#and that we get to ping-pong duties off each other

[mama-qwerty]

Alone Together

Okay, so I'm in a Knuckles-focused discord server and we toss ideas back and forth like ping-pong balls, sometimes resulting in me vomiting out a little scene from it.

So for this one, we got talking about an event where the Master Emerald pulls ALL the versions of Knux into one place, ala Spiderverse style. Dread, naturally, would be seen as that one weird cousin no one really likes but has to invite anyway, and it got me thinking about maybe how Boom would deal with him. Here's the result.

Check out the Knucklesverse guide for more deets.

Enjoy!

~~~~~

The tall echidna stood in the room, looking around himself nervously. It was a large space, with strange architecture bordering the perimeter. He wasn’t exactly clear how he got here, but was certain it had something to do with the giant green gem hovering above their heads.

The Master Emerald.

He didn’t know how he knew what it was, but nonetheless, there the information was. There . . . a lot of information was, all of a sudden. It was as if his mind were a pool of water, with dozens of puzzle pieces floating haphazardly within it, and now those pieces had snapped into place properly.

For the first time in his life, Knuckles could think clearly.

It was . . . strange. Suddenly having new information in your head. Just . . . knowing things. Not as strange as being in a room with what appeared to be a lot of different versions of, well, yourself, but strange anyway.

He fidgeted with the wrappings around his hands—hands that had individually wrapped fingers instead of large mitts like all the other echidna in the room. They were like him, but . . . different. Each echidna had the same red fur, the same white crescent moon on his chest, and the same kinked tail. But they were all smaller than him, and some wore clothing. They were all technically “Knuckles”, but his mind conjured different names as his eyes floated over them.

OVA. Archie. Sinbad. StC. Sir Gawain. Classic. Prime. Modern. IDW. Renegade. Wachowski. Gnarly. Forces.

His brows furrowed. Those names didn’t make any sense, but he supposed they had to have some way of telling each other apart. They couldn’t exactly just call each other “Knuckles”, now could they? That would get confusing.

He thought about himself, and the word ‘Boom’ came to mind.

Huh. That’s . . . that’s weird.

Giving his head a shake, Boom watched as the smaller hims chatted and interacted. He’d been invited to join a few conversations, but had nothing to add when the other echidna spoke of their ‘guardian duties’. He wasn’t exactly sure what that meant, so he had simply wandered off.

And now he felt alone in this crowd. This collection of other versions of himself.

Boom sighed, wondering when he could go home. Not that he was eager to lose this newfound clarity in his mind, but being here made him feel odd. Like he was supposed to be part of this group, but just . . . wasn’t, for some reason.

The tall echidna rubbed the back of his neck, glancing around himself again, taking in the carvings on the walls. He’d never seen any of this before, but it seemed strangely familiar to him. He turned to look at the wall behind him, and found another Knuckles sitting against it, his knees drawn up to his chin.

A name came to his mind.

Dread.

The echidna was dressed like a pirate, and snarled at any of the other Knuckles’ who happened to glance his way. He was doing a pretty decent job of keeping himself isolated, but didn’t really look all that happy about it.

Boom was nothing if not friendly. He approached the little pirate, a little smile on his lips.

“Hey there, little guy,” he said, crossing his arms as he looked down at the other him. “Feeling kinda left out?”

Dread scoffed, keeping his eyes averted. “As though ye cared. All the others feel some sort of weird bonding with each other. I don't. I be nothin' like them.”

Boom tilted his head slightly, glancing back at the group of echidna behind him. Gnarly and Renegade chatted, while Modern and Classic listened in, nodding. Yeah, he supposed they were very similar in a lot of ways, so of course they'd get along. They were all the same person, technically speaking. They were him, and he was them.

It was really, really weird when he thought about it too much.

The taller echidna turned back to Dread, shrugging. “I'm not like them, either.”

Dread rolled his eyes, but still wouldn’t face Boom. “That’s a load o’ barnacles. Ye're more like them than ye realize. Don't patronize me, ya scallywag.”

Boom shrugged again as he lowered himself to sit cross-legged before Dread. “Most of them have something called the Master Emerald. I don't have anything like that. And I don't talk like them. I don't look like them. I mean, I kinda do, but I'm pretty different. But that doesn't mean it's bad, I don’t think.”

“All they see when they see me is a smelly, rotten pirate,” Dread sneered, baring his fangs at the others. “I don't belong here. They know it, and I know it.”

“Well,” Boom said, his brow furrowing as he thought. “Maybe they don't think you belong here, because you don't think you belong here.”

Dread turned to face Boom fully, his muzzle pulled into a snarl. “Are ye tryin' t' get into me head?” he growled. “Don't turn this around on me. I know I've done wrong. I know I can't be trusted. They know it, too. Why do ye want me t’ think otherwise?”

Silence settled over them, and Boom twisted his mouth as he thought. Why did he? There were plenty of other Knuckles' to be friends with, ones who were much more inviting and accepting of his friendship. So why was he focused on Dread? What did he care if this version of himself was left out and lonely?

“Maybe,” the taller echidna said, speaking slowly as he chose his words carefully. "Maybe it's because you're different, like me. Maybe I don't feel like I belong with the others either, because they're so much more serious and smarter and know what they're meant to do with their life. Maybe I see you, and I see a Knuckles who maybe doesn't have that sure path. Someone who's just trying to figure it out, like me."

Dread seemed to contemplate what his larger counterpart said. The ever-present furrow in his brow smoothed, and he flicked his violet eyes up to meet Boom's identical ones.

“Ye feel it, too?” he asked, his voice softer than Boom had ever heard it. “That feeling. Like there be somethin' missin' in yer life. But ye can't put ye're finger on what. And it be like a gnat, buzzin' in ye're ear. Always there, but slightly outta phase.”

Boom tilted his head, thinking about how Dread had phrased it. Finally he nodded.

“Yeah. That's kinda what it's like. Like . . . I know I should be doing something important. Something that matters. But . . .” He shrugged. “I don't know what.”

Dread lowered his head, resting his chin on his knees.

“I've always wanted to be someone important,” he said, his gaze dropping to float across the floor in front of him. “Be seen. Be recognized as the fiercest pirate in all the seven seas. The idea of being unknown is almost painful to me. And I thought the Prism Shard would do that. Suppose it did. But . . .” He shook his head, his brow furrowing. “It did something to me. And I wasn't happy. I didn't feel like me. Or the me I was supposed to be.”

Boom nodded slightly, glancing over his shoulder at the other echidnas. The other Knuckles'. The other hims. But they weren't him. It was weird. He turned back to the pirate with a sigh.

“They seem to have it all figured out, don't they? Even Gnarly and Renegade. They don't have one of those Master Emerald things, but they feel the pull from it and just know who they're supposed to be. But me? I feel it, but I don't FEEL it. Like, I know it's there, and it helps me feel . . . I dunno, more in step with the world around me. But it just doesn't feel like . . . like it's me.”

Dread nodded, uttering his own sigh. “Aye, it be like a hand on the back of ye're neck, guiding. But it feels wrong somehow. Like it was never meant for me.” He flicked his eyes up to Boom. “Us.”

Boom leaned forward, his brow furrowed slightly. “Does . . . does that mean there's something wrong with us?”

Dread didn't answer right away. He looked over at the other Knuckles'. They were so much more accepting of this new connection. This new duty of guarding the Master Emerald, and helping to balance chaos energy. It was all so strange to him. He still didn't fully understand it, or wrap his head around it all. Life was so much easier when all he had to worry about was his next treasure hunt, and keeping himself alive.

“I dunno, lad,” he said finally. “They all seemed to have fallen into step without question or doubt. Maybe that be the way it should be. Or maybe having some healthy fear and doubt about something different than you've always known be wiser.”

Boom gave a little snort of laughter. “I've never been accused of being smart,” he said, shaking his head. “Always been kind of an airhead my whole life.” He paused, a thoughtful look on his face. “But . . . I feel like I can think better now. Like my mind isn't all jumbled and noisy like it was before.”

Dread nodded, a nearly identical expression on his face. “Aye, I know what ye mean. My mind also be . . . quieter. It always felt like I had so much noise in my head, like some sort of buzzing or itchy feeling. But now . . . it be gone.”

The two sat quietly for a while, thinking their thoughts and shooting little glances over at the rest of their new tribe. A tribe of one, split into many. It was strange--being in a crowd but seeing your own eyes staring back at you, hearing variations of your own voice. The personalities were different, but there was that similarity, deep down at their core.

“Thank ye,” Dread said, startling Boom from his thoughts. “For sittin' with me. They all mistrust me because of what I did on my world. And to be fair, I can't blame them. I was . . . pretty bad. I wasn't thinkin' straight.”

Boom smiled, giving him a shrug. “Hey, don't worry about it. When you have a noisy, itchy brain, you do things you probably wouldn't now. I'm usually ignored on my world, because, like I said, airhead.”

Dread smirked, his gold tooth glinting in the light. “I don't think ye're an airhead. Ye seem pretty wise, to me.”

Boom chuckled. “And you don't seem like some smelly ol' pirate to me. Just a guy who maybe needed a friend.”

The pirate chuckled back, and held his hand out. “Aye. We are well met, Boom.”

Boom reached out to complete the handshake. “Right back atcha, Dread.”

~~~

Like this? Check out my other snippets. Reblogs are appreciated!

[ak47stylegirl]

Public Opinion 0.2

Okay, I just had to write more of this fic! It had me at gun point, what was i suppose to do? 😁😂

Prev. 

//Drops this in front of @gumnut-logic and @janetm74 😆😁//

---

“Gordon!”

Okay, yeah maybe he shouldn’t have sworn in front of his father, Gordon thought absentmindedly, receiving ‘the disappointed dad look’ in full. But come on, he was in shock! Give him a break!

“But Dad! They’re ganging up on a literal child!?” Gordon exclaimed, waving a hand at the screen. “How are you not more outraged by this?” 

Jeff pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh. “I’m just as bothered by this as you are son, but there is nothing we can do about it…” 

“People are always going to have their opinions…”

Gordon scrunched his nose up, knowing that his father was right but still, he didn’t like it. 

“Anyway, I’m pretty sure he isn’t actually a child…” Scott added with a dismissive shake of his head, leaning against the couch. “Probably early twenties or something.”

Virgil lowered himself from the vent to stare at Scott in bewilderment. Gordon had also turned his head to stare at his bother. Did Scott really think that…that kid, was in his twenties? 

Did they need to get Scott’s head checked? Has Gordon finally driven Scott crazy???

Scott bristled at the stares, “What?” 

“Are you kidding me?” Virgil questioned with a perplexed chuckle, “I would bet five weeks of dish duty on him being at least in his late teens, if not younger…”

Five weeks of dish duty?! Gordon thought in awe at his immediate older brother’s confidence. Damn Virgie's confident about that….

Gordon would have only bet two weeks….

“Yeah Scotty, what planet have you been living on?” Gordon added, his words having an unintentional sharpness to them. “Even I can tell he was under eighteen…” 

“Boys…” Jeff frowned, noticing the storm brewing behind Scott’s eyes. 

“Well excuse me,” Scott scowled with an eye-roll, the heat and lack of rescues causing that famous Tracy temper to flare. “For being too busy doing my job to notice that the dangerous assassin is on the young side…” 

A wave of anger washed over Gordon, causing him to jump up. “Wait! So you agree with them?!”

Gordon didn’t understand why he was getting so bothered by this, nor so angry at Scott for even insisting that those…those people were right! It didn’t make sense but still, he felt like screaming at his brother over it. 

“Wha? No!” Scott’s eyes widened, shoulders squaring up as he faced Gordon head-on with a frown. “Of course not, I’m not agreeing with them! I'm just saying that they have a point-”

“What!? How the fuck do they’re a p-”

Virgil’s head was ping-ponging left and right, eyes wide in horror as his brothers seemed to (figuratively) go for each other’s throats. 

“You’re not listening! All I was trying-”

“Boys! That. Is. Enough!” Jeff stepped between Scott and Gordon, looking beyond mad. “Now I would expect this behaviour from Gordon and Al-” Jeff cut himself off; stricken with grief.

The atmosphere felt ten times heavier. 

Jeff recovered, clearing his throat thickly as he leaned heavily on his cane; looking scarily aged. “-But not from you, Scott…” 

Scott had his head bowed in shame, knowing he shouldn’t have lost his temper like that. It was childish of him. And Scott was no child anymore…

“I’m sorry Dad…” 

“Yeah I’m sorry too…” Gordon mumbled, sheepishly scuffing his foot into the carpet. “I shouldn’t have bitten Scooter's head off…” 

“Yeah, you shouldn’t have…” Dad said sternly, sitting down on the couch with a heavy sigh. “I don’t want to see something like that from you two again, understand?” 

“Don’t worry Dad, it won't happen again.” Scott promised, before adding with a bashful look, “I kind of deserved it; I should have chosen my words differently…” 

Virgil finally let go of the breath he was holding, shaking his head at his brothers as he facepalmed. 

“Yeah no duh…” Gordon replied with a grin, as a sign of no hard feelings.  

“Oi!” Scott playfully rolled his eyes. “Watch it, tadpole…” 

Jeff shook his head wistfully, thinking back to a simpler time. If he just closed his eyes, he could almost imagine nothing had changed, that his family was once again whole- (Never whole, not without Lucy.)

That at any moment a blond teen would come running through the door, raging about something Gordon most likely did, and-

“Dad?” Virgil placed a hand on Jeff’s shoulder. “You’re okay?”

No. But were any of them? 

“I’m fine…” Jeff smiled reassuringly up at his middle child, lightly patting Virgil’s hand. “Don’t you worry about me…” 

Virgil didn’t seem convinced but knew when to pick his battles, and this wasn’t one he could win. At least not at the moment. Turning to Scott, Virgil asked, “So, what were you trying to say?”

Scott’s eyes flickered between Virgil and Jeff, lingering on his father for a moment longer before answering, “That they have a right to be sceptical…” 

Gordon crossed his arms, a thoughtful look on his face. 

“Look…” Scott placed his hand on Gordon’s shoulder, “Maybe the brain control thing was true, and if so, that is horrifying…” Scott explained; his blue eyes troubled. “-but that doesn’t change the fact that Phoenix is still dangerous…”

Jeff nodded, “Your brother is right…” 

“While they are a great help, they are powerful people with little to no limitation on their choices or actions.” Jeff's voice was grim, “Not much is known about them, and that makes them unpredictable…” 

Gordon could see what his father and brother were getting at, unchecked power is never something to be taken lightly. He understood that, but it still didn’t make the bad feeling in his stomach go away. 

“And such I want you boys should keep a level of caution up at all times around them…” Jeff stood up, shifting into his commander persona where his word was law. “Am I understood?” 

Virgil and Scott nodded, while Gordon glared at the rug conflicted. 

Jeff frowned, “Gordon..” 

Finally, after a long tense second, Gordon nodded his agreement. (Why was his soul and squid sense screaming in agony?) 

Fin.

[medicinemane]

I've been watching the simpsons to just have something mindless (I have trouble watching stuff I actually care about and want to focus on, and lately my brain's been kinda mush)

There's a lot of it that kinda reflects back what a unwell and stupid society we live in

I'm not gonna claim it's the simpsons' fault itself, more that it's a reflection (though the amount of pr damage they did to nuclear power, and also the way they're randomly hop on the anti gmo train or whatever it's like... you're not stupid people... this feels like a dereliction of duty at a certain point, going with the zeitgeist for an easy gag)

Anyway, what I mean by it reflecting back a stupid world is like this bit they're doing in this episode where the kids are super afraid of shots and it's like... the fact at the time it was just kinda accepted that was how it is heh heh heh instead of being like... maybe we should like... work to make it better for kids... well it's stupid

And I will say from what I can see it has gotten better and medical people often do try to both respect kids autonomy and explain what's going to happen instead of just jabbing them, and failing that at least try to distract them so it's not so upsetting

But I don't know... it's just the little gags here and there where it's like... wow... shit sucked back then and some of this stuff still sucks bad in a lot of society

(And dear fuck, the amount of "I hate my spouse" jokes... I get sick of it. And with Homer and Marge they basically have to... ping pong back and forth on whether they're deeply in love or barely can stand each other depending on if they're wanting to do actual writing or if they need a shit tier "joke"...

(Also there's at least like 3 plots of Homer almost cheating but then deciding not to and it's like... is there something you'd like to share with the audience writing staff? No as in I'm accusing them of cheating, as in they just keep inserting this fantasy of some young pretty woman falling head over heels for Homer, and being slavishly compatible, but in the end he's meant to be a love husband so he never actually goes through with things)

(But yeah, if there's a relationship it's either off screen or they can barely stand each other despite loving each other, and it's just kinda bleak and shitty. I guess the Flanders have a good relationship, but they killed Maud off so... kind stops mattering)

Anyway, I'm not gonna say I hate the simpsons or it's a bad show... but I don't know that I like or enjoy it much either watching it in 2024, both cause of shifts in my ethics but also cause... a lot of it just isn't funny, like sorry but pretty much zero "I hate my wife" jokes are gonna get a laugh out of me

Nah, I watch it cause I don't care so I can actually just watch it, and I skip a whole lot when I get bored, which happens often. It's yapping to let my mind wander

I'm not even trying to shit on the show... I guess it probably just sounds like that given how much I'm critical of

(Oh and dear god the endless fat jokes, like half the characters mostly exist to laugh at how fat they are)

[dual-aces]

It’s us!!

[bookbornexiv]

the sea at the bottom of the sea

(wol and hythlodaeus check out azem’s apartment. warning: unedited and full of shadowbringers spoilers up to 5.5, despite which i clearly retained absolutely zero knowledge of any lore)

You heard it sitting on the docks south of Wright, a fishing rod in your hands and sea-spray salting your dangling feet and the mad cries of gulls in your hair; a story told through mouthfuls of sandwich by one dock worker to another, drifting to you like a thin thread of destiny over the pounding heartbeat of the sea in your ears and in your bones. You were thinking about fish and other such things, you had your eyes half shut to better feel the sun's warm kiss on your face. To better ignore that you should probably be actually doing or preparing for some important duty right now instead. To better forget that there was something you came here to remember.

"There's a sea at the bottom of the sea, and another sea at the bottom of that sea, and another sea at the bottom of that one. But below all of that, if you swim hard enough, you might see a city..."

You can see it now on the back of your eyelids, the shadows of spires and spirals like arms unfurling to welcome you, that city at the bottom of the sea. But you know it's not really a city, that the tale-telling dock workers are right. What looks like a city is just another sea, emptied of water and filled instead with memories so fluid, anyone could be forgiven for thinking them the real thing.

And you find yourself wondering, what's at the bottom of that?

*

You find, without much surprise, Hythlodaeus waiting in the lobby of the building when you eventually locate it. You fold your arms as you crane your neck back to gaze accusingly into his masked face. You really could have used his help three or four bells ago, at the front desk of the city council, or at any of the departments they eventually relayed you to like a ping-pong ball. At any of the points in time which you found yourself explaining over and over again, to a different face wearing a very slightly different mask, that you didn't have any identifying documents, you didn't have any legal or law enforcement credentials, but all you wanted to know and didn't see the harm in them telling you was Azem's mailing address. A PO box would have been fine. Finally, your patience wearing thin, you had to withdraw and hide in a back alley to surreptitiously make some coffee biscuits on your portable stove, craft a cute little paper box to put them in, and then - wearing your most winsome smile and the Amaurotine robes you'd kept from the first time you'd been run around doing errands here - rocked up to the concierge of the first residential building you could find, intending to say you had a cookie delivery for Azem but you'd forgotten the unit number exactly. To your crestfallen surprise, the lobby is entirely empty of staff and residents alike, and only Hythlodaeus is there, beaming at you in your cleverness.

"I didn't do anything," you say.

"Azem was always moving. When you're never in town and very charming but also very bad at arranging for bills and rent to be paid on time, you can't keep a place for long," Hythlodaeus explains. "Landlords get fed up and somehow Emet-Selch or I would end up with the eviction notice, we'd have to come around to make sure everything was safely put away in storage for the time being... Azem never even remembered how to get to any of them either. You're doing better. Very impressive."

You give him the box of biscuits. You're not sure how he's going to get any use out of them, but he looks delighted anyway, and tucks it carefully away somewhere in his robes.

"Shall we go up? You'll need me to press the lift buttons. You can't reach them."

You also end up needing his help to reach the lock on the apartment door, which you are completely unsurprised to find out he has a spare key to. For a moment, as he fumbles with the stiff lock, you find yourself backing up a little bit, holding your breath, as if that locked door were a rock over the mouth of a volcano already in the throes of an eruption. Later you'll ask yourself why you were so nervous, so anxious, what you were thinking you might see when he opened that door. For now your mind is a blank - one that, mercifully, remains so as Hythlodaeus wiggles the doorknob free and pushes the door open. "Welcome!" he says, brandishing one long arm gracefully to usher you in. "Watch your step. And your hands."

You don't take a step towards the open doorway. "Watch out for what? For cubus? Did Azem keep cubus as pets?"

"No, no, I mean it might be dusty. I don't remember if anyone arranged for weekly cleaning."

You finally let go of that long breath you had been holding. Dust you can deal with. You are the Warrior of Darkness. The Warrior of Darkness. The Warr- You clear your head, nod gratefully at Hythlodaeus and step past him, into the apartment.

It honestly is a bit of a disappointment. If you hadn't known the occupant of this unit to be a person of fairly major importance and influence on, like, an international scale, then you might have thought it pretty neat in a sterile, showroom kind of way. High ceilings and big glass windows and sleepy beige and grey accents on sleek and featureless furnishings, generic abstract paintings alongside boring black shelves on the walls, and lush plastic plants scattered about as if the designer had run out of ideas and just slapped a wall planter here or a flowerpot there to hide chipped varnish or distract from a glaringly empty spot. It isn't particularly dusty, or at least, the recreator of this physical illusion had neglected to include it, so it couldn't have been a terribly integral part of the experience. You wonder vaguely if Emet-Selch - if Hades - had been tempted to improve upon the reality of the past, even for just a little. You imagine him sneezing violently as he walked in, lifetimes ago, planets ago. The hood flying back off his head, him stomping around irritably resolving to do something about it. Does this count as doing something about it? Leaving the dust out of his recreation of a place he would have had absolutely no reason to come back to? Had he been tempted to come back to it?

"I don't know," Hythlodaeus says, as if he can read your mind. "I mean, I know what you're thinking. You're wondering if - if a memory of Azem might be here." There are more closed doors, leading out from this main room; there's a sliding door to a balcony, but you don't see anyone on the other side of that at least. "If everything was remembered into being so faithfully, so perfectly, then surely, you think, one of the most important people in this city should be here too. How could one of the Fourteen be forgotten? By another of the Fourteen, no less?" His masked face tilts to regard you in a way you want to interpret as tenderly, even though you can read absolutely nothing from its smooth, blank surface. "You're free to look. I'll just dust everything a bit and check the bathrooms. You know there's always a pipe leaking or something when you're not around to see to it."

He leaves you, disappearing into a small room which, you assume, is not hiding a snoring recreation of Azem, since he makes no startled exclamation. You think you know him well enough by now that he'd pop back out again, all excited, and wave you over to come look at Azem, if he'd found anything. If he'd found his new, old friend.. You breathe a little easier and muster up the courage to step forward, poke at a stack of books that looked like they were lifted out of the box they'd been stored in and plonked down upon a low shelf to never move again until the next time Azem forgot to settle the rent. You can't actually reach most of the stuff in here, but there's nothing that you actually feel worth taking a second look at, let alone trying to climb the bookshelves for. No portraits of loved ones, masked or unmasked, no trinkets or souvenirs one might have expected of a constant traveler, nothing that looked like a notebook or journal or even a grocery list. Nothing personal. It looks and feels like a place that had been carefully arranged to look homely and welcoming, but in reality is no one's home. You do eventually climb the coffee table and stand upon it, looking around, trying to imagine yourself about ten times taller, to no avail. No skull-splitting flash of light, no rush of memories, no sense of deja vu assaults you as the Echo had seen fit to do everywhere else. This place doesn't mean anything to you. Perhaps it never had.

You sit on the table, shoulders slumping a little, and wait for Hythlodaeus to come back. He looks at you, goes to the kitchen and re-emerges with two cups of tea, although the cup he plonks down in front of you might better serve you as a bath than a beverage. You sit on the balcony together and eat the coffee biscuits, Hythlodaeus pinching each one delicately between thumb and forefinger as one might pick up a grain of sand, and craning his neck back as he lifts it to his mouth so you never quite see the face below his mask. When you look down into the box and find it empty, Hythlodaeus says they were delicious. You remember making six biscuits and you remember eating six biscuits. But you don't mention it. It has been such a peaceful afternoon.

"Did you find what you were hoping to find here?"

You shrug.

"I suppose we can't always find what we set out to find," Hythlodaeus says. "But sometimes, you know, you find something you absolutely weren't expecting or even thinking to find. Sometimes it's something you had no idea could even exist. That's what Azem always said traveling was like, you know? It can happen even at home, but I suppose when you're on the way to somewhere else every day, it happens all the time."

You point out that that unknown 'something' could be something as bad as it could be nice. But, you concede, it's probably better to be prepared for it to be bad, while hoping for it to be nice. Otherwise, you can't imagine that anyone would ever want to leave one place for another.

"That is something Azem would say," Hythlodaeus says with great satisfaction. "You know, I think we never quite managed to meet up here and have a chat like this. It's nice to be able to sit here and talk nonsense together at last."

You look at him, wondering if a crack might have appeared on his mask somewhere, if something in this city is programmed, triggered, coded to unravel the minute someone finally acknowledges who you are and who you were in the same breath - the new old you, the old new you. You can't say in words what exactly you're expecting. Perhaps you'll hear your true name, Azem's true name, perhaps even spoken in Emet-Selch's voice rumbling from the speakers in the walls, from the waves high above the city's spires. Perhaps you want the city to crack and crumble and fall to pieces around you, only to reveal the true city at the bottom of this remembered city, the city at the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the sea. Perhaps all you want, every time you return here, is to truly be home.

"I'll finish your tea, if you're not going to drink it."

Hythlodaeus puts the cups away when he's done, wipes the crumbs from the empty box and deposits it gently in a massive bin. You make a mental note to come back and check on it later. Can a remembered garbage disposal or recycling system actually dispose of very real cardboard, made from real pulp from real branches you cut yourself, a world away - fourteen worlds away? - in the quiet forests of the North Shroud?

"Did you know Azem wasn't going to be here?" you ask him, later, when you've taken the lift back down to the building's lobby. He is poised to see you off, standing at the exact spot he was waiting to welcome you in, long limbs arranged in exactly the same position. You wonder how much longer this simulation of Amaurot, sundered from its creator, will stand, can pretend to function, pretend to live. Is it beginning to loop things to conserve resources? Is that even close to a guess at how this place works?

"I wasn't sure," Hythlodaeus replies. "We didn't open any of the other doors, after all. And Emet-Selch complained about Azem being absent almost as equally as he complained about Azem... Perhaps he felt it was more true to memory not to recreate Azem in Amaurot. Perhaps he was stubborn enough that he didn't care and did it anyway... In the old days I'd have offered to bet on the outcome. But these aren't the old days any more and anyway, you're here."

"I am," you agree. "But I gotta go."

He lifts a hand to wave you goodbye. For a moment your heart leaps to your teeth, but it's not the same way you remember Emet-Selch waving at all. But it's also, excruciatingly, bone-meltingly painful and endearing and wonderful all at once. You don't want to stop looking at him, and you don't want to leave. And yet, and yet, and yet, you find your feet turning and then you're facing the doors, walking out into the emerald light of the sea-sky over Emet-Selch's Amaurot.

*

It turns out there really is a city at the bottom of the sea at the bottom of the sea, but it's not your city any more.

[doomedandstoned]

Spiral Grave Match Powerful Singing to Damning Riffs on Their Debut LP

~By Tom Hanno~

As we all dealt with the enormity of the Covid-19 pandemic, there were many bands who were taking the down time to write, record, or were making preparations for their completed works to be released upon the masses. Among these was the Maryland based purveyors of doom, metal, and power, the mighty SPIRAL GRAVE. On July 16th, the band released their debut album, 'Legacy of the Anointed' (2021), via Argonauta Records.

You'll know this talented singer as soon as the vocals hit, because you're hearing ex-Iron Man frontman, "Screaming Mad" Dee Calhoun, a man whose vocal work is influenced by legendary guys; guys like Rob Halford and Dio. He brings with him the surviving members of Iron Man: "Iron Lou" Strachan on bass duties and Mot Waldmann pounding the skins.

Spiral Grave also utilizes guitarist Willy Rivera (ex-Lord), and he really brings the goods on their debut album. His riffs draw from the normal doom/stoner influences, but he is able to put a spin on that sound that is refreshing to my ears. I'll let his quote from the bio explain a bit better:

I wanted to step away from the extremity of my former band and get back to writing songs that were heavy but had hooks and a strong vocal presence. For this band, I wanted to draw from bands such as Dio-era Sabbath, Candlemass, Metal Church, Armored Saint, Mountain, UFO and Judas Priest with enough experimentation that would allow us to branch out on future releases.

I think that desire to be different, while keeping future music in mind, is a big part of why this record has grabbed ahold of me so perfectly, you can just hear that these guys are out to make you remember their music long after you initially hear it.

Legacy of the Anointed by Spiral Grave

On to my picks for the standout tracks! "Nightmare on May Eve (Dunwich Pt. 1)" opens the album up and is among the best songs on this record.

I hear some Thin Lizzy in certain parts, particularly in the melody lines that are used throughout the track, a bit of Iron Maiden in the guitars, and a pretty distinct heavy metal tone overall. Plus, Lou's bass guitar has the sound that I like to call the "ping pong ball effect", that bouncy, DD Verni (Overkill) tone that is one of my favorite bass sounds ever.

I really love the way Dee has worded it his lyrics for this track, for example:

Young Master Whateley – growing up so fast To see you it’s so hard to think just fifteen years have passed The Wizard would be proud of you were he alive to see Destiny fulfilled – you set your father free

Since I'm not usually very good at deciphering lyrics, I asked Dee what this track was about. He told me:

It's an adaptation of HP Lovecraft's 'The Dunwich Horror.' It tells the first half of the story (hence the "pt. 1"), and the Iron Man song, "Thy Brother's Keeper," tells the second half.

That description also explains the old style of wording used, and makes the track even more interesting.

Legacy of the Anointed by Spiral Grave

Another song that I feel is worthy of chatting about, is called "Tanglefoot." What I love about this one is that old school, doomy, guitar intro. It doesn't last long before bursting into an energetic riff that drives everything forward, and the contrast between the riffs is so powerful.

Dee sounds amazing here too, there's a definite Dio meets Rob Halford feel that is aided by the way the guitars move underneath his vocals; but my favorite section of this track is when everything shows down.

As the music drops it's distortion, and the band settles back for a more subtle approach, is where I feel Dee shines the most.

So many promises each night – vows to make it right Can you tell me what I’d really like to know? So many mirrors in the smoke – the true reflection always cloaked Misdirection hides the nature of the game.

I just love those lyrics, and the way they're performed is absolutely perfect for the section, and the track as a whole. As it turns out, these first tracks that we've discussed are also Willy's two favorite tracks, I'll let him explain:

As cliche as it sounds, I’m proud of all the songs on the album but if I’m forced to choose. It’s a tie between “Tanglefoot” and “Nightmare.” I love the former because it breaks the convention of what people should expect from a “doom” band and it has that cool Budgie section in the middle, which is a contrast to the rest of the track. But at the end of the day "Nightmare" is my favorite.

It was one of the last songs written for the album and is a cool amalgamation of everything you’re about to experience in the album.I wanted a strong opening track to the album and was thinking of something like Ozzy’s “Over The Mountain,” but with touches of Mercyful Fate and Iron Maiden. I think it’s the perfect way to break expectations right out of the gate and it opens up the possibilities for us as songwriters.

Now we can move on to my personal favorite, "Abgrund," which is also Dee's pick for his favorite on this album. Since that's the case, I'll start by letting Dee expand on why he picked it, and then I'll try to do the same. Take it away, Dee!

"I'd probably go with Abgrund. It's heavy and epic, and the idea of staring into the abyss until finally the abyss stares into you was always a concept I wanted to write about. At the end of the day it's a song about being your own worst enemy, and realizing that the abyss is actually you, staring back at yourself. Plus, it's great fun to sing and scream my fool head off in."

I must say that the lyrical theme is one that I myself can identify with, as could many others. I believe that anyone who spends their life attracted to the darkness , will eventually attract that darkness to themselves, and once the black sees you, it can never unsee you.

"What does it see – has it found the crack in the armor? What does it know – the ghost in the blackness above me? What do you want from me?"

Musically, this is one heavy track, perhaps the heaviest on this album. The riffs are written for maximum effect, and once you hear how Dee screams over them, you'll stick around for repeated listens.

There are five other tracks on Legacy of the Anointed, and not one of them is bad, but I feel that I've held your attention for long enough. Now, do yourselves the favor of going to check out this magnificent album, because a disservice will be done if you deprive your ears of these mighty songs. The album can be found here, and physical copies can be ordered at Argonauta Records. Enjoy!

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[peachhsocks]

Bloodlines

After a year of avoiding Camp Half-Blood (and his friends, and everyone, and everything) in the aftermath the Giant War, Percy returns. He quickly realizes that the gods never change, running from the past never works, and family is the one thing that might make all of the nonsense worth it.

read on ao3

Chapter 3: Annabeth Makes a Good Pillow.

After Thalia gave Chiron a brief rundown, his face growing paler with each word, he waved their group into the Big House. Percy shook Grover’s shoulder and helped him up.

“Will,” Chiron said, “why don’t you wake the other cabin counselors.”

He muttered under his breath about how much the other campers would love him for waking them up before seven in the morning, but still jogged back out the door.

Chiron led them into the rec room. Percy spotted a cluster of three chairs and made his way toward it, feet dragging. Grover sat in the one on his left, so he kept his ankle looped around one of the legs of the chair on his right, to save it for Annabeth.

She was the first one to arrive. Her hair was thrown up into a messy bun that hadn’t quite captured all the strands. A large section of unruly curls hung down her back.

“Hey,” she said, sliding into the chair he’d saved.

She pulled his hood down from over his head and ran one hand over his cheek and into his hair. It was shaking slightly—from anger, not fear. Percy hoped it wasn’t directed at him.

“I can’t believe this. Your dad—”

Her voice cut off and she shook her head. Percy knew the look. Anything she had been about to say wouldn’t have been very deferential. He didn’t think his dad would incinerate his girlfriend over a few angry words, but with gods you could never be too sure.

He didn’t need to hear exactly what she wanted to say anyway. It was enough to know that she understood that everything about this situation sucked. Big time.

“I should have come to your cabin last night,” she said.

“How could you have known?”

That was the wrong thing to say. Her eyes clouded over like she was running calculations, trying to figure out the answer to that very same question.

“Hey,” he said, leaning his head into the crook between her shoulder and neck. “Better that you didn’t. The fountain...” He made a little explosion sound.

She rubbed a hand along his back, right over the spot where he used to have the Curse of Achilles. It wasn’t sensitive anymore, but it was still comforting to have her hand over it, especially after his dream.

Percy dozed off just like that. It wasn’t comfortable exactly, and couldn’t have been for Annabeth either because he was essentially in a half nose-dive from his chair into hers. But something about her presence put him right to sleep. He could never say that aloud because it didn’t sound like a good thing, but it was. She was safe. He could rest.

She shook him awake and he blinked a few times, raising his head slightly.

“Everyone’s here,” she whispered close to his ear.

Percy sat up despite the heaviness of his head and his limbs. He hadn’t slept well the night before either, or the night before that—too worked up about returning to camp. All he wanted was to continue using Annabeth as a pillow.

Piper had taken the seat on Annabeth’s other side. Leo, then Jason, were next to her. More familiar faces filled the table—Clarisse looked older, back from college for the summer—but there were also people he didn’t recognize.

“I’m sorry to call you all here so early,” Chiron started. The gathered campers grumbled back at him. “But, there has been an interesting development—perhaps one of you would care to explain?”

He gestured toward Percy. Percy looked around the table for help, but Nico’s face was unreadable, and Thalia just shot him a tired smirk and raised eyebrows that seemed to say all you.

Percy sighed. “Nico, Thalia, and I all had dreams last night. There were these kids—and our dads were in them...”

Clovis was snoring. He looked super comfortable curled up in his chair. They should use a picture of the kid, just like this, as the dictionary definition of ‘sleeping’. He could practically envision the little ‘z’s floating above his head. Percy envied him.

Chiron cleared his throat. Everyone else was still staring at Percy. He’d gotten distracted.

“Um,” he said, trying to get back on track. “We think the kids are our siblings. They’re all together. That’s, like, suicide. They won’t make it without help.”

“I can have a group of satyrs ready in an hour,” Grover piped up.

Percy turned to him. “Grover—”

“Okay,” Clarisse interrupted, “how is this any of the rest of our problems?”

A few other heads at the table nodded in agreement. Leo started to, but Piper elbowed him.

“Well, it seems to me that this is the closest thing to a quest that we have received since the oracle went silent,” Chiron said. “I thought the whole camp could work together to inform our strategy moving forward.”

Clarisse crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair with a huff.

“I agree with her, actually,” Thalia said. “I think it’s pretty clear what our dreams meant. Our fathers want us to get the kids safely back to camp.”

Grover sat forward. “That’s a protector’s duty!”

“Do we know where they are?” Leo asked. “Because no offense but if they’re a block away, why isn’t someone just—going?”

All of their eyes turned to Percy again. He shrugged. The forest he saw could have been anywhere.

“Colorado,” Nico supplied. “I found a sign.”

Hades kids could control their dreams, not as well as Hypnos kids were able to, but better than most. Percy sometimes forgot that. Even if he had the ability, he didn’t think he would have been able to stay in the dream any longer than he had. Nico had way more willpower than him.

“You’re sure?” Thalia asked. “Colorado?”

Nico nodded. A dismayed murmur passed through the circle around the ping-pong table, as dread resettled in Percy’s stomach. They’d never make it in time.

Jason stood up. “Someone has to leave now.”

Percy hadn’t even spared the guy a thought. They probably should have woken him up when Thalia arrived, but she hadn’t asked to, and Percy had been thinking about other things. It must have been hard to be the only other Big Three kid present who hadn’t gotten a mission from his father. Percy wanted to assure him that it was probably a Greek thing. He was also tempted to tell the guy that he’d willingly switch spots, but his conscience wouldn’t let him. That was his family out there.

“Even if you left now, there’s a very low chance of success,” a Nike girl that Percy sort of recognized chirped.

He’d missed the ceaseless optimism of these meetings.

“Once I get a hold of Hazel, she can try to get to them from Camp Jupiter,” Nico said, but he sounded apprehensive. “We could meet them somewhere and bring them back to camp?”

“Even New Rome to Colorado is pretty far,” Annabeth muttered. “And they’re running. Colorado is just a starting point for the search.”

Thalia hummed in agreement.

They would know. Their trio had bounced around the east coast for months before reaching Camp Half-Blood. And there hadn’t been a happy end to their journey. Percy reached over and squeezed Annabeth’s hand in case this whole thing was stirring up bad memories, but she just looked at him like she didn’t understand why he’d done that before turning back to the ping pong table.

“We need to think of an alternative way to reach them,” she continued. “Something faster than traveling on foot—or even driving.”

Percy shot her an inquisitive look. It sounded like she had an idea, but she wasn’t saying it. She was dropping hints, hoping that someone else would catch her drift and suggest whatever she had worked out. That was not an Annabeth move at all. The pool of dread in his stomach just kept growing.

“If all three of them are working together, couldn’t anyone take a plane? Even Percy and Nico?” Piper asked. “I mean, if Zeus knows that their end goal is to help his kid get to camp—”

Percy laughed and then tried to cover it with a cough. Based on the looks he received, it wasn’t very convincing.

“Sorry,” he said to Piper. “They just—don’t make it that easy. I’m not convinced they’re even working together. For all we know this is a game to them. Whose kid can collect their little sibling first?”

“No planes,” Nico agreed. “But since we aren’t playing into our parents’ possible motives—pitting us against each other, whatever—I can shadow travel.”

Will tensed beside him. “That’s far, Nico.”

“If you did, you’d have to bring me and Percy,” Thalia said.

Grover raised a hand. “Or a few—”

Thalia looked at him. The harsh set of her jaw didn’t leave much room for argument. She turned back to Nico. “You’d need help to fight your way back on foot. Unless you think you can shadow-travel the whole way in one jump with three or four kids.”

Or four . Percy frowned across the table at her. If she thought the fourth was the girl who had found the three others in the dream, he had some bad news for her.  

“It’s too dangerous,” Will declared before Nico could respond.

Nico glared at him. They looked like they were about to start going at it, with a little more ferocity than their bickering on the porch earlier, but Annabeth spoke up again.

“I think Nico shadow-traveling is an option we can keep in mind,” she said. “But we should assess all our options.”

Percy turned toward her, trying to beam his questions into her mind. What option are you thinking of? Why aren’t you saying it?

She refused to meet his eyes.

“First, an easier question,” Chiron said. “Who is going on this quest?”

He didn’t have to keep calling it a quest. There was no prophecy, no oracle. Percy understood that’s what it essentially was, but Chiron seemed so excited about it—like he’d been itching to send a demigod to their doom for the past year that the oracle had been MIA.

“We already know that, right?” Thalia said. “It’s me, Percy, and Nico. We had the dreams. We’ve quested before and we’re a good team.”

“This isn’t a quest!” Grover insisted.

Percy wanted to hug him. He knew he couldn’t actually let Grover go in his place, but he loved him for trying.

“Maybe we should wait to decide until we know how we’re getting there,” Annabeth said. “It might impact that decision.”

“Gods, Annabeth.” Clarisse propped her legs on the table, crossing one over the other. “If you have an idea, spit it out.”

Percy knew he should probably side with Annabeth, but he had to agree with Clarisse. The way Annabeth was talking—like she was a completely different person—was starting to freak him out. His mind conjured images of Eidolons that he couldn’t shake. The same feeling he’d had in the car a month ago, when he’d first tried to come back to Camp Half-Blood was creeping back up on him.

“I just think that we’ve only really considered a plane or shadow-traveling.” She was choosing her words carefully. “Those aren’t our only options.”

“Let’s see what’s left then,” Will said. Percy was pretty sure he was just trying to bump shadow-traveling off the list of options. “Flying would be a Thalia thing. Shadow-traveling’s Nico’s. So that leaves—” He studied Percy.

“Too bad Percy’s kinda useless for getting to a landlocked state,” Clarisse grumbled.

Just when he was starting to think they were on the same side, she decided to take a shot at him. Some things never changed.

“That’s what I’m saying!” Annabeth exclaimed.

That was different. Percy did his best not to appear too offended.

“Not like that. I just mean, we’re focusing on the Big Three and ignoring other solutions.”

“We’re all listening,” someone Percy didn’t know shouted. “Just say it!”

Annabeth shifted in her seat, eyes flicking to Percy for a moment, before falling down to her lap. “Air’s not an option. On the ground by car or train would be too slow. That leaves—”

“Underground.” Leo rubbed his hands together. “The Labyrinth.”

Everyone started talking at once. Or maybe a few people started talking and the rest of the sound was the roar in Percy’s ears. He must have heard wrong, but nobody was correcting Leo. Instead, they were taking the idea and running with it, starting to plan. He turned to Annabeth, desperate for some sort of explanation, but she still wouldn’t look at him. Because this was the solution that she believed in. She just hadn’t wanted to be the one to propose it.

He felt like he was in every classroom he’d ever been in. Everything was moving too fast, and he didn’t understand anything that the teacher was writing on the board. He’d missed the first part of the lesson because his brain had skipped over it, and now he was playing an impossible game of catch-up. Even Grover avoided his eyes when Percy tried to look to him for help.

“What are you talking about?” he blurted out.

He always hated having to ask that question. It was usually met with disappointed frowns, eyes filled with pity, and ‘why don’t you stay after class, Percy?’s.

This time wasn’t much different. The chatter died and everyone either stared at him or wouldn’t look at him at all, like they’d said something they weren’t supposed to. He clenched his fists in his lap and waited.

“The Labyrinth’s back,” Clarisse said dryly. “They think it’s a fun toy.”

There was no love lost between her and the Labyrinth. Her boyfriend had nearly lost his mind down there. Once again, Percy found himself on Clarisse’s side. It was happening more than usual today. He wondered what that said about both of them.

“Clarisse, that’s not true,” Annabeth said. “Nobody thinks it’s a toy.”

“Could have fooled me.” She turned to Percy again. “They had a fucking relay race down there.”

“Three-legged death race,” someone corrected.

“What,” Percy said, but his voice sounded far away.

“That shouldn’t have happened.” Annabeth gave Chiron a pointed look and he pretended that he didn’t see her, picking at his cuticles. “It’s not a toy. But it is a tool.”

“I don’t understand,” Percy said.

Leo leaned around Piper and Annabeth so he was in Percy’s view. “Remember last summer? Pasiphae recreated the Labyrinth. Hazel led me through part of it.”

Everything from last summer was a hazy mirage that Percy couldn’t quite reach anymore. Except Tartarus. That was crystal clear. Although he couldn’t always be sure which of those memories were actually dreams.

“That was in Rome,” he said. “This is New York.”

He sounded like an idiot—and not even the persona he put on sometimes to seem unassuming so people would underestimate him or give him information quickly. He just couldn’t think. It wasn’t only his brain. His whole body felt fuzzy, too.

“Well, it’s everywhere now,” Leo said. “You can use it to get pretty much anywhere in the world.”

“Well, not yet.” Annabeth finally looked at Percy, but now he found he didn’t really want her to. She was too close. He needed some space. “Percy, it’s different now. Not as bad.”

He chewed on the inside of his lip. His hands fidgeted frantically in the pockets of his hoodie. “I—don’t know what that means.”

“Neither do we, really. Not yet.” She leaned toward him and he leaned back. Hurt flashed across her face, but she kept speaking. “We’ve been mapping it.”

Percy blinked. ‘We’ was inclusive. ‘We’ meant Annabeth. She had been mapping the Labyrinth. It wasn’t just an idea that she thought was the only solution. She’d been down there and she hadn’t even thought to mention it to him before now.

“A couple of weeks ago we found a path to Nebraska,” she said. “It felt like a day inside, but when we got out, only an hour had passed.

The static in his brain got louder. Annabeth hadn’t just popped into the Labyrinth a few times—she had willingly spent a day in there, completely unsure where in the world she would end up. She could have gotten stranded across the ocean, or died down there, and Percy would have had no idea.

“Is Nebraska near Colorado?” someone asked.

Annabeth looked like she was disappointed in the United States education system. It was a very particular look she got at least a few times a week. Usually it made Percy laugh, but right now he couldn’t enjoy it.

“You think that’s our best option,” Thalia clarified. “Going underground?”

Underground had never been one of Percy’s favorite places to go. The constant weight hanging overhead down there was suffocating, restraining. It made him antsy. But in the past year or so he’d actively rejected anything under sea level. He hadn’t so much as ridden the subway since they got off the Argo II because underground meant monsters and walls closing in around him and drowning and choking on the air and pits that fell down, down, down.

“I think so,” Annabeth said.

Thalia grimaced. “Fine. I’m in.”

“I still don’t understand why we’re insisting that this isn’t a mission for satyrs.” Grover’s voice shook over every word. “They’re young, unclaimed half-bloods. That’s always been our duty as protectors.”

Another swell of gratitude for his best friend swept through Percy. Satyrs hated being underground, away from nature. Grover had been none too happy about their first trip through the Labyrinth all those years ago.

“Grover,” Thalia said impatiently, “if there really are three Big Three kids out there, Percy, Nico, and I can protect them way better than a couple of satyrs can. No offense. Nico? You in?”

Nico was watching Percy from across the table.

“Yeah,” he said slowly. “But for our third—we need someone who’s been mapping the Labyrinth, right?”

He was trying to give Percy an out. Unfortunately, he couldn’t take it. The thought of Annabeth going down there without him—even if she already had without him knowing—was almost worse than going down there himself. Both were at the very top of the list of things he absolutely did not want to happen.

But if Grover could be brave for him, Percy could be brave for those little kids out there.

“Is it too late to reconsider the plane option?” he tried to joke. It came out flat and watery like he was about to cry. Nobody laughed.

“No, I’m going.” He stood, discreetly holding the table with one hand when the room tilted a little. He had to get out of here. He was going to pass out. “We’re good here, right?”

A few people called his name as he walked toward the door of the Big House, but he didn’t look back. One of them was Annabeth. Then she must have turned back to the table, because he heard her say, “I’m going, too. We need someone who knows the route, like Nico said.”

“Wait a minute.” Will’s voice. “If Annabeth’s going—”

Percy let the door slam behind him and staggered toward the Sound.

[kpopmalereader]

can i ask for poly mark and jaemin with no 9? thx

9. “We are officially snowed in.”

Mark’s neighbor’s roof is just barely visible over the great expanse of white you see as you pull back the curtains and the window itself is impossibly cold when your knuckles just barely scrape across the glass. The yardstick Mark’s dad stakes out in the yard after the first snow of winter is completely covered.

You start to think over how much snow is blanketing just Mark’s neighborhood alone, wondering how many feet high the stuff is, and how long it’ll take before most of it melts away and people can see the sidewalk again.

Your thoughts are soon interrupted when Jaemin’s body almost lands on your legs and he peers over your shoulder. “Hey, Mark, you ready to say we’re snowed in yet?”

“What?” Mark’s toothbrush hangs out of his mouth and his words are slurred, especially slurred as he shakes his head on his way out of your view, presumably towards the door. “It’s probably just built-up snow on the windows.”

You can hear the front door open and close quickly and Mark stomps back into the room. Jaemin smiles his best attempt at an innocent smile and hums in questioning.

“Any weather reports, Mark?”

Mark huffs. “We are officially snowed in. Happy now?”

Jaemin nods quickly, smile bright enough to melt some of the snow outside away. “Very.”

He’s not quick enough to dodge the pillow Mark flings at his head but that doesn’t wipe his smile away one bit.

Blue toothpaste begins to drip off Mark’s toothbrush and he frowns himself into the bathroom. You can hear him mumbling something about plans he had but choose not to say anything about it, instead, you nudge Jaemin as you turn around backward. He looks at you and you shrug your shoulders.

“At least it’s not blizzarding anymore.” You offer, speaking just loud enough for Mark to hear you. “And if the snow is slowing down… maybe that means the sun will come out and start melting it… maybe.”

“Y/N,” Mark starts. “I love you for trying to make me feel better about,” He gestures out the window in one very aggressive wave of his hand. “This, but you really don’t sound like you actually believe one word of what you’re saying.”

You grimace and set your chin on the back of the couch. “Sorry. I was trying my hardest to sound convincing and optimistic, but this does look a bit intimidating right now.”

Jaemin shakes his head and moves around you, squeezing in between you. “Okay, listen, we’re stuck in here and none of us can go anywhere but at least we’re here together and not stuck by ourselves or with somebody from school we don’t care for. And, hey, Mark’s parents aren’t here.”

“I would rather be with Mark’s parents than yours.” You mention.

“But that’s only because Mark’s parents don’t know about us and mine do, so they don’t let us out of their sights.” You can just barely see Jaemin’s pout out of the corner of your eye. “Let’s- Let’s-”

He repeats the word and both you and Mark turn to him, waiting for whatever plan is brewing in his mind to come to the light.

“Let’s do something. Let’s make cookies or build a gingerbread house or open presents and wrap them back up before your parents get home.”

“I don’t know about you, but I couldn’t replicate Mark’s mom’s wrapping if I practiced for thirty years. We can do the first two but definitely not the last one.” You turn around and stand up. “Let’s bake cookies or brownies!”

All three of you look at each other and speak simultaneously. “Both.”

You take the lead in making the batter, leaving Jaein as your second hand, head of greasing pans and handing you ingredients, and Mark off to the side performing his duties as “Monitor”, a name you gave him when you realized all he really did in the kitchen was watch.

And you are completely fine with just letting him watch and say certain things throughout the process given the stories you’ve heard from his mom about how many messes and put out fires she’s come home to.

“Jaemin,” You turn off the hand mixer and lean your head back. “Can you grab me another dish? The glass one?”

He grabs one and shows it to you, holding it right by your face. You shake your head slightly. He holds the next one out to you and you nod once.

“Thank you.”

“Did you make too much?” Mark asks.

“I added half.” You mumble, folding the batter slowly. “I figured we could leave some for your parents when they get back.” You scrunch your nose slightly and turn to Jaemin. “Can you scratch my nose for me?”

He hums and scratches the side of your nose gently with his pointer finger. “Cutie.”

Mark smiles at how easy and natural you and Jaemin are with each other, knowing you two (and him) are like moving puzzle pieces. You naturally move along with each other, only ever bumping when you want to, no mistakes made without true intention.

You notice Mark’s smile out of the corner of your eye as his head ping-pongs back and forth between you and Jaemin. “What? What happened?”

Jaemin looks around, examining your face before wiping at his own. “Hm?”

“I don’t think I mind missing out on the plans I had today.” He answers. “Who cares about that when I have you two?”

Jaemin’s smile begins to match Mark’s and he looks at you. “He’s finally catching on to how good we are.”

[taraninja]

Review of A Ghost of a Chance

Just in case my review is too long for fanfiction.net, I’m posting it here. 

To start, I want to apologize for the tardiness of this review. I actually began writing it after finishing Chapter 34, but thanks to College finals and the holidays it’s only getting out now. I like my reviews to in some way reciprocate the amount of effort the writer/writers spent in their fanfic, so this was definitely a multi-day project.

Firstly, I’d like to go over the characters and characterizations. Others have pointed this out as well, but you truly do get their personalities down perfectly. There were multiple occasions where I was tricked into reading this as if it were an episode screenplay, which is perhaps the highest praise any fanfic could achieve. Master Splinter is as elegant and effervescent as always, but you delve more into his character than the mere surface level; he also shows off humor, worry, empathy, concern, and of course, the love he feels for his sons and daughter is truly palpable. A great example is in his dealings with the Lotus; he is able to disagree in a way which shows honor and maturity, and even when the Lotus leave, he does not press the issue but let’s both parties (Donnie/April and the Lotus) have their disagreement and move on. It sent a perfect message to Leo that sometimes, interference is worse than simply letting an argument run its due course. I wish someone had taught that message to 2003 Leo, so maybe he could have avoided getting entangled in the gang wars.

Speaking of Leo, there are several facets of his character which have been masterfully delved into here. Something I prefer in the 2012 show is how they show that Leo is much more than just a serious and dutiful leader; he can also be awkward and silly at times, and this is perfectly encapsulated in his conversations with Karai within this story. Instead of distracting from the main plot, it melded perfectly with it and even helped to add to the plot. Karai has trouble getting used to life in the sewer, but has no problems understanding Leo and getting him to hopelessly unravel himself when talking with her. In contrast, Leo seems unsure of where he stands with her, and sometimes doesn’t know what the right approach is. Should he flirt back, or would that be too forward? Are their conversations one big game, or do they mean something to her? And are her questions meant to be taken literally, or as part of a running joke? As a master of deception, I can imagine how confusing talking with her must be. But on Karai’s part, it must be lots of fun, since it’s really more like she’s gently prodding him into taking the first step. I can still vividly imagine the chapter where they spar together, both teasing each other and then that one moment Karai thought she might have pushed too far. The tension between them was so thick that I could feel it past my computer screen, and I inadvertently held my breath as Leo drew closer and almost, ALMOST kissed her, but then revealed that he had just been teasing her back. That scene was perfect poetry, and it really showed me that you get their dynamic. You understand how and why they work, and that’s always great to see in a fanfiction.

Of course, Leo and Karai aren’t the only two lovebirds who have amazing development here, and the next two I want to gush over are Raph and Casey. I’ll admit that I didn’t really ship them before, but after reading this, you’ve made me a believer! There are of course, multiple ways a gay romance can go wrong; it can either feel too pushy, or not pushy enough, depending on the way it’s written. However, I think it was perfectly handled here. Our titular Raph and Casey start as more on the ‘bromance with benefits’ side, which works; a slow beginning helps get new shippers like me to see just how it can develop. Both of them have very similar outlooks and personalities, so there’s already that common ground between them, and then the scene where Casey gets drunk allow us to see them acting uncharacteristically caring for each other. Seeing adult Casey and Raph making out is definitely a—unique way to kickstart the romance, and a rather believable one. As someone who’s bi, I’ll readily admit that curiosity is what often causes a spark in a relationship like theirs. And again, the slow burn is the smartest move when it comes to them. Their kiss was left open-ended, as you could say ‘oh, they didn’t like it’ and not ship it, or you could think ‘hmm, I don’t think their answers were all that truthful’ and continue to ship it. I personally count myself among the latter category, but either way, their scenes have been written exceedingly well so far and I can’t wait to read more of them.

And, of course, my personal favorite ship, the one that made me get off my butt and read this fanfic; Apritello! After Chapter 34, I was squealing for literally hours. It got so bad that my roommate, who is not even a little into TMNT, forcibly grabbed my shoulders and ordered me to stop jumping around like a ping-pong ball. So suffice it to say, I have a lot to comment on when it comes to this dynamic within your fanfiction.

To begin with, I am SO glad that the music box was brought up again! When April pushed it aside in the “Bigfoot” episode, I felt so sad for Donnie and was more than a little peeved at April. It was no wonder that Donnie felt like ‘just a mutant’ with the way she was treating him; she pushed aside his heartfelt present, never lets him speak about his feelings with her, and yet continues to lead him on with hugs and kisses instead of actually being clear with her emotions. This is not to say I entirely faulted April, as having two boys crushing on you is never fun and is a situation I’ve had trouble with in the past. But nevertheless, it felt like a breath of fresh air to see the event be brought up and mentioned again between the two of them here. It gave the ship some well-needed groundedness and maturity, so that it could develop beyond just two lovesick teenagers. And oh, how beautifully developed it is! Of course, it begins rather bumpily (April, why d’ya have to take your anger out on Donnie? Him who would never fault you, ever?) with April asking out Casey for dates, keeping it a secret from Donnie, and then trying to get closer with him while not revealing anything to him. But there’s been tons of cute build-up too! The whole ‘evil scientist and best lab assistant’ bit has to be the most adorable love-speak ever, and of course, the silent glances at each other and the secret armor Donnie built is super sweet as well. And there’s no possible way I will ever forget when Future Donnie shook current Donnie to his senses and sent him chasing after April, which resulted in the most romantic scene of all time. Oh yes, it was certainly sappy; but it was a sappiness that felt VERY well-deserved and had been a long time coming. And I’m also really happy that you had Splinter inform and reassure Kirby on all the goings-on; I always feel bad for parents when their children hide things from them within stories, and it was yet another source of relief when Kirby was not only fine with April and Donnie but gave them the go-ahead. I knew he was a good father, but now I’m absolutely certain of it. And that means that April can continue her relationship with Donnie and the others without fearing for her father or focusing solely on college. Not to mention, dating Donnie can only mean good things for a future college career.

Oh yes, and then THAT ABSOLUTE BOMBSHELL in episode—I mean chapter (oh boy you know it’s good when I start calling it an episode!) 35, where April had to watch Donnie get knocked out in front of her. My heart definitely wasn’t shattering into a thousand tiny pieces at that moment (sarcastic tone intended). I’ll get into more detail later when I discuss the pacing, but man, did that scene hit like an oncoming bus.

Of course, I can’t leave out Mikey, the Future Turtles, or the Lotus from my gushing on the characterization! Mikey was at his most hilarious within this fanfic, and I’d even go so far as to say he was handled better within this story than in the usual 2012 episodes. Able to be light-hearted, a prankster, a gamer, and life of the party while still having a certain level of gravity and groundedness goes a long way to show that though Mikey may be the party dude, he has a charm and worth that is so much more than just cracking the odd joke here or there. While Leo and the others were certainly excited to have the Lotus staying with them, it was Mikey who went the extra mile to try and learn as many names as possible. And Mikey is the one who coordinated their family movie night to try and get ‘Karaiwa’ cheerful again. He’s an absolute gem who I want to protect, yet I also know that he is beyond capable of protecting himself.

I’ll admit that the Lotus took a bit of getting used to. When I heard there would be another ninja clan, my impromptu thought was ‘ah yes, the perfect way to insert OC’s’ because that’s usually how I’ve seen it handled within other fanfictions. But it definitely didn’t feel that way here. Though they were all original characters, they only served as big of a part as the plot required and were beneficial to the story’s development, instead of detracting from it. Hachisu-no-Hana served as a great parallel for Splinter, as both are heads of a clan who had been wronged by Shredder, but who took very different responses to said wrong-doing. Wakai wasn’t around long, but he emanated a youthful simplicity that made it hard not to like him, and of course Juro and Atsuko were easy to like as well. In the end I found myself liking the clan quite a bit and was hoping for their well-being just as much as I hoped for Karai’s.

Finally, we have the Future Turtles. It’s a bit harder to speak on their personalities, since they are literally different versions of the same characters within the story, but I think they were sufficiently developed enough to stand out from their current counterparts and show how the passage of time can truly make a difference. Leo has of course become a lot more serious, and along with all the other future characters, his moral compass is more black and white. Either you are on his side, or you are an enemy that deserves death; there is no in-between. This change is devastating to see when compared to how Leo currently is, and I would certainly be interested if you ever decided to do a spin-off fic detailing how the future turtles got to their current states. A lot of details have been divulged already, but like any good reader, that just leaves me wanting even more.

Future Raph and Casey seem to do a lot more laughing and have lot more fun than I would have thought, but it makes sense in the context of their relationship and is yet another great addition to their dynamic. Being in a relationship not only strengthens their bond, but themselves as people. Current Casey definitely can’t be described as sensitive, but Future Casey is not only willing but able to lend April an ear along with some solid advice. And Raph is seen helping Leo out more than arguing with him, which really warmed my heart. After Future Splinter’s death, I can imagine how hard it must have been for the turtles; but especially for Leo, who already had a heavy burden as the team leader, but with Splinter gone, that burden can only have hardened. I’m glad Raph decided to step up somewhat and help support him, instead of escalate their rivalry. It shows maturity and caring on his part, both attributes which I believe Raph already possesses, but doesn’t choose to emphasize.

In contrast, Future Mikey and Donnie seem much more solemn than their current selves. Mikey still has that fun-loving spark, but through his calmer mannerisms and way of speaking it is evident that the future events have tampered him down just as thoroughly as they tampered down his brothers. And while Donnie’s seriousness could be attributed to the important matter at the forefront of their time-traveling visit, I believe there’s more than the fate of his family which keeps him grounded. He’s always been the problem-solver of the group, and his brother’s reliance on him can only have escalated after Splinter’s demise. Plus, he lost the ‘best lab assistant in the world,’ so there has been an additional mental and emotional burden for him to carry. And though you didn’t go into the repercussions for this in too much detail, I imagine it must have been absolutely soul-crushing to see Casey go from dating April to Raph. The thoughts of “April is so great, I would have done everything in my power to make her stay,” “how could he abandon her like that?” “Maybe April feels the same way; maybe she was never into guys” and even “maybe she only dated Casey so she could finally get away from us mutants, and now that she has, she doesn’t care anymore.” I don’t know if he’d actually think like that or not, but I can envision him doing so. It must have caused at least a temporal shift between him and the two lovers and cooping himself up within the lab has obviously become a habit at this point. If he still remains within the lab while brought back to the past while his father is alive, then there’s no stopping it at this point. But hopefully he pulls himself together in a similar fashion that current Donnie did, and fixes his relationship with April. That would certainly be an ideal ending, if not an altogether realistic one.

Alright, now to more boring aspects of the story. First off; Grammar! While this has for the most part been on-point and smooth, there are some small things which could have been better to give the story a better flow. Most of these are nit-picks, because there aren’t many faults within this fanfic, but I think they bear mentioning. There were some misplaced words here and there, like “to” instead of “too” (slightly hypocritical since I KNOW I’ve probably made a similar mistake in this review alone) adjectives which were repeated three or more times in a paragraph, and one particular (and this is the most nit-picky comment of all) word phrase which stuck out and really bugged me, which was ‘portable portal.’ I believe the first time you used it, you had just described how the portal was transferrable, and my first thought was “well, if you wrote a whole section describing it as mobile, why did you describe it as portable again?” And then I saw that phrase repeated more than five times, which just led my OCD brain to go crazy. It might also have more to do with the fact that both words have a “po-“ beginning and an “able” or “al” ending, so it sounds like a repetitive description word, but nevertheless that’s more of a me problem than an overall issue.

Next, there is the plot. I read somewhere that the best plots can be outlined in a sentence and described in ten paragraphs, which I believe definitely applies to this story. While my descriptive powers are not great enough to fully divulge ten paragraphs, I shall do my best to review it properly.

It starts out simple enough; Donnie gets a message from his future self and learns that not only can he communicate with himself past the bonds of space and time, but eventually he can meet his future self without the fear of a time paradox. As Donnie and his brothers prepare to meet their future selves, they meet up with a fellow ninja clan who also has a beef with Shredder, and multiple cases of drama ensue as a result. However, there is so much more than that to pick apart in the plot. There’s action, mystery, romance, secrecy, plus a lot of confusion and mixed feelings which help to add tension and character development. And all the character dialogues don’t seem abrupt, out of place, or like mere exposition; they all blend perfectly together to give the story the feel of a big mixing pot, with multiple themes, characters, and motives blending together to give the story/soup an exquisite taste.

I could be wrong, but I think the main message behind this story is that ‘it is not our actions in the past that define us, but our actions in the present.’ In the very first chapter, we see a lot of characters mingling together who all have argued or slightly resented each other in the past. There’s Splinter and Karai, who used to believe she was Shredder’s daughter and wanted revenge on Hamato Yoshi; Casey and April, the former who used to see Raph as a villain, and then later saw Donnie as a romantic rival; the latter who blamed the turtle’s for her father’s mutation, and avoided them for weeks afterwards; and though it’s more minor, the turtles have all had big arguments with each other in the past. But the fic starts with them all united, sharing ‘Sensei Day’ together and really rallying together as one big family. Yet even though they’d love that moment to last forever, it can’t. There’ll be new hardships, arguments and struggles they’ll have to go through, and sometimes it may seem that the bad outweighs the good, like when Karai leaves the lair to go with the Lotus. But if they don’t keep striving for tomorrow, to make the best of fate while at the same time carving their own destiny, then they’ll never know just how beautiful life can be. This is the message I think Future Donnie learned when he urged current Donnie to run after April, and what all of the Future turtles realized when they learned they could time travel to this point. It may have happened in the past, and it might be too late for their happy ending; but who says they couldn’t help bring a happy ending to other versions of themselves?

And of course, this message is closely intertwined with Splinter, Karai, and Oroku Saki. Shredder chose to follow in the footsteps of his former clan; to carve for himself a path of bloodshed and vengeance, which would dictate all the future choices in his life. Splinter had the choice to follow a similar path, but instead took the path less traveled on; the path of peace. This has opened new options for him, as he gained a new family, obtained happy memories to replace the bad, and got to know many amazing people he wouldn’t have otherwise. Who knows if he would have met April, Kirby, Murasaki, Leatherhead, or Kurtzmann if not for his sons? And while Splinter tries to tell Karai that to choose peace is to choose the higher option, Karai has been raised by the Shredder for too long, and her thoughts are obviously tainted by her false father’s teachings. After all, surely someone who hides away from a fight is the bigger coward…? Surely more honor belongs to the man who seeks out his opponents and does away with them…right?

This is all part of why the Shredder-Splinter-Karai relationship is so compelling. Karai is literally the gray line, separating Splinter’s white and Shredder’s black; she has parts of both of them within her, which makes her choices and actions truly interesting. Someone who is neutral is more relatable than someone who is wholly good or wholly bad, and (at least for me), we want to see what she does because we want to know how we’d react in those same situations. Personally, I can’t fault Karai for a single one of her actions and could see myself making the same mistakes. Even if every part of my rationale told me to trust Splinter, I wouldn’t be able to wholly turn myself away from someone who’d raised me from birth. I’d want to cut off that wrongness, that falseness from my life so I could truly feel free, and that perfectly describes what Karai does. She can’t separate what happened in her past, so she wants to cut it out; even though Splinter and the others don’t care about her past, they just want to help and support her current decisions. I hope Karai comes to realize this by the end of the fic, and that her bond with the others becomes stronger as a result of this whole experience.

For the final tidbit of this review, I’d like to go over the pacing. Like everything else within this fanfic, the pacing has been very smooth and well-handled, with one event following another like dominos falling one after the other. The first chapter starts with a peaceful scene, which leads into a comedic scene in the next chapter, which in turn leads to a romantic scene gone wrong in the third chapter. The progression feels very natural, and the slow as syrup beginning is perfect to help ease the reader into the action. I described the fic as a screenplay earlier, because the events really do take place in a movie-like pace. The tripartite structure has long been lauded as the perfect story system, and that still holds true to this day. Having three big acts which are either followed or preceded by a consecutive list of smaller acts is the perfect way to hype up your big scenes and give them more weight, which your fanfic certainly did.

I promised I would go into a little more detail for Chapter 35 and go into detail I shall. At this point I think you have the three-part structure down so well, that you’re even starting to instill it into your chapters! The first act starts out peacefully, if slightly tear-jerking; the Future turtles say good-bye to Splinter for the last time, and he had some great advice to give the four of them. Once again I found the fanfic hitting close to home with me, as my grandmother has Alzheimer’s and I know any day could be the last day I say bye to her. I swear, your fanfic is going to be one of those I return to over and over again just for the little personal tidbits of emotion it gives me!

Anyways, returning to the topic; the second part of the chapter sees the different groups initiating their plans. Leo, April and Mikey taking the secret passage by the church catacombs, and Donnie, Raph and Casey entering through Baxter Stockman’s lab. Of course, things don’t start out well for either group, as Leo’s group/Team Nerf gets the ceiling caved in on them, and Donnie’s group/Team Roof has some mutated human kids attack them. I was thinking this would be the point the Future Turtles come in to help, but since they don’t I’m sure there’s another aspect to the plan that the Leo’s are looking out for. Perhaps they realize that Karai would have split off from the main Lotus group and want to save some man-power to help her when the time comes.

And then, the third/final act of the chapter comes and gives me a minor heart attack. Three mutants aptly named Lock, Shock and Barrel enter the fray thanks to Rahzar, and don’t only injure most of the main fighters; Barrel knocks out Donnie as well. The turtles, Casey and April barely manage to defeat Barrel before the focus returns to Karai, who places herself straight in Shredder’s den amidst a throng of enemies. While cliffhangers aren’t my favorite things in the world (again; intended sarcasm), I do think it was perfectly timed here. Any more action taking place would just be too much, and at least you ended it in a way that reminded us readers of the important stakes behind their battle. Even though the turtles may be beaten and battered, it is imperative they push on; not just for their sakes, not even just for Karai, but also for the Lotus, Future Turtles, Splinter, and everyone else the Shredder has hurt. While it is true they can’t turn back time and reverse all the evil he has done, they can at least stop his hand right now, and save those that matter most to them. And that is truly the most important cause the turtles could have for their fight.

[toho-literature]

Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red: Pages 163-167 - ZUN Interview

Introduction to "Touhou" Game Design

To accompany this spin-off, along with the upcoming release of Phantasmagoria of Flower View, the kannushi of fantasy, ZUN, will reveal the inner workings of his mind. The goal of this interview was to have ZUN talk about his gaming history and his stance on game systems, as well as to express the concept behind his new game Phantasmagoria of Flower View.

The Philosophy of Establishing the Foundation for a Game World

Interviewer: Today, we will be asking ZUN about the philosophy at the heart of his games. First, may I ask when the first time you played a game was?

ZUN: It was when I was in kindergarten. My parents placed a table arcade machine in their cafe to lighten up the atmosphere. That kindled my interest in games, and during elementary school, the Famicom came out and we bought one right away. When I got a new game, I'd play them with my friends inside and out. But normally I would go outside and catch bugs and stuff, too. I was a normal countryside kid, after all.

Interviewer: What games from back then left an impression on you?

ZUN: Super Mario Bros. left the biggest impression on me. Before then, games didn't scroll, and there were still many games with black backgrounds. But in Super Mario Bros., if you went underground, there was an underground world. If you went above the clouds, there was a world up there, too. All the different places you could go in itself surprised me, and the fact that the music also changed with the setting was impressive. The next impact was from... Street Fighter 2. It was almost like a second revolution. Everyone would play the game, so it was a way to fight without physically hurting each other. The play control was incredible, too. I would put in up to 10,000 yen in a day sometimes. That made my allowance disappear in a flash. (laugh)

Interviewer: In both of these games, what points about the game's system or quality were important?

ZUN: Those games were revolutionary because they had things like different systems from games before them, creating new atmospheres within themselves. Later, people would say stuff like "that game engine was revolutionary" or "the characters had a lot of appeal", but at the time, no one really thought about the individual aspects because they were too busy playing. Games don't become hits because of those kinds of reasons. The systems in those games weren't just the pinnacle of all the games made up to that point, there was also a decisive difference. If I had to put it into words, I would say they "created a new world". Though it's a little different from the usual meaning, let's just go with that. Now to speak about my thoughts on game design, about establishing the foundation for a world. I try to design my games to exist in their own world. At the base of everything is the game world, and I structure the game's genre and system upon that, from which the pictures and music flow. One can feel this establishment as they play the game, so I believe. That's why the game's quality as it is called is just one part of the game, so if you get too obsessed about that, I'm afraid it will lose all meaning as a video game. A lot of people say "the true nature of a game is it's quality, and quality and setting are different things", however, I don't think that they are exclusive concepts, and that they should be thought of as one. If you look at Xevious or Space Invaders, it is obvious that even at that time, games weren't mere collections of symbols. Even the very first video game was only about bouncing a ball back and forth, but even though it was a brand-new way to play it, it was still called Pong. So, the way I see it, this was a "world" that just happened to have nothing but ping-pong. However, even with that theory, if it's not interesting, it probably can't be considered a success. On the other hand, only focusing on the basics isn't interesting either, so it is important to be able to connect both aspects to make a fun game. Based on experience, being able to fine-tune a game's quality or system is unmistakably engaging, but I think that games without that extra coat of paint are mistaken as "genuine". Before it can be played as a game, I think it is very important for it to have its own setting.

Interviewer: Now, when you say "creating a world", that comes with very broad implications, so I imagine there will be many different approaches to establishing a world.

ZUN: Please think of the quality of a setting and how well it is established as different things. For example, take sci-fi worlds or retro worlds. How well they are liked relates to the quality of how the setting is established. On the other side, how well the music and the backgrounds match the setting, how the game controls feel, even up to entering a name for a high score, those are aspects relating to the quality of a certain setting. The way I see it, however you decide to establish a world, you need to decide it on based on the design of the created world. During the establishment of a game, particularly when making characters for the so-called world creation, people make the mistake of saying "This won't have any effect on the game", but even among these same people there are those who say "Because this character is in the game, I hate it." This claim is proof enough that even characters can influence a game. If it truly didn't matter, then the game would be playable no matter what the setting is. This means that the "hate" that is felt is proportional to how much influence the aspect has on the game. Conversely, I admit that there are bad games with well-designed worlds. In Battle Garegga (*1), there was a very charismatic last boss called Black Heart. That is a good example of how a game's design can really make a character appealing. Before his boss appearance, you would see a bunch of smaller Black Hearts come out and do stuff. That was very important.

Interviewer: Is creating a world the same as giving meaning to every individual element in the game?

ZUN: For that, I'd like to talk about CAVE, who have always done a great job in creating their worlds. In Progear (*2), the look of the game changes as time passes from morning to evening, then to night, and when you start the second loop, it's morning again. A simple thing like the flow of time gives a real feeling of "progression". There is a similar effect in Guwange (*3), where it goes from the white color scheme in the town, to the darkness of Hell at the end. The stages flow smoothly, and in addition, it starts out in summer, and goes to fall, winter, and spring. The look of the game's stages have meaning. The player gets absorbed into the world of these kinds of games. In Darius Gaiden too, even though it seems like the most attention was given to its quality, I think the reason for its popularity was the world inside it. The fact is, I was influenced by Darius Gaiden when I made the Touhou games.

Interviewer: Can you give any specific examples of this influence?

ZUN: In Darius Gaiden, there would be boss battles as long as 2/3rds of the stage, and the bosses would have personalities. Another characteristic is that the game would be organized solely to keep things exciting during the middle. Until then, when talking about games, people would only say things like "stage 3 was fun, stage 4 was...", but in Darius Gaiden, there was Octopus and Great Thing, and people could call bosses by name when they talked about the game. It meant that these game symbols were becoming something else. This "change" of turning symbols into characters made its way into Touhou, too. So, the first point of influence is making the games heavily favor boss battles, the second is the "Spell Card" system that tied characters to specific attack patterns, and the third is the result of making bosses no more than mere game symbols obsolete.

Interviewer: So when creating a unique world for a game, it's fundamentally impossible to create something like Touhou with more than one person?

ZUN: That's my opinion. In games where there are many people working on it, even in a best-case scenario, only a few people are working on the game design. As the game nears completion, they have to pull double duty, working on other tasks in addition to design. It's definitely the hardest phase of making a game. For my latest game, Phantasmagoria of Flower View, while I had to ask a few people for help, I was the only one working on it, so it was still largely a solo effort. I think it was best for the game. For Phantasmagoria of Flower View, the theme I made was "enjoyable while playing and after playing". Usually, you may think "playing is fun", and it's exciting to do so, but if playing is all there is, then it's unexpectedly not fun. Music that is enjoyable, an enjoyable world, setting, and characters, and the entire atmosphere. If everything doesn't have that feel-good quality, then it feels bad. To sum it up, if you only focus how it feels to play the game, you won't see anything else.

The Attitude of Doujin Developers Not Focusing on Sales and Continuing to Make Games They Like

ZUN: I would like to say that even if a game doesn't sell very well, it can still be a good game. Making a game sell is a different story, though.

Interviewer: You think that doujin developers are not trying to make their games sell?

ZUN: There's no effort whatsoever. They believe that since they're small outfits, there's no obligation to do so. They'll go on making their own thing, never accepting or even seeking criticism of any kind. As an extension, they won't even care about publicizing their games. No advertising or anything to draw attention to new releases, not even on their own website.

Interviewer: So those developers purposefully isolate themselves?

ZUN: There are instances where they are just so busy it's hard for them to find time to handle PR, but otherwise, I would say yes. However, while it's natural to get inspiration from other works, if you get too caught in being worried what other people will think of your game, that's going to do nothing but hurt your productivity. Of course, I think that in the case of businesses, not caring about a game's reception is a real issue. They should be proactive in getting opinions through people who fill out surveys, fan sites, and other sources.

Interviewer: But in the case of doujin developers, it's better not to do that?

ZUN: Doujin developers are basically mini-businesses, so they should still act like businesses, and always be looking ahead. I think that consumers demand too much from doujin creators, things that are not doujin-like. When you compare the differences between businesses and doujin developers, too many requests and criticisms can wear down on the creator, so the market atrophies as a result. However, in the case of Touhou, its scope is still widening, and there are as many people playing it as there are playing commercial games, so it's gotten to the point where I can't ignore the fans even if I try. That's why those the production side should not be so aloof. That's my general mindset, although I get the feeling I've been a bit cold towards my fans recently. (laugh)

Interviewer: By the way, what programs do you use in the development of the Touhou games?

ZUN: I don't use the software or programs that most doujin developers generally use when I make my games. On my computer, I use my own version of DOS-V, and my development environment is a compiler, Visual Studio. For pictures, it's generally Photoshop, and for music I use Cubase SX, but not Prouse. It was a lot harder for doujin developers to make games 10 years ago. No matter what you made, it took a lot of blood, sweat, and effort. I don't like my expression when I exert a lot of effort so I don't do it very often. (laugh)

Interviewer: Do you have any advice for people who want to make games?

ZUN: I think that people who want to work for a game company and those who want to make games should receive separate advice. First, to those who want to work for a game company, the ratio of people who want to work for a company versus the number who are actually hired is incredibly large, so to stand out, it's important to hone and improve your unique qualities. I presented Touhou to demonstrate mine, but that was because I had to put a considerable amount of effort into it. Also, there are a lot of people who want to work for a game company who go to college or technical school, but because they feel the gap between what they want to do and the regular office work they actually do, almost all of them quit. That may be because they didn't want to make games, just work for a game company. To those who want to make games, you might want to exclusively study that field, but I recommend you go to college and get a regular education. If you can adapt to your surroundings then, you can improve yourself as a person.

Pursuing the Feel-Good Quality for Phantasmagoria of Flower View

Interviewer: The theme for Phantasmagoria of Flower View seems to be very cheerful, being about flowers (laugh). How would you describe it?

ZUN: It's something I've always wanted to make. Phantasmagoria of Flower View is a game I made with the notion of something that you can play casually and still have fun. I would like to think that even those who didn't like the moderately serious settings of the previous games still enjoyed them, but on the other hand, I realize you can't please everyone. The response to the trial version has been positive, though, so I'm actually a little confused. (laugh)

Interviewer: So the music is enjoyable as well?

ZUN: While it's not like the music hasn't been suited for its stages up to now, there were considerable limits. But this time, there is nothing resembling progression within a stage and the only thing that flows is the background. It felt good and because of that reason, I thought I could compose some really beautiful songs. As a song repeats during a game, it gets stuck in your head. By doing away with any forced mid-stage dialog, I didn't have to think about arranging the music around them.

Interviewer: How does the story feel?

ZUN: There are a few tense, interesting parts to it, but it's still a little long so I'm presently fine-tuning it (laugh). This time, each character will have their own ending, so with repeated playthroughs, you can learn all kinds of things about the characters as well as their relationships. If you play through it once, you won't get the whole picture, just as the characters themselves don't fully understand the events that unfold by the end, but that's just another Touhou-like thing about the game.

Interviewer: A versus shmup was unexpected. What was your intention?

ZUN: While I wasn't planning on making a game this year, it's Touhou's 10th anniversary so I thought really, really hard about it. A lot of people are playing the Touhou games now, so I wanted to do something that would get everyone excited... so I intended for this to be a fan-service game and make it like Twinkle Star Sprites. Maybe the people who play Touhou haven't played Twinkle Star, maybe they have. I don't think I'm trying to "compete" with it though. For example, people can only eat so much, so restaurants have to compete with each other by creating their own unique aspects. However, the same isn't true in the case of games. Instead, the thought process is that by creating something good, regardless of source, then everyone who is interested in those kinds of games will also be drawn in. Among shmups, this doesn't necessarily steal a share of the customers, and instead, it's called respect. This kind of synergy increases the whole shmup scene by another level. That's what I'm aiming for.

Interviewer: Finally, I'd like to ask about where you place this book, Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red.

ZUN: This book and the game, Shoot the Bullet have a mutual influence on each other, and I wanted to make something that would give people who already know about Touhou even greater enjoyment. That's why the story of this book is a bunch of interesting news articles about all kinds of things. While I don't think there are THAT many people who play the games, I wanted to give anyone familiar with the series and in-depth, up-close look at it. So I guess I didn't make this book for newbies, but for people who have had at least some experience with it. But if by accident someone new does read this book... they might be surprised. (laugh)

(*1) 1996 Released by Eighting Mechanic brothers challenge a federation in this vertically-scrolling shmup. The player controls a fighter plane.

(*2) 2001 Released by Capcom Young children fight tyranny in propeller-driven planes in this horizontally-scrolling shmup.

(*3) 1999 Released by CAVE Set at the end of the Muromachi period, a trio of shikigami users face a trial in this vertically-scrolling shmup.

(*4) 1994 Released by Taito A horizonally-scrolling shmup, the side story to the original game released by the same company in 1986. Famous for its bosses based around an aquatic creature motif.

(*5) 1995 Released by ADK A very unusual versus-style shmup. On July 28th, 2005, SNK Playmore released a remake called Twinkle Star Sprites ~La Petite Princesse~ for the PlayStation 2.

[hphm-etched-engraved-everlasting]

14. Em

Author’s Note/Table of Contents

Oh, Merlin. Here we went again.

I didn't imagine myself winding back up in what may be the stinkiest and messiest room at Hogwarts, with the last person on earth that I would willingly talk to. Standing a good few feet away from her now, my gaze directed at my feet to avoid her piercing glare, I wished I had turned down her invitation to talk with her after the quick flying practice session with Angelina and Alicia. At least they were much nicer and proved decent company. Now I felt like I was going to become a meal.

"Will you please stop staring at your shoes?" Beatrice growled. "I have a good reason to talk to you, so you might as well show some respect."

"I have a name, you know," I responded quietly, tearing my gaze from the floor to look up at her.

"Yeah. And I don't have any patience."

She casually stuck her hands in her pockets, leaning against the cabinet doors. I figured I had about one minute before she took out her wand and did me in for good.

"So why did you drag me in here?" I asked her. "I assume you have something good to tell me."

"That, I do, so you better listen carefully," Beatrice responded, a hint of venom in her hiss. "I want you to tell Clara and Penny to stay away from me, and keep at it this time until they agree."

Ah, of course. She just wanted to make herself clear, which to me was very baffling. I didn't understand where her hatred for my sister suddenly came from, let alone her hatred for her own sister. Why would she try to push them away when they were only trying to reach out to her after all that happened? What even triggered her to undergo this dark transformation? And why would she want to bottle up her thoughts and emotions after witnessing the start of the new curse? It had to be so traumatizing that I'd tell anyone about it, even my own sister.

For someone who had been directly affected by the last curse, this was not what I had expected.

"I take it Penny's still trying to reach out to you, then," I assumed, an eyebrow raised.

Beatrice nodded. "It was annoying at first--but since I found the petrified student, her smothering has become unbearable. I've been hiding in here just to get away from her."

"I could imagine. If I were in your shoes, I'd experience the same thing," I told her quietly, tucking my hand in my pocket for my wand in case she did anything. "But that doesn't give you the option to run away from these problems."

"I don't have a problem, don't you see? I am not a mini Penny! I'm Beatrice and this--this is what I am! This is who I am!" Beatrice insisted, gesturing to herself.

"Oh? What about the fact that you were directly afflicted by the Portrait Curse?" I asked her. "Anyone who had gone through that level of trauma would want more help and guidance, to steer clear of what once had been. I helped Clara last summer overcome her obstacles--"

"But that gives her and Penny no right to go about and assume I have issues!" Beatrice interrupted. "I thought you were her sister, aren't you? You should know better than to assume that Clara would get the message right from the get go!"

"Look, I wasn't there when you and Clara saw the statue," I said, heaving a heavy sigh. "I can't say I know exactly what's happening. But I do know that when a problem arises and a memory hits, you need to talk to someone. Clara and Penny were just trying to help you--you're not alone, alright?"

"Oh, I don't need you to tell me that I'm not alone. I've got good company with Ismelda, too," Beatrice retorted. "And they were wrong to tell me I would be safe! They were wrong to tell me Hogwarts is safe! All they've said was nothing but rubbish! If not for them, I would have probably been more prepared for this kind of danger to arise! And just so you know," she added, marching up to me in three strides and grabbing the collar of my robes, "I don't want to talk to anyone about this, not even Penny, so--"

"What is going on in here?"

Perfect timing. Clara had finally arrived in the room, fixing her red Gryffindor Prefect badge on her school robes and glancing at the two of us in serious shock.

"Thank goodness you're here, Clara," I said, grabbing Beatrice's wrist and wresting away from her strong grip. "Um, not much. I was called here after flying with Angelina and Alicia--"

"Be glad I'm not a Hufflepuff Prefect, Beatrice. I could take House Points off just for bullying my sister like that," Clara warned her. "She's already gone through too much to stand another person mocking her."

Beatrice visibly flinched at the sight of her glaring at her, and for a moment I thought she would snap at her.

She probably wouldn't have if Penny didn't come in, trailing right after Clara with a concerned and worried expression on her face.

"Bea, there you are!" she cried in relief. "Professor Snape just told me you skipped your make-up Potions lesson this afternoon. The Professors were gracious enough to help you catch up on all the classes you missed while you were...er..."

Penny faltered, and I could see the hesitation in her eyes as she tried not to bring up an event that might trigger Beatrice's fear and anger all over again.

"Yeah, just say it," Beatrice said offhandedly. "While I was trapped in a portrait."

"The point is, they went out of their way for you and you just ignored them!" Penny argued.

"I never asked them to do that--just like I never asked you to butt into my business!" Beatrice retorted.

"I'm just worried about you, especially now," Penny tried to explain. "Anyone would be upset after seeing that Petrified student. And since when is caring and worrying about you butting into your business?"

"Since you started trying to change me!" Beatrice barked angrily.

Good grief. I have been in quite a few family fights myself, but none quite like this. I glanced over at Clara, whose eyes went wide with shock again. I could tell she, too, was thinking back to the days mum and dad were fighting after Jacob went missing, and also the days she tried to shut me out, too.

"I just want to help you get back to your cheerful, happy self," Penny insisted softly.

"But I can't go back!" Beatrice cried. "I don't want to, anyway! I like who I am now!"

The tension in the tiny room seemed to elevate to a point where I felt like the message Beatrice gave me would no longer be effective and the room would end up exploding at some point if no one calmed down. I couldn’t stand it whenever mum and dad argued, and hearing the words bounced back and forth like an angry ping pong ball made me want to run. Besides, this seemed more like a personal matter now between the two. It was best not to get involved.

"It sounds like you two have a lot to talk about," Clara finally noted, looking over from Penny to Beatrice to me. "I should go."

"Me too," I piped up quietly as well. "I need to feed Cheddar before he starves."

Both Haywood sisters automatically widened their eyes and shook their heads at the prospect of my sister and I leaving.

"No, no, Clara--please stay," Penny pleaded. "And you too, Em."

"Yes, don't leave me alone with her!" Beatrice added, giving a pointed glare sideways at Penny.

Clara glanced over to the door of the Artefact Room, and I knew that she had to get back to her Prefect duties, otherwise she could potentially get kicked off for spending too long analyzing and observing this issue. It didn't take a genius to know that being a representative of the students at Hogwarts was a huge responsibility. Still, she sighed and relented, and I shrugged as well, knowing full well that there was no getting out of this argument until something came out of it.

"Fine. We'll stay," Clara said. "But only if you two at least try to talk and get along."

Penny nodded eagerly. "Of course! All I want to do is get along with Bea."

"Whatever," Beatrice groaned, shaking her head in exasperation.

The two of them continued to look at each other for a bit--rather, Penny looked and Beatrice glared--before an argument actually ensued, Penny trying to reach out and Beatrice dumping all the blame on her. It just sounded all like she was saying it was Penny's fault.

Clara just looked like she was going to faint. Her face soon turned really pale, her eyes glazed and unfocused. All this time she had been affected by curses at the school, yet she didn't have anyone in our family to turn to--well, I couldn't blame her for not telling me everything earlier. If there had been the slim chance that I wouldn't be accepted into Hogwarts, I wouldn't have heard any of Clara or Jacob's adventures in full--the full whole truth as it would have been termed. Still, the fact that she carried all this burden alone for the most part must have made it difficult for her to get by. She had friends, but only a family would understand everything and offer the best help needed.

I thought back to the days last summer when I tried to get Clara to open up. She used to spend hours on the piano, playing her heart and soul out, or shut up alone in her room refusing to see anyone. Eventually I got her to tell me everything, and she did--willingly, somehow. It seemed like she welcomed the chance to share the burden with me now that I was going into the site where it all happened for her.

And I didn't mind. I didn't mind shouldering some of her burden and knowing all that she had been through so that I could prepare myself for what was to come.

"This argument is just pointless!" Beatrice finally shouted in frustration. "All this proved is that Penny isn't even trying to understand me!"

"But how can I when you keep pushing me away? I just want things to be like they were before," Penny said, shaking her head sadly.

"Yes, by pretending everything I went through didn't happen? Can't you see how messed up that is?" Beatrice demanded. "I bet Clara and Em understand. Don't you?"

What? Beatrice Haywood, the last person on the planet I would willingly talk to, ask for my appeal?

"No, I'm sure they know I'm just worried about you," Penny argued. "Right, Clara? Em?"

No one could pretend the Portrait Curse didn't happen. Penny wasn't even trying to say it didn't happen, anyway. Clara's face hardened at the thought of having to choose a side in this argument, and I held fast to her arm, in case she actually fainted then and there.

"I'm sorry, Beatrice, but I have to side with Penny," Clara finally said. "She just wants to make sure you're alright, and misses how close you two were."

She smiled down at me and I knew she was thinking back to last summer, when she entrusted me with all those things that were bothering her. Penny smiled and thanked her, but Beatrice looked like she was going to punch a brick wall.

"I can't believe I used to admire you," Beatrice spat in my sister's face.

The smile faded from Penny's face, and she stomped her foot, her usual soft expression now replaced with an angry glare.

"Bea! Take that back!" she demanded.

"NO!" Beatrice refused, her voice rising to an angry shout. "And don't call me that! I told you to use 'Beatrice' now!"

"But why?" Penny asked. "I wish you'd stop this nonsense..."

"Yeah, well--I WISH YOU WEREN'T MY SISTER!" Beatrice finally snapped. "I WISH YOU'D JUST DISAPPEAR!"

She stormed off, an angry huff escaping her mouth, and slammed the door shut behind her, leaving the three of us in complete disarray.

"I swear, if she goes anywhere with that hot head of hers she'll roast a bad turkey before she gets to her senses," I muttered, pulling out my wand. "I'm going after her before she does something stupid."

And so I went off as well, my wand held out in front of me as I followed her back to the Hufflepuff Common Room. The minute I went in, though, she was nowhere to be found.

Instead, I came across Diego who was holding up a small bag of cheese, his eyes wide as he looked at me from the fireplace.

"Em?" he asked. "Is everything okay? What happened?"

"You didn't happen to see Beatrice storm in here, did you?" I asked him, putting my wand away slowly as I approached him.

Diego sighed and nodded. "I did. I was waiting for you to come back so we can spend some more time with Cheddar--I can't get into the girls' dormitory, you know--and--"

"She just had a row with Penny, and it didn't end well." I clenched my fists and looked down at the ground again, remembering just how, moments ago, I felt like I was going to be devoured by the scariest beast alive. Now I felt something new course through my veins--an urge to stop her. I felt Diego's hand on my shoulder, but I didn't dare relax.

As much as I didn't want to, I had to find Beatrice and talk some sort of sense into her before it was too late.

[sparklyjojos]

[THE CHILDISH DARKNESS Recaps, Chapter 7]

[tw: gore, child abuse, bad things happen to a dog again]

-------

SEVEN

Saburou never had to use his imagination to describe what violence would look like in his books. Personal experience was enough. He’d been living with the storm of violence called Jirou under one roof for years.

Once when Saburou and Jirou were on their way home from school, they were attacked by a gang of three boys. Jirou barely broke a sweat severely beating them up. Naturally, as someone who enjoyed playing with his victims he wouldn’t just let the three go. Instead he brought a small dog with him, some kind of a small brown terrier wearing a collar, and had one of the hapless attackers do an unspeakable act to it. This event resulted in serious injury to both the boy and the dog. Jirou didn’t even glance at the terrified group as he picked up the wounded animal and took it to a vet clinic, even if he’d been the one at fault. In the end, the dog survived, and Jirou returned home laughing that he should have used a horse instead.

Saburou was confused by the shape of violence in his house. After beating Jirou, Maruo would often cry alone, and Jirou always had tears in his eyes when lashing back. No doubt Jirou loved and hated his father at the same time, the father who wasn’t able to outwardly show his love towards Jirou.

When Jirou was in middle school, he once beat up another student so badly that his furious father drove to the Natsukawa house. But before he could even enter the house, Jirou immediately pounced upon him and beat him savagely while straddling his chest, the same manner of violence that Maruo always used. This time, Jirou wasn’t laughing at all. He only snapped out of it and stopped the assault once the man’s son arrived and desperately threw himself between the two. Maybe only at this moment did crying Jirou remember that this was someone else’s father, and not his own. After that, Jirou got into less fights, claiming that they were a bother.

What is love? Why does it give birth to violence? Why does it sometimes make us hurt the ones we love? Maybe Maruo and Jirou wouldn’t stop their conflict until one or both were killed or until someone else died.

Then again, Saburou had a thought that if he were to die, he’d just get instantly forgotten. Poor Mercutio in the middle of a greater tragedy.

--

By the time March came around Yurio seemed happier, even if she still sometimes had a spell of apologizing to her dead boyfriend, or stood by Saburou’s bed in the middle of the night telling him to die. Maybe it’d be better if she left this cursed house. That being said, when Saburou contacted her parents, they said that they’d rather have her go to a good institution than have her stay at their house in that condition. Saburou didn’t want to hear about that possibility. He wouldn’t give up on Yurio. Atena and Shirou had already been taking good medical care of her, and besides, Yurio surely wouldn’t feel good in an institution full of strangers.

Or maybe he was mistaken and really just pulling Yurio into the vortex of his own emotions instead of doing what would be the best for her.

Yurio would cry and say “I love you, Saburou” while beating him so badly Shirou and Atena had to restrain her. But Saburou felt as if it was his duty to get beaten up by her. After all, he was the one who kept dragging her into his own emotional turmoils. The crime and the punishment. Every punch sparked a little joy inside him.

Maybe he really shouldn’t be comforting her after each time she lashed out. Maybe he shouldn’t say that since he loved her, it was alright.

One night, she broke his finger while laughing and crying uncontrollably, but Saburou refused Shirou’s proposition to go get some rest in a calmer place for a few days. This was a punishment he had to take.

--

One day, Shirou said that Saburou really should try to catch whoever had killed Yurio’s boyfriend Hashimoto. No doubt the girl had been hoping all this time that Saburou would be able to bring the killer to justice. She was still thinking about poor Hashimoto, whose body had been found tied to a ping pong table in the middle of a school courtyard, his legs, arms, and head cut off, a note about the “Death God Jawakutora” attached.

Saburou retorted that there wasn’t anything he could do, to which Shirou told him to try, goddamit!, and that people often repeated they couldn’t do something that they just didn’t want to try. During the argument Shirou punched him so hard that he lost consciousness.

When Saburou woke up, Yurio had been in the middle of carving bloody letters into his chest:

LOV

“It’s alright,” he told her when she tried to run away in tears. “It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright.”

Was it really alright? He had to start moving. He’d have to catch Hashimoto’s murderer before Yurio tried to pull out his still beating heart.

--

Shirou had already gathered useful data for him and spread it on the kitchen table.

“Before I share my thoughts about the case, I’d like you to look at the evidence and tell me what you think of it. Someone who wrote a bunch of stupid mystery novels can’t be that bad at figuring things out. Do your best, Ehimegawa Juuzou.”

The victims, all found naked and with a note saying ‘Death God Jawakutora’, all in Nishi Akatsuki or nearby towns:

-- Hashimoto Takashi – as mentioned, his body had arms, legs and head cut off. Marks of strong impact on the body. Cause of death: decapitation. The body parts were wet with tap water. Lack of blood suggested Hashimoto had been murdered in a place different than the schoolyard where he was found.

-- Ogata Shuuichi (43) who had been impaled from mouth to bottom with a wooden pole, which was then stood vertically by an elementary school near the victim’s house in Imadate. The body showed marks as if it had been tied with rope several times around the chest. Cause of death: impalement. Like with Hashimoto, the murder must have been commited in another place.

-- Amaya Yoshiaki (31) and Ogaya Masayuki (32) who were killed by hitting a concrete parking lot in Takefu many times in a row, each time landing face down. It was estimated that each time they had fallen from 10 m, probably from the window on the fourth floor of the elementary school the parking lot belonged to. The victims’ arms and legs bore rope marks.

-- Sakamoto Rio (27) -- found with most his bones broken, the resulting internal trauma being the cause of death. Once again found in Takefu by an elementary school (but a different one than the two victims above). Near the body stood two poles usually used to support the bar in high jump.

-- Nanbu Takahiro (18) – found next to a middle school in Imadate, impaled with a pole from bottom to top. His arms had been cut off, and investigation concluded that his severed head had been violently pushed onto the end of the pole several times. The cause of death was blood loss.

Saburou noticed that all the bodies were found near a school. The note “Death God Jawakutora” could come from its follower, maybe someone calling themselves Jawakutora, but it could also be a proclamation: “death TO God Jawakutora”. Saburou proposed that if Jirou really was connected to Jawakutora, then the murders could be his doing (Shirou was for now staying silent with his own judgment).

Next, Saburou wondered if there was mitate involved. Every murder scene could symbolize a different historical execution method. He couldn’t find any execution methods that would resemble exactly what happened to Hashimoto, however. The boy’s torso had been cut into several pieces like a squid tentacle cut into rings.

Thinking about Hashimoto, Saburou figured out the source of the water. The victim’s body had been frozen so that the body slices wouldn’t spill out their contents. The murderer must have wanted to keep those slices in shape for whatever reason.

Another confounding thing was the first impalement. The pole had been driven through the body in the other direction than in historical executions, with the sharp end stuck into the ground. And what about the unexplained rope marks? Saburou thought that maybe the rope was used on many victims to hide its significance in a single crime scene (“hide a tree in a forest”), but quickly dismissed it as a stupid concept from ridiculous mystery novels.

Next, the two victims who had been thrown out a window. Why do it more than once? Why have the victim always hit the ground face-down and never with their back or side? Maybe the murderer wanted to make sure the two would die, but then why not throw them from somewhere higher like the school’s easily accessible roof?

Then there was Sakamoto, also considered to have hit the ground many times in quick succession, but from relatively smaller height, almost as if somebody performed a wrestling move on him over and over again until all his bones were broken.

As for Nanbu, why would the murderer repeatedly push the head onto the pole?

Saburou didn’t get it at all, so he raised his head to ask Shirou, but Shirou had already fallen asleep on the couch.

“The hell, figure something out first before you wake me up!” he complained after being shaken awake.

“Why should I be the only one here who’s actually trying to think?!”

“Because Yurio wants you to think. Today at the therapy she said stuff like ‘Saburou isn’t serious about doing a single thing!’, ‘He won’t even face me properly!’. If a 13-year-old girl’s roasting you like this, then it’s over, bro! Wake me up when you find something, OK?”

Saburou tried, but couldn’t think of anything more. He went to the kitchen and sunk into the darkness of the storage again, thinking, thinking, thinking. Just like he had closed himself off in the darkness of the warehouse after Runbaba’s death.

Tired of thinking, Saburou fell asleep and had a dream.

--

Saburou and his three brothers were still children, playing outside the Nishi Akatsuki elementary school. Yurio showed up, somehow older than them, and proposed that they play jump rope. When they said they didn’t have any rope, she pulled out a knife and asked the kids to hold Saburou down. Saburou felt uneasy, but his brothers were all laughing cheerfully, so he smiled too. Yurio sliced his abdomen open and pulled out his instestines, and his brothers used them as their jump rope. It didn’t really hurt, although Saburou was a little concerned how they’d put everything back later. But his brothers and Yurio were all laughing, so he laughed too.

--

Saburou woke up and returned to the living room. Shirou didn’t appreciate being stirred awake once again, but Saburou was really at the end of his rope with the case. He related what little he had figured out.

“I think we should forget about the execution methods idea,” Shirou said. “Let’s try to look at it from a different point of view… hm?” Suddenly he brightened up. “I know! I know what the murderer did! Ha ha ha!” But he refused to tell Saburou anything before leaving. “I’ll swing by the crime scenes to make sure!”

“Wait, Shirou! Just give me a hint!”

“It’s a child! Children play! And children’s games are sometimes cruel!”

--

A few hours later Shirou stil hadn’t come back home and didn’t answer the phone, so Saburou decided to check the crime scenes and find him, taking Yurio along as it was better than leaving her all alone in the house. The two headed to the Nishi Akatsuki middle school. Saburou had Yurio wait outside and entered the staff room. Despite the late hour, three teachers were still there. They instantly recognized their former student Saburou – then again, it’s not like there was a single person in Nishi Akatsuki that didn’t know what the Natsukawas looked like, especially after the Nozaki case. According to the teachers, Shirou had shown up some time ago claiming to be looking for footprints.

When Saburou left the staff room, Yurio had disappeared. He quickly spotted her alone in the schoolyard, shaking all over. Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to take her to where her boyfriend had been killed. But as Saburou came closer, he realized it wasn’t Yurio.

The ghostly pale girl was standing there.

Saburou closed his eyes in fear.

“You’ll protect me, right, Saburou?”

He opened his eyes. Yurio was standing in front of him, crying, and he had a sudden feeling that she’s going to hurt him. He took a step back. She took a step forward.

“Saburou. Saburou. Saburou.”

Her face morphed into the ghostly pale girl, her eyes completely black.

“Don’t run away. Protect me.”

He tripped and fell together with her, closing his eyes on instinct. When he opened them again, it was Yurio looking down at him, crying in despair.

This time he found himself only able to embrace her after a long moment.

“I’m sorry, Saburou, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for being such a child.”

A child. Didn’t Shirou say…

Saburou realized just what Shirou meant. ‘Children’s games are sometimes cruel’. The murders didn’t symbolize execution methods, but different games. Now that he thought about it, didn’t he have a dream about a bloody edition of jump rope? It’s like his mind actually had figured the truth out and attempted to tell him! Just like his body in the dream, the victims’ bodies all served as toys for the murderer:

-- Hashimoto – daruma-otoshi, a game in which a daruma doll is placed on top of several round pieces of wood, and the player hits the pieces out with a hammer trying to get the doll to the ground without it falling off. That’s why the murderer had to freeze the body and make sure the round pieces wouldn’t fall apart. The limbs were cut off so they didn’t get in the way, and the severed head played the role of the daruma.

-- the reverse-impaled man – a spinning top. This explained why the sharp end of the pole had to face the ground. The victim was additionally tied to the pole with rope to keep balance while spinning.

-- the couple in the parking lot – menko, in which one player throws a card on the ground, and the other tries to throw his own card in such a way that it overturned the first one. The victims’ arms and legs were bound with rope so that they could be thrown flat on the ground like cards.

-- Sakamoto – served as a pachinko ball. He was sent flying multiple times like from a slingshot using a rubber tape stretched on the two poles. Repeatedly hitting the ground and other objects broke most his bones.

-- Nanbu – kendama, a variant of the cup-and-ball game in which the player tries to catch a ball onto a spike or into cups… or in this case, tries to catch a head onto the sharp end of the pole or the wounds where arms had once been.

There was no doubt that the murderer had used the victims as toys. But what child could play with toys that giant?

--

Shirou still didn’t answer his phone, and quick calls to all the other schools proved that he hadn’t showed up at any of them lately. Atena and Shirou’s various friends didn’t know where he had gone either. No way Shirou was just laying low trying to catch the murderer, he was the type of guy to go around loud and flashy at all times. Had he been the one to be caught instead this time? He’d said he would examine the crime scenes once more…

Saburou remembered a line from The Silence of the Lambs.

Clarice, does this random scattering of sites seem overdone to you? Doesn’t it seem desperately random? Random past all possible convenience? Does it suggest to you the elaborations of a bad liar?

Was it the case here too? Could this revelation lead Saburou to find the murderer’s hiding place?

What is the first and principal thing he does, Hannibal Lecter also said, what need does he serve by killing? He covets. (…) How do we begin to covet, Clarice? (…) We begin by coveting what we see every day.

Hashimoto had been killed first. A student of this school. Probably murdered somewhere in the school grounds. What person had had the ability to see him every day? The killer had to be someone living in Nishi Akatsuki, and since Shirou hadn’t gone to any other crime scene, it’s likely he and the murderer ran into each other somewhere near the school. Could a student be killing people?

Saburou along with Yurio returned to the staff room and asked for a list of all the people that had been at the school that day. Saburou’s former physics teacher Kamimura Tetsurou, who had only just entered the staff room too, quickly wrote down all the names for him, claiming he remembered them perfectly.

The list consisted of 38 people. None of them was Shirou’s. Maybe the old teacher just forgot about him, but how on earth do you miss someone so obnoxious?

“I think I’ll head to your house next, professor,” Saburou said.

Kamimura moved like lightning, but Saburou was faster. He wrenched the knife out of the teacher’s hand. Yurio picked the knife up from where it fell and before anyone realized what was happening stabbed it into Kamimura’s neck.

--

“I’m sorry, Saburou,” Yurio cried as they were escaping in his car, “I’m sorry, I thought he hurt you so I stabbed him, I thought you were hurt…”

Saburou was silent as he pulled up by Kamimura’s house. Never in his life would he think that it’d come to this. That he would kill his own teacher.

That he would kill?

Yes. Even if Yurio was the one holding the knife, things she did were things he did too. Her actions were his actions.

Shirou. Where’s Shirou? Was he still alive or already turned into some grotesque toy? To think Shirou could possibly be dead, this cursed and smart and obnoxious and always blunt and wonderful little brother of his, to think Shirou could never again criticize his books or tell him to go fucking die…

No. He couldn’t lose Shirou. He didn’t want to be left alone in the darkness.

He bolted out of the car. Shirou’s Bentz had still been parked by Kamimura’s house. The house itself was dark and quiet. Saburou entered it yelling Shirou’s name again and again.

“Dad?” came a quiet voice in response, in childish tone but an adult pitch.

Someone was in the storage under the kitchen floor. Who was that? Would Saburou open the trapdoor only to find himself there, curled in the darkness?

“Dad, let me out!”

Saburou opened the trapdoor and saw a long empty room with a ladder leading further underground.

“Dad!”

The voice came closer, but there had to be yet another wall between them, so Saburou felt safe going down the ladder. A sound of something hitting against something else echoed.

“Dad, let me out already!”

Saburou started climbing down another ladder.

“Dad, let’s go and play already!”

This room was empty too, but in the light of a few lamps Saburou could see another trapdoor surrounded by a puddle of fresh blood. If it belonged to Shirou, then Saburou was more than ready to enact a terrifying revenge upon whoever hid there further down. He opened the last trapdoor.

From the darkness climbed out a monster. A giant naked man – four meters tall and even more in width -- with his head big and round, skin as white as a snowman’s, and fingers as thick as Saburou’s wrists. The monstrous man was dragging Shirou’s bloody limp body behind him.

Saburou’s world turned on its head.

He moved back to the house, found an axe in the garage and wielding it returned underground. Shirou was now lying discarded and completely still on the floor.

“What are we going to play today, dad?” The giant was smiling.

“Let’s see -- a game of murder out of love!”

A moment of wild flailing with an axe later the giant became little more than a bloody pool, but before Saburou could completely pulverize the body, he heard a noise and turned around to find Shirou had regained consciousness. Axe forgotten, Saburou pulled his brother up all the way to the kitchen. His warm, living brother.

Shirou said later that the child from under the floor had grown so big because he had been raised in an ozone-rich atmosphere, much like vegetables that grow better in that condition. [Whatever you say, Maijo.] Kamimura must have experimented on the child for whatever reason.

--

When Saburou had used the axe, his chest was bursting with a feeling of love. For whom? Shirou, Yurio, someone else? He only realized this later, but with every swing of the axe he had been chanting ‘It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright”. Who was he saying that to? Maybe to himself. To remember he was still alright.

Maybe that love he had felt was directed at that giant kid. Maybe, in a way, Saburou saved him by taking his life.

Wasn’t death the best option for someone who only hurt people, and didn’t really know anything, and spent his days alone in the darkness underground?

--

 “I love you, Yurio,” he said. “I’ll protect you. Please finish writing what you started.”

Yurio hesitated, but after his reassurance took the knife and carved the rest of the phrase into his chest:

LOVE ME TENDER

[>>>NEXT>>>]

[subasekabang]

Gymnopédie- Part 3

Author: Alex Rating: Teen Word Count: Total - 10219 (including title names); this part- 2692 Pairings/Characters: Yoshiya “Joshua” Kiryu, Neku Sakuraba, Sanae Hanekoma, Sho Minamimoto, Daisukenojo Bito (Beat), Raimu Bito (Rhyme), Shiki Misaki, Eri, Megumi Kitanji, Ken Doi, implied Shiki/Eri, implied Joshua/Neku (mostly one-sided), agender!Composer, Neku’s Mom Warnings: Suicide, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mentions of Voyeurism, Mild Language, Implied/Referenced Bullying, Depression, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Major Character Death (?) Summary: Joshua said he just wanted one normal day. Hanekoma wouldn’t deny him that, for soon the boy would have to take his duties as Composer seriously.He didn’t think Joshua could die a second time.

Not unlike a maiden with a clouded expression

“Goddammit, Joshua!” Neku slammed his fist against the wall, but the jolt of pain that went up his arm wasn’t enough to distract him from his thoughts. He didn’t want to worry. He didn’t want to care. But he still couldn’t stop thinking about that stupid boy and his stupid smile, his shattered-glass grin that he showed to Neku and Neku alone. He didn’t want to, but he was the only one who could. He gritted his teeth and turned to face the River. He clutched his pin tight in one hand, his phone in the other. Texts lit up the screen from his friends, except for from the one friend he really needed to hear from. On his side of the screen there was a string of questions: where are you?, what happened?, are you okay? forming walls of text bubbles with no reply.

Neku slipped through the jagged hole ripped in the fence (courtesy of Sho) and entered Shibuya’s dark, damp, graffiti-covered sewers.

He never understood why Joshua decided to make his home here of all places. He never understood most things about Joshua.

His shoes squelched through the mud. At least they weren’t new. He could hardly see through the darkness, but the streaks of bright white paint on the wall were enough to guide him. Even though he had only walked this path once before, he hadn’t forgotten the way. He turned the last corner and closed his eyes; space shifted and changed around him with a feeling like plunging into the deep end of a pool.

When he opened his eyes again, he was standing in the Dead God’s Pad, nearly nose-to-nose with Joshua. He suppressed the urge to shriek and leap back.

“Neku,” he said in a voice as cold and hard as ice.

He glared right back, refusing to back down. “Yeah, Josh, it’s me. Wanna explain some things to me?”

His lips curled into a sneer. “No. I don’t owe you anything.” He flicked his wrist in a dismissive gesture. His arm was covered in angry red lines.

“You owe me everything. Look at you.” He reached for Joshua’s arm. “You keep dodging questions and dropping hints like you don’t want to tell me, but I know you really do. So talk to me like a normal human being.”

Joshua stuck out his tongue at him. “I’m neither normal nor human, Neku.”

“Yeah, you’re a child. A stuck-up, selfish, entitled little bastard, running around in circles and never getting anywhere.”

“Stop.”

“No. The world doesn’t run on your agenda, and I want answers.”

“I said stop.” Something changed in his face, and he suddenly looked a whole lot less like Joshua. Wings unfurled from his shoulders with a sound like ripping paper, quite literally tearing themselves from his back. They spilled across the tiles like liquid starlight, casting dizzying patterns of light and shadow. The stretched until the room was full of their delicate filigree, bloodstained lace suspended mid-air. His wings dwarfed him, a tiny figure at the center of a glimmering and wildly branching graffiti.

“I am a god,” he whispered, his voice trembling. Those shaking words should’ve sounded weak, but instead it was as if each syllable was quavering with barely contained power.

“Josh—”

A wing twitched and sent him sprawling. A flurry of feathers like a hurricane went through the room, throwing bottles from the shelf, sending papers up into miniature whirlwinds, making the foosball figures spin wildly around their poles.

“I am a god,” he repeated, “I am Shibuya. You cannot tell me what to do. Without me, you wouldn’t exist.”

“And you wouldn’t exist without me,” Neku countered, rising to his feet. “If not for me, you would’ve gone through with your dumb suicidal plan.”

“Dare you talk back to your god?”

Neku opened his mouth to argue, but found that he had nothing to say. Oh, he had plenty of words for Joshua, but this was not Joshua. It was Joshua-shaped, but its face was twisted in an emotion that Neku did not and could not understand. Teeth bared, fingers crooked into claws, eyes blazing like funeral pyres, this was nothing like the Joshua he knew. This was hatred and rage and despair, pain and passion, a discordant god.

“You should have shot me,” Joshua-but-not said, his lips pulling back over wicked-sharp canines. “I should have ended this.” The entire room shifted as he twisted his body around, full of feathers and impossibly angled joints. “Why didn’t you kill me? Why didn’t I? I’m not your friend, Neku, I was barely even your partner. And you say you want to see me?” He made a harsh noise in the back of his throat, somewhere between a laugh and a snarl. “Liar.”

“Will you just listen to me?”

“No. No more.”

The floor rolled beneath him. Neku dodged the sharp-angled edges of some impossible limb. “I thought you learned. I thought you saw Shibuya was worth saving!”

For a moment, the rage drained from his face, and he looked much older. Much sadder. “You were worth saving, Neku. Not me. Not this city.” His wings scraped the walls with a spine-chilling screech. “Neku. I’m done. And if you insist on staying, then…”

The door slammed open. “Composer!”

Hanekoma stood in the open doorway, his own wings spread wide. They may not have been as large or impressive as Joshua’s, but they shone many times more brightly. His phone emitted a faint beeping alarm. “Back away from the boy.”

Joshua smiled. “Ah, finally, the guardian angel arrives! Are you going to tell me to ‘be not afraid’?”

“No. You should be.”

“Really, Sanae, threats?” He giggled, and the room rocked with his shaking shoulders. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, considering your little assassination attempt.” He swung one wing inward, tangling Neku in it like a net and holding him close.

Neku could feel his breath on his skin. He smelled like lavender and the sharp metallic tang of blood. Like smog and flowers. Like his city.

One finger traced the curve of his cheek, sending sparks of cold electricity through his body. “Are you in on this too, my dearest Proxy?” he said, and laughed again.

He could feel Joshua’s ribs as his chest expanded with his breaths. Every peak of his spin dug into his fingers as he clung to him for dear life as he ascended.

It should have been impossible for him, but Joshua wasn’t about to let reality boss him around. The dimensions of the room rippled and changed to contain his wings as they swung down. More than just wingbeats, each sweeping motion added to a throbbing baseline. Feathers scattered, and burst into ringing notes when they landed, filling the room with chaotic song.

And then, somehow, they were out the door, and Joshua was careening through the sewers. His wings scraped lines into the wall as he went, and Neku held on tighter and tighter as the motion threatened to loosen his grip. Close behind them came the Producer, a streak of pure light, ping-ponging off the walls as the Composer’s rhythms shook the air itself.

Joshua laughed, and it came out as bells, as chords, as a thousand voices that weren’t his. The sound rang in Neku’s ears until he felt his eardrums would burst.

He felt like he was being carried by pure music.

That sounded poetic. It wasn’t. It was his bones thrumming and insides churning, surrounded by so much sound he felt deaf, barely able to believe that his fingers were digging into anything solid as the city rocketed by beneath him.

Then Joshua came to a screeching halt, the whiplash nearly throwing Neku from him.

“Why’d we st-stop?” Neku asked through uncontrollably chattering teeth.

Joshua hovered there, his preposterous wings pumping lazily at the air. “You know, Neku, I always wondered. Why bother showing me what I can’t reach?” he said, gesturing at the world beyond the city. Neku clung tighter to him. His voice was caught in his throat; he could barely breath. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to think of how high in the air he was.

Beneath them, still following, angrier and faster with every passing second, was Hanekoma.

“Composer!” he bellowed. “Halt!” His voice pierced through Joshua’s cocoon of sound.

“Or what?” Joshua cooed at him. “You’ll erase me? And what about your poor little Player?” He held Neku out. He squirmed like an upset cat.

“J-Joshua!!”

“Catch.”

Neku screamed as Joshua let go and he found himself plummeting toward the ground far, far below. Hanekoma hesitated, then dove down to where he thought he could catch the boy.

Joshua was still laughing, sounding more and more unhinged. His wingtip caught Neku as he fell, gave the slightest flick, and suddenly he was tossed back up.

He landed heavily in Joshua’s arms, flinging his arms around his neck and resolving to never let go again. His heart hammered like a rabbit’s.

It was only a slight setback for Hanekoma, but it bought Joshua a few more precious seconds. He held onto Neku just as tight as Neku held onto him, the air around them pulsing with light and music.

“Why show me what I can’t reach?” he whispered his question again into Neku’s ear. He pulled his wings close to his body and dropped into a dive. The blood rushed to Neku’s head. He couldn’t see, couldn’t hear anything but those throbbing wingbeats and the wind in his ears. He wasn’t sure where they were going. He wasn’t sure when they stopped. He only knew that when he opened his eyes again, his feet were back on the ground, and neither Producer nor Composer were anywhere to be seen.

“Joshua, what the hell was that!?” Hanekoma yelled, his voice amplified by the full force of his angelic power. “I’ve let you bend the rules for a long time, but this!? This goes against everything!”

Joshua huddled on the couch, his wings wrapped around his body in a mess of intricate feathers. “Spare me the lecture, Sanae. Seems like you’re finally taking up your duties as Producer again.”

“It’s about damn time!”

“Please stop yelling.”

Hanekoma bit back his rage and took a deep breath. “... Fine.”

“Thanks. Now, Producer, what’s the first order of business?” he asked as he peered through the gaps in his wings.

Something felt… wrong about Joshua being obedient. He shifted uncomfortably. “There’s no reason for you to be in the RG. Or the UG, for that matter. Your duties are here,” he said, pointing at the floor.

“Okay.”

“Are you being serious?”

“As serious as I can be,” he said. “Is there a problem with that?”

“You’re a problem,” Hanekoma said with a long-suffering sigh. “None of the other Producers have to deal with such a troublesome Composer…”

Joshua reshuffled his wings to peek through a different window. “I don’t need you to scold me, Sanae. Just let me know what I need to do.”

“We need to clean up your mess first. Then begin preparations for the next Game. Megumi will instruct you,” he said. “Listen to him.”

And with that, he turned and left.

Now alone in his room, Joshua crumpled into a pile on the cushions. He might’ve cried. He wasn’t sure.

Either way, it didn’t much matter. Megumi didn’t return for several more hours.

Being Composer and actually doing his job was far more boring than being Composer and doing whatever the hell he wanted. He rolled onto the floor, his cheek pressed up against the cold glass.

Thump thump thump, went that stupid orange fish. Maybe he should make some sashimi…

“Sir, we need to assign a new Game Master,” Megumi said, cutting through his thoughts.

“I dunno, get Kariya on it.”

“He refuses.” “His partner, then. I don’t care.” “We need a real answer, sir.” He looked down at the Composer. “Did you look over the credentials of the possible candidates?”

“Yes Megumi, I read your essays.” He pushed himself up on his elbows and tried to switch into a more professional tone. “They’re all highly qualified. More qualified than I am.” “We need a reply by tomorrow.” “I know, I know.” He was tempted to let Sho run the Game again, if only to end this mind-numbing monotony. Too bad he had already promised both Hanekoma and Megumi that he’d take his duties seriously. “Can Uzuki do next week? She’s always wanted the promotion, and I’m sure she’ll pick up some promising new recruits.” “Good choice, Sir. I will inform the others of your decision.” His shoes clicked as he left to send the message to the rest of the Reapers. Joshua grunted. Uzuki would certainly keep him busy; she’d racked up a record number of erasures over the past few months. Winners or losers, Joshua would have to sort the Players. The majority would be recycled into Noise, a rare few would be returned to life. Some would become Reapers, as he had, and the only marker of whether they won or lost would be if their entry fees were returned. Perhaps one out of a thousand would be beyond his decision; Hanekoma would recruit them into angels. He always felt jealous of them, but then again, Hanekoma done him a few favors to promote him to Composer so quickly. Besides, he had never heard of a loser becoming an angel.

It was better to not get involved with Players at all. If Neku taught him anything, it was that. Feelings got in the way. Sadness, friendship, guilt, regret.

And… Love. He hated saying it aloud; it made him feel small and stupid. To hear the word in his teenaged voice was to hear the adult insistence of, “No, it’s not. You don’t know what that is. You can’t. You’re too young.” Maybe they were right. He was a child when he died. Hanekoma said he was a child still. No matter how many years passed, he would always be. He was stuck, forever, while the rest of the world moved on into the future.

Shiki, Rhyme, Beat, Neku, Eri… They would move on without him too. He wasn’t sure why that thought upset him; it wasn’t like they were friends. Joshua didn’t have friends. That was another fact that he had to accept. He was forever 15, and forever alone.

There was no one to fake a laugh for, but he choked the noise out anyway. This was not what he had wanted when he had kissed the barrel of a gun on that fateful day. Not what he wanted when his finger curled around the trigger and splattered his brains all over the wall.

Selfish, everyone had said to him, but how could they know that he never did any of it for himself? It wasn’t what he wanted. It was what everyone else did. They wanted a reason to hate him, didn’t they? They wanted to get rid of him, didn’t they?

“Didn’t you?” he said. He twisted the words around his fingers into jagged streamers of black and yellow and green and blue, shaping each color into petals, layering them on top of each other. Just pointless Noise, he thought, as he released it into the air where it twirled in the wind. He let his human form fall from him like a shed skin. It was only a reminder of how he could never change. Only a reminder of that day that was something like happiness, that he spent at the side of those kids he had changed so completely in a few weeks. Those kids would not be kids much longer. They would grow into adults, and move out to the world beyond Shibuya.

It was doubtful that he would ever see them again. They’d be far from his realm when they died.

He watched the Noise spin away from him. A blur of colors, one for each of them. When they faded, so would their hue.

Game after Game, he asked the Players the same question.

What color is that flower now?

[mrmachreviews-blog]

Top Ten Most Enjoyable Video Games in 2018!

If you are anything like me, video games with friends is much more enjoyable than by yourself. I constantly get bored of playing single-player games and especially bored of playing multiplayer games by myself (solo-queuing). So, I decided to make a list of the most fun games to play with friends! Of course, this is all my own personal opinion and if you have a change to this list, feel free to let me know! Also, I have limited each to one of the genres, just so it does not feel repetitive! Now, on to the list! This list will also have Amazon affiliate links, if you do indeed plan on buying the game. 

 10.  World of Warcraft:

         One of the greatest MMORPG’s of all time is still one of the most popular games to play to-date. As I am looking at the Twitch.tv list of most popular games right now, it stands at number six. This could be due to Sodapoppin playing it or many other popular streamers, but it definitely deserves a place on this list for being a game people play with friends. This is a game where many people can group up and start raids, bringing many hours of enjoyment! (Especially when we have the beautiful meme of Leeerrroyyy Jenkins!)

9. Jackbox Party Pack:

         I was surprised that many people have not heard of this game series (the last game being Jackbox Party Pack 4). This game is very unique: so, each person who’s playing has their phone be their “controller” and you go through different types of games such as Fibbage where you try to lie and make other people vote for your saying or Guesspionage, where you have to try to guess a percentage of people (such as how many people read top ten articles from a lame person) and then the other people try to guess if the correct answer is higher or lower. It is a group of games that everyone enjoys playing, even non-gamers. I have played this hundreds of times with friends and family; this is a great game to put on this list.

You can buy these games through Steam!

8. Tabletop Simulator:

         Similar to the #9, we have Tabletop Simulator. This is a game where you can download and play any of your favorite board games. Coming from someone who plays board games a great deal with a lot of friends, you can see the enjoyment factor of a simulator you can use to play online. I have played games such as Cosmic Encounters to Magic: the Gathering to Risk, all in one game that was ten dollars when I bought it.

You can buy this game here! https://amzn.to/2ClmzKx

7. Super Smash Bros. Series:

         Many fighting games have always been popular, from Mortal Kombat to Street Fighter. With the much anticipated Super Smash Bros. Ultimate coming out by December, I can guarantee this will be one of the most played fighting games of the year. Even though it is not out yet, this game series is still extremely popular, being used in tournaments (Super Smash Bros. Melee) as well as many friends dueling it out with each other in giant free-for-all’s. Many fighting games are the same, but I have not seen any pull off the giant fight-to-the-death that Super Smash Bros. has done with multiple people.

6. Mario Kart 8:

         Racing games are similar to fighting games in the sense that they have always been around. Mario Kart has been around since 1992, but the recent release in 2017 has become an extremely popular game. Not only is this game a childhood gem for many people in the 90’s, but almost every one of my friends love playing this game with a group of people. I remember back during the Nintendo 64, everyone would come over and we would all take turns racing it out with four controllers. Definitely an amazing time, and it is still being replicated to this day!

You can see this game here! https://amzn.to/2CNewXW 

5. Dead by Daylight:

         What is an October list without a horror game? Not a good one, I’ll give you that! Dead by Daylight is an excellent game of ‘spoopy’ hide-and-seek where four survivors must fix generators and escape before dying to the mysterious killer, such as Michael Myers or ‘The Doctor’. Playing with three other friends, this game is a complete blast. Everyone is dying of laughter as we keep trying to juke the killer and save our friends. Think of it like this, horror games are scary, especially alone, but imagine how fun it would be to play with three of your close friends? The eerie feeling goes away and it becomes a game full of fun and laughter, something that Dead by Daylight brings a lot of to the many that play it.

4. Rocket League:

         This is one of my personal favorite games, not only because it is soccer with cars (how can you say no to soccer with CARS!), but because of the fun matches that you can have with your friends. Many of the hours that I have put into this game come from the custom games that I can play with my friends. Having a giant 4v4 battle (or 3v3) of soccer where you battle it out to see who can score more goals, or playing “dropshot”, a game mode of where you do not want the ball to bounce on your side, to “ping pong” where you can only touch the ball on your half of the court. Any way that you play this game, it all leads to so much fun with friends. There is also a very competitive side to the game too, which makes playing with your competitive friends fun as well, especially if you want to get good at the game!

3. Rainbow Six: Siege

         First person shooters have been very popular over time, especially series such as Counter Strike and Call of Duty. Both of those two series are very fun with friends, but nothing beats the new Rainbow Six: Siege. This game brings the strategy of Counter Strike and mixes in multidimensional floors and give each player an ability, through the form of tactical operators (as they are called). When I play this game with friends, it brings out a competitive side of us, trying to win and get better at the game. This is a great game if you are trying to win and also have a good time with your friends. Counter Strike is also an alternative if you are looking for a less strategic alternative.

You can buy this game here! https://amzn.to/2pW8DyQ

2. League of Legends:

         Any MOBA (Dota 2, Heroes of the Storm, etc.) could have fit in this category, but I think that League of Legends is definitely the most refined and popular. I have sunk many hours into this game, and each time I play, the game feels amazing to play with friends. This game is a 5v5 arena, where each player tries to defeat the other team while also working together to clear objectives. It is a very communicative experience, where each other teammate needs to go through the difficulty of the game, together, or lose as one. Many of my friends play this game (on top of many people playing the game in general, being one of the most played games of all time) and I absolutely love playing this game with teams of five, where we can go into the game knowing all of our strengths and weaknesses and working on improving our game sense as well as our overall teamwork. I highly recommend this game to people who are looking for a challenge!

This game is free! Who doesn’t like free??

1. Fortnite

         It would not be a top ten list of games to play with friends without a battle royale game being the number one spot! Fortnite is by far the most popular game of this year as well as the most enjoyable to play with friends. Almost everyone I know has heard of this game either through the news or from gamers. If a game can literally bring Drake, Travis Scott, and Ninja (a very popular streamer and one of the best Fortnite players in the world) together to play Fortnite, you know that this is a great game to play with your friends. Many of the other battle royales could definitely fit this spot, such as PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and Realm Royale. With the release of the new game mode for Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 being a battle royale, the genre is going to become even more popular to play with your friends.

This game is also free! Coincidence? I think not!

Well, this has been my Top Ten list of most enjoyable games to play with your friends in 2018. I hope you enjoyed it and I hope some of these games reached out to you and make you want to go try them!

If you enjoyed this review, please feel free to follow me on Tumblr and you can message me here! Same goes if you want to work with me on something or have business inquiries. 

[17-imagines]

[scenario] maknae duties

((yay!! after almost sitting in my drafts for year, i finally finished my first work for our smol bean chan))

Title: maknae duties

Member: lee chan x !idolreader

Genre: fluff / fluff / fluff

Warnings: none

Word Count: 2595

You wake up to the loud screeching of one of many alarms set in the dorm, and with a groan, pull your pillow over your ears and attempt to block out the incessant ringing.

Like a relay, all the other alarms go off, forcing the rest of your group to awaken and shut them off.  

You fake sleep for another five minutes before you feel a barrage of pillows thrown at you, and the sleepy voice of your leader coaxing you to wake up.

“(F/N)-ah, breakfast,” she says, poking your cheek.

Eventually, she pulls the covers off of you and exposes you to the cold morning air, courtesy of the cracked-open window by your bed.

She smiles and pats your head, then leaves the room, giving you privacy to change. The others are already arguing over the food portions outside, but knowing her, she’d save you a plateful.

You make do with the comfiest clothes you have, as there’s no necessity to look decent when the lot of you were going to laze around the dorm for the majority of the morning, and then squeeze in a night full of practice.

You enter the warzone you call the kitchen, and find a plate set aside for you, protected by your beaming leader.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” You mumble, taking a bite of the food.

“Mm, nothing?” She hums, glancing behind you before smiling.

You turn and are faced with two bags full of empty takeout boxes and bottles of energy drinks, then turn back to her.

“Love you,” she says, getting up to place her dish in the sink. “I’ve got the dishes, so you can take those out.”

“Okay, unnie,” you mumble through a mouthful of food.

The other members have finished already, so the dishes have multiplied by 4x, so in a way, you’re thankful she’s doing them.

That is, until you realize that the elevator is ‘under maintenance’ and she purposely let you take out the trash because she didn’t want to haul the bags down four flights of stairs.

You inhale deeply and sigh, preparing yourself for the strenuous task.

Suddenly, the door at the bottom of the first flight of stairs unlocks, and out steps a male adorned in a hat and face mask, a small bag of takeout trash in his hand.

He notices your presence at the top of the stairs, and yawns before asking, “Need a hand?”

You open your mouth to answer, but before you formulate the proper words, he makes his way up the stairs and takes hold of the heavier of the two bags.

“...Thanks,” you quietly murmur, and the two of you descend the stairs, side-by-side.

“No problem,” he chuckles, “Honestly, taking out the trash as a group would be a lot faster than making the youngest do it on their own.”

You raise an eyebrow. “How’d you know I’m the youngest?”

He pauses on a step, the tips of his ears reddening as he collects his thoughts. “Uh - well - I - no, we - SEVENTEEN - read your group’s profile, since we’re part of the same company and everything…”

He huffs, fully aware of the state of his face, which is flushed pink. “It’s nice to meet you, (F/N)-ah.”

“Oh, uh…” You let the trash bag rest on the step and bow. “Likewise, sunbaenim.”

His eyes widen at the formality, and he shyly murmurs, “You can call me Chan.”

-

Tomorrow was the recording for your debut stage, and although you should be in bed, asleep, the need to perfect the choreography for your title song willed you out of bed, and back to the Pledis building.

It’s there, where you run into Chan again, and find yourself in the middle of SEVENTEEN’s ping-pong tournament.

Ping-pong balls and paddles are being launched in different directions, and it’s then when Chan drags you safely to the side, deflecting a stray ball with his back.

An apology is shouted your way, and Chan acknowledges it with a wave of his hand.

He directs his attention to you, crossing his arms. “What’re you doing here? It’s late.”

“I was on my way to a practice room,” you shrug, “Didn’t know I’d enter a warzone,” you chuckle, and he laughs with you.

“But seriously though - a practice room? It’s already one in the morning, shouldn’t you be resting?”

A teasing giggle resounds from behind him, and he can picture the smug grins on his hyungs’ faces. He tries his best to ignore the hoots and hollers, but his face gradually reddens, and so does yours.

“I…” You trail off, “I couldn’t sleep anyway. Something about the choreography is off, I know it, and I don’t want to ruin tomorrow’s recording because I didn’t practice hard enough.”

“Ah,” he breathes, thinking. “You know, I could help you. The performance team helped choreograph it, so I know it too.” He realizes his straightforwardness and adds, “I mean, uh, if you feel like it! I don’t want to pressure you or anything.”

“If you don’t mind…?”

From over his shoulder, you can see Soonyoung, Seungkwan, and Seokmin, who are shooting you kissy faces and raised eyebrows. You look away, and they teasingly coo ‘cuties~’ as Chan takes you by the shoulders and guides you away from them.

“Ignore them,” he mumbles, “Let’s go find a practice room.”

The two of you enter the hall of practice rooms, the majority of them darkened. A group of trainees exit the only lit one, and at the sight of Chan they bow in respect. He shyly acknowledges them and says ‘good work today’, in which they respond, ‘thank you sunbaenim’.

As they leave, Chan rubs his face, pouting.

“Not used to it?” You tease, grinning.

“It’s weird,” he shrugs. “I’m not that old to be a sunbae.”

“Well… Technically, you’re my sunbae.”

He scrunches his face. “Gross. Let’s stick to being... Fellow maknaes.”

He approaches the practice room the trainees left, and holds it open for you to enter. The motion-sensor lights flicker back on as you walk inside, and the door shuts with a light thud behind Chan.

He searches for your group’s title track on the computer, and it soon fills the room, booming through the speakers.

“From the top,” he smiles, taking position beside you.

Throughout the song, he calls out the micro-mistakes you make, and demonstrates how to make your movements more fluid and sharp.

“You should be lower,” he murmurs, rewinding the song a few seconds back to the specific move. He stands behind you and places his hands on your hips, pushing you down slightly. “Like this.”

“And what exactly are you brats doing?” A voice cuts in, causing the both of you to stumble away from each other, flushing pink.

Over the loud music, the sound of the door opening and closing was muted, thus why neither of you noticed the onlooking Seungcheol leaning against the far wall.

“H-hyung…”

“Seungcheol-oppa…”

Seungcheol walks to the computer, pausing the track, silence filling the room. He crosses his arms, a hint of irritation in his smile.

“Do you know what time it is?”

You both shake your head.

“3 AM. You’re lucky I saw the light, or the two of you would’ve gone a lot longer.” He recalls the short moment of intimacy between the both of you and grins slyly at Chan, who lowers his head out of embarrassment. Seungcheol chuckles. “Go back to the dorms, kids.”

“Yeah. Sorry,” Chan murmurs. “Why are you here, hyung?”

Seungcheol yawns, scratching his head. “Gonna drag Jihoonie out of his cave,” he grins. He leaves with a sleepy wave, entering SEVENTEEN’s section of the building.

The air outside is chilling, the bitter wind nipping at your nose and cheeks. Chan notices you shiver and places his hat on your head, and brushes out his messy locks with his fingers.

The dorm is a ten minute walk, and your legs burn from overexertion, but spending a few extra minutes in the cold with Chan isn’t so bad. In fact, it’s the greatest feeling in the world.

“How do you feel? You’re debuting tomorrow,” Chan says, hands stuffed into the pocket of his hoodie.

“Honestly? Like puking.”

He chuckles. “Trust me, you’re gonna do great.”

“Well, I don’t want to be overconfident,” you kick a stray pebble across the sidewalk, listening to it skip against the pavement.

“It’s good to be,” Chan encourages. He glances at you, worry evident in your expression, and lets out a deep sigh. “I believe in you, even if you don’t believe in yourself.”

Under the dim lighting of the street and moon, Chan can see the tint of pink in your cheeks, and it could either be from the cold or his words, but most likely, it’s a combination of both.

He looks away when you look at him, his chest fuzzy and mind buzzing.

-  

“Chan, the rebroadcast, it’s...” Chan bolts out of his room and jumps over and onto the couch, nearly bouncing Hansol off of it. “...On.”  

The rest of the group gathers around the TV, watching intently as their hoobae group performs.

It’s evident Chan is way more engaged than the rest of them, and when you’re at the front of the formation, the hearts are visible in his eyes.

“Looks like getting comfy in the practice room helped,” Seungcheol nudges, poking him teasingly. The other members join in on teasing him until he turns a bright pink, and he buries his face into a couch cushion.

“Ah, right. Chan, would you be an angel and grab my phone? I left it in the building… Somewhere.” Soonyoung grins cheekily at Chan, who lifts his face up from the cushion to scowl at the elder.

“The things I do for you hyung,” Chan mumbles, shrugging on a jacket. “I’ll be back then.”

Chan slips on a pair of shoes that could either be his or Hansol’s, but he could care less. He shuts the door behind him, and Soonyoung giggles to himself.

“You know something,” Jihoon murmurs, “And your phone’s in your pocket.” He gestures to the rectangular bulge in Soonyoung’s hoodie, and the former shrugs.

“Let’s just say I saw someone alone in a practice room who needed a little cheering up.”

-

Chan presses call on Soonyoung’s contact and begins walking through the halls of the Pledis building, listening for the familiar tune of Highlight coming from his hyung’s phone.

He hangs up for the third time, defeated.

It’s then, when he sees the illuminated practice room ahead of him, finding it unusual that someone other than him was in the building at 10 o’clock at night.

Curious, he walks further down the hall and peers through the glass door, taken aback when he sees you leaning against the far wall, lost in thought.

He enters the practice room, but you’re too entranced in your thoughts to hear the door slam shut.

You do feel him sit beside you, and when his shoulder brushes against yours you jump slightly, glancing at him. Realizing it’s Chan, you relax back into the wall and look away.

“...What are you doing here?” You mumble, burrowing further into your hoodie, concealing your face.

“I could ask you the same thing,” Chan replies curtly. He gently pulls your hood away, and smiles when you glare at him with tired eyes. “You did really well, by the way.”

“Chan, do you see yourself in me or something? Is that why you care so much?”

He tenses, and you scoot a few inches away.

“I’m sorry, that… Came out harsher than I intended.” You sigh and bring a hand to your face, rubbing it frustratedly.

“It’s fine,” he says softly. He scoots to close the space between the both of you, your shoulders touching again. “By the way, my answer to that is no.”

“Then, why do you care so much? Because I’m your hoobae group’s maknae? That’s the only logical explanation, right? It’s purely professional, nothing el-”

He places his palm over your mouth, muffling the next jumble of words you try to say. You glare at him, and he turns away to hide the small smile that crosses his face.

“Hey, calm down. Please?”

You nod and he slowly lowers his hand away from your mouth, placing it back on his lap.

“Listen to me, okay?”

You nod again.  

He looks at you warmly, sending a rush of adrenaline through your body, your heart skipping a beat.

“I would’ve helped you if you were the oldest or a sunbae. Your position doesn’t change how I feel about you.”

At the last few words you feel another rush, this time causing warmth to spread through your cheeks, ending in the tips of your ears. “...How you feel about me?”

He moves his hand to yours, squeezing it softly. “Yeah,” he admits. “I like you a lot, (F/N).”

“Chan… You know we aren’t permitted to have feelings.”

He shakes his head, sighing. “Those rules are for SEVENTEEN’s Dino and (group name)’s (stage name). Right now? I’m Lee Chan, and you’re (L/N) (F/N).”

“I…” You hesitate, and exhale deeply. “I like you too. But… I’m scared, Chan. Until I met you, I’ve never thought about someone as much as I’ve thought about debuting.” You pause, taking another deep breath.

“This,” you gesture to your touching hands, twisting yours to intertwine fingers with his, “feels so right, but also feels so wrong. What would happen to our careers? What if the fans boycott? I just debuted, but you guys are going places and I don’t want to ruin -”

You feel Chan’s other hand wrap around your waist, pulling you close enough to feel his breath on your face. The words you try to say get lost on Chan’s lips, and you melt into his soft warmth.

A few moments later he pulls away, panting softly. He brushes a strand of hair behind your ears, and caresses your cheek, smiling when you lean into his touch.

“Stop worrying about the future, (F/N). We can deal with it. Together.” He pauses, then breaks into a cheeky grin. “And besides, I’ve liked you long before you became a trainee at Pledis, so this is more of a romantic reunion.”

“HUH?” You take his hand away from your face, shaking it frantically. “Explain!”

He chuckles, nodding, grabbing your hand to stop it from shaking his. “Okay, okay, student council president.”

“No,” you firmly say.

“Yes,” he says mockingly, pouting when you push him lightly. “I experienced your reign as ice queen of our middle school,” he grins, “Not going to lie, you’re really soft now. Well, I like the you now, and the you from back then.”

He laughs softly, wrapping an arm around you and pulling you into him, your head resting against his chest, his heartbeat beating steadily by your ear.

“Be my girlfriend, (F/N). I know it’s scary, and I can’t lie, I’m scared too. But it’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

You can hear his heartbeat quicken, and his hands around you grow restless, fiddling with the hem of your sweater.

“...Okay.”

He breaks into a wide smile, reflected in the mirror opposite the both of you.

 He presses a soft kiss to your head, and for once in your life, you aren’t focused on the bad things that could happen, but the good things that will happen, alongside Chan.

And to think it all started with taking out the trash.

[storiesbybrian]

No Goats Were Harmed in the Celebration of this Bar Mitzvah

           Most of Carew’s friends had self-righteous parents, well-meaning adults generally respected and admired by their adolescent kids. But Carew’s parents meant extra well, like repair the world well. When he was younger, their moral exertions felt negligible. While trick or treaters came away from the Shapiros’ front door with copies of Notes from a Birmingham Jail, Carew still hauled in a bucketful of candy from their less, or maybe more civic-minded neighbors. But as the hormonal tide of adolescence rolled in, Ralph and Bettina started requiring Carew’s participation in their ethical olympiad. Carew presumed they mistook his physical maturation for a readiness to join the family’s devotion to restorative justice, because he was still too immature to allow himself to realize that their disruptions of his constant attempts to, in honor of his namesake, steal third, were not entirely unintentional.

           At a bat mitzvah party in April, just after his mother had finished helping lift his classmate Aviva’s family members up in chairs, while Carew tried finding the best angle to see some flesh through all that royal blue taffeta, but not wanting to see too much lest the arousal become unbearable, he felt a hand rest on his shoulder, and even recognizing the feel and weight of his father’s caress, his first thought was that a policeman had responded to a call from Aviva’s horrified parents and got there as quickly as he could to haul Carew to jail on charges of private lewdness.

           “Hey,” Ralph said. “Got a sec?”

           Carew tried to recover from the jolt of contact, and then from the strange absence of relief that he’d been approached by someone who loved him instead of an apprehending officer, accomplishing neither and just following his dad out of the hotel ballroom and into a lobby where children were giggling at each other’s high-pitched profanities between sips of helium from unknotted, steel-colored balloons. Ralph gestured toward a circular banquette that reminded Carew of an impaled ring of pineapple. Bettina exited the ballroom, checking her watch for confirmation that this appointment was happening right on schedule, and sat down next to her son, close enough to darken his blazer with the sweat she’d worked up during the hora.

           “Hey buddy,” she said.

           “Do we have to leave?” Carew asked.

           “No no,” Ralph said. “We just wanted to ask you, well tell you, well-”

           “Carew,” Bettina said. “Do you remember Aviva’s Torah portion?”

           “Well, I didn’t really study-”

           “No. I mean, do you remember what it was about?”

           “Oh,” Carew said. “Yeah, it was about all the specific instructions Moses got on Mount Sinai for the Ark of the Covenant and how to decorate the tent where they’d keep it.”

           “Never mind that last week was Mishpatim where they lay out the rules for free labor,” Bettina said. “Post-Exodus codification of ethical slavery. Hmph!”

           “Well your mom’s the family scholar, that’s for sure!” Ralph said. “But, do you see anything related to uh-”

           “Terumah,” Bettina said.

           “Right, Terumah here? Like, anything?”

           “Um, shiny decorations?”

           “Carew,” Ralph said.

           “Well I think it’s a really fun party, and Aviva looks beautiful!” Carew said. “I mean, look how much fun Mom’s having!”

           But even with his balls distorting every signal his brain received, Carew knew there was no point in arguing with people who believed they were doing God’s work, and that the smartest thing would be to warn his friends that his bar mitzvah was going to be… unusual.

            The Shapiros biked home through the faint crispness of early Spring. Ralph ignored his son’s subdued disappointment (he was beginning to feel deceptive about all of Carew’s feelings and activities he pretended not to notice), while simultaneously making it seem like keeping up with Carew was a struggle, knowing Carew was no dummy and that too much obtuse encouragement would be identified as the pathetic compensation it really was. Inhaling deeply, imagining his family crashing through the remnants of winter, the contrast between how Ralph felt and how he wanted Carew to think he felt amounted to a level of manipulation that made him very uncomfortable. Bettina cruised ahead in the biking gear she’d changed into after cake was served. The moon came in sight and Ralph decided that blow-softening wasn’t manipulation. It was kindness. And parents always guided their children, whether they noticed it or not, and if anything, Carew should have as great a sense of autonomy as possible. So Ralph kept his tongue dangling in faux exhaustion as they approached the biggest hill they’d tackle between the Marriott and their house.

           With her toes clipped to her pedals, Bettina was halfway up the hill before Carew started climbing, Ralph not far behind. Her breathing was easier and skin drier than it had gotten in the thick of the Romanian folk dance she’d been sure to explain to Ralph and Carew had been appropriated as “Jewish tradition” by kibbutzniks in British-mandated Palestine in the 1920s. As ever, she’d assured her husband and son that the hora’s ersatz authenticity shouldn’t diminish the joy it brought to families who assumed their ancestors had been stomping, circling and hoisting for centuries. But that was one more thing to cross off the list on Carew’s big day.

           “Come on, you two,” she called back down the hill.

           The asphalt sparkled under the sodium lights, wiped briefly dark by their passing shadows. Ralph raised from his seat to put more body weight on his pedals. Though he’d long outgrown the bitterness he carried from his own bar mitzvah 34 years earlier, he could still hear the clang of metal chairs unfolding on his family’s cracked driveway while his father set plastic bottles of off-brand soda on a card table in preparation for the spare, poorly attended celebration of his attainment of Jewish manhood. He remembered coming home from school that Friday, hoping for some rest before services that night. But his father needed him to clear out the garage so they could set up a ping pong table borrowed from the synagogue before Sabbath began. Ralph tried to muster gratitude for his parents’ efforts, mainly because he loved and genuinely appreciated them, but also because he sensed his father was testing him, daring him to complain, or even betray a glimmer of disappointment that no hall would be rented, no meal would be served and Saturday night’s dj would be Grandma Corrine playing her favorite cassettes on his boombox. Ralph hoped that he’d been gentle enough with his father’s pride that an unspoken accord was reached, one that recognized how gracefully Ralph handled the weight of expectations his father was placing on him. But, as he stood on the ping pong table wrapping a lone blue streamer around the dangling lightbulb, it felt eerily like the perfect time for his dad to offer some sign, some expression of appreciation, not only for the flawless job he’d done in front of the entire congregation that morning, but for the perfect dutifulness and lack of entitlement he’d shown in its aftermath. But, like so many of his Hebrew school classmates who had better things to do that night, this was one more rejected invitation. Now that Ralph could stand and be counted as a member of his community, the faith he’d maintained and even bolstered that his father was watching him intently for signs of true manhood was shaken by a suspicion that the real message his father was sending him, intentionally or not, was get used to disappointment. And Ralph’s response had been a private vow that when he had children, they would know that he was proud of them. And when they reached adolescence, he would celebrate them lavishly. 

           Carew pedaled harder, catching Bettina near the top of the hill, and as Ralph crested a few seconds behind, he loosened his tie to let the wind of the downhill cool his hot, sweaty neck, amazed by how wildly he could vascillate between feeling like he’d arrived at a given moment along a coherent, linear path, and the more realistic sense that a man’s life entailed cracking, spilling, gutting and rotting before hurriedly gathering up the filthy encampment one laughably called the self, and how fraudulent but necessary it seemed to keep zooming out until the whole mess was far enough away to seem whole again.

           The trio turned onto their street and Carew and Bettina broke into an all out race. Ralph hung back, hearing his wife and son laugh as they shot, Tron-like toward the three-story house they’d owned since Carew was 9. He still got a jolt of dopamine from attributing his success to discipline and hard work. But as soon as they’d met, Bettina told him about the “green lights for whites,” ticking off a list of unacknowledged advantages he’d been granted by seeming, even as a Jew, acceptable while so many people of color worked harder than Ralph ever did, only to wind up in Ralph’s parents’ neighborhood, so much more grateful for so much less that they still sent their kids off to fight wars to protect such sacred privileges. The way Bettina’s discourse swooped in for intricate detail, then back up to the general idea had an electric effect on Ralph. He listened eagerly as she described how black people stuffed themselves into “honky-ass personas” just to be considered for a job, a raise, a clerkship, a business loan, a taxi ride, an office lease, only to be perceived as threatening anyway, and the resilience it took to go through that much self-betrayal. Sitting with her over coffee, Ralph felt cleansed of whatever residual self-pity he still carried from his modest upbringing, and he loved her instantly. He loved how fiercely she inspired him to be a better man than he thought he could be. He loved how Bettina helped him love himself more.

           Carew beat Bettina by a few bike lengths and Ralph opened the garage with his phone. They hung their bikes from hooks on the giant peg board Carew and he had put up the previous summer, and hung their helmets from their handlebars.

           “Can I play FIFA for a little while?” Carew asked as they entered the house through the garage.

           “What chapter are you on in your book?” Bettina asked.

           “Um, the one where Menelaus retrieves Patroclus’s body from the battlefield.”

           “Book 17. Alright. Don’t stay up too late.”

           “Thanks mom!”

           Carew dashed further into the house while Ralph and Bettina shared their special “that boy’s alright” smile with each other.

           Bettina knew more history, but Ralph had more history with bar mitzvahs. They were able to acknowledge this difference and felt assured that they could avoid a conflation that might damage the harmony with which they were enlisting their son to enjoy a much more serious type of bar mitzvah. But as much as they wanted to believe there was no daylight between their values and those of their adolescent son, Ralph had caught signs of Carew wobbling, lololol’ing at offensive jokes in chat rooms, exaggerating how much he bench-pressed, shunning some of the kids he’d played with since kindergarten, shrugging and looking at the ground when speaking with other adults; all normal, but still disappointing. Maybe now wasn’t the best time for statements some might call radical, statements that might knock Carew over just when he needed more shoring up. Ralph understood that harboring notions of secret, nay conspiratorial alliances with his son was an invocation of exactly the kind of privilege Bettina loved him for purposefully eschewing. But he began to wonder, Am I limiting myself for the sake of wokeness? It was an insidious thought, a damn spot he couldn’t scrub out, which is why he avoided sharing it with Bettina. Because she was right. A teenager’s well-being had nothing to do with caterers and fog machines.

           Since becoming a widower when Carew was 10, Ralph’s father came over every Friday for dinner. Tension got high enough often enough that the ritual never felt permanent, like any Friday might be the last one. But seven nights later, he’d be out on the front porch in his houndstooth fedora, holding a half-gallon of non-dairy mint chip. On the Friday six weeks before his bar mitzvah, Carew went out on a limb.

           “Grandpa Eddie, have you ever heard of Utnaphishtim?” Carew asked after his grandfather had blessed the wine and bread.

           “Who?”

           Carew looked at his mother like he needed help. He did, but not the way Bettina thought.

           “Utnapishtim,” Bettina said. “A character in the Epic of Gilgamesh who mirrors Noah in the Torah.”

           “Oh boy,” Eddie said. “Here we go. Alright, let’s get it over with. Come on, come on. Do I need to take notes?”

           “It’s-” Carew began, knowing his mom would take the bait and activate a high and mighty tone that Carew loved, whenever it wasn’t directed at him.

           “It’s contextual, Eddie, and no I will not apologize for using that big, fancy term,” Bettina said. “Because we want Carew to understand the cultural values of-”

           “Cultural values?” Eddie said. “The Jewish People-”

           “They weren’t Jews, Eddie,” Bettina said.

           “They were Hebrews!” Carew and Ralph said in unison.

           “My favorite part of the evening,” Eddie said. “When my daughter-in-law gives me Judaism lessons. Actually Bettina, the Hebrews split into the Judaeans, aka ‘Jews,’ and Israelites around 2600 years ago. So as I was saying, while other cults in the desert were trying to make camels fly, the Jewish People invented the very concept of ‘cultural values’. What happened to the people that wrote this other flood story?”

           “Dad would you please pass the broccoli?”

           “OK, Eddie,” Bettina said. “Sorry for getting pedantic. No offense.”

           “None taken,” Eddie said. “And the chicken’s delicious tonight, too.”

           “It’s just that we’re very excited.”

           This is what Carew was waiting for.

           “Oh yeah?” Eddie asked.

           Bettina looked hopefully at Ralph, who took his cue.

           “Dad,” he said. “We’re taking on the Bar Mitzvah Industrial Complex!”

           “Really,” Eddie said, showing no signs of awareness that Ralph’s bar mitzvah was the moment when things began to change between them. “And how do you plan on doing that? No wait, lemme guess. You’re renting a cruise ship and filling it with endangered animals.”

           “Cruise ship?!” Carew said. “Like one with a big water slide?”

           “Carew,” Ralph said. “No one’s renting a cruise ship.”

           “Uh Ralph,” Eddie said. “Are you ever gonna give that broccoli back?”

             Carew continued his studies, still hopeful Grandpa Eddie might make enough trouble to steer his parents’ lances toward a different windmill. In one of his weekly meetings with Rabbi Foreman, he asked the rabbi what made Noah so superior to the rest of the antediluvian global population? If the life expectancy was upwards of 500 back then, didn’t that mean people were treating each other better than they did nowadays? And what about all the animals on the Ark? Were they the moral exceptions to their species too, or were those left behind just innocent casualties of mankind’s iniquity? Most students just wanted to memorize the Hebrew so they didn’t embarrass their parents when the big day came, so Rabbi Foreman was thrilled by Carew’s inquisitiveness. On the other hand, he was in too much demand as it was, and afraid that kindling too much warmth with the Shapiros would make it harder to fend off Bettina’s involvement in more synagogue affairs. The recycling program she’d implemented was one thing, writing letters to supermax inmates another, and it was too hard to explain the thorniness to Carew’s mother without exposing himself to accusations of complicity in society’s dooming actions. Still, when a young congregant was genuinely curious about Torah, his rabbi should the last person to mute that interest.

           So he explained about Nephilim, the semi-angelic beings in the previous chapter, who had intermingled with mankind to produce giants not only capable of fathering children in their 500s, but of building watercraft that could rescue all of life on Earth. Rabbi Foreman spun the same yarn Carew’s parents did, about how research used to be relatives’ encyclopedias and trips to the library and requests by mail to the Smithsonian Institute, and how he wondered if the knowledge stuck as well when it was easier to come by.

           “So you see,” the rabbi said. “These ancestors, they were heroic in the ways that mattered most to our people, mentally, morally, and yes, physically.”

           “Or maybe,” Carew said. “They exaggerated their virility because men who subjugated women back then were just as insecure about their masculinity as they are now.”

           “Maybe,” Rabbi Foreman said, stroking his beard and looking at the clock.

           The rabbi thought about the passage immediately following the Earth’s restoration of habitability. It was only three verses, about post-flood humanity’s attempt to build a tower to the heavens. Maybe they were just striving for safety beyond the floodline. But even if their reasons were not as noble, Rabbi Foreman never really understood why mankind’s unity incurred the wrath of God. What was so wicked about working together to build something great? Or was the destruction of a great tower and the scattering of its tiny inhabitants supposed to be a much more symbolic rebuke of toxic masculinity?

           “Rabbi Foreman?” Carew said.

           “Yes.”

           “I asked if we could meet a little later next week? I’m supposed to visit that dairy my parents talked to you about.”

             The following week, in the car on the way to Telmont’s Dairy Farm, Carew dispensed with all subtleties and socraticisms and spoke openly about his feelings.

           “I feel trapped,” he said.

           “The windows are shut to keep out the manure smell, buddy,” Ralph said.

           “Dad.”

           Bettina shot Ralph a look and he dropped his innocence act at once.

           “Trapped, you say?”

           “No. Mom. I just- look. I know how that sounds. But yeah. Like I feel like I either have to be in lockstep with you guys or I’m a bad person. Feels… stifling.”

           All three Shapiros stared out of their respective windows at the farmland they were passing, the corn and tobacco fields just beginning to brown, the pasture sod stiffening at the tips. Carew drummed on the little shelf by his door.

           “Carew,” Bettina said. “What would make you feel better?”

           “I mean,” he said, struggling to keep his voice even. “Just, a normal party? Where our friends and family can have fun instead of being reminded of how short they’re all falling?”

           Bettina parked the car by the dairy office and turned around to face her son.

           “But they are falling short, son,” she said. “Even we, who work so hard, don’t always embody our ideals. Do we, honey?”

           Carew shook his head, unable to keep tears from springing forth.

           “I’m sorry,” he said.

           “Well you should be!” Ralph said.

           “Ralph!”

           “No! Look at this!” Ralph said. “Oh I want a big party, OMG stop making me feel so guilty! How in the world have all the years we’ve put into raising him amounted to this?”

           Carew wept more openly. His mother handed him a recycled tissue.

           “Fine,” Carew said. “Let’s go commune with beasts.”

           “No,” Bettina said. “Wait a second!”

           Carew and Ralph were already out of the car, refusing to look at each other. Both were confused, but Ralph’s impulse to project certainty was stronger. Carew seemed to have already abandoned whatever that little rebellion in the car was, but something felt unsettled.

           A screen door squeaked open and whacked shut. A large woman in a Doc Martens and a tattered gingham dress crunched across the gravel to greet them. Both of her arms were fully sleeved in tattoos.

           “Hi!” she said. “Zippy Telmont. Y’all must be the Shapiros!”

           Bettina was still in the car. Carew’s face was still streaked and puffy. Ralph was still too furious and confused to be authentically friendly.

           “Yeah,” he said. “Zippy. Could you, would you mind if I just talked to my son for a minute here? Alone?”

           “OK. I did think y’all were the ones on a tight schedule, but…” Zippy lowered her face to her phone and walked back into the office, murmuring to herself.

           Carew glared at his father, sensing his doubts, silently accusing him of bullying. Ralph stood guilty as charged, trying to slow his breathing. And maybe it was the inhalation of cow patty fumes, but suddenly Ralph was disgusted by the dairy, and ashamed of their plan to bring friends and family there to work the land alongside the addicts and runaways Telmont employed. His hands were balled up and he wanted to get back in the car and drive away and never come back. Looking around, his gaze fixed on a brightly painted silo jutting from behind the office. It took him a moment to decipher the nursery rhyme splashed along its walls, the red and blue Holstein’s lunar leap, the laughing mutt, cheshire musician and romantically involved tablewear all waving from the back of a psychedelic haywagon. Bettina finally got out of the car, but stayed where she was, giving Ralph a chance to resolve his own outburst. Ralph just stared at the silo, hoping Carew might look at it too, and find a better message in its cartoon than anything Ralph could think of to say. Carew blew his nose and shrugged at his dad. 

           “Ready?” Ralph asked. Carew nodded and Bettina came to join them. Zippy loomed behind the screendoor. Ralph beckoned her and she came out and shook everyone’s hand.

           “Alright!” she said, squeezing Carew’s shoulder with an absent-mindedness that felt studied. “Lemme show y’all around.”

             Two weeks later, Carew Daniel Shapiro flanked Rabbi Foreman on the pulpit. Facing a sanctuary packed with family, friends and fellow congregants, Carew recited the blessings that bracketed the last four verses of Genesis 11, and his Jewish adulthood was official. He also read chapters 7-10 in Hebrew, and chanted chapters 54 and 55 from the Book of Isaiah. The pervading theme of both readings was the assurance of post-flood humanity’s survival.  

           In his speech, Carew got tepid laughter from a line about the flood in Genesis being “the ultimate Chapter 11.” He wondered aloud what bar mitzvah boys 1000 years ago thought about Noah. Did 600 year-old superancestors seem as improbable to pre-Enlightenment teenagers as they did to millenial ones? Or were medeival communities superstitious enough to believe such holiness and longevity were still within reach? Carew paused for effect, paying extra attention to his mother in the front row. Her eyes were glistening and he knew he was on the right track. He pivoted to a bit about how common language wasn’t much of a safeguard from miscommunication and saw that Bettina was so rapt by what her son was saying that she didn’t even look around the sanctuary to check everybody else’s reaction. Carew closed his speech by quoting God’s promise to Noah:

“So long as the earth endures,

Seedtime and harvest,

Cold and heat,

Summer and winter,

Day and night

Shall not cease.

Shabbat Shalom.”

Carew stepped back from the podium. Knowing he was a few hours away from getting bossed around by people with much bigger problems, while covered in dung, he tried to bask as presently as he could in this moment. The most prominent face in the front row now was his grandfather’s. Eddie was brimming with such pride that he unconsciously clapped a hand on his son’s thigh. And at that moment, for the first time in a long time, everything was alright with Ralph.