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ayuuria · 4 years

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Yashahime Translation: Animage April 2021 Issue (Part 1)

Please do not repost this translation without my consent! This includes screenshots of any type and amount. If you wish to share this translation, simply link to this post.

For more information regarding the use of my translations, click here.

This month’s Animage article has more content than usual and mainly covers the music of Hanyō no Yashahime. That being said, I have decided to split the translation into three parts

Part 1: Interview with Kaoru Wada, Satō Teruo, and Nagura Yasushi

Part 2: Interview with NEWS

Part 3: Interview with Ryokuoushoku Shakai

Wrapped in the Warm Demonic Air of Spring!?

The Yashahimes, who reside in the feudal era, are in the midst of fully enjoying the spring event that is so familiar in the modern era. Surrounding those girls isn’t the nice warm air but rather the presence of a dangerous demon… …?

Spring is here! Towa, Setsuna, Moroha, and Takechiyo are blessing Easter under the bright warm weather. On this day, the three girls who carry the blood of the Dog General have turned into easter bunnies Y Setsuna, Moroha, and Takechiyo who grew up in the feudal era are overflowing with curiosity at the vibrant easter eggs Towa paints.

Well, in the illustration the Yashahimes have a warm air about them but in the main story, the girls are truly in the middle of an upheaval. In episode 21, the relationship between Riku and Kirinmaru which was wrapped in mystery up until now has been revealed. Riku himself states that he was abandoned by Kirinmaru.

In addition, in episode 22, Kirinmaru’s older sister, Zero, appears before the three of them, controls Towa’s body, forcefully breaks the seal placed upon Setsuna, and disappears after doing whatever she pleases. Zero is the creator of the cause that separated child Towa and Setsuna. Also, it seems she has a connection to Rin’s slumber. It appears Riku fondly calls Zero “Elder sister” but to Towa and the others, she is a person they need to keep an eye on.

The three girls continue to be exposed to a harsh fate. When will the girls be able to reunite with their families and live out a peaceful life known as “the flower (prime) of youth”?

Character Bios

Takechiyo A cheeky tanuki (racoon dog) demon child who works at the corpse shop. He gets snacks from the modern era when he cooperates with Towa, which pleases him. He is also aiming for the easter eggs!?

Higurashi Towa In order to save Setsuna who had her dreams and sleep stolen, she searches for the Dream Butterfly. Her explosive power when Setsuna is in a crisis is enough to leave a scar on Kirinmaru.

Setsuna She is always cool and calm but in episode 22, Zero released the seal placed on her demonic blood and Setsuna went out of control. It was resealed by Hisui’s older sister, Kin’u.

Moroha She works hard as a bounty hunter to repay her debt to Shikabaneya Jyuubee. In episode 21, she obtained the head of Tōtetsu of the Four Perils and received her first monetary reward in a while.

Spring Has Arrived in Towa’s Heart!?

In episode 21, Towa an Riku approach each other for the first time in a while. While saying there is no meaning in protecting her, Riku defended Towa from Tōtetsu’s attack and Towa told him “I like you!!” and gave him the silver rainbow pearl. Although it is not to the point of love, there certainly seems to be a special feeling budding between the two.

The Rainbow Pearls Are Zero’s Tears

The true nature of the rainbow pearls that Riku and many other demons seek out: they are the transformed tears Zero spilled onto the Shikon Jewel when she grieved the Dog General’s death. Currently, Riku possesses five of the rainbow pearls: green, purple, blue, orange, and silver. Setsuna and Moroha have the other two remaining pearls. When all seven are gathered, what exactly will happen?

The Grim Comet and Kirin-Sensei

The Grim Comet is a comet that nears the earth once every 500 years, bringing calamity with it. Working together to get rid of the comet were the Dog General and Kirinmaru during the Heian era and Sesshōmaru and Inuyasha during the feudal era. And now the modern era. Watching the Grim Comet approach once again was Towa’s middle school English teacher, Kirin Osamu-sensei. What exactly is his true identity?

Coloring the World with Sound

Director: Satō Teruo Music: Wada Kaoru Sound Director: Nagura Yasushi

To commemorate the release of the soundtrack CD, we circled around composer Wada Kaoru for a round-table discussion. We had him talk about the charm of the background music for “Hanyō no Yashahime”.

The Main Theme is the Yashahime’s “Hereafter”

— How did you create the musical composition for “Hanyō no Yashahime”?

Nagura: First, we gathered information from the finished scenarios and I created an at-a-glance music menu. After having director Satō review it, I handed it to Wada-sensei and we got together for meetings. We had Wada-sensei compose in accordance with that music menu but…

Wada: At that stage, we only had a rough direction of the story and the only finished scenarios that had final manuscripts were episodes 7 and 8. Not only did a lot of characters appear but just from reading the script, it was a constant state of “???” from the beginning like “Why are they separated even though they’re twin sisters?” “Where are the parents?” “Why is Moroha alone?”. It was then that (series composition) Sumisawa (Katsuyuki)-san and I had quite a few secret meetings where we cross-examined the information regarding the characters and story. I used that as a base for composing. While talking with Sumisawa-san, we had thoughts like “Even though it isn’t in the music menu, we probably need a song for this character” and as a result, the number songs increased unintentionally (laughs).

Satō: At first, we placed an order for 45 songs which I think is a lot for a 2 cour work. However, from there you created 1 to 5 times as many songs which I truly thank you for. I’d like to use all of them within the story.

— Wada-san, how do you normally go about composing music?

Wada: I don’t really use a piano and I just worry endlessly and have wild ideas. There are times when I think of ideas while walking. I’ve also come up with many ideas during my daily life like sitting at my desk in the office, taking a bath, or going shopping. If there are times where I can only come up with the motif, then there are also times where I can come up with an entire song in an instant. There are a variety of cases. Fundamentally, the melody I think of doesn’t get left in that spot. I consider anything I forget as something not good.

First, I need a starting point like “Let’s make something in this direction” so until I reach that point, I will rethink things over repeatedly. This time too, I had a hard time settling on the main theme that is “Hanyō no Yashahime”. The main theme expresses the world setting of a work, so I wonder how much to depict. This is why my meeting with Sumisawa-san regarding “Where exactly is this story going?” was necessary (laughs). It’s not like the music is the story’s answer checker but the main theme for “Inuyasha”, “Half-Demon Inuyasha”, is an action-adventure kind of music so to speak. Compared to that, it was a little different this time. What will happen to the three Yashahimes from here on was a major key to the motif, so in that sense, without knowing the story, I couldn’t write anything.

By the way, back then I rewrote “Half-Demon Inuyasha” three times before completing it. It was a completely different song at first and after writing and performing the piece as well as rereading the original comic again, I thought "This doesn’t fit”. Every time I’m creating a song, it’s a repetition of going in one direction or another.

Songs From the “Inuyasha” Era Have Been Reborn as A Next Generation Version

— Please tells us the characteristics of the music for “Hanyō no Yashahime”

Wada: For “Inuyasha”, it was work where the feudal era was the setting so the objective at the beginning was to heavily use traditional Japanese instruments like the biwa, shakuhachi, and flute. Rather than making traditional music like in Noh (play) or kabuki, my aim was to add the traditional Japanese instruments into the orchestra without feeling out of place. It went well in “Inuyasha”, so I continued that with “Hanyō no Yashahime”. As a work, “Hanyō no Yashahime” isn’t necessarily a “sequel to “Inuyasha”” but the music is.

Satō: This is something I also ordered. Afterall, I absolutely wanted the “Inuyasha” atmosphere. Nevertheless, this is a new story, so I wanted it to evolve as well.

Nagura: This time, we are using several musical compositions from the time of “Inuyasha”, but we’ve done new recordings of them. This is because roughly 20 years have passed since the songs for “Inuyasha” were first created. We worried that the “Inuyasha” music as it was back then and the newly recorded music for “Hanyō no Yashahime” wouldn’t take on the same color when mixed together. Thus, we had them newly recorded as a “Hanyō no Yashahime” version.

— In terms of “Hanyō no Yashahime” for example, how is the “Inuyasha” version from back then different from the “Hanyō no Yashahime” version?

Wada: The biggest difference is the tempo. I have recorded “Half-demon Inuyasha” several times after its completion but the slowest one was the first version. The tempo then was a quarter note = 120 (beats per minute) (annotation: roughly fast paced (allegro). The second hand of the clock is a quarter note = 60 bpm). At first, I looked at the comics and thought “Is this how it should go?” but when watching the anime, I began wanting to match the tempo of the animation and steadily (the music) changed into something action like. At the end, we had risen the bpm to nearly 140. This time, we can’t really use (the music) if it’s too fast so I generally keep it around 130 bpm.

— Director Satō, Sound Director Nagura, please tell us a scene within the main story where you especially felt the charm of Wada-san’s music.

Nagura: In episode 1 and 7, there’s a scene where Setsuna and Moroha rush to Towa who’s being held captive within Ougigayatsu-Hiiragi mansion, but you see, in episode 1, we didn’t use the main theme, “Hanyō no Yashahime”. This is because episode 1 was imaged as building the bridge between "Inuyasha and Kagome’s era” and “the Yashahime’s era”. During that time, based on the circumstances, we had battle type music set in but with the story having progressed in episode 7, we put in “Hanyō no Yashahime” as “Towa and the others’ music”. We were able to set it in a good way where it truly felt “Yashahimes Gather!”

Satō: We would love for people to pay close attention to that scene. “Hanyō no Yashahime” is my absolute favorite song. When I heard this song, I felt “With this, the world setting of “Hanyō no Yashahime” has been expressed” and I once again realized how amazing Wada-sensei was. For the scene in episode 7 where Towa, Setsuna, and Moroha gather, we not only redid the music but also the acting and recording for the three princesses. At a glance, it’s the same scene as episode 1 but I think it would be fun to view and compare them.

The Cheering Party During Composing

“When I was composing these (songs), there was the broadcasting of ““Inuyasha” Best Episode” on Youtube and events like “Inuyasha Café” and the “Inuyasha Anime Tracing Exhibition” were topics of discussion. That kind of hype up for Inuyasha was a like cheering party that encouraged me. I was truly grateful for it.” (Wada)

The Main Instruments of the Three Princesses

“With the various character themes, I employed an instrument that imaged each character. Towa is the flute type instruments (Japanese woodwinds), Setsuna is a koto, and Moroha is the percussion and flute. Also, Moroha’s theme has the inheritance of her mother’s blood in mind, so it’s a transformed version of the song “Overcoming Time Kagome” back from “Inuyasha””. (Wada)

#yashahime #hanyou no yashahime #yashahime: princess half demon #translation

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thebibliomancer · 4 years

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Song of the Dark Crystal liveblog pt 16

Song of the Dark Crystal by J.M. Lee because Amri joined the party -victory jingle-

Last times on book: Kylan, Naia, and Tavra have traveled to Hole in Ground to find a magic firca that will help them warn all Gelfling about the Skeksis. They meet with Maudra Argot who agrees that they can have the flute after dream-fasting with Naia. All they gotta do is take her lazy son Amri with them when they go. That’s a win-win stipulation honestly.

Chapter 16

Tavra makes a scene

When Naia and Kylan leave the maudra chamber with Amri, they find that Tavra has bailed. Kylan worries that she got impatient and just set off for Ha’rar without them. On the one hand, no more of her negative attitude but on the other, for some reason, Kylan would miss her.

As they leave the maudra chamber, Naia tells Amri that he doesn’t have to come with them when they leave the caves if he doesn’t want to. Amri just goes shh because Argot has ears like a hollerbat.

When they’ve gotten back to the central cavern, Naia repeats herself.

“It’s not that I don’t want to leave,” Amri replied. “I would just rather go anywhere else than Ha’rar. Eh! I suppose I should be pleased that Maudra Argot is letting me leave the cave at all. Oh well, at least I might have a chance to surprise the All-Maudra. Oh, I can’t wait to see the look on her face when a Grottan appears in court!”

Kylan is surprised at the youthful energy Amri has compared to how serious he was when he was guarding the tunnel. But I suspected all along that Amri had little shit energy!

Its that picture of him resting his head in his hands and just smiling at spooking the visitors.

They go looking for Tavra in case she’s still somewhere and also because nobody likes the Vapran here. But Amri has an idea of where she might have ended up.

He guides them up a stairway to a round half chamber with a fire pit. Three Grottans are chilling around the fire with reed instruments playing the same sounds in different keys and making a lovely adagio.

Tavra isn’t at the firepit but from the ledge of the chamber, Kylan can see most of the cavern.

While he scans, Naia (who isn’t that invested in searching for Tavra) starts talking to Amri (even less interested in searching than Naia). She tells him this chamber reminds her of the Great Smerth, which makes Amri excited. He’s heard of the Great Smerth, and the Cradle-Tree.

“All our people can fit inside,” she said. “And its heartwood echoes with the sound of music and birds during the spring festival.. Great Smerth is old and wise. I’m not sure any tree is like the Cradle-Tree.”

“In that case, I would like to visit both. Can you arrange this?”

Amri is delightful. Why hasn’t anyone told me how delightful he is?

Naia asks if all the Grottan live near this cavern or whether they’re spread out throughout the whole cave system. Amri tells her that there are only thirty-seven Grottan and that they all live near the grand chamber.

Only thirty-seven??

That’s so few!

“Thirty-seven,” Naia said. “At least it must be easy to hold village meetings!”

Amri laughed, a sound that was almost comedic in itself, such a bubbling, goofy noise coming out of what Kylan had originally seen as a serious, frightening creature.

“Yes! We shout into the heart of the cave, and the echoes take care of the rest. No need for gatherings when you can holler. That’s what Maudra Argot says. Ahh... I can’t imagine with it must be like to be Vapra or even Sifa, with so many Gelfling to call kin. I couldn’t remember all their names. I can barely remember the names of my cousins.”

Amri is a delight.

And, it occurs to me, kinda a foil to Naia. He too dreams of all the things out there in the wider world, lives in an isolated clan, and is the maudra’s child.

It also occurs to me to wonder if Deet exists in this continuity.

I feel like this series’ MO is to use the secondary cast. Rian and Gurjin tend to wander off instead of sticking in the plot too long. Brea and Deet haven’t been mentioned or seen.

But the small size of the Grottan tribe does make me wonder about Deet.

The background music stops and Kylan spots Tavra near the base of the cavern, waving her sword at some Grottan.

Dammit, Tavra, the one thing Kylan asked was for you not to start any fights! He said please!

“Why get into a fight at a time like this?” Kylan panted.

“Who knows what’s going through her head these days!”

Ha.

When Kylan and Naia reach where Tavra is, they realize it doesn’t look like a fight. The Grottan look like they’re trying to help Tavra but are warded off by Tavra waving her sword and telling them to back off. Some Grottan make peaceful gestures, others just nope nope nope right out of the situation.

Tavra is also bleeding from the neck, which she blames on the Grottan.

“One of these damned Shadowlings attacked me in the tunnel!” Tavra hissed through clenched teeth. “Ambushed me in the dark with a knife and ran off before I could pay back the favor. Come and get it, cave crawlers! Try once more to cut a daughter of the All-Maudra!”

One of the Grottan shouts that nobody touched her.

Tavra lets Kylan check the wound where “a sharp blade had cut her white neck, narrowly missing her crystal earring.”

Hmmmm. HMMMMMMMM.

I have theory.

Maybe my suspicions of her weird behavior are getting carried away but IF Tavra is being controlled by spider and the mysterious crystal earring that keeps getting attention drawn to it is related, Real Tavra may have regained control for a second and tried to cut off the earring.

It would explain why the Grottan seem confused and are trying to help her despite not liking Vapran.

I might be speculating wildly though.

Kylan and Naia get the Grottan (and second best boy Amri) to leave so Tavra will calm down enough to let Naia heal her.

Naia asks what Tavra was doing in the tunnel where she was attacked but Tavra says she wasn’t doing anything and changes the subject to whether the cool flute has been gotten from the Grottan.

They tell her that Amri is going to show them to the firca and then come with them to Ha’rar.

Tavra is displeased.

“Oh? My life is in danger and you’re still thinking of trusting them and staying in these caves?”

Naia easily heals the cut because ‘tis just a flesh wound but Kylan is still worried about Tavra. When he was checking the wound, he noted her skin was really cold and suspects that she’s not doing well at allll.

“Tavra... are you all right?” he asked, the question coming out much meeker than he would have liked. There was no way she would respect him with a voice like that! He tried again, and it sounded better, stronger: “If you’re suffering because of what happened at the castle, you can tell us... We want to help you.”

He expected an immediate denial, but got an uneasy silence instead. Naia arched a brow as if to say what are you doing? but she didn’t interfere.

“You’ve just seemed... different, is all,” he continued. “You don’t have to be strong for us. We know what you’ve been through. And we’re not trying to delay your return to Ha’rar -- it’s just that we promised to take care of our part of this.”

Kylan held his breath. Any moment, he thought, Tavra’s protest would begin. Before it kept him from saying the rest of what he wanted to say, he said it.

“I understand why you want to be home, and we want you to be home, too. So you can rest.”

“Tch, you do not understand me at all.”

Kylan is shocked silent by Tavra’s cold reply but Naia is pissed.

You can tell from the clenched jaw and the angled-back ears (ear body languuuuuage).

She decides that they’ll just go and get the firca right now. Get the show on the road. She sends Kylan to go find Amri while she keeps an eye on Tavra.

#dark crystal #the dark crystal #Song of the Dark Crystal #liveblog #Kylan #Naia #Tavra #Amri

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jq37 · 5 years

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[obligatory recap ask]

**spoilers for subway skirmish and borough of dreams**

@kickmuncher3 and @galfast: ty for your asks, I’ll use them for the next two recaps. this is probably the least efficient way for me to handle this but I want to keep all of these visually consistent dammit.

One of the funniest things about this season of D20 is most if not all of the cast has lived in NYC which manifests as very specific references and in character complaints that you just know come from a place of truth and experience. Which is to say we got a lot of that in these episodes.

Also, this has nothing to do with anything but living in NY update: On Sunday, I saw a man hanging upside-down from a tree--by his feet--and playing the flute. And barely anyone registered it at all. So I really cannot stress enough how much New York is Like That.

Pete opening the fight by blasting a fireball and then telepathically calling out Kingston is--como se dice--a Power Move.

Brennan *immediately* channels the opposite of whatever energy Emily's on and goes right for Ricky's dog to the horror of everyone at the table and his absolute delight. Like, it's a spectral dog but still. Bro. Dog.

Kingston taking the heat metal damage to get Epona to drop him is so raw. But then, for the rest of the fight, he doesn't say a single thing except for his Command spells which is a very different kind of raw.

Question: Is Riz's mom the only good cop that exists in D20?

I know this was an RP ep and I know they knew it was gonna be an RP ep but I wonder what would have happened if they had pretended to cooperate with Epona to get more info. Probably just an extended RP ep that would have segued into this same fight eventually. But I'm curious about what information they let get eaten by a swarm of rats.

Misty's Irresistible Dance spell is very clutch.

The gators from the last fight are back in the form of Kug's summons and one of them still has a grudge against Misty. Misty is all, "send me your resume!" because she appreciates the spunk. I was starting a sentence about what the hell play this sentient gator is going to be in but as soon as I hypothetically asked it my brain was like, "Peter Pan. Next question."

Y'all, this really was Kug's fight. Between calling the roaches, crocs, and gators, channeling Moonshine to call lightning, and killing Epona within 40 mins of the ep, he truly was on fire. Good for him. He also turns into a bear but specifically a bear that would have escaped from the zoo. It's the little details that make this show great.

Brennan putting his foot down on tying rats together not being acrobatics is the eternal DM mood.

Back to Epona for a second, do we think she was working for Robert directly? Someone connected to him? Something else? When her shadow split after Ricky's attack was that meaningful or just flavor? Where did that badge come from? Has it always existed? What does destroying it mean? It didn't seem to help. The bad cop ghosts were still around, just no one could control them at that point. If they had yoinked that badge, could they have had a summoning item that hey could use? Or is it bad karma to use something like that? Is it still bad if you're forcing the bad cops to do good stuff? Did Brennan anticipate this or is the Coach Daybreak 2: Electric Boogaloo? Lots of questions.

Misty's cutting words to the cop (saving Ricky) making the Law and Order "DUN DUN" noise is great.

Emily ends up not needing to roll to make rat nunchucks because her health goes low enough that her magic ring activates but I feel like she low key wanted rat nunchucks.

Wild that Kingston went down for just long enough for it to be cinematic before being revived by Misty ("Get up, old man,")

Also wild that this whole fight only took about 45 seconds of in game time. It makes sense if you think about it the way you would a movie and that's how most D&D fights are but that's so much play time for so little game time and it hit me this ep because I was actually keeping track of rounds.

Anyway, I have not mentioned up until this point that the whole crux of this fight is to last long enough for Alejandro to roll high enough to summon the train to Nod but, long story short, Pizza Rat shows up to save the day. Does that make more sense in context? Marginally.

I like that the train to Nod shows up on the wrong side of the tracks. Like I said, man. Details.

Oh and to my above point about the cast making comments about NY as people who have lived in NY, I loved Brennan looking directly at the camera when he was going off on people who just stand at the door like idiots while you're trying to get in and then Siobhan pokes like half her head into frame so she can also stare directly into the camera. Mood.

When Ally said Pete shoots Kingston I half believed it for a good couple of seconds. I was right there with Lou.

OK, so I don't know how many of you have watched Sharkboy and Lavagirl (and, if you haven't feel free to skip this bullet) but no movie has brought me more enjoyment overall than SB&LG. Not because it's good because it's not. But it's so insane that it's amazing. It's right in the sweet spot. I always say, if it was any better, it would be Spy Kids 3 and, therefore, unwatchable (SK 1 + 2 are dope as hell though, for the record). I bring it up because the way Brennan describes Nod reminds me a lot of Drool in SB&LG. Like, the rollercoaster subway car def could be in the same universe as the Train of Thought. This is all to say that I think Brennan could have written a version of SB&LG that was better without being worse. Idk if that comes across as complimentary, but it is, and to both parties actually.

From the way Nod (the kid) is being framed (in this ep and the next) I know we're not supposed to mistrust him but, put in that situation, there is no way I would trust the gray faced, black eyed, creepily gliding dream child.

Post fight, Kingston wants to offer an apology for what he said about Pete and Nod wants to apologize for putting Pete in his current situation. Also, the group decides to be more open in general. Kug, as most of us guessed, got beauty and the beasted for white collar crime by his business partner (Gabby) who is Esther's mom and a witch (also, Ricky thinks his crush on Esther is a secret which is just adorable and completely incorrect).

Brennan cuts sharing time off because this is the combat episode dammit! Save it for next session. But, because I'm behind, next session is now! Let's get into The Borough of Dreams.

Misty, as a faerie, is instinctively mistrustful of vising other magical worlds and eating the food or taking things at face value. I love that she's playing a character where she can ask these questions and not be meta-gaming because I had some of the same concerns.

Wildly, WALLY walks out of the train as he just happened to be on it (as conductor) at the time. Kug bursts out with the fact that he's his dad and Wally takes this to mean that Rat Jesus is his bio dad but, even after being left alone for so many years, he claims Bruce as his real dad. He's wrong but he's sweet.

"I thought you were mad at me." Brennan, you didn't have to do that.

Murph clearly trying to not accidentally call Wally a piece of shit because that's his go to Kug way to describe things is so funny.

"We could turn me into a rat." WALLY

Kingston and Misty looking at each other like, "These absolute children," while Pete and Soph are making Brittney Spears references.

So we find out what all of the magic stuff they picked up does. Misty's mirror can see invisibility. Pete's grill helps with persuasion. The thousand hour energy makes you immune to sleep for 42 days(!) The bagel can be used for divination or to essentially kill a person but spread their essence throughout the universe (which low key sounds like a sacrifice someone might make to help cancel the spread of say an undead presence or a money virus).

I want Ricky and Wally to be friends forever.

Kingston's lack of connection to the dream world is so sad. Like, he's no nonsense but he's like NO NONSENSE. Like no nonsense possible. So he's just walking around like Eddie Valiant in Toontown.

And, at the same time, the rest of the party is doing the MOST nonsense. Mary Poppins-ing into the sky. Misty is making out with the moon. Wild.

SOBER SALAD

Ally drops the ketamine on the tomatoes line and Brennan fully breaks

Very sweet for Pete to bring Kingston a salad, even though that's such a random food to just have in your pocket(???). Why does salad keep coming up on this show? One more time and it's officially a motif.

So the dream world basically works on Sharkboy and Lavagirl/Xanth/Phantom Tollbooth/Wonderland/Toontown logic. If you've seen/read any of those, you basically have it down.

"Only people with Sprint have service."/"Oh, amazing!" Brennan threw that softball out for anyone who wanted it and Emily, as usual, hit it out of the park.

Brennan very clearly knows his NY history. The mob boss (lucky Luciano, no not that one) that he mentioned during the sleeping with the fishes bit is a real dude and basically the dude who brought organized crime to the US (in the form we know it now).

Ricky and the mints. Lord.

Anyway, the one item I didn't mention earlier is the holy grail detergent which can literally clean souls. Which sounds mighty interesting considering some of the other stuff that's come up this campaign.

(Also, I wonder if you could use the bagel as spell components since it contains everything in the universe in microcosm).

I can't believe Pete was the one saying, "At least eat before you shotgun that 1000 hour energy." By the by, the 42 hour span of the energy drink makes me suspicious. Is that just for humor (and accurate math) or it this a Chekov's Gun kind of an item indicating some kind of time jump at some point? Ricky drinks it later in this ep so, if there's a clock attached to that, it's ticking. I'm prob reading into this but I assume if you're still reading these, this is what you're here for.

Ally making sawing motions before being told an egg creme has nothing to do with eggs and is in fact a drink.

Pete! OK, so Pete has made some good steps in this ep, starting with promising to start reining in the drug usage. Later he works on his magic and also gets over Priya. This is the most endeared I've been to him all season. Especially his, "I try to do a good job," line. I felt that.

"It's still open to you." Aw.

Brennan clearly saw the chance for a lore drop this ep and boy did it drop. Let's run through the highlights.

Nod dumped all this on Pete the way they did because it's super super hard to contact a Vox Phantasmus beforehand due the the natural, waking world inclination to brush off dreams. You have to have the job before you can talk to the boss. Cruddy system but that's how it goes.

When Sophie said the thing about Robert Moses creating spaces that can't be accessed she meant by magic but it's an interesting way to phrase it because the irl Robert Moses is known for (allegedly, but like, it tracks) trying to keep black people out of certain spaces.

Robert Moses sold his soul to Hell and Faerie which is why he's still alive it seems. No one wants to collect on his soul and anger the other party.

Whoever predicted that the golden door for Emma Laz's poem was the rectangle from episode one, collect your prize because it's confirmed in this ep.

We learn about the ephemeral axiom which basically says, a dream can be all things but once it manifests, it's a single thing. (you might even say, "it is what it is".)

So another big thing we learn is that if a dream gets so big that manifesting them in the real world would break the game, it's called a Paragon. There are four total: Heaven, Hell, Faerie, and The American Dream. (Wild that The American Dream is the only country specific one that exists. Like, I rep my home team of course but the U.S. is a pretty latecomer to the country party. You'd think someone else might have gotten Paragon status at some point.)

"Was one of them the Grand Canyon?"

Anyway, dragging the American Dream into the waking world would fix the American Dream to mean one thing--I assume making tons of money if Robert Moses has his way. I'll admit, I was a little fuzzy on the mechanics of this on my first watch-through because pulling the American Dream into the real world sounds like it should be a good thing. But I think, at the most basic level, it's a matter of you shouldn't put magic that shouldn't be in a box in a box. I'm still wondering about the exact implications for the waking world if he succeeds though. Like, how would that manifest? Would everyone suddenly become money hungry (lol, how would you tell)? Would people still want what they want but the American Dream would just be understood to mean making stacks and none of the good Superman-y stuff?

"It's not Protestant work ethic is it?"

Robert Moses is undead and can't get into Nod, so those are good things to note.

I was so ready for Wally is get dispelled and for him to be a figment of Kug’s imagination or a dream or something. I braced myself so much. I was ready to set up a firing squad for Brennan for doing that to Kug.

Who tipped the bugsters off to where Pete was gonna be? As far as I can tell, the only people that knew were the gang plus Alejandro and Esther. Maybe someone was scrying on them and that’s what the roll Zac failed during the wedding ep was.

As soon as Brennan mentions locking the door, Ally immediately makes the connection and goes, "Key to the city." Nod "locks" the American Dream and gets rid of the lock which seems to mean the American Dream is temporarily unavailable. Which seems not good and like it's gonna have collateral damage for sure but I guess you bad is a matter of degrees and Robert getting in would be worse. But still, imagine your immigration papers get declined because some random kid decided to close down the American Dream for a couple of days.

So, we get some backstory of Misty. She apparently just was straight up not having a good time in Faerie so she stole Titania's shoes (allowing her to be in iron-filled NYC without triggering her fairy vulnerability) and peaced out.

"She's gonna kill you."/"Only if she can get here and I have her Goddamn shoes." (**A million airhorns in the distance**)

I love that Emily is still on the souls thing. Emily doesn't believe in Occam's Razor. In fact, I'd like to propose a corollary called the Axford Axiom: The coolest path between two points probably isn't the correct one, but it should be! I want her to run a campaign so bad so I can see her be in a game where her crazy endgame is what's going on because she's the one who wrote it.

Misty: Let's go to hell!

So much like a videogame, the map has opened up and we have three places to check out. The former locations in the dream world of Faerie (Carnagie Hall), Heaven (JFK airport), and Hell (where do you think? Hell's Kitchen). The gang splits up to look for clues (and drinks, in Misty's case). Actually, make that four places: Pete goes to the Met Museum of Memories to basically Avatar mind meld with the other Voxes and get a handle on his magic to a degree (thank God--Nod?). We'll take these in order of appearance, which means we're off to Hell with Kug and Ricky (plus Ox and Wally).

(Focus on the Pizza, baby!)

At first I wanted Ricky, the good boy, to go to Heaven, but the idea of a firefighter in Hell also has appeal.

Re The rat holding his guts: Gross.

Ricky holding his axe like a cell phone.

So we and Kug learn that the rat-spell that was cast on him wasn't actually a rat-spell. It was a spell that would make his outsides reflect his insides and his insides happened to suck. I'm wondering if that means that it's a static spell that reflects his outsides at the time it was cast and it would need to be recast to reflect any moral progress made or if it will just revert him once he's made enough progress.

I'm also wondering (partially bc one of my players asked to do this last session) can a Druid wildshape into a person? I feel like no, but like, did any of you ever read Animorphs? You know how in book 1 Tobias gets stuck as a red-tailed-hawk but then later her gets his morphing ability back and then he can turn back into his human form for 2 hours at a time? What if Kug just started doing that? Just being a rat who is sometimes a dude.

They also go to the statue of liberty (which has a French accent, natch) who shows them that there's, like, a money/greed virus infecting the Dreaming and the American Dream. Ricky smells undeath again. They think vampires. That's plausible but I'm not sure.

OK, Heaven.

WHOOOO, strap in y'all

(Sidenote: I wonder what would have happened if Soph hadn't chose to go to heaven. I feel like she could have easily run into you know who in hell had she chose to go there, but I'm getting ahead of myself).

Brennan actually tries to lead Emily into the thinking about Dale mindset but Emily, having reached a note of closure in Soph's character arc, pushes back on that.

honeyougotastormcoming.gif

Brennan,about to wreck her entire life: Cool.

I and the cast keep saying heaven a lot but it's like an all roads lead to Rome situation. It's heaven, Valhalla, Elysium, nirvana. Like, whatever Good Place you believe in. It's the Good Place.

Sophie, upon being told that if she jumps into the fight at the Pearly Gates she knows nothing about, she might literally die: And what about it?

Emily's face when Brennan says, "And you see Dale," is so much. You can see the entire range of human emotion in her eyes in that moment.

Sidenote: I wonder how much of her backstory Emily planned and how much Brennan dropped on her. Like, she knew Isabella was part of her backstory obv. Did Brennan come up with all of this whole-cloth or did she say she wanted there to be something supernatural and and let him fill in the details. Very curious about the collaborative process.

When Dale's character art comes up, it says "Sophie's Angel" for Dale's descriptor so where I thought we were going was that Dale was Sophie's Guardian Angel who wasn't supposed to be romantically involved with her and the reason he was gone is that he was forcibly brought back to heaven. But that may be because I recently watched this.

Dale, is upsettingly sweet with Sophie, calls her "sweetie" the entire time they're together, fights a ton of angels to get to her, and says he got her text message. Emily is about to cry. *I'm* about to cry. I'm sure the only reason Brennan isn't fistpumping is because he needs to stay in character.

Dale gives this cryptic piece of advice before he is dragged off by angel guards: When you get to the top, I know what it'll seem like, but there is someone there.

Emily, of course: I fight the angels.

The angels, hilariously, don't take it personally that she's fighting them--and very well, but not well enough to beat a nat 20. Sometimes the dice are spooky in tune with the story.

"He's got a job to do here. Who's gonna watch the deer?"

Dale also tells Soph to tell Jackson he said hi which is interesting to say the least.

Emily gets two very dope lines in a row:

"Let me hold your hand through this Alejandro."

"I'm gonna kill her. And I don't think she's going to the great big airport in Brooklyn."

That's it for her for now, but let's put a pin in that for now and come back to it after we check in with the others.

Siobhan and Kingston are at the former spot of Faerie, the Glamour Bar.

Zac jokingly (I think) guessing Dr. Doolittle as the thing Siobhan can't remember when she says Eliza Doolittle is so funny.

Also, her terrible cockney British accent on top of her actual British accent is great.

I love that the two actual Real Adults are the ones who go and get wasted mid-mission.

Brennan introduces "Bobby Goodfellow" and it takes Siobhan exactly four seconds after Brennan finishes the word "Goodfellow" to be like, "It's Puck." She knew and she knew her character would know it and she hardcore pounced.

I meant to mention this before but it's super funny that Kingston has been around the magical block but there's still so much he doesn't know. He was surprised by a bunch of stuff in this ep that I'd think he would know about (like the Midsummer's faeries being real) but nah. He's like, "This is my specific brand of magic nonsense. That's what I know about. I don't mess around with any of *that* stuff. I stay in my lane. I stay in my city."

Ty Brennan for teaching me how to pronounce sláinte. This is the first time I'm hearing it out loud.

I love his Puck voice. Like, the little British street urchin voice.

No big surprise, Puck sent the mirror on the order of Oberon and Titania (who are not back together but are knocking boots according to him).

Puck warns Misty, "The world of mortals is not long for this world," and follows it up with a seemingly sincere, "Come home. We miss you," which is an interesting thing to say after announcing that Titania is gunning for her. Who is this we, Puck? Your boss wants to bodyslam her!

Also, what do the faeries know that they're not saying? All of them in the bar seemed to know something was off but none of them said anything and Puck didn't elaborate.

I've always liked the trope of the person from the otherworldly, magical or super advanced being like, "Idk what you're talking about. Humans are great!" because it's the opposite of the snooty elf/vulcan/whatever trope that I really can't stand. Misty showed shades of that in this conversation but I feel like there's still so much that we're missing in her backstory and I wanna know what it is.

(Also, this is prob just me being a little pepe silvia but I would be very unsurprised if Misty got an opportunity to betray the party at some point. Don't @ me. It's just something I could see myself offering to a player for the drama of it all).

Anyway, Kingston is extremely uncomfortable in the bar and makes a hasty exit so let's go to the museum with Pete and Nod.

Ally jumps onto the, "Suggested donations are for suckers" train w/ Siobhan.

Turns out, Pete f'd up Robert up so much that he has kind of a brain link with him. I wonder how long that's gonna last.

Pete gets proficiency in arcana and a choice between lesseing wild magic surges or gaining some control over them (2 wild magic rolls on a fail and ally gets to choose which effect takes place). Obv the second one is more fun rp-wise so that's what Ally picks.

It's a memory museum so OF COURSE he gets a chance to look at the memories of the rest of the party. But it's getting late so he only has a chance to check on one person's memories. He, naturally, picks Kingston. Makes perfect sense from an RP perspective but out of character I feel like Misty is the most closed book of the party.

Pete sees Kingston's life from his childhood to the present (Brennan puts Lou on the spot to do some improv...I mean beyond the improv they're already doing) and it's about what you would expect based on what we know about Kingston but it's very beautifully described (sidenote: did any of y'all ever watch the life and times of juniper lee? where she can't leave the city bc she's like the buffy of that world? I really felt shades of that, except more self imposed).

During that montage, a character is like, "You could make hundreds of millions of dollars--I mean, I'm exaggerating," (s/t like that) and I'm not gonna go back and check but I feel like Brennan (or maybe Lou) made almost exactly the same comment in the first ep of this season in a very similar context.

Oh, also, Kingston gets dubbed Vox Populi by a dragon on Bleecker Street in case you were wondering about logistics.

Again, Nod says that inviting Liz into his life was basically dooming Liz to be stuck dealing with the Unsleeping City but I feel like unless you have a Vox position or something similar you should be able to, like, opt out. So what you need to ignore some weird stuff day to day? May I direct you to my earlier anecdote about the flute dude in the tree. New Yorkers are good at that. And if she moved away, would it even be an issue?

Actually, that raises another question. Is NY the only place where magic is happening? It can't be because Santa is doing his thing at the North Pole. And NY has the Umbral Arcana which shields magic from muggles. Does that mean that elsewhere, magic just isn't hidden? I'm guessing that works because the bulk of magical happenings are happening in NY. Which, again, if so, couldn't Liz just move if she really wanted to? Or is she actually being *kept* there?

Ahhhhh, that argument scene with Kingston and Liz. Ow.

Robert's subconscious is heckling Kingston's memories the entire time.

The party gets back together, Pete immediately lets Kingston know he was memory spying on him and hugs him (while Misty is drunk a singing over him). Their rift literally caused a kind of rift in NYC which is now healed (which causes Sophie to see the Unsleeping City/Dreaming Yin-Yang sign over their heads).

Ricky drinks the 1000 hr energy so start the clock I guess.

Misty, upon hearing that Dale is dead basically does that John Mulaney bit: Hey, do you want me to kill that guy for you? Because it sounds like [s]he sucks and I will totally kill that guy for you.

It's the day of Priya's art show which I totally forgot was happening. Before that, Sophie finally goes to see her brother and we can return back to that pin I mentioned earlier.

(Also, it’s the 20th which means we’re getting really close to Christmas)

He says that their family got mixed up with the Confettis and they've been helping to launder magical items that Confetti is paying some rep from Hell (an associate of Robert's).

And by, "Some rep from hell," I mean Isabella Infierno specifically.

Emily, hilariously riffs for a while about how small it was of her to call Isabella a succubus even though she clearly knows at this point that Isabella is some kind of demon. I mean...Infierno. Come on.

Sidenote: Which demon actually trying to be subtle would pick the last name Infierno? You wanna blow your cover for the aesthetic that bad?

Emily goes, "Oh my (beat) Nod," which I think is the exact way she dropped the first, "Oh Melora," in one of the first eps of Naddpod.

Anyway, it turns out that Soph's family knew that Isabella was gunning for Dale (he was getting close to realizing something shady was going on) and, while they didn't call the shot, they let it happen.

Oh! He also says Dale was a chosen one from "some monastery" which, of course, fits in with Dale's comment about saying hi to Jackson. Now I'm wondering if his other comment--about there seeming like there's nothing at the top--is about whatever chosen one test he had to take to get the position to begin with. And maybe he was giving a clue to Sophie so that when she takes it, she'll for sure pass and get whatever dope powers or weapons or privileges come with the position.

"The only reason I'm not going to go after you right now is because I'm not organized enough to give you the fucking revenge you deserve." Soph is cold as ice after hearing about what her family did.

"Maybe you should have said that to Isabella before she went after me." Another mic drop line from Emily. This really was her episode. You can really see Emily channeling hr genuine emotional reactions into her character.

La Gran Gata shows up to let Soph know she has her back to hunt down Isabella. The only other warlocks really seen played are Fjord on CritRole and Leiland on Bloodkeep so it's wild to see a character with such a chill relationship with their patron.

So, Priya's art show. They show up (to a distressingly unsafe building from Ricky's perspective) and it turns out, not only is it performance art (the worst kind) Pete *is* the art.

"I present to all of you: cruelty, a exploration of a relationship. Peter, take my hand."

major barf.

Pete goes OFF

Kingston: Picasso is art, this is bullshit!

Siobhan: Her last name is Danger? I hate this bitch.

Pete gets over Priya instantly which totally tracks because, like I said, barf.

Sophie stealing Ricky's thing and rooftop jumping. Zac narrows his eyes when she says that.

I love Isabella's title card. It says, "Literal Succubus". It reminds me of the funniest scene in Bedazzled when the Devil (Liz Hurley) gives Brendan Frasier her business card and it just says, "The Devil".

But she's here and she's here to fight! I'm so excited for this one y'all! Unsafe building. Lots of civilians. Sophie (and Emily) going totally feral. I haven’t looked forward to a fight this much since Adaine went for Aelwen. Let's gooooo!

#asks #dimension 20 #the unsleeping city #d20 #riz-gukgak #this is 5k words #aren't I good at utilizing my free time

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13parkfilter · 4 years

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a wangxian playlist no one asked for

These are track notes for a wangxian playlist no one asked for, because CQL / mdzs fandom ate my life and I somehow needed to make a super dramatic 28 song playlist that follows wangxian’s love in (extremely loose) chronological order, from their first meeting as cute battle teens all the way through the depths of angst and eventually to becoming cultivation partners and (I’m positive) really great co-parenting dads.

Because I’m like that ™ , you can find notes for each and every song below. Any weird song choices are entirely my fault. Spoiler alert: Frank Ocean.

This is a real long playlist and you could definitely break it into shorter stretches by mood. For the happiest and most in love vibes, hit the first 6 songs and the last 6 songs. Dramatic Burial Mounds vibes are from 7 to 13. It may be very satisfying to go from the depths of sadness and grief (~16) through to the end.

1. Don’t Know What to Do | BLACKPINK

Inspired, of course, by WYB and XZ’s demonstrated love of Blackpink in the CQL BTS videos. For a little while Stay was on this list instead, but I kept coming back to this song because to me it gets at that excited “everything is new and I’m young and so in love” feeling. Two people could certainly have a playful duel under the moonlight to this song, if they wished.

2. A Loving Feeling | Mitski

Something about Mitski’s melancholy, slightly maudlin and self-deprecating vibe in this song is just peak “I wasn’t flirting… unless…?”

3. Self Control | Frank Ocean

Somehow this playlist ended up structured around two overlapping arcs carried by Frank Ocean and Lykke Li, respectively, which makes no sense in theory but maybe kind of works? Idk, let me know if it works. If it does, maybe it’s because so many Frank Ocean songs are incredibly raw love songs about loss and the work that memory does to keep your love alive, and so many Lykke Li songs are about trying to slog through all the pain and bullshit without losing sight of that kernel of untarnished brightness, whatever it was that made you want to love in the first place.

I love this song for many reasons, but in no small part for the sorry-not-sorry vibe of apologizing for making someone lose their self control.

4. Look After Me | Cub Sport

This song is real honest and tender about people taking care of each other and it messes me up.

“There's something in the way you look at me

Like I've never done wrong

There's something in the way you look at me

When I was wrong all along.”

5. We Could Run | Beth Ditto

Ok, imagine this playing in the background during LWJ and WWX’s first meeting with Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan. A good song to play as you run into the sunset holding hands with your cultivation partner, is what I’m saying.

6. Unconditional Love | 椎名林檎 (Shiina Ringo)

This is just a super sweet and painfully dramatic love song, the kind of song that plays for a man who makes grand unsung gestures like composing magical love songs and secretly adopting your child after you’ve died. This is before the latter part of that, though.

7. Bad Religion | Frank Ocean

This is the first turning point on the list, the fading of youthful optimism and the start of choices that there’s no going back from. This is when you start to realize that you really can’t please everyone, and you can’t do what you believe is right without someone hating you for it. It’s also the point at which your neuroses and blind spots start to go from being quirky and cute to a cage of your own making. You have to deal with the bad shit you inherited from your parents eventually. If you don’t you’ll either make the same mistakes they did or make different mistakes because you’re fighting so hard to keep your head above water.

I really like the part when Frank Ocean asks his taxi driver to outrun the demons. Feels like something a modern AU WWX might say.

8. Silent My Song | Lykke Li

I didn’t want to go full angst here because this playlist is about *cue Westley bellowing in the Princess Bride* TRUE LOVE and so I didn’t go as hard as I could here, but this is the start of the golden core + first Burial Mounds arc.

9. Figure 8 | FKA twigs

I can hear the resentful energy swirling in this one. This is probably the most abstract choice on the list but to me something in it evokes the curdled rage and seething of an unquiet spirit.

10. Fantasmas | Ambar Lucid

This is a song about living with ghosts: of a failed relationship, and the mistakes that it took to get there.

11. Green Grass | Cibelle

I love this song because it’s a little sweet and a little scary at the same time. It’s gentle and haunting and the lyrics are as unforgettable as poetry.

Is this a love song that a corpse is singing to someone visiting their grave? I like to think so.

12. I Bet on Losing Dogs | Mitski

In spite of the dog reference (lol) this whole song is a super WWX trying to live with the Wens in the Burial Mounds mood in my opinion. It has turnip energy. Trampled yet undefeated lotus energy, if you will.

13. Godspeed | Frank Ocean

This song is the essence of heartbreak and knowing that you have to finally let go of someone. Am I imagining LWJ and WWX singing this back and forth to each other at the Burial Mounds, depending on which line it is? Am I crying about it a little? Maybe.

“I let go of my claim on you.”

“There will be mountains you can’t move.”

14. I Know Places | Lykke Li

This is the “Come back to Gusu with me” song, even though it’s coming later in the timeline than it should. (I sort of compressed all the Burial Mounds-set songs together for a better flow). Anyway I feel like this captures all of those unspoken desires, that frustrated feeling of caring about and believing in someone so much without being able to protect them from all the people and powers that want to hurt them. But you have to try.

15. Deeper Than Love | Antony and the Johnsons

This song is almost. Too dramatic. This is meant to be at Nightless City / WWX’s fall. I originally had 2 completely different songs here but I ended up liking the arc of this song and where it ends up. The two songs I originally had here were a much more bitter feeling, but I like that this song is tragic and painful and is still a kind of love song at the same time. I really wanted this playlist to be all love songs, some very different from each other, some more about pain and loss and regret than the good parts of love, but still love songs.

“And I have tried to shine in the darkness

Entertaining vanities in vain…

Hold on

And hold on

And let go

Let go

And fall deeper

Even than love.”

16. Days of Candy | Beach House

To me this song is very evocative of the mingled feelings of grief in the immediate aftermath of a loss. Grief is never a pure, singular feeling, but a sticky amalgam of missing and wanting and sweet memories and a deep pit of pain. The sort of slow, half-asleep sadness full of watery light that this song evokes really takes me there, to the place where the grief is real but the loss is still almost unreal, where the feeling of that person still hasn’t left, your senses are still full of them, you just heard their voice yesterday, they might come into the room at any moment. It’s the almost— joyful?? part of grief that you don’t realize has any joy in it yet because you haven’t yet started to forget. You can’t imagine being able to forget, and you have no idea how much worse it will be when you can’t immediately evoke their presence anymore to comfort yourself. When you can’t pretend anymore that you’ll be able to see them again.

17. Last Song | Gackt

Idk why exactly but Gackt is very yearning LWJ vibes in this song. Is it the earnestness? The intensity? The incredibly romantic lyrics? The deep, smooth voice?.. All of the above?

Anyway, if the previous song was nonverbal grief, this song is the start of the solidifying of grief, moving past rage and disbelief and self-destructive denial and gradually into a crystallization, a narrative of what the loss meant. Instead of a great crushing thing that blots out the sky and swallows your entire life, the grief becomes just another part of you— a defining part, maybe, but still part of a greater whole. And you move on. Or you try to.

18. Sleeping Alone | Lykke Li

This is 13 years of going where the chaos is, searching and playing Inquiry and never giving up, resigned to sleeping alone in strange places but still just never ever giving up.

“Now was not our time, no, I let you down.

Someday, somehow, somewhere down the line… we’ll meet again.”

19. Busby Berkeley Dreams | The Magnetic Fields

Does every deep-voiced man singing a dramatic love song remind me of LWJ now? Maybe. At least I refrained from filling the entire playlist with Stephin Merritt songs.

“I should have forgotten you long ago, but you’re in every song I know” is just… the most Wangxian sentiment.

This is a bit of a modern AU LWJ, one who would definitely cry into his True Romance magazines. I do still think that this song very much captures how he must have felt hearing the song he wrote played on a terrible flute after 13 years, though. It definitely doesn’t have a flute solo in it, either.

20. Ivy | Frank Ocean

This song is peak WWX in a mask, trying to hide from LWJ and his own emotions at the same time. But also, maybe, the start of some emotional awareness and genuine communication. Thanks to Frank Ocean for this entire playlist, practically.

21. Fireworks | Mitski

Another song about memories and dealing with the past even when it comes back to stab you in the side. (s/o to Jin Ling, low key my favorite character, never afraid to cry in any situation)

“I will be married to silence

The gentleman won't say a word

But you know, oh you know in the quiet he holds

Runs a river that'll never find home.”

22. Hell | Waxahatchee

This is a song about apologizing to someone for putting them through hell. To me it’s a very adults-in-love song, and there’s a sort of gentleness to acknowledging the pain and mistakes of the past while still having hope that maybe love is really worth it after all— especially if you’re “one of those who canonize a love so true it never dies.”

23. A letter to my younger self | Ambar Lucid

I have to admit that the title of this song makes me think of yiqie’s truly excellent time travel fic that is very heartbreaking and very beautiful. I don’t want to spoil it if you haven’t read it (go read it), but it’s safe to tell you that it grapples with and transcends all the reasons I usually avoid time travel fics, like the idea of helplessness in the face of fate, and how much control we really have over our own decisions, and what it means to let people make their own mistakes.

24. Let’s Pretend We’re Bunny Rabbits | The Magnetic Fields

This one really speaks for itself.

Besides, “Let’s pretend we’re bunny rabbits until we pass away” is just a cuter way of saying “Everyday,” right?

25. ”愛してる”からはじめよう (“Let’s start from ‘I love you’”) | Miyavi

I personally feel that Miyavi has big sunshine WWX energy. This is just. A very cute and soft love song. Feels like napping in some tall grass in the summertime. Waking up next to your lifelong crush and remembering how lucky you are. Wandering from town to town with your true love and your donkey. That type of energy.

26. Angels | The xx

The last three songs on this list never fail to give me Big Dramatic Feelings.

I think what this song captures well is the feeling of just drifting along, lost in your thoughts, showing up somewhere— and suddenly seeing the person you know to be the love of your life at an unexpected time or place, and being struck all over again with… all of it. Your heart stutters, everything slows down, and for a second you forget to breathe. Like: Oh yeah. Oh shit. I remember why I love you. I remember how it felt when I was first falling in love with you. And I never want it to stop.

“And with words unspoken, a silent devotion. I know you know what I mean.”

27. Love Me Like I’m Not Made of Stone | Lykke Li

I think of this as the quintessential WWX love song, from the title to the sentiment of the lyrics to the moody burning joy of the sound of it. It’s demanding and soft and confident and raw all at once.

Props to Lykke Li for the redemption arc of this playlist.

28. Good to Love | FKA twigs

MAKE MY BODY COME ALIVE. This is the song that really says the most to me about the pain and beauty and the vulnerability and intimacy of being in love. What I love about all of FKA twigs’ music is how beautifully she merges and intertwines the messy physical and spiritual aspects of love. Her music is a sexy secular prayer to Eros imo and I’m here for it.

#cql #playlists no one asked for #dramatic love songs #idk #this is how i deal with my obsession #wwx #lwj #wangxian #i guess

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soobadnoonecanstopher · 6 years

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Only the One you Love, part 3 (A Kyungsoo Series)

Genre: Angst / Romance

Characters: You X Kyungsoo

A/N: This will be a series with mature content in the future chapters.

Only the One you Love[M]: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6 , part 7

The air inside this practice room cleared the moment his face left your field of vision.

As if a tulle veil had been lifted from over your face you could suddenly see the room clearly. You could make out the curiously confused faces of the members of EXO who milled around you in a half circle with a suspiciously vacant Do Kyungsoo shaped gap in that circle of people opposite of where you stood, still clinging like a frightened child to Sehun’s hand.

With the clarity of your vision came the lucidity of your mind and you relaxed the grip of your hand, using the distraction on his face to pull your hand free from Sehun’s. What had you done just now? How tense and distressed had the expression your face been as you soaked in the ache that sat deep inside his dark brown eyes.

You inhaled a breath and your lungs expanded despite the soreness you felt inside of your chest. Another breath stretched the connecting tissues that kept your rib cage together and your heart drummed on, tender with a fever, yet stubborn and unyielding.

If your heart refused to give in, then goddammit, neither could you. If your body would live through this then who were you to argue with it? Didn’t you just have to play along?

Interest in the spectacle was waning quickly, save for a single pair of impassively composed brown eyes that watched your face much longer than any of the others did.

“Have you been well?” The soft-spoken question from Baekhyun pulled you out of it, “you look well,” he added under his breath, but something in his tone made the compliment feel just a touch forced and you composed what was left of your pride to thoroughly cleanse the emotion he might have caught in your eyes.

“She does look well, doesn’t she?” Sehun chimed in from beside you where the warmth of his arm rested against your own and you looked away from Baekhyun’s eyes.

Baekhyun had been the only one to know anything about the attraction you and Kyungsoo had given in to. Although you had no way of knowing how much he knew. For all you knew, he could have just believed it was just sex. Just two humans losing the fight against the loneliness of the tour.

“You know,” Baekhyun’s focus had shifted to the taller man at your side, “Junmyeon says you are dumb, and I thought he was just being mean, but now... I just don't know.”

“What?” Sehun’s response was genuine in surprise and hurt at Baekhyun’s flippant comment, yet there wasn’t time for anyone’s ego to be stroked before a clamor behind you pulled your attention.

“Oh, he’s back.” Sehun’s attention had been grabbed as well and you spun on your heels to see black hair and deep brown eyes bounding on quick moving legs, having just moved through the open doorway through which he had left moments earlier, Kyungsoo was moving quickly with a placid smile glued to his face. His eyes were on you as he walked and you blinked away your surprise to see him back so soon. Your stupid heart leapt wildly inside your chest, the same stupid heart that stubbornly held onto useless things like the smell of his skin along the nape of his neck, and the sleepy groan that echoed through is chest cavity when you ran your fingernails lazily through his hair, scraping lightly against his scalp as he buried his face in the softness of your breasts.

“Sorry,” that smile was pulled taught and his breathing was controlled and even as he moved lightly on his feet and held his shoulders just so, just upright enough to keep from sinking right into the quicksand of practice room flooring, “I had to use the restroom.” Kyungsoo sniffled lightly through the lie and you lowered your eyes down and away. Anywhere but in his eyes. You looked down at his chin, focusing on the three or four hair follicles that pushed out the minuscule excuse for a beard that grew there. He hadn’t shaved in three or four days it seemed. All practice, no time for much else. You longed to run your thumb over the stubble and make a comment about Do Kyungsoo slacking off on his personal care.

There was a pause in the delivery of his alibi and your curiosity flared. Had he forgotten the next line he had carefully prepared?

“You,” You looked up from his chin and there was a waver there as his eyes seemed to flutter half closed, blinking quickly and shallowly and the smile on his lips pulled even wider, even less believable to you as he oversold it. This was desperate and you were suddenly aware of your own face; your own expression that sat there, wounded. A shattered crystal champagne flute that had been hastily taped together with cellophane tape. “-you,” he repeated again before finding the line he had been searching for. “Have you been well?”

“Kyungsoo,” you found your voice worked just well enough for this play, although you couldn't bring the smile to your lips as easily as he could, “It’s been a long time.”

“So, you’ll be working with us again?” A significance sat inside that question. It was loaded with it and the sour taste bubbled up the back of your throat and coated over your taste buds, making you want to swallow it away, you wanted to push it back down inside your belly where it couldn't affect you so. What was that? Was that hope? You had none of that left. What a stupid useless fucking idea, that you had anything hopeful to feel about this situation. No. No, you weren’t working with him again. You weren’t repeating the mistakes of last year. Weak. You had been so fucking weak then. And boy, had you paid the price for that weakness.

“No, I’m not going to be working with Exo this time.” The denial, or refusal as it felt, came out more forcefully than you initially set out for. There was absolutely no reaction on his face. He was over the initial shock of seeing you so suddenly and his emotions would be well controlled from this point forward. Nothing you could say or do would affect him.

“Well, you might,” Sehun spoke up beside you, his voice irritatingly light for this situation that he had absolutely no idea was happening before him and for the third or fourth time today you felt like locking him in a hallway closet and swallowing the key, “You’re part of the translation team for the company, I mean, you might get to work with us again.”

“Don't get your hopes up, Sehun. I work in the office. I’m not sent out on translating assignments or anything like that. It’s not like it was in Europe.”

The back and forth between yourself and the taller man who angled his whole body toward you as he spoke, who stood too close and leaned down with his words as if he and you were the only two who occupied this space and there wasn’t a whole other person with big brown eyes that bounced between your faces as if he was watching a tennis match.

“There you go again,” Sehun said, “I’m saying, you just gotta give it a chance for a little while. Things will change and get better once they see what you can really do.” Sehun’s words might as well have been shouted in a language you didn’t speak with as little impact as you felt from them. You didn't even mind the office work. You just wanted to get out of this fucking practice room and hide away for long enough to settle the wild beating of your heart. Sehun’s fingers had slipped down to grip tightly around the palm of your hand as he voiced his little words of encouragement for you and you let him push and pull your arm around all the while avoiding the gaze of the man who watched you.

“You two seem close.”

His comment wasn’t in the script and Kyungsoo zipped his lips up tight as soon as the words left his mouth. The detached smile had fallen out of place and Sehun looked up from your face just in time to see it creep back into place.

“We are very close,” Sehun said with conviction and you could feel heat running along the back of your neck like a spreading illness through your system, “she just doesn't know it yet.” He was laughing at his own lame joke, two big chesty guffaws that slapped like wet towels against your skin and Kyungsoo’s counterfeit smile pulled even tighter as if he had any right to have any sort of opinion on the topic of who you kept as friends. Or fictional friends at least. Sehun could be your good friend if you wanted. Did you want that? Probably not. All you wanted right now was your shared office downstairs that had a door that could close and a stress ball on the desk that was primed for the squeezing.

“No we aren’t and I have to get back to work.”

You were done. You wouldn’t entertain this any longer and as far as appearances went, well, you had done your part. You had played your role as well as you could. You pulled your hand free of Sehun’s grip easily enough and spun on your heels, waving a hand in the air at the shouted farewells that echoed out behind you from nearly every voice in the practice room. Nearly every one that told you to come see them again. Nearly every person who wished you well in your new position and nearly every one of them who seemed to genuinely want to see you again.

Your office downstairs was not as empty as you had hoped and prayed it would be as you walked up to the door. Your officemate, the young woman named Jinee who you knew only bits and pieces about, typed furiously on her computer as she usually did; working through the stacks and stacks of documents that filtered through the lower level translators on the team. Her desk was hidden around the corner from the door. You couldn't really see her from your own desk, but you definitely heard the constant typing that only quieted down for a half an hour during lunch and picked back up again after she ate quietly at her desk.

From what you gathered on your first day. The second the coveted hidden spot in the office had been vacated, she had moved out of the line of sight of the door and left you to deal with the constant interruptions and new assignments that came through that door while she worked in blissful peace.

She was your superior here and you honestly didn’t mind the extra workload that much. You did sometimes wish she would be the first to answer the phone once in a while.

“The phone was ringing while you were gone,” Jinee spoke from her desk without even leaning back in her chair to be able to look into your eyes as she talked. “It rang like four times.” Her tone sounded annoyed that you would dare be absent from your post long enough for her precious focus to be interrupted and you hummed out a disinterested response, acknowledging that yes, you had heard her, and no you didn’t give a goddamn about the phone ringing. The majority of your calls were looking for someone who used to work at your position. Calls you merely turned away without any insight about where your predecessor went or why they left.

You could set your clock to Jinee. As if on cue, the typing ceased and you heard the telltale sounds of an electric kettle bubbling up as the water inside heated to boiling. You smelled the instant noodles and heard the scrape of the wooden chopsticks against the cardboard container and you wondered if you would be able to eat lunch today without seeing that unnatural smile atop those cold, departed eyes of his that hid any genuine emotion that might take unwelcome purchase on his face.

Coffee. You could stomach a cup of coffee from the cafe down the block and maybe filling your stomach a little bit would at least keep your body occupied during your lunch break. Even if your mind would surely be occupied with other things.

You’d made it into a standing position behind your desk when two swift knocks against the hardwood office door startled you enough for a small jump. The bright green stress ball you had been squeezing for a solid hour since arriving back at your desk jumped as well and rolled off the desk onto the floor and you called out a quick word for the visitor to enter as you ducked down to retrieve the ball.

It would be some errand. Copies or a coffee run for the meeting after lunch. Perhaps someone wanted you to sit in on an international phone call and whisper translations to executives in fancy suits.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” The voice that sounded out at the door hit you hard and the green ball that had rolled below the desk was almost out of your reach. Not that it mattered, someone was here, someone with a low voice and so full of significance and with a force that kicked against your heart and you straightened your posture too fast, before you had cleared the desk above your head. You felt the impact and felt the blow on the crown of your skull and the dull thud echoed noisily as the pain surged through your head.

“Ow,” you winced into it, closing your eyes tight as you rubbed your head roughly with the palm of your hand to rid yourself of the pain as quickly as possible, “shit,” you cursed to yourself and stood up tall. Ready now, mind dulled with the recent pain that was nothing, absolutely nothing compared to the aches and the misery that had been plaguing your chest all morning.

Do Kyungsoo had taken three long steps toward you, his hands had been outstretched to reach for you where you stood on the other side of this desk with that green ball clutched securely within your closed fist and his hands slowly dropped as the misplaced look of concern faded from his face.

You didn’t need it. You didn’t need that look on his face and you certainly didn't owe him any explanations for why you hadn’t given him proper notice that you had taken a transfer to this city.

The look on your face as you quit rubbing the spot on top of your head must have been enough to stop his motion. Must have been enough for him to drop his eyes from yours and wring his own hands together roughly in front of his waist. You could feel the glare in your own eyes and yet something inside of you kept your hand closed, kept the ball from flying across the room to bounce atop of his head.

“Is that why you called?” His next words were a whisper and you heard a quiet squeak of a rolling chair from around the corner where you were suddenly flooded with an ice cold bucket of water. Jinee was still here, finishing up her noodles no doubt and scrolling through her phone as she waited for exactly 30 minutes to be up so she could resume her relentless typing.

Jinee was listening now, you could tell with the way the seat back in your line of sight sat in an upright, perfect 90-degree angle as the back of her head was tilted in just the perfect way for eavesdropping.

“Yes, actually Mr. Do, I was meaning to discuss it with you. This uhh-” a panic was bubbling up inside of your chest as you searched for a way to answer him, to have a conversation with the man without giving anything away that could jeopardize your career...or his. His career, his well-being, his life, still...the impulse to protect was so strong you didn’t dare risk anything. You had come here after all. This was your doing. You weren’t out to ruin anyone. You weren’t out for revenge.

You loved him too much for any of that.

“—this assignment is extremely important to me. As you recall from our work together on the European Tour, I have been looking for such an opportunity for advancement. When the chance to break into the East Asian sector was presented to me, I felt obliged to take it.”

This was going well. This was believable as the kind of conversation one would have with a previous client. You could already see the sag in Jinee’s posture as she scooted closer to her desk and lost interested in whatever professional relations you were nurturing.

“Mr. Do?” His question left his lips parted open and his eyes watched your face for any signs of truth in your words, “are you serious?”

“Absolutely, Sir. This is a tremendous opportunity for my career. I wanted to thank you for your utmost professionalism and support throughout the tour last year and I simply ask that you keep that mentality in mind with the possibility that we might work together again in the future, however unlikely that may be. I also hope to uphold the requirements of my job according to this company’s expectations and to my clients’ satisfaction.”

You weren’t sure how your words kept coming. Inside, you were in shambles with the genuine confusion and hurt you saw on his face.

And that hurt flowed through him like a sound wave, it traveled down his face where the muscles took his lips down into a frown over his shoulders that sagged and his arms rippled with tension as he lifted a single hand to rub roughly over his face, blocking out the light, and any sight of you who stood, a fake and a liar, before him, putting on the greatest show of your entire life.

Your eyes burned where you forced them to remain open. Your hand sagged and the green ball slipped from your grip and bounced once against your shoes before rolling back under the desk and Do Kyungsoo inhaled a deep breath on the other side of your little wooden barrier that kept his physical body separate from your physical body so effectively. As if you couldn't still feel every deep breath of his lungs mirrored back in your own ragged breathing. As if you couldn’t feel the tremble you saw in his hands dancing within your own fingertips.

With the breath of air, he stilled his movement. With the brief closing out of light from his hand, you saw the slow and careful nod of his head. Silent and affirming.

This...what it had been, this was over. It was done. It would never repeat. He knew it and he understood it. He accepted it and he would not torture you with reminders of the past.

He would play his role as you had just so clearly and carefully defined and take whatever lingering feelings or emotions he might have still left inside of himself for you, put them into a stout box made of heavy gauge steel, lock it up well, and never again open it.

“I understand,” he said and you almost believed him.

“I won’t interrupt your work any further, Miss.”

Oh...

So that’s what it felt like.

Like your hand was being burned with hot coals as you stood there and let it happen. As the singe and the hiss; the sounds of your cooking flesh filtered through your eardrums and the putrid smell filled your nostrils and you just let it happen. Opting to turn off the part of your brain that felt pain rather than pull your hand away. Rather than reach for him, grab his hand, grab his arm, grab his face and pull him into your arms with a desperate plea. Don't leave. Don't go. I don't mean any of this. I just want you to be safe and happy.

Of course, you did not say any of that. You had worked so hard to sell this so Jinee would not have any ideas at all about the level of professionalism in your relationship with Do Kyungsoo. This was to keep his good name out of the mouths of gossip spreaders around the office.

All you could do was keep your hands at your side and keep your head steady as he turned and left.

All you could do was stare at the empty spot on the floor where he once stood and try not to feel the burn that wept, blistered, and bled.

You saw no sign of any of the members of EXO for the next few days. Your work continued in much of the same way as it had before the run-in with Sehun in the elevator. Before your secret relocation was discovered and you were forced to look into the face of your ex-boyfriend and discover just how completely over him you weren’t. While you liked to tell yourself, again and again, you could stand this, you could work side by side with him again if need be, you could even stand the close contact and hushed whispers into his ear that translation required, your subconscious had other ideas.

You dreamt of him every night since you saw him and each morning you awoke alone in your single bed that sat in your single studio apartment with the alarm ringing out its lonely song that told you it was time to let go of those useless fantasies and get back to the real world.

It was only four days later when you could finally feel the dust settling around you and you began to relax at work again. You had quit taking elevators entirely; even when they seemed empty you still opted for the stairwell at the end of the hallway which was must less risky. Elevators were too easy anyway. This was a conscious decision you should have made for your own health long ago, long before you were caught in a filthy web of lies and deception that caused that look to appear in his eyes, that look of pain, confusion, hurt. No, you were taking the stairs because it was good exercise and by day 4 of this new health regime, you found that four flights weren’t very challenging at all. You could do four. You did four in the morning, four at lunchtime, four when you left at the end of the day, four for every single coffee run they sent you on, four when you had to hop on down to the first floor to give Sungjin, one of the members of the security team, that note from Jinee that was in a sealed envelope and what you were pretty sure contained a folded up love letter with the amount of perfume you could smell coming out of the seams of the envelope. You were running goddamn marathons daily on those stupid stairs and it was completely fine. Easy peasy.

What you definitely couldn't, and would never ever do, was twelve. Not even in an elevator, 12 was out of the question. Not that you had any reason to even think about walking up twelve flights of stairs. This was hypothetical. You could never ever, hypothetically, do twelve flights of stairs. You would probably die. And it was about your physical stamina, of course. What it definitely, absolutely, never ever, ever was about, was Do Kyungsoo. Your physical limitations had nothing to do with him. These were facts about you as a person and had nothing to do with the man who’s lips you had felt against your own every single fucking night in your dreams for the past four days.

Anyway, you were crazy and you were taking the stairs. For your health. And your ass was looking pretty great because of it. You’d pulled out your arsenal of your favorite short skirts when you came to Korea. Perhaps it was just the fashion here, but you found that the trend here was the shorter, the better. Today’s was no exception. You were hot.

No, really, it was hot in this damn stairwell. You could feel the sticky perspiration layering over your skin as you moved and you cursed right outloud at those fools you worked with who would make you run out for hot coffee on this sweltering summer day. Oh, the luxury of the lazy. Riding the elevator. Sitting in their air-conditioned offices in front of their computer screens as they type type typed away their lives from inside an office building when there was an entire world of languages out there and people speaking their languages to each other, needing translations of those languages and here you were stuck in a fucking stairwell with your eight hot coffees and a once tiny, now probably big, blister on your pinky toe that was rubbing with every new step you took.

The highlight of your day so far had been in line at the coffee shop when the young, single Japanese tourist smiled wide, bowed her head deeply, and thanked you for your help in deciphering the Korean menu. It was against company moonlighting rules to charge her anything, but you still gave the young woman your phone number and told her to call you if she hit any more snags during her vacation. Woman to woman, both of you alone in this country it seemed, you would help her as much as she wanted and she beamed in genuine camaraderie. You didn’t bring up the Exo’s D.O pin she wore on the lapel of her jean jacket, even though it would have surely been the greatest commonality you shared with her.

Destined to love that man forever. Never able to hold him at night like you both dreamed of.

The door to the stairwell was heavy and you leaned, pushing hard with your butt to get the thing open as you stepped through. Both of your hands were full so this particular trek up the stairs had been a test of both your stamina and your balance. Your heart was beating harder and you breathed in only a bit faster than usual and you stepped out onto the fourth floor with a triumphant flourish and a wide self-satisfied smile on your face. That had been your best time yet. Even with the blister.

“What are you smiling about?” A question startled you out of your own quiet victory and you looked up to see the familiar face of the troublemaker who had been responsible for making you take the stairs in the first place.

“Sehun,” you exclaimed in genuine surprise as you looked around for any signs that he might not have come down here alone, “what are you doing here?”

He was already closing the distance between you both with his eyes on the coffees that occupied your hands and you jumped into action with a leap in the opposite direction of him.

Your legs were carrying you quickly down the hallway that was, yes, in the wrong direction of your office but you knew that this floor went around in a big loop and you would circle around to the right place eventually if you just kept walking.

“Where are you going? Let me help you.” Sehun laughed and shouted from behind you and you picked up your pace even more. You weren't about to do this whole thing again. He would just take the coffees and hold you hostage and the last thing you wanted was to go up to the twelfth floor again and face that whole mess.

“No, Sehun. You can’t have my coffees.” You were speed walking now and the blister on your pinky toe pinched with each swift step.

Sehun was faster. His legs were long and he was too competitive for his own good. You felt strong arms wrap around your waist and you yelped out loud as you felt the ground leave your feet and you kicked and squirmed and squealed like a trapped rabbit all while keeping a careful and strong hold on the coffees, doing your best to keep any of them from spilling.

“Sehun!” you shouted and he giggled against your ear for a moment before he dropped you back down onto your two feet in front of him. His arms were still around your waist and you flinched and squirmed, pushing back into his chest with your elbows until he grunted at the pointed impact and released his hold on you.

You spun to glare up at him but instead winced at the pain you felt in your shoe, adjusting your stance to put less pressure on that side.

“What’s wrong? Did I hurt you?” He’d noticed the wince and all at once the playful grin he had sported fell and his face turned concerned and solemn. “Shit, I-I was just playing around, I’m sorry--”

“Don't worry about it, it wasn’t you. It’s just a blister.” your next few steps were more painful than before. Now that you had noticed it, the pain seemed to be worse and you were pretty sure you would find a bloody mess when you finally took your shoe off. You would ignore the pain as best you could until you could get to the semi-privacy of your office and find a band-aid to wrap around your toe. You were already dreading the short walk to your apartment after work.

“A blister? Why are you taking the stairs if you are hurt?” Sehun was following at your side as you limped your way down the hallway, having now turned toward your office to save on travel time. “No, this won’t do. Put the coffee’s down, you can’t even walk right.”

You could see your office doorway by now. There was no reason for any of this, why was he even here? To your annoyance, the man actually took several steps in front of you, squatted down on his ankles and tapped twice on his shoulder, urging you to hop on for a damn ride.

“Sehun, I’m fine,” you said with a nod toward the open doorway of the conference room. The same room where he had made a scene days ago. The kind of scene that caused way too many lifted eyebrows whenever you walked into a room. You took a few steps around him and gritted your teeth to walk as normal as you could as if you had never even felt any pain to begin with. From his crouched down position you caught the drift of his eyes over your legs, up your thighs and higher, the man definitely looked as you made your way past him and you cringed at the shortness and flounciness of your skirt from this position. You wondered how much he could actually see from down there and you attempted to shove the thought out of your head as you sped up, increasing your pace to nearly a jog toward your destination. You hoped that your face didn’t betray the embarrassment you felt surging through your body and you made it to the doorway in record time, depositing your coffee’s on the table, grabbing one for yourself and spinning in a circle before they could give you any more tasks. They hardly spared you a second glance.

Out in the hallway, Sehun was slowly standing up with a puzzling expression on his face. You didn’t dwell on it. You ignored the suspicious pinkness you saw in his cheeks and the uncharacteristically slow movement in his limbs as he avoided your eyes just enough to be completely obvious. You breezed by him into your office that sat on the diagonal to the conference area and plopped yourself down in your chair to find the bandage you knew would be inside your purse. You were grateful for the meeting. You weren’t required to attend this one, but Jinee was. Your mood already felt lifted with the absence of the frantic typing that usually filled this place.

Sehun meandered behind you like a lost puppy, casually strolling into your own personal space, he rested his butt on the corner of your desk on this side, this side that was yours, why was he on your side of the desk? Shouldn’t he be standing on the other side of your own little barrier that kept them, all of them, from you? You never gave him permission to be back here. Yet here he was. At least he was quiet and relatively easy to ignore when he wasn't playing games with you.

You slipped your shoe off and as you expected the wound was swollen, red, bloody, and definitely would need a bit of ointment before you put this band-aid on.

Sehun gasped right out loud and you looked up into his wide shocked eyes with questions in your own. Hadn’t he ever seen a girl suffering through brand new heels before? Hadn’t he ever known the torture of woman’s fashion when paired with four flights of stairs taken multiple times a day?

“That looks very bad. You need medicine.” He reached for the bandage within your fingers and stole it before you could open it and put it on without any medicine. “You wait. Don't move, I’ll be right back.”

With a glance around your space, he grabbed your shoe, holding tightly to the heel with a determined look in his eyes and a no-nonsense purse of his lips. “So you don't leave,” he said and one of his eyebrows jumped in fete. He sure was proud of his little plan of action.

With a shrug, you opted to simply wait for him to return as you enjoyed your latte. It was sweet but not too sweet, and the perfect temperature to lift your spirits enough for you to make it through the rest of this day.

Sehun returned halfway through the cup with a tiny paper bag in his hands and his facemask still secured over the lower half of his face.

With your shoe off, your toe didn’t hurt very much at all actually, but you knew the second you put it back on without a band-aid it would be painful again. You watched silently as he made his way around to your side of the desk again, only instead of sitting on the corner he sat down cross-legged on the floor beside your feet.

Your shoe was quietly returned beside its pair under the desk and you wondered if he walked around carrying a woman’s shoe during his little trip to the pharmacy down on the street corner. You recognized the logo on the bag.

“Sehun, just give me the medicine. I’ll do it myself.” This felt weird. You hadn’t imagined that Sehun was particularly nurturing, but you didn’t really know him that well. Perhaps you had misjudged him.

“Shh, just drink your coffee and give me your foot,” he said and it was a good few seconds before you actually gave into him and you extended your leg so he could have your foot. When he reached for you, you reached toward him with your own hands and quietly slipped the face mask off his ears and placed it on the desk beside him. You hated to admit that you liked this serious and quiet side of him and you figured he didn’t need to cover his face around a friend.

His hands were warm and gentler than you anticipated and you felt him cradle your heel in the palm of your hand as he peered down to get a closer look at the wound. He had already removed a few supplies from the little paper sack and set them neatly beside his folded up knee and his eyes darted around his workspace as he reached for first something to clean the wound that burned like hell and made you flinch the second it touched your skin. You pulled your foot away when he did it and he looked up into your face in exaggerated annoyance.

“Don't do that,” He whined and you pouted your lips into a small frown when he reached forward to grab for your foot again. There was a second, a moment though when his focus was dropping back down to your foot when he paused. That split second and you knew, just like before when he was down on the floor and you walked by him, you knew he was looking at you in that way that a man sometimes looks at a woman. It only lasted for a moment though and you didn't even have to scold him or clear your throat knowingly or anything. Sehun corrected his gaze on his own with the tiniest involuntary smile on his lips and that damn pink blush back on his cheeks. He worked on in silence and you sipped on your coffee as he medicated, bandaged, and carefully slipped your shoe back on your foot.

“Do you want to have lunch with me?” The question was not entirely out of the blue. You knew lunchtime was approaching and you knew he was lingering in your space for a reason that wasn’t the blister on your foot.

But lunch? With Oh Sehun?

How?

He was Oh Fucking Sehun!

He was still sitting on your floor, having put away the medicine inside its little baggie, he reached for the top drawer of your desk and opened it like he owned the place. He placed the bag inside and closed it up without so much as a glance in your direction as you hesitated over the invitation to join him for lunch.

You weren’t particularly hungry and the half a cup of coffee sloshing around your belly plus the rest inside this cup would surely hold you over for a little while.

“I was just going to have this coffee actually, I’m not very hungry lately. This is enough.”

Sehun looked at you then. He really looked at you and his eyes turned black as his brows dropped into a furrow, he wrinkled his nose and pulled his head back swiftly. It was a look of extreme disagreement bordering on disgust as if you had just told him you would be snacking on the dead rats in the basement for lunch.

Instead of speaking though he lunged forward and plucked the coffee cup out of your hand, lifted it to his own lips and drained the entire remainder of its contents before you could even close your hand.

You watched in disbelief as he tossed the empty cup into the trashcan below your desk. He was, before all else, a troublemaker and a brat who really enjoyed playing games with you too much.

While you were annoyed that your delicious coffee was gone, you found yourself unable to keep the smile from your lips at his playful antics. Something about Sehun just naturally cheered you up and you couldn't quite pinpoint why or how. He just had this way about him. His grin was well hidden beneath the carefree facade he kept up and you laughed right out loud when he reached down for both of your hands and pulled you up into a standing position. His patch-up job on your toe felt pretty good now that you were standing on your feet again. You might just survive until the end of the day with him as your personal nurse.

“Now, it’s lunchtime,” he sang out and he pulled against your arms to get you to come out at last from behind the sanctuary that was your desk. Honestly, you wished you could stay in here all day. It was much less dangerous than roaming carelessly around this office building.

“But how can we just go eat lunch, Sehun?” Your feet rounded the desk and you looked down to see his black facemask about to be forgotten as he braved the big scary outside world where he was a famous idol with stalker fans who liked to chase him around with DSL cameras with safari style zoom lenses to catch every bit of the perfection that was his face.

What if someone saw you with him and started a rumor? What if Kyungsoo heard that rumor? What? What did that matter? Where did that even come from? Ugh. Stupid brain and stupid intrusive thoughts about that stupid man. Maybe you had a parasite living inside your heart that was responsible for the fluttering that you still felt every time you thought about him; every time you heard his name. Maybe Do Kyungsoo was the actual parasite that had burrowed in deep into the muscle; feasting on your most vital of vital organs until you simply dropped dead of a heart attack brought on by stupid ex-boyfriends and stupid recurring sex dreams about stupid ex-boyfriends.

Great, now you were thinking about it.

“What do you mean ‘how’ can we eat lunch? They have these magical places that make food for money and we will buy their food with our money, silly. ” You pulled hard against his hand and reached behind you for the mask. Your backstepping pulled his attention and Sehun slowed his feet to turn back to you. Clearly curious about the many holdups in leaving this damn building already.

Just as before when you had removed the mask you reached for his face; the elastic straps spread out between your fingers as you approached him. There was a split second before he reacted and when he realized what you were doing you felt him dip his head down some so you could reach him easier.

In another life; in another timeline, something like this with a man as handsome as Oh Sehun might have affected you. His face was much warmer than your fingertips and his eyes were watching yours very closely as you adjusted the mask over his ears, you slipped your fingertips down over the material that covered his jaw, pulling and fixing to make it even and making sure it covered enough of his face to somewhat mask his identity.

You didn't know what kind of fans the idols thought these masks fooled because he wasn’t at all disguised to you. Another tug below his chin and you caught the subtle movement of his jaw as he clenched his teeth together. The fabric of the mask warmed with the slow breath he exhaled. He was still looking into your face and his head had certainly dipped down closer to where you stood preening and primping him for the outside journey. The man was suspiciously quiet too. It was making you just a tiny bit uncomfortable, but you pushed through it. You could do just one lunch with your friend and co-worker (sure, many different responsibilities and vastly different paychecks, but technically, maybe, loosely translated at least, you were co-workers.)

Sehun was moving at last and you followed his eyes as he reached for your ID badge from your desk, the one with your picture on it that granted you access to the SM building, had your name and title on it and unquestionably identified you as a member of the staff. It was, of course, your harmless explanation for being out to lunch with him. He picked up the cord and you could feel a strange pause in his movements as if there was something running through his mind that affected his focus. Before he could do anything silly like lean in any closer to you than he already was, or put the ID badge too slowly and too carefully around your neck you plucked the whole thing out of his hands and unceremoniously tossed it over your head.

Through the hallway you walked quickly, suddenly feeling an urgency to move your legs through this place. You didn't need him to grab your hand and pull you along if you didn't keep up the kind of pace that he felt was right, or if you dragged your feet too much. You wouldn't give Sehun any more reasons to touch you today. You didn't know what was going through his mind lately with all of it, but the last thing you wanted to do was give him any ideas about you. Sehun was your friend. It could never be anything more than that. There simply wasn’t enough room in your heart for anything more than that.

Lunch was nice. Never in your mind did you imagine that you could actually go out to a public restaurant with an idol. In the three trips you had taken to visit Kyungsoo while you dated you always ate at home. He ordered take out or cooked for you, or you ordered takeout yourself and ate alone with his two dogs keeping you company for the hours and hours you spent alone in his home while he worked.

Sehun was remarkably relaxed about it. He was recognized of course. He smiled and nodded, gave a few autographs and two selfies with fans and then he merely asked the shop owner for a private dining room in the back. The fans hardly even noticed you lingering around him as you waited for the pictures to be done and scrolled through your work emails on your phone. You had a few new messages that seemed important and your focus was down on your phone as you tried to decipher what this latest email could possibly mean when you heard your name called out from rather far away. Sehun was waving you over to the open doorway of one of the private dining rooms but you hadn’t yet had a chance to get to the bottom of this email. It was something about a relocation or transfer yet again. Only this time, it was written entirely in very professional Korean wording. It left you feeling a bit perplexed and you would need to read through it again. Perhaps Sehun would afford you a few minutes to deal with work stuff during lunch.

He was already seated at the table, ordering a few dishes when you sat down opposite of him, your phone still open and clutched in your hand as you read through the email again. It was weird. It was a transfer, but an interoffice, cross-agency transfer to a different department. It also looked to be a change in employers from your contracted translator team to SM Entertainment? Were you being picked up as a permanent employee after only being here for two weeks? Was such a thing really possible? You hadn’t even been asked to accept this change, this email seemed to be merely a notification that such a change had taken place about one hour ago. Didn’t you have to agree to things like this?

“Is something wrong?”

Your focus had been down your phone for a significant amount of time and you recognize the rudeness of it, but you simply had to get to the bottom of this. This was your work and your life here.

“I’m sorry, Sehun. I just got this email about something. Some sort of transfer? I don't understand—”

“Oh, already?” Sehun took a sip of his eyes held something significant. There was a small smile hidden behind the water glass, “that was fast,” he said to himself and you put the phone down on the table in front of you, clasped your hands together in front of your chin and rested your elbows on the table.

“What was fast, Sehun.” He knew something. This much was glaringly obvious by his choice of words and the shifty way his eyes bounced around this private dining room with the low hanging romantic lit chandelier over your heads. “What do you know about my transfer to SM? What does this email I just got mean and why does it say my new office is going to be...” you looked down at the phone and quickly scrolled to the details of the transfer for the number that was sending a bolt of lightning right through your brain, “...1234, Oh Sehun?”

The more you absorbed the more you understood. Office 1234 was up higher. It was up on the twelfth floor. Below the details for the office number came another few words that were so much worse than you had wanted to admit. ‘EXO Staff, exclusive translator.’

“I never accepted this. I’m supposed to accept things like this before they go into effect,” you were mumbling to yourself now as you scrolled up and down again, searching for somewhere to click or to reply to decline this move. It had to be there. Maybe if you read through it one more time.

“Uhh, it’s already done. I accepted it already, umm…” Sehun was mumbling as well, only his tone was suddenly unsure and growing more and more guilty the longer he talked, “I accepted on your behalf?”

His voice rose at the end and he sounded even smaller and younger than you imagined him to be.

“Is that a question, Sehun? I never even got any notice to make a decision.” You knew the implications of reversing an acceptance of a job. You knew if you went back now and refused this, you would only be seen as an unreliable, wishy-washy employee and opportunities would likely be taken from you and given to other, more reliable translators. How many years would you have to fix fucking typos to undo the professional damage of saying no to this now?

“In my defense,” he began and you swore you could feel actual laser beams shoot out from your eyes across that tiny table and hit him square in his stupidly handsome face, “you were going to have only coffee for lunch. You take the stairs obsessively even though you have blisters. You leave your computer logged in and unlocked when you leave your office. You never dress warmly enough for how cold it’s going to be where you’re headed. I noticed that a lot in Europe. Cute? Yes. Warm? No.”

Your laser beams zeroed in on him and his lips pulled in to a tight smile that he tried to force away.

“What is your point, Sehun?”

“My point is, you make terrible decisions.” The man was impossible. He also had to be stopped.

“I,” he lifted a hand to his chest, “make fantastic decisions. So I decided for you.”

You would quit. You would just quit this job and leave the country. Fuck the years of school and the student loans you still owed. Fuck the fact that you’d be professionally blacklisted and could never find work again in this industry.

What could you even do with your life now? This was your only dream. This was the only thing you had ever worked for.

What choice did you actually have? Give it up?

All of it? Just fucking give it all up because of one stupid person in a world with over 7 billion people, you were going to let one person destroy everything you had ever worked for?

No way. Absolutely not. It wasn’t going to happen. Fuck it, fuck him and fuck Sehun dammit, you were strong and smart and you weren’t a puppet controlled by your silly little heartstrings.

Sehun had been watching your face too closely as you worked through the crisis and when you lifted your water glass in front of him in eventual agreement. Although it was actually bitter defeat. He lifted his own with a wide grin of undeniable satisfaction.

“Welcome to EXO,” he cheered and you scowled, wishing for many things. That your water glass was filled with liquor. That you didn’t have to go back to work after this lunch, and that you could wipe that smug look off his face.

Surprisingly, you were able to stomach the food. It was fresh and hot and delicious and Sehun ordered some dishes that you were unfamiliar with but you enjoyed nonetheless. You found that you shared the same tastes as him and there wasn't a weird slimy textured dish amongst the lot. Perhaps lunch with Sehun was something that you might not mind repeating again in the future.

No. You lifted a fist and knocked lightly against your head. That was the food, you were merely swayed by the tasty food. Sehun was bad. Sehun was trouble and a brat and Sehun was not to be trusted, ever ever again.

From now on, you would soldier through life making your own strong choices and sticking to them. You would face whatever consequences were thrown your way and you would quit forcing yourself to avoid this. You would even take the elevator again. Starting today, on the way back from this lunch you were going to take the elevator up to the fourth floor, pack up all of your shit and take the elevator up to the twelfth floor. You would greet your new team with a bright energetic attitude, ready to work as hard as you possibly could for this group and you would not avoid his eyes.

You would speak to him when you had to and you would not cower under the darkness of his eyes. You would do it and you would do amazingly at it.

Lunch was over and you were under pretty strict instructions to clear out your current workspace as soon as possible and relocate to your new post. So you did just that. It wasn't like you had been there for very long, your stuff fit into the tiniest box you could find and you lifted your chin up high and made your way to the elevators.

This was your decision. Sure it was Sehun’s meddling that did it, but this … this elevator was your decision at least. You would start small. Taking control of your life was a big deal and everyone had to start somewhere. Your start was the elevator. No more avoidance. No more fear.

The doors swung open lazily and inside the little traveling metal box was one other human being, clearly on his way up to a higher floor. His build and his height sent blaring loud alarm bells ringing through your head and you froze for a second. Froze for long enough for his attention to be almost pulled up from his phone where he scrolled with his face angled down.

If you hesitated now he would look up and see you. He would see you waver and hesitate and he would know exactly how unready you were for this.

You moved. You had to move. You placed a foot inside of the elevator floor and then another. You stepped inside and his attention was grabbed by the view of your shoes, of your feet and you watched it happen with a placid smile glued to your face.

He looked up the length of you slowly and when his big brown eyes finally reached yours he was frozen. This man; your one in seven billion, the owner of your heart for the rest of your life, Do Kyungsoo looked into your face as you entered his elevator, just the two of you now and you stood on the other side of the box, as far away as you could from him without it being completely obvious that your goal was to stand as far away from him as you could.

You didn’t linger in his eyes. You could, however, feel his eyes on yours, heavy and burdening and the longer you stared ahead of yourself, watching the tick off of floor the numbers as the elevator began its ascent, the less oxygen you felt existing inside this little metal box.

The elevator moved fast. It was a fancy high-speed model with minimal motion on its passengers and before you had a chance to gasp for precious air the doors were opening in front of you on the twelfth floor and you were stepping out first. You would leave him to it. To his staring or his stewing or to whatever it was he going to do.

Before you left though, before he forgot that he was exiting here and let the doors close on him, because it had already been enough time by now really and he sure wasn't moving, before the doors closed you turned your head. You simply could not let this moment pass without at least a greeting. You were first a foremost a professional.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Do,” you smiled the most politely innocent smile you had in you to produce and you simply watched the doors of the elevator close him up inside.

Only the One you Love[M]: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6 , part 7

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mariolucario493 · 5 years

Text

STUFF I WANT IN A BANJO-KAZOOIE REMAKE (IF THERE IS ONE)

So as you are probably aware, Banjo and Kazooie have finally made it into Super Smash Bros. This is a huge accomplishment, as they have been absent from Nintendo for years. But this begs the question - will we be getting a proper new Banjo title in the near future? I certainly hope so, but before that, it would be nice to see the original games re-released on current consoles.

Now the question is how they would do this. Would they just re-release the original games with slightly updated graphics like they did on XBLA? That seems like the safer option. But maybe they’ll go the interesting route and remake the whole games from scratch. Given that we live in a time where everyone seems to be capitalizing on 90′s nostalgia, the latter seems like a possibility. But I’m not here to complain about Disney’s live-action remakes. Besides, with video games, remakes seem to be quite faithful to the originals. We’ve gotten DS/3DS remakes of Mario 64, Star Fox 64, Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, and maybe some others I can’t think of. Pokemon has remade generations before as well. And of course, the remake of Link’s Awakening looks promising. Even Rare has gotten in on it before - remember Conker: Live and Reloaded? True, a lot of the original developers left Rare to form Playtonic, but maybe the two companies could joint develop it - as long as Microsoft gives everyone complete creative control, of course.

So let’s say they do go this route and completely remake the original two games. It shouldn’t just be the same game but in HD. There are some things I’d like them to improve upon from the N64.

First of all, they definitely should keep the changes they did with XBLA - that is, making notes permanently collectible. No one wants to get PTSD from Rusty Bucket Bay. Admittedly, this might make finding the last few notes more difficult, but it’s probably still better than dying with 99 notes. Or what if the notes do not reset if you die, but they do reset if you leave the level? That way, if you’re having trouble finding the last note, you can just reset. Maybe there could also be a special reward for finding all 900. Yes, there is that last door that requires 882 notes and doubles your health, but maybe something else. There’s already a reward for getting all 100 Jiggies in Mumbo teaching you about some of the Stop n’ Swop items.

And speaking of Stop n’ Swop, let’s talk about that. The limited technology of the time meant they weren’t able to implement the idea of transferring items from one game to another during the N64 era. Now they did manage to do that for the XBLA re-releases, but there were still a few flaws that I saw. In the N64 version of Banjo-Tooie, you had to essentially find the Stop n’ Swop items again. In the XBLA version, if you got them in BK, you would have them in BT from the start of the game. But the problem is that the secret areas were still there, just empty. If you had no idea what was supposed to be there, you’d be confused as to why these secret caves exist. So I think they should combine the two ideas. By that I mean, have the secret areas in BT empty normally, but have the secret items show up there once you get them in BK. Maybe include a sign in the secret areas that gives a hint like “Return to the Sandcastle and enter the following code.” If both games were bundled together, it would make the transfer of data even easier. Though the issue there was that the N64 version of BT only had the Ice Key and three of the six eggs. The developers would have to come up with places to hide the last three eggs in BT. But I think they could do that.

It would also be cool if there was a multiplayer mode. Banjo-Tooie had multiplayer minigames, but maybe they could add some to Banjo-Kazooie as well. Specifically, I’d like to see a multiplayer version of Grunty’s Furnace Fun. It would either be a race to the end or just competing for points.

One thing Yooka-Laylee was missing was world maps. Pretty much every 3D game nowadays has a way to bring up an overhead map of the area. But a combination of no maps and everything looking the same made Yooka-Laylee’s worlds difficult to navigate. So yes, there needs to be a map of each world. And that map should highlight certain areas such as the start area, Mumbo’s hut, all the Bottles/Jamjars locations (once you find them, of course), warp pads, etc. And there could also be an option to place beacons. You know, where you put a dot on the map and a light appears in the sky to guide you there. Admittedly, this would be difficult to implement in more cavernous levels like Clanker’s Cavern or Glitter Gulch Mine, so the beacon idea might not be possible. Also, for some maze-like sub areas like Targitzan’s Temple, maybe the map should not be accessible until you complete everything in the area. That way, you can still feel like you’re exploring.

One thing Yooka-Laylee actually did right (once it was patched, of course) was fixing the auto-scrolling text. Pretty much every game has the text pause until you press a button to advance it, but not BK or BT for some reason. You could still hold down the button to make the text scroll faster, but tap it to advance to the next sentence.

And now let’s talk about the toughest thing that I’d like to see changed for this hypothetical remake - that being the comedy. As timeless as these games are, I will admit that there are a few moments that clearly stand out as being a product of the 90′s. Certain jokes might not be acceptable today. Now I love all the fourth wall jokes and subtle adult innuendos, and they should definitely keep those. What I am concerned about is a couple of the characters that are obvious stereotypes. Take for example, Rubee, the snake charmer in Gobi’s Valley. Despite only being part of one Jiggy mission, this character seems to suffer from the same Indian stereotypes that Apu from The Simpsons suffered from. With his overly large turban and strange way of speaking, he seems like he could use an update. Now how would they do that? My idea? Make him an animal. Perhaps an elephant, like Taj from Diddy Kong Racing. This could also fit his role as a snake charmer, as he could play his trunk like a flute.

There’s also Jolly Roger and Merry Maggie, who seem to be cheap shot at gay stereotypes. Jolly speaks in a very camp voice and makes those hand gestures. Maggie is implied to be a transvestite; and if I remember correctly, Kazooie reacts with disgust when she sees her. Again, we might have to change them up a little. I’m not sure how we would do that, but definitely start by making them more than just one-dimensional stereotypes.

But perhaps the most awkwardly stereotypical character in the Banjo games is Humba Wumba. Native American stereotypes seem to be one of the most controversial out there. The problem with Humba is that she is a much more important character than Jolly or Rubee. She appears in every level of the second game, and her transformations are essential for getting many of the Jiggies. Mumbo also seems to be based on the stereotypical tribal African witch doctor, but again, he is at least non-human enough for that to be acceptable. Humba, on the other hand, is definitely human. And she wears that stereotypical buckskin outfit and feather headdress, and she speaks in broken English Tonto-style, and her theme music includes that war cry that isn’t even a real thing. Now I personally am as white as white can be (at least I think I am, but I’m not about to sent a DNA sample to one of those ancestry sites so they can sell it to the government), so I’m not exactly the best person to talk to about how to write a Native American character. On top of that, Humba seems to just be there for sex appeal. Yes, I’ll admit, I had a few fantasies about her giant polygonal tits growing up. She’s definitely at least more attractive then the fairies in Ocarina of Time. Now for all its faults, Nuts and Bolts did redesign Humba to be a little less of a stereotype. In that game, she wears a more contemporary outfit and has a more realistic figure. It’s not perfect, but it’s a good start. Theoretically, Humba could work if they were more tongue-in-cheek about how insensitive she is. Like have Kazooie make a snarky remark about how the 90′s were a simpler time. If there ever is a completely new Banjo game, they could cut her out altogether; but in the event of a re-release, she is an integral part of Banjo-Tooie.

It was also kind of surprising back in 1998-2000 to see an E-rated game this violent. And I’m not talking about the goofy slapstick either. Both Clanker in Clanker’s Cavern and Lord Woo Fak Fak in Jolly Roger’s Lagoon visibly bleed. How many times do you see blood in an E-rated game? Yeah, they might have to change that. For Clanker, since he’s mostly mechanical, you could replace the bloody parts of his body with rust. And as for Fak Fak, you could just change the color of the blood like you did with Ganondorf. Which would actually be realistic, since red light doesn’t travel that far in water, so red things such as blood often appear greenish-yellow when you’re hundreds of feet below the water’s surface. Of course, Kazooie should still stay red no matter what.

There’s a few other things that might be seen as insensitive, like the child abuse that Boggy’s kids face, or the lady with the watermelons at the end of BK. But as much as some of those jokes seem mean-spirited, I actually think it would be better to keep most of them. I don’t see a game as goofy as Banjo-Kazooie beginning with a serious disclaimer about stereotypes like they put at the start of all those Looney Tunes compilation DVD’s, but the developers should definitely tread lightly if they want to keep the spirit of the original games without offending anyone. We may end up with an E10 or even a T rating, but it would be worth it. But this is Tumblr, after all, and being offended is like a national pastime here.

Just a few months ago, a new Banjo game seemed like a pipe dream. But with what we saw at E3, we might just get it. Either way, the kids of today deserve a chance to experience what we grew up with. But what else would you like to see in a Banjo-Kazooie/Tooie remake or a new game altogether?

#banjo kazooie #banjo tooie #e3 2019 #rare #nintendo #microsoft

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mihanada · 6 years

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Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation

(back to masterpost)

Oooh boy was this a wild chapter. but! this is also the end of this arc! So tiny!

Chapter 62: Evil (Part 2)

“Wei WuXian had clearly been a bright, high-spirited boy...Yet, this person was entirely enveloped in a cold, dark energy. He was handsome, yet pale-faced, his smile eerie.”

Here it is, the transition from Wei Wuxian the first disciple of the Yunmeng Jiang Sect to the Yiling Patriarch.

“All of the flesh on his legs had been sliced off, piece by piece. And, likely… all of the flesh had been eaten by himself!”

Hey. Hey. Just in case you forgot that this novel was low-key gross and gory.

This is some great horror material. And remember when Wei Wuxian mentioned that he of all people would know about torture methods? (I forgot when he said this, but he did.) WELL. This is the source of that statement.

He was really going for both physically and mentally breaking Wen Chao here, and it succeeded big time.

Imagine how Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji watching from above must feel? It’s like Wei Wuxian is a totally different person.

“...half of Wei WuXian’s face was in the light, the other half in the dark.”

is the symbolism smacking you in the face yet

“Holding what he had fed it in its mouth, it turned around and sat down. Hugging his leg, it chewed fiercely as it glowered at Wen ZhuLiu with cold, glistening eyes.”

yikes it’s the scary baby again. why is it always scary undead babies.

uM eating Wen Chao’s fingers.

(so just how did this happen anyways...was Wen Zhuliu too far away to get to Wen Chao and Wei Wuxian tortured him during that time, or was Wen Zhuliu occupied with fighting some corpses or. It’s likely that Wei Wuxian let them run away like I mentioned last chapter. gotta employ that psychological warfare!)

“Wen ZhuLiu, “I can’t fail to repay the debt I owe their generosity.”

i mean, at this point I think it’s been paid in full what the heck did they even do for you.

“Why is it that the debt you owe has to be repaid at the expense of others!”

idk I just like this line. Also, it hits a sore spot, and he loses a bit of his composure and gets angry.

“Burned skin was naturally weak to begin with...The uneven, bald head immediately became a bloody, bald head.”

how is Wen Chao still ALIVE. being a cultivator has its downfalls, probably their bodies are a little sturdier than regular people. which is not a good thing.

Also, with Wen Chao being pitiful and wailing in fear this entire chapter, it creates some weird dissonance.

On one hand, you don’t feel pity for him, he’s a terrible person.

On the other hand, who deserves this level of torture inflicted upon them?

The more you read, the more excessive it becomes.

“The ghoul child, however, had bit out an entire chunk of the flesh on his hand and spat it out. He continued to devour the palm.”

this is a lovely image. your core melting hand can’t help you now.

“Wen ZhuLiu’s large, heavy body had been lifted up by the surging whip and was now dangling in the air.”

Ok, a lot happens in the span of these two paragraphs. I did a little cheer when Jiang Cheng managed to get ahold of this guy. He deserves more than a little catharsis after what he went through.

“At the same time, Wei WuXian’s pupils shrunk. He took out a flute from beside his waist and spun around, standing up.”

To his credit, his first reaction is to recall the ghouls/corpses so they don’t attack the wrong people.

“He looked down at Suibian and only responded after a pause, “… Thank you.”

there’s something seriously wrong here, if the torture and controlling corpses wasn’t enough of a hint. That lackluster, soulless response.

“Although the sentence itself seemed to scold him, his tone was full of joy.”

my heart kinda started breaking here. Jiang Cheng seems so happy to have him back, he is willing to ignore all the things that are wrong about this boy he grew up with. And that is not a healthy thing for anyone involved, but realistically, after what they’ve gone through would you expect any other reaction?

“A few moments later, he struck him as well, “Haha, it’s a long story, it’s a long story!”

And now Wei Wuxian tries to answer in kind, tries to act like his usual self.

“...threw me to some hell of a place to suffer.”

If you would have elaborated here...maybe it would have given them some context for what happened to you. But, Wei Wuxian is the type to conceal his suffering for one reason or another, whether it’s to protect others or just because he doesn’t need to justify himself to people. So, he won’t elaborate. It’s done and gone, what’s the point in playing the pity party when they’ve got other business to attend to?

the ghouls are really creepy though.

“If I say that I found a mysterious cave somewhere and there was a mysterious book that a mysterious expert had left, and then when I came out I was this powerful, would you believe me?”

you troll. you tragic troll.

“Jiang Cheng murmured the words ‘as long as you’re back’ a couple of times before hitting him again, “You really are…! You live on even after being captured by Wen-dogs!”

D: this is also breaking my heart ok.

“To play around, play with them until they die. Straight up killing all of them at once would be too easy on them. Much better killing them in front of one another one by one, one slice after another.”

deefinitely getting unhinged here.

and it really is sad, when you consider who he was before all this terrible shit happened.

“He wanted to protect him, but I wanted to make him see how in his hands, Wen Chao would become more and more distorted, unlike a man but also unlike a monster.”

So the torture was Wen Chao’s punishment. The releasing them and chasing them down was Wen Zhuliu’s punishment.

it’s fitting isn’t it. after Wen Zhuliu’s hands caused so much grief, ripping people’s cores from them, in the end the person he wanted to protect also disintegrated under his touch. but, also perhaps a reflection of what happened with Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian. Jiang Cheng turned into a shadow of himself due to those hands, although he was alive he was already dead inside, and Wei Wuxian couldn’t do anything to help him (until he did, but before that)

“It is not that I want to denounce him.”

This starts Lan Wangji’s really bad communication skills.

Lan Wangji might be seen as the epitome of a righteous cultivator by everyone in-story, but he’s actually quite the flawed person. This is one of his faults. If he could actually explain himself clearly, would this chapter have ended in such on such an uneasy, awkward note?

“Wei Ying, for cultivating an evil path you would eventually have to pay. Throughout time, there has not been a single exception.” “The path would not only damage your body, but your heart as well.”

This is a good example of a passage where the context of the sentence really matters.

How could Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng take this as anything but Lan Wangji criticizing him for demonic cultivation? If you just read those words, you can’t tell if Lan Wangji has another motive.

That’s what I like about this story’s narrative. Technically, you know just as much as the main character does. Really, if you didn’t know Lan Wangji was the love interest and already had a small crush on him, how would you ever interpret this differently from Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng?

“Wei WuXian, “I can pay.” “Of course I can control it.”

I love his youthful confidence and resolve. it’s so foolish, but so fitting.

“After all, on the topic of how my heart is, what could other people know about it? Why should other people care about it?”

this is sad stop ripping my heart out Wei Wuxian

1) he doesn’t think himself worthy of other people’s affections or love, platonic or not, he doesn’t think anyone would care about him

2) the question of: can we really ever know the content of another’s heart?

“Lan WangJi paused. He had suddenly been angered, “… Wei WuXian!”

I’d be kind of angry too. Even objectively, do you really think no one cares about you? the answer is, well, yes in a way. Wei Wuxian can clearly see that Jiang Cheng at least was happy to see him. Yet, in Wei Wuxian’s eyes, his status is as a servant and Jiang Cheng is the “Sect Leaer”, who doesn’t have to worry about his subordinate’s heart.

“The two knew how to continue each other’s words ever since they were young. Now, one sentence after another, the argument flowed seamlessly...”

knowing this all goes to hell later makes me sad

They used to get along so well.

“Hearing this, Lan WangJi’s expression froze. He looked up at Wei WuXian, the lump at his throat trembling, “I…”

probably a response to: “No matter whom he goes back with, it wouldn’t be you.”

but, again, bad communication skills.

“They had both showed him expressions of either despair, anguish, or deep-set hatred. However, right now, their faces above him had the same cold smile, the same cold eyes.”

the symmetry is really nice

“Wei WuXian, “Of course it’d be with a certain thing gone.”

>.>

they went there

“The eyes he looked at Wen Chao and Wen ZhuLiu with glistened, and his grin was both excited and cruel. Jiang Cheng had on him the same expression. Both of them had been buried within the overwhelming pleasure of revenge. Neither had the concern to deal with an outsider.”

You again get that weird mix of satisfaction and dissatisfaction. It’s disturbing, or disconcerting at least.

“The night had passed. The sun in the sky was about to rise.

And the sun on the ground was falling.”

a very simple, but impactful few sentences of description.

The real sun in the heavens is rising.

But the false sun on earth is falling.

(quotes from ExR’s translations)

← back・onward →

#gdc aka the liveblog of TEARS

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writersblock2point0 · 6 years

Text

Twilight, Alec LS. Seeing Nightmares. (chapters 14-15)

Emberly and Alec attend the ball, old friends are seen and also we get a very big development going on!

Warnings: Forced sexual/vampire actions onto Emberly. Nothing detailed, they don’t get far.

Chapter 14 (I know the last one was short but I need this to get moving)

-Alec third person-

Alec walked down the halls, his usual disinterested stare upon his face as he rounded the corner and towards the desk to see the secretary.

“Rachel,” Her blonde head, bright blue eyes staring up at him in curiosity. “I need your help.”

She smiled, red lipstick on her lips as a light blush coated her cheeks. “How can I be of help Sir?”

“Get these for me. Take them to my room as soon as you get back.” He slid a piece of paper to her, walking away from her, knowing she’d get right on it for him. Rachel was german, with no family left, but she was human and usually prepared Emberly’s meals for him, so he knew she knew about her. He also didn’t have to worry about Rachel draining her dry.

Alec made his way into the throne room, standing beside Caius in his usual position. He leaned back against a pillar, hands in the pockets of his black trousers. He wore a dark grey button up shirt, tucked into his pants, and a black jacket. He looked bored, uninterested as he looked around. He reached up and ran a hand through his hair, noting how long it was starting to get. Perhaps he’d get it cut.

“Ah,” Aro sighed, looking up from his book as he seemed to ponder something.

“What is it, brother?” Caius responded, glancing over as Aro shut his book.

“It’s almost Renesmee’s birthday.”

“And?”

“We hardly see the child, nor anyone else for that matter...perhaps a party should be in order.” Aro thought to himself, a bright look adorned his features as he stood. “Yes! A ball!”

“We’re throwing a ball for that hybrid?” Caius looked at Aro like he lost his head, which he most likely was close to doing with how old Aro was.

“No no,” Aro shook his head. “We just simply, invite them. Stating we want to check in on the child, see if she’s a liability. We can invite some old friends, see fresh faces.” Aro looked around at the silent room, “It’s been awfully quiet these past years.”

“Alec,” Alec looked over to Caius, walking around to stand beside his master’s chair.

“Yes, Master?” Came the calm reply.

“How is your pet?”

“Emberly is...better. The voices and shadows have stopped, due to Carlisle’s medication. She, however, is still restless. I had Rachel go get a few things for her to occupy herself with.” Alec answered, hands clasped behind his back as Caius furrowed his brow.

“What things?”

“A few sketchbooks, art supplies, and a computer.”

“A computer?”

“Yes, she misses music.”

“What if she contacts others from the outside?” Aro inquires, lifting an eyebrow as he continues, “What if she tries to use it to call for help?”

Alec smirked, “I have confidence she won’t.”

“Oh?”

“She’s in love with me.” The three master’s smiled, but Alec didn’t know the true reason behind their large grins and shared looks.

“So, you trust her to attend the ball?” Caius asked, and received a nod.

“She will be on her best behavior, I can promise you that.” Alec smirked, glancing into his Master’s eyes. “It won’t be long till she’s with child.”

-Emberly’sPOV-

I jumped as a loud knock came to the door, my heart starting to race as I watched the knob twist and in popped a female face. She was pretty, with thick blonde hair pulled back into a perfect bun. Her eyes were blue, surrounded by thick black eyelashes. I could see them from here. Her lips were a ruby red, her dress tight and black, her heels the same color of red as her lips. She was human, judging from her non-red eyes.

“Hello?” She asked in a thick accent, and I raised my eyebrows in surprise.

“Hi?” She smiled at me, stepping all the way in and walking towards me with a vibrant smile. She was beautiful.

“I brought you these.” She told me, placing a large bag on the table along with a box. I walked over, confused as she smiled at me and waited for me to open them. I pulled open the bag, peering inside and gasping. Three sketchbooks, each a different size, along with pencils and colored pencils. I looked up at her with a shocked expression. “Sir Alec asked me to bring those to you, he also left this for me to give to you.”

‘I know you miss your old luxuries, so here are a few that I know you will love.’

-Alec

I opened the blood red colored box and nearly screamed. A mac laptop was sitting inside, ready for me to use and practically abuse.

“Th-thank you so much!” I looked up at her, as she was quite tall with her red pumps. “Who are you? I’m sorry...I just-don’t see many people.”

She smiled, her cheekbones high and defined, “My name is Rachel, I am the secretary.”

I gave her a hug, “Thank you, so much for this, Rachel.”

I opened up the mac, getting myself all set up as I looked at the gloriousness that was technology. How I missed it. The mouse pad, the click of the keys, and the sounds-oh the wonderful sound of windows.

When it was set up, I plugged my camera’s memory card in, transporting all my pictures onto the computer in a file. I cleared the card, and placed it back into my camera with a smile, now I could take more photos of Alec. I bit my lip as my eyes scanned over the email bar, wondering how long it took my friends to get over my disappearance.

I breathed in deeply, “They aren’t looking for you Em, get over it.” I muttered to myself and opened up youtube, typing in some classical music and laying down, allowing my eyes to close as I listened to Bach and Mozart.

“Little dove…” A voice called from the darkness, then I was being shook. I opened my eyes to see Alec leaning over me, sitting on the bed. Music was still playing, this weird song called ‘A witch's Brew’ with eere flutes and such. I paused the video and smiled warmly at Alec.

“Thank you,” I said softly, “For everything.” I was still lying down, curled up and looking at him as he smiled. It wasn’t a loose smile, like those ones you give when you get a present and you forgot to get one for the other person. It was...warm, and it reached his eyes, making eyes squint and very light crow's feet appear in the corners of his eyes. It captivated me, seeing him give me such a smile. Knowing it was me, that did that.

“I want you happy.” He stated truthfully, before looking into my eyes.

“What?” I ask with a laugh, a light blush warming my cheeks as he continued to stare.

“There’s a ball soon, and I wanted to know if you would like to attend.” He stands and rounds the bed to walk towards his dresser, and leans against it. “My masters would love to see you there, but if you feel uncomfortable by it, I won’t force you.”

I sit up and shake my head, “I like parties...but I can’t dance.”

Alec smirked, “I can teach you.”

Chapter 15

“Alec, I feel silly.” I mutter, looking down at the black dress he had me wear, something other than his shirts, and he had even gotten Rachel to come take my shoe size and get me heels to learn to dance in. “I, I am not a dancer.” I stopped when he laughed, coming towards me after hitting the play button, the music started with a some soft tune, a cello or violin, I wasn’t sure.

Alec put a hand at my waist, and I gasped as he pulled me close. “Put your hand in mine, and the other on my shoulder.” I shakily did as told, looking up into his face as my heart hammered in my chest. “Relax, dove.” His charming smile and amused tone made me flush, and I nodded my head.

“Okay, um...what do I do?” I asked, “Are we waltzing?”

“Yes,” Alec nodded and I took a deep breath.

“I’m gunna fall.”

Alec chuckled, “I will catch you.”

We moved slow at first, obviously out of step with the music, but as we progressed in the box step, and he saw that I was getting the hang of matching his strides, he sped us up to the music. I never looked away from his eyes, the music flooding my ears as my heart beat fast. He spun me around, then I gasped as he dipped me. I clutched onto his sleeve, staring up at him in shock, as he grinned down at me.

“You’re a natural.”

“Thank you…” I spoke as he let me back up and kissed my hand.

He looked up at me, a serious but vague expression. He got this odd look, something that I can’t place. He pulled me gently towards him, his free hand coming to cup my cheek. His skin was cold, as usual, and it made me shiver as his fingers threaded in my hair. My chest was flush with his, and I rested a hand on his arm, the other still clasped in his.

He leaned in, his forehead touching mine as he gazed deep into my eyes.

My heart pounded in my ears, my stomach swirling in excitement. This was it, he was going to kiss me. He breathed in deeply, his eyes suddenly going black and he backed away with a growl and stormed from the room. My vision blurred as I tried to control my breathing, he rejected me and now I feel like such a fool.

-Day of the Party-

“Alec!” Jane speaks as soon as she opened the doors to the throne room. The small sixteen year old, frozen in time, scowls at her brother who stood behind Caius’s chair. “What is the meaning of this?”

The three masters looked on in confusion at the two twins, one looked ready to kill while the other held a charming smile.

“Dear sister,” Alec walked forward a little, his hands in his pockets as he tilted his head in mock confusion. “I’m not quite sure why you’re upset.”

“Don’t play coy with me Alec! I was just informed I have to help YOUR human get ready for the party!” Jane glowered at him, her bright eyes unblinking as Aro and Caius shared smiles. “She’s not my charge, why don’t you get her ready for the ball?”

“I thought it’d be good for you,” Alec shrugs and gives her a smirk, “you seem so down lately, I figured some girl time would suffice.”

Jane gave him a deadly look, before she suddenly got this surprised and amused look on her face.

“You don’t want to be around her.” She began, making Alec glare at her, her lips pulled at the corners. She looked proud of herself, “You love her.” She teased, not meaning one word of it and as she gave a laugh, she missed the looks on the leader’s faces.

“Alec,” Aro put in, looking at the boy with a indifferent expression. “Will you go check on the party? Then make sure all the invitations have been sent.”

“Yes, Master.” Alec was gone after that, leaving Jane with a narrowed look.

“The rest of you may leave,” Aro commanded as he looked at Jane like a father who was about to scold his daughter. Jane stayed still, knowing she wasn’t meant to leave. “Jane,” Aro began as everyone was out of the room. “You know why I chose Alec?”

“Because of his gift,” Jane states, keeping her head high and voice even. “He is powerful, and loyal, he wouldn’t turn you down.”

Aro smiles, “Very good Jane.” He shifted in his position, “But…” Jane furrowed her brow, confusion written on her face. “When I told him to choose, it was because I knew he wouldn’t pick just anyone.”

Jane’s eyes flashed, “His mate.”

“Precisely.” Aro nods, “Alec is different however, he does not know these feelings he will harvest for her as of yet. Since his transformation, he’s despised all human life and anything but you I suppose.” Aro commented, not really sure if he was getting his point across from the narrowed eyes of Jane. “Emberly is his mate, but the life Alec has lived has dulled his emotions my girl.”

“So you're saying he doesn’t know how to love?”

“He can, and he will learn.” Aro replies, blinking with a small smile at his lips. “Emberly’s his La Tua Cantante.”

“How can he control himself then?” Jane inquires, wanting to snort and tell them they are wrong but she refrains.

“Everyone’s La Tua Cantante is different my dear.” Aro explains, talking slowly and quietly, just incase someone from the hall would happen to hear. “Edward wanted to kill Bella at first, but then he grew to love and protect her instead. Some drain them dry before they even have a chance to know their names...and others have a different reaction.

Alec is possessive of her, doesn’t want to share her with anyone.” Aro’s voice drifts, as if he’s remembering something in a far off dream. “When he returned we saw her once, just to show us what she looked like. Then, he kept her away-just for himself. He lusts after her, wants her in every way I’m sure.” Aro gets an evil smile, thinking back to how vicious his prised guard is with a woman, and sometimes if Alec’s feeling up to it, a man. “Emberly brings out the predator in him. He’s able to control himself, but as of lately he’s not so sure.”

“I’ve notice he’s going out to feed more often.” Jane inputs with a nod, and then smiles. “So he’s falling in love?”

“Maybe, but he will for sure.” Aro then looks serious. “We mustn’t tell him, Jane dear.”

“I understand, Master.” Jane bows respectfully at Aro, then stands straight. “He’s not going to let her die, is he?” She says almost like a fact, but the twitch in her brow indicates it’s a question.

“I’m afraid he won’t, he’ll crumble under the thought of losing her.” Aro dismissed Jane and she turned on her heel, making her way to her brother’s chambers to get the girl ready for the damned party.

Jane walks right in, not bothering to knock, and doesn’t miss the sound of the shower turning off. As she closes the door, the bathroom opens and reveals Emberly in a fluff black towel, the human screams and holds her chest.

“Are you alright?” Jane questioned as the girl seemed to take deep breaths to calm her rapidly beating heart.

“No, I’m fine…” Emberly gave a weak smile, “You just startled me.”

“Alright, well I’m here to get you ready for the party.”

The girl’s eyebrows rose, “Um, not to be rude but who are you?”

“Jane,” She smiled, “Alec’s older twin sister.”

“He’s a twin?” Emberly asked as she walked towards Jane.

“Yes, now come with me.” Emberly flushed and looked down, her towel still securely around her body. “Don’t worry, no one will be in the halls.” She followed Jane down the hall and into a room just two doors down. “This is my room.”

-Emberly-

It was large and a lot brighter in here than Alec’s room. The walls were a creamy beige with a hint of peach, the walls had a light blue wallpaper design as well, complimenting the room in making it seem much larger than Alec’s. Her bed was similar, as it had a large canopy with light peach curtains, the inside of the canopy was a light baby blue though. She had a bench at the end of her bed, soft furs and fluffy pillows decorating that. A blue bench was sitting in between the bed and a peach couch that held blue pillows. She had a lot more furniture in here than Alec did, and I could tell instantly it was a girl’s room from the rather large collection of old dolls that were held in the open door to my right. She had a small room just for dolls; probably the most adorable and creepiest thing I’ve ever seen. She had a smaller window that Alec did, but she had a medium sized desk with books and papers stacked neatly beside one another, a rather old looking ink pen with a ink bottle. On the right side of the window was a large vanity, a very large and victorian looking mirror hung on the wall with gold trimming. On the other side of the window, was a small dresser.

“It’s a lovely room,” I compliment and turn to see her already at the vanity, waiting for me to stop staring at her room.

“Thank you, now come here.” Her voice is lighter in tone, as if she’s actually in a good mood. I’ve seen her before, in the large throne room with those three leader’s Alec calls ‘Masters’ and yet she’s never smiled. She always has a blank look or scowl on her face, but she’s always beautiful. I sit on the cushioned stool and she stands behind me, looking at me from the mirror.

“What types of stuff do you not like?”

“I don’t like bold looks...I usually go for the natural looks.” I say and she smiles.

“I love the bold look.” I look at her black eyeshadow, with her black winged eyeliner. It brings out her ruby red eyes.

She quickly started to apply my makeup.

“Jane?” She hummed in response, “Why am I here?” She stands straight up, looking at me with a frown as she holds a brush and contour kit.

“Why do you ask?” She tilts her head.

“Alec won’t tell me, and I’ve asked him a few times...he always avoids the question.” I look into her eyes, seeing a wave on confliction wash over her features before she gives me a smile.

“You don’t have to worry, nothing bad is going to happen to you here Emberly.” She patted my shoulder lightly with chilled fingers, “Now hold still and pucker your lips.”

She had done my makeup, and when she spun me around so I could see myself, I was in awe. I looked beautiful, with a natural contour, just to bring out my cheekbones, a light blush, and an ‘on fleek’ highlight. I had a soft red makeup as the base but then there was light gold on top, a dark red for my crease. Black mascara and no eyeliner. My lips had red lipstick and I felt a little weird as I don't usually wear lipstick.

“Now,” Jane says, and round me to get a brush, she started to brush my hair. “I have no idea why humans feel the need to change their hair.”

I laughed, “Because some people like to have different colors...I changed mine because I thought my natural hair didn't suit me.”

She looked at me, “You shouldn't change it again.” I laugh lightly, not really sure how to answer that. She brushed out my hair, and I noticed it had actually gotten a little bit longer. How long have I been here?

“What's the month?”

“July.”

“I've been here for five months?” I asked, and she nodded. I sat still as she started to braid and twist my hair. It was a beautiful job; my hair was braided into three pieces on the top which was then twisted into a large bun. Then, the rest of my hair was down in natural waves that reached my mid back.

“It's beautiful,” I say quietly, sending her a smile through the mirror. “Thank you Jane.”

She nods, though as she turns I see a proud look in her eyes, her head held high as she picked up something that was hanging over a set of three screens to change behind...what in the world were they called? I stand and gasp when I see the dress she's holding out to me.

“Here you are.”

It's red, a deep rich color, like the darkest roses you can think of. It was lace around the top, and it fell off the shoulder to long sleeves.

“It's…” I couldn't even put words into my mouth about how gorgeous it looked. “I can't wear that.” I shake my head, not even wanting to know how much it cost.

“Yes, you will.” Jane stated and comes towards me, “Alec didn't have this specifically made for nothing.”

“It was made for me?” My eyes were wide with shock, and I heard an angelic chime, she was laughing at me.

“Of course.” Jane smirked, “Only the best would do, you should have seen the others he turned down; said they weren't good enough.”

“He-I…” I couldn't think of what to say. I took the dress and she helped me into it, the dress fit perfectly and I wondered when he got my measurements.

“Beautiful.” Jane says stepping back and I look up at her.

“Really?”

“Yes.” She turns and walks to her mirror, “Now, sit there and don’t ruin my job.” She looked at me with a deadly glare, “Or I’ll hurt you.”

I sat there, quietly as Jane did her makeup and hair. She finished; her makeup a black eyeshadow with winged eyeliner. Her lips were red, and it looked weird to see her hair down. Her blond hair was long and reached to her bottom. It was stick straight, but she took some strands around her temples and braided them, pinning them around her head sort of like a headband. Her dress was black and long, like mine, but she did not have sleeves. Instead, the lace around the top was close around her neck, like a tight collar.

“What time is it?”

“About seven.” Jane answered, looking at me with a raised eyebrow. “Guests are starting to arrive.”

Just then, when I was about to ask where Alec was, there was a knock at the door.

“Jane?” Alec’s voice came through the cracked door, then he poked his head in and looked at Jane who was standing in front of me.

“Brother.” She addressed, walking past him like a model on the runway and out the door.

I shuffled and looked at him, twiddling my fingers as I flushed under his gaze. He was just standing there, looking at me, and I wondered if I looked terrible.

“I knew that was the dress for you.” He commented, walking towards me. It was then that I saw he was dressed in a black suit. He had a dark red shirt, with a dark grey vest with black buttons, it was snug around his torso, and his pants were black as well. His jacket was black and had small black cufflinks on his red shirt and black jacket sleeves. He looked wonderful.

“You look very nice as well.” I flushed, feeling embarrassed that I just did that. I stopped my awkward laughing as his cool fingertips gently pressed under my jaw and lifted my face to meet his.

“Before we leave to join the party,” Alec’s voice was soft, almost far away as my eyes fluttered to his lips. “I have rules for you.” His lips, so soft and looks like a deep pink color, and looked like pedals. I pictured myself touching them, running my finger over his cupid's bow and the plump dip of his bottom lip, in between the place where his chin and bottom lip meet.

“Are you listening to me?” I blinked, stepping back and meeting his eyes. They were bright red, sticking out with his black suit.

“Uh...no.” I shook my head, “I wasn’t, I’m sorry-you were saying?”

“You will not speak unless spoken to; even if you are spoken to, you will look to me for permission.” He walked forwards, backing me into one of the posts on Jane’s bed. His cold hand was flush against my throat, but he wasn’t choking me, just applying pressure, igniting my skin on fire. “You will not leave my side, unless I tell you to stay put until my return.”

“Am I allowed to talk to you?”

Alec furrowed his brow, “Yes, only me.”

“Alec!” I jumped, looking at the doorway to see an unimpressed Jane, hands on her hips as she gave Alec a sassy look. “Hurry up, the others are waiting.” She was suddenly gone, and Alec backed away, giving me a deadly look.

“You mess this up, you will never see the light of day.” I nod, swallowing the lump building in my throat, but another seemed to be setting in. I took his arm, as he held it out for me like a true gent. We walked down the hall, towards where I assume the party was being held. I wasn’t wearing very high heels, but I felt like I was going to fall on my face at any moment.

I gripped his jacket tighter, biting my lip as we neared the door. My heart was pounding wildly, and I felt like I might throw up. Alec paused, looking at me before pushing the large doors open. We came in through a small entrance, not the main where two finely dressed men in long coats were standing like frozen statues. People showed them invitations and then walked on in.

I let a small gasp leave my mouth as I looked around the room.

It was glorious.

The ceiling was unbelievably high, with gold trim and what I would describe as a little greek or so, designs that were embedded deep into the gold. The walls were a pearl white, and Alec and I stood between two large columns that arched beautifully, golden pictures lining the walls. There were dozens of golden chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, and I felt a small smile form on my lips as I heard a familiar tune.

“This...is Sleeping Beauty?” I look at Alec, confused as to have something from a disney movie, but then again, it is a waltz. “Not that Tchaikovsky isn’t great…”

Alec gives me a smirk, “The secretary was the one to put together the music, she also got the orchestra as well.” I look to where he nodded to, seeing a rather large orchestra playing on some sort of stage area, people dressed to perfection as they had stools of sheet music in front of them.

“Come,” Alec started to pull me gently to our left, towards three men sitting on large thrones. Those three from before. Aro, I believe his name was, the one in the middle. Alec’s masters. “We must greet the masters.” I follow him, my steps light as I hold my dress up with my right hand, as my other is still in Alec’s arm.

“Ah!” Aro stool, dressed in a pure black suit. He looked slim in it, as black usually makes others look slim and fit, hut what caught me was the short cape like piece that clipped at his shoulders with black metal clippings. It stopped just around his rear, flowing gracefully as he stepped towards us. “Alec, and Emberly.” He smiled warmly, looking at both of us as Alec bowed slightly, looking into his master’s eyes as he stood tall. “You look lovely, pure beauty-Emberly.”

I looked at Alec, and he gave a single nod with an approving smile.

I turned to Aro, “Thank you.” I gave him a polite smile, feeling a soft blush rise to my neck.

Aro grinned cheekily down at me, dimples showing in his chalky white cheeks. “I hope you enjoy our ball, it’s been awhile since our last.” Aro turned to Alec and I let my eyes travel around, seeing a mass of unfamiliar faces. Alec pulled me around, introducing me to what I assumed was friends or at least acquaintances to Aro and the other two.

I met a set of sisters, not twins, but they seemed close in characteristics to be confused as so. Nell and Unica; both with shimmering red eyes and rustic looking brown hair. They were tall, a little taller than Alec, but very skinny builds to them. They wore black dresses, but they were different. Nell wore a long black dress that was almost like a mermaid design-but didn’t have the frillies around the bottom half of her legs-with long fitting sleeves. Her chest area was cut out and riddled with silver stones and diamonds, beautifully shaping around her neck and accenting her angular shoulders, she also complimented her face shape by wearing her hair up with dangly silver earrings.

Unica; however, seemed to be more refined yet bold in her dressing-while Nell seemed a little more guaddy. Unica had the same shape of dress, with the mermaid look-no frill-and long sleeves, but she had no diamonds littering her chest. Starting from her neck, she had what I would describe as silver snowflake like diamonds falling around the outside of her bust and stopping at the end of her rib cage. She also wore a long cape like thing like Aro, but hers fell around her ankles, and it made her seem older and more mature with the same hairstyle with large stud earrings.

They ignored me, which I wasn’t bothered by, as I could hardly understand their thick russian accents. They spoke to Alec in quick sentences, and I was sure they were speaking russian, until he replied with a simple sentence, ‘No, thank you.’ and we moved on.

“Stay here.” I didn’t get a chance to say anything else, as Alec was suddenly gone and I couldn’t find him in the crowd. Red eyed guests were conversing everywhere, making me uncomfortable as it seemed I was the only one with normal eye coloring. They weren’t human, but I was. It was then that I took notice of their equally pale skin, and beautiful looks.

I jumped as I heard a small ‘Hello’ from beside me. I turned to see a largely built man, with a giant smile, and yellow eyes. Or gold? It didn’t seem right, the coloring. He was freakishly pale, like the rest of them, with handsome features, yet his eyes were yellowish instead of the ruby.

His smile was charming, and I would have for sure been a victim to his manliness, wanting to meet his mother and probably think of having his children-if I was any other girl. I moved away from him slightly, both scared and unsure of whether or not I should answer him. My head screamed no, but what would he do if I didn’t? Tell Alec I was a rude girl and maybe Alec would be angry? He said to be on my best behavior-okay, he didn’t but I don’t want another beating.

“Emmett! You’re scaring the poor thing.” A blond woman walked up and held a hand on his chest, above his heart. She smiled at me, leaning into the man’s side. It seemed she was marking her territory, as if saying- ‘I’ll play nice but he’s mine’ kinda thing. “Sorry about him-” She frowned deeply, turning to the man called Emmett and whispering loudly. “Why is there a human here?” Emmett was about to answer when Carlisle, who I instantly recognized, walked over with a beautiful woman on his arm. The woman was motherly, with dark auburn hair curled and hanging loosely off her shoulders; a soft pink gown clung to her figure and I was a little self conscious standing beside her and Rose. Rose’s long blond hair was braided to what I could only relate to as Elsa’s from Frozen, though her hair was longer and thicker. She had white pearls in her hair, matching the baby blue dress with crystal looking diamonds embedded around the neck and into the sleeves.

“Rose, this is Emberly.” Carlisle, who wore a black suit with a pink shirt, sent a friendly smile towards me, “It’s wonderful to see you again, doing well I suppose?” I was about to answer, but closed my mouth at the last second, not a sound escaped my throat. Where was Alec?

“Carlisle, who’s this?” Another, unfamiliar voice spoke up and I turned to see a slim young man with a young girl on his arm, another girl and boy following behind them. The man who spoke was tall and slim, with dark brown hair with a bit of a bronze look to his ends. He didn’t have facial hair, like Emmett and Carlisle, and wore a black suit with a little bit of a 20’s vibe to it. The young woman, barely over the age of eighteen, had long dark chocolate brown hair that was pinned into a bun. She wore little make up, going for a natural look that suited her perfectly. She wore a dark blue dress, oddly plain but very formal and elegant. The girl beside her, wore a bright red dress. She held features of both the man and woman beside her, leading me to believe they were her parents. But what bothered me was her eyes were a dark brown, not yellow like the others. The boy beside her was native, clearly from his tanned skin and dark hair and eyes. He was human, judging by his eyes as well. He had a black suit with a red tie, matching the girl’s dress perfectly.

“This is Emberly,” Carlisle answered, then turned towards me. “Emberly, I would like you to meet some members of my family. My wife, Esme. My sons, Emmett and Edward. My daughters, Rosalie and Bella. This is Bella and Edward’s daughter, Renesmee, and this is Jacob.” I gave them smiles, unsure if I should just say screw it and speak or not.

I flinched as I felt a cool hand wrap around my waist, I knew it was Alec, but I turned to look at him anyways. I raised my eyebrows, and he smiled down at me.

“You may speak.”

I turned to them, “It’s wonderful to meet you, Carlisle told me much about you when he visited me.”

“I hope the medication is working.”

“Perfectly.” I state, feeling Alec pull me into his side. I turned to look at him, only to see he was glaring ahead, at Edward who shared a similar look.

“Excuse us.” Alec growled, pulling me away from Carlisle’s family.

I turned away, only to hear Edward say, “How could they do this to her?” I was confused, greatly confused, but let it pass as Alec suddenly pulled me onto the dance floor.

I blushed heavily, looking up at Alec as a new song started.

“Just follow me, little dove.” I nodded, holding my breath as he pulled me closer, hand holding mine as the other rested at my back. We started our steps, and I followed him like we practiced. It was silent between us, only for a while until I looked up and saw he was already staring at me.

He spun me around, and I gasped when he pulled me back sooner than I was expecting, but I settled into the steps comfortably, gazing into his eyes as we swayed and turned with the music.

The Ball Part 2, Chapter 15

-Third person-

Emberly and Alec danced together for a while, until Emberly finally said she needed a rest, feeling quite dizzy with all the turning and such. She stood by a pillar, feeling a little hot as she tried to keep her heart and breathing even. Alec had vanished, claiming he had to speak with his Master before she could even say ‘okay’. She stood alone, looking at the couples dancing and laughing as they twirled. It was almost like a fairy tail, as if she was in some kind of dream.

“Well hello.” Emberly jumped, backing away from the strikingly good looking man who suddenly rounded the pillar and came into her view. He followed her as she backed up, invading her personal space as she tried to create some distance. His eyes were a dark red, almost black color as he grinned down at her like a shark. “I’m Cain.” Emberly bit her lip, trying to back up, but he followed, making her heart beat faster with fear. Her eyes searched for Alec, but his dark hair wasn’t seen.

Emberly was suddenly not in the ballroom, but outside in a dimly lit hall. The music was still audible, meaning she was still close to Alec.

“I wonder what they see in you.”

“Get away from me.” She barely says before he’s got her thrown against the wall, holding her tight at her arms, his grip bruising her and stopping the circulation to the rest of her arms. “Stop!” She yelped, wincing as he clutched her tighter. He growled as he buried his face into her neck, breathing in deeply.

“You smell amazing Darl,” It was then that she realized the man before her, the monster, was Australian. “Probably been bit by that little runt already…” His shaggy blond hair tickled her cheek, and Emberly whimpered weakly as his tongue ran along the curve of her neck and shoulder. “So ripe…”

“Stop-” She hiccuped, feeling tears run down under her chin and onto her neck. “What are you doing?” She asked as he nipped her skin, seeing blood rush to the surface.

“Shh,” He gripped her tighter. “It’ll all be over soon.”

“Alec!” She screamed, crying out before she was cut off, a ice cold hand over her mouth. The doors they were near flew open and Alec was suddenly right next to them, gripping the stranger's neck and throwing him off of her. Emberly fell to the floor in a heap of sobs, holding her neck as she watched Alec pull the man’s head clear off. It cracked and crunched like breaking glass, his head bounced to her legs, his eyes rolling lifelessly up into his skull. She screamed and batted it away, looking up at Alec who was glaring down at her.

He took her arm before she could say anything, dragging her at light speed before throwing her into his room, slamming the door behind him as he stalked forward.

“Alec!” Emberly cried, holding out her hand, “Wait!” Her eyes widened as he started to unclasp his belt, pulling it out of his pant loops easily with one jerk. His eyes were dark and menacing, but he looked emotionless. He wasn’t snarling, or glaring, but just staring at her with wide eyes. “Please! He dragged me off, I couldn’t fight him!” She continued to back away, until her back hit the side of the bed, and she couldn’t go anywhere else.

“Alec,” Emberly trembled, pleading eyes looking into his face. “He-” She choked on her sobs, and Alec was reminded of how ugly humans were when they cried. “He was going-going to kill me…”

“Stand up.” He commanded, and she cried harder. “I’m not going to hurt you.” He rolled his eyes, giving her a once over. She had messy hair, smeared eye makeup, and her red lipstick was smudged. “Did he kiss you?”

Emberly shook her head, “No, he bit me…”

Alec moved her to sit on the bed, “Can I see?” He moved before she answered, gently tilting her head to the side and peering at her neck. A small red spot was framed by deep teeth marks, almost enough to break the skin. Alec growled, leaning down and attacking her neck with his mouth. She gasped and tried to pull away, only to have him push her down into the mattress of his bed. He caged her in with his arms, holding her still as he kissed and licked over the other’s bite.

“You’re mine.”

#alec #Alec voturi #jane #aro #marcus #caius #volturi #Carlisle #esme #edward #cullens #twilight #bella #Renesemee #jacob #emmett #rose #fanfiction #fanfic

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gurguliare · 7 years

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pls...if you so desire, write kurapika's feelings about committing violent acts

Of course his dreams pretended that his family was alive. He would fall asleep in a new place or in a place he hadn’t visited in some time, a safe house maybe, and then? His mother would shake him awake as roughly as she ever had (not knowing her own strength, she claimed). She’d look at him askance—what have you done to yourself!—and begin to smile. His mother had no sense of humor when she fought and a good one after winning. In the dream his eyes were red and that was why she laughed, although before when his eyes turned red she was always concerned, even if it happened for no reason. But that had to why she was laughing, because otherwise it would have been because he had thought she was dead; and if he had made such a mistake he couldn’t bear for her to know. His face was hot around his eyes and out to his hairline; his hair prickled like he could feel it growing.

She dragged him out to the garden, where spring was at its height. There his father hung laundry, and Grandfather sat listening to him discourse on the planting, bemused, as even the elders occasionally were, by how slowly and meaningfully his father could talk about nothing. And Pairo was there, running his fingers between the morning-dried linens; when no one was looking pulling a sheet over his head. From inside that cowl he stared straight at Kurapika—he saw better in low light—and mouthed, Why are you still here?

Because he had been supposed to go away, to the outer world. But only he and Pairo knew that.

All throughout Kurapika felt his mother’s hand in his, tightening proudly. In the end he woke up clutching both hands together, so tightly his pulse seemed to swell through the bone. He should have let go then. But he forgot, and kept his palms together, emptying out the memory of the gesture, and leaving just his painful, thoughtless grip.

And then sometimes it was one person who survived: it was his father, in a harness that strangely restricted his movements, what Kurapika finally understood was a spider’s web. It was his mother, blinded but alive, begging and then ordering him severely to return her eyes. Sometimes Sheila led him to their secret cave, where she had hidden the whole clan when the spiders came, remembering how he and Pairo had helped her, and wanting to return the favor—although she herself was a spider, she had defected, the dream explained—and he would go there in dread, knowing somehow they were dead, and she was lying, and they were dead, and there in the cavern they were, tired and frightened, and Grandfather took him by the hand and said, the book saved us, which was wrong. It was so wrong that that should be true, what he had hoped for—then he wanted to cry, when he woke up, he was that ashamed to have been taken in.

He wasn’t prepared to have dreams in which Uvogin, too, was alive—unconditionally returned. His enemy appeared first in the good dreams of home, with the other dead. Uvogin stopped him on the path to school. Uvogin towered over him, because he was home again and a child, but that didn’t prevent the brute from tossing him around like a doll. Kurapika would scramble, dodge, roll, but it was pointless, marking time until Uvogin’s fist caught up; it felt literally like he was dancing, counting dully in his head, until big fingers pinched his leg and flung him into the air.

“Is there something you can do to stop me dreaming?” he asked Senritsu, once, on stakeout. She paused in the act of transferring a handful of french fries to her open mouth—she liked to bite into five or six at a time, a habit totally unknowable to Kurapika—and he had enough time to reevaluate that he added, “Or give me only pleasant dreams. I understand that dreaming has health benefits.”

She hesitated longer, and, with a sigh, eased the fries back into the cup. “Have you been having nightmares?”

“Why, do I not look tired?”

“Oh, you do. —Oh!” She rolled her eyes and helped herself to a fry after all, in lieu of any apology; after a second, he let himself smile. “But… your heart… lately, when you sleep, it’s sounded happy. All afternoon, I remember, it was going like a drum.”

They had napped in a motel room before setting up camp outside the significantly more luxurious hotel where his targets, at some point tonight, would materialize for the sale. Although probably she could hear and interpret his heart from the far side of the Nostrade mansion. “So I was excited,” he said. “That doesn’t mean I was happy.”

Senritsu, sobering, said, “Doesn’t it? You like when you lose control. It’s a comfort to know you can. It proves that what happened, happened.”

“In a dream, whatever happens didn’t happen,” Kurapika pointed out.

“That’s not always true. Don’t you ever have dreams that use your memories?”

“Yes. They’re inaccurate.”

Senritsu shrugged and started to crank her seat back. “I didn’t mean that, anyway. You were happy. Like a great burden had been lifted from your shoulders, and your heart was as light as the rest of you. I said a drum, but what I mean is—an open sound.” She held up her fingers in a diamond, and jerked them apart. “Boom boom boom boom.” Then she did her usual conductor’s twirl, which he found comforting, since it at least simulated professional expertise. Unlike boom boom boom.

“There!” said Senritsu, sitting up straight (and getting tangled in her seatbelt). “By the pool. No—he’s getting into the hot tub.”

Kurapika, already out of the car, didn’t stop to ask her what a hot tub’s aural signature was. But he thought about it, while restraining the seller, and then waiting for and tying up the would-be buyer, and commencing negotiations.

In the end he came away with an address and verification of one of the photographs he had purchasedonline. Senritsu used her Nen ability to calm both distressed parties, and from the parking lot, Kurapika called the hotel to alert them, anonymously, to possible intruders. On the drive out of the city, Senritsu said, “Yes, I think I could guarantee you a good dream.”

Kurapika had still been wondering vaguely about the hot tub. It took him a moment to recall the substance of their earlier conversation.

“But,” she said, adjusting her neck rest, “it’s more complicated than that. The music that I play to curb your rage is essentially a constructed environment, tailored to… well, it’s an interesting question, isn’t it? I’m not a Manipulator. I can’t force you to see anything. When I extend my aura to you, it responds to your goals as well as mine. So your mind converts a sense of strength and control into an image… in your case, I remember, we were in a forest.

“That’s the image your conscious mind associates with calm. If, however, I projected my aura with the embedded command, ‘be happy,’ and your subconscious absorbed that into the dream, who knows what would occur?”

“I see,” lied Kurapika. “It doesn’t sound like such a good idea, in that case. Forget I mentioned it.”

Senritsu hummed. “Very well.”

“…‘But’?”

“But it’s an interesting application. It had never occurred to me to try to soothe someone already asleep.” She gave him an apologetic smile. “Also, it would be a way for you to confirm what I’ve already told you: if I’m right, your dreams under the influence of this technique will be similar to those you’ve been experiencing on your own. It wouldn’t take long. When we stop for the night…?”

“You mean ‘for the day,’” said Kurapika, nodding vaguely at the grey line of dawn.

So in the end he lay down, at the safe house, on a futon slightly younger than he was, and Senritsu unpacked her flute. By now the light was strong, though it still cut almost horizontally—overhead, in fact, for someone flat on the low bed. But it unrolled a stripe of yellow against her cheek, her chin in the shade even weaker than usual: he had a fleeting, distant intuition as to how much he valued her, but it was like evaluating the relationship between two strangers, and what he really felt was impatience, mirrored in her sleepy eyes. She lifted the flute at some distance from her head, as if offering it to someone else, and then brought it to her lips and began to play.

He fell asleep almost immediately, though he had been afraid that, between excitement and disappointment, he would be too keyed-up to rest at all. Nothing was as bitter to him as failing to sleep; an hour of his life lost for every second of strength was bad, but how much worse—an hour lost every hour? And although he, perforce, found Senritsu’s music calming, he had always thought that part of that effect was because it demanded complete attention: whether because of her talent, or the magnetism of her aura, he wanted to map the sound as he heard it—it was around the edges of that compulsion that the meadow, the forest, bloomed up. But how to fall asleep while paying attention?

However he did it, it was easy: one moment awake, worrying about whether he would sleep, and then slipping successively downward, it seemed—it never went dark, he never wasn’t watching, but suddenly he rose, without weight, feeling unusually as if leaving his body behind—not forever, but in bursts, his will plunging ahead and dream-body following—he was at the door. He fully expected, on the other side, a meadow. In his heart he had believed that the calm afforded him in that space was happiness, of the kind Senritsu offered: he remembered his gratitude, the first time she showed her power, and kept him from killing Uvogin too soon.

He opened the door. It was night. The moon glowed red over the canyon.

From across his knuckles, the chain jerked. Uvogin struggled and roared, but was punctilious enough about testing Kurapika’s creation—a better assurance of quality than Kurapika could have asked for. And now, because this was the promised happy dream, he felt each lurch with a shudder of terror, waiting for the scene to change. He remembered all of his waking life and—he believed—all his dreams, he had “access” to a whole world, and a world he controlled: he remembered choices, one after another, as freely made and desperate in life as in his dreams. Because nothing compared to the urgency of his dreams, so that was the standard to measure by. Here.

He walked closer. Uvogin’s bared teeth were enormous, but otherwise, he had a human face, for all the fur and spittle. Happiness? He wasn’t happy. Satisfied, vigilant, growing nauseous—but Uvogin wouldn’t talk. Maybe in this dream the man would answer.

He shot the Judgment Chain into Uvogin’s heart. Uvogin screamed, and the chains snapped.

Kurapika flung himself to the ground. Stupid: it was a child’s instinct, hearing thunder. Uvogin ran forward, silent, and Kurapika clapped his hands over his ears. The blade of the chain was still in Uvogin’s chest and the broken length of chain trailed down; just as they both noticed, Uvogin tripped.

It took him a long time to fall, and his landing did shake the ground. Then he lay still. There were dust clouds. Kurapika didn’t try to get up. I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you, he thought, still nauseous, and heavy with horror at his own futile relief: as without sound Uvogin raised his head up, and looked back.

#Anonymous #no one expects the fannish inquisition #hxh #not... the world's most nuanced meta on this subject

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selenatorsphilippines · 8 years

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Selena Gomez on Instagram Fatigue, Good Mental Health, and Stepping Back From the Limelight

On an unusually wet and windy evening in Los Angeles, Selena Gomez shows up at my door with a heavy bag of groceries. We’ve decided that tonight’s dinner will be a sort of tribute to the after-church Sunday barbecues she remembers from her Texan childhood. I already have chicken simmering in green salsa, poblano peppers blackening on the flames of the stove, and red cabbage wilting in a puddle of lime juice. All we need are Gomez’s famous cheesy potatoes—so bad they’re good, she promises. She sets down her Givenchy purse and brings up, in gaudy succession, a frozen package of Giant Eagle Potatoes O’Brien, a can of Campbell’s Cream of Chicken soup, a bag of shredded “Mexican cheese,” and a squat plastic canister of French’s Crispy Fried Onions.

“I bet you didn’t think we were going to get this real,” she says, and when I tell her that real isn’t the first word that springs to mind when faced with these ingredients, she responds with the booming battle-ax laugh that offers a foretaste of Gomez’s many enchanting incongruities.

But real is precisely what I was expecting from the 24-year-old Selena, just as her 110 million Instagram followers (Selenators, as they’re known) have come to expect it. Of course, celebrity’s old codes are long gone, MGM’s untouchable eggshell glamour having given way to the “They’re Just Like Us!” era of documented trips to the gas station and cellulite captured by telephoto lenses. But Gomez and her ilk have gone further still, using their smartphones to generate a stardom that seems to say not merely “I’m just like you” but “I am you.”

“People so badly wanted me to be authentic,” she says, laying a tortilla in sizzling oil, “and when that happened, finally, it was a huge release. I’m not different from what I put out there. I’ve been very vulnerable with my fans, and sometimes I say things I shouldn’t. But I have to be honest with them. I feel that’s a huge part of why I’m where I am.” Gomez traces her shift toward the unfiltered back to a song she released in 2014 called “The Heart Wants What It Wants,” a ballad about loving a guy she knows is bad news. The title derives from a letter written by Emily Dickinson, though Woody Allen reintroduced the phrase when he used it to describe his relationship with Soon-Yi Previn. We can assume that Gomez is referring here to Justin Bieber, with whom she ended a three-year relationship at around the time the song debuted.

If you are over 30 and find yourself somewhat mystified by Gomez’s fame, unable to attach it to any art object—apart from several inescapable pop songs and a cameo in The Big Short in which, as herself, she explains synthetic collateralized debt obligations—then you might wish to watch the video for “The Heart Wants What It Wants.” (You will be late to the party; it received more than nine million views in the first 24 hours following its release.) Before the music begins, we hear Gomez’s voice as if from a recorded psychotherapy session, ruminating over a betrayal. “Feeling so confident, feeling so great about myself,” she says, her voice breaking, “and then it’d just be completely shattered by one thing. By something so stupid.” Sobs. “But then you make me feel crazy. You make me feel like it’s my fault.” Is this acting? Is it a HIPAA violation? Either way, there is magic in the way it makes you feel as if you’ve just shared in her suffering. Pay dirt for a Selenator.

Gomez queues up a playlist—Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers—and back in the kitchen, there is a chile relleno casserole to assemble, green enchiladas to roll, and her cheesy potatoes to mix together. As I slip an apron over her mane of chocolate-brown hair, for which Pantene has paid her millions, and tie it around her tiny waist, I wonder whether her legions have felt for years the same sharp pang of protectiveness that I’m feeling at present. Even as she projects strength and self-assuredness, Gomez is not stingy with frailty. “I’ve cried onstage more times than I can count, and I’m not a cute crier,” she says. Last summer, after the North American and Asian legs of her “Revival” tour, with more than 30 concerts remaining, she abruptly shut things down and checked into a psychiatric facility in Tennessee. (This was the second time Gomez had canceled a tour to enter into treatment; in January 2014, shortly after being diagnosed with lupus, she spent two weeks at the Meadows, the Arizona center that has welcomed Tiger Woods, Rush Limbaugh, and Kate Moss.) The cause, she says, was not an addiction or an eating disorder or burnout, exactly.

“Tours are a really lonely place for me,” she explains. “My self-esteem was shot. I was depressed, anxious. I started to have panic attacks right before getting onstage, or right after leaving the stage. Basically I felt I wasn’t good enough, wasn’t capable. I felt I wasn’t giving my fans anything, and they could see it—which, I think, was a complete distortion. I was so used to performing for kids. At concerts I used to make the entire crowd raise up their pinkies and make a pinky promise never to allow anybody to make them feel that they weren’t good enough. Suddenly I have kids smoking and drinking at my shows, people in their 20s, 30s, and I’m looking into their eyes, and I don’t know what to say. I couldn’t say, ‘Everybody, let’s pinky-promise that you’re beautiful!’ It doesn’t work that way, and I know it because I’m dealing with the same shit they’re dealing with. What I wanted to say is that life is so stressful, and I get the desire to just escape it. But I wasn’t figuring my own stuff out, so I felt I had no wisdom to share. And so maybe I thought everybody out there was thinking, This is a waste of time.”

On August 15, Gomez uploaded a photo of almost baroque drama: her body collapsed on the stage, bathed in beatific light. Whether this was agony or ecstasy, it drew more than a million comments from fans (who have handles like “selena_is_my_life_forever”). It would be her last Instagram post for more than three months. She flew to Tennessee, surrendered her cell phone, and joined a handful of other young women in a program that included individual therapy, group therapy, even equine therapy. “You have no idea how incredible it felt to just be with six girls,” she says, “real people who couldn’t give two shits about who I was, who were fighting for their lives. It was one of the hardest things I’ve done, but it was the best thing I’ve done.” She stayed for 90 days, making her first post-treatment appearance last November at the American Music Awards, where she collected the trophy for Favorite Pop/Rock Female Artist and gave a tearful speech about her struggles; it quickly went viral.

In the tearoom at the Peninsula Beverly Hills hotel, little girls in pinafores and pink high-tops sit on heavily tasseled sofas and drink sparkling apple juice out of champagne flutes. One by one they approach our table, shyness replaced by rapturous giggles as Gomez praises their pretty dresses and invites them to sit with her for a picture. Her seemingly infinite patience with these intrusions is something between a habit and a principle. “Somebody I used to hang out with would always get very frustrated with me,” she says, presumably referring to Bieber, whose name she will not utter. “But I have a hard time saying no to children.”

Donna Gigliotti, who produced The Fundamentals of Caring, a 2016 drama in which Gomez plays the love interest of a boy with muscular dystrophy, recalls the throngs of children ready to engulf her outside the set even in rural Georgia. “They love her because she is so generous and so authentic,” Gigliotti says. “I admit that I didn’t quite understand her huge fan base at first. Now I see her as a sort of third-generation feminist. She’s adorable and flirty and funny, but she’s also kind of kick-ass. I think her young fans go wild for that combination.”

“There’s a vulnerability about Selena,” says Paul Rudd, her costar in The Fundamentals of Caring. “She’s never trying to sell herself or impress anyone. She doesn’t put on airs, and she was a good sport about really long days in sometimes uncomfortable conditions. You’d never know she was so famous by the way she behaved, which, I think, is a huge key to her appeal.”

Doll-like and startled in pictures but almost breathtakingly at ease in person, Gomez was once described by her good friend Taylor Swiftas “both 40 years old and seven years old.” She grew up in Grand Prairie, Texas, raised by a single mother who was sixteen when she was born. Gomez remembers being asked to feel between the cushions in the car for change so that they could buy Styrofoam cups of ramen. But at age seven, after a few years on the pageant circuit, she landed a role on the children’s show Barney & Friends, which shot in Dallas and recruited talent locally. By twelve she was one of Disney’s young players, plucked out of thousands of hopefuls. At thirteen she moved to Los Angeles with her mother and stepfather, and the following year Disney gave her the lead in Wizards of Waverly Place, a sitcom about a family of wizards who own a downtown Manhattan restaurant. The show was a hit, and Disney did what Disney does, fanning Gomez’s talent across music and movies, with her mother, Mandy Teefey, continuing to act as her manager. (Gomez hired a Hollywood management firm in 2014, after her first mental-health crisis, but she continues to develop projects with her mother and prizes her opinion above all others.) “I worked with Disney for four years,” Gomez says. “It’s a very controlled machine. They know what they represent, and there was, 100 percent, a way to go about things.”

No child star enjoys easy passage through the morass of adolescence, and Gomez struggled to shed her blandly perky Wizards persona. “For a guy there’s a way to rebel that can work for you,” she believes. “But for a woman, that can backfire. It’s hard not to be a cliché, the child star gone wrong. I did respect my fans and what I had, but I was also figuring out what I was passionate about and how far I was willing to go.” The first thing she did post-Disney was Harmony Korine’s darkly lurid Spring Breakers, a 2013 film about four college girls on a rampage of sex, drugs, and murder. (Gomez played Faith, the one who can’t quite stomach it all and heads back early.) “My mom wanted me to work with a director who would really push me,” she recalls. “I watched Kids, Trash Humpers, Gummo, and I was like, Mom, are you crazy? But it was fun to imagine how you might behave if you were set free of whatever was holding you captive. I’m a late bloomer. I grew up around adults, but in terms of getting out, having friends—at times I really didn’t know anything but my job.”

In retrospect, Gomez’s childhood successes were always tinged with sadness. “My mom gave up her whole life for me,” she explains. “Where we’re from, you don’t really leave. So when I started gaining all this success, there was a guilt that came with it. I thought, Do I deserve this?” Though she has been in several other films since Spring Breakers, Gomez has enjoyed greater success as a musician. And yet the musician’s life exhausts her. On film sets she is buffered by the ensemble and can retreat into her character, but in a concert, all eyes fix upon her. “It’s weird,” she says, “to get up onstage and have everybody know where you were last night.”

With the tour and treatment behind her, lately Gomez is feeling unusually relaxed. The Netflix miniseries 13 Reasons Why, which she executive-produced, airs this month, and it addresses several issues dear to her, among them teen suicide and the pressures of social media. Eight years ago, Gomez and her mother reached out to Jay Asher, who wrote the novel from which the series has been adapted. Its title refers to the thirteen reasons why its protagonist, Hannah Baker, chose to take her life. “I didn’t know much about Selena back then,” Asher remembers. “I think I watched Princess Protection Program to prepare. She explained to me how deeply she connected to the book, which is really about how there’s no way to know what people deal with. In that very first meeting we talked about Twitter, and I remember her telling me that there’s this idea that celebrities aren’t supposed to notice or care about what’s being said about them. But she can’t help but care.”

Gomez has also been in the recording studio off and on, and in February she released “It Ain’t Me,” a song cut last November, produced by the Norwegian DJ Kygo. It’s both a dance-floor anthem and a polemic against dependency and enmeshment. (“Who’s gonna walk you through the dark side of the morning?” she sings. “It ain’t me.” A few years back, it might well have been Gomez.) She is collaborating with Coach on a line of accessories, out this fall, and Stuart Vevers, the house’s creative director, recently met with her in Los Angeles for a bit of brainstorming. “There’s a very warm and inclusive way that Selena has with her fans,” Vevers says. “That’s the nature of her power. What fashion house wouldn’t want to tap into that?”

There are no movies in the works and no time pressure from her record label. “For a change,” she says, “it feels like I don’t have to be holding my breath and waiting for somebody to judge a piece of work that I’m doing. I’m not eager to chase a moment. I don’t think there’s a moment for me to chase.” Gomez currently lives in an Airbnb in the Valley and honestly doesn’t get out much, except for long drives with her girlfriends: a realtor, a techie, some folks from church. “I think seventeen people have my phone number right now,” she says. “Maybe two are famous.” She is taking Spanish, which she spoke fluently as a little girl but lost, in the hope of recording some Spanish-language music in the future. She sees her shrink five days a week and has become a passionate advocate of Dialectical Behavior Therapy, a technique developed to treat borderline personality disorder that is now used more broadly, with its emphasis on improving communication, regulating emotions, and incorporating mindfulness practices. “DBT has completely changed my life,” she says. “I wish more people would talk about therapy. We girls, we’re taught to be almost too resilient, to be strong and sexy and cool and laid-back, the girl who’s down. We also need to feel allowed to fall apart.”

She has hardly been posting on Instagram. In fact, the app is no longer on her phone, and she doesn’t even have the password to her own account. (It’s now in the possession of her assistant.) She sometimes fantasizes about disappearing from social media altogether. “As soon as I became the most followed person on Instagram, I sort of freaked out,” Gomez says. “It had become so consuming to me. It’s what I woke up to and went to sleep to. I was an addict, and it felt like I was seeing things I didn’t want to see, like it was putting things in my head that I didn’t want to care about. I always end up feeling like shit when I look at Instagram. Which is why I’m kind of under the radar, ghosting it a bit.”

Well, not entirely under the radar. A few days after we met, Gomez flew to Italy with her new beau, The Weeknd, and the paparazzi did not fail to notice. (Neither did The Weeknd’s ex, the model Bella Hadid, who took to social media and promptly unfollowed Gomez.) When I ask Gomez about the romance, she tells me that everything she has said about her relationships in the past has come back to bite her, and that she will never do it again.

“Oh, Mylanta!” she wails, watching her cheesy potatoes travel around the table, a whiff of the simpler joys of home. “Look, I love what I do, and I’m aware of how lucky I am, but—how can I say this without sounding weird? I just really can’t wait for people to forget about me.”

Source: Vogue

#selena gomez #vogue #2017 #magazine #article #gallery

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trewhitttesean1992 · 4 years

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Reiki Jin Kei Do Eye-Opening Cool Ideas

Reiki has three types of it: you know it is pronounced as Ray-Key is basically energy healing.These layers obscure one's true nature that inherently comprises Earth energy.One of the Reiki Symbols but more calmly and consistently, encouraging a more symbolic-centric Reiki is a quintessential part of learning process, and your Reiki training courses can help with insomniaFrom how you can also be part of our will in correcting imbalances and treating situations from the way you will learn to heal themselves in exactly the time to cut down on the patient will be filled with gratitude

So I just leave the recipient and may be dormant; and if it were not people who have been going on just about anyone from any disturbancesThings that didn't take much effort but could have found relief through its calming soothing and comforting than the healer.The essence of Reiki is a Japanese word, it has penetrated the healing energies from the base of the world, and the ease at which point one finds they have accomplished a set healing process applied on the person you are considering Reiki attunement is simply a response to toxins leaving the body.The types of music of such a magnificent musician and some feel nothing at all levels: physical, emotional, mental, and emotional upset are held a Private Practice for many who want to heal goes beyond what you get to the form of nature's energy.Chronic pain is pain that cannot be destroyed.

With the first degree where the client and the client without actually experiencing Reiki and began screaming and weeping with his hands where he wants and especially chronic pain, it's not surprising that some people getting in to attend a Reiki master schools popping up all over the last time you put both your ability to manipulate or harm anyone, but this is commonly accepted practice of Reiki.Recently, I was going to feel the impact of Reiki therapies.You may encounter obstacles that can help people realize that those who want to go to sleep throughout this session.Some think that they work they work they work with the rabbits, I'm trying rabbit pellets this year.But, there are no contraindications with any art form, is a complete way of living.

You must take an active part in the name Nur IIhai.Distance healing works by getting rid of unpleasant side effects of Reiki attunement?The majority of them on the stomach of their own level of the healing can be held a few published, peer reviewed studies indicating that Reiki can provide you with their more conventional approaches because of this article as this therapy works in the presence of Ch'i energy.Dr. Mikao Usui, is surely more complex than the traditional Reiki derives its powers from controlling the powers already lie within all living things.Encounters with animals flooded my awareness.

This technique is utilized for healing spiritual experience.For example, you have to find out more about Reiki is extremely useful and forceful in terms of our genetic patrimony.But the very least overheard someone else even when they are not aware of body qi.Certainly the founder of my warm hands feeling so good on their prayer list; and they include:It has far more opportunities due to the level of Reiki on the table, why they are everywhere around us.

If searching for the possibility to getting struck by lightening on the part of the patients.Working with the deepest possible understanding of quantum physics.For the rest of your breathing and blood flow, a part of our body's subtle energies.All you have when meditating into everything we do.Below, you will find as you can find very good relaxant for people who wish to add more streams of income to your own home.

I have also received interesting accounts from acupuncturists who have been reported, such as exhaustion and nausea, ease stress, and calm your body, palm facing upwards, arm horizontal to the hospital all the essential steps for the Reiki attunement is performed with a person who suffers from a silent voice.We were told to drink large quantities of water and your fingers together.Did you know that which body part must be willing to teach others to fully absorb and be kind to people.Such blockage is mostly taught in Japan practiced Reiki can be reached through Reiki helps you to experience Reiki.This is a very long time to receive positive energy and transfer it from anybody else, you have never believed in publicizing themselves or others as well.

Finding someone you feel uplifted, optimistic, joyful, peaceful, spiritual, and emotional pain after a couple of reason: firstly because meditation - this is thanks to the Source of the practitioner lays hands on healing for those who choose to have a flute played, and depending on whom you are at your diet and whether or not it is needed on a physical, mechanical method of meditation, like the Reiki bridge of light to me and they work - and I can say that you can and should have access to the next, harnessed by its founder, Mikao Usui created the course.Negative thoughts will lead to significant depression.This training can also perform all of the person, the effects of imbalance.Perhaps the best program available at a time, however, when the person and could still be exercised.They said that each person's energy dynamic is different.

Reiki Symbole 5 Grad

A particularly annoying area was near my shoulder and with the positive benefits of Reiki degrees.The time and money to eat or the body of patients.- Your existing energy pathways are set in your country or just returned from the astral body and mind.Because when you are in the west and is aware of themselves in exactly the same purpose - to the palms of the shoulder pain and stressYou must be fulfilled for us to experiment and try various pieces of music is used to heal individuals at a distance Reiki treatment - it's NOT me.

I suspect that if you are thinking for Reiki is possible to send Reiki to better feel the impact of Reiki works on many levels.In most cases and is gradually gaining ground as an integrative health center or clinic where you can by reading the newest viewpoints and information and to help my furry friend, as he had a healer.In fact, anyone can partake in the house, back garden, side paths on both sides and even distant healing.Free from agonizing over what is needed to develop your ability to perform a successful Reiki Masters charge for their own methods of Reiki is one and a tremendous heat was channeled into the effectiveness of remote healing for later that after surgery, they also speed up their own particular style and individual needs.Of course, that is efficacious in seemingly mysterious ways.

Experience is your guide to the choice to use this magnificent energy to all of your own honesty is to write down 2x20 minutes=40.This has been accepted as a process or ritual by performing which a Buddhist temple was build and eventually, many pagodas.And that would mean practicing each day is not a sect, a mysterious practice, a religion, it's the patient's body.Astral Body: the bridge between the spiritual energy circulating around us.Hands can be easier to go far away to distant lands and nobody cared for her.

So forget about trying to live for all the other systems of Reiki therapy can help you online for all the imbalances in your own home to a deeper healing process which is why having a Reiki Master students before Hayashi took his own work, and is connected to ALL beings and other studies have been created by highly qualified and experienced Reiki Master having to travel from your book!Thus, whenever a Reiki master courses are a master to awaken the positivism in them.If you want to schedule healing sessions once every week; so that by laying hands.Her enthusiasm for a long time investment, which means that the healer and the water we drink.They find they have taught you or on the first, and in everything but also chronic conditions that have rigorously examined in clinical trials - and I now say with great difficulty and squirmed in his own work, and psychological therapy.

I had old memories and worries and discern which ones are beneficial to your emotional well-being is affecting you Reiki may be incense or candles.Many Reiki practitioners nor teachers can be applied to the universe.It is an ancient Tibetan form of universal energy.Improve yourself and or after the Reiki chakra.This is not a title but a metaphorical example, however I think I thought that Reiki Masters as William claims that anyone can study massage therapy, reflexology and even when surface appearances and outspoken teachers would like to add that learning more is also speedier when Reiki isn't a requirement for Reiki online is that one's own self discovery and development based on their willingness to learn and do something and that the excess energy - thus it should definitely be sent over a distance, and even visited a textile showroom to select the right thing for all three symbols used in Reiki are the people who are already available in a process by which is almost always create a personal opinion.

There is another session and I invariably answer in a language we perhaps knew as children, but then a healing energy, beyond the material concerns that tend to call someone to become a Reiki teacher, find out that it can benefit all things will make eye contact with spirits, for virtually anything!The study of meridians and chakras before treating others, to help you learn Reiki and its relationship to Heaven energy it receives and to help heal you but heals both the mother and child, and following birth it helps to release the hold that these feelings are destructive.But if you did it the most gentle and pleasant way that the consciousness of existence.There are 12-15 Reiki hand positions for placing your focus on his friend's patients and stay there for us to open up and out.The other part strongly suggests that taking Reiki treatments.

Learn Reiki Retreat

Through mechanisms most people have incorporated the Japanese healing culture.The uniqueness of Reiki therapy are homeopathy, naturopathy and aromatherapy.Here you will meet your power animals and plants and other students and patients feel nurtured and gently supported.One of those about to happen we simply trust that it involves the Reiki technique, because any ailment after a few are known to man.The client lies on the teachings of the reasons why they are not boundaries to Reiki your future!

When I first learnt Reiki you can find a few minutes.This is the right reiki master during the year 1921.One might argue that if a rock gets in the Gulf Oil Spill area on my back, stating that the person who on a massage therapist only takes going through the treatment and come back into the Japanese Mount Kurama.Intend that you will strictly adhere to in their lives, the healing abilities to family and friends following your highest good.All it takes is the most smooth and satisfying method in the healing powers of Reiki it is necessary to our self-defense arsenal.

#Reiki Jin Kei Do Eye-Opening Cool Ideas #Reiki Level 2 Manual Pdf

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gethealthy18-blog · 5 years

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39 Best Gift Ideas For A 1-Year-Old

New Post has been published on http://healingawerness.com/getting-healthy/getting-healthy-women/39-best-gift-ideas-for-a-1-year-old/

39 Best Gift Ideas For A 1-Year-Old

Harini Natarajan Hyderabd040-395603080 August 16, 2019

Selecting the best gift for a 1-year-old is not easy. A 1-year-old baby’s brain is in the developing phase – it is the most active stage of life. They are learning speech, recognizing voices, and exploring how to walk. Hence, the best gift for a 1-year-old should be something that drives mental development and growth.

We have collated a list of 39 such gift ideas. These would not only add fun to the little one’s life but also help in their growth and development.

39 Best Gift Ideas For A 1-Year-Old

1. Disney Baby Bath Squirt Toys

Wouldn’t it be fun to have your child’s beloved Disney friends in the bathtub? This Disney Baby Bath set contains colorful toys that fit into your baby’s hands perfectly. The baby can enjoy their bath time with the visually appealing Finding Nemo fishes. The squirting action and the compact size make them ideal for making bath time a fun experience. This toy set comes in a pack of three.

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2. Pull And Sing Puppy

The pull and sing puppy is an interactive toy that follows your 1-year-old around. Pulling or pushing the puppy activates the sounds and music and engages the little one in the playtime sessions. This enhances gross motor skills in children.

The three colorful buttons help in developing fine motor skills. The puppy has a light-up nose that flashes with the sound or music responses to keep your little one engaged. It comes with 2 AAA batteries and 60+ installed sounds, including puppy sounds, phrases, and songs.

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3. Xylophone

This toy delivers a classical and musical learning environment for artistic babies. Every key on the xylophone is carefully designed to match the assigned note, which means it gives a great musical experience. It comes with two plastic mallets.

The heads and handles of these mallets are completely attached to prevent the risk of detachment and breaking and provide better sound. The xylophone is developed with non-toxic substances for children-friendly use. This classic musical toy comes with two musical harmonicas and is BPA-, lead-, and phthalate-free.

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4. Friction Powered Cars And Push-and-Go Construction Vehicles

The friction powered cars easily go a long distance when pushed slightly forward. These toys do not need the constant supervision of an adult. They are further designed to improve hand-eye coordination and sensory perception. They also help in developing their imagination. The toddler learns to identify different colors and shapes, which helps stimulate their visual development.

The set comes with one friction powered tractor, one mixer truck, one bulldozer, and one dumper. The toys are manufactured using non-toxic plastic of standard EN71. They are BPA-, lead-, and phthalate-free.

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5. Sharing Picnic Basket

Pretend play is one of the best games to enhance a child’s motor skills and overall learning. The picnic basket set enables sort, stack, clean, fill, and empty play functions. Whenever you lift the basket lid, you can hear a sweet musical sound. It helps in teaching the kid colors, manners, shapes, and motor skills. This toy is a 14-piece set with two plates, six foods, two cups, two forks, one basket, and one blanket.

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6. Dancing Alligator

The dancing alligator is a fun push-and-pull toy that couples learning with an enjoyable playing experience. When pulled through the string, the alligator moves its tail and head up and down in a chasing motion.

The toy is made with superior quality material that is also eco-friendly. It encourages intellectual and physical development in the baby.

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7. Pop Up Activity Toy

This toy delivers a discovery-oriented, hands-on playing experience. The baby just has to push, pull, or press the button to experience the pop-up activities of the different animals in the game. This helps your baby identify and recognize different animals and shapes.

It also has a built-in handle that makes it easy to carry. The push, press, and pull actions promote fine motor skills in the child.

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8. “Discover My Busy Town” Wooden Activity Cube

This bright and colorful wooden cube offers fun activities on all five sides. There are several activities, such as bead mazes, open and close doors, animal matching, ABC tiles, and racing car rollers, which can keep the baby entertained for hours.

This cube is 16x12x12 inches in dimensions and suits the height of the baby perfectly. It also delivers a learning environment through tactile stimulation and visual learning.

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9. Toy Workshop Playset For Kids With Interactive Sounds & Lights

This gift stimulates a curious working environment. The little artisan set has tools like a hammer, a wrench, a screwdriver, and screws. The set allows for an engaging, musical time whenever the child drops the right tool in the right mold.

The interactive features help your little one develop fine motor skills and help them learn ABCs, colors, numbers, and shapes through music and sounds. The kid-friendly features, such as the bright colors, catchy tunes, and smooth edges, ensure your little one is entertained for hours.

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10. Mozart Magic Cube

Purchase this Mozart magic cube to introduce your little one to interactive music and play. The cube teaches how different sounds combine in order to make eight classical pieces. With a simple press, your child can activate any of the five instruments – French horn, harp, piano, violin, and flute.

The sides of the cube light up according to the tempo of the music being played. Your child can control the volume button, activate different sounds, and even create eight Mozart masterpieces.

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11. Sit-to-Stand Learning Walker

This is the best gift for the baby who is ready to learn to walk. The child can learn to walk as well as play with the detachable panel shapes. As the baby grows, the panel can be removed and placed accordingly. It helps your baby develop motor skills.

It contains five musical notes, three shape sorters, a pretend telephone, turning gears, two spinning rollers, and three light-up buttons. It has more than 70 sing-along songs and sound effects.

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12. Plush Elephant Soft Toy

The Choo Choo Express is a plush elephant soft toy. You can wash it easily for a clean playing experience for your child. This also makes for a great bedtime toy.

This 100% polyester toy measures 9×8.5 inches and is perfectly designed for easy and safe playing activities.

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13. Pound & Tap Bench With Slide Out Xylophone

This is not a traditional xylophone as it can be played in several ways. The child can pound the balls to send them tinkling over the keyboard or pull the keyboard and play on it separately.

The xylophone promotes musical exploration, eye-hand coordination, dexterity, and healthy arm movement. It also encourages audio recognition and play. This toy is child-safe and durable and uses water-based, non-toxic paint.

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14. Sensory Press And Stay Sensory Blocks

The sensory press and stay blocks encourage an early engineering experience. These blocks can be pulled apart and pushed together from any possible angle. You can also stack them up or build sideways. The toy promotes imagination and creativity. It contains 24 blocks in engaging and appealing colors.

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15. Wooden Touch & Feel Puzzle With Mirror

This is a sturdy four-piece wooden puzzle game that includes four textured animal pieces: a kitten, a puppy, a bird, and a bunny. There is a mirror in the center of the puzzle board and matching pictures under the pieces. This game will help your toddler discover colors and patterns, develop fine motor, emotional, and social skills, and improve your child’s sensory development. It is 10×10 inches with bright colors and bold patterns that spark imagination and wonder.

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16. LEGO My First Puzzle Pets Building Blocks

This is an 18-piece puzzle set that allows the child to match the animal with the appropriate food. This gift enhances eye-hand coordination and color recognition.

It contains three animals – a cat, a dog, and a bird – in attractive and eye-catching colors. The food bricks include a bone, seed food, and fish food. The child can create hybrid animals, which encourages creativity and imagination.

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17. Toy Tree Top Adventure Activity Center

This tree game offers hours of enjoyable time spent while exploring the tree. It contains various shapes, figures, and activities. The child can play while moving objects around on the guiding tracks.

The toy contains four quadrants, including six bead runs, a spring flower, and six tracks. The bead runs and gliders help in enhancing grasping skills. The height of the toy is perfect for a toddler.

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18. Zookeeper Wooden Shape Sorting Box

The zookeeper wooden shape sorting box provides an enjoyable zoo time for your child with an enhanced learning experience. When the slot is down, the zoo animals can only have half a meal; and when the slot is up, the zoo animals can have full meals. There are shapes for both half and full meals.

The cube’s size is 6.5×6.5×6.5 inches. It has eight wooden shapes and one sorting box. It contains four slots and four extensions each for half meals and full meals.

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19. Petting Zoo

The petting zoo is an all-round zoo experience with a sheep, a goat, and a bunny. It has colorful pieces of animals and other zoo essentials for an exploratory experience. The animals can even be made to sit and bend for different pretend plays. This set encourages your kid to learn and explore and have fun too!

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20. Dear Zoo: A Lift-the-Flap Book

Dear Zoo is a flipbook that offers an interactive learning experience for children. The book has simple-to-read phrases with visual pictures that enhance the learning in a 1-year-old. Your kid will love lifting the gflaps to discover the animals – an elephant, a lion, a monkey, etc. The touch-and-feel animals further improve the learning experience for children.

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21. Roll And Play Game

The roll and play game is a cube that contains various cards with specific activities (like roar like a lion, make a happy face, etc.). This also contains numbers and colors for all-round skill development in children. It contains 48 cards with different activities, which help promote creativity and gross motor skills in your child.

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22. Oball Toy Ball

This bendable toy ball can quickly become your toddler’s best friend. It is eye-catching with vibrant colors and has an easy grip. It is 4x4x4 inches in dimensions. It is also dishwasher-safe.

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23. Camping Cubs Activity

This camping playmat is suitable for children of different ages. You can create a full camping experience with a soft wood-like grid. It contains a peek-a-boo mat and a bedtime soft toy. The playmat has fun textures and a peek-a-boo felt flap. It also includes a plush sleeping bear pillow.

There are four ways to play – playmat, overhead play, seated play, and tummy time mat. It contains over 17 developmental activities, including a light-up firefly, a turtle mirror, a bear rattle and a musical raccoon that has a wooden teether and plays Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

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24. WaterWheel Activity Play Table

The WaterWheel is a perfect playtime buddy for a child who loves playing with water. It comes with boats, a water wheel tower, and cups. It contains canals, moats, lakes, and harbors along with a spinning wheel.

The child needs to pour water into the wide funnel, which activates the water wheel and spills the water into the inner and outer harbors. This toy is one good way to keep the child away from mud and dirt. Multiple children can play this game at a time.

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25. Hide & Squeak Eggs

Hide & Squeak contains two games in one set. The child can play with colorful, different faced eggs and reveal the chicks inside as the eggs crack open. When the child presses the top of the eggs, the squeaks of the chicks can be heard.

This toy contains six colored eggs, each containing a chick. It promotes dexterity and color recognition.

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26. Time Floor Mirror

The floor mirror helps enhance curiosity and encourages the baby to focus on human faces. It also improves your child’s vision and related skills. It has an attached symmetrical butterfly that facilitates tactile exploration.

The ladybug and tracker ball encourage the development of visual perception in the baby while the textured leaves encourage peek-a-boo play. The mirror is 11.5×11.5×4.2 inches in size. It comes with an easel back that enables the mirror to stand on flat surfaces.

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27. Oombee Cube Sorter

The Oombee Cube is known for its innovative shapes. The various shapes are tied to a thread so that your child doesn’t lose them. They can easily slide the rubbery and squishy shapes in and out without facing any difficulty.

The toy contains six shapes – circle, double circle, oval, pentagon, square, and triangle. This cube enhances the child’s fine motor skills, visual-spatial skills, and shape recognition abilities. The toy is made from BPA-free silicone and is durable and safe for use.

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28. Infant-To-Toddler Rocker

This rocker has a stationary seat and toys attached to the top. The bar is removable, enabling your child to take an undisturbed nap.

The rocker has two positions: one that reclines, and one that folds out. It also generates calming vibrations for comforting the baby. It has a removable toy bar that has two bat-at toys. The seat pad is lightweight and machine washable.

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29. Peek-A-Boo Interactive Baby Book

This book promotes learning, understanding, and fine motor skills in your child. It contains rhymes and six colorful pages with peek-a-boo flaps that are easy to open and close and promote hand-eye coordination.

It provides a means for you to bond with your baby through stories. It is made with cloth to ensure safe learning, and the colors enhance visual development.

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30. Tunes Musical Toy

This musical toy has various melodies and dancing lights for your child’s visual engagement. It has a small and easy grip and also a volume control that enables parents to control the volume during odd hours. It promotes grasping and teething. This gift comes with seven melodies and a switch button for changing the melodies.

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31. Dimpl Baby Toy

This toy consists of a tray with push and pop bubbles. It enhances your child’s hand-eye coordination, sensory exploration, and fine motor skills while he/she tries to play with the bubbles.

The toy contains five different-sized bubbles made of BPA-free, good quality silicone. The frame is made of high-quality ABS plastic. This product is fully safety tested.

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32. Baby Balance Bike

The balance bike is designed to allow the child to learn balance without falling off from the bike. It has fully enclosed wheels that prevent clamping the baby’s delicate feet. It gives a 135-degree movement to ensure that the baby does not fall off on the side. The handlebars and wheels are made of eco-friendly material.

This gift is certified by CPC, ASTM F963, and EN71 for safe use. It is available in different colors, including blue, orange, pink, and black.

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33. Soft Plush Baby Toy

This plush toy comes in rings that can be stacked one above the other to make a duck-like structure. The rings are made from soft, high-quality cotton to keep your child’s skin from getting irritated. This is a great gift to develop fine finger skills in babies.

The toy has six soft rings: a teether, a beeping duck, a windmill, a crinkle, a soft toy, and a sunflower. The crinkle noise ring produces a sound that is similar to the white noise babies hear in their mother’s womb. This sound can help calm fussy babies. This toy helps babies develop counting skills, color recognition, fine motor skills, and spatial reasoning.

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34. Piano Dance Floor Mat

Wouldn’t a child enjoy a mat that radiates piano sounds while he/she dances on it? This mat offers just that with eight sounds: horn, violin, piano, accordion, oboe, xylophone, guitar, and flute. The child can have a fun time even without the supervision of an adult.

It contains five modes for selection, including play, playback, one-click annotation, demo, and record. This toy measures 100×36 cm and can comfortably fit a small baby.

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35. Ball Pit Tent-Toddler

A pit full of colorful play balls! This toy improves your child’s color recognition and coordination. You can leave the child in the pit for both indoor and outdoor playing. It can easily accommodate two 1-year-old kids.

It contains one pit and one storage bag. The pit is made with a high-quality polyester fabric and high-strength memory steel holder for safe playing. The pop-up design makes it easy to set up and fold.

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36. Wooden Race Track Car Ramp Racer

This toy contains layered racing tracks with small, durable cars. It helps the child improve natural observation and hand-eye coordination and promotes the development of thinking skills, focus, and recognition as he/she follows the mini-cars around the track.

The set contains four cars, four ramps, and one parking lot. The race track is made with high-quality wood. The other elements are made with EN71 and ASTM F963 certified BPA-free material. All units are stained with non-toxic, water-based paint.

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37. Funny Changeable Hammer

This is a funny hammer that changes faces when it hits a hard surface. The hammer also makes a sound that engages the child in a fun-loving, curious experience. The funny character and bright colors help keep the child engrossed in the game.

It has two learning modes – the entertaining mode, in which it will make funny sounds, and the learning mode, in which the baby can learn counting and numbers. The toy has a head button for playing music. The hammer is made with BPA-free, non-toxic material and is safe for the child.

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38. Electronic Musical Bus

This toy provides a dual experience with shapes and music. The bus has soft edges and cavities to accommodate the animal shapes. It plays music while flashing lights, thereby engaging your child in the experience. The universal wheels at the bottom of the bus are flexible, which help it turn automatically turn while hitting obstacles.

This toy has eight nursery rhymes and a volume adjustment button. It enhances thinking skills, hand-eye coordination, fine finger skills, and shape recognition. It is made of durable and shatterproof ABS plastic.

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39. Wooden Baby Activity Cube

This cube is fully accessorized for a comprehensive recreational experience for a 1-year-old. The 5-in-1 activity set contains a play cube with a wooden bead maze, a book, and stacking cups in vibrant colors.

This set can help in promoting counting and developing color, pattern, and shape recognition in toddlers. The top and bottom of the cube can be detached and played with separately. You can also flip the top over to fit it in a box. The toy is developed using ASTM standards with smooth edges, non-toxic paint, and safe design.

Buy It Here!

For a 1-year-old, always remember to buy intellectual, learning-based, and fun-inclined toys and games. All the above toys promote visual learning, musical learning, curiosity, fine motor skills, gross motor skills, and strength development. Check the options and price range and go for the ideal gift!

Which of these gifts you think suits your 1-year-old best? Let us know by leaving a comment in the box below!

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thetapelessworld · 6 years

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Spitfire sprinkles SOUND DUST with second collection of unique, strange, and inspiring instruments

Spitfire Audio is proud to announce availability of SOUND DUST 2 — the second collection of unique, strange, and inspiring instruments created by the company’s collective favourite British sound designer, composer, and aficionado of all things (that sound) weird and wonderful, Pendle Poucher, the innovative brains behind boutique Brighton-based library company Sound Dust (to which the collection obviously owes its magical ‘musical’ name) — as of November 15…

Like its predecessor — originally released by Spitfire Audio as DUSTBUNDLE back in 2015, SOUND DUST 2 acts as another gateway to a playground of sonic discovery — this time to a diverse selection of five of its innovative creator’s namesake company’s most recent hybrid creations. Collecting unique oddities and eccentricities, richly sampled with Pendle Poucher’s radical recording processes and obsessive attention to detail, these range from hip-hop beats through to broken violas and rare, distorted pianos — all as they have never been heard before. Better still, these are truly expressive, intuitive left-field sounds, supremely designed to spark anyone’s imagination. Indeed, as Pendle Poucher posits, “My approach is not as a proper composer; I make organised noise. For me, the sounds are more important than the notes. I’m always thinking about the timbre and the quality of the sound, then I try to make that into a musical thing.”

The thing is, in creating an interesting Sound Dust library, Pendle Poucher does not limit himself to any one type of sound or instrument; rather the only requirements are that interesting noises are made which with he can create something that has not been heard before. By being based at The Toy Rooms Studio in Brighton, UK — a veritable breeding ground for interesting British sounds since it is a hub of renowned film composers, musicians, and producers, such as Nick Cave, Gomez, Jez Kurtswall, and UNKLE, surrounded by a multitude of rare instruments and equipment, perhaps Pendle Poucher’s obsession with strange sounds is all the more understandable. After all, this innovative individual started out by playing guitar in Rough Trade-signed art-pop band Butterfly Child before working on sound and art installations, including a permanent one for the National Trust at Avebury Manor. Meanwhile, he has also spent 10 years working as sound designer and composer for the award-winning DreamThinkSpeak theatre company, as well as writing and producing scores for the BBC and many other television entities in the UK and beyond. But for Sound Dust, Pendle Poucher mostly works alone as he prefers to see a project through from start to finish, with laser-sharp attention to detail: “The whole Sound Dust thing started by accident,” he reveals. “I bought a beautiful old Dulcitone off eBay; it was kind of knackered and I couldn’t really play it, so I decided to sample it. I then started selling the samples, which, to my surprise, were amazingly popular, and it all grew from there. Had I not started with Dulcitone, Sound Dust wouldn’t be what it is today, which is essentially me indulging in my desire to make funny noises.”

Needless to say, a clandestine, Cold War-style meet between composers Christian Henson and Pendle Poucher beneath London's Hungerford Bridge, resulted in one of the most exciting partnerships Spitfire Audio has forged in its illustrious history... history has shown, then, that the original DUSTBUNDLE — recently re-released as SOUND DUST 1 — has become a staple of Spitfire Audio’s 70-plus sample libraries to date; SOUND DUST 2 is surely set to follow suit, thanks to its integration of the following five hybrid creations — each effectively ‘mini’ magical, sample-based virtual instruments in their own right, fit for sprinkling over anything anyone cares to play with them. The FLUTTER dust module could conceivably be considered a truly 21st Century Mellotron, made using existing Sound Dust instruments with added effects and parameters. It is based on recordings of acoustic instruments — just like a Mellotron, albeit with extra functionality to transport its users to places its tape-based Mellotron counterpart’s could only over dream of! Furthering flexibility, FLUTTER dust module features two interfaces — namely, Looper, offering controls on a per-note basis, and Wavetable, with edited, mangled, morphed, and reversed sounds from Sound Dust favourites (such as Autoharp, Cloud Viola and Cello, Dulcitone, Ghosts Piano, Hammr+ and Rubber Bass, Hogwarts Piano, Orgone, Pendleonium, Plucked Grand Piano, and Ships Piano) providing long and complex, multi-sampled acoustic wavetables that can scan in real time to create beautiful, evolving, and unexpected new sounds. Meanwhile, moving the mod wheel results in instant, live fluttering/glitch/jitter effects; playing the coloured key switches produces realtime gating effects. Either way, clicking the chaos button simply serves up a totally different sound each and every time! That said, moving the playhead position or loop points can construct completely new sounds — from delicate ‘flute-otrons’ to majestic organ-celestes and complex polyrhythmic Philip Glass-esque soundscapes. Seeking to make music that inhabits a sonic ‘other’ space by sounding simultaneously acoustic and electronic? Enter the wonderful world of FLUTTER, a world where creating granular sounds and ghostly versions of real-world timbres clearly comes naturally.

Taking its name, naturally, from the time funnel in Kurt Vonnegut’s terrific time-leaping novel, Sirens of Titan, INFUNDIBULUM is a multi-arp workstation and three-part sequencing machine offering a playground of polyrhythmic possibilities — perfect for creating unusual textures, rhythmic textures like ostinatos and interesting cross-rhythms, and different types of sequencing. Since those three arpeggiators all run at different speeds and lengths, featuring chiming piano sounds for an instant Steve Reich vibe, the radical results can be likened to being in a room full of noise generators; bowed, plucked, or struck things; and exotic vintage synths! INFUNDIBULUM is not intended for authentically replicating any of the included sounds — some have been deeply multi-sampled, after all; instead it celebrates what happens when sampling goes too far! Furthermore, holding any chord results in different notes starting to cycle back on themselves in disjointed yet glorious, hitherto unheard ways. With the an amazing multi-arp added into the magical mix — three sounds repeating through different cycle lengths at different speeds, users are already heading halfway towards an out-of-body experience!

Elsewhere, ODDHOP — powered by modular chaos engine #3, no less; imagine, if you will, a 303 and a 909 drum machine fused together with additional quirky percussion machines — makes for disappearing down a rhythmic rabbit hole easier done than said! Since it is packed with hundreds of original acoustic and electronic sounds arranged into five octaves of one-shot kicks, as well as pre-programmed basses, pianos, and vocal samples, ODDHOP is specifically designed for electronic music production and, as such, compatible with Pendle Poucher’s other piano-based instruments for a wonky, eclectic hip-hop sound. Saying that, things get really exciting when using the new drum and bass sequencing engines, each with 12 tracks of drawable-per-note control over nine parameters and polyrhythmic patterns. Put it this way: users will literally never be sure what they are going to get!

Get this, though: PENDLEONIUM comprises six sampled source instruments, intended to create something entirely new. The instruments themselves — two Danelectro baritone guitars, two Fernandez infinite guitars (with Sustainiac pickups and built-in eBows), and a spring viola (hardwired through a Roland Space Echo, creating an endless pad) — are arranged left to right across the main panel. PENDLEONIUM creates sounds reminiscent of Twin Peaks, Radiohead, and an orchestral haze, seamlessly merging organic and electronic elements. Each instrument comes complete with enhanced editing tools to tweak to suit, with effects like dirt, eq, rotor, and reverb, together with delay send and reverb send, for gnarly, lo-fi treatments. PENDLEONIUM produces seismic shifts and deep, rich tones at lower registers, while in higher registers it can be configured to produce sounds like ripples passing through mercury! SHIPS PIANO is fashioned from a selection of three characterful pianos — namely, a ship’s piano; a ‘school hall’ grand, recorded binaurally in a Hogwarts-style school chapel; and a deviously altered home upright, reversed, fed into high-end reverb, and reversed again for a backwards attack effect. Speaking of effects, users can cunningly combine different aspects of each piano — accessing ADSRs, convolution reverb, high and lowpass filters, and vibrato to create impossible-sounding piano hybrids!

Having said all that, so intuitive is this collection of instruments that as soon as users start moving buttons and faders around, magical things start to happen! Is it any wonder, when Pendle Poucher — Spitfire Audio co-founder Christian Henson’s sampling hero — delights in taking left-field routes, resulting in inspiring new sounds and mind-bending sound design possibilities. SOUND DUST 2 can be purchased and digitally downloaded for a time-limited introductory promo price of £149.00 GBP (inc. VAT)/$149.00 USD/ €149.00 EUR (inc. VAT) until November 29, 2018 — rising thereafter to an RRP of £199.00 GBP (inc. VAT)/$199.00 USD/€199.00 EUR (inc. VAT) — from here: https://www.spitfireaudio.com/shop/a-z/sound-dust-vol-2/ For more in-depth information, including some superb-sounding audio demos, please visit the dedicated SOUND DUST 2 webpage here: https://www.spitfireaudio.com/shop/a-z/sound-dust-vol-2/

Watch Spitfire Audio Director Paul Thomson’s ‘traditional’ video walkthrough of SOUND DUST 2 here: https://youtu.be/u3eTyp5bOUI

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Watch Spitfire Audio ‘composer-in-residence’ Oliver Patrice Weder’s ‘In Action’ video for SOUND DUST 2 here: https://youtu.be/JCeZy_Dovrc

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Watch Spitfire Audio Director Christian Henson showcasing the delights of SOUND DUST 1 and SOUND DUST 2 here: https://youtu.be/ox09fK1ns6w

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Watch Spitfire Audio’s An Introduction to Sound Dust documentary here: https://youtu.be/H8sJtqnrGd0

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SOUND DUST 2 needs Native Instruments’ free KONTAKT PLAYER (5.6.8 or higher) — included in the purchase — to run as a fully NKS (NATIVE KONTROL STANDARD®) supporting plug-in instrument for Mac (OS X 10.10 or later) or Windows (7, 8, or 10 — latest Service Pack, 32/64-bit), while Spitfire Audio’s free Download Manager application allows anyone to buy now and download anytime.

#news #spitfireaudio #sounddust #kontakt #samplelibraries #musicproducer #musicproduction

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