#instead of naming it I wrote another snippet oops

[dark-elf-writes]

“Cang Qiong is lurking around," Wei Wuxian mentioned casually where he was sprawled over a branch above Shen Jiu's head, supposedly keeping watch through his closed eyelids while Shen Jiu cultivated. Or attempted to, anyway.

(Shen Jiu knew better than to fall for the lazy act. Even if his mate had his eyes closed and face turned into the weak sunlight that filtered through the branches, there was no doubt that his senses were honed to a keen edge, waiting to catch the slightest hint of something approaching them… or Shen Jiu reaching another plateau in his cultivation.

Hence why he had spoken now, seemingly out of nowhere, just as Shen Jiu had felt a cold sweat break out across the back of his neck.)

Shen Jiu sighed, unfolding his legs and allowing himself to lounge back against the tree, and looked up at A-Ying perched like some odd bird of prey among the leaves. "The Immortal Alliance Conference is taking place not far from here. It would be odd for Cang Qiong to not be present."

A hum and, in a flutter of leaves and black fabric, Wei Wuxian hooked his legs over the branch, allowing his torso to hang down so he could look Shen Jiu in the eye. "A sect like theirs would have plenty of cultivation manuals and be placed in a Qi dense area perfect for honing their cultivation."

Familiar anger rose in Shen Jiu's chest. Hot and thick as boiling oil as it spilled over his tongue. "So my husband wants to be rid of me so desperately he would hand deliver me to the very people he warned me away from?"

Wei Wuxian's infuriating smile didn't so much as waver. "This A-Ying is concerned for his husband's wellbeing and far too aware of his own humble means to offer assistance at such a critical juncture in his husband's cultivation. This lowly A-Ying believes all possibilities should be considered before they are hastily discarded."

Shen Jiu's eyes narrowed. "You would rather break your own legs than be tied to a sect."

That smile finally wavered, along with Wei Wuxian's perch on the branch. Shen Jiu lunged to catch him before he could hit the ground, settling the familiar weight of A-Ying into his lap. They sat in silence like that for several long moments, the rustling of leaves above them and their own hushed breathing the only sounds.

A stolen moment of peace, fragile as spun sugar.

Fragile as the glint in A-Ying's silver eyes.

Slender fingers traced over his jaw. Achingly gentle. A far cry from the deft surety with which Wei Wuxian called forth the dead or the elegant brutality with which he wielded his sword, little more than a hunk of scrap metal as it was.

"I would tie the leash around my throat myself if it meant forever with my husband at my side."

Shen Jiu would never allow it. Would burn down all of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect with his own blood-drenched hands before he allowed them the slightest claim over his A-Ying.

But he and A-Ying were two halves of one whole, for better or worse.

He had known that when he had sunk his teeth into Wei Wuxian's bonding gland. Had reveled in that fact as Wei Wuxian dug his own teeth into Shen Jiu's own.

"We don't need a sect. The two of us can make it on our own without their help."

That familiar sadness sparked in Wei Wuxian's eyes, aching and all-consuming as it always was.

(Shen Jiu didn't ask.

He would never make Wei Wuxian open that particular wound until he was ready.)

But even with that sadness threatening to consume him, A-Ying only hummed and tucked his head under Shen Jiu's chin with a sweet hum, chasing his the barest traces of his scent to its source "We should at least keep an eye on them, just in case. Rich sects like that never notice what useful trinkets they leave behind when they have a dozen more to replace them back home."

Shen Jiu knew A-Ying to well to believe that he would give up that easily, yet in the end it was Shen Jiu that allowed himself to be taken back to the Cang Qiong Mountain Sect by a concerned Qi-Ge Yue Qingyuan in order to keep those eyes he had once known so well now in the face of a future sect leader rather than the brother he remembered — the brother who had abandoned him to the very monster A-Ying had killed to free him — off of his mate.

[nerdalmighty]

WIP folder game

Thanks for the tag @khywren!! I'm excited to participate :)

Rules: Make a new post with the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! Then, tag as many people as you have WIPs.

I only have a few wips, 4 in total right now, all for bg3, but one is a multi-chapter where each chapter is named after a different song from ANOTHER video game, Deltarune (because I'm the most creative woman in the world), and one is JUST a shitpost of a fic that I wrote to make myself laugh:

An Evening to Ourselves

Sewer Party

Don't Forget (Multi-chapter: Field of Hopes and Dreams, The Legend, Scarlet Forest)

Dont! Cross! This! Line! With your hand

Feel free to ask about any of them! I'm really enjoying posting snippets :)

Seeing as how I'm VERY new to the writing scene, I don't have a ton of mutuals who write, but I'll tag a few friends! @maladaptive-menace @ladyduellist - No pressure! And also if YOU (the person reading this) write and YOU want to share your wips, please do! And tag me in it!!

And for you, my dear @khywren, below the cut is another snippet of my long one shot (she's clocking in at 17.6k words! oops!):

“Listen to me,” you turned your head towards Astarion. “I need you to reach into my pack and get out a Scroll of Sleep.”

“You don’t just know that off-hand?”

“Astarion.” 

“Fine, fine.” The vampire drew out his daggers and slowly circled around the room, drawing the bugbear around so he wouldn’t be able to attack from behind. Astarion looked up at the rafters and saw a hay bale hanging precariously over the edge of a beam. If he angled his daggers just right…

He let the blades fly and when they connected with the hay bale, it fell from above, landing right on top of the bugbear. Astarion looked over at you with an excited grin to make sure you’d witnessed his victory.

“Yes, yes, you’re very good at knives,” you quipped. “Now get over here!”

“As you wish.” Astarion weaved his way across the barn and positioned himself behind you to look in your bag. You felt his cold breath on your ear. “Hello,” he purred.

Your fingers stumbled on a few notes and the ogress suddenly looked around, as if waking from a trance. 

“Wha-”

You scrunched your nose and kicked behind you at Astarion’s shin. 

He laughed out in pain, but you could feel him rummaging through your bag. The song you were playing resumed its hypnotic tones and the ogress seemed to calm down. 

“Remind me to never have you organize my wardrobe, darling. It is a mess in here.”

“I know where everything is!” You argued. “The scrolls are in alphabetical order.”

“My gods, you’re lame.” Astarion squinted into your bag, trying to read the titles of the spells in the dim light. 

“ASTARION!” You shouted and twisted as the bugbear suddenly reappeared, apparently having been able to push the hay bale off of himself. He was running like a madman around the right side of the barn, towards Astarion. 

Astarion reached for his daggers, only to come up empty. They were still in the hay bale on the other side of the barn. Swearing, he looked up just in time to see-

WHAM!

Your lute connected with the bugbear’s face with such force that he went down instantly. 

As a result, however, your lute was now shattered. Which meant there was about to be a very angry ogress on your hands.

Astarion quickly shuffled back to your bag and filed through your spells.

“Astarion…” You said hesitantly. Your body tensed as the ogress blinked a few times, growled, and began stomping her way towards you two.

“I’m going! I’m going! A HA!” Astarion pulled out the proper spell and leaned forward over your shoulder to shove it ungracefully into your hands. “Read it out read it out read it out!”

“Shut up shut up shut up!” You uncrumpled the spell and shouted “SOMNUM,” just as the ogress reared back to swing her club.

Instead, she went down heavily, instantly asleep.

You and Astarion stayed frozen in place. When it was clear the ogress was truly out cold, Astarion chuckled against your shoulder, still leaning into you from behind. 

You smiled. Then you joined in his slight chuckle, which turned into laughs, which turned into the both of you doubling over in weezing delight.

“Have you ever seen anything so ghastly?” Astarion looked between the two unconscious creatures.

“Love finds a way,” you continued laughing.

“My dear, love had nothing to do with that,” Astarion wiped a tear from his eye and went to retrieve his daggers from across the barn. “That was all lust. And probably a bit of morbid curiosity to see if it was even possible.”

“Clearly it is,” you said. “Shows what we know about interspecies relationships.”

Astarion sheathed his daggers and came back around to see you picking up the broken pieces of your lute. You sighed and took off your bag, carefully making the pieces fit inside. 

He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Thank you.”

You looked up at him.

“For knocking out that bugbear. And for sacrificing your lute in the process.” He bent to pick up a piece that had slid across the floor and brought it over to you.

“It’s just a thing,” you said. “I can replace it. But I’m glad you’re okay.”

[findafight]

WIP Wednesday Game

@eriquin I'll be doing this thursday and the weekend too (i'm posting this late as i JUST saw the notification) so even if you think it's late send an ask! make me write!

Rules:

In a reblog of this post (so people can find you in the notes) or new thread (w/ rules attached) if you want to play on your own, post up to five (5) filenames of your WIPs; not titles, file names.

Post a snippet from one of them. Snippet must be words you wrote in the last 7 days. We’re posting progress here. If you haven’t made any, go make some and come back to play!

After you’ve posted, people can send you an ask with one of your file names. You must then write 3 sentences in that file. If the filename is one you can't share from (for example, an event or gift fic), write 3 sentences on it anyway, and then 3 more on another to share.

That’s it! You can invite others to join in, or just post. I’ll be searching the reblogs to find people to send asks to!

If you’re reading this, you’re invited!

If you see someone posting a WIP Wednesday Game snippet, send them an ask! Make them write.

File names and snippet under the cut!

Chapters 11-20 (RaSEPSM)

fail b!lly/eddie to soft steddie

starbara s1

the party discuss the camera incident

joyce doesn't like steve au

Snippet from fail b!lly/eddie to soft steddie (this stupid fic has become way longer than i thought it would and i want it FINISHED.)

“What, no, you’re the only other person I’ve met willing to, like, acknowledge it.”

Steve looked confused. “What about the— your him.” he made an effort to drop his voice even lower than it was.

Eddie Snorted. “What part of I have shit taste did you not get?”

Steve winced. “So he, like. Kissed you and stuff? But then, what? Said “Just kidding!” like that makes it not count?”

He groaned. This was embarrassing, and Eddie never thought he would be admitting to it to Steve Harrington of all people. “More like…” he sighed, and stared up at the stars. “More like he would call me names after kissing me, like it was all my idea or he had caught me doing something, instead of him being the guy that pushed me against a tree and shoved his tongue in my mouth.”

“Ew.”

“Yeah. He fucking sucked, dude. Not even the fun way.”

tags: (i have forgotten everyone i know on this website oops)

@momotonescreaming @withacapitalp @thestobingirlie

[azems-familiar]

hello! are there any songs you associate with any of the kotor characters? (totally not asking bc my brain is hungry for animatic ideas haha,,)

OH BOY DO I HAVE SONGS

first things first, i will direct you to my twelve hour Revan playlist that i use for writing vibes, it's a mixture of vocal and instrumental and it has both a bunch of Revan songs for different eras of Revan, plus revalek songs, plus some revastila songs, plus some songs that just vibe.... it's good and most of the songs i'm about to highlight, if not all of them, are on there already.

NOW. HERE WE GO.

first things first, i need to introduce you to the title song for my mandalorian wars fic, oblivion by the aviators! god, this song doesn't fit all Revans perfectly, but it fits mine so well it was like it'd been written for her specifically, i swear. listening to the song was what inspired me to write the fic to begin with (and now i have a whole series oops). i mean, come on, look at the chorus:

Let the broken heroes rise Let the victors take their prize No one wins when justice dies War has let this age begin It's where we've gone and where they've been What a state that we're in Here in oblivion

can't look at that and tell me that isn't Jedi Knight Revan and the war that broke them.

next up!! liar by the arcadian wild, my beloved. this song is currently my top all time on spotify, closely followed by the song i'm going to rec after it and then achilles come down - and the fact that anything unseated achilles for the top spot should tell you something. (and if you don't know what achilles come down is look it up that one's on my playlist too.) this is a really good one for Revan's slow fall down, the corruption arc - again, all of the songs i'm mentioning really fit my own versions of the characters best, but they're just good in general. some of the lyrics i enjoy from this one:

hnext up, we have it all by pim stones. this particular one feels very revalek to me, early in the Sith years when they still maybe had good intentions, maybe after the war but before becoming Darth. there's this softer, almost desperate tone to the way the singer sings it that just hits me hard - this is the song i'm using as the title for my Sith years interlude fic! a lyric snippet:

All my life I've been heading for hell But never had I thought I'd drag you down as well I just couldn't resist what he was trying to sell

There's glory ahead but our love will be forgotten If my heart was still mine I would go to the bottom And apologise to you until the day it went rotten

next up we have the balancer's eye by lord huron, which is the song i named my series after (have you noticed a trend yet?). it's a very Revan vibe in general, and while i'm not as much of a fan of the style, the lyrics are really excellent!

Nothing's waiting for us in the great sky Life is equal to dust in the balancer's eye Now I know that I can't lift an old curse Tell me, how does a man change the universe?

Will I ever be forgiven for the crime of my life? Will it haunt me 'til I die?

mmm let's see what next. OH! go to war by nothing more. this is just straight up a Sith years song for revalek, whether you ship them or not - they were important to each other either way! ..... i am not going to tangent into yelling about revalek. that is not what this is for. anyway, the song itself is a) a banger and b) talking about love corrupting and falling apart and it just. it hits, man

Do we censor? Do we flow? Are we drunk on the chemicals? Every feeling in my bones Tells me to lash out and tell you to fuck off You've got my heart and I've got your soul But are we better off alone? With every battle we lose a little more Remember everything that we'd die for You are everything that I'd die for

oooh NEXT we have the song i was going to use for my Jaw Scene before i decided to write a full sith years fic. saints by echos is the song, and again, we've got Sith years Revan and Malak here (yes yes i have a type), the vibes of losing faith and anger and it blends really well with how Revan basically played off being a legendary figure to the Republic to fuel their war against it!

You were standing there like an angry god Counting out my sins just to cross them off Saying that my tongue was too loud to trust And that my blood couldn't keep you

My dear, you're not so innocent You're fooling Heaven's gates So you won't have to change You're no saint, you're no savior

mmmm okay the discord has informed me that ten (10) songs is the maximum i should do in one post so. i will only do four more. chrysalis - the last breath by delain is yet another Sith Revan and Malak song and honestly you can read it as a response to the song above, if you think of saints from Malak's pov and chrysalis from Revan's, they mesh really well together.

Hey, are you still mad? About the time We almost went too far I know your regrets In my defense; By now, it's just a scar That distracts you from Your broken heart Like you wanted it to do How do you feel? I don't... How do you know? You won't... To let go of you I will try Until my last breath How do you feel? I don't... How do you know? You won't... To let go I promise I will fight

next! for a complete change of pace, i have a revastila song for you - warrior by beth crowley. it somehow manages to capture exactly the dynamic i think of in my head when i think about Bastila, the uncertainty, the forbiddeness of it, but the way Revan ultimately strengthens her and she strengthens Revan

You fascinated me Cloaked in shadows and secrecy The beauty of a broken angel

I ventured carefully Afraid of what you thought I'd be But pretty soon, I was entangled

You take me by the hand I question who I am

uhhhhhh i am desperately trying to think of songs that aren't just about Revan but instead here i am with another Mandalorian Wars Revan song, what did we know by rachel rose mitchell! this song was introduced to me by the same friend who sent me oblivion, and it really captures the fall of the Mandalorian wars incredibly well imo - the way it started with righteousness but ended in pain (compassion leading to destruction and that's a ramble i'm not going on here either), and there's this line in there that i'm not including in my snippet that's what scares me more than anything / if we could choose the past / we'd probably choose the same and it's like. yes! that's it! i'm going to once again go insane over the scene in the Korriban tomb in kotor 2!!! knowing the price.... would you choose to do it all again........ aaaaaaaa

It's been so long since we began. It seems so long ago That in the name of loyalty We started on our own. Answering the call of a house we once called home, We knew that we were right. What did we know?

We swore that we understood this wasn't a game, But somehow we found ourselves fanning the flames. Those who cautioned and abandoned us, they were the same. I saw them turn away.

the final song i'm doing is the song i used when i wrote the Betrayal scene from Malak's pov, the little things give you away by linkin park. this one just. it vibes, it vibes hard, goes really into the actual grief of betrayal, and also has a super epic instrumental solo so there's that. as usual, lyric snippet:

Don't want to reach for me, do you? I mean nothing to you The little things give you away But now there will be no mistaking The levees are breaking

All you've ever wanted Was someone to truly look up to you And six feet under water, I do

All you've ever wanted Was someone to truly look up to you And six feet underground now I Now I do

god okay now that you're completely overwhelmed and never want to talk to me again....... i should've probably put this under a readmore but eh. thanks for the ask!

[aiden-png]

Hyrule the baby detective?

ohohoho okay so.. I have three genres I like to write in my original lit: horror, scifi, and mystery. so I wanted to write a mystery for LU, multichapter and thoroughly outlined (partly because analyzing HSH was so much fun and I wanted to keep that going alkdfjkasdfj). so I came up with an idea for a crime mystery set in a vaguely 1890s ‘modern’ Castle Town city following apprentice detective Hyrule... I actually wrote a Lot for the first draft before realizing it was a bit too silly for my intent and I hadn’t outlined it enough to solve the sideplots I’d introduced while writing. so I scrapped this... 4? chapter first draft right before the climax and sat down to Really plot it out (I wrote this one in July I think lol)

I have a whole outline and I made a new setting: ‘modern’ university AU with a serial killer antagonist who takes an interest in Hyrule. I had so much of it planned out and I was hype to write it because the twist was amazing, which is the part I felt was lacking set up in the first try. but then classes started and I came up with another multichapter idea and started writing that instead, kinda.. oops!

so if I ever release a version of this fic, it’ll probably be an edited and finished version of the crack taken seriously first draft XD and I’m not sure if I’ll ever use the twist I came up with for the second version so I won’t share it, but it was Good omg.... I love adding twists into my multichapter fics, they’re so much fun aaa! :D

and I guess, just because I can.... have a (unedited and messy) snippet from it! :D

Hyrule was so nervous he’d managed to leave the office and board the subway before even opening the envelope. The envelope where the address of the client and time of meeting was… Hyrule sighed, carefully opening the clasps and peering inside. There was one tiny slip of paper and nothing else. Great. Hyrule pulled the appointment card out, squinting down at the scribbled address and-- oh dear, the meeting was in less than an hour! Hyrule’s eyes flicked around, only relaxing slightly as he realized he’d somehow managed to board the correct train.

He was a bit frustrated at the lack of information he’d been given, if he was being honest. A murder case typically had a name, some pictures, a report even when they got the call, but the card Hyrule held simply had an address and a name--Twilight. Odd name, but he didn’t really have room to talk, his parents had named him after a country after all.

The train arrived and Hyrule shuffled his way through the crowds at the station, climbing the stairs to find himself in the center of the historic district. Towering stone buildings lined the streets in streaked creams and greys, stained by coal even as most of the city moved to electric. The houses here were expensive and ancient and Hyrule knew the district was made of wealthy, private citizens more than anything else. People who preferred to keep their affairs under the table, tight-lipped and aloof, rude even. Hyrule lived in a dingy apartment, packed like a sardine in rooms barely big enough for a bed and stove. He felt small and out of place just standing in the street, suddenly aware of how cheap his white shirt and suspenders looked compared to the businessmen clad in full suits around him.

Hyrule rushed to find the building, glancing up towards the clock tower that rested in the building at the end of the street. Rows and rows of brownstones, all looking strikingly similar, before Hyrule found the bright red overhang of an apartment building, the address emblazoned on the cloth in gold script. He let out a small sigh of relief, still ten minutes ahead of schedule, and pulled open the grand wooden door at the entrance.

The interior was dark but spacious, high ceilings and sconces all fit with gas lamps that were out of use. There was a window at the top of the first flight of stairs, smudged and allowing a grey, watery light to pass into the foyer--the only light present. The right side of the hall held a built in alcove, a set of open mailboxes behind a desk and chair. An attendant sat in the dim light, head slumped forward on his chest, brown hair disheveled over his maroon uniform. Obviously asleep. Hyrule looked down at his note, up at the stairs, and quietly snuck past.

Two flights up Hyrule noticed a massive chandelier hanging from the ceiling at the top floor, visible through the gaps in the alternating staircases. A small man was strapped to the rail and ceiling, grease and soot staining his shirt and hair pulled away with a green headband. Hyrule found himself on the fifth floor and peering at the precarious set up the man had constructed--or was he just a boy? He didn’t look much older than fourteen, but he was clearly hard at work, wires looped around his arms and clamps in hand as he converted the chandelier from gas to electric. The kid shot Hyrule a questioning look and he realized he’d been staring, quickly turning away and facing the hall ahead.

There were six doors, three on each side of the hall with tiny golden plaques adorning the wood with each apartment number. Hyrule winced as each step he took broadcast itself in loud squeaks, the maroon carpet rolled over the wood doing nothing to muffle them. Fortunately the apartment he was looking for was the first to his left, room 501, and he took a moment to check his pocket watch and take a few steadying breaths. Before he moved to knock on the door he heard the click of the knob, and a moment later the door tugged open to reveal a man dressed in a dark jacket with dirty blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. They narrowed for a second and Hyrule felt himself stiffen in fear before the man grabbed his arm and pulled him in.

The door shut quickly, trapping Hyrule in the mysterious apartment with a threatening stranger and no escape. He almost considered trying to bolt before his eyes landed on the teen sprawled over the loveseat ahead, long blonde hair spilling onto the ground while his bare feet rested over the couch back. His left side was covered in a layer of streaking pink scars that pinched his eye slightly shut and twisted his mouth into a perpetual smirk. What made Hyrule pause however was the grin the kid shot him, warm and excited, and when he turned back to the other man he saw the tense posture had relaxed significantly.

“You’re from the agency, right?” the man asked, voice a bit tired and hopeful, like he’d been through this song and dance several times before.

“Ah, y-yes! My name is Hyrule, it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” Hyrule stretched out his hand and the man shook it readily, firm, and Hyrule felt himself begin to relax slightly.

“I’m Twilight. Why don’t you have a seat and I’ll fill you in on why I called.” Twilight offered a small smile and Hyrule let himself be guided to sit in a high backed armchair opposite the loveseat. Twilight shoved the teen’s legs off the back and came to sit beside him as he readjusted into a cross-legged position, grin still wide on his face.

“I’m Wild by the way,” Wild waved, Twilight nodding somewhat resigned.

“It’s nice to meet you, Wild,” Hyrule nodded despite the odd name, smiling at the thanks Twilight mouthed at him.

“Alright, so,” Twilight huffed, crossing his legs and straightening his back. Hyrule perked up, pulling a notepad and pencil from his jacket pocket and flipping open to a blank page. “I didn’t say much on the phone last night because this is a… well, a sensitive case, let’s say.”

Hyrule hummed, curiosity easing his anxiety enough to shine through. “A murder, yes?”

Twilight winced and Wild snickered at his side.

“Yes and no…” Twilight shot Wild a glare. “See, it hasn’t exactly happened yet.”

Hyrule paused. Huh.

“So you heard that a murder is being planned and you called us to help prevent it?” Hyrule surmised, only to be met with more laughter from Wild. Twilight shoved him but the teen only hid his smile behind a hand in response.

“Not exactly,” Twilight sighed, and Hyrule noticed the dark circles beneath his eyes. “You see, we have this odd neighbor at the end of the hall, and--”

“Twilight saw the guy’s ghost in a dream and is convinced he’s going to be killed.” Wild cut in, ignoring the sharp glare Twilight shot his way.

“Well, that’s a new one.” Hyrule raised his eyebrows, taking in the giggling teen and Twilight’s tired expression.

“It wasn’t a dream, I saw him, or at least I think I did.” Twilight sighed, fixing Hyrule with pleading eyes. “It must have been a ghost because he just appeared out of nowhere in the hall, covered in blood, and told me to call the cops. I did, but when they arrived they said nothing was wrong and I must have been seeing things. But I have a bad feeling about it, something isn’t right. I just want to make sure the Old Man’s okay.”

“When was this exactly? Have you checked on him yourself?” Hyrule tapped his pencil on the notepad, mulling over Twilight’s words. This certainly was an interesting case, and while he wasn’t sure how much he could truly do to help, he understood what Twilight meant. Hyrule trusted his own instincts--a bit too much according to Legend--but they hadn’t truly led him astray yet.

“This was a week ago. I checked on him right after I woke up the next morning. He was fine, not a scratch on him, but something tells me whatever is coming for him hasn’t yet.” Twilight twisted his fingers together nervously and Wild’s laughter petered off. “I’ve been hearing arguments from his apartment. More and more strange people have been coming to visit, and at odd times of the night. I think he’s gotten himself mixed up in something, but he’s pretty stoic and keeps to himself. I just worry…”

Alright, so maybe this case wasn’t as straightforward as he’d been led to believe, but Hyrule wasn’t deterred. Twilight’s words shone with honesty and he realized that the man was likely on his last attempt to find help. No one in their right mind would believe this story, no respectable detective would take on such a case. So it was a good thing Legend sent him, because Hyrule had literally nothing to lose.

“I’ll help you,” Hyrule announced, feeling a swell of confidence as Twilight smiled and Wild shook his head fondly. “If what you say is true there is cause for concern. I can start interviewing those close to him and keeping tabs. If he’s in trouble, we’ll find out, and I can make sure he stays safe.”

Well, he could try, but that was beside the point.

“Thank you so much,” Twilight said, already relaxing. “You don’t know how many detectives I’ve reached out to. They all say I’m crazy or trying to pull a prank.”

“Well, I’m here now, and I’ll get to the bottom of this.” Hyrule replied with far more confidence than he had. At least Legend had taught him one thing--how to bullshit. “So, why don’t we start with what you know about this man…”

Twilight sat back in the chair, Wild getting up to make tea in the adjacent kitchenette. Hyrule readied his pencil, hands steady as his nerves eased.

“We call him Time.”

[radramblog]

Linkin Park Retrospective Part 6: The EPs

I can’t listen to One More Light yet. Don’t have it in me to tackle that. So instead, we’re going to cover the two EPs released by the band, Collision Course and Songs from the Underground.

Collision Course

…who’s idea was this?

Apparently MTVs, as part of an “Ultimate Mashups” series, though their involvement seemed mostly hands off. A 6-track Jay-Z/Linkin Park crossover album isn’t an idea I would have tried to sell, but Mike and Jay seem pretty into it based on the snippets of studio chatter you get in between tracks. The album opens with that, in fact- Chester (?) going “I ordered a Frappucino where’s my fuckin Frappucino?” is certainly one way to start things off.

I’m just going to make it clear now that I’ve never heard most of the Jay-Z tracks being mashed up here, so I can’t really comment on that end. As these tracks are mashups with songs I am quite familiar with, though, I can at least give some degree of assessment. And unfortunately, I’d argue Collision Course compares unfavourably to Reanimation as far as crossover albums go. Largely speaking the remixes done to the Linkin Park instrumentals are uninteresting, though they do match the new vocals done over the top of them, and Jay-Z is basically fine but not overwhelming.

I think my biggest issue with this album is that a bunch of the songs just drop just about everything new about them and are just the Linkin Park track for the last like minute or so- Dirt off your Shoulder/Lying from You, Jigga What/Faint, and Points of Authority/99 Problems/One Step Closer are all pretty guilty of this. That isn’t to say that the rest of these tracks aren’t good, but this in particular is a sticking point I couldn’t ignore.

Track-by-track, then. Dirt off your Shoulder/Lying from You is the most straightforward track on the whole project, and probably the biggest sufferer from eventually just being Lying from You (seeing as that’s kinda the worst of those three LP tracks). I have no idea whats going on in the instrumental from Big Pimpin’/Papercut, but the Papercut verse on top of that sounds just sort of weird- Jay-Z’s verse fits better, but also, that’s probably the one written for that instumental isn’t it. Jigga What/Faint is interesting, with the first half’s backing being a heavily remixed version of the verse instrumental from Faint, but a minute in it’s just Faint oops. With that said, Jays bars over that instrumental actually does fit pretty well.

I don’t know rap that well, I can’t really comment on the flow or anything, but while the vocals are new recordings, they are the same verses from the songs being mashed up, so some originality is lost there.

Numb/Encore is the one single from this album, and it’s definitely one of the better ones, yeah. You’ve got Mike and Jay both working together in bits, the remixed Numb instrumental feels like exactly the extrapolation you’d want for a track like this, and that “what the hell are you waiting foooooor” is super satisfying. Unlike some of the other tracks, the final bit (with Chester, yknow, doing Numb) maintains that remixed instrumental, making it stand out a bit better from the original versions, which is nice. However, Jay-Z basically just isn’t on the latter half of the track, making it extremely awkward when he did a live performance of it after Chester’s passing.

For a song called Encore, however, it’s a bit weird that it’s not the last track on the album.

Izzo/In The End opens with this really bright instrumental and Mike, thanking a live audience like it’s a concert, sure. It’s just super odd that this is the same song with the In the End vocals, the emotions not really fitting the fun of the instrumental and previous verse. It is performed significantly more light-heartedly, but it still feels like an odd fit. To be fair, though, I’m not sure what Hybrid Theory/Meteora era track would have worked better there, so fair play. The album ends with Points of Authority/99 Problems/One Step Closer, ther first half of which I actually think is better than Numb/Encore. It’s got an actual fresh verse from Mike over Points of Authority, and him doing the cop bit from 99 Problems’ pull over bit actually works super well. Unfortunately, when the instrumental switches over to One Step Closer, the song gets a bit worse- the mix on Jay-Z’s vocals is way too low for a lot of it, being drowned out by the instrumental most of the time, and the last minute is just One Step Closer again but also Jay-Z is occaisionally repeating the 99 Problems line. It’s a weak finish to an otherwise solid song and album.

 Songs from the Underground

Released in 2008, Songs from the Underground is a collection of tracks from Linkin Park Underground collated into an EP along with a couple of unreleased live recordings. Linkin Park Underground, or LPU, is the official fan club, which gets a yearly CD as part of membership that has assorted demos and live versions on it, which is where this EP pulls its tracks from- its also a set of CDs I desperately want to get my hands on but their limited nature makes their price obscene. I have managed to get LPU 9, which is the one I wanted most, but the remainder have eluded my grasp.

My precioussssssssssss

Side note, this album isn’t on spotify, and the only Youtube upload I could find was a shit recording, so you’re best off looking for each individually.

This compilation opens with Announcement Service Public (from LPU6), a pretty decent instrumental with Chester screaming unintelligibly in the background. This is more of a joke than anything- as the name suggests, it’s a PSA reversed, and reversing Chester’s vocals reveals he’s yelling a reminder to brush your teeth and wash your hands. I mean, I’ve been in an LP mosh once, and I can confirm that this was an announcement that needed making.

The second track QWERTY (LPU6), sounds like it wasn’t even written by Linkin Park, rather, one of their contemporaries. Allegedly, they wrote it on a long, long plane flight, which I could see- a non-studio environment leading to a more different track. Honestly, this could fit right on to Meteora, as much like Faint or Nobody’s Listening it’s a different take on the sound they’re known for. This one’s a lot of fun- the riffs are sick, and the chorus, if simple, is solid to sing along to. This deserves main album status.

And One is one of the tracks on this album that’s actually a rerecording off of the EP made by the band when Hybrid Theory was their name and not just their first album (though the EP was self-titled, so it’s pretty confusing). This album would later be rereleased as the first LPU, and then again (with an official video) along with the 20th anniversary edition of Hybrid Theory. And One is interesting, as it’s the first track recorded after Chester joined the band back in the day, and it’s so fucking edgy holy shit. I think it’s pretty decent, but unlike with QWERTY I’m kinda ok with this being a little by the wayside. With that said, I really like the little breakdown at the end, and the verse Mike is doing over it.

Sold My Soul to yo Mama (LP4) is a real track, huh. It’s a short, heavily electronic piece, ganking lyrics from Points of Authority and Papercut, but like, it’s mostly just Joe Hanh fucking around for 2 minutes. Not a huge fan of this one.

Dedicated (LP2) is another of this album’s better songs. It’s very Lose Yourself, that sort of emotional rap track about doing a rap track, and while obviously it’s not at the same level as that one it’s still excellent on its own. This is just such an excellent demo, one of Mike’s best performances- and considering he’s carrying it on his own (I’m not sure Chester’s even on this, unless those background aaaahs are him) that means a lot.

The next track is Hunger Strike, actually a live recording by Chris Cornell (of Soundgarden and Audioslave fame) with Chester as a feature. They were good friends, which is going to come up tragically when we get to One More Light. To be honest, though, this track kinda sucks dick. It is far from Chris’s best performance, nor Chester’s, and the instrumental is fucking boring. It picks up around the two minute mark, but at that point it just sounds like a bad Audioslave song, and I’m not really down for that, yknow. Just go listen to Like a Stone or Black Hole Sun again.

Another live recording is next, My December (a B-Side from One Step Closer, also on LPU2). My December is far from my favourite track- I think it’s kinda overdone, and this live version is so much worse. Look, it’s just Chester singing over someone (maybe him?) playing the song on piano? It doesn’t work, man. Not a fan.

The album’s final track is called Part of Me (HTEP/LPU1), and feels a lot like a better version of And One, if I’m honest. Mike’s actually going hard here in the verses, especially in the pre-chorus, and said chorus is actually pretty solid, even though the instrumental there is a little weak. It’s a slow, chugging song, heavily affected through Hahn’s DJing, that does do a nice little build to the track’s ending.

Except it doesn’t end, because there’s a hidden track in it. I don’t think this one has an official name anywhere, but it’s an electronic instrumental. It’s basically ok. Tangent, but I remember thinking when I was younger that if I was ever in a band, I’d want to write an electronic instrumental named Oxymoron- because of course, it wouldn’t have any real instruments in it.

That closes out Songs from the Underground, and I’ve never really broken it down in my head before, but it’s a lot more mediocre than I thought. The live songs are not good, and several demos or rarities that should have been on it absolutely weren’t- Across the Line, Drawing, A6, and where the fuck was High Voltage? Honestly, more of a miss than I remember. If I’m low on ideas, I might break down LPU9 individually, but I probably won’t spend any other time on LP demo stuff- I’m sure you’re sick to death of me talking about Linkin Park by now.

[theaceace]

Soooooooo that alternate ending to the final resting place? I wrote a tiny snippet. Oops. I’m not putting it on AO3 since I don’t think I’ll be finishing it, but here we are. Feel free to enjoy (or not!)

Juno comes to slowly. He's sat propped against a wall, just starting to slump to one side - he thinks that maybe that's what woke him. His head throbs in time with his roaring pulse, and when he grimaces, the side of his face feels tight. Like there's something crusted there, flaking away like dried paint with every minute twitch of his face. He tries not to think about it, fails, tries a little harder, and only succeeds in making the throbbing in his mind worse.

Cracking his eye open feels like the worst mistake he's made so far today, which is honestly a pretty impressive achievement considering how the rest of the day had gone down. Pain shoots through his skull, takes a detour around the nape of his neck, and comes shooting right back up again. It hurts; more than getting shot, more than losing his - well. Still trying not to think about it. 

It takes him a long time to push himself into a position that resembles standing, if standing has come to mean 'hunched over with both hands braced on the wall trying not to vomit' in the time he'd been unconscious. Hey; stranger things have happened.

By the time the heaving in his stomach has settled, Juno's managed to take stock of his own condition, and yeah, it's not great; but, more importantly, that condition seems to be, as far as he can tell... Alive. Which is better than he'd honestly expected. So, with his own condition assessed and subsequently dismissed as unimportant, he turns to give the room the same treatment.

The panel is just a few steps away, but they're steps Juno doesn't really feel up to taking right now. The room is silent enough that even his breaths seem to echo through the chamber. There's no hum of machinery, no rasp in the back of his mind, no thready whine from the control panel, a few feet away that might as well be half a planet. No way he'll be making that journey anytime soon. 

"Nureyev?" Juno calls, and immediately chokes on the dry click of his throat. He hacks up what feels like half a lung, until he can breathe well enough to try again. "Nureyev?"

Nothing. Juno can't breathe, can’t think, this time around the panic curling through his chest. The bomb had gone off, sure, but the point of this room was to contain it, and besides, he'd survived, right?

Right?

But. But what if something had gone wrong? Miasma is gone, not even a pile of ash or stain on the floor to show she had ever existed. What if he gets outside and that's it, just more nothing, an entire planet of just nothing, stretching out across burnt red sand, and he's all that's left because of some screw up or accident, or -

He doesn’t know how much time passes before he manages to drag his mind out of the spiral it's got caught up in. There's no way of measuring time in here - he doesn't have his coms, and he doesn't trust his body clock as far as he could metaphorically throw it right now. He doesn't know what's going on outside of this room, and he isn't going to know until he can haul himself over to the door and let himself out. So, that's exactly what he does.

If pressed, he couldn't say exactly what he was expecting to see on the other side. But he's pretty sure it wasn't - nothing.

The hall is empty. Behind him, the door slides shut, hissing softly against the wall. He turns to look at it; like it might have an explanation to what's going on, but all it has is smears of blood, dried and dark. They start at face height, and drag down, with more along the edges of the door, around the frame. Like someone had tried to beat the door down, and pry it open when that failed. Like Nureyev had tried.

But there's no sign of him now. The blood is old, the compound silent. 

Juno takes a breath, shivers, drags a hand through his hair. He doesn't know where he's going, but he knows he can't stay here. Maybe - maybe Nureyev is trying to find another way in, or maybe he's looking for a first aid kit, or - 

Or. Yeah.

Still not thinking about it - Juno has got this repression thing down to an art, he's a goddamn modern day Michaelangelo, if Michaelangelo’s thing was squashing down thoughts instead of painting ceilings. Poets could write epic sagas dedicated to his mastery of repression, so he can definitely focus on walking to the end of the corridor, then turning, then walking down the next. He picks the corridors with floors that slope upward - if he keeps climbing, then he's bound to reach the surface eventually, right? That's just logic. Simple, linear progression, step A leads to step B leads to result C, and before he knows it, Juno's standing in the entrance of what looks a little like a garage, and a little like a dumping ground.

There are vehicles that had clearly been run into the ground, and then pushed a few miles further just for the hell of it; so beat up and twisted that Juno thinks it'll be a miracle if they don't just straight up explode as soon as they’re switched on. That would be a trick, huh? Survive the ancient Martian super-weapon only to perish in a slightly-less ancient car. 

Juno doesn't know what Miasma was doing with them, or why she didn't just scrap the older models, but he isn't about to complain - there are at least five bikes and cars still in serviceable condition. Maybe they'd belonged to some of her goons before she got all murder-happy. Maybe she just had the collector’s bug. Either way, he picks the nearest car that looks like it'll still lift off the ground and tumbles into the driver's seat.

He's lucky - the car is old, and so are the security measures it's fitted with. Juno’s under no illusions about his affinity for technology - or rather, his affinity for destroying it with a flair that would make Nureyev envious. Rita could hack any vehicle she so chose in a matter of seconds with sharp eyes and nimble fingers flying over the coms she kept permanently half in one ear and half in her pocket. Juno, on the other hand? He's a touch more old-fashioned.

The main control panel is loose, easy to pull away – there’s a tangled nest behind it, and he has to blink a few times before his vision clears enough to pick out the individual wires. He'd spent enough years watching Benten do this - vibrating with nerves in the passenger seat, because even though it was his idea, he'd still been convinced the HCPD would give a shit about two teenagers jacking a car in the depths of Oldtown - that his fingers connect wires without need for conscious thought. Which is lucky, because he doesn't reckon he could muster a conscious thought if he tried. He’s exhausted.

The car wheezes to life around him, and the door to the garage creaks open automatically on sensing a moving vehicle. The radiation shield of his new ride is weak, flickering, but he doesn't need it to last long. The GPS on the car is threaded with static, but it's enough to tell him where the nearest hospital is; Olympus Mons is a short drive, short enough that he can probably make it without swooning over the wheel.

It isn't until he's tearing across the desert that he realises he hadn't seen the RUBY7 anywhere.

They can’t save his eye. The thought should hurt more than it does – Juno vaguely considers words like ‘shock’, and ‘compartmentalising’, and then promptly decides that the more he thinks about it, the more likely it is to start hurting, so he compartmentalises his compartmentalising.

Maybe he was onto something with the shock idea. Or maybe he’s just so relieved that he isn’t the last human alive on Mars that everything else has faded into insignificance in his bomb-addled brain. Juno isn’t sure, and the nurse just gives him a wary look from the corner of their eye when he tries asking, before having a very heated whisper-argument with the doctor. Ordinarily, Juno would be eavesdropping for all he’s worth, especially since they’re talking about him, but he’s just too tired. He can barely keep his eye open, despite his instinctive mistrust of any kind of medical professional.

By the time he signs himself out – against the doctor’s advice, but the doctor was both drunk and inexperienced in the effects of Martian superweapons on the body, so Juno feels justified in ignoring him – he’s a few thousand creds lighter, and has nothing but a new stamp on his health card to show for it. Oh, and a sticky eyepatch that he plans on peeling off as soon as he’s found something to replace it; medical blue really isn’t his colour.

At the very least, though, he’d managed to get his hands on one of the hospital-issued coms that were supposed to be a 10-cred-a-minute charge, but that he, Mick, and Sasha had discovered worked for free if you hit it on the table at just the right angle before dialling. They’d spent enough time in and out of hospitals as teenagers, after all.

It wasn’t until he’d had the comms in his hand, though, that Juno realised the fatal flaw in his plan – he’d had no way of contacting Nureyev. Not like he could just look the man up, even if he knew more than two of his hundreds of aliases; Nureyev burnt names like people in Oldtown burnt cop cars. That was to say; frequently, thoughtlessly, and to the immense irritation of local law enforcement. So, calling Nureyev was out. Juno had thought, briefly, about calling Rita, before he realised that he’d never managed to memorise her coms number, and she’d scrubbed herself off every database after the salesman case four years ago. He had it saved on his own coms, of course, and it was pretty rare that he had to call when she wasn’t already in the office anyway.

Which meant he’d had to call the office.

“Hiiiiiiiii,” Rita’s voice had mocked him. The same message he’d got at the Oasis, repeated over and over each time he tried. She never picked up; he’d left a message for her, but he had no way of knowing how soon she’d hear it, and there had been no point taking the coms with him – they were designed to only work in a ten-foot radius of the hospital building.

Rita could hook one up to work anywhere she so pleased, Juno knows; he’s watched her do it. Twice.

So here he is, back in the beat up little car that won’t hold a shield together long enough to get him back to Hyperion City, with nothing but a handful of creds in his pocket, a raging headache that he hadn’t wanted to pay extra to fix, and the barest hint of a plan starting to form in his mind. He starts the car, listens to the engine shriek for a minute, and turns out onto the freeway heading towards Hyperion.