#The detours was the original name of which band

[trustwash]

The detours was the original name of which band

THE DETOURS WAS THE ORIGINAL NAME OF WHICH BAND SERIES

Well while there is much speculation, it has recently been discussed at the offical Weezer message board, that Rivers Cuomo weezer's front man had a dream of a man with a flaming pie, the man with the pie was from outer space. Weezer frontman had bad athsma when he was a kid Rivers himself has openly admitted that this is not what Weezer are named after. It's popular misconception that Weezer are named after River's supposed asthma. Mickey Melchiondo and Aaron Freeman (the real names of Dean and Gene Ween respectively) decided that "any self-respecting members of a band should share the same surname" (in homage to the Ramones.) So, they picked out the name Ween and chose new first names to fit along with it. The name is a mix of the 2 words: Weiner and Penis. On top of the Ramones-same-last-name thing, I read that Ween was a mix of the words "wuss" and "peen" (short for penis) The rest of the group always thought it was funny, so that's what they named the band. Since he is left with only a nub, he calls it a Ween. I have read that the lead singer was in an accident when he was younger, and his weiner got cut off. The band is named after the song by The Undertones. It was a reaction to some 2004 anti-gay legislation that Bush proposed. The band's tag line is appropriately "Let Go." One night at practice, Eric Coiner (the bass player) quoted a line from that scene and it stuck. Wedge was one of the few pilots to survive the death star battle. The name came from a Star Wars character - Wedge Antilles. The missing vowels were "taken" by the bassist in 1983 and never returned. Was, not was.Īs a spigot made of wicker would not function by design, the band views itself similarly in relation to music. The Was brothers' family name is pronounced "wAHs" not like the word "was." Everyone kept mispronouncing their names. They took the name out of Bowie's song because they admired his music so much. Warsaw was the first name Ian Curtis' band, Joy Division. So as an homage to him, he named the the band Warrant. It is rumored that the guitar player (Eric) in the band was a huge fan of RATT and more so of their Lead guitar player Warren DeMartini. However, it is worth noting that the band is in fact from Kent in southeast England. Supposedly, named after Wang Chung Way, a tiny street in LA's Chinatown, where there was a Chinese restaurant which put on punk shows upstairs. I don't believe it is Chinese for "perfect pitch" as some have claimed. The sound a guitar makes when you strike a string. Named after the Indonesian slang term for a lug wrench (onomatopoetic phrase that describes the sound of a dropped lug wrench). I saw an interview with the band where they said the name referred to the sound of an electric guitar being strummed up, then back down. however, jakob's said that's incorrect and that it's all in the dinner theory. the photographer made a comment saying how they looked like a bunch of wallflowers. another popular theory around is that while the guys were at a photoshoot, they were pretty shy, standing off to the side. he said it was hard enough for 5 people to decide what to order, let alone choose a name that they'd have for the rest of the band's career. it was basically the only name that nobody hated. Jakob posted on the band' site saying that they came up with "the wallflowers" after sitting around the dinner table. Don't just stand there like Wallflowers." He said something along the lines of "Do Something. The name owes it's origin to a comment made by a photographer, while having a picture of the band taken.

THE DETOURS WAS THE ORIGINAL NAME OF WHICH BAND SERIES

The name comes from a traditional song on Bob Dylan's Bootleg Series compilation. It was the only thing written on a white board in the room where they first rehearsed. Originally this was the working title of an instrumental song but soon became the band name. But when asked directly the only answer is "We Ain't Sure, Pal". We Are Sexual Perverts is inscribed around the self titled LP album. We Are Sexual Perverts is inscribed around the label on their self titled debut LP. W.A.S.P simply are short for We Are Satans People. Read in an interview, the members were bored and said the name sounded cool

[slexenskee]

Detour (MDNSY Oneshot)

For an ask about the reactions of the JJK cast on MDNSY Gojo's... everything 😂

Scrubstan22 finds himself in the (un)enviable position of explaining Ru-kun to the JJK cast

(Link here: or read below)

Nanabi Shun, better known by his online handle ‘Scrubstan22’ is having his most surreal day yet. An unhinged mad scientist turned villain with a space-time quirk and an obsession with Ru-kun that borders on the same level as even the most delusional of Scrubs, has accidentally flung him, an innocent bystander, into an alternate dimension. 

This would be terrifying, if it wasn’t apparently some kind of alternate dimension where Ru-kun’s anime is real. 

And not only is it real… it’s apparently Ru-kun’s true origin story?? 

To be fair, it’s still terrifying, but Scrubstan22 has more pressing matters to focus on than his own mortality and possible impending doom. 

Gojo Satoru apparently exists in this world— but Ru-kun does not. 

It’s utterly absurd! It’s unreasonable and unfair! Maybe those songs really do already exist in this world— as the very unamused talking Panda keeps trying to tell him— but if No Scrubs and Ru-kun aren’t performing it, then they don’t actually exist at all! Nanabi couldn’t possibly put into words how life-changing it was to see Ru-kun perform in person. The fact that he doesn’t exist in this world— or at least not as the shit-posting global celebrity rockstar that Nanabi knows him as— is really quite sad. These poor kids don’t know what they’re missing out on. As a major Scrub and Ru-kun simp, Nanabi just can’t let this slide. He has to rectify it immediately. 

Luckily he has a perfect solution.

His entire downloaded archive of all things No Scrubs and Ru-kun.

Some of Gojo Satoru’s students are more impressed than others. 

“I hate that he looks so good in that skirt,” comes from the glasses-wearing girl. Maki, he thinks is her name. He only watched through the anime once so he’s pretty bad with the names of all the side characters.  

“I should have known he’d make an excellent Sailor Moon after he stole my uniform.” Kugisaki Nobara complains, looking exactly as her character does in the anime. 

Neither of them are enthused to see Ru-kun in his crossdressing glory, but Nanabi notices they’re unwillingly enthralled nonetheless. 

Itadori Yuuji himself— the main character of Cursed Fight Season One— is unsurprisingly the most enthusiastic about it all. He nearly climbs over Nanabi for a better look at the recording on his phone, eyes alight. 

“Sensei is so cool as a rockstar! It really suits him well!” Itadori exclaims, delighted. “And he’s singing ‘My Chemical Romance’? Sensei has such good taste!”

“He’s just an emo-punk loser who clearly had way too much time on his hands,” Fushiguro Megumi protests, although despite his inflammatory remarks he too doesn’t look away from the screen. 

Apparently quite a few No Scrubs’ songs are from this band ‘My Chemical Romance’. Yuuji even shows him the music video of the same song from the actual band just to prove it, although that was wholly unnecessary. Nanabi believes him when he says all these songs already exist in this world and belong to other bands— he just doesn’t care. If anything, seeing the other bands perform it just confirms what he already believed; Ru-kun does it better. 

Nanabi is happy to show them all the fan recordings he has of No Scrubs, gushing over the various outfit choices and the songs themselves. It’s actually kind of nice that these songs exist already, because that means these kids already know them and he can argue about which are superior without having to explain. Itadori’s favorite is ‘A Loaded God Complex’, called ‘Sugar We’re Goin’ Down’ in this world (although Itadori admits the changed title suits Ru-kun far more), Fushiguro’s is ‘Island in the Sun’, and Panda translates that Inumaki’s is ‘Thanks for the Memories’, but Panda himself confesses he’s unfamiliar with this genre of music. The two girls decry all their picks as boring, and don’t seem particularly impressed by any of Ru-kun’s songs until—

“Paramore!!” The two girls screech in unison, suddenly looking a lot more invested than they had earlier. 

Nanabi has up a recording from the Scrubs Unite tour, which Ru-kun had done entirely in drag. They’d finally gotten to the encore, where Ru-kun had tried to weasel his female bandmates into singing the encore song, insisting it was made for a female vocalist. They summarily denied him, so he ended up singing the song himself, called Misery Business. It’s one of Nanbi’s favorite performances, and one Ru-kun hasn’t done since. 

Even Maki and Kugisaki are begrudgingly impressed. 

“He sounds like a male Hayley Williams— that’s so fucking unfair,” Kugisaki denounces, despairing. “Why does that bastard have to be good at everything, seriously.” 

“The outfit is pretty spot on too, if he just dyed his hair, it’d be a great cosplay.” Maki agrees, sourly. 

“Does he play anything else from Riot?” Kugsaki rounds on him. “What about That’s What You Get?”

Nanabi looks up at her helplessly. “Sorry, I don’t think so. But they apparently have a ton of unreleased stuff though, so maybe I just haven’t heard it.”

Apparently back when No Scrubs was truly an underground band playing random shows at dive bars, they had an insanely large setlist. Most of those songs never made it onto any of the official recordings. He’s heard rumors online that there’s a vinyl floating around, but aside from a single interview with All Might, has no real confirmation of its existence. 

“I think it’s awesome that Sensei has an alternate personality as a rockstar,” Yuuji enthuses, looking rather fond and indulgent as he stares down at Ru-kun strutting across a stage. “I hope it’s more relaxing than being The Strongest all the time.”

Nanabi blinks at him. “Oh. He’s that too.” 

The Jujutsu Tech students stare at him blankly. “... What?” 

//

As it turns out, they’re all collectively more confused and bewildered by the whole Sixwings thing than they are the ‘world’s strongest’ thing. In this world, since the moment of his birth Gojo Satoru was always meant to be the strongest. That he can destroy armies in the blink of an eye and pull out purple-laser-death-beams-of-doom (apparently a technique called Hollow Purple in this world) and walk through explosions unscathed is just common knowledge among the Jujutsu World. 

So all of his footage of Dabi’s many international exploits was met with a genial disinterest. 

His media folder of Sixwings, however…

“He’s… really in a relationship?” Kugisaki looks utterly confounded. “A normal, healthy, longterm relationship?”

“He’s getting married?” Maki sounds bewildered.

“He has a kid?” Fushiguro sounds unimpressed. 

Panda scratches his chin. “Huh. Hey, that’s good for him! He sounds like he’s actually a well-adjusted and normal guy.” 

“Is his boyfriend a psychopath?” Kugisaki asks, urgently. “I really can’t see how else this would work out.”

“Not at all! Hawks is well-known as a very charming and friendly hero. He’s actually a really good guy.” Nanabi protests. 

Kugisaki squints at him. “How the hell does he put up with him then?”

Nanabi smiles sheepishly. “Uh… he’s pretty easygoing I guess?” 

Maki is leaning over him for a better look at his phone, using her fingers to zoom in on the photo he has up of Hawks and Ru-kun at the U.A. School Festival. He doesn’t swing that way, but even he has to admit they looked really good that day. And with Eri thrown in on top of it? It’s no wonder they’re regularly voted as the cutest couple in Japan.

“Damn. They actually look really good together.” Maki says, begrudging. 

“Tuna, tuna.” Inumaki pokes Panda in the side.

Panda gives a solemn nod. “Inumaki-kun has a good point. What’s all this gossip about a Sixwings baby?”

“Oh, that’s Eri-chan.” Nanabi scrolls down to a better photo of her. There’s one from the Ru-kun signing event at Tower Records, where a sinfully good-looking Ru-kun is holding her on his hip and waving out to the crowds. “She’s the child he birthed from his own body.”

Fushiguro blinks rapidly. “He what now?”

“He’s fucking with you.” Kugisaki denies immediately. 

Nanabi shrugs. “Maybe— but no one knows for sure! To be honest, none of his powers make much sense to us, so some people believe it and others don’t.”

Maki’s expression turns worried. “Well, they’re not all that clear to us either… I mean, there’s a lot you can do with cursed energy…”

She glances up at Panda. Panda just gives her a thumbs up. “That’s right! I mean, I exist, so who knows!”

“There’s a couple different rumors about it, but none are confirmed.” Nanabi fills them in with a gleeful expression. “The main one is that she really is the Sixwings baby, and they had her when they were teenagers and kept it a secret. There’s also a couple variations where Eri is his child, but the regular way, but he’s slept with a lot of people and none of them were women so people are pretty skeptical about it. Then there’s also the theory that he did birth her from his own body, but not with Hawks. There’s no real guesses on who her father is for that one.”

His companions look at him with varying degrees of incredulity. Nanabi spreads his hands. “The likely answer is he’s just messing with everyone and she’s adopted, but like I said, we really don’t know!”

Itadori doesn’t really seem to care about the truth either way, grabbing at his phone to scroll through the photos. “They’re so cute together! Haha, she really kind of even does look like sensei a little bit! She’s definitely just as stylish as he is!”

Itadori keeps scrolling until he gets to the infamous Swing incident, saved in all its glory in an endless gif format. 

They all stare in silence as, on screen, Gojo Satoru gets KO’d by his kid on a swing set over and over again. 

“Send me that.” Kugisaki demands. 

//

Scrubstan22 gets rescued eventually. It’s a pretty boring affair, truth be told. He didn’t see any real curses, or any kind of fighting. 

Gojo doesn’t return to campus until long after the sun has set, to the bizarre scene of all his students shoving their phones at poor Nanami, who looks as if he regretted ever coming in person to turn in his paperwork. They’re apparently trying to show Nanami photos of Gojo in drag, despite his vocal protests. The moment they lay eyes on him they pounce on him instead. None of their explanations make any sense. There’s something about him being a rockstar, and also married, and apparently a mother, and they have plenty of blurry photo evidence they try to shove at him. It looks like they all took photos of someone else’s screenshots, so the quality leaves much to be desired. Maybe if he squints really hard, that does kind of look like him in a mini skirt, but who’s to say really? 

Unfortunately for the students, the space-time continuum rights itself overnight and they all lose their collective memory of Scrubstan22 and his alternate-universe. But the digital evidence remains, and occasionally Kugisaki will pull out her phone and watch a very random gif of Gojo-sensei getting smacked to the ground by a kid on a swing, and while she has no idea where it came from, she draws immense satisfaction from it anyway. 

[sidlyrics]

【Hamamatsuchou→Tamachi】 Since Aki was around Hamamatsuchou, we went for a walk together 【Yamanote line #26】

This is a translation of this video of Shinya (Dir en Grey) and Aki. The official subs are up, but they were posted after I had done more than half of the translation, so I decided to finish it anyway.

When Aki was talking about his beliefs, the part about the cardinal directions was super confusing to me (not just the vocabulary, but the concept), so I’ll try to ask him to explain and hopefully correct any possible misunderstandings (update: I asked and still didn’t understand lmao).

Shinya: Hi! It's me, Shinya! Today's plan for our weekly walk around the Yamanote line is brought to you from Hamamatsuchou station. Cameraman: Let's go! Shinya: It seems that this is the main entrance. Cameraman: We were sort of passing by. Shinya: Right. Today the weather is great. Cameraman: It is. Shinya: Wait a sec. There's someone there... Cameraman: Huh? Shinya: What the...? He's checking the angle of view. Cameraman: He looks a little familiar, though. Let's go check. Shinya: Let's see. Cameraman: I get the feeling that I've seen him before. Shinya: It does feel that way. It's the silhouette, right? Look! He's still doing that. Ah, the view, the trains... He's trainspotting! He’s checking the wind. Aki: Eh? What are you doing here, Shinya? It's been a long time, right? Shinya: It's Aki from SID. Aki: Yes, I'm Aki from SID. Why are you at my most private spot? Shinya: On the contrary, what were you doing? Aki: At 2pm on Mondays... Shinya: Waiting for the shinkansen? Aki: I'm cultivating my sensitivity everyday. Shinya: I'll be walking now to Tamachi. Aki: Isn't that great? I don't know the area at all. Shinya: Do you want me to show you around? Aki: Cool. Shinya: First of all, that's Tokyo Tower. Aki: I see. Speaking of which, it’s a good example, right? Shinya: Then let's go that way. Aki: Do you know its height? Shinya: Around 333 meters. Aki: You actually knew it, didn't you? Shinya: No way was I expecting Aki to be up there. I'm glad I looked up. Aki: Right. The only place I know in Hamamatsuchou is that railroad switch. Speaking of Daimon station, I have a memory... We met for the first time at the house of a certain senior of mine, right? Shinya: Yes, yes. Aki: The area around these stations, you know, didn't it often become our base of operations? Like a meeting spot. That was just a natural development, right? Cameraman: That was the first time you two met? Aki: The house of that senpai... Shinya: Well, but for me it was a junior... Aki: I don’t have to hide his name. It was Kagerou, right? So actually we first met at Daisuke's house. Cameraman: Ah, so you met there. Aki: We've been good friends since then. Shinya: It was more than 10 years ago. Aki: Absolutely. Wasn't it even longer ago? Shinya: Around 20 years. But SID was still an indie band. Aki: Right. That's a long time... We saw each other and all that in many different places, right? Shinya: Yes, yes. Cameraman: I definitely also have the impression that you two get along really well. Aki: We really do. Cameraman: Plan-wise, we were originally going to go along the railroad track, right? We might as well go there. Shinya: To a place like a shrine. Cameraman: Let's calmly go there. It doesn't feel like a detour, so I say that today we head towards Tamachi station from there. Aki: This looks like a place to grab a drink along the way. Shinya: I've never tried it [in his videos]. Aki: Is it not okay? Cameraman: We rarely go in shops. Aki: Ah, okay. Are you busy? Shinya: Not at all. It was my birthday the other day. Aki: Ah, that's right. Shinya: But there wasn't much else. Aki: It was my birthday as well! Shinya: I sent him a message on LINE on the day. Aki: Was it on LINE? Shinya: Yes. Aki: I see, I see. Shinya: There was no reply. Aki: It's just that I just... I replied just now. Yeah, now... This... That's a lame excuse, right? Got it! I'll treat you to a taiyaki. I'll give you a taiyaki as a present. Ah, oops. I don't have my wallet with me. My manager has it. Then, it's fine if I choose based on my impression of Shinya, right? Shinya: Let's try it out once. Aki: I guess it'll be this one. Shinya: That's right. Aki: Excuse me, one of custard, please. [replying to the shop assistant] Yes. Since the cashless payment method that I have is not supported, can I borrow 280 yen? Shinya: I don't have cash either, so which electronic methods can we use? Shop assistant: auPay and tadaima Tokyo+. Aki: Ah, I see. Shinya: Thank you. Who uses that? I don't have cash either. Aki: I see, then, wait. It may work with auPay, I might have around 1000 yen. It may be my first chance to use it. Shinya: It's auPay or tadaima Tokyo+. Aki: It may be possible! Wait, here, maybe... The balance... Ah, there are even 3000 yen! [to the shop assistant] With auPay, please. Shop assistant: Okay, thank you. Shinya: What's auPay? It's the first time I hear about it. Aki: Why? Why do I have 3000 yen? So here it is. Please, take it. Cameraman: A sense of walking the streets, amazing. Shinya: I've been given a birthday present. Cameraman: Birthday present! It's a taiyaki! It's at the corner of this intersection. Ah, have you tried it? Shinya: Yes. Cameraman: How is it? Shinya: Very hot. Cameraman: Ah, Aki as well. How is it? Good? Aki: Yeah, it's good. Cameraman: It's a sudden feeling of walking the streets. Shinya: Isn't it like when we ate the pandas somewhere? Cameraman: Yes. That's it, maybe. Shinya: Right. Cameraman: Are both your taiyaki filled with custard? Aki: Yeah, they are the same. To show our good relationship. Cameraman: Shinya, is it good? Shinya: Yes. It's hot, though. Cameraman: All you say is that it's hot. Shinya: Because I'm sensitive to heat. I'm super sensitive to heat. Is that gate Shibadaimon by any chance? Cameraman: That's what it looks like. Shinya: That's Zojoji temple. Aki: Is it? Shinya: That's already well known. Aki: Ah, a road safety tablet. Shinya: For luck. Aki: Right. Cameraman: Excuse me for disturbing. Shinya: Excuse me for disturbing. Aki: Are you the type to do things like going to a temple on New Year? Shinya: No, I never go. Aki: You don't?! Aaaah... Cameraman: Aren't you going for Hatsumode [visiting a shrine for the first time after the New Year]? Shinya: Because I'm a person who thinks there are no gods. Aki: Really? Shinya: Yes. Aki: I see. Actually, in my case... Doing things right, getting good things to happen, following a good direction from the place in my life where I'm currently at... How to be in a position for good things to happen... Yeah, about that... It is said that you should do things such as going to a temple that is in the direction you've taken. This year I had to go to the east anyway, so I went to Saruda shrine, which is at the end of Chiba prefecture. I got purified. Since last year was a calamitous year for me and this one is also dangerous [when men reach 42, calculated by the traditional method, according to which children are born already being one, it is believed that it's an unlucky age. The year after that is also dangerous. Aki is now 42, so he is in his dangerous year after the most unlucky year], I’d better do it. Shinya: I've had my unlucky year, but it finished without me doing anything. Aki: Really? Shinya: It finished well. Aki: Ah, really? I see. On second thought... Cameraman: You are basically fine? Shinya: Yes. Aki: That's true... Since your ideas are solid already, you say there are no gods? Shinya: Exactly. Cameraman: But have you ever gone for Hatsumode, Shinya? Shinya: In the past. Cameraman: You went. Shinya: I did it for some reason. Aki: But today will be your Hatsumode, of course. Shinya: A magnificent gate. Aki: But it seems that it's best not to record without permission, right? Shinya: Wow, it was great, wasn't it? Cameraman: It was. Aki: It was. It made an impact. Shinya: It did. Aki: You can see at the same time the Tokyo Tower and the main temple building, that's quite a combination. That's unique to Tokyo, right? Shinya: Certainly. Aki: It feels like a temple in Tokyo. What number am I today more or less? Shinya: Are you talking about the guests? Aki: Yes. Shinya: One, two, three... You are the fourth! Aki: The fourth? So it's not been long since you started. Shinya: No, I'm already finishing. Aki: Finishing? Shinya: Yes. Aki: What do you mean you are finishing? Shinya: Well, I basically do it by myself, but I have guests every once in a while for this Yamanote line project. Aki: Ah, I see, I see. You don't have guests every time? Shinya: That's it. Aki: Aaaah. Cameraman: It's just a coincidence, even with Mana. Aki: Should I call them guests, then? Shinya: All of them by chance. Aki: I also do this [looking at trains while doing the hand gesture from the beginning] every week. I do it every week at that spot. Shinya: I don't think I'll go there anymore, though. Cameraman: It's pretty, right? Shinya: Tokyo Tower is amazing. It feels like I can reach it, you know. Aki: It's nearby, but... I've been called before to come here from Atsugi. Shinya: When we met, you came from Atsugi. Aki: A great night. Right, I was in Atsugi. Shinya: How long does it take? Aki: Mmm... I think it takes around 2 hours. Shinya: Is that so? Aki: It's a little over an hour to Shinjuku. And from my home there is a bus which is 15 minutes to the station, so I'd go to Shinjuku and from there I'd also ride that train. If I have to walk, it would be around 2 hours? 2 hours, maybe? If we started at the same time from Shinagawa station, we could go further than Shizuoka and more or less arrive at Nagoya. I would say that's the distance. Isn't it amazing? Shinya: Well, it is what it is. Aki: Right, right. Shinya: Have you lived in the same house for several years? Aki: Yes, for quite a while. Since COVID started, I made various changes to the soundproofing and other things in my studio room so that I could do online lives. I do them at night. I also work then. Shinya: Before COVID, didn't you have things such as a soundproofed door and so on? Aki: I did, I did. It will be seen during lives, right? The general image of the room was too seedy. I thought that I would improve it a little. It was DIY, though. I worked hard. It took reasonable expenses, it's a waste to move. Wouldn't it be annoying? Shinya: Since you have never come before... Aki: Right. Shinya: to my house even though we are good friends... Cameraman: Eeeeh? Aki: It's true. I've never been to Shinya's residence. Cameraman: I had the impression that a lot of people are coming and going to Shinya's house. Shinya: Right, right. Even though everyone is coming... Aki: I was not invited. Shinya: I invited you, though. How many times? Cameraman: To play boardgames? Shinya: Yeah, things like that. Aki: Well, it's like, you always want to play difficult games. Games like Momotaro Dentetsu are fine. Shinya: You only play games easier than Momotaro Dentetsu? Aki: I want to take it easy like playing Momotaro Dentetsu and drinking at home. Aren't you doing anything special? Shinya: No. Cameraman: The number of games at Shinya's house is amazing. Boardgames. Aki: I've heard rumors that there is a pool. Shinya: There isn't. Aki: In the best district of Tokyo. Shinya: It's a pond. Aki: With a pool. Cameraman: A pond. Shinya: A house with a pond. Aki: A pond? A pond is still amazing. Cameraman: The ginkgo trees are amazing, right? Shinya: They are amazing in autumn. Aki: I see. I've heard from mutual bandmen friends that Shinya came out wearing one of my tour t-shirts. Cameraman: What about that, Shinya? Shinya: I don't really remember it. Aki: ASH told me. Did ASH ever go to your house? Shinya: Yes. Aki: When I went to Shinya's house, Shinya was wearing Aki's tshirt. It was revealed. Shinya: I probably was in my loungewear. Aki: Did I give it to you? Why do you have it? I'm grateful, though. Cameraman: You went drinking and such quite frequently, right? Aki: Absolutely. We often meet. Even though we don't perform together, we end up at the same places. A long time ago I was the one who made Shinya sing at a karaoke. Cameraman: Eh? Aki: He would never do it, right? Shinya: It was very unusual. Aki: At a certain birthday party a few years ago, it was before corona, though. So there was a party and I also went, we drank quite a bit together and we were having fun. I told him "let's lift the ban, let's break the seal". I was like "let's drink". Telling him that, he sang. Cameraman: Eh? By the way, which song was it? Aki: It was Aku no hana by BUCK-TICK. Cameraman: Eh? Really? Do you remember it? Aki: I do. Shinya: It was after drinking around 100 shots of tequila. Because this person here made me drink a lot. Cameraman: 100 shots of tequila? Shinya: As expected, I was also probably drunk. Aki: It seemed like you had given up. Cameraman: But do you at least remember singing? Shinya: Kind of. Aki: Moreover, he is pretty good at karaoke. He sounded like BUCK-TICK. Cameraman: Eh? Shinya: Because I'm a musician. Aki: Shinya, you absolutely should sing. Shinya: No, no, no, I'm embarrassed, I'm embarrassed. Aki: When I asked, he said he would do it. Cameraman: Drinking 100 shots of tequila is insane, though. Aki: 1 song for 100 tequila shots isn't such a good deal, right? Cameraman: Shinya, aren't you going to escape rooms? Shinya: Yes. Cameraman: You don't go to bars much, right? Aki: He told me about some of those games. I've also played, though. That was definitely fun. Shinya: Ah, really? Aki: Escape rooms were incredibly fun. Shinya: It took you quite some time, though. Aki: Because I'm not that good at this kind of things. Cameraman: What was the situation? Aki: It was like looking at a picture and making associations. It symbolized a whole unit. Shinya: I kept looking for an escape room online and showed it to him. Cameraman: Ah, I see, I see. Aki: Yes, yes, you did. Since for me it was, of course, the first time, I didn't know what to do, how to solve the problems. Problems that even Shinya didn't know from before. We were solving them all together. At that moment, as expected, he solved them fast. Are you used to solving riddles? Shinya: I've been solving them since elementary school. Aki: Is it what you've been doing lately? With your bandmen friends and such. Shinya: There aren't many bandmen with whom I can go to an escape room. Aki: Aaaah. Shinya: So I don't play with them. I lost contact with many bandmen. Cameraman: Because your main focus now are escape rooms, right? Aki: Instead of hanging out with bandmen, you are focused on escape rooms. Shinya: Yes. Aki: So you hang out with those who go there, right? Shinya: Yes, yes. Aki: You are a pro, aren't you? Shinya: I am. Aki: Amazing. Shinya: Oh, this is Mita station. Is Mita station at Tamachi station? Cameraman: Yes, yes. We're almost there. We still have to walk a little to get to Tamachi. Shinya: Do you know that there is another place called Mita? It's nearby. Cameraman: Is there? Shinya: There are two completely different Mitas next to each other. Cameraman: What do you mean? Shinya: That there are 2 different places named Mita. Cameraman: Really? Shinya: A Mita in Minato and a Mita either in Meguro or Shinagawa. Aki: It's unusual to have two places with the same name in the same city, right? In different prefectures, though... Shinya: At first, I was a little confused. Cameraman: Ah, we can see the station! Shinya: We can! That's definitely Tamachi station. Aki: Ah, that's Tamachi! Cameraman: Those are the buildings of Morinaga Milk Industry and such. Shinya: The other side of Tamachi has changed so much in the last 3 years more or less. Cameraman: But it's probably more beautiful now. Shinya: It's more than beautiful, it's totally different. Cameraman: Is it that different? Shinya: Don't you know? Cameraman: It doesn't ring a bell. Shinya: It's totally different. It's astonishingly different. Aki: I don't know how it used to be. I don't know how it used to be, so I can't tell how it changed. But I see. Cameraman: It certainly has become beautiful, though. Shinya: It's on a totally different dimension. Cameraman: As if a whole new district was built? Aki: You are so enthusiastic about it, aren't you? Shinya: I was surprised by it when I went to the studio for rehearsals after a while during the pandemic. Aki: Since you say that it has changed so much, can you please elaborate? Shinya: Yes. Let's finish talking at the other side. Aki: Let's do that. Cameraman: Shinya, should we go to the other side of the station? Shinya: Yes. Aki: Wait, shoes for a stage outfit. Won't we take a look? Is it okay? Shinya: They look pretty good. Aki: They do, right? Shinya: A Rakuten store. It is new. Aki: If it wasn't for this opportunity, I wouldn't have walked around a station that I don't know. I rarely do it, but when I'm walking around, I feel like there are some things here that catch my attention and I want to check. Shinya: There are a lot of interesting things. There is always something. Regarding the things that have changed... Aki: From what to what has it changed? Shinya: It's not that. Cameraman: Because it was on a totally different dimension, right? Shinya: First of all, this didn't exist. This suspended passage thingy. This didn't exist either. That building didn't exist either. Nor that one. Nor the other one. Cameraman: How many years ago are we talking about? Shinya: 3 or 4? Aki: Eeeeh? Cameraman: They were able to do this in 3 or 4 years? Shinya: That thing didn't exist. Cameraman: Right, it looks new. Aki: It has changed completely, hasn't it? Cameraman: Was this here? Shinya: No. Everything above ground level is all new. This here used to be a very dirty street. It's also my first time seeing this properly, though. It's become really amazing. Cameraman: It has. You are excited. Shinya: This sidewalk wasn't this wide, you know? Aki: Certainly. Shinya: It wasn't this wide. This didn't exist either. Cameraman: Incredibly beautiful. Aki: What kind of building is this? Ah, there is a board listing the shops. Shinya: I could live here. Aki: We could. Cameraman: We could, right? Do you want to buy an apartment here? Shinya: I do. Aki: Isn't Gindaco good? I want to eat takoyaki! It's enough already with this building, right? Cameraman: It has anything you need, right? Shinya: There is even a real estate agency. If I ask here, they'll find me a place to live in no time, right? There is also an eye clinic. Cameraman: And a café. Aki: There is more over here! Food is not an issue. Shinya: There is full variety. Cameraman: There is a yakiniku restaurant. Aki: And Starbucks. Shinya: Both Japanese and Western-style cuisine. Aki: The food is fine. Shinya: Is there also a Chinese restaurant? Cameraman: There sure is. Aki: There isn't one? Cameraman: Ah, there was one! Aki: Did you like Chinese food? Shinya: No, not really. Aki: Eeeeh? Shinya: I asked because we were saying that this building has everything. Cameraman: There are two Starbucks. Aki: How can you make the conversation flow so easily from the topic of Chinese food? I love it! How do you do such a thing so easily? I'm shocked. I'm surprised, huh. Cameraman: Shinya, do you want to live here? Shinya: I do. The studio is also nearby. Cameraman: It is. Aki: Now we'll go to Century 21 and ask which kind of properties they have. How would you like it? Shinya: I want the whole building, though. Aki: But this building is all offices, right? You can't go in there. Shinya: I want all of it. Aki: Let's buy it. The S of Station Tower is the S of Shinya? Shinya: Yes. Aki: Tamachi Station Shinya. Shinya: As you'd expect, we've arrived safely. Cameraman: We have! Shinya: How was it? Aki: Well, if it wasn't for this opportunity, I wouldn't do these things in Tokyo, walking from one station to another. Moreover, as a place, since it's an area that I don't visit often, there were some shops that caught my attention, so I'm thinking that I want to come back next time in private with Shinya by all means. Shinya: I fully agree. Aki: Wait, wait. Are you up to it? This is not my corner... Is it okay? Shinya: Yes. Aki: Really? Ah, I'm glad. This is a one-sided love. Cameraman: Shinya, do you also want to go again to Hamamatsuchou and drink with Aki? Shinya: Yes. Aki: I always want. Shinya: Me too. Aki: Let's do it again. You, are you up to it? Shinya: I'm super up to it. Thank you for the taiyaki. Aki: No, sorry about the message. I had so much fun! I would have never thought that I would be able to walk with Shinya, the two of us in this laidback atmosphere. If there is another chance, invite me by all means. Even in a different district, okay? Shinya: Yes. Please, come again by all means. Aki: I would like to go for a walk. Cameraman: Thank you. Shinya: As you'd expect, next time I'll be taking a stroll by myself once again. Then, goodbye!

[fabdante]

Fic asks!! Fic asks!! 17, 23, 29 and 47!!!

thank you friend!!! 💖 (questions from this ask meme here)

17. What highly specific AU do you want to read or write even though you might be the only person to appreciate it?

I am full of highly specific AUs! I love a highly specific AU! I often feel like I only think of highly specific AUs and I am very happy this way.

I think the most specific would be these really, really niche crossover AUs me and my girlfriend made of like every single video game we liked at the time the time we made them. The most specific of those was set in Rapture from Bioshock. Except Rapture was set up with different leadership in the 40s/50s. Adam was still discovered, but said leaders implemented heavy restrictions on it that led to the city surviving until the 1980s, in which it had found itself increasingly sectioned off into different gangs/factions. There was also a lot about the impact of Adam on genetics. I have no idea who the audience for that is, but it would only be more specific to me if it was the 90s honestly.

23. What’s a trope, AU, or concept you’ve never written, but would like to?

This is hard. I have little impulse control so like, if the fleeting thought crosses my mind I will write down something. I am also very self indulgent so if I like an idea, I will write it in some form or try to.

I really would like to write a DmC or DMC band au. I struggle to figure out any of the specifics. I have started writing sort of a DMC band AU, though, and I think it's the closest I'm going to get to the band AU idea. (The concept of that one is that it's excerpts of a biography about 90s grunge band Devil May Cry. Which was ironically another idea I was really interested in writing, like a story told through interviews and stuff.)

29. What songs would be (or are) on a playlist for [insert fic]? Explain your choices if you want!

Picking a fic was hard. I went with Crossroads of Catharsis and Contemplation because I really love that fic and I never considered a playlist for it. The vibe is introspection, lo-fi, and also some screaming.

Sleep Patterns by Merchant Ships (I felt like this fit the introspective vibe, this song to me is peak reboot Dante introspection and it just felt fitting here)

Come As You Are (Nirvana Lo-fi) by Tedi Mercury and Alien Cake Music (the original to me encompasses something essential about the themes of DmC/DMC as a whole, and the lo-fi fit the Sam Cham vibe)

Seize the Day by Wax Tailor (lo-fi for that post 'we maybe caused a tiny apocalypses in our city...now what?' vibe)

Heart Heart Head by Meg Myers (very much the Kat and Vergil mood of the fic to me)

Press Pause by Pretty Lights (some more introspective lo-fi to end us off)

47. If [insert fic] was a pair of shoes, what kind would it be? Describe the shoes.

I'm going to answer this for Detours/The Detours Series, my Zutara fic (I named the series the Circumnavigators of Celestial Bodies, the series isn't up on Ao3 just yet though!).

If Circumnavigators was a pair of shoes it would be the first pair of high top converse you buy in high school. You were like a freshmen and now it's senior year. And the shoes are still mostly together, if not a bit beat up for constant use over the past 4 years. They've walked a lot of miles, a lot of halls, a lot of adventures. They're worn in perfectly, formed exactly to the contours of your feet. And they still probably have some years left in them, even if the canvas isn't as sturdy as it used to be and the laces are dirty. But the best thing about the shoes, the absolute best thing, is all the little writing on them. Because you and your best friend who you went on all those adventures with, you wrote on them. They wrote on your shoes and you theirs, and you look down at your feet and you see all these little doodles and notes to you. And some the sharpies faded but some were just written yesterday and they make you smile.

thank you again for the ask!! 💖💖

[randomvarious]

Today’s compilation:

N.Y. Beat! Hit & Run 1986 Third Wave Ska / 2 Tone

Alright, well, in order to properly contextualize this album, I need to do a very quick and dirty rundown of the history of ska as a whole, so here goes:

Ska originated in Jamaica in the 60s as a precursor to reggae. It's defined by the skank—the repetitive single note or chord that hits on every other beat that creates the music's unique rhythm. A great original ska band to check out is The Skatalites.

Starting in the late 70s, ska underwent a very popular second wave in the UK known as 2 tone, which adopted its name from a record label that ended up popularizing four very important bands to the movement: The Selecter, The Specials, Bad Manners, and Madness. It was a working class scene that promoted racial unity and its songs were typically more uptempo and sharper-edged.

Then, in the late 80s, the term ‘third wave ska’ was coined in the US to describe a new crop of bands, like No Doubt and Sublime, who were pairing the music with contemporary punk rock.

But between that second UK wave and the application of the third wave label, there were also a bunch of US bands in the 80s who drew deep influence from the 2 tone acts overseas. And that's largely what this compilation is concerned with; specifically, a ska scene from mid-80s New York. Retroactively, I think these bands are usually classified as third wave since they're not from the UK 2 tone scene, but the bulk of them played a 2 tone-type sound.

And you can't talk about a budding 80s New York ska scene without mentioning The Toasters. Out of all the bands on this record, they seem to be the ones who had the most complete sound. They kick off the album with a sweet and mostly instrumental foray into spy music motifs, even reproducing the James Bond theme towards the end, and then later on, they deliver "Shocker!," which, along with a typical ska setup, comes with a keyboard using a recorder preset, hand drums, and female backing vocals. It's swell!

Another thing that's cool about this record is that a few of the songs depart from the 2 tone sound and go off in their own directions, blending ska with punk, which showed a sign of things to come, or playing new wavey synths along with ska. I'm not in love with how any of these particular experiments sound themselves, but they’re still intriguing to hear.

Also, there's a couple tracks towards the end, "Brighter Days" by The Boilers, which contrasts a very deep and active bass with both a softly ringing guitar and another guitar that maintains the skank, and "Free South Africa" by Too True—the only song the band appears to have ever put out—that goes on an extended and slow reggae-groove detour as it sings about the evils of South African apartheid. Both are pretty cool, musically, but be forewarned, both of these bands' white lead vocalists sing in a very cringeworthy, hasn't-aged-well-at-all pseudo-Jamaican patois 😬.

A neat little document of mid-80s New York ska that's caught between the UK's 2 tone second wave and the US' third wave. Pretty cool stuff 😎.

Highlights:

The Toasters - "Matt Davis" The Toasters - "Shocker!" The Boilers - "Brighter Days" Too True - "Free South Africa"

[dknuth]

England

We are in England for some independent travel in Yorkshire and a historian-led tour of Hadrian's Wall.

We left Madison at about noon and flew to Chicago and then to London. Our flight arrived in London at 5:55 AM. We took a train into the city at Paddington Station, a taxi to Kings Cross Station, and a train to York. That all worked well, although it didn't need to as we arrived in York about 10 AM and couldn't get into our little apartment hotel until 2 PM. So after an overnight flight and Cathie being really tired, we were hanging out for over 4 hours. That's a really difficult time to arrive. It's way too early to check in for that night. If we had gotten a hotel in London we'd have checked in at 7 AM and had to check out at 11 AM. I guess we should have gotten the room in York for the night before too and paid over $200 for the 4 hours.

I will look closer at the arrival times on flights in the future and try to arrive at a reasonable hour. In Tunis I arrived at 1 AM and paid for that night, which seemed reasonable. But this was too late for an extra night to make sense and too early to check-in.

That day Cathie was wiped out and slept for the whole day. I got out and walked around a bit.

Our hotel was just a couple of blocks from the train station, which made it an easy walk with the bags to get there.

Between the station and the hotel was the old city wall. But it was only about a one-block detour to get through the wall. York decided in the early 1800's to preserve the walls for a pedestrian promenade. It was a great decision and it works well as a loop around the old town.

The wall near our hotel leads right down to the river with a view of York Minster the background.

Between the wall and our small hotel there is a large deluxe hotel we walk past all the time. How fancy is it? The topiary beside the front door is trimmed to match the doorman's top hat.

He and I agreed that it really needs a yellow band to match the one on his hat. I check the prices for The Grand. It's £400 and up per night. We have a very nice apartment for less than half that, although no doorman.

York is a very nice town. It's has a river running through it, which they put to good use, with riverside dining, riverboat tours, and parks.

The town is over 1,000 years old and so there is a wide range of building ages and styles.

One small street has some quite ancient buildings and is known as The Shambles. If you work at it and frame the buildings just right it can look like something out of Harry Potter, which the store owners have taken full advantage of. But I really wasn't interested enough to create an illusion.

Near The Shambles is a very short street with an unusual name.

Apparently it was originally spelled Whitnourwhatnourgate, which doesn't really help that much. There is debate about what it would mean, possibly "Neither One Thing Nor Another" or "What a Street" it only has three addresses on it # 1, # 1a, and # 1 1/2. Clearly theyv'e kept it around for the novelty. SPeaking of novelty, the shop at 1 1'2 is a Fantasy Gaming store.

When the Normans conquered this part of England they built many Abbys and several were in York. Of course when Henry VIII abolished all the monasteries in England. That left grand building complexes abandoned. Most of them are now in various stages of ruin. We will see several of these in our travel around the area. As elsewhere, abandoned stone buildings were recycled into everything from barns to castles.

Just across the river is Museum Park, a nice park along the river on the grounds of St. Mary's Abby. A part of the apse of the main chapel still stands in the park.

This park is only a third of a mile from our apartment, so it was an easy destination for Cathie.

It was also the location of our first splurge restaurant of the trip, The Starr in the City. A restaurant founded on local ingredients and local cuisine, but modernised and improved. The location was equally inspired. You enter through a tunnel in the old city walls.

Into a new glass and wood dining room in the park.

We had an excellent dinner, but one where we needed to look up many of the words on the menu. It seems that British food words are quite different than Americal ones. But it was a good meal. (I neglected to take food photos, sorry.)

Since most of the city walls are intact, the next morning I headed out to do a loop of the old city on the walls. It was a lovely walk of a little over 3 miles and had a good view of ancient and modern York.

Of course the old gates into the city were way too small even by the 1800's. What is pleasant to see is that rather than just blowing out that section of the wall they built new gates. They aren't much good for stopping attackers but they handle the traffic and maintain the spirit of the walls. Here you can see the original gatehouse in the center and later openings for pedestrian and vehicular traffic on either side.

Many of these gatehouses are now coffee shops, a nice break for a wall walk.

On the north side of town, the wall abuts the wealthier neighborhoods around York Minster.

[ear-worthy]

Watching The Covers Flow Podcast Debuts : A Musical Feast Of Dylan Cover Songs

 Many superb podcasts begin in another format. Some podcasts begin as blogs, others as newsletters, still others as articles or books. 

Author and music savant Ray Padgett has published blogs and books that have offered music fans greater insight into popular music. 

Now, he has a new music podcast out that is sensational. It's called Watching The Covers Flow. It's a podcast that dives deep into covers of, and by, the most covered songwriter in rock and roll: Bob Dylan. 

 Host Ray Padgett (Flagging Down the Double E's (about Dylan concerts) newsletter, Pledging My Time:Conversations with Bob Dylan Band Members book) explores covers across era and genre, from a hip-hop "Subterranean Homesick Blues" to a bluegrass "Ring Them Bells" to Dylan's own frequent detours from writing his own songs to singing other people's.

Clearly, Padgett has the passion and the bona fides to discuss Bob Dylan, and he does so with gusto and encyclopedic knowledge of all things Dylan.

Padgett also has a passion for cover songs, as evidenced by his Cover Me blog (since 2007), which is the most prominent blog devoted to cover songs on the internet. Padgett released a highly-touted and well-received book, Cover Me: The stories behind the Greatest Cover Songs of all time, in 2017.

Cover Me doesn’t just take the reader through 19 famous cover songs and their origin stories. Padgett has something more profound, more relevant, and ultimately more satisfying in mind. Each chapter about the 19 cover songs uses the investigation into the genesis of famous cover songs as a framework to tell a larger story of how each music genre and artist has evolved. 

As if Padgett's music resume needs more burnishing, he is also the author of I’m Your Fan: The Songs Of Leonard Cohen.

Fittingly, the podcast is part of the FM Podcast Network, whose slogan is "Great Music Pods for Serious Music Fans." Talk about truth in advertising.

 To kick off the first episode, Padgett picks Dylan's Empire Burlesque album, which was released in 1985, and received generally positive reviews, but a number of critics dunked on the production. Padgett explains to listeners that the album was divisive because Dylan used drum machines, synthesizers, backing vocals, sounding like Prince.  

Padgett reviews all ten songs on the album, offering listeners a masterclass of musical criticism on the bands or artists who covered these songs. As listeners, we get to hear long clips of each cover song, with Padgett adding his musical expertise and background info. 

For example, the very first song, Tight Connection To My Heart, is covered by Jon Carrol and Love Returns. Padgett tells us that Carrol was a member of the Starland Vocal Band, which had a # 1 hit single in 1976 with the novelty song "Afternoon Delight."

On Never Gonna Be The Same Again, Padgett became a musical detective, hunting down a cover by an unknown named Ron Sexsmith, who had the song recorded on an album only in the singer's possession.

One of my favorite covers was by Carla Olson, who took Dylan's Clean Cut Kid and, by Padgett's own admission, improved the song. In Trust Yourself, June Carter Cash's daughter, Carlene Carter, belts out the song with Bob Dylan as one of the backup singers. 

When one of the album's least covered songs, Something's Burning Baby, is played, a musician named Scott Sympathy rocks out on the song.

Padgett is superb here as our musical tour guide. He knows Dylan. He knows music of all genres, and he has an insatiable curiosity about how music affects our culture. Padgett has a natural inclination toward engaging storytelling. As a host, his tone is relaxed, low-key, and endlessly fascinating.

 If you're wondering if this concept is deep enough in material to sustain a podcast, then consider this. Over 600 musicians have released their own recordings of songs written by Dylan, creating more than 1,500 covers of nearly 300 unique songs.

You don't have to be a Dylan fan to enjoy this podcast. If the first episode is any indication of what's to come, listeners will be treated a wide range of musical talents covering Dylan songs. In the first episode alone, we heard from the Carlene Carter, Lucius, and The O'Jays.

Famous artists who have covered Dylan songs include The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Grateful Dead, Bruce Springsteen, and Trisha Yearwood. As Padgett will explain, sometimes it's the unknown artists who do the most with Dylan songs.

For serious music fans and Dylan acolytes, Watching The Covers Flow is going to be an ear worthy podcast. And if you just like music, then this podcast with covers galore will be a feast of musical variety where your ears can overindulge.

To paraphrase one of Dylan's most famous songs, "Hey, Mr. Ray Padgett Man, play a cover song for me."

[aleakybiro]

Over the garden wall - On kind deeds and saving the world

It's been a while since I've written anything, and I'm not much good at reviews, but here's something that's been floating around in my head for a while.

Yesterday I watched Over the Garden Wall for what must be the fourth time, this time with my sister. The show has always stood out to me, drawing me back in every time for how different it is from most cartoons. The soundtrack of classical music, the bleak, unsettling background of the woods, the dark themes the show centers on...paired with characters like Greg, who's just a kid with a silly attitude like any kid his age, or by the bright character designs and cartoony expressions that lift the show up and make it nice to watch. But my favourite thing about the show is the depth of what it explores, without the drag of labouring every point. There's so much to find, but you find it for yourself every time you watch those ten episodes.

This time, what stood out to me was the idea of 'making the world a better place.' In many modern cartoons, especially in the adverture-fantasy genre, the focus is saving the world. The character sets out on their journey and the final challenge they face is to take down the evil empire or the primal evil and then the world is saved. Star vs the Forces of Evil, Gravity Falls, Avatar, to name a few. And this isn't a bad thing - many of these shows handle it well. Often, these shows are equally as centered on characters and relationships. But as it appears in more and more modern cartoons, it makes shows like Over the Garden Wall stand out, because they break away from this ‘saving the world’ business. And then there’s so much more freedom to do something else.

In Over the Garden Wall, there is a final evil, yes - The Beast. But our main characters never set out to destroy him, and in the end they don't. Their only intention is to go home. They don't save the world, but they do help the people in it in many different ways throughout the show. They free Beatrice from the bush, later giving her the scissors to help her family. They help the animals at the school, get Fred the horse a job, unite Mr Endicott with his love, cheer up the frogs on the ferry with their song, free Loma from the evil spirit, and you get the point. But they don't do it because they set out to help people out of the goodness of their own hearts.

Beatrice and Fred help them with directions, helping them with their final goal of getting home, they originally intended to steal from Endicott and were distracting him by looking for the ‘ghost’, they joined the band on the ferry so they wouldn't get kicked off the ferry, and they only met Loma because they were hiding. The ways in which they helped were all opportunities born from selfish intentions. (Selfish not necessarily being a bad thing.) Everything they did, they did to get home, stumbling across the opportunity to help people through that and choosing to take it.

The exception to this is the school. This doesn’t help them get home, in fact it’s a complete detour on their journey. Beatrice tells Greg that "The world is a miserable place," and being a kid, he wants to make it better. And they do. They sing with the animals, raise money for the school and end up helping accidentally with Jimmy Brown and the gorilla problem. This act is of intentional kindness, this act makes the world a better place, and it does it in a small way. Wirt and Greg are just two boys, not people who can change everything. Not people who can save the world. Like most of us, making the world better is done through small acts of kindness, local action, and most of all, as in the rest of the story, a series of accidents and chance opportunities.

There are a few acts of true self-sacrifice in the story, where our characters risk their goals. Beatrice sacrifices potentially her only chance at becoming human again to free Wirt and Greg from Adelaide, Greg gives himself up so his brother might escape becoming Adlewood, Wirt runs through a snowstorm and comes face-to face with the Beast to get him back. But it's not out of some responsibility to save the world or protect humanity. It's for people they truly care about. And I liked that. For shows that handle the whole 'saving the world' idea well, they do the same. Motivations are more personal, and that's especially true in Over the Garden Wall, where they don't save the woods. The save each other, because that's what matters.

As I've grown older, I've found myself less compelled by the high stakes in a lot of media. In real life, the stakes may not be high in the grand scheme of things, but they are important to us. We sacrafice for our relationships and personal goals, and I find myself connecting with that more when I see it in media.

Throughout the show, there are two main enemies 'vanquished'. Adelaide, and The Beast. However, the boys are not directly responsible for either. Beatrice opens the window and destroys Adelaide, both because she wants to free her friends, and because she is unhappy that Adelaide's asks have put her in conflict with what she thinks is the right thing to do. So when she does what she thinks is right, it's much more compelling than if Wirt or Greg were to kill Adelaide.

And, most importantly, the Woodsman is the one to kill the Beast. After years of grinding the wood to keep the lantern lit, the Woodsman is fed up, and being confronted with the idea that his daughter was never there tips him over the edge. Being a father, he cares for the children in a way, saying "children's souls are not to be traded like tokens," and the decision being left to him, him putting out the lantern despite the chance his daughter is in there  is again much more personal and compelling. For him, it is an act of letting go, a step in overcoming the loss of his daughter. 

[dustedmagazine]

Kazuki Tomokawa — Kazuki Tomokawa 1975–1977 (Blank Forms Editions)

"Protest, Age 23" on SoundCloud

Emerging in the early 1970's as one of most important and polarizing figures in Japan's musical underground, Kazuki Tomokawa brought a desperately existential vitality to the burgeoning Tokyo folk scene, something he however never really felt himself truly a part of. Though not exactly a household name to many listeners outside of Japan, Blank Forms Editions hope to rectify this situation somewhat with the three-CD box set Kazuki Tomokawa 1975–1977. The set documents Tomokawa's first three LPs, all originally released on the Tokyo Harvest Records label. The collection of interviews also published by Blank Forms Editions, Try Saying You’re Alive!: Kazuki Tomokawa in His Own Words, gives valuable background information to the screaming philosopher's thoughts on music, as well as his activities as a painter, poet, construction worker, basketball coach, keirin track bike racing enthusiast, actor, radio disc jockey, TV host, pachinko parlor denizen, cook and all-around bon vivant.

Referring to himself as a “part-time singer” is just one of the instances in these interviews in which Tomokawa oscillates between total self-deprecation and utterly shameless boasting, sometimes in the same breath. But however he wants to characterize himself, the fact remains that even as a part-time activity, Tomkawa's singing easily inhabits the realm of absolutely bone-chilling, eviscerating emotion. To wit, “The Flower of Youth,” the opening track on his debut album Finally, His First Album, documents the then- 25-year-old's defiant scream into a black void. Sung against a simple two-chord guitar pattern that would not sound out of place on a Daniel Johnston record, Tomokawa sets the stage for all his work to come, shrieking out a litany of declarations against himself and God:

In that tiny room in Kawasaki Kawasaki Sharpening a knife Sharpening a knife in the early morning Ain’t that me? Slicing up your dreams just because you’re tired Dicing yourself up just because you’re frustrated But you can’t even kill a single cockroach! Go ahead and do it, kill if you can kill! Go ahead and do it, kill if you can kill!

The rest of Finally, His First Album navigates its way through elegiac folk rock (“Soul”), full-blown blues rockers (“Protest, Age 23”), hebephrenic screes (“Phone Call”), ghostly 3/4 ballads (“Grave”), traditional-sounding Japanese numbers (“An Akita Folksong Run Amok”) and sweet folk crooning (“Yumiko's Spring”). This inventory of styles might seem like a splattershot approach, but, across all these jarring musical detours, Tomokawa's fantastically evocative singing ties everything seamlessly together. One could easily place these recordings in the realm of ancient Greek poetry as sung by the bards. A sense of pathos suffuses each track on this LP. However, one gets the feeling at times that Tomokawa might not be that particular about the setting for his voice and lyrics, even though he always seems able to adapt to whatever his producer and band throw at him in the way of accompaniment. And he does so with unabashed aplomb on each track, easily surpassing any reservations one might have about the record’s smorgasbord of styles.

Including a photo of his late grandfather with the liner notes, Tomokawa's second release Straight from the Throat opens in a similar manner to his debut: the track “Grandpa” sets alternating exposed-nerve singing and banshee falsetto cries against repetitive acoustic guitar and, later in the track, an avalanche of cataclysmic drum set accompaniment from Tomokawa's long-time drummer, friend and musical inspiration, Toshio Ogiwara. Calling this track visionary would be a gross understatement. It foreshadows by decades the ideas of Freak Folk and New Weird America, but with the addition of Tomokawa's absolutely blood-chilling vocalizations. Segueing into the next track “Goddamn Winter,” the listener might get the idea they've just passed through some alternate reality portal, as the mood shifts radically into something like a folk ballad with wistful Roy Bittan electric piano flourishes. Still, it’s just great.

Straight from the Throat proceeds in a similar fashion to the first LP, ricocheting from musical style to style with little regard for sense of direction, other than the consistently mind-shattering singing and devastating lyrics:

I can see sorrow from up on the footbridge A salesman-type walks by Wiping the sweat from his brow Inside its cage, a bird thrashed wildly till it died Wilted, drooping red chili blossoms I can see sorrow from up on the footbridge I don’t want to die I don’t want to die, I don’t Maybe songs are a kind of cage

With the track “Don’t Kill the Sea Lions,” Tomokawa even scored something of a hit, taking a detour from his existential rumblings by evoking the angst of these suffering animals and the coarse indifference of people to their environment:

Bored housewives glancing at the tube Dying to find out how many they killed today The men can’t raise their faces to look up higher than they are tall While the children’s faces turned the color of concrete A dream is the dream of a dream dream dream . . . . . . Don’t kill the sea lions Don’t kill the sea lions We’re all sea lions Don’t shoot! Hey, don’t shoot! Stop, hey, don’t shoot me! You there! Don’t shoot me!

Uncannily enough, some of this record's text evokes Springsteen's lyrical turn on “Born to Run”, released just one year earlier. See “Cars–A Poem for My Little Borther”; here Tomokawa reveals a sharp eye for life's more banal details as a tableau vivant of intense passion (and we should bear in mind that Tomokawa’s brother was a suicide):

The young cars howled through the vastness At blistering speed A police car following hot on their tail Ready with a mountain of complaints A hearse drove by: Forget all that and return everything to the soil 

Straight from the Throat closes out with “Stone,” a kind of nod at things to come with blanketing keyboard banks, something approaching a severely detuned West Coast whistle synth and spoken text—as if Dr. Dre and Brian Eno found themselves in the studio together when Tomokawa happened to be passing by, and they yanked him in.

The third CD of this box set, A String of Paper Cranes Clenched between My Teeth, starts with a vaguely New Wave atmosphere of keyboard synths and punctuating drum accents before, depressingly enough, collapsing into a Classic-Rock-à-la-David-Gilmour wailing guitar solo. Mercifully, Tomokawa has not attempted to add anything to this track. But he kicks back in on the second piece, “Try Saying You're Alive.” The song pretty much sums up what Tomokawa is all about, as he demolishes his guitar and cries out in a nerve-on-edge, quivering voice:

This world is no slaughterhouse! So why all the anguished melodrama? This loneliness, kindness, suffering and pain You’re no cripple! So why are you dabbling in the joy of sorrow? Hippy vagabond beggar child You call that life? Try saying you’re alive! Try saying you’re alive! Try saying you’re alive!

It just doesn't get any better than this. The intensity, the sheer desperation, reaching for straws in the eternal darkness. And then, another rollercoaster ride, skidding into the third piece, “Kill or Be Killed.” It’s tender and sweet, a soothing respite from the previous track. Tomokawa seems to inhabit a Jekyll-and-Hyde world. Either it's a glorious summer day or he’s going through a nervous breakdown. And the middle ground is a wasteland of jarred emotions played out across a vicious hangover, and the sense that at any moment we could die an incredibly torturous death.

A String of Paper Cranes Clenched between My Teeth conjures up a potpourri of styles as in Tomokawa's first two LP's, though by this time one gets the impression that perhaps he's lost some interest in the whole studio process. His band and the overall production seem more in the forefront than on the first two LPs, and, quite frankly, some of the musical decisions are less than fortunate. Like the last track of the record, “Missed My Time to Die,” blends what could be a demented Klezmer melody line with some absolutely cheesy funk guitar strumming. Still, time and time again, Tomokawa manages to surmount all these musical obstacles with absolutely compelling vocals and powerful lyrics:

Long lines snake Through town again today Give me your sadness Give me your sadness The women stand in line I can’t walk sober And I can’t walk drunk The gaggle of skulls is weeping And glaring at me Hey! Got a problem?

Tomokawa went on to record another 30-odd records after the first three documented here. He enjoyed something of a resurgence in the 1990s with his recordings for the Tokyo PSF label, also known for the work of Fushitsusha, Keiji Haino and High Rise. In his introduction to Tomakawa's collection of interviews, Try Saying You're Alive! Damon Krukowski notes, it's “not always the meaning of the words that gets a song across. Great singers always communicate, regardless.” And indeed, whether one is fluent in Japanese or can't understand one single word of it, the voice of Kazuki Tomokawa will fill you with a lust for life and a deep compassion for all sentient beings around us. These are exceptional qualities we could use now more than ever. So, yes: Try Saying You’re Alive!

Jason Kahn

[sanstropfremir]

ok this took way longer than i expected because i got sidetracked looking at paintings and reading poetry and just admiring the mv, but it's finally finished!! let's talk about

higher

✨

i'm going to draw your attention to a few things.

firstly, these verses from rime of the ancient mariner by samuel taylor coleridge, published 1834:

The harbour-bay was clear as glass,

So smoothly it was strewn!

And on the bay the moonlight lay,

And the shadow of the Moon.

The rock shone bright, the kirk no less,

That stands above the rock:

The moonlight steeped in silentness

The steady weathercock.

And the bay was white with silent light,

Till rising from the same,

Full many shapes, that shadows were,

In crimson colours came.

A little distance from the prow

Those crimson shadows were:

I turned my eyes upon the deck—

Oh, Christ! what saw I there!

Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat,

And, by the holy rood!

A man all light, a seraph-man,

On every corse there stood.

This seraph-band, each waved his hand:

It was a heavenly sight!

They stood as signals to the land,

Each one a lovely light;

This seraph-band, each waved his hand,

No voice did they impart—

No voice; but oh! the silence sank

Like music on my heart.

secondly, this ivan aivazovsky painting, chaos (the creation), c. 1841:

and thirdly, the memorial of percy shelley, who drowned in a boating accident at age 29, in 1822:

there's a common conflation between the romantic and the pastoral in the general cultural consensus because the pastoral a) has been around as an art term longer than romantic, and b) romanticism does use some similar imagery. but there is a key difference: the pastoral is specfically an idealization of 'the simple shepherding life,' often for high class and urban audiences who have no conception of the details of this life includes. one of the more famous examples is christopher marlowe's a passionate shepherd to his love, published in 1599:

Come live with me and be my love,

And we will all the pleasures prove,

That Valleys, groves, hills, and fields,

Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the Rocks,

Seeing the Shepherds feed their flocks,

By shallow Rivers to whose falls

Melodious birds sing Madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of Roses

And a thousand fragrant posies,

A cap of flowers, and a kirtle

Embroidered all with leaves of Myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool

Which from our pretty Lambs we pull;

Fair lined slippers for the cold,

With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and Ivy buds,

With Coral clasps and Amber studs:

And if these pleasures may thee move,

Come live with me, and be my love.

The Shepherds’ Swains shall dance and sing

For thy delight each May-morning:

If these delights thy mind may move,

Then live with me, and be my love.

whereas romanticism is a more pointedly specific movement that was active from around 1800 to 1850, primarily focused on intense emotion and catharsis as the primary experiential output of an artwork. which most prominently manifested in a deep fascination and glorification of the natural environment and historical nostalgia. the movement sprung from the german sturm und drang (literally storm and drive/stress) period of the late 1760s to early 1780s, which was a direct reaction to rationalism and enlightenment. romanticism had similar impulses; it was also a revival of medievalism and a reaction against the looming urban sprawl and mechanization of the industrial revolution. a typical romantic poem from one of the originators of the english movment william wordsworth, composed upon westminster bridge, september 3, 1802, originally published 1807:

Earth has not any thing to show more fair:

Dull would he be of soul who could pass by

A sight so touching in its majesty:

This City now doth, like a garment, wear

The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,

Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie

Open unto the fields, and to the sky;

All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

Never did sun more beautifully steep

In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;

Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!

The river glideth at his own sweet will:

Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;

And all that mighty heart is lying still!

this romantic fascination with nature was underpinned by the philosophy of the sublime, generally agreed to be first treatised by edmund burke in 1756, the theory was also written about by kant and hegel. in the simplest of terms, the sublime is a quality of greatness beyond calculation, imitation, and human comprehension. the sublime is twofold; the greatness of the ocean is beautiful, but its power is also terrifying, and the experience of the sublime is to feel those two at once. to be in awe and also to be horrified of its ability to sink ships and drown a life in a tempermental change of tide.

let's take a quick detour to talk about

clothing

in the present day we have become much more lax thanks to the aesthetic movement in the late nineteenth century, but back in the early victorian period there are still highly structured rules about when and what clothing one can wear in public. and the clothing itself is also highly structured. anyone with a passing understanding of the victorian era knows about the whole flashing of the ankle thing and corsets galore, and it is true that the general day to day garments cover a lot of area. for men in particular, this manifests in no less than three layers in public at all times: shirt, waistcoat, and suit jacket, with a coat or mantle overtop in colder temperatures. this also includes a variation of a neck tie (depending on what year), hat, gloves, and any other decided upon accessories (this can also include a corset and other padded structural underpinnings). an important tangent to mention here is that this is the uniform of the upper classes, although the rules do apply to the lower classes if they wanted to appear 'sophisticated.' the working man's uniform was also shirt, waistcoat, trousers, but the difference here is in the textiles themselves; the colours tended to be much more drab, with less complicated patterns. obviously due to the price fabric itself, but also due to the labour of laundry. an indicator of class here is the white shirt itself and its pristine implications. (there is a longer conversation here about the invention of neckties and detachable collars and cuffs, but that's for another day). the silhouettes are very important to note here in the higher mv, as they are directly referential to the 'romantic poet' archetype of loose shirt and tight pants that we see in popular culture. but as i've just said, the reality is that men of the era were not dressed like this out in public. this look is essentially underwear; the implications are salacious. so where did this come from? well, we can blame it mostly on lord byron, who by all accounts was the first western 'rockstar.' notoriously called 'mad, bad and dangerous to know' by lady caroline lamb (a married women he publically had an affair with), byron was openly bisexual and deeply hedonistic with a lot of questionable habits, but his poetry was so popular that he was known to have women following him in the street and gathering in large quanities to see him at salons. and this was close to three decades before lizstomania. his close friends and contemporaries included percy and mary shelley, with whom he lived with abroad in italy for some time (this living arrangement resulted in the writing of both frankenstein and john polidori's the vampyre). byron's reputation was so eclipsing that the image of the lush poet lazing in his undergarments has become its own genre of romantic, slightly removed from the movement byron was writing in. it's also worth it to point out that there are no official portraits of byron dressed like this from the time. the visual assumption is somewhat apochryphal. now let's get into some specifics. a.c.e is not unfamiliar to this silhouette; as previously mentioned in this post i wrote about their styling, the boxy loose upper and fitted lower is their general mode for their styling because of its emphasis on legs. cactus was the most extreme example of this, and to prove my point, this specific silhouette is extremely common in classical ballet:

1. vaslav nijinsky, giselle, 1911 2. nehemiah kish, george balanchine's ballo della regina, 2011/12

higher fits very neatly into this same category: we have an emphasis on the legs through tightly fitted garments and also through light reflective textile, as well as a secondary emphasis on arm and shoulder movements with looser fit shirts. plus, the shirts are made from fabrics that have good drape and flow, and mimic the visual effects of water:

there are also several instances of scale patterning and wetlook hair styles, further elabourating on the siren theme. and the jewelry is the same, purposefully cut clear stones for oceanic sparkle or pearls, the gem directly born from water, as highlighting accents to specific parts of the body - namely eyes, hands, and torso:

the body jewelry also serves a double purpose in addition to being sparkly; it gives a semblance of shape to their torsos so their movements aren't totally lost in the shroud of their shirts, and it also invokes some of that salacious element that us as a modern audience doesn't necessarily perceive in the same way when we see a man wearing only a shirt. all of these points are especially prominent in the stage costuming. concerning the veils, these are an aesthetic choice following the theme of depicting water without actually using water. the song has a very breathless quality to it, and the lyrics directly make reference to water and breathlessness, so it only makes sense to have a physical manifestation of struggling to breathe.

now let's talk about

mise-en-scène

unlike most kpop mvs, I would argue that higher is not a spectacle in what we normally see spectacle to be. the overwhelming visual saturation of goblin (and the goblin remix) is more in line with what we expect, but how do you follow that, top it? the answer is that you don't. you aim for something with a completely different feel, which is exact what they did with higher.

the performing arts did not escape romanticism. the very start of the movement, sturm und drang, is actually named from a specific play written by friedrich maximilian klinger that premiered in 1777. the plays of the brief period are characterized by extreme and passionate emotions, and were siblings to one of the most famous genres of theatre, the melodrama. meant to appeal directly to the emotions of the audience using sensationalist plots and stock characters, the melodrama was the predominent form of entertainment in victorian england and gradually developed a specific form of its own. in this period we also start to see the development of 'stagecraft' into the recognizable form that it takes today. footlights, limelight/spotlighting, the separation of house and stage lighting, fly galleries, elevator platform mechanics, and the first (purported) western use of rear projection are all innovations of the late 18th and 19th centuries, as melodramas were known to have very intricate and spectacular stagings. and to go along with these stagecraft mechanics we see the rise in designated stage crews, which were predominantly off-duty sailors looking to make money. the rope systems that made up the fly galleries were very similar to that on ships, and much of the terminology and supersitions crossed over: this is the origin of the term 'rigging' being used for suspending set elements, and also the origin of the 'don't whistle in a theatre' superstition. as sailors communicated with whistle patterns on ships, the same system was adopted for changing scenery, and therefore whistling a random pattern could potentially drop a setpiece on an unsuspecting victim.

so with all this backstory out of the way, what is the very first full location we see? a stage, complete with forced perspective via the painted fabric legs (the side panels) and borders (the wavy upper panels). we even have a flat painted backdrop with a projection screen and hanging overhead lamps. there's also a second interior set, a desk in what looks to be a study of some kind. bit self explanatory on this one, taking the poet notion on the nose.

the locations have a bit of an obtuse arc, but it's there when you look for it. it starts interior spaces, where the ideas of sublime attempted to be recreated for the viewer. then it moves to transitory spaces; portions of nature isolated from a whole environment, interjections of human architecture into natural spaces:

(the white hut structure in the greenhouse is reminiscent of a skene (literally hut/tent), which is the structure at the back of the stage in ancient greek theatre used for the actors to change their masks and costumes. it was originally temporary, but slowly transformed into permanent stage architecture)

and then finally outdoors, into the sublime itself:

jwm turner, crossing the bridge, 1815

lastly,

lighting

there's a very clear lighting pattern here, primarily in light and dark. the base colour story is fairly simple complementary pairs; there's a lot of purple/red and green, and blue and yellow/amber, with everything relatively on the same tonal level. there are deliberate interjections of heavily saturated red for specific effect. there are also, most notably, a 'dark' version of all the sets. obviously as a reference to the eclipse that we see in the mv and in the concept photo series, but also as a reference to that darker undercurrent of the sublime, the upsetting, the uncanny, and the terrifying:

And the bay was white with silent light/Till rising from the same/Full many shapes, that shadows were/In crimson colours came.

[pocket-luv101]

Heartstrings || Chapter 4

Fandom: Servamp Ship: KuroMahi (main), LawLicht (side), Tetsono (side) Characters: Kuro, Mahiru, Hyde, Licht, Tetsu, Misono

Summary: Kuro goes to take a nap in the staircase behind the school and sees Mahiru holding a broken guitar. After he helps him repair the guitar string, Mahiru asks him to teach him how to play. (Given AU/Band AU)

Ch.1 || Ch.2 || Ch.3 || (Ch.4) ||

Kuro’s finger hovered over the buttons on the vending machine as he tried to decide which of the drinks he should buy. In the corner of his eyes, he watched Mahiru’s back. He never expected Mahiru to be holding so much on his shoulders when he often wore a bright smile. He hoped that he had said the right things to him earlier.

After he finished singing the short melody, he went to buy something for Mahiru to drink. He chose a soda at random and then he walked to where Mahiru sat on a bike rack. He pressed the cold can against Mahiru’s cheek and the sensation caused him to jump in surprise. Kuro quickly placed his hand on the small of his back so he wouldn’t fall.

He pulled him closer. While his only intention was to keep Mahiru from falling, his closeness caused his heart to skip a few beats. The bell he wore rang as Mahiru grabbed Kuro’s uniform jacket. They held each other for a few moments. Mahiru tilted his head back to look up at him and his eyes reflected the moonlight. Brown was a simple colour but Kuro found his eyes beautiful.

Kuro let him go after Mahiru found his balance again. He sat in the spot next to him and held out the soda to him. “I didn’t know what you like but I got you an orange soda. I bought a cola so we can trade if you don’t like orange.”

“My house doesn’t buy fizzy drinks so I don’t usually have soda like this. It’s bad for your voice to drink before a performance. This could be my first soda. Orange juice is my favourite drink so I might like this too.” Mahiru opened the can and he took a slow sip. The drink was sweeter than he expected but he liked it. “You taught me how to play my first chord on the guitar and now this is my first soda. At this rate, you’ll have all my ‘first’s.”

Mahiru only realized the double meaning of his own words after he spoke them. They both blushed and Kuro tried to hide his reaction by pulling his hood over his face more. Beside him, Mahiru felt flustered as well. He hadn’t been in a relationship before and he never thought of it until now. He didn’t want the moment to become awkward and he searched for how to change the topic. “I like orange soda.”

“I never heard of a family who doesn’t allow their kid to drink soda.” He said and lightly tapped their soda cans together. Mahiru was glad that Kuro didn’t dwell on what he had said earlier. He was confused by the side of him that was disappointed Kuro didn’t respond to his unintentional flirting. “Will your uncle be angry that I bought it for you? I don’t want him to think I’m a bad influence.”

“Most parents will be more concerned with your dyed hair than the fact that you bought me a soda. Your hair is a unique colour.” Mahiru reached up and gently took a few strands of his hair into his fingers. His hair was softer than he expected for someone who dyed their hair. With the starry sky contrasting his light hair, Mahiru thought the colour was similar to the moon.

“I was born with this hair colour. I lived in London and my hair made me stand out when I moved here.” Kuro ran his hand through his hair and then he took off his hood. With others, he would feel selfconcious and wear his hood to hide. Mahiru’s presence made him comfortable though. “Of course my brother had to drag me into his band and make that worse.”

“People might stare at you when you’re playing your guitar but they’re mostly thinking of how well you play. That was my reaction at least. They’re not judging you.” Mahiru reassured him with a soft smile. “Thank you for what you said about my singing. I never gave you a proper response to joining your band. I want to try being your vocalist. Even though I don’t have much experience, I look forward to working with you and everyone.”

Kuro wondered if Mahiru would think he was strange if he told him that he understood him when he sang to him. Before he could respond to him, a car parked in front of them. Mahiru stood and said, “That’s my uncle. Do you want a ride to your home? It’s late.”

“Hyde is practising in the music shop and I already promised to walk him home. He has a talent for causing trouble so I need to make sure he doesn’t take a detour at night. Being the older brother is troublesome.” He said and nodded towards the store. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Be careful on your way home and make sure you watch out for cars. Goodnight, Kuro.” He said goodbye to him but he lingered in front of Kuro for a few minutes. Mahiru didn’t know what he was waiting for and he eventually pulled himself away from him.

He walked to his uncle’s car and he placed his guitar in the backseat. Mahiru sat in the passenger seat and his uncle pulled out of the curb. “I’m sorry that I ran off like that, Uncle. Were you waiting for a long time while Kuro and I were talking?”

“I didn’t mind. What do you want to order for dinner?” Toru kept his eyes on the road but he noticed Mahiru roll down the window. He waved to Kuro when they passed each other. Mahiru wore a small smile as he watched Kuro in the side mirror. Toru wanted to ask his nephew about his classmate and how he found them playing the guitar together. He decided it was best to let Mahiru tell him when he felt ready.

“We have food in the fridge and I can throw something together quickly. It’s been a while since we had a proper family dinner. There’s a lot we need to catch up on.” Mahiru leaned back in the chair and let the cool air wash over him. “That was my friend, Kuro. I asked him to teach me how to play the guitar. We’ve only had a few lessons so far. He invited me to play in his band and I accepted.”

“That’s great. If you need any tips, you can ask me.” Toru didn’t know what led Mahiru to the guitar again but he hoped the hobby could be good for him. He thought back to how he found Kuro and Mahiru sitting in the park. That was the first time in years where he saw Mahiru smile at anything related to music. He needed to ask, “Did you decide to learn the guitar to help you move on? I don’t think you should play if you’re still holding onto guilt.”

Mahiru couldn’t respond to him because he didn’t know the full depth of his reasons for learning the guitar. The best he could say was: “There’s a song I want to play for her.”

“Mahiru, what happened that day wasn’t your fault.”

“Everyone keeps telling me that.” Mahiru muttered and touched his chest where the guitar would usually rest. “I was the one who asked her to sing.”

“Hey, Nii-san, it’s time to wake up!” Hyde called up the stairs. He doubted Kuro would answer him since it was rare for his brother to be awake before eight. Since he was such a heavy sleeper, he would need to shove him off the bed to force him awake. As much he respected Kuro, he wished he would wake up with the alarm for once. “Pancakes are ready!”

He didn’t respond so he expected to find his brother buried underneath his blanket. Instead, Kuro sat at the foot of his bed with his guitar and blank music sheets. The electric guitar was completely silent because he had plugged his headphones into the amp. He didn’t hear him enter the room but Hyde recognized that it was because Kuro was immersed in the music and not the headphones.

Hyde became curious about the song Kuro was playing and he peaked over his shoulder to see the music sheets. He found that he was writing a new song and there were a few scribbled bars on the paper. The band had a few original songs yet Kuro had never shown interest in writing music before. He would leave the task of creating songs to Licht and Hyde while he simply matched the rhythm with his guitar.

A note written in the margin of the paper caught his attention. Mahiru’s lalala had a six bar progression. Could be the chorus. The name made Hyde think that his brother was writing a love song to Mahiru rather than something for their band. The mere possibility piqued Hyde’s interest since he had never seen his brother with a crush on someone before.

“Nii-san!” Hyde yelled to get his attention and he jumped onto the mattress next to him. His action caused the items on his bed to fly into the air slightly. He was careful not to sit on the papers but Kuro rushed to save them from being crushed. Kuro set them aside and then he took off his headphones. Others would be shocked by Hyde’s childish surprise but he only gave his brother an agitated sigh.

“There was a less troublesome way to get my attention, Hyde. Shouldn’t you be downstairs and helping Lily with breakfast? It’s your turn to cook.” Kuro checked the time on his phone and his eyes widened when he saw how much time had passed. He woke up earlier than usual because he couldn’t get Mahiru’s song out of his head. He thought he should write down a few bars but he had spent an hour on it.

“We already made a plate for you and I came up here to tell you.” When Kuro started to stand, Hyde stopped him by placing his hand on his shoulder. “I’ll bring breakfast up for you so we can eat and work on that song together. I have a lot more experience writing songs than you so I’ll help you with that. Just hum me the rhythm and I’ll write the notes.”

“You don’t need to—” Kuro was barely able to speak before his brother was out the door. He wanted to tell him that he hadn’t heard the full song so he wouldn’t be able to hum it for him. He looked down at the music sheets and the chorus he wrote for Mahiru. The song was important to him so he did his best not to change it while he wrote the notes. He wondered what Mahiru was trying to communicate through the song and who it was meant for.

Mahiru looked through the schedule for their class and he saw that Kuro and Ritsuki were assigned to clean up that day. He was excited to have another guitar lesson with him but it appeared he would have to wait. He turned to Kuro who was sitting at his desk. Throughout most of the class, he had slept and he seemed more tired than usual. He wondered if he was able to get enough sleep last night or if he returned home late due to their talk.

Ritsuki stood next to Kuro and she repeatedly poked at his shoulder. He knew that she was trying to wake him so they could start cleaning the classroom. However, Mahiru felt a little jealous. Kuro didn’t show any sign of waking up despite Ritsuki’s persistence. He snored softly and it almost sounded like a cat to Mahiru. He chuckled and then he walked to Kuro’s desk.

“Kuro, it’s time to wake up.” At the sound of his voice, Kuro sat up and rubbed his stiff neck. He was still tired but he didn’t lay his head on the table again. Kuro leaned back against his chair and he looked up at Mahiru. “The teacher didn’t wake you during class but he looked angry. He might give you detention or more homework if you keep sleeping in class.”

“I can barely keep my eyes open when he talks about those poets. Troublesome.” Kuro yawned. “Can I borrow your notes for what I missed today?”

“Sure.” Mahiru took out his notebook and he placed it on his desk. “Did you get enough sleep last night? You look exhausted and it’s not your usual lazy cat routine. You have cleanup duty today but I can take over for you while you catch up on your sleep. I enjoy cleaning and I can probably finish everything before you. I can probably clean faster than two people.”

“Thanks, Mahiru!” Ritsuki interrupted their conversation. He was confused about what she meant but then she added: “It’s nice of you to take over cleaning duty for us. I wanted to go to the mall with my friends today and I can catch up with them if I leave now. Bye, Mahiru. Good luck with Kuro!”

He didn’t know whether she misunderstood his offer or if she only wanted an excuse to leave early. She already ran out of the classroom before he could correct her. Mahiru thought it would be pointless to go after her when he could simply clean the classroom himself. He leaned against the desk next to Kuro’s and said, “Get some rest while I clean. It shouldn’t take more than twenty minutes.”

Mahiru stood in front of the chalkboard to erase the writing first. He was careful not to make a lot of noise so Kuro could sleep. He didn’t mind cleaning the classroom by himself. His uncle was often away for work so he would do the house chores himself. He rose onto his toes so he could reach the top of the chalkboard. He considered standing on a chair so he would be able to erase the words easier.

“I never thought of this before but you’re always volunteering to do work, aren’t you?” Kuro’s voice brushed over his hair before he felt his fingers run over his wrist. He gently took the eraser from him and he wiped away the words he couldn’t reach. “During the last cultural festival, you volunteered to do four different jobs, from baking to making costumes. We were put on baking duty together but you did most of the work and I just put the trays in the oven.”

Mahiru thought back to the cultural festival they held last year. They weren’t friends at the time and he was too busy balancing four jobs to talk to him. He wished he had taken the time to speak with him so they would’ve been friends sooner. He was surprised that Kuro remembered the day. “Our class was wasting time arguing over who should be responsible for each job when we needed to focus on opening a great café for the festival. Thinking simply, it has to be me.”

“You know, you don’t have to do everything on your own.” Kuro placed the eraser on the short ledge. Their classmates would often push their work onto Mahiru because they knew he wouldn’t disagree. He assumed Kuro would be the same considering his personality. His words made Mahiru smile. He thought of how he had supported him learning the guitar and comforted him the night before.

“I hope you remember this conversation when I ask you to bake cookies with me again. I’ll make you roll out the dough as well as putting cookies in the oven.” Mahiru joked with a light laugh. “This year’s cultural festival is in a few weeks. What do you think we should do? Maybe a concert so we can invite your band to play. It’ll be good promotion.”

“Most of us are from different schools so the teacher won’t let them participate. Hyde and Licht go to this super fancy school and they always throw a grand event for their cultural festival. He sent me a few pictures. He looked like he was having fun but I don’t know if I could. Cats don’t like loud places.” Kuro took out his phone and showed him the picture he had saved.

“Then we should host a tea ceremony.” Mahiru suggested and he imagined Kuro in a traditional kimono. He came to know him because wanted to learn the guitar but he now looked forward to other things they could do together.

They were able to finish cleaning the classroom quickly but that didn’t leave them a lot of time to practise in the stairway. The band had a rehearsal scheduled after school. Usually, Mahiru would suggest they go directly to the music shop since they would only be practising for such a short time. That meeting would be Mahiru’s first as their official vocalist. He was a little nervous and he hoped the practise session with Kuro would help him relax.

“Before we start practising, there’s something I want to show you. You said you wanted to play a song. I wrote the parts you sang for me. I don’t know if it’s exactly what you were thinking of so I recorded it on my phone for you to listen to. Tell me if there’s anything that needs to be changed. I haven’t heard the full song so I just filled in the empty parts.” Kuro searched through his messy backpack for his notebook.

He sat next to Mahiru on the steps with his phone and the music sheets in his hands. He had planned to play the song on his phone’s speaker until Mahiru slid closer to him. Mahiru took one of the earphones from him and he placed it in each of their ears. They needed to sit close to share the headphone and Kuro thought Mahiru was so comfortable with him because they were friends.

“I’ve never had someone write a song for me before.” Their shoulders bumped together but Mahiru was too focused on the music sheets to notice how close they were. He had the song stuck in his head for a long time yet he felt excited to hear Kuro play it for him. “Thank you.”

“This is your song so I can’t take credit for it.” Kuro pressed play on the recording. While audio quality was far from a professional studio, the song resonated with Mahiru. He tapped his pen on each note drawn on the music sheet as he listened to the song. Mahiru closed his eyes and he hummed along. After the lost expression he had last night, Kuro was relieved to see him smile again. At the same time, he felt nervous as he asked, “What do you think?”

“This is great, Kuro! I can’t thank you enough for writing this for me.” Mahiru closed the already small space between them and he hugged Kuro. He embraced him so suddenly that he didn’t hold him back immediately. He leaned back to look up at Kuro but he didn’t let him so. “I can play this song for her. I hope she’ll be able to hear my feelings when I do. This means so much to me.”

He mentioned playing the song for a girl and Kuro felt conflicted. Did Mahiru plan to confess to her?

[before-we-get-started]

Dream Come True

Colin Shea x O/C Corinne MacAdam

Multi-Chapter Story - Complete

Summary: Colin Shea and his band Rock the Cradle are finally making it big - until something unexpected happens. When he meets a girl that makes him reconsider his player ways, he thinks his life may be coming together, until she blows it apart.

Warning: Bad language, smut, suicidal ideations - no one under 18, please

Disclaimer: This is a pure work of fiction and classified as 18+. Please do not read if you are underage. I do not own the character of Colin Shea; the rest are my original characters. By reading beyond this point, you understand the disclaimers as posted.

Chapter Three

“Colin? Colin? You with me, man?”

He stirred, then became aware of intense pain in his back and neck. He let out a moan.

“There he is.”

He recognized Kevin’s voice. He slowly opened his eyes, his head pounding as he focused on the light. “What the hell?”

“It’s ok man, you’re gonna be ok. You scared the shit out of us.”

“Kevin!” Colin’s mom scolded him as she sat at the edge of his bed, holding his hand.

“Hi Honey, dad and I are here.”

“What happened?”

“We nailed the razzle dazzle but you got taken out,” said Kevin. “Landed on your head, which for you shouldn’t be that big of a deal, but it knocked you out. We lost you for a minute. Heart stopped and everything. Spencer got you back.”

Colin groaned. “Oh no, tell me he didn’t kiss me.”

“Look, when you’re dead, does it really matter? The guy saved your life. If mouth-to-mouth was involved, so be it.”

“Aah, gross!”

“Colin, for heaven’s sake, we’re just glad you’re still with us,” said his mom, smoothing the hair back from his forehead.

“You really did scare the shit out of us son,” said his dad, his mom slapping at dad’s hand for the profanity.

Their conversation was interrupted as a young nurse entered the room. “Mr. Shea, glad to have you back.”

Even severely concussed and in pain, Colin was on the prowl. “Are you here for my sponge bath? I can make everyone disappear,” he said with a crooked smile.

The nurse rolled her eyes. “We have a special nurse that takes care of those. I’ll have her paged. Her name is Agnes, she’s wonderful, been doing this for 50 years-“

Colin’s dad let out a belly laugh.

“That’s ok,” he said, all the cockiness gone. “I’ll just get some rest.”

“Right,” she said with a grin. She adjusted the IV bag on the stand next to his bed, wrote his vitals on the board for the next nurse and left the room.

Colin closed his eyes, then quickly opened them, springing up from the bed. He grabbed his throbbing head. “Dude, what time is it, we’re gonna be late!” He pulled the blanket away and tried to swing his legs over the side of the bed. Kevin stopped him.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, lay back down. You’re not going anywhere.” His mother pulled the blanket back up to cover him.

“We’re gonna be late! We can’t miss this!” Colin said as he tried again to sit up.

“Colin, just lay down. We’re not going to be late. It’s ok.”

Colin laid his arm over his forehead and closed his eyes. “How long do we have? We’re supposed to be there at 6.”

Kevin chuckled at his bedside while he saw sadness in his mom’s eyes.

“What’s so funny?” said Colin.

“It’s Thursday. You lost three days, dude.”

He laid still for a second, considering what Kevin had said. “Wait, what?”

“Yeah. You’ve been out for three days. You took a hard hit. That Jordan dunk was worth it though, huh?”

Colin groaned. “No, no, no!” He rubbed his forehead and groaned again. “I can’t believe this. We’ll never get this chance again.”

“The producer said he’d try to get back with us but he was headed to L.A. for the next few months. He wished us luck. Look, all that matters is that you’re ok.”

His mother patted his hand. “Colin, it’s ok, just rest. The most important thing is that you’re ok and that you heal.”

“Damn,” Colin muttered under his breath. He’d been trying to gather his thoughts since waking up, everything still foggy. He remembered walking to the basketball court. He remembered their opponents asking for a best-of-3 game. He even remembered he was wearing his favorite Celtics t-shirt. And he remembered her.

“Kevin, were there any girls at the court? Watching the game?”

“Good Lord Colin, are you ever not thinking about girls?” said his dad.

“No, no, I just keep thinking about this girl. Chestnut hair, chocolate eyes, really sexy legs. Was she there watching us?”

“Nope,” said Kevin, popping the p. “No chocolate-eyed girls. In fact, no girls at all. A total sausage fest.” This earned Kevin one more smack from Colin’s mom.

Colin closed his eyes and rubbed them, sighing. His band had missed their shot and a beautiful brunette that he wasn’t sure existed was living rent-free in his brain. It was all too much.

“Alright man, I’m out of here. Glad you’re alive. The band would suck without a lead guitarist,” said Kevin.

“Good to know how much I mean to you,” said Colin, gripping his hand in their special handshake. “Thanks Kevin.”

Kevin walked out as Colin’s mom fluffed his pillow behind his head. All he could do was close his eyes and drift off, hoping to escape all the disappointment breaking his heart.

“You’re moving great, girlfriend.”

Cori grinned at her mother’s encouragement as she stepped out onto the patio. It had been three months since she’d stepped off the curb into the path of a cab. Fortunately the driver had been slowing already, so when he hit her, the impact could’ve been worse. As it was, the impact had caused her heart to stop. An ambulance two lanes over had responded and gotten her to the hospital in minutes, and they’d shocked her and brought her back. She’d broken an ankle and a wrist and suffered a severe concussion. She’d been unconscious for nearly a week. Her recovery had been steady, her parents welcoming her into her old room and nursing her back to health.

She sat down under the umbrella at the patio table, lifting her bad leg onto the ottoman. Her mother brought lemonade for them both, sitting down next to her.

“You look wonderful honey,” her mother said, covering her hand. “I’m so thankful you’ve recovered so well.” She stared down at the table, then raised her eyes to Cori.

“I think we need to talk.”

“Sure,” said Cori, sipping the lemonade.

“About that day, I mean.”

Cori swallowed hard. She knew this conversation was coming. “I don’t remember much,” she said.

“I don’t want to talk about what happened. I want to talk about why.” She patted Cori’s hand.

“Mom –“

“Corinne,” she said sternly. “The counselor said part of your healing is assessment and accountability.”

Cori rolled her eyes and her mother gently slapped her hand.

“You and I both know you were going through a lot when this happened. You had lost so much. Dad and I should’ve paid more attention. We should’ve seen the signs.” Her voice broke and she wiped at a tear on her cheek.

“Mom,” said Cori, leaning forward to comfort her. “Please. Look, I’ll admit I wasn’t exactly a ray of sunshine before the accident. I was struggling with all of it. But Mom, I wouldn’t ever try to – you know –“

Her mom slid her chair closer and wrapped her arms around her. “Of course not, honey. We both know that despite everything, you have so much to live for.”

“I do,” she said, but the confidence was gone from her voice.

“Corinne. You have always been my happy child. You sang loudest in the choir, you were the cheerleader with the biggest smile, your pirouettes were full of energy – those other girls in dance couldn’t begin to turn the way you did. How many times have I walked in on you singing at the top of your lungs into your hair brush or heard you laughing like crazy at ‘Friends.’”

“Mom –“

“I’m just saying,” she continued, “you don’t need a guy to be your happiness. Sure, it’s wonderful to have companionship. But you are intelligent and fun and caring, sweet and loving. There is someone out there for you, and I’m sorry Matthew made you take a detour. But before you find the right one, you have to be sure you know who you are.”

Her mom was definitely starting to sound like the counselor. “Ma, you’re exactly right. I made the mistake of trusting two people with my happiness and they let me down. And despite everything, even though I’ve had these challenges, I know I have my whole life ahead of me and I’m ready to start this adventure again.”

Her mom looked at her, not completely buying what Cori was selling.

“Mom! I mean it! Look, what happened to me scared the absolute crap out of me. I know I’m lucky to have survived. But I did for a reason – there are obviously things I haven’t done yet.” Isn’t that what he told me before he kissed me?

Finally her mother smiled. “That’s the Cori I know and love,” she said softly. “You took several years off your dad’s and my lives kiddo. All we want is for you to be happy. We want you to have everything you want.” She squeezed Cori’s hand. “Promise me you’ll concentrate on being happy and having fun and not worry about what you think society expects from you.”

She let loose with another eye roll.

“Cori, seriously. You’ll find someone and marry when the time is right. I promise you you’ll know when you’ve found the right one.”

She couldn’t help but laugh. “Uh, spoken by the one who married her high school sweetheart,” she said with a smirk.

“Hey, I can’t help it if Mr. Right took me to my senior prom. But I sure knew he was the one,” she said with a wink.

“Did someone call my name?” Her dad walked out onto the patio, passing Cori a bottle of beer.

“Oh brother,” she said as her dad leaned down to kiss her mom’s cheek. She loved that they were still so much in love. Could there really be that type of romance out there for her somewhere?

“We were just discussing Cori’s fresh start,” said her mom, “and all she has to look forward to.”

“You’ve always been full of joy, Princess,” said her dad. “Your future’s so bright…”

“Don’t!” Cori groaned.

“You’re gonna need shades,” her mom and dad said in unison, laughing loudly at themselves.

“What’s so funny?” her sister asked, carrying out some snacks.

“NOT mom and dad,” said Cori, and they laughed even louder.

They munched and chatted and Cori felt a calm she hadn’t in some time. She was blessed with a loving family and all the support in the world. Even as she worked through the noises crowding her brain, she had the people she needed around her.

Listening to them talking, Cori closed her eyes. At some point she’d love to talk about what happened after the accident, but her memory was still so sketchy. She remembered taking the elevator down from her office, pressing herself up against the glass on the crowded sidewalk, even stopping on the corner and pushing the button to get the crossing light. But that’s where it ended. Her next memory was in the hospital, her mother stroking her hand and her father standing next to her bed.

She let out a sigh. She’d dodged a bullet, that was for sure. She was so lucky to be alive. She swore she could remember the feeling of being brought back to life, the power surging through her.

And then, as she remembered the feeling of electricity, the flash of a face – beautiful blue eyes, spiky blonde hair, firm biceps and pecs and a Celtics t-shirt. As quickly as the memory was there, it was gone. She guessed it must be someone she’d seen at the hospital, or maybe on the street before she was hit.

“What are you grinning about?” her mother said, interrupting the thought.

She smirked. “Wouldn’t you like to know!”

She helped her mother clear their dishes and then packed up leftovers for her sister. After hugging her goodbye, she said good night to her parents and showered, covering her casts with a bag, then crawled into bed with a book. She finished only a few pages before sleep claimed her, the book sliding down the covers.

In her dreams, she could see the turquoise water so clearly. She was naturally drawn to it. The water was so blue and still, the sky golden. She’d almost made it but then he was there. Suddenly there were blue eyes and his lips were pressed to hers in a passionate kiss, a jolt of electricity stunning her body.

She jumped from under the covers, bracing herself with her good arm. She fully expected to see still water when she looked over the side of the bed, but it was just her bedroom.

Who was he? And why was he there? There was no mistaking that the kiss was delicious. She closed her eyes and hummed as she remembered it again. But where was she when she was kissing him? She hadn’t seen anyone since Matthew. There had been no one.

Those features were suddenly clear to her, the angled nose and chiseled jawline, with a few freckles across his high cheekbones. The thought of him took her breath away. She could remember the details but she couldn’t conjure the entire face. There was a silver chain, and a tattoo – were they words? – and Celtic green. As quickly as the memory was there, it was gone. The doctors had told her she may have snippets of memories from her entire life until the effects of the concussion healed. Wasn’t it her luck that she’d been kissed by a guy that was a figment of her imagination. It was a kiss for the ages, one she wouldn’t forget any time soon. She hoped thinking of it would give her courage as she stepped back into the world.

* * * *

“Here honey,” said Colin’s mom, adjusting the pillows behind his head on the couch. “Are you hungry? Can I get you anything?”

“Ma, thanks but I’m fine, I swear.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” she said, straightening up things in the kitchen.

Colin was in a funk. Despite his doting mother and all her TLC, he was still down hard. For the last three months, he’d struggled to come to terms with what he’d lost. His dream of his band making it big was gone. It had taken weeks for his body to heal. He was moving better but there was still some pain. The horrible headache that was part of his severe concussion had finally lifted, but he was still in a fog.

The guys were getting restless, they wanted to start playing again. They’d been able to book some parties and a gig at one of their regular bars. He had two more weeks to get it together, make sure his guitar skills had returned to normal, and they’d start their quest again.

Only he just wasn’t feeling it. No matter how hard he tried, there was a gray cloud over his head. And then there was that girl. His memory was hazy, he tried so hard to remember her. Beautiful hair and eyes, with a sweet, heart-shaped mouth. And yet all he could remember was how sad she looked. She haunted his dreams every night and the memory would disappear. He didn’t know who she was or where she came from, or if she was even real. He only knew she was going to end it all if he hadn’t stopped her. How could someone so beautiful feel so sad that they didn’t want to exist anymore?

“Honey, you’re so deep in thought. Don’t you want to rest?”

“Ma, I really, really appreciate you taking care of me but I’m fine. Really.”

She sat down on the chair across from him and took a good look at him. “You look better,” she said. “And your appetite is back. All good signs.”

“So how about you go home and take care of dad for a while? I know he’s been missing you.”

She chuckled. “I’m not sure that’s true,” she said with a smile.

“Ok, well I know he’s missed your cooking,” he said.

“That is true,” she said, “and from the looks of his belly, he could afford to miss it for a

while.”

Colin laughed and his mother smiled at him. “That’s music to my ears,” she said. She walked over and sat on the edge of the couch, running her fingers over his hair. “You know, maybe you could think about bringing a nice girl home to us,” she said. “I could teach her how to cook all your favorites.”

“Ma-“

“I know, I know, you like to play the field. But really Colin, how about just finding a nice girl you can settle down with. And then you can start giving me grandbabies,” she said with a brilliant smile.’

“Come on Ma,” he said as she pinched his cheeks.

“I’ll make you a deal,” she said.

“Shoot,” said Colin.

“I’ll go home and leave you be, but you have to promise you won’t overdo it. And you’ll eat what I left you and not order any crap until you’re better.”

He laughed again and sat up, wrapping her up in a hug. “You’re the best Ma ever, you know that, right?”

“Well, that’s because you’re my baby boy.”

He blushed as she ruffled his hair. “Ok, I’m out of here. I love you,” she said, kissing his cheek. “And I’m glad you’re still around to eat my lasagna.”

“Me too,” he said.

She made her way out of his apartment and he stared up at the ceiling. He had to return to the living. He forced himself off the couch and fought the urge to return to bed, grabbing his guitar. It had always been his solace. When he felt his lowest, he’d simply pound out a song and his mood would instantly improve. He strummed slowly, but his heart wasn’t in it. He set it down and laid back on the couch, curling up under a blanket and covering his head with a pillow. As he closed his eyes, he hoped she’d once again be there, so clear and yet not even a true memory.

Tomorrow was a new day. He’d try joining the living again tomorrow.

[argumentl]

The Freedom of Expression Ep 3 - Michelin Star related suicide.

K: Hi, this is Dir en grey's Kaoru, getting started with the third episode of The Freedom of Expression.

J, T: Yep.

K: Joe Yokomizu san and Tasai san are here again. So, how are we doing, after the second time?

Kami:*interrupts*

J: Ah, He's cutting in early today.

Kami: Yes, yes, yes. Im thinking a lot about my timing.

J: You're entering from every possible angle?

Kami: Yes, thats it.

K: What do you think after the first two episodes? We are on our third today, but does it seem interesting?

K: As a god, im kinda out of things to say.

J: Really?

Kami: Yep

J: You would think a god would know about all sorts of things.

Kami: I don't know all that much. *K laughs* Im studying, Im working on it.

T: Last time, the suspicion arose that he was poverty stricken, didnt it?

J: Yes, he pointed out he was a poverty stricken god.

Kami: I told you not to say that! *K laughs*

T: Sorry..

Kami: Its a problem.

K: After we finished last time, we ended up talking a lot about money, didn't we?

J: Yes, we did. *everyone laughing*

Kami: Yep, yep.

J: After the recording, Kami spoke non stop about money, didn't he? He is really attached to it..for a god. You'd think he'd be the one least interested in that, but he turns out to be the one most interested.

Kami: It wasn't that bad until then. It wasn't like that back on the radio show. It really has become a problem recently.

J: Oh now?

T: I see.

Kami: Yes, now.

K: Right, well, our third episode...

J: Yes, the title is 'Suicide resulting from Michelin stars - In the lawsuit of a former 3 star Michelin star chef, the court rules that....'

This is concerning the Michelin guide which was even popularised in a TV drama last year. In its country of origin, France, there is so much pressure, the fear of losing a star can even lead to suicide. A Chef who lost his third star even filed a lawsuit against Michelin. As for the specific story, Marc Veyrat, who runs the famous restaurant 'La Maison des Bois' in the Alps, recieved the long awaited 3 star rating in 2018. Just one year later, this dropped to a 2 star rating. Veyrat responded angrily, 'The quality of my food hasn't changed at all. Its a mistake in the inspection', and brought the case against Michelin. As well as demading the inspector's qualifications and the report to be made public, as his demotion has led to him to  falling into a state of depression, he is suing Michelin for the sum of just 1 Euro, or in yen, 120 yen. He has been telling the media of his discontent that the inspectors could not recognize the cheese Reblochon, from the Savoy region, and probably mistook it for the widely produced cheddar cheese. Nanterre courthouse in the suburbs of Paris responded, that as well as the evaluation of the inspector coming down to freedom of expression, the plaintiff did not show good enough reason that  his reputation had been marred. The famous chef was defeated, but the agony of chefs over the star rating is becoming a problem in society. By the way, simply put, the standard for the inspection, or the standard for the stars, is the food only. Not the restaurant interior, or the service. The food is assessed on the following five criteria. 1) The quality of the ingrediants. 2) The level of skill and amount of seasoning. 3) Originality. 4) Cost performance. 5) The consistency of the presented dishes on the whole. This is the same all over the world. As for the meaning of the stars, this is as follows. One star = Food that is particularly delicious within its category. Two stars = Spectacular food that is worth making a detour to have it. Three stars = Excellent food that is worth specifically traveling just to have it. The report is produced by a group consisting of the inspectors, the chief editor and all other responsible parties for the Michelin guide book. Every year they recieved around 45,000 emails and letters from thier readers, which they look through, and sometimes even do re-evaluations. ....Food!

K: Food...

J: Yep...I mean, reputation really controls which restaurants we go to.  Kaoru, what do you think?

K: Hmm, well, its an inspection isnt it?

J: Yes, its an inspection.

K: I was in Paris last year. There are loads of these aren't there? * the others laugh*

J: Well, yes. So, he didn't change anything about his food, but his rating still dropped, whats that all about?

K: Isn't it precisely because he didn't do anything new?

J: Oh, could it be that? If others are upping thier game, you will naturally drop.

K: There couldn't really be someone who mistook it for mass produced cheddar cheese.

J: You'd think, wouldn't you?

K: And then, maybe people are just different, no matter what it is. Even if its the same person..

J: Maybe they were feeling bad or something..

K: Hmm, an inspection is...Well, if it was sports or combat sport or something..the observers can easily judge the game, like..oh this one definitely won...But with music, or movies....appraisals of 'things', its different depending on the person isnt it.

J: Yes, you're right.

K: This type of guide is for people who want to expand thier knowledge, the Michelin guide ...For movies it would be the Academy Awards, and there are tv shows doing the same thing.  Its just to make things easier for people...so, in the end, it seems like it can't be helped really.

J: Well, thats it, yes. I dont know about Michelin, but Im in the position to do album reviews, so im in the place to award stars...and, its true, if its a genre you like, you just naturally like it, and are prone to jacking up the stars, but if its a genre you don't listen to, you feel unfamiliar and it takes a while to figure out whether its good or bad. So certainly, as for awarding stars.. asking people, well, im just repeating what you said Kaoru, its not objective information. You have to try and think about the aim. If the orgainisation drops a star from you it doesn't necessarily mean you are bad..

K: Its like a contest or that type of thing, you can still see who's winning the game..

J: Like 1-1, you can see whos winning in front of you, the circumstances are a little different from this though.

K: Eventually, won't it affect thier sales though?

J: I think so.

T: Don't you think diners also rely too much on this kind of guide?

K: You can check anything on your smartphone, you don't really know whats true.

J: You don't, there are these restaurant review sites where some people are paid to write good reviews, and some people are paid to write bad reviews, you know, to destroy thier rivals they will write bad stuff...So its difficult to know how far to trust that type of thing. By the way, Kaoru, do you refer to reviews in relation to food, or new music or anything like that?

K: Well, I do, yes. Guides and such...Usually, I  get information I want to know from all over the place. I ask people, like..'I want to eat this', or 'I wonder if that place is good' or something,  I ask people what they think.

T: But when you want to go to see a movie, do you ask someone who likes movies?

K: I'll read what someone has written about it, or I'll read what they've posted on social media.

J: The main thing is listening to people you can trust.

K: Yes, thats it.

J: Someone you are familiar with, or some well-informed person. Also someone you see eye to eye with.

T: Thats right.

J: If you go out for food with someone, and they say 'this is delicious', if you ask them what else they like, it will be the same kind of things that you like.

K: Really, I've never been to a two star or three star Michelin restaurant * the others laugh*.

J: Well, this internet age isn't going to end...

T: Right

J: Just how far will people trust this kind of assesment, or star rating?

T: Joe, have you ever been hassled by anyone because of this? By artists or such?

J: I havn't actually...I write what I didn't personally like, and sign my name with a star rating, then, 'this is what I think, but what do YOU think', to continue the conversation.

K: Our boss in our office, he was in a band a long time ago, and he got angry about something that was written in a magazine, so he stormed over to the magazine headquarters * the others laugh*  He might ????*1

J,T: Your boss, wow!

J: What was the magazine?

K: Oh, I don't remember..*laughing*

J: Which of them has the freedon of expression? *laughing*

K: They are both clashing with each other.

J: The moment their freedom clashed *laughs*

T: But, Ive heard that kind of story before...A hip hop artist or something, went to a magazine and tried to restrain or kidnap the editor. He took it that seriously.

J: Well, in a music magazine, if you write an article, its the same with interviews, you dont know whether the other party will see or hear it. For me, after editing, I think its good to show it to the artist once. Im only writing my ideas, and there are times where thats not the reality.

For interviews, you dont necessarily hand over the questions in advance, and if im just asking at random, the artist may feel on the spot and not be able to say what they really feel, so i think its good to show them once, to get the facts right.  With reviews too, i think showing them what i intend to write is important. But there are magazines where the boss doesnt get the content checked, 'you said it, so take responsibility', kind of thing. Thats a bit harsh, i think.

T: Well, yes. With interviews, I think its good to show the person. Protecting freedom should be kept independent.

J: Yes, yes, you are free to write what you think, but this is also keeping it real by checking if artists are holding responsibility for what they say. They decide whether they can really say that after checking it first.

K: There are times when you wish you'd used more words..

J: There are! Of course, its limited to the time and place of the interview, for example 1 hour, the time is squeezed. You have to get on with it, with little explanation..sometimes you need to supplement that.

T: Yes, you're right.

K: What do you think, Kami?

J: Kamiii?

Kami: *stifled laugh* Yes, what?

J: I don't know how to address him.

Kami: No no, don't worry about that, we are short on time.

K: Yes, our third installment is ending.

J: It felt quick today..somehow.

K: Originally, one episode was supposed to have two news items.

J: Yeah, i thought that.

K: But it didn't work that way, did it?

J: No, it didnt. What do the viewers think? Is one item enough? Or do they want two items at a faster pace?

K: If its too long, they won't be able to watch it.

J,T: Right.

T: A shorter video is better.

J: As for raising the number of views, right?

K: We talk about quite difficult stuff too, we should try to break into it as much as we can, make it interesting. Oh, and Kami, even his voice is interesting.

J: Its enough.

K: Well, that was the third installment, please tune in next time.

K, J, T: Thank you very much.

*1 I couldn't catch this. 

[iwritethat]

Tim Drake: Belonging

A/N: Alrighty, links to Rogue One but can be read seperately of course. This is how (Y/n) and Tim met, set a few years before...

>>>>——————————>

Another day, another gala to attend in order to promote Drake Industries despite his parents constant travels, they made time to appear at Gothams’ formalities on occasion. This was one of those times.

Only his usual plans of being bored and wondering around aimlessly were unexpectedly sabotaged by her. By a beautiful wealthy guest who radiated class and elegance beyond her years, a complete newcomer in his eyes, a youthful presence that would effortlessly attract undivided attention in her future maturity. By you.

Tim was swept away by an enigma, the only word prominent enough in his scramble of thoughts to describe the character, with the band playing a slow dancing melody it made it easier for him to focus on the mysterious beauty in front of him.

"You don't belong here, do you?" Came your calculating yet pleased tone, your fingers gently dancing on his shoulder.

"Who- of course I do, my parents run a successful industry."

"I said you, not your parents. You just seem to stand out to me, that's all." You were so carefree, offering an aura no else in the proximity ever possessed and he’d be lying if he hadn’t already been lured in.

"Is that why you whisked me off, oh strange one?" It made him feel relaxed, his better judgment warning him of mesmerising strangers but the small threads of personality he’d been entangled in so far encouraged him to ignore it.

"Yes that, and I needed to blend in momentarily but that’s a completely irrevelevant topic. So to thank you for your unwitting aid, let me tell you a secret: I don't belong here either." You whispered the last part in his ear, causing him to become noticeably flustered - you were both young, probably the first female to ever get this close to him by your deductions.

"I'm Timothy Drake..." The young man started, assuring to meet your gaze once you'd pulled back.

"(Y/n) (L/n), great to stumble into you."

"You too, so what brings you here?" Now it was his turn to inquire, and a complicated conversation ensued - one that left you both eager to learn more but after your brief disappearance it became apparent your first meeting was to be cut short.

"Call me!" He registered your voice before your sudden rushed appearance by his side, a kiss placed on his cheek as you briskly checked your surroundings.

"I don't have your number!"

"Check your phone, I stole it when we danced and added it whilst I was gone." You smugly shot back, tossing the young man his phone before swiftly making an exit and it was moments later that outraged shouts echoed from the top floor - who exactly were you?!

.

Tim assumed that would be the last he saw of you, a welcomed abnormality that was a breath of fresh air in his otherwise predictable life. The name you'd given provided very little - if anything - in his online research but your number had proven valid and became his chosen method of communication. However, in all his carefully constructed scenarios, the last place he expected to stumble across anyone of the like would be in the rundown rings of Gothams back alleys when inspecting a rumour he'd overheard from the rebellious seniors at school.

The atmosphere was rowdy yet electrifying, alcoholic beverages littered the area, attendees wore too little clothing for the chilling breeze of a Gotham evening and recognisable Hip Hop tracks blared from the boasting speakers inbuilt into the boots of various strikingly customised cars. Anyone of his stature would be out of place here, thus grateful for his hoodie which allowed him to blend in a little better - he swiftly dodged cheering onlookers as engines roared through the streets and it was almost overwhelming to the senses but at the same time intoxicating, crews hovered around their vehicles to prepare it for the next race all whilst endorsing the flirtatious antics of fans but through all of the commotion a constrastingly gentle tug of his hood caused him to hesitate.

"You're the guy I met at the gala yeah?" You casually chimed with a soft smirk and raised brow, arm resting on your hip as he turned to you after releasing his red hoodie. He had no prepared answer, looking you up and down with a cracked “Yes.”

You shook your head with a quiet but amused chuckle, smoothly entwining your fingers to pull a still semi unresponsive Timothy away from the delinquent crowd to speak more freely.

"What are you doing here?" The teen finally manged to ask once regaining his composure though upon reflection, Tim shouldn't be here either but since it was only a tiny detour he saw no harm in indulging his curiosity of the vigilante lifestyle. Was it so bad to want to see Batman in action? This is something he'd want to intercept right?

"Same thing as you, accidental wrong turn." You smugly commented obviously lying and sassing Tim whilst glancing back to the 'entertainment' briefly with a smirk.

"Maybe I chose to come here." Tim was more confident this time, almost as if trying to impress you but instead you only snorted.

"Mmhmm, I doubt a richboy like you would be at a drag race rally by choice so you must be following some lead."

"Don't call me that, and you're right - I was. I wanted to see if -" Before Tim could elaborate, an ear splitting skid of breaks were heard as well as the uproar from attendees which wasn't uncommon for you.

He'd noticed your natural instincts in the situation, the way you'd located an escape route in almost 2 seconds flat and had interlaced your fingers to take him with you once more. It dawned on him then, that this was your scene despite how effortlessly you'd merged into his world of upperclass diligence - maybe that was your origin and this your choice, he'd never know nor would he be able to ask under the current chaotic circumstances.

"Have you ever driven one of these before?!" Tim shot as he slid into the deserted Lamborghini you'd practically shoved him toward, yourself more concerned with hot wiring.

"Not legally..."

"Then we should - crap!" Before he could even propose a safer alternative you'd ignited the engine and sped through the streets leaving the sirens and Batman behind.

There was something about it, as new as the adrenaline and excitement were it felt right - even Drake noted the natural gift you possessed and the way you seemed to come alive at the wheel. Tim didn't ask where you were headed, nor did he particularly care so long as you both emerged scathe free whilst you drove through the barrier of an old abandoned multi-story carpark and raced straight to the top, parking rather carelessly across the parking spaces but it served your purpose.

Tim followed as you got out of the purple Lamborghini, strolling over to the edge and sitting atop the wall peaking at the 7th story.

"C'mon richboy, this is my favourite place in the city." You beckoned him with playful wink, turning your attention to the neon lights of skyscrapers, vehicle headlights that seemed to leave a glowing trail as they sped down motorways and street lamps that blended together to create a cosmos of multicoloured stars amidst Gotham's dark skyline.

"It's - it's so beautiful." The boy breathed, soon cautiously joining you on the ledge allowing the wind to grace him with a sense of what could only be felt as weightless freedom.

It made him briefly forget the fact you'd just stolen a car to save the two of you from the rain of rapid fire gunshots, forget all of the questions he'd held regarding your mismatched past and present, and more importantly the persistent stress he always carried in his shoulders. Because of you. A woman he'd encountered twice but felt as though he'd known for years.

"I know right, it helps me think and I thought it'd help you too."

"Why?" Your thoughtfulness caught him off guard, so much so that his tone sounded disbelieving. No one usually gave this much thought to his well-being, his parents mainly too concerned with travels to properly delve into his life.

"Because you need to know what freedom feels like, to have the weight lifted from your shoulders. For you to be Tim Drake rather than an heir to a fortune. I've seen it all before but you're different, I can feel it and this is the world Tim, you can be whoever you want." There was a sincerity and softness to your voice that he wasn't expecting, like you knew exactly how he felt because you'd experienced it too once upon a time. Maybe you had?

"I want this, to see sights like these and I want to make the city a better place but I’m not sure where to start. I admire Batman who does it in his own way, but he's wavering now, he needs a Robin." Over text you couldn't read each other's emotions or disclose personal desires like you were currently and feeling Tim trust you in such a way eased your self doubts.

"Wait - you came to the rally for a potential Batman sighting, ah you’ve got to be kidding me! Not surprised though, you strike me as an undercover nerd.” You cheerfully laughed to yourself, taking a brief glance at Tim who now wore a deadpan expression.

“Thanks (Y/n), I’m so glad I ran into you again.” He playfully pushed your shoulder in mock offence before issuing his sarcastic reply.

“Sorry sorry, but if that's the case why don't you be his Robin?" The way you’d said it made it seem like a possibility, like something he could easily achieve and not once had he felt that way - it wasn’t enough to completely nullify his doubts however.

"It's not that easy, I'd have to know who Batman is for a start."

"So find out. You're definitely smart enough, I know you have the detective skills to do that - it's why we ended up here tonight after all." In contrast to the less than ideal situation, you remained calm and carefree whilst Tim only felt guilty for being a hindrance.

"Sorry about that."

"It's not a complaint, if anything it's a thank you, I hope our misguided adventure helps to find where you belong. Besides, there's no one else I'd rather share this spot with." Now you diverted your gaze from the city, furrowing your brows at his apology before nudging your side against his as a form of friendly comfort alongside your words.

"Agreed, but what about you? Have you found where you belong?" The atmosphere was dripping with meaningful contentment so you weren't surprised by his inquiry but it was much harder to answer than you'd anticipated. Considering you’d been trying to find the answer to that very question for many years now.

"Me? I never thought I'd fit anywhere but, maybe there's hope..." Subconsciously your gaze drifted to the fine technology behind you as you trailed off. It was almost a natural gift, something you could nurture into masterful skill if built upon meticulously.

.

It was both by accident and on purpose, maybe a subconscious need to see one another that lead you to the same place hoping you'd cross paths. You did - multiple times, leading to deep conversations, meaningful gestures and frivolous takeouts under the stars. You'd developed a covet friendship, one that no person would put together just by looking at the two of you - in fact you were rarely seen together at all. Individual reputation and associates probably inspired that ritual.

Tonight, he'd caught the chip you'd aimed at his mouth with a proud grin and fist pump, yourself admiring the casual side of the Drake heir with bemusement - it was one shielded from the public eye to refine an image of a future heir but that pretence was disregarded at times like these.

"So this is a congratulations for finding out Bats' real name, don't worry I'm not gonna ask." You waved him off, though he seemed mystified with how you could read him so gracefully.

"Thanks (Y/n), for being respectful about it and setting me on the right life path. I would honestly love to tell you, but there’s still some work I’ve gotta do. Hey, what about you? Any updates on where you think you're headed?"

He expected your silence, the way you took your time as you gazed off at the vibrantly lit skyline with a look of concern which lead him to continue.

"Or who with?"

This snapped your attention to him immediately wearing a shocked expression, almost offended at the thought of it being someone rather than something that would bring you fulfilment.

"Hah! Relying on someone only gets you hurt, I'm not that stupid Tim, not anymore - which is why I'm so determined to find my place in the world. It'll be my decision with no one to take it from me.” It was a bitter subject, but Tim could hear the emotion in your tone and offered an understanding smile, one you gratefully returned.

.

After that your paths began to separate, you didn't need anyone and that was a fact Tim was reluctantly forced to accept, but with his extracurricular activities and adoption distracting him, it made the whole ordeal easier. Although a silent pact was forged, from the fragments of 'what could've been' if you will, whether you chose to vocalise its existence or not. No matter how far apart, you would always be there for each other - it would only take one call to reunite as though you'd never left another's side. And you’d hoped it remained intact.

.

Now, 2 years had gone by, and you'd found yourself caught in the crosshairs of a police raid where the latest local race was, strategically deciding not to compete but instead scope your next competitors. Though you knew what took place behind the scenes to attract such attention, as a result you'd been prepared for the cops - but not for them. In an instant you'd used the commotion as a distraction, ducking out from the back of the bridge and onto the street where you’d be home free.

Until you saw him waiting for you.

"You finally found it." You cross your arms, leaning back against your custom motorcycle with an expectant look directed at the new vigilante standing before you.

Robin offered a smirk at your calm behaviour, you knew exactly who’d been wearing the mantle and you didn't see Tim Drake as a threat.

"I did. Although I'm not so sure about yours..."

"Because we're on opposite sides of the law now?" You quipped, tilting your head rather bemused with the untimely reunion.

"I never wanted to fight you (Y/n)."

"Neither. But this is where I belong Tim, and it's not a serious felony - a few drag races here and there, no harm done. A woman has gotta earn a living, and I happen to be very good at it." You playfully shrugged now only centimetres between you both.

"It's not just races though, is it." Tim knew, obviously, and he deduced that it wasn't news to you either but that didn't disguise the genuine worry in his voice.

"No, but I'm okay richboy. Don't worry about me, and if you ever need me you have my number."

"You got a new private line remember?" He recalled, having once slipped up in his contemplations to call you only to find the number out of use. Most likely because it was too easy to trace, in your world - a potentially fatal mistake.

"Yes I did, and I've already inputted into this." Came your nonchalant reply as you handed over his communicator, fingers lingering a little too long against his own as if holding on to each other for a few more seconds would convey everything.

"I'll have to arrest you eventually."

"Then catch me. If you can that is." You stepped backwards, a hand beckoning him to dare to follow as you hopped on your bike and sped off with a wink.

Robin mirrored your movement, starting up his own engine as he watched you round a corner but shut it down again with a soft smile.

"Why didn't you go after her?" Batman's voiced sternly echoed in his ear, the dark knight perched on an overlooking rooftop as Robin turned to face his direction whilst speaking into Comms.

"My bike stalled, she was already gone." Bruce furrowed his brows, the motorbike was in perfect condition before they'd left but regardless he felt there was a deeper meaning to Robins leniency, one that was out of his understanding.

With one call. No matter the distance or time that passed.

He'd come.

And so would you.

[nika-the-hunter]

House of Mist [Ch. 11]

Central Seattle Ruins, Pacific Northwest. House Mist Territory +157 days 

Nicole and Rykis walked down the path that had been worn through the tall grass. The old road surface was clearly visible here under the dirt. It was cracked and crumbled, resembling gravel more than the flat concrete it had once been. The other trees, not the evergreens, were starting to get their leaves again, and were bringing brighter shades of green to the pale urban ruins. This was her first spring, and it was wonderful, everything was so full of life. 

 Her meeting with Fort Discovery had gone well; so well in fact that she was absolutely convinced that working with the House of Mist had been the right decision. She and Rykis had spent the remainder of the day walking around the small settlement named after the original park it was built on. There had been a fort there before at some point in ancient history, but its name had been lost to time. 

She met many Humans in the fort; over half of them had ties to the region that went back to before the Collapse. Those that had migrated over to Fort Discovery from elsewhere had interesting stories of the world outside the region as well. She had made it a point that return trips would be common for her. The children that her Ghost was entertaining followed him the whole time, trying to play tag with the mechanical ball. 

Pedro and Athena had ideas for expansion that Nicole could help with. They had been in radio contact with a group of people due east that were worried about a band of Fallen lurking around their town. The town had been cautious about Mist, but stories of the friendly Fallen out west had apparently made the journey to them. They were willing to move into Mist territory but had no way to do it without drawing the attention of the local Fallen crew. Pedro had planned to bring it to the Kell’s attention soon, but the campaign against the House of Devils had kept the Kell busy. Now that things were calming down, he would bring it up and suggest that Nicole help convince the others that Mist was extra safe. 

When Nicole finally left Fort Discovery, she found the Archon taking a video call with an Eliksni Vandal who wore a banner she did not know. Though there was a lot she did not know already. It was hard to tell the color of the armor with the screen glare from the angle they were at, but it looked green. Marakis had ended the call and turned to face the two who had approached. He briefly mentioned that he was speaking with the House of Exile, before asking about their tour. Later Rykis told her that the House of Exile was an Eliksni collective that lived up on the moon. Mist apparently had a trade deal with them regarding Ether. 

On the flight back to the Archons compound, they all talked briefly, Marakis was interested in how she and Rykis were getting along. He seemed really excited with a Guardian and Eliksni living together and seemed to read the subtext of what was really going on quite well. Sparing them the embarrassment of just saying it. 

The day was nearly over by then with the sunset lighting the sky in a bright gold. Their walk back towards downtown kept them in the shade already. Her Ghost spent his time orbiting around the two and occasionally flying off to scan something dangling in the old windows. The ruins were mostly empty, Mist Eliksni lived in the newer buildings that were further downtown. Those buildings were still old pre-Collapse construction, but they were in much better shape than the stone and steel skyscrapers that made up ninety percent of the city. Over the centuries after the collapse, those buildings had remained free of overgrowth and were still somewhat waterproof, unlike her hotel across the lake. 

“So, are we headed back to the Kell to catch that truck back, or are we walking home on our own?” Nicole asked.

“No, the Kell gave you the choice of living elsewhere now. You’re not restricted to Baron Acskis’ outpost.” He replied. 

“So... where are we headed then?” He did not really answer her question. 

“We’re headed to where I lived before. I think that you might like it.” She could see the edges of his face move behind his mask in what she recognized as an Eliksni smile, then he shrugged. “If you do not, then we can go to your hotel tomorrow, or maybe somewhere else.”  

“Oh, alright. It’s been a while hasn’t it?” 

“Mm, not as long as you think, I visit it whenever you’re busy around Bellevue.”

Nicole nodded. “Well that’s good; I’d hate to keep you from home.”

There was a bleep from her helmet that was clipped to her belt. She looked down and saw something flashing on her visor. “Oh hey, give me a second.” Her helmet slipped over her head, but she did not activate the seal. 

The blinking icon opened into a list that took up half of the view screen. The word Quests was in bold at the top, with little icons and what she guessed were the quests themselves listed on it. There were only a few entries. The currently highlighted ‘quest’ had a graphic of one of the metro trains she had seen in the tunnel over a banner for Umic. Memory Troubles was the name with the description “Locate Metro Security Records.” 

The chirp of her Ghost sounded from the helmet’s internal speaker. “Hey! You finally checked out the Quest tab!” 

“What is this?” She asked. 

“Well, you seemed to be getting a lot of things to do, so I decided to put together some of my own quests for you. Usually these come from the Vanguard at the Last City but given how we’re not planning on going there any time soon, I’ll do it for you for now.” 

“Okay... why did it just pop up now?” she stopped Rykis. “Hold on for a second.”

“Well follow the marker and find out!” the Ghost replied, at the same moment a diamond shaped marker appeared. He sounded excited which was very unlike himself. 

Nicole nodded in the direction the marker showed and started to go. “Sorry Rykis. My Ghost found something he wants me to see. We gotta’ detour.”

“Then lead on, Neh-cole.” 

The marker led back and over one block, to the front doorway of a tall office tower. The building's stone facade was crumbling in places, leaving piles of rubble underneath the trees. Once at the door, the icon appeared again further inside. It stopped at a stairwell leading down into the dark. “Alright, we’re here. What did you find?” 

Her Ghost appeared from inside the doorway and played his flashlight over the remains of a sign hanging on the wall. The letters had faded but most were still legible. -Metro Transit Authority. Regional Security Office.

“I found the place!” He did a spin inside his shell. At first, she was not sure what he meant, but the name of the ‘quest’ connected the dots. The camera down in the subway tunnel had been looking right at where her body had been. It was still working and sending the data back somewhere and something was still giving it the command to record. Robust systems were still working somewhere. But if she wanted to find out what had happened to her, all she needed to do was go down and find the network hub. It was not a priority; she had actually forgotten about it up until now. The discovery of her cause of death was more of a hopeful curiosity than an actual objective. However, there it was... at the bottom of the staircase were some answers about her previous life. Under the helmet she bit her lip and gave it a good two seconds of thought. The answer was obvious.   

Down she went. Quickly at first, but immediately slowing for caution; the stairs were slick and covered in moss. That was something she was used to seeing out there. Buildings, trees, rocks, and even growing on the side of Eliksni crates that had been sitting just a little too long; moss was everywhere. The bottom step was submerged beneath a few centimeters of water and somewhere deeper in the basement she could hear flowing water.

At the far end of the large open space, Nicole could see dozens of blinking green lights hidden behind a window. The working systems were a good sign that this was the right place. She stepped into the ankle-deep water and apologized to Rykis. He was not wearing any sort of water-resistant footwear, but he followed her anyway without complaining. Sloshing through the water, Nicole noticed that people had died down here fairly quickly. A few had died at their workstations, leaving their skeletons collapsed over keyboards and left computers in stand-by mode.

The sign on the side of the door said that it was the data-storage room. It was exactly what they were looking for. The blinking lights were the status lights for over a dozen large computer racks. The hum in the room was loud, and the air was warm. The doorway was raised higher than the water, someone had some forethought when they built the place in the basement, so there was no water inside. Once inside with the door closed behind them, Nicole could not hear the water flow anymore.

Nicole had no idea how to search all this for what they wanted, so she waved to the machines. “Okay Ghost, do your thing.” 

He chirped and flew over to one of the stacks. “This might take a while. These cameras have been recording for centuries...” The Ghost flew from stack to stack, an optical beam connecting with each tower. “Just have to find the feed from your station and trace where it goes. It was Olympic... I think?” 

“Well take your time, Ghost. It’s not like Rykis and I can do anything.” 

After a few minutes scanning through the various racks, he had found the data. “I got it!” he exclaimed with all his fins expanding out from his core. “Well, are you sure you want to watch this, last chance.” 

Rykis looked at the Ghost, and then to Nicole. “What did he find, what are we looking for?” 

“Well he found the recording of how I died. The first time.” Nicole grimly smiled. “I'm hoping it’ll give me something to work with. So yes, Ghost, start it up.” 

He floated over to a dormant computer station and interfaced with the monitor. The screen flickered and flashed to life. The multiple camera feeds from across the station appeared. There was even sound. 

Olympic Park Station  -28 minutes

Umic Security Officer Nicole Walker rushed down the escalator leading into the chaotic subway station. Her heavy plasteel ballistic vest almost knocked her off balance in the shifting sea of Seattle citizens. Thirteen hours ago, she had thought that the vest had been overkill; her regular uniform had woven strands of sapphire wire which was good enough to stop mid-caliber ammunition. But as the day progressed, she no longer felt that way, and was grateful for the vest. 

Gunfire at the top of the stairs brought her around with her rifle, aiming the carbine towards the odd colored daylight streaming in at the top of the shaft. The citizens and refugees parted and dropped to either side, clearing a firing lane to the doors. At the top of the stairs her partner, USO. Keane, fired out the door and onto the street. An explosion rocked the shaft and people fell, more pushed deeper into the station. “I’m gonna’ close the doors!” Keane shouted. “Get in here now.” 

He fired again, Nicole tried to get back up the escalator, but the parted sea had closed and everyone that was up near the top was making their way down whether she was in the way or not.

A cluster of blue energy shots peppered the wall above Keane. A large group of people finally made it through the doors, and he slammed his fist into the switch on the wall. The station’s storm shutters dropped from the ceiling and bounced once off their rubber seals. 

They were locked in, and the bad stuff was locked out. 

Another explosion from outside shook the ground again, more gunfire erupted nearby, it was all muffled by the storm shutters. “Everyone downstairs.” Nicole ordered. People that had remained on the stairs, even after the crowds fled, slowly got to their feet, and moved down to the station. 

The trains were still running, “Thank the Traveler...”  Nicole muttered. There were casualties and moving the injured on foot down kilometers of tunnel was just not going to work. 

“Please form a line! Cue up at the marked positions!” A Transit cop in a high-visibility vest was directing the panicked people to where they could board the next subway car. “We’ll get you all out of here as fast as we can. The trains are running double-time and filling up at previous stations!” 

Nicole walked over to one of the small coffee shops along the wall that had its lights still on. The windows were smashed, but two of the original employees were busy passing out water and snacks to anyone who came for them. She grabbed two bottles of water and a small bag of sugar cookies. Downing her bottle in one go, she headed back into the space between lines where Keane was wiping the sweat from underneath his helmet. “You alright?” She offered him the other water.

Taking the water, he also drained it. “Yeah... uh... just glad those doors are doing the job.” He nodded over to a group of Seattle Police Officers talking on the other side of the next line. “They got working radios. Military’s been trying to get up here for hours apparently. Something is bogging down the roads, and the weather is just insane.” 

She nodded. “We could really use the help. A bunch of street cops and some deputized, heavily armed, and highly skilled, security guards ain’t going to help everyone.” Nicole smirked; trying to add some humor into the situation. 

Keane returned the look with a thin smile. “Yeah, doesn’t mean we can’t try.” 

The ceiling chimed. “Train approaching... train approaching.” 

At the front of the lines, the Transit cop checked his wrist pad. “Alright people, this train is only two-thirds full! Stay in line and wait your turn. We’ll all make it out, just don’t push.” 

The sleek subway train slid into the station and squeaked to a stop. The cars were packed, but apparently only part full. Once the doors opened, no one got off, and the lines began to squeeze in wherever they could. With a blow of their whistle, the crowds stepped back and allowed the Transit cops to get the doors sealed and sent the train on its way. “Next train arrives in... five minutes,” chimed the ceiling. 

Two more trains came and went, but the population count in the station did not seem to be decreasing. People were just spreading out now that there was more room. 

Nicole noticed a lone kid standing in the middle of the station clutching a stuffed animal. It was covered in dirt, but she thought it might have been an Orca. The little girl could not have been older than five, but she did not look scared or sad. Nicole walked over and took a knee beside her. “Hey there kid, where are your parents at?” 

The girl looked at her and shook her head. “I dunno, mommy went to get daddy. She said to wait here.” 

“Well which way did she go?” Nicole asked. Hopefully it was not far. 

The little girl pointed the stuffed Orca up the stairs. “She went up there.” 

Nicole looked up that direction and frowned. That was not good. 

“Train approaching... Train approaching.” 

Unknown to Nicole, the station security system picked up a conversation going on down one of the maintenance corridors, coming towards the station. 

“Holy shit Sam, where did you get those?” Voice one spoke out, in audible surprise. 

“From nowhere. I ain’t telling.” Voice two was gruff, and noticeably angry. “Here, take it, it's loaded.”

Voice one huffed and had to hurry to follow “What the hell are we going to do with them?!” 

“We’re getting on that next train. I'm getting us out of this place.” A sharp click-clack sound was registered with the system. It was identified as the racking of a shotgun pump by algorithmic analysis. 

It would have alerted the authorities if there was anyone left to pick-up. There was not.

Back in the station proper, the next train was slowly gliding into the station. It was only one fourth full. Plenty of room for evacuees. The door in the backside of the station burst open and out rushed two men. One had an assault rifle, and the other in the front was carrying a large gauge semi-automatic shotgun. He fired it into the ceiling once. “Everyone fucking back off. We’re getting on that train, you hear me?” the man bellowed. Chunks of plaster fell to the ground around them.

People froze in place, some dropped to the ground. The traffic cops had their hands on their sidearms, but nobody drew their weapons; not with a threat like that in a crowd of civilians. “Hey now, there's plenty of space for everyone. Just put the guns down.” One of the cops motioned slowly.

“Nah, we’re going. Now. Get everyone out of the way.” The guy in front swept the gun across the station. “Stay the fuck back.”

Nicole eyed the gunmen, both the shotgun and the rifle had large drum magazines, however the guy with the rifle seemed put off by what was going on. That did not change the fact that he was still waving the gun around the crowd.

One of the cops that had been back near the coffee shop came around slowly and half crouched. He looked like he was going to try and tackle the shotgun wielder. If shots started flying, things would go bad very quick.

Nicole threw herself in front of the kid who was just out in the open, well in the line of fire. Too many potential targets had been behind the kid.  

The man with the gun reacted to Nicole's sudden movements and fired at her. Under normal conditions, if that shotgun had been loaded with buckshot, it would have just caused a few dents in her plate vest. However, that gun had been loaded with high-velocity solid slugs. 

At the range they were at, there was nothing that could be done. The slug smashed into the center of her plasteel plate, causing it to deform beyond its threshold. Her chest cavity was crushed. The plate had stopped the bullet, but not in any manner that would have saved her life. 

Central Seattle Ruins +157 days 

Nicole watched her original self crumple to the floor and die. The others, who she did not know or recognize, took down the men with the guns. They tried to revive her, but it was no use, she was already gone. Her fellow security guard was visibly distressed and started to kick the guy who had shot her while he was detained. However, the officer in the bright yellow vest pulled him off and shoved him away. The girl was loaded onto the train with the Umic guard and sent away almost immediately. 

The people that remained in the station pulled her body far out of the way, moving it to its final resting place on top of the mezzanine above the tracks. One of the people that helped carry her body placed her arms on her chest and draped a tablecloth from the store over her. He seemed to say a prayer and leave, but there was nobody else up there to witness it.

“Well there you have it.” Her Ghost blinked. “There is more to the recording near the end, but that's how you died.” The video sped up and the station eventually emptied, leaving her body sitting alone on the platform. Nobody else entered the station after the last train zipped down the track. “Huh...” She had expected some firefight with the cause of the collapse, not getting shot by fellow Humans. It did not change anything though, she had hoped that when she found the video of her death it would unlock the memories of that past life, but nothing came from them. No insight into who she was, or any of the people they had known. It felt almost like a wasted trip; the question of how she died was answered, but there was no extra reward. “I can tell you're disappointed. If you thought that it would help your memories, I could have told you that it wouldn’t.” The Ghost replied to the look on her face. “This bit at the end though might cheer you up a little.

Nicole sighed as the video clicked and moved on. With no movement it switched to an ‘extended event monitoring’ mode. There were only subtle indications on how fast time was passing in the station; a steady drip became a flood of water down the tunnels, drowning the track.  Dirt piles slowly grew across the floor from the corners, eventually enough for plants to grow and sprout under the steady station lights. Her body rapidly deteriorated on screen, becoming food for moss and other things that made the station their home.

The video would briefly slow when the occasional animal triggered the cameras, or some big event like part of the roof caved in. The system timestamp degraded into error symbols before the first lightbulb went out. 

When the station was looking similar to how it was when she was revived, the camera slowed down back to real time. Movement appeared from the other side of the platform and an Eliksni scurried in looking around the space. They were small and about the size of one of the Not-Dregs. 

Rykis made a sound behind her, like a squeak almost, but she continued to watch. 

The Eliksni on screen cautiously poked around the ruined metro station, digging through the shelves and boxes left in the cafe. They crossed out to the station mezzanine and came across the moss-covered remains of Nicole’s former life. The Eliksni knelt and picked up the old ballistic helmet, the skull still secured by the chinstrap. However now that it was disturbed the skull slipped free and fell to the ground with a loud thunk. A dull ache spontaneously formed on the back of Nicole’s head and then faded. 

Setting the helmet upside down, the Eliksni carefully returned the skull to its place on the remains. Then they pulled a backpack out from under the moss and ferns that laid beside her body. Digging through it, they pulled out a tablet and what looked like a small stack of notebooks. They put the notebooks back into the pack and threw it over their shoulder but put the tablet into another bag. 

 The image froze in her head as the video went on. She had seen that bag before. It was so familiar, still covered in paint brushes and other small tools. Her eyes slid over to Rykis watching from beside her. The same bag was slung over his shoulder, looking a bit smaller after all the years. If an Eliksni could look any more guilty, she doubted it. 

“Rykis is that you?” Nicole asked him. “Did you take my backpack?” She would not say he stole it; she was dead at the time after all.

Slowly, Rykis nodded. “Yes. that was me. Years ago.” His fingers tapped together nervously, and he seemed to think he needed to say more. “I still have your stuff; I was going to give it back when we got to my place.” 

Nicole raised her eyebrow. “Oh, really now? How’d you know it was mine before we saw this recording?” 

He nodded towards the screen showing the current status of the old station. “When we went down there on your third day. You stopped over where your body had sat for so long. I recognized it right away. Yours were the only bones in the station, and the only bones I had seen down there that day.”

“Well we just saw why. I hope that guy made it somewhere safe. We’ll never know though.” Nicole sighed and waved her hand in the air. “Alright, we found what we were looking for. It didn’t help me, but let's get out of this flooded basement. Rykis, lead on to your place.” “Yes yes.” he chittered. “Follow me.” 

They headed back up to the surface and into the early hours of night. The occasional streetlights continued burning brightly through the trees that grew around them. Some lights were still on in the various buildings, making the skyline an odd patchwork of light and dark. The walk only lasted a few blocks, not long at all. It was actually directly behind the Kell’s hall. Rykis had probably gone home after her last meeting there. She was mainly mentally exhausted, there was a lot that had happened today. 

The building Rykis called home turned out to be the old Art Museum. She smiled at that, of course the local artist would choose to set up shop in an art museum. The windows had all been patched over with metal scrap, just like he had done over in her building, and the door was sturdy and weather-proof. He held it open for her to go in. 

“Anyone else live here?” She walked in and found herself inside a small tunnel made of hanging tarps. The light was provided by the warm Eliksni tube lights that stuck up from the floor every few meters. Her question was nearly answered by voices from behind some of the curtains that broke off from the tunnel. “Yes actually. Many of Mist’s more artsy Eliksni live in the building. But there is more than enough space that I can have this for my own,” Rykis replied. He closed the door behind him and latched it shut. 

Taking the lead again, he took her up the stairs and through a set of double doors, to a half sphere structure in the middle of a room. Tarps and string lights spread out from the structure which was attached to the walls and ceiling of the big room they were in. Nicole could see faded and water damaged paintings hanging from the walls which had to be old Human art. The dome structure was obviously Eliksni construction with heat and light pouring out into the cold building from behind the curtain. “Come in, this is my... uh... home.” He pulled the curtain open and gestured her inside.

"It looks very cozy." Nicole followed him through the curtain and into the space.  He had probably left it to warm up while he went to meet her. 

There was a mix of Eliksni and Human furniture inside. In the center of the space was a table covered in small jars and brushes; she could see a few unfinished canvasses sitting around it. It appeared that Rykis was quite good at traditional painting. 

Rykis had walked over to a locker leaning up against the wall. "Take a seat, let me see if I can find it..." He motioned for her to sit at the table with his lower arms.

Nicole sat where he pointed and watched Rykis dig through the locker. From there she was able to get at a better look at the canvases he had leaning against the bench. 

She recognized the scene in the painting. The looming Spiderwalker in the snowstorm. Nicole had been standing a meter to the right when this had happened. It was the battle at the Pass, when Rykis had charged the tank with a flare to alert the artillery on the ridge. 

One of the other paintings was of the interior of her hotel tower, after she had done some cleanup of the swamp, and made it more like a pond. The light was captured perfectly, and the colors were wonderful. Her art viewing time was cut short as Rykis brought her attention back to him when he placed a hard-backed case on the table. It looked just like the one from the video, just a bit cleaner.

“So, this was mine? From before?” Nicole picked it up and looked it over. The case was made from a slick stretchy material, and the edges cracked when she bent it too much. The straps had rotted away at some point and their remains dangled haplessly at the side. 

“Yes, it should be everything.” Rykis nodded, sitting across from her. “I was young and looking for salvage back then, I had tried to trade your tablet, but it didn’t work and wasn’t worth anything. I did like looking through your sketchbooks though.” 

“Sketchbooks?” Nicole pulled open the bag and heard the rubber seal peel apart, still holding strong over the centuries. Carefully, she emptied the bag and found an old data-pad, and a few notebooks. 

“Yes, there were some really old, stylized drawings that I think you did. Just take a look.”

"Well if you say so." Nicole opened one of the old notebooks and slowly paged through them. The pages were remarkably well preserved; they were filled with drawings of places and things, as well as some random animals and creatures she did not recognize. They were not as good as Rykis' drawings, but they were fairly good. If these belonged to her, Nicole wondered if she had retained those skills as well as her warfighting abilities.

While carefully flipping through the pages, a small rectangle fell out from between them. 

The piece of plastic material was a photograph; it was not even faded at all. Five people were standing in a semicircle, and they were posing with bright yellow guns which looked really strange. She saw herself near the middle of the group in a Umic hat and leaning up against a man wearing a vest with Mars Tactical stitched onto the chest. On the other end of the group was the other Security guard from the recording.  

She flipped the picture over and found that it was not actually a piece of paper, it was something more advanced. The back flickered and began to form words across its surface. "11th Quinquennial Intersystem Defense Technologies Convention. SimFire Combat 3rd place team. Hosted by Clovis Bray"

"Huh," Nicole muttered. "Check out me back in the day." She passed the photo to Rykis and put the sketchbooks back into the bag.

The data-pad looked to be in okay shape, but when she tried the power switch nothing happened. At the moment, it was not really worth her time. She figured she could get her Ghost to fix it, but she should probably save it for later. A lot had happened today, and her head was a little fried. 

Setting the data-pad back onto the table, Nicole ran her fingers through her hair and let out a sigh. "Well... This has sure been a day. Wanna take me to bed and call it a night with the newest member of Mist?" 

Rykis let out more of a purr than a chitter. "Mmm... Yes Guardian." 

He dropped the photo on the table and came over to pick her up. By the time they reached the bed on the other side of the room, her armor and her Ghost had made themselves scarce. Hopefully the neighbors did not mind the noise.

--

[hero-philia]

BNHA Secret Santa ~ A Name for Christmas

A/N: Hello everyone! Merry Christmas to all of you, but especially one person that happened to have me being announced her Secret Santa for the BNHA Writers Fest: @antigenius (Okay, why doesn't it let me tag you Q.Q) - I REALLY HOPE THAT YOU LIKE IT!

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A Name for Christmas | A Midoriya Izuku Oneshot

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The dust in front of him needed an eternity to clear at least a little. Midoriya couldn’t say that he was pleased with not being able to see anything but darkness. Still, he patiently waited for it to disappear nevertheless because he knew that someone was there. 

That you were there. Somewhere not too far away from him, though he couldn’t exactly tell where.

„I wasn’t expecting Christmas to be like this,“ he heard you cough from his right side.

Only a second later he spotted the flashy purple of your hero costume, which made him sigh in relief. 

He would most likely not admit in public that being a pro hero didn’t come with advantages all the time. Having to patrol on Christmas Eve was such a thing. Instead of watching some movie with you, the both of you gave it their best to stop a villain from randomly attacking people. 

Some debris had already hit the ground earlier, which left the whole area covered in dust. Even breathing had become a challenge ever since.

„Let’s show him what we think of his unholy behaviour!“ With this he gave you a nod before aiming for the seemingly invisible enemy.

So far Midoriya hadn’t gotten a real clue about the quirk of the stranger. The only thing he knew happened to be that it had something to do with controlling things like telekinesis. Earlier he had thrown a car right into the house behind them, missing the heroes just by a few inches.

People were surrounding the scene, at least they had done so. Did they run away as soon as the dust had hit the area? He wasn’t sure, but he couldn’t risk to hesitate. 

Every second was important now.

Meanwhile you had managed to escape the place with bad sight. From your new position you watched the green dot going for the spot where the villain had been. Possible that he was still standing there. 

5 a.m. Who the heck attacked people at 5 a.m. on Christmas morning?! 

You stared at the tattoo on your arm, that presented your connection with your fellow hero. Luckily the wind cleared the fighting space and revealed the scenario again. From then on you guided Midoriya with ease, protecting him from the attacks by making his body move unconsciously. 

The boy threw one punch after another, groaning but getting up again if he had been hit himself. He smirked while he prepared to launch his signature attack at the unknowing man. Nothing would destroy his merry plans to celebrate Christmas with you!

„DETROIT … SMASH!“ His voice echoed through the area. A loud thud followed suit.

In order to delete the bond between him and you, you flicked your fingers. Needless to say that the third person was out cold, laying on the floor with a big crack in the road underneath his body. Never mess with Deku’s strength. 

Though he had just fought a villain, the green-head was smiling at you like nothing had happened. You appeared next to him when the few remaining witnesses cheered about your victory. 

„I can always count on you! Thank you for making me block all of those attacks,“ he blurted out in front of everyone. 

Good thing that the media hadn’t arrived yet because that would have caused an endless amount of interviews and stupid magazine articles. Admittedly, both of you were surprised that they hadn’t found out so far, despite seeing you work together as Pro Heroes for three years.

Deku and Collegato - Are they hiding a secret?

Midoriya always blushed at the thought of the newspapers revealing your relationship and everyone knowing it when they would see him. Every now and then he would ruffle his hair when he had just managed to not accidentally blurt out something.

But he enjoyed it either way as long as he could be together with you. 

~ 

„Can’t you stop risking your neck at least once, Midoriya? Both of you look horrible!“

Recovery Girl hadn’t reacted very well to seeing the two of you arriving in the emergency room. The costumes were covered in holes, his face carried one scratch next to the other, your hair pointed into every possible direction.

He scratched the back of his neck, „Sorry! But the villain was endangering a lot of innocent people. I couldn’t watch without doing something.“

In response Recovery Girl eyed at you, putting a smirk on. You tried to avoid her glare by putting your hair up into a ponytail. A rather childish behaviour for an adult and pro hero, but that didn’t matter for you.

„Ah, I see how things are. You jumped in because someone could have gotten hurt.“

And she had successfully broken him within two minutes. Midoriya turned into a stuttering mess who didn’t know where to look without sending weird signs while his face slowly changed its color. After that Recovery Girl didn’t need any official confirmation anymore. She wished a merry christmas before leaving the room.

You sighed. He sighed. 

You started to laugh. He started to laugh. 

„Seriously, I didn’t think that she would be the first one to find out,“ you gasped for air between the laughs as tears began to form in your eyes. 

Obviously, Midoriya’s mom as well as your parents and all of your friends were already informed about the relationship status. It would have been more than exhausting to hide it for two years, especially because none of you had seen a reason to. 

Several minutes later the laughter slowly died to leave space for the first silence since the attack had taken place. Regularly you caught him staring at you, your bandaged arm and the band-aid at your forehead to be more specific. That his own chest was wrapped in it didn’t seem to bother him at all. 

„Hey, Izu?“ He looked into your eyes. „I think we won’t make it to the cinema in time. How about directly going to your apartment instead?“

Originally the plan had consisted of watching a movie, then visiting a nice restaurant nearby and afterwards proceeding to simply enjoy each other’s presence at his. None of you had seen it coming that things might get messed up during your patrol.

Izuku being Izuku had insisted to take that shift because, one, you weren’t too much into Christmas as you didn’t grow up with it and, two, everyone else from the agency could take a day off to spend it with their loved ones. 

Casually you had agreed to accompany him as his patrol partner like usual, not even imagining that you could get a car thrown into your direction. Who would have?

Again he smiled at you this big, innocent smile filled with happiness: „Sounds great! Let’s do it this way…“

You thought he would continue talking as it looked like he hadn’t finished yet, but his eyes scanned the room. When he continued grinning at you while jumping off the bench, you didn’t give it another thought. Not hand in hand, yet close enough to potentially do it, you walked out of the hospital after you had promised Recovery Girl to watch after yourself a little better. Izuku had to do the same.

Still dressed in your completely stained hero costumes, Midoriya decided to make a detour to the agency. Both of you met in the lounge downstairs after you had changed into your normal clothes, which were much more comfortable and warming than the holes in your suits.

„I’m glad to see that you have a sense of sanity when it comes to wearing proper clothes in winter, that will actually keep you warm,“ you chuckled.

Within the past two years, your boyfriend’s style had made a turn to … the unexpected. 

The cropped, dark-green hoodie seemed to be at least somewhat warm. His ripped skinny jeans didn’t give off such a vibe, though you weren’t complaining about the fishnet stockings underneath. Sometimes the pullover would ride up a little too much, showing off his toned abs and you caught yourself staring at it rather often.

Too bad that he proceeded to put on this long coat, which always reminded you of fashion models. 

Compared to his hero outfit his daily life appearance didn’t have a lot in common with it. Therefore many people would not recognise who they were standing next to in public. Of course you made use of it while leaving the agency; this time hand in hand. 

~

Finally the apartment door fell shut behind your entering figures. As beautiful as all these lights in the streets might be, it didn’t take away the cold. 

You were about to step into the living room to collapse on the sofa, but Izuku physically restrained you from doing so. His bandaged hand applied a bit of pressure on your stomach area, careful not to accidentally hurt you. 

„Could you please wait here for a minute? I’ll be back in no time!“ 

A part of you wanted to walk through the now closed door anyways. On the other hand his puppy eyes had too much of an affect on you whenever he was pleading for something. Like leaving you in the chilly hallway. It always left you stunned that you wouldn’t turn mad then. 

At the same time Izuku had begun to throw around things in his bedroom before going on with the same procedure in the living room. When he had to pass the hallway, he gave you an apologetic smile only to moved on.

„Izuuuuuu? It’s getting kind of freezing out here,“ you complained a little.

Meanwhile on the other side of the door, your boyfriend was struggling with multitasking as he tried to switch on the sound station and to put on his new sweater simultaneously. 

After pushing his head through the matching hole, he shouted, „Just a minute! I’m nearly finished!“

Literally a minute later, the door swung open in front of you. A wild mix of green, red and gold jumped into your sight. And you bursted out in laughter. 

„Oh my god! That’s the most Christmas-y sweater I’ve ever seen!“

He chuckled, „I know that you aren’t the Christmas type. But I still wanted to give it a try because it’s Christmas!“

When you stepped into the living room, not only the warmth of the heater embraced your body. The soft smell of gingerbread filled the room while old Christmas hits were playing in the background. Izuku had even decorated the windows with holiday lights, that were shining in all colours of the rainbow.

Before you could sit down to relax your sore limbs, he took your hand and guided you to the window front. 

„It’s so beautiful, Izu. I can’t believe you arranged all of this!“

You leaned onto his surprisingly warm body and nuzzled your cheek into the soft fabric of the sweater. The gold it contained, managed to bring out your boyfriend’s eyes even more, like they were real green emeralds. 

In response he rested his head on yours, wrapping one arm around your waist to pull you closer.

„I’m really glad that you like it, baby.“

For a moment you didn’t react at all because you were busy replaying the scene in your head over and over again. Did this actually happen? Or did your tired mind start imagining things?

When you looked up to him with a question mark in your eyes, you noticed the small blush on his cheeks.

„Did you just call me baby?“

Out of nowhere Midoriya’s built up self-esteem disappeared and he began to fiddle around with his fingers while avoiding your glance as much as possible. His face turned into a tomato the longer the silence between the two of you lasted. You had probably pushed a button of his.

He stuttered, „Ehm, no. I mean … Yeah, I did! But if you don’t like it, we - we can forget that this happened and live on without ever mentioning it again. I’m sorry, I didn’t want to make you -„

„I love it. Please never stop using it.“

Now it was Izuku’s turn to replay everything in order to find out whether this had been real or his imagination. With wide eyes he looked down to you.

Your big smile eliminated all doubts and he closed both of his arms around you, leaving you caught in the middle. In this position you could hear his racing heart inside of his chest before pulling yourself up by intertwining your fingers behind his neck. By the second, your faces got closer to each other.

„Merry Christmas, baby.“

He didn’t leave you any room to answer or at least somehow return it before his warm lips made yours melt into a kiss. 

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Everyone have awesome holidays and enjoy your time with family/friends/yourself/your pets/etc. - I’m off to working on your requests now :3