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sizeshiftingdeath · 3 years ago

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Ends and Starts (MCYT G/T Exchange!)

Hello there sizeshiftingdeath! I received your prompts for the gift exchange, and while I tried to start pretty close to your prompt, my ideas kind of spiraled out of control, I hope you don't mind ^^' I can make something else with another prompt if it doesn't fit what you were hoping for, though! There's also a little bit of extra information down the bottom with some stuff I thought of about the au I accidentally made.

Prompt given: ‘A human caught in the rain finds a giant in the forest’

The world is pockmarked with evidence of the tragedies of the past. Of warped land that paints the horrors that befell things that came before. The living reminders of them continue to live on in perpetuity, as immortal creatures that were wreathed in the horrors that life on Earth had endured in the past.

Bask in their horrible might.

There is the Death from Burning and Fire and Falling from the Sky and Cold Choking Death, the End of the Cretaceous. A massive beast, the bloody end of an era of enormous fauna. A destruction made all the more powerful by how quickly it was achieved. It stalks the land and sea and, where it steps, the plants die of lack of sunlight and the ground turns to tar.

There is the Death from Ever Hunting and Chasing and Too Warm Too Bright - Tech, the man-shaped leviathan, death in the shape of something familiar to mankind, the Killer of the Pleistocene. The death of great megafauna in an icy world from the encroaching warmth of a new era, the sharp point of a spear. It hunts the world with spears and arrows of fire and, in the depths of its nest, all water has turned to vapor and the earth itself has become a wasteland.

There is the Death of Falling Frozen Seas, of a primordial sea strangled to death under a glacier lock, Her Lady of the primaeval oceans, the Death of the Ordovician. The tail-end of an explosion of life, stretched too far by their own hubris. And yet, despite being a beast with a hundred trilobite and eurypterid faces, one that has a herald in the form of a human by Her side, for reasons that have yet to become known. Maybe, just like every other esoteric thing that such beasts may do, it shall remain a mystery forever.

Look and see. A new immortal is emerging from its eggshell of tragedy. The unstoppable bomb and burning oilfield. The death through hubris and a slow choking unraveling of your very being. The death of man from crackling radiation and tainted iridescent-film water and ash filled smoke. The destruction of the Anthropocene.

Except. This is a creature who was born prematurely. Because man is not dead nor feeling its own final throes. It was not born wreathed in the screams of the damned, only the fears held in the hearts of the still-living. It is naïve and curious and did not yet have the star of a hundred million species’ souls to power it yet. It was stunted.

And that is why the first human the newest apocalypse met was so important.

…

The forests are deep and dark. Quiet yet shivering with life. Constantly moving and yet trapped in some space between time. Most of all, they expected nothing more from you than for your own two legs to be able to travel. Ranboo liked that.

It certainly was nicer than what he had to deal with outside of the forest at least. Here he could continue walking and listening and breathing for as long as he still could move forward. This forest in particular was a favorite, with a constant twilight quality to it that played into its timelessness.

He stumbled over a log, slipping slightly on the slick moss, and focused as strongly as he could on his surroundings. It was hard when he could so quickly slip into his thoughts. He needed to enjoy his surroundings. He needed to stay in the present and not phase out like fog.

Ironically, it was his attempts to ground himself that prevented him from noticing what was slowly growing more wrong in the forest around him. The scent of ash in the air. The lack of birdsong or rustle of leaves. The trees, growing darker and more burnt-looking, and the dead logs that were bristling with fungi.

But when he stepped out into a clearing with an enormous rock embedded into the middle of it, Ranboo really couldn’t help but realize all of the discrepancies. The illusion of an eternal twilight had been broken with the red light that streamed down. The ground was distressingly clear of ground cover, instead dusted with ash.

Forest fire? He hadn’t heard of any in the area but… What else would it be?

Ranboo looked up at the sun, which had meandered towards the west since he had entered the forest. There were dark clouds gathering above him in worrying amounts, and the air was a little hard to see through with the particles suspended in it. He frowned at it.

Something was wrong here, he could sense it in a deeply animalistic kind of way. As if there was something screaming in his hindbrain to run.

He didn’t run. This was the forest that he has walked a hundred times before, when did this happen? Why had this happened? He needed to find out.

Overhead, thunder rumbled. A droplet of curiously dark water fell on his face.

Ranboo stepped towards the other side of the forest clearing that should not have been there.

And that's when a living embodiment of a mass extinction came shambling out of the ashen trees.

Ranboo didn’t know which detail he noticed first about this rogue apocalypse beast. Was it the limp brown hair that was almost black with iridescent oil slick? Was it the enormous horns that curled jutting from its face and looked more like scrap metal than keratin? Was it the uranium-glass green stripes that criss-crossed like cracks in ceramic along it’s skin?

Or was it the fact that this one was shaped like a man?

The apocalypse beasts always most resembled the myriad that had died in their creation. The death of the Ice Age looks vaguely like a man, if squinted at, mostly because so many cousins to humanity had died in its formation. It was more like an enormous boar-beast on two legs that had the arms of a man, if anything. This one did not look remotely like the death of the Ice Age.

Ranboo took a flying leap from horror and realization to hysteria. This is the death of humans. The death by nuclear bombs and smoke and oil. The fabled next apocalypse beast, the bringer of the end of the world, was already here.

For a moment of absolute blinding terror he wondered if this meant that all other humans on Earth were dead now. That today was the day the entirety of humanity died, leaving just him wandering the forest endlessly. That nuclear armageddon occurred and he was out there worried about keeping himself grounded enough to admire the birds.

The beast - and he was never in doubt that this was an apocalypse beast, even if he had never seen any of the others in person before something shook like a leaf in his soul simply from being near it - loomed over him. It watched him like a bug under a glass with nuclear hazard yellow-and-black eyes, and the spell of frozen muscles snapped in Ranboo. He bolted towards the boulder in the middle of the clearing and pushed his way into a space between it and a smaller boulder at its base, scrambling to find a smaller crack to squeeze himself into to just get himself out of reach of the beast, of the black water, of everything.

He could hear a rasping, clicking-crackling sound. (A Geiger Counter.) He could see glowing green-striped fingers reach under the edges of the rock he had wedged himself under. Could see, in the sickly chartreuse light they cast, fingernails larger than his head catch the rock. Felt the weight of the boulder lift from his back.

Ranboo was left crouching and shaking, so scared he couldn't breathe (or maybe it was the ash or the slimy water that couldn’t be rain), as the apocalypse beast crouched down further. It crackled and clicked with a mouth that seemed all too human to be able to make those noises, and then it. Crooned? With a voice that was more like a siren shriek turned down, weirdly echoey as if speaking from far away, it clicked and whined and Ranboo was so confused he didn’t even see the hand reach down and pick him up by the back of his shirt.

He screamed and flailed, imagination jumping into overdrive about what horrifying things the beast could do, and just as quickly, he was dropped with a whoomph to the ground and the death of Mankind jerked back. Ranboo gasped and sputtered as half of face got thoroughly soaked with ash-water mud, and hoisted himself up again to get away from the apocalypse beast.

Who was crouching over him, luminous trefoil eyes barely a foot away from his own, still crooning that awful siren tone. From this close Ranboo could faintly see radiation burns pockmarking its skin, and a horrible scar of curled and ridged skin along its face, as if it was victim to a close-range bomb explosion.

It tilted its head, leaning a tiny bit closer, and Ranboo threw his arms up to cover his face. God, it itched where the ash water had splashed on him. Why was it itching so much?

The death of Mankind stopped again, looking up into the sky and then down at Ranboo again. It seemed to come to a conclusion, because it then slowly - oh so slowly, why was it being careful? - cupped its hands out in front of it and held them out to him.

It… Wanted him to climb on. Into the grasp of a literal specter of death specifically designed with the destruction of his own species in mind.

Ranboo, in a moment of blind panic and stupidity, climbed on. It looked polite, he reasoned. He was already going to die just from being close to this thing.

It continued to… yes, it definitely was cooing now, in that horrifying voice, and for a moment Ranboo wondered if maybe he misinterpreted. Maybe this thing wasn’t meant to represent the nuclear apocalypse.

His eye had started to itch where the water touched it. He rocked himself in the grasp of this giant, feeling footholds in the craggy radiation-worn skin, and felt the side of his face.

The moment e touched it, a white-hot flash of horrible burning pain hit him like a truck, knocking him into a stupor of yelling. It was as if his face was burning, was twisting and gnarling just as much as the apocalypse beast’s horns did. Under his hand, stiff with pain and unable to move away, he could feel skin slough off, could feel the cells themselves die off in droves, in response to whatever radiation or toxin was in the ash-water.

He couldn’t even register the sensation of fingers larger than his torso curling around him and holding him steady, of him being pressed up against a vast chest that beat unsteadily like a stuck clock, of the vast thumps of footfalls against a diseased forest floor.

All he could feel is pain, burning coiling tunneling pain that tried to tear out his face, his hands, his neck, burning him bright and radiant like a star.

…

The creature was screaming in its hands. It hadn’t stopped screaming for a long time.

It was small and writhing and melting. Creatures usually didn’t like melting.

The death of Humanity wasn’t sure how to make it stop. It had dashed out of the black-rain (that seemed to make the melting worse, maybe it’ll stop once it’s out of the rain?) to its home cave, hoping that perhaps it could figure something out in the comfort of its own home.

The creature’s screams had died down, though whether it was from its pain being alleviated or their voice giving out, the death of Humanity couldn’t tell. All it could tell was that it wasn’t getting up, wasn’t looking at it with those wide curious scared-but-interested eyes.

Most animals ran from the death of Humanity. Land-creatures would yell in fear and flee, birds would rise up into the sky in huge swarms only to be struck down by the black-rain. Even insects would twitch and die when they got near, which led so many to flee this part of the forest entirely. It was a lonely existence. But this human hadn’t run like the other animals had. It had hid, yes, but it had viewed the death of Humanity in all of its glory and it almost, almost, was ok with it being picked up.

And then something had happened and now the human was dying just like all of the other animals and the Nuclear Apocalypse didn’t know what to do.

Be well. Be alright. Be just like you were before, it thought, delicately laying the twitching human on the ground out of reach of the dripping black-water puddles, in a nest of dried grasses and leaves that had swept into the cave over the years. It prodded the human with a finger, whining softly when all it did was spasm like a dying insect. It wasn’t dying, right? It was just hurt? It couldn’t be hurt, the death of Humanity wouldn’t allow it. Not when it was so curious and didn’t flee like the others. Not when the death of Humanity had a chance to learn from it. Even now, writhing in its palm, it could feel the frantic beating of life and warmth, things it had so rarely seen before.

You will be well. You must be well. I will make you well.

...

When he came to, it was to complete darkness.

Well, no. Not totally. There was a faint glimmer of far away light somewhere to his left. A shuffling shadow, a faint sickly green glow.

His right was totally dark though, and he couldn’t quite open his eye. He almost brought his hand up to touch it before violently flinching as he remembered what had landed him here in the first place. Would it start burning and melting horribly like it did before? That he was even awake to wonder that is a miracle in of itself... Or the start of the second round of his torture.

Horrible curiosity pushed him to touch, as lightly as possible, the skin on his right cheek. It… He couldn’t feel it. Or rather, he could feel the sandpaper surface of extremely rough skin, but he couldn't feel the pressure, the burning bright pain. The entire area was dead to the touch.

Ranboo threw himself as upright as he could make himself, which ended up only being a half kneel before falling back over into a sit. His breath hitched and he felt his face more firmly, the rough scratchy surface of skin that splattered like paint over the right side of his face, over his eye, down his neck and onto his arm. The muted tingling where it met smoother skin along his shoulder and the bridge of his nose. In an act of desperation he even poked at his eyelid, trying to pry it open to see if he could ever see from that eye again.

His hand passed in front of his working eye in that moment, and at this point his focus had sharpened enough to make out vague colors in the dim light. His hand… It was a black far darker than any human could naturally produce, with a grey-green cast that made him look sickly.

I feel sickly, he reasoned to himself. What is going on? He waved his hand a little frantically, as if the new midnight shade was something that was just stuck to his skin. Desperately he held up his other (totally numb to the touch) hand, hoping it hadn’t changed too.

Well, good news - it wasn’t midnight black.

Bad news - it was a shade so pale that it looked totally devoid of blood. And the raspy surface he could feel didn’t look any prettier to the eye. It didn’t have that same grey-green tint to it though, which was nice, because it would’ve shown up really well on this pure white canvas.

Why was he even thinking about looks right now? He was in the den of an Apocalypse Beast Ranboo get your head together! This was absolutely not the right time to space out - he needed to stay in the moment!

His hands were shaking uncontrollably as he tried to get himself upright. He had only just gotten himself steady when he felt the rattle of large footsteps shake through the ground. Before Ranboo could even think to run though, the shadows out of the corner of his eyes resolved into the beast, which made its way all too quickly towards him.

He couldn’t run if he wanted to. And besides, the damage done to him would probably kill him. He was on borrowed time as is. What did he have left to do but to see what the beast did?

It slowed as it came closer, reaching out a vast clawed hand towards him. Despite his resignation towards his fate, Ranboo flinched back as it came way too close way too fast. A movement that the beast obviously didn't notice or interpret or care about, because he was scooped up into its palm without a moment's hesitation.

“No!” He yelled, wriggling and pushing away from the cage of fingers around him. The beast paused in bringing him up to its face, and if Ranboo was being generous he could call the look on its face a frown.

In less than a blink the face of the beast was so close way too close and he almost punched it (for all the help that would do) out of reflex. It blinked at him with those lucent yellow-black eyes, laser sharp in their focus upon him. He felt for all the world like an ant being peered at through a magnifying glass. Maybe he’ll be fried like one too.

“What do you want with me?” He asked, voice cracking in fear. “What is it you want?”

It didn’t answer in that siren tone again, but instead shifted its weight to the side and turned its palms so that Ranboo was standing squarely in one of them. The other was drawn up and one sharp-clawed finger was pointed at Ranboo. Or, well. The side of Ranboo’s face that he couldn’t see from just yet.

He trembled with the anticipation of the jagged nail at the end of the beast’s outstretched finger spearing forward. But all it did was touch, very gently, under the damaged eye. The beast frowned even more.

Then it jabbed at him, hard enough to bruise but not much else, directly into Ranboo’s damaged eye. He yelped and jumped away, tumbling off his feet in the cup of the beast’s fingers and slapped a numb hand over numb face. Even if he couldn’t feel the area, it still surprised him enough to believe for a moment he could sense it again. Except… was that still his imagination? The eye under his pale skin was starting to itch and water, the first sensation he felt from it since he had woken up, and with a gasp he was able to open his eye.

Fuzz. That’s all he could see from that eye. The beast leaned forward and poked at his face again, softer this time, and when he opened his eye again the world had snapped into focus, tinged with red around the edges. He blinked a few times, and felt a trail of something wet leak from that eye onto his cheek.

What had happened? “You… You healed me?” He asked up at it. It was still frowning even as he had two working eyes again, and muttered softly in a voice that sounded like something crumbling into splinters. Then it poked him for a third time, this time on the shoulder, and Ranboo held back a yell of pain as the area lit up in a blaze of sensation that felt like liquid fire. As he watched, the black skin around the edges of the wound cracked and veins of bright green glowed beneath.

Just… Like… The beast…

Oh no.

The pain of his nerves coming back to life was nothing when compared to the cold horror that had bubbled into his stomach. There was a single case of a human managing to gain immortality as a result of an apocalypse beast. One of the first beasts, Her Lady of the Primordial Sea, the beast of the Ordivician extinction, had taken pity upon an ancient human who was trapped in the glacial ices that herald her path across the Earth, and had gifted it with immortality and a pair of wings that made him as beastly as the Lady he served.

Nobody knew exactly why the Angel of the Deaths had been spared, and why not a single human had ever had that happen before or since. All that was really known about him was his violence, and that he had an uncanny ability to be where an apocalypse beast would be travelling to next. He was just as inhuman and alien as the beasts themselves, if in a smaller form.

It had only ever happened once. Until now, obviously.

Ranboo stared at his white hand, prickling with waking nerves under the surface and twisting with green strands that trailed under his skin like angry snakes, and knew that he was a monster now. Somehow, it was freeing. Like he finally got an answer to a question he had asked over and over. Why him, why now, why is he still alive, why is he not afraid enough…

He stared back up at the apocalypse beast and it blinked down at him. It was no longer frowning, only looking thoughtfully now. “You’re not going to hurt me.” It wasn’t a question.

It reached a hand back up, maybe to poke him again, but this time rubbed his hair very lightly. He did not flinch this time, steeling up his willpower to allow this touch (It won’t hurt him. He needs to keep repeating it until it is true. It won’t hurt him. He was its now it wouldn’t hurt him).

It made that soft crooning noise again, like it had before lifting the rock he had been hiding under, and despite it being underlaid with sounds specifically designed to inspire fear in humans, he could find himself getting used to it. (Would have to. He’s an abomination now after all. The second angel.)

“You’re not so bad, are you…” He slowly pushed himself to his feet, flexing his newly sensated hand carefully. “I still don’t know what you are or why you are here now but…”

The beast tipped its head curiously and warbled exactly the same words back at Ranboo. He froze, because it was so much like his own voice except under deep layers of static, before shaking his head. Best get introductions out of the way - this creature was obviously smart. It was the death of Humanity after all.

He pointed to his chest. “Ranboo.” He gave it a few pokes for emphasis, and the beast poked him too before mimicking his name. He wasn’t entirely sure it actually got what that meant but, well. Baby steps.

Then he pointed at it. It blinked a few times (and Ranboo really couldn’t help but anthropomorphize its reactions - this thing was just too uncannily human to not) and chirped out another ‘Ranboo.’ He gestured more firmly, pointing at the beast.

It continued to look with (probably) bafflement for a few moments, before letting loose a cacophony of sounds that sent Ranboo’s hands slapping over his ears. It was all of the sounds of falling trees, of squawking birds, of the blazing sun and frigid cold and most of all the explosive fire and cold falling ash-water and death from sickness. It was everything and more that wrapped up the death of Humanity in a nutshell.

Ranboo blinked. That might take a while to learn how to pronounce.

He decided to call it Tubbo for short.

<End> There we have it! I hope that you enjoyed this - I hope it didn't betray too much how much stuff like this interests me and that this was potentially also 3000 words of me nerding out about mass extinctions.

Anyways, here's some details I had added but had no way of explaining naturally within the story that i was a little proud of ^^'

The Anthropocene apocalypse beast is also called the unstoppable bomb and burning oilfield. Shortened to TUBBO. Ha.

There’s 7, now 8 apocalypse beasts (Great Oxidation Event, Ordovician, Devonian, Permian, Triassic, Cretaceous, Pleistocene, and now Anthropocene). I originally intended there to just be 5 (for the big five mass extinctions) and then a 6th Anthropocene apocalypse beast, but then I thought I really should add in the great oxidation event that almost caused extinction of all non-oxygen breathing creatures on a very early earth, and the death of most megafauna in the Pleistocene era.

Society is way different with these living eldritch abominations just shambling across the globe, causing a trail of destruction behind them. A lot less large cities, for one.

The Ordovician apocalypse beast is Kristin, yes. She’s uplifted Phil into something similar to what Ranboo is now. I kinda want to think more about her and her story with Phil.

The Pleistocene apocalypse beast is Techno. Idk why I chose to do that but it seemed to fit. Especially since the leading theory on Pleistocene megafauna death is humans hunting them, which I think fits Techno pretty well

The rain is black rain - rain full of radioactive fallout. Bad Stuff, definitely not what you should seek out if you want to keep your body in working order.

I kept referring to sirens in Tubbo’s speech. Just imagine every emergency warning broadcast sound except even more terrifying

So Ranboo’s skin is majorly fucked up. For one, he’s suffered major radiation damage to the side that is now white (healed over brand new skin). The black half is much more interesting though. Did you know there are types of fungi that can feed off of nuclear radiation? They protect themselves from the effects by secreting a LOAD of melanin, making them extremely dark. Anything that wasn’t newly healed on Ranboo had now become akin to those fungi now. Feeding rather than harmed by the nuclear radiation Tubbo naturally puts off. Perfect for a newborn Angel of the deaths.

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Thank you so much for this story submission!! I really love this idea and how well you wrote it! this is so amazing! ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

#submission #mcyt g/t exchange event #mcyt #g/t

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sugarylawliet · 4 years ago

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bells (L lawliet x reader)

> warnings: ANGSTTT, major death note spoilers

> i know i altered the rain scene a bit and combined it with the monster speech but i thought it fit nicely okay let me live 😫

It wasn’t easy, working as part of the kira case. You knew that better than anyone. You knew that when you begged L to let you join the task force, and by the sorrowful look in his eyes in response to your request, he knew it too. What he also knew, though, was that you wouldn’t give up. No matter how many times he warned you of the dangers, “Y/N your heart could stop any minute,” “Y/N you’d have to say goodbye to your normal life,” “Y/N this puts us both in danger and i can’t lose you,” he knew all too well you would never let up. You would just persist on begging and begging, because you’re just like him. Stubborn. That’s just the thing he loved about you, but also the part of himself perhaps he hated the most. And so, he let you join the task force.

Now almost a year into the investigation, the large band of japanese police and american FBI agents dwindled down to a dedicated few, those who were willing to put their lives on the line to find kira. That few was you, L, Light Yagami, Cheif Yagami, Matsuda, Aizawa, and of course Watari. Misa tagged along too, living in the task force headquarters with everyone else though you weren’t sure exactly why. Maybe L kept her around because he couldn’t let go of the idea that she was the second kira. Stubborn. Though you didn’t agree with his theory, it wasn’t so bad having another girl around HQ.

“Hey Y/N, have you seen Ryuzaki around?” Light asked, walking into the main room placing a hand on your shoulder as you sat eyes glued to the surveillance footage you were to go over.

“Hmm, no actually. Haven’t seen him anywhere. Why, what’s up?” You turned around to face Light, the short nail of your thumb trapped between your front teeth; a habit you picked up from L.

“I don’t know it’s just... weird,” Light removes his hand to rub the back of his neck, “Usually Ryuzaki is always here going over something for the kira case, honestly it’s like the man never sleeps!” He lets out a laugh, and you smile too. It was hard to resist Light’s charm, he just had that effect on people. So charismatic, he couldn’t possibly be kira. Could he? “I guess it’s just strange not to see him anywhere.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I’ll look for him, I could use a break anyways.” You push yourself away from the desk, standing up from your chair to stretch with a groan before heading up the stairs- you had an idea of where he might be.

“Let me know when you find him, I’ve got some case stuff I want his opinion on.”

“Yes sir officer Yagami!” You did a soldier salute in his direction mockingly.

“Don’t call me that,” Light laughed with a wide smile and narrow eyes, a bright laugh that filled the echoey room. You smiled warmly. He wasn’t kira.

_____________

You push open the heavy metal door leading to the roof top of the tall building HQ was located at, your eyes meeting with a slouched figure drenched in rain water. You had a feeling he might be here.

“L!” You called, walking out into the heavy rainfall to collect him. What the hell was he doing out here? He paid no attention to your calls, only continuing to gaze outward at the buildings below.

“L! L, what are you doing out here? You’ll get sick, come on!” You approached him, tapping on his shoulder to get his attention.

“I hear the bells, Y/N,” L took in a deep breath, taking his time to inhale the scent of fresh rain water and cold crisp city air. His dark eyes were clouded with thought, though you couldn’t tell which thoughts.

“What are you talking about? C’mon, let’s get inside.”

“Y/N love, I fear we may be parting ways soon.”

“Huh?”

“I believe I may have bitten off more than I can chew, Y/N. I’ve encountered a monster. A monster who always tells lies. Lying monsters are a real nuisance, you know? They’re much more cunning than other monsters. They pose as humans even though they have no understanding of the human heart; they eat even though they've never experienced hunger; they study even though they have no interest in academics; they seek friendship even though they do not know how to love. I’ve encountered this monster and, well, I’m afraid I might be eaten by it. Because in truth,” He takes in another thoughtful breath, pushing his raven hair dripping with water away from his forehead, “I am that monster.”

Amongst the hard rain pattering against steel, the scattered cracks of thunder, the sound of your own heavy breaths, it all felt silent. So silent it hurt. You couldn’t breath, sure you felt yourself taking in breaths but it wasn’t enough. Your lungs felt cold and wet. It was like L stole your language capabilities, like he reduced you to a little kid who only used their vocal chords to cry. You wanted to cry. You wanted to say ‘L, what do you mean?’ but in your chest you knew what he meant. Because you heard the bells too.

“L,” You began,

“Lawliet.”

“Hm?”

“Lawliet,” He turned to face you, running his hands down your arms before taking your hands, enclosing your fingers in his, “That’s my real name. Lawliet.”

You blinked hard. Were you choking? Suffocating? “We’ll be alright,” You smiled, letting out a stiff breath, “You didn’t get the name ‘best detective in the world’ for nothing, right?”

L lightly moves a hand to the back of your head and places a soft kiss to your lips. You kiss back, tasting the remnants of buttercream and black coffee on his chapped lips. You rake his dark hair through your fingers before he pulls away all too soon.

“Mhm. Let’s go inside love, you’ll get sick.” He hummed.

_____________

Your eyes flutter open, hand instinctively floating to the space next to you expecting to find L, but all you felt was the smooth linen of hotel bed sheets fuzzy with loose balls of thread and cotton. You groan, rubbing the sleep from your eyes as you turn on your phone. Almost 9 AM? That’s late. Why wouldn’t L wake you?

You make your way down the stairs into the main HQ room, where the whole crew was gathered around a table studying the black notebook they collected from the yatsuba case. L, though, sat at his same chair, staring intensely at seemingly nothing, biting on his thumb nail.

“Ryuzaki, what’s the meaning of all this?” Matsuda asks raising his voice, “You’ve somehow gotten approval from another country to use the notebook for an execution?!”

“Watari, excellent work, thank you.” L ignores him completely. “First things first, please make arrangements to transport the notebook immediately.”

“Ryuzaki-” Light this time, “What are you trying to do?”

“I’m gonna try out the notebook for you.”

The task force all let out an audible gasp, including you.

“Ah, Y/N, you’re awake. I let you sleep in, I hope you don’t mind. You needed rest.”

“Wh- Ryuzaki, are you crazy? We know the notebook’s power is real, we’ve seen it before, how else do you think kira operates?!” You dismissed.

“And besides, who’s gonna write the name? If someone starts writing in the notebook, they’ll have to obey the 13 day rule and keep writing names forever!” Matsuda adds.

“It’s already been worked out, the person who will be writing names is a criminal scheduled to be executed in just over 13 days. If he’s still alive 13 days after writing the name, he’ll be pardoned from execution.”

You move closer to L, sitting in your usual seat next to him and take his hand, “But still...to sacrifice a life?-”

“We’re very close!” L yells, raising his fingers to rest at his temples, dropping his hand from yours. You look down at your feet. “If we work this out, the entire case will be solved.”

The flash of red from the monitors before you pulls your attention back up, the room illuminating a cherry hue like the toppings from L’s cake. An alarm begins to blare in your ear, sending your heart rate up as you jump from your chair. Matsuda holds on to your shoulder, concern painted all over his face. Jeez, he looks more scared than you. That’s Matsuda for you.

“What’s going on?! A blackout?!”

L sat calmly at his chair like nothing was wrong. You knew he wasn’t calm. He wasn’t chewing on his thumb. He was staring up at the red flashing monitor with a furrowed brow, his eyes full of deniel. Worry. L Lawliet, worrying. Who would have guessed.

The red hue of the computer screens flashed white all at once, one sentence displayed in black letters: All Data Deletion.

“Watari!” L cried. You had never seen him like this.

“Data deletion? What the hell is going on?!” Chief Yagami yelled impatiently.

“I told Watari that he should erase all information in the event that something were to happen to him.”

“If something were to happen... you don’t think?...”

“Where is the shinigami?!” L yelled.

You all frantically searched around the room, mumbles of “Where’d it go?” and “I don’t see it” filled the air. Tears brimmed your eyes as you scanned every corner of the room. This couldn’t be happening. This wasn’t happening.

“Everyone,” L called, “The shinigami-” He cut himself off, inhaling a quick sharp breath with wide eyes. He was still. No, no, no, no, no please this wasn’t happening. His metal spoon dropped to the floor with a loud clatter before he himself fell onto the cold tiling.

“Ryuzaki!” Light dove for him, cradling him in his arms as he lay silently struggling for air. You rushed over as well, sitting on the other side of him. You grasped his hand and brought it to your heart. “L, L, Lawliet, you’re fine, it’s okay stop it! This isn’t funny, STOP!” You yelled at him through voice cracks, struggling to swallow back sobs. He only stared back with wide eyes. Could he even see you? You brushed his thick ebony hair behind his ears and leaned in close. You could feel his shallow breathing on your nose. “It’s okay, it’s okay, you’re alright, right? We’re gonna be alright?” You begged of him. Did you expect him to respond?

Slowly, almost with hesitance to admit defeat, his eyes fluttered closed. No, god this wasn’t real. You were dreaming. “L! L stop it! Wake up, please just wake up. You can’t leave me here just wake up please!” You sobbed into his chest. It wasn’t moving. All the nights you fell asleep to the rhythm of his chest moving up and down with his breaths and his heartbeat following along- it was all gone. this was nothing like that. He was gone. And so you cried harder. Your throat hurt- sore from the sobbing and screaming. It was all you could do.

“Y/N...” Aizawa placed his hand on your shoulder, “Y/N, I’m sorry. it’s time to go.”

“Nuh-uh” You hummed through cries. You couldn’t bring yourself to say no. L would want it. But you weren’t letting him go. You weren’t giving up like that. Stubborn.

Aizawa crouched next to you. “I know...” He whispered. “You have to let go.”

You shook your head, you pleaded, begged for him to not take him. You needed him. But Aizawa was stronger than you. He walked around you, picking up L bridal style and taking him out of the room.

“No, no, please, Aizawa please! I need him, please,” You reached for L’s limp hand, but it only lifelessly fell from your grasp as Aizawa walked away.

You helplessly begged for L back, still crying tirelessly on the cold floor. For Aizawa to just let you hold him; keep him. Please, he’s fine, just let me have him, I’ll take care of him, please, I just need him. But nobody listened. It hurt. You almost thought you were next to have a heart attack because it hurt. And no matter how long you laid there crying, shaking, you didn’t stop. It didn’t stop hurting. Because you were stubborn. Just like him.

#im so sorry for the angst LOL #l lawliet x reader #L lawliet #L death note #ryuzaki #death note x reader #death note #light yagami #anime #anime x reader #death note oneshot

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dustedmagazine · 4 years ago

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Dust Volume 7, Number 3

Black Country, New Road

One of the funniest parts of Martin Amis’ Inside Story concerns an up-and-coming novelist, constantly asked at literary festivals to differentiate between his short stories and novels and just as consistently coming up with new ways to say that the short stories are, well, shorter. Same deal with Dust. These abbreviated reviews are, indeed, shorter than the full-lengths, but otherwise well worth reading. And, hoo boy, are there a lot of them this time. Contributors include Ian Mathers, Jennifer Kelly, Bill Meyer, Tim Clarke, Patrick Masterson, Arthur Krumins, Eric McDowell, Justin Cober-Lake, Andrew Forell, Ray Garraty, Jonathan Shaw and Bryon Hayes.

Aarktica and Black Tape for a Blue Girl — Eating Rose Petals (Projekt: Archive)

Eating Rose Petals by Aarktica and Black Tape for a Blue Girl

Aarktica’s Jon DeRosa and Black Tape for a Blue Girl’s Sam Rosenthal have known each other for a long time, but this release is the first time they’ve actually worked together. Rosenthal was so struck by the title song, one of the few from Aarktica’s 2019 release Mareación to feature DeRosa’s vocals, that with the latter’s permission and participation he created the almost 19-minute “Fleeting Rose Petals”, which features the original track backwards with wordless additional vocals from DeRosa, plus additional material by Rosenthal before and after it. The original (also included here, along with the closing “Valley of the Roses” which features Rosenthal further reworking the additional material from “Fleeting Rose Petals”) already felt like a single lambent moment in time suspended and held, and by reworking and reconfiguring that material over a full 37-minute span that effect is only intensified.

Ian Mathers

Altaat & Euter — Split (Ikuisuus)

split by Altaat / Euter

Two experimental drone outfits from Finland play extended abstract compositions on this split LP. Altaat’s sidelong “Palava Palaava” sounds like an orchestra tuning up in a wind tunnel as it splices long bowed tones with the rush and whir of large machinery. But however, chaotic that may sound, the actual effect is quite serene, the om of dissonant overtones melting into a white noise background of rattling, humming, whooshing mechanical sounds. Altaat’s Niko Karlsson and Miki Brunou, along with Jari Koho, subsume the noisy clatter of the post-industrial era into a dream-like, beckoning hiss. Euter, also a duo but not willing to give up personal names, works a less organically grounded sound, filling an expansive, echoey space with chortling, wobbling synth cadences, metallic clangs and staticky, between-stations blare. The long “Slowly Underwater,” unfolds in chilly surreality. You get the sense of vast metal furnaces blowing out corrosive chemical clouds, of mechanical sensors picking up and sending signals and of chittering, hurrying life amid ruins. (No, I’m not hearing anything especially watery.) “Magnetic Mammals,” which follows, is similarly machine-like and ominous, picking up vast, sirening sounds as if from a distance with bubbling bursts of radio interference in the foreground. Altaat’s side is certainly closer to conventional Western classical music, but Euter finds some intriguing, disquieting spaces. Makes you wonder what they’re putting in the water up there in reindeer land.

Jennifer Kelly

Rrill Bell — Ballad of the External Life (Elevator Bath)

ballad of the external life by Rrill Bell ////// aka The Preterite

One of the challenges of early electronic music was its labor intensity; it could take months of recording, processing, card-punching and pondering to come up with a few minutes of music. But tools change, and with them, opportunities for access open up. The music of Rrill Bell, a German-based American musician, makes that lengthy process shake hands with instant performance. Originally trained as a percussionist, he works mainly with tapes, which he records, uses in performance, and in the course of performance, records over and re-uses again. But in concert, he tends to improvise with these materials, making split-second decisions that occasionally get preserved for potential re-visiting.

If that sounds like a recipe for frenetic sonic action, it’s not. Mr. Bell’s tastes in original sounds tend towards bells and environmental captures, and he rarely crowds the mix. Tones squiggle and unspool, unidentifiable bumps appear and disappear, and birds chirp at the periphery. It’s easy to characterize this as ambient music, since a low-volume listen is pleasant but undemanding. But keep in mind that successful ambient music must be interesting as well as ignorable, and the dream-like sound walk of Ballad of the External Life still delivers.

Bill Meyer

Black Country, New Road — For the First Time (Ninja Tune)

For the first time by Black Country, New Road

“Sunglasses” erupts out of a blare of feedback, a roar of guitar noise that splinters and disintegrates as you trace its melody. Synths sound like police sirens. It’s all very slow and ominous, and for a minute, all those Slint comparisons make sense. And then it resolves into something like an indie rock song, spoke-sung over thunderous drums by one Isaac Wood, he of the tremulous voice and the unreliable narrative, whose art song proclivities may bring bands like Wild Beasts to mind, though without the fey falsetto. The song is a marvel of bravado and doubt, working the soft seam between ordinary male adolescence and mental illness, and the sunglasses play a key part. Says Wood, “I am looking at you with my best eyes and I wish you could tell/I wish all my kids would stop dressing up like Richard Hell/I am locked away in a high-tech/Wraparound, translucent, blue-tinted fortress/And you cannot touch me.” (Also, later, “I am more than adequate/Leave Kanye out of it,” which strikes me as brilliant for reasons I can’t fathom.) The point is that there are startling, riveting lyrics here, of the sort that you could make a case for leaving it unadorned, but Black Country, New Road is not interested in simplicity. The rather large ensemble includes not just the regular rock instruments but saxophone, violin and synths, all knotted up in proggy complexities and paced by a drummer (Charlie Wayne) good enough to give Black Midi’s Morgan Simpson a run for his money (the two bands are aligned and friends and Black Midi gets a name check in one of the songs). Indeed, the opening track of this six-cut collection is aptly titled “Instrumental,” a whirling gypsy klezmer cubist fantasy that is, if anything, nervier and more complicated than the vocal tracks. This is exciting, volatile stuff that could go anywhere from here.

Jennifer Kelly

Deniz Cuylan — No Such Thing As Free Will (Hush Hush)

No Such Thing As Free Will by Deniz Cuylan

Everything about Deniz Cuylan’s solo debut is understated. Six instrumental tracks running to just 27 minutes, released on the fittingly named Hush Hush Records, No Such Thing As Free Will seeks to evoke something subtle and universal out of minimal ingredients. There’s a robust architecture to this music, generating a sober, contemplative mood. Arpeggios on nylon-string classical guitar cycle around in precise arcs, gently bolstered by piano, clarinet and cello. The space in opener “Clearing” shyly invites the listener in; the record reaches a modest peak in the bright harmonics of “She Was Always Here” and the almost joyful elegance of “Flaneurs in Hakone”; then the music recedes into a melancholic fog on the closing title track. It’s telling, therefore, that Cuylan has worked as a soundtrack composer — his music feels complementary, receding modestly into life’s scenery rather than commanding the spotlight.

Tim Clarke

Arnold de Boer — Minimal Guitar (Makkum)

MINIMAL GUITAR by arnolddeboer

Somedays you just don’t do what you’re supposed to do. At the end of the last summer, Arnold de Boer decided to extend his holiday by a day and take a walk around town. When he got back home, he sat down, picked up an instrument and listened to the music that came out of his fingers. The music was no more expected than the activity that preceded it. Instead of the rough, voltage-enhanced intricacy of the music he plays with The Ex or his one-man band, Zea, de Boer played a set of acoustic guitar solos. Neither ostentatious nor self-consciously rustic, de Boer’s playing tends to zero in on an idea and see where it wants to go. Each rhythmic pattern, decaying harmonic, or rap on the body proposes an idea, which de Boer either explores or restates with minimal variation. Ah, there’s that word. This isn’t a study in minimalism, but an appreciation of how little you need to do if the original idea is sound.

Bill Meyer

Dusk + Blackdown — Rinse FM Mix January 28, 2021 (Rinse FM)

Rinse FM · Keysound (100% Keysound Production Mix) - 28 January 2021

I’m not sure there’s a place left on the internet better suited to explaining the rise of grime, dubstep and its attendant mutations than Martin Clark’s aging Blogspot under his Blackdown alias. From ground zero in London, Clark has been documenter, eyewitness and participant alike, a true lifer fully evidenced by his longtime partnership with Dan Frampton, aka Dusk, showcasing new music on their monthly Rinse radio show and Keysound Recordings record label. They’re an essential part of the culture, so it’s especially pleasant when they serve up some of their own riches. After the traditional December year-end roundup show, Dusk and Blackdown came roaring out of the gates in January with an all-Keysound broadcast in the middle of the night that features gobs of unreleased rollage over its two hours. It’s a nice reminder that though time may pass, URLs may cut out and memories may dim, some are still putting in the work one release, one radio show, one listen at a time. The sound is the key is right.

Patrick Masterson

EKG — 200 Years Of Electricals (Bandcamp)

200 Years of Electricals by EKG (Ernst Karel & Kyle Bruckmann)

Most things don’t hold their value. Why should time be any different? So, if Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote 100 Years of Solitude in the 1960s, EKG might as well proclaim 200 Years Of Electricals in 2021. EKG is Kyle Bruckmann (double reeds, analog electronics, organ) and Ernst Karel (analog electronics, microphones). The duo first convened in the mid-1990s, when both men lived in Chicago, and Karel was mainly known as a trumpeter. They’ve carried on in sporadic fashion ever since, playing increasingly rare concerts as each man moved away from his original home base. They’ve turned snippets from these shows into subdued musical constructions, which they’ve issued on a number of compact discs over the years. For their first release in over a decade, the duo, who currently both live in the Bay area, have ditched the trumpet and the physical album format, and incorporated some of the field recordings that have become Karel’s main sound material in his solo work. But in other respects, this effort is every bit as concerned with iteration and inevitability as Marquez’ book. When you flip a switch, something hums. When you layer quiet sounds, they don’t necessarily get louder, but they do exert a stronger magnetism upon your ear. And you when spread your quietness over a vast stretch of silence, efforts to follow the sound inevitably do strange things to your sense of time. Wait, how many years have we been listening to that crackle? Why stop now?

Bill Meyer

Michael Feuerstack — Harmonize the Moon (Forward Music Group)

Harmonize the Moon by Michael Feuerstack

Montreal-based singer-songwriter Michael Feuerstack sweeps aside all extraneous fluff on his new album, Harmonize the Moon, zeroing in on precise finger-picked guitar parts, vivid lyrical imagery and a stark, affecting tone. He has a knack for smuggling blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moments of understated wonder into traditional-sounding folk songs you’ll imagine you’ve heard somewhere before. Indeed, he wryly admits to recycling the past in the opening song: “I used to be a singer, bumping around in the astral plane / Picking up astral trash, to polish it up again.” Though the foundation of guitar and vocals carries most of the weight, there’s tasteful reinforcement from vocal harmonies, electric guitar, lap steel, bass and drums. Amid these clean, spare arrangements, some of the lines stop you in your tracks, like the following from “Too Kind”: “The world is broken mirrors, traps and triggers / And cold blood pools in the kindest eyes.” With 10 finely honed songs running to just over half an hour, everything is measured and rather lovely. (Beautiful cover art, too.)

Tim Clarke

Michael and Peter Formanek — Dyads (Out Of Your Head Records)

Dyads by Michael and Peter Formanek

Virtuoso bassist, stalwart sideman, solid bandleader, fearless improviser, intriguing composer — Michael Formanek is all of those things, but he’s also a cool dad. At least that’s what it looks like from the outside. Not only did he include his son, Peter, in his musical activities from an early age, giving the youngster a chance to sit in with the likes of Tim Berne and Jim Black. Upon Peter’s return home from college, he joined him in a working duo. Dyads is their first recording, and it is testimony to the merits of giving the kid first-hand experience in the family business. Peter, who plays tenor saxophone and clarinet, has learned the merits of having a bold tone, a flexible improvisational approach and a way with a tune. Their performances unfold with a combination of patience and pith, which permits the listener to savor the elegance with which each musician supports the other.

Bill Meyer

Chris Forsyth & the Solar Motel Band — Rare Dreams: Solar Live 2.27.18 (No Quarter)

Rare Dreams: Solar Live 2.27.18 by Chris Forsyth & The Solar Motel Band

Chris Forsyth teams with Sunwatchers Peter Kerlin and Jason Robira at London’s Café OTO for expansive, incendiary jams that will remind you like a physical ache of what you’ve been missing in live music this awful year. “Dream in the Non-Dream” is a wide-horizon, endless vamp, driven ever forward by Kerlin and Robira in lock-sync, while Forsyth ratchets up tension with a car jack, then spins it off in wreckless, fiery abandon. “The First Ten Minutes of Cocksucker Blues” similarly balances rigor and open-ended-ness, marking off the measures with a hammering, repetitive cadence that becomes a mantra over time. There are also two Neil Young covers, both tending towards the electrified, Crazy Horse side of things, a slow by blistering “Don’t Be Denied” and a raucous “Barstool Blues” from Zuma. It’s all great stuff, and it might hold you for a month or two until we can all crowd up to the stage again.

Jennifer Kelly

Alexander Hawkins — Togetherness Music (Intakt)

Togetherness Music by Alexander Hawkins

Whether you listen to him in duos with Evan Parker or Tomeka Reid, small bands like the Chicago/London Underground or Decoy, or leading his own ensembles, English keyboardist Alexander Hawkins accompanies and improvises with an astute perception of the situation’s requirements. The title Togetherness Music can be taken several ways. The six-part suite combines parts from two different commissioned pieces, and it brings together elements of free and conducted improvisation, scored chamber music, and some discrete electronic interventions. Passages showcasing Evan Parker’s intricate soprano saxophone lines and Mark Sanders’ kinetic percussion contrast and coexist with rich and patiently evolving string passages executed by the Riot Ensemble. This music feels less like a sum of differing approaches than the expression of a cohesive in which all Hawkins’ good ideas fit together.

Bill Meyer

Russell Hoke — The Melancholy Traveller (Round Bale Recordings)

The Melancholy Traveler by Russell Hoke

This release follows up on the archival compilation A Voice From the Lonesome Playground from 2016 of Hoke’s material from small run releases of the 1980’s. With the new material here, Hoke delves into the unadulterated sound of voice and guitar or banjo, with mainly his own songs of loneliness and also the singularly bittersweet moments of existing as yourself, free and detached from society. Also covering two beautiful takes on Sandy Denny songs, which fit into the UK/US traditional direction of the rest. The album rests in the same delicate territory as other folkies such as Connie Converse, Jackson C. Frank, or even the more sedate songs of Daniel Johnston. What brings the album together is the expressiveness in any given moment of a song. The tact and execution consistently bring the emotion of the songwriting home.

Arthur Krumins

In Layers — Pliable (FMR)

Pliable by In Layers

In Layers puts up a middle finger against anyone who thinks that European unity is a passed fancy. The quartet’s members come from Portugal, Iceland and Holland, and their collective experience encompasses Nordic music theatre, lyric free jazz and the tooth-powderingly loud trio, Cactus Truck. But the music they make doesn’t really sound like any of that. Guitarist Marcelo Dos Reis, drummer Onno Govaert, pianist Kristján Martinsson and trumpeter Luís Vicente improvise music that is spacious enough to frustrate viral transmission, but composed of elements hefty enough to tip a scale. There’s plenty of bravura playing, but the displays are subordinate to the music’s abstract cohesion. You won’t hum it, but you won’t forget it, either.

Bill Meyer

Just For the Record: Conversations With and About “Blue” Gene Tyranny

Composer, writer and pianist Robert Sheff, better known as “Blue” Gene Tyranny, collaborator with everyone from Iggy Pop to Robert Ashley, passed away at the end of 2020. Just before that, David Bernabo’s documentary about Tyranny’s life and work, and more generally about the avant garde world Tyranny was a vital part of, how much of it almost vanished and the ways it continues to be vibrant even today, was released. For a while Just For the Record was available to rent, but this year Bernabo made it available for free on UbuWeb Film. It’s a wonderful watch for anyone who’s a fan of “Blue” Gene’s work, for sure. The conversations with him are near the end of his life, but his evident joy in music and art and people shines through, and the conversations with Joan La Barbara, David Grubbs, Kyle Gann and others cast new light on both his history and work and importance and the group of artists that he worked with and around. There’s so much here you almost wish for a miniseries instead (one episode on reissue labels and blogs, one on Robert Ashley’s operas, one on Tyranny’s time as a Stooge…), but given how overlooked artists like “Blue” Gene Tyranny often are, it still feels like a gift to have what’s here.

Ian Mathers

Kariu Kenji — Sekai (Bruit Direct Disques)

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Sekai is a COVID-era exercise in circumstantial lemonade-making. Kariu Kenji’s band, OWKMJ, executes intricate, quick-changing jazz rock with aplomb. Stuck alone at home, he has made a solo record that never betrays his prodigious dexterity as a guitarist. Instead, Kenji has fashioned an album of low-key, keyboard-heavy bedroom pop. It is low key, almost to a fault, since you could easily miss the subtle fault lines between clean and distorted sounds, let alone the moments when he unobtrusively pulls the rhythmic rug out from under a song. The songs poetically render small memories and quietly absurd scenarios, which are considerately translated for the benefit of people who won’t understand Kenji’s all-Japanese crooning.

Bill Meyer

Kid Congo and the Pink Monkeybirds — Swing from the Sean Delear (In the Red)

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Kid Congo Powers has been in more great bands than anyone I can think of — The Cramps and The Gun Club to start with, but also Nick Cave’s Bad Seeds, Divine Horsemen and, just last year, the Wolfmanhattan Project with Mick Collins and Bob Bert. That’s exalted company all round, and his latest, with Pink Monkeybirds, is no slouch alongside any of them. It begins with a vamping, churning, soul-funk-psychedelic “Sean DeLear,” which commemorates the recently deceased Bay Area punk-fashion icon in exultant, chandelier-swinging style. All three side one cuts are bangers, spinning out Sam & Dave bass-and-drum foundations into dayglow garage extravaganzas, but the 14-minute b-side “He Walked In” takes things in another direction, slowing the pace down and letting the music smoulder, a trippy hippy flute weaving through heat-shimmered desert psychedelia. Like the opener, it’s an elegy, this time to Gun Club front man, Jeffrey Lee Pierce, a haunted surf rock dreamscape where spirits dwell.

Jennifer Kelly

Katy Kirby — Cool Dry Place (Keeled Scales)

Cool Dry Place by Katy Kirby

Katy Kirby makes a stripped down, lofi pop that aspires to bigger things. Even low-key, acoustic strummed, bedroom ballads like “Eyelids” are always on the verge of busting out into flute-y, melismatic diva choruses. Even the tender “Cool Dry Place,” dreams of a big pop payoff and gets there in the end. And the single “Traffic!” is strung through with the tension between its muted, all-natural melody and the crescendoing climax that waits at the end. Here Kirby’s plain, wholesome voice gets threaded with fluttering autotune, not because she can’t hit the notes, but because that’s how big pop songs sound. This is the opposite of Katy Perry doing carpool karaoke. It’s acoustic, unadorned versions of songs that long for mainstream gloss and glamor.

Jennifer Kelly

The Koreatown Oddity — “Breastmilk” b/w “My Name Is Dominique” (Stones Throw)

Breastmilk by The Koreatown Oddity

“I got the hook-up from my baby mama / While you fetish freaks get it off the black market.” If the cover art left any room for doubt, the lyrics soon make it clear that Dominique Purdy’s approach to the subject of his latest single is every bit as literal as it is cartoonish. While albums like last year’s Little Dominiques Nosebleed put the Koreatown Oddity’s powers as a storyteller on full display, the rapper’s rhetorical mode here is ostensibly argumentative, with appeals to the all-naturalness — and deliciousness — of his preferred “regimen”:“You looking at me like I’m a strange human / But you drinking cow’s milk — fuck is you doing?” In the space of just two and a half minutes, he also achieves a hilarious upending of a range of hip-hop tropes, from the objectification of women to the glorification of illicit substances, not to mention MC braggadocio. There may even be a comment on fatherhood in there, too, for anyone who really wants to go looking.

The b-side of the 7” offers something different altogether, a stiff-legged but hypnotic beat beset by periodic electronic splatters and the somewhat manic refrain: “My name is Dominique and I’m a fresh musician.” Indeed.

Eric McDowell

Bobby Lee — Origin Myths (Tompkins Square)

Origin Myths by Bobby Lee

A swamp-gassed shimmer hangs over Bobby Lee’s electric blues, as notes bloom and waver and subside like ghostly lights in a humid dusk. Bobby Lee, the man, lives in Sheffield, England, but his music dwells in some lysergic delta, in the south but not entirely of it or anywhere else. Listen to the way that notes flicker in the steady runs of “Broken Prayer Stick,” a regular cadence of them left to warp and wander in steamy sunshine. Or the way that sustained tones drift like seaweed in “Looking for Pine and Obsidian,” losing themselves in thickets of overtone and echo. Bobby Lee would likely find a kindred spirit in Tarotplane’s PJ Dorsey or in William Tyler in a transcendental mood. Like them, his blues drift towards revelation but very, very slowly.

Jennifer Kelly

Nashville Ambient Ensemble — Cerulean (Centripetal Force)

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Thinking of Nashville doesn't typically bring to mind ambient music, nor does the image of pedal steel guitar typically suggest the work of an electronic composer. Nashville Ambient Ensemble, though, mixes those elements. What makes the group's debut album Cerulean feel special isn't its oddness — other acts, of course, do this sort of dreamy work — but that the Nashville elements remain so present. Pedal steel player Luke Schneider does much of the work to create that feel. The instrument itself has long since moved out of its traditional settings (a quick dip into the music of Susan Alcorn, for example, can prompt a fun rabbit trail of the guitar far removed from Western swing), but composer Michael Hix and this group enjoyably maintain the country signifiers even while moving into far spacier terrain. Some of the album pushes toward psychedelic swirls, but the ensemble restrains these gestures. As they head west out of Nashville, they resist simply playing a given genre with a gimmick. Cerulean isn't spaced out country, and it isn't twanged-up ambient. Instead, the group develops its own curious space.

Justin Cober-Lake

Neutrals — "Personal Computing” b/w “In the Future” (Slumberland)

Personal Computing by neutrals

The clever punk lifers in Neutrals upload two incisive songs about technology here. The a-side, “Personal Technology,” bashes antically through a tale of a young man with an, ahem, very committed relationship with computer paraphernalia, amid crashing, Clash-like chords and rumbling bass and drums. As noted when Neutrals’ 2020 EP Rent/Your House pried Dusted’s Jonathan Shaw away from black metal mid-last year, the front-person Allan McNaughton retains a Glaswegian accent, despite decades stateside, which gives these two cuts a rough Northern post-punk glamor. But the obsession with last year’s state-of-the-art, the excruciating torture of “loading,” is all Silicon Valley, enjoying BDSM with its peripherals. The b-side takes a somewhat more expansive view of technology, asking a la Dan Melchior what happened to the flying cars we were promised. Both are sharp and stinging and utterly catchy. I’d call it old school except for its fascination with the new.

Jennifer Kelly

Nun Gun — Mondo Decay (Algiers Recordings/Witty Books)

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Mondo Decay is the audio component of a recent collaboration between Algiers’ multi-instrumentalist Lee Tesche and visual artist Brad Feuerheim (who drums on four of the tracks). The two bonded over a mutual love of 1970s Italian cannibal zombie films and their soundtracks. Joined by fellow Algiers member Ryan Mahan and a roster of guest vocalists including Mark Stewart (The Pop Group), ONO and Mourning [A] BLKstar, Tesche reconfigures the soundtracks to make explicit the connections between present conditions and the socio-political turmoil that informed the original films. Musically that means claustrophobic dub inflected industrial grind, hip-hop influenced cut-ups, mutant disco and plenty of noirish saxophone. Nun Gun emphasizes atmospheric atrophy and deliberate decay with great and pointed effect to create a terrifically dark soundtrack to accompany the book of Feuerheim’s bleak photographs of post-industrial malaise.

Andrew Forell

Oui Ennui — Virga/Recrudescence (self-released)

Virga/Recrudescence by Oui Ennui

In the words that accompany the release of Jonn Wallen’s second album of 2021, he says that “when rationalizing yet another synthesizer purchase, I've often remarked to myself, ‘Well why wouldn't I want that color? I'll have it.’” It’s that attachment to messing around with new toys, a mass of streaks of rain appearing to hang under a cloud and evaporating before reaching the ground (“Virga”), the recurrence of an undesirable condition (“Recrudescence”), and what seems to be a whole lot of Brian Eno (“Oblique Strategies”) that informs these two extended avant-garde digressions. “Virga” is a roaring 24-minute star birth that veers into plinking helicopter rotaries without warning at one point, while “Recrudescence” covers more ground both literal (it’s 39 minutes) and figurative (woodland creatures, Space Age percolations and various rhythms sprout up throughout). Likely better experienced at high volume in a small club setting, we’ll have to settle instead for our headphones barely handling another intriguing development in the ongoing Oui Ennui experiment. How long before DFA co-founder Jonathan Galkin stops lurking in his Bandcamp buys and starts offering him a deal, I wonder?

Patrick Masterson

Payroll Giovanni \ Cardo — Another Day Another Dollar (BYLUG Entertainment)

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At some point in his career, Payroll Giovanni switched from worker to boss. His new album with the producer Cardo is another chapter in the Boss of All Bosses saga. Songs on the CD approximate the language of business manuals and the cheap sloganeering of workers union reps. Work harder, save more, invest, save again — the usual tips handed down to the unfortunate few who didn’t make it like Payroll did. By the middle of the album, you start to feel like you are at a stakeholders meeting where the CEO went for rapping instead of a PowerPoint presentation. When the rapper fails, it’s hardly the producer’s fault, so Cardo just plays up to Payroll with lazy, muzak-ish beats.

Ray Garraty

Rio da Yung Og \ Nuez — Life of a Yung Og (Southern Giants/Ghetto Boyz)

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Rio da Yung Og has been working with a lot of producers (and quite a few of them later got their fame because of it), but up until now he hasn’t released a collaboration with a single producer. His EP with Nuez came out of nowhere but it is a nice change of beats. Up to now, Rio has mostly recorded his raps with very bassy beats. Nuez provides a Southern vibe, more relaxed and less heavy on the bass, which allows to Rio shine. At this point it’s evident that Rio da Yung Og saves his best lines for his solo work (just compare this EP with simultaneously released Heatcheck EP, a collaborative work with artists of varying degrees of talent). In fact, the whole 21 minutes seem to be recorded in one single sleepless studio session with Rio freestyling his way through under the heavy influence of lean. This is Rio at his most desperate, just before his five-year bid in the federal pen. On “Whatchu Need” and “Last Call” (thanks to Nuez’s production) he sounds close to the early Scarface in a paranoid mode.

Ray Garraty

Ben Roidl-Ward and Zachary Good — arb (Carrier)

arb by Zachary Good and Ben Roidl-Ward

A decade back, bassoonist Ben Roidl-Ward and clarinetist Zachary Good were students at Oberlin College. The two friends formed a duo, The Arboretum, which performed new works. Nowadays they teach and perform separately, but share an apartment in Chicago. When the city got locked down and their gigs dried up, they revived the band, after a fashion. The six pieces on arb (named after that first project), which clocks in at just under half an hour, focus on a single musical phenomenon. Each musician plays sustained multiphonics (a technique whereby a horn player sings or hums a note while playing another) that are pitched close enough that their sounds interfere as well as blend with one another. The interactions can be dramatic; on “Guby,” the clarinet sounds like it is keying morse code into the fabric of the bassoon’s timbres. Listening to this music is a bit like staring at a heat mirage; the harder and longer you focus, the less certain you are of your own perceptions.

Bill Meyer.

Rotura — Estamos Fracasando (Self-released)

Estamos fracasando by Rotura

This new EP of melodic anarcho-punk from Barcelona is deceptively breezy stuff. Rotura’s guitars have some crunch and the rhythm section is tight — think Subhumans c. Rats meets Orange County in 1982. But the alto vocals of Silvia (no last names provided) are clean and tuneful, and there are seductive hooks galore. All the musical excitements and pleasures contrast with the intense reports of misery and struggle in the lyrics. “Pisadas (Confinament)” sounds like a COVID-period song, documenting the sound of footsteps resounding through a network of deserted streets and abandoned shops; “Sobrevivir”engages the manifold alienations and inhumanities that attend the refugee crisis in Europe’s Mediterranean nations. Upbeats subjects, those ain’t. But the music keeps your hips shaking and your head nodding. Rotura constructs lively sonic spaces in which to encounter some sharply political punk discourse. One of the EP’s best songs is “Palabras,” which sets to music a poem included in Svetlana Alexandrovna Alexievich’s The Unwomanly Face of War (1987); like much of that book, “Palabras” speaks in the voice of a female combat veteran of the Soviet Army, one who served in World War II. It’s a terrific song, from a very good punk record.

Jonathan Shaw

Sahara — The Curse (Regain Records)

The Curse by Sahara

Argentine miscreants Sahara bill themselves as a “stoner doom” band, and one wonders why anybody would willingly self-apply a label so surpassingly stupid to music they made and presumably care about. The middle-schooler-with-a-magic-marker degree of technical polish on the art for the cassette’s j-card doubles down on the crispy-fried semiotics — but sort of lovably so. This reviewer was rather charmed. If you can penetrate the choking layers of weed smoke and unironic hesherdom to press play, you may be pleasantly surprised. Sahara’s songs don’t evoke Kyuss or Acid Witch nearly so much as Blue Cheer, and that’s a really good thing. It’s power-trio, bluesy-boogie music, played by dudes who cut their teeth on Master of Reality and No Sleep ‘til Hammersmith (with just a little Physical Graffiti in the mix, for the boogie). While no wheels are being reinvented (or competently balanced, for that matter), there’s a winning rawker quality to the enterprise, kicked up a notch or three by the unambiguously great time these guys are having playing the tunes. It won’t be for everyone: it sounds like it was recorded in someone’s Dad’s garage, and the songs have titles like “Altar of Sacrifice” and “The Curse (instrumental).” But if you love the fact that they included “(instrumental)” in parens, it could be for you. Buyer beware: when listening, you may find yourself suddenly craving a sheet of brownies. The entire sheet.

Jonathan Shaw

Bernard Santacruz / Michael Zerang — Cardinal Point (Fundacja Sluchaj)

Cardinal Point by Bernard Santacruz & Michael Zerang

French bassist Bernard Santacruz and Assyrian-American percussionist Michael Zerang have encountered each other in larger ensembles on either side of the ocean since the turn of the century, but it took them until the autumn of 2019 to record a distillation of their musical concord. Beyond their shared history, they are matched in depth of experience. Both were born in the latter half of the 1950s, and each has passed through a myriad of improvisational settings on their way to developing their respective styles. Santacruz is an economical player with a beautiful, rounded tone. Zerang can supply whatever rhythm you need, but whenever freed from time-keeping requirements, he gravitates to sounds that project the movement and friction required to make them. So, while this is a record made with drums and a double bass, it’s by no means a groove-bound affair; melodic fragments confront seething ruptures, and strings and skins knot together into thickets of texture. Each man maintains his individuality while they jointly solve the problems of collaborative music-making.

Bill Meyer

Ignaz Schick & Oliver Steidle — ILOG2 (Zarek)

ILOG2 by Ignaz Schick & Oliver Steidle

These two German gentlemen lay down a bizarre yet intriguing hybrid of free jazz, hip hop and musique concrète on their sophomore effort as a duo. Schick is a serial collaborator who divides his time between turntablism and saxophone skronk. Steidle, on the other hand, is rooted in the free jazz world as a drummer. Together they conjure two distinct modes: ADHD-inspired percussion-and-noise workouts and atmospheric electronics-forward soundscapes. Between these two disparate personalities, the more aggressive one tends to dominate. It’s in this high-energy state that the duo dwells in the worlds of hip hop, jungle and free jazz. Steidle’s drumming is out in front, as he deftly throws himself around the kit with the enthusiasm of Lightning Bolt’s Brian Chippendale. Schick takes an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach to noise-making. His Bomb Squad-meets-Pierre Schaeffer method of weaving snippets of speech, instrumental passages, drones, and blasts of noise is the perfect foil for Steidle’s frenetic skin-pounding. Schick and Steidle tug at the outer limits of beat-making with their unusual blend of electro-acoustic sound, and while they let a slight touch of the ethereal temper their blaze, the sparks still fly.

Bryon Hayes

John Tejada — Year Of The Living Dead (Kompakt)

Year Of The Living Dead by John Tejada

On Year Of The Living Dead, John Tejada chases the human through machines, seeking the traces of connection and shadows of loss blurred by the conditions we continue to live through. His minimal dub-inflected techno is immaculately produced and composed rather than constructed. Suffused with warmth and emotional depth, Tejada employs a sonic palette the elasticity of which makes his music generously expansive and resonant. Melancholy chord progressions, heartbeat percussion, a bottom end in turns ominous and cocooning. The 4X4 structure provides a framework in which Tejada is free to focus on the granular aspects of tone, pitch, ebb and flow so that while on the surface his brand of microhouse may sound “all the same” there is both plenty of interest for home listeners and danceable beats for the more active. There’s no abrasion here, no confrontation, little to challenge but Tejada’s music moves along with the relentless soft power of molten molasses.

Andrew Forell

Tree — Soul Trap (self-released)

SOUL TRAP by TREE

Tremaine Johnson is one of those heads who’s been around the block. He’s gotten that MTV airtime, he��s done records with Chris Crack and Vic Spencer, he’s outlasted a car company that sponsored one of his EPs, he’s performed at Pitchfork. But maybe more than anything, the Chicago rapper and producer wants to make sure he doesn’t forget his roots as the father of “soul trap” — and you don’t, either. Following steadily on from 2020’s abbreviated The Blue Tape and nearly two years on from his last proper full-length We Grown Now, Tree has lost none of his step as he rounds 40 years aboard this tainted orb exuding the confidence of a relaxed auteur rowing through verses and songs at his own pace; his sandpaper vocals sound at ease with his beats as he addresses negotiating parenthood, bills, the creation and maintenance of his art. Though these tracks had reportedly been sitting around for years before Soul Trap’s release, listening to this album only goes to serve the greater point that the man has a style out of step and time with his contemporaries. That’s worth more than remembering; it’s worth celebrating.

Patrick Masterson

Dave Tucker / Pat Thomas / Thurston Moore / Mark Sanders — Educated Guess (577 Records)

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Hale, hearty, and steeped in the lore of a multitude of American underground art movements, Thurston Moore always seemed like a guy who was creatively rooted in his native soil. But he seems to have found solid footing since moving to England. On this record, he fits right into an improvising ensemble that is composed of Café Oto regulars. Keyboardist Pat Thomas, drummer Mark Sanders and guitarist and electronic musician Dave Tucker, who convened the quartet, are all long-standing members of London’s improvised music scene. But Moore, a punk from way back when, was probably quite tickled that Tucker played with the Fall for a brief spell in 1981. The sound they develop over the course of this set is pleasingly unbounded, with fragments of monster movie sound design and some jungle-style drum machine beats that could have been pulled from a pirate radio broadcast in 1994 sharing space with cavernous prepared piano, restless percussive exploration, and Moore sounding just like himself, but respectfully restrained when the moment demands.

Bill Meyer

Karima Walker — Waking the Dreaming Body (Keeled Scales)

Waking the Dreaming Body by Karima Walker

Karima Walker’s second album considers the full-ness of empty space. Her songs, if that’s what they are, arise out of soft, slow drones that fluctuate in a natural way, like tides or winds or aurora borealis. They incorporate natural desert sounds captured from near at hand as she locked down in Arizona, and they unfold in a sublimely gradual way as if, like the growth of plants, the movement of continents, the melting of snow, they cannot be rushed but must proceed on their own terms. She sings, a bit, in brief, dream-haunted phrases that seem as distant and unknowable as the organ tones that swell around her. “Reconstellated” best represents her eerie blend of human and electronic sounds, internal dialogue and the wide spaces of the natural world. She murmurs, “Sonoran sky plays a movie/Draw a line to the stars inside of me/Write it down, tell your friends/I know where I am but I can’t tell where I started,” against a blipping, percolating atmosphere. The title track is, by contrast, several orders folkier and more conventional, a gentle conjunction of acoustic guitar and Walker’s clear, trilling soprano, as she considers the way the ineffable intersects with the mundane. “Seems every morning starts the same way, waking the dreaming body,” she croons in this track near the end of the album, coming up into the daylight after a long nocturnal exploration.

Jennifer Kelly

Whisker — Moon Mood (Husky Pants)

Moon Mood by Whisker

Bassist Andrew Scott Young and multi-instrumentalist Ben Billington are luminaries of Chicago’s experimental jazz and electronic scenes as members of Tiger Hatchery, soloists and collaborators with a range of local groups. In Moon Mood the duo performs two lengthy improvisations for double bass and electronics. Young’s bass is to the fore, and his bow work is particularly expressive as he explores the registers of his instrument. Billington works a number of patches to interpolate all nature of blips and plinks and squelchy runs that respond to and interrogate the bass. The workouts are as much an investigation of sonic limits as a demonstration of the sympathetic interaction between natural and artificial sounds, if that is even a worthwhile dichotomy these days. Moon Mood is a fascinating conversation well worth eavesdropping on.

Andrew Forell

Wode — Burn in Many Mirrors (20 Buck Spin)

Burn In Many Mirrors by Wode

The guys in Manchester-based band Wode play black metal, but they don’t wear corpsepaint or futz around with severed goat’s heads and candelabras. That’s a good thing, because their music has bombast aplenty. Any additional theatrics might send the project over into a species of irritating kitsch. When Wode’s music works — as it does on “Lunar Madness,” the first track on the band’s latest LP, Burn in Many Mirrors — it’s muscular stuff, with terrific momentum and gut-thudding energy. Throughout the song, vocalist Michael Czerwoniuk does his usual stuff, chewing the sonic scenery, plentiful groans and gurgles punctuating all his shouting. Even in the maximalist context of black metal vocals, he’s a handful. But on “Lunar Madness,” there’s enough interest and excitement generated by the rhythms and riffs to offset his histrionics. A couple songs on the record are shaped by oft-handled forms, and rely overmuch on Czerwoniuk’s outsized presence; upon listening to “Fire in the Hills,” you may find yourself flashing on the self-parodic antics of Jim Dandy Mangrum, or on metal heroics that were already tired on records like Bark at the Moon. That’s too bad. When Wode clicks as a unit, they can make compelling sounds. “Sulphuric Glow” moves at a dead run for nearly the entirety of its five minutes, and while Czerwoniuk’s vocal stylings are still a bit much, the riffs are fluid and furious. If he could just dial stuff back to 11, folks might be able hear the rest of the band. They’re pretty good.

Jonathan Shaw

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ubeb0nes · 5 years ago

Text

The Chief’s Kid Part 1

Ok so, ngl. I don’t much like how this first chapter turned out, but I burned out of energy writing it and I don’t wanna lose interest in writing this story by redoing the first part over and over again.

So here it is anyways, lmao. I promise that part 2 will be much cleaner. This is just me trying to get off the ground with the story. I’ve decided that this is probably gonna carry on much longer than 12 parts, so that’s good :)

Enjoy! (if you can)

---

It was stormy that night. The spirits seemed to be particularly angry, beating down with as much water on our heads as they could. Our uniforms were heavier than usual, and we were soaked to the bone before we’d even reached our destination.

But at the same time, it was a blessing. The rain would make it harder for our targets to make an escape, and they’d never see us coming.

I stood on a roof right across from our targeted building. A few of my men were at my side, and we all watched intently as the other officers got into position below us.

The radio crackled quietly, having been turned down to a low volume. Likely nobody would’ve heard it if it’d been louder, given how furiously the sky was raging, but we weren’t going to take chances.

“Squad 3 in position, Captain.”

“Squad 2 in position, Captain.”

“Squad 4 in position, Captain Beifong. On your call.”

I nodded, and one of my officers flipped the radio off. I wiped my now-floppy hair out of my line of sight and narrowed my eyes down at the building. With how much trouble the Terra Triads had given us- given everyone- I’d seriously been considering collapsing the building on their heads. Until we’d found out there were kids involved.

I retracted the metal from around my right foot, and then slammed it on the ground. Through my mother’s way of sight, I was able to see everything through an echoey, tunnel-like view. There was no exit where Squad 2 was covering, but there was one in the back. When I opened my eyes again, I gestured down below for them to move around to the back. They did so, quickly and quietly.

After a few beats of waiting to let them reposition I looked back at my men. “Jin, Taro, take the two left windows. Pao, Hanji, the right ones,” I ordered, and they all nodded, “I’ll take the middle. Let’s move!”

Our metal cables sparked and sang as we cast them out to the top of the building, and then swung down to the second level of the building. I glanced down to catch my men crashing through the side windows of the first floor, and then some of them shooting up into the second.

I turned my shoulder towards the window before I crashed through, and rolled onto the floor. The sound of thunder was drowned out by screams and yells of fright , and I was immediately thrown into combat mode.

I stomped my foot on the ground and raised a good chunk of the floor up, jabbing at a firebender as he tried to blitz me. The rock caught him and took him with it to the wall. The earth buzzed beneath me, urging me to turn around. And so I did, arcing a kick around as I went and smacking another thug squarely in the fact with a rock.

“Captain!” Pao called out to me. I snapped my gaze towards him. He was pinned down near the wall by two earthbenders, tanking as many shots as he could manage but he was fading.

I sprinted over and whistled at Jin as I neared him. Wordlessly, he stuck his hand out to offer me a boost. I jumped up, and with a loud cry, I slammed my hand into the ground when I landed. Two pillars jumped from the floor, ramming the two into the ceiling with a crack before sinking back down.

Pao nodded at me. “The kids are supposed to be in the basement,” he said.

“Then let’s hurry.”

Pao was the Captain of the Metalbending Police’s Special Corps, the best ambush and combat team the RCPD had to offer. Barring me just having to save his ass, he was the best to have alongside you in a fight.

We barreled through everyone that stood in our way as we made our way down to the first floor. We didn’t stop to fight, Spirits only know what could be happening to those children as the seconds winded down.

I vaulted over a table and pushed my arms out, causing the trapdoor that led into the basement to swing open. Pao and I jumped through, and the yells we heard this time around were much more adolescent.

I couldn’t help but gape for a moment at the sight before me. None of them could’ve been over the age of nine or ten. It was all little girls, lined up in chains along the wall looking less dignified than cattle. Some of them were naked. All of them were bruised and battered.

I remembered what mom had told me before she’d left, advising me with what I’d need to know for when I eventually became Chief.

“You’re going to have horrible, gruesome things come across your desk. And it’s never going to stop, no matter how good you are, Lin. So find some peace in knowing that.”

“Let’s get these kids out of here. Hurry!” I said. Pao and I circled our hands around, then splayed our fingers out. The shackles around each of the kids fell to the floor, but none of them moved towards us. Something tingled in my feet, telling me that this wasn’t right.

Then the basement door slammed shut.

I heard a rock crash into something, and Pao crying out in pain. “Pao!” I turned around just in time to be rocked in the jaw with a rock. I fell to the ground with a grunt, cursing when I saw Pao lying not so far away, soundly unconscious. I looked up to see a figure standing over me, a rock raised above his head, but the world was spinning too quickly around me.

I gritted my teeth as I stared my fate defiantly in the eye, silently apologizing to the kids behind me.

But that quick blow of the end never came. Instead, I heard that sick, cold sound of metal entering skin. But it wasn’t mine.

I let out a groan as the world slowed down and eventually stopped spinning around me, and dragged myself to my feet. The earthbender fell as I rose, and I stared down at him with wide eyes. What looked like one of the shackles had been bent into something like a weapon, a sharp, haphazardly piece of shrapnel. And it was sticking out of his back.

My gaze slowly traveled back up, and I met the eye of a little girl. Her hands were splayed out in front of her, like she was reaching out to the man on the floor. She’d killed him.

And, as a result, saved me.

---

“‘S the matter, rookie? Nervous?” Pao asked me. The van passed over a bump in the road, and jumped up and down with a ba-dump.

I gave him an incredulous look and smiled. “I’ve never had the decency to be nervous,” I replied. Pao laughed heartily and slapped me on the back, like we were headed to the bar rather than a Terra Triad holdup. Everybody else looked like they were at ease too. Which made sense, I guess. I was the only rookie here. Everybody else had been doing stuff like this like clockwork for over a decade.

“Did I ever tell you about the first time your mom coordinated an ambush?” He asked.

I made a face. “Wasn’t I there?”

“No, that was a little while later.”

“Pao, Beifong, can it,” mom- or rather, Chief Beifong- snapped at us. Pao raised his hands placatingly, while I cowered back sheepishly. Mom held onto a hook overhead, the only one standing in the moving vehicle. I stared up at her with wide eyes.

This was who my mother was. An intense leader, with a perpetual glare that scared the shit out of even the people she cared about most. I’d seen her fight (well, spar), and she looked relaxed at worst and amused at best. Neither of those qualities lined her face right now.

The van slowly came to a stop, and I looked out the front window. We’d parked behind a building two blocks down from where we were headed. We’d move the rest of the way across the building tops. I inhaled slowly and then exhaled, and pulled on my helmet. I started to stand up, but a hand pushed me back down. I looked up and met my mother’s stern expression.

“Not so fast, rookie. We still have a briefing,” she said.

I nodded. “Sorry, ma’am.” She squeezed my shoulder subtly, before folding her hands behind her back and facing the rest of the Special Corps Team.

“Our mole said the hostages are going to be on the airship in the hangar. I’ll lead Squad 2 on the rescue,” she proclaimed. I looked around. Squad 2 was me, Jung, and Yen. Two of the older veterans and the ‘little baby’, as I’d been dubbed. “Squads 1 and 3 will coordinate as we discussed earlier. Any questions?” Mom didn’t even give enough time for someone to open their mouths, “Good. Now let’s get this over with.”

The back doors of the van opened and we silently filed out.

“What a briefing,” I muttered to Pao.

“Your mama doesn’t mince words,” he replied quietly, “Now focus, rookie.”

“Jung, Yen, rookie. With me,” the Chief called. We all stepped towards her, and followed her lead as she threw out her metal cable and shot up to the roof. The others maneuvered through the dark alleys below, and their stealth uniforms coupled with the pitch-black darkness of the street made them quickly fade away.

We made our way across the buildings quickly and quietly. I was smiling under my mask as I hopped over ledges and vaulted over ridge vents. It was like we were going on a parkour run, only there were crack dealers and murderers at our destination.

We finally came to a halt at the building across from the port warehouses, and crouched down low as a security light sweeped over us.

“Rookie,” the Chief barked.

“Ma’am?”

“Locate the hangar,” she ordered.

I nodded, and promptly retracted my metal shoe. It made sense that mom would ask me to do it. I’d proved to have a stronger seismic sense than her (maybe because I might as well have been as blind as Grandma Toph). I furrowed my brow as I searched through the ground, until I located a mass of heartbeats clumped together in one of the warehouses further down.

“Second closest one to the dock on the left,” I whispered.

“You sure, rook?” Jung asked.

I blinked twice at him. “...Yeah.”

“Any guards?”

“There’re fifteen people in there.”

“Eight hostages, right Chief?”

Mom hummed as she contemplated our next move. I touched her shoulder, half-expecting to get shrugged off, but she looked at me expectantly.

“We have the element of surprise. We can take ‘em,” I insisted. Truth be told, I just wanted to fight. But that was the type of statement that would get me a smack in the head instead of a scrap.

My mom looked me in the eye as if searching for that masochistic desire of mine. When I hid it well, she let out a resigned sigh. “...Fine. Let’s move underground,” she said. We all nodded, and jumped down to the back alley, then spiraled ourselves into the ground.

---

We popped back up at the back door of the hangar, between the tall building and the endless expanse of water on Yue Bay. My mom signaled for Jung and Yen to take one side of the door, while the two of us crouched on the other.

I grinned underneath my mask as I clenched and unclenched my fists. Something told me this might end up being more fun than any Pro-Bending match I’d been in.

“Three are on the far right, three are guarding the aircraft. The last one is at the front door,” my mom whispered, “Jung, Yen, secure the aircraft. Beifong and I will take care of the rest.” We all nodded dutifully at her, and shifted into a more explosive position. Jung stood in front of the door, his hands poised behind his waist to blast the door through.

I shook the tension out of my hands, and then settled into my fighting stance. The Chief tapped my shoulder twice. Her own little way of saying ‘be careful’, which had sprouted from my Pro-Bending days. I scoffed quietly, but gave her a reassuring look. She turned to Jung, and nodded.

“Now!”

Jung pushed his hands forward, and the door was blasted in. I stomped on the ground, and the earth beneath propelled me through the doorway. Jung and Yen ran past, making a beeline for the aircraft.

Mom and I headed right. I lunged forward and reached towards the ground, awake and rumbling beneath me. It rippled and shook, then crashed against two of the guards before they even knew what hit them.

Metal cables rang out as my mom shot them at the remaining guard. He extended a metal blade and cut through the cable.

I stomped on the ground and raised a rock into the air. Mom stepped forward and kicked it squarely. The guard dove out of the way just in time, but I whirled around and slung a rock in the direction he was diving.

I let out a laugh in spite of myself. “That was fun!” I exclaimed, bouncing on my heels. Mom shot me a withering glare, and I averted my gaze sheepishly.

A yell from the airship ripped me from my embarrassment, and we both watched as the guard at the front door rushed towards it.

“You get in the aircraft, help out Jung and Yen!” Mom barked, “I’ll take care of him.”

I hesitated. “You sure, mom?” I asked a little quieter.

“Don’t worry about me, kid. Now do as I say!” She snapped. I nodded reluctantly, and made my way towards the aircraft while mom took care of the lone guard.

I bent my foreguard into a blade as I came crashing through the window of the control car. I landed with a roll, and took a half-second to see my opposition.

There were definitely more than three guards. I sighed inwardly, making a mental note to make sure I did all the seismic sensing from now on. Then I darted forward.

Fire lit up the control room while metal creaked and whined. Three guards descended on me all at once, but I had more than enough experience fighting in small spaces to take them. I bobbed and weaved around until they were all standing on the same panel of metal.

I slammed my foot into the floor, and the panel shot up, ramming all three of them into the ceiling with a collective cry.

I smirked as I bent the panel to hook onto the ceiling, and threw the guards a small wave as they struggled and squirmed.

“I’ll come back for you later,” I chimed, “You’re going to jail, by the way.” I heard one of them mutter a ‘duh’ as I left, and snickered to myself.

When I got to the main haul, Jung and Yen were finishing tying up a couple of guards. Behind them, the eight hostages (mom had gotten that number right) stood anxiously. “Are we good?” I asked.

Yen nodded. “You handle those three guys by yourself?” She asked.

I huffed. “Yeah. Thanks for helping me out.”

“We wanted to see if you could handle it,” Jung said, “Yen owes me twenty yuans. Thanks, kid.”

“Then I better get half of that,” I quickly said. This could be a nice side hustle…

I looked at the hostages, and frowned slightly. “Let’s get these people out of here.”

Metal footsteps from behind caused us all to turn. My mom looked at us oddly, and then back into the control room. “Why are there people on the ceiling?” She asked hesitantly, and looking slightly fearful for the answer.

“I’ll get ‘em off later,” I said, “Should I take these people back to the vans, Chief?”

The Chief nodded, expression quickly sobering back into seriousness. “Jung, Yen, we’re going to the main warehouse. That’s where the rest of them are holding up.”

“I’ll meet you there-” I started.

Mom swiveled her steely gaze on me. “No. You stay with the hostages. If we’re not back there in twenty minutes, call reinforcements and head back to the station,” she barked.

My stomach sank. I was being sidelined?

“Chief, I can-”

“Do as I say, rookie.”

“...Yes, ma’am.”

---

“You know Chief, she’s more than capable of holding her own,” Jung said once Aiko and the hostages had all filed out. I shot him a look, but he’d been in my service too long to waver. “Kid’s good.”

“Thank the Spirits you’re not in charge Jung, lest we have a rookie killed because you ordered her into a situation she’s not ready for,” I said. Jung raised his hands placatingly. “Squads 1 and 3 are already at the warehouse. Let’s move.”

When we got to the warehouse, we were immediately greeted by a repository turned battlefield. It seemed like everybody in the Terra Triads and their mothers had decided to show up at the port. We were soundly outnumbered.

“Chief, what do we do?” Yen yelled over the commotion.

I gritted my teeth. We needed to shut down their port operation. Not only would they have their emboldened numbers if we didn’t, but they’d have technology.

“Pick up our fallen, get them back to the vans,” I ordered, “We’ll hold it down here.” The two of them nodded, and moved to pick up the injured and unconscious. I took to covering them as they went, fending off any Terra Triad that tried to pounce them.

I shot out my metal cable at one of them, and threw him into another as he ran forward. One of them charged at me from the side, grabbing onto my midsection and pushing me back. I growled, bringing down my elbow on the back of his neck and let him slide to the floor.

I looked back at Jung and Yen, who were both hauling two men apiece on their backs. “Tell Aiko to call reinforcements!” I yelled.

“Chief!” Jung called to me. I looked at him, eyebrows raised. He smirked sardonically at me. “You were right. Sorry.” I scoffed, shaking my head.

“Of course I was right,” I replied.

With that, the two of them sprinted off. I turned back to the battlefield.

The air was heavy with loss and struggle. My officers were suffocating right now. Skilled as they were, the Terra Triads were crawling from every crack and crevice.

Well. This’ll be a lot of paperwork.

---

“Is anybody else injured?” I asked, rising to my feet once I finished wrapping one man’s arm. He’d been slashed in warning by one of the thugs. When nobody raised their voice and I didn’t see any pools of blood, I nodded resolutely.

“You’re a bit young for an officer, aren’t you?” One of them asked in a scratchy and parched voice. I turned around to face the woman that’d spoken, who smiled kindly at me.

“Maybe ma’am, but I’m pretty good,” I said, grinning brightly under my mask. I perked up at the sound of heavy footsteps, and my smile soon disappeared. Jung and Yen were both running towards the van, two injured men resting on each of their shoulders. One of them was Pao.

I hopped down from the van and quickly took Pao off of Jung’s shoulders. “What happened?” I demanded.

“I tripped,” Pao said sarcastically.

“Seriously, Pao!”

“One of those guys… ngh… caught me in my side,” he gestured to a bloody injury near his stomach.

I let out a sigh, trying to force down the twisting in my stomach. Some first mission this was turning out to be. “Alright, lay down here,” I said, settling Pao in the back of the van before starting to help Jung and Yen with the others.

Pao grabbed my wrist before I could. “Aiko,” he said gruffly, and then pausing to cough, “You gotta help her, kid.”

“Is she okay?” I demanded.

“Survivin’. For now.” And with that, he let go of my wrist. I turned towards Jung and Yen, both of them still trying to catch their breath.

“There’s too many,” Jung said shortly, “Call- huff- call reinforcements, Aiko.” I nodded, and went to the front of the van.

“Take these people back to the department. Wire them for reinforcements on the way,” I said to the driver. Once we’d loaded the other officers in, he sped off back to headquarters. I adjusted my mask on my face and started for the warehouse. “Where’re you going?” Jung asked.

“Back to the warehouse.”

He grabbed my arm as I passed by him and looked at me sternly. “The Chief ordered you to stay here.”

I wrenched my arm out of his grip furiously. Jung was only following what my mother ordered, but it felt like more of a betrayal to her than anything else. “She’s my mom, Jung!” I exclaimed.

“And it’s not your job to protect her! She's the Chief, she'll be alright,” He replied. I glared witheringly at him, but I just didn’t have the intimidation factor that my mom did. “You know why she ordered you to stay here. And so that’s what you’re going to do,” he said firmly.

Oh, like hell. “No the hell it’s not,” I snapped at him. And before he or Yen could stop me, I catapulted myself into the air, shooting a metal cable out towards the warehouse. I heard Jung call my name, but it soon faded the further I got.

If they’d really wanted to stop me, they could’ve cut my line or shot theirs out to snag me. But even Jung didn’t have the nerve to separate me from my mom.

---

Finally. The momentum had decided to sway into our favor, as we all started to become less of disciplined soldiers and more of desperate brawlers. The Triads were on their last leg, their numbers no longer multiplying endlessly. And we’d have reinforcements soon to help finish the job.

But I hadn’t been able to get through scot-free. I was fighting on a limp now, doing more hobbling and shuffling than I was swinging and attacking. I’d landed on my ankle wrong after two of the more adept fighters of the Triads had ganged up on me.

I grimaced as pain shot up through my ankle while I weaved around an attack, the pain dull but biting even through the adrenaline. I could only imagine what kind of hell it was going to feel like once the dust settled.

We were pushing back, but we weren’t winning. My men were still dropping off like flies. If we didn’t get those reinforcements soon, then I was going to be suffering much more than a twisted ankle.

The injury proved to be too much of a hindrance, slowing me down just a tick. And just a tick was all my opponent needed to slam me with a rock, wailing me across the warehouse and into the wall. I let out a loud cry as something in my shoulder cracked, and I sank to the floor in pain.

“Oh, well that’s just great,” I muttered to myself through gritted teeth.

“Damn,” the thug wheezed as he approached me, “I’m gonna get to tell the boss I took down Chief Beifong. Wasn’t all that hard, either.” He laughed victoriously to himself.

“I’m not through,” I growled at him as I stumbled to my feet. I must’ve looked pitiful.

Slowly, I tried to raise my hands in a defensive stance. When my right shoulder roared at the effort, I let it drop uselessly with a growl, and was left to hold up only a single fist. I’d figure a way to make it work. I had to.

Or… maybe not.

I watched- rather dumbly- as a flash of black and gold bulleted at the thug, tackling him to the ground with an angry cry. I looked up in relief to see fresh reinforcements start to flood in, but then back at the initial attacker. And I nearly had a brain aneurysm.

Aiko. She had the Terra Triad pinned beneath her now, forgetting (or maybe rejecting) her bending in favor of bloodying her own fists. She rained punches down mercilessly on his mug, and when he reached weakly to stop her, she picked up his face and slammed him back into the floor.

“Aiko!” I snapped, limping towards her. She continued her beatdown, teeth bared and eyes wide. I hurried over and yanked her away from the now-unconscious body. “That’s enough, rookie,” I said. She pushed against me, but I was still a little stronger than her. But I let out a wince as I stepped back on my bad ankle.

It was then that Aiko finally saw me. “Mama,” she said worriedly, catching me as I stumbled.

“You disobeyed my orders,” I grumbled weakly.

“But-”

“There's no but's about it, Aiko,” I snapped, even as she helped me out of the warehouse. I looked around to see the remaining stragglers being quickly neutralized by our more energized forces. I let out a sigh. This wasn't feeling like much of a win. “I shouldn't have brought you on this mission.”

“If you hadn't, you'd be dead right now.”

I was too livid to answer her. So what if I'd died? I was the Chief of Police, it wasn't her job to worry about my welfare. It was the other way around.

For Spirits’ sake, the kid was only seventeen. Even younger than I'd been when I first started out. Maybe she was good. Maybe she was talented. But she was a child. My child.

“Mama. Mama, look, I'm… sorry,” she said. I could hear her voice straining with the apology. The typical Beifong pride.

I shook my head. “I'll chew you out later, trust me. For now,” I let out a pained groan, “Get me back to the department.”

---

SLAM!

I let out a sigh as the door shut behind Aiko (who I’d just finished my promised chewing out with), pinching my brow with my good arm. The healer was still working on my ankle.

She shot a questioning look towards the door, then back to me. “She's very strong for her age,” she commented. When I gave her a look, she added, “Carrying you all the way up here by herself like she did.”

I hummed half heartedly. “Sure. But she's about as stubborn as five earthbenders in one,” I quipped.

The healer chuckled easily, and I shot her a glare that would've been more intense if she wasn't responsible for my wellbeing. “If I were you, I'd be grateful to have a daughter that cared so deeply for me. They're not usually so unconcerned with themselves at that age,” she said.

“I don't need your advice on parenthood, thank you,” I snapped, “I'd like to have my ankle healed, my shoulder repositioned, and to get the hell out of here.”

The healer didn't look the least bit phased. Was I losing my edge? It was probably the kid’s fault. “She's a good kid, Chief Beifong. Maybe a little reckless, but there are worse things.”

I stayed silent. It wasn't like I could disagree with the healer. Aiko really was remarkable. So much so that someone on the outside might even be able to rightfully say a parent’s worry was unwarranted.

And yet, here we were.

“She's my- she's a rookie,” I said, “She made a call that was explicitly against my orders. Hell. I should have her fired for insubordination.”

The healer laughed merrily. “According to your tirade from earlier, it sounded like a simple case of a protective mother and her stubbornly heroic child,” she replied, “I think it's sweet.”

I let out a loud huff in reply. This… this was the price of letting my kid become a cop. Yet another layer of worry atop the whole damn cake. And it was the thickest of them all.

Aiko was good. But I just knew this was going to bite me in the ass sooner or later. It'd been me that took the brunt of it tonight. But only the Spirits know what I'd do if- when- Aiko would suffer down the line.

---

The back door of the department screeched as I opened it, and stepped back out into the chilled air of Republic City. I checked my watch. It was almost three in the morning now, but long nights of the winter were going to keep any brightness away for a long while. And I was still too jittery from the mission to feel the exhaustion yet.

I kicked a pebble and scuffed the sole of my shoe as I stood at the edge of the sidewalk. I then closed my eyes and focused on the city sounds (which never faded, in a town that was perpetually awake). Mom always told me to do that whenever I wanted to calm down.

Mom. My stomach sank, and so did I to the edge of the sidewalk. Slamming the door like that back there would've warranted a deserving ass-beating from any less merciful (or injured) parent. I let out a sigh.

“I expect better from you.”

Her words, filled with all their sharpness and spite, kept echoing in my head.

“Ugh…” I muttered to myself, cradling my face in my hands.

No matter what mom said or how disappointed she was, I didn't regret what I did one bit. But a simple ‘thank you’ would've been nice. Would've been more than nice, actually. I was starting to wonder what it was gonna take for those two words.

“Hey, Beifong? That you?” A voice further up the sidewalk called.

I perked up, taking my face out of my hands. “Yeah?” I called back at the silhouette. As the figure walked forward, I realized that it was Koru, one of the guys from my graduating class. He was working in communications. “Hey, Koru.”

“Hey,” he replied, waving at me with a hand that contained a telegram, “This just got wired over to the station. It's for you.”

I took the message with a knowing smile. “Thanks a lot,” I said.

“No problem.”

As he walked away, I turned my attention back to the telegram. In bold letters near the top left corner, SUYIN BEIFONG was etched into the paper.

I was still smiling brightly. The last telegram I’d gotten from my aunt had been almost a month ago, after my graduation. I quickly got to reading it.

Dear Aiko,

I hope you're doing well! Your cousins and your Uncle Baatar all say hello, and urge you to come visit as soon as you can. Ever since they saw you in the papers, the kids have been wanting to meet you. They think you're a celebrity! To which I told them you might as well be.

I chuckled quietly. I made a mental note to write her back and ask her to ask Junior to start writing me too. We were the same age, and Aunt Su made it out to seem we'd get along well.

How is your mom? I would ask you to tell her I wish her the best, but I wouldn't want to invoke her wrath upon you.

You’re so much like her yet so different, you know. Admittedly, you have a little bit of me in you (don't tell your mom that, though), but you deciding to follow in the footsteps of your mother just screams Lin. Which reminds me to tell you to be careful, please. You’re stubborn and strong-willed (a Beifong trademark), but don't let that be a disservice to you. Your work is very dangerous.

Which is why I hope that you went into the force with your heart invested in it alongside your body. Lin might say otherwise, but I know better. She didn't become a cop because she loved it, but because she wanted to please our mother.

Do what's best for you. If that means being a cop, then by all means, continue. But if you feel the need to escape, then do so. I highly recommend traveling.

Heh. Of course she'd recommend traveling.

Remember, you'll always be welcome to Zaofu. Lin as well, though she might not appreciate that as much. Give her a hard time for me please, since I'm not around to do it myself.

Sending you all the hugs and kisses from your second home,

Aunt Su

PS: Your birthday gift should arrive within the week of your special day. I hope you like it.

I folded the telegram and tucked it into my coat, feeling significantly more warmed up now. I looked up at the sky, bluish-grey with all the Republic City lights it had to reflect. But just a few stars made it through, and peeked and winked at me.

“Thanks, auntie,” I whispered with a small chuckle, “And don't worry, I'll give her the hardest time.”

My aunt was the matriarch of the Metal Clan in Zaofu, a city near the Earth Kingdom made entirely of metal. I knew her face from pictures in mom’s photo album. But something about the way mom looked at that album made me decide against asking about my mysterious aunt and grandma. And so I did my own research. Of course, it didn't take much looking. And Aunt Su had been over the moon elated when I'd sent her my first telegram.

That was three years ago now. Since then, she'd sent me telegrams and pictures religiously, but I always had to make sure I got to the errand boy before mom could. This familial correspondence was my best kept secret.

I stroked my chin as I started to contemplate what my birthday gift could possibly be. If she sent me a meteorite, I was going to freak out- mom probably would too.

I grimaced. Hopefully it was something more subtle, something that wouldn't become a noticeable new decoration in my room.

“Kid, what are you doing out here? It's freezing,” a voice from behind me said. I hadn't even heard the door open.

I looked back to see my mom, who was limping only slightly as she moved to stand next to me. I held my hand subconsciously to my coat, the telegram crumpling quietly. “Mama, you alright?” I asked. She waved me off before handing me one of the coffees she was holding. “Thanks,” I said, and practically chugged it in my gratefulness. I let out a sigh as the black coffee flowed down and warmed my stomach.

With a tired sigh, mom shifted to sit on the curb next to me. We drank our coffee in comfortable silence, simply appreciating the peace.

Damn. This was gonna be life now. Gang raids and near-death situations were going to be weekly. And the paperwork. I let out a groan, not all too excited about coming into work tomorrow- or rather, in five hours.

“Something the matter?” Mom asked.

I shook my head. “Nah. Just tired. I just… can't believe this is my life now,” I replied.

Mom gave me a look I couldn't quite decipher. “You know, you… you did well today. In spite of blatantly disregarding my orders.” I blinked wide-eyed at her. She turned away from me with a growl. “Don't look at me like that, kid. That's the highest compliment you're going to receive from me until you straighten out.”

I smiled sheepishly, before resting my elbows tiredly on my knees. “Hey, uh, Chief… I’m sorry,” I said, she cocked a brow at me.

“You already apologized.”

“No, I'm sorry for giving you an attitude in the med wing. I get it, I'm a rookie, I'm just not ready yet-”

“That's not-” mom stopped herself short with a sigh, brows pulled in almost angrily. I looked off to the side in guilt.

The guys in the special corps said I was remarkable. A talent. Hell, dare some of them say the best since my own mom. But what'd any of that mean if the Chief herself didn't believe it?

“Look, kid. This work, it's dangerous,” she said sternly, drawing my gaze back to her, “No matter how hard I try, I lose at least one of my men every year. This city’s a breeding ground for crime. If something were to happen to you, I don't know what I'd-” she stopped herself short, and I caught a rare glimpse of vulnerability nobody else saw from my mom but me.

I leaned towards her earnestly. “Mom, you know I can handle this. I was the product of all that before you found me!” I saw her flinch at that statement, eyes twitching ever so slightly. But I didn't waver. “I just…” I sighed stubbornly. “I just wanna help you, okay?” I said softly, “I know you're gonna tell me you don't need my help, but you can't be the best forever. Somebody’s gotta look out for you.”

Mom’s gaze shifted from troubled to- well, maybe a little less troubled.

“Is that why you gave up Pro-Bending? To help me?” She asked.

I cringed a little. A part of me would always yearn to go back to the game, back to where everything was a little more humble, with the highest stake not being a life, but a loss. Where fighting was for glory, not for justice.

I felt a little out of touch without it, like I was without that balance mom had always told me was so important for an earthbender. But the reason for my exit far outweighed the pit in my stomach. I was going to stand by my mom no matter where it took me.

“It's not important, mom.”

“Aiko-”

“Look, can we go home? I'm really tired. And we've gotta come back in like, five hours,” I said.

She scrutinized me for one extremely terrifying moment, but eventually found that she was too tired to hold onto the subject as well. With a resigned nod, she held her hand out to me, pulling me up with her from the curb.

As we walked towards the parking lot, she wrapped an arm tightly around my shoulders.

“You're a good kid, Aiko. I'm lucky to have you.”

“Heh. Thanks, mama.”

That was more than I’d been expecting to hear that night.

---

And that’s a 6000+ word sh**storm wrapped up right there. Sheesh. And it was out almost a week after I’d promised to put it out, jc. I’ll try to have part 2 up by next week, here’s to hoping it’s much better! Regardless, I hope u enjoyed this, or at least enjoyed making fun of it. If you have any tips or things you’d like to see in the story, pls let me know! :3

tags: (small gang but i like it :D) @themost-obsessivefangirl @inter-net

#lin beifong #mom!lin beifong #oc:#aiko beifong #the chief's kid #legend of korra #lok

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a-patheticapathetic · 4 years ago

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Rishloo - Feathergun: Review

New year, new me. Let’s repeat that until it becomes true.

There seems to be a pattern with how I discover music. At a very young age, I hear a song in a very specific circumstance. It has a big impact on me, but I make absolutely zero effort to check out any of the artist’s other music and instead meander onto another earworm. Then, years later, I have another chance meeting with the same song/album/artist and fall completely down a rabbithole that foundationally changes my taste in music. It happened with Radiohead (High and Dry as one of the default songs in the original Rocksmith), Queens of the Stone Age (Lost Art of Keeping a Secret in a stick figure animation), and Nine Inch Nails (Hurt (Quiet) on Spotify radio). Then, there was this strange song called “Scissorlips” that I saw on a very small Rock Band 3 drum channel. I showed it to my brother because of how fun the chart looked, and made the mistake of watching his reaction to the video. His disinterest embarrassed me enough that I never chased the music. That is, of course, until many years later, when I was introduced to Tool. The rest is history, and is frankly stalling me from starting the actual review. Let’s get to it.

Scissorlips - 8/10

The strange, dark jungle the album begins with is a nice representation of the album cover, although it won’t rule over the entire runtime. Don’t let the de-tuned guitar under the vocals deter you; the rest of the guitarwork here is beautiful. As we reach the pre-chorus, the percussionists may hear why I was interested in this song as a kid. This is also where the sonic background really opens up, swallowing you for a moment before the intro verse comes back. The lyricism here is also very abstract, yet isn’t impossible to follow. A couple of metallic bites taken out of the mostly psychedelic walls of guitars, then, the first of many beautiful delay effects. The build-up got me pretty good when I heard this so many years ago, and It’s still damn good. For the love. There are so many guitar lines here that just intertwine and enlace you. Then, something a bit heavier (yet oddly hopeful) to round the song out.

Turning Sheep into Goats - 7/10

This intro is more of what can be expected for the rest of the album, sonically speaking. A lone guitar with delay playing a complicated and alluring line in a strange time signature, then built upon. The path you may assume this song will follow is extremely suddenly changed at the chorus, the vocals really driving it home. Then, back into that nice opening riff like nothing happened. The next time that chorus comes thundering around, listen to that low guitar and the way it combines with the drums. Then drop out the ugliness into a floating mesh of palm mutes and synthetic strings. And don’t miss the fl

Systematomatic - 7/10

awless transition into the next song. Immediately, a new riff rises from the pond of reverb. You may not identify it immediately, but don’t worry, you’ll get more chances to. Very fast guitar-work that somehow doesn't sound so frantic, although the chorus definitely has a certain desperation to it. The mood gets heavy again, before quickly sliding into a strange, feverish haze. Some hits of percussion, then a recontexutalized and slower return to the riff at the start of the song. Weave us back into war.

River of Glass - 8/10

Now this is an ear-catching introduction. What seems to be a calm wave of delay is punctuated by war drums and a grimier lead. The mood builds, then crescendos into the song proper. The chorus is hear damn near immediately, and is extremely catchy for prog. This album is really just full of extremely memorable vocals, and the instrumentals complement them perfectly. We get two goes-around before we fall into these twisting and sliding strings. The drummer is also on his A-game here. Then, the guitars push into the clouds before coming back down with another short but heavy low. Then it all cuts out for a second, juts to make the burst into the final chorus that much more effective.

Keyhole in the Sky - 7/10

This one is simpler, but also very filling and peaceful. Unfortunately it does begin to showcase my only problem with this album; the vocals are mixed too loud at times. And while the singer is absolutely incredible, sometimes I’d like the instrumentals to breathe a bit more. The walls of high guitar come back around, this time feeling much more friendly and familiar. One last chorus, closing on a quiet note. Though it’s not over; an alien feedback loop and somber, echoey horn passage lead us into the next track

Downhill - 10/10

This song has two main phases, and is absolutely perfect throughout. An easy start; a relatively simple and serene riff fed through a pleasant delay pedal, with some subtle synth and bass backing. The vocals shine through, as clear as ever. And wave, goodbye. Then, like stepping through a portal into phase one. A very interesting, rhythmic and almost bluesy instrumental accompanies the title-drop. Then, we fall for miles down a well of piano. The bottom greets us with a moonlit key solo, then an incredible Floydian guitar solo. Hanging on the last note, phase two begins with an ominous drone and repeating guitar line. The drums rise, give a false start. then... perfection. I cannot do phase two justice with words. Just close your eyes, listen, and be swept away in what I believe to be one of the greatest vocal performances of all time.

Lost.

Feathergun in the Garden of the Sun - 9/10

Not to be outdone by the previous masterpiece, the title track opens with another wonderful soundscape, before the distortion comes in. The drums pick up the tension, bringing us into the pre-chorus. That riff is going to be impossible to tap your foot to at first, but the next ones should be easier. And here we have perhaps the best chorus on the record; extremely powerful in writing and execution on the parts of every band member. The second time around is just as good as the first, then the brdige begins. Ready, aim... The heaviest riff on the album, and an abrupt switch into the last chorus. Fade out.

Dreamcatcher - 7/10

A nice break from the intensity. This feels like a peaceful tidepool on an alien world, with creatures and colors beyond the world floating around my head. Short but sweet.

Diamond Eyes - 6/10

By no means bad, I do feel like this one may be the weakest track on the album. While it’s certainly beautiful, I feel like it doesn’t do a whole lot that’s new or interesting. Also, when listening at high volume (which is the proper way to listen to this album), the faults in the mixing really rear their ugly heads during the choruses. Still, there are some very pleasant rolling delay loops here during the bridge, and a nice and satisfying buildup towards the end.

Katsushika - 7/10

While the guitar opening this track may be the most straight-forward and least effects-driven riff we’ve heard so far, this song will eventually become the most alien one of the entire lineup. In a good way, of course. I can barely even decipher exactly what’s going on in the instrumentation during that build. The chorus also ends with a nice drop-off into the next verse. You may be noticing a pattern with the songwriting, where the chorus usually leads into the second verse, following the pattern of the first one but with more layering. I like it; it gives the ideas present more time to mature and develop. Anyways, here comes the bridge, where everything changes. Out of everything going on here, I feel like the drums and the background vocals are the most striking thing about this outro. What a fantastic progression and dropout. Beautiful monsters.

Weevil Bride - 8/10

The finale. This riff here is extremely well-done. The tone here is somehow piercingly bright and concerningly dark at the same time. The lyricals themes of the album also come to a head here. This chorus is another incredibly written and performed beast; just wait until it’s modulated. The second verse lays away with the subtleties and strikes at the head. And I just need to know that everything is fine, and everyone’s alright. This bridge also kicks ass, with its heart-pouding combination of guitars and toms. Then, comes the heaviest part of the entire album: Yes, please. Then we are snapped out of the masochism and lifted back to hear the main point of the album, before the intro riff carries us into an uncertain but complete conclusion. After the “true” song ends, there is a long passage of somber horns and a tranquil, almost lullaby-esque keyboard. There’s something extremely nostalgic about this outro to me, but I still can’t put my finger on where it comes from. This section almost feels like the music they play after the end of a play, as the lights come on and you make your way down the dimly-lit theater steps on slightly numb and shaky legs. The story is over; this is your time to reflect.

The main reason I wanted to write about this album in particular is because I feel like it hasn’t gotten the attention it’s deserved. It truly feels like a masterpiece worthy of widespread recognition and praise, but despite being released over a decade ago, few people have even heard of this band. It feels like injustice, not only for Rishloo’s efforts, but for the people who would connect with this album as much as I have. Also, there’s the slightly selfish hope that increased attention would incentivize the band to work on more new stuff, or better yet, remaster their older works.

In any case, It’s very late, my back hurts because my spine hates my nervous system, and I need to actually get to sleep tonight so I can heal the godforsaken nerve that wedged itself in my inner workings yesterday. On a scale from “Your all-time low just lowered again”, to “Want some? Yes, please”, I give Feathergun a “Oh, what beautiful monsters”.

#music #music recommendation #music reccs #album review #track review #rishloo #feathergun

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ron-inn · 5 years ago

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Week 3: Black Smoke

Kenji doesn’t know the protocol for calling on an ancient god—that was more of Masami’s expertise as one of the village’s senior shugenjas, the magic wielders who could connect to the spirit realm and commune with its inhabitants. The old legends were super vague on instructions: just travel east until you couldn’t anymore, then two more days to reach the Forbidden Lands; cross the Bridge of Sorrows until you reached the Temple of Ancients; boom, wake up a god. The legends didn’t go any further, so Kenji just wings it and also lights the candles surrounding the stone altar in the back. He waits for the black smoke to rise up midway to the ceiling before he unsheathes the sword and starts calling out names of power, trying to enunciate them exactly the way Masami did whenever she had to perform the annual Rite of Seals for the village.

Then, something responds.

“Who Is It… That Calls Us… From Our Slumber?” The multitude of voices speaks in a jumbled, echoey collective. It is neither male nor female, but the deepest instinct inside Kenji knows that this being is very old, very powerful, and very ready to strike him down if he doesn’t explain right now why he marched into its resting place and started waving a mystical sword around, yelling for “the Captive God” and “Dormin the Sky-Render” to wake up.

“Hi, Kenji here. Grandson of the grandson of Nakamura the Brilliant and all that. I’ve also got this ‘Sword that Cuts the Heavens’ that’s supposed to call upon you. Anyways, I’m here because I want you to help me save this girl,” Kenji answers back.

“Who?”

“Masami. She was sacrificed for a fate she didn’t deserve, to ‘save Hyuga’ from ‘unimaginable doom and destruction.’” Kenji snarls sarcastically and has to stop himself from spitting on the floor to show exactly what he thinks of Satsuma’s prophecy. He continues, “Her spirit was separated from her body but I grabbed her before they could continue the ritual. ’S not right to happen to her. So now I’m here because I heard you can do the impossible.”

He looks over to the stone altar he had gently laid Masami’s small body upon; she was still clothed in those ceremonial white robes. If one could ignore the barely audible rattling breaths and the ice-cold, ghostly pale skin, he could swear it was like she was just sleeping.

Kenji looks back and narrows his eyes at whatever’s talking to him from up high. “So, Dorma or Dormin-kami , or whatever fucking kind of god you are, how about you do your magic jumbo shit and tell me how to get her soul back?”

The voices boom and roll: like thunder, like earthquakes, like the powerful echo of Satsuma’s voice whenever the Guardian Lion God seized control of him in the throes of visions. “It Is Not That Simple… Our Powers… Have Wasted Away… Since We Were Sealed Here… Many Of Your Human Lifetimes Ago… You Must Free… The Fragments Of Our Power… From The Shadowed Colossi… Only When… We Are At Our Fullest… Can We Bring Back The Soul… Of The One You So Care For…”

Those voices then tell him of six massive guardians scattered across this vast land, represented by the mighty stone statues lining the path leading up to the altar. Every time one was slain, its corresponding statue would shatter and release some of Dormin’s power. Kenji puzzles over some of the descriptions that the voice(s) listed off. A spirit causing mudslides and quakes? He can probably find it in the mountain range he saw in the distance while crossing the bridge to the temple. A spirit inhabiting the bones of an ancient general? Shouldn’t be too hard to find a giant walking skeleton. And maybe that spirit of boats and salt is hidden at the bottom of some lake. But a spirit of greed and a spirit of manipulation and illusions? A spirit still yet pure? Where the hell is he supposed to find those? A small part of him wishes Akane or Toshio were here to help him solve this riddle—they were always the smarter ones—but he crushes that thought as quickly as it forms. Kenji knows he couldn’t drag anyone else into this taboo the moment he swiped the legendary sword from the village’s shrine.

“Hunting, huh?” Kenji muses as he swings himself up onto his horse and draws out the sword, holding it high above his head for the metal to catch the sunlight as Dormin instructed. He watches the beam of magic shoot forward from the blade and into the distance, smiling when he sees a pillar of light erupt in response. “Well, that won’t be too bad, I’m pretty good at stabbing, hacking, and making sure things stay down.”

“Ikuzo, Kiso-chan!” And with that, they’re charging forward to kill the first guardian.

The smoke from their first target doesn’t feel that horrible, just sears down his throat and into his lungs like he’s just inhaled burning coals, just leaves him reeling and dizzy as if he took one of Hatch’s famous haymakers to the temple. But by the time he watches the black smoke erupt from the fourth guardian’s corpse and rush into his nose and mouth yet again, he’s starting to really hate it. His chest feels like someone’s ripping open his rib cage, his sore arms are pulsing with new black veins, and his head is pounding worse than an all-night drinking sesh with his friends and barrels of Ume-Ume’s “special” brew. He’s also trying to ignore the solid bump that’s starting to sprout from his head.

“Ack, Kami,” he curses God as he hacks up something thick and dark, leans over to the side to spit the sludge from his mouth as he rides on. The sleeve he wipes his mouth on is already streaked with black and blood and other nasty things he can’t think about right now. “No wonder why Momoko never let me try smoking,” Kenji mumbles as he reminisces about all the times the village doctor lectured Jun whenever she caught the guardsman on a break with his ivory pipe and tobacco satchel.

Two more to go is the only thought that overrides all the aches, pains, and fears in his mind. He urges Kiso to ride faster to the next pillar of light, using the shine emanating from the Sword that Cuts the Heavens to keep them on course. He thinks, Just hold on Masami , I’m almost done. Then I’ll wake you up, you can scream “ baka” at me all you want and I’ll laugh like before. You can finally give me that gift you promised me for the Rite of the Silver Moon .

Kenji doesn’t know how he made back to the Temple after killing the last guardian (he thought for sure he wouldn’t be able to survive when the guardian started crumbling and Kenji hung onto the sword still embedded in the giant’s weak point on its head as they started falling down, down, down). He sobs when he sees Kiso, limping but still alive after she bucked him off to save him from the fifth demon’s jaws that had ambushed them. He completely ignores the sonorous voices of Dormin, the rumbling delight evident in the chorus as It thanks him for what he’s done. He just keeps resting against Kiso and weeping into her mane, relieved that he didn’t lose his only other companion on this crazy, stupid quest.

When he looks up at the sound of horse hooves and rustling armor, there’s a group wearing the colors of his old village, maneuvering around the shattered blocks of stone from fallen titans to approach him at the base of the altar’s steps. Kenji laughs upon seeing the faces of his friends, now grimly waiting to kill him. There’s Vice-Captain Kohaku (well, probably “Captain" now that Kenji fucking ran from his village and effectively resigned from his position), looking at him with those same stern eyes and disappointed frown on her face. There’s Hatch—he looks good with that new armor but judging by the way he squirms and shifts atop his horse, Kenji knows the brawler is itching to trade the heavy lacquer plate for the light karate gi he favors. Toshio is off to the side, looking at him with almost pity in his green eyes, but Kenji knows that he wouldn’t hesitate to nail him with a few of his steel shuriken and rifle bullets. And there, at the front, the Demon Slayer herself—Kenji begins to bellow with laughter even harder when he sees that it’s his best friend, Akane, leading the group.

He wipes away the tears, flings his arms wide open, and grins with that old Kenji flair for dramatics. “Hey! Nice of you guys to join me at this party, but I don’t recall sending out invitations!” Judging from Kohaku’s and Hatch’s horrified expressions (Akane’s and Toshio’s faces remain impassive as per usual), he must make for quite the sight: torn clothing, bloody and banged up body, arms pitch-black up to the shoulders, a full bone-horn protruding from his forehead, and black smoke swirling around him like some sort of evil aura.

“Kenji.”

At that single word, his smile drops and he watches Akane dismount and walk forward.

“You know what happens now. You broke the rules,” she says.

“Funny, I thought you of all people would have hated being tied down by rules, especially when they hurt people you love.”

“Satsuma threatened to go after Momoko. I didn’t have a choice.” Oh, Akane, always straight to the point, especially when it comes to her wife. Kenji both fumes with wrath and aches with understanding at her words. The pulsing in his arms speeds up and the haze in his mind gets worse as he wants to strike out and beat that calm determination off her face.

Kenji barks out a bitter laugh. “Well, guess who didn’t have a choice either! Oh wait, Masami wants her soul trapped in the spirit realm while her body rots!” Can’t they see? He thinks, That this is what Satsuma and his god wanted? To convince everyone that her sacrifice was the “only” way to save Hyuga?

Akane stops a couple of feet away from him, warily watching the sword by his side, calculating as always what her foe will do next. “She did want this. You were supposed to respect her choice.”

“ I was supposed to protect her! ” he roars. (He doesn’t want to remember the tight-lipped resignation on Masami’s face when Satsuma first marked her for damnation; he doesn’t want to recall the fiery argument they had the night before the ceremony.) “ That’s the duty of the Captain.” He looks over at Kohaku, who has stayed oddly silent this whole exchange, and shoots her a lopsided smirk. “Sorry, Kohaku. I guess that makes me a failure, huh? I hope that you can do better than me now that I’m gone.”

Kohaku bows her head and murmurs, “I will never be like you.” At the same time, Hatch cries out one last useless request for Kenji to come back with them with Masami, tears streaming down his face. Toshio continues to look at him with indescribable emotions swirling in his dark green eyes. Honestly, why didn’t the ninja take the shot? Kenji knows he made for such an open target when trying not to break down completely in Kiso’s presence. Perhaps Akane held Toshio back. He’s grateful if she did.

It means she remembers that pact she made with him years ago: when they were young, wild, and oh-so-afraid of their capacity to kill. Of being alone at the end of the slaughter.

Kenji turns back at Akane. Upon his attention, she draws her katana and shifts into Gedan, a basic low stance favored by her Alligator Style for its powerful counter-attacks. Instinctively, he shifts into Jōdan, an aggressive, overhead stance of the Firefly Style. They wait. It’s an old routine, as familiar as a lullaby to a child. He’ll swing downward first, she’ll sidestep and aim a slash to his arm, he’ll pivot to block her sword and force her back with a shove, she’ll leap back to analyze him for openings but he’ll press forward with wild swings that will break her focus and force her to defend. They’ll switch off. He knows he’s always been stronger and more resilient, but she’s more agile and has the sharpest instincts for finding weak points. They’ve always been equally matched, a constant push-and-pull that has never known an end.

But this isn’t a training duel in the village fields and this isn’t a battlefield where they stand back-to-back, cutting down whichever enemies foolishly rush them. Now Kenji and Akane face each other to witness which is stronger: their promises to their loved ones or their promises to each other. Perhaps this was inevitable, for loyalty and bonds built over years to gradually crumble away to dust with each clash of their swords.

What a mess.

Kenji sighs. It’s not a dead man’s sigh of regret when the body releases its last gasp for forgiveness and peace. No, it’s a sigh of tired endurance, of indomitable will; a breath loosed into the air before it rises and condenses into storm clouds that break open and unleash heaven’s wrath. He smiles. “I’m guessing it makes sense that they brought you out to kill one last demon, but you better be prepared for the fight of your life! I won’t go down without giving it my all!”

Akane simply nods. “Goodbye, old friend.”

Kenji replies to her unspoken words, “I’m sorry too.”

And he thinks, And I’m sorry, Masami. Guess you’ll have to wait a little longer to give me your gift. I’m sure it’s beautiful, whatever it is.

And so, what else can he do but to charge forward?

----------------

A03 LINK:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20848121/chapters/49974308#workskin

#samurai of hyuga #fanfic #submission #sohtober 2019

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neganandblake · 6 years ago

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Just shelterin’ from the storm, Darlin’ - A Negan & Blake AU PART 3

When Negan returns to the place he once ruled over, will he find anything there worth sticking around for?

Part 1 here

Part 2 here

Negan scratched at this bearded cheek as he followed the blonde down the eerily dark hallway.

Memories of this place, once bustling with life filled his mind and flooded his senses. But here and now, apart from the three of them, the place was otherwise quiet and still.

Upturned and ruined furniture littered the long corridors, the two adults almost dancing along to avoid them in the near darkness.

Negan wondered what had happened here so long ago. Had the place fallen straight after he had been locked up, or did the ruin of the Sanctuary come long after?

But his thoughts on this subject were short lived, his short-term memory forcing its way to the forefront of his mind instead.

What the shit had that thing been back there?

Hell, that was like no damn rotter Negan had ever seen before? Had they learned to use goddamn knives now?

Shit.

What the fuck had happened to the damn world in the short few years the dark-haired man had been locked up for?

“Hey, that shit back there? With that damn biter? You seen anything like that before, Darlin’?” asked Negan, speeding up a little on his long legs and closing the gap between him and the blonde woman, coming to walk at her side now.

He noticed her hold the little girl tighter to her chest for a moment, and her eyes never met with his as she answered.

“I’ve heard rumours...but…...I don’t know…” she murmured, trailing off and shaking her head, as though not wanting to talk on this subject anymore, as they reached a large and familiar staircase that led up to the upper levels.

Another rumble of thunder crashed overhead, sounding closer this time in the empty, echoey hallways.

“We found a room upstairs,” she explained with a nod, as she gestured for him to follow her up the large metal staircase. “The only one with carpet.”

He caught her green eyes flicker up to his a little nervously, looking almost embarrassed by her circumstance.

But Negan just nodded, narrowing his eyes at her, not really listening to what she was saying, merely pondering as to why this woman, with such a young child would end up here, seemingly all alone.

“So...where’s your baby-daddy?” Negan asked, his voice sounding harsher than he meant it to.

But Negan watched the blonde flinch suddenly at his words.

She didn't answer for a moment. But when she did, she sounded pained, as though trying to put a barrier up against the memories that sat in her mind.

“Dead…” she said what was barely a whisper now. “...I hope.”

Negan stared at her, his eyes roving across her side profile.

Shit. What the hell had happened to this gal?

Whatever it was, it was mirrored in the heavy purple bags that sat under her eyes, and the whiteness of her knuckles as she held, what Negan could now only presume was her daughter, oh-so tightly to her.

“So it’s jus’ the damn two of you?” Negan asked with a small, sorry frown.

And at this, the woman chanced a glanced up at him.

“It’s better this way,” she said softly. “This way we’re safe.”

She shook her head, her long caramel hair fluttering around her as she did so.

The pair were silent as they climbed the remainder of the stairs up to the third floor. Negan’s thoughts on nothing now but this woman and what the fuck she had been through.

Apart from the visible tiredness, she and the kid both looked good. Fucking healthy even.

It was obvious she was a good Mom, despite the hardships she had likely faced out on that road.

“I-Its just down here,” she said quietly, nodding down the lengthy corridor ahead of them.

Even in the darkness and the gloom, Negan recognised this hallway very well indeed, and he stopped suddenly in his tracks as the blonde reached a large set of oak double doors he had not seen in a long, long time.

But seeing him so still, both she and the little girl offered him a curious look.

“You...uh...you coming?” she asked tentatively. “We're just in here.”

And with that she disappeared into the room.

Negan’s room.

Well, his old fucking room at least.

It had been the biggest, plushest room in this whole place, with a large four poster bed, the slickest leather couches, and of course carpet.

He should have figured it out sooner on that basis alone.

And so giving a gulp and allowing his adam's apple to slide up and then back down his throat, Negan turned the corner and peered into the large, expansive room.

It certainly wasn’t as nice now as Negan remembered it once being.

All of the soft furnishings had likely been looted by the rest of his people after his capture, but the sofa, armchair and the enormous bed remained, likely too big and heavy to be removed.

But compared to the four damp walls and creaky old camp bed Negan had been used to for the past seven years, it looked like a paradise.

The little girl was now sat on the squishy leather couch ahead of him, sucking on her damp sleeve again and watching him, as he entered the room, closing the door behind him with a snap.

He noticed for a second the blonde woman, who was on her feet lighting a small gas lamp, flinch at the noise and glance over at him, still looking a little nervous about him being there.

But fuck. Negan couldn't blame her for that.

You couldn't trust anyone in this fucking shit-show of a world. So why should he be treated any different?

“So,” Negan said his hazel eyes looking her up and down as she worked, trying to break the obvious tension and silence that filled the room. “You got a name?”

But she didn't answer, silence consuming them all once more.

Once the lamp was lit, the woman set it on the carpeted floor in front of the couch where a coffee table had once stood, long-gone by the looks of it.

She stood up straight, brushing her hands down on the hips of her black jeans, before parting her lips and staring at Negan.

For second it looked as though she was about to say something but she quickly changed her mind, instead tucking her hair behind one ear and dragging her eyes hurriedly away from him, and instead, setting her attention on a large black rucksack that sat on the floor next to the sofa.

Reaching down into it, she pulled out two cans.

“We don't have much,” she said, her cheeks reddening profusely, her gaze lowered away from his as she held one of the tins out towards him. “You can have the peaches, she doesn't like them.”

The blonde glanced back at the little girl say on the sofa, before shuffling away and taking a seat beside her.

“Thay slimay!” the baby girl suddenly exclaimed, causing Negan to grin, as her Mom shushed her gently.

“Come on, eat your veggies baby,” hummed the woman in a voice like goddamn honey.

Negan gazed at her for a lengthy moment. At the two of them in fact.

Shit. They didn't deserve this life. Neither of them.

For Negan had known that he was darkness, even before the damn apocalypse. Apart from Lucille there had been nothing good in his life and Negan had made everything he touched, even her, that much darker, plunging them into a dismal gloom-filled existence with him.

But these two….well, to him there were light, and goddamn music, and everything good in this world. It was like a glow emanated from them both, cuddled up together on that couch, in that same seat Negan had sat in, so many years ago, barking commands at his damn men and giving the orders for people’s communities to be burned down, giving the order for people to be killed.

But where there once was darkness, there was now something new and good, and somehow, here and now, it was all Negan could see.

But he dragged his eyes away, staring down at the battered old can in his hand with a faded old image of plump and juicy and syrup covered peaches peeling off of it.

“Darlin’....you don’ need to give me this,” he said with a hard sigh.

But the woman glanced up at him.

“We’re not gonna eat it,” she simply shrugged, offering him, for the first time since they had met, a tiny smile. “It’ll just be left here for someone else if you don't.”

Negan pondered this for a moment, before giving in.

Fuck, well, he was fucking hungry as shit, his stomach giving a loud rumble as if on cue.

And so, being careful not to knock over the lamp, Negan paced across the small space and with a stiff groan he slumped down into the armchair opposite the two girls.

He noticed the woman’s eyes immediately flutter up to him and in a second, with a flush crossing her cheeks, she leant across the space between them and passed him over a fork.

Negan took it graciously, before lowering his own eyes and peeling off the lid of his can.

Normally Negan didn't shut up But right now with these two girls, he found himself at a complete loss for words.

Shit. What the hell were these gals doing to him?

But he glanced up again at them, as he took one of the slippery peach slices onto his fork.

“I’m Negan by the way,” he offered, causing the blonde to pause in feeding the girl at her side to look up at him.

He waited for her to respond with her own name, but she merely looked away again.

“Come on, Sweetie…” she whispered instead, spooning just a little more cold vegetables into the her baby girl’s mouth. “That’s it.”

But the tiny girl made a face, swallowing down her last mouthful before pouting. “No mor!” she said bossily, causing the blonde woman to sigh tiredly, rubbing her face with her hand before setting down the can disheartenedly.

Negan blinked, lowering his fork into his can.

“What?” said Negan suddenly causing the two girls to stare up at him. “You don’ like peaches…”

He sat up a little peering over into the can held in the woman’s hand.

“... or carrots now?”

The tiny girl blinked at her a couple of times before shuffling in her seat.

“Noh...Noh...I laik...I laik carrits!” she said almost a little scoldingly now, which caused Negan to grin widely.

“Then you gonna finish what’s left for your Mom, Beansprout?” he tried.

And for a moment the little girl pondered this before shuffling her tiny butt towards her Mom once more.

“Okway, littul bit mor, Mama,” said the baby-girl opening her mouth white in an o-shape.

The blonde glanced at once to Negan and offering him an appreciative look, before quickly turning back to her daughter and spooning a little more supper into her awaiting mouth.

Silence soon filled the room once more and Negan went back to his peaches, finishing half the can before placing it down onto the floor beside his feet.

And it wasn't long, after finishing her food, did the little girl give a tiny yawn, smacking her lips together tiredly.

“I think someone’s ready for bed,” said the woman in a kindly voice, hauling the toddler up by her armpits and holding her into her chest as she stood and made her way over to the large four-poster bed in the corner of the room.

In a blink, she had plonked the little girl down and tucked her in, sitting down beside her and whispering gently to her, words that seemed secret between the pair that Negan couldn’t quite hear...

….until the tiny girl was fast asleep.

Want more? Let me know if you enjoyed this chapter. Like and reblog! :)

#negan #negan twd #Jeffrey Dean Morgan #negan au #negan oc #twd #The Walking Dead #negan fic #negan and blake #negan fanfic #negan sanctuary #jdm #negan gif #negan fluff

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newmusickarl · 3 years ago

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Top 50 Albums of 2021

6. Infinite Granite by Deafheaven

There’s nothing worse than an album that fails to live up to the pre-release hype and in 2021 there was a certainly a few albums that achieved that unwanted distinction (Kanye West, Kings of Leon, Ben Howard and James Blake I’m looking at you in particular). However, for every flop there seemed to be a record that did manage to deliver on high expectations and the finest example of an album in 2021 that not only lived up to the fever-pitch anticipation but also far exceeded it, was the incredible fifth album from post-metal outfit Deafheaven.

There was a lot of talk in the build-up to Infinite Granite, from myself included, about how this record was shaping up to be a huge departure in sound for Deafheaven. The preview singles rightly suggested they were ramping up the clean vocals and moving away from their signature “blackgaze” roots, switching over instead to a more distinctive alternative rock sound. However, when the album finally dropped back in August, it quickly became clear that the change in sound wasn’t actually that radical at all, but instead a mere refinement as part of their ongoing progression.

Like many, Sunbather was the album that introduced me to the mesmerising sound of Deafheaven - that wonderful mix of beauty and horror captivated me straight away, landing the record a Top 5 spot in my 2013 Albums of the Year list and remaining to this day one of my favourite metal albums of the last 10 years. However even on that record, which was predominantly black metal at its core, there was still passages of melodic guitar textures and dreamy shoegaze.

Now with Infinite Granite, all Deafheaven have done is follow the evolutionary path that they first started tracking back on Sunbather and have continued to follow on each LP since then. On this album, they have simply pushed the black metal dynamics further into the background and brought forward the more melodic shoegaze elements - something which they had already started to do on their fourth album Ordinary Corrupt Human Love.

As a huge fan already of that side to their sound, I welcomed this change with open arms. That said, I could also understand the trepidation some fans felt going into Infinite Granite as to whether the heavier side was going to be completely lost altogether. The good news for those fans was that the metal elements and scream vocals hadn’t been completely abandoned at at all, with the thunderous climax to Villain and the second half of epic eight-minute closer Mombasa putting to bed any niggling doubts.

Those two tracks are just a couple of the incredible moments to be found on this album, which is undoubtedly another masterful work from Deafheaven. Single In Blur is an early highlight, with its near-anthemic chorus of “What does daylight look like in this chaos of cold?” over some utterly scintillating guitar work. The Gnashing is another clear standout - built around a vocal not a million miles away from Interpol’s Paul Banks at times, the song wonderfully builds towards a crescendo featuring, as the title suggests, some seriously biting guitar riffs.

That said though, lead single Great Mass of Color remains my most played track of 2021 and undoubtedly one of my favourite tracks of the year overall. With its completely hypnotic guitar melody and echoey vocals that gently glide across your ears, it eventually erupts into a glorious swarm of heavy guitars and screamy vocals for a triumphant finale. Although it was noticeably the track that marked the transition over to this more refined sound, it also manages to perfectly encapsulate everything that makes both their classic and contemporary sonic elements so special.

So although slightly different to their previous work, for me Infinite Granite sits right up there near to Sunbather as one of Deafheaven’s best. This is an album that is simply mesmerising from beginning to end and one that I have returned to constantly ever since its release. Not only did Deafheaven manage to successfully evolve in 2021, but they also managed to deliver on the high expectations fans had for them in the process, coming up trumps with some of the finest tracks and moments of their career-to-date.

Best tracks: Great Mass of Color, Mombasa, In Blur, Villain, The Gnashing

Listen here

#albums of the year #best albums 2021 #albums of 2021 #album of the year #top albums 2021 #best of 2021 #new music #best new music #deafheaven #infinite granite #in blur

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jabbajambler · 4 years ago

Text

When We Were Young

Obi Wan Kenobi x f!OC

Word Count: 2,191

*GIF by @pixelahsoka*

It was so incredibly green outside of the star fighter, a place like no other. The mountains were high, their tips just reaching the clouds that floated amongst the sky. Then there were smaller stones, still boulders in comparison to the pebbles at our feet, but they levitated in the air. I had a feeling in my gut that they weren't doing that entirely on their own.

A shallow fog circled around us and everything around. It was white and whimsical as though it had a mind of its own. It rolled down the hills in waves and collected at the base of the mountains. The entire scene was like one from a dream.

"Are you the one?" A voice whispered in my ear. It was a gentle, feminine voice that echoed in my head.

"Who was that?" I asked.

"What?" Anakin looked dumbstruck, although I figured I didn't look much different. "Did you hear that?"

Obi Wan shrugged and continued to peer out of the binoculars. "I didn't hear anything."

"I did." I whispered, just loud enough for Anakin to understand me. I didn't want the others to think I was crazy, even though I thought I might be. I'd heard voices in my head in the past, but nothing like the one I was hearing.

"Are you the one?" It repeated.

As if on cue, Anakin and I both turned to face a magical woman. Her hair was a lively green that flowed down her back like silk, contrasting her pale skin that was decorated with a long, golden dress. She shimmered in the light, like a figment of my imagination. If I didn't know any better I would say she was nearly transparent. I swore I could see through her figure.

"Hello." Obi Wan all but purred.

"Who are you?" I demanded. I could feel a growing pain in my head from the pointed look I was giving.

"I am Daughter." She explained as vaguely as possible. "Are you the one?" She asked again. I tried to look in her eyes, but I couldn't tell if she was looking at me or Anakin.

Anakin grumbled under his breath while his hands rose to rest on his hips, "Uh, the one what?"

"I will take you to him."

"Him, who?"

"Did you bring us here?" Obi Wan and Ahsoka both questioned.

The woman appeared to sigh at what I could only assume was our ignorance, "only he can help you," she stated firmly. "There is little time. Follow me. We must have shelter by nightfall."

Anakin scoffed, "and we thought the planet was strange. How about this one?"

"Tell me about it," I rolled my eyes and bumped my shoulder against his, bringing a smile to both of our faces.

"We'll be fine as long as we stay together," Obi Wan reassured us. I knew in my gut it wasn't going to be that simple, but we could hope.

The walk was peaceful as we all remained quiet a majority of the journey. I thought it would be warm since the light was so bright, but nothing appeared to be real here. When we first arrived, there was no bright sun, no greenery to be seen at all, yet it surrounded us now. I certainly couldn't be the only one that was suspicious of this random planet.

"Have you noticed the seasons seem to change with the time of day?" Obi Wan whispered among our group of four.

I nodded, feeling a sudden chill creep up my spine. "Or the fake, rubber feeling of the planets?"

"And there are no animals," Ahsoka added.

Obi leaned towards Anakin and I as we trailed the mysterious woman, "and you two sense it?" he asked.

"Since we saw the planet - or, whatever this is." I wrapped my arms around myself, feeling the cold temperatures increase yet the others seemed entirely unaffected. "The Force is incredibly strong here, it's like I feel it flowing through me."

"An intersection unlike anything I've ever felt before," Obi Wan agreed. "Be wary."

"Excuse me. Who are you taking us to?" Anakin asked the lady. She hadn't so much as glanced at us since we left the ship.

"The Father, of course," she answered simply

I scoffed and rolled my eyes. How very vague of her. "Well, of course. And who are you?" I snapped.

Her gaze shifted around the area, gesturing widely to the plants - or maybe it was the rocks, even the planet. I thought I could see the faintest inkling of a smile on her face when her head turned towards us. "We are the ones who guard the power. We are the middle, the beginning, and the end"

Another breeze rolled through the canyon, sweeping my hair from my shoulders and forcing me to wrap my arms tighter around myself. I could feel a hand rest on my shoulder, it was gentle and comforting, but the sensation was soon replaced with a tight grip as a large boulder came tumbling down the canyon walls. If I hadn't been pulled from it's path, I soon would've become a splat at the bottom of the forest.

I lifted my head from the ground, finding Obi Wan dangling from the ledge. My heart stopped for a moment and before I could process anything, I was hauling him back onto the small path.

"Thank you," he breathed. His blue eyes darted across my face, wiping a small cut that developed on my cheek after hitting the rocks. "Are you two okay?"

"Yeah," I tried not to smile at the sight of his tousled hair, "we're good. What about Anakin?"

The three of us looked to the rock that now blocked our path while Obi Wan quickly turned to his communicator. "Anakin, are you there? Are you alright?" he asked worriedly.

The line was quiet for a moment and if it weren't for Anakin and I's connection, I would've shared Obi Wan's concern.

"Yeah," he scoffed, "but our friend here has run off!" Anakin shouted. "Go back to the ship and try sending another distress call. I'll follow her and find out how to get off this rock."

Obi Wan sighed, "and if this is a trap?"

"Then I'm not gonna wait around to find out."

"Anakin, stop." He demanded. "Wait for us to find another way around and meet you. Anakin?" His chest lifted as a sigh escaped him. "So reckless and impatient. Must be a Skywalker trait." He turned to me with a small grin. I couldn't decide if I wanted to slap it off of him or return it.

"Maybe it is. You would be the one to know," I shrugged. Sounds of thunder rolled through the hills as the sky quickly darkened. The cold grew stronger and a sort of dizziness briefly took over me. "A storm?" My eyebrows stitched together in confusion at the sudden appearance.

Obi Wan's hands wrapped around my shoulders, helping me stand upright. He was just as confused as I was with the familiar creases in his forehead.

"We need to go," he mumbled. His breath was warm against my ear, a momentary ease to the chill I felt.

We traced our steps back to the ship, trying to avoid the rainfall that was destined to come. The darkness slowly encompassed us as it spread across the sky, painting the sky a dark, dreamy blue. The green plants were no longer, replaced by rotten, brown-looking leaves that were deteriorating as the seconds passed.

Our surroundings grew familiar, but there was nothing but an empty landing. There were no remnants, scraps of metal, or even indentions in the ground that signaled that our ship was once there. Everything was like new. Well, dead, but new.

"The ship's gone!" Ahsoka exclaimed.

"Yes," Obi Wan sighed, "I see that."

"It was here," she threw her arm out towards the vast space, "no question."

I felt the dizziness take over again, my hands flying to my head to stop the spinning. "Guys," I groaned, feeling faint like I could drop at any moment, but the two continued talking about our strange surroundings. "Guys," I tried again, nearly stumbling over my feet until a hand bunched up the back of my shirt and pulled me back to my feet.

"Did you lose something?" Another echoey voice came. His piercing red eyes stared into me like a pair of lasers. "You didn't do as you were asked."

"Actually," I pried his hand from my clothing as the sickly feeling soon faded away, "we did exactly as we were told."

He scowled, "my sister said to wait."

"Did she, now?" Obi Wan asked, his fingers brushing my arm as he tried to pull me back. Instead, I reached for the hilt on my hip, igniting the white blade. "Well," he continued, "we were unfortunately separated. We'd like our ship back if you don't mind."

"Not yet," he hissed. "Is it true they are the chosen one?"

Obi Wan tugged me behind him forcefully despite my saber while he and Ahsoka both readied theirs. His face sunk, illuminated beautifully by the blue light, while his eyebrow rose daringly. "What do you know of such things?"

"What is about to happen shall occur whether you like it or not," his voice boomed. He swiped his hand through the air, shrinking all of our blades back into their hilts.

"You are Sith." Obi Wan quickly pointed towards the man. I finally took notice of his face, looking past the evil eyes. His skin was white with harsh red markings, nothing like his 'sister,' except for the hazy appearance.

"Sith?" He chuckled, quickly meeting my eyes. "Yes...And no. The storms here are quite lethal. If you want to live, I suggest you find shelter." He took off in a sprint before his body morphed into some dark, winged being and taking off into the stormy skies.

I gasped as the rain started to pour down, pelting my face with the harsh drops. I paid no mind to the pain. I was more focused on the coolness of the drops as they hit my skin and soaked my robes and hair.

Lightning struck all around, but seemed to avoid us. "Quick," Obi Wan grabbed my arm, "there's a cave over there."

He ushered us into the dark cave, both of them wearing grim expressions while working on starting a fire. I looked around the dreary space, then back outside where the rain poured down, and I started to laugh.

I couldn't stop laughing, no matter how hard I tried. We were in the most absurd of situations, I swore I had to be part of some large prank or a dream. Obi Wan and Ahsoka looked at me like I was crazy. Maybe I was.

"Aaryn?" Obi Wan questioned. "What is it?"

"Nothing- Nothing it's just," I huffed and tried to catch my breath. "Actually, no. It's not nothing. My brother is missing and we're on some strange planet or whatever it is! We're surrounded by these weird creatures who, if you haven't noticed, are Force users. Dangerous Force users."

"What, like you? Do you think I don't care that Anakin is gone?" Obi Wan seethed as he inched closer to me. "He may be your brother, but like it or not, he's my family too. Of course I'm worried about him, but he can handle himself just fine. He's not nine anymore, you missed all of that, you missed him growing up because you left."

I groaned and shoved him back before getting into his face, his eyes narrowing into mine. "You're incredibly insensitive, General Kenobi. I envy anyone who's had the pleasure of not meeting you," I snapped.

"You have a sharp tongue, General Skywalker. It's a shame it's not put to better use," he grinned, "you'd make a terrific Senator."

"You despise politicians."

He leaned close to me, a fierce glimmer in his eye, "exactly."

We remained still for a moment, tied in our argument once again until Ahsoka cleared her throat with a smile threatening to spread across her face. I forgot we had extra company.

"As much as I enjoy watching...whatever this is, maybe we should get some rest? That storm isn't going to leave anytime soon, we might as well," she shrugged and gestured towards the large fire she'd set up.

Obi Wan nodded quickly and pulled his shoulders back, always the professional. "Right," he agreed, "rest sounds good."

Rest did sound good, if only for a little bit. The creepy Sith-thing said the storms were deadly, so we didn't have anything to worry about.

I sat down against the cold rocks, curling into the most comfortable position I could find. I would only close my eyes for a few minutes, just a few. All I had to do was remind myself that Anakin was smart and safe, then I could fall asleep.

What could possibly happen in just a few minutes?

#obi wan kenobi #Obi Wan Kenobi x OC #obi wan needs a hug #daddy wan kenobi #jedi #OC #star wars #clone wars

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fadingechoes · 5 years ago

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The sun sounds like light sabers or when it's really quiet and you're walking under power lines. Or just white noise I guess.

Mercury sounds like a monster or something screaming and it's really echoey. There are also deep rumbling sounds.

Venus sounds like a death clock.

Earth sounds like light sabers and sci fi. It also sounds kinda busy. I'm not sure if that was something I actually heard but if it is then it's understandable.

Mars is like a muffled wind storm with thunder. I also feel like I hear chimes, which is really weird. It reminds me of being inside a cabin while there's a storm.

Jupiter sounds like you're in a room with someone vacuuming while a choir is singing somewhere else in the building.

Saturn is hell. It's just the screams of the damned. A bit of police sirens at the end though.

Uranus is just really fucking windy.

Neptune is literally the ocean. No joke. What the fuck. It sounds like walking down the shore at night while a car alarm is going off in the distance.

Pluto is white noise that slowly fades away and there's also freaky metallic noises. It makes my ears ring.

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ustrinagenesis · 4 years ago

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Chapter 7: A Feral Mind

“Bullet! ... Lightning! ...” Cade calls out through the echoey apartment “Darn it why won't they answer?... Bullet!, Light-" his ears catch a faint whimpering coming from upstairs “Boys?... are you okay” he swiftly trotted up the swirly staircase every stair creaked sharply with age, echoing eerily through the empty room. The air was heavy so tangible that Cade felt like he was wading through it, something was off, something was wrong. He sprinted faster up the stairs; a sharp metallic scent started to drift up his nose “ oh no" he dashed as fast as he could up into the attic “ Bu-" the air shut off in his throat, blood was splattered and spilling across the floor a nurse lay on the floor steeped in blood, Lightning sat terrified shaking and whimpering in the corner and Bullet sat at the ledge under a clouded window his .hands on his face and claws digging into the sides of his head with a look of terror and disbelief plastered on him, his maw dripping with blood.

Earlier that day...

“Bullet had a high fever this morning, I gave him medicine before I left so hopefully he has stabilized by now but can you go check on him and Lightning for me because I’m really busy right now,” Cade says with a stern and tired expression on his face while scribbling down things on documents on a large and messy pile “but sir I-" “ also can you go to the store and get something for their lunch, they haven’t eaten yet," he says cutting her off “ but-" “ Diana I know you have nothing on your timetable right now, I wrote it. Just do this now and ill give you a bonus at the end of the week. She stood there her brow furrowed and a strained obviously fake smile “hmpf- you’re lucky I’m in a good mood today” she says as she pivoted on her heel and trotted in the other direction “only for you Dens" She said as she walked out the door. Diana sighed and walked towards the vending machine down the hallway and stopped and searched her pockets for change. “Man I wish they had lunches in vending machines,” she said and sighed to herself “Well Actually something similar to that is rolling out soon," A deep voice said behind her "AAH” she swivelled round shocked to see a tall thin dark figure with light grey combed back hair and thin piercing eyes, his tall towering ears stood high to attention and the bat stood high almost regally behind her “Jesus Christ Ivoss don’t come up behind me like that, you almost gave me a heart attack,” she said clutching her chest ”Sorry Miss grant-" “Doctor” she interjected as she pressed some buttons and put some coins in the vending machine, “I overheard you wanted some lunches, well I had made some lunches for my son and his friend but it seems they had found some pizza vouchers and wanted to use those instead.” He says as Diana stared at him with a concerned expression “So, do you want them it’ll save you the trip” Ivoss said with a smile while holding up a see-through carrier bag with two lunches in cheap plastic containers, she looked at them apprehensively however she quickly realised that she was too tired to contemplate. Diana sighed and took the lunches and two juice boxes that dropped from the vending machine “Thank you Ivoss” she answered as she started to walk away “No problem Doctor Grant" Ivoss said in a quite tepid tone, however with is staple wide smile on his face.

Diana walked down the echoey hallway towards the staff elevator, the sounds of her heels clacking bouncing off the walls, that was saturated in the mid-morning sun spilling through the hallway windows. Trotting up to the elevator, Daina got out her key and slotted it into the staff elevator and rode it up to the residential area. As the elevator doors opened again she clutched the bag plopping in the two juice boxes while walking up to the library and she opened the doors and walked through the tall walled maze. The smell of old leather and parchment filled her nose, the dim warm brown light swirled throughout the old library, reflected off the sea of books, the light came from the old yellowed circle windows. The windows spotted the heights of the shelves and looked like old eyes overlooking the astoundingly large library; after a while, she navigated herself to the small parting in the shelf wall to an antique-looking door. Diana knocked hard on the old door that looked like it would shatter under a little more force and the sound ricocheted through the apartment. Diana stood there for a bit before she could hear small footsteps running down the stairs and up to the door, a small light bluish boy opened the door his excitement visibly turning to shyness once he realized it wasn’t his Grandpa “Cade wanted me to bring you lunch" she sighed and handed the bag to Lightning, he nodded at her “ill come back to check on you in half an hour” she said dryly and he nodded again in response. Afterwards, the little boy closed the door and she could hear him run upstairs to give his brother the lunch. Diana walked back through the library to the computer area and started to do a little work to pass the time, she enjoyed the muted echoes of the quiet library as it was usually quite empty and loved the rich vintage atmosphere, she could easily get lost in it and as a result she quickly became saturated in the thick classic feeling and while she worked 40 minutes flew by. Absentmindedly Diana checked her watch and put it down but quickly took a double-take as she realized the time; she quickly saved her work and logged off and swiftly went to the two boys apartment to check up on them. Once again she knocked against the rickety door however a frantic scrambling of feet came from behind the door and the door flung open revealing the same bluish boy, however pale and with a look of terror pasted across his face. Lightning flung himself at Diana grabbing at her jacket and his eyes pleaded at her in silent horror, his looks sent chills down her spine “What’s going on, what’s wrong?” she said hastily, his fear prickling wavers into her voice. Lightning just pulled at her jacket while he pointed up the winding staircase and her eyes followed but she quickly started to hear manic scuttling, scratching and crashing up the stairs that dashed across the upstairs with insane speed and ferocity. Without hesitation Diana started to dash up the stairs “Bullet!, Bullet!, Are you okay?!” She shouted up the stairs as she ran, Lightning right behind her. Diana swung open the door “B-" the sound shut off in her throat as she looked in abject terror.

Bullet stood hunched over on all fours however somehow seemingly towering over his surroundings, his crimson fur was on edge, his face curled and scrunched up, his nose flared, his mouth grimaced showing monstrous blade-like teeth. Dark unknown black liquid and viscous dark blood dripped from the dressing on his eye finally his eye, a brilliant almost glowing red with 3 strange white circles spinning in the iris, and it was staring right at her with blind fury. Bullet’s dripping maw parted slightly letting out a booming growl as he started to turn towards them stalking on all fours like a predator, snarling, as he pursued them they started to scuttle to the other side of the room and with their sudden movements Bullet’s growling became more intense; Diana startled by it tripped over onto the floor and started to scoot backwards on the floor and Bullet was now only focused on her. As Diana stared at him she could notice his fur getting darker and it seemed like his back got longer and his tail started to puff up, his lower ears started to shrink and by the time he was only a meter away he was a large black feral beast that had smoke that drifted from his nostrils and As he edged closer she started to look frantically around her for an escape. Finally, he stopped as he loomed over her still snarling as piercing red eye stared at her intensely, but suddenly in her delirious fear she dashed in the direction of a pencil to distract him with but without warning, he lunged at her going directly for her throat.

Blood sprayed across Bullet’s face causing him to recoil, he looked at Diana, a pool of blood started to form as he looked at it his fur started to shimmer and red started to come through again and he slowly started to turn back. Bullet regained his senses and he finally looked at himself he fell backwards and scurried away from the expanding pool of blood, he leaned himself against a ledge below a bright circular window in the middle of the room, his breathing became shorter and shallower, his breaths became short and gulping almost like he was drowning in the thick sharp air and his stomach started to convulse dryly as he coughed violently. Tremors drifted throughout his small body and he dug his claws into his face as he shook and a mixture of wine red liquid and a black dripped from the soaked bandage. Time seemed to come to a thundering halt, milliseconds or centuries could have passed and he wouldn’t be able to tell over the crashing of his own heart. Scorching heat spread across him as his grip on reality started to waver as the dizzying pain that spread across his core started to drift away, everything became distant and intangible, his very existence almost seemed foreign, detached, unreachable. “Bu-" The door opened.

Later that evening

Air was suffocating Bullet as he waited and his impatience was maddening. Bullet sat on a waiting room chair outside a surgery room as he tapped his fleet anxiously at the floor, holding himself tightly as he stared intensely at the floor “Are you okay?” A voice asked suddenly in front of him. Springing upwards Bullet exclaimed “AH!... where did you come from" a small black, fluffy little figure with tall towering ears and large round dark eyes stood right in front of him “Hey! If I'll be your friend will you be happy!?” The boy said with beaming excitement “Huh?” Bullet said confused “There aren’t a lot of Sover kids in the in this part of the hospital so we get lonely so we’re gonna be friends ok!” The small bat said with a bright smile “W-we?” Bullet stuttered “Hi" another unexpected voice uttered from his side “GAH!” Bullet shouted once again shocked to see another short black little figure but instead with a short greyish beak fluffy ruffled feathers everywhere except his head “Oh! I forgot!, my name is Ivory but my friend calls me Wings and this is Raver!” Wings gestured to the small Raven boy beside him “U-uh” Bullet stammered as Wings jumped up and sat beside him “Hey! Do you know why he calls me wings! Because I was born with an extra wing, but it made my other wings go bad a little bit ago so they all had to be taken away” he pointed to bandages where his wings would be. Bullet gave him a wondering gaze “Hey! Also, my dad works here in the lab and dose aneelisis on stuff, that’s a hard word" Wings said loudly; Bullet just looked at him confused at his loud and over-enthusiastic nature “So! I’m going back to the library come meet us there ok, byeee!” Before Bullet could comprehend what was going on Wings was already gone and the Raver trotted contently behind him. Bullet had to take a moment to process the barrage of information but by the time he collected his thoughts the door opened and Dr Cade Emerged from the room off to the side, he silently motioned for Bullet to come to him.

The two walked to the other side of the room and into an adjacent office where Cade sat down in a large plush swivel chair and sighed as he put his hands together and looked down sullenly Bullet immediately knew what was coming “Firstly, Dr Grant sustained quite serious injuries however because I was there so quickly she did not get any irreversible damage. The artery in her neck was grazed and she lost a lot of blood, but thankfully one of our staff knew that they had the same blood type and so they had a blood transfusion so Dr Grant is recovering. As a result, she had to have a lot of stitches in her neck.” After Cade paused Bullet gave a sigh of momentary relief “Also luckily she decided she didn’t want to press charges however, now you have to be under constant supervision.” Cade Continued “But Grandpa-“ Bullet said but was quickly cut off by Cade “Because I agree that this isn’t like you, so I will have Dr Ivoss do physical and physiological tests on you to get to the core of your issue”. After Cade finished his sentence a dark figure cantered into the room that sent shivers down through Bullet’s spine, it was the ever-smiling bat standing tall with his large hands behind him; his presence was dark and thick, practically physical and his thin sharp eyes felt like it bore straight through Bullet’s very core. “Dr Ivoss is a good friend of mine so he will also be supervising you daily” as Cade uttered those words a low unknown panic started to well up inside Bullet “Lightning will also attend just in case he is capable of the same thing” Cade gave a large sigh and got up and turned around facing a window letting in the warm afternoon sunlight. Bullet eyed Dr Ivoss warily “Grandpa I-" “Unfortunately Bullet because of the situation you’ve put us in we cannot discuss or debate it, it has already been decided. Do you understand?” Cade asked flatly "Bu-“ "NO" Cade shouted as he swung his head towards Bullet, his brow furrowed and a mix of anger, disappointment, fear and confusion flickered like flames in his eyes. Cade dropped his head and sighed turning back towards the window “Do. You. Understand?” he asked again, laboured, Bullet nodded somberly “Good” Cade pause and moved his chair to face the large window “This will become effective immediately so Dr Ivoss is ready to take you now” Cade’s words wavered as he stared out into the afternoon sky. Dr Ivoss opened the door and motioned for Bullet to follow him, Bullet opened his mouth to say something to his grandfather but no words followed only the prickling of tears at his eyes. Dr Ivoss silently led Bullet out of the room and Bullet stayed silent as he followed fighting back the tears that threatened to fall, they walked down turn after turn, making so many that it almost like spiralling through a labyrinth. Finally, they ended up at an elevator door that was crested with what looked like years of dust, rust and wear, very different to the usual elevators that looked pristine from regular cleaning; it almost looked abandoned. Ivoss put a key in and the two walked inside, as the doors creaked open Bullet became increasingly more anxious and shifty on his feet. Stale air drifted through Bullet’s nose as the door closed with a loud clunk “So uhh, where are we going?” Bullet enquired but his question was met with unchanging silence, Dr Ivoss just stared blankly into the industrial-looking metal triangle pattern in the wall. Searing shrieks of metal reverberated throughout the elevator as they started to descend; the tall bat subtlety tapped something into the level keypad and suddenly the elevator came to a shuddering halt "W-what happened, wait where are we going” Bullet asked frantically.

Two loud clicks accompanied by two violent shakes of the elevator “What’s happening!” once again Bullets questions were met with silence only this time the Doctor’s smile grew “Wh-“ The whole elevator convulsed cutting Bullet off when out of nowhere the elevator started to hurtle downwards at terrifying speeds “W-WHATS GOING ON!” Bullet shouted desperately, lights from the levels flashed through the gaps of the door “WAIT A MINUTE WHERE IS LIGHT-" before he could finish the elevator came to a thundering halt and Ivoss walked up to press the door button, instead holding it down and then bending down a little, a flickering blue light flashed out from a tiny bead on the wall wiping across Ivoss’ eye “-ning" Bullet finished as the doors opened revealing some sort of shadowy room with towering a ceiling l spotted with black metal structures and pillars making it look like a sort of sweatshop or factory. Tables were strewn throughout the large dimly lit area filled with testing tubes, chemicals, strange machines, equipment, large cylindrical tanks and right in the centre of the room stood large silver ring and right in the centre of it suspended was Lighting, restrained, held up by his arms and legs and an attachment with long wires leading up to the ceiling along his spine. “ LIGHTNING!” Bullet screamed in horror as he scrambled towards his hanging unconscious brother “I wouldn’t do that if I were you" The elevator door slammed behind them and Ivoss’ plastic grin stretched further across his face and a platform with buttons rose from the floor. A long claw from his winged arms pressed a button, various sharp-looking surgical tools rose from the ground attached to mechanical arms. Laser attachments on more mechanical arms descended from the ceiling like thin sliver spindling spiders and they pinpointed points across Lightning’s body. “Listen, kid, if you want your brother to walk away from that thing alive today I’m going to need you to do exactly as I say” the large bat stalked towards Bulle, his movements were silk-like, light like twisted royalty. Ivoss loomed over Bullet and clasped his claws around his face “I’ll let you in on a secret” he whispered mockingly “A while ago I started researching this strange substance that interwove with and manipulated Sover DNA, research that eventually hit a dead end, however suddenly it started reacting again. I wonder, do you know when that was" he sneered as he pressed a claw onto Bullet’s eye bandages “Surprise, Surprise, it was when you came along” he lifted Bullet up by the shirt “ You don’t understand the kind of breakthroughs possible with this. I will singlehandedly bring the world into a new age of evolution” Ivoss reeled back and basked in awe of himself. Bullet flailed at his grasp simultaneously terrified and infuriated “Now boy lets make a deal, you let me do my tests anytime on you without you telling anyone and I won't kill or test/torture your brother, Deal?” the dark doctor dropped his clasp on Bullet and he stood completely speechless and terrified as he scanned the room with his eyes spotting many completely dangerous machines and tools that could hurt torture or kill him, he was frozen with fear feeling completely helpless and small “Listen kid, you better decide soon or ill just kill him and do my tests on his corpse. 5...4...” Bullet panicked and the situation spun through his head violently almost making him sick “3 ...2” his bandage started to soak again with blood "On-“ “DEAL!” Bullet cut off Ivoss in desperation and fell to his knees tears streaming down his face. Ivoss gave a sharp wide almost demonic smile "Good choice kid, now let's have some fun”

To be continued

#ustrinagenesis #shardsoffire #story #original story

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ravenvsfox · 8 years ago

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If it hasn't already been done (I know I haven't read them all yet) could you do 71 with matt and niel? I can't ever get enough of their friendship

71: “There’s a thunderstorm outside and you want to do what?”

The court is soup, stirring and humid, and Matt stares straight up at the ceiling, trying to catch a proper breath. He’s aware of Dan folded almost in half by the benches, holding a stitch in her side like something’s about to pop out.

Nicky’s starfished a metre away from Matt, gasping dramatically with both arms criss-cross flung over his eyes. The rest of the team is hunched or stretched like roman statues, twisted in grotesque shapes to take the pressure off of their overworked ankles and lungs.

Inevitably, Neil is utterly solid on his feet, chest still heaving with exertion but eyes focused. Andrew passes him an unscrewed water bottle and they make eye contact for five whole seconds too long. Matt snorts, rolling away onto his front and grimacing at the sweaty peeling sound his uniform makes.

“Neil,” he calls, holding his own flushed cheeks. “Any ETA on when we can scrape ourselves off the court?”

“What?” he asks sharply.

“We just want to whither and die in our own homes,” Nicky moans.

“We have a half hour left in our regular practice plus we’re a month away from semifinals,” Neil says, incredulous. “We should be working harder than ever.”

“A month,” Allison repeats. “As in one month. As in what— over forty practices to go?”

Matt sneaks a glance and Neil has his arms crossed, his mouth sour. “The ravens will be—“

“Nope,” Allison interrupts, “I’m sick of hearing about what Edgar Allan’s demonic fucking automatons would do. They don’t play by the same rules as us. That’s sort of the point.”

“We’ll be better fresh, Neil,” Dan says, still panting a little from her last lap. “You know what pushing too hard looks like.”

“And I know what not pushing hard enough looks like,” Neil snaps, harsh and echoey in their plexiglass cage. He swallows a couple of times, maybe trying to get the taste of his outburst out of his mouth, and then he looks away. “Some of you meet resistance and stop pushing.”

“I mean If I know anything about Q-tips, that’s what you’re supposed to do,” Nicky says.

“Your body resists for a reason.” Aaron grimaces, apparently upset to be agreeing with his cousin.

“Neil’s right,” Kevin says, and everyone groans. His eyes narrow, and he taps his racquet on the floor like he’s calling order to a courtroom. “We’re not improving. We’re stagnant, and we’re taking the extra bulk of the newbies for granted. More bodies doesn’t guarantee a win, we know this. We have to switch things up.”

“Switch things up,” Allison repeats, leaning back on her hands. “What would you propose, Queenie? You want us to switch jersey’s? Play on a basketball court?”

“The jersey thing sounds fun,” Matt says, sly. “Dibs on Dan’s.”

“Switch things up,” Neil echoes, and Matt watches helplessly as a bad idea dawns on him.

Neil looks back at Andrew but he shakes his head just slightly, not in on whatever’s jerking Neil across the court. He wrenches the inner door open, and then crosses to the door outside. He pops that open too, and a rush of wet, grey air tumbles inside.

“Outside,” Neil says, like a revelation. No one moves. “Come on.”

“There’s a thunderstorm outside,” Matt says dumbly, lurching to stand on wobbly legs. “And you want us to do… what?”

“Someone lug the back-up nets outside,” Neil says, face pink and lit up. “We’re going to play against the storm.”

“Neil,” Matt says gently. “That’s batshit crazy.”

“It’s innovative,” Neil corrects, letting the door clank shut in his haste to get to the equipment room. “We need a different environment and we need to cool off. Win-win.”

“We don’t want to soak our uniforms or get struck by fucking lightning, lose-lose,” Aaron argues, as Neil struggles to drag a net that’s way too big for him out one hard yank at a time. Andrew silently crosses and starts helping him, maybe just to piss off his brother, maybe out of that inscrutable compulsion of his to do things for Neil.

“Fuck it,” Dan says, walking towards the growing fray of bickering and moving around the net. Matt grins at her.

“You’re being out-captained so hard right now.”

She flushes. “I am not.”

“You are,” Nicky interjects. “You’re the lazy one now. Neil’s the cool proactive substitute with a rough exterior and a heart of gold.”

Dan shoves him so hard that he stumbles and falls to one knee. “Who captained the winning team last year?”

Nicky laughs brightly and surrenders with, “you, you, obviously you”, struggling to get up again, probably stinging with floor burn.

The team siphons slowly out of the court, some foxes grumbling more than others. When Matt steps out into the veritable hurricane outside, he bursts into laughter.

“Neil,” he calls out, and again when the wind tries to stuff his voice back inside. “We can’t do this. We’re all gonna get sick out here!”

Neil jogs back through the storm, one hand shielding his eyes, pale legs flashing in the blur. “We’ll stay warm if we’re moving. The nets are already mostly out, come on.” He gestures at their milling teammates and flashes him a rare smile.

Matt curses, weak. “Just this once man, and only because the tension in there was going to kill us quicker.”

They end up on the strip of grass where students sit to eat lunch or play frisbee, nestled in between the court and the closest of the campus buildings. They’ve set up a makeshift court with just nets and players, so there’s none of the usual fancy checking or bouncing shots off walls — just teamwork and counting steps and scoring. Matt can see Kevin shouting and measuring the distance between nets, Dan shouting back, Andrew flipping them both off.

The storm crests like it’s trying to throw a punch at them, rain so thick it’s hard to see through. Matt can just make out the flame of Neil’s hair, the wick of his smile. He looks uncharacteristically at ease, thriving on the chaos when everyone else is wilting or seething.

He can see the newbies with their heads together, probably considering revolt. Renee’s holding her massive racquet above Allison’s head like the netting will stop the rain, and both of them are laughing.

Matt gets it then -- that there’s something about the energy of the storm that’s revitalizing them, the rumble of thunder sending them into titters and spins and shouts.

Dan jogs up to him and swings around his neck immediately, feet off the ground.“This is gonna be a disaster,” she crows. “I think it might be perfect for us.”

He squeezes her waist and grins, watching everyone fall into position on the slick grass. Matt catches the tail end of Andrew touching Neil’s sides and then retreating to goal. Thunder rocks the cradle of their court.

“Let’s go!” Neil calls. “Use the outdoors to your advantage. If you can get your opponent to slide in mud, do it. Grip will be less certain in the rain, so steal the ball. Got it?”

“Yeah I’ve got a question,” Allison says, mock polite with her hand up. “You know we’re all holding lighting rods, right? And your boyfriend is in a metal cage?”

Neil pauses, considering, and then shrugs. “We won’t be out for long.”

“It doesn’t take that long to die, Neil,” Nicky says, and Neil cocks a look at him.

“I know.”

“Oh yeah. My bad.”

“Are we gonna play some Exy or not?” Matt asks, twirling his racquet. Neil looks at him gratefully and reaches out until their sticks clack together.

“Yeah. Losers drag the nets back.”

“Oh,” Matt says, grinning. “We’re all losers here.”

_____

It is a disaster, a big mess where Aaron stalks off and refuses to play, and Jack starts tripping people on his own team for the sound it makes when they hit the squelching grass. Kevin steals the ball from Matt and Matt throws mud at his back to see what he’ll do, and there’s a scuffle that slides them right into Renee’s net, racquets, ball, and all. Matt claims the point.

The girls keep laughing like they’re delirious, and Neil is taking the game so seriously, doing these controlled grass slides that make him even faster.

They’re so soaked that they’ve stopped caring how they look, making the most of the fun parts of the outdoor slop instead. Dan rushes by Matt and strokes a loving, muddy pair of fingers over his jaw; he smacks her ass with his mucked up racquet. They steal a point while she’s distracted, and the fallout is explosive.

He knows that Wymack’s going to come back from his meeting to a bin full of filth and a disordered team, but he can’t regret it. It feels sort of familiar and achey, like something none of them ever got to do in elementary school: mess around and get outside and feel like there’s something bigger than the ball in your hand or the number on your back.

It’s something the ravens would never do.

Neil calls for a stop to the game after an hour, and he flops down onto centre field. Matt watches him, bemused, and then jogs over and stoops down next to him.

“All tuckered out, kiddo?”

“We were running overtime,” Neil explains.

“No shit,” Matt laughs, rolling onto his back. “It took us the rest of practice just to drag ourselves out here.”

“Was this—“ Neil cuts off abruptly, and when Matt glances over, Neil’s looking back, face ashen and serious. “I should leave the captaining to Dan, right?”

Matt considers this, letting rain cloud his vision and slither under the drooping neckline of his jersey. “This was a good idea Neil,” he says, as diplomatically as he can. “You’re going to be the best, most difficult captain when we’re gone.”

Neil rolls his neck like he doesn’t want to think about it, and the raindrops in his eyelashes almost look like tears. “I just thought... sometimes things get easier when you’re not stuck in one place.”

“True. But things also get easier when you’re not constantly in the thick of them. Breaks are good.”

“I’m scared to slow down,” Neil admits, and then screws up his mouth like it betrayed him.

“Then don’t, man. Let us carry you for a while. Let Dan, and Wymack. And Andrew. We can run too.”

Neil turns his head into the spongey grass to look at him again, and Matt watches mud graze his healing cheekbone.

“I want to win again,” Neil says simply. Matt smiles.

“Then we’ll win.”

“I’m serious.”

“Bastardized Exy in the pouring rain serious?”

Neil opens his mouth to reply but then Andrew’s looming over them both, his helmet off and his drenched hair swept back from his face. Matt didn’t know Neil could look more relaxed than he did bonelessly flopped on the grass, but he evens out when he sees Andrew.

“Everyone is inside but you,” Andrew says pointedly, toeing at Neil’s hand until he catches his shoe.

“I was being vice captain.”

“You were being a rain catcher,” Andrew says flatly. Matt watches Neil wrestle with a smile and then reach up for Andrew, who catches his wrist and hoists him up.

“Vice cap,” Matt says, and feels a pulse of fondness at the way Neil snaps back to look at him. His hair is soaked dark, uniform more brown than orange, wrist still clutched in Andrew’s hand. “Let’s wait for some sun next time, yeah?”

Neil shakes his head, on the verge of a smile again. “I don’t want to make things too easy for you.”

Matt looks skyward, sighing so hard that he laughs. “I’ve noticed that.”

#what a wholesome prompt #aftg #the foxhole court #tfc fanfic #matt boyd #andreil #in obvious dollops #prompt #mine #Anonymous #ask

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