#they are listening to indie music and talking about life and stuff

[freakurodani]

which haikyuu characters are sitting in their car, parked in the olive garden parking lot and what are they doing?

[silentscrying]

🎸 out of my mind ! 💿 track three: something about a beat

guitarist!ino x drummer!reader

summary: it's the annual battle of the bands at the fix, your college campus's iconic live music bar, and this year you're taking the stage as the drummer for indie rock group cursed technique. you know the competition is strong, but no part of you is ready for lead singer and guitarist takuma ino. you lock eyes at the edge of the stage, and something starts—something that might make you feel alive even more than the beat of the drums.

warnings: language, hopeless stupid pining, alcohol, mentions of deceased parent, maki is Fed Up, anxiety, unbearably cute dogs. || sfw. 9k words.

“OKAY, IT’S UP,” Nobara says, grinning at you over her laptop. You’re sprawled across the living room at Takuma’s place, surrounded by a random combination of your band and his while others are in classes. After spending last night mixing the single, Takuma helped Nobara set up an artist profile for the band, and now your music is available on streaming services. Just like that.

“That’s so weird,” you say, grinning as you pull up Spotify on your phone. Next Fix by Cursed Technique. Strange to see your face on there, a photo taken of all of you by some freshman when you last performed at The Fix. Nobara sends the link in your group chat, and Toge responds within seconds.

freak no. 1: FAME freak no. 1: FORTUNE freak no. 1: wait it’s not opening freak no. 1: nvm i’m just stupid

“Does he ever pay attention in class?” Nobara mutters. Maki snorts.

Yuta is also in class, but that means he’s locked in, all his devices on Do Not Disturb. You don’t think Toge’s turned DND on a single time in his life.

“I’m going to Kinji’s!” Kirara shouts from the front entryway, and Yuji leaps to his feet and disappears down the hall, barreling back out of his room seconds later.

“Wait! Can you give this to Panda while you’re there?” He hands her a drive, and Kirara rolls her eyes and takes it.

“You need to slow down every once in a while,” she says, ruffling Yuji’s hair. “Okay, bye. I’ll be back in a few hours.” The dogs follow her to the door and return the living room when she’s gone, curling up on either side of Megumi, who’s busy writing some paper in the corner.

“What was that?” Nobara asks.

“Demo drive for the radio station,” Takuma says. “Panda plays our stuff sometimes. I bet he’d play yours, too.”

“That’d be sick,” Nobara says approvingly. She turns to bother Megumi, poking at him until he takes his headphones off and talks to her, and Yuji strolls into the room and flops down directly on the floor.

“Comfy?” you ask, poking him with a socked foot.

“Mm. Yeah.”

“Ah, look what you did, Kugisaki,” Megumi says, and you look up to see Shiro trotting toward you with her tail wagging, having abandoned her post at her owner’s side.

“That was not my fault! You’re the one who moved.”

“Because you kept poking me!”

You immediately slide off the couch onto the floor, letting Shiro sit in your lap. “Um, excuse me,” Takuma says, offended. You crane your neck to look up at him behind you on the couch. His face is lit up by his computer as he works on a string of code he tried (and failed) to explain to you, and there’s laughter in his eyes despite the affronted tone of his voice.

“Favorite,” you inform him with a wide, cheeky smile. He very maturely sticks his tongue out at you.

“Toge message,” Nobara informs you all, reading off her phone. “He says omg we have four listeners do you think they’re writing slutty fanfiction about us already.” She glances at you. “Petition to remove him from the chat—oh, look, he started sending the wolf memes again.”

Hanging out like this has become natural so quickly you almost forget you haven’t been friends with Shibuya Incident for ages. You feel almost as much at home in the tapestry-covered living room here as you do in the plant-filled kitchen of your own house down the street.

Maki checks her watch, sighing. “We should get going soon. The guys will be back in half an hour.” Then you have rehearsal, even though you’re not one of the three bands performing tomorrow night. When you do take the stage next week, you want to be ready.

Nobara is trying to read Megumi’s texts over his shoulder, which isn’t working out well for her, and he tells Maki, “Yes, please, take your invasive little gremlin home.” He puts his hand right on Nobara’s face and pushes her away, and she screeches and tries to tackle him, but he’s already sitting in a beanbag chair in the corner, so it doesn’t really do much except make Kuro jump on top of them both.

You glance up at Takuma again, still stroking Shiro’s fur while the others start to stand, ready to head home. “You rehearsing today too?”

“I’d hope so,” he shrugs.

“Yes, dipshit, in two hours. If you ever read the group chat,” Megumi says.

Takuma doesn’t seem fazed by Megumi’s irritation and just shrugs. “We have a new song for tomorrow.”

“You didn’t tell me!” You poke at his knee in retribution for his secrecy. “I wanna hear it!”

“You will,” he says. “Tomorrow.”

“Skipper, help, I don’t wanna walk our gremlin home by myself,” Maki calls from the door, and you reluctantly pat Shiro on the head and stand. She follows you to the entryway and sniffs at you while you cram your feet into your sneakers.

“Maki Zenin.” Nobara turns up her nose and crosses her arms over her chest. “If you hated me so much, why didn’t you just say so?”

“Bye!” Yuji shouts from the living room, and you all call out varying goodbyes and noncommittal sounds before making your way out the door and down the block, the afternoon air chilly against your cheeks.

Nobara waits all of ten seconds before spinning around and walking backward, grinning at you mischievously. “I bet Ino wrote a song about you.”

“Oh my god. Shut up,” you laugh. “He didn’t.” You can’t imagine you’ve given him all that much to work with. What would he write, that you like coffee and drums and Megumi’s dogs?

“Why else wouldn’t he show you? Don’t you guys text each other song lyrics like the little romantic fucks you are?” Your face is flaming, and you’re suddenly very grateful for the cool of the wind against your skin. The idea of him writing a song about you plants something weird in your gut—not something bad, just something unexpected and warm and blooming.

You try not to show it and your friends see right through you, Nobara turning back to skip up the drive with a satisfied grin and Maki rolling her eyes at the both of you.

“I’m gonna write a song, too,” Nobara declares, unlocking the door and pushing her way inside. “Skipper and Ino, sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S—”

This time, you and Maki speak in tandem. “Shut up!”

—

“There’s a joke here,” Gojo says, tapping both of his index fingers together while he thinks. “About being a drummer and a journalist. Something about a beat.”

You laugh, jotting another note on the lined paper of your small spiral notebook. “I hate to tell you, but I’ve heard that one before.”

You’re not sure features qualifies as a specific beat, more of a broad category, but your staff isn’t nearly large enough to assign people to smaller specialties. Plus, it’s a college publication, designed for experimentation and growth. Nobody wants to be boxed in yet. That’ll come later, out in the monotony of the real world, and you’ll be confined to some hyperspecific beat like neighborhood crime or high school basketball.

“No!” Gojo cries, dragging his hands down his face like it’s the end of the world. “I can’t believe somebody plagiarized me before I even said it.”

“That’s not how that works,” Utahime cuts in dryly, sliding three shots across the counter to the waiting group of sophomores and then effortlessly throwing together another cocktail.

Gojo leans toward you, shadowing out your notes, and stage-whispers, “You see what I have to put up with?”

You do, actually, see what Utahime has to put up with. She long ago put down a line of blue painter’s tape to divide her side of the bar from Gojo’s, and she preaches frequently that there will be dire consequences if he crosses it.

Of course, he crosses it at every opportunity, and here he is, still.

It’s also just how the two bartenders split up the work, the customers, and you write that down too, that it’s an effective division of labor. “Don’t read my notes,” you tell Gojo as he squints at your writing upside down. “It’ll wreck the journalistic integrity.” He sticks out his bottom lip in a pout that reminds you violently of Toge, who’s taking photos of Utahime as she works.

You glance over to the stage, where Angel is performing the last number of her set, a bouncy, belty song that you recognize from a video she posted earlier this week. The crowd loves it, dancing around and singing along, but still, you think she’ll have a tougher time making it through as the only solo artist remaining in the competition.

You whoop and cheer as she hits her last note, holding it for an ungodly amount of time, and Gojo eventually has to abandon his teasing to do his job. When Toge thinks he’s got enough photos, the two of you slip back into the crowd, Panda commentating on the change of artist as you catch up to your friends.

“And now, here’s your alt rock duo, your boys, the Kamos,” he says as you come to a stop beside Yuta. “Give it up!”

Nobara very loudly gives it up.

“Hi.” Yuta nudges you. “How’s the reporting going?”

“Good.” Noritoshi and Choso settle in on stage, tuning their guitar and bass and making girls swoon in the front row but somehow remaining entirely oblivious to it. “You’re not going home tomorrow, right?”

Yuta shakes his head. This weekend is fall break, which just means that there were no classes today. You spent the first day of your three-day weekend cramming for midterms.

Toge’s heading out after this and Nobara will leave early in the morning, but Maki and Yuta will be here for the weekend. You wonder about Takuma and his band, but you can’t ask right now—they’re all backstage, waiting to go on after the Kamos.

The boys in question, when they’re not doing covers, have incredibly nonsensical song names that have little to nothing to do with their lyrics. The first track of theirs you ever heard was called Song About the Time My Dog Got Lost for Three Hours.

“Okay,” Choso says after their cover of a song by The Smiths. “This one’s called Please Don’t Tell Your Mom I Was At Your House Past Curfew.”

He and Noritoshi then proceed to play the most upbeat, energizing alt rock shit you’ve ever heard. You love these guys, and the crowd does too, the way they don’t take themselves too seriously but they’re genuinely talented. But it’s making you nervous for Takuma and his band, because only one group goes on tonight. Only one.

No, you think, shrugging it off. They got this.

When Shibuya Incident finally walks on stage, the ensuing roar of applause before they even do anything eases whatever worries you might have had. They were slotted at the end of tonight’s set for a reason. Everyone loves them.

Without prelude, they launch into a song you recognize from their EP, a fast-paced track with a pretty simple chord progression that gets entirely flipped on its head in the bridge. You let Yuta spin you around as you dance with the rest of the crowd, the lights and sound washing over you. Yuji’s in his element, Kirara is fucking killing it, and Megumi—as always—is the rock the band stands on, unerring tempo and steady presence keeping everyone on track.

After the song finishes with a crazy riff from Kirara, and the crowd takes a minute to freak out and then slowly wind down, Takuma grabs the mic to address the audience.

“Hi again,” he says, scanning the clusters of people from his place on the low stage. His gaze lands on you and your friends, and he smiles a little wider. “That was Godspeed. We’re gonna slow it down a bit for our next song. It’s a new one. We’re calling it Curious.”

Nobara practically launches herself over Toge to get to you and shake you by the shoulders. “What did I say?” she hisses.

“Oh my god,” you say, shoving her off. “They haven’t even started yet.” But you look back at Takuma to find he hasn’t stopped looking at you.

To your surprise, the instrumentals don’t start first. Most of Shibuya Incident’s music opens with a riff or a fill or at least four bars of introduction. But this time, Takuma leans into the mic and starts singing, just a low “ooooh,” and the rest of the band comes in one by one—Megumi, then Kirara, then Yuji. Kirara’s harmonizing on a higher note, and the effect is a slow, dissonant build that makes you lock in, all anticipation.

Then Takuma tugs the mic from the stand and sings,“I see your eyes, curious, curious, you wanna know why the sky’s so goddamn blue. I hear your voice, curious, curious, you’re asking me if I’d ever fall for you.”

And as you listen, Nobara’s smile just gets wider and wider, and Takuma keeps making fleeting eye contact with you, and you realize abruptly that she was right.

This song is about you.

Takuma’s said it to you before, in passing, how he likes the way you look at the world—through a journalist’s lens, curious about how everything works, always searching for unseen answers.

“Wish I could see my life like you do,” he and Kirara sing in unison. “Wish I could walk the streets each night… wonderin’ if the full moon sees you, but I just keep lookin’, lookin’ down at the time.”

You’re transfixed, just like the first night you saw Takuma perform live, and you couldn’t tear your eyes away from the stage if you tried. Someone should write a story about him, you think. This man could be on the cover of Rolling Stone and you wouldn’t question it.

God, you’re so far gone, aren’t you?

When the set is over, the last song finishing with a long, drawn-out chord, Takuma thanks the crowd and hands the mic off to Panda to take over. As the band disappears one by one into the backstage area, he lays out the voting process.

“The voting period will last ten minutes, assuming no technical difficulties,” he says. “QR codes, as usual, are posted around the bar. If you’re a competitor, you can’t vote. Make sure you’re logged into your .edu accounts or you won’t be able to access the form…”

Your fingers are tapping nervously at your thighs, the crowd around you already glued to their phone screens. The band isn’t back out on the floor yet—Panda will call all three artists up at the end of the voting period and announce the finalist live.

Sweat is starting to pool in the palms of your clammy hands, and you wipe it on your jeans, anxious. To you, there’s no question. But it’s not up to you.

“Relax,” Yuta says, putting a reassuring hand on your shoulder. “It won’t even be close, Skip.”

After the longest ten minutes of your life, Hana Kurusu, the Kamos, and Shibuya Incident join Panda back on stage, a dramatic spotlight bouncing between each artist as Panda draws out the announcement. “And the artist from tonight moving on to the finals in two weeks is…”

“Just say it,” Maki huffs beside you, and Yuta chuckles and nudges her with a shoulder. She tries to hide the slight upturn of her lips, but that’s not going to slide past you.

You’ll tease her later. For now—

“Shibuya Incident!”

The reaction is explosive, both on the floor and the stage. Yuji practically leaps onto Kirara’s back, and Takuma’s face goes slack in surprise before a shy smile works its way across his spotlit features, Megumi being his nonchalant, unaffected self in the midst of it all. Nobara is screaming, and you’re yelling at the top of your lungs, Toge whooping and snapping photos as the Kamos and Hana crowd the band, congratulating them on the victory.

Takuma looks out into the crowd again and you wave, smiling unabashedly, so fucking proud and excited and thinking maybe, maybe, if you make it too, you’ll be facing off against each other, and wouldn’t that be something?

Maybe you shouldn’t be so thrilled. He’s the competition, after all.

But if he wins for going up there and singing curious, curious with his eyes locked on yours, you suppose it wouldn’t be all that bad.

—

Most of Saturday passes in a barrage of classwork and inconsistent, snacky meals in between, the diet of a harried college student, ramen and chips and whatever actual food Yuta leaves for you in the fridge. He’s back from work by three, and Maki wraps up her own work around the same time you do, late afternoon creeping into evening. The three of you are curled up in the living room, the TV on while Yuta and Maki try to pretend they’re not looking at each other.

You need to get them alone.

you: are you busy takuma: not at all takuma: what’s up? you: mind if i crash your house?

You glance up and swear Yuta has somehow, in the last two seconds, moved closer to Maki on the couch.

you: i think yuta and maki need some ~ALONE TIME~ takuma: TEA takuma: sorry kirara told me to stop saying that in response to everything that happens ever takuma: it’s fun tho

“I’m going to Takuma’s,” you announce, and Maki raises a brow at you.

“Again?”

“Sue me for having friends.”

Yuta’s brows crease a bit at the word friends, but he doesn’t comment. With a furtive glance back, you grab your shoes and slip out the door, successfully leaving Maki and Yuta alone in the house for an indeterminate amount of time.

Please, you think. One of them has to make a fucking move soon.

Takuma answers the door before you can knock. “Hey.”

“No pups today?” you ask as you step past him into the entryway, kicking off your shoes.

“Sadly,” Takuma says. “Fushiguro took ‘em with him, wherever he went. Ah, man. Did you only come over for them?” His tone is teasing as he closes the front door behind you, trading the October cold for the warmth of the house. “Afraid I’m a letdown.”

“Takuma,” you scold at his self-deprecation. “You’re basically an excited puppy yourself, so—”

“Hey!” he squawks, and then thinks about it and tilts his head, conceding. “Fine. Maybe. Yeah, okay.”

“What have you been up to?” you ask as the two of you make your way to the living room.

“Procrastination. Guitar instead of homework, mostly. You?”

“Same,” you sigh. “Well, not the guitar part. But I should have been way further ahead on my homework by now.” You shrug. You’ll get it done; you always do.

You settle in easily on the couch, and the two of you boot up the Wii and play a few rounds of Mario Kart because someone left the disc in. And when you’ve both beaten each other enough times to lose count, Takuma mentions something about your single and you realize you haven’t checked the stats.

“You can see more on a computer,” he says, and you follow him up to his room, where he cedes control of the device to you. You pull up the artist profile and grin at the steady upward climb of listeners. It’s not a ton, but this only went up on Thursday.

“We haven’t even done anything to promote this,” you admit, spinning in Takuma’s desk chair to face him. “I don’t even know how people are finding it.”

He immediately looks down, which means he knows something. You nudge him with your foot. “What? What does that face mean? Takuma.”

“I maybe gave Panda a drive of the mix,” he shrugs, talking fast like the meaning of the words might elude you if he mumbles enough. “And he maybe played it at the radio station earlier today. Several times.”

A wave of affection crashes into you so fast that you jump up and throw your arms around him without thinking, laughing into his shoulder. “You didn’t have to do that!” You pull back, grinning. “That was really sweet. Thank you. Seriously.”

“Ah, it was nothin’.” He reaches up to scratch at the back of his neck, a gesture you’ve come to recognize as self-conscious.

“Not nothing,” you say softly. He smiles.

After a moment, he glances at the window and seems to come to a decision. “Hey,” he says.

“Hey yourself.”

“Wanna go out on the roof?”

You blink, processing the words, instinctively looking to his window. You’ve never really realized it before, but it opens out onto a flat expanse of shingles, a perfect lookout right outside Takuma’s bedroom.

Your grin is answer enough, and he unlatches the window and pulls it open. He glances back at you, up and down, and you feel yourself blush before you realize he’s taking in what you’re wearing. He grabs a thick jacket from the closet and tosses it to you, then shrugs one on himself and leads the way, gripping the window frame with one hand and pulling himself outside. After a moment of consideration, he reaches back in and grabs his acoustic guitar by the neck from its place against the wall, pulling it out with him.

When the window shuts behind you, you’re immediately grateful for the protection of the extra layer. Even with your hands balled in the sleeves of your hoodie, it’s chilly out here.

You’re surprised by how much of the campus you can see spread out in the distance. It’s early evening, but the days are getting shorter, the sun a misleading blaze of heat in the otherwise cold hour.

“This,” you say, “is fucking awesome.”

“Right? I called dibs on the room as soon as we toured. For this.” He grins, leaning back on his palms, legs spread out in front of him. You lie back on the roof, letting the cool surface seep through your hood, staring up at the sky.

“So Maki and Yuta,” he says, shaking his head fondly. “Are they finally a thing?”

“I don’t know, but if they’re gonna do anything about it, it’s not gonna be while anyone else is home.” You shrug, or at least do whatever approximation of shrugging you can when you’re bundled in a bulky hoodie and jacket and lying on a roof.

Honestly, Yuta and Maki are some of your favorite people on this planet, and you can’t imagine anyone else who really deserves them. They’re the de facto mom and dad of your group—as in, Yuta is the band mom and Maki’s the gruff father who won’t admit his affection for the pet he didn’t want to get but ended up loving anyway.

“Man, I’m glad I wasn’t around when Kirara and Hakari were in their pining phase,” Takuma chuckles. He pulls his legs in, sitting cross-legged, and picks up the guitar, idly tuning it as he speaks. “Then there’s Itadori, probably picks up girls everywhere he goes and has never once realized it.”

“What about Megumi?” You let your head loll to the side, looking at Takuma with the guitar settled in his lap.

“Fushiguro? I don’t know, man, he doesn’t tell us anything. He has like, resting yearning face. I’ve got no idea. I don’t even know where he is right now, just that he’s supposed to be back really late.”

“That means the dogs will be back?” you say hopefully.

Takuma shakes his head, strumming another chord, and another, fingers moving deftly across the frets. “I’m not enough for you, huh?”

“I said no such thing.”

He plucks out a happy little melody on the guitar, looking at you. “Wanna learn?”

You sit up, your hood falling back off your head in the process. “Really?”

In answer, he hands you the guitar, scooting closer to you to show you where to place your fingers. You’ve been around your bandmates enough to know the basics, but you let him teach you anyway, giggling a little when he guides you through a three-chord progression and says, “Damn, you’re a natural.”

He leans back and stares at the sky, listening to you play. Eventually you add a few other basic chords into the mix, varying your strumming patterns, already feeling the strain in your fingertips from the unfamiliar press of the strings.

“So,” you say, still idly messing around on a G chord. Takuma props himself up on his elbows, looking over at you. “What was the incident in Shibuya? Have you been to Shibuya?”

He snorts. “Nope. Honestly, it was more to make people ask the question. You know in the Marvel movies, how Hawkeye and Black Widow are always talking about Budapest?”

“And nobody knows what the hell happened there,” you say, laughing. “Ah. I see.”

“I’ve never even been to Japan,” Takuma admits. “Fushiguro has, though. Maybe he had an incident in Shibuya. Who knows?”

G, C, D. D, C, G. You play the chords over and over, strumming softly, slowly, letting your finger catch on each of the strings, then five of them, then four.

“This is a really nice guitar.”

“Yeah.” There’s a beat of silence that makes you glance up, weighted differently than the usual pauses in conversation. Takuma is sitting up now, knees pulled loosely to his chest. “Was my dad’s.”

“He taught you to play,” you remember aloud, recalling your conversation in the coffee shop. But now you’re hung up on that word: was. Part of you doesn’t want to ask, but part of you feels like his words are a sort of quiet invitation, like he wants to tell you, but doesn’t want to force it. “I… is he…?”

“He died when I was twelve,” Takuma admits, eyes fixed on the sky. “Uh, car accident. It was stupid, some issue with the other guy’s car. Couldn’t stop it.” You’ve never heard his voice like this before, taut, oddly thin. Carefully, gently, you set the guitar on the roof beside you, watching him.

“Were you…”

“In the car?” Takuma sniffs. “Ah. Yeah.”

“Oh,” you breathe, and that’s what it is, more of a breath than a word. “I—Takuma…”

When he laughs, there’s no humor in it. It’s a hollow kind of chuckle, one that says everything he can’t. “It’s why I learned to skate, actually,” he says quietly, not meeting your eyes. “I’d get everywhere that way. I didn’t—want to drive, I guess. Got my license late and everything. I think people thought I was just a slacker.”

Whatever words you might scrounge up feel inadequate for a grief this large. You don’t want to pity him, and you don’t want to dismiss him, and that’s always the problem with hard conversations, isn’t it? What a line to walk.

“You’re not a slacker,” you say eventually, and he raises a brow at you. “I mean, maybe you procrastinate coding projects to a worrying extent, but you always get it done.” You smile thinly. “You don’t give up in any way that matters, Takuma. I like that about you.”

He chuckles. “Nanami said something like that, once.” His eyes go far-away again, just for a second. “He’s kind of the closest thing… like… I don’t know. I’ve known Nanami for a really long time. He was my dad’s friend. And I guess he sort of became a father figure, after…”

He shrugs. “It’s probably a big part of why I decided to go here. That, and it’s not too far from my mom’s. I don’t know that she’d have been thrilled if I went somewhere farther.”

“You’re not home,” you say carefully, a question but not question. “For break?”

“She’s on a business trip,” he says. “So not much point. But I’ll see her at Christmas, at least.”

For a while the silence stretches out comfortably between you, like a weighted blanket. You can’t ignore it, but it isn’t unwelcome. At some point you scooted closer to him, and now you sit side by side, only the layers of your jackets separating you.

“Thank you for telling me,” you say eventually, soft, unwilling to break the quiet. He nods.

“You didn’t go home either,” he points out, an unspoken question in the spaces between words. “Is it just ‘cause you’re from so far away, or…”

“Yeah. A Friday off didn’t feel like enough of a break to warrant a flight back.” But that’s not all of it. His silence tells you he knows it, too. He’s been so candid with you all night. You can share this part of yourself, you decide.

There’s something about Takuma, anyway, that makes you want to tell him things. You want to know him, and you want him to know you—you now, here, at school, but also you there, home, in the past.

“I haven’t been home since July,” you admit, hugging your knees to your chest, mirroring him. “My town is… small. I liked it when I was little. But the older I got the more I started to feel, just—I don’t know, stifled?”

Your hometown used to feel huge, like you could explore it forever on your Razor scooter and never find all its secrets. But you grew, and the town didn’t grow with you, and suddenly you were standing outside your high school realizing you knew every corner of the self-proclaimed suburban city, every street and coffee shop and alley. You’ve always been curious. And at some point, there wasn’t anything left in that place for you to be curious about.

“I love my home. I love my parents. It’s just… I needed to get out. I don’t think they ever really understood that.”

It’s easier to admit things when you’re looking straight ahead like this, out over the lines and curves of buildings, picking out street lamps, watching a few stray cars make their way around slow corners.

“Is it what you wanted it to be?” he asks quietly. “Here, I mean.” He nods out to the vast stretch of campus, spread across the city. So many corners you’ve been here years and haven’t found them all.

Campus is weird on break, you muse, looking out over the darkness. A whole parallel world for you to explore, the shadowed version of the place. A video game map on single-player, a dead server. Hardly any lights on in the windows, no kids out on the street. Like a ghost town. But it still doesn’t feel empty to you. There’s so much promise in it.

“Yeah,” you answer after a moment, soft. “Yeah, I think it is.”

A ghost town that isn’t lonely, somehow. You could write a song about it, you think. Friends with all the dead in my ghost town. The phrase plays itself out in your head, and it sounds like something moodier than your band usually goes for. It sounds like Shibuya Incident.

You wonder if this is what it means to be in a relationship—not a romantic one, necessarily, but a friendship, or any kind of bond between two creative people. If it’s this, the sharing of intellectual property with another person to the extent that their voice and yours start to blend.

It’s in the way Nobara can finish your sentences when you’re throwing out potential verses, scrambling for rhymes. How Toge and Yuta can anticipate each other’s movements, match chord progressions without talking about them. How Maki slips into your tempo seamlessly, every single time.

And now your lyrics sound like something his band would play. Maybe Takuma’s songwriting will start sounding like yours, too.

You don’t think you’d mind.

“Can I tell you something?” Takuma murmurs after a moment, sounding hesitant.

You rest a cheek on your knees, hands clasped together in front of your shins, facing him. “Mhm.”

“That song last night,” he whispers, and he’s not looking at you, just staring out at the rapidly darkening campus. “It was about you. And how you—I don’t know, the way you look at things. Like they’re always so full of potential. I wish I could do that. You just see things and want to know more. I like… watching you, being curious.” He pauses for a beat and then quickly adds, “Not in like, a creepy way! Just—I don’t know.”

A chuckle slips through your lips against your will, the darkness hopefully hiding the color in your cheeks. Maybe you can blame it on the cold. “Watching?” you ask, teasing. “I can’t imagine I’m all that intriguing. There’s a lot of cool people around here, y’know.”

“Skip,” he murmurs, and now his eyes are locked on yours. “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like you.”

Every nerve in your body is hyperaware of his proximity, and his hand reaches up to cup your jaw, the touch ghosting over you, barely there, hesitant. A nonverbal question. Is this okay?

You lean into the warmth, letting his breath wash over you, mingling with your own in the space between your lips, smaller and smaller and smaller.

He’s watching you, closely, giving you a chance to pull away. So many words exchanged tonight, but you don’t need any for this.

You don’t pull away.

It’s slow at first, and soft, and hesitant. The shingles dig into the heel of your hand as you lean forward on one arm, a grainy feeling on your fingertips, in the grooved imprints left by the guitar strings. You find your free hand moving up to his shoulder, pushing, guiding him down until his back is pressed against the roof and you’re over him, lips locked with his. You look at him, and he’s so full of potential. You want to know everything about him, you want to know how he works, you want to ask questions. And you do, with your tongue along the seam of his lips, and your hand tangled in his hair, and his breath mixing with yours in the air. It’s near full dark now, feeling later than it really is, evening in autumn.

You’re not cold anymore.

He deepens the kiss, body coming up to meet yours, and you feel like maybe this roof is the top of the whole world, because how could you ever feel higher than this?

“Takuma,” you murmur, and you kiss him again, and you don’t think you’ve ever felt this way before, but you’ll do maybe anything in the world to feel this way again.

And then a sharp, deep sound makes you jump, scrambling to sit up on the shingles, breathing heavy from the kiss and the noise. Did that come from inside or out?

“What—”

“Oh, crap,” Takuma groans, pulling open the window. “Someone’s home.” He looks back at you, cheeks flushed from the cold or the kiss or both, looking a little helpless, a little apologetic, and you can’t help the small laugh that bursts from you at the absurdity of the situation. You feel like a teenager getting caught by your parents.

“We should…” He nods toward the window. You hand him the guitar, then crawl back over to the window and slip inside after him, the warmth a stark relief from the temperature you’ve gotten so used to. Your heart is a jackhammer, rapidly pecking away at the once-stable structure of yourself.

You kissed him.

You kissed Takuma.

Your phone buzzes in your pocket, and you pull it out with still-cold hands.

utah: [1 Image Attachment] utah: dinner?

Admittedly, the pasta does look amazing, and your stomach grumbles as if on cue.

“I should go,” you say awkwardly, holding up the phone for Takuma to see.

“Uh, yeah, uh—for sure, no problem, I should go see what’s up down there anyway,” he says after a beat of hesitation. “I’ll see you, uh…?”

“Around?” you finish, laughing slightly.

“Yeah,” he echoes with an amused half-smile as you make your way down the stairs. “Around.”

—

You’re freaking out.

It’s 4:31 on Monday afternoon, you’ve been listening to the same song on repeat for an hour, and you’re freaking the fuck out.

After Saturday night, you didn’t talk about it. You kissed him on the roof and your heart turned into a hummingbird and you were warm all over, and then the front door slammed and you nearly jumped out of your skin, and Megumi was back early and Takuma had no idea why, and you pet the dogs and then slipped out, wanting to give them their space.

And you haven’t talked about it. You haven’t had time. Sunday was a mess of cramming for midterms and your housemates returning from break and you threw yourself into your studies and tried not to remember, but now…

The stupid fucking switch in the back of your brain has flipped itself on and you can’t turn it off, all worry and criticism and hypothetical worst-case scenarios and you’re giving too much too fast, Skipper, you know better than this!

How many people in your tiny town fell in love young and grew to resent each other? How many of your high school friends grew up with divorced parents? How many breakups have you seen in your two and a half years at this university, how many tears and shouting matches in public halls, how many friend groups falling apart because two people fell in and out of love?

The thing is, you know you’re panicking about nothing. Takuma hasn’t asked anything of you. It was just a kiss. He is not your boyfriend. This is not a contract.

But if you talk about it, it could be, and you don’t understand why that scares you so much. Do you have commitment issues? What the fuck is your problem?

You probably wouldn’t have a problem at all, if you’d just had the time Saturday night to figure out what the kiss meant. But now that a whole day has passed and you haven’t seen him and you don’t know for sure, your mind keeps wandering down paths it should have stayed away from.

What if it’s a friends with benefits situation and you’ve just read too much into it? Maybe this is all he wants, making out, spending late nights together getting physical. Maybe that’s all. A heated makeout session on a roof doesn’t mean he feels the way you do. And do you even know how you feel? Fucking hell.

It’s the anxiety talking, the more logical part of you says, the part that sounds an awful lot like Maki. Your friends aren’t around to tell you how stupid you’re being, so the only texts you and Takuma have sent since Saturday night are playlists and song lyrics skirting around whatever truths you’re trying and failing to articulate.

Do I Wanna Know floats from the speaker on your desk, your phone next to your head on the bed, facedown and dormant. Do I wanna know if this feeling goes both ways?

Your door slams open and you jump up, whirling around to find Maki with her arms crossed, leaning on the frame. “Alright,” she says. “That’s the tenth time I’ve heard that godforsaken song. What the fuck is up with you?”

When you don’t respond, she steps inside and closes the door behind her, pauses the music, and then makes herself comfortable on the edge of your bed. “Talk to me,” she says. “You’re driving yourself crazy.” The words stall in your throat, useless, stagnant things as you avoid her knowing stare, instead staring at the popcorn ceiling until it blurs.

Maki sighs and shifts entirely onto the bed, turning herself to face you.

“I didn’t know you were home,” you say lamely.

“You’re driving me crazy, Skip,” she tries, and she knows you so fucking well, because the guilt trip is exactly what dislodges all those words built up in the back of your mouth—she breaks the dam and you spill your soul onto the quilted comforter, rambling, a rush of truths and things you thought you’d hidden from yourself but you can’t anymore. And she just listens, not looking away once.

You tell her everything: that you know you catch feelings fast, too fast. That despite your bleeding heart, you haven’t really been in a long-term relationship since high school. That you think of the future, of all the places you want to go, all the things you want to do, and there’s no guy in those dreams, and the thought of restructuring the life you’ve planned out for yourself around a boy who might be temporary is too much to even fathom. That—

“I kissed him,” you say breathlessly, bordering on hysterical, and you feel so stupid, this worked up over something so small, something that should be good. “I kissed him and now it feels real and now I’m freaking out.”

“I can see that,” Maki says calmly. “Let me ask you something. What is the worst thing that could happen, if you date him and it doesn’t last?”

“I…” You chew on your bottom lip, mind spinning through every bad outcome. “He could end up hating me, Maki. I could get some crazy job and have to leave, or he would come with me and leave his whole life behind and then he’d grow to resent me and we’d just be in some kind of hellish limbo until one of us snapped. Or he could—he could leave me, or we could try long distance and he could fall in love with somebody else, or I could, or—or—”

You flounder for a second, realizing your biggest worry is the one most immediate, the one most central to your life as it exists right now.

You’ve been sitting here thinking about big-picture things that are so far out, trying to make the feeling curdling in your gut feel like a valid reaction to a major life event. But that’s not what this is.

You’re just really, stupidly, pathetically scared that Takuma kissed you and didn’t mean it.

“Or—I guess that’s not the issue. Not really,” you admit quietly, not looking at Maki. She probably already knows. She has a way of knowing exactly what’s bothering you and just asking the right questions, getting you to talk yourself out of whatever hole your anxious mind has dug.

“I—it was just a kiss. What if he doesn’t want something serious right now, and I like him this way and he just wants something casual? I can’t do casual, Maki,” you say, raking a hand through your hair. “And it could fuck up this thing we have going. Yuji and Toge get along so well, and Nobara and the boys and Kirara, and Megumi’s your cousin, and I don’t wanna cause some weird, awkward rift, you know what I mean?”

Because it’s been so good, getting to know them. You don’t want to fuck up the dynamic just because you caught feelings too fast.

Maki leans back against your wall, humming as she thinks this over. “Okay. First of all, take a step back. Do you actually think you and Ino dating or not dating or whatever would mean I stop talking to my cousin? Or Nobara to the guys?” She raises a brow at you, unimpressed. “Seriously. I love you, Skipper, but you do not have that much power. These relationships existed before you knew Ino. Yuji is incapable of having conflict with anybody. And Toge doesn’t give a fuck about awkward relationship drama, he just wants to play Smash.”

As she speaks, you can feel your heart settling back into its home in your chest. Maki always knows what to say. Always.

“Second: Let me put it this way.” She levels you with a serious look. “You are so worked up about all these incredibly hypothetical situations. If you shut this down now, if you don’t act on what happened on Saturday, you’re still going to be worked up about hypotheticals. They’ll just be different ones. I know you, Skipper, you’re gonna drown yourself in what ifs. So you have to pick the lesser evil. There’s an unknown factor either way. Which one is gonna be worse?”

You groan, faceplanting into your bedspread. In the process, your forehead must hit play on your phone, because all of a sudden Arctic Monkeys blasts through the JBL again and Maki is grabbing your phone and saying, “Absolutely not. Nope. We are done with that.”

You look up at her helplessly. “Do I wanna know?” you choke out, half-laughing. “Because if I’m taking this out of proportion, if he doesn’t feel this way and I’m just another girl he kissed—”

“You’re not,” she says firmly. “Are you kidding me? Skip. That boy kisses the ground you walk on.” She shakes her head, some mix of fondness of exasperation flashing across her face. “You already know. The question isn’t if he likes you, or if you like him. It’s whether you’re gonna let it play out or shut it down before it has a chance to.”

Your door slams open, and Nobara strolls in and puts her hands on her hips. She glares at Maki and then at you.

“Please tell me I’m wrong,” she says, and you know you’re in for it, “but I believe you both had significant relationship developments this weekend and didn’t immediately call me? What the fuck? Spill.”

Abruptly, you feel like the worst friend in the world. Not necessarily because you haven’t filled Nobara in—she hasn’t been home—but because Maki is flushing pink, and you left her alone with Yuta on purpose, and it’s Monday, and you haven’t even asked what happened.

You look at Nobara. “Close the door.”

She does, but she doesn’t sit down, choosing instead to pace the room as she speaks. “Exhibit A: the plants have name tags and the handwriting is not Yuta’s. Exhibit B: I just came from down the street and Ino is acting weird as fuck.”

You sit straight up, suddenly on high alert. “Weird how? Did he say anything?”

“No. Like, the entire time. That’s the weird as fuck part.”

You turn to Maki, trying to read her. “Okay, what happened with Yuta? Was it when I left? Because if I wasn’t obvious enough—“

“You were very obvious, thank you,” Maki says, her blush deepening. “Uh, we made dinner. As you know.”

“It was good.”

Maki is pointedly looking everywhere but at you and Nobara, gaze darting from the ceiling to the bedspread to the door, as if she might escape the conversation. You hadn’t even noticed the plant name tags. That’s maybe the most sappy gesture that’s ever come from Maki Zenin.

“Mm. Yeah. Uh,” she says, eloquently. “We might have kissed. We might be… together.”

“Maki!” you and Nobara both scream, which results in Toge nearly breaking down your bedroom door five seconds later.

“What?” he demands. He clocks Maki’s bright red face and grins widely. “Aha! Yes. Good.”

“Wh—”

“Yuta won’t look me in the eyes, so I figured. You wanted to tell us all at once?”

Maki nods sheepishly.

“Too late!” Toge says cheerfully. “And he’s not home. So we can take this quality girls’ time to—”

“You are a man.”

“That’s the first time you’ve ever said that to me,” Toge tells Nobara, hand over his heart.

She swats at him in response and flops onto your floor, and Toge drops down beside her, you and Maki leaning over the edge of your bed to see them both.

"I ate your love pasta," you tell Maki, and she groans.

"This is why I don't tell you people things."

After the appropriate appoint of freaking out about Maki and Yuta (of course I knew, I always know, Nobara says), they make you go through the whole of Saturday night in detail.

You leave out the part about Takuma’s dad. That doesn’t feel like your story to tell.

When you get to I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like you, Nobara blinks at you, and the innocent expression on her face means whatever she’s about to say is anything but. “So he told you you’re not like other girls?”

“Oh my god,” you groan, dragging your hands down your face.

“Oh, shit, Skipper!” Toge nearly shouts from the floor. “We have to go, like, two minutes ago.”

“Shit!” You scramble off the bed, shoving your laptop into your bag and weaving around Nobara, who has made no move to get off the floor. You and Toge have your usual Monday night class time to do field reporting, and you’re meeting up with Geto and Utahime.

The front door clicks open and closed, and you grin at Maki, who goes red. Yuta’s home. God, you wish you could stay for this.

“Hi, Yuta! Bye, Yuta!” you call on the way out the door, patting him on the head, and Toge follows suit with a much more aggressive motion that messes up Yuta’s hair.

“Oh, hi! Um. Bye?” Yuta’s startled laugh follows you out the door, and then you’re on your way.

You’re always on your way back to The Fix, eventually.

—

Utahime, notably a happier person in general when Gojo’s not around, lets Toge into the back to get some photos of the storeroom. That leaves you alone with Geto, back on the same stool as last time, phone on the counter as you watch him work, talking as he goes.

“Finished inventory,” he says, typing something rapidly on his laptop, “and now it’s budgeting. And yeah, that’s about what it looks like on the day to day. What else did you want to know?”

Geto is remarkably easy to talk to. He’s soft-spoken and articulate, a good listener, and you find yourself forgetting it’s an interview after a while, lost in conversation. You learn that he studied business in school, so opening an establishment like this wasn’t much of a stretch. He handles the finances and hiring, and he’s the one working with Panda on the Battle of the Bands. Gojo and Utahime bartend, Nanami is security, and Shoko handles everything else. It’s a small team, he says, but they work.

“I wanted to be able to be home for the girls when they were growing up, and this wound up being a great way to do that, schedule-wise,” he tells you. “And now they’re here, which is great. I wouldn’t say I ever saw myself opening a bar, back in college, but now that I’m here and Shoko and I have been running the place for a while, I’m not sure where else I ever could’ve ended up, y’know?”

You nod, head propped in your hand with your elbow on the counter. “So is this the dream? The endgame?” you ask. “Think you’ll stay a while?”

“Well,” he says, closing the laptop, “I think it comes down to doing something because you love it, not because other people love that you do it. Though right now, both of those things are true, which is fortunate for me." He leans on the bar counter, head tilted as he considers his words.

"If the work makes you happy, if the people there make you feel the same way, I think that’s worth hanging on to," he says. "If I ever stop loving the work, I suppose I’ll move on. I don’t see that happening, really, but if it does, I’ll roll with it. Whatever comes after.”

“That makes sense.” You sigh, leaning back in your chair. “Man, I wish the career thing was that clear-cut now. I know I have time, but it’s weird to think about.”

“Would you ever go further than this with the band, you think?” he asks, seeming genuinely curious. “Or is the journalism thing pretty much what your heart’s set on?”

You’ve thought about it. Drumming makes you feel alive like very few other things do, but you love writing, reporting, meeting people and telling their stories. You want to go for editor-in-chief next year when Tsumiki graduates, but the reality is that you won’t have so much time for the band if you get the job. And you love your band.

Not that it’ll be the same, anyway, without Maki and Yuta. That’s something you don’t love to think about.

“I don’t know,” you confess, sheepishly realizing you’re still recording, that you’re supposed to be the one asking the questions. “I don’t think… that the band is ever necessarily going to be a professional thing. Maki and Yuta have all these big career plans. And it’s like, how much do I invest in that now, knowing it’s not… forever? When the journalism thing, the career, might be? I don’t know.”

“You know, I don’t think it matters all that much whether it’s forever,” Geto shrugs. “If it gave you what you needed at the time, wouldn’t it be worth it?”

He glances up at you, taking in the lines of your face, the tapping of your fingers against your other arm. You kind of feel like he sees something you don’t.

“Here’s some unsolicited advice, kid. On the record. Maybe life is short, maybe not. But regardless, your heart is not a finite thing.” His eyes are soft but not sad, serious but with a sort of levity that’s wise and not regretful. You think, idly, that you would find it very hard not to trust him. “If you’ve got something, love it while you have it.”

Something tells you he’s not talking about the band anymore. Or maybe that’s just you, looking for answers where there aren’t any.

“Thanks, Geto,” you say, turning off the recording. “This has been really helpful.”

Your heart is not a finite thing. And you think you’ve made up your mind.

directory | prev. | next.

jjk taglist open: just send me a message!

@shutuppeter @mikikkoo @reactwithjan @theclassbookworm @lilactaro @bisforbuse @risararelywrites @idkidk32 @gojodickbig @stargazing-with-choso @anonymity-222

a/n: what is this? setup for the megumi spinoff i'm writing after this? oo (sorry he was a cockblock it was for the plot, this one AND his, hehe)

[fandom-freak-123]

If I could get a request in, the idea is reader showing the puppets metal music and their reactions.

Your ideas istg, they give me life.

These headcanons can be seen as Romantic or Platonic.

This reader is gender neutral (No pronouns mentioned for the reader).

Welcome home reactions to you introducing them to metal music.

———————————————————————————————————

Wally Darling

———————————————————————————————————

•Just a wide eyed stare

•Mildly concerned for your sanity

•Telling Julie asap

•Scared but also enjoys it

•usually listens to folk music

•“this… is very loud neighbour… the lyrics are… uhm… interesting”

———————————————————————————————————

———————————————————————————————————

Howdy Pillar

———————————————————————————————————

•Has to turn the music down

•Really enjoys it but usually listens to pop music

•Asks if you have any tapes with more music like it

•Will listen to it while reading

•He can’t understand the words but he’s enjoying them nonetheless

•“where do you find this stuff? You’ve got to tell me”

———————————————————————————————————

———————————————————————————————————

Barnaby B. Beagle 

———————————————————————————————————

•Already listens to Metal

•Will recommend you songs

•Happy to find someone else who likes Metal

•Has full albums of metal bands

•Mumbling the lyrics under his breath

• “I used to listen to this one a lot but I haven’t for a long time”

———————————————————————————————————

———————————————————————————————————

Frank Frankly

———————————————————————————————————

•Really not a fan

•Prefers alternative and indie music

•Listens to two words

•Never trusts you with music again

•Covering his ears

•“it’s so loud! Who needs that much bass?!”

———————————————————————————————————

———————————————————————————————————

Eddie Dear

———————————————————————————————————

•Has a heart attack /hj

•Usually listens to country music

•Trying to understand the lyrics

•Will listen to more until he can understand it

•Spends WAY too long trying to find out the meaning

•“but what is it all about???? It talks about so much but so little”

I’m so sorry it took so long I’ve been lost on motivation for a while along with being really busy, I hope this makes up for the other one!

Farewell my little butterflies!

[azinemagazine]

Jus doin' sum random scrollin'. 📱 - r3al' 🐉 #mambamentality🐍

Call it mindless, yet we all (in some sorta way) do it. It'd been a minute since anything had been posted for Azine. Supposing it appeared as though only reviews about Ye, Drake, Billie, or Taylor were worthwhile, it still felt integral to take my time. I'd go as far as to say that my creative nuances were both amusingly and unapologetically unafraid of patience. Cut to what one could curate as chancing upon the profile for Canadian singer, songwriter, and dancer Kallitechnis's Ardene interview on YouTube. While snuggly lotus sedentary in a lounge chair Kassandra (a.k.a Kallitechnis) sorted words on some pretty deep stuff. (See, I'm the type to keen in what artists fr say alongside of winnowing amid whatever it is they craft.) All her talk about authenticity, longevity, and even therapy, backdrops her latest Single releases, to delicately while devoutly dream weave some of the most sensational late night Trap Alt. Soul/R&B that I'd ever heard. After hours of zoning out on Spotify & Apple Music, I'd seemingly stumbled upon a mound of sound designs showcasing that Kallitechnis latest releases, "KALEDISCOPE LOVE" & "SOFT LIFE, are sonic gems worthy of ethereal shine. 

"KALEDIOSCOPE LOVE" is the most recent release by Kallietechnis.  Lyrically it's the lift off elements of romance dazzled in the depth of the "bedsheet ballets'" that hopefully accompany it. If you tap script Kallie's verses here, it'll literally take your breathe away. This 2024 Soul Over Ego Single release paints a sensual sonata, saturated in the palates of lovemaking by the likes of a Jhene Aiko, Victoria Monet, & fav Kehlani. My cherished over the two songs is the latter 2023 released, "SOFT LIFE", where the copulation carved crooning by Kallitechnics feels more assured in its contour.  Lyrics like, "Cocoa butter kisses on the back of your neck...No ones around, go and say it with your chest." sets up a between the sheet session, where direction details desire and more importantly: pleasures for both parties. The hedonism hails heavy here, and when ya place that alongside of Kassnadra's visceral vocal layerings, you're insatiably sedated into this ‘sensational style of life’ she's sojourning. 

Both releases mode just a mere of the music you can muse through courtesy of Kallitechnis. For me it's the completeness interwoven in the listening experience of these two tracks. Detailing what it takes to call yourself professional in this or any realm is something I valued early on. The attention to detail, care, production, and most importantly the passion, tentpole sound designing success for any act whether indie or not. On that note, Kassandra does something else, almost effortlessly. She ate, and fanged deep into the fact that there are stars who are not signed. Stars: real artists who are crafting carefree of what seemingly fates, what often lacerates acts who sign with labels. Definitively, I'm the late night type. I'm good either playing the pull while out, or layinlow at the cribbo, playlsitin' on the MacBook with Apple TV or YouTube dressing the backdrop. Either in or out, this pair of indie soul sounds soothe both the mind, as well as those other places the sensations may align.😉 

♾️

🔥🔥🔥🔥

∆³

[slugtranslation-hypmic]

Hihi slug, I love your work, and thanks for everything!! Since Matenro season is nearly upon us, I was wondering if we could get your opinion on the solo snippets🤞🤞

Matenro's new solo previews are SO GOOD, what do you think of them?

Thank you both for notifying me about them! Taking a look now...

(The album is probably already out now, but... better late than never...)

Jakurai's A Majestic Figure

Title note: 4-kanji compounds are like the SAT vocab words of Japanese; they're not super common in everyday speech and can evoke a literary or sophisticated feeling. This one is...interesting. To the best of my knowledge, it isn't a standard compound (I'm also not getting any hits when I Google it) and I wonder if that's significant. It's just two words strung together to make the appearance of fanciness, perhaps. I couldn't say for certain. At any rate, both 威風 and (especially) 颯爽 describe a majestic, often captivating appearance. This isn't to say that such qualities of dignity or majesty aren't real, but I definitely feel like both terms are defining a subject from an outside perspective. These aren't terms I would ever expect someone to describe themselves with, which makes the song title sound like it's an outside observer commenting on Jakurai instead of Jakurai talking about himself. We see this happen a lot in Hypmic, with people putting Jakurai on pedestals or Jakurai struggling to see himself as the same grand figure others perceive him as. As a result, I wrote the song title as "A Majestic Figure" to emphasize the appearance of majesty, whereas the character of the figure is unknown. Anyway, let's dive in and see what this is all about.

(10 seconds in) Vibing with these instrumentals

(19 seconds in) Not vibing with these "ah"s... but we can't have everything in life

(43 seconds in) I'm a little too tired to fully keep up (I'll look up the lyrics when I'm done) but I REALLY like the urgency in the delivery, which is so at odds with the flowing, dignified background music. In JPN fiction as a whole, flusteredness/desperation is contrasted with calmness as a synonym for imperfection and perfection. Jakurai is, honestly, really kind of a desperate character...yet one that appears outwardly calm/perfect to most of the rest of the cast, so it's interesting that we get to see his desperate nature on full display right at the start of the song.

(1:26 in) Hand motif mentioned *Cinemasins ding* (of

(End) Thank you uta-net for having the lyrics up already; ily. Let's see now... Interesting. I'll have to read them again in more depth later, but it looks like a call to forgive past wounds and seek out a better, less painful way of existence--in a societal sense, a religious (as in like, ascending or becoming enlightened) sense, and a personal sense. All great things to see Jakurai expressing. Again, it's interesting to see Jakurai expressing this with such urgency, even if these are things we know he really, really cares about. That coupled with the background music seems to match a bit in the lyrics that says "And [to end war within society, paraphrased] I take grand, dignified action mixed with the discord and noise of Shinjuku, a samsara spiral of cacophonous echoes." Mixing the stately and the chaotic, the "imperfect" and the "perfect." Really interesting stuff!

Hifumi's The Beginning of the Last Song

Title note: "Last Song" is English and written in katakana, which is a sharp contrast to the style of Jakurai's title. Creates a much younger and casual feel appropriate for Hifumi. Not much else to say here, so let's jump in.

(10 seconds in) Modern indie pop song on the radio feel. I'm not a fan of autotune in general so I'm not in love with this, but I'm hopeful it'll pick up soon.

(22 seconds in) I listen to so much "soft hiphop" (for lack of a better term) during work that my brain instantly catapulted itself into work mode and stopped paying any attention to the words. Coffee mug? Check. Emails? Check. Anxiety? Check. Let me rewind and listen to this properly.

(32 seconds in but for real this time) So far, very Hifumi. Opening verse has some fun figurative language but essentially says Hifumi's suit is pure courage he dons like a suit of armor. In doing so, it masks him and makes him become like a whole other person. From there, he switches to addressing a listener: "I want to soothe your mental wounds. I want to change your frown into a smile. I won't let go of your hands, and no, I'm not doing this for a reward." It's something that Hifumi should be saying to himself (something Hifumi wants to hear, maybe?) and yet he says "To [Host!]me, this is happiness."

(59 seconds in) Hmm... I was going to say this song feels sad to me, because all these positive messages of "Keep going! You're safe now!" are framed as being directed at other people, and I was like..."Hifumi, who's going to say that to you? Who's going to help you feel that way?" but then the line "You made me realize I'm not alone" radically flips the framing so that it DOES become things Hifumi is saying to himself, too. How nice. :) I would not want to translate this, personally... Haha it's using the vagueness of Japanese grammar and lyrical conventions to great effect, but I don't feel comfortable touching that personally.

(1:02) Hell yeah, belt that shit, homie

(1:32) So it's a last song in the sense that it's a farewell or the final song of his old self. Now he's the new, healing Hifumi. We love to see it 10/10 bravo. The song is also a happy, heartfelt thank you to the unspoken listeners (presumably Matenrou) who helped him feel less alone. That's cute! I like it. I probably shouldn't go here, but I find it intriguing how the vagueness of listeners is utilized. The first time the listeners are addressed, the language is...if not borderline romantic, pathos-filled to the point where it's definitely evocative of his host job (hence why he's not seeking compensation for handholding, an often romantic gesture). Yet it's borderline enough that it wouldn't be inappropriate to imagine it being addressed to Matenrou instead of his patrons. Hahaha. Again, another reason I don't want to go near this one.

(Overall) I like it! A nice ballad for Hifumi.

Doppo's Andante

(5 seconds in) For a song called Andante, this has a faster tempo than at least one other song on this album lol. But it's much less frenetic than Doppo's other solos, so there's that, I guess.

(7 seconds in) This delivery is giving me anime ending made by a 2010s rock band vibes lol.

(14 seconds in) Damn there's a baller line here that I'm stumped on how to convey in Eng in a way that's both baller and sensical. Meaning wise, it's like "I want to take back the things I shouldn't have said and give them as a present to you" and in figurative language it's like "Once, I used to fire words into the air [speak things in anger or carelessly]. Now, I want to gather them up [esp. like a bouquet of flowers] after their flight and use them to decorate you [again, like flowers or like a piece of jewelry--it's a positive connotation]" Pop off, Doppo

(40 seconds in) Oh this is killer and also going to need some major explaining. Doppo's name is literally "he who walks alone" which is usually considered a positive thing--someone who "walks the path of life" alone would have gotten there by outstripping the rest of the pack. In Doppo's case, though, this is a negative thing. I think it's not as obvious to Eng-only fans, and I know I didn't really think about it for a long time myself, but Doppo considers himself a "loser" bc he didn't follow a conventional life path. It's considered atypical to switch employers, especially very early on in one's career, as he did when he stood up for Hifumi and got himself fired at his first job. Part of why he puts up with shitty treatment at EL Medical is because it's one of the few places that would hire someone who switched employers at such a young age. (Sidebar: My (probably flawed, as I don't live in Japan) impression is that this is becoming less and less of a thing as time goes on and the economy goes to shit, but I think it's the self-stigma more than anything else that's affecting Doppo. To me, it feel similar to the societal pressures in the US to attend and graduate from a four-year college. Plenty of people don't for all sorts of reasons, but because that's so ingrained as the default life story for Americans in a lot of communities, Doppo's dealing with the kind of disappointment and self-hatred someone who dropped out before getting a four year degree might feel.) Doppo beats himself up about that a lot, but here we get that lovely line of "In the waves of people (hitonami) passing all around me, I no longer see anyone who looks like me. It's a shame, because I always wanted to be just like everyone else (hitonami)." Outside of that beautiful wordplay on hitonami, we're also treated to the figurative language of hitonami being literally "in line with others." Doppo, a character who walks through life alone, wanted to walk through life at the same pace/reaching the same milestones at the same time as everyone else.

(1:04 in) "Life is a tightrope act; it's like walking a balance beam [lit. "average beam" aka a beam where everything is averaged/balanced]. In a country where not everything can be average (narasarenai) and where even if the things that [I] can accomplish (narasareru) don't matter [in the eyes of society], sometimes the sounds I want to make don't come out right (narasarenai). When that happens, I can call myself pitiful--or I can feel the breathing of the beautiful flowerbed that is this city, and when someone's humming under their breath disturbs that short break [lit. breath], I ask them 'So, what is this happiness thing anyway?'" I would rather die than TL this song but I'm LOVING the creativity and depth of the lyrics.

(1:27) WILD! FUCKING! CHEERING!!! "You fake smiles in a mirror to make other people happy and call it love. It's a form of hypnosis, and I've made a go of falling under its spell because I just want to be equals [on par with, balanced], and so if you and I can walk these crowded streets together, then I think I don't mind as much that I'm always walking alone." THE GROWTH! THE GROWTH!!!!

Damn, this album's lyrics go hard. What a feast.

[blehblehbleh735]

Get to know rapper!chris x singer!reader!!

SINGER!READER

Genre: pop, indie-pop

Similar artists: Madison Beer, Sabrina Carpenter, Billie Eillish

Albums and covers (coming soon)

Gained Fame: In 2021, Y/N started making music after her boyfriend cheated on her and their messy breakup, she put all of her feelings into songs and decided her new life started at that moment. She tested with sounds and one day she randomly posted them out of nowhere. Her confidence, however, skyrocketed when she only got maybe 1000 monthly listeners after about 3 months. She gave up and continued with life as if nothing happened.

In 2023, a beloved artist named Gracie Abrams, noticed her pathetic music and reached out. Y/N, much to her dismay, of course said yes when Gracie asked to do a collaboration with her. The song blew up on tik tok and other social media platforms and Y/N’s 6 songs soon started rising. Rooftops, a song about her ex, was #14 on the top 200 in the US. Gracie and her became good friends and Y/N got into song writing again.

Cute little headcanons:

Singer!y/n, who doesn't pay attention to rude or sexualising comments about her body but Chris does. When they're out in public and Chris hears someone say one thing about her, he’s practically on top of them and he’s not scared to beat the shit out of them.

Singer!y/n, who keeps a notebook full of random lyrics inspired by overheard conversations, half of which make absolutely no sense at all, but are oddly poetic

Singer!y/n, who insists on hand signing fan’s posters because it's more “personal” even if it takes hoursSinger!y/n, who will stop a concert mid way if she sees a sign or an outfit that she loves just to compliment that person.

Singer!y/n, who loves making up dumb tik tok dances to her songs just for funSinger!y/n, who’s fans are called the most ridiculous name. It started as a joke but now it's a part of her brand.

Singer!y/n, who takes a polaroid picture with her team before every show

Singer!y/n, who gets nervous before award shows, so Chris shows her his “pre game hype” which consists of terrible dancing and a not so helpful pep talk in a mirror

RAPPER!CHRIS (CHRI$)

Genre: hip hop, rap (obviously)

Similar artists: Playboi Carti, The Kid LaROI, Lil Skies

Albums and covers (coming soon)

Gained fame: Chris started his career more recently at the beginning of 2024. Because of the youtube channel, Chris didn't need to be famous for his music. About mid 2024, his music started to get recognized by more than just Sturniolo Triplets fans. Playboi Carti actually liked Chris’s music for what it was.

On Carti’s tik tok, he posted a video with one of Chris’s songs as the sound. Don't know how this made Chri$ more popular but his listens blew up hours later. 11 million monthly listeners quickly went to 30 in less than a month.

Cute little headcanons:

Chri$, who always kept his word, and has never done drugs, drank alcohol, or smoked a vape or cigarette in his life.

Chri$, who’s concerts are the most wild and fun thing ever. The energy in the sold out stadiums is exhilarating and the fans in the front row will probably not be able to hear anything else for days.

Chri$, who makes sure that you are always comfortable and happy no matter what you’re doing.

Chri$, who has your stuff scattered everywhere. He’s got hair ties on his wrist, your hairbrush in his car, and your clothes are all over the place.

Chri$, who once hung a pair of your panties on the rear view mirror in his car because the color “complimented” the vibe

Chri$, who never lets you pay for anything. This man will do everything and anything to make sure your card never sees daylight. Sometimes he steals your wallet before you even leave the car.

Fics to look forward to: (I obviously have not been busy)

Sleepytime - Chris asks Y/N to sing him to sleep one night

Model - Y/N’s manager needs to meet with her about upcoming tour outfits but Chris is not having it with her leaving

Noise Complaints - Late night studio sessions in Y/N’s apartment lead to awkward run ins with the neighbors

Pink Sweater Season - Chris borrows Y/N’s favorite oversized pink sweatshirt for a music video and the internet has questions.

Off Key Apologies - After a heated argument, Chris writes a very pathetic song as an apology but Y/N doesn't want to hear it

Mute - A mic on a live stream reveals way too much about how Chris feels about Y/N

Paper House - The power went out and the house is quiet so Chris and Y/N decide to build houses out of cards.

Stage Left - A surprise performance during Chris’ tour has the crowd cheering—and Y/N wondering where she stands with Chris

Signs - Chris finds an old playlist you made for him and realizes the feelings were there all along—he just missed the signs.

Second Verse - Chris struggles to finish a song about…love and how he hates to admit how much the second verse sounds like you.

REQUESTS!!

[starrixle]

simpbur headcanon dump ♡

a bunch of random headcanons for simpbur that i thought of !! (all under the cut because there is a lot...)

his birthday is december 11 and his height is 5'4 (this is actually canon but im including it anyways)

he goes by he/they/she (in order of preference). he's genderfluid, but more masc aligned. he is also bisexual and horribly closeted (the closet is as clear as glass)

he is neurodivergent, he also suffers from lots of anxiety. he is very anti-social

he and liliana (the e-girl) were both just not great for each other. it was not just simp being toxic to the e girl, but she was toxic to him as well to a certain extent. she isnt a bad person, and neither was simpbur, they were just a pair that wouldnt work out

part of the reason why simpbur is so insecure abt himself is bc liliana tends to be a judgemental person. she has standards that simp didnt meet, and that made him go into the mindset of changing himself to suit what she liked. however, this failed and they ended up breaking things off instead

his breakup with liliana destroyed simpbur's mental health, especially with him being a very fragile person to begin with. this is where his obsession began due to still having a very strong attachment with what he once had with her, along with having extreme jealousy over the thought of her being successful in life with someone other than him

his favorite vape flavor is bubblegum. he would smoke cigarettes, but he doesn't like the smell, and he just prefers vapes

he is horrible with being responsible with his money. even though he struggles to pay rent and works a minimum wage job, he usually spends his money on games and anime stuff

types with stuff like uwu, owo, :3, :<, XD, ^_^, (*≧з≦), etc.

used to live with his mom, but now he lives in a tiny apartment on his own. it's not very well kept or clean, and he often just throws his junk around everywhere since he never has the energy to clean the place up. the only place he bothers (kinda) decorating is his bedroom

cries over small things easily, like when he gets a paper cut, stubs his toe, when his food order is wrong, etc.

can't handle spicy foods whatsoever

he has a shoe box full of random stuff he stole from liliana, such as pens she used, her clothes, trash, hair, etc.

kicks ass at competitive games, such as first person shooter games. he is a chronically online gamer and he lowkey acts toxic sometimes while gaming

he sometimes just goes "gg :3" in the chat whenever he manages to dominate the game. he doesnt like using vc bc he doesnt really like his voice, so he usually sticks to typing, esp bc hes a pretty fast typer (100+ wpm)

he collects a ton of anime figures. usually leaves things in their packaging. he cringed whenever liliana took them out of the packaging, since she didn't understand why he left them in the box instead of taking them out

he blasts music at full volume, especially while gaming. he listens to a lot of vocaloid, breakcore, krushclub, hyperpop, indie rock, etc.

his diet consists of fast food, take out, ramen, microwaved food, soda, snacks, anything that's unhealthy

he usually hides his figure with thick, oversized clothing

he doesn't usually express his style much outside in public, but he likes experimenting a lot with outfits at home, especially ones that aren't typically masculine

he's secretly a furry and has a fursona. he usually acts as if he thinks furries or cringe, but he would have anon alt accounts where he'd look at furries online and talk about how cute they are

his feelings towards his body changes depending on his mood. although he doesn't completely mind being assigned amab, he does wish he looked more feminine, or at the very least androgynous

at a certain point in his life, he denied his femininity and attempted to retain a super masculine appearance and personality. it didn't make him happy, instead it made him more insecure

coming to terms with being not cishet was extremely difficult. he was in denial that he was bisexual, and even more in denial he wasn't a cisgender man. altho he's grown to slowly be more comfortable with his identity, he's still struggling to accept himself

he switches from being masculine and feminine a lot. other times he simply just does not want to be perceived and would avoid people

he loves the idea of romance and intimacy, but the actual act of doing romantic/intimate things freaks him out. he craves for love, but he's terrified to act on it, especially with his last relationship with liliana failing

he posts rants/vents about his thoughts anonymously online on places like reddit

he grew to be good at stalking, even learning strategies to keep himself hidden or quiet, along with learning how to unlock windows or doors. he thought he was insane for doing it at first, but he's grown more used to it being a routine

his eyes are actually dark brown. i just draw them pink because it's just an artistic choice i like in his design

he has sharp canine teeth

he says "im gonna kms :3" and makes all kinds of self-deprecating jokes very often

he often writes random songs in his diary and sings to himself/plays guitar in his room. it's very comforting for him, as its a form of coping

even tho he dislikes his voice, he's very good at singing (insert the entirety of the e-girl trilogy here)

if i ever come up with more headcanons i will make another post as a part 2 !! this guy is constantly living rent free in my mind 24/7 i am so perfectly sane about simpbur i swear. completely. 100%. *eye twitching*

[cocoabubbelle-newblog]

Random SCOGUE headcanon because I need to vent and don’t feel like writing coherently I’m sorry 🥲

Angel’s Wings

You know how Rogue and Scott were in that Music Store in 5th Avenue when they overheard some customers talking about Angel?

And Scott was listening to something and seemed into it before Rogue nudged him?

Well…*cracks knuckles to share stuff no one needs or wants to hear*

She was sharing with him her favorite goth alternative music.

Performed by her favorite musician:

GOBLIN QUEEN.

Scott had never heard of her. Rogue then explained that GOBLIN QUEEN is less of a mainstream artist and more of an underground/indie/anonymous one. She goes on to gush about her favorite songs (ex. A Nothing Being in a Nowhere Place) and albums she managed to buy/burned onto cds (ex. LIMBO and ANODYNE), but laments that she’s never been able to find the one called INFERNO.

By sheer dumb luck (aka contrived coincidence à la me), Scott manages to find an authentic copy of the album INFERNO later on. Did he get another cd Rogue liked by another goth band she liked beforehand for her? Of course he did. But he saw how her eyes sparkled and how animated she was talking about that singer. Also, the music he had heard was pretty cool. So he was always on the look out for it.

Unserious (?) sub-headcanon based on what Josh Whedon once said about Buffy Summers from Buffy: The Vampire Slayer:

Scott and Buffy Summers are cousins on his Dad’s side.

They probably were initially on “Christmas Card” terms with each other (maybe their parents had a falling out (Did the series ever mention if Buffy’s surname came from her mom or dad?) or something and that’s why they didn’t reach out after the plane crash that killed Christopher and Kate and separated Scott and Alex or they only took in Scott for a little bit before giving him to foster care.) and barely speak.

He probably reached out again via a video chat during some holiday occasion (some time after the events of Apocalypse), both of them going the usual “how’s life? fine, how ‘bout you? same old stuff. cool, cool…” (bc she doesn’t know he’s a mutant and he doesn’t know she’s a vampire slayer). He offhandedly mentioned the INFERNO CD by GOBLIN QUEEN that his friend really wants and joked that his current Christmas wish was to find it…only for Buffy to comment that one of her friends had that album. Cue Scott begging Buffy for more information on how her friend got it, and he successfully obtains it for Rogue.

At this point, Rogue is dating Gambit (are they serious? is it casual? do they both genuinely like each other but are both knowingly distracting themselves from their unresolved feelings for others?) , while Scott and Jean are either still together (happily or is it strained bc they are starting to want different things in life and each other but are hoping to make it work regardless of each other’s clearer and conflicting focuses) or have quietly broken up.

Scott finally either found a lead via the previosly mentioned sub-headcanon or something else. Either way, it leads him to a random goth girl who looks oddly familiar, though he cannot for the life of him figure out why.

Scott: *trying to place where he has seen this girl before despite most likely never having met her in his life*

Mysterious Goth Gal: you’ll have a better chance of asking me out if you actually use your words instead of thinking them, chum 😜

Scott: ?!

He noticed she is has a tattoo that says GOBLIN QUEEN. He pointed it out and asked if she liked her music. Is unsure why when she answers yes she is grinning at him like she knows something that he doesn’t. She asks him if he’s a fan, or if there was a pretty goth girl he was trying to impress, winking at him.

Cue Scott talking about Rogue, anything and everything about her (save the mutant part), partially how she introduced him to the GOBLIN QUEEN’s music, but then evolves into how even the little things that she does or says he muses about with quiet admiration and fondness.

Mysterious Goth Gal: …*already jumped ship from making moves on him to shipping him like crazy with this girl he’s so obviously in love with like what*

Scott: *mid unconsciously simping for Rogue* and I wish I could find that INFERNO Album for her, but—

Mysterious Goth Gal: WAIT RIGHT THERE I CAN GET YOU A SIGNED COPY.

Scott: Huh?

Rogue was dumbstruck and ecstatic when Scott presented to her what he jokes is her belated Christmas gift when they meet up, asking multiple times how he got it.

He mentioned that it was autographed, so she opened it:

GOBLIN QUEEN: To Rogue: -insert obligatory autograph stuff- + PS. I wanted to give this to you for free, but your boyfriend insisted on paying full. What a boy scout. I’m rooting for the both of you! ;D

Rogue: ………………

Scott: ? What did she say?

[sntafe]

i want to know more about your davey. what makes him tick! what music do you think he’d listen to! what are his pastimes and hobbies and what makes him like them so much!! PLEASEEE rant about your davey i love him!!

- @we-are-inevitable ✨

OH MY GOD. YES. OKAY. you just opened pandora’s box you have no clue. (btw most of this is based on my tattoo au although a lot of this stuff is just stuff i have connected to davey no matter the au)

okay. so. my davey is a high school english teacher and i think something that makes him really upset is when he sees his good students start skipping, not paying attention, etc. while i don’t think this would make him tick per say, i do think it would def make him anxious and on edge. he would absolutely come home and rant to jack about how he doesn’t know what he’s doing wrong and how he’s worried about them and how he wishes he can do more but all he is an english teacher. (and jack would assure him that he’s doing more than enough and just being there and noticing these things is all some kids need) (but davey would def pull them aside in class and just talk to them like they’re humans bc he knows some teachers treat their students as children and they hate that. so he will just talk and try to pick their brains and help them in literally whatever way he can)

MUSIC. okay so davey definitely tries a TON of different genres simply because he is curious and he wants to hear it all. (he wants to experience every bit of life that he can and that includes different genres of music.) at the end of the day tho he’s a slut for sad queer indie pop: hozier, lucy dacus, and kevin atwater are his favs. (i could go on a whole different rant about how davey coded some of kevin atwater’s songs are but i’ll refrain for now.) he grew up listening to billy joel and still listens to him when he’s feeling particularly nostalgic or homesick. the album “the stranger” is one of his favorites in the entire world. his parents had it on record, and one year in middle school for his birthday he was gifted a record player, so he was playing that shit NONSTOP. to read to, to study to, to hangout to, etc. les used to come and sit in davey's room while he was doing domestic tasks, like cleaning or homework, so les now has attached that album to davey. (they get a tattoo for vienna, their fav song on the album—davey gets “slow down, you’re doing fine” on his left forearm and les gets “you can’t be everything you wanna be before your time” on his right forearm) (done by jack of course)

jack listens to more alternative stuff, and although it’s not something davey listens to on his own, he finds himself humming along to the pierce the veil and green day songs on jack’s playlist 

as far as hobbies and stuff, obviously he reads. he’s always been an avid reader because he loves to get lost in other worlds and he likes to learn about things that he otherwise wouldn’t have had the opportunity to. he gets into reading slumps around midterms and finals because he’s grading sooooo many papers but like as SOON as that’s over he falls back into finishing a novel in a couple days and he absolutely loves it. it’s just so… refreshing in a way. (sometimes, when he’s particularly missing jack, he’ll go and just sit at the tattoo shop and read. he’s content to simply be in the same space with jack and he also loves sneaking glimpses of jack working.)

he also absolutely loves to cook. he grew up often helping his mother in the kitchen, so he’s sort of always loved it. once he moved out and began living by himself he found a whole new appreciation for it. it’s his way to decompress at the end of the day and … in a way food is his language?? like he will make meals based on what he’s feeling. if he’s really happy he doesn’t mind making something that takes a while. it’ll be bright and fresh. if he’s had a particularly rough day though, he’ll throw something frozen in the oven and call it a day. (over time, jack slowly realizes this, and can gauge what davey needs based on what he says they’re having for dinner. for example; if davey’s just making something frozen, jack will give him an extra long hug and force him to take a hot shower in order to relax. jack often takes over “cooking” on these days)

don’t even play on his animal crossing island. he likes the domestic video games with goals that he can take at any speed simply because they’re relaxing and cozy. he loves making his island all organized and pretty 

meanwhile jack is like begging for the switch to play mario kart 

thank you for letting me rant GOD I LOVE DAVID JACOBS if there’s anything else you want me to yap about PLEASE ask!!!

@we-are-inevitable :)

[imalwaysinconfusion]

Music Artists the Miracles✨ listens to:

-Kagami

Kendrick Lamar (HEAVY ON HIM)

J.I.D.

some underground soundcloud shit like he would say “yeah was there when so and so been posting on soundcloud” type stuff

LATTO

NICKI MINAJ

MEGAN THEE STALION (that’s his wife, has to fight aomine all the time over her)

yk he gotta keep up with his black american girlies 😫

he loves paramore… MISERY BUSINESS?!… shut him up

-Kuroko

lana del ray… don’t ask me why, i’ve never listened to her fr, but i see it for him

some pleasant smooth indie bands

Lake street drive, their song hypotheticals to be exact (very good song btw

anything easy listening honestly

80’s city pop

-Kise

def a kpop girlie

girl group stan

a blink and a ive girlie

takao HATES that he’s a blink they don’t talk about it

loves wony VERY MUCH, does not play about her

but he also ADORESS KEP1LER

started listening to del ray recently, (tetsu put him on) likes her a lot

loves ice spice and pinkpantheress, together and separately

listen to a bit of t-swift, just a tiny bit

-Murasakibara

A LOT of underground indie bands

anything with a lot of percussions

atsushi is a drummer so yk he needs to hear a lot of dem drums

alt rock, or just alternative in general

PARAMORE… he loves them found them before kagami mentioned them to him

FALL OUT BOY HEAVY ON THEM

loves skillet to went to see them in concert started crying

love the type of rap that’s like out of pocket but like who tf cares cause it goes hard

CHOCHISE… LOVES THAT MAN

mura love to dance so yk

-Midorima

a swiftie but will never admit it, kise and takao found out… GIRLLLLL

but all in all doesn’t really listen to a lot of music unless takao make him

so with that being said, he has been listening to kpop, female rappers, rap in general

he LOVES meg, he just loves how she tells her life through rap

and he just mesmerized by how it moves like water😩

oh and he loves shakira for some reason, the guys don’t know why, but kagami understands and won’t explain to the rest

loves the lo-fi girl instrumental study music, its soothing to him

-Aomine

yk he loves sexyy red 😭

“IM LOOKING FOR THE HOOOESS”

he just loves she don’t gaf

MONALEO LOVES THAT WOMAN DOWN

FLO MILLI

MEG, yk he tussles wit kagami

Cobra rock ver. ON REPEAT

HEAVY ON MR. JERMAINE COLE, cause yk he always talks about how he biracial, and aomine can relate with that

loves cardi so much, bongos 🤭

YK HE HAS TO LISTEN TO KPOP BOYS

yk he got all the bts boys solo shit on REPEAT

ATEEZ🗣️

(aomine my twin so yk🫶🏾)

-Akashi

ik it’s cannon for him to listen to classical but i don’t think he be actually LIKING THAT SHIT MAN

like i do think it’s brings him peace from a hard day and helps him to study but like to listen just to listen???

N O

HE LOVES HEAVY METAL

SLIPKNOT😫😫😫😫

Mibuchi got him on it

rock, alternative, 80s CITY POP

anything that reminds him of his mom

also anything that tries to reach his inner child since he never got the chance to be one

and kise and mura help him with that

AND HAYAMA

the veggietales and backyardagains soundtracks speaks to him he found out

also his dad also gave some of old music like bobby brown???? like okay mr masaomi

like ig you cool but you still suck as a daddy a person

so yk he LOVES WHITNEY HUSTON NOWADAYS

overall he needs to heal and is moving towards it

:)

[pristinekanesays]

🦋Life Is Strange: General Headcanons

🦋 just some pretty normal headcanons

🐺 GN!Reader, no specific pronouns are mentioned!

🦋 warnings: dorky stuff, bad mental health and swearing.

🎧A/N: Been super busy lately, thanks for the loads of support though guys! Gonna be writing more for Skip because nobody's writing for him and he's actually REALLY attractive??

🦋Chloe Price:

📄It's obvious that Chloe literally adores punk rock and possibly heavy metal music. She's also a HUGE PissHead fan, from listening to Skip's demo to then asking if she can hear more of his music.

🖤She doesn't wanna admit it but she definitely sees Skip as an older brother figure, they're basically family and they have such a sweet bond together.

📄Chloe and Steph are actually pretty close in Before The Storm, from how Steph asks Chloe for permission to ask Rachel out and how she's okay with Chloe venting to her if she wanted to.

🖤Her favourite songs are Nothing Wrong - Pisshead and Everything Reminds Me Of Her - Elliot Smith. (those are all literally my favourite songs as well..oops)

📄She is actually secretly a bit of nerd, like not a huge nerd but she's played Dungeons & Dragons multiple times with Steph and Mikey before and after Episode 1.

🖤Her favourite animal is the Palos Verdes Blue butterfly, since a blue butterfly is her spirit animal but she also really likes Tiger Sharks and 100% thinks she could take them in a fight.

📄She sucks ass at cooking and Joyce has tried to teach her before but she gets bored so easily.

🖤When she got her skull tattoo, she teared up and nearly started sobbing but told everyone she knows that she was totally 100% cool + badass during it.

(hella pissed about the zero skip gifs and lack of fanfiction, he's literally so attractive?? wtf)

🎤 Skip Matthews:

📄He secretly flips people off behind their back as they walk away if they've pissed him off, will totally freak out then switch to standing still and laughing awkwardly if they turn around.

🖤Listens to Taylor Swift but apart from that he's a huge punk rock + heavy metal fan.

📄Okay now, Skip is a HUGE horror game nerd. I'm talkin' Outlast, Resident Evil, Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Silent Hill.

🖤He can cook, okay?! He doesn't look like your average chef but he can definitely serve up some good fucking food.

📄Talks shit about anyone he doesn't like with you, if you guys are together of course or really good friends, he's like Victoria Chase sometimes because oh my god is he a bitch.

🖤Apart from listening to music, he'll also listen to urban legends podcasts on his way to work.

📄Skip comes from a pretty normal family in the suburbs of Denver, Colorado with two older sisters and a younger brother.

🖤(He's such a dork, I love him.) He's also pretty into fishing and is constantly taking trips for his band when he has to.

📄His favourite animal is the Polar Bear, like yeah he'd piss himself if he ever saw one in real life but he thinks they're pretty cute online instead of them being outside his door ready to beat his ass.

🍂Kate Marsh:

📄She's very religious but also very supportive. She just wants to settle down with someone, falling in love + possibly starting a family together, sitting on the porch swing in the afternoon while drinking tea/coffee side by side.

🖤Can Kate cook? Yes, she could totally make a living out of her talent but she just isn't into that for a career.

📄She never really has anything bad to say about anyone, she doesn't believe in being mean to other people because that just isn't in her blood.

🖤Kate is sort of sensitive, she won't cry if you bump into her accidentally but would tear up if you were to raise your voice/insult her in any way like any normal person. (so don't, you asshole)

📄Listens to soft, classical music sometimes but also some indie pop now and then.

🖤She's a walking angel, her personality, her looks and smarts, everything about her is just *chefs kiss*.

📄Her favourite animal is either the Florida White Rabbit or the Harp Seal, commonly known as Saddleback/Greenland Seal, Kate adores Harp Seal's so much and is always smiling while looking at photos of them.

🖤Hobbies? Playing the violin & the piano, back when she lived with her parents she was super into gardening + cooking.

📷 Max Caulfield:

📄She's always cooped up in her dorm either studying away, practicing her guitar skills or hanging out with Warren and Chloe.

🖤Max is a proud geek, alright? She's a board game, video game, everything remotely geeky fan, 100% played Dungeons & Dragons with Warren and has a few photos of the whole thing in a box under her bed titled 'W&M DND'.

📄Has overplayed Speedy Ortiz & Syd Matters so much but surprisingly never gets bored of their songs, but everyone else around her already has.

🖤Max sucks complete, utter ass at cooking and she knows it, she'll still try her best though but she can't even make toast properly without making it suffer through the toaster.

📄She can say some bad shit about people if they're assholes but she'd never say anything about someone who's innocent/someone she knows is a good person.

🖤Her spirit animal is a Doe and while she adores it completely, she also really likes Koala's and thinks that they're absolutely adorable.

🎭 Rachel Amber:

📄Rachel is that perfect, pretty and amazing popular girl that everyone knows, she struggles with her emotions pretty bad and I can see her going to Rose for help but never really her father.

🖤She wants to be an actor, right? Then that's what she's aiming for, to be in the public eye with a smile on her face and an award in her hands.

📄Multiple public bathrooms, walls and doors across arcadia bay are marked with 'RACHEL AMBER WAS HERE' or 'R.A'.

🖤Best chef in the world, clap clap! She's honestly so good at cooking and baking, has definitely thought about being a badass chef instead of a badass actor before.

📄She can sing really good, her and Chloe made a song together which was stashed away ..kept in a safe place after she went missing.

🖤She's heard about Skip from Chloe + always thought he was a cool older brother/father figure to any fucked up kid around the campus and 100% agrees with his nerdy horror game lifestyle.

📄Rachel's favourite animal is the Red Panda, she has a photo of one on a shelf somewhere and also has a Red Panda stuffed animal.

🖤Listens to punk rock and some heavy metal if she's in the mood, she loves PissHead and Firewalk.

🎬 Victoria Chase:

📄Her schedule is nearly always full, she's either bossing Vortex Club members and others about or practicing with her camera.

🖤She secretly listens to punk rock sometimes but will roll her eyes and say 'you don't look like the type' if anyone else like her takes an interest in her music taste.

📄She's got a geeky side to her from the figures in her room to the shit she's stuffed under her bed (video games, etc) so nobody else will find out about it and make fun of her.

🖤Victoria isn't the best at cooking but she isn't awful, she's told everyone in Blackwell that she's a master chef though. There's room for improvement, she needs MAJOR improvement cooking-wise.

📄She's really good at playing the piano, photography (of course) and she can make her own outfits with the right fabrics + tools.

🖤Her favourite animal is the Cheetah and she makes that very clear, even told someone 'i could claw you like a cheetah, bitch.' once before.

📄Definitely posts stuff about positive vibes on her socials while acting like a total bitch in real life.

🎮 Warren Graham:

📄He's broken his hand before during a fight, it sounds so badass but he's hella embarrassed and ashamed about it.

🖤Listens to small bands he found through his dorky websites that he's always on and always attends their gigs.

📄(Sucks dick at cooking), will totally hype his friends up about it then laugh awkwardly and act completely clueless at their grossed out reactions.

🖤He knows Skip pretty well since Warren was already in Blackwell at the same time that Skip was working there, they've exchanged opinions about games and movies way before the first game.

📄His favourite animals are Owls especially the Great Horned Owl, he saw one at night while he was hanging with Max and watched as she took a near hour taking photos of it.

🖤He hangs out on websites nearly all the time to read about the local bands, owl sightings, when the new video game he wants so bad is coming out.

📄Has probably searched up shit like 'how to get a boyfriend/girlfriend' before.

🧨 Nathan Prescott:

📄(He looks like a bent ass banana from the fruit bowl with the weird ass way he's sitting, fix your posture man.)

🖤He's 99% busy all the time, he's either attending therapy, in class, doing stuff for the Vortex Club or doing his usual..shady shit.

📄When he's texting you or his friends, the messages are barely readable because he texts like 'CU Thre, LOL, 2nte' and adds an unnecessary amounts of ?? and !!.

🖤Nathan doesn't have a specific music taste but he does sort of like listening to heavy metal.

📄Doesn't know how to cook at all, his parents never cared to teach him and why bother when you're filthy rich?!

🖤He doesn't really care for shit other than his fucked up photography or the Vortex Club, he'll maybe sketch some stuff here and there but even his sketches come out looking severly fucked up.

📄His favourite animal is the Indian Saw-Scaled Viper, he's into some scary shit because he's a scary asshole so don't be surprised. I mean, he also likes dogs..i guess.

🖤Huge horror movie fan as well like you sit him down, turn on a terrifying, traumatizing ass movie but he just rolls his eye and stays there completely unphased.

[glitteredbubbles]

Intro post!!

Fanfic Masterlist

Hi!! You can call me Z, and my pronouns are she/her :)

(last updated 1/9/2025)

Some prominent facts about me:

- I’m a demisexual lesbian who posts occasionally and mainly reblogs stuff I find visually appealing

- For positionality context, I am a white cis American woman (specifically from the south; I have a love/hate relationship with the area)

- I am undiagnosed but suspect I am somewhere on the autism spectrum

- I am a fanfic writer!! You can find my ao3 account here

- I consume a LOT of media; I mainly watch a lot movies, read a lot of books, and listen to a lot of music, though I am trying to get into TV shows more

- I enjoy asks and DMs! We don’t have to be mutuals, just don’t be weird :)

- I do not have a tagging system really; I mainly use my tags as an extra space to rant so this is like the Wild West (you can find fandom specific posts usually through ship names like Anderperry or Reddie)

- DNIs: if you’re homophobic, a nazi, transphobic, a terf, ableist, an ed tumblr account, fatphobic, racist, misogynist, a white supremacist, anti-semitic, a zionist, a conservative, or if you’re just mean tbh. I can and will block anyone who gives me bad vibes so keep that in mind when interacting <3

Fandoms:

- Dead Poets Society (mainly Anderperry)

- IT (mainly Reddie)

- I have other fandoms that I write for/have written for which I’m not super active in like The Batman, Stranger Things, and The Goldfinch

- I also have fandoms that I’ve only read fanfic for that I’m not super involved in that I could geek out about like The Maze Runner, Detroit: Become Human, One Direction, Criminal Minds, Heartstopper, etc.

Interests:

Music:

- I listen to practically every genre (besides post-9/11 country music), but I tend to gravitate more towards sad indie, 1970s folk, or instrumental score music!

- For example, some of my favorites are Sufjan Stevens, Mitski, Bon Iver, Ethel Cain, Black Country New Road, Lucy Dacus, Radiohead, Adrienne Lenker, Elliott Smith, Car Seat Headrest, Fleetwood Mac, Simon & Garfunkel, Nick Drake, Talking Heads, George Harrison, Al Green, Tia Blake, Labi Siffre, Emile Mosseri, Masayoshi Takanaka, Philip Glass, Masakatsu Takagi, Colin Stetson, Jonny Greenwood, Aphex Twin, Mort Garson, Mamman Sani, etc.

Books:

- I prefer to read literary fiction (particularly realistic fiction), but I also try to read a good amount of poetry and nonfiction as well! (If you want to be mutuals on Storygraph, DM me!)

- My favorite books of all time are Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, The Little Prince, The Song of Achilles, The Miseducation of Cameron Post, Catcher in the Rye, Crush, The Virgin Suicides, Beloved, The Secret History, The Color Purple, The Awakening, Devotions, The Giver, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, The Book Thief, The Goldfinch, There There, Giovanni’s Room, Gorilla My Love, and The Dream of a Common Language!!

Movies:

- I’ll watch any and everything, although my personal taste leans towards coming-of-age, queer, weird, sad, and/or arthouse cinema. (If you want to be mutuals on Letterboxd, DM me!)

- Some of my favorite movies are Where Is the Friend’s House?, Little Miss Sunshine, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, Perfect Blue, The Company of Strangers, Swiss Army Man, Being John Malkovich, Everything Everywhere All At Once, Dead Poets Society, Parasite, the Spiderverse movies, Her, Moonlight, The Holdovers, The Favorite, City of God, La Haine, Kung Fu Panda, But I’m a Cheerleader, The Lego Batman Movie, Videodrome, Funny Games, My Own Private Idaho, Happy Together, Daisies, Tampopo, The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Vive L’Amour, the Muppet movies, Funeral Parade of Roses; the list could go on and on and on haha.

TV Shows:

- I don’t watch a lot of TV, but I usually prefer shows with tight-knit plots that don’t drag on for too many seasons. I also like game shows and cartoons! (If you want to be mutuals on Serializd, DM me!)

- Some of my favorite shows are Avatar: The Last Airbender, Jeopardy, I Am Not Okay With This, Stranger Things (specifically the first two seasons), Smiling Friends, Fellow Travelers, Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared, The Amazing World of Gumball, Young Royals, Over the Garden Wall, Pen15, The Bear, Heartstopper, Bob’s Burgers, Reservation Dogs, Barry, etc.

Video Games:

- I am definitely not a gamer, but I spent much of my adolescence watching gaming YouTubers play and live out my dreams of completing games I couldn’t afford. I mainly love indie games and also Nintendo franchises!

- Some of my favorite video games are Stardew Valley, Life is Strange, Zelda (both BOTW and TOTK), Inside, Detroit: Become Human, Papers Please, Overcooked 2, MySims Agents, Until Dawn, Sonic Adventure DX, Zelda Wind Waker, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Kirby’s Return to Dreamland, Unpacking, fnaf, etc.

Challenges:

- Because I am insane, I have dedicated myself to random challenges just because I can. Right now, I’m trying to read a book, watch a movie, and listen to an album from every country! I’m also trying to watch a movie for every year cinema has existed just because. As a rule of thumb, I usually try to read 44 books every year since that’s the goal I’ve kept since 2022!

- If you have any suggestions/recommendations for any of my challenges, please tell me! Even if I’ve read/seen/heard something from that country, I still like adding stuff to my list to consume later!

Posts I’m proud of:

To end this, here are some posts I’m happy with/want to keep track of!

- Showed my friend DPS

- Homophobic little brother part 1

- Homophobic little brother part 2

- 2024 movie recs

- Fanfic excerpt

- Top ten movies in gifs

- How I imagined Anderperry in my fic

- 10k hits on my fic

- Media consumption final boss

- Mitski uquiz

[glitterypin]

less than two hours left 'till 2025!

I might as well do a recap of 2024 as it goes away..

Music I listened to a lot:

Fivos Delivorias (my favourite Greek musician, same as last year. I went to five of his shows this year and had tickets for a sixth one that I didn't go to because I was depressed that day)

Peter Capaldi (feeling wildly blessed that Peter Capaldi's taste in music and mine overlap so greatly because it means the music he makes is exactly the type of music I like to listen to. So, I reckon I must have listened to his 2021 album over 200 times this year and I loved every second of it.)

David Bowie (being single for the first time in over eight years reminded me of the feelings of isolation and other-worldliness that first drew me to Bowie's music when I was 19. So, I've been returning to it a lot since the summer and it does feel like coming home a lot.)

And a lot of contemporary Greek indie music, which has been great for me because all my life I've been mostly into artists who have died or retired ages ago that this is the first time I feel like what's happening around me is relevant to me. I go to live gigs, I listen to new releases, I talk about new music with friends, it's an amazing feeling.

Favourite films I've seen this year:

Letterboxd says I watched 123 new films this year. Let's look at my highest rated:

This reflects my year in films perfectly. A lot of TV Specials from shows I watched this year (Doctor Who, The Thick of It), stuff my faves from last year were in (Peter Capaldi, Michael Sheen and even one Phyllis Logan right at the top) and a measly TWO recent mainstream films.

My friends and family keep asking me if I've seen this or that which was just released or tell me "I want to go to the movies, what should I watch" and I cannot stress this enough but I have no fucking clue. I don't care about the new films that are coming out. I don't feel like watching them. I want to watch Peter Capaldi's entire filmography and a fuckton of old british TV shows. My fucking ringtone is the opening theme of Lovejoy. Ask me about that if you want me to give an opinion.

TV Shows I watched this year:

2024, the year I watched Doctor Who.

Yeah, this is what stands out the most. I got into Doctor Who, like a decade too late but whatever. I love this show now, with all my heart.

Other stuff I watched and loved this year include mostly tv shows Peter Capaldi was in.

The Thick Of It (I love it with everything that I am, Malcolm Tucker is my favourite comfort character atm and the joy it brings me cannot be put into words)

The Devil's Hour (seasons 1 and 2 and season 2 blew my fucking mind away, I'm still not over it and i can't wait for season 3!)

Criminal Record (second half of it was amazing, also looking forward to the next season)

Neverwhere (a 90s classic which I loved)

The Crow Road (a bit slow but charming and kind of eccentric in the way it approaches the concept of genre - as in: from the wrong direction)

Prime Suspect 3 (more like a long movie but I wanted to mention it because it's one of my favourite Capaldi performances ever)

Lovejoy (started it for Phyllis Logan, am currently somewhere in season 3. It's beautifully vintage and so easy to follow along without paying too much attention and every once in a while it's actually fucking hilarious).

Downton Abbey (started with a lot of steam (also because of Phyllis Logan), I watched the first season in like a day but then dropped to a very relaxed pace of "every once in a while". It's the kind of thing that is hard to get into on a daily basis but once you do, it's easy to keep going, know what I mean? It may take me two weeks to decide to watch another episode and then end up watching three in a row. I do look forward to continuing with it in the new year!)

The Way (the three-part TV show Michael Sheen made of revolution coming to Wales. I meant to rewatch but haven't yet and it's been many months since I saw it but I remember loving it.)

Work I've done this year:

2024 started with me smack dab in the middle of a project of the shitshow variety, pulling long hours, putting out mediocre work and having to be very available for very little reward. A great learning experience! For the first time in my life I felt that "if I quit this job... they're all fucking fucked" - and lemme tell you, it felt good to know this, even if the work was shit.

I worked on three different projects during the summer. One of them didn't go very well. Another one I basically dropped out of midway through and came to blows with my coworker and mentor and we almost stopped being friends over it. I learned not to spread myself too thin.

The third project went amazing and I loved working on it and it's a wonderful precedent of "hey, work can be nice and humane, did you kno" but since it ended I've been unemployed.

Let's not dwell on that right now.

Life Events!

Lot of stuff happened in therapy, at work, with friends, with family. No point in going through it all, most of it isn't even particularly pleasant or interesting.

Three things are my main takeaways from this year:

In July, after 3000 days together (bit over 8 years if you're wondering), I broke up with my boyfriend. Breathing has been easier since then, despite the sadness of missing his company sometimes. I'm very proud of myself for finally deciding to do it and for how I did it. And I can't wait to see what the following years have in store for me.

Fan communities are easily dismissed as little more than hobbies but sometimes you just find yourself in one that is different and you meet people who make your life better. And this happened to me this year. I made the Peter Capaldi Brainrot Center and got to hang out with a bunch of cool people on Tumblr (won't tag you all, there's a lot of you, you know who you all are and I love you to bits) and yeah, the biggest part of it is talking about how handsome and fuckable Peter Capaldi is but I can't help but feel an honest connection when I shout at a bunch of strangers "please help cheer me up because my dad was a dick to me" and half a dozen people jump in with PCap photos and gifs and words of comfort for me. I love that I got to have this this year.

A return of creativity. I started drawing and have visibly improved (even if I'm still shit at it, I'm better than before and that means the world to me). I started writing. It's short, mediocre fanfics but I'm finally writing. And I'm editing for fun! And I just love that I'm finally being creative and artistic and finding my voice and my place in this world...

And that is a wrap on my 2024! The year of the Doctor, of Tumblr and of Finally Letting Go Of Stuff That Used To Weigh Me Down.

Here's to the next one. Happy 2025!

[dustedmagazine]

Listening Post: Kim Gordon

Kim Gordon has long been one of rock’s female icons, one of a tiny handful of women to get much play in Michael Azzerad’s underground-defining Our Band Could Be Your Life and a mainstay in the noise-rock monolith Sonic Youth. It’s hard to imagine that quintessential dude rock band without Gordon in front, dwarfed by her bass or spitting tranced out, pissed off verses over the storm of feedback.

Yet Gordon’s trajectory has been, if anything, even more fascinating since Sonic Youth’s demise in 2011. A visual artist first — she studied art at the Otis College of Art and Design before joining the band — she continues to paint and sculpt and create. She’s had solo art shows at established galleries in London and New York, most recently at the 303 Gallery in New York City. A veteran of indie films including Gus van Zant’s Last Days and Todd Haynes I’m Not There, she has also continued to act sporadically, appearing in the HBO series Girls and on an episode of Portlandia. Her memoir, Girl in a Band, came out in 2015.

But Gordon has remained surprisingly entrenched in indie music over the last decade. Many critics, including a few at Dusted, consider her Body Head, collaboration with Bill Nace the best of the post-Sonic Youth musical projects. The ensemble has now produced two EPs and three full-lengths. Gordon has also released two solo albums, which push her iconic voice into noisier, more hip hop influenced directions. We’re centering this listening post around The Collective, Gordon’s second and more recent solo effort, which comes out on Matador on March 8th, but we’ll likely also be talking about her other projects as well.

Intro by Jennifer Kelly

Jennifer Kelly: I missed No Home in 2019, so I was somewhat surprised by The Collective’s abrasive, beat-driven sound though I guess you could make connections to Sonic Youth’s Cypress Hill collaboration?

The more I listen to it, though, the more it makes sense to me. I’ve always liked the way Gordon plays with gender stereotypes, and “I’m a Man” certainly follows that trajectory. What are you guys hearing in The Collective?

Jonathan Shaw: I have only listened through the entire record once, but I am also struck by its intensities. Sort of silly to be surprised by that, given so many of the places she has taken us in the past: noisy, dangerous, dark. But there's an undercurrent of violence to these sounds that couples onto the more confrontational invocations and dramatizations of sex. It's a strong set of gestures. I like the record quite a bit.

Bill Meyer: I'm one of those who hold Body/Head to be the best effort of the post-Sonic Youth projects, but I'll also say that it's very much a band that creates a context for Gordon to do something great, not a solo effort. I was not so taken with No Home, which I played halfway through once upon its release and did not return to until we agreed to have this discussion. I've played both albums through once now, and my first impression is that No Home feels scattered in a classic post-band-breakup project fashion — “let's do a bit of this and that and see what sticks.” The Collective feels much more cohesive sonically, in a purposeful, “I'm going to do THIS” kind of way.

Jonathan Shaw: RE Jennifer's comment about “I'm a Man”: Agreed. The sonics are very noise-adjacent, reminding me of what the Body has been up to lately, or deeper underground acts like 8 Hour Animal or Kontravoid's less dancy stuff. Those acts skew masculine (though the Body has taken pains recently to problematize the semiotics of those photos of them with lots of guns and big dogs...). Gordon's voice and lyrics make things so much more explicit without ever tipping over into the didactic. And somehow her energy is in tune with the abrasive textures of the music, but still activates an ironic distance from it. In the next song, “Trophies,” I love it when she asks, “Will you go bowling with me?” The sexed-up antics that follow are simultaneously compelling and sort of funny. Rarely has bowling felt so eroticized.

Jennifer Kelly: I got interested in the beats and did a YouTube dive on some of the other music that Justin Raisen has been involved with. He's in an interesting place, working for hip hop artists (Lil Yachty, Drake), pop stars (Charli XCX) and punk or at least punk adjacent artists (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Viagra Boys), but nothing I've found is as raw and walloping as these cuts.

“The Candy House” is apparently inspired by Jennifer Egan's The Candy House, which is about a technology that enables people to share memories... Gordon is pretty interested in phones and communications tech and how that's changing art and human interaction.

Andrew Forell: My immediate reaction to the beats was oh, The Bug and JK Flesh, in particular the MachineEPs by the former and Sewer Bait by the latter. Unsurprisingly, as Jonathan says, she sounds right at home within that kind of dirty noise but is never subsumed by it

Jennifer Kelly: I don't have a deep reference pool in electronics, but it reminded me of Shackleton and some of the first wave dub steppers. Also, a certain kind of late 1990s/early aughts underground hip hop like Cannibal Ox and Dalek.

Bryon Hayes: Yeah, I hear some Dalek in there, too. Also, the first Death Grips mixtape, Ex-Military.

It's funny, I saw the track title “I'm a Man,” and my mind immediately went to Bo Diddley for some reason, I should have known that Kim would flip the script, and do it in such a humorous way. I love how she sends up both the macho country-lovin’ bros and the sensitive metrosexual guys. It's brilliant!

This has me thinking about “Kool Thing”, and how Chuck D acts as the ‘hype man’ to Kim Gordon in that song. I'm pretty sure that was unusual for hip hop at the time. Kim's got a long history of messing with gender stereotypes.

Bill Meyer: Gordon did a couple videos for this record, and she starred her daughter Coco in both of them. The one for “I'm A Man” teases out elements of gender fluidity, how that might be expressed through clothing, and different kinds of watching. I found the video for “Bye Bye” more interesting. All the merchandise that's listed in the video turns out to be a survival kit, one that I imagine that Gordon would know that she has to have to get by. The protagonist of the video doesn't know that, and their unspoken moment in a car before Coco runs again was poignant in a way that I don't associate with her work. And of messing with hip hop!

Tim Clarke: “Bye Bye” feels like a companion to The Fall’s “Dr Buck’s Letter.”

Bill Meyer: From The Unutterable? I'll have to a-b them.

Tim Clarke: That’s the one.

Jonathan Shaw: All of these comments make me think of the record’s title, and the repeated line in “The Candy House”: “I want to join the collective.” Which one? The phone on the record’s cover nods toward our various digital collectives — spaces for communication and expression, and spaces for commerce, all of which seem to be harder and harder to tell apart. A candy house, indeed. Why is it pink? Does she have a feminine collective in mind? A feminine collective unconscious? The various voices and lyric modes on the record suggest that's a possibility. For certain women, and for certain men working hard to understand women, Gordon has been a key member of that collective for decades.

Jennifer Kelly: The title is also the title of a painting from her last show in New York.

The holes are cell phone sized.

You can read about the show here, but here's a representative quote: “The iPhone promises freedom, and control over communication,” she says. “It’s an outlet of self-expression, and an escape and a distraction from the bigger picture of what’s going on in the world. It’s also useful for making paintings.”

Gordon is a woman, and a woman over 70 at that — by any measure an underrepresented perspective in popular culture. However, I’d caution against reading The Collective solely as a feminist statement. “I'm a Man,” for instance, is told from the perspective of an incel male, an act of storytelling and empathy not propaganda. My sense is that Gordon is pretty sick of being asked, “What's it like to be a girl in a band?” (per “Sacred Trickster”) and would like, maybe, to be considered as an artist.

It's partly a generational thing. I'm a little younger than she is, but we both grew up in the patriarchy and mostly encountered gender as an external restriction.

As an aside, one of my proudest moments was when Lucas Jensen interviewed me about what it was like to be a freelance music writer, anonymously, and Robert Christgau wrote an elaborate critique of the piece that absolutely assumed I was a guy. If you're not on a date or getting married or booking reproductive care, whose business is it what gender you are?

There, that's a can of worms, isn't it?

Jonathan Shaw: Feminine isn't feminist. I haven't listened nearly closely enough to the record to hazard an opinion about that. More important, it seems to me the masculine must be in the feminine unconsciousness, and the other way around, too. Precisely because femininity has been used as a political weapon, it needs imagining in artistic spaces. Guess I also think those terms more discursively than otherwise: there are male authors who have demonstrated enormous facility with representing femininity. James, Joyce, Kleist, and so on. Gordon has always spoken and sung in ways that transcend a second-wave sort of feminine essence. “Shaking Hell,” “PCH,” the way she sings “I Wanna Be Your Dog.”

Jennifer Kelly: Sure, she has always been shape-shifter artistically.

The lyrics are super interesting, but almost obliterated by noise. I’m seeing a connection to our hyperconnected digital society where everything is said but it’s hard to listen and focus.

Bill Meyer: Concrete guy that I am, I’ve found myself wishing I had a lyric sheet even though her voice is typically the loudest instrument in the mix.

Andrew Forell: Yes, that sense of being subsumed in the white noise of (dis)information and opinion feels like the utopian ideal of democratizing access has become a cause and conduit of alienation in which the notion of authentic voices has been rendered moot. It feels integral to the album as a metaphor

Christian Carey: How much of the blurring of vocals (good lyrics — mind you) might involve Kim’s personal biography, I wonder? From her memoirs, we know how much she wished for a deflection of a number of things, most having to do with Thurston and the disbandment of SY.

Thurston was interviewed recently and said that he felt SY would regroup and be able to be professional about things. He remarked that it better be soon: SY at eighty wouldn’t be a good look!

Andrew Forell: And therein lies something essential about why that could never happen

Ian Mathers: I know I’m far in the minority here (and elsewhere) because I’ve just never found Sonic Youth that compelling, despite several attempts over the years to give them another chance. And for specifically finding Thurston Moore to be an annoying vocal presence (long before I knew anything about his personal life, for what it's worth). So, I’m in no hurry to see them reunite, although I do think it would be both funny and good if everyone except Moore got back together.

Having not kept up with Gordon much post-SY beyond reading and enjoying her book, I wasn’t sure what to expect from this record. After a couple of listens, I’m almost surprised how much I like it. Even though I’m lukewarm on SY’s music, she’s always been a commanding vocal presence and lyricist and that hasn’t changed here (I can echo all the praise for “I’m a Man,” and also “I was supposed to save you/but you got a job” is so bathetically funny) and I like the noisier, thornier backing she has here. I also think the parts where the record gets a bit more sparse (“Shelf Warmer”) or diffuse (“Psychic Orgasm”) still work. I've enjoyed seeing all the comparisons here, none of which I thought of myself and all of which makes sense to me. But the record that popped into my head as I listened was Dead Rider’s Chills on Glass. Similar beat focus, “thick”/distorted/noisy/smeared production, declamatory vocals. I like that record a lot, so it's not too surprising I'm digging this one.

Jennifer Kelly: I loved Sonic Youth but have zero appetite for the kind of nostalgia trip, just the hits reunion tour that getting back together would entail.

Jonathan Shaw: Yeah, no thanks to that.

RE Christian's comment: Not sure I see deflection so much as the impossibility of integration. We are all many, many selves, always have been. Digital communications interfaces and social media have just lifted it to another level of experience. Gordon sez, “I don't miss my mind.” Not so much a question of missing it in the emotional/longing sense, more so acknowledging that phrases like “my mind” have always been meaningless. Now we partition experience and identity into all of these different places, and we sign those pieces of ourselves over, to Zuck and the algorithms. We know it. We do it anyways, because it's the candy house, full of sweets and pleasures that aren't so good for us, but are really hard to resist. “Come on, sweets, take my hand...”

Bill Meyer: I would not mind hearing all of those SY songs I like again, can’t lie, although I don’t think that I’d spend Love Earth Tour prices to hear them. But given the water that has passed under the bridge personally, and the length of time since anyone in the band has collaborated creatively (as opposed to managing the ongoing business of Sonic Youth, which seems to be going pretty well), a SY reunion could only be a professionally presented piece of entertainment made by people who have agreed to put aside their personal differences and pause their artistic advancement in order to make some coin. There may be good reasons to prioritize finances. Maybe Thurston and/or Kim wants to make sure that they don’t show up on Coco’s front door, demanding to move their record or art collection into her basement, in their dotage. And Lee’s a man in his late 60s with progeny who are of an age to likely have substantial student loan debt. But The Community is just the kind of thing they’d have to pause. It feels like the work of someone who is still curious, questioning, commenting. It's not just trying to do the right commercial thing.

Justin Cober-Lake: I’m finding this one to be a sort of statement album. I’d stop short of calling it a concept album, but there seems to be a thematic center. I think a key element of the album is the way that it looks for... if not signal and noise, at least a sense of order and comprehensibility in a chaotic world. Gordon isn’t even passing judgment on the world — phones are bad, phones are good, phones make art, etc. But there’s a sense that our world is increasingly brutal, and we hear that not just in the guitars, but in the beats, and the production. “BYE BYE” really introduces the concept. Gordon’s leaving (and we can imagine this is autobiographical), but she’s organizing everything she needs for a new life. “Cigarettes for Keller” is a heartbreaking line, but she moves on, everything that makes up a life neatly ordered next to each other, iBook and medications in the same line. It reminds me of a Hemingway character locking into the moment to find some semblance of control in the chaos.

Getting back to gender, there’s a funny line at the end: one of the last things she packs is a vibrator. I'm not sure if we're to read this as a joke, a comment on the necessity of sexuality in a life full of transitory moments, as a foreshadowing of the concepts we’ve discussed, or something else. The next item (if it’s something different) is a teaser, which could be a hair care product or something sexual (playing off — or with — the vibrator). Everything's called into question: the seriousness of the track, the gender/sexuality ideas, what really matters in life. Modern gadgets, life-sustaining medicines, and sex toys all get equal rank. That tension really adds force to the song.

Coming out of “BYE BYE,” it's easy to see a disordered world that sounds extremely noisy, but still has elements we can comprehend within the noise. I don’t want to read the album reductively and I don't think it's all about this idea, but it's something that, early on in my listening, I find to be a compelling aspect of it.

[johnschneiderblog]

The LH song with a life of its own

Daughter Caitlin was listening to a New Yorker magazine podcast - a conversation between music critics Naomi Fry and Kelefa Sanneh about how social media - TikTok, in particular - has reshaped the popular-music landscape,

They discussed all the usual players - Sabrina Carpenter, Charli XCX, Katy Perry, Chappell Roan, etc.

Then, about 40 minutes into the interview, the conversation between the two music critics took a radical turn - toward a song that's practically an oldie:

Sanneh: "One of the biggest songs of 2024 is 'The Night We Met' - the 2015 song by Lord Huron. (Cue a short clip of the song).

Fry: "Wait, really?'

Kalefa: "Yes, that (song) has ... gone more viral than ever. It's over 2 billion streams on Spotify.

Fry: "Wait .... How did this happen (with) a 2015 song?"

Kalefa: "It's gotten a bunch of music placements over the years. It's gotten some TikTok activit; people seem to keep finding it. It's huge on the chart. It's being consumed at an incredible level.

"And ... obviously Lord Huron are not pop girlies, right? This is a kind of like retro rock indie song. Yeah. but to a lot of people's experience of 2024, while we're talking about all this stuff, they're talking about that."

Obviously "TNWM" got a big boost from its placement, in 2017, in an iconic scene in the TV series "13 Reasons Why." But that doesn't totally explain its staying power.

Maybe it's just a damn fine tune.

[petrovouho]

got tagged by @komplikacije in a question game, thank youu 💜

had fun and wrote a lot so i will shorten the post hahah

do you make your bed: absolutely not and people who do.... something wrong with them, also kinda unsanitary, you should let your sheets get some air and sun to disinfect

what’s your favorite number: 8 i don’t remember all reasons but through my life it just feels like the number was always following me in some way and the main trigger was when i was 8th on an entrance exam for college and i was soooo happy because i really wanted to study architecture and it was the only college that i put on my list (kinda stupid decision now that i look back lol) but it felt like everything just clicked

current job: none

if you could go back to school, would you: i would in a sense that now that i’m older i value knowledge a lot more and i can actually understand the importance of some things that we learned in school, not that i didn’t back then, i was always a great student, but now im able to understand it on a deeper level and connect with other things i know but i don’t really have the time and energy to go through it again.. but i wouldn’t like to go back in a sense of that period of time in my life and the people in school and stuff like that

can you parallel park: i can’t drive, and i don’t think i’ll be good at it either

a job you had that would surprise people: never worked a day in my life… i did some dance gigs at festivals and promotions and those type of events but the money would not go to us but our dance studio. and when i was i child i was always trying to sell shells to tourists and one time my drawings…

do you think aliens are real: could be idk, i don’t really see the point in thinking too much about things that i don’t know a lot about or that we just can’t find out so it never makes sense to me when people who also don’t have some knowledge on space and biology, in this case, have an opinion on it. like it’s cool if you’re trying to understand something and come to the conclusion but i feel like today too many people have opinion on everything and know nothing

can you drive a manual car: no

guilty pleasure: things that i feel guilty about are not pleasurable and things that i find pleasurable i don’t feel guilty about

tattoos: they are very cool and i always thought that i’ll have a bunch but as im getting older i’m not sure anymore hahah i think i’d feel super weird if i had something on my skin permanently.. still like them a lot tho

favorite colour: purple, green and blue

favorite music genre: i guess like indie/rock/punk/rnb/jazz/reggae, not too much of anything hahah but i listen to pretty much everything

do you like puzzles: i don’t remember when was a last time i did one but i do like them

phobias: i don’t have some specific fear but lately i’ve been a bit paranoid that i will pass out when i’m in my room alone and no one will know and be able to help

favorite childhood sport: i never was a sports person but i did go to rhythmic gymnastics as a kid and then in elementary school i started jazz dance and been doing it until last two years, idk if dance counts hahah but yeah i’ve always been physically active

do you talk to yourself: i don’t really think of it as talking to myself hahah more like sometimes my thoughts just come through my mouth when i’m alone or like i will have an inner monolouge sometimes but that’s not talking to myself? i guess idk hahah it’s not like my brain is silent if i’m alone

favorite movies: i don’t really have favourite movies, i do watch movies like dirty dancing, grease, pretty in pink, the breakfast club when i need something comforting because it’s something i watched a lot when i was younger

coffee or tea: i like both but maybe tea since coffee tends to make me nervous

first thing you wanted to be when you grew up: pfff i think a painter or a teacher ohh i just remembered hahahah actually i wanted to be “an adventurer” lmao like some type of explorer that has to do with nature and history and wears that khaki shirt and cargos outfit with boots and a hat

i tag: @midnightpulses @kontra-svijeta @valovita @nismo-na-filmu-zaboga @blu27nature if they want to do it :))