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neshabeingchildish · 4 years

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T'is Now the Very Witching Time of Night

Nobody asked for this, but here goes, anyway. TW for mentions of blood and death. @chenoahchantel @adorkable-blackgirl @henryhearts @henry-p-fart @up-the-tube @ciara-knightly @cactus-con @chenryontop @riebellion @kiddangers @oof--musicals @rorythevambire (I know I don’t normally tag you, but hell, Happy Halloween Lil’ Suga)

"'Tis now the very witching time of night, when churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out contagion to this world."

- William Shakespeare, Hamlet

She sensed them, but she wasn’t yet sure where they were making their entrance. There was a lot of evil in Swellview… Not like Derry, but there was enough, that each Halloween season, she had another battle. Oftentimes, she just barely won. At least once, she lost. That was the Year of the Werewolves. And now, Swellview was teeming with them. Werewolves. She didn’t mind werewolves so much, most of the time. Most of them were nice people who just wanted to function… But, Nature had spoken. The full moon made them someone else and when they were, not only were humans in danger, but witches were generally blamed and targeted for the inexplicable nature of those werewolf crimes. But this… This was much worse than the Year of the Werewolves.

Swellview had a few vampire families, more than its fair share of werewolf clans and now… demons threatened to slip through the veil. She sensed that a dark witch had summoned them, but she was unsure if that was accurate, or her mind trying to rectify the fact that she could feel an impending demonic presence rushing towards her town.

She’d passed several types, all night, as was usually the case. But, the number of ghouls was alarming… and she expected that they were drawn to the presence, too… They knew that they may soon have dead bodies to feed on. This better not bring in a new awakening of zombies! She thought. Because demons taking over people, some dying as a result, ghouls feeding on them… when the veil is open, during the witching hour on Samhain? That could lead to freakin’ zombies, and she didn’t want to be stuck on necromancer duties tonight! She turned suddenly towards two boys, walking behind her and lifted a hand, prepared to defend herself.

The werewolf was most likely harmless. Witches and werewolves rarely warred. But, the vampire… he was still quite young, probably quite hungry, because she hadn’t seen any reports of changed ones or gotten any wind of robbed blood banks, missing persons, or increase of sanguinated animals. He was in a Kid Danger outfit… He looked just the frick like Kid Danger. He pushed the werewolf behind him and held out a hand towards Charlotte, the witch. “Hey… No need for a fight tonight. It’s our time to just relax. You should try it,” he said.

She frowned and didn’t lower her hand, “What are a vampire and a werewolf doing fraternizing? You’re young. Your brood should know better to let you roam freely tonight, especially with this in the air,” she pointed towards the sky with her free hand. “Are you TRYING to give the demons additional dark energy to saturate this place with their evil?”

“What?” he said and folded his arms, “There’s no such things as demons. That’s just a word that humans use when they can’t identify children of the night or undead entities.”

She sighed and shook her head, “Get back to your den, and you too, especially. Don’t you know that there will be a full moon tonight? Am I the only freakin’ knowledgeable mystic that cares about the laws of nature and the dangers of interrupting them?”

“Uh, YEAH! You’re the only servant of nature in town and you think that you’re better than us because of it.”

“Why are you talking like you know me?” She wondered.

“Ummm, I’m not. I’m just presuming, because you’re a witch and every vampire knows that witches believe us to be an abomination…” She made a clenching gesture and removed his mask. He clicked his teeth. “Well… You knew that I was a vampire, anyway,” Henry Hart said.

“Yeah, I did,” she finally lowered her hand. Henry Hart was harmless. Well… Not harmless. All vampires were dangerous, because their “nature” was to feed on humans. They called themselves Children of the Night. The witches called them Children of Hell. Their creation was not of this world, but in a dark place, of those that nature created and those that Lilith created. They were basically demons in human form, and she almost couldn’t believe that Henry didn’t know that his kind hailed from demons, but… he wasn’t that smart. She left he and Jasper to whatever crap they would get into tonight and continued on her path, but they continued too. “Stop following me.”

Jasper offered, “We were heading this way already!” He caught up with her and wondered, “Do… You need help with the demons?”

“Jasper, you’re no match for any type of demon, even at your strongest, much less a legion of them.”

“Well, you know that Henry is Kid Danger, so maybe we can help that way!”

“Jasp… Dude!”

“What, she just ripped your mask off. She knows that it’s you!”

“She ripped off my mask ON HALLOWEEN!” Henry said.

Charlotte waved a hand and said, “Have your couples quarrel elsewhere, please?” She held out her arm and an owl flew in from the sky and perched itself on it. Charlotte removed a satchel from the bird and looked inside of it. She sighed, communicating with it and then said to the boys, “On second thought, you’d better come with me.” She shook her arm one good time and the owl flew away again. “I may need your help, after all.”

“What can we do?” Jasper had asked.

While Henry wondered, “Why should we help you?”

“Because… I just figured out something. Captain Man must be a vampire. He’s indestructible. He’s not a witch, or I would have sensed him here, and he has a vampire sidekick who only recently changed… like this year, I’m guessing?”

“Vampires have a whole lot more going for them than being indestructible!” Henry defended.

“They do… But, being either a daywalker or having some type of powerful protection against the sun, he’d still have to keep up pretenses. An irresponsible science accident is a pretty good cover, because he could always blame any vampire characteristics on side effects, should they ever show up. But, he’d hide most of them - superspeed, shapeshifting - if he’s old enough or skilled enough to pull that off, flight, if that’s still a vampire feature… He’d keep the rest of us as in the dark as possible. Now that I’m convinced, all I would have to do is get within eyesight of him and she clenched her fist and Henry toppled over, holding himself.

“Henry? Henry??? Charlotte! Whatever you’re doing, stop it!”

She stopped hurting Henry, but kept walking and said, “And now that I know that Captain Man is a vampire, you’re gonna want me to keep that to myself, right? I just need a favor, and it kinda keeps a demon army from storming Swellview!”

Henry found his footing again and muttered, “All you had to do was ask!” Jasper cupped his face, checking to see that he was okay. He had a little blood coming from his eyes, which he wiped away.

“This is what I need from the two of you… I need the power of three, each an equal portion, thee - the blood of one who is cursed by the sun, next and soon, the blood of one cursed of the full moon. Finally, from the last creature, one who is blessed by Mother Nature.”

“You want our blood???” Henry and Jasper both asked, incredulously.

She looked desperately at them and practically whimpered, “I need it.” She looked at the ground, “Look, I know that I’m not a nice girl. I’m not friendly and I can be judgmental and harsh… But… while Captain Man and Kid Danger have pledged to punch a few stupid humans in the face, I’m the one that has to ward off evil, at least once a year, but definitely usually more frequently. My failures result in things like… Jasper being bitten when he was left in the woods by his parents on the night of a full moon. I couldn’t stop the werewolf increase… But, I can stop THIS; Just… not without your help…”

Henry wasn’t used to Charlotte asking for anything. She was a genius and a magician, what she couldn’t find a scientific solution to, she usually used magic. This was new, and he felt soft for her and her plight.

“Wait… I’m a werewolf because of you?” Jasper asked.

“You’re a werewolf because she didn’t have help trying to stop the werewolves… but, she’s got us for this, at least.” Henry held out his arm and said, “I don’t really know how this works…” She opened her satchel and removed a small goblet, which she held forward and her owl returned and scratched Henry’s forearm. He hissed and Charlotte collected the blood. Jasper looked nervous, but held his arm out too. He was the one who volunteered to help Charlotte in the first place and Henry was right, if they could help, they needed to. The owl circled around and came back for Jasper’s blood next. Then, Charlotte raised her own arm and simply opened a slash and levitated the blood into the cup. With the mixture, she covered the goblet, put it in her satchel and summoned her broom. “Follow me,” she said. Jasper transformed and chased after her while Henry speedily ran, right on her trail as she glistened in the moonlight, her curls blowing in the wind. She stopped and handed her broom off to the owl, which transformed into a girl that looked a lot like Henry’s dead sister. “Piper?” He whispered.

“This is simply a form,” the girl said.

“Shhh. Leave my familiar alone,” Charlotte said, and began to take things out of her satchel.

Jasper caught up, turned back into himself and caught his breath. “Werewolves really didn’t get a good deal on speed,” he complained. They witnessed the ground shattering open and Charlotte began to chant something as Henry and Jasper held on to each other. She sprinkled something, drew on the ground, and uncovered the goblet to pour into the crack in the Earth while others were running away, terrified. She backed away and joined hands with Jasper and Henry, “Take this offering of those who would stand against each other, and those who would stand against you, should you attempt to enter this plane…”

“I’m sorry, what? That’s an offering?” Henry asked.

“Shhh,” she said. “Power of three. It is a huge offering. Werewolves, vampires and witches don’t stand together and against demons, that is a very bold statement. They could try to call my bluff, but that seal would be our first line of defense, if they do. But, I’m hoping that our unity scares them off…” And… it did. There were the wails of demons who apparently were not allowed to cross the barrier and soon, the ground closed. Charlotte released the guys’ hands and dusted hers off. “Thanks. I couldn’t have done it without you,” she said and grabbed her broom.

“Wait… That’s it? What, we go back to being enemies or I don’t know… opponents or whatever? We just saved Swellview together. You don’t wanna celebrate?” Henry wondered.

“We don’t have much time. Jasper’s gonna be changing in like… half an hour,” she said.

“Yeah, yeah… But… I thought maybe the science geek in you would wanna see the Man Cave?” She did wonder about some of their gadgets. She looked into her familiar’s eyes and the girl transformed into an owl and took the broom away.

“Yeah… Okay. That sounds cool. But, what about Jasper?”

“I’ll introduce you to Schwoz. He’s made a pretty cool serum that helps Jasper not to transform from the full moon.”

“A magic serum?”

“Nope. Strictly science!”

“Wow! I DO have to meet that guy!”

“Legend has it that he comes from the family of Dr. Frankenstein!”

“WHAT? Can he make a whole man… out of like spare parts and stuff?” She asked, excitedly.

“Yeah! One so impressive… you thought he might be a vampire!” Henry said. She gasped long and hard and within moments, they were going into Junk N’ Stuff, a place she’d passed numerous times and not sensed a single thing… and as she glanced up at the full moon and heard howling in the distance, she knew that she didn’t have the strength for any more fight tonight, but maybe in the future… she had allies.

#henry danger #hd AU fic #Nesha HD Fics #T'is Now the Very Witching Time of Night #Happy Halloween #Halloween #Nesha Oneshots #oneshot #holidays and special occasions

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mambasaid · 6 years

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Scorpion Review (Side A)

Before I get into this review, I’d like to start off by giving you a synopsis of my history with Drake and his music.

Like a lot of Drake fans, I was introduced to Drake’s music when So Far Gone was released early in 2009. I may have heard a few of his songs with Lil Wayne prior to that, but I binge watched a lot of Family Guy and South Park around that time so my memory for most of 2008-2010 is pretty spotty. I really just remember chicken fights and singing pieces of shit (no, I’m not talking about Chris Brown) with random songs sprinkled throughout. Anyway, my point is that if I did hear anything by Drake prior to So Far Gone I didn’t find it compelling enough to skim through the rest of his discography, but So Far Gone was a different beast entirely. The production was incredible; a lot of the beats made me feel as if I was in a dream. Drake’s lyrics were also noteworthy; as a rapper Drake has his flaws, but he has always been a technically proficient rapper who was not afraid to come across as vulnerable, and I have always respected that. That combination is rare today, but it was nearly unheard of back in 2009; at least in the realm of mainstream hip hop. So here we had a lyricist with a great ear for production who was even able to sing pretty well on occasion; I was all in. I went back and downloaded Drake’s two prior mixtapes, Comeback Season, which is still great, and Room For Improvement, which is an interesting listen, but not really all that good, and played both of them dozens of times. For a few months in 2009 I was a full-fledged Drake stan.

However, Drake had slowly started to fall out of my good graces by the time his debut album, Thank Me Later, came out in 2010. In hindsight, I don’t really remember why. Maybe it was the fact that he was singing too much for my taste. I was a stereotypical hip hop head back then. All I wanted were complex punchlines and rhyme schemes over a gritty or soulful beat and I was satisfied. Drake definitely had his fair share of “lyrical miracle” songs, but he also started to venture into R&B territory a bit too much for my liking. For whatever reason, I thought that his music was too “soft” and self-indulgent. I grew up in the suburbs, so I really have no right to call anybody soft, but that’s how I felt at the time. I definitely liked quite a few of the song that Drake was putting out, but I just didn’t view him as the guy who was going to bring “real hip hop” back to the mainstream anymore. On Take Care, which is still probably his best album, Wheelchair Jimmy Champagne Papi The light-skinned Keith Sweat Drake continued to toe the line between rapper and singer, and I was such a hip hop elitist that I dismissed damn near ⅓ of the album because Drake was singing too much. I’ll save my final thoughts on that album for another day, but I certainly didn’t give that album it’s due at the time.

As Drake continued to dominate the radio with inescapable songs, he became harder to hate on. Eventually, I accepted the fact that Drake was no longer

Survival

This is fine for an intro, but it’s a bit underwhelming when compared to Drake’s past introductions. He even says that he doesn’t want to get ahead of himself because this is “Just the intro” when on prior opening tracks he has rapped much longer, sometimes for what felt like an eternity, and used the intro to catch us up to speed on what has been going in his life since his last album dropped. Here he mostly treads water, bringing up the Meek Mill and Diddy beefs he was involved in over 3 years ago, although he does seem to take a few shots at Kanye. Anyway, this was pretty good, just not as epic as I was expecting. “My Mount Rushmore is me with four different expressions” is an all-time great Drake line, though.

Nonstop

I hate this song. The beat is fine, but this is probably the most annoying flow and cadence that Drake has ever used. In the second verse he starts doing this weird thing where he mumble whispers (?) the first half of each bar, then raps the second half in his regular voice, and it’s just terrible. On top of that, the song title isn’t even accurate because I stopped this track at least six times to make sure that this was actually a song by Drake and not something from Lil Overdose’s new album. This might be Drake’s worst song ever.

Elevate

There was literally no way this song could have been worse than Nonstop, so at least it already had that going for it. This song still isn’t anything special, though. I like this beat a lot, its celebratory and ominous at the same time, I imagine this is the beat Thanos heard once he got all six soul stones and snapped his finger. Unfortunately, Drake didn’t snap on here, so we get a lot of very forgettable lines. Girls seem to love that line about God playing favorites, though.

Emotionless

After giving Drake a pretty mundane beat for Survival, No I.D completely redeems himself here by giving Drake one of the best beats of his career; it’s so soulful. Drake uses the first verse to take more shots at Kanye and Pusha T, and uses the second verse to make excuses about why we didn’t know he had a son until Pusha played detective. Props to him for calling out the people who take dozens of pictures when they go on vacation for 2 days then post those pictures a month later so they can flex like they’re still vacationing, but what the hell does that have to do with us knowing you have a kid? Your son barely even knows that you exist, so how do you expect him to know about the lives of people on social media? The kid won’t be old enough to even understand what is on a phone for several years. It’s a good line, but it is also really dumb, but this is hip hop, not a thesis defense, so I’ll let it slide. Finally, a song I want to listen to again.

God’s Plan

Originally released as part of Drake’s Scary Hours EP, along with another way better song called Diplomatic Immunity, God’s Plan quickly rocketed up the charts and became one of Drake’s most successful songs ever. I like it, I just don’t understand why it was so popular. Drake has released a lot of other singles that I felt were destined to be chart toppers in the past, but for whatever reason this one was way more successful.

I’m Upset

This song came out a day after Drake’s Duppy Freestyle, a track that became a bit of a footnote after Pusha T sonned him on The Story of Adidon, but still a good diss in its own right. Duppy got a pretty warm reception when it first dropped, and I think I’m Upset initially suffered because of that. There is a pretty stark contrast between the two songs. Duppy has more of a classic hip hop feel, with more of an old school beat and Drake adopting a quicker flow with a lot of slick punchlines. I’m Upset is very clearly a modern hip hop song, Drake raps over a much slower beat and gives us a lot of lines that are easy to digest and remember, the type of lines you would see under a picture on Instagram, but that isn’t such a bad thing. While this isn’t one of Drake’s best songs by any measure, I do think it’s better than people initially gave it credit for. Ironically, Pusha’s diss track that dropped a few days later makes this song sound better, as a lot of the first verse is clearly about his baby’s mother.

8 out of 10

Drake mentions that he likes to take things from an 8 to a 10, which sounded nice until I remembered that he once rapped about going from 0 to 100 real quick. Now I’m left wondering if he has slowed down and abandoned his more reckless ways now that he has a baby to care for. Anyway, upon first hearing Scorpion, this was one of my favorite songs. However, after listening to Joe Budden’s excellent breakdown of the meaning behind a lot of these lines, I’m beginning to realize that, even though I liked this song, I didn’t really appreciate it as much as I should have. Drake utilizes Boi 1da’s beat to take more shots at Kanye and Pusha T, but a lot of the lines are so subtle that they might fly over your head, and I mean that as a compliment. When he wants to be, Drake really is a lyricist, and he puts that on full display in this song. Listen to Budden’s analysis of the bridge for this song and tell me this man doesn’t care about what he writes. This is my favorite song on this album by a pretty wide margin at this point in time.

Mob Ties

Aside from maybe Chance the Rapper, Drake is pretty much the least threatening rapper to have ever lived. Not only does he spend like 40% of his discography crooning or crying to women, but even his public persona is that of an unabashedly a corny guy. He is like the opposite of Doggystyle era Snoop Dogg and that’s completely fine, people love him for it, so why does he always have these random songs in which he transforms into Only Built for Cuban Linx era Raekwon and pretends to be some kind of mob boss? We know you’re not putting hits out on people dude, just chill. Granted, a lot of rap is built on people building up fake personas, but at least they stick to them. Yeah Rick Ross is a liar, but the guy has always stuck to his character. We know so much about Drake’s personal life that it’s hard for me to take any threats that he makes seriously. Anyway, I didn’t mean to rant for so long, this song is ok. I like this beat, but I just don’t think it was well suited for Drake, it seems more like something Migos would have picked.

Can’t Take a Joke

Lmaooooooooooo what is this flow? Maybe this song really is a joke because this weird sing/rap flow actually made me laugh the first time I heard it. Aside from Nonstop, this is pretty easily my least favorite song on the A side. I’ll be skipping this one.

Sandra’s Rose

Drake finally got a beat from the legendary DJ Premier and the collaboration doesn’t disappoint, I do wish Preemo had scratched on the hook, though. This isn’t an all-time great Premier beat, but it does the job, and so does Drake. While there are a few pretty weak bars in here, most of the punchlines are on point, so much so that a few of them went over my head on my first listen, and Drake rides the beat well. I wish Drake would rap over beats like these more often, my 3 favorite songs on this side have all featured soulful vocal samples.

Talk It Up

Drake and Jay-Z seem to have thrown subliminal shots at each other several times in their careers, yet Jay seems to be one of Drake’s favorite collaborators (he has appeared on 3 Drake albums, as many as Lil Wayne). Drake has a cute little double entendre about lump sums, but aside from that his verse is pretty forgettable. Jay fairs a little bit better, but not really. It seems like 2010 Jay usually only raps about being a boss or his past as a drug dealer, and on this track he chooses the latter. Jay’s verse is ok, but this pretty easily the weakest of their 3 collaborations, which is a pretty impressive feat given that Jay spent his second verse on Pound Cake interpolating a Rihanna song. This was kind of a waste of a great DJ Paul beat.

Is There More?

Drake asks the same question that I have been asking for the vast majority of this album. I would have sworn that this was a 40 beat, but it was produced by Wallis Lane. This is one of Drake’s better lyrical performances on the album, arguably his best. Drake presents himself as someone who has finally made it, but is now left wondering what else there is to accomplish. However, Drake spends a lot of this song bragging about how successful he is rather than talking about how becoming successful has left him feeling empty, so I wonder what his goal was with this song. The title and the beat suggest that the song would be more introspective, and a few lines in the first verse are, but most of this sounds more like Drake asserting his dominance over the rap game again. Even if the subject matter is a bit confusing, this is not a bad way to end this side.

Side B

Trash, this whole side sounds like a bootleg Jon B album. Maybe that’s why he called it side B.

I’m just kidding! I’ll give my thoughts on Side B soon, but that’s a lot more to write and a lot more for you guys to read, so for now I’ll stop here and give you my thoughts on Side A. This isn’t a bad album, but it’s pretty bland. There are a few highlights, most of which feature soul beats, but Drake sounds very uninspired on the majority of this album. He switches up his flow every now and then, but it’s usually to his detriment, and a lot of the punchlines on here are bad or non-existent. Drake has always had an excellent ear for production, and that remains true on this album; there isn’t a bad beat on here, I just think Drake used them wrong or wasn’t suited for them.

Swishes: Emotionless, 8 out of 10, Sandra’s Rose

Bricks: Nonstop, Can’t Take a Joke

Overall, I’d give Side A a 6/10

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