#him finally getting to take back some agency over his appearance after decades of not getting the grooming he deserves and finally

[buckys-arm-and-rios-dagger]

Memorial post for Bucky's FATWS look it may not be a popular take but I loved the stubble and short hair

[paper--moons]

Regressor!Hawks Headcanons

(with multiple CGs)

Although it is perhaps the hero industry's biggest open secret, age regression isn't exactly something the Hero Commission promotes or even knows how to handle. Which is why they aren't exactly pleased when it becomes apparent that Hawks is an age regressor—and one that falls on the smallest side of the spectrum at that. Keigo tried to keep it private, or course, but his entire life has essentially been monitored by the very organization that "saved" him (at the cost of using him, though that's neither here nor there, now is it?). But it's difficult to keep something like this private when big brother is watching you, especially if your little counterpart is entirely too trusting and gets lonely. Really, Keigo didn't want his handlers to know...but who else was he supposed to call when he drops at his agency after another day of nonstop going and going and going until he could go no more? It would be bad if word got out, wouldn't it? Keigo has had it drilled into him that public appearances are everything to a hero, knows he shouldn't be so little where just anyone could find out. And so he does the best he can when the world starts feeling bigger and bigger, holing himself up in an office he barely ever uses and calls the chairwoman. It's the emergency line that only he is supposed to use, and while it isn't exactly an emergency it's easier to press one button than to try to remember a whole string of numbers that will only put him into contact with some secretary until they can "get back to him about his concerns" (they never do). While the situation is handled in the moment, it gets decided very quickly that they can't just have anyone taking care of their former child soldier best agent. And so the Hero Commission sets off playing matchmaker!

Keigo has mixed feelings about the whole "matchmaking" thing, but has come to accept that the Commission does as it pleases—plus maybe they will actually find someone that won't mind taking care of him. It's been incredibly hard to be so small on his own for so long, and he thinks it might be nice to have somebody make his bottles for him or maybe even hold him for a little bit. And while it doesn't surprise him that they set their sights on other top ranked heroes to handle him, he is surprised that their first pick is Miruko. Their reasoning makes some sense when it's explained to him; they are close in age and it won't be questioned too much if they start hanging out more (if anything it'll be good for their careers, or so he's told). Which is what leads to the pair spending their day off together to see what baby Keigo thinks of Rumi—and it is a guarantee that Keigo will regress on his off day, goodness knows he's on such a strict schedule that it's a given. She's excited at the prospect of getting to hang out with the little guy and, while not one for planning, does come at the situation with lots of ideas. Rumi has tons of games and snacks and activities ready to go. And at first Keigo is also excited! Finally, someone that sees that he isn't always a hero! She's prepared to get down on his level and isn't afraid to let him be messy and make mistakes. But Keigo finds himself conking out wayyy before his naptime after their fifth game of hide and seek. At the end of the day, it turns out Rumi is way too high energy for the baby to keep up with and is more suited for older kids or teen regressors.

The Hero Commission's next attempt in finding Keigo a caregiver has them nudging Best Jeanist in his direction. While he's a little over a decade his senior, it wouldn't be too odd for them to hang out since they are both high on the charts and could easily claim they were coordinating on a job. Or at least that's what Keigo figures is the reasoning behind this match-up (because if there's one thing he knows, it's that the Commission is relentlessly calculating in its efforts to create the most ideal public image). Regardless, Tsunagu is a pretty cool guy and they've interacted at plenty of professional functions and whatnot and got along just fine. And unlike Rumi, he's a lot calmer, which is better for when Keigo is small, resulting in a regression day that goes well without wearing the baby out in the process. There's a whole lot more structure than he would have guessed though—it's like Tsunagu had a schedule prepared with him in mind, despite the whole thing being more or less sprung on him. Not to mention how attentive he seems to be. When presented with his snack, he's surprised not to find the handful of trail mix his handlers always gave him after training, but a childish plastic plate covered with apples and cheese clearly diced with a careful precision. It's a small gesture, as are the concerned words when he doesn't dig in right away (Would you prefer something else? You need to eat.). Or at least they would be to most people, but Keigo finds it nearly overwhelming. Even after a few weeks of having him be his cg and adjusting to all the little things like that, something still feels...off. While there wasn't anything wrong with the way Tsunagu took care of him, they didn't exactly click either. But he would appear ungrateful to bring attention to this, and it isn't like he has any other options anyhow.

They're at some exclusive party for pro heroes disguised as an uppity awards ceremony a few months later when he finally figures out why he felt like they didn't click. It's on what should have been one of Keigo's rare nights off, and so he (unsurprisingly) finds himself slipping whether he wanted to or not. He knows his newly assigned protocol in situations like these now though, and stumbles through the myriad of other pros and waitstaff crowding the floor of the party hall trying to locate Tsunagu. Luckily the man is fairly tall, and Keigo has no issue finding him talking to Present Mic. Keigo is just about to tug on his sleeve when he catches a bit of conversation—a mumbled Jeany, can't find Eraser—that indicates that perhaps the flush on the voice hero's cheeks isn't from too much champagne as he originally thought, and suddenly he's connected the dots. The reason Tsunagu had so much more experience in a carer role is because the Commission defaults to him as a sort of stand-in cg and obviously points other heroes in his direction should they need it. Despite everything being relatively perfect it felt too much like being handled still, regardless of the other hero's genuine care. However this conclusion doesn't ease the hurt his small side is feeling about the situation, which ultimately leads to him running smack into a very broad, very familiar chest as he attempts to leave in a hurry. Keigo is stumbling backwards, about to fall for sure before he can even remember his training about balancing himself with his wings, when a hand grabs his shoulder to steady him and he finally looks up.

And who should Keigo find but his own personal hero, Endeavor? Being around the guy already makes his baby brain go !! though typically he can push that aside, but when he's well on his way to being regressed? There is no hope of recovery, Keigo is fully small and awestruck by the man. They have something akin to a staring contest before Keigo finds himself wanting up, even though he hadn't even fallen. Wanting up, wanting to be held, wanting wanting wanting. Keigo has never really been allowed to want like this, and it takes all he has to even find the simplest of words when Enji asks if he's alright. The "'m 'kay" he manages to peep out must not be too convincing, because Enji leads him out of the main area and into a more private alcove to give him a proper look over. Because while he isn't necessarily the brightest bulb, he is familiar enough with the younger hero to recognize that something is off about him. Usually he would be living up these sorts of functions and (more recently) would drag him along for the ride. But he seemed...uncharacteristically standoffish? Too quiet for sure. That's the best Enji can figure at least, until he gets Keigo talking more and gets a nervous string of baby babble about how first they tried having Rumi take care of him and then Tsunagu, but now he's too busy and he doesn't really know how much he liked him anyways and, and, and—and Enji, surprisingly, listens and nods along with what the boy is saying. More surprising though is the fact that he sits with him for the remainder of the event, keeping a careful eye on him much to the boy's delight.

It doesn't take long before small Keigo has decided that he wants his cg to be Enji, much to his big self's embarrassment. Not a whole lot gets to him, but this is something deeply personal that he may or may not be making a fool of himself over. The fact that Enji doesn't turn him away doesn't help matters either, instead only encourages them. For as much as Hawks is supposed to be just that (i.e., like a hawk), Enji finds it becoming more accurate to think of him as a baby duck. A baby duck who is making frequent visits to his agency to "help out". A few months ago this would have annoyed him and he wouldn't have hesitated to kick him out, but lately Enji has been trying to do better, trying to be better for those in his life; even if he can't make up for his past actions, he's figured out that isn't an excuse to continue in the same manner moving forwards. And so he's been letting go of inconsequential frustrations and unproductive anger, focusing more on practicing the patience and understanding that a hero is supposed to embody. So even if Keigo may childishly tease him about being grumpy, he isn't going to make a big deal about it. In fact he'll continue on with his day, with his unsure, awkward attempts to make the kid happy. A pat to the head, a snack bought from a street vendor on impulse because he saw the kid staring (though it turns out he was staring because he thought it looked yucky, apparently), small things like that that all feel foreign to them both. The little gestures mean the world to Keigo, even when Enji gets something wrong. Perhaps even especially when he gets something wrong, because it means he's going to try again and is actually making an effort to figure things out through trial and error; no one has ever made a continual effort like that for him, nor has anyone been so determined to get it right.

Keigo finally gets his moment, his click, when he approaches Enji about if he'd be down to watch him when he's fully small and not just put up with him middlespacing around him on days when criminal activity is slow. There's a bit of hesitancy, and at first Keigo is scared that he's misread the situation before Enji is asking for details on the practical things—the where and the when seeming to weigh most heavy on his mind, though the hesitancy eases when Keigo suggests his apartment given that all his regression gear is already there. When the day arrives, Keigo is trying to stay big long enough to give Enji the grand tour and show him where everything is before he slips too small to tell him, when he finds that Enji has stopped and picked something up from his pile of stuffies he's come to acquire kept in his nest of blankets. Keigo lifts up a little to peek over his shoulder, curious at which toy has caught his attention. The fabric has faded over the years, and despite being well-loved it's obvious the doll has been well-kept. In any other situation, it might have been funny to see the large man holding a tiny replica of himself, but Keigo's regressed small enough that old fears seem closer than time has made them. There's a need to apologize that he doesn't fully understand, but his words aren't coming out right and he's working himself up to tears because he just knows that somehow he's made Enji mad, that he's not even supposed to have toys let alone a hero doll. By the time the first few tears can bubble out of his eyes, Keigo is being shushed and the doll is being placed in his hold as Enji apologizes to him of all things. It's unexpected but not unwelcome, as is the fact that he's being scooped up and rocked back and forth. This is the click that Keigo did not know he had been waiting for, and it goes both ways. While Enji may not be a ball of energy like Rumi or a perfectionist like Tsunagu, he is the one Keigo chose for himself to be his cg. And perhaps for the first time, Keigo believes everything will be alright in the end after all.

[vs-redemption]

Aaa im so sorry for bothering you! Can uou do my request from before (homeless kid) but now with hawks, shigaraki, and fatgum please? Im so sorry if its any trouble but your writing isFANTASTIC!!!!!!!!!

A/N: Phew! Sorry for the wait, but I wanted to make sure I gave you something I was proud of. And don’t worry! You aren’t bothering me. I was actually kind of wishing you’d included Hawks in the first request, and Shigaraki was a fun challenge to write! I really hope these meet your expectations.

A Surprise Meeting (Hawks, Fat Gum, and Shigaraki meet their abused child)

Warning:⚠️Mentions of child abuse and homelessness.⚠️

You can read the same scenario but with Bakugo, Iida, and Aizawa HERE You can read the same scenario but with Todoroki and Dabi HERE

Hawks

Hawks knew his patience would be put to the test whenever the Hero Commission called him in for a face-to-face meeting. He’d opened up his agency as far away from the head office as possible for the sole purpose of avoiding their overbearing attempts to control not only his career, but his personal life as well. He appreciated everything the Commission had done for him to an extent. After all, he never would’ve ended up as such a successful hero if they hadn’t taken him in as a child and given him intensive training to perfect his quirk. There were a lot of things he’d hated about living under the Commission’s thumb though. Because of that, he really hated whenever he had to go back there.

“Thanks for coming today, Hawks.” The president of the organization herself had come to greet him. He gave her a roguish grin despite the fact he wanted to role his eyes. He hated when they thanked him for obeying when it wasn’t like he had a choice anyway. “There’s someone we’d like you to meet.”

Hawks followed the president as she led him deeper into the facility than he’d been in a long time. His wings twitched behind him as unpleasant memories began to surface in his mind. He felt confused and uncomfortable when he was brought into a small observation room that had a view of one of the commission’s training spaces behind a large two way mirror. “Are you going to explain what this is all about?” Hawks jokes to try and ease his own tension, “Or are you keeping me in suspense on purpose?”

“I was going to ask you the same thing,” The president’s face remains stoic as she turns away and speaks into an intercom. “Bring her in.” Hawks looks into the training room on the other side of the glass and sees a random agent of the commission step through the door with a tiny little girl following closely behind. She looked to be around two years old. Hawks’ jaw drops in disbelief when he sees the two fluffy wings sprouting from the child’s back. He’d seen other people with wing quirks before, but this kid’s resemblance to him was uncanny. Her hair was darker than his, but the black markings around her golden eyes had his mind reeling.

“Of course we did a DNA test,” the president says flatly. “She’s definitely your child.”

Hawks steps away from the glass and runs a hand over his face, letting the information sink in. The commission had so much influence over his personal life that he’d mostly stayed away from any sort of relationship, knowing that there’d be too much drama over maintaining his image and reputation for him to actually enjoy having that kind of connection with someone. Admittedly, he had bent his own rules and caved into pressure once or twice after graduating the commission’s program. He wasn’t proud of it, but he’d mostly done it out of spite for all the years he’d spent being micromanaged.

“A woman dropped her off a few days ago,” the president’s voice turns sharp. “How could you let this happen?” Hawks wasn’t interested in a lecture at the moment, so he ignores the question in favor of moving closer to the glass and looking at his daughter more intently. She was cleaned up and wearing a standard uniform provided by the commission, but Hawks didn’t miss the painful looking scratches on her face or the raggedy, burned up ends of the feathers on her wings.

“What happened to her?” he asks, surprising even himself at the low tone of his voice.

“The mother admitted to doing most of it,” the president rattles off the information in a clinically detached way. “They’d also been living out on the street for a while as well, so who knows what might’ve happened.” The news was heartbreaking for Hawks. He hadn’t lived in ideal circumstances at that age either, and he wouldn’t wish that sort of life on anyone.

“Your wings didn’t start to grow back until you were a bit older, so we’re assuming it’ll be the same for her,” the president seemed oblivious to the emotional state of the hero standing next to her. “We’ve already started her on a special diet though, and she’ll begin her training regimen at the beginning of next week.”

Hawks wasn’t sure if it was some bird trait related to his quirk or just the knowledge that he was the kid’s father, but some sort of instinct kicked in with such intensity that it washed away any feelings of duty or habits of obedience that had been programmed into his brain.

“You’re not keeping her,” he says fiercely. The president just raises her eyebrows at him.

“The mother left her in our custody,” she states. “You should be thankful that we’re willing to overlook your mistake. With any luck, we’ll be able to groom this girl into a hero just as spectacular as you.”

“If you don’t release her to me, it’ll be you that’s made a mistake,” there was a promise of something terrifying in Hawks’ tone that seemed to finally shake the president’s resolve.

“You really think you’ll be able to be a decent parent?” she asks coldly.

“I won’t let her be robbed of a childhood like I was,” Hawks declares firmly. “If she wants to be a hero, she can make that decision when she’s old enough to do so.” Thankfully, the president decided not to argue any more. Hawks turns back to the window and allows himself to relax a bit. Looking over his daughter again, his heart filled with a love so strong it threatened to overwhelm him. He made a vow to love and protect his little girl so that she had the safest and happiest life possible.

Fat Gum

There was nothing quite like the feeling of walking around the lively streets of Osaka at night. People of all walks of life tended to come out around this time, and the delicious smell of cooking food filled the air. Taishiro Toyomitsu, better known as Fat Gum, could think of no better city to do his hero patrols. The crime rate was a little higher than in other places, but it was worth it for him to have easy access to the yakitori, yakisoba, and okonomiyaki stands that kept his quirk plenty fueled up.

Tonight he was in high spirits as he walked down one of the more famous shopping streets, stuffing his face with incredible snacks, and having friendly encounters with both locals and tourists alike. A couple of young musicians were playing on one of the street corners, so he tossed a few coins into their cup. Everything seemed to be fine basically, other than a few people who’d stumbled out of bars and needed help getting to a taxi. It was one of his more tame patrols, but he wasn’t going to complain about that.

He noticed that he was being followed near the end of the night, when most of the shops and restaurants were starting to close up. The busy streets began to empty as people hurried to catch the last few trains, and only when there were just a handful of people left out sweeping the sidewalks did the figure emerge from the shadows. Fat Gum was surprised to find that his pursuer was a young boy around nine years old with strange, aquamarine colored hair.

“Hey there, kiddo!” he kept a huge grin on his face but still kept his guard up just in case. “Can I help you with anything?” The kid looked to be in pretty rough shape as he gazed up at the BMI hero who towered over him. Fat Gum didn’t like the poor condition of the boy’s clothes, or that he appeared extremely dirty. The most concerning thing of all was how emaciated the boy looked. He could practically see the bones in his arms, and his cheeks were sunken with hunger. He wondered when the poor thing had last eaten a proper meal.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” the kid finally speaks up after a moment. Fat Gum finally noticed that the boy had started shaking like a leaf. He wasn’t sure if the boy was just cold, or if he was actually afraid. He watched as the kid reached into his back pocket and pulled out a tattered old photograph. “By any chance, do you know this woman?” The boy flinches away while holding out the paper for Fat Gum to see.

“I’m not gonna hurt ya, buddy!” the large hero says while taking the photo as non-aggressively as possible. “Let’s just take a quick look at this and… oh.” He recognized the woman staring back at him from the picture. He hadn’t seen her in almost a decade. He’d lost contact with her once she’d broken his heart after a short romantic affair. “Uh,” Fat Gum felt a little awkward, “Is this your mom?” The boy nods his head while keeping his eyes closed. “Then,” Fat Gum chuckles nervously, “am I your dad?”

“Yeah,” the boy mumbles before letting a few tears slip out, “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” the need to be a hero for this boy was stronger than his discomfort with the situation. “If anyone should be sorry, it’s me. How could I have not known about this until now?”

“Mom wouldn’t let me tell you,” his voice cracks with emotion. “She said you’d be mad.”

“Well, that’s just silly!” Fat Gum shakes his head in disbelief. “Where is your ma’ now?” The boy finally glances up and meets his eyes. They were the same shape and color as his own.

“She got arrested yesterday,” he admits, sounding embarrassed. “Another hero caught her pickpocketing. She sometimes asked me to help her, but I haven’t been feeling well lately. We don’t have a place to stay either, so we had to find a way to get food.”

Fat Gum hated the thought of that woman not only keeping the existence of his son a secret, but also forcing a young boy to break the law. Perhaps that was why the boy looked so scared. He probably thought he was going to get in trouble too. Fat Gum had other ideas though.

“I’m really sorry that happened to your mom,” he says sincerely, “but she will have to pay for the crimes she committed.”

“I know,” the boy looks back down at his feet.

“But there’s no reason you have to follow in her footsteps,” Fat Gum says cheerfully. “I’m more than willing to take you under my wing. That is, if you don’t mind.” The boy finally allows a tentative smile to grow on his face. He clearly liked the idea.

“Well then, first I think we should get you to a doctor,” Fat Gum reaches down and gently pats the boy’s head. This time, he doesn’t flinch away. “And after that, I’ll make sure you get a decent hot meal! No kid of mine is going to look like skin and bones.” The boy eagerly agrees and allows Fat Gum to scoop him up into his arms. He had a feeling it was going to be a dream come true to finally have the fun and affectionate father he’d always imagined.

Shigaraki

People were always going on and on about how hard public servants worked and how important their jobs were. Heroes, police officers, firefighters, health workers… sure, they all had hefty responsibilities, but nobody ever considered the absolute nightmare it was being the leader of the League of Villains. Shigaraki wanted to see someone else try to manage the group of ragtag, lawless, misfits that he’d been left in charge of. It’d be one thing if they were all there to support him and his diabolical plans, but unfortunately a good number of his followers were just hanging around in the hopes of an opportunity to continue the work of the Hero Killer, Stain.

Stain had always been a sore spot with Shigaraki, ever sense the man had shown up at his hideout just to criticize him for not having a clear goal. He’d never admit it out loud, but the jerk might have had a point. At first, he’d just wanted to kill All Might, but that was only because it was what his master, All For One, had wanted. After All For One had been arrested, Shigaraki was sort of left without a guiding hand or a clear path to follow. He still wanted to kill All Might. And he wanted that annoying Midoriya kid dead too. When he really thought about it, Shigaraki just kind of wanted everyone to be dead.

The door to the villain’s hideout clicked open suddenly, making everyone in the bar turn to see who’d arrived. It was just Dabi, trailing in the scent of burnt corpses. Shigaraki clenched his teeth and sighs in annoyance. That ugly fire user was supposed to be out recruiting people to the League, but all he ever did was incinerate any potential members he came across.

“I didn’t know we were running a daycare service now,” Dabi comments lazily while grabbing a stool at the bar and signaling Kurogiri for a drink.

“What are you talking about?” Shigaraki felt the prickling urge to scratch at the flaking skin on his neck, but managed to control himself. Dabi was always trying to get a rise out of him and the worst thing he could do was take the bait.

“Some crusty looking rugrat is hanging around outside,” Dabi shrugs. “You might want to do something about that.” Shigaraki wasn’t sure if the annoying man was messing with him or not, but he sent Twice to check it out just in case. The last thing they needed was a lost child attracting the attention of any heroes. A few minutes later, Twice returned with what looked like a four year old boy trying to claw his way out of his captor’s arms.

“Put me down!” The kid protests before opening his mouth and biting down on Twice’s fingers. The villain drops the kid who lands with a thud on the floor.

“There really was a kid out there!” Twice gestures to the boy dramatically, “He’s completely rabid though! It’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen!”

“You picked the wrong place to run away to,” Shigaraki walks up to the boy feeling irritated. “You should’ve stayed with your mommy and daddy.” The boy glares up at him from the ground and Shigaraki gets a big shock. Aside from the hair color, it was like looking into a mirror. The boy had the same piercing red eyes as him. The skin around those familiar eyes was dry and irritated, just like his own too.

“You ARE my daddy!” The kid blurts out and the atmosphere in the bar gets extremely uncomfortable. Of course, the silence is broken by a snort from Dabi.

“Oh man,” he shakes his head. “I can’t believe someone actually had the stomach to sleep with you.”

“Shut up, Dabi!” Shigaraki tries to swallow down the panic and horror bubbling up inside him, but the persistent itch on his neck seemed to double in intensity over this unexpected news. He gives in, reaching up to scratch at the damaged pale skin below his ear. It had been All For One’s idea for him to have an ‘experience’ with a lady. He’d said it was an important part of becoming an adult, but now Shigaraki could only see it as a huge mistake. A voice drifted through his mind, telling him that it would only take five fingers to make this whole problem go away.

“Where’s your mommy?” Toga skips over happily, unable to resist inserting herself into the situation.

“I don’t know,” the boy was putting on a brave face, but it was clear that he was afraid. “We had to leave our house and sleep outside. Mommy said it was because my dad was a villain, but then she was gone when I woke up.”

The story struck a chord in Shigaraki. He’d been left abandoned without a home as well at a very young age. The last thing he wanted to do was sympathize with the brat though. What he wanted was for the kid to disappear. The idea of a guy like him being a parent was laughable. He was barely an adult himself, and he had enough on his plate right now. A small child was only going to be a burden. His fingers twitched, ready to activate his quick as he continues to look down at the helpless boy at his feet. The conflicting feelings inside him were making the itching flare up terribly. Every inch of skin on Shigaraki’s body felt like it was on fire now.

“You’re just like everyone else, aren’t you?” the boy suddenly slumps forward, the fight going out of him. “You hate me.”

A weird resolve washes over Shigaraki at those words. No. He wasn’t like everyone else. If there was one thing all the member of the League of Villains had in common, it was that they’d all been rejected by friends, family, and even heroes for traits they had little or no control over. This boy was just as much a victim of this crooked society as the rest of them.

“You’re forbidden from ever leaving this building,” Shigaraki states flatly. “And don’t expect anyone here to coddle you or clean up after you. The moment you become a nuisance you’re back out on the street.” The boy nods in understanding while finally pushing himself off the ground. Shigaraki wasn’t sure what he’d just signed up for. The only thing he knew for sure was that his job had just gotten a lot more complicated.

[addictedtomanga]

Shoujo manga recommendations - living together/neighbors

1.      Konyakusei 

Sachi Hanaoka has just lost her parents to a traffic accident and her fear of living alone becomes reality. To add on to her troubles, Kouichi Saonji, the young landlord of her apartment, approaches her and requests that she prepare to vacate since she is now be unable to pay rent. Alternatively, Kouichi proposes a solution: he and Sachi will get married and she will act as his caretaker. Not only will her expenses be covered, but it would also serve as a method to quell his family's nagging for him to find a wife. Despite the lack of genuine feelings between them, Sachi finds herself drawn to Kouichi and accepts his offer. But will the newly wed couple be able to fall in love, or will they remain strangers forever?

2.      Sugar Family 

Since Yuuka's mother died at an early age, Yuuka turned out to be the one taking care of her child-like father. Right before high school started, Yuuka's dad announced his remarriage with Satou Masami. Masami-san turned out to be a reliable, responsible person, so Yuuka finally thought she's off the hook. That is, until she finds out about her new older brother...

3.      Kyou mo Uchi de Machi Awase

After a fire, a middle-aged man meets a homeless single mother and her son at the convenience store. He is instantly reminded of someone he used to know over a decade ago. Could it be...?

4.      Kyoudai Gokko 

Growing up, Rio Takara has always wanted siblings. So when her parents decide to move overseas without her and tells her she will be living with two people around her age, she's cautiously optimistic. But they turn out to be brothers who fight like cats and dogs. Is this what having siblings is like?

5.      Kamiki Kyoudai Okotowari

Iroha was raised by her single mother, but when her mother remarries, they move in with her step-father and his 3 sons. To Iroha, this will be the first time she's living with men. What will happen to Iroha's new life!?

6.      Monokuro Shounen Shoujo 

Kureha Mimachi, a 15-year-old girl, has just transferred into Shiritsu Kenhono High School. However, there is something weird about this school, it is actually a school where the Princes and Princesses of the beast-kind go to...?! Even though Kureha is human, she is there as a way to help the students their lives peacefully with humans and has the role as the "rabbit". Will she be able survive without being eaten by the students...?!

7.      Mademoiselle Butterfly 

Our heroine is a girl who lives as a geisha in Japan. She has a male childhood friend who's always been kind to her and is her favorite. He's a painter, only he paints on human body parts, and she loves it when he paints beautiful butterflies on her arms. She goes to visit him one day and finds a naked woman lying in his room. Immediately after, she gets a customer who's rich and very interested in her. The thought of being away from her friend pains her, but is everything really too late?

8.      Mayonaka Lolita 

After she took some medicines, Michiryuu became suddenly a little girl. People used to say that she was really perfect. That's why she wants to came back to normal quickly. But the only condition if she wants that happen is to find "a personn she'll love". But that's completely impossible for her! So what will happen to Michiryuu...?

9.      Mayonaka ni Kiss 

Natori Nono is a very tough school-girl, she lives with her widowed mother Ayame and her younger brother Takumi in a very small apartment, where she does all the chores. Her boyfriend wants money from her, because he's really poor, too. But one day, Nono discovers that her mother remarried! She married Ichijou Hayato, the owner of the 'Ichijou Group'. Now, Nono lives there (in unaccustomed riches) with her mother, her brother, her stepfather AND her new stepbrother: Ichijou Kasuomi (his father calls him Omi-kun)!!! At first, Nono thinks Kasuomi is not nice. But what will happen next?

10.  Harem Lodge 

Midori lost her mother when she was young and now her father's gone too. But her dad left her with a surprise: a fiancé named Tetsuya. So now, Midori has to live in a good-looking men only apartment (Harem Lodge), which is actually filled with weirdos. What is going to happen to her? Well we just have to wait and see...

11.  Hyakujuu no ou ni Tsugu!

This is the liberated area where you listen to girls will, a girls high school! in this class, there's a king. Me, Yuka! My friends are counting on me and boys are afraid of me! But that kind of paradise will suddenly break up by a thirty-year old man!! dates will take place in golf areas and kisses will have the taste of smoke...

12.  Last Notes 

Haru and Aki are the masters of the branch store - an old-looking and very unusual shop. It sells only one thing: a special kind of incense that, when burned, allows the user to see and speak with the spirit of the dead person that appears in the smoke. Every customer has a different reason for calling up the dead, and how they use this unusual opportunity is up to them...

13.  Hapira Hajimaru 

Asai Sachi's luck has always been considered dreadful. After becoming the class president, she meets Kurono Hyougo, a guy with a frightful face who bears various gruesome rumours behind his back. Hyougo had been living alone in an apartment; but when Sachi mistakenly reveals that Hyougo is a minor, he had to be kicked out. Fortunately, Sachi's father is a realtor, and suggested to have Hyougo live in their unused detached house. Would Sachi's bad luck turn upside down upon meeting Hyougo?

14.  Hana o Meshimase

After Shion's mother passed away, she was left with her father who loves to gamble and evade his responsibilities as a father. Due to that continuous pattern, Shion moves in to live as a live-in employee with 25-years-old florist Shun Mamyuuda. As she begins to learn the value of flowers and life, will she also find her place in love?

15.  Good Morning Call 

Nao Yoshikawa stays behind to live by herself when her parents leave to inherit her grandpa's farm in the country. On the day she moves into her new apartment she soon discovers that it was rented also to Hisashi Uehara—a cute, super-cool and popular guy from her school. Not only did their housing agency unexpectedly close down, the landlord of the apartment tells them that they had to pay more for their apartment then they had expected. With both no money and no home to return to, Nao and Hisashi decide to live together as flatmates.

16.  Nanako Robin 

Yoshino Nako has a saying. "If I'm happy, I can do anything!" In her sister's place, Nako-chan steals the groom of an arranged (political) marriage and helps them elope. But when the Hayami group starts failing, she must pay the consequence by housing the delinquent brother...

17.  Momo Raba 

Chieri (Cherry) was living an ordinary life, until her sister Ichigo (Strawberry) suddenly left her child Momo (Peach) on Chieri's doorstep. Momo is an infant; how is Chieri supposed to take care of a baby while still in high school!? To make matters even more frustrating, two guys are fighting for Chieri's love...!

18.  Men’s Life 

Mio's life is changed in a big way due to an encounter with Rin, an upperclassman who is one-year-older, and...!?

19.  Tonari wa Nani o Kuu Hito zo 

Inaba Suzuna is trying her best to make a campus debut and to have many friends in Tokyo. Until she realized that she miserably fails at living alone. Fortunately, her neighbor, Seto, comes and saves her from dying of starvation. Bright campus life is still far away for Suzuna, but at least, she has a very dependable neighbor!

20.  Yumemiru Taiyou

While loitering in the park, Shimana Kameko, who intended to run away from home and skip school, meets a suspicious man in a kimono. This man, who had been locked out of his house, offers Shimana a place to stay. However, he requests she fulfill three conditions in exchange for her tenancy!?

21.  Taiyou no Ie 

After her mother abandoned her and her father remarried, high schooler Mao Motomiya is left feeling like she doesn't have a place where she belongs. One night, her childhood friend Hiro Nakamura finds her in a shrine eating cheap convenience store food and offers to take her to a restaurant. Their subsequent heart to heart leads to Hiro suggesting that Mao move in with him. To Hiro who has lived apart from his younger siblings all these years after their parents passed away, bringing his family back together in the once-lively Nakamura home begins with the first step of giving Mao a loving place to belong. When Mao reluctantly accepts his invitation, she is surprised at how easy it is to settle in with her longtime friend. Now she must deal not only with mending her relationship with her father and helping the oldest Nakamura brother attain his goal, but also her growing feelings for Hiro.

22.  Tsubaki-chou Lonely Planet 

Oono Fumi is a poor second year high school student. Because of her father's debts, she's kicked out of her own home and has to rely on her own connections to survive. Thus begins her life as a live-in housekeeper for a reclusive writer...

23.  Faster than a kiss

Losing their parents, Fumino and her brother hop from one relative to another. Getting tired of all those movings, she finally decides to quit school and work to support her brother on her own. As they sat on a park bench, her teacher appears in front of her and agrees to her demanding of marrying and supporting both her and her brother!! Is he serious or just playing around...!?

24.  Kiss/Hug 

Ryuu, a super-business-like transfer student from England with black hair and blue eyes just arrived! During the night of the Tanabata festival, Ryuu and Yukino became attracted to each other at first sight. He then declares, "You will be mine!" This brought confusion to Yukino, who has zero experience in love. But could she actually be falling in love?

25.  Kanna to Decchi 

Our heroine Kanna is the daughter of the famous builder in town. One day a boy with a hammer appears to train under Kanna's father?! The heart pounding love story of a handsome apprentice carpenter.

26.  Sabaku no Harem 

Mishe a strong willed girl raised from poverty has caught Prince Kallum's attention. Attention as in, "you will become one of my concubines," thus begins Mishe's adventures into Prince Kallum's world.

[theawesomeally]

Before We Met (Preview)

Prologue

In a world inhabited by mythic creatures, love was commonplace several millennia ago, though difficult to master. After his training advances over the decades, his powers became obsolete and were largely discarded.

[The camera zooms in on the city and two blazing specks of light dash all over the place as one shoots lasers at the other. We then see an enemy aircraft flying throughout while it's chasing a young man, who is running from the pursuer. We see full closeups of a guy in his craft and Rocky as he runs. The scene freezes after an explosion with Rocky barely missing it.]

[voice over]

Through the years I have been known by many names. Marshmallow, The Furry Lover, The Daredevil, Frisky Two Times and then The amazing Ryan Reynolds. But to most, I am Rocky, the awesome one!

[Some other women, leaning across the wall, and Rocky getting his shades from his pocket. Put it onto his eyes. While he puts his hoodie onto his shoulders. Rocky was dressed like a gentleman, but he fought with honor or dignity and pulled at the knot into his tie. Females are not meant to grab his attention, and if it does. To be fair, he heard most of what he'd said up to this point. The parts that weren't of his interest, anyway.

Okay, maybe that wasn't much]

His sigh is heavy with exasperation,

"Can you keep your dick in your pants at the gala?"

Grab his phone from his pocket, automatically switching it out of Bluetooth mode, and bring his earphone up to his ear.

I will never forget you, Margarita. [The female stops and cringe after hearing the name. His blue prominent eyes were not well adapted to winking. They were rather of the sort that closes solemnly in slumber with majestic effect.

Rocky pretend to consider as Rocky step out of the car and button his tux jacket. "Hmm."

"Nice wheels, sir," the valet says, unconcerned that he was on the phone. Rocky pull out his wallet and flash a fifty-dollar bill. "Take care of her and this is yours."

"Yes, Mr. Rocky."

"I mean, Rosa. Uh...sorry. I think maybe I should go.???." She wrapped her arms over her chest and shook her head with a smirk curved across her face. Rocky grinned and raised an ironical finger in salute Rocky starts backing away. "You can't get away with it." the security guard muttered, holding out one hand. He was moving very slowly, thinking Rocky was the enemy or something. Blinks at her as a farewell, but glance with a smug as he sees the vampire's ring. Mind was so wrapped up in thought that he didn't notice the familiar vampire standing behind him. A vampire with bad breath psycho. "Hey, come on, dickie! You're trashing public property here!" He is thinking about how he had to sneaked up onto the roof and is currently standing a few feet behind him.

Rocky then gently slides the ring off the vampire's finger using his katana.

Light glinted off a myriad of his Katana and the vampire ring. Spray from the dust to blew up into his face, but sweat more than seawater moistened his palms as he gripped the eagle. His eyes were as blue while the vampires eyes were cold as the stormy weather.

"Hey, it's Gale calling," says Rocky called over his shoulder to one nefarious vampire. "Love the shiny suit. Really brings out the sex trafficker in your eyes." Rocky had commented, half jokingly and straight up confident, how that guy would have been considered handsome - if he ever bothered to smile.

Cut to a shot of a cliff.

A grim expression again carved itself into the soldier's face as he gazed up at the jeering vampires, their bodies smeared with blood, upon the cliff tops. Even the most cowardly of tribes in Gaul would fancy its chances from such advantageous ground, one being was mused. The sound of their jeers was occasionally accompanied by the high pitched swish of an arrow, as the odd archer tried his luck. Invariably the missile would zip harmlessly into the sea, or at best a thud could be heard as it struck as a human shield or the solid surface of the earth.

Cut back to the fighting scene. Rocky is skewering a guy with his swords, and kicks the vampire in the chest, sending him back down and puts his sword away. The guy gasp and starts fighting with Rocky. This continues for awhile until Rocky get's away again. Using two fingers he salute the vampire as a goodbye.

Making a soft chuckle. He flicks the vampire ring up into the air. It comes back down and lands into one of the streets, causing his background to explode. The shards of fire fell in slow motion behind him.

He is consumed in the explosion, as his body can be seen flying off the ground, flipping off the camera as it goes. "Oh, fuck." Rocky mutter under his breath. "Oh, I'm sorry." A small apology leaving his lips with a smirk.

"That will teach you, not to mess with me," A familiar voiced ask, up righting his head as he walk over the circles and appeared in front of him,

(narrator)

So, I know what you're thinking. Why is that incredibly handsome guy being chased by a madman with a huge shiny fangs from the Civil War?

[The scene freezes after an explosion sending Rocky flying off the ground from the ground. After the dust settles, leaving Rocky lying unconscious on the ground.]

This guy's got the right idea. Well, to be honest, it feels like I've been the captain of my whole life. Is this too much? Am I going too fast? It's kind of what I do--You know what? Let's back up.

[We see the whole fight going in reverse as well as frames of future clips for a split second each time, one passes as Rocky mimics a rewind sound effect] Cut to close-up of Rocky gets up to his feet. Cut to him sitting on the side of the gable roof at night. Wondering how long it would be before he saw the city again. He had been born with a wandering heart, and he embraced adventure, unafraid to face the dangers often presented by journeys into unknown places. Leaving civilization behind for the wilds of the frozen north, legs dangling over the side as he listens to his Walkman next to him playing 'Shoop.' Rocky was vaguely singing along, making hand gestures along with the lyrics, but he was focused on his own drawing, while listening to the music and coloring a picture with crayons. We see that the picture he's drawing is him shooting the vampire in the head, he was doing it with some crayons he had with him.

It was fun to see that getting shot in the head, even if it was just a crayon drawing. He'd never soon change it to a reality. And then turned his head and stared directly at the camera, or the person reading, or just whoever balls happened to be paying a lot of attention to him.

Wha- Oh! Oh, hello. I know, right? Who's balls did I have to snap to get my very own story? I can't tell you, but it does rhyme with dick. And let me tell you; he's got a nice pair of fucking underwear, he finished in an Swedish accent.

They'd get that joke, right?

Anyway, I got places to be, a kiss in the ass to fix, and - oh! hot weird vampire to kill.

He watched eagerly as the flashes of light began to appear below him – lots of rippers were a very dramatic little shit, after all – we're panning quickly towards the edge of the roof he was sitting on. Now having an appointment to keep, Rocky was quick to get onto edge of the roof and, in one fluid motion, opens a music playlist called Tunes of Anarchy on his Walkman, and the song "Where Evil Grows" by The Poppy Family stays playing in the background as he jumped off the roof, landing in one of the coolest bar in Mystic Falls. It seemed that they had been drinking peacefully, listening to 'Angel of the Morning,' but when Rocky landed and that's when their peaceful night was over.

They look around for which they finally see as Rocky stands at a wooden doorway wearing a cowboy hat, black sunglasses, and red a white hoodie as he opens a music playlist called Tunes of Anarchy on his Walkman. Opens up and the door swings open and the music resumes with people dancing and lights flashing as he goes inside the bar.

Nothing.

Absolutely positively not a fucking thing.

First one person turned, noticing him. Then more followed, until the whole patron was hushed, waiting. Everyone was watching, the same bewildered look on all of their faces. Eyebrows raised and narrowed eyes, etc. God, for months he'd played this moment over and over inside his mind. It most definitely never turned out like this. Whatever this was.

As he walks up to the bar. The room was narrow and about 90 feet deep. Light did manage to worm its way into the establishment, though. It seeped through the windows scattered along the walls, and through the gaps in the door between its wooden panels. A bar on the left at the front, then some upholstered horseshoe benches, then a cluster of freestanding tables on what, on other nights, might have been a dance floor. Then the stage, with the band on it. The band looked as if it had been put together by accident after a misfiling incident at a talent agency. The bass player was a stout old black guy in a suit with a vest. He was plucking away at an upright bass fiddle. The drummer could have been his uncle. He was a big old guy sprawled comfortably behind a small, simple kit. The singer was also a harmonica player and was older than the bass player and younger than the drummer and bigger than either one.

The guitarist was completely different. He was young and white and small. Maybe 20, maybe 5-foot-6, maybe 130 pounds. He had a fancy blue guitar wired to a crisp new amplifier and together the instrument and the electronics made sharp sounds full of space and echoes. The amp must have been turned up to 11. The sound was incredibly loud. It was as if the air in the room was locked solid. It had no more capacity for volume. But the music was good. The three black guys were old pros, and the white kid knew all the notes, and when and how and in what order to play them. He was wearing a red T-shirt and black pants and white tennis shoes. He had a very serious expression on his face. He looked foreign. Maybe Russian.

I watched them for a minute, and then I looked away. My name is Rocky, and once I was the most wanted man, with heavy emphasis on the past tense. I have been out nearly as long as I was in. But old habits die hard. I had stepped into the bar the same way I always step anywhere, which is carefully. One-thirty in the morning. I had ridden the train to West and walked south on Sixth Avenue and made the left turn on San Francisco bar and checked the sidewalks. I wanted music, but not the kind that drives large numbers of patrons outside to smoke.

His attention was taken away from patrons. It was at that point that he saw the young beautiful woman alone at her table, Her name tag read Katy, and her shirt clung tightly around her chest. Her hands worked quickly and gracefully with the bottles as she poured them another and took the empty's away.

I watched her in the gaudy, reflected light, with the music shrieking and pounding all around me. The two guys watched her. Her bodyguard watched her. She watched the guitarist. He was concentrating hard, key changes and choruses, but from time to time he would lift his head and smile, mostly at the glory of being up on the stage, but twice directly at the girl. The first of those smiles was shy, and the second was a little wider.

What met my eyes was a beautiful girl with golden hair and a bright smile that melted my heart. She was blond and blue-eyed, American woman who have a glow, and a smoothness complexion. She lives in New York, singing, listening to a band, and I was in love with her angelic voice. That was clear. There I was, a guy further back in the room, stood in the room staring at her. I was 6ft tall, wide man with a white hoodie and a black leather jacket under a hoodie. She was part of the reason I was here with her back in a city when we were at the age of 19 or less.

It wasn't the kind of glossy place that had a policy about dating rich girls, either for or against. Some call it a gold digger, and I guessed they had looked at her and her minder and made a snap decision against trouble and in favor of tips.

The part of her gaze that wasn't wary was filled with adoration, and it was all aimed in his direction. She was rich. She was alone at a table near the stage and she had a pile of A.T.M fresh twenties in front of her and she was paying for each new bottle with one of them and she wasn't asking for change.

She was a waitress and I loved her.

The woman stood up. She butted the lip of her table with her thighs and shuffled out from behind it and headed for the counter in back. I got there first. The sound from the band howled through it. The ladies' room was halfway down. The men's room was all the way at the end. Rocky leaned on the wall and scanned the room. As Rocky watched her walk in and squeeze through the crowd and she sat down on the bar stool, 1 feet away from him.

"Hey, Raoul, look what this kid dragged in. Oh, wait! That is the guy!," but they didn't hear. Too much noise. He caught them by the elbows, one in each hand. They spun around, as if ready to fight, but then they stopped. Fortunately for him, the first two who approached her were quick to heed her dismissal. She wasn't there to mingle with huge ass in leather jackets. She was just there to grab a drink and relax and pretty sure she made that pretty clear when she shot the first couple of idiots down.

The third guy, however, wasn't ready to take no for an answer.

"How about you let me buy you a drink, sweetheart?"

Their sex appeal eyes pried upon their eyes from the television screen above the bar and looked at the newcomer. With his hair greased back and one-size-too-big biker jacket on, the guy looked like prime wife-beater material. Perfect. Just what they needed to interrupt his evening.

"Thanks, but I'm good," she said curtly, gesturing to the beer bottle in front of her.

"That's it? You're gonna chug that shitty beer and call it a night? Come on, let me get you a real drink."

She scoffed. "What? Like those idiots you got over there?" she glanced past him at the table where he and a couple of his friends had been sitting.

"It's a warm-up. Trust me, honey, we're just getting started over there. You should join us."

She wanted to roll her eyes. "Like I said, I'm good."

She made the move to turn away and focus her attention back on the football game on the television when the guy grabbed her by the arm.

"What the hell's your problem?" This guy gripped her arm tightly, this guy's face practically scrunched up in a beastly snarl. "I don't like to be ignored, y'know?"

She yanked her arm out of his grip and stood up to face him directly. She knew pretty damn well where the conversation was headed and sure as hell were not about to get in a bar fight with their ass glued to the seat.

Before she could open her mouth, a familiar voice spoke up from behind her.

By hearing it and raising their head to turn to his voice, her smile grew a tad wider, recognizing the voice immediately. They simply looked so annoyed, at least much more than usual. His lips pulled into a tight frown, while their eyes narrowed, eyebrows furrowed, back hunched over slightly if you'd look hard enough. Yep, those guys are just being grumpy as usual, but seemingly much more grumpy, except with their eyes laced with the slightest bit of concern. For herself, most likely.

The said person stopped, and looked over their shoulder to the voice. She put on a mellow look close to her usual one. Confrontation- unnecessary confrontation- was not exactly his thing. He tended to avoid fights like these. He could hold his ground better than most, but he preferred to keep out of the brawls and spats that others got involved in.

A voice caught his ear, she sounded like she needed help, despite the overconfident tone the stranger used. "Look, I don't wanna interrupt, but is this guy bothering you?" he looks up at her and says greeted casually, as casual as someone could be hanging for dear life. She looked up at me, startled that he was there. "I'm sorry. Did I scare you up?" he softly asked, when she turned to get a good look at the stranger in his handsome voice. She wasn't expecting the sight she was met with. A pair of piercing blue eyes smiled over her, puffing out her cheeks childishly when she looked at him. After she looked to her right to find Rocky taking his place beside her. Her pinkish lips turned up in a small smile as she ducked her head briefly with a laugh before tucking her hair behind her ear, "No, you did not," she said. He couldn't keep the amusement out of his voice. She turned her head to look at him, catching his gaze with her own. He gave a small smile, stroking her hair softly with his index. "So, What exactly are you doing here?" she said softly, trying to maintain an even tone of voice.

"Oh you know, I was just passing through the neighborhood when I thought I caught a whiff of filthy human garbage coming from this place," he said,

"And sure enough here I am."

Desire pools dark and deadly in his groin. Gaze up at her, releasing her lip. Katy flush a deep crimson in her cheeks, and he runs his index finger down her cheek before handing her the headphones. "I'd like to kiss you, too, but you won't let me down, are you?." Rocky asked her. Besides, he's pulled the straps so tight he can barely move.

Amused smile on his lips, he's wearing his enigmatic half smile. He glances down at her, light blue-gray eyes alive, he glances up when she looks at his way and their eyes lock. And in that brief moment, she was paralyzed, staring at the impossibly handsome man who gazes at her with some unfathomable emotion. His gaze hot, burning into her, as they lost for a moment staring at each other.

It's there in the air between them, that electricity. It's palpable. He can almost taste it, pulsing between them, drawing them together.

"Oh my," she gasps as she basks briefly in the intensity of this visceral, primal attraction. The two men stood back, saying nothing, but looking at him with hard eyes.

Katy had, somehow, stammered out some sort of reply that must have made her look insane. Coby, hearing her, had come over to check on her and had ended up having her go make Rocky's a drink while they chatted. Ever since that first meeting, though, Katy had completely fallen for Rocky. There was something about his smile, or maybe it was his eyes? Whatever it was, it made Katy's entire body feel light as a feather.

To be continued....

[lizcollinsstoddard]

No Reconciliation

I am sick to death of all the news agencies and the likes of Robert Lacey and Katie Nicholl guessing about a reconciliation between “the brothers.”  There will be no reconciliation as long as Harry’s wife is in the picture. Period. Nor should there be. 

I am going to borrow some of Lady C’s words when she states that Prince William is seriously wounded and betrayed by his brother’s actions. William will never trust Harry again, if ever.  Not completely. Nor should he. To quote Lady C., “Harry is Judas in the Jesus camp.”  And everybody knows it.

She also states that Prince William was completely aware that Harry was trying to get close to him while smiling so there would be a “picture of the reconciliation” at the unveiling of the Diana statue. I believe that.

 Harry was inappropriate acting like he was at a cocktail party. He appeared manic to me or like he was on some substance.  Just my opinion. I am sick of him and his wife. Please let them just shut up and go away.

One more thing. Should Harry get a divorce and want back into his family, it will take decades, a lifetime, for the British public to forgive him, and Prince William will never totally trust him ever again. It’s broken and Harry did it himself because he is an immature, spoiled brat.  Harry has committed the cardinal sin in William’s eyes.  He leaked to the media.  Look how long it has taken for  the public to accept Charles being with Camilla. It has taken twenty years. 

Harry and his wife believe they can get by with anything because of the never complain, never explain philosophy. Well, that’s over. They have bullied the queen, Prince Philip, Prince Charles, Prince William, Duchess Catherine and the entire family. I don’t believe the family will take it anymore. Charles has finally stood up for his mother, and William will never take the abuse. In the next reign and the one after that, times will be very bleak for Harry and his wife.

So for all the commentators who suggest Prince William should be the bigger man, which he is, put a sock in it.  As sad as it is to see this, I hope he never trusts his brother again and never forgives him for the betrayal of his entire family.

[watusichris]

Betty Davis: They Say She’s Different

It appears that everything anyone has written for the old Music Aficionado site has now disappeared from the web. A random Facebook post has prompted me to re-purpose this story, written in 2016, about my favorite funketress. **********

To this day, the name Betty Davis – Betty with a “y,” that is – remains best known to connoisseurs of Miles Davis minutiae and ‘70s funk obsessives. While it’s true that Betty played an important off-stage role in the career of the jazz trumpeter, to whom she was married for just a year, and she undoubtedly made some of the best hardcore funk records of her era, she deserves to be recognized beyond the relatively narrow provinces of the jazzbo and the crate-digger.

Uncompromising, intelligent, brazen, aggressive, and not incidentally gorgeous, sexually provocative, and a fashion plate always ahead of the curve, Betty was a prophetic figure. Spawned by the explosion of music, fashion, and alternative culture of the late ‘60s, and by concurrent leaps in black consciousness and feminism, she was a take-no-prisoners singer and writer who presented herself as something new, rich, and strange with her self-titled debut album in 1973.

There were some badass contemporaries working the soul and funk trenches– gutter-tongued diva Millie Jackson and one-time James Brown paramour Yvonne Fair leap to mind immediately – but they seemed to be adapting tropes previously worked by male singers in the genres. Betty still sounds like something new: a tough, smart, demanding woman who reveled in pleasure and insisted on satisfaction, unafraid to claim what she wanted.

Despite the fact that she was associated with some high-profile male musician friends and lovers – beyond Davis, the roll call included Hugh Masekela, Jimi Hendrix, Sly Stone, Mike Carabello, Eric Clapton, and Robert Palmer – she was no groupie or bed-hopping climber. Possessed of her own self-defining vision, she was producing her own records and leading a tight, flexible little band by the end of her brief run.

In 1976, after completing four splendid albums (only three of which were released at the time), she disappeared, not only from the music business but from the public eye entirely. What happened? It’s an old story that many women in the industry will recognize: Her record company didn’t know what to do with her, and wanted her to tone down her act. Betty Davis wasn’t having any of that, thank you, and she hit the damn road.

She was born Betty Mabry in Durham, NC, in 1945. She grew up country, and was exposed to down-home, get-down music early. On the title track of her second album, They Say I’m Different, she runs down the artists who served as inspirations: Big Mama Thornton, John Lee Hooker, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Howlin’ Wolf, Albert King, Chuck Berry. The blues, in one form or another, is the backbone of her style.

Her family relocated to Pittsburgh when she was young, but at 16 she left home for the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. There she was hurtled into the roiling cultural vortex of the Village. She took up modeling, working for the toney Wilhelmina agency, and began running with a posse of similarly disposed, equally beautiful women who called themselves the “Electric Ladies.” Sound familiar? One of her closest cohorts was Devon Wilson, for many years a notorious consort of Jimi Hendrix known for her freewheeling, outré sex- and drug-saturated lifestyle.

Mabry began to try her hand at singing, and cut a few self-penned singles. They were in an old-school mold in terms of structure, but her very first 45 hints at things to come. “Get Ready For Betty,” a 1964 track released by Don Costa (discoverer of Paul Anka and Trini Lopez and a key arranger for Frank Sinatra), is stodgy early-‘60s NYC R&B to its core, but its message is pointed: “Get out my way, girl, ‘cause I’m comin’ to take your man.”

She also made a stolid romantic duet ballad with singer Roy Arlington and, produced by cult soul man Lou Courtney, a homage to the Cellar, the New York club where she DJed. But she didn’t start reaching the upper echelon of the music biz until one of her songs, a hymn to Harlem called “Uptown,” was cut by the Chambers Brothers for their smash 1968 album The Time Has Come, which also included the psychedelic soul workout “Time Has Come Today.”

The Chambers association probably secured a singles deal for her at Columbia Records, and her first session for the major label was produced by her former live-in boyfriend, South African trumpeter Masekela, in October 1968. By that time, she had split with him: A month earlier, she had married a far more famous horn player, Miles Davis, whom she had met in 1967. Davis and his regular producer Teo Macero would head her second session for Columbia in May 1969.

Those two dates were released for the first time as The Columbia Years 1968-1969 earlier this month by Light in the Attic, the independent label that has restored Betty’s entire catalog to print over the last decade. While devoted fans can be grateful that the work is finally seeing the light of day, it does not make for easy listening, for it was clearly made by people groping in the dark.

Betty’s artistic persona was at that point completely unformed, and so her male Svengalis did their best to mold the clay in their hands, with feeble results. Masekela evidently completed just three tracks, two of which, “It’s My Life” and “Live, Love, Learn,” were issued as a flop single. The homiletic song titles give the game away; the music, straight-up commercial soul backed by a large group (which included Wilton Felder and Wayne Henderson of the Jazz Crusaders and Masekela), has nothing original to say.

The date with Miles is a bigger waste, if a more spectacular one. The personnel couldn’t have been more glittering: Hendrix sidemen Billy Cox and Mitch Mitchell; ex-Detroit Wheels guitarist Jim McCarty; bassist Harvey Brooks, studio familiar of Bob Dylan and former member of the Electric Flag; and Davis’ then-current or future band mates Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, John McLaughlin, and Larry Young.

But nothing jells. The material is either weak (Betty’s directionless original “Hangin’ Out” is the best of a bad lot) or incongruous (lumbering covers of Cream’s “Politician” and Creedence’s “Born On the Bayou”). Worse, the jazzers are unable to lay down anything resembling a solid soul-rock foundation, and even reliable timekeeper Mitchell blows the groove on more than one occasion. Miles gets impatient with his spouse at one point, rasping over the talk-back, “Sing it just like that, with the gum in your mouth and all, bitch.”

Apparently intended as demos, the failed tracks were consigned to the tape library. By late ’69, Miles and Betty’s marriage was history. She left her mark on his music: She appeared on the cover of his cover of his 1968 album Filles de Kilimanjaro and inspired its extended track “Mademoiselle Mabry” (based on the chords that opens Hendrix’s “The Wind Cries Mary”) and “Back Seat Betty” from his 1981 comeback album The Man With the Horn.

Moreover, she moved him toward the flash style that would dominate his music through the mid-‘70s, by exposing him to the slamming music of Hendrix and Sly and exchanging his continental suits for psychedelic pimp togs. Would we know Bitches Brew, On the Corner, and Agharta without Betty Davis? Maybe, maybe not.

For her part, Betty remained in the wings for a while. She collaborated on demos for the Commodores; in London, she modeled, worked on songs for Marc Bolan of T. Rex, and declined a production offer from her then-paramour Clapton. Drifting back to New York, she met Santana percussionist Carabello. They became involved romantically, and in 1972 she relocated to the San Francisco Bay area, where Carabello’s local connections led to the formation of a stellar band to back her on a debut album.

One reads the credits for Betty Davis in awe. The rhythm section was the Family Stone’s dissident, puissant rhythm section, bassist Larry Graham and drummer Greg Errico (who also produced). Original Santana guitarist Neal Schon, future Mandrill axe man Doug Rodrigues, founding Graham Central Station organist Hershall Kennedy, and keyboardist and ace Jerry Garcia collaborator Merl Saunders filled out the instrumentation. The Pointer Sisters, Sylvester, and Kathi McDonald were among a large platoon of backup vocalists.

Issued in 1973 by Just Sunshine Records, an independent label owned by Woodstock Festival promoter Michael Lang (who also released a set by another unique woman, folk singer-guitarist Karen Dalton), Betty Davis was one hell of a coming-out party. Since her abortive Columbia dates, she had developed a unique vocal attack that could leap from a velvety croon to a Tina Turner-like shriek in a nanosecond. The stomping funk of the studio band backed her up to the hilt.

Like Turner, she was one Bold Soul Sister. The lust-filled opening invitation “If I’m in Luck I Might Get Picked Up” announces that a new game was afoot. The statement of romantic/sexual independence “Anti Love Song,” the lovers’ chess match “Your Man My Man,” and the self-explanatory “Game is My Middle Name” offer up a startling, hard-edged new model of a hard-funking female vocalist.

The album’s most affecting track may be “Steppin in Her I. Miller Shoes,” Davis’ level-headed elegy for her sybaritic friend Devon Wilson, who sailed out a window at the Chelsea Hotel in 1971. “She coulda been anything that she wanted…Instead she chose to be nothing,” Davis sings, implying that route wouldn’t be one she would take herself.

“If I’m in Luck” grazed the lower reaches of the R&B singles chart and the album failed to reach the LP rolls at all, but Davis was undaunted. For 1974’s They Say I’m Different, she took the producer’s reins, which she would hold for the rest of her career. While the backup lineup is less glitzy (though Saunders, Pete Escovedo, and Buddy Miles, on guitar no less, appear), the support is still sizzling; crackling drums and burbling clavinet put over a set of songs that may have been even stronger than those heard on her debut.

No one who hears “He Was a Big Freak” is likely to ever forget it; it’s a startling dissection of a masochistic relationship -- inspired by Jimi Hendrix, and not, as many have assumed, by Miles Davis (“Everyone knows that Miles is a sadist,” Betty remarked later). Almost as notable are “Don’t Call Her No Tramp,” a prescient condemnation of what we now call slut-shaming, and the autobiographical title track, with slicing slide guitar work by Cordell Dudley.

Different and its attendant singles tanked, but Betty managed to maintain her profile with live gigs noteworthy for their uninhibited bawdiness, on-stage abandon, and the star’s Egyptian-princess-from-outer-space wardrobe sense. By early 1974 she had assembled a hot, lean road band that included her cousins Nickey Neal and Larry Johnson on drums and bass, respectively, plus keyboardist Fred Mills and guitarist Carlos Morales. This lineup would back her on her last two albums.

The end of Just Sunshine’s distribution deal liberated Davis, who, at the suggestion of then-boyfriend Robert Palmer, inked with Palmer’s label Island Records. The company released Nasty Gal in 1975, and it may be Davis’ best-executed work. The pared-down backing lets the songs shine, and there are good ones here: The shameless title song, the vituperative blast at the critics “Dedicated to the Press,” and the out-front ultimatum for sexual satisfaction “Feelins” get right up in the listener’s face. The most surprising track is the ballad “You and I,” an unexpected songwriting reunion with Miles, orchestrated by the trumpeter’s famed arranger Gil Evans.

It’s a tremendous album, and Betty supported it with live shows that ate the funk competition alive. A bootleg of an especially out-there set recorded at a festival on the French Riviera in 1976 literally climaxes with Nasty Gal’s “The Lone Ranger,” an in-the-saddle heavy breather that Davis wraps up by feigning a loud orgasm.

One should remember that at this particular juncture, Madonna was studying dance at the University of Michigan.

But Nasty Gal faded with hardly a trace, and Davis’ relationship with Island swiftly became fractious. It’s easy to see why the label declined to issue her final album, originally called Crashin’ From Passion and ultimately released, after years as a bootleg, by Light in the Attic in 2009 as Is It Love or Desire. The collection, which leans heavily on songs about sex, doping, and heavy drinking, includes “Stars Starve, You Know,” an outright condemnation of the games record companies play:

They said if I wanted to make some money

I’d have to change my style

Put a paper bag over my face

Sing soft and wear tight fitting gowns

 They don’t like the way I’m lookin’

So it’s hard for my agent to get me bookin’s

Unless I cover up my legs and drop my pen

And commit one of those commercial sins…

 Oh hey hey Island

And that was all she wrote. Until writers began to seek her out in the new millennium as her records became available again, Betty Davis was an invisible woman, one who had blazed a trail that other talents, such as Prince and Madonna, would blaze more profitably after her. She was definitively ahead of her time.

Asked by one writer what she had done since leaving music, Davis, who turns 71 on July 26, responded with the most tragic thing one can imagine any artist saying: “Nothing really.”

[awed-frog]

The Other America

by Martin Luther King Jr., 1967

[This is the ‘a riot is the language of the unheard’ speech. It is a masterpiece of human decency, wisdom, rhetoric and political clarity, and sadly its message remains as important and urgent as it was 50 years ago. Please read it.]

Members of the faculty and members of the student body of this great institution of learning; ladies and gentlemen.

Now there are several things that one could talk about before such a large, concerned, and enlightened audience. There are so many problems facing our nation and our world, that one could just take off anywhere. But today I would like to talk mainly about the race problems since I'll have to rush right out and go to New York to talk about Vietnam tomorrow. and I've been talking about it a great deal this week and weeks before that.

But I'd like to use a subject from which to speak this afternoon, the Other America.

And I use this subject because there are literally two Americas. One America is beautiful for situation. And, in a sense, this America is overflowing with the milk of prosperity and the honey of opportunity. This America is the habitat of millions of people who have food and material necessities for their bodies; and culture and education for their minds; and freedom and human dignity for their spirits. In this America, millions of people experience every day the opportunity of having life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in all of their dimensions. And in this America millions of young people grow up in the sunlight of opportunity.

But tragically and unfortunately, there is another America. This other America has a daily ugliness about it that constantly transforms the ebulliency of hope into the fatigue of despair. In this America millions of work-starved men walk the streets daily in search for jobs that do not exist. In this America millions of people find themselves living in rat-infested, vermin-filled slums. In this America people are poor by the millions. They find themselves perishing on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.

In a sense, the greatest tragedy of this other America is what it does to little children. Little children in this other America are forced to grow up with clouds of inferiority forming every day in their little mental skies. As we look at this other America, we see it as an arena of blasted hopes and shattered dreams. Many people of various backgrounds live in this other America. Some are Mexican Americans, some are Puerto Ricans, some are Indians, some happen to be from other groups. Millions of them are Appalachian whites. But probably the largest group in this other America in proportion to its size in the Population is the American Negro.

The American Negro finds himself living in a triple ghetto. A ghetto of race, a ghetto of poverty, a ghetto of human misery. So what we are seeking to do in the Civil Rights Movement is to deal with this problem. To deal with this problem of the two Americas. We are seeking to make America one nation, Indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Now let me say that the struggle for Civil Rights and the struggle to make these two Americas one America, is much more difficult today than it was five or ten years ago. For about a decade or maybe twelve years, we've struggled all across the South in glorious struggles to get rid of legal, overt segregation and all of the humiliation that surrounded that system of segregation.

In a sense this was a struggle for decency; we could not go to a lunch counter in so many instances and get a hamburger or a cup of coffee. We could not make use of public accommodations. Public transportation was segregated, and often we had to sit in the back and within transportation — transportation within cities — we often had to stand over empty seats because sections were reserved for whites only. We did not have the right to vote in so many areas of the South. And the struggle was to deal with these problems.

And certainly they were difficult problems, they were humiliating conditions. By the thousands we protested these conditions. We made it clear that it was ultimately more honorable to accept jail cell experiences than to accept segregation and humiliation. By the thousands students and adults decided to sit in at segregated lunch counters to protest conditions there. When they were sitting at those lunch counters they were in reality standing up for the best in the American dream and seeking to take the whole nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the Founding Fathers in the formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

Many things were gained as a result of these years of struggle. In 1964 the Civil Rights Bill came into being after the Birmingham movement which did a great deal to subpoena the conscience of a large segment of the nation to appear before the judgment seat of morality on the whole question of Civil Rights. After the Selma movement in 1965 we were able to get a Voting Rights Bill. And all of these things represented strides.

But we must see that the struggle today is much more difficult. It's more difficult today because we are struggling now for genuine equality. It's much easier to integrate a lunch counter than it is to guarantee a livable income and a good solid job. It's much easier to guarantee the right to vote than it is to guarantee the right to live in sanitary, decent housing conditions. It is much easier to integrate a public park than it is to make genuine, quality, integrated education a reality. And so today we are struggling for something which says we demand genuine equality.

It's not merely a struggle against extremist behavior toward Negroes. And I'm convinced that many of the very people who supported us in the struggle in the South are not willing to go all the way now. I came to see this in a very difficult and painful way. In Chicago the last year where I've lived and worked. Some of the people who came quickly to march with us in Selma and Birmingham weren't active around Chicago. And I came to see that so many people who supported morally and even financially what we were doing in Birmingham and Selma, were really outraged against the extremist behavior of Bull Connor and Jim Clark toward Negroes, rather than believing in genuine equality for Negroes. And I think this is what we've gotta see now, and this is what makes the struggle much more difficult.

So as a result of all of this, we see many problems existing today that are growing more difficult. It's something that is often overlooked, but Negroes generally live in worse slums today than 20 or 25 years ago. In the North schools are more segregated today than they were in 1954 when the Supreme Court's decision on desegregation was rendered. Economically the Negro Is worse off today than he was 15 and 20 years ago. And so the unemployment rate among Whites at one time was about the same as the unemployment rate among Negroes. But today the unemployment rate among Negroes is twice that of Whites. And the average income of the Negro is today 50% less than Whites.

As we look at these problems we see them growing and developing every day. We see the fact that the Negro economically is facing a depression in his everyday life that is more staggering than the depression of the 30's. The unemployment rate of the nation as a whole is about 4%. Statistics would say from the Labor Department that among Negroes it's about 8.4%. But these are the persons who are in the labor market, who still go to employment agencies to seek jobs, and so they can be calculated. The statistics can be gotten because they are still somehow in the labor market.

But there are hundreds of thousands of Negroes who have given up. They've lost hope. They've come to feel that life is a long and desolate corridor for them with no Exit sign, and so they no longer go to look for a job. There are those who would estimate that these persons, who are called the Discouraged Persons, these 6 or 7% in the Negro community, that means that unemployment among Negroes may well be 16%. Among Negro youth in some of our larger urban areas it goes to 30 and 40%. So you can see what I mean when I say that, in the Negro community, there is a major, tragic and staggering depression that we face in our everyday lives.

Now the other thing that we've gotta come to see now that many of us didn't see too well during the last ten years — that is that racism is still alive in American society. And much more wide-spread than we realized. And we must see racism for what it is. It is a myth of the superior and the inferior race. It is the false and tragic notion that one particular group, one particular race is responsible for all of the progress, all of the insights in the total flow of history. And the theory that another group or another race is totally depraved, innately impure, and innately inferior.

In the final analysis, racism is evil because its ultimate logic is genocide. Hitler was a sick and tragic man who carried racism to its logical conclusion. He ended up leading a nation to the point of killing about 6 million Jews. This is the tragedy of racism because its ultimate logic is genocide. If one says that I am not good enough to live next door to him; if one says that I am not good enough to eat at a lunch counter, or to have a good, decent job, or to go to school with him merely because of my race, he is saying consciously or unconsciously that I do not deserve to exist.

To use a philosophical analogy here, racism is not based on some empirical generalization; it is based rather on an ontological affirmation. It is not the assertion that certain people are behind culturally or otherwise because of environmental conditions. It is the affirmation that the very being of a people is inferior. And this is the great tragedy of it.

I submit that however unpleasant it is we must honestly see and admit that racism is still deeply rooted all over America. It is still deeply rooted in the North, and it's still deeply rooted in the South.

And this leads me to say something about another discussion that we hear a great deal, and that is the so-called "white backlash". I would like to honestly say to you that the white backlash is merely a new name for an old phenomenon. It's not something that just came into being because of shouts of Black Power, or because Negroes engaged in riots in Watts, for instance. The fact is that the state of California voted a Fair Housing bill out of existence before anybody shouted Black Power, or before anybody rioted in Watts.

It may well be that shouts of Black Power and riots in Watts and the Harlems and the other areas, are the consequences of the white backlash rather than the cause of them. What it is necessary to see is that there has never been a single solid monistic determined commitment on the part of the vast majority of white Americans on the whole question of Civil Rights and on the whole question of racial equality. This is something that truth impels all men of good will to admit.

It is said on the Statue of Liberty that America is a home of exiles. It doesn't take us long to realize that America has been the home of its white exiles from Europe. But it has not evinced the same kind of maternal care and concern for its black exiles from Africa. It is no wonder that in one of his sorrow songs, the Negro could sing out, "Sometimes I feel like a motherless child." What great estrangement, what great sense of rejection caused a people to emerge with such a metaphor as they looked over their lives.

What I'm trying to get across is that our nation has constantly taken a positive step forward on the question of racial justice and racial equality. But over and over again at the same time, it made certain backward steps. And this has been the persistence of the so called white backlash.

In 1863 the Negro was freed from the bondage of physical slavery. But at the same time, the nation refused to give him land to make that freedom meaningful. And at that same period America was giving millions of acres of land in the West and the Midwest, which meant that America was willing to undergird its white peasants from Europe with an economic floor that would make it possible to grow and develop, and refused to give that economic floor to its black peasants, so to speak.

This is why Frederick Douglas could say that emancipation for the Negro was freedom to hunger, freedom to the winds and rains of heaven, freedom without roofs to cover their heads. He went on to say that it was freedom without bread to eat, freedom without land to cultivate. It was freedom and famine at the same time. But it does not stop there.

In 1875 the nation passed a Civil Rights Bill and refused to enforce it. In 1964 the nation passed a weaker Civil Rights Bill and even to this day, that bill has not been totally enforced in all of its dimensions. The nation heralded a new day of concern for the poor, for the poverty stricken, for the disadvantaged. And brought into being a Poverty Bill and at the same time it put such little money into the program that it was hardly, and still remains hardly, a good skirmish against poverty. White politicians in suburbs talk eloquently against open housing, and in the same breath contend that they are not racist. And all of this, and all of these things tell us that America has been backlashing on the whole question of basic constitutional and God-given rights for Negroes and other disadvantaged groups for more than 300 years.

So these conditions, existence of widespread poverty, slums, and of tragic conniptions in schools and other areas of life, all of these things have brought about a great deal of despair, and a great deal of desperation. A great deal of disappointment and even bitterness in the Negro communities. And today all of our cities confront huge problems. All of our cities are potentially powder kegs as a result of the continued existence of these conditions. Many in moments of anger, many in moments of deep bitterness engage in riots.

Let me say as I've always said, and I will always continue to say, that riots are socially destructive and self-defeating. I'm still convinced that nonviolence is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom and justice. I feel that violence will only create more social problems than they will solve. That in a real sense it is impracticable for the Negro to even think of mounting a violent revolution in the United States. So I will continue to condemn riots, and continue to say to my brothers and sisters that this is not the way. And continue to affirm that there is another way.

But at the same time, it is as necessary for me to be as vigorous in condemning the conditions which cause persons to feel that they must engage in riotous activities as it is for me to condemn riots. I think America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air. Certain conditions continue to exist in our society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation's summers of riots are caused by our nation's winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.

Now let me go on to say that if we are to deal with all of the problems that I've talked about, and if we are to bring America to the point that we have one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all, there are certain things that we must do. The job ahead must be massive and positive. We must develop massive action programs all over the United States of America in order to deal with the problems that I have mentioned. Now in order to develop these massive action programs we've got to get rid of one or two false notions that continue to exist in our society. One is the notion that only time can solve the problem of racial injustice. I'm sure you've heard this idea. It is the notion almost that there is something in the very flow of time that will miraculously cure all evils. And I've heard this over and over again. There are those, and they are often sincere people, who say to Negroes and their allies In the white community, that we should slow up and just be nice and patient and continue to pray, and in a hundred or two hundred years the problem will work itself out because only time can solve the problem.

I think there is an answer to that myth. And it is that time is neutral. It can be used either constructively or destructively. And I'm absolutely convinced that the forces of ill-will in our nation, the extreme rightists in our nation, have often used time much more effectively than the forces of good will. And it may well be that we will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words of the bad people and the violent actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence and indifference of the good people who sit around and say wait on time. Somewhere we must come to see that social progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of dedicated Individuals. And without this hard work time itself becomes an ally of the primitive forces of social stagnation. And so we must help time, and we must realize that the time is always right to do right.

Now there's another notion that gets out, it's around everywhere. It's in the South, it's in the North, it's In California, and all over our nation. It's the notion that legislation can't solve the problem, it can't do anything in this area. And those who project this argument contend that you've got to change the heart and that you can't change the heart through legislation. Now I would be the first one to say that there is real need for a lot of heart changing in our country, and I believe in changing the heart. I preach about it. I believe in the need for conversion in many instances, and regeneration, to use theological terms. And I would be the first to say that if the race problem In America is to be solved, the white person must treat the Negro right, not merely because the law says it, but because it's natural, because It's right, and because the Negro is his brother. And so I realize that if we are to have a truly integrated society, men and women will have to rise to the majestic heights of being obedient to the unenforceable.

But after saying this, let me say another thing which gives the other side, and that is that although it may be true that morality cannot be legislated, behavior can be regulated. Even though it may be true that the law cannot change the heart, it can restrain the heartless. Even though it may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, it can restrain him from lynching me. And I think that's pretty important also. And so while the law may not change the hearts of men, it can and it does change the habits of men. And when you begin to change the habits of men, pretty soon the attitudes will be changed; pretty soon the hearts will be changed. And I'm convinced that we still need strong civil rights legislation. And there is a bill before Congress right now to have a national or federal Open Housing Bill. A federal law declaring discrimination in housing unconstitutional.

And also a bill to make the administration of justice real all over our country. Now nobody can doubt the need for this. Nobody can doubt the need if he thinks about the fact that since 1963 some 50 Negroes and white Civil Rights workers have been brutally murdered in the state of Mississippi alone, and not a single person has been convicted for these dastardly crimes. There have been some indictments but no one has been convicted. And so there is a need for a federal law dealing with the whole question of the administration of justice.

There is a need for fair housing laws all over our country. And it is tragic indeed that Congress last year allowed this bill to die. And when that bill died in Congress, a bit of democracy died, a bit of our commitment to justice died. If it happens again in this session of Congress, a greater degree of our commitment to democratic principles will die. And I can see no more dangerous trend in our country than the constant developing of predominantly Negro central cities ringed by white suburbs. This is only inviting social disaster. And the only way this problem will be solved is by the nation taking a strong stand, and by state governments taking a strong stand against housing segregation and against discrimination in all of these areas.

Now there's another thing that I'd like to mention as I talk about the massive action program and time will not permit me to go into specific programmatic action to any great degree. But it must be realized now that the Negro cannot solve the problems by himself. There again, there are those who always say to Negroes, "Why don't you do something for yourself? Why don't you lift yourselves by your own bootstraps?" And we hear this over and over again.

Now certainly there are many things that we must do for ourselves and that only we can do for ourselves. Certainly we must develop within a sense of dignity and self-respect that nobody else can give us. A sense of manhood, a sense of personhood, a sense of not being ashamed of our heritage, not being ashamed of our color. It was wrong and tragic of the Negro ever to allow himself to be ashamed of the fact that he was black, or ashamed of the fact that his ancestral home was Africa. And so there is a great deal that the Negro can do to develop self respect. There is a great deal that the Negro must do and can do to amass political and economic power within his own community and by using his own resources. And so we must do certain things for ourselves but this must not negate the fact, and cause the nation to overlook the fact, that the Negro cannot solve the problem himself.

A man was on the plane with me some weeks ago and he came up to me and said, "The problem, Dr. King, that I see with what you all are doing is that every time I see you and other Negroes, you're protesting and you aren't doing anything for yourselves." And he went on to tell me that he was very poor at one time, and he was able to make by doing something for himself. "Why don't you teach your people," he said, "to lift themselves by their own bootstraps?" And then he went on to say other groups faced disadvantages, the Irish, the Italian, and he went down the line.

And I said to him that it does not help the Negro, it only deepens his frustration, upon feeling insensitive people to say to him that other ethnic groups who migrated or were immigrants to this country less than a hundred years or so ago, have gotten beyond him and he came here some 344 years ago. And I went on to remind him that the Negro came to this country involuntarily in chains, while others came voluntarily. I went on to remind him that no other racial group has been a slave on American soil. I went on to remind him that the other problem we have faced over the years is that this society placed a stigma on the color of the Negro, on the color of his skin because he was black. Doors were closed to him that were not closed to other groups.

And I finally said to him that it's a nice thing to say to people that you oughta lift yourself by your own bootstraps, but it is a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he oughta lift himself by his own bootstraps. And the fact is that millions of Negroes, as a result of centuries of denial and neglect, have been left bootless. They find themselves impoverished aliens in this affluent society. And there is a great deal that the society can and must do if the Negro is to gain the economic security that he needs.

Now one of the answers it seems to me, is a guaranteed annual income, a guaranteed minimum income for all people, and for our families of our country. It seems to me that the Civil Rights movement must now begin to organize for the guaranteed annual income. Begin to organize people all over our country, and mobilize forces so that we can bring to the attention of our nation this need, and this is something which I believe will go a long long way toward dealing with the Negro's economic problem and the economic problem which many other poor people confront in our nation. Now I said I wasn't going to talk about Vietnam, but I can't make a speech without mentioning some of the problems that we face there because I think this war has diverted attention from civil rights. It has strengthened the forces of reaction in our country and has brought to the forefront the military-industrial complex that even President Eisenhower warned us against at one time. And above all, it is destroying human lives. It's destroying the lives of thousands of the young promising men of our nation. It's destroying the lives of little boys and little girls In Vietnam.

But one of the greatest things that this war is doing to us in Civil Rights is that it is allowing the Great Society to be shot down on the battlefields of Vietnam every day. And I submit this afternoon that we can end poverty in the United States. Our nation has the resources to do it. The National Gross Product of America will rise to the astounding figure of some $780 billion this year. We have the resources: The question is, whether our nation has the will, and I submit that if we can spend $35 billion a year to fight an ill-considered war in Vietnam, and $20 billion to put a man on the moon, our nation can spend billions of dollars to put God's children on their own two feet right here on earth.

Let me say another thing that's more in the realm of the spirit I guess, that is that if we are to go on in the days ahead and make true brotherhood a reality, it is necessary for us to realize more than ever before, that the destinies of the Negro and the white man are tied together. Now there are still a lot of people who don't realize this. The racists still don't realize this. But it is a fact now that Negroes and whites are tied together, and we need each other. The Negro needs the white man to save him from his fear. The white man needs the Negro to save him from his guilt. We are tied together in so many ways, our language, our music, our cultural patterns, our material prosperity, and even our food are an amalgam of black and white.

So there can be no separate black path to power and fulfillment that does not intersect white groups. There can be no separate white path to power and fulfillment short of social disaster. It does not recognize the need of sharing that power with black aspirations for freedom and justice. We must come to see now that integration is not merely a romantic or esthetic something where you merely add color to a still predominantly white power structure. Integration must be seen also in political terms where there is shared power, where black men and white men share power together to build a new and a great nation.

In a real sense, we are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. John Donne placed it years ago in graphic terms, "No man is an island entire of itself. Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main." And he goes on toward the end to say, "Any man's death diminishes me because I'm Involved in mankind. Therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee." And so we are all in the same situation: the salvation of the Negro will mean the salvation of the white man. And the destruction of life and of the ongoing progress of the Negro will be the destruction of the ongoing progress of the nation.

Now let me say finally that we have difficulties ahead but I haven't despaired. Somehow I maintain hope in spite of hope. And I've talked about the difficulties and how hard the problems will be as we tackle them. But I want to close by saying this afternoon, that I still have faith in the future. And I still believe that these problems can be solved. And so I will not join anyone who will say that we still can't develop a coalition of conscience.

I realize and understand the discontent and the agony and the disappointment and even the bitterness of those who feel that whites in America cannot be trusted. And I would be the first to say that there are all too many who are still guided by the racist ethos. And I am still convinced that there are still many white persons of good will. And I'm happy to say that I see them every day in the student generation who cherish democratic principles and justice above principle, and who will stick with the cause of justice and the cause of Civil Rights and the cause of peace throughout the days ahead. And so I refuse to despair. I think we're gonna achieve our freedom because however much America strays away from the ideals of justice, the goal of America is freedom.

Abused and scorned though we may be, our destiny is tied up in the destiny of America. Before the pilgrim fathers landed at Plymouth we were here. Before Jefferson etched across the pages of history the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence, we were here. Before the beautiful words of the Star Spangled Banner were written, we were here. For more than two centuries, our forebearers labored here without wages. They made cotton king. They built the homes of their masters in the midst of the most humiliating and oppressive conditions. And yet out of a bottomless vitality, they continued to grow and develop.

And I say that if the inexpressible cruelties of slavery couldn't stop us, the opposition that we now face, including the so-called white backlash, will surely fail. We're gonna win our freedom because both the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of the Almighty God are embodied in our echoing demands.

And so I can still sing "We Shall Overcome." We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward Justice. We shall overcome because Carlyle is right, "No lie can live forever." We shall overcome because William Cullen Bryant is right, "Truth crushed to earth will rise again." We shall overcome because James Russell Lowell is right, "Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne — Yet that scaffold sways the future." With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.

With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discourse of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to speed up the day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and live together as brothers and sisters, all over this great nation. That will be a great day, that will be a great tomorrow. In the words of the Scripture, to speak symbolically, that will be the day when the morning stars will sing together and the sons of God will shout for joy.

Copyright © Martin Luther King, Jr. 1967

[link to source | link to video]

[yourcoolfriendwithallthecandy]

Why So Jaded? Chapter 1

c

Ok, so forever ago, I wrote this story called Why So Jaded for the pairing of Synlet (Buddy “Syndrome” Pine/ Violet Parr) and when I originally wrote it- I got halfway through and lost my drive, inspiration and motivation and I gave it a really lack luster/shoddy ending just to finish it and move on to something else. Which I felt guilty over because the story had so much potential to be something amazing. But I didn’t know how to really wield it then. Well, fast forward several years (9 to be exact), and I’ve grown considerably as a writer. And guess what is getting a revamp? This. So to put this into a real setting, I’ve face casted the crew. Bottom right Aged Up Violet Par who is now 24. Middle redhead. (You will not believe what I’ve gone through to find the right face model for him) Bartholomew “Buddy” Pine, aged. 31. Blonde on the left. Phillip Sebastian. Aged 26. 

FFN AO3

Ten years after the events in the movies yet in a modern setting. 

Violet Parr as Invisigirl, has since disappeared from the public eye several years ago. She became a protégé to none other than Mirage and has had an incredibly successful career still working for The Agency but working as a spy and agent behind the scenes and foiled more Villains than most Superheroes combined, all without anyone but The Agency ever knowing that she was the one who foiled them. 

However Superhero Work has it's price- mentally, emotionally and most of all physically and now Invisigirl has to come out of the shadows and work one last job as a public handler for an Aristo-brat, genius, billionaire, playboy- Mr. Phillip Sebastian who has his own tricks and agenda and requests Invisigirl specifically. Which in turn- put's her back on the radar and put's her under an iron clad contract with not just The Agency but with Mr. Sebastian himself. And it's this one last job that will be the answer to all of Violet Parr's problems. After this, she can disappear for good and never, ever, be found again and live in peace and seclusion.  However this job has it’s perks. A handsome asset, one hell of a paycheck and the bonus is that it puts her back into Metroville with her parents and the rest of her family who live just across town, still in suburbia. It's a three year contract and she is already a year in and everything is going perfectly. 

Until- Bartholomew aka “Buddy” Pine decides to try his hand at corporate espionage. His target? Phillip Sebastian. Which complicates- everything- for one Miss. Violet Parr. What’s a girl to do?

Why So Jaded?

Chapter 1

Buddy Pine tried to take a calming breath as he continued to work the safe, inside was gold and jewels and other precious things he could care less about. But in the far corner, in an unassuming box would be the nanochip to end all nanochips. It would give IRize all the edge it would ever need on the market. But the more he fought with this stupid safe combination biometric lock, the more frustrated he felt. The biometrics? Easy to fake and duplicate- it was basically a cake walk for him but getting the right three numbers on the combination? Ironically, almost impossible it seemed. It shouldn't be this difficult. But it was. He had built an empire in his relatively short lifetime of just 31 years on this earth and he was on his way to building a second that would dwarf the first. But a damn combination safe lock? It was practically laughing in his face and taunting his defeat at him and he was ready to bash it with his head or just laser the damn thing open and he was so focused on opening it, he didn't notice how the hairs on his arms and neck suddenly rose up to stand on end but the chill down his spine finally pulled him out of his hyper focus which gave him pause.

"I figured I would find you here," Invisigirl accused only a second later as she dropped her invisibility as she leaned her back against the wall next to the safe and casually folded her arms in front of her, watching him closely while putting on an air of amused disinterest as Buddy nearly jumped out of his skin and had a heart attack before he took a moment to realize what was happening and who exactly had snuck up on him before he recognized his new companion.

"You shouldn't sneak up on people like that Invisigirl ," Buddy chastised as he stopped for a moment, seeing if she was going to stop him or arrest him or something. Meanwhile Invisigirl was impressed he seemed to know who she was. Most assumed she was another super. But he didn’t. He seemed to know exactly who she was. Interesting. 

In a decade or so she had gone from tween to fully realized Super but she wasn't always walking in her parent's footsteps. In fact very few people even knew where she really stood on the Superhero/Villain or even antihero line mostly because she never did any press or appearances. She had no merch, no public presence and other than foiling a few public villains, she liked to keep her work all behind the scenes and very secretive, if not quite clandestine. She was more of a secret agent and a spy than a superhero and in reality she had done countless jobs without the villains even realizing she was ever involved at all and the few who did realize who had foiled them, rarely got to live long enough to tell anyone who had taken them down, but word had still come out, whispered among closest of allies on both sides. Enough to build a dangerous and lethal reputation among Supers and Villains and even antiheroes alike. It was like she was a ghost most of the time.

Besides, she wasn't even supposed to be here, she was supposed to be half a world away with him, her employer and Buddy’s real competition and target, but who was sadly, one of many competitors. Only about a year ago, there was a paparazzi picture that popped up of her as an assistant of her current employer and it was the first time she had shown up on any radar in the last several years. And it had been an old colleague that had even brought it to Buddy's attention and his jaw had dropped when he realized who she was and ever since Buddy had noticed she got closer and closer to her boss to the point it was rumored that she was his right hand woman if not one woman security detail even though her employer was still guarded by a full security team. A rumor also sprang up that she was also his steady girlfriend because she was his shadow and he never went anywhere without her and coincidentally, it was also the same man who owned the safe he was trying to crack and who had become Buddy’s number 1 rival after his fall from grace a decade earlier. Buddy would have to fire his trackers, they were completely useless now.

"Actually you technically sneaked up on me, I've been here the whole time, and that thing you do with your tongue when you're really concentrating is kinda cute," Invisigirl countered in dry sarcasm with an air of teasing as she examined her gloves, looking for imperfections even though she had carefully crafted her look so that even in the smallest details, she was immaculate. Even her suit had changed. Instead of the traditional red and black of her family, she was in holographic black with sheens and shimmers of the colors of the rainbow with ultraviolet accents and even his eyes could see the brilliant nano armor built into the ethereal fabric that looked remarkably like snake scales. It had been Edna's greatest creation yet and Violet wore it like a second skin. Her long black hair was straightened and even her hair had a super glossy silky sheen as it laid over her shoulder since she had swept it to lay there. She had been growing it out so that it would hit the small of her back and top of her butt when she wore it down, accentuating her gorgeous hourglass figure. While her mother had been bottom heavy and her father had been top heavy. She was perfectly balanced between the two and if anything, ideally and beautifully balanced and proportional, if not dangerously curvy herself and was now a stunning beauty in and out of her suit apparently. Her thick long eyelashes delicately fluttered as she blinked and the wicked curve to her grin was as disarming as her big gorgeous doe eyes in that deep but brilliant shade of violet- that Buddy felt he could get lost in for millennia. But her eyes had many years ago- lost their innocence but gained a sense of worldliness, wisdom and discernment as she looked from her glove back over to his face with a serene if not expectant look on her coquettish features. If Buddy didn't know of her prior, he would think she was the real thief in this situation, if not his competition to get into the safe. And her relaxed posture was clearly non threatening even though he could discern everything about her was in fact, a threat .

But Buddy took her banter and her posture as a sign that she wasn't going to stop him so he continued working the dial, trying to crack the safe and they were silent for a moment as she made no motion that would suggest she was leaving anytime soon as she appeared to settle in and the only sounds to be heard was their breathing. Invisigirl's was calm and even, while Buddy's betrayed just how worked up he was over this combination part of the lock.

"You know, I never thought you would ever be the kind of guy who would do his own dirty work, I thought with this kind of thing you usually used a variety of accomplices, if not some little device or machine, what happened? Your safe cracker device is broken? " Invisigirl instigated as she gave his work a dismissive glance before her eyes traveled up his hands to his arms to the rest of him. Gone was his old suit and eccentric hair style. He was simply wearing black tactical gear and his hair was much shorter, slicked back and still handsome as her eyes took notes of his extensive scarring that even she could see he had been trying to fix with lots plastic surgery so he looked more or less like himself as she refolded her arms loosely under her chest and instead appreciated the painting on the adjacent wall, the glass covering the priceless art giving her the perspective she wanted so that she could look like she was appreciating the art instead of actively watching him as she waited for him to figure out that safe combination as she mentally wondered if she should just open the safe herself to save him this excruciating ordeal because the guy was clearly getting even more flustered now that he had an audience which she thought was telling.

"As a matter of fact, it is. But if you want a job done right, you do it yourself." Buddy managed to answer as he tried to focus on the task at hand as he noticed that answer gave her wicked grin a deeper curve.

"It sounds like you haven't tried to crack a safe in your life, are you even trying to crack it or are you trying to break the locking mechanism by zeroing in on all of those false contact points or will you keep twisting that thing until your fingers fall off?" Invisigirl further instigated as her boredom began to tax her patience. He was supposed to still be a genius. He should have had it by now. She knew she was being distracting but this was bordering on ludicrousy.   

"I don't suppose you know the combination?" Buddy drawled, getting annoyed and frustrated with himself that he was getting so flustered by her distracting and alluring presence, let alone the damn lock.

"Of course I do, the combination is your birthday, the creator is a big fan of yours, perhaps one of your biggest, but I'm sure if you simply asked him for the nanochip, he would have given it to you rather than you going through all this trouble of stealing it from him," Invisigirl answered.

"I didn't know your boyfriend was the sharing type," Buddy quipped as he turned the dial with now deft fingers, opening it now with ease. Invisigirl snorted a laugh and shook her head.

"Well at least my cover is intact," she alluded as she pushed off the wall and stretched a bit- bringing her arm over her head and stretching her shoulders and neck. "By the way it's the box on the left, not the right," She added as she began to walk away, flipping her hair off of her shoulder to her back as a cascade of soft silky black hair began to hang down her back as she gave him one last look over her shoulder to make sure he actually got the nanochip and nothing else.

"Wait a minute, you're just going to let me get away with this?" He asked incredulously.

"Yeah, it's not my fault you broke in on my vacation when I'm supposed to be in.. Barcelona? Or is it Madrid? Is that where your goons think I am? By the way, you need to get new ones, they don't blend in at all and their loyalty is flimsy at best, they report their tabs that they keep on you to him before they ever report thier tabs on him to you because his pockets are deeper than yours and who doesn't like to collect at least two paychecks for the same work?" Invisigirl divulged as she continued to lazily saunter away, her hips swaying in a near hypnotizing rhythm that had almost completely distracted Buddy from the safe altogether.

Buddy narrowed his eyes at the contents of the safe, it would be something he would deal with later. "Wait, so he's not your boyfriend?" Buddy inquired as he stowed the nanochip safely away and locked the safe up again before catching up to her and walking beside her for a bit.

Invisigirl gave him a side glance. "Not even close, he has a thing for the thin, ballerina- runway model types, uses them faster than Kleenex," Invisigirl answered flippantly with a waive of her delicate and slender fingers before turning a corner and opening a door to an office and walking over to the window, opening it and getting ready to jump out.

"You're jumping?" Buddy inquired knowing that his exit route was eerily similar.

"Again. Not even close," Invisigirl practically laughed as she tapped on the device in her ear, a sliding door to a small hovercraft opened right in front of them as the outline of it began to warp the view around it as it moved closer to her. "You didn't think I'm the only thing capable of disappearing did you? I would offer you a ride but, something tells me you already have one, see you around Syndrome," Invisigirl bid him with a mock salute as she gracefully hopped from the window sill to the waiting door and into the aircraft.

"Hey, haven't you heard? Syndrome died, like a decade ago, he got pulled into a jet turbine. Horrible painful death. He ain't coming back from the dead." He called after her which made her pause and turn to look at him curiously.

"Did he? Well in that case. Good riddance to him then, the world's a much better place without him." She called back before the door closed and vanished completely again. The only evidence that it was gone was a stiffer than normal breeze. Buddy could just barely hear it fly away and felt his stomach collect a few butterflies as a smile bloomed on his face. A jaded Invisigirl was a sexy Invisigirl and she knew it. Color him intrigued, if not quite impressed as he wondered if he was one of the first to ever get to see her in action and live to tell about it.

[snowdice]

Sometimes Labels Fail (Bonus Features)

Want to know what I’m blathering on about? Click below!

AO3 Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

Title in my Word Document: The Correct Label is Baby. He’s Baby. (Yes, I label my WIP’s with memes when at all possible. No, I am not taking constructive criticism)

Technical Writing Facts:

This fic appears in three different places in my documents. First it started in my Ideas word document, then it transferred over to a file called TSSS superhero (which has now become where I store things in this universe until they become their own stories or one-shots. Currently I have 13,746 unpublished words in this folder… most of it is piecemeal, but I digress.). Then I decided to rewrite parts of it and put it in the word document mentioned above.

I wrote most of the story during finals week. The last chapter was written while I proctored my student’s exams. Logan’s crack about being asked questions about his class by students at coffee shops was me venting over something that had happened recently. Please, do not come up to me with your laptop open in a public place. I just wanted a cup of tea.

Patton did not originally have a large role in this fic. Then I wrote the first paragraph and thought it was funny to have Logan being absolutely serious as he listed out the way he segmented his life and just input random not as serous things, and Patton convincing him to put jam in cookies came up and then the binder part came in and suddenly it wasn’t a joke and they’d been married for decades.

In part 2, Logan comforts Patton by hugging him, rubbing his back, and laying his cheek on top of his head. In part 3, you see Patton comforting Virgil in the exact same way. This is intentional as Logan observed this behavior from Patton over the years and emulates it.

I wrote the whole story before giving Logan and Virgil superhero names. Instead I just wrote (Logan) and (Virgil) every time so I could “control f” their names with parenthesis when I decided on something.

I couldn’t stop calling Virgil Shadow Crawler and I don’t know why. I kept having to go back and find and replace in my word document for it.

I immediately regretted calling Logan Bluebird. It was fine for his chapter and then I couldn’t stop laughing every time Virgil seriously called him that in his head.

Character Facts:

All of the sides + Emile and Remy exist and are sympathetic in this AU.

Logan:

Logan has a doctorate degree in math and physics. He double majored in both and went straight for a PhD in math after his undergrad. He picked the physics one up later. He also went and got a bachelor’s degree in biology. (No this wasn’t so he could understand Patton’s research papers better. That would be an irrational reason to get a college degree.)

Logan became a superhero out of academic spite because of course he did.

When Logan first became a hero, it was shortly after a scandal that happened where a major superhero’s identity was exposed, and it turned out it was the spouse of an important political figure. It was a very public and messy divorce. Logan swore to himself he’d never get into a relationship with someone who didn’t already know he was a superhero, citing it was a bad foundation for relationships. The catch 22 was that he refused to tell anyone his secret identity. Patton ended up figuring it out on his own. Logan had not accounted for this.

In fact, Logan at the end of this story, had never told anyone his secret identity. At the end of this story only three people knew: Patton, Virgil, and Remy. No one ever told Remy and they never discussed it with him. He just kinda figured it out and didn’t say anything. Logan knows he figured it out and also hasn’t said anything. Remy is a bit salty about this and likes to send subtle jabs at Logan about it. Both Patton and Logan know he knows. He’s known almost as long as Patton. It’s almost an inside joke between them at this point.

Virgil:

Virgil doesn’t know anything about his birth-parents other than his birth mother died in childbirth.

Virgil once stole something that was not money or food and it was completely accidental. He broke into a museum just to look as a 14th birthday present for himself. He got caught by a guard and panicked. For some reason, his panicked brain told him since he was a villain, he had to make it look like there was a villainous reason for him to be there… so he stole a statue. Yeah, he doesn’t understand it either. Yes, he ended up getting it back to them. What was he supposed to do with a statue?

Virgil plays the clarinet and is actually pretty good. He wasn’t able to get into any of the bands you have to audition for (he’s just in the general non-audition band at school) and was never able to really practice. Plus, his clarinet is one of those meh loaners from the school.

Virgil ends up majoring in biology with a minor in chemistry and attends the same college Logan teaches at.

I haven’t quite decided what Virgil’s going to do for his career when he grows up, but I’m leaning toward something in the medical field, though not a surgeon like Patton. Maybe a pediatrician.

Patton:

Patton was the one originally with the name Sanders. Logan took his name when they married.

Patton’s family life wasn’t… great in his youth. He had some unhealthy perceptions of relationships and his place in relationships he had to work through.

The café Virgil and Logan went to in the last chapter is where Patton and Logan first met! Patton almost poured an entire cup of coffee on him because he was exhausted after a shift at the hospital. He didn’t even notice that Logan used his powers to prevent an accident. Logan wasn’t sure if he was acting like he didn’t noticed and was plotting something. He decided to keep an eye on him. (Spoiler alert: he did keep a very good eye on him.

Patton saved the life of the current mayor. She had been the chief of police about a decade before this story. She was majorly injured in the line of duty to the point where basically she was a lost cause. Patton, though, saw her two elementary aged sons and went absolutely not. With the permission of her wife, he took her in for multiple surgeries (many experimental) and by pure force of will stitched her back together. She woke up half a year later. Will she ever walk again? No. Did she get to adamantly insist on carrying boxes on her lap while riding a wheelchair to help her sons move into their college dorm this past fall? Yes.

Because of the above, Patton gets invited to many high-profile events. Patton does not like going to these things alone. Which isn’t a problem until Bluebird is on the guest list.

Remy:

Remy has been working with Patton for basically forever. He’d been working for less than a year before he got swept up for an emergency surgery because he was the closest one around and it was a very high-profile case that needed to be dealt with right that second. That’s when he first met Patton and due to certain events, everyone in that room ended up with a certain tie to each other. He’s basically been Patton’s nurse ever since even when they just worked together in the ER. Everyone knew Remy was Patton’s nurse even though he wasn’t officially. When Patton stopped being an ER surgeon and became more of a specialist, Remy followed him right out the door and now works with him and two other doctors.

Roman:

Roman didn’t appear in this story, but he was mentioned and he’s around. He started going out in a prince costume when he was 17. (He is 3 years older than Virgil). He gets away with it mostly because everyone “knows” Roman’s too dramatic and likes to boast. The boy couldn’t keep a secret like that to save his life. So, what if that guy has superstrength like him? Look he’s sitting right there. Wait that’s Remus? …Nah, still couldn’t be him.

Remus:

Remus is Roman’s twin and has the same powers as him. He is not active during this story, but he will end up as a “villain.” He actually ends up working with a government agency to basically go undercover as a supervillain and helps bring down villains. He’s really good at it. His mothers know, but honestly, they kind of expected something like this. They’re just glad their other son is just a normal actor who has no interest in risking his life…

Deceit:

Deceit was actually mentioned (though not by name) in the first chapter. He is a vigilante and has been since before Logan was on the scene. Logan hates him. He probably would have gotten over being shot that one time, but then he made the mistake of needing medical care and kidnapping a doctor… He didn’t harm Patton at all, and Logan found him in like two hours, but none of that mattered. Logan was super, super pissed. The funny thing is, Deceit was not and still is not aware of Patton’s personal connection to Bluebird. He isn’t quite sure why Bluebird treats him with more disdain than he does most villains, but just figures he’s an asshole.

Emile:

Emile is a pretty well-known psychiatrist. He offered his services free of charge for people affected by the school shooting. He even extended the invitation to Bluebird, letting him wear the mask the whole time. Logan took him up on it because honestly, it was a traumatic situation and he figured he should deal with it now rather than later. Emile is currently dating Remy. He was not 100% sure why the superhero Bluebird seemed to be giving him dating advice at a party, but it worked out. (No, Remy is not aware Logan set him up.)

Feel free to keep sending asks about this story going forward. I love them and I have a lot more about this universe in my head that I didn’t put here either unintentionally or intentionally.

Click here for asks already answered in chronological order.

[smokeybrandreviews]

Smokey brand Movie Reviews: Run it Back

I’ve been trying to watch Tenet for months. 2020 has f*cked up me entire movie viewing experience, even though it never had to get this bad. I live in the US and my government is sh*t so we’ve had to deal with this bullsh*t for a full year. I’ve sat back and watched whole ass countries reopen while we are going into another nation wide lock down because idiots refuse to sacrifice even a little bit for us to get out of this goddamn hole but, i digress. This isn’t a rant about the political situation in my sh*thole country, it’s a review of Tenet. Long story short, i finally have an opportunity to check this thing out. I was looking mad forward to the theater experience with this one because Nolan is a master at that but, instead, I'll have to settle for m home theater experience.

The Good

Christopher Nolan is back at it again, giving us spectacle and substance at the same damn time. I love this dude’s work. It’s always gorgeous and cerebral and engaging. I mean, he elevated Batman to high art, are you kidding me? Tenet is no different. This film is one of his best. He takes another high concept, grounds it for laymen, and does spectacular sh*t with it. Bro, give this man a Bond film already because that’s what this is, only laced with tat same energy he instilled within Inception and The Prestige.

The editing in this movie must have been a herculean task to accomplish but accomplish it they did. It’s devastatingly phenomenal with all of the reversed shots and slighted perspectives you see on screen. I am in awe of the precision it took to make this movie happen. Obviously, it is a real visual feast but the machinations behind the scenes to make everything so goddamn seamless are disgustingly, unabashedly, brilliant. If Nolan doesn’t get an Oscar nod for this sh*t, there’s no justice in the world. It really is a technical marvel.

I touched on this a little before but this movie is f*cking gorgeous. The set pieces are breathtaking, the aesthetic is lovely, and the shot composition is pristine. Some of this cinematographer can legit be framed and hung in a museum of fine art.

And to keep the gushing going, this sound design is f*cking chef kiss level. I said Nolan is a master at his craft and that come through, one hundred percent, with the mixing in this movie. It’s more than just the soundtrack or score, but literally everything. In order for this film to work, he had to meticulously go through and navigate every noise in this film. I don’t understand how Nolan can be so precise with his vision but i am SO glad that he is.

This is the most action i have ever seen in a Nolan film and it’s legitimately some of the best. Sh*t is profound, visceral, and brutal. It borders on Daniel Craig James Bond barbarous and i loved it all. It’s such a juxtaposition from the suave, smooth, aesthetic of the film. I mean, Protagonist literally cheese grates the side of a dude’s face and walks away like it’s nothing I’ve never seen sh*t so goddamn vicious.

I just really needed to circle back around to this but these set pieces are f*cking extravagant as a motherf*cker. There is one in this flick that tops the plane heist in The Dark Knight Returns. It’s whole ass miraculous to see and i lament i couldn’t see it how it was designed to be properly seen. Nolan’s demand for practical effects always delivers brilliant spectacle.

I love this plot. I love the mechanics and the theories at play here. I’m a theoretical physics geek so i live for these existential shenanigans. It’s one of the reasons Inception is one of my favorite films and it’s definitely the reason this one is climbing that list as i watch it in real time. The plot, itself, is textbook spy heist stuff; Fate of the world, mad scientist villainy, ticking clock, mcguffin, etc. However, the theories therein uplift the material and make that mundane plot, so much more.

Okay. So, with the praise of the technical brilliance of this film out of the way, i can finally get into the performances and the cast. Of course Nolan mainstay, Sir Michael Caine, makes another memorable cameo as Sir Michael Crosby. Another interesting addition was Himesh Patel of Eastenders fame. He plays Mahir, a fixer; Another staple of these types of Nolan films. Other notable cast members include Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Clemence Posey, Dimple Kapadia, and Yuri Kolokolnikov. Even Fiona Dourif has a role to play in this flick. Chucky’s daughter is in a Nolan film and i am absolutely shook about it! Everyone delivers their performances with gusto, even when there isn’t much of a character on the page to realize. Now to get into the standouts, for better or worse.

John David Washington is f*cking exceptional in this flick, man. It’s a little jarring hearing him speak sometimes, i keep hearing his pops, but dude delivers like his dad onscreen, too. This is a star-turning vehicle for Washington and he deserves all of the shine. his Protagonist is amazing to see onscreen and can give ever cinematic spy, from Bourne to Bond, a proper run for their money. Washington’s swagger and poise make this character one of the best in Nolan’s filmography. JDW is fast building one helluva body of work. Monsters and Men, Ballers, and BlacKkKlansman, and now this? It’s only a matter of time before JDW is the acronym on top of all the best scripts, all the awards. Dude is primed to blow the f*ck up and Tenet is a massive opening salvo of a career, i suspect, which will be as grand as his father’s body of work.

Robert Pattinson continues to prove he is one of the best of his generation, however ridiculous it is to actually work with him. his Handler character, Neil, kind of steals all of the scenes. Dude is witty, calculating, and mad aloof but never a bore. Pattinson delivers this performance with a smarm that feels slathered on in heaps but is just too decadent to ignore. He reminds me a lot of Hardy’s Eames from Inception and that’s high praise. Eames was my favorite character in that flick. It’s been a banner year for old Patts. The Batman his limping along, Tenet is a masterpiece, The Lighthouse was inspired, and he was disgustingly horrid in The Devil All the Time. Dare i say, ol’ BatPats becoming one of my favorites working today.

God, Elizabeth Debicki is great in this role but there simple isn’t enough to properly sustain her talents. Her Kat Barton is so goddamn thin, it’s painful because i know Debicki is great at her job. She’s shown her brilliance countless times, almost always uplifting her roles, even if the content is abject sh*t. The Cloverfield Paradox is a great example of that. This isn’t her fault. Nolan is terrible at writing women but, just once, if he could actually create a female lead with a bit off agency, i wished it would have been for this film. Debicki deserves so much better but, even with this paper thin caricature she’s been giving, she uplifts the material and works magic with the scraps.

The Bad

Kenneth Branagh as the antagonist, Andrei Sator, is a little cartoonish for the tone of this film. Branagh always kind of overacts like this in most of his appearances so you have to take it with a grain of salt but, in order to really come across as sinister like they want you to believe this dude is, someone else should have played this role. He does an admirable job but the character was just realize pitch. I can see Javier Bardem or Mads Mikkelsen killing totally this sh*t

Nolan continues to shortchange his female characters. He is the worst at writing chicks, man, i swear. It’s a shame, really, because everything else around them is always so interesting. It’s one of dude’s few flaws as a storyteller and it’s my biggest gripe with his craft. The machinations of Tenet are so intriguing but poor Elizabeth Debicki doesn’t even get to really play in that world. She definitely works with what she has but, ultimately, her character is mad flaccid and it’s a crying shame.

This isn’t a knock on the film at all but the fact i had to watch it on a regular ass television, however large and 4K that is, just ain’t the same. Nolan films are meant to be seen on the biggest screen possible, at least at first. I hope to god this thing gets a re-release when this COVID sh*t blows over.

The Verdict

I loved Tenet. Loved it. I loved the concept going in but actually seeing it, finally experiencing it, and i am hooked. It’s a stunning f*cking film and Nolan pulled out all of the stops. His writing, direction, and overall vision to put this jigsaw of  movie together is absolutely profound. Even with all of this on his plate, he Nolan was able to articulate this to one of his best casts and two of his strongest leads. John David Washington and Robert Pattinson come through and kill this sh*t. This movie would not work without these two cats. Seriously, JDW was to be a star after this, and he still might be, even if this thing didn’t get the theatrical release it absolutely needs and deserves. BatPats did his thing and killed another performance, further proving he’s a real actor and not some flash-in-the-pan, sparkling, vampire. Even the supporting cast comes through and delivers outstanding performances. Nolan uses every bit of this two and a half hour run time to deliver a heart-pounding spectacle of espionage and intrigue, rivaling the very best modern Bond films. The only issue i have with this thing is the usual Nolan issue; Bad female characters. Dude can’t write a woman to save his goddamn life. Also, the main antagonist is a bit weak. He's a little too Goldmember when he probably should have been more Goldfinger. Tenet is the best goddamn film I've seen all year and i wish, more than anything, i could have seen this thing in a proper theater It would have been quite the experience.

[kateyandthecloset]

Sect Bound . Aaron Hotchner [1.5]

Request . Prompts . Masterlist . Sect Bound

A charismatic leader was all it took to twist her trauma to faith; A charismatic leader was all it took to send her running, washing his blood from her hands.

Jennifer Jareau was the first person to cross the bullpen that morning. At an attempt to tackle the ever-growing pile of paperwork, before they were called away to another case, she had traded the family breakfast for a coffee and muffin to go. Though, that didn't mean she had missed vital time with her boys. After the sudden appearance of his old friend, Aaron had sent each member home early, ordering them to spend the time wisely. Each agent knew that he wasn't referring to paperwork, but to spending the time with whatever family and friends when they could given their often-hectic work patterns. Jennifer has done just that; by the end of the night, she was sure her boys must be bored of her.

She had barely touched her stack when Penelope pushed open the door to her office, taking the seat opposite her own and tapping her nails on the desk. Jennifer knew the woman well enough to tell that she had a secret she wanted to share; she also knew that the analyst was fighting with her conscience. Deciding to continue with her paperwork, Jennifer didn't make eye contact with Penelope.

The eccentric blonde's fingers stopped tapping after a while, an auditable exhale filling the office as she gave into her desire to gossip with her friend. Pushing her glasses back up her nose, she muttered, "I did a thing."

"What thing?" Jennifer asked, not looking up from the paperwork. While she, under any other circumstance, would have given her friend her undying attention, she had sacrificed her family breakfast to work at on the pile of files so she would be dammed if she didn't make a mark.

Penelope leaned forwards, tapping her fingers once more, "I may have gone back over everything I knew about Annabel Bradey."

In that moment, Jennifer's attention snapped, the paperwork no longer being her priority. The woman before her had promised the team that she wouldn't go back into their boss' personal life, each of them agreeing it was overstepping the boundaries that had been in place since they had all begun to work together. From a simple glance at Penelope's face it was clear that she felt guilty, but that didn't stop Jennifer's face from forming that of a disappointed mother.

"I know, I know, you don't have to give me that look," rambled the woman who was now fidgeting in her seat. "But I have confirmed that that is her, different hair colour but that is Annabel Bradey."

"A decade's a long time to be missing and remain alive." Jennifer announced running her fingers through her hair as she pushed her file to the side. "Was there any more information about the disappearance?"

Penelope shook her head, all that she had found had been the same as every other time she had looked. It was Aaron who had last seen her before his and Haley's wedding, and then nothing for ten years. Living off the grid was almost impossible, but somehow this woman had. That caused Penelope's mind to travel to the worst picture she had seen, most of the victims they saw were kept in horrendous conditions for small lengths of time before they were rescued or killed, but Annabel had been gone for a decade. To have been a captive prisoner for that long, she wondered how she was holding her relative sanity.

Looking at Jennifer, the bubbly woman added, "The missing person's report is still active too, Hotch hadn't changed the status."

"Maybe he's protecting her, she gave a fake name when she checked in yesterday. She had to be hiding from someone." Jennifer announced, her voice trailing off as she caught sight of her boss out the window; he was side by side with the woman at the centre of the current conversation. From where she was sat, Jennifer could tell that the woman was visibly exhausted and on edge. She was hugging her torso protectively, her eyes flickering through the open space as if she were waiting for someone to approach her maliciously.

"What are you looking-" Penelope's voice trailed off as she joined Jennifer's gaze. However, it wasn't the behaviour that she had noticed, but the way that the t-shirt she was wearing had been tied in a knot to stop if from handing too noticeably. From a quick glance, she knew the shirt must have been Aaron's. "That poor girl must have come with nothing."

"I wish I could do something to help," Jennifer stated, shaking her head at how little she was able to offer in support. "You should probably go back to work."

"I'll meet you for lunch," Penelope announced, not questioning in her tone. It had been the same since they had begun working together at the bureau, not once shifting while they were both in the same country. Yet, still, Jennifer nodded in response before returning to the paperwork.

Having lost track of time as she worked through the endless files, signing the necessary reports and sending her apologies to the offices that they couldn't help, Jennifer began to feel the all too familiar cramping in her legs. So, after determining that there was a conversation taking place in the bullpen, the Liaison locked her computer before exiting her office, with every intention to join the socialising members of the team. However, as she closed her office door, she noticed her boss crossing his office from the desk removing his jacket as he moved. When she saw him return to his seat, she assumed that the woman he had brought with him that morning had fallen asleep.

While they had all promised to grant Aaron his privacy, Jennifer knew that, if she didn't offer her help, she would never forgive herself. So, she changed her destination, placing a light knock on the door, hearing the man stand from his desk and cross the room she took the cue to gently push the door open.

"Is there a case JJ?" He asked, his voice low due to his fear of waking the woman, who had finally allowed herself to drift to sleep.

The blonde woman shook her head, "I wanted to let you know that, if you need it, I can help in any way you need. I can bring some clothes if you want."

"I would really appreciate that." He replied, gesturing for Jennifer to follow him into the office. "She only had what she came here in."

The employee nodded in understanding, noticing how he wouldn't go more than a few seconds without glancing back at the woman. Had she have been unaware of the situation; Jennifer would have come to the conclusion that her boss had become fixated and obsessed with the woman. However, from experience, she knew that Aaron was fiercely protective of those he cared deeply for. Annabel was clearly one of those people, he had held onto the hope that he would find her for the last decade which would have been nearing impossible had he have not felt strongly about the women.

"Hotch, you can't bring her here every day, what happens when we get called to a case?" Jennifer asked breaking the silence, her voice a whisper as to not risk waking the woman sleeping on the couch. She had seen how tired she had looked when she walked in and assumed that this was the first time she had let herself sleep, Jennifer wasn't about to ruin the rest of any other person. "She can't come with us."

"I can't leave her in the apartment alone, JJ, she's terrified." Aaron sighed, his eyes flicking to Annabel before returning to his blonde co-worker. "She didn't sleep last night; I woke up to her muttering apologies to a photo. When I sat beside her, not even asking her anything, she rushed away to the bathroom."

Jennifer let out a soft sigh, shaking her head lightly, "Do you have any idea what she's running from?"

"From what she said, she was targeted by a group who enticed her in and then kept her captive." Aaron explained, leaning against his desk. "I don't know how to handle this situation, JJ, I can't leave her unprotected."

Leaning next to her boss, Jennifer asked, "Have you thought about contacting the Marshals? If she's in danger they can take her into protective custody."

"She won't share enough," He shook his head, knowing that had the woman told him anything more then he could have helped her. The little information she had given had been enough for him to become aware of the danger she was in but had not been enough for him to be able to get aid from other agencies. That hadn't been an accident on her end.

"Are you sure she didn't tell you anything that indicated where she's been?" Jennifer asked, knowing that even careful people slipped up. Seeing him shake his head, she added, "No locations, cities or names?"

"She gave me a name." Aaron declared, having forgot about the start of their conversation the night before. "She said it wasn't his legal name, but Garcia could track any evidence of him under that persona."

Jennifer nodded her head, passing him a scrap of paper to write the name on. After he had written the name, the Liaison took it from his hand letting hers linger on his for a second. He nodded his head, silently thanking her for the support before returning to the file that was on his desk.

She left the room, glancing at the name she had been given. Even from a quick glance, she knew that the likelihood of the name being a given name was slight. The symbolism of both names was too much of a coincidence, especially from the other information that Aaron had given her. Gabriel Martyr was likely a charismatic leader, and Annabel Bradey was, in Jennifer's estimate, one of his many followers.

Taglist: @fandoms-unite14 (Message to be added.)

[friend-o-dorothy]

The Brittany Spears guardianship argument comes up on my dash a lot and I have a lot of feelings because of what I do for a living. Sometimes I write letters to the court in support of a guardianship decision, but for those not familiar with the language we use, I refer to something called “least restrictive measures.”

Guardianship is the most restrictive measure you can take. You’re essentially saying the person is incapable of caring for themselves, their money, and their health and will either never be able to do so, or that there is no evidence they’ll be able to do so. This essentially leaves ALL major decisions in the hands of the guardian. If someone wants to move, to date, to get married, to have children, to buy a new tv, their guardian must approve first. No official documents can be signed by the person in question, and their guardian has to do that for them. My client (we’ll call him G) is an example where this is appropriate. He would spend all his money on snacks and would be unable to pay rent or bills without support. He does not have the understanding of money to ensure his accounts don’t go over $2,000, which would kick him off Disability after a tax refund, for instance. If he went to the doctor’s office, he would not comprehend what was being said and may agree to actions or decisions that would be harmful to him. He needs his mother, an excellent guardian, to advocate for him and protect him.

The next least restrictive (depending on your state) is partial or temporary guardianship. This may mean someone who is recovering from a TBI or a mental health crisis who needs support for now but will ultimately recover at which time all rights are returned back to them. A student of mine, A, opted for this decision with her family after she obtained a TBI in a car accident. She would regain her memory and motor function with time, but for a period she was unable to communicate effectively and could not advocate for herself as a result.

Then you can look at power of attourney. POA is a good option for someone who is fairly high functioning but struggles with big medical or financial decisions. You can get POA over money and/or health decisions. This has been a great solution for students who are 18 or 19 with a disability. They don’t know how to manage their money yet, but are learning, or may not understand all of their medical needs, but are learning. It’s very easy to lift POA when someone is more ready. This is common with aging parents but also people with disabilities. A client of mine, R, opted for financial POA because while he was very capable in a lot of areas, he still struggled with money and wanted his mom’s help.

The least restrictive measure is something called supported decision making. This is something we all largely do to some extent. If I wanted a new TV I may ask a friend who just bought one what their experience was like. They may give me advice, but ultimately the final decision rests with me. This is what we always advocate for first if at all possible. This gives the client agency and autonomy and there are no legal measures taken. This means the client chooses experts to consult regarding money, health, employment, and personal care and will consult those people before making any big decisions, but that at the end of the day, even if the choice may have negative consequences, it’s their RIGHT to make the choice. This can be frustrating as a caretaker, because sometimes clients make decisions that are harmful to themselves or others and must face the full consequences of those actions. However, if we really believe in supporting the independence of the people we work with, then we need to BELIEVE in their right to make mistakes. Who among us hasn’t made a mistake?! Mistakes are a vital part of growing up. It’s how we learn and improve and develop into who we are going to be. To take that away from someone you better have a damned good reason.

There are times when each of these is the correct choice for that individual. I don’t know Brittany Spears personally. I haven’t looked at her case file, I don’t know her diagnoses. However, it does appear that despite having a very public life she has been largely scandal free, living a quiet and normal life, and raising her kids successfully for nearly a decade.

One parent I know has attempted to get guardianship of each of her kids. She managed with one, and settled for POA on another. In neither case was it appropriate or necessary and she only won because she is very smart and hired very smart lawyers. The system can fail in this way. A good lawyer can erase the autonomy you have a right to. And as an 18 year old, you many not have the resources or know-how to fight the decision.

So if you really believe in the rights of people with disabilities you’ll follow the pathway from least restrictive to most, only ruling out least restrictive measures if absolutely necessary. And unfortunately it doesn’t seem like that happened in her case. It gives me big Female Hysteria Institution vibes. We have moved away from the physical institutions, but the attitude that says “I get to make decisions FOR you because I don’t LIKE your decisions” is very much prevalent and real. And it’s unacceptable.

[meganshinsou-tm]

Shared Walls. (m)

↳ chapter two: it started with a interview

❧ genre: pro-hero shouto, coworkers to lovers, happy ending

❧ chapter warnings: none

[multi-chap masterlist] [previous chapter - next chapter]

"Jesus this place is massive!"

Looking up at the tall dark building made you feel so puny. On the train you did your research on Endeavor, the hero who owned and ran this agency. The guy was currently the #1 hero, he was big and intimidating, nothing like the voice you heard on the phone, but you weren't too engrossed in why that was and hurried into the building. 

You located the elevator and got on to ride to the very top floor. On your way different heroes got on and off. They were all extremely friendly, some overly friendly as they tried to flirt almost like you were the first woman they had seen in decades. It was flattering but you were on a mission to get a job first, not fall in love.

The elevator bell rang as it came to your floor and your weaved through all the heroes to get out. All of them bidding farewell and that they hoped to see you again. You flashed them a friendly smile in return and waved.

Walking into the agency you looked around curiously. It was big and warm, very welcoming. A lone front desk came into view where a dark haired male sat and looked up at you with a smile.

"Hello there, how can I help you?"

Smiling back you stated your reason for being there along with your name, making the man smile even bigger.

"So they are finally taking my advice and hiring on another person - thank god! My name is Haru, if you get the job we'll be working together, nice to meet you."

He held out a hand and you took it, giving him a friendly shake.

Haru rose from his seat with a hum and ushered you around and into an office. It was also massive - everything in this building was just fucking massive. The area was also plain looking but classy, with just a single set of couches, desk and a ginormous window looking over the city. 

Taking a few more seconds to examine the room, nerves started to finally creep up in your system.

"Can I ask you something, I just moved here from America and I'm just learning of all the heroes in the area. I did some research on Endeavor and he seems very –" you paused and bit your lip trying to find the right words.

Haru chuckled and placed a hand on your shoulder. 

"Scary? He is, but he's not completely unapproachable, you'll learn that in time if you get hired. But rest assured he won't be interviewing you today, his son will. Be aware Shouto can come off as intimidating as well but he's a lot more friendly than his father."

After putting you at ease, Haru informed that Todoroki would be in shorty and to make yourself comfortable before walking out. 

"Well, that would explain why the voice sounded so different from the pictures of him," you chatted to yourself and walked to look out of the window. 

With a sigh you marveled at the sight of the city below you, it was like a maze, confirming that this was in fact the perfect place for you to hide from your ex. As you waited you walked back and forth along the window, ghosting a finger on the glass and humming.

Meanwhile, Shouto made his way from the locker room and to his father's office, growling at himself for being at late but he didn't want to do an interview looking all beat up in his hero costume, so he washed his face quickly and put on a long sleeved black turtle-neck shirt with some black pants. Once looking presentable, Shouto sprinted to the door with one last glance to his watch. 

The hero paused and took a breath to prepare himself before quietly opening the barrier as to not scare whoever was in the quiet room.

Poking his head around the door and walking in he saw you, staring out the window and humming. The tune you hummed sounded so familiar but he couldn't place a finger on where he heard it before.

Blue and grey eyes started to examine your frame. You were somewhat shorter than him and had pretty hair cascading down your back. Shouto continued to look, now at the skirt you wore that stopped mid-thigh, showcasing how nice your legs were. Shouto truly couldn't help it but he quickly caught himself and shook his head as if to clear the thoughts he suddenly had. 

The hero was hoping for an elder woman to fill the position so there would be no distractions around the office full of male heroes but if you were actually qualified for the job then he'd have no choice but to hire you.

Todoroki started to make his way towards you and cleared his throat, stating his presence in attempt to not frighten you but his plan backfired. 

You gasped, shoulders flinching and turned around with a blush crossing your features - gorgeous features in fact.

(E/c) eyes that were bright and glistening, a warm and smooth (s/c) skin tone, and soft blushed lips. If he wasn't interested before, he was now. He wondered if he should even go on with this interview or say the spot is filled, having this gut feeling that if you were hired you wouldn't be a distraction for just everyone around the agency but for him as well. 

Todoroki may seem standoffish and like he doesn't care to others or that he’s even remotely interested in things such as dating, which for the most part is true but he was still human and had the same desires any human did when it came to someone attractive and that caught his attention.

"You must be Shouto Todoroki, I'm (Y/N L/N). It's really nice to meet you and I appreciate the call back," you finally spoke up with a soft and sweet voice that sounded vaguely familiar as well.

A smile crossed your face that made your eyes crinkle in the corners and a single dimple appear. The warmth and happiness you radiated made him smile in return and you reached out your hand for his. 

It took Shouto a bit to realize you were gesturing for a handshake, he wasn't sure what was wrong with him. He's been around and dated pretty girls before but you were something else entirely. 

Finally Shouto moved, his right hand encased your warm and soft one in his, making you shudder as your skin connected. The hero gulped, eyes moving to look at your face again.

"Oh wow, uh Mr. Todoroki my hand," you chuckled and pulled away shivering.

"Huh," he looked down to see his quirk had slightly activated once he touched you, he didn't freeze your hand just lightly frosted it.

Dammit what's wrong with me! 

"I'm sorry Ms. (L/N), I didn't mean to, here let me see your hand again please."

You looked at him confused but did as he asked, this time his left hand took yours and he warmed it back to normal. You awed in fascination, watching the thin frost evaporate into the air and making him smirk as he held your hand for longer than needed.

"That's amazing, you have two quirks?"

Shouto nodded, letting go of your hand and demonstrating a handful of flames and ice.

"Oh wow, that’s very beautiful," you complimented with smile.

Shouto's stomach flipped at your comment and he slowly deactivated his quirk.

"Uhm, thank you. Shall we have a seat Ms. (L/N)?"

You followed him to the desk and requested he called you by your first name, explaining that in America every one is addressed that way unless they're speaking to an elder or teacher. The both of you sat down and he opened a folder that was on the desk.

He looked up to see you straightening your skirt as your legs were crossed and it rode down your thigh, a heat that wasn't his own quirk settled in him as he took in more of your figure, even your cleavage that was adorned by a simple necklace. A breath of steam fell from the heroes mouth as his quirk acted up again, thankfully you didn't notice and he went back to scanning the documents. Mind wondering why his quirk was being so stubborn of all times. Since UA, Todoroki had gained immense control over his quirks and not once have they ever acted up like this, it was infuriating.

"So, (Y/N) why did you apply for this job," he asked avoiding eye contact with you.

"Well not to be a smart-ass but because I need it. I just moved here about a week ago from America. I'm still trying to settle in and wanted to find a job fast, you see I'm on my own here and a job is what I need to support myself financially and emotionally so I can get out there and meet people. Plus, to be honest, this seems like the safest place to work and I need that."

Shouto raised an eyebrow at your last sentence, "You know working at a hero agency can sometimes be just the opposite, villains aim to take heroes out and nothing would stop them from wanting to attack an agency that is full of the cities best ones."

You looked as though you were contemplating his words, pulling your bottom lip between your teeth and rubbing the back of your neck, it was cute to him until you looked up and caught him staring.

You flashed a half smile, "I can see how that would be true, but nonetheless I still feel safe here and I know I can do this job with no problem!"

With that Shouto nodded and continued to ask you basic interview questions, you past employment history, your skills and educational background, etc. As he looked over your resume more he noticed your address wasn't present which was odd.

"You didn't put an address on here," he stated and you nodded, "I mean it's not of importance right now, but if you get hired then we will need it for our files, along with your social security number and other basic information for our system."

You were quiet, making him look up from the file. You stared off at the window, fingers toying with the charm on your necklace dragging it back and forth on the chain. Shouto asked if you were okay with a protective tone, you swallowed harshly and asked if your information would be made public.

"Of course not, all of our employee's information is strictly confidential, our systems and servers are unbreachable and we have tech members that monitor them around the clock, if you're worried about your home information getting out there's no need for it because it won't and I'll make sure of that!"

Slowly but surely your body relaxed and the small cloud that was hanging over you dissipated.

"How about we change the subject, like I said your address isn't needed just yet. If I may ask, do you have a quirk, it's not required I'm just curious."

"Unfortunately no sir, I don't. There's nothing too special about me," you chuckled nervously still playing with your necklace.

Shouto had to disagree with your statement, there was something special about you, at least to him. You seemed to be hiding something - scared but at the same time so full of life and confident, it drug him in more and more.

"But, just because I don't have a quirk doesn't mean I can't get this job done, if anything I'll work harder than anyone who does have one. I've gotten along this far without one, I'm sure I can handle my own around here!"

The hero smirked at your sudden confidence and agreed. "One more question, once again its just my curiosity, but why did you move here of all places?"

You smirked at the hero, a brow rising at his subtly prying question. You wouldn’t exactly admit it but the interest made you feel somewhat giddy.

Stunning grey and blue eyes looked at you, awaiting an answer. For the entire interview the two of your stole glances at each other and there was this energy in the room between the casual chatter. It flattered you that he seemed to be so enamored by you but why? 

You were nothing short of plain and boring, except for your fucked up past but you didn't want to bring that up to your possible future employer, at least not yet. Looking down and away, you tried to conjure up some bullshit excuse that would pass for now. Right as you were parting your lips to speak, a phone started to ring. The hero grit his teeth, making you sigh with relief as you were saved by a phone call. 

Giving you an apologetic look, Shouto answered the phone and started to talk. Deciding to leave him alone you motioned to the window and went back to stare out onto the city.

Crowds of people walked across the streets like a army of ants. Bicycles, cars and buses zoomed along, headlights blurring into colorful streaks. Big lights and billboards flashed and illuminated the dulling skies as it looked like it was about to rain. The city was beautiful and chaotic, it was nothing like the small quaint little town you left behind.

"I'm sorry about that, it was my father."

Your body went rigid at the thought of Endeavor, you haven't met the guy yet but man did he look scary.

"Does you father get the final say in all of this? Like will I have to meet him?"

Shouto smirked at your nervousness, "Why does he scare you?"

You scoffed at the stunner, shaking your head with a fake smile.

"Yup!" Your voice squeaked.

Todoroki choked on a laugh.

"He has that affect on people. To be honest, me and my father haven't always had a great relationship, but we've made leaps and bounds with each other. He's misunderstood that's for sure and his tone and attitude towards things doesn't make it better but he's trying to change and become that 'Symbol of Peace'. After you get to know him, he won't seem so scary, you'll come to learn why he's the #1 and the most respected hero after All Might. And yes, you'll be meeting him Monday when you come in for work."

You were nodding, listening to Shouto explain, suddenly smiling as a breath of relief left your lungs. "Are you serious - I got the job? But don't you have other applicants?"

The hero nodded and leaned against the window as he looked out onto the city as well, "As serious as a heart attack. We do have other applicants, but I don't feel like wasting my time with them, you're who I want."

You went speechless at Shouto’s choice of words and gave him a second to rephrase that last sentence but he didn't, he stuck with it and it made you blush violently. This man really did seem to be interested in you, you weren't exactly complaining, he was gorgeous of course and damn did he make a turtle-neck look good.

"That is if you want it.”

"Oh of course I do!"

Suddenly your body acted unconsciously as you embraced the man, you didn't know what else to do, he was giving you a second chance at life and it meant so much.

Shouto was taken back by your display of affection, but he didn't want to be rude so he hugged you back. 

You let the hero hold you for a moment, easily forgetting he was still just a stranger from comfort of the way his arms and body towered over you, a mixture of cool and warm. When you'd hug your ex, if felt like you were in the clutches of a snake making its way around your body and slowly killing you. Shouto's hug felt protective and like a safety net, making you relax into him. You nuzzled your face into his chest, hearing his heartbeat quicken and causing you to smile.

"Thank you so much Shouto, you don't know how much this means to me right now! I can't wait to work for you, you won't regret it!"

He smirked and broke the hug, placing his hands on your shoulders and looking at you, "I know I won't, we could use someone like you around here (Y/N), and I look forward to getting to know you more!"

[luminara]

Soukoku

A Love Like War by psychncislover (37,883 - ongoing)

The city of Yokohama was maintained by two Mafia Families. When an enemy targets the Nakahara Family, they find their only hopes lies in an alliance... with their greatest enemy, the Tsushima Family. But their help comes with a price - a marriage between the two heirs! Will both sides survive not only this enemy, but each other?

Only Human by TheGeatCatsby (62,143 - complete)

Shortly after the defeat of Mimic, Dazai Osamu leaves the Port Mafia. Wanting to take advantage of the situation, the government sends Nakahara Chuuya to gain his trust.

carve your love into my skin by Dont_Wake_The_Writer (64,820 - ongoing)

Chuuya looks underneath Dazai's bandages without his permission. What he finds underneath changes everything.

can the city forgive by erytheia (27,658 - ongoing)

Chuuya knows he’s so so close, fingertips just barely brushing the possibilities between them. But Dazai’s the one calling the shots again, and he’s yanking it away, out of Chuuya’s grasp, taking absolute control before Chuuya even knows he’s given it up. Every single facet of their relationship is one-sided, both of them too blind and too stubborn to stop for a second and consider what’s on the other side of the wall between them before they try to tear their way through it.

A Dandy In The Underworld by idontevenlogic (72,606 - ongoing)

Dazai presented the white candle with one hand and stretched his other hand out towards Chuuya. “My life to defend until your bitter end! Through the fire and iron of Hell, I order you to walk with me! I name you—”

Dazai’s eyes fluttered open as a tired smile spread across his lips at the sight of Chuuya’s impossibly stormy eyes widening with the realization of what specific spell the executive was performing. Nearly falling, the Wellspring altered his course in an attempt to flee from the range of the spell, but the power of the sigil’s pull had already latched onto him like a noose and began to pull him back towards Dazai, despite his wounded hollering and ceaseless writhing.

“—I name you, Nakahara Chuuya, my familiar!”

* * *

Or: Nakahara Chuuya returns to Yokohama and is forced into aiding the Port Mafia in helping them capture a mysterious, dangerous hacker from a checkered past. Along the way, he has to adjust to his new life as the familiar to the most infamous warlock in all of Yokohama: the one and only Dazai Osamu.

of bells, coffees, and love in between by KyuBaisu (40,398 - complete)

Chuuya just wants to eat with his sister, but he ends up wearing a gown, make-up, and high-heels in a fake wedding.

Dazai just wants to see the girl from the advertisement he did years ago, the girl with the ginger hair, blue eyes, and a never disappearing annoyed expression.

A Collision of Fates by dgalerab (83,603 - complete)

Dazai Osamu has always known his fate - to become the vessel of the Hollow God, a god hellbent on reuniting with Its lover, the Tainted God, and wreaking havoc on the world.

But that doesn't mean he can't try going on a last ditch effort of a quest trying to stop it from happening.

hide the truth by writingfromtheshadows (24,611 - complete)

When Chuuya wakes up in the middle of an ongoing fight without any memory of how he got there or what happened to him, he ends up turning to someone saved as 'bandage-waster' in his phone. Somehow, it just feels like the right decision.

Gifted by TheGreatCatsby (28,863 - ongoing)

The government's experiments with genetics to induce "gifts" in children is a well-kept secret. Dazai is sent to infiltrate one of the facilities and gather information. He is assigned to be the nurse of one of the facility's oldest and most successful experiments.

Message Received by hellosweetie17 (26,579 - ongoing)

Late for work, Chuuya collides with a stranger on the sidewalk. A stranger who happens to be annoying, frustrating, flirtatious, and even worse—gorgeous. Thanks to a tricky sleight of hand, their encounter leads to Chuuya texting the wrong number.

Dazai Osamu begrudgingly finds happiness (It's a long road) by BlueFlameSakura (34,810 - ongoing)

Dazai Osamu had never even dreamt  about this happening to him, not even his worst nightmares could compare to this. To being married off to some stupid alpha prince as a mockery of a peace offering.

North- and South-Yokohama had been at war for several centuries now, and as much as the brunette would like a bit more of the tranquility peace between their nations would provide, couldn't it have been done with someone else? Or in another few decades?

Well, apparently not.

How to Hornswoggle Death by SecretlyACatLady (20,544 - ongoing)

This wasn't what Chuuya had in mind when he hoped for a big haul. ----- In which Chuuya is a fisherman with an adventurous past and Dazai is a merman who tries to bully Chuuya into killing him.

keep you alive, set you on fire by flyby (23,574 - complete)

Dazai steps out in a dress and heels for a mission, since the gown won't fit Yosano. He's only supposed to spend an hour or so leading their targets on a dance around a charity gala, but the unexpected arrival of a certain Port Mafia Executive threatens to disrupt all his plans. And when he and Chuuya find themselves finally face to face, they end up entwined in a tense game of mutual provocation...

bad enough for you by Maristella (28,555 - complete)

There are two reasons why Chuuya tolerates Dazai: 1.) The god inside Chuuya hates him; 2.) Chuuya definitely hates the god more than the stinking demon mackerel.

Or, alternatively, that one time Dazai and Chuuya swaps abilities, and Arahabaki was never the same.

360 degrees by setosdarkness (11,060 - complete)

Chuuya gets cursed by an Ability that forces him to eternally live out his biggest regret. Unlike the other victims who end up killing themselves or hurting others, Chuuya goes into a coma.

For his biggest regret is—

[groundhog day AU with a twist, where Chuuya relives the day Dazai leaves the Port Mafia over and over and over and over]

black /// reciprocity set by setosdarkness (3,363 - complete)

Soulmate AU where your soulmate mark will only appear on your skin once you’ve fallen in love with your soulmate.

Chuuya has Dazai’s name on his neck while Dazai’s skin is bare of any names.

partners by setosdarkness (27,746 - ongoing)

Chuuya realizes that he’s been married to Dazai since they’re 15: The Fic.

Featuring: wedding fairs, faked marriage registries, angry calls to newspaper agencies for unsolvable crosswords, fake leather couches, love epiphanies and falling in love, not necessarily in that order.

This Way Lies Madness by setosdarkness (41,338 - ongoing)

It’s supposed to be simple. Go in, hand over the questionnaires, wait a few minutes, take the answered questionnaires, get the fuck out. Chuuya should have known, with his shitty luck, that nothing’s ever going to be simple for him.

(—the one where Chuuya inadvertently catches the attention of quite possibly the worst serial killer in history, Dazai) (—police-trainee!Chuuya, inmate!Dazai)

our hearts steeped in hate by setosdarkness (10,202 - ongoing)

Needing to kiss your soulmate to stay alive sounds romantic in context, but absolutely shitty in reality if you’re bound to someone you despise with all your heart and soul.

The act of being human by purplesan (31,457 - complete)

‘This is Chuuya Nakahara, your new caretaker.’ his mother stated. Dazai’s eyes only widened in shock.

‘A robot?’

‘Kind of a degrading term, but yes; a robot.’

Dazai’s glaring only intensified. ‘I don’t need some pathetic excuse of a toy as a caretaker. No one can replace Odasaku anyway. Couldn't you have gotten me a pet instead?’

Chuuya didn’t seem to be affected by Dazai’s insults, which only showed how very non-human he actually was.

‘Stop behaving like a spoiled brat! We could have sent you to a clinic the moment you decided to behave like this, but instead we spent a lot of money on getting you this expensive solution.’

‘You could have spent more money on getting protection for Odasaku.’

(In which all 7 year-old Dazai really wants is to get back Odasaku, but gets Chuuya instead. Though in the end, perhaps the hatrack isn't all that terrible)

chuuya is red hot and dazai is so not by toriosaurus (12,040 - complete)

Dazai couldn't wrap his brain around it. How could the student population think that Chuuya Nakahara was more attractive than him? And, alright, sure, maybe professors shouldn't get caught up in petty drama. But to Dazai, this wasn't just drama. This was war. A war in which he was not going to lose.

The wooing art by holdinglucy (20,940 - complete)

The one where Dazai ended up with more tattoos than he intended to. Or:

Dazai's attempts at wooing the very hot, very dangerous tattoo artist he's just met.

Wrapped up in You by quinnlocke (100,935 - complete)

Chuuya just wants to get through his day as a reptile expert, but there's a bandaged lunatic in his reptile house trying to get murdered by his snakes.

Saving the man's life is a courtesy, taking him home is just asking for trouble.

still still still by toriosaurus (112,578 - complete)

Finally, Chuuya eloquently said, “I don’t want to date you.” Dazai huffed. “Yeah, well, I’m not too thrilled at the idea of having a crazy rockstar boyfriend. But you got us into this mess, you need to help us get out of it.” Had Dazai gone insane? Nakahara Chuuya and Dazai Osamu, dating? Had Chuuya not made it clear through the dozens of direct and indirect meetings that he despised Dazai with every fiber in his body.

Featuring: drunk tweets, falling in love, horrendous song writing, cheesy interviews, learning how to "fake it," and Chuuya getting over the headache that is Dazai. Not necessarily in that order.

where your loyalties lie by writingfromtheshadows (163,126 - complete)

Loyalty is the foundation of the yakuza code, something that was drilled into Chuuya at an early age. However, his lessons did not cover how to manage a political marriage with his organization's oldest rival.

color theory by setosdarkness (2,469 - complete)

Soulmate AU where your heart glows whenever you’re with your soulmate. The color of the glow depends on your feelings for them.

(the one where Chuuya and Dazai make sure to wear layers and layers of clothes and/or bandages just so they can hide their feelings.)

A Heat of Convenience /// A Mark of Inconvenience by dgalerab (19,902 - complete)

PART 1: Yosano won't give Dazai suppressants unless he can prove he's having a healthy amount of heats. Dazai tries to outsmart her. He fails. Chuuya picks up the slack.

PART 2: Dazai gets used to his new arrangement with Chuuya as his heat partner by forcing Chuuya to claim him. It works both better and worse than he expected.

centrifugal/centripetal by TopHat69 (154,138 - ongoing)

[No Summary Available] A/B/O Dynamics

A Catspaw in the Wolf Court by dgalerab (58,357 - complete)

Prince Dazai, a single werecat in a court of wolves, is to be married off to Prince Chuuya, a fox in the kingdom that accepts everyone. He's given one instruction: bring back a defector to the wolves and topple Chuuya's kingdom from the inside.

Things, of course, get more complicated than that.

Counting the Days by Neiro Gin (Neiroa) (23,575 - complete)

How will a certain bandage-wearing ex-Mafioso detective react to hearing that his former partner-who-is-definitely-not-more-than-that has…

…a girlfriend?

“He has been all lovey-dovey with her ever since they came back together!”

“No way! How could any girl fall for that short hat rack?”

“I heard she’s glued to him every single minute of the day. He seems to really like her as well! I’ve never seen him so sweet to anybody!”

“Even if—and that’s a BIG if—she loves him, he’s not the type to just fall in love after only knowing someone for a short amount of time.”

“She’s French.”

“…”

“D-Dazai-san? Dazai-san?!”

Countdown by setosdarkness (31,175 - ongoing)

Eternally-single Chuuya is dared by his friends to date someone. Chuuya eventually agrees, but adds a condition: if the guy he chooses breaks up with him within 10 days, it will suffice as proof that Chuuya’s not meant for dating and therefore his friends will stop nagging at him about his non-existent lovelife.

Thinking that it’s an easy win, Chuuya chooses to date Dazai, his asshole childhood friend who’s known to be a serial womanizer.

Chuuya... is very wrong.

don't you ever tame your demons by writingfromtheshadows (108,592 - complete)

Every year, a handful of children are born with the ability to command supernatural powers. Thousands of dollars and dozens of trained specialists are tasked with identifying, tracking down, and labeling each one as Deviant. Once identified, they have no rights other than those that are permitted to them, and disobedience is a crime punishable by death.

Chuuya has never known a life outside of the routine he's forced to follow, but when the boss of Yokohama's Port Mafia offers him a chance of freedom, Chuuya is not prepared for the rebellion he's stumbling into.

Chuuya Nakahara and the Falling Camelia by Anonymous (12,628 - ongoing)

A new year begins at Hogwarts, and between a nervous wreck of a first year Chuuya met over the summer managing to become Akutagawa's arch enemy upon their first meeting, a pair of second year's younger sisters' complicating things, and leftover tension with Tachihara, Chuuya is in for a hectic term.

Things take a turn for the worse, however when there are rumors about a man eating were tiger, Dementors -- unspeakable creatures who bring back horrible memories and can steal your very soul -- surrounding Hogwarts as wardens and watchmen, and a murderer breaks out of Azkaban, a high security prison in the wizarding world.

Especially when that murderer is dead set on getting his hands on Dazai.

Chuuya Nakahara and the Chambers of Draconia by Anonymous (51,820 - complete)

After a first year full of questions, Chuuya barely gets a moment to breathe before his second year proves the last to be gentle in comparison. With tension among friends and the looming threat of an unknown danger, he'll need all of the clues he can get -- not just for the safety of the school, but for the strength of his friendships.

Madder Aubrieta by hypermoyashi (21,790 - ongoing)

Flowers bloomed, rain fell, and the whims of nature dictated all. This was the status quo that Chuuya knew, and it was a surprisingly delicate order. Change came in the form of a mysterious man he found, woken from an ageless sleep by none other than Chuuya himself.

Margin of Error /// Scale of Success by izanyas (31,416 - complete)

PART 1: After a failed assassination attempt on his person, Dazai finds himself recovering in an unfamiliar place: a hospital where criminals abound, staff and patients alike, and Dazai's own doctor is a little too attractive.

PART 2: Dazai makes due on his promise. Chuuya has to revise his.

[patchwork-panda]

If A Moment Is All We Are (3/?)

TW (3): This chapter contains a mention of:

1) intrusive thoughts and suicidal ideation (Dazai dialogue). 2) fair amount of blood and physical violence in the form of guns, explosions and slashing injuries, as a "fight" chapter. 3) some descriptions of physical injury including broken bones and slash wounds. I tried not to let it be too graphic. Please proceed with caution.

For those who prefer AO3 format: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24121633/chapters/58072957

“Excuse me!”

The woman who now sat at the table, the one the old balding cop had vacated, looked up at me with a friendly, questioning gaze.

“Yes?”

I slammed my hands down on the counter, startling her into dropping her pen, and pushed my sketch of the green snake tattoo towards her.

“I need to make a report!”

“W-what sort of report?” she asked unsteadily, looking me up and down.

I could tell she was already evaluating my credibility but I had to listen to Detective Dazai. It was my only shot at saving Mrs. Yamazaki. I sat down in the same chair I had been in earlier and looked her right in the eye, my voice barely shaking as I gave her a slightly less nonsensical version of the story I had told her colleague earlier. When I finished, I got to my feet and bowed as low as I could.

“I’m not making any of this up and this is not a prank!” I exclaimed, head still bowed. “I, as a concerned citizen, am asking you, a member of the Yokohama Military Police for help. I’m begging you, ma’am: please, listen to me!”

“Okay, okay!” she exclaimed, waving her hands in the air as her colleagues turned to look at us. “I’ll listen to you! Please, sit down.”

Relieved, I sat. My legs were still shaking as I watched her get out a pen and a piece of paper and only when she started asking me for more details and slowly filling out her form was I finally able to breathe freely again.

It worked. I couldn’t believe it. That crazy detective’s advice had worked.

I was elated. I half-thought I was going to start crying with relief when the officer suddenly looked up and shot an anxious look out the window. Curious, I turned behind me and to my surprise, I saw Detectives Dazai (looking miraculously unhurt) and Kunikida passing by the station and going back across the street from whence they came. Seeing the recognition on my face, she turned to me with an odd look in her eye.

“Kusunoki-san,” she said, reading off her form. “Do you... know those two men? I thought I saw you talking to them earlier when I started my shift.”

“Not really?” I said, thinking back. “I mean, kind of? Armed Detective Agency, right? I actually talked to them about this earlier. Oh, but don’t worry! They insisted I talk to the police first before they got involved. They said that would be best.”

The officer looked contemplative.

“Yes, I would have to agree.” She frowned. “If they manage to solve your case before we do, again, my whole department would be completely humiliated. No, we can’t have that...”

She tapped her pen on the table as she thought to herself.

“Honestly, I have a few more questions I’d like to ask you, but I can’t ask them here.”

Once again, she looked behind her before motioning me forward, her expression grim. I scooted towards her in my chair, feeling slightly unsettled by the look on her face.

“W-why not?” I asked quietly.

“I know the man you’re looking for,” she whispered. “I believe he is a member of the Port Mafia.”

Not knowing who the Port Mafia was, I shrugged and her jaw hit the floor.

“You don’t know who the Port Mafia is?” I shook my head and she started laughing. “Wait, are you serious? What are you, some kind of shut-in? You don’t read the news?!”

As she sat there, laughing uproariously at her own joke, I twitched, trying to force a smile on my face as I waited for her to settle down.

“Oh, that’s a good one,” she sighed, wiping a tear from her eye. “Alright, let me tell you something about them since you don’t seem to know. The Port Mafia has been operating in Yokohama for decades. Decades. They have eyes and ears everywhere, perhaps even in this very police station. I want to ask you more but it’s not safe to do it here.”

She scribbled something down on a piece of paper and pushed it towards me.

“Meet me on the top floor of the South Pier Art Gallery in two hours. We’ll talk then.”

***

The rest had been a blur. I’d gone home, celebrated my win with a steaming hot bowl of ramen (topped with some of the veggies Mrs. Yamazaki had foisted on me) and watched some new seasonal shoujo anime titles to pass the time. Then, I took the train to the edge of town, found the gallery and blithely took the spiral staircase up to the top floor where they housed the stained glass window collection, not knowing what lay ahead. Not five minutes after I’d arrived, the young man named Akutagawa had appeared, killed the two curators lying on the far side of the room and blocked the way into the main entrance. When I ran for the fire escape instead, I found myself face-to-face with none other than Detective Dazai, who pointed a gun at me and instructed me to turn back around to face Akutagawa.

As I stood with my hands in the air, cold sweat running down my neck and my pathetic life hanging in the balance, I heard Dazai say something to me in a low, hushed voice.

“Sorry... this isn’t what I meant when I asked if you were doing anything later.”

As the memory of our encounter on the street floated back to me, something stirred to life deep inside my chest, something stronger than the panic that had been choking me since the start of this whole thing... It felt like anger.

“Is that right?” I asked. My voice was shaking but the words kept coming out. “You mean dates with you don’t usually end with somebody getting shot? What exactly did you have in mind then?”

“Oh? Are you interested after all?”

His tone was still light-hearted and flirtatious but I could sense his hesitancy; the gun against my skull pulled back just a fraction and for a second, there was hope. What if the gun fell away from my head entirely? Would I be able to make a run for it, make it back to my apartment in one piece? Akutagawa might try to rip my limbs off and I might still get shot at but what if I tried...?

Dazai didn’t say anything else; he was clearly waiting for my answer. I should tell him yes, maybe then he would feel less tempted to shoot me (why hadn’t he done so already?). However, something about the idea of spending more time in the company of this madman (that is, if I did manage to leave the gallery alive) was more nauseating than the smell of blood permeating the room.

“Not at all,” I replied coolly, “I don’t date guys who are two seconds away from blowing my head off.”

This time, it was Dazai’s turn to laugh.

“Well then,” Dazai mused, “Would it make you feel better to know I’d be joining you right after?”

I actually scoffed.

“What are you proposing, a double suicide?!”

“If you’d like.”

“You have a terrible sense of humor, Detective.”

I wasn’t sure if he could hear me over the deep growls coming from across the room. The monster coming out of Akutagawa’s cloak swayed slowly from side to side, clearly looking for an opening. Akutagawa hadn’t moved a muscle in some time but somehow this didn’t make me feel more comfortable. The sun was starting to set, the colors of the stained glass windows around us gradually darkening, making that cold, calculating gaze and quiet anger coming from the entrance more menacing than ever. Fruitlessly, I weighed my options again, looking around to see if there were any routes, any at all, that I could take to leave the gallery with my life. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find even one. I sighed, my shoulders dropping, that spark of hope fading with the last light of the sun.

“It was Dazai-san, right? Can I ask you a question?”

He didn’t answer, so I continued anyway.

“You talk about suicide so casually... You’re not afraid of dying?”

“Not really. It’s pain and suffering I’m afraid of, but dying?”

Dazai was quiet for a moment. When he spoke again, he sounded peaceful, hopeful even.

“No. I think about Death so often that it’s as familiar as an old friend to me now. Finally getting to die... It would be comforting, almost like coming home.”

“Huh...”

Flashes of my previous life appeared before my eyes, from more recent to further back... Mrs. Yamazaki bleeding out, alone in her own darkened living room room. A young man’s body flying high into the air after an untimely collision with a speeding black car. The shadow of a burning building on the water’s edge, down by the pier, windows shattering as it was rocked by a sudden explosion...

And finally, an image of a ghoul, staring back at me from just outside my own darkened windows, with long, black hair cut in the same style as my own, drops of blood instead of tears falling down her cheeks, staining the fingertips she touched to them, the blackness of her pupils deep like bottomless wells... As I stared into my own haunted reflection that night, the night before I stopped going to class, I heard it—the darkness within calling out to me, the intrusive thoughts that tempted me to jump when I looked out through the windows of tall buildings...

I heard a distant roar. The shadow monster commanded by Akutagawa surged forward, jaws stretched wide and at the last moment, I turned my head to look Detective Dazai in the face. I smiled.

“I understand.”

Dazai stared at me.

“You do...?”

Without warning, an explosive force shook the gallery, enveloping me in clouds of thick, acrid smoke. I heard a crack and coughing violently, I looked down just in time to see the patterned floor below me give way, the cheap carpeting disintegrating beneath my very feet. There was no time for me to scream or think. I fell into the void below, my watering eyes catching one final glimpse of Akutagawa’s pale face, twisted in anger, as the darkness claimed me.

Wind rushed past my ears. I could feel myself picking up speed and I covered my head, wondering if tucking myself into a ball might mean less broken bones when I finally hit the bottom floor.

But I had stopped falling.

I was caught on something sturdy, with long, dense, wiry limbs. A tree? No, trees weren’t this warm... and they didn’t smell like gun smoke, books and ink...

“Got you,” someone grunted from just above me and I realized I’d fallen not onto a tree, but right into a man’s arms. I pushed my tangled bangs out of my face and looked up.

“Kunikida-san?!”

“I’ll explain later,” he gruffly, crouching down and setting my feet on the ground as the lights around us snapped back on. “We have to go, now! Can you run?”

No sooner had I nodded than he grabbed my wrist, his fingers closing over the fabric of my jacket, and tugged me after him, wasting no time in tearing off down the nearest corridor as soon as he was sure I could stand. Paintings whizzed by as we ran, abstract portraits blurring into colorful landscapes as we raced down the hall, my wrist locked in the detective’s iron grip. I could hear gunfire and yells, occasionally an otherworldly roar echoing from the top floor and I shuddered and pushed myself to run faster, to put more distance between myself and the beast making those horrible shrieks. As we ran past the spiral staircase to the corner of the central gallery, I abruptly realized the explosion had taken me from the top floor to the second—that much closer to safety...

Just when I thought my legs were going to give out, Kunikida abruptly stopped at the end of the corridor and I almost crashed right into him. His head jerked up and I caught a flash of green from the exit sign reflected on his glasses as he barked his next command.

“This way!”

I was brusquely yanked forward again, Kunikida’s long ponytail nearly smacking me in the face as he dragged me into a stairwell, the walls and steps narrow and lined with cement.

“We’re going down. Hurry!” he ordered, finally letting go of my aching wrist.

Ignoring the burning in my legs, I bolted down the stairs as quickly as I could, the tall detective hot on my heels as a crack echoed above us, like fireworks exploding in our confined chamber. Instinct took over and I ducked, throwing a hand over my head as I felt projectiles whiz past my shoulder.

“Get up!” Kunikida shouted and I obeyed, the sight of freshly gouged bullet holes on the wall ahead of me spurring me on. I was almost at the ground floor when I heard gunshots from very close behind. At once, I realized Kunikida was not with me and I whirled to see him several meters away at the turn, firing a small handgun up the stairs.

“Kunikida-san?” I called up, dashing back to him.

“Don’t come any closer!” he cried.

A sharp pain ripped into my cheek, tearing off bits of my hair and splattering my clothes with hot blood. I could feel the blood dripping down my neck in rivulets as I squeezed myself back into the corner and out of the way, a fresh hail of bullets raining down on us from above. I heard excited shouting; someone had followed us, their heavy footsteps pounding down the stairs—

“It’s the Port Mafia. You have to go!” Kunikida hollered, the echo of his voice nearly overwhelmed by the cacophony of more bullets firing into the stairwell. The impact scattered rubble everywhere and forcing me to guard my eyes.

“What about you?!” I cried.

“I’ll be fine!” he shouted. “Just get to the lobby, now!”

Red bloomed in the shoulder of his beige vest. He stumbled and pushed himself further back into the corner of the alcove, his bloodied hand reaching into his shirt vest and pulling out a small, lightly-bound olive green notebook. There was a determined look in his eye.

“What are you waiting for? Go!”

He ripped a page out of the notebook and I was suddenly blinded by a flash of green light. An enormous explosion rocked the stairwell and I stumbled to the ground as smoke flooded the air.

“Kunikida-san?!”

There was no answer. I pushed myself to my feet, staring in horror at the spot where he’d been.

“Kunikida-san...”

Was he dead? Had he died defending me?!

Frozen, I stood there, utter shock pulsing through me as my cheek continued to drip blood onto my blouse. But all too soon, the sound of footsteps began to pound down the stairs, snapping me out of my daze and I uprooted my feet, following Kunikida’s last order and made for the door to the lobby.

I had to live. If Kunikida was really dead, living was the only way to make sure his sacrifice was not in vain. Living meant I was saved.

Throwing my shoulder against the heavy door, I burst into the lobby. To my relief, a quick glance around the ground floor assured me that the lobby was deserted, with no security guards and no trench-coat-clad figures with guns anywhere in sight. Taking one last, regretful look behind me at the stairs, I immediately sprinted for the front doors.

“Hold it, Prophet.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a ribbon of black and red streak towards me. Before I knew what had hit me, something slashed deeply into my left leg and I hit the floor with a sharp cry of pain, the back of my thigh burning like it was on fire. I could feel the warmth of my own blood pouring out of the wound, pooling on the ground and soaking wetly into my ripped jeans. As I struggled to get up, I heard Akutagawa’s voice again.

“Surrender.”

Somehow, he’d gotten past Dazai and Kunikida. Or maybe the Port Mafia had already finished both of them off, giving Akutagawa a clear path to me... Gritting my teeth, I got up, staggering a little as I stood, my eyes meeting with Akutagawa’s cold gray ones. My legs felt weak. I could tell that I’d been cut very deeply but I continued running for the doors, adrenaline pumping through my veins as I made a bee-line for the dim light of the setting sun outside.

“Don’t ignore me.”

There was an unearthly roar and something hit the ground where my right foot had been barely a millisecond before, sending small chunks of flooring flying into the air as I dodged Akutagawa’s attacks. For one brilliant, shining second, I thought I was going to make it—my fingers brushed against the glass and metal front doors—

“Rashoumon! Higanzakura!”

Black and red wires tightened around my throat, wrenching me away from the exit before I could push open the doors and lifting me high into the air. I could barely breathe and I scrabbled against my bonds in vain, the skin of my palms and fingers stinging and bleeding with every attempt to pry the coils off of me.

What was this thing made of?!

Through watering and narrowed eyes, I watched as Akutagawa approached in measured steps, his hands in his pockets, that cold, impassive face coming closer with every passing moment.

“You run pretty fast for an injured girl, I’ll admit. Unfortunately for you, I was ordered to capture you. And I don’t intend to fail.”

The weight around my throat suddenly became crushing. Spots appeared before my eyes and I fought to stay conscious as the last gasp of air was squeezed out of me. Akutagawa’s ragged, darkened form faded in and out of sight.

No! I can’t die here...!

I clawed harder at the thing holding me, desperation setting in. I’d escaped him once before, I had to do it again...! Kunikida might have died for me and if I died now, Mrs. Yamazaki didn’t have a prayer. I needed to make sure she was really saved...! I needed to live!

I watched helplessly, my arms losing strength as another tendril of darkness grew out of Akutagawa’s black coat. Crackling with energy, its shape twisted to become flat and angular until I realized I was staring at an enormous scythe.

“Dazai-san guessed correctly. My orders were to capture you alive. However, whether or not you need to be completely whole was not discussed. I don’t think the boss will care if I cut off your legs. If I do that, you’ll never be able to run away from us ever again.”

“No...”

My voice came out as nothing more than a weak gasp. Unable to hear me, he drew the scythe back in preparation.

“Don’t!”

There were several loud bangs and the vise around my neck abruptly loosened. I felt a rush of wind above me as I fell through the air, shuddering as I landed on my injured leg, which buckled sickeningly beneath me, leaving me in a bloody heap on the floor. Rubbing my throat as I coughed, trying to bring fresh air back into my lungs, I looked up to see Kunikida, bloodied but alive and well, firing a small handgun from behind a large metal sculpture at Akutagawa. He had been forced to retract the demon and was instead raising it as a shield to defend himself against the blonde detective’s onslaught. His pale hand was spattered with red as he clutched at his shoulder, blood coursing down the back of his black robe and dripping at his feet.

I could barely believe it; Kunikida had saved me once again.

I watched him dive out of the way as Akutagawa sliced up the sculpture with his black sickle and duck behind another statue, firing constantly out of his small hand gun. Sparks flew as he traded blows with Akutagawa and he shot at Akutagawa until I heard the hollow clicking of his gun; he was out of bullets. Gritting his teeth, he flung it out of the way. There was another flash of green light and within moments, he was firing at Akutagawa again.

As they fought, I scanned my surroundings again, trying not to think about the amount of blood I was losing, wondering if any backup was coming. Kunikida was holding his own but with no one on the way, he couldn’t last long. I tried to pull myself to my feet and almost immediately slipped back down.

There on the floor, amidst the splatters of blood, was a soft layer of long black hair. It was all over the faux-marble tiles and as I brought my hand to my head, I realized that it was my hair—Akutagawa must’ve clipped most of it from my head when he tried to cut me in half. Looking back up to the main doors, I tried to stand on my injured leg and immediately regretted it.

“Shit.”

My leg was in bad shape; I could barely feel it and everything from the knee down was soaked in blood. Even worse than that, my breaths felt shallow and my head was spinning from anemia; I had to be close to going into shock and judging from the small pinpricks of pain, there were probably micro fractures in my bones. In spite of Kunikida’s best efforts to keep me alive, I had no clue how I was going to make it out of the gallery.

And then a flash of a different shade of red caught my eye.

Rolling towards me from the far side of the room, where the battle raged, was a bright red fire extinguisher. Parts of it looked damaged, and as I stared at it, I was struck by a dangerous idea. If I had no chance of survival, I could at least use my last moments well.

I scooped up the fire extinguisher into my arms and headed back into the fray.

“Kunikida-san!”

They turned to me just as I flung the pressurized device at Akutagawa.

“Heads up!”

All eyes in the lobby lifted towards the extinguisher as it flew through the air, seemingly moving in slow motion as it arced towards Akutagawa. Wordlessly, Kunikida raised his gun and fired once.

The atrium shook. Glass shattered and plumes of white powder filled the air, blanketing the statues in the lobby like snow. My ears rang; something was dripping out of them. The force of the blast must have knocked out my eardrums and I could feel myself flying backwards through the air. Without warning, I was propelled through the doors of the gallery entrance and I was awarded one glorious view of the outside, of the building bathed in a twilight glow, the very streets illuminated in flashing red and blue lights. I saw uniformed police officers swarming out of their vehicles, towards me, towards the wrecked building behind me...

And then I hit the sidewalk with a horrible crunch.

The last thing I saw before the darkness took me was a woman in black and white racing towards me where I fell, a golden butterfly glinting brightly in her hair.