#Combined Graduation Parade

[sleepy-aletheas]

Alhaitham and the eternal misconception of his relationship to knowledge (and life)

This truly is gonna be the hill I'll die on, huh. Long post incoming I guess.

Listening to Alhaitham's voice lines, it's fascinating how he manages being perceived as callous and seeing everyone else beneath himself for not being smart enough or being overly emotional to his standards, when that's not even his view of others or what he values.

Sure, he's blunt, he doesn't enjoy engaging with others, he wants to solve problems in the most efficient way so that he can go and live his life in peace, even if it comes off as him being lazy.

Of course, this type of approach on life makes many people uncomfortable. Be it for being raised to toe unsaid lines for the sake of politeness; feeling it as a personal dig at themselves for being someone that tries to go out of their way to help others; or just working oneself to the bone to achieve their goals and then seeing someone do everything with minimal effort just to "laze around".

From an outside perspective, the misunderstanding of such a character makes sense. When others exchange pleasantries and ask if they should help, and always smile and have a more friendlier approach, anyone not doing that seems rude, cold, sometimes even hostile.

And Alhaitham uses this misconception to his own benefit, to be left alone and avoid unnecessary social interactions. But that's besides the point.

It's hard to get past his walls of privacy, but we can know more about Alhaitham from the crumbs left around. Sure, there is more in the quests (be it the main archon quest, his own, Cyno's second story, Kaveh's hangout) or events (Parade of Providence, or the latest An Odd Textual Mystery), but even if we only get little tidbits we're allowed to find out through the voice lines, it's still enough to disprove this mischaracterization.

It's easy to take his dismissal of others and having his nose eternally buried in books as a superiority complex, where he holds his vast knowledge above the heads of others, and views them as lesser. But it's a combination of a few things that make this misconception (and by an unfortunate result, mischaracterization) possible.

A big part is The Project he had with Kaveh and some other students during their Akademiya days, where he didn't go out of his way to help or do the workload of others, and instead let them drop out of the project to do their own thing. It was one of the reasons they fought so much - the perception that Alhaitham didn't want to help anyone, because they were lesser in intellect than him, so they weren't even worth helping. It didn't help, that he made a distinction between him, Kaveh, and the others - he and Kaveh were geniuses, and the others couldn't naturally keep up. Nothing more, nothing less. Is it a harsh thing to point out? Yes. It makes people feel self-conscious, dumb, undervalued, and Akademiya students would absolutely feel it hit their pride.

But if we take a step back, and look at what he says, it's clear he didn't think lesser of them as individuals, because it didn't make sense to him that they would drag themselves through this exhausting process they didn't have the will to follow through, the stamina to keep up and not make it a harder ordeal than necessary, or even having any enjoyment out of it. The only positive thing this project could give the other students was a good collaboration that helped with their grades and graduation, but the toll it would take on them could burn them out for years if not turn them off from seeking knowledge altogether, because they exhausted themselves, when there were other (and better) ways they could reach satisfaction and not hurt themselves. In his selfish little way of wanting to work in peace and not shoulder the responsibilities and faults of others, he might have been the thing that saved some academic enjoyment for them before it was too late.

And this line of thinking goes into the present as the Akademiya's scribe. Is he harsh with the applications? Sure, he doesn't let anything subpar slip through the cracks if he can help it, because that's his job. If the scholars don't even try to make a decent request with no spelling errors or other faults, why would he bother with it? They can do better, even for something as little as this (of course, we get to know from NPCs how stressful the whole academic process is, how much it can burden someone, and how it can feel unfair that their hard work can be rejected just like that; but Alhaitam pretty much just refuses the poorly written applications, so it's all about rewriting the request, not the work itself).

Which just winds back into the belief that he sees himself on a pedestal above everyone else. And it's funny, because he does think a lot of the scholars are dumb, but not because they're lacking or not deserving education, but because a lot of them see themselves as superior to others (mostly to those who don't go to the Akademiya or who are artists), and the ones that are lazy and rely purely on book smarts they most likely won't even understand if it had to be applied irl. He's pretty much laughing at the ones that talk big game and then fall on their faces, not at the ones that try their hardest, or are average, or who don't care for academics and live their lives out of that sphere at all.

If anything, he values when people know their strengths and weaknesses, and don't try to make their lives harder by being someone they're not (we can see it in his voice lines about Dehya and Nilou, where he holds respect for them and their ways of living). And in his voice like "Something to Share", he himself doesn't think knowledge is a 'be all, end all' of humanity, and that there are other ways to be fulfilled in life (the voice line is: "Truth serves no master. Humankind is not a vehicle for knowledge, nor is knowledge the aim of humankind." and I guess that's why Nahida doesn't think he's wise, because she views knowledge/wisdom and the relationship of humanity to it differently than he does).

And that just brings us back to the beginning, where people see him as rude and self-centered...which yeah, he is the later. But that's not an inherently bad thing. He doesn't see the point of being needlessly friendly or lie to be perceived that way, so he doesn't do that. He doesn't seek the company of others, because it's not his core need, so he doesn't do that. He doesn't like to use rhetoric, because the truth is important to him, so he doesn't do that. He just wants to live a peaceful life with the least amount of conflict, and in his voice line 'Alhaitham's Troubles' he explains: "Based on my observations, many people inflict trouble upon themselves. Life already has enough hardships — no need to add to them." so of course he will try to avoid unnecessary strife when he can, and so he doesn't do that.

He is steadfast in his beliefs, and respects others who do the same, because in his voice line 'More about Alhaitham III: "Every person should have something that they believe in and hold on to from beginning to end. Otherwise, it's easy to succumb to the vicissitudes of life and find yourself being led astray.", so him asking Kaveh "How has realizing your ideals gone for you?" wasn't a dig, it was him trying to see if his best friend changed because of his hardships. And when he saw he didn't, it must have been such a relief to know that his mirror in the world was still there, altruistic and passionate, even with more emotional bruises than before.

Alhaitham is so many things, but someone who inherently doesn't understand emotions (his and other people's) or disregards everything that isn't pure knowledge or utilitarian way of living, are not some of them.

[stsciurus]

The Boarding House

It's wonderful to see you again, Serena! How long has it been?

High school graduation? I went off to Brightchester right after, Dot, and I haven't been back to Copperdale until now.

Well, I'm glad that you came. I have so much to tell you, but you must be famished after your flight. There's a new café just across the square. Let's get a bite to eat.

Didn't this place used to be some kind of weird combination Thrift Store and Bubble Tea Shop?

Yeah, but bubble tea went out with iPods. Alex Moyer bought the place and turned it into a restaurant. It's now "The Copper Kettle".

I'll have the haddock sandwich, and… what do you want, Serena?

Um… the tomato burrito wrap, I think.

Waiter : Very good, ladies.

Are you vegetarian now?

No, I just wanted something light after the crap they served on the airplane.

So here's my big news. You know that my Aunt Agnes died last year and left me this big Victorian mansion.

Ah yes, the legendary Agnes Crumplebottom! The Watcher rest her soul.

Well, it's way too big for just me and Copper. And after spending my life taking care of my aunt, I really have no marketable skills, so I thought I would rent out rooms.

You mean like a Bed and Breakfast?

Well, not quite. More like a boarding house. You see, I know how to take care of people, and I didn't want the hassle of a constant turnover of guests, so I thought maybe a boarding house where…

What?! Are you nuts, Dot? Who is going to live in a boarding house in this day and age? Copperdale isn't exactly San Myshuno, you know. And as I recall, there are only two bathrooms in that old house. Who would want to live in a place where you have to share a bathroom with a stranger? And what about your own privacy? And what about the cat?

I have thought about these things, and I know it's a long shot, but I thought I'd at least try. If it doesn't work, I guess I'll have to sell the old place and move somewhere else cheap.

I don't mean to rain on your parade, Dot, but think of the risks even if you do find people to live with you.

You can't be too careful nowadays. There are so many creeps out there, and you haven't been out in the world much for the last, what?, twenty years?

That's why I asked you to come, Serena. You being a big city lawyer, I thought you could help me come up with lease contracts and advise me on how to screen potential applicants.

If there are any applicants!

__________________________________

So I've gotten the story bug again. And of course, my game also seems to be buggy, so I don't know how long I can keep this going. Let me know if you think this story has potential. Thanks!

[cloudynyxx]

Interview with Yuzuru Tachikawa - director of Death Parade - about his insights on his creative process.

The enjoyment of standalone episodes lies in the ability to try various challenges [Part 1 of 2]

Death Parade is an original TV anime released by Studio Madhouse. It is a work known for its deep human drama that offers glimpses of human frailty and love, supported by its rich visual storytelling. It's worth noting that this is the first TV anime born from the Agency for Cultural Affairs' Young Animator Training Project, Anime Mirai. Leading the project as the original creator, series composer, and director is Yuzuru Tachikawa, a rising director who has garnered attention for his various works.

Yuzuru Tachikawa Anime Director. After graduating from the Department of Film Studies at the Faculty of Arts of Nihon University, he joined Studio Madhouse. He made his directorial debut [on episode 51 of] Kiba and served as assistant director for Chi’s New Address. He later became freelance and gained attention for his episode direction in works like BLEACH. In 2012, he made his directorial debut with the OVA Arata-naru Sekai and in 2013, he served as the original creator, scriptwriter, and director for his own work Death Billiards as part of Anime Mirai 2013.

Changes from Death Billiards

— Let's talk about the project. This work is original, and it marks your debut as a TV anime series director. It seems like it would be rather difficult to pitch such a challenging project. What was the deciding factor?

Tachikawa: I think it was due to Death Billiards, the previous work we produced for Anime Mirai 2013. Without this work, I think it would have been difficult to get this project through with just a typical proposal. The fact that we had a complete film was an advantage. It was important to have a clear image of the finished film for the people who gave the go-ahead for the project, as well as the production committee.

— The title has changed from Death Billiards to Death Parade. What was the reason behind this change?

Tachikawa: The provisional title during the planning stage was actually Quindecim. However, the word "death" leaves an impact, doesn't it? Even with Death Billiards, people found amusement in the absurdity of combining two words which wouldn't normally go together. So, this time, I went with "Parade." Originally, Death Parade was the subtitle for each episode, but it was elevated to becoming the title of the series. The image I wanted to convey was a sort of parade through which many dead people arrive. [TL Note: this might seem repetitive and obvious but he is explaining the title as one would to a Japanese speaker, without using the English word for “death” here.]

— Were there any deliberate changes you made from Death Billiards?

Tachikawa: With Death Billiards, I intended for it to work as a standalone film, so there were parts towards the end left ambiguous or deliberately obscured to leave an impression and linger with the audience. However, I thought that if we did that in every episode of the TV anime, it would just add unnecessary pressure. So the dark-haired woman, who had a more detached role in Death Billiards, was placed in a position closer to the viewer to alleviate that.

— One of the major differences from the previous film is the introduction of new arbiters such as Ginti and Nona. Was the intention to increase the number of characters a consideration unique to a TV anime format, as you just mentioned?

Tachikawa: That was one aspect, yes, though what I wanted to focus on wasn't just the humans, but the arbiters themselves. That's why we ended up with more characters.

 — So will the second half of the episodes be centered on the arbiters, then?

Tachikawa: I hope you look forward to it. In the latter half, we'll touch more on the themes of the work, but in addition to the usual character performances and game interactions, I also want viewers to pay attention to the development of Decim and the dark-haired woman, who are the main characters.

The first episode shouldn't be the most interesting one

— When creating new characters, what kind of orders did you give to character designer Shinichi Kurita? Tachikawa: Kurita-san's art style tends to lean towards realism, but since we started producing Death Billiards, I was careful not to make it too realistic. Since I wanted the characters to have drastically shifting expressions, rather than making them overly stylish or polished, I aimed for something a little off-balance. That approach has been continued in this work as well.

— This is your first time directing a TV anime. Did you feel any pressure?

Tachikawa: I've been involved in TV series productions quite a bit, so I understood the general flow of directorial work. I thought I had a grasp on the workload, but it turned out to be more than I expected when I actually did it.

— Was it also because you wrote the script as the original creator?

Tachikawa: Yes, indeed (laughs). There was so much to do that I sometimes felt pressured midway through, thinking, "has it always been this much?"

― You say there was a lot of pressure, but as a viewer, I was impressed by how deliberate the production seemed, to the extent that one wouldn't think it was your first time directing. Various elements seemed well-controlled and utilized effectively, like how some material from the first episode was reused in the second, and how the action was strategically employed.

Tachikawa: I'm grateful to hear that. Regarding the distribution of effort, it was decided during the series composition phase where to have ups and downs. I believe it's not good if the first episode is the most interesting throughout the series. We need to keep building excitement towards the latter half. So, if there's a peak point, I thought it's important to intentionally lower the tension afterward and then build it up again. It's not about maintaining high tension from start to finish, but about balancing the ups and downs.

— Speaking of scripts, you're credited for series composition. Kenta Ihara is also credited for "screenplay cooperation." Could you explain how the work was divided?

Tachikawa: I had a slightly unconventional way of working on the script. At the beginning, I wrote the entire storyline I initially had in mind, all the way through to the final episode. Then, when going back to create the scripts, since I already had the story fully formed in my mind, I simply needed someone to provide objective feedback. This could be a producer or someone from the studio, but I thought it would be best to have input from a third party, especially a writer. So, I brought in Ihara-san for that role. He's actually a friend from my university days, and writes scripts for dramas.

— Oh, I see.

Tachikawa: I thought that a writer who had already worked with me in the past might be hesitant to be up front with me. I wanted someone who could give me direct feedback, so I asked him to join the project.

— Were there any parts that were revised based on Ihara-san's input?

Tachikawa: By the time Ihara-san joined, the structure was mostly set, so he provided guidance mainly on the most crucial points that needed adjustment. The first three episodes remained largely unchanged, but for the latter half, Ihara-san and I met more often, and we delved quite deeply into it together.

Characters' answers are presented objectively

— The second episode, "Death Reverse," serves as a sort of answer to the first episode, but was that structure planned from the beginning?

Tachikawa: No, that came about during the process of refining the script. Initially, I had planned to bring the answer section around the middle of the series. And the series initially started with the dark-haired woman already being in the bar. — So the setting was more similar to Death Billiards.

Tachikawa: But we changed the storyline halfway through the production because some people thought it would be more natural to start with their first encounter. At that time, we reorganized the story so that we would look back at what happened in the first episode from the dark-haired woman's point of view.

— You present what seems to be the correct answer to what the characters in episode 1 were going through in the next episode, but there are plenty of other interpretations possible, aren't there? For example, one could interpret it as Machiko falling into despair and emptiness after completely losing faith in her husband, who had lost his trust in her. How was this aspect considered? Tachikawa: In the first two episodes, I mainly wanted to convey that this work doesn't disregard all possibilities, and it leaves the interpretations of events up to the viewers. Even if the answers reached by the main characters aren't necessarily the truth, I felt it was necessary to present them authentically. The dark-haired woman believes something along the lines of, "Machiko intentionally became the villain to protect her husband," so that's what she says. It's not that this is definitively the "correct answer," but rather that it's not explicitly presented whether it is true or not. The dark-haired woman comes up with her own answer, Decim comes up with his own answer, and Nona, who was also present, arrives at yet another. — That’s true, the viewers get to hear all their different perspectives.

Tachikawa: On the other hand, it's debatable whether what Machiko said actually protected Takashi in the first place. Takashi is breaking down, and while he might have been freed from the guilt of killing his child, his life and love with Machiko has become a lie. Machiko meets her fate with a pained expression, but whether or not her actions were justified is another story. That said, while we try to keep outcomes ambiguous, we do aim to convey the feelings of each individual character and the answers that they personally come to in the end.

— With the exception of the first two episodes, the stories in the first half are basically standalone, right? Each episode introduces new guests and a new game. These days, it's rare to see an original TV anime where each episode ends with a standalone story.

Tachikawa: We wanted to challenge ourselves in a variety of ways, and that's why we made the episodes self-contained. One aspect of this is that it allows us to tackle a variety of topics. It’s fun to aim for a comedic tone, or maybe try a romantic subject; there’s a lot we can explore with this format. I also like the challenge of being able to create a complete narrative arc within the relatively short duration of each episode. Plus, I think viewers would get tired if they were only presented with intense stories all the time.

Conversational drama like a stage play and passionate performances by the cast

— One of the highlights of each episode is how the guests have different perspectives and gradually reveal their true feelings. Were there any conscious decisions in how to present this?

Tachikawa: When writing the script, I was conscious of creating an atmosphere that feels somewhat like being close to a stage, where the audience is right nearby.

— So, is it like engaging with the audience below the stage?

Tachikawa: Yes, that’s right. Also, regarding the dialogue, I wanted to structure it so that a character’s statement could be contracted by the other. Since everyone has a different perspective, I wanted to craft dialogue where they could refute one another naturally. I focused on ensuring that the tempo of the conversation flowed smoothly without dwelling on which line of dialogue was correct. For example, in episode 4, we have Misaki, a celebrity with a large family. What she feels stems from her background, but whether that resonates with Yosuke, a shut-in, isn’t clear. As mentioned by their actors, Morita Ichisei-san and Yamaguchi Yuriko-san, during the guest talk, the two of them appear to be having a conversation, but in reality, they are not truly communicating. Their perspectives are completely different, so even though they appear to be engaging with one another, their feelings are not reaching the other at all.

— Now that you mention it, I think there's an interesting aspect to the open-ended conversations scattered throughout the show. Tachikawa: I intended for the guest voice actors to perform their roles as though they were on stage, much like the kind of acting you'd see in a play. This series itself is crafted somewhat like a locked-room drama. It's about drawing out emotions from the interactions, almost like a vocal battle. Professional voice actors can bring out a wide variety of performances when you ask them to do so, so as a director, I wanted to challenge them in that regard. The sound director, Satoshi Motoyama-san, has been working with us since Death Billiards, so I feel that he understands the direction we are taking and he provides a ton of support accordingly. Since this series offers a snapshot of human life, I believe the passionate performances by the voice actors are a major highlight. ━┅━┅━┅━┅━┅━┅━┅━┅━┅━┅━┅━┅━┅━┅━┅━┅━┅━┅━┅━┅━┅━┅━┅━┅━┅━┅━┅━ NOTE: I am not fluent in Japanese! I translated this with the help of a language partner. However, as neither of us are fluent in one another’s native tongue, there may be errors in the translation. I typically don’t share things I translate in my free time, but since no one has tackled these interviews in nearly 10 years, I figured it was nice to put these out there for folks who may be interested.

As a personal aside, as much as people insist that "anime is cinema" now, the presentation of the medium as a whole has firm roots in theater; particularly manzai, kabuki, and rakugo. Tachikawa's education in film probably prepared him to portray Death Parade with all the gravitas of a live theater performance while incorporating elements of reality television and his usual cinematic techniques, and I think his efforts really paid off here. That his first endeavor as a series creator, writer, and director was something so tightly produced at the age of 30 is no small effort, especially in the state of the industry at the time. There are many Japanese documentaries and essays that explore the connection between anime and theater. Once I get better at translating and become more educated in these topics as a whole, I'd really like to tackle them one day, because I find them fascinating to learn about and I don't think a lot of anime fans I've spoken to here really appreciate the link between the two mediums.

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Si post fata venit gloria, non propero.**

- Martial

The origins of the King’s Troop, Royal Horse Artillery can be traced back to the formation of the Royal Horse Artillery in 1793 when Captain Quist (a graduate of the Spanish Riding School of Vienna) was tasked with training both horses and gunners to support the Royal Artillery Regiment. Captain Quist clearly loved his job and continued in his post until his death in 1821, aged 91.

Between the First and Second World Wars, all the horses were sold when, in line with the entire British Army, the Horse Artillery was mechanised. But following the Second World War, at the request of King George VI, a saluting battery ‘dressed and equipped in traditional style’ was formed under the command of Lt Col Gillson. This would be the King’s Troop. Their first salute was fired in celebration of the King’s birthday on 24 October 1947 and following his inspection of his newly-formed riding troop, the King announced that he wished it to be known as the King’s Troop, a wish graciously supported and continued by his daughter when she became Queen, in recognition of her father’s special interest in the Troop.

Today the Troop’s duties include the firing of Royal Salutes on Royal anniversaries and State occasions, participation in Armistice Day parades, the Lord Mayor’s Show and the King’s birthday parade. As part of the Household Troops, the Troop also performs the duties of the King’s’s Life Guard at Horse Guards for one month each year. Perhaps the most famous of the Troop’s duties is the provision of the gun carriage and team of black horses for State and Military funerals.

Of the 154 soldiers in the unit, very nearly half are female, an unusually high percentage for the British Army since women were allowed to apply in 1996. Between them, they look after 120 horses. At the moment, The King's Troop boasts the Army's first ever female Master Tailor, Sgt Emma Colton. The colourful uniform itself is a work of art and more a piece of armour than the glamorous black, gold and red kit it presents as. Lined in pigskin, it is constructed to protect its wearer from sword strikes. The gold brocade protects the chest, the buttons emulate musket balls, while the raised collars prevent penetration of lethal slashes to the neck or throat. There are a huge number of uniform combinations for the King’s Troop, some as subtle as a change of tie. An average day will require four or five changes; for officers this could be as many as 12.

The great attraction of the unit is of course the chance to work with horses. The soldiers not only ride them on ceremonial duties, they also get the chance to compete. Soldiers from the unit have done very well in world wide competitions in show jumping and dressage.

**If glory comes after death, I hurry not.

[distantlaughter]

Nico Rosberg: "In my daydreams, I'm sometimes a rock star"

by Jörg Böeckem for Die Zeit, 24 July 2014 (x)

In my dreams, I am always late. I've lost track of time. When I reach the race track, I see that all the other drivers are already buckled up in their cars. It's just before the race starts, I run up to my car and jump in, frantically trying to fasten my seat belts. If the six belts don't fit exactly, the race will be extremely uncomfortable. Before everything is in place and I'm ready, the lights change to green, giving the go-ahead for the start. When I can finally start, the others are already on the track. I am also the last one at the finish.

This nightmare has been with me for many years. I recently talked to my father about it. He said that, strangely enough, he used to dream exactly this dream over and over again.

Accidents never happen in my dreams, fortunately. I'm glad that my subconscious doesn't seem to be concerned with that. Negative thoughts can be dangerous. Nevertheless, fear plays an important role, of course. It can also have a positive effect by keeping me from going over my limit. Fear protects me.

One anxiety dream that has stuck in my memory comes from my early childhood. A fever dream that I dreamt again and again when I was sick: I am in an empty room of enormous dimensions. I am very small, and as the space around me gets bigger and bigger, I get smaller and smaller. I feel completely lost and panic. My parents told me that on nights like this, I sleepwalked and went through the closets in my bedroom.

In my childhood I was very good at tennis, I could have imagined a tennis career. Later, after graduating from high school, I enrolled in aeronautics studies in England. The combination of racing, mathematics and physics fascinated me. But then I focused entirely on a single dream.

My dream of becoming a race driver was born in 1995. I was ten years old and accompanied my father to a race in the German Touring Car Championship, it was his last as a professional. Back then, the race cars were still being pushed to the starting grid, I sat on the roof of my father's car, and we slowly rolled around the track¹. My father waved to the cheering crowd, I was too nervous and couldn't wave along. It was gigantic. At that moment I thought: I want to be a racing driver, too!

In my daydreams today, I am sometimes a rock star. I love to sing rock karaoke, at a Christmas party I once had a live band behind me, I sang a U2 song, in front of me 1,500 guests jumped up and down. An incredible thrill! For five minutes I actually felt like a rock star. Standing on stage, moving the masses, giving them a great moment - that's the dream!

¹videos of the parade 1, 2

[allnightlongzine]

The Eternal March of the Black Parade

Twenty years after their debut album and more than a decade after the critics dismissed them, My Chemical Romance stands as one of the greatest rock bands of the 21st century. How did we end up here?

Rob Harvilla | Jul 26, 2022 | theringer.com

Illustration by Brent Schoonover

My Chemical Romance is touring again, Paramore and Jimmy Eat World are headlining a major festival this fall, and there’s a skinny, tattooed white dude with a guitar dominating the charts. In case you haven’t heard, emo is back, baby! In honor of its return to prominence—plus the 20th anniversary of the first MCR album—The Ringer is following Emo Wendy’s lead and tapping into that nostalgia. Welcome to Emo Week, where we’ll explore the scene’s roots, its evolution to the modern-day Fifth Wave, and some of the ephemera around the genre. Grab your Telecasters and Manic Panic and join us in the Black Parade.

Our story starts in New York City on September 11, 2001. It just does. Suspend your disbelief; respect his audacity. But is it really so hard to believe, and is it really so audacious, that Gerard Way—then a 24-year-old New Jersey native, NYC art school graduate, and creatively stifled Cartoon Network intern—would choose that awful, vulnerable, crushingly human moment to reimagine himself as something immortal, someone superheroic? “That felt like the end of the world,” he told Newsweek in 2019. “It felt like the apocalypse. I was surrounded by hundreds of people on a dock on the Hudson River, and we watched the buildings go down, and there was this wave of human anguish that I’ve never felt before. Since then, I’ve continued to think about what we would do at the end of the world if we knew we only had a little time left.”

Standing on that dock, what Gerard decided he would do was channel his shock and grief and newfound sense of immediacy into the ultimate rock-star origin story. “Something just clicked in my head that morning,” he told Spin magazine in 2005. “I literally said to myself, ‘Fuck art. I’ve gotta get out of the basement. I’ve gotta see the world. I’ve gotta make a difference!’” So he hooked up with a drummer friend from high school named Matt Pelissier (the first of several drummers, alas) and wrote an anguished, furious, and yet startlingly tender pop-punk song called “Skylines and Turnstiles.” It starts like this.

You’re not in this alone Let me break this awkward silence Let me go, go on record Be the first to say I’m sorry Hear me out

Gerard sang and played guitar, though he struggled to do both at once. (It’s harder than it looks.) Slowly, he found other bandmates: Ray Toro and Frank Iero on guitars, plus his own younger brother Mikey Way on bass. Thanks to his gig working at Barnes & Noble, Mikey also contributed a band name: My Chemical Romance, an improvement on the title of an Irvine Welsh book. The band signed with a tiny label called Eyeball Records and released, on July 23, 2002, their debut album, called I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love, produced by New Jersey punk deity and Thursday frontman Geoff Rickly, who’d already mastered the dark art of combining the rawest possible materials into something impossibly gargantuan.

This broken city sky Like butane on my skin Stolen from my eyes Hello angel, tell me Where are you? Tell me where we go from here

“Skylines and Turnstiles” is not, by a long shot, the highlight of MCR’s least-great album. The raw materials are there, of course: the scabrous and shimmering guitars, the breathless downhill-sprint propulsion, the throat-shredding screams to bolster the chorus and punctuate Gerard’s unguarded and brutal horror-flick lyricism. But your first song is never your best. Here, the one called “Honey, This Mirror Isn’t Big Enough for the Two of Us” is better. And the one called “Vampires Will Never Hurt You,” and the one called “Demolition Lovers,” and the one called “Drowning Lessons,” and even the one called “Cubicles.” But as an opening salvo, as the gritty first panel in a dense and ludicrously ambitious comic-book-punk saga, as an achingly sincere attempt to break the awkward silence and roll back the wave of human anguish, as a macabre but heartfelt attempt at genuine connection, Gerard Way’s first song got him where he needed to go, which was firmly on the road to leading everyone where they needed to go.

And after seeing what we saw Can we still reclaim our innocence? And if the world needs something better Let’s give them one more reason, now

It’s the rousing, heartbreaking vocal harmony on the words the world needs something better that shows you what Gerard and his vampiric cohort is really about. Look beyond the eyeliner, the hair dye, the ghostly pallor, the extra-macabre marching band outfits, the wholesale mall-goth hijacking of this band’s whole look, its whole ethos. Don’t flinch at the lyrics no matter how gnarly and nihilistic they seem to get; don’t get too wrapped up in the surreal sensationalism of their flames-and-chaos music videos. Buy the album tie-in comic book or don’t. Just never forget that the closer we get to the end of the world, the tighter Gerard Way means to hold us, to make however much time we have left just that much more bearable.

I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love just celebrated its 20th birthday, and inspired some very excellent anniversary pieces despite being, well, MCR’s least-great album. Their next record was a gleaming and snarling major-label-debut colossus that crowned the fellas as Warped Tour royalty; the record after that was a hilariously overblown rock-opera funeral march and consensus masterpiece that now stands among the greatest emo albums ever born, any era, any wave; the record after that is my personal favorite. Then MCR broke up in 2013, to appropriately operatic dismay, going out as close to On Top as a youngish rock band possibly can.

There was no explicit tabloid-roiling catalyst, no real drama, except no drama is not exactly this band’s vibe. Gerard’s farewell letter, posted to Twitter three days after the news broke and titled A Vigil, On Birds and Glass, is my personal favorite Rock Band Breakup Explanation Letter, any subgenre, any era, precisely because it captures this band’s precise and fantastic combination of galactically overwrought and unabashedly intimate.

We were spectacular. Every show I knew this, every show I felt it with or without external confirmation. There were some clunkers, sometimes our secondhand gear broke, sometimes I had no voice- we were still great. It is this belief that made us who we were, but also many other things, all of them vital- And all of the things that made us great were the very things that were going to end us- Fiction. Friction. Creation. Destruction. Opposition. Aggression. Ambition. Heart. Hate. Courage. Spite. Beauty. Desperation. LOVE. Fear. Glamour. Weakness. Hope. Fatalism.

And then he expands on the fatalism part as a way of explaining why, exactly, this band broke up after only 11 years and four albums.

That last one is very important. My Chemical Romance had, built within its core, a fail-safe. A doomsday device, should certain events occur or cease occurring, would detonate. I shared knowledge of this “flaw” within weeks of its inception. Personally, I embraced it because, again, it made us perfect. A perfect machine, beautiful, yet self aware of its system. Under directive to terminate before it becomes compromised. To protect the idea- at all costs. This probably sounds like something ripped from the pages of a four-color comic book, and that’s the point. No compromise. No surrender. No fucking shit. To me that’s rock and roll. And I believe in rock and roll.

He goes on at great length. It’s wild, it’s lovely, it’s absurd, it’s genuinely moving. The fellas found stuff to keep them busy post-breakup, and Gerard most prominently, of course: the solo album, the ongoing and relentlessly off-kilter Netflix series based on his comic book. And then, inevitably, MCR reunited—tentatively in late 2019, and full-throatedly here in 2022, headlining giant festivals and packing arenas as what certainly feels like the first rock-band reunion that anybody’s actually given a shit about in years. Put it this way: If you are a remotely young person who, like Way himself, still believes in rock and roll, My Chemical Romance is very likely why, and it’s worth ruminating on how, exactly, this profoundly strange and desperately necessary band has inspired such belief. Anybody who listened to I Brought You My Bullets in 2002 couldn’t have predicted any of this. But the guys who made it did.

Emo is back, baby! In honor of its return to prominence—plus the 20th anniversary of the first MCR album—we’re diving deep into all things emo.

Grab your Telecasters and Manic Panic and join us for Emo Week.

The most striking song on I Brought You My Bullets—the most Gerard song, the most MCR song, The Most in general—is called “Early Sunsets Over Monroeville.” It begins as a woozy but deceptively gentle waltz but darkens by ominous degrees, and soon Gerard is wailing the line “If I had the guts / To put this to your head,” and maybe you worry for a second that this is the 200,000th uncouth and unnervingly violent post-breakup emo song. And then you find out that Monroeville is in Pennsylvania, and parts of George Romero’s 1978 zombie-flick classic Dawn of the Dead were shot there, and oh, wow, suddenly you realize this is actually a very grim, very romantic song about an inconsolable man realizing he has to kill his no-longer-human wife:

And there’s no room in this hell There’s no room in the next And our memories defeat us And I’ll end this duress

Not the best song, but the most. My Chemical Romance would get truly dangerous, and truly great, when their best and their most intertwined. They signed to a major label; all the coolest kids do. Deal with it. Deal with this, while you’re at it.

“You like D&D, Audrey Hepburn, Fangoria, Harry Houdini, and croquet,” Ray Toro informs Gerard Way at the onset of “I’m Not Okay (I Promise),” one of several monster singles from their 2004 Reprise Records debut, Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge. “You can’t swim, you can’t dance, and you don’t know karate. Face it: You’re never gonna make it.” Cue the high-school-outcast histrionics, the cuddly arena-punk viciousness, Gerard’s destabilizing magnetism as he practically screams in your face, the vintage airbrushed-van metalhead radness of Ray’s guitar solo, and, before the final bone-crushing chorus, a truly bonkers Gerard buildup/breakdown for the ages:

But you really need to listen to me Because I’m telling you the truth I mean this I’m okay (Trust me)

And, boom. There are days when this is the best song ever written. And there are other days when it’s not even the best song on Three Cheers: “Helena” has a majestic Mötley Crüe meets the Misfits chorus, the power chords ascending a stairway to hell, an infinite legion of demons pumping their fists along to every word: So long and good night / So long and good night. Or maybe the power-ballad pyrotechnics of “The Ghost of You” do it for you, the classic quiet-verse-loud-chorus dynamics, Gerard’s unapologetic controlled-screaming melodrama (“At the top of my lungs in my arms / SHE DIES”), the extra-luxe video that recreates D-Day down to the puking soldiers landing on the beach. Tell me these guys aren’t spectacular, and not driven by friction, ambition, LOVE, glamour, and fatalism.

By 2005 MCR are headlining the good ol’ Warped Tour alongside Fall Out Boy, and early-2000s third-wave emo—undaunted in its embrace of pop-punk, of the mall, of teenagers both actual and perpetual—has its very own Queen, and/or Led Zeppelin, and/or Pink Floyd. Suspend your disbelief; respect their audacity. “The main thing that we’ve always wanted to do was to save people’s lives,” Gerard informed the magazine Alternative Press in 2004. “That sounds Mother Teresa–ish and outlandish, but it really does happen. It does make a huge difference. We’ve seen it in action.”

Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, by the way, is a semi-derailed concept album involving two lovers, a man and a woman, who both seemingly die in a gunfight: The man goes to hell, is informed by the Devil that the woman is still alive, and agrees to kill 1,000 evil men in exchange for the chance to reunite with her. I say semi-derailed because during the writing process Gerard and Mikey’s beloved grandmother died—“Helena” is about her—and Gerard considered scrapping the whole thing. “When that happened, I was like, ‘Fuck. Oh, God. How am I going to deal with this story? Does it even matter anymore? Is it just fucking pretentious? Is it bullshit?’” he told Alternative Press. “And then I came to grips with it and said, ‘Fuck it. I’m going to write the songs that I want.’” Even the song called “You Know What They Do to Guys Like Us in Prison” has a certain funereal poignancy to it.

Even for a band already operating at this scale in terms of both ungodly rock-star bombast and naked emotional intimacy—Gerard has gotten increasingly forthright in interviews about his struggles with mental health and substance misuse in this era—My Chemical Romance’s third and biggest and most extravagantly beloved album, 2006’s The Black Parade, struck like a thunderbolt from a clear blue sky. There is an awful lot to absorb here; the marching-band outfits are as good a place to start as any.

The Black Parade is a classic leveling-up record, the fairly conventional tale of a young, ferocious rock band hitting its commercial peak (the album debuted at no. 2 on the Billboard album chart, behind a Hannah Montana soundtrack) with the help of some new big-shot collaborators. It was produced by Rob Cavallo, who probably also produced your favorite Green Day album; the screaming-and-fire video for “Famous Last Words” was directed by Samuel Bayer, who also directed your favorite Nirvana video. (I’m just assuming your favorite Nirvana video is “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”) Several members of the band got severely injured while shooting this, by the way, and somehow you can just tell.

The Black Parade is also an unprecedented and not-at-all-conventional narrative flex credibly described by The New York Times as “a stricken tour de force about coming of age in the post-9/11 era.” It’s a not-at-all-derailed concept album about a man (“The Patient”) dying of cancer while wracked by fear and regret; Gerard decided to add to the verisimilitude by cutting his hair short and dying it a stark silver. (“I wanted to appear white and deathlike and gaunt and sick-looking,” he cheerfully told the NYT.) Liza Minnelli (“I love those guys”) drops by to portray a grieving mother; musically, the klezmer parts somehow hit harder than the heavy metal parts. Influences range from David Bowie to KISS to the Beatles; there is also, as the marching-band uniforms might suggest, a marching band. The scale of this, in every sense, is nearly overwhelming, so if you’re new to it all maybe start out by just putting the caustically hilarious goth-blues anthem “Teenagers” on repeat for six hours.

They said, “All teenagers scare the livin’ shit out of me” They could care less as long as someone’ll bleed So darken your clothes, or strike a violent pose Maybe they’ll leave you alone, but not me

Even five years ago, this record was an easy fan favorite but not necessarily an agreed-upon, era-defining masterwork. “The Black Parade, though well-reviewed at the time, hasn’t accrued the same reputation as other classic albums,” the critic Jeremy Gordon wrote in 2016 in a 10th-anniversary piece for Spin. “It was almost entirely ignored in lists of the best albums of the ’00s run by tastemakers and canon-formers like Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, Stereogum, Billboard, Paste, Complex, NME, and, yes, Spin.” By this record’s 20th anniversary, however, it might be universally hailed as the pop-punk Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band: In 2020, when Rolling Stone unveiled its updated list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, there was The Black Parade at no. 361, not quite as good as Funkadelic’s One Nation Under a Groove, but just a little better than Luther Vandross’s Never Too Much.

You could argue that rock critics ruin everything. You could regard The Black Parade’s steady ascent on lists like this as proof that something essential—a life-affirming secret shared only between MCR and their Day One fans—is being lost. As a Late Pass–holder myself, out of respect/trepidation, I have decided not to argue that the band’s fourth and last album, 2010’s Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, is actually their best album, even though I love it profoundly for both the reliable audacity of its concept (now MCR are Mad Max–esque rebels battling an evil corporation in postapocalyptic California, with the Gerard-penned comic book to prove it) and the chaotic scope of the songs themselves. Get acclimated by putting the song “Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)” on repeat this time.

Danger Days probably includes one too many songs that blatantly reach for Coldplay-style arena-rock uplifting grandeur, but what I will say is that this record’s final attempt at volcanic sentimentality, “The Kids From Yesterday,” totally works, and the album ends with an extra-caustic and extra-hilarious trashing punk tirade called “Vampire Money,” in which Gerard politely declines to contribute a song to the soundtrack of a Twilight movie.

(Come on!) When you wanna be a movie star (Come on!) Play the game and take the band real far (Come on!) Play it right and drive a Volvo car Pick a fight at an airport bar The kids don’t care if you’re alright, honey Pills don’t help, but it sure is funny Give me give me some of that vampire money, come on!

“Originally, what we did was take goth and put it with punk and turn it into something dangerous and sexy,” Gerard explained to the NME. “Back then nobody in the normal punk world was wearing black clothes and eyeliner. We did it because we had one mission: to polarize, to irritate, to contaminate. But then that image gets romanticized and then it gets commoditized.”

This is all delightfully but decidedly rude: There’s an excellent argument that the Twilight universe is every bit as vital and inclusive and life-affirming as any of the rock bands it attempted to romanticize and/or commoditize. But I will laugh at the line Pick a fight at an airport bar forever.

As for MCR’s breakup, and the failsafe doomsday device that triggered it, within a few years Gerard was opening up about it: In 2014 he told the NME that he’d relapsed into alcoholism after Danger Days, and worried that his daughter would grow up without a father; the choice, he concluded, was “Break the band or break me.”

The band first reunited for a single show in 2019 in Los Angeles: “That was definitely the most fun I’ve ever had playing on stage with My Chemical Romance, for sure,” Gerard told the NME, adding that “to me, the new version of My Chemical Romance and the way I want to go about it is exercising less control.” (The NME loves this guy.) The band’s festival-headliner status now is in part a reflection of pop-punk’s bizarrely ascending reputation in the past five years as both a commercial and critical proposition, from Olivia Rodrigo to Machine Gun Kelly to Juice WRLD. But however many sonic and stylistic precedents there might be, there has never been a rock band quite this courageous, spiteful, beautiful, desperate, glamorous, hopeful.

I believe Gerard when he says that this band’s original mission was ��to polarize, to irritate, to contaminate,” but that was never their only mission. MCR was born in an apocalypse, and designed to help us all survive it. Us meaning actual teenagers, not critics, but we caught on eventually. We are all bandwagoners on the Black Parade now. Meanwhile, the apocalypse is closer than ever, but at least we can all huddle together in the glow. 

[thegirlwiththelilactattoo]

no. 4, or imposter syndrome

I hate the concept of imposter syndrome. It's a term I became familiar with in graduate school during the recruitment and orientation process. Imposter syndrome was invoked a lot in DEI contexts to describe the grad school experiences of students from historically marginalized groups. Imposter syndrome used as a catch-all term able to describe so many different experiences -- but a feeling of not belonging seemed to be a core aspect of imposter syndrome.

From the moment I stepped into my first graduate school class, I felt like I didn't belong. I was the youngest of my peers, the only Black student, and one of a few people who did not previously attend a private university. Most importantly, I did/do not perform "smartness" in a way similar to my classmates. I don't talk in class typically and when I do, I don't name drop people I have read or scholars I know. My on the spot comments are not profound (I was told by a prof l that my comments addressed low hanging fruit :) I'm sure wasn't racist at all! /s) Once issues of class, gender, race, etc. were added to this mix, I felt incredibly insecure throughout the entirety of coursework. I knew I was an imposter. I thought somehow my application presented a moment of brilliance rather than any kind of intellectual rigor that could be sustained for a career.

Because of all the ✨discourse✨, I internalized my experience as "imposter syndrome". I thought that with a postive mindset, being okay with failure, and getting support, that I would feel confident and like I belong :) The onus became all about these interpersonal relationships and relationships to institutions that could somehow be overcome solely through individual means.

People parade imposter syndrome around like toxic positivity and self-help garbage will someone allow an individual to overcome the exact purpose of systems of power, to dominate certain groups for the supremacy of others. I "overcame" imposter syndrome by realizing I was not confident in myself because of an insidious combination of self worth being tied to school and divesting myself from any self worth tied to these institutions.

Imposter syndrome is framed like a personal condition, so it is something that I, as the individual, can cure. There is a point where insecurity will be lessened, where self-confidence will grow, and we will feel like we belong. The concept of imposter syndrome ignores the fact that the reason I feel like an imposter is because the university was never envisioned as a place for Black people, poor people, and queer people. Me feeling like an imposter is the point. It's not something I can fix because it I am not the problem. The psychological response is an appropriate reaction to a culture literally designed to exclude me. Imposter syndrome is a larger part of American culture that seeks deflect responsibility from institutions of power. If imposter syndrome is my problem as a black student, how on earth could it be the university's?

[occult-roommates]

Little Baby Saraswati

Eventually, the group made it to the Cox’s house located in the heart of Del Sol Valley. The place was so big, it was probably as big as their three childhood’s house combined. Immediately, Paisley and her husband, Damian, came to greet them.

Paisley: Welcome! Welcome everyone!

Now at their final destination (2000), Akva, June and Athena could settle down. But you know, they were originally here for someone in particular, so Paisley wasted no time to show up her little girl. She came back from upstairs holding a little girl with green hair like her mom, and blue eyes like her...other mom.

Paisley: Akva, this is Saraswati. Swati, say hi. Swati: Hewo. Paisley: You see, I named her Saraswati cause like, I did my research y’know. So I found out Saraswati is a Hindu goddess who is strongly associated with water, and I wanted her to keep a connexion with both her Indian and mermaidic heritage, but it was extra perfect for me cause I always loved the named Sara which just seems like the natural nickname here. Though I am pretty much always calling her my little Swati, it has a nice ring to it don’t you think? Akva: You’re right, that is a greatly thought out name. Paisley: Do you want to hold her? Akva: Uh...Sure.

Paisley gave the toddler to Akva. However, as soon as Swati was in her arms, she started wiggling around yelling “noooooo” and screaming for her mommy.

Paisley: Oh um...well...She’s probably hungry, it’s almost dinner time after all. Also she refused to nap during the afternoon so she might be a bit cranky. Akva: Why? Paisley: That’s toddlers for you. They can be mad unpredictable. Though maybe she was too excited to sleep cause I told her we’re having very special guests this weekend.

And so, Paisley gave Swati a little ham sandwich while the adults sat down to figure out what they were going to eat tonight. They settled for getting food delivered and while they were waiting, they discussed about what they had all been up to in the last few years.

Akva: I’m going to flight school. June: Bitch since when??? Two days ago you were crying to me on Snapchat that you failed all of your classes but one...You’re studying physical therapy. Akva: Going. Future tense. I’ve decided that if traditional college can’t work out for me that’s what I’m gonna do, and it’s currently, indeed, not working out. June: Still? You never ever showed any interest for that before? Athena: Well, speaking of college, I just recently graduated in video editing! Paisley: Wow, congratulation! You know, I’m looking for a new editor for my YouTube channel, the last one quit to work on a movie, so if you’re looking for a job, I’m just saying... June: By the way, why don’t you ever show Saraswati or even say her name? She’s cute, don’t hide her. Paisley: Well, I believe showing your kids on the Internet is highly unethical when they’re too young to consent or even comprehend that. I mean, it’s one thing if you’re just a random person on Facebook who’s only friends with people you know in real life and set on private, but I’m an influencer with millions of followers. I’m doing that for her own safety. June: Oh, that’s actually a great reason. You’re such an unproblematic fav Paisley, it’s crazy. Athena: ...Didn’t she sold diet tea that essentially just gives you diarrhea? June: It was in 2018 and she didn’t know any better! Everyone did that back then! Paisley: Oh my god, exactly! I’ve already apologized a million times let it go. Athena: I will if you pay me decently for that editing job.

Akva sat there. She doesn’t watch Paisley’s content, but June did tell her she rarely talks about Swati, which is why she still didn’t know after 18 months what her name was. To be fair, it’s also because she didn’t wanna know up until now...Still, she was happy she wasn’t parading the little girl around and acting like she’s such a great person for adopting, but like...What if in actually it’s the other way around and she’s hiding Swati cause there’s dark stuff going on behind the scene?

But no, thankfully, everything seemed to be well and Swati clearly loves her adoptive family. Good right? ...So why did it made her so sad?

Swati: I wuv you mommy. Paisley: Me too sweetie! But yeah, anyway, you’ll notice a lot of her stuff are pink, cause like I found out I was gonna have a girl and I went crazy. But like, I’m not forcing her or anything, now that she’s old enough to start to develop her personality, I’m always encouraging her to express herself and I let her pick the colors of her clothes and stuff. Like in the toy store I just let her guide me and she can pick from any section. I don’t care, it’s 2021 my daughter can play with cars if she please just like she can play with doll. We also buy her a lot of pool toys so she can have fun while staying a little hydrated mermaid. Damian: Her favorite toy actually is a horse figurine she found at my parents’ place. It’s adorable, it’s as big as her face. Paisley: And this summer, we’re gonna go to Guyana so she can see her parents’ motherland. She’s still young, but you know it’ll only be the first visit, we’ll make sure she gets to visit it plenty of time growing up. Athena: Actually, that’s only Akva. My dad is Trinidadian and my mom is Greek. Paisley: Oh my god, that’s perfect! We were also planning on going to Greece this fall! Akva: I-I need to go to the bathroom. Damian: Go to the living room, and turn left. It’s right there.

The mermaid left the table with a big smile on her face, which faded as soon as she was out of sight. 

Why was this making her so sad, so angry? She knows she cannot raise Saraswati, she doesn’t have the money, resources or space to do so. The Coxs are clearly amazing parents who care for their daughter deeply and love her so much. They are doing everything adoptive parents should be doing so perfectly, it’s almost comical. It almost felt unfair how good Paisley was at being a mom compared to what she would have been had she raised Saraswati herself. She’s the one who gave birth, the one who had her womb hijacked for nine months and now has her body permanently altered, so why isn’t this coming naturally to her??? At the same time, she’s not even sure if she does want to be a mom eventually, and she knows she can’t right now!! And even if she could, Saraswati is already attached to Paisley and Damian and loves them, she can’t take her away from them. Fuck, she herself has never even been to Guyana!

Such a weird, weird feeling to have...

Prev - Next

[platonicallylovesick]

So, Senior Sunrise

I'm a senior in highschool as of... an hour from now. And as such, I'm listening to music that kinda sets the theme, songs that look forward to the future. As of now, this playlist consists of Good Life (One Republic), Passing Through (Kaden MacKay), When Can I See You Again (Owl City), and A Million Dreams (P!nk's Version)

And while I was listening to them, I ended up reflecting on the world I'm going to be moving into as an adult. And how much that Million Dreams doesn't represent it the way that it should. The song is fantastic of course, but I realized that I just doesnt line up with the world that we live in.

When I close my eyes, I dont see a million dreams of bright colors and a world that I'm going to make. I see nightmares of a failing economy, struggling through dead-end jobs, and just trying to get by as one person in a giant world that seems to want to crush me. I'm ADHD and more than likely autistic, though undiagnosed for both, and that combined with being younger Gen Z makes just trying to get through the world SO DIFFICULT, especially when I live through another chapter in tomorrow's history textbooks every other day. So much is happening and its so hard to keep up with it.

This new world that I'm moving into is nothing like the one I feel I've been promised. I remember when my sister graduated her middle school to A Million Dreams, and it felt so hopeful and tangible. Now, almost 6 years later, Million Dreams feels so distant and unreal. It doesnt align with anything that's happening and feels almost saddening.

My Senior Year songs and mood align a lot more with a song like Passing Through or Good Life. Passing Through's message about the panic of time moving relentlessly while we have to struggle to learn how to seize the moment and let time pass through. Good Life is the kind of energy I cling to as I try to navigate this world. Sometimes bullshit happens and things dont work out, but it's okay, and you can move past it, because after all, we're alive, right? This CAN be a good life, even if its rough and confusing, and there's a lot of awful stuff. We're young enough to say that this is a good life.

When Can I See You Again represents to me, moving on. Letting go of the past and taking ahold of the future. It's shining ahead of me, life's too short to leave it behind. Several of Owl City's song's hold this meaning for me, but I dont think they compare as much to this one, especially since I was really young when it came out and was featured in a parade I was watching. Its just such a specific brand of joy and excitement towards the future, it reminds me that I'm young and there IS a world out there for me to explore without building up as much of the emotion as A Million Dreams does, not building it up as something wonderful that I can make mine, but just as something out there that I can go through as a young, bright spirit.

[newsriveting]

Combined graduation parade at Air Force academy

Air Chief Marshal VR Chaudhari inspecting the parade Team News Riveting Dundigal, June 15 The Combined Graduation Parade (CGP) was held at the Air Force Academy (AFA), Dundigal on Saturday, to mark the successful culmination of training of 235 flight cadets of flying and ground duty branches of the Indian Air Force. Air Chief Marshal VR Chaudhari, Chief of the Air Staff (CAS), the Reviewing…

[hamslivenews]

On Saturday, President Droupaid Murmu expressed her satisfaction with the Indian Air Force (IAF) for now including women officers in all roles and branches. Addressing the cadets during the impressive Combined Graduation Parade (CGP) of the 211th course at the Air Force Academy (AFA) in Dundigal, President Murmu noted the significant presence of women fighter pilots, which is expected to rise even further. She described the cadets' career as challenging, rewarding, and deeply honorable, emphasizing their responsibility to carry on the remarkable legacy of their predecessors in the Indian Air Force. Highlighting the Indian Air Force's inspiring motto, "Touch the sky with glory" or "Nabhah sprisham deeptam," President Murmu expressed her confidence in the cadets' ability to embrace the spirit of this motto and fulfill the nation's expectations. She also acknowledged the illustrious history of the Indian Air Force, with its brave warriors defending the country during the wars with hostile neighbors in 1948, 1965, and 1971. President Murmu commended their unwavering determination and skills demonstrated in the Kargil conflict and their subsequent mission to destroy a terrorist hideout in Balakot. Consequently, the Indian Air Force has earned a legendary reputation for professionalism, dedication, and self-sacrifice.

[tynatunis]

Emmanuelle Simon conçoit la première base parisienne de la marque franco-japonaise Evidens de Beauté, tout en travaillant sur plusieurs projets de spa, boutique et appartements privés à Paris et à Val d'Isère. En 2019, Emmanuelle Simon remporte le Wallpaper* Design Award du 'Best Calm Spot' pour La Maison Evidens de Beauté et fait partie des 100 designers de l'année selon le numéro spécial d'AD. #Repost @birgitotteinterior Beautiful inviting Paris interior designed by Emmanuelle Simon Photos by Damien de Medeiros /3 others. What do you think ? I really enjoy this gorgeous place -love light atmosphere and the natural color tones and materials in combination with the white walls 🤍🤍🤍 . . . all via @kellybehunstudio Via @jessicagersteninteriors . . Design @emmanuelle_simon 📸 @damiendemedeiros . . .Having graduated from the École Camondo in 2012, the French-Israeli interior architect and designer Emmanuelle Simon continued to devote herself to these two disciplines by starting her career off with Jean-Marie Massaud and Pierre Yovanovitch. These formative years gave her the opportunity to work on prestigious projects all around the globe, building experience in designing both public projects and private homes. After creating her own agency in 2017, she won the Public’s Prize at the Design Parade in Toulon with her ‘La Chambre sur l’eau’ (Bedroom on the water) project, and presented the Raku-Yaki cabinet-bar at Révélations at the Grand Palais. She is currently expanding the range with a collection of exceptional furniture and lighting. . LiveArtfully#helmutnewton #mamiyarz67 #georgesjouve #luisbarragan #donaldjudd #vincenzodecotiis #charlotteperriand #josephbeuys #josephdirand #axelvervoordt #parisiandesign #mediterraneandesign  #jeanroyere #markrothko  #miesvanderrohe #pierrepaulin #ettoresottsass #jamesturrell #jeanprouvé #bottegaveneta #pierrechapo #midcenturydesign #bytyna https://www.instagram.com/p/CmZ-41QNBEp/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[hummingzone]

Indian Air Force Undergoing Monumental Transformation: IAF Chief

Indian Air Force Undergoing Monumental Transformation: IAF Chief

IAF Chief RKS Bhadauria addressing a Combined Graduation Parade at the Air Force Academy in Hyderabad. Hyderabad: The Indian Air Force (IAF) is undergoing a monumental transformation with rapid infusion of technologies due to rapidly evolving security challenges coupled with rising geopolitical uncertainty in the neighbourhood and beyond, IAF Chief RKS Bhadauria said on Saturday. Addressing a…

[vilaspatelvlogs]

चीन पर एयर चीफ मार्शल भदौरिया ने कहा- हम किसी भी चुनौती का जवाब देने के लिए तैयार, गलवान में जवानों की शहादत बेकार नहीं जाएगी

चीन पर एयर चीफ मार्शल भदौरिया ने कहा- हम किसी भी चुनौती का जवाब देने के लिए तैयार, गलवान में जवानों की शहादत बेकार नहीं जाएगी

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पासिंग आउड परेड के बाद 19 महिलाओं समेत 123 अफसर वायुसेना में शामिल हुए

लद्दाख में चीन से झड़प में शहीद हुए तेलंगाना के कर्नल संतोष बाबू को श्रद्धांजलि दी गई

दैनिक भास्कर

Jun 20, 2020, 09:01 AM IST

हैदराबाद. दुन्दिगल में स्थित इंडियन एयर फोर्स एकेडमी में शनिवार को पासिंग आउट परेड हुई। इस दौरान चीन पर एयर चीफ मार्शल आर के एस भदौरिया ने कहा कि हम किसी भी चुनौती का जवाब देने के लिए तैयार…

[wordsfromthesol]

Reconciliation

Author: @wordsfromthesol Taglist: togasbetch @malfoys-demigod @pricetagofficial Pairing: Tim Drake x Reader Summary: You seek the help of an old friend when you accidentally end up in the middle of a blood bath. Word Count: 1.8k

It all started ages ago, when you walked into the same class as the infamous Timothy Drake. If it wasn't for the Wayne Grant, your parents would never have been able to send you to such a fancy school…not that you understood that at 5 years old. Since that day the two of you were inseparable. You had practically lived at Drake Manor, and when Mr. Freeze killed your parents, you did. Not that Jack and Janet had any idea.

A few years later Jack and Janet were gone and Tim was taken in by none other than Bruce Wayne himself. Thankfully, Tim let you remain in his house. At first, everything was normal, but after the first year, he started to visit you less and less. He became more distant and secretive with each interaction and eventually, he stopped coming altogether. You made the decision to leave once you graduated high school, after all, it had been over a year since Tim had bothered to come see you. What would he care?

You jumped on a bus, clutching a backpack full of your belongings…and a few things from the Drake Manor. Somehow you lucked into a full-time nanny job for some wealthy family a few hours away. You were afforded a small living quarters, a stipend, and access to anything already at the mansion. The little girl was only 3 years old at the time. It's hard to believe that was 2 years ago.

You and Kaylee were upstairs when you heard a large group of people force their way through the front door. As you peaked out of the room, you saw a parade of people with their guns drawn. Immediately you rushed back into the room and whispered, "We are going to play a game."

"Game?" The child's ears perked up. You nodded your head as you made your way to the window. Opening it, you slowly climbed out and motioned for her to follow. You had no idea how long you stayed up there, pressed against the side of the house praying no one came looking. Eventually, the noises had stopped.

"Wait right here for me, okay?" She nodded as you made your way back to the window. "Don't move a muscle until I come for you." Your mouth hung open as you descended the staircase. Bloodstained the room as bodies littered the floor. As you walked over to the filleted bodies of Mr. and Mrs. Barco, your vision blurred as you felt the back of a hand strike your face. Staggering backward, you opened your eyes to see a man grinning before you. His eyes trailed down your cheek and landed on the sizable ring that graced his own finger. You began to feel the warm blood drip down your cheek. A state of panic washed over you just as you felt your knuckles collide with his ribs. Dodging his next blow, you thrust your shoulder into him and grappled for the gun tucked in his waistband. He looked almost pleased as he stared down the barrel.

"Whatcha gonna do with that, hun?" When you refused to answer, he continued. "You know you're going to be dead soon. What's the point…" Your eyes locked onto his hand, which was slowly inching towards your own.

**

The ringing in your ears had just barely subsided when you reached the top of the stairs. You slowly climbed out the window and ushered Kaylee to come inside. Her feet had just touched the ground as the words lucidly fell from your lips. "I need you to promise me that you won't open your eyes. We are going on a surprise trip." If Kaylee could tell something was wrong, she wasn't letting you know. You walked as fast as you could with the small child on your hip.

Your mind had gone completely blank, your eyes glazed over as you drove. You didn't know where you were going, but your motions seemed instinctive. As you pulled up to the gates, everything began to wash over you. Pressing the call button, the only words you could stutter out were: "It's Y/N. I need Tim." Thankfully, the message worked and the gates began to open. You drove up to the ornate front door, but couldn't force yourself out of the car. A knock on the window shook you out of the trance. It was Alfred.

"Mx Y/N, welcome. Perhaps you and your guest would be more comfortable in the house. I have already summoned Master Timothy." You just nodded as you stepped out of the car. Every move your body made relied on muscle memory: opening the back door of the car, unfastening Kaylee's car seat, placing her on the ground beside you. Alfred led you inside to the kitchen before kneeling down and facing Kaylee. "And what is your name?"

"KAYLEEEE!" She gleefully screamed at him.

"Ahhh, Miss Kaylee. How would you like a snack?" Kaylee's eyes went wide as she furiously nodded her head up and down. Kaylee looked up to you for permission as Tim rounded the corner, already speaking.

"Alfred, what's so --" Tim froze as he saw you sitting at the kitchen counter.

"You my Y/N/N's friend?" Kaylee narrowed her eyes as she glared at Tim. Her eyes softened as Tim slowly shook his head yes. "Make sure they get ban aid. Prefably a princess one." Once satisfied, she turned her attention back towards Alfred and her snack.

**

You turned towards Tim, revealing the gash on your cheek surrounded by a newly forming bruise. Tim rushed to your side, grasping your hand in his, just as the words began spilling from your mouth. "Tim, I'm so sorry. I just didn't know where else to take her. They were dead..."You felt your body giving out, "all of them…"

"Calm down. We'll figure this out. You need rest." He refused to let you speak anymore as he scooped you up from the chair and carried you upstairs. Carefully, Tim sat you on his bathroom counter and began cleaning the wound. Once it was bandaged he brought you over to the bed. "Now what happened?" He looked at you, his heartbreaking as he watched the tears fall from your eyes.

"They're dead. So many bodies. Tim, I can't see anything but blood." You collapsed into his chest, trying to conceal the overwhelming panic.

**

You had no idea how long you stayed like that, all you know is you woke up with Kaylee cuddled to your chest and Tim sitting at the adjacent desk.

"Tim?" His eyes shot up at the sound of your voice. You slowly got up and walked down the hall and into the study. You didn't check to see if Tim was following you, but you knew he was. Ignoring the unknown man already occupying the room, you continued onto the balcony. "I just don't know what happened." Your eyes glazed over as you stared into the distance. You knew if you looked at Tim, you would break down again. "People stormed in with guns. Me and Kaylee hid. Once I came back in, everyone was dead. Her whole family. Their security team. Everyone. And then this man came up and struck me. I thought I was dead. All I could think of was Kaylee, sitting on the roof, alone, confused. And I shot him." You turned around and stared into Tim's dark blue eyes. "They're going to kill me now. Aren't they?" The tears bubbled up, but you refused to let them fall.

"Y/N, how much did you know of that family?" Concern laced his voice. That voice that you hadn't heard in years. That voice that used to be your home.

"They were rich and needed a nanny." You looked down at your fiddling fingers, "I didn't have many options, so I didn't ask any questions."

Tim took a deep breath, pushing down his anger. "They are…were one of the biggest crime families in the country." The words rang in your mind as you forced your eyes back on the horizon. You didn't even realize Kaylee had woken up and walked into the study. Or that the unidentified man took her by the hand and led her from the room carrying a fairytale book. "You really didn't know?" Tim's brows furrowed.

Too many emotions were spinning around your head until one of them exploded. "Why the fuck would I know that?!" You made no attempts to sedate your anger.

"You worked for them for years, Y/N!"

"Well clearly you knew, so maybe an old friend should've warned me!" The anger wasn't geared towards him, not really. Though seeing him again, feeling all this again, that's something you never thought you'd have to do. And that was just the icing on the cake. An eerie silence blanketed the air. "I shouldn't have come here," you mumbled before turning to leave. "I shouldn't have put you in danger."

**

Tim stood stoic as your words played over and over in his mind. He never told you of his nightly activities for this exact reason. So you wouldn't be thrust into this chaotic world. And now here you are, begging for his help, and he let you walk away. Again.

A pillow slammed into his face, knocking him from the stupor. "Probably not a good idea to let them leave. Love of your life, Barco heiress, not a great combination."

"Shit." Tim pushed past Jason, ignoring his snide remarks because unfortunately, he was right. Tim grabbed your arm just as you opened the front door. "Wait!" Tim yelled as he pushed the door closed. "I can't let you leave."

"Wh --"

"Look," Tim cut you off and began pulling you through the house. "I need to show you something."

**

"Where…where am I standing right now?"

"The Batcave." His voice faltered as he stopped in front of his Red Robin costume.

"So you're a superhero? Are you kidding me?"

"I don't have any powers, so I don't think I would qualify…" Tim's voice trailed off as he watched your eyebrows raise and a disapproving smirk form. "Anyways. I can help. I want to help."

"I can't ask you to do that." You tried to turn away, but Tim laid his hands on your shoulders. His eyes lingered on yours.

"You were supposed to be safe. Away from me. That's the only reason I let you go. I was wrong. You're safer with me and I'm not letting you go again."

[britishassistant]

The Villainous Paranoiac Just Wants An Uneventful Holiday (Part 2)

You need a break from your break at this rate.

You are exhausted.

You and Grim arrived back at the dorm with maybe ten minutes to spare before the other students came back from the parade and immediately set about working on completing your escape route as quickly as possible.

Only for the guy you’ve mentally dubbed “Scarabia Student A” to come to your door and tell the pair of you apologetically that because of Grim’s threats, Asim-senpai had decreed that neither of you would be allowed lunch and needed to remain locked in your room until defensive magic practice that afternoon.

On the plus side, your impromptu imprisonment let you and Grim work on the escape route undisturbed for the next hour. On the down side, it meant you both were starving after the exertion of the parade march and the digging.

The only reason you two didn’t collapse during defensive magic practice was because Viper-senpai snuck you both some bread and dried meats when he came to let you out. He also took the trouble to invite you two to a secret meeting on Asim-senpai’s behavior after dinner tonight.

You have to grudgingly admit, he is good at what he’s doing.

He has Asim-senpai do something cruel, then appears to the victims of said cruelty as a “savior”, doing what he can to soothe their pain “in spite of” his subordinate position to Asim-senpai, cultivating feelings of gratitude and empathy towards himself and resentment towards his puppet.

Even if you know what he’s doing, it’s difficult to resist that instinctual response.

Grim’s subvocal grumbling of “It doesn’t look like that white-haired jerk’s being controlled, fgnah.” is proof enough of that.

This way, once Viper-senpai drives Asim-senpai to overblot, no one will question him fighting against the dorm head he claims to be so loyal to, and his behavior before and during the overblot will make him appear to be the ideal replacement for the “mentally unstable” dorm head.

He’s definitely aiming for the dorm head position. The little performance this morning where he blatantly usurped Asim-senpai’s role of water-provider is proof enough of that.

Still, you muse while shouting out directions to Grim during magic training. Viper-senpai’s either very confident in his magic abilities or very ignorant about overblot to think that inducing it in Asim-senpai is in any way a good idea.

Especially if he’s under the delusion that his Unique Magic could somehow control an overblotted Asim-senpai.

It’d be better to just frame Asim-senpai for the actions he’s already committed under the influence, maybe show him shirking some dorm head duties if that was insufficent. You just don’t understand why Viper-senpai’s going through all this trouble and making a move now instead of closer to whenever elections for dorm heads are held, to make his win seem more legitimate.

Hopefully, you’ll be able to gain more information once you and Grim go along to this evening’s meeting with your plan in mind.

The after-dinner meeting starts pretty much how you expect it to.

Viper-senpai plays on the feelings of the other Scarabia students masterfully, painting himself as a concerned friend who only wants what’s best for his dorm head, but is at a loss due to Asim-senpai’s refusal to listen to reason. You and Grim give the input he clearly wants when he subtly cues you to.

However, when Grim tells him to just challenge Kalim for the position, Viper-san crosses his arms and coldly states, “No. There’s no way I can do that.”

Wait.

What?

“Gak! Y-you were the one who asked for advice, yanno...” Grim mutters, clearly as off-kilter as you feel.

From there Viper-senpai subtly divulges the sordid details of his slavery to the Asim family due to the circumstances of his birth, and how that conglomorate has been interfering on Asim-senpai’s behalf and at Viper-senpai’s expense for the entirety of their time at Night Raven College.

And all the while you’re sitting here, head feeling like it’s spinning a million miles a minute, trying to stop yourself from over-empathizing with the vice dorm head and figure out what this all means.

You don’t doubt for a single second that what he’s saying about the Asim and Viper families is true. However, his actions thus far have shown he is gunning for the dorm head position, even using this show of vulnerability to manipulate the other students into following him.

But why put himself and his family in such jeopardy for a simple school title?

“Asim-senpai doesn’t embody ‘the spirit of Scarabia?’ What does that mean?” You ask, latching onto a thread of the conversation in hopes of getting some clarity.

“There are different requirements for the position of dorm head in each of the seven dorms that a candidate must meet, which are taken from the virtues of the Great Seven.” Viper-senpai explains. “Duels are just an easy way to determine if the current dorm head meets that criteria or not. For example, in Pomefiore, the dorm head must have the greatest expertise in poisons, like the Beautiful Queen before them.”

One of the other students says something about Viper-senpai’s prudence and tactical thinking is much more like the Sorcerer of the Sands than Asim-senpai, but it sounds distant and far away to your ears.

Your brain is too busy buzzing over this new piece of information.

The dorm heads are supposed to be those who best embody the Great Seven.

The same Great Seven who’ve been appearing in your dreams practically every night before the overblots in their corresponding dorms happen.

What if— what if the reason that all the overblots this far have been dorm heads isn’t because the position of dorm head itself and the stresses it causes?

What if it’s because the criteria for the position of dorm head corresponds to the member of the Great Seven that dorm represents, which might contribute to who goes over the edge somehow?

After all, if you’re going by magic use and stress alone, then Buchie-senpai would’ve been the most likely candidate for overblot during the Magift incident. He did Laugh With Me an entire horde of civilians to stampede the coliseum after all.

But it was Leona-senpai, who best embodied the positive and negative qualities of the King of the Savannah, who ultimately overblotted. You even said it to him yourself when you asked him for help in investigating potential overblots outside of Night Raven College before the break. You thought at the time that his overblot was just because of the level of mental stress he was under, but if his status as a personification played a major role somehow...

But, then that means—

That means Asim-senpai isn’t automatically guaranteed to overblot because he’s a dorm head.

But Viper-senpai’s plan just plays off the common denominator of past overblots to make him seem in enough danger of doing so that the authorities are forced to recognize the signs and remove him from the position that’s “stressing” him so much.

Even the Asim family can’t object if the school is acting in the interests of their son’s mental health. They likely as not would decide to remove him from the “toxic environment” of Night Raven College altogether, either by transferring him to Royal Sword Academy or by paying for Asim-senpai to graduate early.

Though wouldn’t that mean Viper-senpai, as Asim-senpai’s servant, would be forced to leave with him? Or does he think that he’ll be able to convince the Asims to let him stay somehow?

In any case, that’s why you and Grim are still trapped here—because Viper-senpai’s under the impression that you both have some direct line to that useless birdbrain of a headmaster and can report the situation back to him.

But the amount of magic needed to keep up the charade until the headmaster actually notices, combined with the fact that everyone is saying that Viper-senpai is the rightful embodiment of the Sorcerer of the Sands means—

“Viper-senpai, you’ve got to run!”

You seize onto him, desperation evident in your face.

Viper-senpai retreats a step or two, blinking in alarm as you follow him to not lose your grip on his hand or his clothes. “Prefect, what—?”

“You said it yourself!” You can barely keep your voice from edging into hysteria. “You’re closest to Asim-senpai, and the way things are going, he’s going to overblot just like Rosehearts-senpai did. A-and overblots are illogical, they’re practically insane with hatred! They go after the people closest to them— you remember how badly Buchie-senpai was hurt when Leona-senpai overblotted, right?!”

Viper-senpai’s eyes are fixed on you as you shake your head, reliving those awful memories. “The only reason Trey-senpai didn’t die when Rosehearts-senpai overblotted was because Ace and Deuce got in his way and pissed him off more. If you stay in Scarabia...Viper-senpai, you’re in more danger than anyone else here! You need to get out of here, please, just run!!”

Please, you mentally beg as you stare at him. Please take the out I’m giving you. Call it off here, get out, get away, change your name, do whatever you have to to escape. Just, please, please don’t overblot on me too.

Viper-senpai’s brow furrows.

He slowly shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Prefect. Even if I wanted to, I’m bound to Kalim. I must follow him to the end.”

“But you could die.” You make no effort to hide your dismay, hands clenching around what they hold. “I-I can’t...pl-please don’t make me...”

His free hand begins moving towards your uninjured cheek—

CRASH!!

The sudden commotion makes the two of you leap apart, staring wildly at the source of the noise.

Grim sits dazed in the center of several overturned metal dishes and a golden lion-shaped tureen.

“Ow, ow, ow, that huuuurt!” He complains loudly, rubbing his little head. “What the heck, why’s this dumb thing empty if it smells good?! Aah, I’m so hun—”

“SSSHH!!” Practically everyone in the room hushes.

“Could you be any louder?!” Scarabia Student B hisses, looking around.

“Do you wanna just begin screaming for the Dorm Head, you stupid cat?!!” Scarabia Student A whispers furiously. “Seriously, if he wakes up and sees us here like this, we’re dead tomorrow, don’t you get that?!”

“Sheesh, I’m sorry.” Grim harrumphs, wandering back to his cushion. “It was just an accident, what’s gotten you all so worked up, fgnah?”

“Oh gee, I wonder why.” A third student somewhere near the back mutters.

“They were having a moment.” You think you hear a fourth student hiss, but you’re pretty sure you’ve misheard that one.

Viper-senpai clears his throat and goes to peer out into the hall. “...There’s no sign of movement. I think we’re safe, for the moment.”

You fiddle with your tie and collar, trying to straighten them as much as you can. “I-I apologize for my outburst. My behavior was inappropriate and not conducive to the matter at hand.”

Viper-senpai huffs a little laugh. “Don’t be. You’re only looking out for others’ wellbeing, that’s nothing to be ashamed of. You know better than anyone how dangerous these kinds of things are, after all. You’ve survived three of them.”

“Four.” Grim corrects from his cushion, tail flicking back and forth. “There was that creepy one in the Dwarf Mines that broke Yuu’s ribs at the start of the year, right Yuu?”

Your tie feels a little tight as you finish adjusting it, fidgeting under everyone’s scrutiny. “...yes. It’s a long story.”

“Will the dorm-head really overblot though?” The kid you’ve mentally dubbed “Scarabia Student B” pipes up. “I just can’t see it...”

“Well, he has exhibited a lot of the symptoms shown by other dorm heads before their overblots.” You say carefully. “An obsession with achieving a certain goal is something Rosehearts-senpai, Leona-senpai, and Ashengrotto-senpai all had in common, and Asim-senpai’s desire to improve Scarabia does fit this pattern.”

“Is there nothing that can be done for him Prefect?” Viper-senpai urges, gripping your shoulders. “Kalim may be unreliable at times, but I grew up with him. He calls me his friend. Are you saying there’s no way we can stop him from overblotting?”

You shrug gently, trying not to dislodge him. You don’t want his hackles raised now. “I’ve yet to see an overblot prevented, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Keeping him from using too much magic would be a big plus, because the blot would have less of a chance to build up. Other than that, it might be best to prepare for the worst? Just in case.”

“Maybe call the family doctor on the sly!” Grim chips in. “See if he can come here to take Kalim home rather than the other way round!”

Viper-senpai nods slowly, like someone accepting news of an imminent loss. “I’ll certainly take your advice into consideration. However, I will not leave. I can’t abandon the dorm—can’t abandon Kalim— during this crisis. I won’t run and leave everyone to face the danger alone.”

“Vice dorm head!” One of the younger students chokes out.

It feels like something hard and unforgiving is lodged against your breastbone.

“I-I won’t let it.” You stammer, feeling yourself flush a deep red in embarrassment at your verbal blunder. “I won’t let it come to that, Viper-senpai. I’ll stop this overblot. No matter what it takes. I swear to you, on my life, I’ll stop it!”

Viper-senpai gives you a not unkind chuckle, meeting your gaze head-on. “Well then, Prefect. I’ll be in your care.”

You can’t hold it for more than a few moments, your breath hitching as you look away. It feels like there’s so much blood in your cheeks that the one Asim-senpai slapped earlier is beginning to hurt again.

“We-we’ll help out too, Jamil!” Scarabia Student A claims, standing up as well.

“Y-yeah! You’re much more fit to be dorm head than Kalim-senpai!” Two more students in the back push towards the front.

“Our dorm head should be someone who embodies the virtues of the Sorcerer of the Sands, not someone who paid their way in and is overblotting because they can’t take the heat.” A tall third year proclaims.

“Yeah!”

“You said it!”

“We’re all equal here!”

“You guys...” Viper-senpai looks genuinely touched, staring out at his sea of carefully handled supporters.

“What are you all doing here at this time of night?”

Asim-senpai stands in the doorway, glaring angrily at all of you.

You can’t quite help the two shaky steps back you take.

“Geh, he found us!” Grim mutters, hiding behind your leg.

“Ka-Kalim.” Viper-senpai says, hands held up placatingly. “We were just—”

“It seems I went to easy on you today, if you all are still overflowing with energy this late at night.” Asim-senpai says coldly. “You should go outside to the courtyard to practice magic until you hit your limits.”

A chill goes down your spine. “Asim-senpai, that’s really not a good idea, we were just—”

“You. Shut up.” The dorm head stalks towards you. “Do you think you can presume to order me around? Was one meal enough to make you think that lying tongue of yours could do whatever it wanted? Maybe we should switch to practice using offensive magic this time—you’d make a fine moving target.”

It’s suddenly much harder to breathe.

“D-dorm head!”

“Why you—!” Grim snarls.

“Kalim.” Viper-senpai steps in front of you, blocking you from Asim-senpai’s view. “The Prefect was only referring to your idea of starting the march two hours earlier tomorrow. Everyone needed to be notified of that, so we’ll be turning in now.”

“T-two hours?!” Scarabia Student B gasps, only to be quickly hushed by everyone around him.

“...” Asim-senpai seems to contemplate this for a moment, before closing his eyes. “Very well. But no one will be eating until dinner tomorrow for this failure to listen to directions the first time, understood?”

Viper-senpai opens his mouth to protest again, but then slumps. “...Yes, Kalim.”

Asim-senpai waves a hand. “Well? What are you all waiting for? You’re dismissed.”

The students of the dorm begin to slowly, sullenly file out into the hallway, many of them grumbling and muttering under their breath.

You take the opportunity to escape, scooping up Grim and clapping a cautious hand over your friend’s big mouth so he can’t say anything else as you edge past Asim-senpai.

“Thank you.” You mouth at Viper-senpai as you speed walk out of the room.

He shoots you a small smile in response.

The journey back to your shared room is quick and uneventful, though you feel constantly on edge the entire way there.

You aren’t able to relax until you’ve nodded a “goodnight” to Scarabia students A and B and shut the door firmly behind you, sagging against it.

You really should learn their names at some point.

“Well?” Grim asks after you hear the lock on your door click into place and the guards wander off for their patrol. “Did you get it?!”

The hard and unforgiving feeling against your breastbone hasn’t faded at all.

You turn your back and unbutton your shirt, removing the source of said feeling from its hiding place.

“Your timing with knocking that stuff over was perfect.” You turn back around and flash Viper-senpai’s magic pen. “But we need to get our escape route finished quick, he could notice it’s gone missing any second now.”

You’re sort of amazed that he hasn’t already. You kept expecting to hear someone begin chasing after you and Grim as you left, angrily screaming about the theft. If he hadn’t stepped in for you when you protested magic practice...

Thank Ace and Buchie-senpai that you somehow got away with this.

“Yes!! That’s my minion for ya!!” Grim cackles softly, grin sharp and savage as he leaps back into the hole in the floor. “I still wish I coulda bonked him over the head, but imagine his face once the idiot’s realized he’s been duped!”

“Just so long as that experience stays imaginary.” You mutter, bringing the pen over to the locked window and looking at it under the moonlight that seeps in through the slats.

There’s blot staining over half of the crimson gem.

You wince just looking at it. How much magic has Viper-senpai been using for this much for accumulate?

Still, he’s probably not so stupid that he’ll risk casting magic without it, so ar least he’ll be on magic-using probation for the duration of time that you have it.

All you have to do is keep it away from him until the blot’s dissipated and you can report his plan and living situation to Crowley and other teachers. The other teachers will force the dumb bird to actually do something about Viper-senpai’s slavery. He won’t have a reason to overblot anymore. Everyone wins.

Though unfortunately, you can’t do much about stress-induced blotting, and you have no idea if he can still overblot while separated from his magic pen. Maybe you should investigate whether or not you could just...smash it and get him a new, non-blotted magic pen as a replacement? They do those, right?

“It’s done!” Grim hisses, prompting you to stash the magic pen away again and button up your shirt. “It’ll be a kinda tight squeeze though.”

You purse your lips at the small hole. “...It’ll have to do. We don’t have any time to waste, c’mon.”

To say it’s cramped would be an understatement. You’re more covered in scrapes and dust than you’ve ever been by the time you drop onto the ground of the floor below, panting and wheezing for breath. Your bruised cheek is throbbing again.

“Now I know what it feels like when spaghetti gets made at least.” You whisper.

Grim nods. “You can say that again. Now, we’re in between guard patrols, but we’ve still gotta be extra quiet so they don’t hea—”

GRRRRRARGGHH

You stare at your monster cat’s stomach as its complaining rumble dies away.

“Hey! What’s that noise?!” Comes the patrolling student’s cry.

You close your eyes. “Grim.”

“What?!” He whispers back, ears flicking in embarrassment. “I didn’t get any lunch! I can’t help being super hungry!!”

“Grim.”

“Oi! The Prefect and the cat have broken out again!” A Scarabia guard yells as he rounds the corner. “But how?! I could’ve sworn Achmed said he locked their door!”

“Ah!!” His compatriot cries, pointing up at the hole in the ceiling. “Look!! They’ve totally destroyed the floor of their room! Is that how you pay us back for our hospitality?!”

“How dare you?!” The first guard gasps. “That stuff’s really expensive to fix! Everyone, get over here! We’ve got another escape attempt!!”

“Fgnah! Yuu, let’s go, before their buddies get here!” Grim yelps, taking off down the hallway with you hot on his heels.

You hear the door to your prison slam open behind you, accompanied by Viper-senpai’s infuriated roar of “PREFECT!!”

You bundle Grim under one arm and run faster.

You seriously need a break from your break at this rate.

Hopefully you’ll get one, if you can figure out how to make it out of this dorm alive.