#he's basically always trans in my head so i tend to.. forget to write it down 😅

[everybodyshusband]

you slipped into my askbox yesterday with horny thoughts and now I'm here but in need of fluff. dysphoria hit hard today, what would u say about some fluffy, maybe little hurt/lots of comfort raindrop/swissraindrop with transmasc dew drabble? pretty please, husband 👉👈

i'm sorry the dysphoria has been hitting you hard, my friend. i hope you're feeling a little better today <3

under the cut: some swissraindrop hurt/comfort for you, as requested <3

~

Dew sniffles and hugs his pillow closer to his chest in the darkness of his room. Everything just felt so wrong. He can’t even pinpoint one singular reason as to why he feels so awful—although in all honesty, it’s probably a combination of many, many things—so he can’t brainstorm a way out of his problem; all he can do is lie in his bed feeling sorry for himself, and try his best not to cry.

Before his head can let his thoughts spiral any further, a soft knock on the door jolts him out of his misery. “‘S open!” He calls out, voice cracking as he speaks for the first time all day. He feels his body sag with relief as Swiss’ easy grin appears around the doorframe.

The grin quickly slides off of his face, however, when the multi ghoul sees Dew lying curled in on himself. “Awh, baby… What’s goin’ on, Dewy?” Swiss pads quietly over to the bed, mattress dipping as he sits down.

Dew nearly sobs openly when Swiss places a gentle hand on the fire ghoul’s cheek, swiping at the tears gathering on his lashes. The gesture is sweet and tender, and it’s exactly what Dew needs. “Just feel like… shit,” he admits. “Dunno why though.” He sniffles, lifting one of his own hands up from where he had been squeezing the pillow and covering Swiss’ hand with his own. The multi ghoul’s skin is warm. Comforting. “Probably a lotta things…”

Swiss strokes his thumb over Dew’s cheek gently. The action grounds the fire ghoul more than he’d like to admit. “That’s fine too, doll. If you’re upset, then you’re upset, yeah? You don’t always have to know why.”

Dew nods, unable to find words to reply with, but still wanting Swiss to know he appreciates his reassurance.

They stay like that for a while; Swiss’ fingers dragging softly over Dew’s cheeks as he sits up on the mattress, the fire ghoul holding onto the pillow and Swiss’ fingers as if they’re lifelines while he lies under the covers, both ghouls breathing the other in.

Swiss breaks the silence first. “D’you want me to go get Rainy? I know they’re better at the comforting you stuff than I am.” There’s no jealousy in Swiss’ tone, not bitterness. Just plain, simple honesty.

Dew considers for a moment before nodding. He wants to be able to curl up against the water ghoul and soak in their cool, comforting temperature. …But he also doesn’t want Swiss to leave, and the way the multi ghoul phrased his suggestion made it sound like he’s planning on doing just that. Then again, he’s been comforted by Rain without Swiss by their side more times than he can count, and he’s been fine, so maybe it won’t matter if the multi ghoul leaves for a while. “D’you mind?”

“No, baby, not at all. I’ll go get ‘em. They’ll be here soon, ‘kay?” The second Swiss pulls his hand away and stands up, Dew can’t help but whine involuntarily, already missing the multi ghoul’s touch.

“Wait. Please,” he mumbles quietly. “Will you… Stay? With me?”

Swiss’ face breaks into a delighted smile. “‘Course I’ll stay, Dewy. Might just take a little longer for Rain to find their way to us. That okay?”

Dew sniffles, but he feels himself smile a little at Swiss’ pleased grin. “Yeah,” he nods. “Yeah, that’s okay.” He gestures for the multi ghoul to climb into the bed with him and snuggles against his chest. He’s warm, and it’s lovely, Dew thinks. Even if he’s still not feeling great, at least he’s feeling better, and once Rain gets there, hopefully he’ll start feeling a bit more like himself again.

It’s not long before there’s a second knock on Dew’s door, but this time, it’s Swiss who calls for the knocker to come in. Before the door even opens, Dew knows it’s Rain; they have a specific knock pattern that Dew memorised long ago, and he’s sure Swiss has done the same. They open the door and peek their head around with a hand covering their eyes, smirking.

“Are you both decent?” They tease, probably knowing full well that their partners are doing nothing but cuddling innocently.

“Just come and cuddle us, viridis,” Dew mumbles quietly, his voice muffled in the hollow of Swiss’ chest, impatient to feel Rain’s comforting presence now that the water ghoul is almost within arm’s reach.

There must still be something in Dew’s voice that gives him away—or maybe they just simply know him too well—because Rain’s smirk falters and they drop their hand from their eyes, looking at the fire ghoul in concern. “Sundew, are you okay, my darling?”

Swiss beckons Rain over with his free hand, lifting the covers on Dew’s side of the bed. The water ghoul easily slips under the blanket and slots themselves into their mini, impromptu ghoul pile, their cool skin proving a perfect balance to Swiss and Dew’s combined warmth, just as the fire ghoul had hoped. Once Rain has settled themselves into the pile comfortably, Dew chooses to move his head out of Swiss’ chest to the pillow above so he can face Rain properly, and both other ghouls wrap their arms around him tightly. As Dew organises himself into a comfortable position, he feels Swiss shift, leaning over him to mutter something in Rain’s ear that he can’t quite make out—presumably something in answer to the question the water ghoul posed to Dew that the fire ghoul never quite got around to answering.

Once Swiss finishes speaking, Rain wraps their arms around Dew tighter and leans forward, pressing a gentle kiss to the fire ghoul’s forehead. “I’m sorry I didn’t come and find you earlier, sundew,” they whisper softly against his ear. They pull away from his ear, but not as far as Dew was expecting, only enough to pass their eyelashes softly over his cheek, making the fire ghoul huff out a laugh of surprise at the tickle of it.

“‘S okay,” Dew murmurs back. It’s louder than he means to with Rain still fluttering their eyes across his cheek. “Swiss helped.” The multi ghoul gives a squeeze around Dew’s middle at the mention of his name. The corner of Dew’s mouth twitches up, and he leans gratefully into the multi ghoul’s hold.

Rain chases Dew’s face with their own after he leans away and ghosts their eyelashes over his lips. Dew has to resist the urge to stick his tongue out and lick them. Instead, he giggles in a way that is decidedly un-Dew-like—he resents (not really, but a ghoul’s got to keep up appearances) the implication that Swiss and Rain would probably say the opposite; that he always sounds like that when he laughs—and pulls back to ask Rain what in Hell��s name they’re doing.

“Kissing you,” they reply simply, as if that explains everything.

Even Swiss chuckles at that. “Baby…” He’s clearly very amused by this whole situation. “You kiss people with your lips. You know that.”

“These, my loves,” they start, and Dew will forever staunchly admit that the affection meant for both him and Swiss at the same time does nothing to give him the warm fuzzies, despite it absolutely doing just that, “are butterfly kisses.” Rain continues ghosting their lashes all over Dew’s face as they speak, making the fire ghoul squirm and laugh under their touch. “Mountain showed me. They’re supposed to feel like butterflies flitting across your face. Close your eyes, sundew. Can you feel it?”

Dew blinks at their words, doing his best to communicate his confusion, but closes his eyes without complaint, smiling as he indulges in his partner’s wishes. He’s surprised to find that, once his eyes are closed and he relaxes himself as well as he can, it really does feel like butterfly wings brushing up against his cheeks, lips and nose. It’s strangely calming, and almost grounding, in a way, despite the softness of the barely-there touch. Slowly, as their touch continues, Dew finds the horrible uncomfortable-ness from earlier melting away under the brush of Rain’s eyelashes and Swiss’ gentle hold.

It’s not a conscious action, but after some time passes, Dew realises he’s been purring. Swiss is massaging over Dew’s front and shoulders, tracing his fingers lightly over the faded scars adorning the fire ghoul’s chest from where his arms are wrapped around the fire ghoul, and one of Rain’s hands strokes at Dew’s cheek while the other cards through his hair. His partners’ touch is so tragically comforting that he can’t help but let his eyes slowly slip closed, allowing himself to drift in and out of consciousness, tangled in the warm-cool embrace of both his partners.

He thinks he trills out a sleepy “thank you, love you” and he thinks he hears two equally sleepy replies, but he’s so tired that he truly doesn’t know. All he knows is that, while he still doesn’t feel great, nor does he know the reason for his misery, he’s in Swiss and Rain’s arms, and for now, that means he’s safe, he’s warm, and he’s happy.

~

oh, and very quickly !

dew calls rain viridis which is a shortening of chromis viridis (blue-green damselfish), a species of fish that looks like this:

[go-go-devil]

Fanfic writer ask: 🎁🦈📚

🎁 Have a piece of a WIP you want to share?

Here's a short segment from a Pathologic fic I just started writing a few days ago!

Clara paused. She assumed it may have been a prophetic vision, much the same as the ones she’d been granted since birth. Although hers were always panic-inducing warnings that manifested her thoughts like emerging plague clouds: saying the wrong thing to someone and incurring their wrath, failing to save her bound from the sand pest, forgetting an important task after being outrun by the unholy speed of time. Yet it was the death visions that were the worst of them all. 

Without warning she could be walking the lamplit streets only for her mind to gruesomely predict men hurling knives into her head, beating her to a bloody pulp, or even scorching her flesh with flames just a little farther down the road. Another time she imagined falling limp to the ground within the rotting innards of an infected house as a black, cold haze overtook her senses, to which her body pulsed with those pains as if it could remember shutting down in death.

Some of those visions even repeated, like the premonitions of those two goons who kidnapped Rubin and accosted her in the tunnels. So many variations of them pinning her against the wet, flesh-like walls, dealing blow after blow and snapping her fragile bones like twigs. 

Even if they were illusions, the ferocity of them still reduced her to tears each night…

🦈 Which character is the toughest to write?

In my Knock-Knock fic, House With No Door, I occasionally had trouble writing for the Lodger's father since that character literally doesn't appear in the game itself. To write him I basically had to take the two sentences of dialogue that reference him and build an oc out of it, then try my best to integrate him into the plot of the game. Overall, though, I do like my interpretation of him a lot!

Also in that very patho wip I just took a segment from above, there are several characters in it that I've never written for before: Lara, Aspity, Block, and Aglaya to be precise. While I do feel I at least have Lara and Block's voices and mannerisms down, I am slightly intimidated with getting Aspity and Aglaya's characters right since both are complex characters whom I don't wanna water-down (especially Aglaya since her scene's gonna be very intense and important to the narrative)

Granted my perfectionism ramps up when writing for patho characters since I only played the game once at the moment, so I'm afraid I missed some lore tidbits here and there by forgetting to complete an optional mission here and there

📚 Is there a fanfic or fanfic writer you recommend?

Two friends of mine are excellent fic authors who I recommend people check out on AO3!

solonggaybowser has written several really nice Hylics fanfics, particularly ones revolving around Wayne/Dedusmuln (and even the only Dedusmuln/Somsnosa fic I've seen yet) that are super cute and charming! At the moment he's also been writing some cool Pokemon fics too for Gens 5 and 8 characters

undeadarchivist has a boatload of very well-written Pathologic fics that I enjoy that tend to focus on trans and neurodivergent hc's for several of the characters (particularly Daniil and Artemy). His gen fics are some of the best I've ever read, and I'm sure his more explicit fics are of a similar high quality (sorry I'm too sex-repulsed to read those lol)

[keepyourlife]

What fics do you like/read/recommend?

Difficult question, cause recommendations I can give but only very limited.

What I like? Slow Burn, Angst, Fluff, damn it I also read Smut sometimes, AUs (I mention something about that later). Basically: I want to suffer, I want to cry, but give me a happy ending. I LOVE good interpreted characters and I LOOOVE well-written relations. What I mean by that is, basically, if a sibling relationship is weirdly written, I tend to just.. not read the story at all. Does that make sense? Whatever.

While I read a lot, I rarely save what I read and more often than not I kind of.. lose half of the fics I read? There’s one I am currently obsessed with, which I found via @worstloki:

doubt truth to be a liar. absolutely amazing tbh. it’s about a younger Loki suddenly appearing in the Avengers Tower, without any memories about what happened (post Ragnarok), it’s got trans Peter & cultural differences between Asgard and Midgard I find quite interesting. Cause while I do know that comic Loki mentioned that the concept of gender and sexuality do not exist in Asgard the way they do on Midgard (I think that is what he said), I found the differences portrayed in that story very believable and also super interesting, cause I didn’t think of that? Especially interesting when you know a bit about the Viking age and its culture, which MCU Asgard clearly was set to resemble.

So, next I need to put a little disclaimer about myself: I normally do not like Reader fics, because more often than not they’re super ooc and I just find this whole.. “y/n” thing kind of offputting and it just makes me uninterested very often. However I have a friend who do likes these kind of stories. And she lets me know. And she needs someone to talk about these stories, so there’s that. And I read a handfull of them and tbh only those I actually find 1. well-written, 2. well characterised & 3. no darn use of “y/n”, cause no I never imagine myself there, I create characters in my head for each story.

A Job Million PRs Would Die For by @saiansha. Jesus fucking christ the amount of times I re-read this story. Honestly, it is, I think, the first Reader fanfic I read in my entire life, was super weary at first cause. idk. I know some people on this website (and AO3, let’s be real) that just post very weird stuff. This one has an interpretation of Loki that I can 100% believe and it is one I support. That was one of my main reasons to continue reading, but it’s also the general writing style that I like and that there’s a Reader character, who is not a helpless damsel in distress. Ultimate proof of that was the most recent chapter. (dear author knows my thoughts, I dared to dm cause I was just. very enthuasiastic about this story)

Broken Crown by @michelleleahhh​. Second one I started reading at one point cause my friend kept asking me to read it. a kind-of AU? It’s set in Asgard. That’s what you need to know. Again, a story that had me from the beginning, once I started. For the writing style and for the characterisation. The story really had me guessing sometimes, cause,, well-written! and really good dialogue!! damn you Freya!! and a decent Reader character that doesn’t have me ripping out my own intestines. (also very enthusiastic about this story, yes this phrasing as a meaning)

Foruneyti by Evaldrynn or @foruneyti (I tagged the blog for the story here, too, don’t mind me pls) Also kind of an AU, basically just Asgard. Anyway, I am so in love with the aesthetic this story gives me. It’s hard to explain, but after 85 chapters I just have this very clear picture in my head of what I think this story looks like. Now, Reader here is also good and well-written, the Original Characters are likeable and not super overpowered, neither is Reader. The canon characters are, in my humble opinion, interpreted nicely and tbh for some reason I just always imagine them in this comic style, rather than the way the films portray them.

Of Different Emotions by @wanderingworldwarrior. my. goodness. I am in love with these stories and I am just. so desperate for an update. idk if we will ever get one, but honestly, I re-read it this week and. Just stopped after the second part, cause I can’t deal with the pain of the third part one more time. First part is set pre-Thor 1, second part is set during Thor 1 and the third during The Avengers. I love the Reader character a lot and the Original Characters just. belong so much to the story. idk I just love the way this story is written, I love the characters, I just love it a lot, alright.

Onwards to anime. Bungou Stray Dogs:

where your loyalties lie by writingfromtheshadows. this!! story!! it’s so good!! it’s a Yakuza!AU and oh my gooood. It’s all just so so well put, compared to canon and I love the dynamics Dazai and Chuuya have here.

Forgettable Significance by Witheryvine. THIS STORY. took my sanity, threw it out of the window and then spat on me. It broke my heart so very often, cause it manages to make you question yourself. morals about relationships out of the window. I re-read this story like five times.

still still still by toriosaurus. I was waiting, desperately, for every single chapter. This AU gives me everything I need and more. I remember doing fanart for this story and being very proud of it, even though it did no justice to the original story. Normally I am not a fan of, idk what to call it, no power AUs because most people just do the thing wrong for me. But this one hits.

If I recommend Twist and Shout now I get thrown into Turbohell, so idk if you want a very sinful Destiel fanfic, then read

Hot Water by Chiyume. I was 16, I decided to read Destiel fanfictions and this one kind of did it for me.

Don’t @ me. I really read a lot more than this, but I suck at organising myself and I just barely ever save shit. Also it’s late, I’ve been on a video call with my friend for over three hours now and I just like to clown when I am tired. Anyway, I used to bookmark Destiel fanfics back in the day and the rest is just. Read it, kudos, comment, and then I forget to save. The multichapter fics are often still in my subscribes, but sometimes. just.. not.

[curewhimsy]

Utane Uta x Soune Taya infodump (Shiro-Sora)

General Chemistry Uta is pretty sarcastic, blunt, and reserved, so it’s an interesting development to see her grow and interact with the pure and shy Taya as they both overcome their shortcomings together. Uta just lost her passion to depression, but that's touched on eventually/later. She's all like "I hate life" but that's because of depression. She also lost her interest in music to depression, but being with Taya and being in a musical school has her slowly regain it. Taya tries to help out Uta and make her smile but... he ends up upsetting her one time... When Taya finds out how depressed Uta really is he starts crying for her and saying "I'm sorry..." and Uta is like "Why are you crying? Nothing is your fault..." And Taya apologizes again and says it's a habit that he feels responsible for his friend's sadness. Uta hugs him. "I haven't been able to cry for years, so I'm a bit jealous..." She says. "But... I still don't want you to cry though... I like to see your smile, ok?" Taya is very polite, and selfless. He's always willing to do favors for people. He speaks in polite language. He bows at many occasions (Even in this universe that takes place in the USA, and not Japan.) He is humble as well. These may seem like quirks or obsessions as first, but it stems from his feeling of obligation to do things for people and "not be a burden," because he had friends and teachers who treated him like a burden before. When his anemia caused him to faint or miss classes, everyone treated him as a burden. When he starts hanging out with Uta, she comments on how he feels like a butler and tells him to loosen up, it's okay to be a bit more relaxed, and selfish even. Well I think the day Uta finally cries and lets out her emotions is when something bad happens to her (fighting with her father perhaps,) but Taya comes and helps and comforts her, then confesses his love for her. And then come the waterworks, from both of them! Other General Background Stuff (including their gender identities and such) Uta Utane is non-binary, and first discovers it at age 20 through Taya, after getting to know him and realizing she is non-binary as well. Uta eventually switches to identifying as demigirl and uses she/her and they/them pronouns. Taya Soune is non-binary (he/him, trans-masculine, lesbian) and discovered his identity at age 14. He is DFAB and had been raised as a girl until then. A lot of his gender identity is still a secret from his parents, even though they know he takes testosterone hormone therapy. (They assume he is a trans man.)

Uta’s mother died when she was 4 years old. This fanfic takes place in the USA, so she is Japanese-American. Uta’s mother loved music and singing, and named her daughter after the Japanese word for song. After Uta’s mother died, her father didn’t take it well. He abandoned all music and began to hate it, because it brought back painful memories of Uta’s mother. Taya is also Japanese-American. His parents named him “Taya” with the intent of giving him an easy name to pronounce and relate to for Americans. Since Taya was designated female at birth, he was also given a name that sounded female to Americans. He still decided to keep the name after transitioning, however.

Taya picked up his habit of politely bowing when he was 15 years old and took a summer trip to Japan for two months. For this trip, he studied Japanese extensively to be able to communicate with the local people. He can speak Japanese at an intermediate skill level because of this. While he was in Japan, he felt that bowing was an expression of utmost politeness and now continues to do it back in the USA out of both out of reflex and courtesy. Uta had never been to Japan. Her father, who abandoned music after Uta’s mother died, never taught Uta the meaning of her name. When Uta was 10 years old, she was mistaken as being named Utah by everyone and was teased for it. So she Googled her name. She learned that it meant “song” in Japanese. She began to learn about Japanese culture, especially pop culture and music, in secret from her father. Quirks and Funny Moments Uta’s catchphrase is “Yare yare...” (“Good grief...”) Taya’s catchphrase is “Is that sou, desu ne?” (“Sou desu ne” is basically “Is that so?” in Japanese. I combined the two. He also tends to mumble “Sou, ne” which means “oh, well,” and alludes to... his last name! Taya is smart and dignified but... very clumsy and naive as well. Uta is badass, but kind of “chaotic dumb” in certain ways. Sometimes she forgets to do her homework while doing her homework. Don’t ask. Taya loves sweets, and his favorite is strawberry shortcake. He is also a good pastry chef... Uta is horrible at cooking! She is so horrible, that she makes things mega-explode! She is so horrible, she needs Taya to cook for her just so she can get by! Taya gets completely drunk after just a few sips of alcohol. When his 21st birthday comes in the story, he has his first drink. He gets drunk almost instantly and becomes a lot less shy. He starts singing drunk karaoke along with an intoxicated Meiko. (The songs Ghost Rule and World is Mine come to mind.) Taya and Momo Momone once got into a rather heated argument over whether strawberries or peaches are better. Uta asked herself why she was surrounded by airheads. Uta buys Taya a strawberry Squishmallow for his birthday. In no time, Taya is able to think of a personality and an extensive backstory for his new plush friend. Uta is... impressed.

One time Taya tried playing Uta’s violin instead of his usual cello. He played an earsplitting tune and ended up breaking the violin. Not only does it just break, it comically explodes into little pieces! Taya wears fancy and posh menswear all the time. To every occasion. Even to sleep. Don’t judge him. Taya is 5’4” but wishes he were at least 5’8”. He has a slight Napoleonic complex, which is somewhat unexpected. It is eventually revealed that Taya started dressing in such an elegant way to make up for his lack of height. Uta reassures Taya that his height is fine. (Once before they started dating, she accidentally slipped out that she thinks Taya is “handsome the way he is” and became flustered. However, Taya didn’t take Uta’s compliment as having any romantic undertones.) Uta’s height is 5’0” and she is rather fine with it. Deep down, she doesn’t want Taya to be tall. She likes Taya just the way he is. “Why did you set me on fire, Uta? Why didn’t you just write your essay?” -Quote from Taya, when Uta didn’t write her essay and ended up setting Taya on fire instead. (Don’t ask.) Their Part-Time Jobs Uta works part time at a hat shop. This is because Uta loves hats. In fact, she is usually never seen without her favorite hat, a black beret. Even when she is wearing a different hat, such as a beanie, she still usually is carrying her beret with her somewhere. Uta’s hat shop is at the mall, in the dimly-lit corner where nobody really goes to. It is a small shop and she is the head of it. The sales at the shop are poor. The place is named “Defoko’s Hats,” after the nickname Miki gave Uta. The nickname Defoko came from now Miki thought Uta was such a “default” type of person the first time she met her, whatever that was supposed to mean. (The word default written in Japanese katakana is pronounced “deforuto.” The first part of “deforuto” was combined with “ko,” a common ending in Japanese girls’ names, to make the nickname Defoko.) Taya works part-time at Denny’s as a waiter. He started working there to pay back the funds it took to fix a window that he broke by crashing through said window like the Kool-Aid man while he was drunk after having only one drink on his 21st birthday. (Because he cannot hold his alcohol.) Taya over-achieves at his job at Denny’s and acts as if he is a waiter in a five-star restaurant. Along with always wearing his posh, elegant clothing to the job, he is very overly-polite and tactful when taking orders, even bowing at times... people have commented that he feels more like a butler than a waiter. Taya also tends to pour the drinks at the table. In fancy teacups. He pours from a fancy kettle into the cup from a high angle. In fact, he pours them from so high, he has to get a ladder. Everyone in the restaurant stares at him. Taya is quite odd, but he does get a lot of tips. And more people have been coming to the restaurant since he had started working there. He isn’t even going for a gimmick however. He is literally just being Taya. The Theatre Club Taya wanted Uta to join the musical theatre club with him. He felt unconfident in himself alone. Taya is somewhat experienced in singing, though he is a complete beginner in the acting aspect of musical theatre. Uta has no interest in theatre, though joins to help out Taya. The biggest reason Taya wanted this is because he had a play he dreamed of acting out with everyone. It’s a play he wrote himself, from his heart. Taya is alone a lot, but he hopes this play can bring him and his schoolmates closer together. This is all Taya asks for. Uta admires his sincerity. However, since Taya is a newcomer, and the other members of the club are well-established, nobody is thinking of considering Taya’s play as their acting source material, even though nobody else’s ideas are really clicking. Given his nature, Taya doesn’t speak up. They only pay attention to him when Uta tells everyone that he’d like to share an idea. The play is… short, and similar to the one in Clannad? Except with… more people… lol. Haven’t thought too hard about the plot yet. However, it has the line, “Take my hand, I’ll take you to a place where miracles happen.” Taya’s character will be the one to say this line. Note: Okay so I thought harder and brought in the lyrics to “Dolls” by Rozenkreuz-P. So it’s basically about a child who felt alone in the world, so he built a mechanical doll to have as a friend, though he had to leave the doll behind one day to depart to “a world beyond ours” AKA death. The doll was left all alone to age and weather. The doll comes to life and is able to move. It becomes able to speak, so it sets out on an adventure, meeting people in the world it was left behind in. The doll helps out many people with its magical power. The doll’s favorite saying is “Take my hand, I’ll take you to a place where miracles happen.” One day, the doll eventually breaks, and is unable to contain the spirit within it. The doll’s spirit is able to reunite with its beloved owner who created it. Also the doll is a genderless character, because well… Taya wrote this. The work is eventually given the name “Fantasia Story,” exactly like Nagisa’s play from Clannad. Taya is playing the role of the doll. In-universe, it is said to have an “otherworldly feel” to it, and even “Wow, did you write this, Taya? That’s incredible…” A few songs are composed and written by the music club for the play, and the only one mentioned by name in the fic will be the solo Taya sings. It’ll be an actual song as well, Dolls by Rozenkreuz-P (feat. Kagamine Rin). Since this fic takes place in the USA… pretend it’s been translated to English or something. I imagine that maybe IA was the one who composed the song in-universe. Friendship Interactions (From when they were still just friends) Taya felt platonic (friendship) love for Uta the moment he first met her. He was lost on the college campus during his first day, and Uta offered to help Taya find where he was going, even though she didn’t know much about the campus herself. Taya immediately sensed that Uta was a good person. Taya wanted Uta to stay longer and talk with him for a while. When Uta went on her way and left Taya after she couldn’t help him, he felt dejected, but he felt so happy and blessed when he met Uta again later in the day and got to become close friends with her. He states the memory of their meeting is enough to make him cry. Taya is very fond of Uta. He sees her as such a wonderful and special person. He cannot stand seeing her hurt or upset, it hurts him as well. Uta grows to be very fond of Taya. The kindness and pureness of Taya’s heart widens Uta’s perspective on life. She is inspired to be someone more like him, who doesn’t harbor harsh feelings in their heart. Uta grows very protective of Taya. In a sense, she becomes willing to do anything for the sake of him, even doing something embarrassing in front of everyone in physics class to take the attention away from Taya sleep-talking in class. As best friends, they open up about their problems to each other and are always willing to be each other’s shoulder to cry on. When their lives take a turn for the stressful, they have each other. Their bond deeps this way. Uta’s crush on Taya began when she saw how confident he became when acting in the play he wrote himself. Also through the story in the play, Uta felt she got to learn so much about what’s in Taya’s heart. Uta began to see Taya as a wonderful, sweet, humble, and charming person. Taya’s crush on Uta started out as a “platonic crush.” It gradually grew into a romantic one. Taya began seeing Uta in a different light when he realized she was not only kind, but very brave and willing to help anyone in need. Once when Taya wasn’t feeling good, he still felt obligated to work and to do Uta favors. Uta told Taya he needed to rest and to take it easy. She attempted to cook chicken and vegetable porridge for Taya but nearly made the kitchen explode... however, by a miracle of friendship (or love?) the actual porridge didn’t turn out so bad. However, that night Taya’s condition worsened and became severe. He needed to go to the emergency room for pneumonia and a blood transfusion (due to anemia.) Taya began to feel like a burden, but Uta reassured him he wasn’t and blamed herself. They then worked out that maybe it was nobody’s fault. This bout of illness happened shortly before Taya was to perform his musical theatre play. Therefore, Taya isn’t in top condition when he performs. However, he still does his best and gives a good performance. Shippy Details and Interactions (From after they became lovers) Taya is a very gentle and affectionate person. Right after he confesses his love to Uta, he is rather chaste about showing his affection out of shyness. But they grow to trust each other more about these feelings. Taya is a huge hugger and loves to cuddle. Uta is gray-romantic, meaning she rarely feels romantic attraction. She seldom felt romantic feelings in her life. She never felt them substantially before meeting Taya, who she considers her first, and really, only love. Uta never thought she would be big with hugging and cuddling, but physical affection with Taya gives her comfort. (DISCLAIMER: I’m not trying to state that people who lack romantic attraction are “broken” or need to be “repaired.” Other types of love, such as platonic or familial love can be just as, or even more meaningful and fulfilling than the romantic kind.) Taya likes singing Uta to sleep. He even recorded his voice softly singing lullabies for Uta to listen to while falling asleep for when he can’t be available to sing for her. Uta thinks this is very sweet of him. Taya likes holding/hugging or clinging to Uta gently as they fall asleep together. Sometimes when Taya is feeling down, Uta does this to Taya and it comforts him greatly. The Emotional Part TW: ABUSIVE PARENT

———

Taya is practicing lines from the short play he wrote himself. He reaches his hand out and says “Take my hand... I’ll take you to a place where miracles happen.” This captures Uta’s heart.

Eventually in the story, something emotional happens. Uta gets in a fight with her father over her college major. Uta has learned to love music again and now truly wants to pursue it. However, Uta’s father still hates music, and hates that his daughter’s name is Uta (meaning “song”), and hates that the family’s name is Utane (“singing sound”.) Uta’s mother died when she was young. Her now single father is distant, abusive, and wants Uta to be a business major.

Things get emotional between them, and even a bit physical. Taya sees the whole thing, and steps in at a certain point as Uta’s father is about to hit his daughter. Uta tells Taya to stop for his own good, not wanting Taya to have to get hurt. Uta grabs Taya by the hand and runs off.

Once away from the scene, Uta then vents to Taya and tells him that life has been terrible because it lost all its meaning... Uta starts sobbing and letting out all her pent-up emotions. Taya hugs her, unable to handle seeing Uta cry, letting tears slide down his own face. After crying and comforting Uta for a bit, Taya says... “Uta, take my hand... I’ll take you to a place where miracles happen...” This time he’s for real. He‘s reaching his hand out to Uta. He‘s trying to comfort her. Both of them are misty-eyed. Uta takes his hand... and smiles at him. “Now, shall we go?” Taya smiles back. “Yes...” They take a walk to the place where they first met... And after a talk about their memories, Taya confesses his love to Uta at the top of the hill under the stars. Uta’s Life, Music, and Singing Uta Utane started out not being a singer. Until she went to Sonare Community College, the music-oriented college the story takes place in, and met Taya, she had never taken a singing lesson in her life. Uta’s late mother used to love singing. Uta herself was exclusively a violinist at first. She started playing the violin in childhood. When she lost her passion for music to depression, she still continued to play the violin simply because she felt she’d come too far to abandon it. Early in the story, Uta went to karaoke with Taya to help themselves come out of their shells a bit and become less shy in performing. Their new acquaintances Ritsu Namine and Ruko Yokune gave very powerful performances of -ERROR and The Lost One’s Weeping, and blew everyone away. Next, shy Taya gave a performance of From Y to Y, and Uta found out that he actually had a really beautiful singing voice. Uta went up on stage next and sang Jitter Doll rather horribly. Her voice was screechy, scratchy, and off-key. It was actually so bad that the microphone started making a weird feedback noise. She became so embarrassed that she stopped in the middle... and confessed with shame that she wasn’t a singer, and that she just came to help out Taya. Everyone cheered Uta on regardless. It was a great feeling, and pushed Uta to want to pursue singing. Uta becomes Taya’s singing partner, and Taya coaches Uta with what he knows about vocals. Within a year, the quality of Uta’s voice develops well. Eventually, Uta is outside with Taya. A mood strikes them and they start singing. Uta is singing a solo part, and suddenly her father comes up. “Uta?” He says. Uta is suddenly revolted by his presence and ready to take Taya’s hand and run away. She hates her dad and was ready for him to say something awful. But rather... “When did you learn to sing like that? You sounded just like your mother. It brought back memories...” Uta’s father is smiling sentimentally? Uta still doesn’t trust him, and neither does Taya, but Uta’s legs somehow just won’t move. “I...” Uta starts to speak. “You know, I realized something.” Uta’s father interrupts. “I should’ve stayed strong for you. I should have let you pursue music if it made you this happy. Your mother may have passed, but... music is where she lives on. How... how have I not realized that she lives on in you...?” Uta’s father suddenly begins sobbing. Uta doesn’t know how to react at first... but Taya pats him on the back. “Dad...” Uta eventually finds the words to say. “It’s okay now. I’m sorry I never realized you felt this way. I’d recommend not bottling these things up. Seek some professional help, okay? The first step to recovering is realizing these things. I promise, things will get better.” Uta’s father never fully redeems himself, but he lets go all his hatred caused by a traumatic past he cannot change and stops burdening his daughter with his harsh feelings. Two years after the beginning of the story, Uta goes back to the same karaoke place where she first sang Jitter Doll horribly. Little does she know, her performance became somewhat infamous there among the workers for being awful. All 46 Vocaloid and UTAU characters featured in the fic will be present in this scene. This will be a party scene, and perhaps nearing the series’ finale. “Hey, isn’t she that one who couldn’t sing?” The staff says upon seeing her. “Yes, and I’m back.” Uta says. “Now let’s turn up the volume in here. I’ll be requesting Jitter Doll.” This time, Uta totally slays every note of the song with great power and technique. She isn’t impeccably skilled yet, but she’s getting there. Applause booms from the group. Uta’s improvement is as clear as day. Not only did Uta’s singing improve within those two years, but so did her life and character. Her personality is now more cheerful and less closed-off, and she managed to overcome depression alongside Taya, becoming much more confident and buoyant in the process. Eventually... (After Story and Epilogue...) Taya plans an event on the hill where he and Uta first met. It’s a formal evening cookout with a lot of karaoke. In the place where they first met, Taya proposes marriage to Uta on a day in April. They are 24 years old. Their honeymoon is in Tokyo that June. Two months after the honeymoon, in August, they have their wedding and get married. Three years later at age 27, the two adopt their first child, a baby girl they name Sonata.

[blooming-blooming]

Odd numbers 1-20 for Mizael and even for kaito if u wanna do a big one :3

binch you know my overly obsessive ass is gonna do both

Mizael1. What does their bedroom look like? It’s the attic in the Kamishiro mansion; he likes his distance from the other Barians in his own space. It has a very rustic, old feel to it because of that; while obviously he makes sure none of the wood is rotting, he enjoys the old, worn look of the walls and floor. It’s fairly small, sporting a large window with a cushioned bench at the window sill in the center. His bed is to the left of that, which is usually a messy dragon’s nest despite everything else being organized. His dresser is on the other side of the window, and there’s a small coffee table in the middle of the room where he helps others with homework. There’s also a lot of things decorated around the room that remind him of “home”, which doesn’t have a special definition. He also has a small bathroom with an old fashioned bathtub, because hell if he’s gonna let Vector get anywhere near his stuff.

3. Do they exercise, and if so, what do they do? How often? He exercises fairly often; he finds physical health and upkeep important. He mocks Alit and Gilag’s ridiculous training regimen at first, but after trying it himself he finds he enjoys the challenge, and has no problem keeping up with them.

5. Cleanliness habits (personal, workspace, etc.) Despite Mizael feeling comfort in clutter, everything is perfectly organized in how compact all the stuff he has is. Everything has a place. As for hygiene, he is fairly high maintenence and can spend hours in the shower on a bad day.

7. Favorite way to waste time and feelings surrounding wasting time Reading. It’s his way of learning about humans.

9. Makeup? Once he’s more comfortable with his gender Mizael really enjoys makeup. He focuses on subtle, nude looks, though he has gone more daring at the suggestion of Merag for special occasions.

11. Intellectual pursuits? History and literature. History makes him feel more safe and at home with himself, and he just kind of naturally picks up writing from all the reading he does.

13. Sexual Orientation? And, regardless of own orientation, thoughts on sexual orientation in general? Gay. Human sexuality/gender and Barian sexuality/gender are very different, so it takes him a while to even realize it’s even a thing at all. Once he’s more acclimated to it it’s something that’s important to him though, I think, especially since I hc he’s trans as well. He finds his LGBT status to be really important to him as an author in particular.

15. Biggest and smallest short term goal? Biggest: convince the school system to let him skip high school entirely because he cannot stand being around all these children. (It takes jumping through an ungodly amount of hoops, more tests than any one person should have to take, and more than one favor from the Arclight family to have their prestige help convince people.)Smallest: Survive living under the same roof with Vector probably tbh

17. Preferred mode of dress and rituals surrounding dress He dresses very earthy, if that makes sense. Lots of earth tones (especially greens and browns) and tunics, usually made of loose woven fabrics. He also has a fondness of scarves and cardigans, and sundresses in the summer. I… don’t really think he has any dress rituals, but he puts a lot of pride in his appearance so getting ready overall takes him forever.

19. What do they think about before falling asleep at night? Death and regret.

Kaito

2. Do they have any daily rituals? He wakes up and gets Haruto ready, then basically just works until he drops.

4. What would they do if they needed to make dinner but the kitchen was busy? Probably just skip out on eating all together.

6. Eating habits and sample daily menu Kaito very much forgets to eat; he either eats a lot at once or nothing at all. He generally likes simple soups a lot for standard lunch/dinner meals, and for breakfast he enjoys how sweet western style breakfasts are. (Especially pancakes with caramel mixed in the batter).

8. Favorite indulgence and feelings surrounding indulging Kaito has a 100TB hard drive that consists of nothing but high res images of cat paws because he thinks they’re cute. In general he probably doesn’t indulge too much, though, because he thinks it’s a waste of time.

10. Neuroses? Do they recognize them as such? He has very, very severe PTSD from Numbers Hunting that he represses for several years before admitting its a problem; from the trauma of what he went through in training, the guilt of stealing peoples’ souls, the severe neglect from his father, and I also hc he’s a CSA victim from this time period as well. I wanna write a fic about him realizing his trauma a few years after the fact and coping, healing, and eventually getting back on his feet that portrays abuse as what it really is at some point really bad.Also, it doesn’t fit the definition of neurosis from my understanding of it, but as a neurodivergent thing in general: He’s autistic, specifically Asperger’s. He’s always been fairly isolated from people regardless so he’s never really cared that he’s “different” all that much. (I’m planning on bringing it up in Ad Astra if I ever get off my ass and get back to writing it)

12. Favorite book genre? Scientific journals and nonfiction. Literature and prose in general tends to go right over his head until he starts reading with Mizael and Mizael explains things to him.

14. Physical abnormalities? (Both visible and not, including injuries/disabilities, long-term illnesses, food-intolerances, etc.) Well I mean, Photon Mode.For real though I think his vision is basically completely shot post canon; with treatment he can see off the strictest glasses prescription known to man, but it only delays the inevitable. He’s blind by the time he’s 65.

16. Biggest and smallest long term goal? Biggest: Have a family and kids. 100%. It’s all he really wants.Smallest: Probably actually live to meet that goal honestly??

18. Favorite beverage? Hot chocolate, duh.

20. Childhood illnesses? Any interesting stories behind them? While he spent most of his time indoors and didn’t go out to play much, if at all, he was relatively healthy besides that. Sadly, that didn’t pass on to his brother.

[diakena]

La Strife

Texts cited by Heidegger: SZ   Sein und Zeit, trans. John MacQuarrie and Ed Robinson. New York: Harper and Row 1962 PLT   Poetry, Language, Thought, trans. Albert Hofstadter. New York: Harper and Row 2013 BW   Basic Writings, Ed. David Farell Krell. New York: Harper and Row 2008 P   Pathmarks, Ed. William McNeill. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1998 HF   Ontology: The Hermeneutics of Facticity, Trans. John Van Buren. Bloomington: Indiana University Press 2008

Several years ago while I was still in college, I worked a long-range delivery job that had me alone in a car for 15 hours every weekend. The first couple hours of my route would be filled with podcasts, usually a combination of On the Media and In Our Time, but once that was over, I would put on music, and the band that clicked with me most at this point in my life was La Dispute. Part of this was probably because I’m from the same city, and a lot of places they talk about in their songs were even a part of my delivery routes, places like East Grand Rapids, Hudsonville, northbound on I-75, and so on. But I think the bigger reason they resonated with me was that at the time, I was working on a large paper focusing on the thought of German philosopher Martin Heidegger. So for several months my weeks were filled with reading through his work and then spending all weekend listening to Rooms of the House on repeat while processing what I’d read, and so for all the changes my thought has gone through the last few years, the two topics will always have some overlap, even if only in my head. So that’s what I want to talk about here. It might be best to start the way Heidegger does; by backtracking to the beginning. For Heidegger, philosophy has often proceeded blind to its own foundations, trying to start from nowhere, when in his view it needs to start with “explicating the original motivational situations in which the fundamental experiences of philosophy have arisen.” (P3) So what is this soil out of which philosophy grows? We get our answer early on in Being and Time: “Looking at something, understanding and conceiving it, choosing, gaining access to – all these ways of behavior are constitutive for our inquiry, and therefore are modes of being for those particular entities which we, the inquirers, are ourselves. Thus to work out the question of being adequately, we must make an entity – the inquirer – transparent in his own being.” (SZ7) But this study of the object in question, namely, us as human beings, also needs to proceed from the proper place. Rather than insist, as many have, that what makes us unique is our ability to sit back and think rationally, he insists on starting with more generic examples, things like working in a workshop, driving a car, cooking and cleaning, and so on. He writes “At the outset of our analysis it is particularly important that Dasein should not be interpreted with the differentiated character of some definite way of existing, but that it should be uncovered in the undifferentiated character which it has proximally and for the most part.” (SZ43) And it’s at this point where we start to have overlap with the album in question, which remains focused throughout on the small details of life, in an its banal trivialities, something that comes across especially well in Woman (In Mirror): In the bathroom off  the kitchen leave the door ajar in a brand new dress. Let me watch put your makeup on, let me in, give me holy privileges. There’s a dinner thing, Thanksgiving, dress up nice make a dish to bring. There are moments here only yours and mine, tiny dots on an endless timeline. Here we have relationships as they are, ‘proximally and for the most part,’ composed of tiny details, little moments of connection that make up a larger story. Love today tends to get hyped up as the best thing that can ever happen to you, but the band here takes a different approach. The song isn’t cynical, but it’s measured and attentive to things that often tend to escape notice but, if given proper attention, can seem incredibly significant, like how seeing one’s partner changing or preparing to go out can feel like a divine privilege. In the mirror with your eyes wide trace outlines, ask for wine, but you never look away when you do, your eyes don’t move, I never move mine from you and I watch your reversal it’s an honest thing when there’s no one there, some days they feel like dress rehearsals, some days I watch and you don’t care. There’s a dinner, Thanksgiving, dress up nice, make a dish to bring. There are moments here,only yours and mine, tiny dots on an endless timeline. A key thing going on here is the familiarity the narrator has with his partner, and the world they inhabit. Part of the reason these small details which make up our lives are so often missed is they form a world we become so familiar with that in its familiarity, it disappears. This invisible familiarity is, according to Heidegger, a fundamental part of being human, as he dissects the etymology of the Ich bin, I am: “’In’ is derived from ‘innan’ – ‘to reside’, ‘habitare’, ‘to dwell’. ‘An’ signifies ‘I am accustomed’, ‘I am familiar with’, ‘I look after something’…and so ‘ich bin’ [‘I am’] means in its turn ‘I reside’ or ‘dwell alongside’ the world, as that which is familiar to me in such and such a way.” (SZ54) This familiarity with our world, and those around us has recently been proven at the levels of neurobiology[1], but Heidegger was calling attention to this long before neuroscientists. Things like facial recognition can be analyzed in what Heidegger refers to as ‘mood’, something that not only enables self-understanding, but is always shared, as Ben Morgan writes “In Heidegger’s argument, the shared mood comes first: It is where we meet each other, and it is the basis on which we come to our own sense of ourselves. In other words, there’s something going on in which we are already involved that is also the medium through which we come to a sense of each other and of ourselves. This emotional involvement is the background against which both my identity and the strangeness of other people can be experienced.”[2] Two things to note about mood that show up in both this passage and the song itself: first, mood is the basis of our own self-understanding. It isn’t a distortion of our perspective; mood itself is the frame through which we interpret and understand everything. Even without paying attention to the lyrics, one can hear in the stifled percussion, Dreyer’s muffled voice and the relaxed guitars a feeling of warmth and comfort. The lyric-videos the band posted for each song also help convey a sense of familiar everydayness, the lyrics laid over found footage of everyday events like family gathering, weddings, graduations and family trips. So mood is incredibly important for how we experience the world, and Morgan points out that it’s also always shared. At our basis, who we are is a reflection of those around us; we are always, as Peter Sloterdijk would put it, in a space of shared cohabitation. In this way, connection and communication run deeper than simply transferring information from one isolated subject to another; instead, “In [a] more general kind of communication, the articulation of being with one another understandingly is constituted. Through it a co-state-of-mind [Mitbefindlichkeit] gets ‘shared’, and so does the understanding of being-with.” (SZ162) This shared communication, that dwells below the simple propositional exchange takes place in the song as well, where things are communicated without even the use of words. A glance back, the small of yours on the sink where I set your glass. A hand that rests there flat a moment, retracts,and the recognition that you give when you shift position. Move your hip slightly in, we say nothing then out loud and that’s what feels the most profound. It’s in these little moments where two people, dwelling in the intimate familiarity of each other’s presence that the everydayness of existence comes to shine forth. “Being attuned…can be ‘experienced’ and ‘felt’ only because the ‘human being who experiences’, without being aware of the essence of attunement, is always engaged in being attuned a way that discloses beings as a whole.” (P147; BW129)                  How is it that this everydayness, so central to who we are, gets glossed over so easily? Part of it is its very familiarity; in order for us to navigate the world so easily and comfortably, we need to forget most of it in order to focus on whatever tasks we have at hand. But part of it, Heidegger thinks, is embedded in the history of philosophy itself, particularly in its misunderstanding of ‘truth’, which is understood in increasingly narrow terms as technology comes to dominate our way of seeing the world.[3] But this increasing narrowness has a long history of development, arguably going back to Plato. Heidegger, however, thinks that where Plato went wrong is in his thinking about humans, and their relationship to truth, and a big part of his thinking on this comes from reading the Greek word for truth in a more literal fashion, since aletheia literally translates to not-concealed. Meanwhile, the opposite of truth is no longer simply a proposition that doesn’t accord with reality, but instead is a covering-up. Heidegger writes: “The being-true of the discourse as truth means that in discoursing as showing the entities of which one is talking must be taken out of their hiddenness; one must let them be seen as something unhidden, that is, they must be discovered. Similarly, ‘being-false’ amounts to deceiving in the sense of covering-up: putting something in front of something (in such a way as to let it be seen) and thereby passing it off as something which it is not.” (SZ33) So our misunderstanding of truth gives us a false conception of who we are, covering up our actual nature as beings who mostly find ourselves immersed in a world of both revealed and concealed elements, something that comes to fore in track 8, THE CHILD WE LOST 1963, which plays with the theme on several levels, which are worth breaking down: There were shadows in the bedroom where the light got thrown by the lamp on the nightstand on your mother’s side after midnight, still you can see it all,you can see it all. So here’s the first layer of unconcealment; here we have two elements in the first couple lines, shadows and light interplaying with one another. This image, one of small places of illumination surrounded by hiddenness hints at another aspect of Heidegger’s understanding of truth, as a clearing, something that shows up as early as Being and Time, where he writes “When we talk in an ontically figurative way of the lumen natural in man, we have in mind nothing other than the existential-ontological structure of this entity, that it is in such a way as to be its ‘there’. To say that it is ‘illuminated’ means that as being-in-the-world it is cleared in itself, not through any other entity, but in such a way that it is itself the clearing.” (SZ133) This concept of the clearing would later be developed in an essay titled “The Essence of Truth”, where he would declare that all ek-sistence takes place in a space that has always-already been opened up, allowing things to present themselves: “All working and achieving, all action and calculation, keep within an open region within which beings, with regard to what they are and how they are, can properly take their stand and become capable of being said.” (P141; BW122) And we see this in the first few lines pointed out, where seeing is dependent on a place that’s lit up. It’s also worth noting Heidegger’s term for clearing, Lichtung, contains the German word for light, Licht, so a clearing is literally a place where things are made visible by the light. However, these spaces of illumination are only possible on the basis of surrounding darkness: “concealment preserves what is most proper to aletheia as its own.” (P148; BW130) So the way we experience the world as an illuminated place is only possible because some things remain obscured and hidden. The world then isn’t simply composed of light and noise, but shadows and silence as well, the things we don’t know, or don’t speak of, helping compose it. And a hush fell over everything like a funeral prayer, a reverence, ancestral, heavy in the air though you didn’t understand what it meant that they never said her name aloud around you even sitting at the table with her things they’d kept. Second, we have a twist hidden in the passage above; not just that people occupy a clearing, but that they are the clearing. “The entity which bears the title ‘being-there’ is one that has been ‘cleared’…in other words, that which makes it both ‘open’ for itself and ‘bright’ for itself.” (SZ350) The band gives us both the positive and inverted example of someone who is there both in their presence as a light, as well as in an inverted form, in a sort of present-absence, a darkness. You were visions, a vagueness, a faded image, you were visions.You were a flame lit that burned out twice as brightly as the rest of us did. When you left, you light then you tumbled away. There are shadows that fall still here at a certain angle. So now we have two ways in which the song is playing with the theme of the relationship between the world, the person, truth and light, but there’s a third and final way. In his essay “The Origin of the Work of Art”, Heidegger wanders through a variety of different works in different periods, and sees art as performing a transformative role at a grand historical level, concluding “Art as poetry is founding…founding as beginning. Art attains to its historical nature as foundation…At each time a new and essential world arose. At each time the openness of what is had to be established in beings themselves, by fixing in place of truth in figure. At each time there happened unconcealedness of what is. Unconcealedness sets itself into work, a setting which is accomplished by art. Whenever art happens – that is, whenever there is a beginning – a thrust enters history, history either begins or starts over again.” (PLT74; BW201) What he means here is that art doesn’t just show us the world as it is, but can help establish new ways of seeing, new ways of engaging with the world, new clearings, but to do this, the fact that there’s a shadow at all needs to be addressed, and the shadow here is not just the fact that someone is gone, but why. No, they never said her name aloud around you. Only told you it was perfect where your sister went. And you didn’t understand why it hurt them so much then that she’d come and left so soon, could only guess inside your head at what a “stillbirth” meant, only knew that mother wept. The shadow here is not just the absent person, but the fact that no one will talk about it. The absent sister is both a gap in the family, particularly the mother, but also a gap in the sense that no one will really talk about it. The band is bringing to light the shadow of the family’s history, showing the sort of long-living sense of shame that can surround such an event. It’s the sort of thing that is loudly silent, a concept Heidegger explores in Being and Time: “Keeping silent is another essential possibility of discourse…Keeping silent authentically is possible only in genuine discoursing. To be able to keep silent, Dasein must have something to say – that is, it must have at its disposal an authentic and rich disclosedness of itself. In that case one’s reticence makes something manifest, and does away with ‘idle talk.’ As a mode of discoursing, reticence articulates the intelligibility of Dasein in so primordial a manner that it gives rise to a potentiality-for-hearing which is genuine, and to a being-with-one-another which is transparent.” (SZ165) This silence can be deafening, and it will haunt the family forever, the footage in the video depicting happy family gatherings, but the lyrics challenging the surface, suggesting there’s something going on underneath. There’s a storm underneath, a storm that haunts the narrator’s family at gatherings, that haunts my own family at gatherings, something everyone knows but no one talks about. But the band, in doing a song about such an event, can also be seen as challenging the shadow itself, and attempting to set up a new clearing. This is part of what art can do; give us a new perspective on what it means to be and go through various elements of life, and possibly challenge outdated ways of thinking about them. By bringing light to the shadowy parts of our lives, the band may be taking up Heidegger’s challenge for poets to venture ahead of the clearing already in play: “The more venturesome are the poets, but poets whose song turns our unprotected being into the open. Because they convert the parting against the open and inwardly recall its unwholesomeness into a sound whole, these poets sing the healing whole in the midst of the unholy.” It’s worth remembering that the clearing, here seen to be a dynamic interplay of light and shadow, also is the very limits of what can and can’t be said. To repeat from earlier, “All working and achieving, all action and calculation, keep within an open region within which beings, with regard to what they are and how they are, can properly take their stand and become capable of being said.” (P141; BW122) By venturing out into the unwholesome and unholy, the band challenges the shadow, and brings light to something we traditionally have not been able to speak of, possibly setting up a new world in the process. But she never said it once out loud on the way back home from where you thought they meant when they said where sister went. After grandpa got hospice-sick and he couldn’t fall asleep they wheeled his stretcher-bed beside her at night and I saw the light on the day that he died by their bed, grandma’s eyes while us grandkids said our goodbyes. She said “don’t cry, somewhere he holds her.” Said a name I didn’t recognize, and the light with all the shadows combined. So if setting up new approaches to the world is how art works in a grand historical sense, how does it work on a smaller, more detailed scale? In his essay “What are Poets for?”, when writing on some of his own favorite poets, such as Holderlin and Rilke, Heidegger comments that “The mark of these poets is that to them the nature of poetry becomes worthy of questioning…” (PLT139) Working through some of their poems, he finds not just attempts to describe their world, but reflections on how poetry works in describing the world, what they, as poets, are doing. In another essay, he connects poetry to the Greek poiesis, literally bringing-forth. (BW317; QCT10). This occurs in his essay “The Question Concerning Technology”, where he shows how this bringing-forth is being overly systematized, leaving the whole world at the mercy of humans who see everything as mere resources. However, there is another sort of bringing-forth available, one that poets can remind us of, and one which the band draws explicit attention to in Woman (Reading). The first lines remind us of Heidegger’s analysis of the everyday, of the focus on ordinary scenes and moments. You in the living room, you on a Tuesday afternoon, a breeze see when the curtains move. You by the window with both feet up on the couch where you sit and you read and I watch you. The song as a whole describes the narrator remembering what it’s like to sit in a room and watch a lover reading, and what it’s like to describe being there. The world as disclosed and illuminated clearing gets a twist in “The Origin of the Work of Art”, where he contrasts world with earth. We’ve already talked about world, which he defines in this essay as “the self-disclosing openness”, but what is earth? It is not to be associated with the planet, but instead contrasted with the world as disclosed, opened-up, revealed. “What this word says is not to be associated with the idea of a mass of matter deposited somewhere, or with the merely astronomical idea of a planet. Earth is that whence the arising brings back and shelters everything that arises without violation…The earth is the spontaneous forthcoming of that which is continually self-secluding and to that extent sheltering and concealing.” (PLT41,47; BW168, 174) So while world is disclosure, earth is a sheltering and concealing, and “The opposition of world and earth is a striving.” (PLT47; BW174) World seeks to disclose, earth pulls back and tries to remain hidden, and the dynamic push and pull of the two elements creates a strife, and the work of art sets up the opposition. You with a book propped on your knees, a breeze seen in your coffee steam. I’m in the office thinking back to rules of poetry; it’s fourteen lines, the last two rhyme, what does pentameter mean? “In setting up a world and setting forth the earth, the work is an instigating of this striving.” (PLT48; BW175) Art and poetry are about bringing-forth, poiesis, but in doing so, something pulls back, and in the song we see a dynamic push-and-pull, an attempt to use whatever frameworks are available to bring about disclosure. I write AB AB, try to find your rhyme scheme. I look for objects on the desk with which to sculpt your image best. What would I name this?Could I paint it?‘ Woman (Reading)’? ‘Girl at Rest’? Throughout the song, the narrator is trying to find ways to describe the memory of what it’s like to be there, to watch someone, to be in love. Various mental images occur, rules of poetry give him a framework and objects provide necessary tools to try and attempt, but in every case, reality eludes complete description. There always remains something beyond our grasp, something that doesn’t quite fit. “Each time we encounter and which encounter us keeps to this curious opposition of presencing, in that it always withholds itself at the same time in a concealment. The clearing in which beings stand is in itself at the same time concealment.” (BW178; PLT52) But rather than see it as a flaw, Heidegger sees this limitation on disclosure, on the clearing, as an essential element of it. Mark Wrathall explains: “there is always more to entities than we can deal with. No matter how skillful we get in dealing with entities, Heidegger argues, there will always be something about the that we can’t focus on or pay attention to…But this concealment…is precisely what makes it possible for us to deal with the thing in the first place…We get a grip on entities in the world, in other words, by generalizing, by dealing with them as instances of a known type.”[4] The limitation of our knowledge is its very condition of possibility, and poetry reminds us how much of reality actually eludes us, even in our everyday world. The song at hand deals with a very typical memory, simply watching someone reading on a couch, and it’s a scene that could’ve occurred within Heidegger’s works as well, since he often focused on very generic, everyday moment involving generic, everyday objects that hold so much meaning and memory in them, such as Heidegger’s kitchen table: “What is there in the room there at home is the table at which one sits…Here and there it shows lines – the boys like to busy themselves at the table. These lines are not just interruptions in the paint, but rather: it was the boys and still is.” (HF69) Or it could be the narrator’s living-room couch. When you leave here, when you go from a home you take all that you own but the memories echo on hardwood floor in the living room, tore the carpet, the scratches below that we found and the wine stain on the couch, we got drunk and decided we’d still try to move it around .And I can’t tell what the difference is between the ones that we made and the ones that we didn’t make. They all conjure images still where you sit and you read in the sunlight aware that I watch. The world is overflowing with meaning, and poetry can only capture so much at one time. The world itself always eludes our total understanding, but poets can help bring particular elements into focus, illuminating the world for us, both carving new paths and retracing old ones, showing us how saturated the world is with both meaning and memory. And I live alone now save for the echoes I live alone now save for the echoes.

[1] See Iacaboni, M., Mirroring People: The Science of Empathy and How We Connect to Others. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2008; Morgan, B. On Becoming God: Late Medieval Mysticism and the Modern Western Self. New York: Fordham University Press 2013; and Dreyfus, H. “Being-with-Others” in The Cambridge Companion to Heidegger’s Being and Time, Ed. Wrathall, M. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2013 [2] Morgan, On Becoming God, 40 [3] See Heidegger, M. The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays. Trans. William Lovitt. New York: Harper Perennial 1977; Thomson, I. Heidegger on Ontotheology: Technology and the Politics of Education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2005, chapters 1-2; Mitchell, A. The Fourfold: Reading the Late Heidegger. Illinois: Northwestern University Press 2015, chapter 1. [4] Wrathall, M. “Unconcealment” in A Companion to Heidegger,  Ed. Dreyfus, H. and Wrathall, M. London: Blackwell 2005. 348; Wrathall, M. Heidegger and Unconcealment: Truth, Language, and History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2011, 24-25