#IT SOUNDS LIKE A PENULTIMATE TUNE IT JUST DOES

[snowshinobi]

if u were a song where in the album would u be

[thatscarletflycatcher]

So you have heard Rick Astley was the unexpected sensation at Glastonbury this year...

and you'd like to get a taster of his music, but you don't know where to start, because you are only/mostly familiar with Never Gonna Give You Up?

This post is for you!

I'll give you a quick overview of his discography, and a recommendation of what I think are the best tracks of each album and why. Aggregated playlist at the bottom of the post.

Whenever You Need Somebody (1987)

This was Rick's debut album, and the one that included Never Gonna Give You Up. If you have heard the piece of trivia that says "if you drop the pitch Kylie Minogue's I Should Be So Lucky, it will sound like Rick Astley"... there's a very easy explanation for that: both were composed by Stock Aitken Waterman, a trio of music producers that wrote several of the most well known eurobeat hits of the late 80s and early 90s (i.e. You Spin Me Like a Record), based on the principles of... well, being very generic and catchy. Half of the tracks of this album were written by them.

Thematically the album is strangely obsessed with cheating, cheating women, and being in love with cheating women, and being heartbroken over them. I don't know what to tell you, sometimes I forget how common this was around that time for the romantic ballad outside of the US (?)

Anyways, of the 10 tracks of the original album, the best (and also most Never Gonna Give You Up-like) are Together Forever, Don't Say Goodbye, and Whenever You Need Somebody.

The album closes with a cover of When I Fall in Love, that to me feels very out of place. Perhaps it was one thing Rick himself was dead set on singing?

This album had a 15th anniversary expanded remaster in 2010, including 3 ""old-new"" songs and 4 remixes (one of them is an extended version of NGGYU). I'll Never Set You Free is remarkable for being one of the creepiest songs this side of Every Breath You Take.

The 2022 remaster:

This one includes one "old-new" track that is a severe earworm, My Arms Keep Missing You (it does deserve the THREE remixes it gets in this album), several remixes of other songs, three instrumentals, AND, most notably for me, three "reimaginings" of NGGYU, Together Forever, and Whenever You Need Somebody as slow piano ballads, very very worth listening if you are into that sort of thing (these were first released in the compilation album The Best of Me (2019)).

It also includes a new version of When I Fall in Love, that really highlights Rick's growth as a singer and an artist, very worth comparing the 1987 to the 2022 one.

The remixes and "old-new" tracks in these anniversary editions come from compilation albums Rick Astley - 12" Collection (1989) and Dance Mixes (1990).

2. Hold Me In Your Arms (1988)

If you liked Whenever You Need Somebody (1987), then Hold Me In Your Arms (1988) is just the thing for you, because it's more of the same, but louder, catchier, and now with less cheating obsession! This time it's 3 out of the 10 songs that are SAW written, one is a cover of The Temptations' Ain't Too Proud To Beg, and the remaining 6 are all by Rick himself, but the tone doesn't shift that much between them.

The first half of the album is non-stop top danceable tunes: She Wants to Dance With Me, Take Me To Your Heart, I Don't Want To Lose Her, Giving Up On Love (big involuntary "I'm killing off Sherlock Holmes" moment for Rick, the not giving up didn't even last a year :P), and Ain't Too Proud to Beg; the second half is not as strong, but also not bad either. It definitely helps that the tracks are ordered in such a way as to slowly slow down till the beautiful sweet soft ballad that closes the album and gives it its name: Hold Me In Your Arms.

I Don't Want to Be Your Lover, the penultimate track, is the first song that feels more like what Rick writes and sings as a more mature artist.

The 2010 expanded remaster is just remixes of some of these songs, I'll Be Fine (which is, quality wise, between the rest of the tracks of the second half) and My Arms Keep Missing You, again.

The 2022 remaster includes even more remixes, reimaginings of She Wants To Dance With Me and Hold Me In Your Arms (I'm not a big fan of either, but they are interesting, as they are much more modern ballad sounding) and instrumental versions of Take Me To Your Heart and She Wants To Dance With Me.

3. Free (1991)

Almost like a pun, this is Rick's first album "free" of SAW. He even grew out his hair! (probably one of the rare cases of a guy to having gorgeous hair that somehow suits his face horribly). The tone moves away from the 80s eurobeat hit into the soul-ish + gospel-ish ballad, which seems to be more like the territory he feels comfortable in. It's a bit of an "experimental" album, in the sense that he's trying new things and new sounds, but it's all very tentative, and the unsure footing is noticeable.

Even so, Cry For Help, written and sung by him was a hit all the same, although it isn't a favorite of mine. In general it's difficult for me to pick favorites here; none of the songs stick out to me as particularly good or particularly bad. If you like slow ballads, you will probably like Cry For Help, Wonderful You, and Behind the Smile. Really Got a Problem is a first sample of a "social" song in his repertoire. Move Right Out, Never Knew Love, and The Bottom Line are more the essence of what his music evolved into later on, whereas In The Name of Love, Be With You, and This Must Be Heaven are dead on the sort of generic adult-contemporary of the early 90s.

4. Body and Soul (1993)

This album takes a more... lounge-ish turn I do not relish. You'd say, okay, but what sets Rick Astley apart from the general adult standard lounge music of whatever decade he sings in? Difficult question to answer, as all questions about vibes are. To me it is a mixture of A) cringe is dead, long live cringe B) earnest feeling C) plain, direct and sometimes quirky lyrics D) It sounds like he's having a good time singing them.

I just cannot really buy the constant "baby" and "lover" in Everytime, for example. And while none of the songs in this album are bad, most of them aren't even fun. Body and Soul and Enough Love I think are the two most interesting tracks here.

That same year, Rick got on hiatus.

5. Keep It Turned On (2001)

This comeback album is a bit of a rarity -it was released in Germany, but never in the UK (although some of its tracks made it to compilations later on), and it's therefore rare to find, which is a pity, because I think it is one of his best!

It is also one of the most early 2000s sounding things ever. It is to 2000s eurobeat and pop ballad what Whenever You Need Somebody and Hold Me In Your Arms were to 1980s eurobeat and pop ballad, so if you are into it, this whole album will be for you.

I have a particularly soft spot for Sleeping, and the way it just sounds like what a 2001-2007 summer night sounded to me; it's very nostalgic. The lyrics, just like the ones in the ballad Breathe, give heartbreak what I perceive to be a more mature tone that I like much more than the treatment it gets in previous albums.

Other highlights are the very danceable Wanna Believe You and Keep It Turned On (this last one a very pick me up song), and on the ballad front, I think Romeo Loves Juliet has the most delicate, enjoyable sound, but Full of You has better lyrics.

6. Portrait (2005)

This album is a collection of covers of classic pop standards, so there isn't much rickness to it at all, and it is to me, personally, a skip; while I usually like Rick's covers in other albums (and I think his reimaginings of the SAW songs are interesting) these are... off. I just don't think the style he picked for them suits at all.

Between this and his following album, Rick released two independent singles: Lights Out (2010) and Superman (2012) which I think are both peak Rick and worth a listen; earnest, simple feeling and catchy sound.

7. 50 (2016)

This is my favorite Rick Astley album, and it seems I'm not alone in this! It was the first album of his to be number one since his debut one. He sung AND played all instruments for it, and it really feels like a personal project, that brings the artist close to the audience.

From the very title you know you are in for something: the 50, Rick's age in 2016, is a tongue-in-cheek homage to Adele (whose albums have all been titled after her age at the time of release), that also speaks of this sense of being a middle aged artist in an industry and particularly a genre or family of genres that leans so heavily into youth and coolness.

In 50 Rick leans on instead of shying away from the fact that he's not young (In either the heartfelt "Don't fake it, I can't take it/My heart is, close to breaking/It reminds me of my youth" or the humorous "I got to thirty and you show a little wrinkle/One more big plate/Now I'm putting on weight/Skinny jeans but nobody's fooled"), cool, or detached, but that doesn't make him jaded, heavy, or self important; the songs of this album are filled with a sense of hope, gratitude, generosity, and... fun. It's a curious marriage of the lighthearted beat of the pop that made him famous, and a mature version of the soul-ish style he seems to love and that he tried first in Free. Although there isn't a single skip in this album for me, the most representative, and that have what in my opinion is the best sound, are Keep Singing, Angels On My Side, Wish Away, Pieces, I Like the Sun, Let It Rain, Let it be Tonight.

8. Beautiful Life (2018)

There's little I can say about Beautiful Life in general, other than characterize it as an echo of 50. Same ideas, same themes, same tone and sound.

The highlight tracks are: Beautiful Life, Last Night on Earth, Rise Up, and Try.

Since Beautiful Life, Rick has released a compilation album (The Best of Me, 2019), a few remixes and a couple new singles; of those singles I'd highlight Giant (a true banger), Every One Of Us, and Unwanted.

Rick's next album, Are We There Yet? releases in October this year (2023).

[yolowritter]

A perspective on Gideon Ofnir part 3

Alright! Last post of this saga, continuing off this ramble about Gideon. This time, I want to explore more about what happens at the Endgame, so obviously spoilers for that. Let's get started with a bit of setupt!

So, Gideon remains as I previously stated until we finally defeat Morgott, at which point several things change at the Rountable. If we visit Enia the Finger Reader, she'll inform us that the Two Fingers are disturbed by this turn of events (the Tarnished being barred from the Erdtree by Radagon's wall of thorns). It's extremely likely that this is Radagon's going (and maybe by extension the Greater Will's) since it's his symbol we see amidst the barbs. The Fingers then decide to reach out to the Greater Will...only to never get an answer. Enia says that "thousands of moons might pass" and asks the Tarnished "oh, how will you manage the wait?". If we venture to Gideon's office after this, we see him singing a different tune towards them as well. He urges us to go to the Mountaintops of the Giants, against the wishes of the Fingers, when before he insisted that any Tarnished was forbidden from entering the Capital until two Great Runes had been collected.

Gideon even says that "the Two Fingers lost their purpose a long time ago" in a later conversation, but before we defeat Maliketh. The point is that he finally sees them for what they are, envoys without a master that have been reciting off a script for eons upon eons. Gideon then urges us to reach the Flame of Ruin, believing that to be in accordance with Marika's wishes. Perhaps he suspects that she isn't the one who placed the barrier at the Erdtree, since it's the Queen who gave all Tarnished the call to return to the Lands Between in the first place. So...why would she block the way? I'm sure he's picked up on it, and Gideon even has some extra dialogue if we return after defeating the Fire Giant.

He's finally made up his mind on leaving the now burning Rountable Hold, but only after he's collected as much knowledge as there is to be gathered from his library. Even now, at the penultimate area of Elden Ring's conclusion, Gideon acts consistantly with how his character has been portrayed throughout the game. So that begs the question, why does he attack us in the Ashen Capital, seemingly betraying his own ideals?

Well...I think it might be Radagon's fault. Many others have already said this, but I feel the need to reiterate what's been said in defense of Gideon. Now, the matter of Marika and Radagon's relationship to the Greater Will is a completely different topic that I won't cover here, but it's quite obvious that Marika rebelled against the Greater Will while Radagon (willingly or unwillingly) continues to hold onto the dying Golden Order. And with Gideon always following the Eternal Queen's will, as well as never indicating he knows that they are one and the same...it would be easy for him to be misled, to fall prey to the very faults that Tarnished before him did, and fail in his own journey.

It's ironic, that Gideon has spent so much of his life standing back and watching countless Tarnished always fail at the very last step...only for him to finally undertake his own journey...and do the very same thing. What I believe happened is that Radagon came to Gideon as Marika, and since he didn't know they are the same person, Gideon just assumed he was getting direct orders from the Queen. Radagon must have tricked Gideon, or re-contextualized Marika's original plans to make it sound like this prolonged dying gasp of the Order was the plan...when we know otherwise. Radagon is heavily connected to the themes of stagnation and absolute beliefs, so it's no wonder he would want to keep the world as is regardless of the ruined state the Lands Between exist in. It's no wonder that Gideon's potential arguments would never have swayed him, because absolute belief is just that. Unchanging.

And so, while Gideon was passing through the Erdtree Sancuary, potentially about to go challenge Godfrey...he recieves a direct message from "Queen Marika". The first directive they've recieved aside from the drivel spoken by the Two Fingers. It re-ignites Gideon's hope, that he and the Tarnished have done it! That they're so very close to the Elden Ring, to finally restoring these fractured lands...but he's told to do the opposite. Direct, clear orders from "Marika" say to prevent us from going near the Erdtree, that this age must last unto eternity. We all know what happens next. Gideon grabs a hold of his staff and seal...and the rest is history. Even more ironically, this too is hopeless. It's very possible that Gideon has lost the Guidance of Grace for going against the Two Fingers earlier on, because he doesn't come back. No matter how many times he kills the Tarnished, we will inevitably return to challenge him again.

Also, remember what Gideon does when he defeats us. He doesn't gloat or brag that he's the better fighter, instead he congratulates us. "My fellow, you've fought well, until now". I think it could be a way to thank us for co-operating, or an acknowledgement of everything we've been through on our journey (sometimes on his behalf). Gideon continues to fight, never tires and stands guard in the Sanctuary, because those are his orders. Because he believes this to be Queen Marika's will, and cannot go against her. And when we finally defeat him? Gideon at last lets his hopes die, gives into despair and says that it's all pointless. No man can kill a God. Not even us, whose progress he has been watching with a keen eye for such a long time. Actually, I think this is where Gideon loses Grace. By giving up the mission, by foregoing his ambitious spirit that drives him and guided him for so many years...the fleeting specks of gold leave his eyes, and Gideon Ofnir dies a hopeless, broken old man who would only have needed to choose his battles and see his dream of restoring Order finally come true. This unrelenting conviction that helped him hang on until we finally arrive...is the very same reason he falls prey to Radagon's lie. Ironic, isn't it? That if only Gideon had held firmly to his faith in us instead of an absent God, we could have challenged Godfrey, Radagon and the Elden Beast together, finally seeing his dream come true?

Well, this is my take on Sir Gideon Ofnir, the All-Knowing. I'd love to chat more about him, so feel free to drop asks or comments to let me know what you all think. It'll be a while before I post about Elden Ring, but until then, Stay Tarnished everyone!

[twistedtummies2]

Fifteen Days of Disney Magic - Number 2

Welcome to Fifteen Days of Disney Magic! In honor of the company’s 100th Anniversary, I have been counting down my Top 15 Favorite Movies from Walt Disney Animation Studios! Today, we cover the penultimate pick on the countdown! Today’s entry took a truly concerted effort to create. Number 2 is…Fantasia.

Even more than “Sleeping Beauty,” I would venture to say that “Fantasia” is a film that shows the power of animation as an art form. It was released in 1940, and the imagery that fills the screen, accompanied by some of the finest pieces of classical music humankind has to offer, remains just as powerful and as admirable today as it was back when it was released. Many consider this to be one of Disney’s true masterpieces, and it’s not a surprise why: it’s a simple sort of movie, yet also grand and fantastic in its scope and impact. “Fantasia” started out when Walt Disney had a chance encounter with the famous orchestra conductor and composer Leopold Stokowski. It turned out the two were fans of each other’s work, and they became quick friends. The pair decided to collaborate on the creation of a Mickey Mouse short, “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice;” at the time, Mickey’s star was actually starting to fade a bit (amazing to imagine, I know), and Walt thought that the short could help catapult Mickey back to the heights of his stardom. However, the costs of making the short became so great, the team began to think…well, why stop there? It was actually LESS risky in costs, in the long run, to just make a feature film! So was born the genesis of “Fantasia.” The film was, for a long time, referred to as “The Concert Feature,” and in essence, that is what Fantasia is: it is less of a proper movie, and more of an animated concert, or, perhaps, more appropriately, an animated ballet show. The film is made of a series of several animated sequences, each set to a different piece of classical music, intercut with live-action segments that show the orchestra tuning up their instruments as the host of the show – famous music critic Deems Taylor – introduces each separate piece. The film is treated very seriously in its style; there is humor in several of the different animated sequences, to be sure…but for every bit of comic silliness involving Mickey Mouse or a dancing hippo, you have a sequence depicting a T. Rex hunting down a Stegosaurus, or Chernabog and his ghostly minions cavorting atop Bald Mountain on Walpurgis Night. Yet despite the varying tones and stories and characters, the film does manage to have a unified sense of wholeness to it, as the segments are expertly arranged to feel like a perfect package.

The film was highly innovative for its time: not only were the effects used to create some of the animated shots state of the art for the time (and even more remarkable to think about nowadays), but it was also one of the first movies to use a stereophonic sound system during its initial release, called “The Fantasound System.” However, at the time Fantasia was released, it was actually not a major hit. While most audiences who saw it seemed to like it, it was hit-or-miss with critics, and the box office returns themselves just could not make up for the film’s ultimate expense: it was just so costly to create, and its release method so unorthodox, there was almost no way to make a profit. Over time, however, the movie gained more respect. However, even there, it seems to be a film that’s got a slight sort of “niche” following: it seems to be a film for people of a specific crowd. Those who are looking for complex stories, a lot of humorous dialogue, exciting action scenes, and so on are not likely going to be pleased. But for those who enjoy just seeing what animation could and can still do in an artistic endeavor, with a level of craftsmanship and passion that would be hard to find in a lot of movies today, “Fantasia” is the film for you. For me, it’s one of the movies that made me fall in love with animation and its power, and it’s always going to have a special place in my heart. Well, people. Tomorrow’s the big day. Two days till Disney’s founding, and the final entry on this list. I’m going to be honest with you all…I’m cheating with the last one. I warned you all there’d be an exception to the rules, and that exception is my final choice. HINT: “Boys and girls of every age, wouldn’t you like to see something strange?”

[glassmarcus]

Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil—Prestige Mascot Platforming

*Played in July 2022, Written in November 2022, Mild Spoilers immediately

Your goal is the peak of the floating ruins. It's the penultimate level. You're coming off of a bombastic set piece level where you overcame a gauntlet of trials to gain entry to the final area of the game. But the momentum stops. You are soothed by the atmosphere and pacified by the incoming music.

A somber, yet inspiring tune plays. It's a song that entices reflection. It feels nostalgic even though it's the first you've heard of it. You listen closely to the tune as you scale upwards towards the precipice. The melody is strong, but there's an attempt to snuff it out. The wind blows powerfully to disrupt the audio. The volume of the song is drowned out and muffled by the unceasing zephyrs of the fortress.

Reminiscent sound clips appear and try to take their claim as the main event of the piece. These clips aren't just from this game, but the first one as well. They are memories of your adventures. The ones you remember fondly and ones you'd rather not think about right now. These memories stay with you, but none the less, they are still just memories. They had their time. This is NOT their song.

What's past has passed. The melody returns to full volume. It progresses forward. YOU progress forward.

It doesn't matter how hard the wind blows and how invasive the whispers of the past get, the melody always returns. Because it's not done. Because YOU aren't done.

You ascend, tasked with trials that are more difficult than anything you've faced before. They seem daunting, but you are prepared for them. If you weren't, you wouldn't have made it here in the first place.

Every success. Every failure. Every lesson you remember. Every bad habit you forgot. They've all trained you to be the person you are today.

You've gain peace of mind through embracing tranquility. Nothing gets to you like it used to. Your rage has been tamed and it takes a lot more to knock you off balance.

You've turned your joy of life into a thriving passion. It's not just about the destination for you, but living in the moment and finding satisfaction in every aspect of the journey.

You've attained observation through discourse. Every enemy you've faced you've learned from and gained an understanding of how their aggression can work for you.

Your indecision has been forged into an armor of caution. No longer are you a victim of reckless instinct and every decision you end up making you know is the correct one.

You've felt great sorrow. Sorrow you may never recover from. But that sorrow has only strengthened your resolve. You know that it will get better and so you strive towards that place in time where it does.

So you attempt the challenges. You probably fail them the first time through. But that's more than okay. You try again.

You fall into endless chasms.

You are burnt by cerulean hot flames.

You are maimed by a myriad of foes.

You fail as many times as you need to. But you persevere. The winds may roar, but you keep your footing. You move forward. You aren't done yet.

But, Why? Why don't you give in? Why not just accept that this is how things are and this is as far as you can go? It's just a game, right? Well.

Maybe there's spite to drive you.

Maybe you're running from something and want to keep running.

Maybe you think this will make you stronger.

Maybe you're just bored.

Curiosity?

Pride?

Closure?

There could be any number of motivating factors behind why your are doing this, but they all converge to one common point: This reason, has led to you making a decision.

Klonoa is not a character with deep motivations. At least not in this game. There is no wholesome backstory connecting him to the land of Lunatea. He has no family or friends to protect. He has no complex ideals he desires to espouse. He’s just… some guy, who wants to finish his adventure. It’s just a dream. None of this matters in the grand scheme of things. Tomorrow he’ll visit some other dream and go on a different journey. He could mail it in and suffer no consequence. But he doesn’t. He wants to see things through. Real or fake, he wants to help the people he met in this world. He knows he’ll probably never come back to this place ever again, but he still fights for a happy ending. Just because this is something he decided to do. Resolve is resolve, no matter where it’s derived from.

And just like Klonoa, this hard as nails level is something you decided to surmount and you don't owe any explanation further than that. Not to anyone else. Maybe not even to yourself. So you're going to follow through. That resolve will not go to waste. You know you can do it. You know that even if it seems hopeless and not worth it at some points, you will overcome. You will reach that peak. Simply because you decided you would.

While we're on the topic of peaks, lemme tell you how fucking sick the rest of this game is.

Peerless level design. Beautiful visuals. Thrilling set pieces. Snowboarding. A story for a platformer that actually connected with me. Klonoa fashion glow up. Perfect platforming and puzzle balance. Raw as hell boss fights. Klonoa 2: Lunatea’s Veil owns. It's a sequel to Door to Phantomile like how Empire of Dreams is a sequel to Moonlight Museum. But there are a few things Moonlight Museum did better than Empire of Dreams, while this is just a substantial vertical upgrade to a game that was already good. More levels, more ideas, more mechanics and still pretty lean. You can view having to revisit levels as some form of padding, but honestly they are remixed so well and shake up the formula enough to the point they feel like new challenges.

This game really made me appreciate how fucking brilliant Klonoa's move set is. It's extremely simple, but you can accomplish a wild amount of things with just the two buttons you’re given. And the complexity of what you can do depends on the enemy placement. You see games like Kirby and Mario Odyssey where your move set is dependent on the enemies you encounter. But what you have to do with that move set is never taken full advantage of. In Kirby's case because power ups are optional; In Mario's case because it having all its power ups being used as effectively as possible is unfeasible given the amount there are. In Klonoa 2, using your enemies’ abilities is vital and the mechanics are always pushed to the ceiling of skill and problem solving. You always have to be aware of which foes are around you and how you can use them, not just when you are prompted to do so. It's very mindful level design. Because each enemy is a problem solving tool it makes it so the enemy placement always has a purpose and is always fair.

When I found out that they halved your hit points from the first game, I thought this was either going to kick my ass or be piss easy. It ended up being just as hard, but more efficient than Door to Phantomile. In Klonoa 1 you were really only in danger if you got combo’d by a ton of hits or fell off. And even when you died you still had a surplus of lives that the game hands out to you like candy. Now look, I hate lives. I have not been shy about this in the past. But I do like items that you need to get through skill and problem solving. Klonoa 2 gives health and lives more value by making lives rarer and health easier to lose. While maybe not as valuable as gems and fragments, these survival collectibles are worth figuring out how to get and gives the level design more layers. And the game is really just trying to nudge you in the direction to try and collect lives. It’s not trying to be a dick. Klonoa 2 will literally just spawn a life after you die twice in a row. It even rewards you with 3 lives if you fuck up a section enough times and then get to the end of it with no lives left. It uses the illusion of an imminent game over in order to trick you into being a responsible gamer. I would still prefer another type of in-level item that aids you. But this is the most I've respected a life system on a console game.

My only real issue with this game is depth perception at some points. It's not a big deal, but it elicits powerful retroactive bitterness. Why did this entire franchise skip the 3DS? It's built exactly for a system like that. It is perhaps the one sidescroller I would actually use 3D for. Kirby came close, but depth was only required at certain points. Klonoa just makes sense in stereoscopic 3D. I'm so pissed. After beating this game I couldn't help but imagine the scenario in which they kept making these games. Klonoa has such potential and deserves as much love as the other Scrimblo Bimblos. It certainly has a better track record than the rest.

Allow me to codify this real quick, because this is a nonsense term I’ve been using that requires context. A Scrimblo Bimblo is soft pejorative used to refer to the cartoon mascots that showed up in the 90’s and early 2000’s and any character who might carry that same type of energy. I’m talking about your Sonic the Hedgehogs, your Crash Bandicoots, your Aero the Acro-bats, your Ty the Tasmanian Tigers, your Jazz Jack Rabbits, your Izzy the Iguanas, your Glovers, your KAO the Kangaroos, your Bubsy the Bobcats. Characters you may have never even heard of, but you can picture them in your brain and be 60% accurate as to what they look like. It was an over saturated market for a time and few have survived to this day. Klonoa is a fun cartoon mascot platformer, but he ends up being more memorable than the others by having quality stand out games and not giving away the character design in the name. Seriously, I think he’s supposed to be a cat, but I’m still not convinced.

I'd rather play the first 5 years of Klonoa games than the first 5 years of any other platformer franchise. After playing Sonic Origins I can confidently say I wouldn’t be upset with a timeline where Sonic and Klonoa switched places and we got dozens of Klonoa games and no Sonic games after 1996. Klonoa is like...if Sonic was consistent. Not game play wise of course, but just being an incredibly appealing character design with a fun concept and a unique flavor of edge. There are only a handful of great Sonic and Klonoa games. But those handful of great Klonoa games are basically all of them. When it comes to it’s platforming titles, the kid don't miss. Even Dream Champ Tournament, which had some stupid shit in it, is better than most platformers on the GBA honestly. I love Rayman 3(GBA), but I won't sit here and act like every handheld Klonoa game doesn't dab on it super hard. But I know that there is no way Klonoa could become a huge franchise. It has too much... integrity.

Going by the two main games, the intent seems to have each one be it’s own individual journey. You can’t really build a franchise off that. You need cast members and settings to stick around so people can get attached. The only constant Klonoa has is Klonoa himself. Sure this leads to fresh ideas for main entries, but it also leads to less iconography being developed for the series. Familiarity is marketable. Look at Pokémon for instance. It’s THE franchise, and when it made a left turn and abandoned all it’s iconography in Gen 5, people were not receptive to it at all initially (Unlike me who wasn’t receptive to it for the correct reasons). Then immediately afterwards it started to lean back into that familiarity and sales went back up. Klonoa can’t really grow if it replants itself every game.

The side games (Moonlight Mansion, Empire of Dreams, Dream Champ Tournament) are a way around this where they seem to reuse characters all they want. But that also just makes the canon fairly murky and hard to follow. It’s not clear how much these games impact the console games, so there’s a lack of cohesion you might expect. Also, Klonoa regularly reuniting with his friends kind of defeats the conceit of the franchise. They can only pop up so many times before they become thematically inconsistent or contrived. I like Huepow, but every appearance he makes, dampens the ending of Door to Phantomile. And even worse than the spin off platformers is The Legendary Star Medal, which just feels like a dev team didn’t know anything about Klonoa and made a top down action game about him. These Spin-offs are something they could have theoretically kept doing, but they admittedly sully the main games a bit by existing. Each game contributing to the mythos while also being self contained is definitely ideal and the direction you’d expect it to go. But instead of doing that or making more side games, they just sort of stopped making them. And I wonder if it’s just because of a lack of interest. Maybe no one has any ideas to top Klonoa 2 so they just didn’t try. Or they just didn’t have funding after their rush to create a franchise didn’t yield immediate results. I’m just gonna assume it’s the latter.

Back when the Reverie collection was announced, I made a post on Twitter referring to Klonoa as “The one true Scrimblo”. I hastily drew Klonoa in the style of early 2000’s Yuji Uekawa and made that my profile picture for half a year. At this point I had only completed Klonoa 1 and didn’t even like it that much. It was a raw display of fraudulence and I had no clue what I was talking about. I just wanted to like Klonoa. I got swept up in the hype.

Yet. I ended up being correct about that. He really is the best one. Sonic will always be my favorite platforming mascot of course, but I’ve played enough horrid Sonic games to know that he may not be the most appealing representative of the sub genre’s quality. Though now Sonic is currently on an upswing. Every aspect of the franchise is doing relatively well. If there was a time for Scrimblos to reclaim some of their former power, it would be now. Things were looking pretty dire for a bit. Spyro and Crash are resting under the heel of Activision. Rayman has been devoured by the Rabbids. Sly Cooper is gripping the edge of that cliff. Everyone else from the 90’s is basically dead, aside from Bubsy, who we cannot allow to make another game under any circumstance. But now we have Sonic making decent games again, Kao the Kangaroo coming out of nowhere with a new installment, and the Ty games getting remastered for...some reason. And now Klonoa 2 is easily available for the first time 20 years. We’re looking at a potential new age of wacky mascot platforming, and I consider that a good thing. It feels like it’s important to keep franchises like these in circulation. Would I even be as big into gaming if didn’t latch on to Scrimblos as a kid? I’m not sure. But what I am sure of is that I would have loved Klonoa if he didn’t evaporate instantly before I ever heard of him. So I want to be there when an actually new Klonoa game comes out so I can shamelessly shill it with everything I got. I eagerly await the rightful king of silly animal flagships to return to the kingdom and claim his seat on the throne.

[deepseacityunderground]

PCB ESSAY (gone sexual) (gone shitty) (gone trance music) (500 words not enough space to talk about things in detail)

Videogames are becoming increasingly relevant in fine art echelons. Whilst historically dismissed as “lacking in imagination” and “passive”, (Gavinor, 2009) videogames, like films, have the potential to encompass artistic expression, attaining “specialness bracketed off from ordinary life, made seperate” (Dutton, 2006). As videogame graphics and sound design improves, their aesthetic qualities become harder to dismiss. However, just as a photorealistic painting is not more meaningful than an Impressionist painting, a pixelated, old videogame does not hold more art than a photorealistic, 3d rendered videogame like the ones made today.

Take Touhou Youyoumu – Perfect Cherry Blossom, as an example (hereafter referred to as PCB). Released in 2003, the game has a charmingly ametuerism aesthetic to it, from the badly drawn characters to the pixelated displays. It’s the seventh game in the well-known doujinshi bullet hell game series Touhou Project, entirely developed and produced by a single person – Jun’ya “ZUN” Ota. It’s a series well known for its music – Ota intially started making games to showcase his music composition skills (Davison, 2013) and the music in Touhou Project is so iconic that it’s spawned its own satellite community of remixers who thrive entirely off the music written by Ota.

Bullet hell games require a very high level of concentration from the player. One may even call it a “trance state characterized by intense focus” cumulating in the “loss of a strong sense of self – providing access to types of knowledge inaccesabile in non-trance states” (Becker, 1994). The player has no time to think – just react, and the “dexterious manipulation of the fictive prop... becomes muscle memory” (Gavinor, 2009). The electronic musical compositions of Ota help put players into this mindset, “responsible for onset trance” in the player. The music of stage 4 of PCB, as well as the music tracks used for the game;s penultimate boss both share similarities with other genres of music capable of inducing trance states – notably “abrupt changes of rhythm”, “acceleration of tempo” (Rouget, 1980), and “looping collages” (Teles and Boyle, 2015). Stage 4 is unique in that the movements the player must make to avoid bullets mimic the tune of the backing tracks, as it looks as if the player character is dancing. Ota describes the track as “a stratospheric intrusion... violent yet sorrowful” (Ota, 2003). Alternatively, the final boss battle at the end of stage 6 offers a distinctly trancelike musical progression, with two tracks utilized to provide a drastic increase in tempo and mood representing the “rebirth” of the characters in game.

The intention of video game soundtracks is to act as a “territorial zone of protection” (Deleuze and Guatarri, 2004). Ota’s compositions seek to induce a trancelike “altered mental state” (Phillips, 2014) via use of strong, multilayered electronic music. Even the sound affects in such games add to the overall composition, so much so that “paying a game generates a musical product” (Whalen, 2007) Likewise, the playing of PCB is a piece of performance art – like the work of many classic composers, the art is in a state of “becoming” in collaboration with the player, a “living being” as opposed to the “static, preformed object” of a more traditional piece of art (Demers, 2010).

[sacrilegious-skeletal-scribe]

well

Gather round, apostates, blasphemers, assorted disappointments, for my statements return, in their usual fashion, of sprawling wax pressed in bruising poetry, and a slow creeping fog of informality.

But I’ve recently contracted a sliver of time perfectly sectioned to listen to The Magnus Archives? 

And can i just say.

ahhhhhhhhHhghIFHghkGFDSYAS

I’m late. I understand that I’m late. We all have jobs to scream at, voids to cull, deer to pass by on moonlight walks that you could’ve sworn had a lot more animal noises until right then, flat disks staring back at you from this frozen, jarring thing, muscles packed into thin bone and a skull on a swivel. Human life is messy. I digress.

I owe all of you a deep thanks. Every single one that posted fanart, animation clips, psychological profiles, you infrequent sinners of stunning, hypnotic fractals… Cheers.

Because I saw them. I saw these stunning pieces of art, heard clips of audio performances, and I was fascinated. But I didn’t have time. The finale sent people screaming sobbing shaking onto their preferred hellsites, and I couldn’t drop everything I was doing to listen to two hundred episodes?

I was but a fool, and my transgressions are the most fun I’ve had in awhile this series goes so fucking harddd

Let’s start with the easy one. Jonathan Sims. Vocal acting; wholly immaculate. I have heard dozens of voices expressed by one man, wholly diegetic, and each one is a fucking banger! The hard snap back to Profession Archivist Voice at the end of each episode, after twenty minutes of highs and lows and building tension. Stunning. 

All other performances have been very good as well, snapshots of characters given life through some very solid work, but I am just at the end of season one at the time of writing this, so you’ll forgive my unfamiliarity.

Similar thread, the sound editing. It’s so—I’m going to run out of words of praise, the amount of tension built in a story that I know the character telling has to survive, that’s wild. Far more fear comes into play in the space between ‘Statement ends’ and ‘Recording ends,’ but therein lies the knowledge that those encounters need not leave their subjects intact. Subtle where it needs to be, gripping where it hurts.

The writing itself, the substance of the story, the message, the meaning.

God. Damn.

Jonathan Sims, you have the heartbeat of short horror prose wrapped around your pen. I, do not have words. Know that I am clapping in stunned silence. Each story is so carefully tuned for each weird little SCP-Twilight Zone meet cute, engaging in my personal favorite horror vessel: ‘Hey, wouldn’t it be fucked up if some guy who works in a slaughterhouse wandered into an infinitely stretching purgatory of rotting meat and conveyor belts?’ 

And the slow build of the characters! Jon is so mean! He’s so fucking mean, for no reason. He’s rude to Martin for having like. Emotions. He’s mean to the people who left the statements, which would seem much more reasonable if I was not under the impression that Jon knows Well and Good that the preternatural is a real thing that fucks with people because it can. 

If I worked in that space, I would also be a prick to the people claiming the sky ate their son, but I’ve never encountered anything that would impress upon me the existence of ghosts, and he has a malevolent worm infestation. 

But this adds only teeth gnashing twists of emotion when he does start to show kindness, or exhaustion, and most recently. Fear.

So thank you, everyone who’s been gushing over this for the past six years, I rarely consume media outside of recommendation or raised interest by cultural osmosis/spoilers. You idiots got me interested, and I’ve been having a marvelous time. 

Now I’m onto the penultimate episode to Season One finale. I’m very excited. I’ve also seen the comparison’s from S1 Archive Team to S5. And I’m very scared.

[allthemusic]

Week ending: 11 December 1952

Well, we are getting towards Christmas. Will we see Christmas music? Will we heck. Apparently that is not yet how we roll in 1952. Not for another week. That said, the first song (of only two) is good solid party banger.

Come A-Long A-Love - Kay Starr (Peaked at No 1)

I already knew this song, I already like it, but re-listening in the context of all of last week's soupy ballads really gives this a special something. It's fast! It's catchy! It's got metaphors, but they're actually good!

Kay Starr also has some serious pipes. I love her voice here, there are so many little technical things that are good about it, from the slight growl on some of the "Comes along a love" refrain, to the vibrato on the penultimate words of some lines, to the way she drops down onto some of the notes. Somebody who properly does singing could probably tell you more technically what those are - I just enjoy it.

Her voice isn't quite like the other female voices we've heard. It's not trained like Vera Lynn's, and it's not got that restrained, sexy smoulder of Jo Stafford. Doris Day maybe comes closest, but it's not the same thing. She's almost giving Al Martino a run for his money, but it's better - more lively, more vibrant, more tongue in cheek.

It's a song about the feeling of being in love, sung from Kay Starr to some man, so it's distanced from having to be about her being in love, and I think that makes it work? If she was singing about herself, she couldn't be as eloquent, or she'd have to be sappier, but this can be her observing the effects of love on a third party, and it lets her get specific about it without falling into cliché or lameness.

At the same time, it's just super jazzy - the excitement of falling in love is tangible in the music itself, with these brassy stabs at the end of lines, and a bassline that doesn't let up underpinning it all.

And - contrary to almost every other romantic song yet - the description of being in love is neither cliché nor lame! It's apparently by Al Sherman, a Tin Pan Alley songwriter, and to be fair, I could see this doing well on broadway. It's also got a tune stolen from Rossini. A fine pedigree.

I want to quote half of this song. I love the catalogue of effects, how when you're in love "every dream you had becomes ignited", "though you never sang you're always singing", "chimes you never heard began a-ringing", "you sparkle and you bubble, see each bluebird double", "petty things no longer phase you", "you discover things that just amaze you". It's a fabulous description of feeling on top of the world in ways you haven't felt before.

The best and quirkiest effect, though? "Night and day your heart is highland flinging". Such a clever, fun line!

And then the line that sums all of them up: "You just began to live". Which is what all that is, isn't it?

And Kay just sounds so cheeky on the "look out, you gotta whole lotta trouble" line. Like, yes, love is great, but this man is in over his head.

It doesn't overstay its welcome or slow down at the end either. Instead, we get two lines that change the rhythm and speed into an ending that actually makes me think of Bobby Darin's Mack the Knife. I'm not sure if that stands up to musical scrutiny, but in terms of vibe, at least.

Strongly recommend everybody to listen to this one. Catchy, likeable, stylish, kind of cute.

Zing a Little Zong - Bing Crosby and Jane Wyman (10)

Will I write an essay on this one, too? No, but it's cute, still.

The title already tells you that it's going to be cutesy and probably a bit novelty. In fact, it's our first novelty number. It makes them sound like they're from Somerset, but no, they're just Americans being silly (zilly?)

It starts with a spoken countdown, which is always good in my book. "A-one, a-two" and then some scatting - you can't do much better than that.

Basically, he loves her and she makes him want to sing - and then the song metaphor gets pushed and pushed and pushed, with her suggesting that they could get up side by side and "we could a very clever bit of close harmony", which is an oblique double entendre, but it is definitely suggesting... something.

Some unexpected lyrics, probably to keep the Z quirk alive. I don't think anybody predicted that the lyric "We're not by the Zuider Zee" was coming. This, combined with the mentions of Wiener Schnitzel and noodles and strudel and "let's dutch it up a little" made me think this would be from a film about Europe, but apparently not?

It is from a film, but it's a musical comedy about a vaudeville performer from New York. It's called Just for You, and it involves Bing's screen son falling for Bing's girlfriend (Jane Wyman) while his daughter ends up in night court with their governess and then goes to finishing school (?). Films from this period are clearly just built different.

Both performers are good, and have understood the assignment, peppering the song with little "ooh"s and "oh no"s and phrases like "you're a dolly and a dilly". It's quirky and cute, and doesn't outstay its welcome, or drag. It has charmed me more than I thought it would, in a harmless old-fashioned way. It feels like something my grandad would sing around his house.

Just two songs today, and they were both great! I think I much prefer faster songs. They're just a lot more forgiving - a bad fast song is at least over fast, a bad slow song really drags. And neither of these were bad songs, either, which is a win. Give either a listen, and you will probably not be disappointed!

Favourite song of the bunch: Comes A-Long A-Love

[lovejustforaday]

2022 Year End List - #4

¡Ay! - Lucrecia Dalt

Main Genres: Experimental

A decent sampling of: Dark Jazz, Chachacha, Art Pop, Electroacoustic, Minimal Wave, Bolero, Ambient Pop, Darkwave

Golly, that is some list of genre tags, huh?

Okay so this one was a bit of a late entry. Well, actually it was a very, very late entry. Meaning, I first listened to this maybe a little over a week before I started really writing the year end list. But holy crap did this ever take me by surprise.

Like many of my more esoteric discoveries, I found out about this record by religiously browsing the rateyourmusic.com yearly charts for some interesting genre tags and musical anomalies.

What else can I say? This one simply called to me, all while having no idea who Lucrecia Dalt was at the time.

Unfortunately, Spanish language alternative music does not tend to make big waves in the music hipster spaces of the Anglosphere (unless your name is Arca or Rosalia), especially something this caliber of, well, weird.

Or rather, I would say that, but then I later discovered that this was actually The Wire’s album of the year. So clearly some people in the Anglosphere have been paying attention.

But who is this mysterious artist who I speak so highly of having only known of her for a month?

Lucrecia Dalt is a Colombian musician based in Berlin, who composes music that incorporates a good mix of experimental genre infusions and sounds. Her tastes are eclectic, idiosyncratic, and iconoclastic. She also seemingly really likes earth, mountains, geography, geology, and just science in general.

On her latest project ¡Ay!, Lucrecia Dalt delivers the music of the American tropics, but highly deconstructed from the inside of a mysterious echoing cave, with eerily soft synths and strange electroacoustic modulations. The entire record is positively dripping with a dark, damp, and fluid atmosphere that is wholly captivating. I feel like there is an entire ecosystem of tiny undiscovered organisms living inside this record.

The album opens with the arresting calm of “No tiempo”, a hair-raising work of softly fluctuating organ, minimal percussion, and a clarinet that eases the listener into a sort of spellbinding daze. Strange droplets of vibrant sonic colours make tiny twinkles across the gaze of the mind’s eye as this tune slowly takes a firm hold of the listener’s imagination.

This leads into “El Galatzó”, a soft-spoken word piece accompanied by bass and trilling flutes, and an ode to the almost supernatural properties of magnetic fields and the beauty of the Puig de Galatzo summit.

“Atemporal” plays like the most uncanny chachacha music ever, as if it were the backdrop to a Cuban ballroom dance that took place in the extradimensional ‘red room’ from Twin Peaks. Bizarre in the most pleasing way.

“Contenida” is an ambient whisper of dark jazz, with a smooth upright bass and airy “oohs” and “aahs” that reverberate off of what sounds as if it were massive cave walls surrounding the entire song. The track ends with some really fascinating danzón percussion, filtered through thunderous electoracoustic production.

The penultimate “Enviada” is a magnificent climax, indeed the greatest musical climax on any record this year. The omnipresent, creeping tension of this bolero-meets-minimal and darkwave track delivers on all of the promising pitch dark atmosphere that the record slowly, subtly hints towards. This culminates in an infernal jazzy beat drop that bursts into a dazzling show of glowing blue sonic flames. All the while, Dalt is singing about the triumph of eternity over time itself. An unforgettably chilling experience all around.

The album closes with a leisurely instrumental ditty simply titled “Epilogo”, featuring a rotary organ that fades in and out of subtle modulations that serve to make the song ever so slightly off. The final notes are that of decaying, shambling clarinets which excellently ties together all of the restless, uneasy vibes that this record gives off.

Not everything here sticks with me. There are one or two spots on some of the other tracks that don’t necessarily contribute to the atmosphere in a way that moves me nearly as much as a song like “Enviada” or “No tiempo”, and there are a few instances that feel like repetition of greater moments on the record.

But overwhelmingly, I am deeply immersed in this album. ¡Ay! is the most oddly engrossing record I’ve heard this year, and Lucrecia Dalt is some kind of musical magician fooling all of us with her fascinating audio tricks. And I, at least, am more than happy to be caught in her spell.

9/10

Highlights: “Eniviada”, “No tiempo”, “Contenida”, “Atemporal”, “Epilogo”, “El Galatzo”

[kashimos-hajime]

twenty questions (7/8) | r.b.

summary: No, he refuses to lose someone else. Not again, not you. Never fucking you. Or, after four years, Reiner meets you once more.

WARNINGS: angst, just conversation, a bit of violence, mentions of trauma, children ummmmm yeee, jean also appears <3 true king pairing: reiner braun x fem!reader word count: 8.3k

a/n: reiner returns!! welcome to the penultimate chapter and thank you for being on this journey with me :) again, song is not mine! it’s the wellerman sea shanty hehe

masterlist

crossposted on ao3 x

Morning streams through the curtains.

You part the billowy white fabric, pushing open the window breathing in the late morning air. As always, it’s warm and ripe with the aroma of the fresh bread from the bakery you live above, and as you lean on the windowsill, you hear the door below you chiming with new patrons. You smile to yourself, resting your chin on your hand.

Even still, you can’t help but admire how beautiful it is, especially in the streets here, far away from a industrial zone. The Liberio interment zone is small, yes, but it’s no less beautiful. The architecture of brick and glass all hold an austere beauty, and when the sunset is upon you, the shadows they cast and the warmth that embraces the stone is something you’ve never quite seen before. There’s a church, and you’ve sat inside day a few days before, watching the light stream through the stained glass in amazement.

A knock at the door takes you from your thoughts and you let out a sharp noise of surprise, gaze ripping away from the busy streets. A tremor shoots through you and you swallow harshly, waiting in bated breath.

“The shop’s busy as bees, today!” your landlord admonishes on the other side. You let out a relieved sigh, relaxing a bit. “If you want, I can still save you a loaf!”

“No, thank you!” you shout over your shoulder, reaching to close the window and get ready for the day. Sliding a warm vest onto your shoulders, you adjust the hat on your head and grab your bag from the counter, your bare fingers a bit cold and numb.

You burn at the thought of Reiner. You don’t want to see him, even if you live in the same city now, but all the same, it’s hard to avoid him. After all, it’ll only be so long before you’re forced to confront your past, push yourself into his way because how long, really, can you stay away from him? As you slide the white armband onto your bicep, your heart tightens. You’ve seen the man he’s grown into—handsome, tired, lonely. That only reflects in you.

Pulling your arms through your jacket, you stare at the woodgrain beneath your feet emptily.

Why am I even here? 

Coming to Marley, of all places. Some days, you can’t wrap your head around it, before you’re reminded of the reason. It all has a purpose. You just have to keep going—keep moving forward.

Continuing through your loft, you shove your feet into boots and head out for the day. The festival’s tonight—you have lots to do before then.

.

Night slips in.

Reiner frowns when he realizes he’s walking back to the stage. He’s been trailing after the sound for a good half-hour, but considering they stay relatively nearby his final destination, he’s never felt the urge to detract. 

He still can’t place the tune that’s been hummed, whistled, sang gently and leading him on, and as the sky darkens and the crowd noise grows louder, he realizes that his trail is slowly growing colder and colder.

“Hey, Reiner!” His head swivels to find Gabi waving at him and he meanders over, frowning a bit. “Where’d you go? The others said you wandered off.”

“I took a walk to clear my head,” he says dismissively, ignoring her frown deepening. “I see you’ve recovered from your food coma.” Immediately, Gabi’s frown turns into a pout and she rolls her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest. “How are you feeling?”

“I feel fine.” He snorts, turning to survey the area. The others are milling about. Zeke and Colt are talking by the bench, and Pieck and Porco are off together, as usual. They’re not half as inconspicuous as they think they are. Finding Udo and Zofia, his brow wrinkles when he can’t catch sight of a certain blond boy. 

“Where’s Falco?”

“He ran off earlier, saying he saw someone he knew,” Gabi says, waving it away. “He’s always being so weird. Who else could he know besides us?”

“What, are you jealous?” he teases, ruffling Gabi’s hair and she lets out a squawk, smacking at his hand. Chuckling gently, he surveys the area again as they walk towards their seats. Zeke and Colt give him a nod in greeting, one he returns. 

“Why would I be jealous?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?” he replies distantly. His eyes keep searching, a ticklish feeling at the nape of his neck. He doesn’t know if he’s imagining it or if he can really hear that tune still at the edge of his hearing, nagging for his attention. Sighing, he crosses his arms over his chest. “What Falco does during his free time isn’t on your need-to-know basis, Gabi.”

“I know. I’m just saying—he doesn’t even have any friends besides us,” she says pointedly just as someone calls his name.

“Mister Braun!” Falco skids to a stop in front of him, his forehead gleaming with sweat, even in the cooler night air. Panting, he leans forward on his knees, meeting Reiner’s eyes, and Gabi tilts her head, confused and agitated and betraying her previous aloof words.

“Where the hell did you go?”

Ignoring her, Falco continues to try and catch his breath, barely punching out, “Can you come with me?” before looking down at the floor again, his shoulders rising and falling so quickly Reiner almost feels bad for him.

He frowns. “Right now?”

“You’ll be fine,” Zeke assures. The two look at the older man who glances at his watch. “It shouldn’t start for a few more minutes.”

Reiner debates it for a moment. Then again, it’s not like he’s the number one fan of this show. His presence is for appearance’s sake at this point, and if Falco insists, then it must be something important. Sighing, he nods and Falco takes off again. Telling Gabi to explain his absence to his mom should he not return in time, he walks after the sprinting boy, his mind a whirlwind on the possibilites of why he’s in such a hurry.

Falco stops past a blue curtain that’s near a residential building and points at the arch, smiling. His entire face is flushed and Reiner cocks an eyebrow, approaching closer before hearing a soft voice singing. It only grows as he passes by the blue partition, and his heart picks up as his eyes widen.

“…The Captain's mind was not on greed… But he belonged to the whaleman's creed… She took that ship in tow… Soon may the Wellerman come to bring us sugar and tea and rum. One day, when the tonguin' is done, we’ll take our leave and go…”

He knows that tune. The sailors sang it in the port city after Fort Slava. It’s one of their sea shanties—it’s rare to hear them anywhere except by the water, and when he reaches Falco, searching for that voice, his eyes fix on a figure leaning against the archway underneath the building.

The woman in purple.

Falco runs up to her. A hand is on her bicep when she shifts to look at the boy, and Reiner’s throat swells as his legs move on their own accord. Time seems to slow as Falco turns around, mouth open in words that go in through one ear, and out the other. 

The woman says something, and Falco twists back, frowning a bit, but she only nods encouragingly, and off he goes, running on ahead, down to the end of the pathway out of Reiner’s sight.

A strangled noise leaves his mouth as the blond slips from his view.

The woman in purple’s head snaps up at the sound, and Reiner’s entire body locks when he finally recognizes the face that searches his impassively. The white armband is covered still by her fingers, but when she pushes off the wall, it’s almost as if she bewitches him to come even closer.

And he does, his hand lifting up to reach for her. Reach for what has to be a ghost. No…

No, it can’t be. No. No, I’m seeing things, I am, I—

You lift your hand off your armband, and when his fingers meet your palm, he feels your warmth, the way your skin slides against his as he interlaces their fingers, and he chokes, entire body burning from the inside out as you fold your fingers over his palm, yank him into the shadow with enough force to unbalance him. You side-step and fling his hand off, let him crash to his hands and knees. Pain shoots up his joints and his eyes widen when he realizes his skin has scraped off on the stone.

“Hello, Reiner,” you murmur. He draws himself up, and there’s a strange lifelessness as he looks up to a face barely illuminated by light. You unbutton your jacket and crouch before him, arms on your knees. His skin steams and stitches itself back together and he swallows through a dry throat as your eyes flutter to the white wisps. There’s a raw damage lingering on your face, haunting like ghosts that should be long dead, before you blink.

Your long coat brushing the floor covers black armour, harnesses criss-crossing your legs and body. Your expression is severe, lips pressed in an impassive line, dark shadows under your eyes. The armband around your bicep is slathered in dark red, staining the symbol.

So that’s what you were hiding from Falco.

Reiner half-wonders who’s blood it is. If it’s the owner of the clothes you wear, or someone else’s entirely.

You lift your head, staring at Reiner properly for the first time in years. Clenching your jaw, you only look. You do not speak, you do not move. It’s terrifying. It reminds Reiner eerily of Captain Levi, with the same chillingly placidity, and he remembers how you used to smile so wide you’d complain your cheeks ached, how you would lean against him, clutching your gut ‘cause he made you laugh, and he had never heard a sound so perfect—

The words tumble out of his mouth before he can stop himself. “What are you doing here? Are you insane?” 

You barely move. Only tilt your head mockingly. “Probably.” 

Four years has changed you into a taller, leaner, stronger soldier—and he can only soak that in. You’re…

His breath catches in his throat. 

You’re beautiful.

But you’re crouching right in front of him, and you’re in danger. If Marleyans were to approach now, he’s not sure if he could lie his way out and that blood. How can he explain the blood on your sleeve?

You’d be left for dead, hanged for the crows. 

The image flashes through his mind like cold dread, a trickling drip of an icicle hanging in his mind and freezing his spine.

No, he refuses to lose someone else. Not again, not you. Never fucking you.

It is why he demands again through a hissed breath,“What are you doing here?” Why he stands up quick enough that their heads nearly collide, and you straighten up as well, smoothly running your hands over your coat.

You only look at him deftly as if he is as inconsequential to you as a roach. You don’t even twitch as his hand reaches forward, fighting through the searing ache in his chest. “You need to leave. You shouldn’t be here. I can smuggle you back to the port and take you home, I—.”

Your stare paralyzes him and his hand falters. “I don’t take orders from you. You are not my commanding officer, and I do not need you to tell me what I need.” Your fingers dig into the bloody armband at your bicep and Reiner’s eyes widen as you tear it off, planting it on his chest hard enough his lungs spasm and he lets out a sharp breath. Your fingers spread out over his chest, you step closer. “I don’t need you to save me. Not from Marley. Not from myself. And not from you.”

His hand comes to cover yours, but you slip out before he can touch you, and he’s left with an armband in his palm. Clutching it in a tight fist, he stares down at it for a moment before shoving it in his pocket and turning around.

Your name comes out of him without even thinking as you walk past him, and it must still hold something because you pause, head turning slightly to look at him. “I want to explain myself,” he chokes out, and the corner of your mouth curls into a hollow smile. “Please.”

“Follow me, Reiner,” you order softly, and without question, he falls half a step behind you, eyes trained on the ground. His head is swimming at your presence, and his knees are gummy, stomach convulsing as he tries to come up with what to say. Or maybe, what to say first. He’s had four years to come up with a proper way to say it, and he reaches for his breast pocket, where the letters he’s folded away rest, with shaking hands.

“Please…”

“I don’t know what you think begging will get you.” Something stony falls upon your face. “I’ve had four years to get over the fact that you used me. Now, I think I just don’t care anymore. I’m sure you have your reasons, but I don’t know if it’ll be the truth. You’ve had no problem lying to me before in the past.”

“That’s not true.” He doesn’t know to which part of what you said he means. The last part, every part. “I never lied about how I felt about you.”

“Right. Like I wasn’t just some pawn on your chessboard. Some lonely girl you could use to entertain yourself.” Your pace doesn’t slow, but your tone is laced with anguish you try so hard to cover. “At least Bertholdt had the courage to look me in the face and tell me he was going to kill me.” You stop by a crate, labelled as supplies for the play. Maybe they contain masks, or costumes, and Reiner stops, his shoes skidding against the stone as you reach into your coat.

Pulling out a knife, you wedge it into the crate and pry the lid off and Reiner’s entire body numbs when ODM gear gleams in the straw. It looks refashioned, sleeker, and in two parts, and he catches your hand reaching for the harness. 

Weapons, here.

You aren’t stupid enough to take on Marley on your own, which can only mean—

Shit, shit, shit. 

Dread trickles through his body.

“What are you two doing—Oh, Vice Chief Braun!” You slam the lid shut and press your left arm flush against Reiner’s body, covering it up as someone on their right approaches. Your hand tightens around the knife still wedged between the lid, and Reiner sets a hand on your shoulder, dragging you so he can cover you up better and as a warning.

Don’t do it. You’re stiff against him despite the easy expression on your face, and he sets a harsh glare on the intruder. Let go of that blade. Your entire body is rigid with a hot energy he doesn’t recognize as your fingers only tighten around the hilt. Don’t do it—

“Sorry to interrupt, but those are one of the crates we need for the play. It contains some costumes—“

 The performer looks stricken as you flash him an easy smile and Reiner’s blood freezes when the stranger seems to blush, voice fading.

“I actually work with Lord Tybur,” you explain easily with a tiny laugh, betraying the strength in your fist. “He wants to inspect it briefly before I return it. I think it contains the Helos costume? Gotta make sure every detail’s to his liking!” Your tone, innocent and cheery, floats through the distant sound of the crowd, and Reiner only stares at the performer who seems to shrink in his skin. Your fingers twitch when he hesitates.

“Oh, of course.” He scratches the back of his head, and you give him a gracious nod before he’s walking away.

You watch him go, and Reiner feels the way the air shifts when your smile fades away as soon as it came. You step away from him, loosening the knife from the crate. His hands burn as he reaches for your shoulder again, but you jerk back.

“You know,” you begin quietly, staring at the lid, “all this time, I thought I had actually found people again, you know. I thought you actually cared about me, but really, I realized all you’ve ever done is lie. Even after everything. Even after Marco died, and I told you how I felt about you, you just kept lying. Lying and painting yourself to be a knight in shining armour.”

“I tried—I tried to stop myself from caring about you,” he whispers raggedly, hands rolling into fists tight enough that his nails dig into his flesh, “but it happened anyway. That part of who I was was never a lie.”

“So you never saw me as someone you needed to protect? As this poor, lonely girl who loved you? Who fed your ego and—”

“Of course I wanted to protect you! I loved you, too!” he snaps and distantly, he recognizes this is the first time they’ve ever confessed that what they had… that it was somehow real and too good for him. It nearly makes him shatter. “How could I—“ He closes his eyes, teeth gritting as the flames inside him roar, consuming his heart. “How could I just stand back and watch you get hurt by the consequences of my actions? It’s because of me you were forced to leave the farm, leave that girl. Because of me you knew Marco and Mina and Thomas. You could have been so much happier if you never met any of us—I knew that—I just thought I could somehow—”

“Happier if I never met you,” you echo blankly before nodding to yourself. “Yeah. Yeah, that sounds about right.” He flinches but you continue on, “In the end, it doesn’t matter, though. I’ve learned to not let the what ifs haunt me, because my time with you… it still means everything to me.” You shake your head. “That’s the truth. You dropped a building on me and broke my bones. Truth. You left me alone in those walls with Bertholdt dead and Annie comatose, and you did so knowing you are the last damn person I’ve got that I’d kill for. Truth.”

Reiner’s eyes widen as your words sink into his skin like a vicious poison.

So that’s it then. Bertholdt is dead and Annie… Annie’s still alive?

You don’t give him a moment’s breath to ask as you take a step forward. On reflex, he steps back, hands raising, and your eyes flash to his palms. One wrong move, and a Titan will overtake the square. He’s sure he can read the thought in your eyes, but when you look at him again, he only sees cold indifference.

“You nearly killed me, Reiner. So tell me…”

Metal flashes and a breath stalls in his throat as a cold knifepoint digs into the bump along his throat. It bobs when he swallows, lips parted, and you meet his eyes, every inch of agony he’s forced upon you glaring back at him reforged.

“Why shouldn’t I repay the favour?”

His breath stalls, and he looks down at your fingers, wrapped tight around the hilt, nearly shaking. He doesn’t know if it’s because you hold the weapon that tightly, or if you’re just as afraid as he is.

Either way, it doesn’t matter.

“Do it, then,” he whispers. “I’m the reason this all happened.”

Your eyes, wide, search his beseechingly and his heart crumbles to dust. Even after all this time, you still hesitate. Why? Because you think he’ll come back? That he’s… redeemable somehow? 

Reiner envies that—he wants to believe that there is still good. But there isn’t. He knows it.

“I have a thousand questions,” you murmur achingly, as if the words are wrenched from your throat. “Over the years, I’ve tried to come up with some incomprehensible list. I couldn’t decide which was the one I wanted answered the most, but I thought why did it matter? After all, it wasn’t like I’d ever see you again. But here I am, now.”

As you lower the knife, the tip of the blade scratches his skin, light enough only to leave a white trail until it falls away, just like when he held you at blade-point four years ago, the tip of a sword digging into your sternum. 

How poetic that he finds himself here, his life in your hands. This is your retribution, he supposes, and your mercy, fighting for control of your arm, but you sheathe your knife again with a sharp, smooth thrust at your hip. There’s a soft scrape before you set your hands atop the lid, sighing softly.

A terrifying glint lives in your eyes as you smile at him faintly, and hoist the crate into your arms. 

“So, Reiner.” You tilt your head, gesturing for him to follow you down the pathway to a set of stairs that must lead to a deeper cellar. Somewhere he can’t transform in. Smart. You always were, but he doesn’t have the heart to tell you he’d never hurt you again, especially when he’s already done so much to prove that his words are empty. Yet, nothing is more important than protecting you, and Gabi, and Falco, but— “What do you say to a game of twenty questions?”

.

You flip a page. The day’s labour has you sweating into your harness, but all you want to do is just finish this damn chapter. Pulling carts out of mud like a damn mule wasn’t fun, but at least it had you busy. But, God, did you just want to relax for an eternity now.

Even after four years, you’d think your body would grow accustom, but every day, something new tests you.

“Hello?” a voice by your door calls and you look up from your book, smiling automatically at the kid peering into your room. He’s one of the younger orphans who didn’t come from the immediate wreckage of the fall of Trost but rather just a few months ago, you had found him in the woods, walking away from one of the smaller settlements.

You don’t ask, let him come and tell you more, and although you know his name, you know it’s hard for him to talk about anything else.

What you do know is that he is one that still climbs into your bed when there’s a thunderstorm, and that he’s a sweet, yet studious child with a knack for trouble when the girls invite him to hang out with them. 

That doesn’t mean he’s any less attached. He’s probably the one who clings to you the most, and you get up, closing your book. Setting it down on the nightstand, you crouch in front of him and pat his head. 

“Hi,” he says again.

“What’s going on, Xavier?” His red hair is still damp. He must’ve just taken his bath and he shrinks under your hand, probably to protect the clean smell clinging to his skin and locks. Lifting your hand amusedly, you tap his nose. He breaks out into a gap smile. 

He lost his tooth just three days ago, and you remember how proud he was, bursting into the fields during study period to show you as you untied the horses from the plow.

“There’s a man who wants to see you.”

“A man?” You frown, looking over his shoulder. Placing a heavy hand on his shoulder, you pull him into your room, out of the way of the door. “Did he say what his name was? Or if he was military?” The kids know the military insignias. Praying silently to yourself, you glance uneasily at your nightstand where a gun is hidden in the drawer. You could probably arm yourself in time. Xavier tugs at your ear. You look back at him, eyebrows creasing as you glance over his shoulder. 

“He said his name was Jean and that you would know who he was. He’s waiting outside.”

“Jean?” you repeat sharply, standing. Xavier flinches, looking up at you, and you scoop him up before heading to the nightstand, yanking open the drawer and grabbing the gun. Arms worm around your neck, and you squeeze the child closer to yourself as you quietly slip out into the hallway, towards where the other kids’ room is.

“Girls, close the door and lock it,” you order quietly, as you walk into the . The two sisters—Alina and Anya who share the room—look up from whatever they’re doing, and Anya gets up from her bed, but you merely send her a warning look as you  “Everything’s okay. Anya’s in charge until I get back.”

She nods, and you set Xavier down but he doesn’t let go of your neck, hugging you tight to him. Letting out a strangled sigh, you slowly pull him away, cupping his face. Your heart is slow, steady, and you take a measured breath as Alina glances out the window that is right over their desk.

“I’ll be okay. I want to make sure we’re safe.” His eyes flicker over your face and you nod reassuringly.  “You know what to do. Listen to Anya, alright? Try to get some sleep.” The redheaded boy nods and you stroke his cheek with a thumb before he scampers towards Anya’s bed. You stand.

You leave the room, shut it behind you as Alina draws the curtains shut, and your mind is thrumming with ideas of who it could be.

Entering the kitchen, you head to the porch with a quick glance at the window. There’s a figure leaning against the fence, back to you, and your fingers around your gun tighten. Draped in dark fabric and ash-brown hair shining in the oil lamps hanging on the porch, you can’t make out a face as you step into the bracing night.

“What do you want?” 

The figure jolts to his feet, turning around. Edges dulled by the night, you can barely make out his features until he steps into the light, and your finger pad taps the trigger when brown eyes meet yours. Heart lurching, everything rushes back to you and you manage to control the sharp inhale, tempering it into a slow and steady breath that swells up in your lungs.

“It’s been a while,” he comments idly, and you swallow through the hard knot in your throat. Eyes flicking to the gun in your hand, the small smile that had been curving his lips drops away. “You’re a hard person to track.”

“How’d you find me?”

“It wasn’t easy, but Captain Levi saw that some of us were getting desperate.”

Four years.

Four years since you’ve seen any of them except Captain Levi, who only visits to make sure you haven’t been raided by bandits and killed in the months between his check-ins.

In that time, seasons have changed, you’ve sprained your shoulder, it healed; you’ve been thrown off a horse, and gotten back up. You had a period where you would write letters every waking second you were left alone in your room, debating whether or not you should destroy them or send them just for the sake of feeling like you had someone again.

All those letters are still wedged in a box under your bed, so there’s that answer.

Jean stands at the bottom of your porch and you nod, gesturing for him to come in. Your heart plummets as you do so. You don’t know why Jean even bothered.

He closes the door behind you, and you set the gun on the dining table before moving towards the stove, and you ask him if he wants any tea, gracious host that you are. He shrugs and you begin to boil some water. It’ll give you time to look him over as he sits down.

He’s grown the beginnings of a beard since you last saw him. And he’s taller. Way taller than you remember. He’s gotten more muscle, holds himself differently, he’s… still Jean, in all respects, but he’s…

Tired.

You’re sure that’s one word you’re looking for. 

Migrating to the hearth, you wonder if he’s doing the same to you. Studying you like you’re a stranger. 

You start a fire, feeding it freshly chopped firewood from the day before and stoking it before letting it feast.

You never liked doing that before. Swinging an axe down on wood, watching it split. Now, it’s the only time you get alone to your thoughts. You don’t have to focus on chopping wood. All you have to do is swing an axe until it’s nothing more than muscle memory. You can just… be. 

Maybe it isn’t so bad. Maybe it’s why Reiner liked doing it.

You sigh, and grab the iron poker, keeping an eye on the stove. You don’t know if Jean wants to skip the small talk. You do, but mostly because you don’t like it when your old life comes into your new one. You can make yourself believe you can’t go back when no one’s here to remind you, and that the guilt won’t gnaw you until you’re only bones. 

Absently, you remember Bertholdt used to like small talk—Jean seems less so.

“I have news. I don’t know if you want to hear it, but you’re still military.”

“Not labelled a deserter, yet?” you inquire dryly. Everything is moving so slowly around you, yet so quickly. It’s a terrible sensation. “I feel honoured.”

“Let’s cut the shit, alright. What the hell are you doing here?”

“No idea.”

“You disappeared! No one had seen you in weeks—we thought you were dead until the captain came back with strict orders not to look for you, but do you know how ominous that sounds?” Something bites at your gut as you stare into the flames, and Jean shoots to his feet, chair scraping against the wooden floor. “You were our friend!”

His words sink into your shoulders, but you only blink, staring into the growing hearth.

“Don’t you care? You left!”

“I don’t regret it. It’s not like I’m begging to become a Scout again,” you murmur, looking over your shoulder at him. A sort of tiredness pulls at your eyes, and you stand up again, walking around the table. “I don’t know what you want from me, Jean. You came to me first.”

“I want you to care. I want you to come back and fight. Aren’t you remotely interested in what’s going on?”

“I know we have a train, now.” The pot begins to boil and you move towards it, taking out a tin and small metal spoon. “Historia is doing well as queen. At least, that’s what people are saying. She’s expecting. If you ever see her, tell her I’m happy for her.” Scooping leaves into the teapot, you pour the boiling water into the porcelain and let it steep. 

Turning back around, your eyebrows rise when you see Jean has walked around the table. There’s not even a metre between them as he tosses something at you. Catching it, you realize it’s a rolled up newspaper and your heart drops. At his nod, you pry it open and read the contents, fingertips brushing over two rectangular slips of paper within stating a time and terminal.

“What is this?”

“Eren’s gone to Marley by himself. Probably to do something stupid. I have two tickets to go and rescue his scrawny ass.”

“And?” Dread knots at your stomach as Jean closes his eyes, exhaling softly. Pleading, then: “Jean, don’t.”

“You’re the least compromised out of all of us. None of the volunteers would recognize you or would have been able to relay information about you if they have allies back in Marley, and despite everything, I still trust you. Which is more than I can say for Yelena and the others.” You snap the paper shut and toss it onto the table. Shaking your head to yourself, you walk away from him, but Jean only grabs your arm. “You still have a duty to our nation.”

“Don’t try to plead to my sense of national pride,” you shoot back coolly. “I have other responsibilities.”

“What, like tending to wheat?”

“Everyone wants to kill us, so yes, tending to wheat.”

“If we don’t find Eren, they will kill us. He’s our one chance of getting out of this mess alive. As crazy as he is, he’s our one ticket to freedom and we need to find him.”

Turning around to face him, you pull your arm free of his grasp. The lantern hanging is glaringly bright, and something knots in your throat at Jean’s somber expression.

“I fought for our freedom and you know what I realized? There will always be more people out there who want to take that away from us.” You wish you could sound passionate, but you just sound rough and tired. The bite tastes different. “First, it was Titans, then, it was the people we called our friends. Do you think that we’ll ever be free? That we’ll be able to live without a sword above our necks. Levi told me we’re devils in everyone else’s eyes. What’s it matter?”

“Because we aren’t what they say we are. If you lay down and show your belly, why did you become a soldier in the first place?” You jerk back and Jean leans against the table, crossing his arms. “I thought you fought for a dream. Something. Anything.”

“I thought I did, too. I’m just…” A hissing breath, and you pinch the bridge of your nose, turning away. Images of the lake back from their cadet years flash in your head. “I’m just tired, I guess.”

“Tired?” he repeats icily. “You think the rest of us aren’t tired? We all haven’t had the luxury to sit down on a farm and escape all our responsibilities.” 

Head snapping up, your eyes find cold brown chips staring back. Bitterly, you grit out, “Excuse me?”

“Do you think there’s a day that goes by where I think about Marco and how I wasn’t there for him? We all lost someone. You’re not the only person who’s had to go through it. We’re all guilty of something, but at least, I didn’t give up! At least, some of us decided to do something about it!”

“Shut up!” A hand flies through the air but he catches your wrist and twists, pinning you down to the table. Another hand slams your other hand into the wood and you grunt as Jean wedges himself between your legs to stop you from kicking him. Eyes burning, you stare up into the face of your friend and in that moment, the sorrow overflowing spills into your chest as if you are a well and he is the flood. 

He sinks, elbows clacking against the table as he bows his head. His breath is rushed, cool against your face, and you search his features before uttering out a quiet, “Why did you really come here, Jean?”

His eyes widening, his hands loosen. You try to suck your tears back in, but your eyes are burning so intensely you have to let them fall anyway just as there’s a sharp gasp. Jean looks up before he jerks back as if you’ve really slapped him. Sitting up, you twist to look at the doorframe, and your heart drops into your gut when you see a redheaded boy, eyes shining with tears.

“What are you doing?” he cries, and you immediately launch yourself off the table, crossing the distance towards him as Anya appears over his shoulder, helpless. The brunette girl’s guilt punches through you and you lift Xavier up into your arms, hugging him tight before wrapping another arm around the girl and poking your head into the hall. 

Alina’s figure is a mere shadow at the end of the hall, and you sigh, gesturing for her to come. Taking off at a sprint, she charges down the hall and you bury your nose in Anya’s hair just as another body slams into you, latching onto your waist. You close your eyes as Xavier tries to snuggle even deeper into your neck.

“I’m okay,” you keep repeating. “Just a heat of the moment thing. I promise, he’s not here to hurt us. I promise.”

“Are you okay?” Anya murmurs, and you look down. The eldest girl’s pulled her head back to look at you. Her eyes are narrowed, perceptive as always, and her lips are upturned into a faint scowl. You smile faintly, running a hand over her head. 

“I will be. Why don’t you take them back to your room?” you advise, and her eyes wander from you to Jean again. Catching it, you brush your thumb along her temple soothingly. “Go.” Reluctantly, she lets go of you and turns to Alina who still latches onto you like a parasite, but you rest a palm atop her head. “Alina.”

A sniff, and then she steps back, rubbing at her face. Her older sister takes her shoulders, easing her away and you crouch down as Xavier silently grabs onto your shirt tighter in his tiny fists. 

“Xavier,” you soothe. “I’ll be back in just a moment, okay?” You tilt your head. “I promise.” Wiping at his tears, you wait for him to let go of your shirt on his own accord, and when he does, you brush his hair back from his brow and plant a kiss on his forehead. Anya calls his name softly down the hall, and he lingers for a moment more before walking away, head still over his shoulder so he can watch.

You stay crouched until he’s gone and then you let out a soft exhale, head dropping, eyes closing.

“We need you more than you probably need us,” Jean acknowledges quietly, and your eyes open again to look at him. He’s straightened himself up, watching you with softer eyes. He visibly swallows, and you wonder if it’s pity or jealousy in his eyes. “But, we’re outnumbered in trusted senior officers in the Survey Corps. You’re one of them.”

Quietly: “I shouldn’t be.”

He falters for a moment. “Yeah. Yeah, I suppose not.” He grabs the newspaper again. “But somehow, you are. If Captain Levi trusts you, then so do I. Bertholdt is dead. Annie’s a frozen log in a basement somewhere, and Reiner’s still alive. So are you.” He extends the paper to you. “This is what guilt got us. So what are you going to do about it?”

“Then, how about we go back to my hometown? There’s water nearby. We can go in the afternoons, eat all this food you’ve never had before.”

You haven’t seen a lake in who knows how long. Not since your cadet years, it feels like. Your heart yearns for the blue expanses, to plunge into the cold depths and gasp at how cold it is. You thought you’d given that up, but just there mere thought of it sends your mind spiralling into the images you’ve dreamed of since you were a child. 

“Regret begets regret—don’t have any when you go, and maybe you’ll live a life happier than most.”

You know you’ll never forgive yourself if you never take the chance to see him again. Heart peeling in your chest, you grab the newspaper from him.

“They call it the sea, don’t they?” you finally ask. Jean nods. “A lot of water and there’s… there’s animals in there.”

“Yeah. They live in this salty water and… they eat seafood a lot in Marley. I don’t know if you know.”

“Reiner might’ve mentioned it before,” you say. You look down at the newspaper in your tight fist and swallow. All at once, one door closes and another opens, and you look at Jean, the date and time of the ship already burned into your memory. “He said he thought I’d like it. I guess I’ll keep that in mind when we go.”

Jean’s eyes widen as you hand the paper back to him, your palm scalding as you shove the ticket into your pocket. He says your name softly, but you only hold your hand up, eyes fixed on the floor.

“I’ll meet you there, I promise.” You turn towards the shadows of the hall. In the silence of the night, you hear the hushed whispers of the children you’ve dedicated your life to and your heart disintegrates in your chest. “I just… I need some time to figure everything out.”

“Of course. Whatever you need.” Jean’s feet shift along the floor. You look over your shoulder for a moment to find his eyes on you. “I missed you.”

“I missed you, too,” you reply. “Feel free to stay the night. It’s already late.” He nods, and you flash him the weakest smile. 

Then, you walk down the hall to your children. You have a lot of explaining to do.

.

You stubbornly try to ignore the tears tracing down your face as you reach into the compartment on your pants containing the letters. Reaching for it, you pull it out and crack it open, wondering if it’s even possible to bring yourself to read it.

“It’s not your last question,” Reiner had noted warily as they stood at the top of the stairs.

“Yeah. I guess we have to put a rain check this time.” You had set the box down, looking at him. You couldn’t recall feeling so warm, so empty. So convinced that there was something wrong with how much you still felt for him. “One more question, then?”

A nod, almost hungry for it. “Please.”

“Did you really, really love me?”

The gentlest of sighs, his warm yellow eyes. He had reached out for you, then second guessed, and reached for his breast pocket instead, extending the tin to you. 

“I don’t think I’ll ever stop loving you.”

The entire cabin is quiet as you stare at the ring nestled at the bottom, atop the stack of letters that are wrinkled and must’ve been refolded so many times it’s begun to permanently crease in multiple lines. 

No one’s dared to speak since Sasha died and you look up at the others before back down at the ring again before pinching it between your fingers and lifting it to eye level. You’re not sure what it means to hold it, but you gently close the tin with your other hand, feeling it click shut, and slide it back into your pocket.

The band is silver, rather simple, but it’s pretty, too, in a refined sort of way. There aren’t any gems, but there are simple engravings, lines that curve the metal, causing ripples along the surface and, without thinking, you stretch out your left hand in front of you, trying to gauge which one it’ll fit the best.

Sombrely, you slide it down your ring finger, and let it sit there, lowering your hands and curling them into fists and raising your shoulder, hearing a bone crack. 

You’re exhausted. 

The ODM gear feels strange on your body. It’d been a crash course to get you familiarized with the updates, and you hook a thumb on the strap on your rib cage before glancing at the others. Connie sits with Mikasa and Armin, and Jean is at the back by himself, rubbing at his face hard enough that his skin is beginning to turn red.

You don’t know what to say.

What is there to say? Four years have left you strangely numb.

Jean’s lips pull back into a vicious snarl and his head snaps up to find you looking. Then, everything seems to soften, and he looks away sharply, almost as if to hide his tears.

So you don’t say a thing. Instead, you walk on to the back of the ship, past him, where the prisoners are being held, and you open the door without a noise, first noticing the blond boy. Falco. He looks up at your entrance, eyes wide, and you give him a slight smile as you close the door.

You wish you could hate children for the part they played in killing your friend, but in this moment, you just feel nothing. Not even sadness. You had seen what Marley’s done in the friends you’ve lost.

“Hello, Falco.”

“You lied to me,” he whispers. “You and Mister Kruger—Eren,” he corrects himself. “You used me.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m sorry about that,” you tell him, looking at the walls. It seems like a supply area, and you grab the bucket and rag that’s been left by whoever checked in on them last. There’s a few clean rags and you walk up to them, crouching before the blond first. He seems to flinch back and the brown-haired girl lunges at you.

You have no problem pushing her aside and pinning her down.

“Don’t touch him!” she yells. “You don’t get to touch him!”

“Calm down,” you tell her calmly. “I’m not going to hurt him, and you are in no position to be making demands at me after you killed my friend.”

Her eyes widen. “You’re a devil. So was she!” she spits as you slowly wet the rag and dab at the blood cracking underneath Falco’s nose. It’s clear whoever was here before only used the bucket and rag as a taunt. Probably telling them they could piss in here if they wanted. A coy coil of disgust wraps around your gut. “Don’t touch him. You’re tainted! You give all of us a bad name!”

Your nose wrinkles as the girl squirms under your hand and you let go of her. Cupping Falco’s face, you continue to wipe at his cheek. The water is cold. You hope it soothes what must be a flaring face.

“I don’t understand,” he murmurs dully. Exhausted eyes find yours. “Why?”

“I’m sorry. I have no idea why kids are suddenly soldiers in an adult’s war.” You reach to rinse the rag. Dipping it in water, you begin to wring it out when suddenly, there’s a sharp gasp, and you turn to look at the other child—Gabi. She stares at your hands, eyes wide enough a ring of white is around her irises and you frown. “What?”

“Where did you get that ring?” she asks, voice shaking, and you look down at your hands. “That’s… that’s Reiner’s ring. Where did you get it?” You don’t answer, simply stare at her for a moment, and her breath comes out quivering. “He doesn’t let anyone know he has it. It’s for someone special. That’s—he wouldn’t even tell me. He doesn’t know I saw him with it. He… he —it’s supposed to be for someone!”

“Gabi—“ Falco grabs her arms as you regard her softly, and you have just an idea of what’s going in her head as she points at you. “Gabi, calm down—“

“Why do you have it?” she demands ferociously. “It’s not yours! Give it back!” You drop the rag back into the water, and sit back, drawing your knees up to your chest and resting your arms atop of them lazily as tears begin to trace down the child’s face. “It didn’t even cost that much! You won’t be able to sell it to, you know! Give it!”

“Gabi!”

“You have no idea what that means to him!“

“Stop—“

“You spawn! You devil woman!”

“Are you done?” you ask her quietly, fingers twisting the ring and Gabi inhales raggedly as you look at her flatly. Her eyes widen even more if possible, and she allows Falco to pull her back. Her wet gasps fill the silence and you swallow, tilting your head at your hands. “If you really want to know, I don’t really have an idea why I’m wearing it.” You sigh, dropping your hands and letting your head fall forward. “As for how I got it, if you ever see Reiner again, why don’t you ask him?”

Falco’s eyes widen as you look up and finding him staring at you with a strange scrutiny, and your eyebrows furrow as he lets go of Gabi and straightens up from where he’s sitting.

“Mister Braun didn’t even hear what I said when he saw you,” he murmurs, brow furrowing. “Like he’d just seen a ghost. You and…” He struggles for words, voice unsteady. “Eren said you guys were all old friends. But… but, if he gave you the ring—“

“Shut up, Falco!” Gabi beseeches, grabbing his arm, but Falco only stares at you. “Are you even hearing what you’re saying? You’re accusing my cousin of treason! He wouldn’t!”

“He stayed with you for so long,” he continues, as if in a trance. “Even Eren wondered what was taking so long. He… called it a lover’s quarrel. You…”

“I think you two should get some rest,” you interrupt, pushing yourself to your feet and ignoring the smokey feeling clogging up your chest as tears slip down Gabi’s face and Falco’s face pales at your blatant dismissal. “It’s going to be a few hours until we land, roughly. You’ll want to get used to being somewhere warm before they transfer you to some sort of prison. It’ll be a lot colder there.”

Taking the bucket and the rag, you return it back to its spot before walking out the room and closing the door shut behind you. 

You find the spot you once were standing at now occupied with Floch and his comrades, and then you turn your head to see Jean still leaning against the wall, arms crossed, expression burning the metal floor.

You amble over to him without a word and lean in beside him, sinking to the floor.

[valdomarx]

La Campanella

McShep + Rodney plays the piano Rodney never could resist a challenge, especially when it’s set by Sheppard.

Atlantis is a place of many wonders, but Rodney's favorite is this:

In a distant part of the northern pier is a short, squat tower which he and Sheppard investigate on a routine patrol.

And in that tower is a large, unassuming room like a lecture hall.

And in the center of the room is an object seven foot long and three feet high, elegant, delicate, and familiar.

“Is that…” Rodney practically runs over to touch it, as reckless as that urge can be in Atlantis, but he knows this isn’t a weapon or a piece of broken technology or some dangerous machine. It’s a thing of beauty.

It’s an instrument remarkably like a piano: white and black reversed, keys slightly different lengths, but the same 12-step configuration making up an octave. Keys which strike strings stretched over a wide frame with soft hammers, and this can’t be a coincidence.

“How... ” he starts, and then he answers his own question. “The Ancients must have invented this instrument and brought the concept with them to Earth. But that would overturn so much musical history they’ll have to rewrite the textbooks, can you even imagine the implications -”

John does not look as fascinated by the profound repercussions of this discovery on the history of western classical music as Rodney is.

He waves questions of history aside and sits on the low stool in front of the keyboard, blowing away the years of accumulated dust. His hands instinctively settle into arches, his wrists loose, and he plays a few simple scales. The notes sound out clear and true, but -

He frowns.

“Something wrong?” Sheppard is leaning over the instrument, studying him and it with interest.

“This is tuned half a tone lower than an Earth piano. Feels a bit weird, that’s all.”

“How do you know that?”

Rodney affects his smuggest smile. “Perfect pitch, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Sheppard says, rolling his eyes.

Rodney looks around the room furtively, keen for reasons he can’t articulate that no one else should observe them, and he starts to play.

-

It becomes a habit, a place to unwind, somewhere they visit on off hours and in quiet moments.

Today Sheppard is flicking through a golf magazine while Rodney warms up with some Bach. The music is pleasing and orderly, and the sparse, bright notes explode in fractal-like patterns, unfurling and changing and becoming more complex the closer you look.

John tilts his head to one side and says, “You know there’s a whole bunch of classical music on the Atlantis server?”

Rodney grins. He did know that, in fact. Never get between a team of scientists and their file sharing. “I may have heard.”

“I listened to some of the Chopin you like. Then some other piano stuff as well.”

“Yeah?” Rodney picks at a fingernail. Something about the idea of John listening to music just because Rodney likes it makes his heart beat a little faster. “Find anything you liked?”

“A bunch actually. Have you heard of a piece called La Campanella? By a guy named Liszt?"

"Have I…" Has he heard of the single hardest piece in the entire solo piano repertoire? The fact he could never get those double stops right haunts him to this day. "Yeah, it rings a bell."

"I like that one," John says decisively. "It's nice."

Nice??? Sheppard thinks the most epic and demanding piece of all time is nice? Of course he does.

"You should learn to play it," John says casually, like he's suggesting they watch an action movie instead of a scifi.

"I should -" he splutters. "Do you have any idea how difficult that is? It's practically impossible."

John smirks and says, "I thought practically impossible was your specialty?"

Rodney is still spluttering when John throws him a wink and walks out.

-

And then, because despite being the finest mind in two galaxies, on some level he truly is an idiot, he stretches out his fingers and starts to practice.

-

It's not like he had copious free time to start with. But he makes space whenever he can to come to the piano room, chipping away at this ludicrous piece, bit by bit, phrase by phrase, over and over and over.

People think that learning to play is artistry, and maybe it is that too, but mostly it's a grind. You keep doing it again and again until you get it right. It's as much about stubbornness as about skill.

And stubbornness is something Rodney McKay has in abundance.

-

Liszt really was a sadistic old bastard, Rodney thinks sourly as he works on the right hand jumps until his fingers turn to lead.

-

Sometimes Sheppard comes and sits with him while he practices, and on those days he plays easier pieces, things which are familiar and casual. Not that John seems to pay much attention, but Rodney has the urge to impress him all the same.

He’s always having that urge around John.

-

He spends an entire week working on his goddamn trill.

It shouldn’t matter and it’s not like anyone will really listen to it. But it seems to represent something important — a sequence of paired adjacent notes, next to each other but never quite touching, bouncing off each other time and time again, a dance of two — though he doesn’t want to examine that too closely.

-

He doesn’t tell anyone else about the piano. He tells himself that’s because it’s convenient that he doesn’t have to share and can use it whenever he wants.

But really, he likes that it’s his and Sheppard’s; their own tiny secret in this vast and sprawling city.

-

He hears the piece in his sleep, and on missions, and when he’s working in his lab. It becomes a background hum of his brain, always there, a sort of yearning for the possible, the platonic ideal, the way that things could be.

He tries not to examine that too closely either, though the weight of the realization is becoming harder to ignore.

-

Eventually the piece is as ready as it's going to be. He scribbles a quick note during a meeting, folds it into a paper airplane, and throws it at Sheppard's head. He hits him right in the temple, and he manages to avoid cheering when Elizabeth glares at him.

I have something to play for you, the note reads. Meet you at 7? You know where. - R

He jots it down without really thinking, and only once he's thrown does it occur to him how soppy it sounds.

John doesn't seem too perturbed though. He smiles down at the note and meets Rodney's eye with a little eyebrow wiggle which Rodney takes to mean, Gonna impress me?

-

By the time John arrives, Rodney is all warmed up and more nervous than he's ever been about a performance. His heart is racing, and when John gives him a fond look and says, "Hey," it trips even faster.

Once he settles in to play though, there's a certain kind of mental clarity that settles over him. His hands know how to do this, he just has to sit back and let them.

His wrists are still tense as he sounds out the first few bars and then, all at once, he relaxes into it and lets the music carry him. Hours of repetition have made every chord, every melody, every insane and unreasonable jump into something almost effortless. He even forgets John is there: there’s only him, and the piano, and the music.

The music builds and builds, each section becoming more and more ornamented, more complex, more physically demanding, all at a relentless pace that sends most players reeling. But he's got this, he can do this, it turns out all he needed was a bit of motivation.

The penultimate section is his favorite: The technical parts are done and here he can throw himself into the wild, over the top glory of the final melody. And perhaps he shows off a little bit, catching John's eye and grinning at him, but that's all part of the fun.

The piece ends with a crashing, massive finale that makes him feel like a virtuoso, and then in a last few epic chords it's done, as tight and perfect a five minutes as you could wish for.

The final chord reverberates on and on through the stillness of the room, glowing out beyond the city and into the night.

"Wow." John's eyes are wide. "That was great."

Rodney preens, because that ineloquent little comment somehow means more to him than an auditorium full of ecstatic applause. Having John look at him like that makes the months of practice worth it.

"You liked it?" He's fishing for compliments, but he figures he's earned it.

"I did," John says, staring at Rodney's hands like they hold the secrets to the universe.

He looks up and blushes at having been caught staring. Then he deflects and shrugs one shoulder. “Honestly, though, it’s not my favorite piano piece.”

Rodney narrows his eyes. He has the distinct impression he’s been played. “What was your favorite then?”

"I prefer Songs Without Words."

"Mendelssohn?" he explodes. "You wanted Mendelssohn? Jesus Christ, I learned to play that when I was eight!"

John grins. "I appreciate simplicity in music."

"Then why on earth did you make me learn Liszt?!"

John has this joyous, manic light in his eyes, like he's having the time of his life here, messing around with Rodney, of all the things he could be doing. "I like watching you do impossible things."

He sucks in a breath. "I hate you."

"No you don't." John leans in, smug and delighted, and oh, Rodney is so in love with this ridiculous, infuriating man that he could burst. "You learned La Campanella for me."

"It wasn't that hard," he says quickly, because he has a reputation to maintain here. But John laughs and gives him this soft, teasing look, one eyebrow quirked at a ridiculous angle beneath the chaotic mess of his hair, and Rodney is defenseless.

"Whatever you say, McKay," John says, and Rodney has the feeling he sees straight through him. "Now play it again."

[luuurien]

Melody’s Echo Chamber - Emotional Eternal

(Psychedelic Pop, Dream Pop, Neo-Psychedelia)

Melody Prochet's third studio album removes much of the shimmer and shine of her previous two albums for something more expansive, more soothing. Rather than trying to melt your mind, Emotional Eternal aims to enhance the world around you through brightly textured, forward-moving psychedelic pop tunes that work just as well as anything she's done in the past.

☆☆☆☆

The weird thing about Emotional Eternal is that it doesn't feel quite like a Melody's Echo Chamber album on first listen. Sure, all the main elements are there: the summery, effects-covered guitars, drums that don't keep time so much as make a solid landing pad for all the sweeping instrumentation, and of course the sweet and fairy-like singing of Melody Prochet herself, but compared to the ultra-fluorescent sounds of her 2012 debut or 2018's Bon Voyage, the colors of Emotional Eternal are immediately less vibrant. This isn't by accident on Prochet's part, though, as the entire new look and feel of everything from the album cover to the music itself takes on a shinier monochrome quality that she then plants in the same soil as her previous two albums, and the results are truly mesmerizing. Just because the form has changed doesn't mean the function of Prochet's music - cerebral, immersive, electrifying - isn't there, and in fact, the changes she makes to her sound here at times make those feelings seem bigger than ever. Emotional Eternal takes some getting used to, for sure, but the end result is something just as great as before. Emotional Eternal has by far her coldest sound yet: drums smack and shiver like icebergs crashing into one another, guitars are covered in this soft, chilly reverb that sounds more like the sonic qualities of an Arctic cave than the warm cocoons of her past projects. The preceding singles all worked in perfect harmony to build a small window into this new world that she's built: the first of them, Looking Backward, seems to borrow from the funk-tinged sound of her Kevin Parker produced debut, a prominent and groovy bassline over candy synthesizers and soaring vocal leads that never lets up on Prochet's energy, followed up with the tabla-kissed, pirate movie bounce of Personal Message and the orchestral rumble of Alma that all showed how her psych-pop sound has matured while staying connected to its roots. And while songwriting has never been the focal point of her work, the abstractions and heavy use of imagery she uses throughout Emotional Eternal helps give actual depth and perspective to the baroque orchestration stitched into many of these songs, twinkling harpsichord and chamber strings texturing stories of running horses and fiery dragons, her dreamy tale of nature's gifts lifted high up enough to leave the Earth entirely and dance with the moon. She sings in her native French on the fittingly titled Personal Message, that aforementioned pirate song mood further pushed by the first verse's image of a message sent "In the white and dirty sail / Of a boat worn by salt and age," the freezing ocean water splashing through each jangly acoustic strum while strings blow like coast winds. It lacks much of the immediate punch and vigor that made her self-titled, and many bits of Bon Voyage so immediately delightful, but by holding back and letting the music take its time to marinate, each new element comes out much more prominent and memorable in the end. When she does let things loose, it's absolutely fantastic. Where the Water Clear the Illusion is an easy candidate for pop song of the year, Prochet's hypnotic hook in the chorus pushed by huge guitar chords and a slippery bassline that is begging to be blasted through sport's stadium amplifier with how much energy courses through it, but other tracks like the dance-ready Looking Backward and even the chunkier prowl of drums and guitar on the penultimate A Slow Dawning of Peace give new pop sensibilities to her music. At just nine songs and a little over 35 minutes, Emotional Eternal doesn't take much of your time and rewards you handsomely for investing in multiple listens, something new to find each time and each previous element only more enjoyable the second time around. The full six minute version of Alma, titled Alma_The Voyage, makes a case for Melody's Echo Chamber outside of the usual psych-pop sound, adding an extra second half of nothing but harmonious strings that jump and wriggle around as each player drones on a single note, the occasional new additions blossoming like new flowers in an already-packed field that only make it more beautiful over time. It's easy to understand why those so infatuated with Prochet's older sound would be disappointed in this less direct approach she's taken this time around, but by forcing you to engage with the music in a more present manner compared to just letting yourself drown in bliss like you could before, Emotional Eternal renders itself a stronger and more hard-hitting album in the end. While it lets go of many of the things that brought people to Melody's Echo Chamber in the first place, Emotional Eternal only does that for the better. It was hard to imagine where her sound could go post-Bon Voyage without the kaleidoscopic blend of colors turning to a sludgy green, and by removing it all for snowy whites and shadowy grays, Prochet's graceful nature has been preserved while setting a whole new scene with it. Throwing yourself into Emotional Eternal can be a bit jarring with the knowledge of her previous albums, but letting her take the reins and do what she does best, it's hard to complain about how it's all turned out, songs that bring the same feelings out while revealing a different path to get there that works just as well. She doesn't overstuff the music with ideas like she used to, only putting what's needed to bring it all together and making you search harder for each part as she delicately weaves it all together. It's overwhelming with its openness, like being dropped into a midnight desert and seeing nothing but vast hills surrounding you, Prochet's music a soft flickering light you can chase across them, the hunt for its next position becoming addictive the second you get your first taste of it. Emotional Eternal doesn't have to try hard to make you fall in love, because the beating heart that moved her music forward in the past is here just as readily. The only change now is that you have to actively search for it, and Prochet makes sure you never want to stop.

[thewhitefluffyhat]

Thoughts on Gou Episode 23

As a standalone episode of Higurashi, I thought this episode was quite good!  

In context of it being the penultimate episode? Ha ha. Very funny.

Teppei’s ““Redemption””

I just finished the VN version of Matsuribayashi a few months ago, and Ryukishi’s author notes in it call out how despite Higurashi being about not making any character a villain to be sacrificed to band together the heroes, he didn’t show that in Minagoroshi with Satoko’s subplot. So I wasn’t surprised at all to see him going back and re-tuning that thematic discrepancy with Teppei.

And as far as the portrayal went, I thought it was pretty well done? Teppei seemed believably awkward and selfish at taking the first steps of maybe trying to turn his life around. And I loved that the episode ends on the note that no, even if an abuser does try to change themselves for the better, it’s fully within the rights of their victims to not want them in their lives any more.  And Teppei accepts that! Hence the sarcasm quotes in this section title - this wasn’t a black-and-white “redemption,” and it’s justified for both Satoko and the viewers to reject him.

Indeed, I’ve seen some people say this episode felt slow, but I thought the drawn-out tension and unease of the situation helped put me in Satoko’s wary and conflicted shoes even better. Just a great little self-contained mini-arc all around.

...If it is a self-contained arc. The other aspect I’ve seen debated is whether this is just the beginning, and we’re gearing up to see even more of Teppei trying to reconcile with Satoko. But personally, I thought this episode ended his subplot just fine, and we’ll probably move on to other topics for Episode 24.  

(At least until if/when we see what was going on in Tatarigoroshi, which... well, even with Ryukishi’s livestream comments, I’m still not convinced that Satoko’s reactions in Tatarigoroshi are completely fake.)

There’s just one problem with this arc: why on earth are we getting this right now? If I actually thought next episode would be the series finale, I’d be very negative about this development wasting time that could be better spent on… literally anything else.

Luckily, it sounds like we might be getting more episodes of Higurashi.  And with that on the table, I’m a lot more positive about this episode.

...Mostly because it gives me an excuse to ramble a bunch more about witches, ahaha.  And on that note...

Oh THAT’S What “Certainty” Means!

She did it! She did the thing! SHE DID THE - *incoherent Lambda fangirl screeching*

Ahem. Let’s talk about Bern and Lambda’s “powers,” shall we?

In Umineko’s Episode 5/End, we see Bern solving what is… well, essentially a very hard riddle… for her piece by taking a short dip into the Sea of Fragments, fishing through a bunch of timelines, and grabbing a Fragment she found where her piece solved the riddle.  And then that’s how the game board progresses.

It’s casual abuse of causality for the sake of showing off. So yes, Satoko is absolutely correct that her card trick is fully within Rika’s abilities!

Anyway, I’d always taken that Umineko scene as an example of how Bern’s ability to grant miracles works in practice.  Which then left the intriguing question of Lambda - what does the ability to grant certainty look like, both on the board and off?

Well, I think we just got an answer to that! And oh goodness, it is so extremely Lambda.

See, in the “Bernkastel’s Letter” short story, we did get an answer by analogy - Bern describes her own abilities as similar to walking every branch of a maze, while Lambda chooses a path and bulldozes the walls in her way. So evidently Lambda’s approach is all about using willpower to solve problems with overwhelming force… and now with Gou, I finally understand that metaphor.

Why is “certainty” considered such a brute force approach? Because it’s based on the idea of aggressively and immediately discarding Fragments, until the only Fragments where you’re alive to observe are the ones with your desired outcome. And yes, this initially involved some very gratuitous suicide, because Lambda is nothing if not flashy and extra as hell.

(It’s also starting to make a lot more sense why Rika is so passive in Gou’s first cour - it’s meant to be a direct contrast with Satoko’s looping strategy!)

(Umineko Episode 8 spoilers) 

Also, between Satoko’s insistence that she’s not smart enough for St. Lucia and now this, Bern’s “lol dumbass” reaction to Lambda’s heroic sacrifice in Episode 8 suddenly makes a lot more sense. Why are you even mad, Battler, Lambda dies ALL THE TIME??  XD

(end spoilers)

Is this magic? Or a trick?

Like how Bern’s “miracles” are thematically Rika’s looping strategy (just wait and hope for what you want) in miniature, Lambda’s “certainty” is also just Satoko’s looping strategy (yeet yourself out when you don’t get what you want) in miniature.

...but, do these little parlor tricks actually require their looping strategies being applied at Fragment scale? Hm.

I’d usually considered the question of “does Bern and/or her piece have to literally wait through all the timelines as Bern searches for a miracle?” to be unimportant semantics.  Infinite time in the Sea of Fragments, etc., etc.  Same with Satoko’s trick here - does it matter whether Satoko literally kills herself or not?  The effect is the same.

However, with Eua’s rules about Satoko needing to die after Rika to chase her… well.  Now quibbling over the exact mechanics of their powers actually might be relevant.  Because if Satoko can still pull off these stunts while staying in sync with Rika, then Rika isn’t just facing an enemy looper - she’s facing a low-level reality warper.

Yeah, I think I’m also starting to understand why Bern describes Lambda as such a terrifying opponent...

Really Bizarre New Howdunnit Theory

Previously, I’d thought there were only two possibilities for Gou’s “howdunnit”: first, that Satoko was injecting H173 into people to make them go L5.  Second, that Eua was using her godly influence and appearing in visions as some kind of evil “Oyashiro-sama.”  But now, with it looking like Satoko/Lambda already has access to her witchy abilities, we have a third option: it’s Lambda messing with the dice, and causing a person to go L5 via certainty hax.

One way to interpret how Lambda’s magic works is that if an event can happen, she guarantees it will happen. And since every person infected with even low-level HS theoretically can reach L5... ha.

This idea also neatly gets around one of my major existing problems with the H173 theory - why is everyone attacking Rika, and not the extremely suspicious girl who just injected them with an unknown drug? But if Satoko is just going *snap* “you’re L5 now!”, that, uh, gets around the suspicious syringe problem.  To say the least.

Though wow this is somehow even more utterly bonkers than anything I’d ever considered before?  A plausible solution that is essentially “Satoko turned into a witch and committed the crimes with Fragment magic.”  O.O

If true, then in hindsight, Satokowashi may be less of a howdunnit/whydunnit backstory arc, and actually more of - and I can’t believe I’m saying this too - a witch training arc.

That just sounds so wrong, and yet, I can’t deny the possibility!

Eua and More Meta-Mechanics

Moving onto our other resident just-get-over-with-it-and-call-her-a-witch, Eua!

...Immediately on hearing her name, Younger Brother bestowed the nickname “End User License Agreement,” and as such, EULA is her name now in my head.  What can I say, she makes shady deals that require only a fig leaf of consent! :P

Anyway, I love that it turns out Satoko/Lambda is just as bad with coming up with names as Rika/Bern.  D’aww.  Though, now I’m somehow even more curious where she got the name “Lambdadelta.” Or when and where Eua got the name “Featherine Augustus Aurora.”

(If the latter ends up implied to be the name Rika came up with for her, that would make Bern’s inability to say the whole thing somehow even funnier.)

I also love that the reason Satoko is looping really is because living with Rika is hazardous to one’s health. Turns out the problem is time loop leakage and not parasites, but do I get half credit on that one, lol?

More seriously, it’s always been a thing that memories carry over in Higurashi, and it’s not too hard to speculate that it could be related to proximity with Rika. So even if the exact mechanics are a little funky if you squint at edge cases, I don’t have any problem accepting this explanation.  It’s not like I have a better alternative theory!

(Even the Witch of Miracles knows miracles do not exist…)

Anyway, the main implication, I think, is that Takano also changed her mind because of these memories. (Called it?)  However, given that Rika had never seen Takano change her mind before Nekodamashi, we might not get to see that happen until Onidamashi.

Speaking of which...

Which loop is this?

On first watch, another thing that really confused me about this episode was, when does it take place?

At the end of Episode 22, Eua gave Satoko the ability to chase after Rika in the loops. But… this isn’t Onidamashi!  If anything, it looks like it might be Watadamashi, since that’s a loop where the club plays games at Da Vinci. Except we saw Watadamashi, and there were no conversations with Satoko showing off her looping powers!  And despite the Teppei focus, it can’t be Tataridamashi either, as him arriving in Hinamizawa went differently there too!

So is this just a random loop before Satoko started looping with Rika? Hm… maybe.

However, my current theory is that this is the first loop where Satoko is synched with Rika.  Or to be more specific, it’s what I theorized last episode - a loop where Satoko will once more allow events to progress all the way to St. Lucia to ensure Rika remembers her “sin,” and then she’ll kill Rika and dump her in Onidamashi to let the game of revenge truly begin.

And if I’m right about Satoko letting the timeline progress to 1988, that then brings up some interesting possibilities for next episode.

1. One option is to continue the Teppei plot, and to have Satoko actually let Rika attend St. Lucia alone (until her death). That may be why Rika’s Nekodamashi flashbacks never mention Satoko at St. Lucia.

2. The other is that Satoko does return to St. Lucia… but with how much focus this episode gave Satoko’s save scum card trick, I wonder if we might not be setting up for a very different St. Lucia loop. One where Satoko uses her new powers to ace every test and befriend Rika’s groupies.  Though since Satoko’s anger is more about Rika’s broken promises than the studying at this point, doing well at St Lucia won’t necessarily stop her wrath.

But it might. In which case, the real question is how both girls will die.

Will Satoko opt for another rigged chandelier drop, given its prominence in the ED?  But that’s a bit repetitive. Unless… hm.  Unless Satoko does change her mind, and so Eua forces her hand with a real “accident.” Now that would be some laser-guided karma!

Village Destroying Arc, Huh

One last compare/contrast between Rika/Hanyuu and Satoko/Eua for the road.

Long before we met her, Rika apparently started out a bit more active about changing things, but Hanyuu constantly nagged Rika to be extremely passive. To the point where Rika basically never used or even referred to her powers at all except when on the verge of despair. (And even then, the most she would do is make ominous predictions!) Then, after it all was said and done, Hanyuu went out of her way to teach Rika to never even think about using her powers again.

Meanwhile Satoko/Eua is the complete opposite. Satoko tried Rika’s “let’s passively hope for a different outcome” all of one time, then said “screw that” and started using the most flashy, brute force tactics possible. With Eua applauding that and subtly guiding her further down that path.

What a difference it makes, to not be worried about a finite number of tries!

But this also makes me very worried for if/when Satoko tries to return to a normal life. Rika was able to adjust to living as a human again decently well. But Satoko has become so inhuman so quickly, I think she would have a much harder time of that, if she’d even be able to at all.

And so… the more I think about it, the more it feels like this “looper leakage” mechanic reveal may be setting up for a situation where both Rika/Bern and Satoko/Lambda have to leave and/or use the Onigari on themselves, for the sake of the village.

Like, Hanyuu’s realization that “actually, we should have just accepted Rika’s death in the first world” and her insistence that Rika stop thinking like Bern and never use the power again… suddenly that makes a lot more sense in light of this mechanic.

The more the power leaks, the harder it is to contain. Hanyuu just trying to save Rika’s life was enough to allow Satoko to access the Sea, and now Satoko looping is having even more spillover effects.

With them both looping, I imagine it’s only a matter of (meta-)time before the entire town starts experiencing cross-Fragment dreams. And while it seems to be having positive effects for now,  I doubt it will lead to anything good in the long term. As I’ve seen speculated, it may even be part of, if not the reason everyone is going L5 so quickly, including people who normally never do. (Fourth possible howdunnit, perhaps?)

If we want to go really out there with predictions, and assume a third cour, then maybe it isn’t so far fetched for Rena to be a third looper.  Or heck - the entire club could get wrapped up in the loops!

Oh Rika. Oh Satoko. What have you done?

(Succeeded at being very entertaining, that’s what!)

[newmusickarl]

Album & EP Recommendations

My word, the music world has well and truly spoiled us this week!

The past seven days has seen a colossal avalanche of new releases, so much so I’ve barely had chance to keep up with it all. Although this is not the full list of everything from the past seven days, here are the 16 (yes, 16!) new releases I’ve enjoyed the most this week.

As there is so much to get through the rundowns are (mostly) a bit shorter than normal and there is no single Album of the Week, instead I simply recommend checking out whichever album or track sounds most appealing depending on your preferred taste.

So without further ado then, here’s what’s good:

Californian Soil by London Grammar

It’s been four years since the release of London Grammar’s last record Truth Is A Beautiful Thing - an album that I enjoyed, but I’ll admit also left me feeling somewhat underwhelmed coming off the back of their incredible breakout debut, If You Wait. As it turns out, the band themselves were also having a tough time around that period, with front woman Hannah Reid in particular battling relentless industry sexism, as well as the persistent physical pain caused by her fibromyalgia condition. With this being the case, it is amazing that the young indie-pop trio have made it to their third album at all, let alone delivering what is their best work to date.

Opening on a grand, string-drenched Intro, the record soon morphs into the sun-soaked guitars and soaring orchestration of the album’s glorious title track. It marks an early highlight as Reid catches the audience up with the tribulations of the last few years – “I left my soul on Californian soil.” From there the album doesn’t really let up as the band move through a series of career-defining tracks – the gorgeous contemporary groove of Missing, the dance-influenced How Does It Feel, the chilled-out ambience of the dreamy Baby, It’s You and the sublime, stripped-back closer America.

However, the album’s strongest moment comes when Reid confronts music industry sexism head on with defiant anthem Lord It’s A Feeling. Beginning with some twinkly xylophone, before evolving into an atmospheric synth-laced backdrop where Reid pulls no punches:

“I saw the way you made her feel, like she should be somebody else,

I know you think the stars align for you and not for her as well,

I undеrstand, I can admit that I have felt those things mysеlf”

The cutting lyrics against some blinding quiet rave instrumentation leaves quite the impression, as does this sterling record in general. After a slight misstep, London Grammar have well and truly rediscovered themselves and they have honestly never sounded better – a truly incredible album.

If You Could Have It All Again by Low Island

Oxford electo-pop outfit Low Island are another band that have defied expectations to get to this point. This, their debut album, was not recorded in a professional music studio – in fact, the vocals were recorded in a bedroom cupboard of all places. The band themselves don’t even have a manager or a record label. In every sense of the word, they are a truly independent band. For a self-financed, self-produced effort, If You Could Have It All Again is a quite remarkable first outing.

From melodic, uplifting opener Hey Man, the record quickly jumps into spoken word electro punk banger What Do You Stand For, featuring acid-drenched synths and a dancefloor-ready groove. Fans of FIFA 21 will recall Don’t Let the Light In, with the glitchy pulse of recent single Who’s Having the Greatest Time also standing out. That said, it’s the smooth, infectious sway of I Do It For You that still pulls me in the most.

Having followed the band since their early EPs, I’ve been rooting for Low Island for a while now and this is one debut album I was highly anticipating this year. Safe to say, my expectations have been met – this is a fantastic, accomplished record, which leaves me eager to see where they go next.

The Greatest Mistake Of My Life by Holding Absence

There was a time when the difficult second album used to be a thing, but listening to the sophomore effort from Welsh rock band Holding Absence this week, I’m really not sure that exists anymore. After a dramatic and impressive self-titled debut two years ago, the band have wasted little time taking things up a notch, with this new album cinematic and masterfully produced from beginning to end.

From standout singalong anthems like Afterlife and In Circles, to the album’s epic seven-minute penultimate track Mourning Song, The Greatest Mistake of My Life shows a band pushing themselves and driving forward with ambition at every opportunity. In a year packed with outstanding rock and metal albums already, this is most definitely another one you can add onto that list. Soaring, impressive and demanding of repeat listens.

We Forgot We Were Dreaming by Saint Raymond

It’s been six long years since Nottingham-born singer-songwriter Callum Burrows, AKA Saint Raymond, released his debut album. However it seems the time away has been well spent as this long-awaited follow-up finds Burrows in fine form, with this album packed to the brim with catchy, glossily produced indie-pop anthems.

From the brilliant title track that opens the record, to the bouncy riffs of Right Way Round, Talk and Solid Gold, to more subdued and heartfelt moments like Only You, this album will have you smiling, singing your heart out and dancing your troubles away.

Flu Game by AJ Tracey

AJ Tracey may have only been three years old when Michael Jordan was winning NBA championships with the Chicago Bulls, but that hasn’t stopped him making a record influenced by the legendary icon and his famous 1997 Flu Game. Like many others including myself, grime superstar AJ Tracey spent lockdown watching the brilliant The Last Dance documentary, and this record weirdly works as a fantastic unofficial companion, but also just a great summer rap record.

McCartney III Imagined by Paul McCartney

Even if like me you completely missed Sir Paul McCartney’s 2020 album McCartney III, it’s well worth checking out this reimagining, where he has called on the help of some of his famous musician pals. This is a real who’s who line up of guest features including Beck, Khurangbin, St. Vincent, Blood Orange, Phoebe Bridgers, Damon Albarn, Josh Homme, Anderson .Paak and more, making for quite a fascinating mix of sounds and styles.

Moratorium (Broadcasts from The Interruption) by Enter Shikari

And finally on the albums front this week, genre-benders Enter Shikari have released a brilliant compilation of all their lockdown live performances, headlined by an incredible string-tinged acoustic version of The Dreamer’s Hotel and a beautifully stripped-back “At Home” rendition of Live Outside.

Tracks of the Week

Introvert by Little Simz

Wow, wow and wow again. Still fairly fresh off the back of her masterful, Mercury Prize nominated third album Grey Area, this week British rapper Little Simz released the first taste of her next record in the form of this epic and triumphant opening track. At six minutes in length, this majestic and operatic political anthem aims to grab the listener by the collar and shake them awake. Without a doubt, one of the best songs of the year so far, the powerful video for which you can view above.

Smile by Wolf Alice

The second taste of their forthcoming album Blue Weekend, Smile continues Wolf Alice’s pattern for alternating Loud/Soft releases, with this one featuring buzzy guitars, punky vocals and a hypnotic chorus melody.

Beautiful Beaches by James

Although written off the back of the California wildfires that impacted front man Tim Booth’s local community, the lyrics on the band’s latest anthem purposefully offer a dual meaning, giving hope to those dreaming of a post-lockdown getaway and fresh start.

He Said She Said by CHVRCHES

The Scottish trio made their much-anticipated return this week, with Lauren Mayberry also sharing her experiences of sexism on this arena-ready synth-pop banger.

Matty Healy by Georgia Twinn

Georgia Twinn delivers an infectiously catchy break-up anthem, inspired by an ex-boyfriend, who’s most interesting feature was supposedly looking like the 1975 frontman.

Kill It by Vukovi

Underground Scottish rock outfit Vukovi’s new single is so good, they even managed to get KILL IT trending over the weekend of its release. Masterfully produced with big bold riffs and trancey synths, this one just sounds huge.

Can’t Carry On by Gruff Rhys

The latest solo single from the former Super Furry Animals frontman is a stunning, super-melodic tune with an instant chorus you’ll be singing before the track has even finished its first play.

Ceremony by Deftones

One of the highlights off their last album Ohms, the nu-metal rockers have now delivered a cinematic new video directed by horror legend Leigh Whannell. Check it out!

Chasing Birds by Foo Fighters

And finally this week, Dave Grohl and company released a trippy new animated video for this Medicine At Midnight cut to help celebrate 420 in their own unique way. Again, well worth a watch!

[evermorehaikyuu]

Day 29

Title: Promise

Note: Tomorrow’s the last day of Angstember hEe HeE I will go back to my schedule of updating irregularly but anyways. This one does have a character death and honestly, I kind of want to use this for a mafia au I’m planning with Tsukishima, but we’ll see. It is a tiny bit dark and basically has the smallest plot; to be honest, I wanted to kill Tsukishima off but everything I wanted to do I already did so >:( Here is the penultimate angst!

˜”*°•.˜”*°•.•°*”˜.•°*”˜

“You’ll catch me right?”

“Always.”

That was the promise they had made to another. No matter where the other was, the other would run to them. They were always there for each other no matter what.

As much as Tsukishima hated to admit it, he needed Y/N. He counted on her more than he thought he would. She was the light in his life, she was the only thing that got him out of his dark places and she was the person she trusted more than anyone else. And losing her would be something he would never forgive himself for. But as he thought about it, no, he didn’t hate admitting it. He just didn’t like feeling vulnerable. 

Y/N had told him countless times that it was okay to let his guard down around her, that she would never make fun of him, she’d always be there for him. The pure adoration in her eyes was enough to make him believe that she was telling the truth. Every single time, she pulled him into her arms and he melted into her. Maybe it wasn’t bad. Maybe letting his guard down around her was okay.

What he didn’t know was that letting his guard down to trust Y/N would be fatal.

~

“Y/N!” Tsukishima groaned as he walked in the door, taking his shoes off. “Y/N, where are you?” There was no answer so he resorted to looking around the apartment, trying to find her. He sighed in relief when he saw her lying on the sofa, sleeping. A gentle smile washed across his face as he reached out to brush her hair behind her ear. 

She stirred slightly and sluggishly opened her eyes. “Kei…” Reaching up, she wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him to her. 

As always, her touch made him putty in her arms. He could almost forget the choice he was supposed to make without her knowing.

“It’s either you or her. You choose. If I don’t see you up here in a week, I’m going after her.” A shadow had said when Tsukishima had gone up to the ceiling of the museum he worked in. It felt like he was the main character of a shounen manga, being bribed into giving up a life for another. Incredibly unrealistic. But this person was not joking around.

The wrong choice, and one of them was going to die.

“Fine, I have a week to choose.” Tsukishima said, then hurried back home. On the way back home, all he could think about was what he could do to ensure that both of them lived. He chuckled darkly to himself, wondering where he had gone wrong, why he was now in this situation. 

“You okay? You look worried about something.” Y/N said. Tsukishima cursed mentally, aware that Y/N was incredibly smart and could catch onto any of his feelings, no matter how many times he tried to shove them down. 

“I’m okay. Don’t worry about me.”

And it was the look of love in her eyes that made it hurt more when he had finally made his choice. 

It was because of this that it would hurt Y/N.

~

About a week later, Tsukishima was up in that place again. He was on the ceiling, swallowing dryly. One misstep and he’d fall to his death. Like he’d allow that to happen, he wasn’t stupid.

“Ah, you’ve made it. You chose her over yourself. You really have changed.” The shadow said in its melodic voice. Tsukishima didn’t know what was going on or why this was happening, but he didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to leave Y/N alone, he wasn’t prepared. 

I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die, please don’t let me die. Shit, I don’t want to die….I don’t want to leave Y/N alone, I still have so much to do. I have a whole life planned out ahead of me, why is this happening to ME!?

“Why me?” Tsukishima asked simply.

The shadow, from what the blond could tell, merely shrugged. “It was fun deciding if it was going to be you, Koganegawa or Kyoutani. You were much more fun and persuadable. If it came down to it, you’d choose her over yourself. You’ve done great.”

Tsukishima wasn’t one to fight. He wasn’t reckless like Hinata used to be but he wasn’t as strategic as Kageyama, as much as he loathed to admit it. But this? He was going to get killed because of someone’s sadistic fantasies? “Just let me GO! I haven’t done anything to you, nor has Y/N! Just because of some stupid fantasy of yours, you’re taking the life away of one person--”

The shadow cut him off with a single gesture as they walked over to Tsukishima and merely pushed them off, whistling a short little tune that Tsukishima used to hum to Y/N. So he was a stalker, huh?

Tsukishima didn’t realize he was floating through the air until he could sense the ground coming up behind him too quickly. It’d be a miracle if he survived. 

He never got to say goodbye.

He never got one last kiss.

He never got to tell her how much he loved her.

The sound of the impact seemed like it was louder than any gunshot in the world and his chest was heaving, his lungs trying to grasp whatever bits of air they could get. As he stared at the star-dotted sky with a full moon overhead, he mumbled, “This isn’t a bad place to die.”

However, he’d be damned if he didn’t hear Y/N’s voice one more time. As slowly as he could, he brought his phone to his ear, already having speed-dialed Y/N. She picked up on the second ring and said, “Kei, where are you?”

Swallowing dryly, he steadied his voice and started speaking, trying to cover up any emotion in his tone. It was fortunate that they were on the phone, he had more chances of fooling her then. “Sorry, love, I had to go out for something.”

“Oh. You’ll be home soon, right?”

No. I can’t go home, I’ll never make it in time. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll make it back home soon.” Tsukishima lied, biting his tongue right afterwards. “Can you just keep talking to me?”

“Tsukishima Kei, you’re acting strange. There isn’t something you want to tell me? Okay fine, don’t, I’ll keep talking. Um...did you know pteronophobia is the fear of being tickled by feathers? It’s a strange phobia, but looking into it, maybe it is rational, don’t you think?” The excitement in her voice made him chuckle, trying to cover his hiss of pain. 

“You love researching things like those, don’t you?”

“You asked me to talk to you.”

Tsukishima felt himself nearing his end, so with one last breath, he muttered, “Hey, Y/N?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

She paused for a little bit before smiling gently on the other line of the phone and nodding. It was the first time he’d ever said it but unbeknownst to her, it’d be the last time he’d ever say it as well. “I love you too.”

He hiccupped, tears starting to run down his face as his lungs continued trying to grab for air desperately. “You’ll catch me, right?”

That was what tipped Y/N off. Something was up. She couldn’t let him know that she knew something was going on because he’d become more closed up. She answered anyway. “Always.”

At the sound of Y/N saying those words, he whispered, “Goodbye, Y/N.” Ending the call, his arm went limp onto his chest and the smallest smile appeared on his face as his eyes glossed over and his blank face stayed facing towards the sky. He had made the right choice. It was one that cost him his life; but it had kept Y/N alive and that’s all that mattered.

I’ll be waiting for you to come home.

~

Taglist: @skyguy-peach @jovialnoise @versatilewindow @tsukiibaka @jaegersblogh @kodzuken-pie @kara-grayson04 @attixca @volleybloop  @seiijixcia @sunareii @osterfield-hollandwriter @selca11 @his0kasbungeegum @holaaaf @erialexerz​ @sugusho​

[upthenorthmountain]

Heartwood - Chapter Eight

Previous Chapters

The penultimate chapter! One more to go. No more smut, I’m sorry (not in the main story anyway) (you all know that I like to add bits in) (especially, here, we’re not seeing any of Kristoff’s POV, some of that might turn up at some point).

Chapter 8

A few days later Anna had a meeting with Mr Owens. She brought her marriage certificate and he congratulated her, then made arrangements for her to access the accounts for the money her parents had left. She also remade her will, and she’d thought she already knew exactly what she was going to do, but there were so many little niggling details that it took a long time. She wanted to leave the jewellery that had been their mother’s to Elsa, she might as well have it; but had to describe each piece. And she wanted to make sure that Kristoff got his grandmother’s ring back, of course. Then she had to decide what would happen if Kristoff pre-deceased her, or if Elsa did, or if she had a baby (and that led to some feelings that Anna quickly sealed in a box and put away. Another thing that would never happen. No point dwelling on it).

Once everything was done, she said to Mr Owens, “I’d like to buy Bennett’s Field. I’m assuming the developer doesn’t want it any more.”

He hesitated. “I believe it has already been sold.”

“Oh…”

“It can’t be used for housing anyway, now, you know.”

“I know. Thank you.”

She walked out to the taxi rank, annoyed. It had only been six weeks or so; someone else must have been waiting. She should have made enquiries earlier, but she’d wanted to be sure of the money. At least it couldn’t be housing. Hopefully someone just wanted to put some cows on there, or something.

----

Anna had, by now, stopped asking Kristoff about his mysterious occupation. Sometimes it had been fun to think of things to ask (“Are you a taxidermist?” “No.” “Are you a spy?” “No.” “Are you Taylor Swift’s bodyguard?” “From an office shed in the woods? No.”), but soon she found she didn’t really care. It genuinely didn’t matter. Some days he would shut himself up and only come out for dinner; once a month or so he would go up to London on the train and often not come back until the next day. The rest of the time he worked in the garden, or took her on long walks through the countryside, or sat in the living room and played his guitar or the piano.

Anna had been surprised to find out that the piano was in perfect tune. The stool was full of odds and ends of sheet music, and half-remembered lessons from fifteen years ago came back when she sat down and tried to play. It was so much more pleasant to play whatever she wanted, without anyone standing over her or expecting her to make actual progress.

She had all the time in the world now, for other hobbies she’d forgotten about or that were alleged to make too much mess. She sketched the cat in every pose, and did watercolour painting of the flowers from the gardens. Lillian taught her how to make bread, and she got pretty good. And she cycled everywhere she felt like. Sometimes Kristoff would put both their bikes in the back of the camper and they’d go off and explore somewhere else - her legs were getting strong enough to keep up with him, now. 

They also took the camper to the beach, sometimes; sometimes at the weekend during the day, when there were crowds of people and children making sandcastles, and they paddled in the sea and ate ice cream and people-watched; but more often in the early evening during the week, to somewhere quieter, where they might be the only people in miles. Once or twice they slept in the camper overnight, within sound of the waves, waking with the dawn.

That summer lasted forever and was over in a second. Anna helped in the garden and ate strawberries straight off the plant and fresh green peas out of the pod. She gathered sweet peas and poppies and daisies and filled vases in the house, but they never lasted long so in the end she started just enjoying them in the garden. Kristoff didn’t own a lawnmower, it was true, but he did hack down the grass occasionally with a scythe while Anna watched from a safe distance.

But mostly they walked. The bridleway behind the house led to a network of footpaths through the countryside, forests and farms and streams. Sometimes they took a packed lunch and stayed out all day. Anna loved it; sometimes she felt like she was living in a John Foster song. It was hard to remember listening to the music and looking longingly towards the woods, those few months ago.

One time when they were walking through a clearing Anna couldn’t help herself. The beams of sunlight hitting the forest floor were just so - she sang the refrain of Thistle Harvest softly, to the trees. Kristoff shot her a look.

“Must you?”

“Yes,” Anna said firmly, and sang it again, a little louder. Kristoff pulled a face.

“You have a lovely voice,” he said, “But surely you know other songs.”

“That song belongs here,” Anna said. “Right here, in this clearing. Okay, okay, I’m done now. But moments like that are what that song was written for - I don’t care what you think about John Foster, it would have been sacrilege not to sing it.”

He rolled his eyes, said “Well, if you’ve got that out of your system,” and walked on down the path.

----

One night that stuck in her memory was after the end of a long, hot week. The temperature had climbed, and the air had grown denser and heavier until all the weather could do was break, which it did just after nightfall on the Friday. The fresh cold air came sweeping through the forest, and Anna - who had just put on her pyjamas - ran outside into the garden. Her feet were bare and she shivered, but it was wonderful, after so many sweaty days and nights, to be shivering.

“It’s about to pour,” Kristoff said from just outside the back door, holding his toothbrush. “Come in before you get soaked.” Thunder rolled.

“I don’t care if I do,” Anna said. She looked up at the sky, and shivered again at another cool breeze. “I love the air before a storm, don’t you? It feels so alive.”

Kristoff ducked back inside, then he walked across the garden to her, his arms folded. She grinned at him, and he leant down and kissed her - just as the rain started, large wet raindrops that drummed on the corrugated plastic roof of the covered path by the back door, that soaked Anna’s hair until they ran down her back and her nose. 

Eventually they had to run back into the house, dripping and laughing. 

“You’re freezing,” Kristoff said as they stood just inside the back door, “You’ll catch your death -” then he froze, just for a second. “I’ll get your towel,” he said, and he was gone.

-----

If there was a point when things changed, that was it. He was still kind, and perfectly nice and friendly, and a pleasure to share a house with. But gradually he withdrew. He would still happily hug her, put a hand on her arm or the small of her back, but he kissed her less and less. The sex dwindled away as well, and Anna didn’t want to push anything. This wasn’t some kind of - slutty make-a-wish programme. 

Not that she thought he hadn’t wanted to, before - he’d obviously had a crush on her, that was all, and over time it had passed. These things burnt out after a while, sometimes, she guessed. It was still a lot nicer living here than at home, and when she made noises about moving out a couple of times he very quickly told her that she was welcome to stay as long as she wanted, he liked having her here, and that Banjo would miss her, and what would he say to Lillian? So she stayed. They both still wore their rings.

I don’t care if he doesn’t love me, she thought. I hope he DOESN’T, I never wanted him to. He likes me well enough to let me live here, and to be nice to me, and try to make me happy; I don’t want him to love me. If he doesn’t love me, then when I die, he’ll just be a little sad to lose a friend. But I never wanted to break his heart. That wouldn’t be fair.

-----

Anna told Kristoff she wanted summer to last forever. “For everything there is a season,” he said. “Autumn can be nice, too.”

That autumn was mild but wet. On dry days Anna still went for walks, alone or with her husband, but on damp ones he worked in his office and she found things to do at home. It was such a small house that it was easy to stay on top of the housework. Her big project for the autumn was knitting a jumper. Lillian had suggested it - Anna had asked her to teach her how to knit, and was expecting to make a scarf, but Lillian insisted that was boring and that a jumper on big needles would be more fun and not take much longer. They’d made a trip together to the wool shop in town and Anna had chosen soft thick yarn in a mustard yellow. She had to redo the back three times and it came out huge and with one sleeve longer than the other but she loved it and wore it constantly. 

She offered to make one for Kristoff but he insisted she not go to the trouble.

She was wearing it one day when he came into the living room and found her scowling at her phone.

“What’s wrong?”

“Oh, nothing - well - John Foster is doing a gig in London next month, and he hardly ever does live shows, and they released the tickets literally two minutes ago and they’re all gone. I mean, I knew it’d be super-popular. But I did want to go. Not with you, obviously. But Rebecca is a fan as well. Oh, well. Never mind.”

“I’m sorry.”

Kristoff went up to London the next day and got back late; Anna woke when he got into the bed and snuggled up against him, then when she woke in the morning he was already up and out of the bedroom. But when she turned over and put her arm across his pillow, she found something pointy. An envelope. And inside were two tickets to the John Foster gig, paper-clipped together and with a post-it note saying ‘K. Bjorgman’ stuck to them.

“Someone I know helped me out,” was all he would say when she thanked him. “Just please don’t make me go with you.”

-----

Winter was drier and colder. Anna was dreading having to invite Elsa for Christmas - she couldn’t leave her alone, at Christmas - and then got a short text message in mid-December from Elsa telling Anna that she would be visiting a friend over the festive period so would be unable to receive guests. Lillian invited Anna and Kristoff for Christmas dinner, instead, and it was so lovely and cosy that Anna didn’t miss her sister at all.

One day in January it snowed and Anna made a row of snowmen in the orchard. They lasted, melting stumps, long after the rest of the snow had gone, and Anna couldn’t bear to break them down but still hated to see them disappear. “For everything there is a season,” Kristoff said.

He was her best friend. She didn’t think she’d ever had one before. She could say anything to him, and she got the impression he told her things he’d never told anyone else. They were so comfortable together. Anna thought, sometimes, about all the travelling she’d imagined she would do; but why would she want to be anywhere but in front of the fire, reading or chatting or drinking tea, with her favourite person in the world?

He was still free with his hugs, even if he didn’t seem interested in anything else physical. And even without central heating, Anna was never cold at night - Kristoff was like a radiator, and in his sleep he would wrap his arms around her and she would snuggle up close. Anna had never been too fond of winter before, but this one was very bearable. Sometimes, if she woke in the night, she would even deliberately lie there awake for a while, just enjoying how warm and cosy and content she felt.

-----

And then it was spring. And it was Anna’s birthday again.

She’d known, somehow, that she’d see it. She’d always counted on having her full year, even if that would have seemed foolish to say out loud. She told Kristoff she didn’t want any fuss, but he insisted that they at least go for a picnic; so she wore her red dress and brought the sparkly shoes, although she wore trainers to walk to the picnic spot. 

Afterwards, though, she kept the heels on. What did it matter if the mud ruined them? She managed to get over a stile without help, and they were only half a mile away from home when it happened.

Their route took them along the side of a country road, and it crossed the railway line at a level crossing. The lights and alarms were going when they got to it, but the barrier was only just starting to go down, so Kristoff ducked under it and strode across the track. Anna scurried after him  - while mentally tutting at him for not waiting - and nearly wrenched her ankle when her heel got caught in the rail.

“Kristoff!” she called, at first just to let him know that he was leaving her behind. But then she still couldn’t free her foot.

The barriers were all the way down now. Anna put both hands on her ankle and tugged but the heel was caught fast. Then Kristoff was there, and he was trying to turn her foot to free it - Anna was seized with a blinding panic and tried to push him away, the train must be coming - but he wouldn’t go, and her heart was beating so fast that she was certain she was going to die right here one way or another. “Go, go!” she shouted at him - and looked up, and saw the train in the distance.

She couldn’t move. Just for one second, everything froze - and then Kristoff had pushed the strap of her shoe over the heel of her foot and he was pulling her, almost lifting her bodily off the track and into the hedgerow on the other side of the crossing.

The train thundered past, horn blaring. The noise and the wheels were so close and they went on forever, then suddenly stopped.

The road was silent. The birds started singing again. Kristoff stood, and put out his hand to pull Anna to her feet; there was a fallen log lying by the side of the road, and they sat on it.

“Are you alright?” Kristoff said after a couple of minutes.

“Yes.” And oh - how she wished she could have given him a different answer. A shock would kill her, the doctor had said. What could be a bigger shock than what had just happened? But her heartbeat was slowing to normal; she felt a little shaky, but no more than anyone else would, after all that. How could that be? 

“Sure?”

“Yes. Are you -”

“I’m fine.” Kristoff stood and picked up his rucksack from where he’d dropped it, and took out Anna’s trainers. She put them on and handed him the single remaining shoe, the other so pulverised by the train that no sign of it remained. He put the shoe in the rucksack, put it back on his shoulders, and, without a word, turned and walked towards home.

When they got there he shut himself in his office and didn’t come out until after Anna was asleep.