#If this is somewhat incoherent‚ i was typing portions of it while trying to get ready to go somewhere

[felix-lupin]

there's something about writing recovery. recovery in real life never concludes. it's sedate and day-to-day. there are milestones but mostly you don't realize you've gotten much better. i think. so writing it is strange. writing the slow gradual change of soul feeling like he's a person rather than a thing would be strange. like wouldn't you need tens of thousands of words of slice of life? or you cut it off. or you decide a point in which you'll be done, soul is recovered now. and you know that isn't really true but it has to stop somewhere. that kind of scale is just impossible to have in fiction, right? i don't know. i don't know how i would do it, it's a pretty insurmountable task, or it seems so. portraying the creeping feeling of things getting better. of taking longer and longer to relapse each time. or you could do it to love sound again style and just have a moment, a moment in which he realizes - yes, i can live like this.

these were the reasons that i decided to have the fic just be like. soul gathering a will to live. cause that is so much easier. idk thoughts

^^^

I agree that it's difficult to write recovery. It's certainly nice to have a character have a neat, linear recovery where they're perfectly healed by the end of it and manage to fix all of their problems and issues. It's nice to have a character face all of their challenges and trials, and triumph over them, and then get to say and then they all lived happily ever after.

But in real life that's just. Not how things work. Recovery is not linear. It has ups and downs. Things get better, certainly, they do. Things get less hard. But it's like that one post like— grief never goes away, and it doesn't get smaller; you just grow around it. Things get better, but perfection, some state of complete healed-ness where you can point at them and say "see, they're perfectly healed now!" is just. not attainable.

I mean yeah, the nature of stories is that you need to end it somewhere, which is one of the reasons it's so hard to write recovery in a way that feels fully realistic and true. Because recovery is never truly, fully done. Even at one's best, there would still be times where reminders of things that happened would come up, and it would still sometimes hurt, even just a little bit. It would take a lot of dedicated time to be able to portray something close to the reality of it.

But like. You can patch wounds up and treat them, but that doesn't make them fully go away, it's not just something you can forget about. But you can get patched up and treated and let the wounds heal. And scars are a lot better than just letting yourself bleed.

An ending that feels true would differ from person to person, I think, because everyone's relationship and journey with recovery is different. I don't personally know how I would write it, but that's a mixture of I've never written anything that's super long + writing is a journey and if I actually got the ideas and motivation to sit down and write a long recovery piece, my answer to that question would probably change by the time I was done.

Obviously with recovery one would need to portray, like, backslides, times where things get worse, or relapses, and how that affects their view on their own recovery and how they get past those things, but that's mostly just a given.

It would be a lot of moments strung together to tell the wider story, as recovery often is irl. You would need a lot of slice of life stuff. Especially because that can often be where some of the most important realizations happen with recovery.

But yeah. Writing recovery is difficult, but it's not impossible. Just like recovering oneself is difficult but not impossible. It can be daunting and it would take a lot of effort, just like writing any longform story would be.

[stillness-in-green]

I have a lot of thoughts about this but I can’t figure out how to put them coherently, so I’m just going to type this and hopefully you can understand what I’m trying to say:

I think part of, if not the whole reason that the “Deku’s ‘Drive To Save’” thing doesn’t gel correctly, is because he’s thematically supposed to stand in contrast specifically to the way that Hero Society exists, (or, well, existed,) where people have become complacent to the point of apathy in relying on heroes to do anything fitting a heroic ideal, because they’ve made a false equivalence between the ideal of a hero and the actual practical reality of the job of heroics (which you can see even back in chapter freaking 1, where even All Might himself, who’s supposed to embody the ideal in-universe, is held back from saving a kid who’s literally drowning in the middle of a crowded street by his body’s limits, while Midoriya is the one who actually acts according to the ideal and not the reality.)

Except that it feels like that got lost somewhere along the way, (personally I suspect somewhere during the Jakku arc) and the Drive to Save” thing just got slapped into its place, though I don’t know how the post war arc stuff is supposed to fit either of those.

Re: the Deku portions of this post.

Ohh, that’s an interesting point—the idea that Deku’s motivations have seen some shift over time that leave him feeling somewhat incoherent as a character. I can see it!

(Hit the jump for some more analysis of this very good take.)

Assuming the original intent was that Deku represented someone who was willing to act when others did not opens up the reading that if Deku doesn’t see a need to act, then he just doesn’t act. Which is a much better fit than “inexplicable drive to save” for it taking him 300 chapters to try to save a villain and for why, in the first chapter, he didn’t try to save the victim of the Sludge Villain until he realized who said victim was.

It tracks with the Nighteye material, too! Nighteye was the first person, I think, to describe Deku as having a certain sort of “madness,” and a madness that is like All Might’s—but what Nighteye rebuked Deku for was acting ahead of time, for assuming that he could just do whatever, whenever, and things would work out. This tracks with what caused his falling-out with All Might, too: Nighteye didn’t protest that All Might was too hung up on saving people, but rather that All Might tried too hard to do everything himself without being willing to let anyone help him. All Might “acted” when it seems necessary that someone do so, without stopping to consider whether other people could act just as effectively and then he, All Might, could get some much needed rest; All Might also refused to consider the possible outcomes of a scenario in which he failed, refused to think about a future in which he was unable to help.

That particular mode of selfless self-absorption was on strong display during the Edgy Deku arc, but by then, of course, it’d been rebranded as his “drive to save”—except the drive to save thing just does not line up with the evidence the same way, and that probably goes back to your idea that Deku wasn’t set up to have a crazed desire to save; he was set up to be an idealistic contrast to a more complacent/jaded reality.

And the problem with that isn’t that Deku lost his ideals—Deku never really lost his ability to act decisively. He was disobeying direct orders at Jakku the same way he did during the Stain arc; he made a big impassioned plea to Aoyama in the wake of the traitor reveal, and he pushed back on Tsukauchi’s attempt to make him back down to insist that Aoyama can still help the heroes and should be allowed to do so. The problem is that his willingness to act itself isn’t really very unique—it hasn’t been since Kirishima popped up with his rash declaration to go rescue Bakugou after the training camp attack, if not earlier.

I talked about this some before, but one thing that would have gone a long way towards making Deku’s qualities as The Special more believable—without changing a thing about Deku’s arc as-is!—would have been to make the other heroic types around him worse.

Make the heroes and Deku’s fellow students more mercenary, more driven by fame, more concerned with their image, more cautious, more competitive. Those qualities were present in heroes at the beginning—Mount Lady was the big one, but Uraraka shared her concerns about money. There was also Endeavor, of course, and his parallels with Bakugou. But those four were really the only major examples, and all of their difficult edges got worn away as the series went on: Mount Lady grew as a person, Uraraka’s priorities shifted, Endeavor got what he always wanted and realized it wasn’t fulfilling, and Bakugou had to grapple with suddenly not being as effortlessly top-of-the-heap as he used to be, what being a hero meant, and how that reflected on the sort of person he’s been up to that point.

All of those arcs individually are really just fine, even better than fine! But the fact that those characters all shaped up in their own way by the time the War Arc rolled around, and no one carrying any emotional weight had replaced them to illustrate the flaws in this society(1) meant that suddenly, Deku wasn’t contrasting them very well anymore. He didn’t stand out as being uniquely motivated to take decisive action even in dangerous or possibly inadvisable situations if he was always operating under the auspices of the Establishment; he certainly didn’t stand out as uniquely willing to risk everything when people like Mirio, Aizawa and Mr. Compress were and had been out there maiming themselves for others’ sakes. He wasn’t even uniquely willing to cooperate if it meant helping others when the pros were teaming up left and right after the High End attack, and his own classmates were so cheerfully and selflessly willing to throw their own future careers under a bus by helping Deku master Black Whip via teaching him all the secrets to their moves.(2)

So if he wasn’t standing out anymore from all these other equally good and determined and recklessly selfless heroes, what did he have? And so we got “the uncommon desire to save,” but that also fell flat because, as previously discussed, it didn’t work in its own arc, much less retroactively through the rest of the series, and because his drive couldn’t be all that uncommon if both Uraraka and Shouto were rapidly coming to the same conclusions about villain-saving and none of the adults were giving Deku any significant pushback on it.

Yeah. Shonen Jump Main Character has to be The Special somehow, except the characters Horikoshi had written were all too noble and courageous and selfless to support a read in which Deku represented a Unique Ideal in a Base Reality. But because Deku still had to be The Special somehow, he had to get something else instead—only for that something to fall flat because you can’t wait thirty volumes to start claiming your main character has and always has had a certain character trait and expect it to fit the previous 29 volumes that weren’t written to support that trait!

Yeah, I can see it—I can definitely see it! That’s a real good insight, anon, and thanks for sharing it!

Disclaimer for any Deku Fans who read this: I’m not saying Deku hasn’t always wanted to help people—of course he has, from as young as we’ve ever seen him. But Deku himself ties his admiration of saving people to his own experiences with childhood bullying; that empathy for victims and people in pain is what drives his ability to put himself at risk for strangers like Eri and Kouta, and to sympathize with someone who’s caused him as much pain as Shigaraki Tomura. And that's fine! Totally understandable and even consistently written! The trouble is that, because his drive to save is rooted in that empathy, it never seems to extend to people he doesn’t empathize with. Therefore, I can’t get behind its late-series glorification as this innate, incomprehensible, mysterious impulse he can neither explain nor justify to people when a) the impulse is pretty selective, actually, and b) he had a perfectly lucid grasp on where his desire to save people came from as far back as the very first chapter.

My contention with Deku’s desire to save has never been that he doesn’t have one; it’s been the claim that Midoriya Izuku's desire to save is stronger than anyone else’s and Deku is such a miraculous saint for having it. Which is just plainly not true, and I would love it if Horikoshi would stop trying to tell us via The Martyr Yoichi that it is.

---------

1: At least not that causes Deku any problems. Hawks, of course, is a major character who illustrates quite a lot of the flaws of Hero Society, and I will be happy to start giving him credit for this when the story manages to actually call him to task for all the evil he did under the HPSC’s auspices or challenges Deku with it, rather than letting that plot point die because some unrelated villain killed it, requiring no effort or meaningful confrontation on Hawks’ or Deku’s parts.

2: An excellent version of this plot crops up in the sports manga Eyeshield 21, in which side character Riku is asked by the main character’s rival, Shin, to explain the secret of Riku’s special move. Riku does agree to do so in the end, on the reasoning that Shin is a stand-up guy who would never refuse to answer that question if it had been Riku asking him, but his first response is, “Are you crazy?! You are the MVP of our entire division and I’m gunning to come up against you on the field someday! What makes you think I’m going to make you even more of a threat by teaching you my secret?!” And I just really appreciate that he’s allowed to have that response, even if he relents in the end. Of course, lives aren’t at stake in a football game the same way they are in the Pro Hero career, but the Pro Hero gig is so established as being massively competitive, with funding and fame alike riding on the Billboard Rankings, that it’s just exhausting to me that none of Tsuyu, Sero or Uraraka express even a flicker of reluctance to make Deku a stronger competitor in the future.

[happymetalgirl]

The 15 Worst Metal Albums of 2020

This list might have been shorter if not for my running into a few awful albums at the end of the year that I had been avoiding wisely up until that point. My morbid curiosity got the best of me, and what’s done is done. I’m paying the price for it by going back over the worst albums I heard all year. Let’s get this over with.

15. Ghøstkid - Ghøstkid

This was the debut solo album from the former singer of Eskimo Callboy, who had a pretty decent backing of hype heading into this release under the Ghøstkid moniker, but with the namesake frontman putting in no more than the standard performance on a bunch of poorly assembled tracks in an unappealing and dated poppy metalcore style, ultimately the eponymous album wound up disappointing me pretty substantially.

14. Powerman 5000 - The Noble Rot

Powerman 5000 are just such a low-rate band that even one of their more okay albums makes it here. While not as astoundingly, mind-numbingly basic as their worst material, The Noble Rot is still some of the most unevolved, underwritten, and forgettable electro rock and industrial metal I’ve heard from a big name artist. This is some eighth grade level songwriting here, and that’s a fuckin’ feat for a band that’s been around longer than any eighth grader has.

13. Corey Taylor - CMFT

There was a lot of hype around Corey Taylor finally coming out with a solo project, and it was pretty damn disappointing to hear a bunch of uninteresting classic rock too tacky for Stone Sour. CMFT focuses on the fun side that has made its creator such an enigmatic figurehead in the metal press, but its one-note approach does little more than highlight Corey Taylor’s songwriting deficiencies. I really could have seen this album turning out better too, with just some more time and care put into it, if a fun time of an album is what Taylor was going for. Unfortunately Taylor tried to make a party album and a grand ceremonial tribute to his greatness at the same time, and ego-petting and partying don’t really go hand in hand.

12. Evildead - United States of Anarchy

It has some good bones underneath it, but Evildead’s long overdue (if anyone was asking for it) third album wears out its welcome so quickly with some of the most adolescent thrash I’ve heard in a while. The band gets some good rhythms going and the vocals aren’t terrible either, fitting the older thrash style pretty well. But the band’s predictable formula tires out very quickly, and the political commentary of the lyrics is too cheesy and cringeworthy to ignore. It seems every year we get a handful of these kinds of albums that try to get into the simmering thrash revival with some ultra retro approach, and a good portion of those albums are from long-defunct bands who figure their primitive old-school approach might be a selling point despite their sounds often being even more juvenile against the backdrop of today’s metal landscape. So it’s not a huge surprise or anything to hear an album as ham-fisted and corny as United States of Anarchy; this year it just happened to be Evildead.

11. Five Finger Death Punch - F8

They may not always place highest in this list, but they always manage to make it here, and this was actually an improvement on the last album, not that that’s saying all that much. In fact, I’d say this is the only time in the band’s history that they actually shifted their trajectory upwards. But while the band’s ugly continual creative decay has been a hard thing to watch and made them the five finger punching bag of the metal world, there seems to be a large enough swath of mouthbreathing chuds who love their incoherent derivative shit and flock to their shows enough to put them in lucrative headlining slots and on top of the metal world. Goddamn that sure sounds a lot like someone else we all know doesn’t it. I’ve criticized them plenty in the past, and while indeed an improvement, F8 only mildly remedies the numerous problems with Five Finger Death Punch. Still septic to the system are the predictably formulaic and tiresome songwriting, the stale production, the corny butt rock choruses, the shitty bootlicking worldview that bleeds into Ivan Moody’s douchey and faux-deep lyrics, the contrived ballads and country-dabbling. Even with an improvement in the flow of the track listing and a few more bangers that somewhat hearken back to their first album, F8 is still an over-thought and overly calculated batch of Sirius XM fodder that’s trying to please everyone in some superficial way. I’ll grant that it seems as though the band realized they had been giving the more metal-immersed side of their fanbase that has been with them the longest smaller and smaller crumbs with each new album. I’m not gonna hold my breath for this being anything more than placating for the time being; I’m sure the next album will find the band back on whatever bullshit they feel (or their execs feel) they need to be on to pull enough streams from inattentive radio metal bros. I always end with the disclaimer that I still steadfastly stand by the band’s first two albums, and even American Capitalist to a degree, and that I totally acknowledge the immense potential for greatness this band could seemingly at any time decide to fulfill. Ivan Moody is a talented vocalist with a lot of star power and they really could have been the second coming of Pantera or singlehandedly ignited a new wave of American groove metal and metalcore or carried it on their own. But instead the band have followed the money on the path of least resistance to fast-track their way to the top of festival tickets, which I’m sure affords them quite enough luxury and comfort in life, more than most bands these days get, but it doesn’t exempt them from criticism, and unfortunately I think their legacy will show that they were a lowest common denominator kind of band at the end of the day when they could have been, again, like a second Pantera or something.

10. Anvil - Legal at Last

Another year, another album of Anvil unable to evolve past their prototypic thrash of their forty-year-old origins. Though as tacky as ever, Anvil actually also managed to make a mild improvement on their last album on the musical front at least. The songs are a little more energetic and easier to get through, if not for the lyricism though. Anvil lyrics are never anything beyond a fourth-grader’s poetry assignment for their English class, but some of the Facebook boomer lyrics here are fucking cringy dude. A quick look at the track listing will let you know exactly where you’re gonna find the juiciest cringe, but honestly, even as far as cringe goes it’s nothing comedically special and cringe culture in general is played out anyway. So do yourself a favor and just ignore Anvil the way they deserve to be ignored.

9. Halestorm - Reimagined

It feels a little harsh to place an EP here, especially for a band whose album back in 2018 was one of the best things I have heard to come out of hard rock in a long time. But these stripped back covers and revisions of songs from the band’s catalog just suck all the oomph out of them, perhaps making the case by contrast for the importance of the role the rest of the band behind the indeed charismatic powerhouse frontwoman Lzzy Hale play in making their sound what it is. It’s unlikely this points to any kind of new direction for them, so I’m not particularly worried about them running into this problem again. Plus, I don’t think Halestorm and Lzzy Hale are like fundamentally incompatible with more ballad-y rock music, this forced balladization of older songs just did not work, and it makes perfect sense as to why.

8. Gama Bomb - Sea Savage

The fact that this album is only number 8 on this list is just depressing for its reminder of just how much shittier it got this year. The fact that there are seven albums from this yet worse than Sea Savage, goddamn. With one exception, this was maybe the stupidest album I heard all year, at least in the thrash department it was. God this thing is a sugar high mess. I feel like a toddler on an entire bag of Halloween candy or an elementary schooler on a 2-liter of Mountain Dew sat at a computer to program a thrash album would’ve probably come up with something like this. The erratic operatic highs and dumbass lyrics, it all just embodies everything that ever made thrash look bad. It’s like that drunk guy at a party who’s hyper as shit and doing a bunch of crazy stunts for attention because he thinks it’ll make the people there like him more, but really he’s just embarrassing himself. Yeah, definitely the worst thrash metal album I heard all year, and one I wish I could unhear.

7. Amaranthe - Manifest

One of the albums I was avoiding but reviewed late out of my own weird sense of obligation that I wasn’t surprised to find only validated my reasons for avoiding it in the first place. The weird combo of dancy pop music and power metal isn’t as crazy of an idea as it might seem at first thought. In fact, that’s basically in part what Babymetal are doing, and actually getting better and better at. But Amaranthe get the worst of both worlds with Manifest, unsavory pop melodies and utterly generic symphonic metal to make for something I’m not at all surprised I was so repulsed by.

6. Trapt - Shadow Work

Yep, I listened to it. God, no wonder this band is flailing in irrelevance with aggressive MAGA nonsense being their only audible desperate plea for attention. The album, thank fuck, isn’t steeped in the same bitch boy tantrum that the band’s singer has engaged in all year to the point of getting his band’s Facebook page banned for hate speech, and the music isn’t like offensively poorly made or anything like that either. There’s clearly a conscious meeting of the baseline requirements for the type of music they make, but holy fuck it’s so damn flavorless and predictable. It’d be one thing if this was the trendy thing to be doing, but this diet hard rock for people who think Three Days Grace is too wild has been out of fashion for over a decade. And Trapt are just recycling the same dumb formula that overstayed it’s welcome in the early 2000’s. Yeah, I’m not surprised at all, but god, it’s the kind of thing that has to be apparent to the band themselves too unless they’re lacking of any and all self-awareness. Trapt have thrown themselves to the forefront of the online metal world’s discourse by being an annoying, toxic, and childish presence all year; the silver lining being the unity among metalheads in roasting their laughable posturing about their Pandora numbers and the juicy memes about their one hit “Headstrong” that rile the snowflake singer up without fail. And this shit album is just another reason to laugh at them and more fuel to roast their crybaby Trumper frontman with. Go back into your hole, Trapt. 3/10

5. Unleash the Archers - Abyss

I talked about it in my review, but there really is only one simple thing that sinks this album so low. And that is just how incredibly low-effort and lifeless it is with a genre that’s supposed to be so life-affirming. Power metal isn’t the most highly revered genre in metal, but that’s just for its cheesiness. I love it; when it’s at its best, it’s some of the most inspiring metal music out there and I genuinely wish there was a bigger demand across the board for it. But Unleash the Archers just sound so flat and unenthusiastic in this album, and, sorry, in power metal, unabashed enthusiasm is just nonnegotiable. The guitar parts are phoned in and lacking in imagination, and the vocals especially are so narrow-range, it’s all so antithetical to the ethos of power metal and it doesn’t make a strong case for itself. I’ll leave it there; this album is lazy and lifeless so I feel no need to waste any of my time and work on it.

4. Burzum - Thûlean Mysteries

Ol’ Varg must’ve needed a new wizard hat or camouflage pants or whatever goofy shit he’s been doing since retiring the Burzum name to focus on his racism and LARPing because I thought Burzum was supposed to be finished. I thought you were done with Burzum, Varg. Apparently not too done to not dump an hour and a half of embarrassingly half-baked ambient dungeon synth song fragments that sound, so many of them, quite obviously unfinished. Varg Vikernes has been a washed-up shell of the musical god the various weirdos who idolize him make him out to be for a long time now, and it has shown in the gradually degrading work he had put out after his release from prison. Yet after clearly not caring about creating music in any meaningful way for a long time, Varg drops this heap of shit in his fans’ laps. I suppose they deserve it, but I’m sure some of them are delusional enough to lap it up with a smile on their face while still believing their white nationalist idol to be a musical genius. Again, it’s entirely dull ambient music, not metal at all, but it deserves to be shit upon for its astounding laziness and purposelessness.

3. Asking Alexandria - Like a House on Fire

Doubling down on exactly the unflattering crossover of pop music with their significantly sanitized butt rock in their apparent quest for arena glory that started with their self-titled album back in 2017, Asking Alexandria’s bid for the big spotlight that Imagine Dragons occupies didn’t get any stronger this year with Like a House on Fire. After three or four years of aiming for this style, the band still aren’t even all that competent with the basics of fucking pop rock, which is pretty downright laughable. Honestly, for an album so high up here on my shit list, my feelings on it are more or less just that of unsurprised disappointment; as soon as I got a feel for what the band were doing with the album, I knew it was going to be a mess of predictable results. And lo and behold. This was just such a wholly inexcusably floppy paper towel of an album, and one more Asking Alexandria release I know I won’t be returning to ever again.

2. Hollywood Undead - New Empire, Vol. 2

Coming on at the last minute to get on the scoreboard, reliably, is Hollywood Undead. When I reviewed both volumes of this project earlier, I referred to them as “corporate Linkin Park”, and I stand by that 100%. This album especially showcases nothing but what an incoherent, vapid, clout-chasing act they are, with such a corny, focus-grouped sound that sounds like it was made in a lab by a bunch of out-of-touch boomers. God, they could’ve been safe too if they had left it with the more tolerable first volume back in January, but this follow-up sequel from just this month was exactly why I had avoided listening to the first installment in the first place. And I should’ve never played this second one either. The album opener, “Medicate”, is probably the worst song I sat through in my own volition this year, and the rest of the album doesn’t get much better. It’s nothing new for Hollywood Undead after I gave their 2017 album my award for least favorite album of that year: more unfitting interplay between machismo posturing Eminem-cosplay and the sappiest, wimpiest radio rock and pop choruses; more cringy tough-guy struggle bars; more forgettable-at-best instrumentals. Congrats again, Hollywood Undead, you made one of the worst albums of the year once again.

But even worse than Hollywood Undead is an album that I feel like is already so legendarily bad, that there is no other album that could’ve been sat here. It had to be this one.

1. Six Feet Under - Nightmares of the Decomposed

Shitty metal bands everywhere can breathe a sigh of relief any year Six Feet Under decide to put out new music because any album they release is just about bound to end up as everyone’s #1 worst album of the year, and boy is that guarantee becoming more and more airtight with each successive release. It’s truly astounding too how Six Feet Under manages to outdo themselves every time. I don’t even want to think about what could possibly come after Nightmares of the Decomposed; we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. But for now, holy fermented shit, this thing is not just bad, it’s like the holy grail of terrible TERRIBLE albums and I don’t want to know what kind of apocalyptically despicable album Chris Barnes and company could possibly conjure to outdo this one. And make no mistake, it’s still Chris Barnes dragging this band down. I gave this album a 1/10 instead of a 0/10 because there was at least a sliver of salvageable instrumentation on it, as thin of a sliver as it was, a few halfway decent musical ideas of you squinted hard enough. The instrumentalists are checked out and clearly just participating for the paycheck, but I can’t even imagine what kind of professional instrumental performance could possibly overshadow the embarrassment that Chris Barnes put to tape in the studio here. Maybe that says it, because it honestly sounds utterly unprofessional. It’s baffling how this got through management and sound engineering to be released to the public because I don’t think I’ve ever even heard any amateur high school band’s vocalist sound this bad. Vocal ingenuity is generally something to be applauded in the metal world, and pioneers like Randy Blythe, Dani Filth, and Travis Ryan deserve all the praise they get for their innovation with dirty metal vocals, yet what Chris Barnes has “invented” here on Nightmares of the Decomposed to compensate for his continually-deteriorating vocals is just sad. The man simply cannot perform highs anymore, clearly, and the alternative is this fucking comical, cartoonish squealing that sounds more like a bratty toddler gargling their own snot than it does anything fitting for a death metal record, even a death metal record at stupid and cheesy as Nightmares of the Decomposed. Chris Barnes should be thankful that metal is not a sport and that there’s not nearly as much of an abundance of performance statistics to point to and analyze to see what kind of records are broken in a legendarily awful performance. I feel like if there were any kind of performance stats to pull up, this album would have to break some kinds of records. Like this is worse than that 7-1 Germany-Brazil World Cup game, this would be like if the Brazilian team all got unholy levels of blazed and repeatedly scored on themselves because they kept going the wrong way and kicking the ball into their own net, and then pissing their fucking shorts. Even in 7-1 defeat, Brazil had more dignity than Chris Barnes here. Six Feet Under and their label have to know they are a laughing stock and that people will listen to them at this point for the sheer entertainment value of how mind-blowingly awful they sound. It’s not an illegitimate marketing tactic, and it’s the only explanation I can come up with for how this passed inspection. If that’s their mission, to be a spectacle and instill cringe in death metal fans in a regular ritual of comically stupid performances across every successive album, they’re sure doing it, and I guess this baffling headache-trophy is their well-earned prize. Congratulations Six Feet Under, you did it again! Worst metal album of the year.

[xiucas]

                                       “媽咪, 我哋要去哪裡?”                                   mama, where are we going?

a - “i’m american, actually.”

it’s quite often that people mistake joshua for being foreign by good ol’ fashion assumptions of race. while he was originally born in hong kong, joshua was adopted by an american family when he was four years old. 

b - brave

while he would never consider himself to be as such, joshua is the first person to jump in defense of those he cares for. and on top of that, he goes into haunted buildings for a hobby/living so he isn’t exactly easy to spook.

c - “our last name is clark.”

he was adopted at four years old, raised within a large family of other adopted siblings. it was strange, having to learn a new language and take on a whole new life. and that new life began with a new name. huang li jie became joshua clark.

d - dishi

dishi, a beloved stuffed rabbit he brought to boston with him after the adoption was finalized. it is the only keepsake he possesses that was given to him by this birth mother. it has been repaired so often, joshua has lost count how many times his mom stitched him back together. now that he’s on his own, the young man has taken up the repairs on his own. he plans to die with that rabbit by his side.

e - eight

it was around eight years old that the nightmares finally started to fade, a relief to his family as it had been difficult to endear. years of this tiny soul crawling into beds that he could find, seeking comfort from whomever would give it to him. perhaps not every night, but consistent. the wet streets disappeared, the incoherent rabble of cantonese shouting ebbed away. and the tears evaporated upon a face he had begun to forget.

f - “you are my best friend.”

he had always felt on the outs growing up, always being the weird kid that talked too much and made people question if he was normal or not. it took him ages, but in school he found someone to trust, someone who didn’t treat him like a freak. elliot kelly was there for him through his awkward stages up through his present as he embarks on adulthood with a college degree under his belt and a dream of youtube stardom. if there is one person on earth that he would call his most trusted and best friend, it’s him.

g. “ghosts, man! ghosts!”

it had started as a joke, a passing conversation of what it would be like to have it. and then it became a reality when joshua came home one day with a new expensive camera and a passion to take a chance. who cares if it didn’t pan out, it would be fun just to mess around with the idea and maybe have a good time doing it. besides i mean, ghosts, man! ghosts!

h - “hauntings aren’t always about apparitions and cold spots. sometimes it’s just a feeling.”

during his internship at a tech company, the channel began to pick up traction and with the addition of their mutual friend, percy, they had a full-fledge channel. subscribers were pouring in and suddenly they were making money off of their channel and not just messing around with a camera. soon, people were inviting them to their alleged haunted buildings, and suddenly it wasn’t a hobby anymore. he abandoned his internship to put his focus purely in the channel. and they’ve recently hit their first million subscribers.

i - “i love you.”

romance was fleeting, something that joshua had never put too much effort into. especially considering he never thought he was particularly interesting. attractive, sure, but that was only skin deep. martha parker was the first girl that joshua ever said i love you to. and while it may not have lasted, it never faded but simply evolved into an unbreakable bond. sometimes your first love is meant for more than just a memory.

j - “i actually like jogging.”

by the time high schoo hit, joshua had grown into himself somewhat and the overwhelming awkwardness gave way to a more charming awkward. however, instead of throwing himself into multiple relationships in his teenage years, he spent most of it in the gym with his peers working out. he enjoys fitness and is more often in motion than not. he is the type to suggest going on a hike before going to the movies.

k - kin

family? friends? his entire family is based on you make your family; it isn’t always blood. and it’s with this example that joshua has lived his entire life as making his own family. his friendships are an extension of that body, of that ever evolving nervous system. it is why he only keeps positive influences in his life.

l - last minute snack run

there is no shortage of junk in the kelly/clark household. so much so in fact that he will drop everything if he has a craving something unhealthy for him. he may be a fitness nerd, but you better believe he needs his cheetos or else there will be hell to pay.

m - maya

a twitch goddess, a crush, a friendship. this girl is someone that joshua would likely drop everything for if she ever asked it of him. he may not know it yet but she has ‘love of my life’ radiating off her in waves, in the way she smiles and the way she moves. he may be a fool, but he is determined to not screw it up. maya is a once in a lifetime type of person. even an idiot can see that. 

n - “you’re damn right i’m into that nerd shit!”

growing up joshua often struggled to bond with his peers as he tended to not enjoy the same things as the other kids his age. up until middle school, joshua tended to avoid sports (until he realized he was good at them), and often preferred the company of books and film. that extended to comic books as well, and sometimes got mocked for it while growing up. and even now, as he would consider himself confident in who he is, he will be the first to defend this so called ‘nerd shit’.

o - “ooooooooooh!”

it’s not to say that he’s an idiot, but he can sometimes come off like one because he struggles to pay attention to things. especially on the first time around. often, you might have to repeat yourself before he truly comprehends what you said. he’ll get there, give him a minute.

p - “which parents do you want me to talk about cuz--it’s not that easy.”

joshua is adopted, a member of the extensive clark clan. while he appreciates his family more than he can say; he had a very stable childhood. however, his biological family is something that has been a bit of a mystery for him. his memories are hazy if not filled with faceless people speaking in unintelligible mumbles. he was too young to remember. but joshua is tenacious, and he isn’t willing to let it fade with time.

q - “oh do you remember this quote from--”

this kid is constantly quoting things from books, tv shows, and movies. in fact, it could be argued that the majority of his personality was formed from the media. odds are, he is the one in the group who is snapping his fingers and flailing quite ostentatiously trying to remember the quote from something he watched the other day that is relevant to the conversation. or so he thinks.

r - reason to smile

his happy place is the editing room, listening to music while they attempt to get the best content out of their footage as possible. this is usually all three of them collaborating together so everyone has equal say in what they put out there for everyone to watch. they are a team, and it’s one of the best things in the world for joshua to be a part of it. it’s his favorite thing in the entire world.

s - shelter

never one to waste free time, with what little he has joshua gives it to the local no-kill animal shelter where he spents a few hours a week taking care of the animals and helping them get adopted to good homes. he often begs his roommate if he can bring animals home often met with a negative response. even so, he is the one who is out in the yard playing with the dogs to make sure they get socialized.

t - trust

he may come off fun-loving and without a care in the world, but trust is something that isn’t easily won with him considering his circumstances. if you cross him or someone who he cares for deeply, it is likely you will never possess his earnest trust. it’s just the luck of the draw.

u - "what are you doing with my underwear?”

please, if you think this kid is basic, you haven’t been paying attention to him at all. he may have basics in his drawers, but this kid is the type to go into a store and see spongebob boxer briefs and immediately buy them because its god damn spongebob, guys! he is whimsical with his clothes most of the time, so his underwear can’t be boring either.

v - “we’re on vacay!”

joshua is planning a trip to hong kong to take over the holidays as he continues on his journey to find his birth mother. he’s unaware of the journey is going to take him right to his backyard, but for the time being, he is enjoying the planning portion of the trip. after all, he is learning about where he came from and also going away on location. what could go wrong...

w - “you are the fuckin’ worst!”

he is no saint, and he has his fair share of bad habits. like leaving his dirty clothes all over the place, leaving wet towels on the bathroom floor, and leaving empty energy drink cans all over the place. he is a god damn mess and i feel terrible for people who have to live with him. sorry, elliot.

x - “i still think xena is hot!”

strong women are kind of a thing for joshua, as he has a tendency to crave structure, a thing he has been severely lacking since moving out on his own. women who know what they want and aren’t afraid to admit it are his kink. if you boss him around he will listen like the dutiful young man he is.

y - “youtube is paying us, bro!”

it seems new subscribers come in waves as each day passes and because of this, joshua is spending a lot of his time collaborating with other content providers, local historians, and anyone who will listen to him ramble in order to provide the best content to their audience. he is hardworking to the end, especially considering they are making that youtube cash!

z - “zombies terrify the shit out of me, please don’t--”

that’s it. zombies freak him out. please don’t dress up as one and spook him, he will literally squeal like a girl and throw something at your face. proceed with caution.

! - “oh shit!”

nothing elaborate to put here, the boy just has a terrible mouth and tends to curse more often than not. someone get soap for this child’s mouth, it’s dirty.

, - “listen,”

he often has to explain how much of a trash can he is. trust me, he is well aware of his own shortcomings. 

? - “huh?”

sorry, you are going to have to repeat yourself a lot, but that’s okay, because you never know if he’s playing a prank on you or if he genuinely wasn’t paying attention. can he be trusted? that’s a fair question.

: - “you ARE the father 2: electric boogaloo”

joshua will be meeting his birth father, a rather cataclysmic ending to his birth mother journey that will require a lot of explanations, shouting matches, and trying to come to terms with the fact that sometimes, young people just make mistakes and there is no real rhyme or reason as to why anything happens. parents are people too, kids. don’t forget that.

[tustinjomimori]

Chapter 5- I promise you smooch in the next one

Boku no Hero Academia

Aizawa Shouta/Reader

T+

So I did end up writing the teacher’s real names instead of their hero names in situations where they aren’t doing their hero thing so for reference (I had to look these up so idk if it’s common knowledge) Nemuri is Midnight, Yamada is Mic (but you probably already figured that one out), Ishiyama is Cementoss, Maishimia is Power Loader, and Inui is Hound Dog.

Also this chapter is probably super OOC I just wanted an excuse to write Aizawa falling asleep on reader’s couch.

Switching to a dorming situation takes a lot out of you. Not only do you have to make visits to each of your students homes to get permission from their guardians to house their kids on school grounds, you yourself have to move from your apartment into the faculty dorms. These dorms are much more spacious than the student dorms, and they feel like a real apartment complex. You’re on the first floor of the singles building (Those of your coworkers with spouses and children live in a different building), close to the entrance. You have a small patio, a rather large kitchen, living room, bathroom, and bedroom. For the first time in your life, your bedroom is spacious enough to set up a queen sized bed, the only perk of having to move so suddenly.

Your biggest worry is whether your students will be allowed to move on campus, which turns out not to be a problem at all. Most of the parents seem confident that their children will be safer on campus than anywhere else, and you’re grateful that you don’t have to press any of them very hard into allowing the change. You’re also concerned with whether your cats will take to the change well, but they seem to enjoy clawing at the bubble wrap and cardboard boxes you use in the move so you figure they’re taking it pretty well.

At some point Nemuri, likely in an attempt to lighten the rather gloomy mood that has descended upon the school’s staff, suggests that the faculty dorms be “broken in”. In other words: she wants to throw a party. You think it’s a great idea, actually. You all have been so busy lately, so on edge, that you figure a party or just a small get together would help you all to relax. You offer play the host, since being on the ground floor you have a larger patio and thus more space than the apartments above you, which only have cramped balconies.  You should be able to reasonably accommodate the whole staff, plus your three cats for just a night.

(In the back of your mind you also consider the possibility of seducing Aizawa with your cooking skills, but that possibility all depends on whether or not Aizawa actually shows up, since he isn’t the type to enjoy social gatherings. You figure the chances of him attending partially depends on Yamada dragging him along, so you ever so kindly offer to buy the blonde some heavy duty allergy medication, ensuring he doesn’t die from being around your pets. You consider hiding them away in the bathroom for the party, but you know they wouldn’t take that lying down. You also figure that the cats being there will be one of the deciding factors in Aizawa’s attendance.)

--

The party is set to be the Saturday night before classes start up again for the new term. You spend the morning tidying up your apartment, ridding the place of  the cat hair that has already collected over seemingly ever surface despite your short stay. After you shower and get yourself ready, Nemuri and Ishiyama assist you in preparing a number of small h’orderves and drinks. You’re thankful for their help (though you’re relying on Lunch Rush to provide most of the food) but Nemuri makes preparing refreshments difficult. She seems bent on taste testing at least one full glass of every drink you have bought or made, leading to her being just a little bit tipsy and well, in the way. You kick her out of the kitchen before finishing up preparations with Ishiyama and waiting for your other co-workers to arrive.

Aizawa does show up to the party, being pulled along by Yamada just as you had predicted. When he enters, he immediately makes a beeline towards the first cat he sees. It’s absolutely the cutest thing you have ever seen; Aizawa is holding Callie in his lap and scratching under her chin, looking almost like a father holding his newborn baby. You rip your eyes away from the two of them when you hear Yamada clearing his throat next to you. He elbows your side and smirks at you knowingly.

“Shut up and go grab a drink or something.” You grumble at him.

“But I haven’t even said anything yet!” He protests but still strides over to the kitchen to fix himself a plate. You end up following him and making a plate for yourself, which you bring back into the living room to continue watching Aizawa’s feline adventures unfold on your couch. You offer him something to eat but he seems more interested in teaching Callie and Charles to shake hands, much to your amusement.

“Where’s your brother, huh?” He asks Charles as he scritches behind his ears. “I haven’t seen the king around yet.”

“Pharaoh doesn’t like people much.” You tell him. “He’s a momma’s boy. I can find him though if you’d like to meet him?” You hand Aizawa your plate, urging him to eat something (you still can’t recall ever seeing the man eat a bite of solid food and it’s really weirding you out at this point) and head off to the bedroom where you presume your last cat to be hiding.

You return with a somewhat grumpy sphynx in your arms to find Aizawa struggling to keep the plate of food away from Charles while Callie watches on. In their struggle, Charles jumps onto Aizawa’s chest, taking him by surprise and knocking him onto his back which causes the plate of food to become unbalanced and fall right on Aizawa’s face.

“Party foul!” You hear someone call from the other side of the room, but you’re too busy laughing at the scene to see who it is.

Charles and Callie immediately rush to lick h'orderves from Aizawa’s face and for his part, Aizawa seems resigned to his fate. He does, however, look to you to make sure you’re ok with the two troublemakers eating people food.

“I’ll allow it.” You declare, figuring the small portion of prosciutto wrapped asparagus and miniature sausages won’t hurt them. You seat yourself next to the couch by Aizawa’s head and pick a sausage from his cheek, feeding it to the cat in your arms.

“He’s beautiful.” Aizawa wonders at the animal just as Yamada peers over the back of the couch and screeches (apparently alcohol makes him even louder), “WHAT IS THAT THING?!”

“HOW DARE YOU?!”

“RUDE.” You and Aizawa respond in unison.

--

The rest of the night passes relatively peacefully. Inui almost gets into into a fight with your cats, whom you’re pretty sure are being quietly cheered on by Aizawa. To break up the fight (which is really just a lot of incoherent hissing and growling) you charge Inui with walking a drunk Nemuri back to her room. Once things have quieted down and the first people have left for the evening (Ectoplasm and Maishima are such old men), Ishiyama and Lunch Rush assist you with the dishes and clean up.

Eventually, once it seems like everyone has left, you retreat to your bedroom to get ready to sleep. Just as you’re about to crawl into bed, you realize that while Pharaoh is already sprawled across your pillows, Callie and Charles, who usually join you and their brother on the bed, are nowhere to be found. You venture back out into the living room to look for them.

“Kids, are you hiding?” You quietly call out. “It’s time for bed, come on now.”

You hear a muffled groan and you jump slightly before spotting a black lump on your couch. Aizawa stirs and sits up, scratching at his head and looking around him like he doesn’t know where he is.

“Sorry. I guess I fell asleep.” He says. Just as soon as he spots you, he immediately looks away. You’re about to ask him if something’s wrong when you realize that your pajamas consist of just a pair of underwear and a thin T-shirt. At least the undies are cute.

“No worries!” You assure him quickly, trying to hide your embarrassment (and you think Aizawa might be embarrassed as well if the light dusting of pink on his pale cheeks is anything to go by). “You, uh, probably need the sleep. No offense.” You add.

“Nn.” He grunts in response. “Probably.”

Neither of you seems to know where to look and Aizawa has taken to determinedly studying Charles's tail. Meanwhile, Callie is looking back and forth between the two of you as if she understands how truly awkward this situation is.

“Did you nap well?” You ask awkwardly.

“Yeah, actually. Your room is pretty comfortable. It’s homey.” He states simply.

“Oh. I’m glad. Are you sure you just don’t like snuggling the cats though?” You tease.

“That’s certainly a plus.” He says.

“Well….” You look around the room, wondering what it is that makes it so comfortable for Aizawa to sleep there, when it’s apparent that he barely sleeps in his own room. You’ve seen him sleep at the school before, but not for the past couple of months, not since his eye bags started getting worse.

“You can stay if you want? I don’t know why you haven’t been sleeping lately and I don’t want to pry but...if it helps, you can spend the night here. You can even have the bed if you want.” Is that a weird proposition? You aren’t really sure if inviting your crush to sleep over at your house is weird at your age (it probably is).but you do want him to get some damn sleep for once.

Aizawa looks like he’s considering your proposal. After a moment he responds.

“The couch is fine.”

“Are you sure?” Aizawa nods and you smile at him. “I’ll go grab you a proper pillow. There’s blankets on the back of the couch but will you need more?”

He shakes his head, already lying back down and getting comfortable. As you turn to leave, you pull your t-shirt down over your butt, just in case. You return a few minutes later wearing a pair of shorts and holding your favorite pillow, which you lightly toss to him.

“Do you need anything else?” You ask as you watch Charles get comfortable on your guests chest.

“I’m good.” He assures you through a yawn.

“Ok, well. Wake me up if you need anything, ok?”

Aizawa just yawns again and you take that as his way of telling you to shut up and get out.

“Good night.”

“‘Night.” He sounds like he’s already halfway asleep. Just before you reach your bedroom door, Callie on your heels, you hear a quiet “Thanks” murmured.

You’re smiling to yourself as you crawl into bed and you’re still smiling when you wake up the next morning.