Music for my Life, Despair & Monsters WIP An Invite To Wine And Dine, my original character Rouske and What Happened To Vault Number 76? in A Radioactive Calamity of Love, Bombs & Gore. Listen below the cut:
Been a while since I've talked about An Invite To Wine And Dine, my The Invitation (2022) WIP in my Life, Despair & Monsters series. Much like the original plot, Evie is invited by her long-lost cousin Oliver to join him at a family wedding, where she'd meet Walter De Ville and be led on until the revelation that the three families (and Walter) are vampires and Evie is forced to wed him. Here though, there's a few changes: for one, some time after her mother's death, Evie has the misfortune of being targeted by Sir Enigma Malvolio while she's at a vulnerable state, and leads to her becoming his most successful and prized "volunteer" to progress human evolution to its next step, being rechristened by Malvolio as Edith "Evie" Bloodleech. Second, Walter finds that he hadn't lured her where he wanted her to be... Evie's successfully fooled him into letting her be exactly where she needs to be. A lot of the focus of this WIP is to flip the script and have Evie, our protagonist, be even more of a horror monster than Walter and the vampires, as well as showcase a deeper understanding over the relationship between Malvolio and his experiments.
"I had a lot of friends 'til I drove them 'round the bend
And then they left me all alone, and so I roam around the globe
In search of new shiny buddies, to share with them my worries
And my joys and my toys and my secret jars of poison
I searched up high, I searched down low
But no matter where I look, no friends began to show
And so I made a list of killers, and wrote them all letters
Asking lots of friendly questions, with all the best intent they told me!"
"Don't ask your questions to the wall ("Don't ask the wall!")
They keep their secrets locked inside ("Locked inside!")
If blood and bones are what you want ("Are what you want!")
I suggest that you look behind you!"
"I keep each letter in a box under my bed
Really rocks 'cause when I'm sad I just read all of them again
I sent them drawings done in crayon, and plans for domination
Even cute little collages of their exploits from the papers
And when they get out, we will be friends
Bestest buddies until the end
We'll go on picnics, with long pork sammies
But I keep thinking 'bout what, what they told me!"
Rouske's character revolves around his relationship with his birthplace, Yahar'ghul. In Rouske's personal belief, since Yahar'ghul is inherently horrible (may have to do with the influence of the slumbering and dreaming Paragon of Extinction under it, maybe not), so is Rouske himself, due to being born in Yahar'ghul, which is not a great thought process especially while he is the leading Archbishop upholding the status quo and then some. Rouske had this belief challenged by someone he barely remembers in the present day, someone he only refers to as "Yūrei", and would later develop a sense of nihilism towards the state of the multiverse outside the dream Yahar'ghul is anchored to, though this nihilism would be challenged in the second WIP of the An Old Ballad of Chance and Ember Hearts Trilogy, called A Chance Dance With Death, by the protagonists Jade Smith and Jasmine Rafiq. Rouske is someone who believes that the Omniscience is deliberately designed to be unfair and cruel and prone to disaster, leading to unnecessary suffering on mass (like within Yahar'ghul, only that's Yahar'ghul's nature, so it's different), and to end that suffering, everything must end. Of course, Rouske doesn't believe it to be fair that everyone should go along with the multiverse's destruction, and believes that if there's on good deed he can do, it's to shepherd the last remnants of humanity into the only space safe from the Paragon of Extinctions flames... its dream. Unfortunately, throughout this arc, Rouske just spirals down from there.
"I lost all my goodbyes when I set you free
I tried with open eyes but I couldn't see
Keep it spiraling
Keep it spiraling
Cover me and give me a lifeline
Give me a lifeline
Give me a lifeline
Cover me and give me a lifeline
Give me a lifeline
Give me a lifeline
Cover me
Why don't you ever follow me into my dreams
Bright lights running through fire and spiralling
Keep it spiraling!"
And lastly as song about my Resident Vault 76er OC, Vega, the protagonist of What Happened To Vault Number 76? from my Fallout series called A Radioactive Calamity of Love, Bombs & Gore. Vega is... amongst other things, delusional when it comes to her perception of how others have treated and "wronged" her, leading Vega on a vengeful (really spiteful) path to rid all of her former neighbors in Vault 76, especially the Overseer whom she is definitely not obsessed with nor is attracted to. She also has a ridiculously lucky and easy time in convincing a visiting Arcane Urias and his brother Matthias Talos on sticking around with her and helping in her quest to murder all her former vault dwellers before the plague or the radiation does.
"My friends don't walk, they run
Skinny dip in rabbit holes for fun
Poppin', poppin' balloons with guns
Getting high off helium
We paint white roses red
Each shade from a different person's head
This dream, this dream is a killer
Getting drunk with a blue caterpillar
I'm peeling the skin off my face
'Cause I really hate being safe
The normals, they make me afraid
The crazies, they make me feel sane
I'm nuts, baby, I'm mad
The craziest friend that you've ever had
You think I'm psycho, you think I'm gone
Tell the psychiatrist something is wrong
Over the bend, entirely bonkers
You like me best when I'm off my rocker
Tell you a secret, I'm not alarmed
So what if I'm crazy? The best people are
All the best people are crazy
All the best people are-!"
