon stood there with an irritated expression. “Always. Always with the mouth.” He said as you walked through the door. He looked back, “Jimin, hold my calls until I tell you.”

Jimin nods. The minute the door shut he and V started to wheeze while trying to laugh quietly.

V walked over to the desk . “Who is that?”

“They’re interviewing assistants for Yoongi. The other girl left half an hour ago.” Jimin pauses for a second, “I can’t believe I yelled "shit" at her.”

V laughed again. “She doesn’t seem like the type to be easily offended. So she’s probably a perfect assistant for Yoongi.”

“That’s true.” Jimin agreed.

On the other side of the door you were still congratulating yourself on your quip against Namjoon when you were surprised to see a familiar face. It was the guy who left his headphones behind last week. Today he was dressed nicer, wearing jeans and a shirt with a vest. His hair was longer than you would have guessed, now that it was free from the black baseball cap. You felt your heart begin to speed up even more.

You had gotten so caught up in accidentally scaring the poor receptionist and messing with Namjoon you had forgotten you were nervous. A fact that you were very much aware of at this exact moment. Your hands were wet and sweaty again and your throat became dry.

“[Y/N] this is music producer Min Yoongi. Aka Suga. Aka the client.” Namjoon gestured to the shorter man and then walked around to the other side of his room, taking a seat at his desk.

You stand there for a few seconds, taking it all in, and then remember that you are being interviewed. You force something out, "Hey there stranger."

He smirked, “Hey. Welcome to round 2 of the interview I guess.” He sounded almost shy. Which didn’t match his facial expression.

“Thanks. Are you our chaperone? " You called over to Namjoon who was sitting there barely paying attention to the meeting and scrolling through his phone

" Something like that. Pretend I’m not even here.”

"OK. Well it's nice to officially meet you, Min Yoongi. I'm Y/N. I'd shake your hand but mine are so very sweaty. " You said before you were able to censor yourself.

You heard Namjoon sigh as your lack of decorum. Yoongi just continued on as though everything was normal.

"You as well.” He put his hands in his pockets and rocked on his feet slightly. “First of all, do you have any questions for me?"

You weren't expecting the interview to begin like that. But there definitely were some questions you had about all of this.

"Ooo I get to interview you? This is unexpected.” You paused for several seconds, pursing your lips together in thought, “Ok. I got it! First question: You're good looking. You seem nice enough. I’m guessing you have a pretty good job if you’re working here, so….what's wrong with you?

Yoongi stood there for a minute with his mouth open. To your surprise, he responded in a whiny voice," Why would you ask me something like that?" He sounded much younger and more casual than he had before and started to rub the back of his neck.

He turned back to Namjoon, “You weren’t kidding.”

Namjoon just raised his eyebrows, still scrolling.

You scoffed," You told me to ask you questions. An arranged marriage was your first choice? Really?"

Yoongi tried to play it cool. He had come up with his BigHit-sanctioned backstory. "Namjoon, where did you find this girl again?” You couldn't tell if he was joking or not.

"I picked her up in a bar. I warned you. You pulled her resume," he said almost bored. "Although it is refreshing to have her go after someone else for a change."

You rolled your eyes. "Why tell me to ask you questions if you didn't want to answer them?"

Yoongi shrugged, ready to sell the lie. "It makes sense. I gave a list of what I liked and the agency picked you. I'm busy. I'm not interested in dating, but due to circumstances beyond my control I am in need of a long term companion. Someone to attend events with me, travel with me, etcetera etcetera. You read the job description. "

"You want someone to act like your girlfriend?" You asked. Yoongi pulled at his shirt sleeves and hesitated for a moment.

He didn't actually want any of this bullshit, but for the sake of his career and with Namjoon sitting right there, he didn't have a lot of options. He took a deep breath. "Yes. That. I mean a wife would be ideal so we could just skip over all that courtship nonsense."

A dry laugh escaped your lips, "A true romantic. I'm touched, really." You realized the two of you were both still standing. This was by far the strangest interview you had ever been on. "I'm curious as to what your desired qualifications were outside of liking music and a proficiency in Microsoft Word."

Yoongi paused for a minute, feeling his cheeks blush a little. Surely a little honesty wouldn't hurt. "Ahhh well you see, I can't reveal all of that to you. But you definitely stood out in the interview process.”

You smirked. "Really? What stands out about an average-looking girl that curses too much and drinks waaaay too much shitty coffee?"

"Shitty coffee wasn't on the list but surely you met most of my criteria or you wouldn't be here." He cleared his throat. "Now it's my turn to ask some questions. Let's start where you did: tell me, what's wrong with you?"

You fidgeted slightly. You sure as hell weren’t going to go into the whole situation with Suho. "My parents are gone and left me and my younger siblings with no money. We're living in a cramped apartment with my aunt and niece. I want to send my sister and brother to school and I want my brother to not have to sleep on the floor or couch every night.” Your honest answers flooded out of you, “I didn't think this offer was real. I figured it would be some weird sex pervert thing or something illegal but I figured it couldn't hurt to go to the interview since it was at a Cafe."

To your absolute shock he responds, "Who says I'm not some weird sex pervert?" He swipes his lips with a tongue.

He had seemed almost shy until about two seconds ago. You kept the same expression you had been wearing. Two could play that game. Your years of bartending made you fluent in flirting. You shrugged your shoulders nonchalantly, "Guess we'll find out on the wedding night. I need to get back to work soon. Do you have any more questions for me?"

Yoongi was still slightly shocked by the last exchange the two of you had had and he just shook his head.

Namjoon got up from his desk. " Good, I can’t take much more of you two lovebirds discussing your future sex life. Well if that's all, you're free to go. We'll be in touch."

You picked up your bag and looked over at Yoongi who was looking down and blushing (?!). "I'd say it was nice to meet you but honestly it's just been really fucking weird."

He laughed and you noticed he has a very unique smile, full of small straight teeth and the tiniest bit of his gums. Cute. He looked back up, his cheeks still a little pink. "I guess if it works out I'll have my people call your people."

You smiled back, "Yeah, yeah something like that. See you later. Or never again. Bye"

“You’re not supposed to say the word “fucking” in a job interview Tokki, what the fuck is wrong with you?” Yoongi heard Namjoon scold you on the way out the door as he closed it behind him.

You pouted your lips, “Whatever. I think Mr. Min liked it. And are we back to nicknames again Asshole?I thought we were trying to keep it professional here.”

He rolls his eyes but you can tell he’s trying not to smile. “Oh my God just leave. I’ll email you more information soon.”

You looked around and found the reception area empty with a little "out of office" sign on the desk. You had wanted to apologize for the interruption earlier. Oh well. You realized that Namjoon had told you he would be emailing you. And you had definitely got a good vibe from the interview, as weird as it had been. You got onto the elevator. You decided you would need to at least tell your Aunt soon about the job you might get so she wouldn’t be totally blind-sided if you moved out.

-----------------------

"So…" Namjoon asked as he re-entered his office, "Were either of those ladies tolerable? I mean… I know the second one isn't really tolerable on a good day but it seemed like it went well.”

"Yeah. Hire her. Thanks." Yoongi responded, trying to ensure his voice remained emotionless. "When is her start date?"

Namjoon was pleasantly surprised at how easy this part of the process is going. "If she accepts she could begin Monday, but she would probably want to give her other jobs two weeks notice, and she has to move. So realistically, two to three weeks"

"OK…" Yoongi said, coming to terms that this was actually happening.

"I'll draw up the paperwork and send it to her tomorrow and let you know." Namjoon replied. He realized this was the longest he and Yoongi had ever had a conversation without arguing about something.

"Yeah OK," Yoongi headed towards the door. "Later."

Yoongi passed through the empty reception area and down to his studio. He put his head in his hands and sighed. So this was happening. Fine. [Y/N] seemed nice enough. Her heart was in the right place. She hadn't even mentioned herself when the reason she wanted the job came up. He could deal with this. He sat down at his computer to try and get some actual work done today. NEXT CHAPTER

@lidda @anpanman-sonyeondan @firefairy1 @cuteipat @sugaslittlekookies

#bts fanfic #bts fanfction #bts suga x you #suga x reader #suga x you #yoongi x reader #bts yoongi x reader #yoongi scenarios #bts yoongi #bts suga

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mirkwoodshewolf · 4 years

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The first sign; Jack Kline x reader

*Author’s note*

Hey guys well it’s been awhile since I updated my Rock angel series and for good reason too because here is where things get DARK!! As you’ll see in the taglist below I’ve started putting trigger warnings cause in this part it involves stalking, dog attacks (some people fear dogs so I wanted to be respectful). Now the next chapter after this will REALLY be insane so I hope you all buckle up cause you’re in for one hell of a ride.

Also face cast for Steve I put the gif for Joe Keery, and for the Rock Angel’s manager just look up actor James Woods (aka Hades from Hercules).

Taglist:

@plethora-of-things

@waddles03

@psychosupernatural

@ixchel-9275

@simonedk

@jd-johndeacon-or-jackdaniels

@queendeakyy

@queen-paladin

@queensdivas

@wormzteef

@geek-and-proud

@starswin

@onebigfangirlworld

@dj-lowkey

@naturalswifty89

@isabella-bby

@bohemiansweede

@5sos-wdw

@labessieisallama

_______________________________________________________

Everyone thinks it won’t happen to me, that I’m immune to such evil. No one thinks they’ll ever experience such a thing but you’d sadly be lying, or in complete denial. At least everyone goes through this type of evil at one point in their lives. And for celebrities, it’s a living hell because the world will only watch with a bucket of popcorn and enjoy your pain and suffering.

The only ones you can depend on are your family. And don’t ever say they wouldn’t understand because they will. Had I not told my family about what was going on—you know what fuck it they were forced into this. But even so if they didn’t know what was going on, this part of my story would’ve ended very, very, very, very differently.

*2 months after the tribute concert*

I hadn’t slept in a week. I was exhausted with trying to put the final touches on my tribute album for Freddie. My manager James Woods was really putting the heat on me with trying to get this album up so that I could ring in the money for him. Wait first let me backup just a tick and explain some things first.

When I first transferred out of EMI and went to Hollywood Records, my manager at the time was a man known as Desmond Roberts. He was a generous, kind man who saw my potential as a female musician and like Miami, pushed me to do my best. He was a family man as well; at the time he had become a grandfather for the first time at the age of 52.

But earlier this year he had to retire because it was by law of the company that all representatives must retire by the age of 65. With that my new manager was his young and vibrant VP James Woods. James is—well let’s just say he’d make a better car salesman than a recording manager.

A man born and bred in the heart of Boston, he’s the kind of man who sees his own vision and wants other people to execute it for him. Hell he’s even been pressuring me to go more into Pop music as that is the rising fame of music now. Artists like Madonna, Gwen Stefani, rising star Christina Aguilera, and Mariah Carey. He wanted to push me to going in their direction.

But I reminded him of my original contract that I signed on between Miami and Desmond. That my image was to never, ever, ever under any circumstances be changed. Yes he even tried to make me change my stage name into the Spicy Angel (yeah that didn’t sit right with me).

To put it frank—my current manager is a stubborn, two-headed, forked-tongue, snake in the grass. Sleezy, and can make some vulgar comments either towards me or some of my roadies.

But the one step he took too far was when he hired his own nephew to be my PA (he claimed that he was trying to help out his sister). At first I was against it but with that pleading and begging persuasionistic tone of his, for some reason I ended up agreeing and his nephew Steve Harrison became my new PA.

Steve Harrison. He was the same age as Jack, had deep brown eyes, a fairly handsome face, but his crown jewel was his hair. He always bragged and fussed about his hair. Brown and fluffed up beyond anything, like cotton candy. Silky and moosed to no end. Wow and I thought I was bad when it came to doing my air before a show.

Now Steve definitely knew his way around the recording station. Made sure that every song I recorded sounded to perfection, always sought to my every need, ensured that for upcoming tours I was given updates on the schedule, and he even took my calls and wrote them down for me. He kept his work profession throughout all of 1991.

But when the summer of 92 came around, things began to change.

As I said before, I hadn’t slept a week. The Freddie Mercury tribute album was taking longer than the company expected. That’s because I wanted to make sure every song, especially the cover ones that Fred had given me legal rights to do, were perfect.

I was at the controls listening to my version of Somebody to love when the door opened behind me.

“I would’ve thought her royal highness would’ve gone home?”

“Perfectionists never stop. I learned that from the best group of men I know.” He took the empty seat next to me and presented me with a cup of coffee. I softly thanked him and went back to listening to my song.

When the last vibrato rang out on the word ‘love’, Steve sighed and said.

“It’s beautiful.”

“It’s shit!” I complained. “God why did he give me such responsibility to do these songs I-I-I—not I’m even worthy to do his songs. At least not without him.”

“This version is the best. Better than I’ve ever heard it been played. In fact……I think you’re better than Freddie Mercury.” I snapped my head towards him.

“Freddie Mercury was and will always be a genius. His voice is unlike any other performer’s and his style of writing will forever go down in music history as the best damn thing the world will ever know! So don’t you ever say that someone is better than him. Especially me!” I shot up from the chair, it rolled back and slammed against the wall and I turned towards the wall with my arms crossed over my chest, and breathed heavily trying to calm down.

“I—I’m sorry. I was just speaking my opinion. I—didn’t know how much you cared about him. He…..must’ve really meant something to you.” He spoke softly.

“More than you’ll ever know.” I muttered as I fingered the bracelet Fred gave me as a birthday gift. “And I’m sorry Steve I—I didn’t mean to shout. I’m……just exhausted and stressed. With your uncle—”

“Hey, I get it. Uncle James can be a real pain in the ass at times.” I turned towards him and saw him standing a few inches away from me. “Hell one time when I was 16, I had asked him if I could take his mustang for a test drive and he told me ‘kid you so much as even leave a fingerprint you’re as dead as a doornail and I don’t care if you’re my nephew’.” The two of us laughed at his uncle’s impersonation.

“And I thought I was the only one with a douche uncle.”

“Oh trust me, you think he’s demanding at work? You should see him round the holidays.” I softly laughed. That’s when I felt his finger slightly graze against the back of my palm.

My heart stopped and that’s when I noticed that he had gotten a little closer to me. Closer and closer his face came but I quickly got out of his way and said.

“Excuse me, I gotta sign off this track and ship it off by tomorrow morning.” I grabbed Steve’s chair and went straight back into my work. As I was fiddling around with the switches and buttons, I could feel that he was standing right there beside me. I tried to ignore him and focus on my work but his lingering presence grew too much.

Like a moth to the flame. Silent but fluttering around too close.

I turned to say something to him, that’s when his lips suddenly crashed with mine. My eyes widened and my body froze for a moment before my brain snapped back into reality.

I pushed him away and slapped him across the face. Standing up and my chest heaving in so many mixed emotions, but the one main emotion going out about me was anger.

“What the fuck Steve!? Why did you do that!? You know I’m happily married and have children!”

“I—I’m sorry I just…..I’ve always been a fan of yours and I just….I’m sorry. Please don’t tell my uncle. You know as well as I do what he’s like. He’ll beat me to a pulp if he finds out. Please Angel I beg of you, don’t tell him.” His eyes going fearful and tears shined at the corner of his eyes.

I wish I could say that I told him that I was going to rat him out, have him fired even but—I didn’t. He’s right I did know what it was like to have an abusive uncle. Now while my uncle never really touched my physical, he did have his temper and would throw things at me just barely missing me (that mostly happened when he was on the bottle).

“Only if you promise me you won’t do shit like that again. And never speak of this to anyone.”

“I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die.” He said as he crossed his heart with his finger. I narrowed my eyes at him and grabbed my purse.

“Take the day off tomorrow. Then come back on Monday to work. Professionally.” I emphasized the last word and he nodded and I walked out without another word.

I wish I could take it all back. That I had fired him right then and there, if I had then what would eventually come, wouldn’t have happened. Or at least not gotten to the scale that it did get to.

*3 weeks after the kiss*

I was on the Late Show with David Letterman doing a television interview about the upcoming album as well as my tour coming later in the year.

“So Rock Angel your upcoming album ‘Fly High Mercury’ is said to be unlike your previous albums is that right? It also was the one that also took you the longest to make correct?”

“Yes it is.”

“Care to explain?”

“Well as you can tell by the title this is a tribute album to Freddie Mercury.” The audience applauded. I nodded and swallowed a lump in my throat. “Some of the songs are what I’ve written but another half of them are Queen songs that Freddie himself gave me legal rights to make a cover to. In fact they were some of my favorites.”

“Now how long did it take you to make this album?” David asked me.

“Well the songs I did, took roughly a couple of months but when—Freddie passed away I took a few months off to grieve and then as you all may have seen I was a part of the tribute concert so in total almost ten months.”

“Wow ten months.” I nodded. “And you said Freddie gave you the rights to some of Queen’s songs to cover?”

“Yes.”

“How did it feel to have that kind of pressure on you?”

“I’ll be honest it was tough. How-how do you compete with someone like Freddie Mercury? His voice and musical talents were unlike anything anyone’s ever seen or will ever see most likely. And when he asked me to do some of Queen’s works, particularly the songs he himself had written, I felt like I was going up against goliath and I was David. But—Fred has his reasons for why he does what he does, and—he must’ve felt like I could help embrace his memory further by introducing a new audience to some of Queen’s work, especially their earliest songs.” The crowd applauded.

“Well said, well said. Freddie will truly be forever missed. When we come back we have Kurt Russel joining us and then after that the Rock Angel will perform one of her hit songs from her recent album Fly High Mercury which is now available in stores. The Rock Angel (Y/n) Kline everybody!” the crowd applauded and David and I shook hands with each other as his theme song played us out on the commercial break.

I went backstage to change out from my black sequin interview dress and into some regular but dressy performance clothes. A black leather jacket, a white blouse, tight jeans, and some high-heeled black boots.

“Oh angel.” I internally groaned. Speak of the devil. James Woods soon came into my dressing room without a single care in the world (he’s lucky I’ve learned to do quick changes otherwise we’d have a problem). “Now darling please remind me again why you’ve declined Donald Trump’s hotel gig? He’s offered plenty of money for your performance especially since it’s his son’s birthday that day.”

“When I went to talk to him he also made me an offer I simply had to refuse.” I shuddered. “He’s a pig and an upright asshole with no respect for anyone but himself and his precious hotel business. God help us if he ever becomes President.”

“Fine. Instead of adding to the profit we would’ve gotten from this, we’ll take it out of your next pay how bout that?” I glared at him.

“You really wanna go toe to toe with me regarding money? Go ahead. Just know I’ve got the best lawyers in all of London on my side and they’ve been good to me for 10 years. So you better pucker your lips and do some serious arse kissing to the judge because they’ve won every. Single. Case I’ve ever had to do. From false stories to paparazzi stalking.” I stared him down even though I only came up to his chest.

Even through those cold, greedy eyes of his, I saw that he was afraid.

“Ahh court cases are a waste of time and a waste of profit. Now go on out there and give them a show baby cakes.”

“Never call me baby cakes.” I trudged out of my dressing room with my red special in hand and headed back towards the stage to sing my song.

After the show ended, I was back in my hotel room in Manhattan. I had just gotten done with my shower and soon coming into the room was Jack with some late night takeout.

“Chinatown special for the Rock Angel.” I smiled and splayed myself across the bed as he came toward me with the food.

“Mmm room service and a cute delivery boy. I am one lucky girl.”

“Well then Mrs. Kline, do I get a special tip for my services?” Jack played along with a grin. I smirked and placed my hand on the back of his head and brought his lips towards mine. His hands soon came to my waist as we separated but I kissed him again. Jack hummed in surprise. “A double tip? Well then, guess I need to be the delivery boy more often.” I giggled and took my food out of the bag.

“But serious babe, thanks for getting the food.”

“Hey no problem, anything for my beautiful rock star. I know that with your schedule firing back up, you don’t have time for a normal meal like we did before.”

“Did you call your mom about the kids?”

“Yep. Kids are safe and healthy. Well Little Jack had a slight fever but he was better within a day thanks to mama’s secret chicken noodle soup. I know that thing saved my life as a kid.”

“Well then she better……” a knock was soon heard at the door. Jack and I looked at each other confused. He stood up from the bed and answered the door. I held my robe tighter around me and soon I heard the door slam shut and Jack soon came in with a bouquet of a dozen roses. “Did you order those?”

“Nope. But I’ve got a feeling who did.” He turned as he glared to the room opposite of our suite.

Well of course I told Jack about the kiss. I know what it’s like to have been cheated on so there was no way in fucking hell I was gonna keep this a secret from Jack. As you can see he has not taken it well, in fact he’s grown very angry and jealous when Steve gets mentioned.

“Let me see the card.” He tossed the bouquet down on the bed. I sent him a glare and went to pick the card out and I opened it up. And low and behold it was from Steve. Even though it didn’t have his name on it, I recognized his handwriting anywhere. He wrote.

Fabulous performance (as always). A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

Your secret admirer and #1 fan

“You should’ve fired him.”

“Oh so you’re saying this is my fault!?” I snapped.

“No that’s not what I’m saying!” Jack snapped back at me. “I just…..” he exhaled deeply trying to release his anger. “I don’t trust him anymore. Not after what he did. In fact ever since he’s kissed you he’s been sending you a lot of stuff. The flowers, your favorite German chocolates, he even gave a teddy bear to our daughter! I’m telling you something about him now is just……” I walked up to him and embraced him.

“I know love, I know. I don’t feel comfortable around him too. But—he is James’ nephew and unfortunately he wants his sister to get off his back with this favor.”

“That shouldn’t matter! If he makes you uncomfortable you should just fire him and not even worry about what that sales talker of a manager tells you.” He is right. It shouldn’t have to go on like this but unfortunately the business world isn’t on my side when it comes to choosing my PA’s, I was thankful enough to keep my touring roadies and not get some rookies or 40 year old perverts who get high or drunk.

“The likes of a woman in a men’s workforce. I wish I could Jack but I can’t. Legally anyways. Look I’m exhausted right now can we please just go to bed?”

“Alright. But we will come back to this. (Y/n) I’m only stressed about this because I don’t want to lose you. What if—”

“Hey!” I put my finger of his lips. “Don’t you dare think like that. I know celebrities are always the first to die when it comes to crazed fans. But I swear to you Jack Kline, I will not be one of those singers to die at the hands of a so called ‘fan’. I’m your lioness.”

“And no one can break you down.” We pressed our forehead together and just stayed like that for a good long moment. I then softly kissed him and went to change out of my robe into my nightdress. Jack stripped down to his boxers and we put our takeout in the mini-fridge by the bed and turned off the lights before cuddling close together.

*September 8th, 1992*

It was Kelly’s first day of 1st grade. Jack and I couldn’t believe that our little girl was on her way to 1st grade. Of course to me it was the first day of primary school but still it was a big day for her. So Jack and I were sure to be there to see her off but sadly both of us had a long day today so we couldn’t go pick her up.

I was busy prepping for my upcoming tour while Jack got backed up with the car dealership. But thankfully Jack’s cousin Jared (who was working a case at the time) volunteered to go pick Kelly up after school. Now this school was at the top with their security, only those who were approved by the Parent or Guardian could pick up the child (which was good with us).

So Jack and I made sure to list the family members down in order so we went from Kelly Kline, Misha Kline, Roger Taylor, Brian May, John Deacon, and Jared and Jensen Walker as the adults to pick Kelly Kline up from school should Jack and I not be available.

It was late in the afternoon, around 3:30ish and I was talking with my tour manager Phillipe about where each performance was gonna take place when the phone suddenly rang. One of the assistants answered it and she said.

“Hollywood Records how may I help you?” there was a pause and suddenly her voice went frantic. “Whoa, whoa, whoa wait a minute slow down. Slow down who are you wanting to talk to?” I turned to her confused. “Okay hold on I’ll get her,” she turned to me and said as she held the phone close to her breast, “Mrs. Kline someone wants to speak to you. Says his name is Jared Walker.” I immediately shot up and took the phone and said frantically.

“Jared what’s happened?”

‘I-I-I-I went to pick Kelly up like I said I would, but when I got there they had said you had already sent approval of someone else to come get her!’

My heart stopped. They say it’s every parent’s worse nightmare come true, but it’s never fully real until it happens to you.

I dropped the phone as Jared’s voice echoed through the speakers calling out my name.

“CALL THE POLICE! CALL JACK! CALL KELLY’S SCHOOL! CALL ANYONE!!” I screamed frantically.

The search for my daughter was—one of the worst things I ever had to go through. Just who in the hell would know where exactly her school was? Not only that but who got my approval to sign off for her release?

I was frantic to the bone. I kept pacing with anxiety as every fiber of my being was buzzing with all kinds of emotions. Jack and Jared tried their best to calm me down but I wasn’t going to be calm till I had my baby in my arms.

After an hour and a half grueling search, the home phone suddenly rang. I went up to the phone and answered it.

“Hello?!” there was silence at the end of it for awhile till finally his voice came up.

‘Lose your little cub?’ my eyes narrowed and now only rage filled my body.

“Where is she Steve?” I sneered.

‘Just meet me by the spot where the first action sequence of Terminator 2 was shot.’ Then the line went dead. I hung up the phone, grabbed my keys and dragged Jared by the arm towards my car and we raced down the highway.

When we arrived at Bull Creek, I told Jared to stay in the car while I handled Steve. I got out of the car and right there at the very track where the first action chase scene of the film took place at.

Just ahead of me was a blue Ferrari leaning against it was Steve Harrison. And through the windows I could see Kelly playing with her favorite doll that she took with her to school, without a care in the world.

“So glad you finally made it Angel. Didn’t think I’d expect to see you to take my advice so quick.”

“Open the door.” I sneered.

“Gee not even a thank you?” he joked.

“I don’t have time for bullocks right now Harrison! Now open your bloody car door and give me back my baby!” he went over and opened the door and once Kelly saw me, her smile on her face grew wider.

“Mummy!” she cheered as she got out and raced towards me. I immediately knelt down and picked her up in my arms.

“Oh my baby girl. Oh thank god you’re safe! Are you okay? Look at me. We were all so worried about you.” I said as I kept kissing all over her face. She groaned and tried to get me to stop.

“I’m fine mum! Mum stop it stop kissing me! Mr. Steve said you changed your mind about uncle Jared coming to pick me up.” I glared over to Steve and said.

“Honey go in mummy’s car and wait there with Uncle Jared.” I kissed her one last time and she did as I asked her to. I walked closer to Steve as he kept talking.

“Lovely reunion. See I knew you’d appreciate what I’d done. After all as your personal—” I sucker punched him hard across the face sending him down to the ground. Blood even dripped down his nose. “Wow. Wow!” he scoffed. “I-I-I-I know that girls could punch but that…..that was—”

“What the fuck is wrong with you!?” I snapped at him.

“You should be grateful. I did you a favor. I picked up your daughter from her first day of school.” He tried to reason with me.

“You had no legal right too! You kidnapped her!”

“Kidnapped?! Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa wait time out!” he stood up and wiped his bloody nose. “Wow head rush. Okay hang on a minute. You were incredibly business with the tour manager so I knew you wouldn’t be able to pick her up. And of course Jack……” he sneered out Jack’s name with anger and jealousy. “He works now right? I mean about damn time too, can’t be the house husband forever right?” My glare deepened, “Anyways, so no one else was there to pick up sweet, little Kelly so I volunteered myself to pick her up. Didn’t want her staying at the school all by herself, now did we?”

“She wasn’t going to be alone we arranged for Jared to pick her up!” at that Steve’s face turned to shock as he said.

“Oh. Well—this is awkward.” Oh he was an incredible actor I’ll give him that.

“What is wrong with you Steve? What were you trying to accomplish here?” that’s when his eyes darkened and grew cold. His voice even changed to a possessive tone as he walked closer to me.

“Jack doesn’t deserve you. A farm boy like that? No you need a real man at your side. Someone who gets the business, someone who is always by your side. I know who you are (Y/n) Kline.”

He tried to grab my chin but I clenched his hand in mine and dug my nails into his skin. My hand shaking with rage as I stared him down.

“Is that what you think? You think by doing all this you actually believe I would leave Jack for you? You’re even more delusional than Jack painted you. Now I see it for myself.” I threw his hand down and backed away from him. “A wise man once said to another slime like yourself, ‘you just see what you want to see’. Next time you even touch or go near any of my kids, I swear to you there won’t be a courthouse that your uncle can bride with what I’ll charge you for.” I turned and walked back to the car and took Kelly home.

Of course I wish I could say that was the last time I ever saw Steve’s face again. But due to lack of evidence in the fact that Steve had given a false document allowing him to take Kelly, he wasn’t charged with kidnapping.

Plus his uncle got involved and swindled with his business talk saying that I was under a lot of pressure with the upcoming tour and that police action at the time of Kelly’s disappearance wasn’t necessary. He also emphasized that Kelly wasn’t harmed in anyway so it’s not like his nephew was an evil person. So the police believed James’ story and no charges were filed and Steve was a free man to do as he pleased.

Jack and I reinforced the school and even gave them Steve’s picture saying that if he ever came into the school again asking for Kelly again, they were to call the police because Steve Harrison does not have access to take Kelly out of school.

Little did I know that things were only going to get worse after that day.

*October 3rd, 1992. Jack’s POV*

It first began with the constant phone calls to the house. The phone was constantly ringing and everytime I picked it up, there was no one there. Just heavy breathing and then they’d hang up. It happened for hours on end, even at some odd hours in the night.

Soon enough I had had enough and decided to unplug all the house phones and I got me my first cellphone. If anyone in the family wanted to reach me, I told them to call by my new cellphone and that’s where I was talking to my Angel at.

‘Have the phone calls kept coming?’

“Unfortunately yes they did. But I unplugged the house phone so hopefully whoever it is gets the point and drops these crank calls and finds someone else to torment.”

‘I don’t know Jack. Maybe I should just come back and forget this tour.’

“No, no. Look, you nearly missed out the Angel-Queen tour back when we first met, I won’t let you cancel this tour either. Besides the world needs their Angel right now.” I assured her.

‘Yeah but—’

“What would he say right now?” I interrupted her. I heard her softly scoff and I knew she was smiling on the other end.

‘He’d tell me ‘Angel darling stop being so dramatic. There’s only room in this partnership for one hysterical Queen. Plus you’ll get early wrinkles’.’ We both laughed. ‘God I miss him so much. I can’t believe it’ll almost be a year come November.’

“I know. Have you talked to the guys at all since the concert?”

‘Not really. Figure I’d give them some space. They know my team’s number if they want to talk to me.’ I nodded and hummed in understandment so that she knew I was still listening.

“So you made it to Phoenix in one piece?”

‘Yeah thankfully. I’ll give you a call right after the show. Give the kids a kiss and cuddle for me.’

“Oh you know I will.” I said with a smile.

‘I love you Jack Kline; you know that right?’

“Of course I do. And I love you to the moon and back. Have a good show baby.”

‘I will. I love you.’

“I love you infinity times infinity there. Now you can’t say you love me more.” I heard her giggle. “Knock ‘em dead Angel.”

‘I will, bye.’

“Bye.” We both hung up and I deeply sighed.

“Daddy?” I looked up and there was Kelly in her nightdress holding her stuffed lion that her godfather gifted her.

“Hey baby girl, why are you awake?” I asked concerned. She walked up to me and sat down in my lap and said.

“I couldn’t sleep. Can you tell me a bedtime story? You know how like uncle Freddie used to tell me?” I stroked down her hair and said.

“Well, I’m not as extravagant or detailed as he used to make it but—I’ll do my best. C’mon I’ll make you some warm milk and tuck you back into bed, sound good?” she nodded. I picked her up, set her on the kitchen counter and prepared her some warm milk.

After that I carried her back to her bed and tucked her back under her covers and she took a sip of her milk.

“Okay so, what shall it be tonight? Do you want a story about—fairies?” she shook her head. “Unicorns?” again she shook her head. “Oh how about the story of a beautiful princess who gets saved by a knight in shining armor?”

“No daddy. Do you know the story of the lioness Queen?”

“The lioness Queen?”

“Uncle Freddie once told me a story about the lioness Queen who was raised by evil wolves but soon came on top as Queen of her own pride. He was gonna finish the story of how she would find herself a king but then—” she trailed off and I could see the tears prickling in her eyes. Oh that Freddie, of course he would tell our story like we were two lions.

“I think I know that story. Now again I may not be as good of a storyteller as Uncle Freddie was but I’ll do my best.” I sat down by her bedside and she cuddled up into her pillow, her stuffed lion in her arms. “Now let’s see……the Lioness Queen had reached the height of her reign. Everyone loved her because of her kindness and loyalty, but she was very much lonely. Sure she had the support of her new family but she still longed for someone she could love more than the family love she had from her new pride. So one day when she was out hunting, she was suddenly ambushed by the no good jackal. Now this jackal had particularly taken an interest in our brave Lioness Queen but she knew to not take any of his bullying. However he had brought his entire pack and they ganged up on the poor lioness.”

“Daddy don’t make it too scary.”

“Right, right, right I’m sorry angel. But the lioness Queen didn’t have to fear anymore. Because leaping from over the tall savannah grass was a dashing, handsome and powerful lion. He beat the jackals away and told the head jackal to leave and never bother the lioness again. Soon the jackal tucked his tail in like a frightened dog and fled the savannah and was never seen again. The lioness Queen was in debt to the young lion that saved her so she asked him if they could go to the watering hole together to talk and get to know each other more.”

I continued on to tell her mine and (Y/n)’s story of the day we met and fell in love with each other. Then about midway through the story I looked down and saw Kelly was finally back asleep. I smiled and kissed her forehead.

“Sleep tight my little lioness cub.” I walked out of her room and shut her door and walked back downstairs.

I walked towards the kitchen and I saw Sammy lying asleep on his doggie bed and Bucky asleep on his. But as soon as I came in, the two of them looked up at me.

“Hey Buck, Sammy.” Buck grunted as he sat up and came up towards me and sat down. I ruffled the top of his head. “Okay so what do you say last quick trip outside then time for you guys to get in your pin?” Sammy’s tail wagged as he immediately went towards the backdoor. I opened it up and he immediately went outside. “Alright Buck come on outside go out and go potty.”

But Bucky seemed tense. He lowly growled before racing towards the front door.

“Bucky? Buck!” Bucky went over to the front door and suddenly began barking aggressively and very loudly. “Buck! Buck shh! Quiet!” but he refused to listen to me. He kept barking and barking and barking. His fangs were out as he raced from the door to the windows. Growls came out of him and I noticed that his fur was on end.

Okay maybe it’s another dog or a raccoon or something, he tends to do that and we’re trying to break him of that habit. I grabbed his leash and when he was finally still I got it hooked to his collar and forced him towards his pin.

“Get in your pin now!” he snapped at him. I got him in his pin and as soon as I shut the door he started whimpering frantically, pacing around his pin letting out bark after bark. “Shhhh! You’re gonna wake the kids Buck now quiet!” I looked towards the front door and sighed heavily. Might as well just see just what’s out there.

I grabbed a flashlight and quickly stepped outside. I shined the light in every corner of darkness but I didn’t see a thing. No stray dog, nor a racoon, a cat not even a squirrel.

“That Buck is crazy sometimes.” It was then I noticed that our trashcan had somehow gone out to the side of the road. “I thought I brought that in when I came in this afternoon? Damn pranksters.” I left the front gate that surrounded our house and walked out to the curb to grab our trashcan and bring it back towards the side of the garage.

That’s when a loud purr of an engine roared through the quiet streets and bright headlights flashed right towards me. I heard the screeching of tires coming right towards me and without even thinking I ducked right up towards my driveway and I heard the sound of our garbage can being hit and tossed across the road.

The car’s lights soon turned off and sped off down the street. I panted heavily, my adrenaline now starting to collapse as I began to realize what could’ve happened just now.

Someone was trying to run me over and kill me. I knew that couldn’t be a mechanical problem cause why would the headlights suddenly come on and then accelerate straight towards me before driving normally down the road?

Only one person came across my mind as to who would go so far as to get rid of me. Steve.

I called up Jared and using his lawyer expertise he asked me various questions but unfortunately since I couldn’t identify the model of the car clear enough and couldn’t read the license plate in time there was no way for me to truly say it was him unless I could physically prove it.

But after that night I didn’t see Steve again, and I hoped that was the end of it. Until Halloween came around.

*Halloween night, 1992. 8:30pm*

I had just brought the kids in from our night of trick or treating. You know I’m glad we decided to allow the kids some time to know the American holidays cause I had to explain this to the guys as well as (Y/n) just what Halloween really was (since they don’t really celebrate it there in jolly old England).

I dressed the boys up as little lions while Kelly went as a witch this year. We all came in carrying our bags of candy.

“Candy!” Georgie exclaimed.

“That’s right buddy. We got candy, lots and lots of candy.” I told him as I got them out of their little red wagon.

“Daddy, daddy can we eat all the candy tonight please?” Kelly begged.

“You know your mother will kill me if she finds out I let you eat sweets before bedtime.” She whined before giving me her mother’s puppy dog face.

“Please daddy. Not even one itty bitty, teeny tiny bite?” I playfully placed my hands over her face which made her exclaim and shoo away my hand.

“You can have just one. Piece. But that’s it okay?” she cheered and quickly went through her bag and got out a blueberry flavored lollipop.

“Hey daddy? How come we can’t do trick or treating back where uncle Brian, uncle Deacy and papa Roger live?”

“Well sweetie, sometimes other countries don’t do the things we do. And sadly Halloween is just another day for them.”

“They should. Maybe next year papa Roger and I can be Star wars characters together.” I chuckled.

“I think your uncle Brian would enjoy that more than papa Roger.”

“But I wanted papa Roger and I to be Han and Princess Leia. Uncle Brian can be Chewie.”

“And uhh—who-who did you have in mind to be Luke?” I said brushing my fingers through my hair.

“Mommy! Cause she’s brave and strong just like Luke is! Georgie and Jackson can be R2.”

“And just who will uncle Deacy and I be?”

“Well uncle Deacy can be Obi-Wan and you’re C3-PO.” Wow she gives me the nagging droid.

“Oh so you think I’m a mindless philosopher ehh!? Come here you!” I quickly grabbed her and began tickling her which made her shriek and squirm. “Have me be Luke Skywalker or the tickling continues your highness!” I mimicked Darth Vader’s voice.

“Ne-nevheherererer!” she said through her laughter. I proceeded with the tickling till I heard the sound of a car engine coming down the street.

My mind suddenly went back to that night when I nearly got ran over. I set Kelly down on the floor and peeked through the curtains and could see someone standing right beside a familiar shape of a car that I knew well.

“Daddy? Is……everything okay?” I looked down at Kelly before quickly looking back towards the window.

“Kelly I need you to listen to me very carefully sweetheart. I want you to take your brothers and go to mommy and daddy’s room and hide in the closet. And no matter what happens do not come out till I come and get you, okay?”

“But why daddy? What’s going on?”

“Just!” I snapped but clenched my hand tightly and said as I knelt down to her height. “Please Kelly, do as your father tells you. Remember not a word or even let me see you till I tell you it’s safe, promise?”

“I promise.” I hugged her tightly and gave her a kiss and told her to go get her brothers and get upstairs. I glared at the door and opened it up before closing it. I walked towards the front gate and that’s when I heard his voice say.

“Well, well, well, Jack Kline I’ll be damned. Still around eh?”

“Yeah, yeah it’s me don’t cream your pants.” I sassed bluntly at him.

“Saw that you and the kiddies were doing a little trick or treating. That’s nice of you but umm…..what are you supposed to be? A new kid on the block?” I scoffed.

“What do you want Harrison?”

“What can’t a PA come up to check on his superstar?”

“I don’t know what world you live in but (Y/n) fired you last week.”

“Yeah, you see that-that-that’s…..that’s another reason why I came here. See, I personally am the best and most qualified PA that the Rock Angel could ever have. But while we were in Pittsburg, I get a notice saying that I’ve been fired. Now she never told me why so I thought who is more jealous of me and brainwashing the Rock Angel, than her own husband? So—care to explain?”

“Guess you were dropped as a child one too many times.” I walked closer to the front gate and said in Steve’s face. “She got tired of your advancements towards her. My wife isn’t like all other rock stars cause she’s been on the end of the cheating stick. And she knows to not put me or our kids through something like that.”

“Really lives up to her angel name huh?” he smart mouthed me. “Let me tell you though buddy boy. We have fucked with each other, and boy is she a freak in the sheets.” Bullshit I know he’s lying. “We’ve even fucked with each other here at your own house when you were away on business. I mean—who can say no to this?” he gestured to himself.

“You are even worse than we thought. Now do yourself a favor and fuck off Steve before I call the cops.”

“One problem with that amigo.”

“And what’s that? Amigo.” Suddenly I was grabbed by my shirt and a punch went straight through my stomach. I collapsed to the ground and the gate opened up. Steve stood over me and he sneered down.

“The cops are working for me.” I was then kicked in the ribs and I watched in horror as Steve kicked the door in and walked right on in the house.

*3rd Person POV*

As Steve entered the Kline residence, a place he had actually been inside a lot with his uncle on the meetings with (Y/n) to discuss further progress with her albums, brandings, etc. He walked up the stairs and went straight for the master bedroom where Jack and (Y/n) slept.

He looked around as he slowly walked around the bedroom before seeing the closet at the corner of his eyes. He turned towards it and walked right up to it before slowly reaching for the door. With a quick flick, the door was opened but no one was there. He then saw some of (Y/n)’s stuff like her hats and scarves.

He took a red scarf and inhaled it before pocketing it into his back pocket. That’s when he suddenly heard a thump from the corner of the room. That’s when his attention went to the wardrobe. A smirk spread across his face and as he opened it there he saw Kelly, Georgie and Jackson all huddled together.

“Hey kids, whatcha doin in here?”

“Go away! Mommy and daddy don’t like you anymore and neither do we!” Steve laughed at Kelly’s empty demand.

“Kids today. Guess I’m gonna have to teach you some manners little missy.” Suddenly he was turned around and a hard punch sent him down to the ground.

“Daddy!” Kelly cheered.

“Daddy! Daddy!” the boys repeated.

*Jack’s POV*

Like hell I was gonna just sit there and allow Steve to take whatever the hell he wants or worse find the kids. Spitting out some blood I staggered towards the house and walked up the stairs. That’s when I heard Kelly’s voice cry out.

“Mommy and daddy don’t like you anymore and neither do we!”

“Kids today. Guess I’m gonna have to teach you some manners little missy.” Like hell you will! I raced as Steve was talking and immediately grabbed him by the shoulder of his jacket, turned him around and sucker punched him across the face. My kids cried out for me while Steve staggered to stand up.

He soon began laughing before letting out a hoot. His nose bleeding from the punch I just gave him as well as his mouth.

“Looks like I underestimated you farm boy! I took you for a pushover but now I see just what that bitch sees in you! Lion King Jack she likes to call you!”

“Get. Out.” I demanded. Steve chuckled icily and said.

“And what if I don’t?” he spat blood in my face. I then let out a whistle and said two commands.

“Sick. Em.” Soon running past my right leg Sammy attacked Steve at his ankles tripping him over. Sammy maybe all sweet and innocent but when he needs to be (especially since Steve’s been around) he knows when someone needs to get bit.

Steve fell right onto his back as Sammy continued to bite and tear at his pants.

“YOU DAMN DOG!! LET GO!”

“You gonna surrender now?”

“FUCK. YOU!” I let out another whistle and soon barking in aggressively was Bucky. And being a German shepherd he was not holding back. Sammy released Steve’s leg for a moment and allowed his brother to take over.

Bucky bit Steve’s shoulder and tackled him to the ground and I knew he was biting down harder cause Steve’s screams got louder and more painful.

“Boys come!” the boys came back and stood guard of the wardrobe growling and protectively standing guard over my kids. “You wanna test me again or shall I give them a second chance at a new chew toy?”

Even with multiple dog bites, Steve managed to somehow stand up and he glared with pure hatred at me.

“I’ll—I’ll see to it……that those mutts are put down for attacking me. My uncle will hear about this! And I’ll be sure that you’re put away for a long, long time. I know you guys have no cameras in or outside of this house, so no cameras, no proof.” His sick twisting smirk widened across his face.

He staggered out of the bedroom but I heard the sound of him collapsing down to the ground. The dogs immediately went towards him but I didn’t hear any snarling or growling, instead I heard happy whimpering.

“Stay here kids.” I told them as I quickly I came out and I was shocked to see standing before Steve with a baseball bat in her hand was my wife, (Y/n). She panted softly as she dropped the bat and then took out one of our large kitchen knives.

Bucky and Sammy stood guard of the stairs to ensure that Steve didn’t even try to escape and that’s when (Y/n) sneered down at Steve.

“From now on you are no never come near me or my family again. I don’t care what kind of connections you have; we’ve got enough evidence with you in this house without consent and a struggle going on in my very bedroom.”

“Screw you…….bitch.” Steve murmured. Then I witnessed with my own eyes as my wife took that large 7in knife and slam it right down to the floor, very close to Steve’s dick. Any further up and she would’ve removed his very identity as a man.

“SAY YOU UNDERSTAND! Say it. SAY IT!!!” She roared down at him.

“I understand.” He muttered quietly.

“You what?!”

“I understand.” He said a bit louder. Her eyes steaming with hatred and fierce mother instincts stared Steve down as she removed the knife and she looked up to me and simply told me. “Call the police.”

Within minutes the police arrived and Steve was finally arrested. The police took our testimonies and a trial date was set for the 1st of December.

Now as I’m sure my wife as explained I wish we could say that was the last time we’d ever see Steve Harrison in our lives but we underestimated just how fucked up the legal system was here in California.

Thanks to his smooth, fast talking Uncle in trying to bride the judges and the jury, Steve didn’t serve any jail time. Only that he would have a restraining order set against him. By law he wasn’t to get anywhere within 50ft of (Y/n) or our family.

Steve Harrison was once again a free man.

By the start of 1993, my wife was once again trying to contact the judge, police, and any other law enforcement about taking Steve’s advances seriously. But all the same they kept turning her down saying there’s nothing else they can do.

That the restraining order will protect her, and if Steve does violate that then and only then could they talk serious jail time for him.

“Well then I want you guys to do one thing for me, the next time you bastards come to this house will be when my body is dead on the ground with a message in blood saying I told you so!” she hung up the phone and sobbed into her hands.

I slowly walked towards her and hesitantly sat down beside her. God I hate seeing her like this, she’s been worrying herself sick over this while still going on with the tour which will resume after this week.

“I—I don’t know what else to do Jack. I……” I refused to allow her to speak again. I embraced her as tightly as I could and she wept hysterically into my arms. Bucky and Sammy whimpering at our feet with Sammy licking her feet and Bucky nuzzling his head into her lap.

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outerspaceisbetterthannothing · 5 years

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My Ultimate Reading List v2.0 Fics

A/N: As some of you have heard or seen, My Ultimate Reading List (in it’s original version) has crashed on desktop because of (as I realised trying to restore it) too big number of links, so I’m basically recreating the whole thing in a new format. This post goes for One Shots and Serieses. There’s one more post for Blurbs. I’m really sorry for the tag notifs for the people who has been tagged already in a previous version. Hope it’s not much of an inconvenience. I’m also not going to delete the first version of the list, as it’s been liked and reposted a lot of times, it’s still working on mobile, so some might still use it. But all the updates are going to happen only on this post, which I’m going to put in my bio instead of an old one.

So, this list was created because of my crazy urge to reread favourite fics and blurbs from time to time. It was made purely for me, but if it helps you to find a fic or a writer you’d love, I’d be only happy. I tried to make navigation easy. For blurbs links go to my reblogs, for oneshots and full lengths links go to the original posts. I try to check links from time to time, but if you see that some of them don’t work, please, hmu.

* stands for the implied smut

*** stands for the pure smut

This list is far from finished, that’s just the first things that came to mind and/or were reblogged. Still have a ton to add. So will update it every now and then.

NOTE, pls: There’s no Michael content here! And that’s not because I don’t like him or don’t appreciate him enough. I guess, it’s quite the opposite tbh. There’s no Michael content here because I appreciate him too much. I love this cute little kitten, he’s the most precious soul and, most of the time I think, there would be no 5sos without Michael Gordon Clifford. I just don’t have any fantasies or images of him in me, don’t see him in any way romantically. That’s why I don’t read (or write for that matter) about him as main character. I understand, that I miss a whole lotta great authors and fics because of that. Maybe it’ll change in the future. But for now, it is what it is.

Also HUGE SHOUT OUT TO THE PEOPLE WHOSE WRITING IS ON THE LIST - THANK YOU FOR THIS! THESE FICS AND BLURBS BELOW HAVE REALLY GIVEN ME ALL TYPES OF FEELS, INSPIRATION, MOTIVATION AND CONTENT. I’M FOREVER GRATEFUL FOR THESE WONDERFUL GIFTS YOU GAVE TO ALL OF US.

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, WONDERFUL PEOPLE! ALL MY LOVE FOR YOU!

Oneshots

Ashton

Heartbeat by @gigglyirwin [Classic fluff and one of my all time faves]

Our Shining Star [Dad!Ashton] by @myloverboyash [Special thank you to @lashtoncurls for the tracking down the runaway author lol]

Blindfold*** by @cal-puddies [Cashton smut which is too hot for this world]

Ain’t nobody got a drummer like mine*** by @myloverboyash [Drumming and banging 👀 at the drum kit]

I Can Love You In The Shower*** by @myloverboyash [Cute giggly shower sex with a little bit of trauma]

Will We Always Be Pretending*** by @myloverboyash [Bff to lovers AND fake dating in one fic, what else could you wish for???]

Wherever You Are*** by @myloverboyash [childhood best friends to lovers]

Let Me Be The One To Save You pt 1 and pt 2 by @myloverboyash [prince!Ashton Au by which I am intrigued and I AM WAITING PATIENTLY, SKYLER, LOL]

Noticed Nights by @calpops [Artist!Ash and another masterpiece by Eve]

Calum

The Little Spoon by @gigglyirwin [Classic fluff]

Valentine’s Day*** by @angelbabylu

Lucky Shot In Paradise*** by @cakesunflower [Bartender!Cal]

Heartbeat by @uncrownedqueeen [Dad!Cal]

All These Years by @felicitycal

Blindfold*** by @cal-puddies [Cashton smut which is too hot for this world]

No chemistry*** by @novacxlum [Heartbreakingly great college enemies to lovers]

Where were you in the morning?* by @snapbackcake [If this ultimately truthful but sad af one won’t make you cry, consider asking for help, because it’s too sad but also beautiful as hell]

Let me good to you*** by @snapbackcake [The description says it’s 6.8k words of absolute filth, and I have nothing else to add besides of what a great filth it is, so, 18+ kids]

Road Trip: Cake*** by @softforcal [Er, Cake threesome, idek what to say here]

Redamancy by @cakesunflower [Heart wrecking fluff]

Birthday Getaway by @etherealhood [Cuteness and romance overload]

Ghost of you by @myloverboyash [Super angst, prepare to cry your eyeballs out, and i’m still in my feels, Skyler, how could you???]

Picture this by @currentlyupcalsass [One of the best college au’s ever]

Best Friend’s Brother*** by @lukescaboose [Nerdy Cal and soft smut]

Another Ride*** by @babyloontrash [Another Cal smut which is like, really hot]

The Course of True Love Never Did Run Smooth*** by @i-calumhood [Wonderful enemies to fuck buddies to lovers with an asshole college!Cal]

Ice*** by @morningfears [Super hot enemies to lovers with hockey player Cal aka an ultimate dream]

Ka Hopena by @wildflowergrae [Soulmate AU, surfing and Hawaii, what else can you ask for?]

We Got That Good Love*** by @myloverboyash [Sex in the shower and like wet Calum)]

Balloon*** by @currentlyupcalsass [one of the most precious things I have ever read in my entire live! realisation of love to Calum of mc and absolute happiness for you]

First Concert by @ukulelecal [dad!Cal and kids visiting 5sos concert]

Eleven*** by @babyloontrash [fwb with breakfast]

Luke

Boyfriend’s little brother*** by @lukehemmingssmut [There was also a second part promised, sooooo ^.^]

Fuck me like you hate me*** by @myloverboyash

Baby*** by @lukescaboose [Sweetest ever bff to lovers with soft boi Lu]

Hashimoto by @burncrashbromance [special for Disabled!Sos]

Full lengths and Serieses

Ashton

Hate sex Series*** by @irwinofficial Tell Me How Much You Hate Me, Our Kinky Secret, Good Enough, No Longer A Secret [one of the best Ash smuts ever 👀]

Side chick*** by @cal-puddies [Beautifully filthiest smut with cheating, all the wrong choices and Cashton love triangle] part 1, part 2

Calum

Sugar Coated Pain by @cakesunflower [Boxer!Cal] [That’s what I lost my 5sos-fanfiction-virginity to, so, hey, Summer, thanks for the experience lmao]

Cigarette series*** by @cal-puddies [Best friend!Calum and a lot of hot smut 👀] Cigarette, Corona, Rolling Papers, Black on Black, Stuck [which was later replaced by the next part, but I’ll put it as long as it exists on the original list of parts, but don’t get confused], Navy Button Down, A Hotter Touch, Pancakes, The Second Thing, Ours, Losing You, Little toes, Holy Water, Date Night, Me, You and Little Hood, Five Years Later

Wherever you are by @mysticalhood [Long distance with Cal and tons of tears with me]

Dates With Cal by @calpops [this is so cute i higkey don’t want it to end like ever] First date, Second date, Second date pt, Third date, Calum cooking part one and two, The next evening, Cuddling and meeting guys, Worrying about ‘his girl’, Being her only guy, Meeting Mali, Soft nights, Talking about her family, Not everybody liking her, Tropical getaway, Being smitten around guys, Leaving talk, Night before the tour, Being away from each other, Cal coming home, Saying ‘i love you’, Cal being jealous of Duke, Watching her in the morning, Taking a bath together, Talking to guys about taking a next step, Grocery shopping, Asking her to move in, Choosing a house, Packing her stuff, Packing his stuff, First night in the new house, Unpacking, Finding out habits

Business Blurbs by @calpops [series of blurbs of Calum and Ash being owners of a record shop, Luke keeping an antique store and Mike having a bakery]

Masquerade Made by @calpops [fake dating college AU blurb series] First party, Fighting in a philosophy class

Veiled Valor by @calpops [pirate!Calum, runaway princess, heart wrecking mutual pining and writing style deserving 19th century prose] Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7

Versace on the Floor by @singt0mecalum [Dad’s friend Calum, age difference and *supposedly* hottiest content] Intro chapter

819 notes · View notes

ronninoir · 4 years

Text

Can I Steal You for a Second? CH11

Summary: Adrien is forced to participate in a new dating show, but becomes more excited when Ladybug says she’ll participate as her civilian self.

AKA: AU where Adrien doesn’t know Marinette, the superheroes are 22 and Gabriel is mean and ruthless but not Hawkmoth.

Read on AO3

Start from the beginning Chp 1 on AO3

Chapter 11

The morning of the date Marinette woke up late. She was up late the night before hanging with the other girls and woke up with 15 minutes to look presentable and eat before rushing out the door onto the waiting van. The other girls were chatting excitedly while Marinette was just trying to remember if she applied deodorant and her make-up in the right spots.

Once they got to wherever they were going, Marinette had forgotten all of her troubles this morning, and, after checking to make sure Tikki was with her, rushed off the bus with the other girls. They were stopped at what looked like an up-scale coffee shop, called “The Coffee Code.” Marinette had never heard of the coffee shop, and there were no street signs near that could help Marinette figure out where they were, which put her slightly on edge.

They were lead inside by a producer and the place looked magical. There were TVs everywhere and different types of comfy looking chairs were spaced around everywhere. If she didn’t know better, she would have thought they were going to play video games.

Adrien walked out towards the group from what looked like a kitchen. He was smiling and laughing with a man who wore a green shirt with suspenders over it, brown corduroy pants and black square glasses. Marinette’s heart stopped and she couldn’t help the smile that spread across her face. He kept his hair shorter than when they were in high school but otherwise Max Kanté hadn’t changed much about his appearance.

“Hello ladies. Today I have a super special date planned for you all. But before I tell you what it is, let me introduce my friend Max Kanté. He owns this coffee shop called “The Coffee Code.” Max serves coffee, just like any other coffee shop, but he also teaches people how to code computers and even fixes computers on his spare time.” Max gave the group a cheerful wave as Adrien continued, “The reason we are here is because once a month, Max has these legendary video game tournaments, each month a different game.

“Today we are going to play a tournament of Ultimate Mecha Strike 3, one of my favorite games.” Marinette was floating on clouds. This was the best date she could have been put on. While Marinette was trying to calm her face so no one could see how excited she was, she noticed a lot of the other girls looked worried. This is going to be a piece of cake.

“Now, I know some of you may not be well versed in video games, do not fear. Max has agreed to teach all of us some video game tips and tricks that will help you succeed in the upcoming tournament.” Adrien turned towards Max and allowed him to step forward.

“First thing we are going to do is split up into two groups to go over basic video game techniques. Adrien is going to take one group and I’m going to take the other. Then, we will switch groups and teach different tips and tricks for Ultimate Mecha Strike 3 specifically.” Max pushed up his glasses while turning back towards Adrien. Adrien’s smile turned stiff as he shifted his gaze towards a producer, his eyes asking the question that his mouth couldn’t.

“And cut! Very good boys,” a producer said as he stepped out from the shadows. “Now we are going to split you in half. This half, go with Adrien,” he pointed to the half that Marinette wasn’t in, “and this half will go with Max. After an hour we’ll switch and then the tournament will begin.”

Marinette hung back as her group walked towards Max. She had Lucie, Ines and Camille in her group, while Zoe, Lila and Alicia walked towards Adrien.

“Hey ladies, let’s go over here and get started,” she heard Adrien call to them as they walked to the other side of the shop.

Max turned and addressed the girls. He scanned over them and did a double take when he saw Marinette. “Marinette Dupain-Cheng is that you?” Max asked with a grin.

Marinette walked up and laughed, giving Max a hug. “Oh my gosh Max it’s been what? 4 years? You did well for yourself after high school. This place... it’s amazing Max. Everything you dreamed it would be.” She pulled him in close and whispered, “Please don’t say anything about my video game skills. I want to surprise them.”

As she pulled away he gave her a small nod. “Well, Marinette looks like you’re about to learn all of the things I’ve been trying to teach you since middle school. Can’t run away now, can you?” Marinette laughed at that and joined the rest of her group in some chairs that had been placed in front of a TV.

For the next half hour, Max explained exactly what it was like to control the character in the video game. He explained how to press all of the buttons and what the whole point of the video game was. The second half of their time with Max consisted of them taking turns controlling their own character in the game. By the end of their time, they understood what buttons to press and how to make the characters move, and Marinette noticed that the other girls looked more comfortable with the controller than they had in the beginning.

Once their time was up, they switched instructors with Adrien’s group. They sat around another TV on the other side of the shop and focused on how to play Ultimate Mecha Strike 3. Adrien went over the general rules for about 20 minutes, and then they girls began playing practice rounds.

“Wow, Marinette! You are doing an impressive job! You caught on really quickly.” Adrien praised her as she ran around the screen and played the computer-controlled character. Those characters were set to easy, so Marinette toned down her normal playing skills in order to not beat the characters too easily. She wanted to wow the group, and Adrien, with her video game playing skills.

“Thanks! It just seems to make sense. It’s like I know exactly what needs to be done to defeat the characters. You’re a great teacher, Adrien,” she said with a smile. She thought that she had played the dumb girl bit up too much but Adrien laughed and leaned in close.

“You seem to know what you’re doing more than the others. I can’t wait to see what you really play like when the tournament comes.” Marinette giggled and blushed, not having to look at the screen to defeat the character she was currently playing. He died with a hard kick in his gut from Marinette’s character and Adrien gave her a smile.

A producer chose that moment to walk up to their group and announce, “Time’s up! The tournament will start in 5 minutes.”

The producers had created a bracket, like what Plagg was talking about in her and Adrien’s conversation about Gabriel’s Top 10 List. Adrien was up against Ines first, and they both were shuffled to the TV and game system where every team would play.

Adrien was good. Either that or Ines was very bad. Adrien destroyed her within the first 5 minutes of play, and that was with a “Best two out of three” rule. Ines giggled and walked away blushing, clearly not bothered by the fact that she had lost.

Next went Zoe and Lucie. Both were actually really good competitors and their game lasted significantly longer. Lucie beat Zoe by just a little bit in the third round and Marinette was impressed with her gaming style.

While Alicia and Camille were playing, both of them so terrible that it seemed like no one was ever going to win, Marinette caught up with Lucie and congratulated her on her win.

“You did a really good job for someone who has never played video games before,” Marinette said with a smirk.

Lucie had the decency to blush before she responded with, “Can I tell you the truth? This isn’t my first time playing the game.” She giggled and it was so pure and sweet that Marinette couldn’t help diving in. “You also seem to have some hidden skills,” Lucie pointed out. “Tell me, are you saving them so you can destroy Lila in the next game?”

Marinette gave her a devious smile. “Why of course not! I’m not going to completely destroy her. I’m going to gently defeat her. I’m saving my destroying skills for Adrien.”

Lucie laughed again. Marinette was struck by how easy it was to have a conversation with her. It was times like these that she would forget that she was competing for Adrien. She tried not to let the thought of the competition ruin this moment with a new friend. “So, tell me,” Marinette said as they began walking back towards the group. Alicia had won the first game and they were currently working on the second. “How did you learn to play like that?”

Lucie gave Marinette a look. “I have three older brothers. The only way to hang out with them is to play video games. A lot of times, we would have a tournament to see who would have to do chores. After losing for a couple of years, I wised up and studied up on the game. Let’s just say, I haven’t washed the dishes in about 3 years.” Marinette was impressed and realized that if they had met in a different way, they might actually have been really good friends.

“What about you? Got any mischievous siblings fueling your game play?” Lucie asked, snapping Marinette back to the present. Alicia had barely pulled off a win and it was about to be Marinette’s turn.

“No, no siblings. Just a dad who loves to play.” At that, Marinette walked off and sat on a chair. She held her hand out for the controller and smiled as Lila sat down with a look of disgust. Marinette leaned towards her, “Don’t worry, I’ll go easy on you to make you look better.”

Lila rolled her eyes and scoffed, “I don’t need your help. I’m going to win all on my own.”

Marinette didn’t respond, but was nice enough to shake Lila’s hand when she beat her after two rounds of Lila getting pummeled. Adrien and Lucie were to face off, then Alicia and Marinette. Adrien barely beat Lucie after she destroyed him in the first game. Marinette could have beat Alicia with her eyes closed, but was nicer to her on the screen than she was to Lila. Eventually it ended up being Adrien versus Marinette. Lucie and Max were cheering for Marinette, while the rest of the girls were rooting for Adrien.

Adrien shook Marinette’s hand before the game started, “Good luck, Marinette.” He said with a twinkle in his eyes that was so Chat Noir like that Marinette almost swooned. “You’re going to need it. I’m very good in case you didn’t notice.”

“Save your luck, Adrien. I have all the skills I need to defeat you.” Marinette smiled innocently at him and he was a little taken back at her confidence.

Finally, he let out a laugh, “Let’s see what you got.”

Their game lasted 30 minutes. Both were very good players who clearly knew the game and its tricks very well. Marinette won the first round, but Adrien snuck up on her and won the second. The last round they spent the most time on. In the end, Marinette defeated Adrien with a “Marinette Style!” shout and move her dad liked to use on her to win.

Lucie and Max cheered, while the other girls, specifically Lila, rushed to Adrien to consul him. Lucie ran up to Marinette and gave her a hug, “Wow Marinette that was amazing! I could tell you were good but that was impressive playing!”

“Thanks!” Marinette was beaming. She accepted a little trophy from Max and was about to be pulled away to an interview about the tournament and her win when Adrien grabbed her by the arm.

“Marinette, can I steal you for a second?” Marinette looked to the producers for confirmation, and when they nodded, Marinette did the same.

Adrien led Marinette off to the side, away from the other girls and shot a dazzling smile. She wasn’t worried about how he would take the loss, knowing that her Kitty would find the joy in the game rather than sadness at losing. “Thank you for a well-played game, Marinette. I honestly didn’t think you could beat me, but you did. Your confidence is beautiful on you.”

Marinette blushed and leaned forward, itching to kiss him, touch him, anything, but knowing it needed to be his move. “Thank you for being a worthy opponent. We’ll have to play again sometime without the audience.”

Adrien smiled. “Wow dinner and a video game? Those are some big promises.”

Marinette smiled back at him. It was insane how much she loved this man. “You should know that I never break my promises.” Adrien grabbed her hand and brought it up to his face. He leaned forward like he was going to kiss her hand, in another very Chat like action, but he instead grabbed the trophy from her and ran.

“Hey!” Marinette called as she chased after him. They wound around sets and crew members, and even a couple of girls and, with the help of her Ladybug speed, finally caught up with him before he reached the boys bathroom, where he knew she couldn’t follow. She dove for him and they ended up on the ground, Marinette straddling his hips with her knees and her arms pinning his to the ground. “I think you have something of mine,” she told him with a smile. She was barely out of breath but her heart quickened all the same.

He gave her one of his Chat Noir grins (Man, he was just full of Chat moves today) when he asked, “What are you going to do about it?”

Without thinking, she leaned down and kissed him. It wasn’t a very long kiss, but it was enough to speed her heart up even more and send a wonderful tingling down her spine. When they broke apart, Adrien was smiling and she knew that she was too. She stood up and offered him a hand, which he took.

“I was hoping you’d do that,” Adrien whispered as they began walking back to the group, hand in hand. They had made it to the van where the girls were waiting for her to return.

“Well next time, don’t run, and maybe it’ll be less work.” She took a chance and shot Adrien a wink, which had him laughing. She loved his laugh and would do anything to keep that laughter going. As he was laughing, she slipped to his other side and grabbed the trophy from him. She slipped on the van, and though there were no windows, she imagined him standing there, watching the van drive away with a grin on his face.

Happy Easter Y’all, and if you don’t celebrate Easter Happy Sunday of Quarantine! Drama ahead everyone so buckle up and get ready!!

Let me know if you wanna be added to the tag list

@momor3202

@legendaryneckjudgestudent

@discoveringmiraculouswriters

@adrianarfox

@veroocasanova

@jeminiikrystal

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epic-summaries · 5 years

Text

British LegendsxPokémon

Ladies of the Lake

I know in Swsh there will no longer be mega-evolution and an international dex, I choose to believe that Gamefreak did this for gameplay mechanics because Pokémon lore and gameplay are different. This is also my FanFiction, so I can fix it how I want.

Inspiration for the teams: Whatever I didn’t give Lancelot and I like you. (I have five water type master and neither one of them share a Pokémon… and there’s more to spare. There are so many water Pokémon)

In this story, the Lady of the Lakes are Druids, like Merlin. Druids are like spiritual professors. They give advice to young trainers. They tell stories. They speak with Pokémon. They know magic. They live in magical areas, the Ladies of the Lake live in or on the lake. And they give you your first Pokémon. There is a magical ceremony where they call upon a Mythical Pokémon and they use their mythical magic give you a Pokémon egg, which could be any Pokémon because it’s chosen through magic. So like Arthur gets a special shiny Growlith, others like Lancelot gets the most common Pokémon of them all, Magikarp (literally is the most common Pokémon). So, I will give you which Mythical Pokémon is connected with each Lady.

Lady of the Lake 1

The one who gives Arthur Excalibur

She is the most powerful of all the Lady of the Lakes, she is only second in power after Merlin. She is the keeper of Excalibur, the ancient sword forged in Annwen and only given to chosen of the legendaries of Galar. Honestly, Excalibur is a nice mix of both legendaries, it’s the best offense since it’s a powerful sword that can cut through anything but the scarber is best defense one can ask for since it heal you. Anyway, when Zacian chooses Arthur as his champion, they (assuming Zacian will be genderless like most legendaries) bring him to this Lady of the Lake.

Swarmpert is the muscles protecting the entrance of the lake. I’m imagining the only way you can get to it is through a waterfall, think the entrance to El Dorado in the Road to El Dorado. When the Lady needs she will mega evolve him.

Slowking talks with the ones allowed to enter. He also has control over the other Pokémon and is often used as a translator.

I like Kingler and giant crab that can crush diamond is nice protection (Shellder’s shell is as hard as diamond and it’s said that his big claw can crush Shellder’s shell.).

Araquanid is cool and if I saw it I would runaway. A+ protection.

Octillery is a tank but as an octopus Pokémon. It’s good at protecting magical swords.

Hail Helix. ‘Nough said.

The mythical Pokémon that comes when she is called is Volcanion. No explanation, I just think it’s cool that she can call about Volcanion which makes me think that she is always surrounded by steam and fog. Or you know she is coming because the whole place becomes foggy and then she walks in and the fog dissipates.

Lady of the Lake 2

Vivianne aka Lancelot’s foster mother

She is most famous for stealing Lancelot away and raising him. She’s least powerful of these three Ladies of the Lake. She tends to prefer making enchanted items staying on her island raising her son to be a good knight. She is convinced that Lancelot will be the best Pokémon Knight out there, that she spends her time training him. She eventually tells him of his family and sends him off on his quest. I’m making her a proud mother who likes to spy on her child with a Beauty and the Beast Style magic mirror. She also gives him tons of magical items to protect him.

Apparently despite making me laugh every time I see this poor thing, Mega-Slowbro is an amazing tank. So, One of Lancelot’s greatest achievements is beating her Mega-Slowbro.

For some reason the water starters were the hardest to give out until I remember hey there are Ladies of the Lake. Guess who gets this awesome crocodile? You do.

It’s a water fairy, I had to give one to one of these ladies.

I got a magical feeling from Whismcash. Though, I admit if there was a salmon Pokémon I would have given her that Pokémon first, because of the salmon of knowledge.

Golisopod is cool. Do I need to give me reason then that?

We need more electric/water Pokémon, it’s such a cool pairing. Anyway, Lancelot might borrow Lanturn from time to time.

Manaphy>Phione.

Lady of the Lake 3

Nimue aka the one that defeats Merlin

Nimue, the student of Merlin who then defeated him and trapped him. She’s not evil, she does love learning and bragging that she overtook Merlin as the main priest of Arthur’s court. So, while Lady of the Lake 1 is the most powerful and the leader, Nimue is the one that has the most interactions with non-Ladies of the lake.

Her main baby is Blastoise, her first Pokémon. He is protective of her and will do whatever he wants her to do.

Floatzel is playful and when Nimue wants to be dramatic and extra mystical/fae, she’ll use him to lead people to her.

I am assuming Drednaw does not evolve into something. It doesn’t look like it has an evolution nor does the website blurb give me evolution vibes. And the website I use to make this team doesn’t have any Swsh Pokémon yet. So that’s why Drednaw looks weird. Anyway, I saw when this Pokémon came out and I’m like let’s give you to one of the ladies of the lake. Nimue is powerful enough to tame him.

I gave every Lady a water/ground Pokémon because why not. It’s nice protection against those electric Pokémon. And has the youngest of the ladies, she gets the derpy one.

Swanna doesn’t get enough love. So, let’s give her some love.

Starmie is awesome. ‘Nough said.

Little Kaldeo is the main Mythical of the youngest of the Ladies. They are power yet young, like Nimue.

EDIT

Lady of the Lake 4

The one with beef with Balin

I don’t want to kill off the strongest Lady of Lake and it makes more sense if I separated her and the first Lady of the Lake. Now, after she is beheaded by Balin le Sauvage, Arthur takes the Pokémon and keeps them in his menagerie. He likes to troll people with a buff Bibarel. Also, Bruxish terrifies poachers. After the destruction of Camelot, they come with Morgana to Avalon.

Sure, I forgot about her and made her team of the Pokémon I had yet to put in a team in three minutes, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love these Pokémon.

Golduck wasn’t given away because I had too many Kanto Pokémons on teams. So perfect timing. And it makes sense a Lady of the Lake would have a Kappa based Pokémon.

I love you Bibarel.

Gorebyss is wicked. Seriously, those Pokémon Dex entries are terrifying. That’s the face of a monster. And it’s pink and pretty. It works well with a Fae master.

Pelipper, I miss you (my Pelipper died on my ORAS nuzlock).

Ummm, okay the two others were given away because I didn’t know what else to do with them.

Previous in series: Gym Leaders part 4

Next in series : Maid Marion (Leaving Arthuriana for a post and going back to my normal format)

#so many water pokemon #pokemonxbritish legends #lady of the lake #vivianne #nimue

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chrysaliseuro2019 · 5 years

Text

Bizarre Vrsar

Not only did Hotel Marija have a very comfy room its breakfast was vast with many little tempting morsels.

Having spent 2 nights at Novigrad and finding it charming we thought it would be good to see whatever else Istria might offer. The big risk is this might be the benchmark and nothing else will come up to scratch but time to find out.

Randomly picked an inland town off the map about 20 minutes drive. The soil was rich so grapevines and olive trees were aplenty. Arrived at Visnjan as the 1617 clock tower was striking midday. It turned out to be a pretty little town with the bell tower through an arch in a square at the top and a narrow paved street down to the 3 cafes all within thirty metres of each other. The narrow street was lined with old double storey houses two of which had nonnas sitting on the balcony amongst their many pot plants eating lunch. One yelled out ‘Morgen’ clearly not having registered the chiming of 12 o’clock. Perhaps she was excited to see some new faces in town because I reckon this charming little village would not be on the regular tourist circuit.

Also a sturdy but a little neglected church at the end of the narrow street before the cafes. We guessed it was probably built at the same time as the arch and bell tower. The door was closed but the window shutters were open so we could see the paintings on the ceiling and walls which were in surprisingly good condition.

Because we had driven inland we had bypassed Poreč on the coast so we backtracked to it, found a big carpark not far from the centre which took the pain out of trying to interpret the indecipherable restrictions and limitations of European parking metres. Even lucky enough to get one in the shade which was a blessing as the little Fiat’s air conditioning is more a pffff than a blow.

Poreč is a much larger seaside town than Novigrad and plenty of tourists have found it. While the old town hasn’t been ruined by development there are several large complexes on its edge and the beaches teeming with umbrellas and lounges. Historically the Romans were there (of course) then the Venetians took over which was very evident in the buildings which were lovely. There were architectural clues the Venetians had been in Novigrad too.

Poreč’s main attraction the Christian cathedral complex considered the best preserved of its kind. Christians came to Poreč in the first centuries after Christ but Christianity was forbidden. So the priest held holy mass in his home but was later tortured and killed. In 313 Christians were given permission to worship so the first church on the site was built. It was replaced by a church now the Euphrasius Basilica in the 6th century. Also built at that time and still part of the complex were the atrium, bishop’s Palace and the baptistry.

We duly bought our tickets and did the tour of 10 points of interest. The first of which was the bell tower. While only 120 stairs it was stinking hot so we lumbered up. View of Poreč and it’s surrounds was good. Then through the rest of the complex and the museum. It was good without being amazing. Lots of building fragments, artefacts and some bits and pieces of mosaics.

Quick refreshments on the run from the bakery and time to head to the night’s destination. Had booked a place in Vrsar another fishing town, smaller than Poreč but bigger than Novigrad. Found our Air BnB apartment easily enough and we were supposed to be able to park out the front for 15 minutes. So I got out to see if I could move the little locked barrier to be told by the cafe owner that we couldn’t park there. Back in the car to get out of the way of a couple of cars behind us who we’d been holding up for a minute or two by now. Rang the owner who apologised, reset Narelle and once around the block saw us back there with the barrier removed. Apartment on street level up a laneway - always so pleasing not to have to lug cases up stairs. You’ve got to hand it to photographers who can so skilfully make a room barely 4 metres square look roomy on the internet pictures. Still it’s recently renovated and the bathroom excellent.

Parked the car a bit further away down by the water and headed looking for somewhere to settle in for a few hours for a swim and relax. It got me thinking why Europeans get so excited about beaches like Bondi and to a lesser extent StKilda. It’s because there actually is a beach. Here at Vrsar the holiday makers are using up every square metre of small pebbly areas no bigger than our current digs. We along with plenty of others settled for an area under some trees back a little way from the water’s edge. Some housekeeping was required; first scan for dog turds then clear out any pebbles and or pine cones before laying down beach towel. I read and snoozed. Chris blogged.

Tidied up and out for dinner. First of all we passed several 20-something girls sitting at little wooden tables in the street outside our apartment. Equipped with a computer each they were talking on their phones and writing information on lists. I asked the the owner of our apartment the following morning when we went past them again what they were doing. He didn’t know but said a Russian owned the building and the girls only speak Russian. We wondered if they were an example of pesky callers that call from foreign climes trying to scam. Who knows.

Descended a steep hill with what seem liked endless sets of slippery flagstones. We passed a number of red faced puffing people struggling as they heaved themselves up while we gave 100% concentration on not slipping over on the way down. When it was time to go home later we chose an alternative route of a longer footpath without any stairs.

On the way down we passed a couple of young blokes in old fashioned formal clothing and then at the bottom of the hill was another. There was a crowd gathering but we weren’t sure if it was an organised event or a busker. We joined in anyway. Turned out Casanova had been through town and declared it was “A town of fine wine and beautiful women” so it seems these young men do Casanova shows. The young Casanova was very amusing advising the women to leave their husbands home next time, flirting with some of the women saying he had a number of tricks up his sleeve in a very provocative and suggestive way. It was all very light hearted and fun but sadly I wasn’t on the trend of such flirtations as I may have been many years ago. Clearly Casanova thought I was well past my use-by date. After his warm up he started to take his show and followers back towards the hill we had just come down. The choice came down to going back up that hill with Casanova or heading to the wharf for a drink. We chose the latter.

Found a bar where Chris (aka The supercilious Bastard) chose a craft beer The Arrogant Bastard - seemed fitting. Enjoyed watching the throng and while Novigrad was more your Blairgowrie set, Vrsar felt far more like Rosebud.

There was plenty to keep us entertained. A pirate-type boat docked and what seemed liked a surprisingly large number of happy punters for the size of the vessel disgorged to the strangely inappropriate strains of Jose Feliciano’s Feliz Navidad (I want to wish you a Merry Christmas). Still they looked like it they’d had a rollicking good time, Christmas or not.

Another boat caught Chris’ eye. It was the Glassboat but with appropriate movement the GL were hidden by a furled umbrella. We felt due to lack of having one he didn’t qualify going on the Assboat whereas I’m over qualified.

Time for dinner. Initially chose a taverna on the waterfront but after sitting there for 5 minutes and being seemingly invisible we felt it didn’t bode well. So headed a little way back up the hill to a restaurant we’d spotted earlier. Mussels and fish - both ok but Croatian food not a patch on Greek food.

Headed back to our apartment but saw there a music act was on at the cafe just at the front of it. Act was on a break but had a set of 45 minutes to play. So we sat to watch full of anticipation after the 2 nights of very good and excellent music we’d seen in Novigrad. But in hindsight we shouldn’t have had our hopes too high. The only instrument on display was a Hammond-style organ and the banner hanging from the organ said ‘Fantasy Duo’. More nightmare than fantasy. They were a 50 year old husband and wife team, her in a polka dot dress and him in beige Fletcher Jones slacks and a neat shirt. She played the tambourine and swayed. He played the organ and swayed. Unfortunately they both sang. Amongst their repertoire was Strangers In The Night, Una Paloma Blanca, I Just Called To Say I Love You, To Love Somebody and Que Sera Sera plus some Croatian dirges. Chris was willing them to play to the audience, which mainly comprised of Germans, by belting an oompah song. But it wasn’t to be. Just more mundane muzak. I felt like I was listening to an LP from the Brashes $1 Clearance Bin circa 1970. One couple made the best of it and danced. Everyone else talked as if they weren’t there but politely yet briefly clapped at the end of each song. Chris and I found the whole scenario entertaining but probably not in the way the Fantasy Duo hoped. We possibly didn’t conceal our amusement very well because the young hipster waitress (with a very deep voice) came over out of the blue rolling her eyes saying she was sorry we were there for such sad music. She qualified the ‘sad’ as meaning appalling not tear jerking. She made it quite apparent that she wasn’t a fan and said she thought people came along because they thought it was funny. Good to know it wasn’t just us then. It made for a memorable evening.

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cntcrtainmcnt-blog · 6 years

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Okay so, classes are starting on Monday, meaning I’ll probs be slower(or faster, it’s also a definite possibility). In any case, I will most likely slow down when it comes to bringing new muses in so hopefully this is my last intro post in a while. If you’d like to plot with any of them, please like this or just message me!

EDWARD “EDDIE” HALE is a 23 years old CISMALE who looks just like LUKE BENWARD. He has been described as ALTRUISTIC yet SUPERSTITIOUS.

Eddie is the younger brother of Terrence, and from the moment he was born, he was expected to be just as good as his brother was. While he did try to live up to it at first, it also gave him some issues, mostly relating to confidence, since he was always compared to his brother and felt like he wasn’t good enough.

Being 6 years younger, at least, he was mostly the one Hale kid people knew in his school year. During that time, mostly in elementary school, it was a relief, since he had a break of living up to everyone’s expectations.

Then, the closer he got to high school, the more people started to hear about his brother and everything.

All through high school, he tried to just blend in, and not get linked to his brother. By that time, people knew all the things he did, Terrence was basically like a legend in their high school, and Eddie was definitely not the same type of character.

Every single time his brother brought a girlfriend home, he’d end up surprisingly bonding with her, enough to care and try to help them after his brother broke their heart. But he personally didn’t have a girlfriend until the very high of his senior high school year.

By the time he graduated, Terrence had moved out to Kola, looking for good job opportunities. Eddie still doesn’t know what happened in his mind, but at one point, he received a text from his brother asking if he wanted to move in with him in Kola and open a confectionery with him. Since he decided to not go to college and was just working a shit job, Eddie accepted. Not like his relationship with his parents was that good anyway.

So moved to Kola when he was 19, and he lives there in an apartment with his brother. Since he never studied, Terrence thought he’d be better running the front shop, greeting people, selling stuff, managing the employees, while he was working mostly backstore with finance and all that.

Not a day passes without him regretting his decision to move to Kola.

While definitely help you if you’re in trouble, even if he doesn’t know you or won’t get anything out of it.

STYLES MCKINLEY is a 28 years old CISMALE who looks just like BEAU MIRCHOFF. He has been described as GENEROUS yet SAD.

So Styles. Is. A. Sad. Puppy.

He was the second son, his brother being about 5 years older than him. When he was only 3, his mother passed away. He was told it was a certain disease, but he was never told what.

Anyway, he grew up looking up at his dad and his brother, and never really minded not having a mom. Although after a moment, he started getting upset whenever someone would mention his mom, and then they’d apologize when they learned about her fate. It’s not like he really knew her, and yes, it’s sad, but it’s something he’s gotten over a long time ago.

When he was 12, his father(43) remarried with a woman that was 24. It was... weird to have a step-mom this young, but it was weirder for his brother. Anyway, they already knew the woman, she was their dad’s secretary, and actually babysat both boys when they were a little younger. So she was already well acquainted with the family.

Anyway, a year later, she was caught cheating on her husband with no one else than Styles’ brother. That completely tore the family apart. His dad divorced, his brother was kicked out, and his step mom was fired and he never heard of her again.

And when he started high school, his father(who’d started abusing alcohol) was deemed ot good enough to care for him, so he went to live with his brother(who was now 19 and had a steady job in a restaurant). But that wasn’t the rockiest part of his high school experience.

See, Styles was a rather talented soccer player, and so quite popular. But unlike his friends(who tended to be cruel and manipulative), he was just the most caring person, he just never showed that side often. Or at least, people would mistake him as just another cruel boy.

Anyway. Early in sophomore year, they started picking on this girl, Louise, who was, really, just minding her own business. But they didn’t like that she was never mingling with people, and they really wanted her to like... do it with them. Well, Styles never said anything out loud, but she categorized him as one of them, and he totally gets why, since he never stepped in to stop it. Which he was kind of sad about because if he was honest, she seemed really nice and he thought he could definitely like her.

Well, he did end up stopping them, about a month and a half later. It was a party(which she surprisingly decided to go to), his “friends” had cornered her in a room. He was standing in the back at first, but when he realized what their intention was, he just want ahead and got them, not so pacifially, to leave. That was the beginning of his story with Louise, and honestly the end of his popularity(and soccer career, since he quit, refusing to play with such jerks).

At first, Louise and him were distant, mostly because he was grumpy he went from everything to nothing, but he quickly warmed up. And that was the beginning of a wonderful love story that would’ve lasted for ages, had it not been a horrible diagnosis.

It was during senior year, she was getting sicker and sicker, so she went to the doctors. And when she got her results, she was devastated. So was Styles, when he learned she had cancer, and it wasn’t an early stage, and it was almost terminal.

Well, anyway, they decided it wouldn’t stop them. The next year, while she was transferred to a better hospital and he decided he would go into medicine in a close by hospital, they did the most impulsive thing either have ever done, and they got married. She just wanted to live as much as she could, before it was too late.

She was strong, lasted for a very long time, but the more time passed, the more they realized the day was going to come. Louise passed away 3 years ago, when they were 25. Styles was devastated, but at least, he knew she had a good life. She had the life she wanted.

So he kind of knew he wouldn’t be able to stay in that town much longer after her death, so he decided to head back to Kola. He’s now a resident in oncology, and his biggest dream would be to help cancer patients.

TAMI SULLIVAN is a 20 years old CISFEMALE who looks just like SHANNON PURSER. She has been described as MAGNANIMOUS yet SELF CONSCIOUS.

Tami is the youngest sister of a pageant queen who went out to become a model. She was originally expected to also follow in those steps, but she had no interest in beauty contest, and much prefers imaginary worlds.

While her sister would always be out partying with friends, Tami would just stay home and read books after books. Literally never stopped, it’s all she did. So while she wasn’t so good in classes such as sciences or maths, she was skilled in English or Literature classes.

So she’s not really popular? Never has been? But she’s also got a bunch of friends. You know how it is, unpopular kids tend to bond together, and they nearly always have more genuine friends than popular kids. So she’s really happy being unpopular but with real friends.

She’s currently studying to become an editor, since she loves reading and it would be a perfect job for her. She would totally write her own stories, but she’s just lacking a little in the imagination skill.

While she lives well being unpopular, constantly being compared to her model sister has given her body issues. She knows all shapes are pretty, curves are pretty, people tell her she’s pretty, but it’s sometimes just really hard to believe when you’re sister is tall and skinny and poses on magazine covers.

TERRENCE HALE is a 29 years old CISMALE who looks just like GLEN POWELL. She has been described as AESTHETIC yet COCKY.

Born from two overachiever parents, Terrence was expected to do good. And while he had an immense ego and self-confidence, he was also surprisingly smart. So of course, when his brother was born, he was taken as a model.

To not look like a complete nerd, Terrence acted like a real brat in school, hanging with the popular kids. Hell, he was one of the most popular kid out there. He just made sure to study double the amount at home so his grades would stay up.

Definitely did a lot of shit, dated countless girls(often now more than a few days), did all kind of crazy dares, which ended up getting him suspended quite a few times, but also gave him a name in the school, which would end up lasting for years.

Once he graduated high school, he went on to study accounting in Kola University, keeping up the same game he played all through school, aka he was a frat boy who acted like he gave no shit about classes, but definitely had the best grades in the class.

After graduating, he didn’t really know what he wanted to do. He knew he would never go home, somehow being far from his parents felt good, so he just looked around for jobs, but nothing really interested him.

Until he was binge-watching all of the Harry Potter movies, with a gigantic bowl of candies. He then realized there weren’t that many confectioneries in Kola, and that was definitely something the town needed more. (he might have been high when that happened...)

It was really on an impulse that Terrence looked around for a place to rent, to found one, and called Eddie to know if he wanted to join. Honestly, that confectionery was going to happen whether he said yes or no, but he definitely wanted his brother to be a part of it. He was just always close to him, and he knew he was most likely looking out for a good opportunity career-wish.

The confectionery, called Candy Hale, was opened about 4 years ago, and its popularity keeps only increasing. Terrence mostly works the accounts, but he also doesn’t mind helping up front if needed.

#fckits:intro #cancer tw #death tw #alcoholism tw #abuse tw #just in case #body issues tw

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shuttershocky · 7 years

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The Tsukihime Worldbuilding Primer : Part 2 - The Demon Hunters

Hey Type-Moon fans! Have you not read Tsukihime but wondered how much of the Nasuverse lore you’ve missed out on? Then this is for you! This will be an easy to read Nasuverse worldbuilding guide meant for those who are unwilling or otherwise unable to read Tsukihime, from a very big Tsukihime fan that understands that we’ll all be dead before the remake comes out. It will discuss everything from the factions, magic, connections to Fate and Kara No Kyoukai, and anything else people might find interesting. I will also avoid any major plot spoilers in case this convinces you to read Tsukihime in the future!

(Of course you could just read all this on the Type-Moon wiki yourself, but good luck in those murky waters)

WARNING: Minor Spoilers for Tsukihime and Kara No Kyoukai

For this post, we’ll talk about the four Demon Hunter families featured in Tsukihime and Kara No Kyoukai; The Ryougi, the Nanaya, the Fujou, and the Asagami.

First off, who are the Demon Hunters?

The Demon Hunter Organization is a joining of four families in Japan with supernatural powers. Their goal? Eliminate the Oni (think of them like Japan’s demons) from the land. In recent years, such demons have intermingled with humans to the point where their hybrid children are no longer capable of being bound by spells meant for the elimination of Oni kind, but are still capable of wielding the Oni’s vast powers. Thus, the families developed their own supernatural powers in order to combat the Oni, each one claimed to be a form of psychic power and so is considered separate from magic.

First, we’ll start with a very familiar family.

1.) The Ryougi

The family at the center of Kara No Kyoukai and thus the most well-known of the Nasuverse’s demon hunters (though admittedly that’s still not much), the Ryougi were a family who essentially cultivated themselves to be born with two distinct personalities (although according to the Ryougi themselves, it’s a lot closer to having two souls) in a single body. The purpose of this was to compartmentalize: each personality would master a different set of skills, and so the Ryougis could appear to be multi-talented geniuses to the point of appearing supernatural.

Due to the deceptive nature of their family magic, the Ryougis escaped the doom that befell the other families when the era of demon hunting came to an end and became wealthy landowners. Their powers however, had the tendency to drive them mad in old age, and almost all the Ryougis killed themselves as their insanity slowly took over their lives.

In their experiments to place twin souls within a body however, they managed to create a child with an origin of 「　」(nothingness) AKA the void. This led to the child having a connection to the root of Akasha (yes, that same route magi will kill each other for in Fate) and thus a viable candidate to hold one of the most powerful weapons in the Nasuverse, the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception.

The child, Shiki Ryougi, became the main protagonist of the light novel series Kara No Kyoukai, and subsequently became one of Nasu’s biggest badasses. After losing one of her two halves, the girl found herself able to see lines around anything that, if traced, destroyed whatever object, person,or even magic they wrapped around.

Anything at all that is capable of death or being destroyed is vulnerable to her eyes. This means that Shiki Ryougi is able to kill even extremely durable enemies with a quick cut of her knife, destroy any object blocking her way, or even neutralize powerful magic and ESP abilities with a wave of her knife or sword. Even certain beings that lie beyond the concept of death, such as Buddha’s arm, are constantly being attacked by her eyes which attempt to draw lines over them, and these only keep growing in power as she ages. It is theorized by her nemesis Souren Alaya that given enough time, her eyes might even succeed in drawing lines upon the Buddha.

2.) The Fujou

A family of magi/ESP users, the mysterious Fujou family display several abilities that all seem to center around control over other people’s bodies. The family has mostly fallen into ruin, and all we know of them are from three individuals, Kirie Fujou, as well as Tsukihime’s twin maids, Hisui and Kohaku.

Kirie Fujou, the antagonist for Kara No Kyoukai’s first story, and is, for lack of a better term, a complete monster of a psychic. A master of astral projection, the almost blind Kirie could see by projecting her mind towards locations she stayed in when she still had her sight, and was able to seize the minds of several girls, forcing them to commit suicide. She also had a second, ghostly body that she could control, haunting a commercial building the Fujou family used to own. Her killing spree put her on a collision course with Shiki Ryougi, where a battle between the last two descendants of the families determined the end of the Fujou family.

Or so we thought.

Hisui and Kohaku of Tsukihime are also part of the Fujou family (they descended from a disgraced, exiled member) who had avoided the destruction of the Fujou.

The lovable twin maids of the Tohno mansion, the two girls appear to be normal by most circumstances. There’s just one small thing.

Although unable to perform the same kind of astral projection or body controlling magic that Kirie could, the twins have the power of the Synchronizer, which gives them the ability to share their life force with others. This leads to the strengthening of one’s supernatural abilities, as well as healing the benefactor of any malady inflicting them, whether it be physical like paralysis, or mental like insanity.

3.) The Asagami

Another ruined family like the Fujou, the Asagami were a family split into two branches, the Asakami and the Asagami. The Asakami were the major and more powerful branch, although they made the bizarre decision of worshipping the captured Oni and even interbreeding with them, until they became demonic themselves and wiped each other out. The Asagami on the other hand, quietly swept their supernatural affairs under a rug and became a family of ordinary businessmen. That is, until their old family powers manifested again in one of their children, a certain Fujino Asagami.

Fujino Asagami is an immensely powerful telekinetic, able to bend, twist, and crush any object with the incredible force of her mind. Displaying her powers at a very young age, her family began drugging her in order to sedate her abilities, but the drugs also left her with an inability to feel any pain (or indeed, any sensation whatsoever).

She regained her abilities through a most horrible circumstance: the victim of a gang rape, one of her rapists began clubbing her with a baseball bat, and the shock reactivated and perhaps even enhanced her powers, causing her to slaughter her rapists before going on a mad killing spree throughout Mifune city.

4.) The Nanaya

The fourth and final Demon-Hunter family. While the Ryougi, Asagami, and Fujou were first shown in Kara No Kyoukai, the Nanaya did not make an appearance until Tsukihime, where the main protagonist Shiki Tohno would use his Nanaya heritage in his battles against the Dead Apostles.

The Nanaya’s original powers were having specialized eyes called Pure Eyes, which gave them vision over conceptual things. The abilities of the eyes differ depending on the individual, with Kiri Nanaya being able to see the thoughts and intentions of people, while Shiki Tohno could spy invisible threats. They could also detect non-humans by scent, the smell of a vampire or demon filling them with an nearly maddening bloodlust.

Unsatisfied with just this however, the Nanayas developed another ability that allowed them to battle with the supernatural: Super speed. Called the Nanaya Assassination Arts, the two styles, Flashing Scabbard and Flashing Dance, allowed the Nanayas to temporarily move in superhuman speed, and also allowed them to crawl along walls and ceilings to attack from confusing angles. Doing battle with a Nanaya was like fighting a demon yourself, as their freakish abilities meant they could move faster than the eye could see, and drop down from ceilings and walls to behead you before you even realized they were there, and so the Nanaya became the most feared of the Demon Hunter families.

Kiri Nanaya in particular, was feared by the demon hybrid families. In one particularly gruesome attack, Kiri infiltrated a family of Oni, the Saiki, and killed thirty guards before dueling the head of the Saiki family one on one. Though the head of the Saiki was said to be able to kill a dozen Demon Hunters without much effort, Kiri pulled the much more powerful man underneath a table and quickly dissected him in a place where a single ordinary person would not even be able to move properly, cementing his legend as a terrifying assassin.

Shiki Tohno on the other hand, was never trained in the Nanaya Assassination Arts, and thus has very little control over his abilities, and in fact does not know he even has speed powers. Although, several times in Tsukihime when his life or the life of someone he holds dear is threatened, he is able to call upon his heritage and do battle with terrifying monsters, occasionally even frightening them with his spidery movements and horrifying eyes.

Oh yes! I forgot to mention that point. Due to some very long circumstances in which you will need to read Tsukihime yourself to find out, Shiki Tohno’s Nanaya Pure Eyes get upgraded...

Into Shiki Ryougi’s Mystic Eyes of Death Perception.

So take Shiki Ryougi’s ability to kill anything with her eyes that literally channel the void, and put it on a boy who is able to move faster than the human eye can see, and you have yourself one of the scariest combinations in this side of the Nasuverse.

As this foolish Dead Apostle is about to find out.

And that’s all for this post! Next post, we’ll talk about the forebears of the Dead Apostles, the True Ancestors, as well as the Tohno family, and the meddling sisters that get their grubby hands into any Nasuverse story, the Aozaki!

#The Tsukihime Worldbuilding Primer #Tsukihime #Kara No Kyoukai #Type Moon #Nasuverse

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klainelynch · 7 years

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2017 in review

I always say that I’m going to post a “how my year was” at the end of the year, but I have an awful memory so I never remember what happened in each month. This year, I tried to post about each month as it finished- the good and the bad. Under a cut because of course it got long, and I never seem to post about my real life, so this may be boring if you don’t actually know me.

January

Got a snow day after having students for just one day

Accidentially read a book in one night (Perfect) because of aforementioned snow day/borrowing it electronically from the library/not knowing how many pages there were (not that many since it’s YA)

Got two more snow/ice days because my county has mountains in it and we’re in the South, so we’re not prepared for winter

Saw Hidden Figures and cried about how good humanity can be when we actually allow and encourage all people to be their best (black women!!!! they did that!!!!!!!)

Helped my students navigate our county’s program of going one-to-one with Chromebooks (there were many good things, such as getting my kids to play freerice for extra credit; there were many bad things, such as a quiz getting screwed up because I shuffled the questions but had asked my co-teacher to help me by reading the quiz [as she normally does] to a half dozen students...who all had a different order of questions...).

Went to a conference for new teachers and while a lot of the information was repetitive, there were a few things I got from it (such as 6.5 professional development hours aw yis).

Got to see lots of family I don’t usually see on this weekend!

Started reading The Diary of Anne Frank with my students because this country allowed fascism to be A Thing™ and I’m going to resist however I can.

Got two (!!!!!!) days off at the end of January for sick days (apparently other students in the county? not us but we benefitted!!!!)

February

Finally had an entire 5-day week of school

Then got another two days off for sickness (8th grade was doing our part by asking ENTIRE classes “Hey! Anyone feel sick? Anyone want to go get their temp checked???”)

Went to an open house at a local mosque, and y’all, I live in The South™ but their parking lot filled up a good 15 minutes before the event even started and there was an overflow room and so much support for this community during the Muslim Ban and it just filled my heart with joy

Got a haircut (it was literally down to my butt y’all!!!!) and now it’s right below my shoulders

Had pedal extensions installed in my car because I’m 4′9 and would have literally died if the airbags went off.

March

Got my professional teaching license! I’m no longer an apprentice! I don’t have to have 4 observations a year!!! Only 2! And while I’m REALLY good at playing the observation game (and am MUCH better at this than the testing game), it will be nice to not think about it so much.

My mom came to stay for a few days because it was her and my sister’s spring break.

During that week, I had a LONG 4 day week, which included staying at my school until 7:30 for a town hall meeting/carnival/extravaganza. F U N.

My spring break was purposefully low-key. I rested a lot, read books, caught up on Netflix, shopped at Old Navy, and went to the local art museum for the first time (I’ve only been in this city for 8 years...)

April

I found that I actually enjoy teaching how to write an essay. The 5 paragraph essay, while it has many faults, is a really good place for beginning writers (which 8th graders are) to begin. I had a student tell me that she liked how I made each sentence have a specific purpose because she was able to plug in her evidence and thoughts more easily- this honestly made my whole day.

That being said, I HATE teaching essays when students are absent. Trying to get them caught up and keep everyone else on track is SO MUCH WORK. Especially when the absent students don’t come to me during my plan to make up their work...

For two whole days, my last period class was not allowed to use erasers because some people (two boys, as it turned out) were shredding and throwing them at each other.

I turned 26

The Welcome to Night Vale Live Show FINALLY TRAVELED TO TENNESSEE AND Y’ALL CECIL (REAL CECIL NOT THE CHARACTER) IS FROM KNOXVILLE!!!! The weather singer was super fun (she played Rocky Top and we ate that shit up like biscuits and gravy with no shame whatsoever) and the show itself was just so much fun even though I went alone. It was almost an hour of normal segments with the plot of the glow cloud, but they also brought in Steve Carlsburg and Tamika Flynn (I diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiied when she walked on stage because I majorly crush on that actress whoops) and watching those actors interact on stage was so much fun.

May

End of the school year is always chaotic and better left forgotten tbh

We took the 8th graders to the local theme park, and it was really good (though my expectations were super low because last year’s trip SUCKED). The weather looked like it might rain, but it was nice all day, the kids were pretty good, and the rides were fun.

There were some really sad community deaths around this time :(

The teacher who normally MCs the 8th grade commencement is now an administrator, so while we still had him open the ceremony, I gave out several of the awards, and I don’t think I did a bad job (two of the other teachers hate public speaking and the last one was new to the team this year, so I was really the only choice).

June

Worked my church’s festival, which is always fun. The crowds are never what they ought to be (due to a combination of rain threats and poor marketing), so a lot of people missed out on some really great food and music.

Great music included a new band- Southern Avenue- that I got to see again later in the year.

I had to miss the third day of the festival because of a friend’s baby shower. I knew a few people (besides the couple), but they left early; luckily, the people throwing it were a lot of fun. We played games (don’t get caught saying “baby”; pin the sperm on the egg; etc) and decorated diapers/onesies/bibs for the baby). The next day, we went to church (IN A MOTHERFUCKING MONSOON) and for Mexican food.

Started my reread of Harry Potter (it had been about 5 years since I’d last read the series). I cried in almost every book, and not always at sad parts. I’ve become very protective of Harry as I’ve gotten older.

My younger brother found an NES, which was the console I grew up with and my parents gave away years ago. They really loved to play on it, so this was a wedding anniversary present for them. The Legend of Zelda is the shit.

July

I finally got a new phone (I’d had mine about 3 years, and it died in May) and I know it’s fun for iphone users to shit on Android users, but I really do love the camera quality on my Samsung.

Rachel came to visit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We drank wine and went to the zoo and got real bbq and the best donuts in the world

Had a Treat Yo Self Day which included:

WAFFLE HOUSE

BITCH!!!! B I T C H

DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU CAN GET AT THE WAFFLE HOUSE

YOU

KNOW

COUNTRY HASHBROWNS!!!!!

aka

biscuits and gravy minus the biscuits plus the hashbrowns

I just had regular biscuits and gravy BUT ALLI HAD THE GLORY

I LOVE THIS PLACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

McKay’s

I bought Pokemon yellow because I never played/watched it as a kid, and while at my house for the summer, I found the old black & white gameboy an older cousin gave me, so naturally I had to do it.

Pokemon Go

yes still

You know what once I was back in town I went to my favorite library almost every day for an hour or two and read while opening Pokemon Go every few minutes so there

Went with some of my best friends to visit another one of our best friends who lives in the middle of fucking nowhere and had adventures including, but not limited to: getting pizza because we were too weak to change out the gas’s grill, waiting 5ever for food at dinner, and watching the entire Flowers in the Attic series.

August

School started back up, and at the kick-off for all the teachers, I won $500 in a drawing of all the people who hadn’t used a sick day last year!!!!!

And I didn’t even realize that I’d won $200 at the previous school board meeting in the same type drawing!!!!

New class started off with 85 students. It was a DREAM to be able to focus on individuals and not just herd cats.

I actually felt more confident in the classroom with my early units (poetry & our whole class novel).

September

Still felt confident in the classroom!

I got my testing scores back from the previous year (this shit takes 5ever and it’s dumb) and did better in about the only way I could have, so that was good to see.

I had about 10 county people in my classroom (principals, academic coaches, etc) to see a certain style of teaching ELA that the county is working on. It’s basically making sure that teachers keep students engaged in complex text (which is what I do almost every day anyway) and I had been to two of these trainings already, so I knew what sort of lesson worked. Well...they LOVED it!!! The kids were in small groups and did SO GOOD discussing evidence/answering questions (they all got candy afterwards) and I got some good feedback about how I talk to my students. Then that same day the superintendent came in my room (one of several rooms he visited while doing his yearly observation on the principal). That visit was super unannounced, but still fine.

The academic coach got rid of my classroom’s desks and found tables and chairs instead!!!! My classroom is tiny and weird shaped, so this works SO MUCH BETTER.

I help coach volleyball (aka I keep the books) and the girls won district (beating out a team with a redneck grandma in the stands who literally came up to our girls and yelled at them for cheering on their own damn team in the previous game). They didn’t do so well at sectionals, but that’s ok.

October

Holy shit I won another $200 in that drawing!!! And this time my parents let me buy them plane tickets so we could see family over Christmas.

LESLIE ODOM JR CAME TO MY CITY AND HE PERFORMED BEAUTIFUL MUSIC AND I WAS THERE AND I DIED

Got to see a lot of family at my cousin’s ‘wedding party’ (he got married last year in Europe since he met his now wife over there, and wanted to have a family party here). I learned that my uncle and his son dance exactly the same at the same level of alcohol.

November

I should have known something was up when my first 9 weeks went so well. Apparently my county is in the bottom tier for the state, and now everyone is freaking out (never mind that the data to support this was mONTHS LATE AND BASED ON STANDARDIZED TESTS WHICH WERE A CLUSTERFUCK TO BEGIN WITH) so there was a lot of school stress during this time.

Nice things though- got to see friends when their baby was baptized and went home for Thanksgiving, where my dad came into the Catholic Church.

I organized most of the 8th grade field trip for the semester- going to see “A Christmas Carol” put on by my old college’s theatre. I was stressed the entire time because if something went wrong it would be on ME, but it was absolutely wonderful and I cried which honestly surprised me. We went to the local mall for our lunch and it was good to see the kids just relax. It was a great field trip and several people including the principal thanked me for my hard work which felt great after a hard month.

December

School was nothing but survival mode per usual.

Hosted the Christmas party for my friend group at church and it was a lot of fun.

The actual break was fast- we flew to Texas with one of my mom’s sisters and her family to visit their brother and his family. I hadn’t been to Texas since high school, so it was fun to explore and eat good food.

My final count for books was 93 (67 new and 26 reread) (I’m trying to finish an audiobook I’m borrowing from the library but I still have 80 minutes left and literally 4 hours to finish it so we’ll see!!!).

#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #2017

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bakagamieru · 7 years

Text

Rolling Stone Breakdown

I read part of the article earlier today before work and I could already tell BS was simmering even before I got home and found out about all the over the top het stuff. Knowing this ahead of time, I’m going to go ahead and take notes / rant back at the article as I read it.

BS 101: Intro to BS

paragraph 1: wow this person really wanted to be a bad fanfic writer, but they got stuck at Rolling Stone instead

I’m being petty with this, but just use “One Direction” fully if you’re going to go to the trouble of typing out “One D” instead of “1D”

“he became a canvas onto which many of fans pitched their hopes and dreams” because all fans of boybands (i.e. girls) dream about is romance and that’s the only reason they’re fans, ALSO media like Rolling Stone had nothing to do with Harry being a blank canvas for people to project their image of him onto (*sarcasm)

every mention of After, even a vague one, is -5000 points, every time it’s mentioned normally and not as the dangerous misrepresentation of abuse it is, is -5,000,000 points, every time someone crosses the line by a light-year and talks about it directly to Harry is -5,000,000,000 points, I don’t make the rules, I just enforce them

“a song cycle about women and relationships”, *cough*womanizer BS*cough, ALSO the first single Sign of the Times is clear social commentary with no real (read: not forced to fit that interpretation) hint of romance in sight, so...?

“more of a rock sound”, still pretending that 1D’s last 3 albums never existed

Harry wants his music to be “honest”, now where have we heard that before? Niall, Louis, Zayn with Liam probably soon to follow. It’s almost like they’ve been held forcibly quiet under a gag order...

I’m trying to figure out how I’m supposed to take the comment that Harry “runs every yellow light” and apply it to his persona, I’m stumped (also, you can’t run a yellow btw)

“the album no one has heard is burning a hole in his iPhone”, chill the fuck out with the italics, I know everyone else has talked about that, but you haven’t even mentioned the secrecy around his album in your article so you have no reason to randomly italicize things

Hiatus

“there was another One D member to vector questions into a charmingly evasive display of band camaraderie”, fuck you and your ever so sly implications that the boys’ closeness was manufactured and that the boys never answering anything interesting had to do with the band rather than interviewers incessantly asking the same vapid questions

“It was in a London studio in late 2014 that Styles first brought up the idea of One Direction taking a break”, as @paynoisbatman already pointed out, this timeline of the hiatus makes no sense with the timing of Zayn “quitting”, also it’s inconsistent with the way the boys denied the first round of hiatus articles in June 2015

just to be clear, they probably DID know about the hiatus ahead of time and they WERE lying when they denied the upcoming hiatus in June, and that also means that there’s no reason Zayn should have jumped the gun so close to the finish line (yay mixed metaphors!), I’m just pointing out the story is inconsistent, so all of these things can’t be true

“If you’re shortsighted, you can think, 'Let’s just keep touring,’ but we all thought too much of the group than to let that happen. You realize you’re exhausted and you don’t want to drain people’s belief in you.” <- This is pure 100% lovely, insightful, well spoken Harry

I’d also like to point out that them first discussing it in 2014 means that Harry’s comment about “we all thought too much of the group” applies to all 5

“I love the band, and would never rule out anything in the future. The band changed my life, gave me everything.” I’d like to point out that they always phrase these quotes to sound like past tense, like the band is broken up as of now, when in reality he’s saying that not only will they come back after the hiatus but that he’s in this band for life

“and not just have it be ‘Here’s a demo I wrote.’” you have that chance Harry! Release the finished version of Don’t Let Me Go Harry!

“Every decision I’ve made since I was 16 was made in a democracy.” I feel like someone misspelled “was a rebellion under Simon Cowell and Co’s dictatorship”

Pretentious Character Work or Work on Building Pretentious Character? Ah, got it: Pretentious Work on Building Pretentious Character

“As one of the most well-known 23-year-olds in the world, Styles himself is still largely unknown” not if you’ve actually paid attention over the last 6 years? I mean yes, always to some extent, but it’s not like this insightful, loving dork is a dark mystery

“He looks at my digital recorder like a barely invited guest.” learn to choose useful metaphors and stop being pretentious

dude, I know you did this on purpose, but you said that “Behind the effervescent stage persona, there is more lore than fact. He likes it that way.” and then put the quote about Prince’s artist draw being his mystery right after, making it seem like he that was his reason for wanting to be mysterious, then you quoted “It’s not about trying to make my career longer, like I’m trying to be this 'mysterious character,’ because I’m not.” which directly contradicts the connection you drew with your words, AKA you knew it was BS and made it seem connected anyway

“The pool cleaner looks perplexed, not quite sharing Styles’ existential joy.” there’s nothing existential about it, it’s just a smile, he’s just being nice to people he passes like a good human being, I’m sorry if you don’t know what that looks like

“It’s obvious that the band has a well-worn frat-house dynamic”, do you actually know what you’re talking about or are you going off of stereotypes? if you’re calling it a “frat” and were in a fraternity, your frat was probably stereotypical anyway

“Styles is, to all, ‘H.’” It’s a fricking nickname that his fricking boybandmates also use, not a commentary on his position as the benign and worshipped leader of the Jamaican band cult frat you apparently think formed

“Pomegranate-scented candles flicker around the room.” this I definitely believe, but did you recognize the pomegranate smell right away or specifically look at a candle to find out what it was?

“It was Styles’ first full immersion into the land of musos” I need that staring into the camera Office gif

Music Ideology

“Most of the stuff that hurts me about what’s going on at the moment is not politics, it’s fundamentals,” Styles says. “Equal rights. For everyone, all races, sexes, everything. …” this is a very interesting thing to randomly bring into a conversation without asking, unlike the rest of the article, this bit aligns with Harry’s rainbows in the pics, at SNL, and out and about with fans

“The song is written from a point of view as if a mother was giving birth to a child and there’s a complication.” No, uh-uh, I like the idea personally , but Harry has said ever since MITAM and maybe before that he likes people to be able to have their own interpretation, he said it in interviews about SOTT recently too, I’m not at all convinced Harry wanted to actually share the official story of what the song means, it flies in the face of his philosophy about song interpretation

“The lyrics are full of details and references – secrets whispered between friends, doomed declarations of love, empty swimming pools – sure to set fans scrambling for the facts behind the mystery.” the fact that you put this right after Ever Since New York is laughable, that is a solid contender for the vaguest lyrics that couldn’t possibly be accurately paired up with details of Harry’s life, but you want people to think it’s about Haylor, don’t you

“I’m happy I found this band and these musicians, where you can be vulnerable enough to put yourself out there.” this one is hard because I can see Harry being grateful for a good group of people to write with, but I also don’t believe the implications that he’s never been vulnerable in his writing before or that he couldn’t be vulnerable with his boyband, both are BS, I’m going to say it’s probably a real quote but with suggestive framing

“The album is a distinct departure from the dance pop that permeates the airwaves.” can people please stop pretending that music hasn’t sounded vaguely 70′s and 80′s-ish for the last 4-5 years?

“It’s different from what you’d expect,” Bhasker says. “It made me realize the Harry [in One D] was kind of the digitized Harry. Almost like a character. I don’t think people know a lot of the sides of him that are on this album.” such. utter. BS. Fans know Harry. the general public only doesn’t know him because MEDIA LIKE ROLLING STONE created that “digitized Harry” that’s “like a character”

“Asked if he spends pressure-filled evenings worried about proving credibility to an older crowd, Styles grows animated.” of course he does, sweet child of man that he is, he jumps at the chance to educate heathens like you about the wonderful world of being a decent human being rather than a sexist prick

1D and Zayn

“He’s not a heavy drinker, he says, maybe some tequila on ice or wine with friends after a show, but by the band’s last tour there wasn’t much time even for that.” Oh, ok, we’re still pretending that TMH wasn’t the craziest scheduled tour

“Styles and his phone have a bittersweet, mature relationship – they spend a lot of time apart. He doesn’t Google himself, and checks Twitter infrequently.” ah, but you forgot his lurking on Tumblr

“I mention a few of the verbal Molotov cocktails Zayn Malik has tossed at the band in recent interviews.” print interviews, all print interviews, because you put words in his mouth just like you're doing with Harry

“threading the needle of diplomacy” yeahhhh.... this is all BS, it’s made to sound neutral to make it seem like Harry is only being polite, whether Harry said these words or not, they’re not HIS words

More Pretentiousness

“Styles, born two months before Cobain exited Earth, doesn’t feel tied to any particular genre or era” funny since his 70′s image is being amped up to 11 for his solo debut

“In the car, he’ll just as easily crank up the country music of Keith Whitley as the esoteric blues-and-soul of Shuggie Otis” and now I know where the country bits of MITAM came from, I was wondering

“It’s like – that’s not how it works. I don’t even remember what the question was.” having “It’s quite small” flashbacks

“ ‘Could I get a selfie?’ Styles obliges, and leans over the counter. Click. We exit into the Laurel Canyon evening.” I’m sorry, I can’t stop laughing, but was the onomatopoeia really that necessary?

“River Phoenix,” the man announces, a little sadly. “You ever heard of him? If he hadn’t have passed, I would have said that was you. Talented guy.” sadness, River Phoenix really was such a talented young man, a very worthwhile person based on the roots of his problems too

The Obligatory Origin Story

They share a silent moment, before Styles walks to his car. He hands me the bag filled with English snacks. “This is for you,” he says. “This was my youth …” “Harry Edward Styles was born in Worcestershire, England” great transition dude, I’m sure that was completely organic

“But in fact, all was not perfection, scored to a cool, retro soundtrack.” but I thought it was!

“His eyes moisten a little, but unlike the young man who wept over an early bout with Internet criticism, a powerful moment in the early One Direction documentary A Year in the Making, Styles tonight knocks back the sentiment.” “look, he’s repressing his emotions, this is progress!” I wouldn’t make fun of this if he had phrased it as Harry being stronger or no longer caring about what other people think, but saying he “knock[ed] back the sentiment”?

“I’d gone because my mum told me I was good from singing in the car … but your mum tells you things to make you feel good, so you take it with a pinch of salt.” um... first of all, X-Factor flashbacks, second of all, Harry said that he’d always wanted to audition but had always been too young, so...

“and united the members of One D in a musical shotgun marriage” I’m keeping this imagery, it’s mine, no one can take it away from me now, no takebacksies

Ben Winston Earns His Tag On My Blog

“ ‘Family,’ answers Ben Winston.” who is not Harry’s family

look, I actually think Harry and Niall and maybe the others actually have a friendship with Ben, I can’t understand why, though, when he always participates in BS like this, I will never forgive him for the Livestream of Doom/FOUR Hangout

“There is more chance of me going to Mars next week than there is of Harry having some sort of addiction.” Why are we so focused on Harry not being a drug addict? He’s not, there aren’t even rumors he is, ok, don’t need to talk about it, moving on.

Styles had just moved out of his family home in Cheshire, an inconvenient three hours north of London. He found a home he liked near the Winstons in Hampstead Heath. wtf? revisionist history much? forgetting all 5 boys lived in the same complex right after moving to London much?

“ He became a friendly mentor to Styles, though the friendship was soon tested... Styles asked if he could briefly move in with Winston and his wife, Meredith. She agreed,” Winston says, “but only for two weeks.”... For the next 20 months, one of the most desired stars on the planet slept on a small mattress in an attic.” this is not Harry, Harry would not move in for 20 months after asking for 2 weeks, if he did he would make sure it was ok, if he made sure it was ok, you shouldn’t be talking about it and essentially badmouthing him to the press

also, can we talk about “one of the world’s most desired stars” because as we’ve all talked about before, Harry was 17/18 and being hypersexualized in the press and this is not ok

Winston continues the tales from the attic. “So we had this joke. Meri and I would like to see the girls that you would come back with to the house. That was always what we enjoyed, because we’d be in bed like an old couple. We’d have our spot cream on our faces and we’d be in our pajamas and the door would go off. The stairwell was right outside our door, so we’d wait to see if Harry was coming home alone or with people... He wasn’t always alone,” corrects Winston, “but it was exciting seeing the array of A-listers that would come up and sleep in the attic. het BS *yawn* *snore*

The subject today is relationships. While Styles says he still feels like a newcomer to all that, a handful of love affairs have deeply affected him. The images and stolen moments tumble extravagantly through the new songs: And promises are broken like a stitch is … I got splinters in my knuckles crawling 'cross the floor/Couldn’t take you home to mother in a skirt that short/But I think that’s what I like about it … I see you gave him my old T-shirt, more of what was once mine … That black notebook, you sense, is filled with this stuff. het BS *yawn* *snore*, I’m really going to need to hear these songs for myself, they better not have fucked with his material, the consolation about Zayn’s album was that at least the music and lyrics were unquestionably his

More Specific Het!Harry BS

The relationship is a subject he’s famously avoided discussing. “I gotta pee first. This might be a long one,” he says. He rises to head to the bathroom, then adds, “Actually, you can say, 'He went for a pee and never came back.' ” you think he was being funny, but he really really wasn’t, are you sure he came back? I don’t think he did, I think everything after the bathroom was utter BS

“When I see photos from that day,” he says, “I think: Relationships are hard, at any age. And adding in that you don’t really understand exactly how it works when you’re 18, trying to navigate all that stuff didn’t make it easier. I mean, you’re a little bit awkward to begin with. You’re on a date with someone you really like. It should be that simple, right? It was a learning experience for sure. But at the heart of it – I just wanted it to be a normal date.” ok, maybe not such BS since he’s as vague and general as you can get in the vast majority of this quote, so he’s saying that when he looks at pictures of himself with Taylor, he thinks how he wanted it to be a normal date with Louis, got it

yada yada yada, Harry being way nicer than he should have to be about his name being used by someone who abused his reputation for her own gain, par for the course

I like tipping a hat to the time together. You’re celebrating the fact it was powerful and made you feel something, rather than 'this didn’t work out, and that’s bad.’ huh, this seems like subtle shade to me since one of my biggest complaints is how nearly all her songs are negative, put the blame on the guy, and don’t have her taking any responsibility (even if they are fake relationships)

He notes a more recent relationship, possibly over now, but significant for the past few years. (Styles has often been spotted with Kendall Jenner, but he won’t confirm that’s who he’s talking about.) it was made abundantly clear that even if you believe the narrative, Harry and Kendall are not currently together, yeesh!

“She’s a huge part of the album,” says Styles. “Sometimes you want to tip the hat, and sometimes you just want to give them the whole cap … and hope they know it’s just for them.” mm, nope, still BS, alternatively a quote taken out of context and not about Kendall or even romance at all

Actual Solo Stuff

“Some of the stuff they’re doing in this movie is insane. And it was hard, man, physically really tough, but I love acting. I love playing someone else. I’d sleep really well at night, then get up and continue drowning.” ok, that was clever, good on you Harry

It was the perfect rite of passage for a musician looking to explode the past and launch a future. I thought we agreed that Harry has no issue with his past in a boyband? can you please remember what you already wrote in your own article

He didn’t feel stifled in One D, he says, as much as interrupted. you bet your ass he did, him and Zayn and Niall, interrupting clueless and/or asshole interviewers all day long (I’m sure Louis and Liam have/will do too, just haven’t had the chance yet)

There are songs from that period he loves, he says, like “Olivia” and “Stockholm Syndrome,” along with the earlier song “Happily.” #confirmed

“But I think it was tough to really delve in and find out who you are as a writer when you’re just kind of dipping your toe each time. We didn’t get the six months to see what kind of shit you can work with. To have time to live with a song, see what you love as a fan, chip at it, hone it and go for that” funny that, sounds like someone forced them into a breakneck schedule and then later made big noises about how their hiatus was because they were so overworked and acted like he had nothing to do with that

Ending

To wind down in Jamaica, Styles and Rowland, the guitarist, began a daily Netflix obsession with sugary romantic comedies. Houseworkers would sometimes leave at night and return the next morning to see Styles blearily removing himself from a long string of rom-coms. He declares himself an expert on Nicholas Sparks, whom he now calls “Nicky Spee.” sounds about right for the guy whose favorite movie is Love Actually

Like the time Styles ended up drunk and wet from the ocean, toasting everybody, wearing a dress he’d traded with someone’s girlfriend. yep, sounds about right

oops, fanfic writer made a full return for this paragraph all in present tense, written by someone else as if Harry’s a fictional character

“I think, as a parent, especially with the band stuff, it was such a roller coaster,” he says. “I feel like they were always thinking, 'OK, this ride could stop at any point and we’re going to have to be there when it does.’ this is the second time he’s brought up roller coasters in his solo interviews, it’s a good description for the thing he’s talking about, but I can’t help but think of Zayn’s old Twitter bio and Anne tweeting that bio not long after March 25th

He grabs his black notebook and turns back for a moment before disappearing down the hallway, into the future. I need the Office gif again

“How am I going to be mysterious,” he asks, only half-joking, “when I’ve been this honest with you?” *sarcasm

#one direction #1d #harry styles #solo harry #rolling stone #bakagamieru #speculation #more of an interpretation really #bearding #media #ben winston is an ass

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swanwinged-princess · 5 years

Text

Hhhh Pokemon au...

-Altair Apollyon Cygnus is/was a Pokemon champion/top scientist turned roving champion of justice going around righting wrongs and taking down evil and stuff

-Wandered into Schwanensee, a small kingdom/principality/province where people and Pokemon lived together in harmony, with a rich history etc. etc., decided to stay and study it bc everything seems to be really... healthy and nice for lack of a better word

-The lore/culture of Schwanensee heavily involves two previously unheard-of legendary Pokemon, Sygneraph and Monstravan (aka the Salvation Pokemon and the Despair Pokemon)

-Basically to sum it up they’re a pair of legendary birds; in ages past they used to work together to keep balance but eventually had some sort of falling-out and Monstravan stormed off to the other side of the forest to set up its own domain full of darkness and poison and is basically just a blighted hellscape

-Blighted hellscape land is still part of Schwanensee but only technically; is ruled by Baron Bertrand von Rothbart or something totally obvious like that, while nice and healthy and flourishing land is ruled by the royal family, currently only consisting of crown princess/young queen Leda

-Leda is special because she can commune with (talk to) Pokemon and she has a similar aura to a healing Pokemon like Chansey or Audino

-The Baron is big salty because he has to rule blighted hellscape-land populated exclusively by ruffians and thugs and other such unsavory individuals; in the history books it says that the baron’s family chose to rule over it out of the goodness of their hearts bc somebody had to take care of it, but actually they and all their followers got exiled because they tried to pull some Fuck Shit to usurp the throne

-When Altair shows up he’s all fixing to move in and marry Leda, but obviously she and Altair fall in love and get married, making Altair the new king (they were actually arranged to be married, but after Leda officially became queen she abolished arranged marriage in Schwanensee forever for the sake of True Love)

-Baron throws a tantrum, goes back to blighted hellscape-land for a few years; everyone thinks he’s just sulking but ACTUALLY he’s been setting up a big evil science operation, actually CAPTURED Monstravan and is now doing experiments on it

-Fast-forward a couple years; Altair and Leda are happily married and are throwing a gala to celebrate Leda being in the late stages of pregnancy

-Baron von Rothbart shows up to ‘offer the olive branch’/reveal that he has somehow acquired a few children of his own (even though he doesn’t have a wife), makes ‘jokes’ about how since he has boys AND girls any of his kids could marry their kid, which fall kinda flat

-Since nobody seems to be down with his ‘random idea’ of arranging a marriage between his kid(s) and the still-unborn heir, he decides to move on to plan B which is POISON LEDA AND HER BABY with a vial of Monstravan blood extract

-He slips it into a cup of special wine, years old from his family’s best stock etc. etc., and is ‘I know her majesty is expecting the blessed event any day now, but surely a mere MOUTHFUL wouldn’t hurt, it’s my best wine, a peace offering’ blah blah blah

-Leda takes one swallow and collapses dramatically; the cup rolls along the floor and the wine evaporates into purple smoke, and so on and so forth

-Leda gets rushed to Altair’s lab under the castle where a bunch of scientists and healer Pokemon try to save her/figure out what’s wrong with her but they can’t seem to figure anything out because they’ve never had to work with essence of Monstravan before

-Baron and associates are banished from Schwanensee proper under pain of death; Altair starts having a big high-tech ultra-fortified wall built between the forest and hellscape-land, guarded night and day and etc. etc.

-The scientists managed to save Leda/keep her stable but the baby (Tutu obviously) is another matter... they got her out of Leda and into a special incubator but she’s still dying and nobody knows what to do

-Altair ordered everybody who knew about the poisoning to keep their mouths shut so the kingdom at large is still celebrating the upcoming birth of the heir

-Altair goes to the garden to wallow in despair and lo and behold, who should come descending down from the sky in a ray of light and settle majestically onto the castle’s Swanna pond than Sygneraph

-Sygneraph talks to him with telepathy and is like ‘I know what has happened here; I can feel that this child is the hope of this land— there is a way to save her, but be warned because if you do this, she will not be the same’

-Altair is like ‘uhhhh FUCK YEAH I’m gonna do this’ and runs and grabs Tutu out of the incubator and brings her to Sygneraph

-Sygneraph takes out one of its heart gems (3 special gems on its chest) and places it on Tutu’s chest; it merges with her/becomes part of her like it was part of Sygneraph and she does a Swan Princess-style swirly sparkly transformation into a weirdly beautiful Pokemon-like creature

-Sygneraph is like ‘I have given up part of my power to this child and I can no longer protect this land as strongly as I once did; the poison is gone but the power necessary to do so has changed her forever. She is now neither human nor Pokemon, but perhaps she can bring us closer together. All eras must come to an end-- and I will hope that this child is the light needed to usher in a new one’

-Then it explains that at night she’ll be more like a Pokemon but in the daytime she’ll be more like a human, but she’ll still have Pokemon-like features

-Altair also tells everyone to keep it a secret that Tutu is like that because he doesn’t want sketchy people and scientists coming to try and get at her

-Sygneraph decides to chill in the castle gardens for the foreseeable future because it just lost a full third of its power, and also somebody’s gonna have to keep an eye on Tutu to make sure everything’s ok/teach her how to be part-legendary Pokemon

-Meanwhile in blighted hellscape-land (because everything has to have a balance), Monstravan looks up in its laser prison and goes ‘I sense that Sygneraph grows weaker... But a new light has awoken... What can this mean’

-Baron is like ‘EXPLAIN EVERYTHING TO ME OR I’LL ZAP YOU WITH LASERS AGAIN’ and Monstravan is like *sigh* ‘ok way to ruin my enigmatic dramatic moment-- basically I think Sygneraph just gave one of its heart gems to the royal baby’

-Baron is like ‘oh YEAH?!?! Well if Altair gets that then I’m gonna do THIS’ and snatches one of Monstravan’s soul shards (3 special gems on its forehead) and gets his scientists to figure out how to distribute it to his horrible ‘kids’

-Fast forward a few years-- Tutu is growing up and generally being cute/sweet/a beloved young princess; the kingdom adores her and she has a happy life with her mom and dad and ‘fairy godfather’ Sygneraph

-In the daytime she looks human except for her arms (which are wings w. claw-hands) and a long, trailing set of fairy wings on the small of her back that almost form a ‘train’ or ‘tail’ when they’re folded down, and her eyes, which are particularly big and beautiful and a pretty sort of iridescent gradient like Allura’s eyes from VLD; basically she just wears long, kimono-style sleeves and floor-length puffy skirts to hide them when she has to be seen by people outside the castle

-At night, she turns into almost a Gardevoir or Kirlia-esque or fairylike creature, with those delicate, inhuman proportions and even bigger eyes/no nose to speak of/a feather ‘dress’ that’s sort of part of her body; climbs out of her window when she’s supposed to be sleeping and flutters around the garden and dances on the lake with Sygneraph and all kinds of different Pokemon

-When she’s about seven years old there’s a surprise attack on the castle at night; lots of grunts in raggedy black cloaks with pointy hoods to look like birds; swarms of Murkrow and Honchkrow and Corviknight and even hired mercenaries with real ass guns and everything

-They set fire to the castle grounds and during the altercation, a few guards/palace staff, some Pokemon and of course Leda are killed

-In the aftermath, Altair and Sygneraph decide to leave on a journey/self-imposed exile to prove it was the Baron/restore balance/take revenge/just wallow in his own man-guilt and leave Tutu to be taken care of by the scientists and servants

-She grows up more and becomes beautiful/kind/wise/beloved by all; isn’t the official ruler yet but still has a hand in how things work and is actually quite good at it

-Enter the baron’s fuckboy son, Cor von Rothbart, who swaggers in and is like ‘Hey princess, YOU’RE going to marry ME’ and she is like.... ‘ew no’

-This is basically the climate up until now, interspersed with a few kidnapping schemes and attempts to trick or entrap Tutu into agreeing to marry/engaging herself to Cor

-Tutu doesn’t battle or coordinate, but she does have a ‘team’, consisting of a Gardevoir (Giselle, her lady-in-waiting, who does the things she can’t do without showing she has wings for hands), an Altaria (Sylph), a red Florges (Aurora), a Swanna (Siegfried), a Togekiss (Cupid), and a shiny Bellossom (Flora).

-She can use Pokemon moves but mainly only defensive/healing/restoration-type moves; if I had to give her a typing it would be Fairy (Sygneraph is Fairy/Dragon (I KNOW BUT UNTIL/IF WE GET A LIGHT TYPE IT’S THE BEST I’VE GOT), Monstravan is Dark/Dragon/Poison)

-She can also talk to Pokemon (more traditionally ‘talking’, like a Disney princess in this case, rather than just ~communing~ bc I say so and I think it’d be cute if she’s just chatting away with a bunch of Pokemon and responding like they’re actually having a conversation while all anybody else can hear is ‘Pika pi!’ or whatever)

-Pokemon are also drawn to her, moreso in her night/‘true’ form, bc she has that same aura as a healing legendary like Xerneas or something, but even as a ‘human’ ppl will remark about how she can seem to get even the most stand-offish Pokemon to open up to her

-it’s possible to reveal her true form during the day, but it would take a lot of power/specific wavelengths and energy and stuff, and it would definitely really hurt

-I’ll talk about the ‘setting’ it’ll probably be easiest to interact w her in in a different post bc this has already gotten long enough as is

#{I'll Be Your Lucky Girl; mun tag}#{Pokémon Verse; the moonlight shows you for what you truly are}

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recentnews18-blog · 6 years

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New Post has been published on https://shovelnews.com/how-indie-developers-finished-half-life-3/

How indie developers finished Half-Life 3

On 25 August 2017, Marc Laidlaw, former writer on the Half-Life series with Valve – from the original game to its extended second chapter – posted a short story in the form of a letter entitled Epistle 3. While the names had been gender-swapped and other details disguised, it was clear that this was an interpretation of Half-Life 2: Episode 3, or Half-Life 3 as we have come to refer to it over the years. It was a concluding chapter in the story of Gordon Freeman (who refers to herself as Gertie Fremont in the text), a story that was never given a chance to be finished.

It was an extraordinary moment. After so many years of looking for clues and references to a Half-Life sequel, of seeing the number three in any Valve or Valve-associated title as a portent of Freeman’s return, we finally had this. A vision of what could have been.

Gordon Freeman: Rational Man is a creation of the Half Life 3 game jam.

A vision that writer Laura Michet didn’t want to see go to waste. “I saw someone tweeting it out and I was immediately fascinated,” the originator of the Epistle 3 Jam on itch.io explains to us. “That evening, at dinner with some friends, I ended up reading parts of it with them. We were all people who had grown up with the Half-Life games and started games careers in the shadow of the perpetually unreleased HL3.” And when the dinner was over and the enormity of what Laidlaw’s text represented settled into place, she sprang into action. “I rushed back to my computer to make the jam, actually.”

“There’s something fascinating about taking this thing that will never be made and letting it go free”

Brendon Chung, creator of Tiger Team

Game jams are a curious and wonderful thing. They are cauldrons of creativity in compromised conditions. Limits of time, resources and accessibility make them the open mic nights of the games industry, where veterans can play with new materials and up and coming creatives can make a name for themselves and show their talent. “They’re my favourite creative activity in the world, pretty much,” says Michet, who started out in the game jam scene after graduating a few years ago. “I love running game jams on itch, too, since that platform gives you instant access to other people who might be interested in the same topic. I love seeing the stuff that comes out of itch jams.”

How did the Epistle 3 game jam link to Half Life 3?

Epsistle 3 is a more psychedelic take on Half-Life 3.

The Epistle 3 Jam started on 26 August (the day after Laidlaw’s piece was revealed) and ran to 1 November, attracting a swathe of developers with the desire to finish what Valve had started. Developers such as the aforementioned Brendon Chung, creator of Thirty Flights Of Loving and Quadrilateral Cowboy for Blendo Games. “I was (and still am) a tremendous fan of the Half-Life games. They really blew up the definition of what a first-person shooter can be. Half-Life played a big part in shaping the kind of work I do,” he tells us. “There’s some really elaborate and ambitious stuff happening in the synopsis. Lots of great temporal and dimensional hopping. I wanted to use this aspect as the backbone of the project, to have you and your memories bumping around time and space.”

“It’s a beautiful, poignant farewell to a series that will never reach a proper conclusion.” Heather Robertson, creator of GENDERWRECKED and, for this game, the psychedelic EPISTLE 3, tells us. “Also, in the wrong hands, it is a ridiculous comedy piece where nothing makes sense and everything is horrible. I have those wrong hands.” And pretty much everyone we spoke to concurred that the prospect of creating a bootleg Half-Life was just too good an opportunity to pass up. How the developers chose to take it from there and what they created was wildly different, however. Of the 32 submissions to the jam once the process had closed, very few are actually first-person shooters or, even if they are, not in the traditional sense. Thanks to the nature of the jam and the source material, the creators felt a freedom to go wild.

What games did Half-Life 3’s unofficial synopsis inspire?

Rational Man is billed as a ‘visual novel parody’ of Half-Life 3.

“Evidently, not even Valve wants to take on the challenge of making a shooter follow- up to Half-Life 2, so I felt there was zero mileage in us attempting it – instead, a game focusing on relationships or dialogue seemed the most entertaining direction – especially playing with Freeman’s role as a silent, killing machine who’s always washed along by events,” says James Kapella, one third of TEK Collective, behind HL2: Episode 3 – Gordon Freeman: Rational Man. You can download the game to play on PC through the link, if you’re interested. Others had a much simpler mission statement. “I wanted to make the biggest, dumbest piece of garbage possible. I’d like to think I succeeded,” Robertson declares enthusiastically about her first-person fever dream of an experience that pretty much every other developer we spoke to praised for its design and ingenuity.

“I aimed for a literal interpretation of the most cynical take on the linear FPS genre,” game designer Dave Hoffman, AKA Dave Makes, tells us. “That is, walking down a hallway, killing everything, occasionally pausing while people talk at you. I’m not actually as cynical as all that, even as a joke, so I couldn’t help getting sentimental while writing the dialogue.” The result was something like a merging of Fruit Ninja with a relationship simulator called THE THIRD ONE.

In fact many of the developers looked to find the funnier side of the story, leaning on the absurdity of it all while also being reverential to their inspiration. “For a while I’d been wanting to make a game that was just a single joke, setup and punchline, communicated through gameplay instead of writing,” Nicholas Kornek, maker of I Have No Mouth And I Must Freeman, explains. “I actually came up with the title before figuring out what the game would be. I just knew that I really wanted to make something about Gordon Freeman’s strange inability to speak to anyone. In the end, I decided to make a game that would reflect on the futility of trying to communicate when your only impact on the world is through violence, but, you know, funny and stuff.”

And while the text of Laidlaw’s script gave these creators a lot of freedom to be inventive, the jam process enhanced it too. “The stakes in a jam are super low because everyone comes into the project expecting they’re going to fail,” says Laura Michet. “I ended up just making a bizarre interactive short story where you make only one real choice – whether or not to shoot the BreenGrub. The game keeps track of whether or not you killed him, and it also keeps track of how many people have killed him since the game has been running.”

How Half Life inspired an interactive fiction MMO

You can play text-based MMO The Grub right here.

In actual fact what Michet made has been described by some of the other developers as a Twine MMO, as the text-based story actually involved measuring the number of people making the choice to kill or save Laidlaw’s depiction of a Dr. Breen-like grub and challenges you to shift the numbers (similar in concept, but more complex in execution, to the Lutece twins coin toss scene from Bioshock Infinite).

“I think Twine is very much mischaracterised by both game fans and indie game developers,” Michet adds. “It has a very low barrier of entry, but a very high skill ceiling for people who want to use it as a complex expressive tool. Hypertext itself – telling stories using clickable links – is a kind of interactive fiction sub-discipline that nobody has quite yet mastered, I think. The possibilities of hypertext are pretty immense.”

Everyone’s approach in the jam was different, from sifting through old concepts to coming up with something original, using the longer jam schedule to play with a work in progress or come up with a new system altogether. It was a personal journey for everyone we spoke to.

“To be honest, I jumped into this jam with very little thought. I had been following Heather Robertson’s work in progress and it made me laugh so hard I couldn’t help but join in the fun,” Dave Makes tells us, for example. “It’s funny, THE THIRD ONE is probably my most personal game to date. The art style is just my rough doodles, they’re the kind of thing I fill notebooks with when I’m having fun.”

“I had already written a bunch of top-down game code for a game pitch I was working on and it came to me that I should make a Lego Star Wars-type game where everything is a caricature of the Half-Life universe,” says Owen Deery, creator of Small Radios Big Televisions who made a kind of chibi-shooter called Expo. Decay. “I figured I was already making an unauthorised Half-Life game, so I had nothing to lose by re-using Valve’s assets. This sped up the production process a ton since any time I needed a new asset I could probably find it in the Half-Life archives. More importantly, though, it really helped the game feel like a Half- Life game. When you kill a Combine soldier and his radio plays that flatline noise it really makes a huge difference.”

“Something we imagine that Valve would approve of”

Brendon Chung also delved back into the real games to fish out some authenticity for his homage. “It was a lot of fun taking the dialogue lines from Half-Life 2 and re-using them in a different context to create new scenes,” he reveals. “I basically listened to every line of dialogue in Half-Life 2 and ‘wrote’ my script around the suitable lines.”

The strange array of different approaches, the sense of humour, the irreverence of it all, based around a franchise that is so revered and praised for its narrative is an interesting thing, but something we imagine those at Valve would approve of. The love of Half-Life is so clear from these titles and the sympathy the developers feel for the creators was apparent.

“I’ve worked on games that have been cancelled, or suspended indefinitely, and it’s heartbreaking,” says Dave Makes. “THE THIRD ONE is a goofy, silly thing, but underneath that, it’s a love letter to game developers who have felt that heartbreak.”

I was also very pleased that most people didn’t just dunk on the HL3 developers or make a lot of angry games,” adds Michet. “It’s worse that the HL3 devs didn’t get to make their game than it is that we didn’t get to play it. Working on a project and watching it get cancelled or die sucks – that’s happened to me a lot in my professional career.”

So, while the Epistle 3 Jam may not have delivered much by way of an authentic conclusion to the Half-Life story, what it has inspired is a wide variety of fun and experimental games as well as a fantastic platform for a number of developers, some of whom only work on games part-time, to find exposure and have their creativity appreciated. And while many said they wouldn’t be coming back to these titles now the jam was done, some will be looking to build on what they created here.

“I want to play a little more with the world of Half-Life, rethink the barnacles, return the Vortigaunts as enemies. Make something crazy with it,” says Alexey Sigh, maker of HL: Minimal Edition, which mixes 3D world design with pixel art characters. “It’s simply fun to come up with something new using known characters and express your own vision. Also, I treated this project as a practice at level and game design because its minimal visuals allowed me to spend less time on assets and more on the gameplay experience.”

HL: Minimal Edition in action.

Deery also had an eye to the future with his creation. “I used the jam as a jumping off point to experiment and prototype my next project, which has similar mechanics, and this allowed me to take all the feedback I received from the jam and use it to improve the experience. I had to remove all the Half-Life assets obviously, but it feels like the same game in spirit,” he tells us.

“I am a firm believer in the idea that a game is like a little bird. Once it flies from the nest it grows wings and a beak, and would try to kill me if I got close,” Robertson tells us with an alternate view on things. “There are birds worth tracking down and binding so they would not peck me, but this bird deserves to be free. Also it has massive talons and a gun. Why did I give it a gun?”

“More than anything I’m really happy that a lot of people seem to be enjoying the game,” is Kornek’s take on the experience. “I’ve seen a lot of playthroughs of it on YouTube and the joke seems to land well for pretty much everyone, which makes me feel like I did a solid job on the design.” While Dave Makes just had a lot of fun with the development process, as he explains to us. “I had an absolute blast recording all the sound effects. My wife was trying to study while I was banging on things around the apartment, slamming a head of cabbage against the floor, obnoxiously chomping on carrots, swinging a big stick around for that crowbar ‘swoosh’ noise… and then I made her do head crab screeches with me. It was fun.”

“The outcome was better than I could have hoped”

Tiger Team was made by Blendo Games.

A jam is about giving game developers the spark of an idea that will send them forward. Sometimes that’s the one thing missing between talent and execution. Besides, thanks to Laidlaw’s writing and Michet getting the game jam running as quickly as she did, we now have all of these games and all of these interpretations of the Half-Life world to enjoy. Michet herself seems delighted with the response. “I was overwhelmed!

The outcome was better than I could have hoped. A lot of people interpreted the jam in a wide variety of strange, incongruous and hilarious ways and that is absolutely the best outcome,” she enthuses. “There were a ton of extremely funny, weird games in this jam, which was also amazing – I love how jams let people make the kind of outrageous joke-games they otherwise wouldn’t ever be able to make.” And so, while it feels more and more like we might never see Valve finish its saga, at least developers like these are tending the flame of Gordon Freeman, keeping the dream alive and giving us experiences that even a team as creative as the Bellevue outfit would balk at attempting.

“A jam is a great opportunity to capture a moment, either in your own development (technical or personal), or something external,” Kapella sums up for us. “Marc Laidlaw sharing Epistle 3 was both a stimulating gift to the community and a full stop the series was lacking – and this was our modest tribute. Half-Life belongs to the people now”.

Watch 10 years of Gabe Newell addressing rumors of Half-LIfe 3 in a 4-minute video.

Source: https://www.gamesradar.com/how-indie-developers-finished-half-life-3/

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leighleighpresents-blog · 7 years

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In Studio with Brecik

In studio with Brecik and his producer Tony aka SonicBoy in Camberwell.

GenQ: It’s been at least 3 years since we caught up last … you’d just finished performing at GayAz, and had released I Can’t Stand The Rain. Your sound has certainly changed since then!

B: Absolutely!

GenQ: Have your influences changed much?

B: Totally. Back then, it was all about 70’s music, and I was into the whole disco sort of thing, hence I Can’t Stand The Rain and Daddy Cool, even Passion, though that was the 90’s. Madonna’s still a big influence, she always is. That’s not really because of her music, as such, it’s more because of who she is, the way she changes, her styles, her shows … so she’s still there. Then you have people like Lady GaGa, who I think is just phenomenal, she’s probably one of the main ones now. It was all about Rogue Traders really. I went through the whole Greek, Anna Vissi phase after GayAz, and that was good, but there were just some things that didn’t work, didn’t translate properly and was just a sound that wouldn’t ever really take off here, so we had to can all that, and I just always had this thing for rock and dance music together, so that’s what I wanted to blend. When I first heard Rogue Traders, I was just like “Fuck! This is fantastic, this is what I want to do, this sound”. I think I probably missed it a bit, I was a bit too slow, but now, I think I’ve got a pretty good album. Guitars are a pretty big part of it, and Brecik has changed as well, it’s no longer just me, there’s also Miss K and Daniel, and it just wouldn’t be the same without them. However, saying that, it’s Miss K’s last gig with me on Wednesday 23rd, as she’s moving overseas. It’d be good to just have Dan and I though, cos we can be a bit rougher, a bit tougher, take it to another place, but I’ll still be looking out for another chick to replace Miss K, someone who has a few extra things that Miss K didn’t have. But yeah, major influences now are Lady GaGa and Rogue Traders, and Madonna but more for her showmanship and her personality.

GenQ: With what you said about “roughing it up”, that’ll be taking you in a bit of a different direction …

B: Yeah, it’s funny, cos you never realize how many different people keep pushing you and pulling you in different directions, and it’s like “well, what happened to me just doing what I want to do?”, but everyone’s got their opinion. Tony’s really good, he’s like “well fucking just do it, and whatever, and we’ll get it out”, but yeah, by “roughing it up”, what I mean is like, not so clean cut, maybe not shaving every day, messier hair, not so polished. Dan’s got that, he’s a rock guy, whereas I’m a little more pop orientated, so … I’m still like Rick Astley, so …

T: You’re edgier than Rick Astley …

B: Oh! Wendy James! Remember Wendy James from Transvision Vamp? Well, Wendy and I have built up quite a relationship! She’s just an insane amount of inspiration, cos she’s got that whole rock … oh shit, now I’m remembering I’ve got heaps of inspirations! I sent her a message on Myspace because I covered Baby I Don’t Care, which is on the Switch Over To Me EP, and she was playing in Melbourne, so I just sent her a message and said “I’ve done this cover and would love for you to hear it” and she sent me back a message saying “come to my gig, here’s your tickets, come see me in the DJ box”, so I went and saw her. She was only DJ-ing, she wasn’t actually singing, but all these people kept annoying her, and I was like “I don’t want to go up there and bug her”, but I did end up going up there, and she’s like “oh my fucking god, where have you been? You were supposed to come up here and talk to me for ages” and I just got along with her straight away. She has sent me some really good emails just to keep me motivated, and to stay focused. She thinks I’ve got something, and that makes me feel so freaking unbelievable. She was always that rock chick back in the 80’s, and she’s tough. Her new band, Racine, is just unbelievable and is just tough. Siobhan Fahey from Bananarama and Shakespear’s Sister, I’ve been talking to her on Facebook, and she really likes my version of her song Run Silent, which is so good to hear. When you cover a song, and the original artist loves it … she said she was so interested to hear that someone had taken it and brought it to today and done what they wanted to do to it. So yeah, I’ve got 3 of her songs on the album, Pulsatron (which Tony produced), Run Silent and Heroine are all Siobhan Fahey songs.

With Wendy, she’s just a fantastic person, there’s just no arrogance, which is the sort of person I like to be around. I’m not into people with these fucked-up attitudes of themselves and egos … I don’t like ego at all. Maybe I might have had that a few years ago, but I don’t have that at all anymore, I just have confidence now. Confidence gets misconstrued with arrogance all the time, but I’m not arrogant at all. I’m not full of myself, haha!

GenQ: With Skitzofrenik, how long did that take to record?

B: Way too long, haha! How long have we been working on it for?

T: Well, I’ve known you for two years, so …

B: I think it’s about 3 years or so. The first track I recorded was the last track, Darkness In Your Eyes, which is a ballad, never done a ballad before. It’s about my grandpa. It’s quite emotional, especially for me, dealing with him passing away from cancer, and I think people are connecting with that. I don’t know if I can sing it live, cos I’ll probably cry, and I don’t want to do that cos it’s hard to sing and cry at the same time. That’s the song I started with, and I’d say that was about three years ago now, and I’ve recorded with 3 different producers, though you can’t tell from the sound. There’s Tony, there’s Stuart who has produced for The Veronicas, and Sam who is the producer for Kisschasy, so he’s more band orientated, as well as for Anthony Defina. I kick Anthony’s arse, and you can put that on there, haha! So yeah, three different producers. To me, it’s a really good first album, it’s solid, all the tracks mean something to me, I co-wrote over 50% of the tracks, so they have a lot to do with relationships … some weren’t the best relationships, so they gave me a lot of inspiration for the tracks. The covers … I always get told not to do covers, and I don’t really want to be doing covers all the time, but there are some that mean a lot to me, and I really want to do them. Run Silent was one of them, and I remember when the song came out, and what my life was like back then, and it meant a lot to me. The lyrics are so deep, and it just resonates. It’s a slower track too, not as pumped up as the others, so that means a lot. I also love it that Miss K is doing those really high parts that Marcella (Detroit, from Shakespear’s Sister) used to do, and she nails them every time, so it’s great. Heroine’s just an energy blast, and we usually start every show with that, cos it gets people going “fuck, what is this?” People don’t know if we’re singing about the drug, or a female, so people can just make up their own mind, it can be whatever they want it to be. Pulsatron – about a chick and a vibrator … I love a good song about a vibrator!!! But whenever I do a cover, I don’t want to do is a cover of a song that was insanely huge, because the last thing I want is to be compared to the original, so there’s some singers you don’t touch. A lot of singers write songs, and don’t use them, put them on the shelves, and never get used. I’ve got one that Madonna’s written, it’s called Like A Flower, and it’s a ballad, and we’re gonna record that for an album that’s going to be released in February/March 2010, according to the label. Obviously no one’s going to associate that with Madonna, and in the credits, hopefully I’ll be able to put her surname as well so people may not realize it’s her. I’m really excited about that. I want to go into the slower stuff.

Before I forget, getting back to what Wendy said to me, I forwarded one of her emails to my manager and whenever I start feeling down and feel like giving up, he sends it to me and he’s like “remember what Miss James told you?”, and that always gets me motivated again.

With the album, it’s really upbeat from go to wo, and Joan Jett is on there. That was actually written by a Melbourne band who I became quite good friends with, and I heard them sing it, and they didn’t like it for themselves – now they sing it every frigging time! – and they always say something about me, like “this was actually our song first, blah blah blah” and I’m just like “yeah fuck you”, haha! National Airlines is their name, great band, that real electro, quirky, 80’s band. You cannot go to one of their gigs and sit still. The first time I saw them was just in a back shed somewhere performing to their friends, and they played Joan Jett, and that chorus just grabbed me, it resonated. A lot of people are like “are you singing about a chick?” and I’m like “well, yeah I am, but have you listened to the lyrics?” The song is basically … I’m tired of all these Britney Spears type singers, and the 16yo Miley Cyrus fuckers, and it’s more about having those tough … like Joan Jett and Suzi Quatro. They were tough, and where are those tough singers now? There aren’t any. Pat Benetar, she was tough too. They’re not plastic or anything. There’s none of that shit with those singers.

GQ: What’s your favourite song to do live?

B: Joan Jett is so much fun, cos it’s got so much energy, I find it really hard to stand still onstage, I’m always jumping and everything. Touch Me, the second single, is always fun. We’ve got this really cool little dance move that, you know, when I can remember it, I do it, haha! I love starting my shows with Heroine. It’s full-on straight away. Pulsatron, I fucking love doing Pulsatron! It’s such a good song, and so catchy, and so tongue-in-cheek. I mean, what the fuck is a pulsatron? Most people are like, I don’t know … but it’s a vibrator! I love doing Run Silent with Miss K, and I’m normally fucked by the time we do that, so it’s good just to bring it back a bit. But yeah, Touch Me, Pulsatron and Joan Jett are probably my most favourite, because they’re high-energy ones where you just let loose. There was a time at Fair Day 2 years ago, where we did an awesome cover of Sweet Dreams, and we got it right, it worked. It’s one of those songs where you’re always like “mmm … I dunno about that”, but the version we did, it just worked. Miss K actually fell over on stage in that one too, haha! The stage had like little holes in it, and she was in heels, so …

GQ: What song gets the best crowd reaction? You already know my favourite song …

B: Oh, Who Cares About Love? Yeah … it’s catchy, and it’s better live. Maybe we should do that at Priscilla’s … I like Priscilla’s a lot … obviously, because I have personal attachments to the place … but I’m excited to sing there. When it was Diva, I used to sing there a lot, like every weekend, and the sound system sucked then. It’s much better now, the whole set-up is really good. I’m really looking forward to it. It’s going to be sad, because it’s Miss K’s last gig, but it’s going to be a big night. The best thing about that place is it’s not overly huge, so it’s nice and cozy.

GQ: What else is coming up for Brecik?

B: I’m doing a track with Sam from Melodic Music, it’s a cover of a 70’s song. I probably can’t go into it a lot right now, but it’s going to be pretty big. It might not be under the Brecik banner, it might be under another name, but I’m pretty excited about that. To me, though, doing live shows is what it’s all about, I love singing live. I mean, singing in a studio is fun, and recording is fun, but when you’re actually out there singing live in front of people, and you’re feeding off their energy, it’s amazing. But yeah, at the moment, we’re still building my Myspace, and getting more numbers. The album will be on iTunes soon. Joan Jett is already on iTunes, Switch Over To Me will be going on there too. Joan Jett, and even the b-side, My Frequency, are doing well on iTunes, so that’s great! It’s one of those songs where, listening to it on the cd, you might be like “oh, yeah, it’s ok”, but then live, you’re like “wow!”. I mean, that’s why it’s a b-side. I hate spending too much time on b-sides, I’d rather just, you know, get it done and not waste time on it, but, at the same time, you do want it to be good.

GQ: True. Once all your music takes off, would you take after other singers and make the change to movies?

B: I don’t know … I mean, I used to act in all the school plays, I always had a lead role. Actually , I was good! Oh shit, here we go … EGO! Haha! Um, look, I would, I would love … I’m so into The Hills, and I would LOVE to be followed around by a video camera 24-hours a day, and someone make a show of everything I do. I don’t think I’m boring.

GQ: Yeah, but only about … what, 2% would be allowed to make it onto air?

B: Yeah, probably, haha! I’m good now though, I’ve settled down. I like that kind of reality tv. I hate Big Brother, and Australian Idol, all that bullshit I can’t stand, but the shows like The Hills, and Laguna Beach, I love. Survivor I hate, I can’t even stand to watch it. So yeah, I would go into acting. Even things like Neighbours, I wouldn’t say “no” to anything. I’m a whore, haha!

T: We need to get you your own show.

B: My own show? I think so, that’s the plan, we’re working on it. We’ll get back to you on that, haha!

GQ: I’ll just go get my video camera and follow you around then.

B: You do that! As long as you’re doing it for free, it’s fine! I mean, I don’t think I’m boring, I’ve got a lot of stuff going on at the moment. Probably not with my job though, they might have something to say about me going to work being followed by a camera.

T: Though if you get their logo in the shots, they might be ok. Cross-branding, it’s always a money-maker.

B: Well, you know, I’m who I am, trying to make it in the music industry, I’ve come out of a bad relationship, going into a really good one, all these different producers, the music, there’s lots going on. Actually, we’ve got a doco planned to promote the album. It’s like a megamix in two parts, and we have this storyline going on, which is basically like me going from this Euro guy going into this dark, sleazy guy who ends up electrocuting himself by shoving a knife into a power point. It’s going to be good. The way Miss K was going to be introduced into it is, she was going to play this nun on a street corner preaching about God and everything, and I just sort of walk past, and take one look at her, and she rips off her habit, and she’s wearing this skimpy outfit. It’s just a really good story. We get incarcerated … obviously when Skitzofrenik comes into it, we’re in straightjackets. Lady GaGa did a similar thing for her album, so I thought “yep, we can do that too.” It’ll be going up onto Youtube and Myspace and everything. I love Myspace, I look after it all, so all the blogs and everything are me. I think people can tell. I get in trouble from my manager for being “too real” and everything, but fans want real, and I’m real.

GQ: Ok, so are there any other gigs or anything coming up?

B: I’m performing at Mardi Gras again next year, I just found out today, performing at Slide again. The gay market has been really good to me, and, I mean, the gay scene can be really bitchy, so, for someone to work up to the level that I have, I think that’s really saying something. They’ve supported me so much!

GQ: Well, with Miss K moving overseas, you’ll be needing someone to take her place. What are you looking for?

B: I want a female singer who has … she doesn’t have to have the best voice, but she needs to be able to pull it off. She also needs presence, energy … I want a sexual energy, someone who can be onstage and knows how to work it and move it. Someone who’s happy to share the stage too. I don’t want a diva, I just want someone who is real, and doesn’t want to be in the limelight all the time, needs to remember she’s part of a team. I mean, I attract a certain type of person, Dan attracts a certain type of person, so the female singer will also need to attract a certain type. I don’t like that Dan gets all the girls, I want all the girls to find me attractive as well! They’re all like “oh my god, your guitarist is so hot!” Fuck the guitarist, what about me? Haha!!!! I swear Dan picks up at every gig as well! I mean, after we did the film clip for Touch Me, I took Dan to the Xchange, and he hones in on the only group of girls in there, and works his butt off to try to pick up one of these girls. He didn’t, cos apparently they were all married, but I was like “you know what? You go, man! Only you would see an opportunity and go “there we go”.”

#Brecik #SonicBoy #gay #GenQ

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