#but I feel totally normal emotions about this punk rock

[artist-issues]

Be careful of emotional music in movies and TV Shows.

By "be careful" I mean, when you're doing that thing I never stop talking about—you're trying to figure out why a moment in a story moved you—think about whether or not the story really set up and followed the moment through...or if they just threw a really emotional-sounding track/song over top of a rushed, cheap moment.

Like in the Vampire Diaries, or Suicide Squad, or an animated-streaming-movie. The characters will be saying something normal or maybe a bit cheesy to each other, the scene is about to end, and the storytellers don't have a good way to end it, so some song starts playing quietly under the dialogue. And suddenly you're feeling something, even though a second ago you were not that into it.

In the Vampire Diaries, it's usually The Fray. In Suicide Squad you'll get a punk-rock song as a new villains-enter-the-room scene starts...or several, every time a new scene starts.

In a streaming-budget musical, it might even be an original song with original lyrics that the characters are singing...

But pay attention! Music is one of the very easiest ways to engage a human's emotions. It's why influencers play inspirational piano music or covers of good movie soundtracks over what they're saying when they're trying to send out an encouraging message. It's why motivational speakers have a musical pad under everything they're saying. And yes, it's why movies use music, too.

And that is not a bad thing.

But what is bad is music that is used to try and make a moment impactful...but the story itself, and the characters in the scene, and the context of the scene, and sometimes even the lyrics of the song itself, can't support it.

The lyrics could be total crap—they could fail to fit the characters singing them, or the moment they're being sung during, at all—

—or it's an indie pop song that is actually about a friend with a drug addiction, but it's playing over, like, a scene where a young girl is saying "see you around" to the boy she has a crush on, so you feel all hyped emotionally.

It's cheap. It's silly. It's what Disney did in Wish (you knew this was coming, I've been on this topic for weeks)

Having Asha and Magnifico sing "At All Costs," which is a love song, to a room full of tangible bubbles makes zero sense. The song's lyrics only work if you're a pair of lovers declaring your devotion to each other—or, maybe, if you're a king and apprentice singing to actual people, not a room full of their daydreams. But!

The music is pretty. And it's literally engineered to be inspiring, and play with your heart strings. So you're sitting there going, "oh, wow, what a breathtaking magical song, I love it,"

but try and explain to me why you love it in connection to the story and there's nothing there.

Nothing that makes sense. You've just been emotionally manipulated by music. What you're really responding to is just the way the song sounds, and nothing else.

It's like the song (whether it's a musical number sung by the characters, or a piece of the score, or a pop song playing quietly in the background) is a beautiful set of curtains.

If you hang it up on a curtain rod, or even drape it artfully from the ceiling, it can do a lot for the space. It can make the place look bigger, or more comfortable, or show off the room's depth, or set off other pieces of furniture. It can even be a focal point.

But you know what the curtains need to do all that? A curtain rod. Something to be hung on!

If you just ball up the curtains and drop them in the center of the room, someone might walk in and go, "oh, are these curtains? They're pretty!" But you know what else they'll say? "Where are you going to put them? Why are they in the middle of the floor?" Because they don't belong there. The curtains are wasted on the floor.

Like a song that has no contextual meaning and is just laying in the scene like discarded curtains, arbitrarily playing with your emotions. Doesn't belong there; and what a waste!

So next time you really love a scene that has music in it at all, see what part the music plays.

If the lyrics make sense with the characters, if the story has reached a point where the song is all that's needed to accentuate the emotional depth that's already there, instead of creating it where it was lacking, then awesome. Now you can articulate what made you appreciate the song, so much better!

But if the lyrics made no sense with where the characters or the story was at; if it sounded pretty but didn't fit the scene; if it was the only emotional thing about the context of the scene—then it's not the story that you like. It's just the song, by itself. Add it to your Spotify playlist but don't say you loved that movie or that scene. You just loved that song.

Give credit where it's due instead of letting filmmakers trick you with cheap musical moments.

[shiningpoultryno1]

Music holds some crazy power for me, so in that regard when i create a new playlist its sorta like a new chapter in life. Ive got about 3 right now. The first, going from middle school to halfway through freshman year. The second, when I got into my first relationship to when it ended. The third, from then to now. What i find most interesting is that i can look into these playlists and just by the names of the songs feel the overwhelming emotions tied to them. I can also see the decline in my mental health during my relationship, just based on the music in the playlist. I cant listen to those songs anymore, due to the emotions tied to them.

Upon revisiting the first playlist was a throwback, a lot of anime music and some dragonforce. I had just had a major switch in my life, going from normal to covid to highschool in just 2 years and a minecraft server with friends. I didn't have a lot to worry about, and the rapid changes in music taste show this. Trying everything to find a style that fits me. Nostalgia abound, another shift was gonna occur without forsight.

Listening to the relationship playlist again and its quite strange, all of the songs are outside of what id normally listen too, and all have a similar tone of extreme depressive emotions. It was a complex time in my life, this shows in my music taste. It might be crazy talk but i fully believe that the change to a better mental state started when i created a new playlist.

The third and most recent playlist is from May 2023 to now, remarkably new. The beginning suffers from the same problem as the previous playlist, a lot of emotionally charged songs that i cant listen to without some irepressible thoughts of sad. There was a lot of the same mysic as the second playlist, but i ended up removing a lot of it because it wasnt my style anymore. The mysic shifted from sadboy to rock, with a lot of queen and rush, signifying a push away from negative thoughts to something a little more positive, open minded and powerful. Then theres a semishift back, to calmer (relatively) slightly mundane music, as the relationship attempted, and succeded in rearing its ugly head. The music, however, only got more rebellious, with themes covering rebellion, breaking away from the system and just a little bit of greenday, showing that i would not stay down forever.

When the relationship ended for a second time, the music was celebratory and modest, but almost immediatly shifted towards queen, joe walsh, and huey lewis and the news, daft punk and thin lizzy. Now completely out of the toxic relationship and seeing it for what it was, i was looking towards a brighter future, which arrived as soon as i had hoped it would. Things continued on this line, positive music and upbeat tunes, until the end of the playlist.

A total of 114 songs, 7 hours and 8 minutes later, the playlists end, Take Me On by a-ha the last addition to a playlist that has taken me from toxic relationship to self confident badass. No one knows for certain what the future will hold, but if theres one thing i know for certain, its that there will be more playlists, with more music.

[nerdypanda3126]

An Interesting Little Relationship

This was written for the @lovebugs-and-snakecharmers Sprint Fic Challenge.

The "rules" are three 15-minute sprints with 24 hours for light editing, which includes new writing to smooth transitions or make it feel complete. Except I broke a few rules on this one... so I used I think six sprints total (lost count a bit 😅) and in between sprints I let myself keep writing until I got stuck. 

This time around I used the prompt: "As if life hasn’t been hard enough lately…you just met your soulmate, and they’re not even human. (Supernatural/monster AU)" 

And @airi-p4​ wrote this minific based on a Julie and the Phantoms AU and it all just kinda clicked in my head. Although fair warning for those of you who know the show, I did take away the ability to handle the instruments to play more with the "can't touch real things"... thing.

Read on Ao3 

The question had been on Marinette’s mind ever since she first met Luka. Which wasn’t too out of the ordinary. For those with visible marks, it was often the first thing people noticed. Marks stood out like wedding bands—jet black for those still waiting, brilliant color for those who’d already found their soulmate, a permanent reminder of the first touch. 

Luka had three black marks like smudges across the backs of his fingers, as if he were destined to brush his knuckles against some stranger’s at some point in his life and discover what everyone hoped to. 

The problem was, Luka’s life was already over. 

He and the band had first shimmered into existence when she found their demo buried along with the rest of their things in the attic and popped it into the dormant CD player. As she’d listened, nodding her head along to the punk rock beat and appreciating the skill of the guitarist, suddenly there they were, three ghosts standing right in front of her.

She’d screamed. They’d screamed. Eventually everyone calmed down enough for Luka to explain that her attic was their old studio and introduce his sister, Juleka, and their drummer, Ivan. And as he gestured to himself, her eyes went straight to those three black marks that she’d been watching ever since.  

She rubbed at her own mark—three black streaks on the side of her neck, just below her ear—as they worked on writing a new song together. Luka was brainstorming aloud, pacing back and forth soundlessly, while she handled the pen. 

Touch was tricky for him. If he focused sometimes, he could pick up small things. He’d managed to grab a pick once and strum it across his guitar in its stand and he’d been giddy about it for days afterward. Sometimes it made her think that maybe it wasn’t all that crazy that her marks seemed to match with his. Maybe it was possible… 

“Hey, you okay, boss?” Luka asked, breaking her out of her thoughts as he took a seat next to her on the old couch and laid his arm casually along the back of her seat. She could almost imagine his weight settling into the spot, although of course he himself was weightless. She frowned at the unburdened upholstery under his thighs as if it had personally offended her. 

“Isn’t it weird?” 

“Isn’t what weird?” 

“You can sit there, and you can pick things up sometimes and you don’t go through the floor or anything, but you can’t touch… other things.” 

As if to prove her point, Luka propped his legs up on the small table she’d brought up, crossing his graffitied high tops across her notebook and smirking. She rolled her eyes and went to shove him off out of habit. Her hand passed right through him, making his feet look like a staticky TV picture for a second before they were back to normal. She frowned at them, too. 

Luka seemed to take her meaning because he moved his feet back down and leaned forward on his elbows instead, tracing lazy patterns on her notebook with his painted fingernail as his eyebrows furrowed in thought beneath his blue-tipped bangs. The paper crinkled under his touch in the quiet between them.

“Yeah, it’s weird,” he finally agreed. 

She kept her eyes focused on those three black marks. For a moment she fantasized about taking his hand and tracing them, but she knew her hand would pass through his like she was trying to hold onto air. “It just doesn’t make sense,” she started again, “if you can’t touch people, why do you still have your marks?” 

He laid his hand flat on the table, then, considering them. She rubbed at hers again self-consciously.

“I don’t know,” he said quietly. “I guess it’s maybe because I died before I met them. You know, seventeen. I didn’t have much time. Jules still has hers, too.” His eyes flicked to her hand covering her mark. “Why do you ask?” 

“It’s stupid,” she muttered. “I’ve just been wondering if maybe… you know…” 

His eyebrows disappeared behind his bangs as a disbelieving grin spread across his face. She wished she could shove his shoulder or tug his beanie down over his nose or flick the gauges in his ears or do something to him. As it was, she tossed her pen at him, taking what small pleasure she could from it when it passed between his eyes, at least marring that grin for a split second. 

“Shut up,” she said, her face flaming as she turned away. “I told you it was stupid.” 

“What if it wasn’t, though?” he asked. “I mean, you said it yourself, I can touch other things. And who knows how these things really work, right? Maybe it doesn’t have to be a touch, maybe it can be… I don’t know, the intent of a touch, or—” 

“Luka…” His name came out half as a warning and half as a sigh. 

“I’m just saying, maybe we could try. Maybe—”

“It’s not you, Luka,” she said, her tone slipping out with more petulance than she meant it to. Which one of them was she trying to convince, anyways? “It can't be you. You’re—well, let’s face it. You’re a ghost. You're not real. Even if it was you—which it’s not, but if it was—I mean, how would that even work? I can’t touch you, you can’t touch me, and the marks only change when someone touches you for the first time. Everyone knows that’s how this works, and we—” 

She stopped when she caught sight of his face again. Only a moment ago she’d been wishing she could wipe the grin off his face and now that it was actually gone, now that his shoulders were slumping in disappointment and his eyebrows were furrowing again, now she wished she hadn’t brought it up in the first place. 

It hurt more than she thought it would. That maybe he’d thought about it, too, and wanted it as much as she did. 

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, avoiding his eyes. “Forget I said anything.”

She felt it when he poofed away a moment later, like a small bubble had popped leaving the atmosphere a little harder to breathe. She groaned and let her head fall against the table with a heavy thunk, then thunked it again a few more times for good measure. 

***

And he did forget about it. Or at least he didn’t bring it up again over the next few weeks, although she did catch him looking at her marks more often. Usually with the same concentration as when he was trying to write his own lyrics down using the pen he was getting better and better at manipulating. 

It wasn’t until she overheard him and Juleka arguing one night that she realized it was even still on his mind. She didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but Luka’s exasperated tone made her pause before opening the door to the attic. 

“She deserves someone real, Jules. Her real soulmate, whoever the lucky bastard is, and I’ll never be able to give her that. I mean, okay, let’s say I do tell her, and by some miracle she wants to give up waiting for her soulmate and be with me. Our options are basically I stay here, forever stuck at seventeen, and I watch her grow old and…” 

The way he trailed off made Marinette picture him turning that focused gaze of his on his guitar as his jaw tensed, the way he sometimes did when his words failed him. It always made her think he wished he could let the guitar speak for him. 

“I mean, she can never have a family with me, we can’t share our lives together,” he continued bitterly after a moment. “Hell, she can’t even tell anyone I exist because they’ll think she’s insane. Or what if I somehow manage to cross over and she’s left to try to figure out how to move on? It’s just…” For once Marinette actually heard him sit heavily on the couch, the leather whooshing out from under him and the supports creaking under the weight of his emotion. “I don’t see the point in telling her.” 

There was a long pause and Marinette was starting to wonder if Juleka was even still in the room with him, but then she heard a sharp smack and Luka’s annoyed protest. 

“The point,” Juleka shot back with more force in her voice than Marinette was used to hearing, “is that I’m sick of watching you moping around like this. And besides, don’t you think Marinette deserves to know?” 

“Well—” 

“Look, maybe you’re soulmates and maybe you’re not. You may never know, right?” 

“Jules, I don’t think you understand—”

“But you love her, don’t you? Regardless of fate or whatever.” 

“Of course, but—”

“So tell her.” Juleka’s voice was like steel and it made Marinette shiver to think of being on the receiving end of it. 

She waited, breathless, for Luka’s response, but she only heard a small pop as one of them left. Tentatively, she pushed on the door and let it swing open. Luka was still on the couch with his head in his hands and his fingers dug into his hair as he stared at his shoes. He didn’t seem to notice her entrance until she knocked on the doorframe. His head snapped up and his eyes widened, but before she could even say ‘hello’ he popped out of the room, too, leaving her mind spinning and her heart pounding. 

***

He wasn’t avoiding her. If anything, they spent more time together now than… before, but he always managed to make sure someone else was around. Her parents, especially, because he knew she wouldn’t talk to him in front of them, but that didn’t stop him from doing those annoying ghost things that drove her crazy. 

Like pushing her plate to the side just as she was about to take a bite, or turning lights off  randomly and grinning at her when her parents wondered about the fuses, or tucking doodles and notes and lyrics torn out of her own notebook but in his scratchy handwriting into her shoes and her hair bands and her backpack and—why did he have to be so infuriatingly adorable? 

She was running out of reasons to explain why she was blushing and smiling so much nowadays. Especially since her mark was as black as ever. 

***

It took a while, but eventually he slipped up. It was a band meeting. Juleka was missing, which wasn’t surprising; she’d been gone more often than not and anytime they asked where she’d been she’d mutter an excuse and hide, blushing, behind her hair. 

So Ivan was acting as Luka’s buffer, preventing her, as usual, from asking him about what she’d overheard, until Luka mentioned a name, Mylène, and Ivan went quiet before he popped away without another word. 

Luka muttered an apology to the air Ivan had been occupying before he froze and turned those same wide eyes on Marinette. She half-expected him to poof out, but instead he picked up his pen and started twirling it nervously through his long fingers. After what felt like an eternity of silence, she huffed out a breath and dove in. 

“I heard everything, Luka.” 

He nodded, flicking his eyes up briefly before focusing back on the pen. “I know.” 

“So? What happens now?” 

He shrugged and leaned back against the couch, avoiding her eyes. “Your call, boss.” 

He was trying to look indifferent, unaffected, but she could tell by the way his pen was still spinning that he was only trying to distract himself. She rubbed at her marks, considering, then shifted closer to him. If he were actually sitting next to her, her knee would be leaning against his. Instead the boundary between them shimmered like a mist. It gave her a strange sense of warmth mixed with melancholy. She put her hand out on her knee, palm up, offering it to him.

All but his pen had frozen when she moved, but when his eyes flicked down to her hand, the pen slipped out of his focus and clattered to the floor. 

She couldn’t help her small giggle at his astonishment. In a daze, he reached out to hover his hand over hers, his fingers arched so that his fingertips were poised on top of hers, but not quite daring to close the distance. 

When he finally did, both of their shoulders fell when his hand passed entirely through her. 

Luka pulled away with a small, bitter chuckle. She flexed her fingers, wishing that they felt any different. It should feel different. It was only because he wasn’t—no, not that he wasn’t real , because he most certainly was. And she couldn’t even say he wasn’t alive either, because Luka was the most alive person she’d ever known. Or at least that’s how he made her feel. So, then, it was only because they were on two different planes of existence. Two different places. That’s why they couldn’t… 

“This is an interesting little relationship you and I have,” he muttered, but when she looked over he was smiling, flexing his fingers the same way she was. 

She nodded to agree. Interesting. That was a good word for it. 

***

“When did this happen?” Marinette asked as Juleka sheepishly moved her long hair aside to show the bubblegum pink mark across the back of her shoulders. 

Juleka shrugged and hid her eyes behind her hair. “I dunno. A week ago maybe?” 

Marinette shared a glance with Luka. About the same time she started disappearing from band meetings, then. She couldn’t help letting her eyes travel down to Luka’s hand. Juleka found her soulmate in the afterlife. That proved it was possible, right? Or what if Luka was meant to find another ghost like Juleka? What if she was actually the one standing in the way of his happiness? What if—

That strange sense of warmth passed through her and she realized Luka had come over to stand next to her and pass his hand through hers. It was a simple reminder of the other day and she got his message loud and clear. 

I choose this. 

If she could’ve, she would’ve laced her fingers through his and squeezed. Instead, she passed her hand back through his, echoing his message with her own. 

Me, too.

***

The ache to touch him didn’t fade. It was always there, tugging at her heart. But it was nice, what they had. She was getting used to his way of being with her. The way he would sit closer now, letting his shoulder not quite brush against hers. Or the way he would reach for her hand, not seeming bothered when it went through her and instead letting his intent speak for him. 

Maybe it wasn’t how she thought things would go. But it was working for them. 

She was leaning over her notebook with her headphones in, focused on writing something for him when it happened.

She didn’t even know he was there. Usually he’d give her some sort of indication that he’d entered the room. A prickle on the back of her neck or an impression of warmth on her cheek or he’d make some sort of noise as he sat down. Maybe he did and she didn’t notice, but she did notice when her hair was gently pushed aside off her neck and it fell over her shoulder instead. She did notice the lingering sense of a featherlight touch. And not the ghostly touch she was used to. An actual touch. 

She froze and pulled her headphones out and turned to find Luka standing behind her with a look of absolute awe on his face, his eyes locked onto the small expanse of skin he’d managed to bare. He’d managed to touch. 

On the side of her neck, just below her ear.  

“You have no idea how long I've wanted to do that," he breathed. 

[expiredfairydust]

best friends ~ bubblegum rock/kazuleon || ft. nb gay! kaz || pt. 2

//tw: self hatred, kinda internalised homophobia, uncensored F slur bcoz the author can reclaim it//

a loud gasp forced the two to pull away from their kiss quickly, both of them quickly moving to look in the direction of where the noise had come from.

kazuichi went red due to embarrassment, noticing the unmistakable blonde hair of miss sonia darting away.

she had poked her head around the door to souda’s room - they never locked it in case leon wanted to come and cuddle - meaning to ask the pinkette if they’d been given any homework as she had been in first aid for most of the day before, unaware of what was happening between the mechanic and their crush.

and now she was running off, trying to give the pair privacy. souda, panicking because their illusion of heterosexuality was likely being broken, ran after her, calling “miss s-sonia! wait!! i-i swear it’s not what it looks like i’m s-sorry miss sonia you’re the only one i love i swear!!” they were crying for real now at the realisation that they had just ruined the one thing that was theirs.

the blonde suddenly stopped in her tracks and turned back to kazuichi. her face had an odd expression that kazuichi couldn’t read.

she put a hand over the mechanic’s mouth. “you do not understand souda, i do not care about you and kuwata’s relationship! in fact, i am glad because now you can leave me and miss fukawa to our relationship in peace - i was and still am rather disgusted at your lack of knowledge on personal boundaries but now i do not have to worry about that because you have no reason to!” she spoke slightly forcefully without meaning to. when she was done, she took her hand away and started walking off again.

“miss sonia!! i-i-i-“ kazuichi couldn’t gather their words, thousands of thoughts racing through their head. “we’re not dating... it was.. it was only a kiss....” they would mumble, more tears streaming down their face with every word. “i-it was all my fault anyways... i-i.. i was.. i was the one who kissed him and it was so so stupid of me because he’s the only person i have left and now he probably hates me for- for-“

their voice cracked and they couldn’t go on speaking, their legs giving way underneath them. “for being such a disgusting fucking faggot!! and-and-and i don’t blame him because i hate myself too!!” they were practically shouting now. “but dammit i love him so fucking much! so much, it hurts! god it feels like my heart is being ripped apart and i can’t fix it and i don’t know what to do and i hate that! and even if i could ever tell him properly i just know he’d hate me because who could ever like such a pathetic little FAG”

they didn’t know why they were telling all of this to miss sonia, maybe it was because they didn’t want her to think leon’s standards were so low as to date them. maybe they just needed to let everything out, needed to rant. because the moment they opened their mouth the words seemed to vomit out.

and once they were done ranting they ran off to the loos so they could actually vomit, as they often did out of distress. they ran to the far away disabled loos, on the opposite end of campus - they were the only public gender neutral loos on campus - so they wouldn’t have to face leon again, who they assumed was still in their room.

key word: assumed.

because leon had actually heard every word, only a few paces behind kazuichi during their confession. he had ran to try and take the mechanic in his arms, to say that it was okay because he loved them that way back. he had ran, just as kazuichi ran off.

meanwhile the princess was just happily beaming to herself, knowing that leon heard every word. she had successfully wingwomanned for the creep and the punk! it was a double win, as leon tended to flirt with touko as well as kazuichi’s horrible attempts to look straight by chasing after miss sonia herself. she made her way to her girlfriend’s dorm to tell her all about what she did.

leon’s thoughts were racing, as he tried to figure out what was even happening. kaz was in love with him... kazzy loved him back... but they thought that kiss was all their fault? as if leon hadn’t chosen to kiss them too? and now they thought he hated them? why? why would he kiss them if he hated them? god kazuichi was a dumb bitch at the best of times...

leon couldn’t help but smile through his tears, which he hadn’t noticed either.

kazuichi really loved him back..!

him!

but they thought leon felt the opposite...

right...

well, leon would just have to change that, he decided as he started looking for his best friend. he knew the mechanic got physically unwell when they were unwell, so he’d just have to check all the loos until he found the right one!

except kazuichi was nonbinary and relatively androgynous, so the baseball star had no clue which loos they’d be in, and he couldn’t exactly barge into the women’s loos checking to find his friend.

so, that meant he’d have to find ibuki, who had joined his band, and ask nya to check the girls’ loos while he checked the men’s and disabled loos. nya was also non binary, but at least she passed as a girl enough to enter the women’s loos.

it wasn’t hard, seeing as the noise they made made all over on the other side of the campus-

(conveniently close to one of the only gender neutral loos on campus)

-was loud enough to be heard in another country. leon was regretting leaving his ear plugs in kaz’s dorm, as he plugged his ears with his fingers and ran towards the sound.

“IBUKI!!!!” he yelled once he was in the practice room mioda was in.

“WHAT?!?”

“WHAT???”

“WHAT?!”

this was going to be tedious, leon thought, as he moved towards where everything was plugged in and unplugged the speakers.

ah, silence,,, at least it would’ve been if mioda wasn’t screeching at leon for what he did. “jesus christ calm down ibuki! i need you for something important” leon hissed, ibuki going completely quiet at the word “important” - void loved being helpful!

the bubbly musician sped off to search once leon explained what he needed. knowing nya, she’d probably check all the men’s loos too, void didn’t seem to get what made people so iffy about not sharing a bathroom with different genders.

but with that, leon got to looking too. and it wasn’t long before he heard the sound of sobbing in the disabled loos, accompanied by the sound of vomiting. well, there’s kaz...

he knocked on the door “kazzy?” he tentatively spoke. there was the click of the door being unlocked for leon to enter. he soon dropped to the floor, next to the pinkette, pulling them into his lap and holding them tightly. “shshshhh... i’m here kazzy...” the ginger would whisper sweetly into souda’s ear.

he held the younger student’s hair back as they puked again. “now how about you tell me what’s going on in that mind of yours?” he whispered, despite knowing already. he wanted kazuichi to say it again. to him, not to miss sonia.

but kaz didn’t want to talk. “it’s stupid” they said, snuggling against leon.

“if it’s stupid why don’t you say it?”

“coz you’ll hate me even more than you do for kissing you” their words were hard to understand through their tears.

“what makes you think i hate you? if i hated you, would i be here with you now? c’mon how about you wash your mouth out? all that puking must have left a horrible taste” leon spoke with a gentle tone, which was unlike him but comforting to the sobbing boy in his lap.

once almost all traces of puke had been ridden from the mechanic’s mouth, leon sat them on his lap again, holding them tightly. “how about you tell me what’s wrong now, eh kazzy?” he said sweetly, wiping his best friend’s tear stained cheeks with his sleeve.

“promise you won’t hate me?”

“pinky promise”

the pinkette drew a deep breath, getting ready to speak. then shook their head. “i-i can’t”

a realisation dawned upon leon then. this was his chance to reveal his own secret! “i’ll tell you something about me that i’ve been hiding if that would make you feel any better” a slow nod gave him the ok to speak.

“i’m intersex. when i was born the doctors told my mom and dad and they were.. well, i don’t know how they felt but i was forced into an opporation to make me “fully” male as a baby and all my life i’ve had to take medication to keep my hormones at a “normal male” level, which is odd coz i was never actually told that’s what it was for until recently” the ginger spoke, resting his head on kazuichi’s shoulder

“but, i want to stop taking my meds, i don’t want to be 100% a boy, and that decision kinda scares me in case people won’t accept it. in case you don’t accept it” he added after hesitating. “now do you wanna talk about your problem?” he wanted to change the subject.

kaz had gone quiet. then, after a few seconds they said. “it sounds silly now that you’ve told me how serious yours is... but- but-“ they paused to figure out the words they wanted to say. “i-i- i’m so sorry for kissing you! i had no right to do it and i-i- i didn’t even take the time to ask you if you wanted a kiss and- and- and- i’m so sorry i know you hate me for it and i don’t blame you because i totally deserve it” the words seemed to fall out quicker than kazuichi could think of them

“and i know you probably never want to see me again but if you could ever forgive me i’d really appreciate it because you’re the only friend i’ve got and i love you dude!” as those words came out, the pink haired mechanic started tearing up again. “i-i love you... i love you so much it hurts and i don’t know what i’d ever do without you but i totally understand if you hate me because how could you ever love someone who’s such a disgusting f-“

their words were cut off by leon kissing the shorter mechanic. it was a brief kiss, even shorter than their first, but the pure, raw emotion behind it was clear. love. reciprocated love.

“if i thought you were disgusting, why would i choose to kiss you twice? because now you know it sure as hell weren’t just you who wanted that first kiss” leon said simply, wiping the shorter guy’s tears away. “but i don’t still want to be friends,” he said, suddenly going cold, making the pinkette’s face drop. “i want to be boyfriends!” he said, making kazuichi start laughing with relief.

just as they were about to share another kiss, in barged mioda, yelling about how nya had found the pink haired mechanic, then once void noticed the ginger sat next to them and started yelling about how unfair it was that she had been looking all over for kazuichi for leon when the ginger was probably with them the whole time.

the couple smiled and sheepishly promised to make it up to the ultimate musician. the end.

[magics-protector]

Hello! Could I have a ship request for either Narnia, LOTR, and/or Star Wars? (I’m sorry I couldn’t pick one😩) thank you!

I’m an INFP muggle born slytherin. My enneagram is counter phobic 6w5 and my moral alignment is chaotic good. I’m about 5’1”. I have dark brown (almost black) layered hair with curtain bangs. I have dark brown almond shaped eyes and tan skin. My pronouns are she/them and I’m bi (although I prefer guys). I'm a bit quiet and introverted but once I trust you enough to open up I tend to be sarcastic and tease. I don’t trust easily, but once I do I’m very loyal. I’m also a very passionate person who feels emotions very deeply. I like doing adventurous stuff and exploring (intellectually and physically) and feel especially connected to nature and space. I love to try and understand things from different perspectives, however I don’t always agree with them. I LOVE music (anything from rock to classical). I like to read, write, and watch movies (fantasy, action, sci-fi, or mystery). I do martial arts and I ABSOLUTELY LOVE daggers (I also train with nunchucks, staffs, double stick, and butterfly knife, but daggers are my favorite). My fighting style and how I move is very smooth and sharp, much like water or air. I’d like to think I’m strong— both mentally and physically— but it’s more of a quiet strength. I’m confident in who I am and what I can do even if it doesn’t fit the way things normally are. I find my own way to express, defend, and present myself. I love fashion and my style/aesthetic ranges from dark academia to vintage. I like silver rings a lot. I play piano, ukulele, sing, draw, and anything creative. I was very active and competitive as kid (I still am) and overtime I honed into the skills or activities I felt passionate about.

Thank you :)

Heyyy, sorry this took so long to get to! I started my second year of University when it came around and I just totally forgot!

Anyway I hope you like it!

Narnia

I ship you with.....

Edmund Pevensie!

Edmund, I feel is a lot like you in a way, but rather than shy, I'd say he's a bit off putting. But once you've gotten to know him, you'll find he holds everything close to his heart; his family, his friends, his kingdom. Everything he cares about he feels passionately for. And I can see it working out between you two. And, I know Ed is a boy from the 40s, but I've always seen him as one of those kids that used to be a snobbish rate when they were younger and then just suddenly became this punk kid - is it just me?

Edmund loves that you know who you are and that you're confident in yourself and what you can do. Being with him means a whole ton of new burdens will be placed on your shoulders and he needs someone ready for that. He may not be the High King just yet, but he is still the King and he will need a strong Queen by his side.

Not to mention you're both Slytherins haha.

Lord of the Rings

I ship you with...

Legolas

Looks like you've snagged yourself another Prince. Legolas is a private guy, as most Elves are, but I feel like in the privacy of his own quarters, with someone he really trusts, he'd be as open as Dwarf drunk - I think we all know which Dwarf I am referring too, hehe. I personally think he'd gravitate towards someone like you, like you are someone he would look for in a partner. Elves are not really that big on the emotional scale, but I think he would want to be, it is just hard for him to understand them - I mean, look at his dad, do you think Dilf Thranduil ever taught Legolas to openly express his feelings?

I think you two would be a great match!

Star Wars

I ship you with....

Finn!

Oh my gods, i'm jealous! Finn is the sweetest guy you'll ever meet! I am an introvert as well so trust me when I tell you that this man will get you to open up in at least five minutes after you guys meet. He will take the time to listen to your interests because he really hasn't had the time to find his own. I feel like the relationship you guys would have would be super adorable and it would be a huge change for Finn and one that he desperately needs.

Again I am so sorry this took so long!

I hope you like it =)

[vdragon-creations]

More Danganronpa Headcanons!

Why? Because I can! And I have to wait for a Commissioner to get back to me about a WIP I just sent!

I Think I’m gunna try my hands at making some Headcanons for Mondo, Ishimaru, Leon, Kazuichi, and Kiibo this time a round! Just cause I wanna try and explore new characters. (And totally not because I fell hard for a certain Robo Boi! WHAAAAAAAT! YOU CRAZY GURL!) I’m still loyal to my man Yasuhiro! But I gotta spred the love! Cause these boi’s need it! Also, wanna mention that these are more like...Non-Killing Game AU Headcanaons. So yeah! ^^ 

Let’s do this!

Mondo:

Is a Semi decent carpenter, but there was that one time he fucked up the legs on a chair, and now one of Asahina’s shorts has a rip in it where there was a stray nail sticking out.

She wont let him live that down. And neither will Sakura.

Get’s pretty embarrassed/pissed off if someone touches his neck! The dude’s jacket practically covers that entire part of his body, so he’s not used to feeling anything touch him there!

He once let out a girlish scream when Leon poked him there once to wake him up during class! The rest of them are surprised Leon wasn’t killed right then and there.

Once he participated in a little competition between the classes to see who was the arm wrestling champ. He got pretty far till he had to go up against Gonta. He lost by a landslide, but he felt better loosing to a dude like him at least. 

Totally escorts any female classmate or student home on his bike if they ask, or he sees some creep hanging around them. 

He does get embarrassed about it though, and ends up yelling at them. This results in one of three things.

The girl runs away!

The girl just politely declines, and walks away kinda creeped out!

Or a mix of all, with the addition of the dude sees this, and get’s spooked himself, and fucks off

Ishimaru:

Has a bit of a panic attack and dies inside if he sees someone leaving the men’s restroom without washing their hands!

Carries scented hand sanitizers with him! At all times! No matter what! And must offer some to every single one of his classmates! 

Once he tripped in the halls while chasing after another rule breaker, and had to be carried to the nurse’s office. Now that alone wouldn’t have been a bad thing, except Sakura was the one who did it, and she carried him bridle style, much to his dismay. 

Mondo and Leon teased him about that one for months.

During Christmas, he’ll start screeching about PDA anytime he sees a Mistletoe, or people under it who are about to kiss! 

But will ultimately be the first one forced to stand underneath it by is classmates.

Stays behind after school hours to either clean, or poke his head into every class room to see if the teachers need help with anything.

He’s totally that guy who during the Gym Class or Sports festival, is bitching about how short the girls shorts are, but not realize he’s staring. There by making HIM the creep! 

Leon of all people was the one to point this out to him, only adding to the shame.

Leon:

It’s not hard for him to start catching feelings for basically any girl meets.

Totally has an Instagram where he posts shirtless pics! He’s pretty popular thanks to that, and his Baseball Skills.

Purposely taught himself English so he could flirt with some of the American and British chicks who visit his profile and leave comments.

He’s pretty used to going from girl to girl, so it’s safe to assume he’s used to getting dunked on by the girls he’s dumped. Getting called a pig, dirty looks, even some of them going so far as to pour their drinks on them at lunch. This he can handle!

Wanted so badly to start a band with Sayaka, Ibuki, Kaede, and Kazuichi! (Probably due to the punk look Soda always puts on!) But he was promptly let down by all of them! Cause Ibuki had her own shit to deal with, Kazuichi because he had no experience with music (at least any good ones, Stay tuned for that! ;3), Sayaka cause she’s already part of a group, and Kaede because punk wasn’t exactly her thing.

But what really stresses him out is when one of his Exes just.....doesn’t really seem to care! It feels so outta place to him, and it actually makes him pretty paranoid. Wondering if their plotting for revenge or some shit! So he’ll spend days after breaking up with a girl like this, just kinda....being a little bitch! XD

Secretly, I’m pretty sure they all turned him down because they thought he was coming on to them to a degree. 

Kazuichi:

Is a lot like Yasuhiro, he doesn’t like birds, but not because he thinks they work for the government. It’s because he doesn’t like most animals, they remind him of Gundham.

Miu makes him HIGHLY uncomfortable! Sure, she’s hot and stuff, but she’s a whole other level of fuckery that he wants no part of! She’s banned from entering his workshop, and so Kiibo is usually the one who comes in to grab something if Miu needs it. He completely get’s Kazuichi feeling put off by Miu.

However, Kazuichi is still pretty insistent on asking Kiibo if he can take him apart every time he comes to get something for Miu. Making the poor robot very uncomfortable!

He’s pretty jealous that Miu get’s to play with the Robot and he doesn’t. Get’s kinda salty about it.

Teruteru once gave him the idea that he should try to serenade Sonia. And so he did! Or at least he tried to. He got over the fence to the girls dorms, ripping his clothes in the prosses. Then when he got to the window (he thought was) of Sonia’s room, he threw a rock that was a bit too big at it, cracking the window and scaring the girl in the room! Waking up the whole dorms and he booked it out of there! 

He attempted this one more time, and was better prepared. But Sonia opened her window to see a Kazuichi dressed in a Ghillie Suit and wearing an army helmet holding a guitar! When he started to sing and play, it was now obvious why Ibuki refuses to let him sing along with any of her music! 

A girl from a neighboring room called the campus security to repot a strange dude outside the Girls dorms, while another one poked her head out of her window and began to throw things at him. 

He left soon after, but was caught by security and reprimanded. Now he refuses to listen to Teruteru has to say about anything.  

Kiibo:

Often get’s bossed around by Mui to get her things. He finds it rather degrading, but when she’s not being bossy, she’s helpful to him. So he puts up with it, as a way of saying thanks. 

One of these tasks he’s asked to do a lot is going over to Kazuichi’s Workshop to barrow tools and such. He hates doing it though, since Kazuichi is always wanting to take him apart. So he does his best to make these visits quick!

Miu gave him the ability to remove some of his heavy armor so he can wear clothing like normal. Surprisingly, This was his idea! He wanted to be able to enjoy the comforts of soft fabrics like most humans. And it would help him blend in a bit better.

Gonta and him get along very well! Mainly due to both of them having a hard time understanding things like sarcasm, harsher jokes, and certain social cues. This usually leads to them both learning at the same time when they hang out!

Miu is his wingman, weather he knows it or not! She’s always wanting to add new functions to him to make him more appealing. One of these is a thin velvet like coating on his armor that’s meant to make his metal less harsh on the skin if you touch him.

Another one of these features is a type of diffuser at the top of his skull under his hair! It releases a pleasant scent into his hair, similar to pheromones. The scent changes based on Kiibo’s emotions. 

Kokichi likes to openly mock Kiibo in front of new people. Like a lot!

Kiibo actually releases steam when he get’s too Angry or Embarrassed, but this is really rare. 

Get’s really curious about Occult, Paranormal, or Religious things. Sure, he finds some of it to be very silly, but he can’t help but wonder why some humans like those things! 

Some holiday traditions he finds weird too, and in some cases, a bit Robophobic. Like giving candy or sweets out on Valentines Day, when....well, he can’t fucking eat it! So he feels excluded in times like that.

He’s really confused about most PDA! Especially kissing! So humans just like...put their mouths together? And that’s like....supposed to mean deep affection? What’s so great about swapping fluids like that? Couldn’t they get sick? QUESTIONS! ANSWERS! HE MUST HAVE THEM!

His Ahoge doesn’t just change shape and move to show emotion, but it also tends to point in the direction that he’s attention is drawn too. Even when he’s trying to pretend he’s not looking at something! His hair is a dead give away!

Has a built in “Cellphone” in his head. Miu added it so it would be easier to contact him if needed. 

Everyone in his class has his number, except Kokichi! And it will stay that way!

.......Until Gonta gave it to him by being tricked into doing it!

And now he has a small panic attack every time his “Cellphone” rings. Praying to all that is good that he doesn’t hear “HEY KIIBOOOOOOOY!~<3″ on the other end!

[dreamsister81]

 Jeff and MI:

By age, you fit in the G.I.T generation, but you obviously are not one of them...

These facilities are a mystery to me. There they tell you only one thing: hurry up! This leads you nowhere, afterwards your own children run away from you. Through these trainings you get to know women, you get to know men, music is inoculated into people who have no feeling for it; then they can only scare other people or insult them...

I was in this terrible place too, by the way-G.I.T That was a complete waste of time, apart from the theoretical lessons and the friends that I had there. Otherwise: an absolute wrong decision.

How long have you studied there?

One year, the normal program. They give you tons of material, you have to absorb everything, you practice, you are tested and you go to the next course. An intensive support with development is simply not possible. I did so many things: theory, single string technique, jazz class, rock class, all sorts of genres. My friend John was teaching bass there, and he once said that there is not a single teacher at the institute who says to the students, "OK, you're learning all this stuff here now, you're learning how to entertain people and you're learning to learn. But do you even know that there is no one in the universe other than yourself who plays the music you play? " John left the school then. For me it was all a joke that cost me $ 3,900. People interested in music should take private lessons somewhere, start a band, do something with people who like them and have what it takes. These schools are a scene in their own right, a very small, secluded world-the music, on the other hand, is gigantic and open. If you don't notice it, you miss a lot of magic, pain, development...(thinks) and rock! Apart from Paul Gilbert, there was no one there who really rocked. Session musicians are bred there; and at the end of the year you get a piece of paper that says, "Now you have the skills to become a professional musician." Well, congratulations! And then you look for jobs and play what other people want. But that's not all the music, there's something else isn't there? Where's the music coming from? From your own head or stomach, or the concepts of the people you work for?-Gitarre & Bass, October,  1995

.

.

.

I had a friend named John Humphrey. I went to this really crappy guitar school for a year, and he used to teach there, he was a bass teacher. And then he left, and we ended up being roommates later on, after I graduated. This is the kind of school where you give them a shitload of money in order to spend a year learning their curriculum.

What was it, G.I.T. (Guitar Institute of Technology in Los Angeles)?

Yeah, it was G.I.T.. They give you their curriculum, and it's not too comprehensive, but it's just enough, and then you can [snaps his fingers] move on to the next thing. And pretty soon you have all this shit inside you and then they give you this paper that says you have what it takes to be a professional musician.

It's a rock-oriented thing, isn't it?

In the end, I think, the only true product of that kind of learning is to get you gigs on the studio circuit and to get you gigs on the session guy circuit.

So, Lee Ritenour went there or something?

G.I.T. was started by Howard Roberts, the guy who played the wah-wah guitar on the theme to Shaft. And this other guy named Pat Hayes. I don't know. It just seemed like a racket, really. John said a lot of things to me that stuck in my mind. He said that there was nobody who stopped you, sat you in a room and said, okay, we have all these artists that you're learning the licks from, you have your guitar heroes, your virtuoso lust objects. But there's nobody who can make the kind of music you can make now except for you. And you can make it now. You don't even have to know how to go fast. And that makes all the sense to me in the world. It's also kind of an unseen process, that concept, originality. It's like that in all the education systems; there's never any real...identity education, self-generative identity art sort of thing, to be yourself. If everybody in Melbourne had a Wurlitzer organ and had the passion to sing something or make something, you'd have hundreds of thousands of different styles, if they were coming exactly from only their DNA, only their makeup, and their emotional percepts, their idea about what art is. You could have way-removed genres from what is already accepted, avante-garde country-rock-punk-folk-whatever. It's unlimited. But for some reason, the conventions always take over and there's a very ready and powerful formula to step into...

Those are the type of [formula-derived] players who can say, "Well, I was listening to the radio in 1967 and I heard the guitar solo in Jimi Hendrix's 'All Along the Watchtower,' and that guitar sound, that tone, would work perfectly for this television commercial."

Yeah. See? "Stealing from the greats, that's okay." That's right. Once I stopped in [at G.I.T.] years later, when I was on tour going through L.A., just to see what it was like. They've got a completely high-tech, multi-million dollar facility...

More so than when you had been there?

Way more. When I was there, it was just a ragtag bunch of teachers, and they had all left by then. They had video facilities and a class for stage moves and all kinds of things. And I saw this guy who was working the desk, the guy who watches the door. He had a bass on, and he was practicing his Nirvana chops! He was playing "In Bloom" on his bass, way up on his chest, jazz-fusion style, to the Nirvana song. I thought, oh shit--he was practicing his grunge riffs! He was getting his grunge down! Best fucking thing you can do, if you have the interest, is go to a private teacher, go someplace, some college, and learn theory. That was something I really enjoyed, actually, something that wasn't totally pointless. Theory meaning the meaning of the musical nomenclature. I was attracted to really interesting harmonies, stuff that I would hear in Ravel, Ellington, Bartok.-Double Take, February 29, 1996

.

.

.

Once the site of a seakeasy and a bra factory, the 30,000-square-foot quarters were now the home of Musicians Institute, a vocational school for anyone who considered himself or herself a serious musician. With its wooden desks and chipped-tile hallways, MI resembled any other urban school, but at those desks, student guitarists and drummers studied scales and power chords in hopes of becoming the next Eddie Van Halen or Neil Peart, the flashy drummer with Rush. On their way to class each morning, flaxen-haired guitar gods in training could be spotted holding their guitars and practicing licks as they walked down Hollywood Boulevard.

Jeff had heard about Musicians Institute (and its subdivision, the Guitar Institute of Technology) while in high school and told everyone it was his one and only destination. However, potential superstardom did not run cheap. The school charged $4,000 for its one year course, and by the time Jeff Graduated from Loara High School, Mary Guibert was beginning to fall on hard financial times as she went in and out of jobs. In need of money for herself and her two sons, she prematurely broke into a $20,000 fund earmarked for Jeff, but only after he tured nineteen. Once Mary proved to the courtsthat Jeff needed it for his education, he and Mary received it a year early. In a deep irony, the father Jeff had barely met and increasingly resented would be paying his son's way through music school.

On graduation night, September 15, 1985, at the Odyssey in Granada Hills in the San Fernando Valley, Jeff, Stoll, and Marryatt closed the ceremony by playing Weather Report's "Pearl On the Half Shell."-from Dream Brother

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.

.

With its 30-odd thousand feet of floor space and row upon row of "labs", where hopeful guitar heroes could jam with such shit-hot players as Scott Henderson, LA's Musician's Institute must have seemed like nirvana for someone like Jeff Buckley, trapped as he was behind the Orange Curtain. According to his buddy Chris Dowd, that's exactly why Buckley enrolled there, arriving just before autumn, 1984, bankrolled by $4,000 that Mary managed to squeeze from a Tim Buckley trust fund.

Originally known as the Guitar Institute, which in itself says plenty, the school was opened in 1977. Drawing on the educational philosophy of journeyman guitarist Howard Roberts, it was co-founded and managed by Los Angeles music businessman Pat Hicks, "a real shyster opportunist", in the words of Tom Chang, an expat Canadian who would become very tight with Jeff Buckley during their two years at the Institute. In 1978, thr Bass Institute was opened, followed by the Percussion Institute two years later. Desppite Hicks' questionable business ethics-amongst other things, he'd hire students as cheap labour to do essential maintenance work on the building, which led to Buckley being hired as an electrician's assistant soon after graduating-he did manage to persuade well regarded players and bands to lecture, and play alongside, the hopefuls who'd enrolled there.

What Buckley lacked up in "front" he clearly made up for in ambition. That was proved, in spades, by Buckley's graduation performance which was played out on September 15, 1985, at a venue called the Odyssey in Granada Hills. While the sonic crush and enviable chops of Rush and Led Zeppelin still rocked the world of this Orange County teen, Buckley had also developed a real taste for such "noodlers" as Weather Report.

The number chosen by Buckley for graduation was their "D Flat Waltz" (not "Pearl On The Half-Shell", as documented elsewhere, which they'd performed at a previous event), a typically complicated few minutes of Weather Report neo-fusion-a "really cool piece, very involved", according to Tom Chang-and a standout from their 1983 set Domino Theory. But Buckley, accompanied by Stoll on drums and Marryatt on bass, didn't just play the piece, he also wrote the individual parts out beforehand for the band.-from A Pure Drop

MI pics by me

[writingbakery]

“tapewebs”; a series 🕸

hanta sero is just your regular everyday japanese-american immigrant college student, living in the heart of brooklyn. when miles morales collapses on the windowsill of his shitty one bedroom apartment, life gets.... a hell of a lot more interesting 🕷

[a spiderman! sero au one shot series, featuring class 1-A, hanta sero, miles morales, an assortment of marvel villains, & you, dear reader - the object of one tapespider’s affections ✨]

[pairing; sero x gender neutral reader 🕸]

[warnings; fluff, violence, action, angst, romance, & a lot of tape/spider puns 🕸]

“Sticky Note Origins”

───── ⋆🕸⋆ ─────

the city is prettier up high, sero realizes. granted, he wishes he’d come to that conclusion on solid ground, without his feet nervously planted on a skyscraper ledge, but still.

every whip of wind threatens to topple him over, send him careening down into a frenzied spiral of buildings and colors until he meets concrete at the bottom - and he’s supposed to willingly jump.

he wonders if he’ll pass out before his bones meet solid mass, cracking in so many different ways the coroner’ll have to play connect the fragments until he’s a person again.

behind him, an impatient cough sounds, bringing him back to the task at hand. fuck.

you’re probably wondering how he got here. let’s rewind a week.

one week earlier

at ten pm on a friday, the city is in its prime, bustling crowds of people laughing and stumbling through the brightly colorful streets. hanta’s just trying to protect his pad thai & dumplings, hugging the greasy paper bag to his chest as he weaves in and out of the chaos.

a day full of long classes & a quiet shift at the cafe-slash-bookstore halfway between campus and his crap one bedroom apartment leaves him exhausted, shoulders hunched as he makes his way home. nobody ever sees him regardless - the city’s too big for one lanky, always tired beanpole to be much notice.

despite living in brooklyn since he was four, he’s never felt a hundred percent comfortable here - he had an accent right up until he was thirteen, still trips over certain words and customs that don’t exist back home in japan. he’s awkwardly tall, not enough to be a phenomenon but towering over all his family. he just doesn’t quite fit anywhere - too smart and plain to be popular, too boring to be with the jokesters, too awkward for the nerds. he’s been a loner all his life, and while he doesn’t mind too much, he just wishes it was a little easier to belong.

a text rolls across his phone screen as he’s shuffling songs, skipping some j-pop rock song to settle on kendrick lamar as he smiles. you. he couldn’t lie and say he was completely alone, not when he had you in his life.

you were a year younger than him but twice as smart, skipping a year ahead and landing yourself in hanta’s high school freshman english class. the pair of you had just... clicked, from the very first moment he pointed to shakespeare’s likeness on the cover and mocked “what, you egg?!”

your laughter had left him on cloud nine the entire day, and he made it his personal mission to hear that beautiful little giggle at least once a day for the rest of his life.

a lovely friendship had bloomed from there, the two of you joined at the hip - if you were somewhere, hanta was bound to follow & vice versa.

you’d even gotten into the same college, albeit for drastically different majors - he was a biochem/engineering double major, while you were an english/history double major. you were opposite but similar in so many ways, and the way you both completed each other didnt go unnoticed by sero.

you were his puzzle piece, the bits of him he’d never been able to fill easily made whole by your presence.

he could never tell you, however; your friendship was too precious to risk, especially over his dumb, emotional heart.

sending a string of laughing emojis towards the meme you sent, he jogs up the seven flights of dimly lit stairs to his tiny, one bedroom apartment - living in the city wasn’t cheap, & while the elevator was always busted at least he had a doorman, and heat that worked on occasion.

stepping into his apartment, however, he can immediately sense something is wrong; the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, a heavy silence coating the darkness. the air feels wrong, tipsy turvy like the whole place is holding its breath - like something’s on the verge of exploding, catapulting him into chaos and danger.

quietly stepping through the living room, he peeks into the kitchen and bathroom, holding his backpack out like a makeshift weapon - his $200 biology textbook finally going to good use. finding nothing in either dark room, he slowly advances towards his bedroom, carefully measuring every step. at first, the room seems perfectly normal - nothing’s been moved, and it’s just as empty as the rest of his apartment.

and then he sees the blood.

dotting his windowsill in bright, red streaks, the window itself pushed halfway open - but that’s not what stops him in his tracks, eyes so wide it hurts.

spiderman is leaning against his windowsill, covered in blood and panting heavily, one hand held up in an effort to stop hanta in his tracks.

“i need...... help,” he whispers, voice rough and low; hanta’s amazed he can still speak.

he opens his mouth to react, somehow, even steps forward to catch him before screaming like a ten year old girl at a morgue, panic setting in like cold water.

never a dull night in brooklyn.

───── ⋆🕸⋆ ─────

once he’s made sure that spiderman - miles, as the young man bleeding all over his $12 walmart carpet supplies - isn’t going to die anytime soon, hanta’s quick to recover from his shock. bustling around his tiny kitchen to make cheap ramen and digging around in his closet to find his mini first aid kit, he’s in full fanboy mode - he’s got posters plastered wall to wall of miles morales on his bedroom walls, for gods sakes. not that he knew it was miles morales, but still.

miles morales is curled up in the fleece blanket hanta’s mom had sent him his second week at college, and he’s totally not freaking out.

he’d had to cancel his nightly facetime call with you, lying about a stomach bug - he hates keeping things from you, but this is just too big and messy and dangerous. he’ll tell you in due time, he promises himself, trying to ease the coil of guilt in his stomach.

“how did you end up on my windowsill, again?” hanta asks, gently pushing the bowl of noodles towards the injured man. he’s got his own pad thai long forgotten in the microwave, more focused on the superhero who’d gotten his ass whooped on his doorstep, so to speak.

“i told you. i’d been watching you for a while - you’re the most promising candidate i have.” miles’ voice is slick with humor, a sort of teasing confidence that’s clear even through the pain.

“which i’m still not understanding - candidate for what? blood services? biology questions? how to make $20 last two weeks??” he knows he’s being childish, too joking for the severity of the situation, but he can’t help it. the neighborhood’s - and his own - hero is sitting in front of him, eating shitty 33¢ ramen from the bodega around the corner, telling him he’s a prime candidate.

“to take the mantle.” all traces of laughter are gone now, miles leaning forward on the table to emphasize his words. “i’ve been doing this long enough to know when to quit. my body’s giving out on me - i got slammed into a wall last week and couldn’t shake the pain till yesterday. before, i’d be fine within an hour. the city needs someone new, young, willing to take the risks.”

hanta’s ears stopped listening the moment he heard quit. “me? are you fuckin’ joking?” he wheezes, coughing his way past the shock. “i get winded walking up to my apartment! an old lady beat me to the c train yesterday! a strong wind could kick my ass!”

miles is either willfully ignoring him or just can’t hear, plowing ahead with his explanation. “you’ve got the perfect build for webswinging, and you’ve got a good heart - you know when to do the right thing and when to step away. leave the rest up to me, and trust me - i know what i’m doing.”

hanta can’t believe his ears, pushing away from the table to pace around his kitchen in panic. “i don’t till you understand, you’ve got the wrong guy - there’s no way i could be spiderman!” his words are falling on deaf ears - miles is standing too, and he doesn’t seem to care about hanta’s impending panic.

“you’ve got to trust me on this, alright? meet me tomorrow, at this address - 12 pm sharp. the city needs you, hanta - hell, i need you. just have a little faith.”

hanta scoffs at that, throwing his hands in the air. “faith?! i met you an hour ago, bleeding all over my windowsill! that’s not exactly the most- hey! where the hell...” there’s nothing but a blanket, a hastily scrawled address, and an empty bowl where miles had sat, leaving hanta alone with his thoughts.

damnit.

───── ⋆🕸⋆ ─────

hanta pushes through the crowds of people at eleven am the next morning, half asleep but wired enough to power the whole city - hell, the whole goddamned country. he’s running on no sleep, adrenaline, two redbulls & the guilt of lying to you again, his “stomach bug” keeping him from class. he’d told you he was going to visit his parents for the weekend to recover; your sweet messages in response only made him feel worse.

he’s tossed and turned over this decision a million times & yet, he’s still not sure where he stands - it’s so little information, so much responsibility in so little time. he’s still half convinced he’s being punked, if he’s honest.

and yet, somethings drawing him to the address miles had left him, something deep in his gut that tells him he needs to be there. clearly, miles had seen something he himself is woefully oblivious to, and it couldn’t hurt to find out more.

apple maps leads him to a tiny shed somewhere behind a deli & a nail salon, not too far from his apartment, and he’s completely confused. “stupid gps, probably got me lost,” he whines, leaning against the door of the shed to zoom in on his location.

the pigeons in the alley are the only ones to hear his panicked yelling as he phases right through it, tumbling all the way down a metal chute into the dark unknown.

at least, for ten seconds. he lands on a remarkably soft pad of foam, a glass panel separating him from a brightly lit, fancy looking room lined wall to wall with computers, parts and half made suits, spiderman suits. he doesn’t know where to look first.

a robotic, feminine voice brings him out of his shock, the glass panel lighting up with code and writing.

“please enter your name.” hanta is floored.

“uh.. hanta sero?” the voice trills lightly, before a red grid-like laser scans him head to toe. he’s proud to admit he only squealed in terror once.

“identity confirmed. welcome, hanta.” the panel slides away to allow him access, his careful steps alerting the rest of the room’s computers to light up at his arrival.

“you came. i knew i chose wisely.” miles comes into view slowly, limping heavily as he smiles. it’s almost familiar, like he & hanta have been friends for years; he finds it comforting.

“well, not everyday you get to be spiderman,” hanta jokes, fidgeting a little where he stands. “you gonna fit me for a suit or something?” miles just laughs, shaking his head.

“that comes later. first, we’ve got to get you bitten.”

bitten?

───── ⋆🕸⋆ ─────

for the third time in 24 hours, hanta’s screaming like a man who’s just been told he has two days to live.

“you want me to let that thing bite me?! have you lost your mind?!”

miles sighs patiently, holding up the little glass vial to the light; inside, the spider races up and down the glass, an odd orange color to its patterning.

“it’s the only way. no offense, but i saw that lady beat you to the c train. she was like, 85.” hanta’s pouting now, crossing his arms.

“she had a cane and she was agile- hey hey! you keep that thing away from me, so help me god-“

“you’re being dramatic, it’s the size of a pea-“

“that’s a fat ass fuckin’ pea-“

“stay still-“

“i will not- ow! jesus fuck, that thing has tarantula jaws!”

miles carefully shepherds the spider back into the glass, chuckling a little. “it’ll take a moment to cause effect. the original spider was cross-bred with a more agile, lanky species - perfect for your body type. i’m hoping it’ll be most effective in your transition.”

“hoping?” hanta squeaks, staring at the red welt forming on his hand - his visions already starting to blur out, a throbbing pain traveling up his arm.

“well, it’s the first time i’m experimenting with this-“

“you used me as a guinea pig?!”

“it’s perfectly safe! my mentor-“ but hanta’s not listening anymore, the world swimming in front of his eyes before the ground rushes up rapidly to kiss his face.

god. damnit.

when he comes to, he’s wrapped in about half the blankets in brooklyn, a cold compress against his sweaty forehead. he’s burning up, and his elbows hurt for some reason - his skins gone all itchy, and he’d probably kick a pigeon for a glass of water.

sitting up alerts miles to his newly conscious state, the man quickly scanning his vitals with a smaller version of the glass panel hanta’d been fascinated with earlier. “thought you were gonna croak on me. how do you feel?”

“itchy. and my arms hurt.” hanta’s pushing off the blankets as he speaks, attempting to get comfortable - his body feels weird, like he’ll burst out of his skin at any second.

“alright, don’t panic. i need to see how it’s mutated your body. stay still.” miles’ fingers delicately press against his neck, shoulders, before jabbing at his ribs without warning. hanta’s arms shoot up on impulse, a trail of sticky, precise webbing escaping him from his...... elbows?!

“what the fuck, dude what the fuck look at my elbows, they’re all puffy and red i’m gonna die, and the coroner is gonna leak my story to the press and my moms gonna see me in the paper with fucked up elbows-“ hanta may or may not be panicking, poking at the tender, slightly swollen skin around the bends of his arms. miles just rolls his eyes, clearly amused by his antics.

“you’re not going to die. japanese tape spiders shoot webbing from the bends of their eight arms; its a thicker & stronger strain of web. clearly, your elbows are how your body has adjusted.”

“that doesn’t make it better.” hanta’s too busy staring at himself to notice the other changes at first, but slowly, they’re trickling in. heightened eyesight and hearing, an odd balance to his feet he hadn’t had a day ago, even itchier fingertips - making it easier for him to grip flat surfaces, or at least as miles says.

“come on. let’s get you a suit.”

───── ⋆🕸⋆ ─────

a week’s worth of planning & adjusting has led him right here to this rooftop, suited feet firmly balanced on the ledge. he likes his suit, thinks it’s unique - he’d modeled it after the spider who’d blessed him with these powers, orange and black and white [miles sort of thinks it’s ugly, but who cares.] he’d been in & out of the fondly nicknamed “spider-lounge”, getting fitted for his suit & honing his new abilities; he’d also been avoiding you whenever possible.

he couldn’t suck you into this world, not when he was barely comfortable in it himself; he kept promising himself he’d come clean, but the guilt’s eating him alive with every sad look & evening alone you spend.

another impatient cough brings him back to the present, miles sitting in the middle of the roof & watching hanta’s nervous stalling. “you’re going to have to jump eventually, you know,” he calls, and it takes everything in him not to turn tail and run.

he has a duty, a responsibility now, and he doesn’t take that lightly. he thinks of you, sitting in your ratty little apartment off campus and remembers that your safety is all but in his hands now; he’s got to protect the city, for your sake at least.

“i absolutely will not hesitate to kick you off this rooftop,” miles threatens, but its empty - they both know hanta needs to do this himself.

one step back, then two, the nerves racing up his spine as he prepares himself to meet cold concrete [a dramatic thought, miles would catch him far before he reaches ground. a bad knee wouldn’t stop him from that.] he says a silent prayer to every god he’s ever heard of and closes his eyes, taking a step forward into the air-

and trips over the ledge, falling ass over heels into the air. nice.

the rushing wind only heightens his panic for a moment, before one arm snaps up to blindly shoot into the air; his spider sense kicks in from there, aiming without even realizing and latching onto a nearby ledge. he swings aimlessly for a moment before finding a new ledge, then a railing; slowly, he finds a rhythm.

he’s soaring through the city before he realizes, laughing at the sharp roar of the wind in his ears - he feels like he’s flying, weightless as a bird. the only thing he can think of is you, how much you’d love this.

one day, he’ll take you webswinging. one day.

for now, he relishes in the fact that he’s one step closer to being brooklyn’s - & new york’s - new spiderman, fresh faced & determined to bring peace to the city.

he’s going to do it for you, even if it kills him.

[dustedmagazine]

Ian Mathers’ 2020: We’re stuck inside our own machines

I’ve had a song I loved in high school and haven’t thought much about since stuck in my head. The song “Apparitions” by the Matthew Good Band is a fine example of the alt rock of the late 90s; if you grew up then but somewhere down in the states (or elsewhere) instead of my southern Ontario you may well have your regional equivalents, and like this one they may not resonate terribly strongly outside of their time and place. It popped back into my head after a long time recently and of course 2020 has changed it a little. A song that as a teen I felt keenly as about loneliness (albeit also about how technology can feed into that) of course now plays on my nerves as another small piece of art about the way that most of us (those scared and/or responsible anyway) have only that relatively narrow, technologically mediated connection to the people we love. All of us, artists and listeners alike, are trying to fit our feelings and art and selves down these little connections, with some success.

On a personal level, 2020 wound up being stressful in ways we couldn’t have predicted even after the pandemic hit. In circumstances that could have seen governments on this continent support those unable to work (and those who shouldn’t have to), support those workers who are truly essential, support workers and renters and even landlords and small businesses, instead we got a near-total abeyance of those governments using the resources we provide them with to save any of us. On a personal level my wife and I were lucky enough to be able to work from home (not that it didn’t come with its own forms of stress, and now that I’m off until January I have several work/stress-related illnesses to recover from) but still saw friends and loved ones lose good, used-to-be-sustainable livings overnight, saw family businesses succumb to a near-total absence of effective government support after months of trying to keep above water, etc.

It is probably no surprise that this is not a situation conducive to listening to music, let alone writing about it; I have deliberately and happily kept busy on behind the scenes stuff at Dusted that I could still manage but looking, at the end of the year, at the amount I managed to actually create is demoralizing if not at all shocking. I’m not sure I think next year will be ‘better’ in many important ways, although at our job there is a growing feeling among coworkers that next year has to have some work/life balance because 2020 was, maybe more than anything else, unsustainable.

That’s not to say I didn’t spend a lot of time and emotion on music this year, and if nothing else constant sleep deprivation, stress, and panic meant I was probably open to being deeply moved by all sorts of art even more than normally (it’s gotten to the point where I can’t even read a sad or moving twitter thread out loud to my wife without getting teary, which is kind of… nice?). Funnily enough the band that did the most to keep me sane didn’t really put out anything in 2020. Personal favorite, Low, instead started, in early April, getting on Instagram with something they called on whim “It’s Friday I’m in Low.” With one brief break they have now done by my count at least 35 shows (catalogued here, by the way), every Friday at about 4 my time.

Admittedly it’s easier for Low to pull this off than some bands, since the 2/3 of the trio that sing are a married couple (they’ve had a couple of socially-distanced backyard shows with bassist Steve Garrington, but he’s mostly been isolating elsewhere). These shows have seen the band’s Alan Sparhawk take a mid-set break to do follow-up phone interviews with the acts featured in the COVID-curtailed touring bands series Vansplainingthat they started on YouTube, or just to give a tour round their vegetable garden and talk tips. It’s seen Alan and Mimi Parker draw on their impressive, 25+ year body of work (averaging 4-5 songs a set, I don’t think they’ve repeated themselves yet) and talk a bit between songs about pandemics, politics, song choices, and whether Alan should grab his bike helmet this time.

They’re not the only musicians out there speaking love and sanity (and playing music) into the strange digital interzone filled with hate and disinformation where we’ve all been forced to gather while locked down, but they were and the most consistent and steady signal being emitted each week. No matter how tired I was from work or what new symptoms I’d developed or what horrific thing I read into the news, even if I had to take an emergency nap while it was actually airing, every Friday the show was there. Once things do return to something more like normal, it’s one of the few things I’ll unambiguously miss about this weird-ass year.

So if that makes an argument for Low as my band of the year (admittedly again… it’s not like Double Negative has aged poorly, either), that does a disservice to those 2020 records I did connect with; even if there are still literally dozens I have to go through, many of which I expect to love, my top picks this year (if as unrankable by me as always) hit me as hard as any top pick in recent years did. So here I present a quick and informal top 5, which the rest of my top 20 following in alphabetical order. Here’s hoping for more time and space in 2021 for music, and even more than that, for more support for those who need it from those who could have been providing it all this time. (The Matthew Good Band, incidentally, always did best with their ballads. “Strange Days” is another I’ve had in my head these days; the image of moving “backwards, into a wall of fire” has stuck with me since the 90s and it’s never felt more grimly appropriate.)

Greet Death — New Hell

New Hell by Greet Death

This one is, in some sense, cheating; it came out November 2019. But that just means it’s the latest winner of my personal Torres Prize for Ian Being Late to the Party (so named because becoming slightly obsessed with Torres’ Sprinter just after I sent in my 2015 list was the first time I noticed that one of my favorite records of each year tends to get picked up by me just after I call it quits on the year, no matter how long I try to wait). This very doom and gloom slowcore/metal/(whatever, just know it’s heavy) trio at first felt very much like my beloved Cloakroom (whose Time Well has also won a Torres Prize) but sure enough nuances revealed themselves. Back in February it felt almost a little too negative, but then the rest of 2020 happened. And the extended burns of “You’re Gonna Hate What You’ve Done” and the title track remain searing.

Holy Fuck — Deleter

Probably the record I’ve been trying to write about the longest in 2020, and the one I’m most disappointed in myself that I just couldn’t get the requisite paragraphs together. It’s a wonderful effort from the consistently great Toronto resolutely human-created (and —mediated) dance music quartet, one that both feels like a summation of everything they do well, and with the addition of some outside voices (including strong turns from the singers of both Hot Chip and Liars) a step forward at the same time.

Spanish Love Songs — Brave Faces Everyone

Brave Faces Everyone by Spanish Love Songs

As the year got worse, this roar of defiance only got more crucial for me to hear every so often; I was a big enough fan of it, even after writing it up for Dusted, that when they solicited fan footage for a subsequent music video you may just be able to get a glimpse of me in it. (I’m the one in a “No Tories” t-shirt.) My punk rock-loving twin brother was the one who introduced me to Spanish Love Songs and we were supposed to spend an evening in June screaming along to them live in a packed, sweaty room. I need that in my life again.

Julianna Barwick — Healing Is a Miracle

Healing Is A Miracle by Julianna Barwick

It’s a sign of what 2020 has been like here that even just this album title leaves bruises, and while I privately worried Barwick would have a hard time following up 2016’s sublime Will (probably my favorite record that year), it seems that continuing to take whatever downtime she needs to keep focusing and refining her particular muse has once again yielded amazing results. Anyone who thinks they know what a Barwick track sounds like should really check out, say, “Flowers”, but much of this record absolutely sounds like Barwick, just even better than before. She also boasted my wife and I's favorite streaming concert of 2020, an absolutely gorgeous rendition of this album with Mary Lattimore showing up.

Phoebe Bridgers — Punisher

Punisher by Phoebe Bridgers

I joked on Twitter recently that I have far too nice a dad (and far too good a relationship with him) to be as obsessed as I am with Phoebe Bridgers’ “Kyoto”, but here we are. Like most of her generation, Bridgers’ social media presence ranges from shit-posting to inscrutable, but even though things are often just as hard to figure out in her beautiful songs (as they often are in life), there’s an emotional clarity to them that can just grab you deep down. Couple that with seriously impressive songcraft and the progress from her already astounding debut Stranger in the Alps and more than anyone else in 2020 I’m excited to see just where the hell Phoebe Bridgers is going to go, because it feels like she’s talented and hardworking enough to go just about anywhere and drag a lot of our hearts with her.

Other Favorites

Aidan Baker & Gareth Davis — Invisible Cities II

Anastasia Minster — Father

Deftones — Ohms

Hum — Inlet

Kelly Lee Owens — Inner Song

Mesarthim — The Degenerate Era

Perfume Genius — Set My Heart On Fire Immediately

Protomartyr — Ultimate Success Today

Rachel Kiel — Dream Logic

The Ridiculous Trio — The Ridiculous Trio Plays the Stooges

Sam Amidon — Sam Amidon

Shabason, Krgovich & Harris — Philadelphia

Stars Like Fleas — DWARS Session: Live on Radio VPRO

Well Yells — We Mirror the Dead

Yves Tumour — Heaven to a Tortured Mind

Five Reissues/Compilations/etc.

Aix Em Klemm — Aix Em Klemm

Bardo Pond — Adrop/Circuit VIII

Charles Curtis — Performances & Recordings 1998-2018

Coil — Musick to Play in the Dark

Hot Chip — LateNightTales

Ian Mathers

[effortlesslysweetener]

An Arianator's Honest Review of "Life Support" by Madison Beer

before i start, please remember that all of these are jus my opinions & if you don't agree, that's totally fine!

the beginning: sweet, beautiful and simple. in my opinion, it's very reminiscent of ariana grande's "raindrops." i totally would've appreciated some lyrics, but i can imagine how pretty and chilling the riffs would sound if she went on tour! overall, i think it sets the tone for the rest of the album. 4/5

good in goodbye: definitely a bop. however, i feel like it would've suited more in madison's "as she pleases" era better, sitting next to other bops like "dead" and "home with you." i can see why she chose to use the play-on words and it gives me a definite taylor swift vibe, but it's just the ugly duckling of the songs. sure, i listen to it and enjoy it, but it's so childish compared to the rest of the album, which is about being taken advantage of, sexualisation, depression etc. it's a good listen but doesn't offer much artistically. 2/5

default: an unbelievably beautiful song. i do believe the violins could've been a little quieter at the end, but it adds a pretty touch to the song. my only issue is that i believe it could've been longer, even by 30 seconds or so. the first two verses would've been okay by themselves, but the last verse, with the violins and the riffs, add so much tension only to end so quickly with total silence. i think she could've taken advantage of the lyric "i know how long this must be" and made it longer, to add understanding to the lyrics. 4/5

follow the white rabbit: this song is everything. the drums, the guitars, the synths and THE STRINGS in the intro. i love how this song is so sultry and seductive while still giving off the same lonely vibes as the rest of the album, if that makes sense? it's not the odd-one-out, is what i mean to say. 5/5

effortlessly: i love this song, it's so dreamy yet one of the deepest, saddest songs on the album. i believe madison definitely could've switched up the lyrics in the verses to "told ME not to feel" or "they told you not to feel", because it doesn't make as much sense when you listen to the chorus. i had pretty high expectations when listening to this song, because everyone was hyping it up, but it didn't disappoint. 3/5

stay numb and carry on: this song is so hauntingly beautiful and the lyrics are very clever. i wasn't particularly a fan of the beginning though, i feel like it was very unnecessary and added in for no reason. i know she said she wanted to give off a daft punk vibe so i'll give her that, i guess. 3/5

blue: i remember loving this song from the first snippet, but it's much more different than i imagined. i feel like madison got unconfident in her voice at some moments in the making of the album and tried to imitate other artists, and this was one of the most obvious moments. i know she said she wanted a lana del ray vibe but her singing is so much more different to the rest of the songs. i was expecting to see a lana del ray song, but madisonfied not a lana del ray song, sung like lana del ray. 2/5

interlude: and again... i know she said she wanted the daft punk vibe, but so unnecessary and i definitely won't be listening to this. she could've left the intro the same, and transitioned to her normal voice. the lyrics would've been put their full effect that way. 1/5

homesick: so breathtakingly beautiful and 100% my favorite song on the album. it's so emotional, pure and vulnerable. and it especially appeals to me because it's the feeling of being misunderstood, which i used to feel a lot in early life. 5/5

selfish: i love this song because it's such a mature take on relationships. i think, with a lot of artists, songs like this are meant to be a "f*ck you, i hate you" type of vibe, which is totally okay, but madison's admitting she feels vulnerable and upset, which i admire so much. 5/5

sour times: i really like this song. i honestly don't have much to say about it, i love the drums in this song. it's a cute and empowering melody. it doesn't really stand out much, compared to the rest of the songs however. 4/5

boysh*t: again, very empowering lyrics and catchy melody. definitely a bop and i'll be listening to it a lot! 4/5

baby: in my opinion, this is the worst song on the album. it's the odd-one-out and completely stands out, in a bad way, from the rest of the album. i don't mean this in a toxic way, but this sounds like an ariana imitation gone wrong. it doesn't add anything to the album and in my opinion, is just filler. 0/5

stained glass: everything is perfect, the drums, the lyrics, the visualizer video. one of my favorites. this song stands out from the rest of the album, which i'll explain later. 5/5

emotional bruises: this song is so catchy and i love how she added "life support." love this song. 4/5

everything happens for a reason: i've always loved the concept of everything happens for a reason because it's always helped me to get through traumatic things in my life. but i've always had that voice in the back of my head that asks "why me? did i do anything to deserve this?" and i think madison beer really emulates this in this song. i love how she adds "time moves on with the seasons" to remind herself that it'll all be irrelevant soon. another thing i adore is the "i still love u" in the background, like the voice in her head, and by the end of the song, she sings along, because she realises that she really is never getting over the boy she once loved. 5/5

channel surfing/the end: madison took the long road to creating her album, which i admire, and this song almost encaptures her journey to creating it. i do wish she had carried on this theme from the beginning of the album as it's quite random. however, i understand why she chose not to, as it would've probably sounded like a frank ocean channel orange rip-off lol. 2/5

OVERALL:

when i first listened to this album, i had extremely high, almost unmeetable standards for a debut album. this is because everyone i had seen talking about it would say it was amazing and life-changing. i do believe it was overhyped, which was the reason i've been so harsh on it. i admire how vulnerable, mature and personal she gets in this album, with songs like stained glass, selfish and homesick. or how she tries to make light of her relationship trauma, like stay numb and carry on, effortlessly.

i view the album life support as a journey. at the beginning, we have songs such as good in goodbye, default and follow the white rabbit. madison knows she's empty and hurt, but is willing to make light out of the situation. then we transition into songs like stay numb and carry on, effortlessly and the interlude. this is her beginning to feel numb and emotionless. finally, we meet homesick, selfish and stained glass, which is her finally admitting she's been hurt and feeling as though she's hit rock bottom, never to get better.

overall, the album is pretty cohesive and sounds good. however, i believe there were certain songs that were pretty much filler and useless artistically, in terms of the album at least. it was pretty much a lot of songs about the same thing. plus, channel surfing was a cute touch ig but i didn't really like it. boysh*t was okay but didn't really fit. and don't even get me started on baby. it's got a lot of thematic holes to it, but it works as a fun listen if you don't care about that sort of stuff.

[gayenerd]

The Band You Love To Hate By Tom Lanham of RIP  (There’s no date on this but I would say 1995 or 1996?)

Eyes wide as a barn owl's. Spines stiff with anticipation, like a hungry scorpion. The two teenage girls sit stock-still in their booth at a posh Berkeley diner, practically bursting with excitement, but without the faintest clue how to handles it. Clueless, you might call them. A few feet across the linoleum aisle--with his back to them, oblivious to all the oh-my-gawd facial expressions--sits the object of their adulation, dressed in unassuming black jeans, black T-shirt, shredded black Converse, and a beat-up black baseball jacket. But even with his once-green dreadlocks tamed to a short black business cut, Billie Joe Armstrong--yes, the snaggle-toothed MTV ragamuffin from megaplatinum neo-punkers, Green Day--is as easy to spot as Michael Bolton at a Rogaine convention. Although the kids want to leap up from their seats and race over for an autograph or a jittery hello, they don't dare. Instead, they're forced to deal with their seething emotions as if they were eating post-tonsillectomy ice cream: a lot of numb gulping and a quick pain chaser. This is the blessing of being Billie Joe Armstrong. Alas, it's also his curse. By the time you read this, the irascible little rocker will have turned 24. And exactly two years ago, he and his wacky bandmates--drummer Tré Cool and bassist Mike Dirnt--lolled around the trashy basement flat they shared, getting stoned and sneering at the idea that Dookie--their just-released "sellout" on big-time Reprise--would ever amount to more than a nice drink coaster. Fame? They were more preoccupied with their bong collection, stacks of rock 'n' roll bubblegum cards, and a thriving sea monkey tank displayed prominently on a window-sill. Most of their furniture had springs poking through--they didn't care. Armstrong regularly picked boogers from his gold-ringed nostril and then flick them onto the scary shag carpet--what did he have to worry about? Too bad he couldn't have foreseen the all-too-near future. Green Day happened to be in the right place at the right time. The three-chord slam-a-rama Dookie--a pop-edged return to decade-old punk ethics--became the surprise hit of '94, going on to sell over 11 million copies. Armstrong, accustomed to frenetic club performances, began translating the group's infectious energy to larger and larger venues. Demand continued to grow at a staggering pace; Green Day fought back. They turned a satellite MTV Video Awards performance into a "spit-cam" fest by urging the crowd to gob any camera lens it could ("[The cameramen] tried to make it look like it was cool, but it wasn't"). Last October, Armstrong and company issued their 32-minute follow up, Insomniac, almost as an afterthought, with little promotion, a visually offensive video (for "Geek Stink Breath") and--at least initially--a strict no-interview policy. Simultaneously, they ditched their high-powered Cahn-Man management team and are now virtually managing themselves. Along the way, Armstrong married his long-time sweetheart Adrienne and last March fathered a son, Joey. In typical down-to-earth fashion, the couple spent their honeymoon a few blocks from home at Berkeley's prestigious Claremont Hotel, not on some exotic island. Beginning to see the problem here? How does a street-smart kid from humble beginnings skyrocket to world-class notoriety and yet--with his music in millions of homes and his privacy suddenly a right that needs defending--still adhere to the simple ideals, the simple lifestyle that spawned him? Is "successful punk" an oxymoron? Insomniac provided few clues--it was more of the same slacker-ennui sentiment, more defeated, disenfranchised grousing set to speedy, memorable hooks. Or, as Armstrong barks in the aptly-dubbed "Walking Contradiction," "My wallet's fat and so is my head...I'm a victim of a Catch-22." And that, in essence, was the topic this tortured artist wanted to discuss at the diner. The old "be careful what you wish for" adage. The classic "problem with success is finding someone to enjoy it with you" truism. Armstrong, who takes occasional sips from a vanilla milkshake, but mostly stares morosely at the floor, seems to be dealing with superstardom in a relatively normal way. Don't be fooled by the steady stream of negative vitriol that follows; he's analyzing it, breaking it down, figuring out ways to disconnect his kinetic career. Or at least turn down the volume for awhile. 

RIP: We know what's going right. But what's going wrong? 

BILLIE JOE ARMSTRONG: Lots of things, really. Actually, when I came here today, I said I didn't wanna talk about anything good, because I don't really have anything good to talk about. Goin' on tour pretty soon--don't really wanna go. Just because I've been kinda torn. I wanna stick around at home. I don't like playing arenas, and I realized I didn't know what I was getting myself into on the last tour, but I went into it being positive and getting excited about it. But I didn't realize that I was the kind of person to whom it's too much of an event and not really a personal thing anymore. And I started to realize how much I liked being the background music to this scene at the club. And now it's.... I dunno. People expect so much. It's cool and stuff, and it can be a lot of fun, a really good experience. But when you play that many arenas.... The first time we ever played those big kinds of shows at the Shoreline (Amphitheater in Mountain View, California), there was weirdness--we were playing for a lot of f?!kin' people. And I hate to say it, but sometimes it just feels like another gig. We played every day, 50 gigs this last leg, and it just wears on ya. There's all these people, and they think "Alright. I paid my $15--you better impress the f?!kin' shit outta me right now!" And I realized that for Joey, the rock and roll touring life is not a good atmosphere for a kid. I tried to make it to where it would be, bringing lots of his toys out. But there are no familiar surroundings for him. And he likes all the attention--people come up and say hello to him every day, people who are on tour with us. But he doesn't have his own room or a home to go to every day. So, no more touring for Joey. 

RIP: Turned on Regis and Kathie Lee this morning to find their gossip columnist dishing dirt on Green Day. How Insomniac didn't do nearly as well as predicted, how it was a disappointment to the label. A failure, supposedly. 

BJA: Well, it's like, we didn't set up this record. We didn't. We didn't do any promotion beforehand, we completely quit doing interviews, and basically we just wanted to go on into it. We weren't even sure if we wanted to do a video. And then when we did a video, it got yanked from daytime rotation because people were getting grossed-out by it. So I think we did alienate a lot of people. So that was expected, that it wasn't going to sell a lot of records. 

RIP: NOFX have taken it one step further. They refuse to talk to press, make videos, pander potential singles to radio. They don't want to get any bigger. 

BJA: I dunno, maybe I'm just getting jaded or something. But I just got cable again and I can't stand anything. Six years ago you could hear something that was different and know that it was different. So it'd be "alternative" or whatever. But now it's like you get this Joan...Osborne? With the ring in her nose, waving the alternative rock flag, when she's just...not, ya know? And I'm thinking, I hate all this music that's coming out now--the past year was just hell for music. But people are buying it, so then I'm thinking, Maybe they're the ones that are good and I'm the one who sucks? I just don't know if I really wanna be involved in the rock world anymore at all. Period. I don't necessarily have anything against a big record company or people who what to join up with a big record company. It really is right for some people, but more and more, I don't think that I'm really meant to. And I hate to sound like that, because I don't like taking things for granted. I don't like to talk about my problems when there's some kid struggling in his garage somewhere saying "F?!k him! He's just taking it for granted. Shit, I wish I could do something like that, but I'm just stuck here in Biloxi, Mississippi, and I can't even get a gig." I'm so confused right now. 

RIP: It must be odd to know that, with all those millions of albums sold, drunken frat boys are probably staggering around to your music right now. Your audience grew far beyond your control. 

BJA: Oh, totally! We became what we hated. Which is, the people I despised in high school--and now--are buying our records. We initially became a trend, so there was no way I expected to sell as many records with Insomniac as with Dookie. That's one of the biggest-selling records of the decade. We get slagged by the punk rockers, and it's like, I don't blame them. If you draw that much attention to yourself, that's what you're gonna get--attention--and it's not personal anymore. 

RIP: Ever think about giving it all up? 

BJA: There isn't a day goes by in the past year and a half that I haven't thought about quitting. I went to this party on New Year's Eve, and this band Juke, and another band, the Tantrums, played in a friend of mine's backyard. And a lot of my old friends showed up, and everybody was just dancing. And I was dancing, and getting really muddy, and I was having a great time. I can't remember the last time I sat down and listened to a record from beginning to end and felt this incredible spine-chilling music. And it's because I haven't been able to go out and watch bands play at my free will. I'm not gonna live in a closet, I'm not gonna vegetate myself. 

RIP: But it has to be difficult, when tons of kids know your face. You're on your way to Michael Jackson-dom, where you have to wear a disguise in public. 

BJA: If you think about the Beatles, at that time all people had to go by were the photographs on the records and every now and then a television appearance. So when they'd come to town, people would just flip out--it became this huge public event every single time. Whereas now, everything is so saturated kids don't even have to leave their home to go to a show anymore. They can sit in the comfort of their living room, and your favorite rock star is gonna be entertaining you while you sit down and have your microwave burrito. 

RIP: The Milwaukee cops weren't pleased with aspects of Green Day's Milwaukee show last November. Why were you arrested? 

BJA: I dropped the pick and--actually, I even forgot about it--I just mooned the crowd, which is pretty harmless compared to what I've done before. And I wasn't even thinking about it--I just went out and started playing again. Then I went backstage and was hanging out with Adrienne, and this guy Jimmy who does security for us goes "Come on--there's a car waiting for you outside right now. You've gotta get out of here!" I said "What's wrong?" and he said he didn't even know. So we get in the car and all of a sudden about ten cops come walking over, fully surrounding the car. So the guy puts the cuffs on me, throws me in the car, and I get tossed in the holding tank for two, three hours. I wasn't in the bullpen--I was in with the other ones, the not-so-bad ones. They made me take all my jewelry out. And my shoestrings, so I wouldn't hang myself or something. I dunno. I just don't know how to fit into rock music anymore. I don't know what I like about it anymore. I don't like anything about it anymore, to tell you the truth. To tell you the real truth, I'm a pretty miserable person right now. I'm totally depressed, and my wife can vouch for that because she's around me. In fact, she's the only person who's really around me. I dunno, the whole thing with the mainstreaming of punk rock. I just feel lost in the whole thing...I don't really know...I don't wanna...I dunno...It's miserable, it really is. It's f?!ked up. 

RIP: For every original voice that comes along, there will be countless mad signing dashes for any and all sound-alike artists, with no thought given to the artist's longevity. Just throw the record out quickly and hope it sticks. 

BJA: The thing is, a lot of musicians have gotten so comfortable with this big so-called "Revolution in Rock Music" over the past decade. First it was like, "F?!k the corporations! F?!k the corporations!" And then people just sorta got cozy with that, and forgot that these bands are getting lost in the shuffle. And I'm talking about the ones that never get noticed at all and just get kinda bitter. The 15 minutes of fame is getting shorter and shorter. And now music is totally going backwards--the first half of this decade, there were a few things going on that were interesting. It wasn't my favorite kind of music, but it had a sensibility about it. If you think about Nirvana and Pearl Jam and that whole Seattle scene, and even the Offspring--there was this thing going on that was more honest, in a lot of ways. It wasn't like, beer, drugs and pussy, like what went on through the '80s with all the hair bands. But now what we've got is Hootie & the Blowfish.... 

RIP: Who are probably a lot like you. They seem like nice, regular guys who--through no real fault of their own--are suddenly assimilated into pop culture. 

BJA: Yeah, but that's the problem, is that they are nice regular guys. And they're totally comfortable with that, and they sort of put that out, to where they don't really have...I dunno, there's a certain amount of attitude that, say, someone like Cobain or Vedder has that they don't have. But it's becoming way not...real anymore or something. Maybe not real to me. It's just turning back into what it was in the '80s. It's like, "Hey, everyone! We're Huey Lewis and the News!" I dunno. Maybe nobody knows what the f?!k I'm talking about anymore. 

BJA: I get so irritated by people. I think I'm more bitter than I've ever been in my whole life, to tell you the honest truth. I think Insomniac is much more of a bitter record than Dookie. And I think the older people get, the more they kinda get angry. I think a lot of people feel like they get cheated by lief somehow--no-one is ever completely satisfied. There's maybe a few. But I mean, I'm in a place where I don't really wanna be. It's like, sometimes I feel like we're losing our passion for playing music. And that's the f?!ked-up thing, when you lose passion for what you love, then it's like, Is this marriage headed for divorce or what? 

RIP: Theoretically, you can fight back a couple of ways. Like Cobain, you could make a record almost calculated to offend all the bandwagon-jumpers. Or take as much time off as you'd like. Who says you can't go live on a desert island for two years? 

BJA: That'd be nice. I'm just not enjoying life right now. I'm really not. I'm so cluttered, I can't even speak. Yeah, I do feel like I'm getting old, and I'm kinda bitter about that. I'm not excited about being onstage anymore, and I was really trying to convince myself that I was. Really. Before we did this last U.S. tour, every time I did an interview--I don't know if you read the last Rolling Stone piece--I was like "Yeah! I'm excited! I wanna play these arenas!" and stuff. And then just every night, it started sucking, it felt like a routine or something. It felt almost choreographed in a lot of ways. And I was yelling "f?!k you!" to people, but I didn't know who I was yelling "f?!k you" to anymore. 

RIP: Last time we spoke, you said you went out of your way to change every single show, make each one different. 

BJA: Well, I think it's just the stress of getting up in front of all those people all the time, every day. It's like, "Do I really feel like downing another f?!cking pot of coffee and a bottle of wine before I walk onstage to do this again? Just to get myself ready to go?" You know, for all those people. And every night I always do something different and stupid. But at the same time, it'd be really cool to just say "F?!k you!" to people and like, walk off. And then they'd get it. It's like, "I'm really telling you to f?!k off this time! Time to pack up and go home." It'd just be so nice to start from scratch again. 

RIP: In many ways you can. That's the music-making system trying to program your behavior. And obviously you've broken quite a few rules already--you don't even have to be talking to me right now, actually.... 

BJA: Oh no. I really wanted to do this interview, just because the last interviews that I've done, I've been miserable, and I was pretending not to be. I really was, I was lying. Not to the reader, not to the person I was doing the interview. But I was lying to myself, convincing myself that I was really happy with how everything is going. 

RIP: So you always knew what you wanted, and now you've got it, in spades. You're having trouble figuring out what's next? 

BJA: I didn't even know what I wanted back then. I really didn't. I didn't know if I wanted to be huge, totally successful. I never knew that. I was struggling so hard even to sign that f?!king contract--when I was sitting there, I was contemplating, "Should I just run outta here right now? Am I making the biggest mistake of my life?" A lot of people say, "You're totally disillusioned with what money can do for people," but money never meant shit to me. There's something very passionate to me, very romantic, about living on the street in a lot of ways. Just because I really like my lifestyle back then. I was totally content, in retrospect. A lot of it has to do with the fame. I dunno, I'm trying to talk right now and just totally stuttering. 

RIP: It's not like you chose music--it chose you, and you can't help it. 

BJA: Yeah, it's cool when people really get it. But what a lot of people don't understand is that we're a band that's been around a lot longer than people know. And that's the thing. The difference between this and what happened between Kerplunk and Dookie--in a year, I got married, I had a kid, and I sold 11 million records worldwide. That can do something to ya, ya know? 

BJA: Sometimes I think it'd be cool to just hang out with my friends, drink beer, smoke cigarettes. The more I think about it, the more I'd be really happy with that. I don't think that we're feeling quite like a band anymore--that's one problem we have. There was this certain rock 'n' roll underdog think that we always had--we always drove for something, always drove from town to town in a small van. And you know, I f?!kin' like touring like that--it's like culture shock, really, driving around in a van, setting up my amp when I get there, and playing. That's rock 'n' roll, that's what it started out as. A bunch of sweaty pigs in some tiny f?!kin' bar having a hootenanny, that's what punk rock was to me, that's what drove me to it. I love rock music in its simples, rawest form. And I think we're the only band, really, that plays rock 'n' roll. 

RIP: Has all this put a strain on your old friendships? Do your pals treat you a little differently now? 

BJA: When I come up to friends I haven't talked to in a while, there's a weirdness. And the ones who are really close to me don't really bring up anything, but that thing is still there; it's still in the air. And sometimes I'll just not say anything the whole time we're hanging out. I'll be totally quiet, because the only thing I'll have to talk about is my band, and I get so sick of talking about my band and myself. So I'll just be quiet, since that's the only thing there is to me, except for my son and my wife. 

RIP: Pretty soon, you'll be boring everyone with slide shows--"There we are at Yosemite!" 

BJA: Ha! Adrienne was telling me the other day, "When you were in there dancing with all your friends, while the band was playing, you were so happy because you were so in your element." And I've even gone as far as saying we're not a punk band anymore. But no matter what, that's still gonna stick with me forever, because I love the music, I love the energy of a new band coming out that creates this sense of urgency about 'em. I'll never be able to kick that habit. I love hangin' out with my friends who have small fanzines--kids just writing their guts out about whatever the hell's bothering 'em, and putting it on a Xerox machine and then handing it out for a quarter apiece at shows or at a party. All I wanna do is just try and work it out. I was sitting there the other day, counting all the records that the Replacements put out, stuff like that, Dan thinking how [Paul] Westerberg totally came across to his audience and did everything, everything that the wanted to do in music. He wasn't extremely successful for it, but the guy has influenced people, and a lot of 'em don't even know that they are influenced by him. All I wanna do is just write good songs and stick to it. I wanna develop--not being experimental--but go into different styles, go across my boundaries of the two-and-a-half minute punk song with a three-and-a-half minute jazz song, or maybe get into a little bit of swing or rockabilly. 

RIP: With such staggering success, you could walk into Reprise and tell 'em you're doing an album of saxophone solos and they'd allow you that creative luxury. 

BJA: Well, I never wanna be that experimental. I don't wanna get into synthesizers and shit like that. The thing that was cool for me with Insomniac was that I think we definitely set a foundation for ourselves, because we put out our hardest record to date, totally in-your-face all the way through, and now we're able to go anywhere we want. We can do that now--we do have that going for us. That is, if people are still interested. Which is kinda weird for me to say.... 

RIP: Your craft will always remain the most important thing of all, even if you're just writing for your own amusement. 

BJA: Yeah. No matter what, I'm gonna be writing songs for the rest of my life. I mean, I already have a shitload of new songs right now. But I just wanna do some other things with it. We've sold a million of Insomniac so far. But I definitely want to be respected as a musician. Well, more as a songwriter than as a musician. I wanna be f?!kin' normal, is what I wanna be. The thing is, I've seen so many freaks and so many weirdos and crazy punk rockers and drunks and junkies. But for a lot of those people being weird is easy. It's so easy to be strange--the hard thing is to try to be normal. There's no such thing as normal, ya know. 

RIP: How's your mom feel about all this? 

BJA: She's kinda worried about me. She doesn't know what to think of everything. We have a hard time communicating with each other, just because I don't like to talk about it that much. So she feels like she has to walk on eggshells around me all the time. 

RIP: You buy her anything cool once the money started rolling in? 

BJA: Nah--she doesn't want anything. I've asked her. She's been living in the same house for over 20 years, and she's content living there. But I did give her a trip--she went to Hawaii, her and her boyfriend. And I think travelling is really good--if you paid for someone to travel, so they can go and explore and see some things they've never seen before. But I think that's probably where I get it from. I get so content with not having much. And then you get all this stuff, all this attention, and you don't really know what to do with it. You don't know how to channel it. 

RIP: Most outrageous thing you've bought for yourself? 

BJA: I got my car primered! And one thing I did do was build a home studio. So I've been recording all my friends' bands for free. I produced this band called Dead and Gone, and Social Unrest, Fetish and the Criminals. And I have this side-project called Pinhead Gunpowder--nothing's up with it right now, but we played at the beginning of '94 a few times. RIP: Sounds like you've got more than enough pressure valves to let off the steam. Still, do you worry about death? 

BJA: Yeah, I do. But I have too many reasons to stick around. One is my son and my wife. And I don't feel like I'm finished yet. I'm not done, ya know? And the beauty of it is that death is forever and your problems aren't. And that's why I'm talking about my bad shit, because you vent that, you get it off your chest and you can move on to something else. There's gotta be a positive side to all this--so you just sort of try and dig it out. Get rid of all the bad--out with the bad air, in with the good air. 

RIP: You said about Green Day that you think your "bandwagon is coming to a close and all that's gonna be left is just a band. Hopefully." So then will you start writing happy songs? 

BJA: I thought about writing a totally sarcastic song called "I'm So Goddamn Happy," just talking about how happy I am. Actually, I'd like to put out a double record--I'd like to put out tons of music. But I never wanna become an egomaniac. I just wanna keep things down to earth, so I think it's really important for us to take a long break after all this stuff. We just put out two records back to back, one year after another, and now we can sit back and work on ourselves as people again. So we don't parody ourselves. And it's so hard to be a father and a musician at the same time. If I get into one thing and I pay close attention to it, like if I'm with Joey and I start neglecting my music, then I feel like I should play more often. So I start playing my music, and then I'm going, "Am I neglecting Joey?" So it becomes hard to do everything at the same time. 

BJA: I wanna create a very mellow and sound atmosphere for him, because I don't wanna make any mistakes for him--I want him to be able to make his own mistakes. And even when it comes to swearing--I don't cuss in front of my kid. I'd rather him get it from some dirty-mouthed kid at school. Then at least I'd know, I could go "Thank God--my kid is in a real world and he's learning these things from his surroundings." That'd be a good thing. Because the best things you ever learn are the things you learn in kindergarten. 

Finally, after more than an hour worth of gut-spilling, Armstrong suddenly observes four brace-faced girls, each no more than 12 years old, idling over by the cash register. They're there on the pretext of getting change. In reality, they just want to ogle punk icon and pin-up darling Billie Joe, stare at those caterpillar eyebrows and chiselled cheekbones up close. Another oh-my-gawd event. "I gotta go--it's gettin' weird," the reluctant rocker whispers, literally leaping up from the booth. "I can feel eyeballs all over me already...." And as fast as that, he's gone. "Was that...was that...B-B-B-B-Billie Joe?" stammers one swooner. "No," says the waitress, with a subtle smile. "That was just some guy who usually eats here alone, nobody famous at all. You know, just an average guy." A little white lie to herd the young 'uns out. But nevertheless the truth.

[thevirtualcanvas]

Thrice - Mirio x F!Reader

A bout of three, his first touch, first kiss and first time making love to you. 

More explicit than my Tamaki x reader fic which can be found here.

Mirio can't even remember the first time he touched you. Was is back in middle school the day you first met? Or later on in that year when you stumbled into him in a corridor causing his quirk to go haywire and watching as his foot permeated through the floor. Everyone knew he was a friendly guy. Unopposed to high fives, friendly hugs, and even leaning against those he knew. His problem was touching you make his skin light on fire. In a good way. Your quirk didn't actually set him on fire, of course. It made him want to touch you almost constantly, it was embarrassing and exhausting. He would find himself looking for sneaky ways for his fingers to lose themselves in the velvet of your skin. Those books look heavy you want me to hold 'em? He'd ask as he would guide the stack of books from your arms, fingers and smile lingering. You got hand picked? Man that's great! Mirio would beam as he would rest a large hand on your delicate shoulder, full of exuberance and excitement for your personal achievements.

The first touch of his you truly remembered was when your first rescue attempt was televised. Some punk kid had decided to film you in your hero costume rescuing people from a burning building alongside your mentor instead of getting to safety. So when you came back to school on the Monday everyone knew, your friends, your teachers, even the other students who you weren't so familiar with. Mirio caught you at lunch with a great, big hug. You could feel the heat from his firm body, the smell of his deodorant, and the way he hummed in joy as he held you. Your soul left your body as your friends gawked and giggled behind their hands. Watching as you were unable to resist the urge to hold him back.

You did such a great job! Me and Amajiki watched your rescue video online over the weekend. You must be so proud!

He said, as he pulled away hands enveloping around yours. Strong, callused fingers holding you lightly, as he continued to praise your efforts. Mirio telling you all of these wonderful things about yourself made you feel week at the knees, his delicate words were as enticing as his lingering touches. And just like that he was away again, leaving you basking in the dwindling beams of sunlight he left in his wake, yearning for a little longer in his light. Your friends nudged you from the gawking mess you were into a somewhat normal person. He's totally got a thing for you. They would say, nodding at each other in a knowing look. No way he has, he acts like this with everyone, you would assure them as you tried to rub away at deep blush thrumming in your cheeks. They would roll their eyes, you were a total lost cause and the bell would ring for next period. You ambled down the corridor in a daze, fingers tracing where his had been.

Mirio's mind can be as jumbled as his charming personality. He kissed you before he'd even confessed to you, he just presumed you already kinda knew. In his own head this was his way to confess his feelings. Words didn't do him justice, he didn't have Tamaki's delicate way with words or Nejire's bold confidence. He was happy go lucky, sure, but for some reason he'd always done better with actions.

The day he kissed you wasn't planned, per se. He'd been conceptualising it in his head for weeks. It was nearly time for summer break and he knew his window of time was shrinking, and not to mention if he didn't confess soon Nejire would do it for him. Which, while the idea was sweet he could see a million reasons for it to go wrong. So that's why when he saw you hanging about on the grounds on your own he decided to just to go for it. You looked so cute in your summer uniform, blazer flung haphazardly behind you, tie loose, and sleeves rolled up as you read a novel; eyes lost in the page, lips parted and tongue out through sheer concentration. He jogged over and lay on the grass next to you, and waited until you noticed his presence; enjoying the pink in your cheeks and surprise in your voice when you finally noticed him.

He asked what you were reading and from there you both slipped into an easy conversation, like always, when he wasn't trying to charm you or compliment you there was an undeniable comfort in his companionship, something that left you hollow whenever he had to leave. So you talked for what seemed like hours about anything, everything. School, the news, your book, and then when he asked you about your internship you blossomed in front of his eyes. Eyes sparkled and you flowed with every word, almost dancing as you regaled him with tales from your time with the hero agency you were working at. He could have died on the spot a very happy guy, but watching you talk so energetically stirred something within him. He shuffled closer, making sure you still looked comfortable, trembling with excitement as you would tell a part of your story and your hand would curl around his wrist as you would detail the exciting parts. Your knees were touching, faces inches apart and you still seemed happy in his presence so he reached up, pushed away some of the fly away hairs that had become loose in your storytelling. Electric zipped through your body, time stilled and the only thing left in the universe is Mirio; close to you, fingers just behind your ear and face closing in. A sky of blue fills your vision, flickering to his lips before he close the gap. He fills your body with warmth. From the gentle touch of his lips, to the way his hand feels against his head to the soft drum of his voice along your teeth. You can't think, only feel, only respond. So you push back against him, whimpering into the kiss as you find yourself flush against him. Mirio isn't going anywhere, he's like a rock. Solid and unwavering he holds you until you're both so overwhelmed he allows you to retreat back and collect yourself.

He lets out a laugh as you pull yourself round. Wow – that was something. Guess now is a good time to tell you I like you, huh?

Throughout your whole relationship Mirio isn't afraid to show his affections and that is something you truly adore about him. He's never crude in public, but loves holding your hand, giving you a hug as you pass in the hallway and having you sit between his thighs during downtime in the common room. But when it comes to making love, it's at the back of his mind. To Mirio this is a big step and he doesn't want to mess it up, your relationship is so fulfilling and rich, most of the time he just forgets about it. He's not one to pressure you into doing anything and honestly, he is the make-out king. Undisputed, you'd tell anyone, but mostly Nejire because she can't help herself, she's a sucker for gossip. When you're in the privacy of your own rooms, he'll ply you with kisses, touches and an array of idyllic praises you reach the point of breaking, wondering what else could he possible do to make you feel this good?  

Most have this preconceived notion that Mirio is a player and a bit of a sex pest under all that charm, approachability and good energy. But it's simply not true, he's a trusting, patient, sweetheart that thinks of your comfort first and foremost – and, well, he's not ready himself. It's not until he turns 18, after rescuing Eri and losing his powers that's capable of committing to you. Things had been tense, not between you and him, but Mirio and the world. After his mentor's death and the loss of his powers this bundle of light was lost in the dark for a long time. His only saving grace was to try and keep a smile on the face of the little girl had been through so much. When she was ready enough for other people, he even brought you along, (with the permission of the Principal of course) and you played dress up, had tea parties and played with toys. All of the things Eri had been deprived of in her short life, showing her the delights of just being a child. Mirio watched as Eri clung to your arm and chuckled with glee as you tickled her, or helped her dress up and played with her hair. Watching you bond with Eri turned his stomach to goo and his heart to fire, then as you gushed about her cute little nose, long silver hair and that adorable little horn on her forehead during the walk home and something clicked within him. He couldn't wait to get you back to his dorm.

Being pushed up against the wall and lifted to his hips as you entered the privacy of his room wasn't a new concept. He did it all the time. Delighted to show you his subtle strength and need for you, it was usually littered with a barrage of praise and playful kisses, but this time it was different. There was a hazy lust in his eyes that had never been there before, it was infectious. His hands and lips targeted bare patches of skin as you press your hips to his, breathing shallow and cheeks pitted in a deep blush as he grumbles into the crux of your collarbone.

I need you...

He would whisper into your skin, spikes of blonde hair swiping across your cheek before pulling back and awaiting your answer. You fumbled, caught in the headiness of his desire for you. Of course, you needed him too.

Mirio talks through the entire process, the soft gravel of his voice awards you with a bounty of praises. As he undresses you, touches and tastes the length of your body he dotes words of passion into the blemishes of your skin. Blessing you with adoration beyond comprehension. You're a mess, emotional to a point. You want to cry, kiss him, hold him, need him in you. He takes his time and focuses on your own pleasure, holding you in stasis, a form beyond fear and doubt. You find serenity and calm as he places his lips against your soft stomach.

One day...

He murmurs against the skin as you catch his meaning in an instant. A shiver races your entire body as he announces his hunger of you. He reiterates your consent, reminding you can stop at any time. Not bloody likely. Not when he looks at you like that. So when he's prepared and finally enters your body you flinch at the fullness of him. He waits, twitching within you, waiting for you to be ready, telling you how good you're doing and how amazing you are.

He holds you the entire time, letting you control the pace, ever the gentleman. Your legs are around his hips, your fingers digging into the deep muscles of his shoulders. You call his name and he catches it in a kiss, drawing a dizzy moan from your faltering voice. He picks up his pace, quickly reminding you of the strength his body holds even without a quirk. You can feel the hard muscles taut against you, straining as he chases your infinite pleasure.

You climax first, trying your hardest to bury your moans into his skin. As you finish Mirio isn't far behind, sweating, glorious and beaming like the sun. He doesn't pull out at first, instead he flips you over and lays you on his chest, both hearts beating erratically. His cock still straining inside of you. He brushes the hair away from your face and places a light kiss against your sweaty brow. Your post coitus glow is enough to get him going again, and this time he has you bouncing on his hips, allowing him to watch as you take his length in stride.

You're doing such a great job, baby.

You're exhausted before he is, but that's fine, not everyone has the stamina of a pro hero. He takes you for a shower, cleans you down and you both dive, naked under the covers. Mirio massages your body, reward for taking him and being such a good sport about it. He kisses the cool, delicate patch of skin on your shoulder, leaving a shudder going down your spine.

I love you, Mirio.

You say with a content smile as you drift off to sleep.

[anarcho-mom-unist]

A survey of my ‘spotify wrapped’ from 2020

So, I listen to music between a lot of platforms, I hate how spotify operates as a company (and like in a way that’s pretty comparable to my loathing of the publishing/distribution sides of creative industries,) and I fucking refuse to ever pay for spotify askjdhd

However based on the aggregate of my 100 most-listened-to songs from a year of mostly hitting shuffle on an artist, album, or playlist on mobile, I do have some reflections and highlights. From that I made something of a survey of that list which includes my #1 and #100 song in addition to 1 song from each set of ten, for a total of 12 songs. These represent artists and genres I really got into this year, as well as longtime favorites that are worth talking about:

1. “Bad Trip” - Bad Trip (single) - Xena Elshazlii & Fady Haroun: "Bad Trip” is probably my favorite 2020 release, like if I had to pick one. The track has incredible energy, from the soft piano and vocalization intro to the verse with it’s sparse drums, subtle bass line, and slight strings to an absolute banger of a chorus with punchy staccato synths, reinforcement of the drum groove, and addition of an electric guitar. Elshazlii & Haroun pack a lot into 2-and-a-half minutes of music, and the variations in texture, mix, & music in each iteration of the song’s discrete sections are *chef’s kiss* ---verse 1 and chorus 1 are not identical to verse 2 and chorus 2, to say nothing of the short instrumental transition b/n the first chorus and second verse. Whenever I listen to “Bad Trip” I’m compelled to hit ‘repeat’ ---which is not a normal occurrence for me---and experience the builds and releases that this track brings once again. I don’t know much Arabic beyond the slang terms and exclamations that peppered my grandparents’ & parents’ speech when they spoke to each other in Armenian, but I’d be a liar if I didn’t tell y’all that “Bad Trip” is among the songs that make me want to learn the language so I can better sing along w/ them.

3. “City Lights” - Sailorwave II - Macross 82-99 ft. Kamei:  "City Lights” is the opener to Macross 82-99′s 2018 EP Sailorwave II, and it does that job immaculately. While I recommend the entire EP and an exploration of the Future Funk genre as a whole, you can’t go wrong with getting a taste of either through “City Lights.” The track bursts to life w/ synth brass chords and fast drums, quickly finding its way into punchy up-tempo horn line w/ light rhythm guitar and an active & bouncy bass line joining the mix. “City Lights” more or less goes from A to B to C and after the instrumental opening, the track shifts to a more under-voice horn line offering a countermelody to a mid-to-low register vocal line which is soon after joined by high voices punctuating the beginning of each phrase. The horns, guitars, and singers are cut from the track as the song enters its final section, a rap verse from featured artist Kamei accompanied with a slower-moving bass and light synth chords & wash in the middle register. Taken all together, “City Lights” ---like “Bad Trip” before it---packs a lot of music into a short duration & leaves me wanting more, which I especially long for when listening to the track outside of the context of the EP (which is what I usually do.)

12. “Turn to Hate” - Pony - Orville Peck: There’s a lot I could have done better in 2019, and “check out Orville Peck” is pretty high up there. “Turn to Hate” is a song that is at once heartrending, sincere, & catchy as all get out. Peck does one of my favorite possible things a musician can do on this track, and that’s make me Feel Things at a quick tempo. The vulnerable lyrics sung in outlaw country bass are supported by a fairly simple chord progression that acts as a solid foundation for a lot of texture ---moving guitar lines in the accompaniment part and middle-ground lines that move in and out of the melodic foreground. My moment of pure delight on the track is Peck’s laconic “yeehaw” that leads into a guitar solo that does so much work w/ its relative simplicity. “Turn to Hate” is an excellent song to get you into Orville Peck’s music if you aren’t already, if any of this piques your interest then I strongly recommend exploring his output of classic country meets 2010s indie meets camp gay sensibilities meets emotional realness. (This is as good a place as any to advise you to check out Yola and her album Walk Through Fire.)

27. “Water No Get Enemy” - Expensive Shit - Fela Kuti & Africa 70: I’m a newcomer to Afrobeat which is a fuckin’ shame because it contains a lot of the things I love most in music: rhythmic density and variety, jazz and “folk” idioms working together, a sense joy in the music-making with righteous anger at injustice in the music’s purpose, and a kick-ass horn section. "Water No Get Enemy” by Fela Kuti & Africa 70 is as good an intro as any to Afrobeat as it’s a delightful & excellent piece of music by the genre’s pioneer. It’s worth mentioning that in addition to its musical quality, Afrobeat is also deeply connected with Pan-Africanism and the resistance to the presence of European colonizers in Sub-Saharan Africa. To be frank, whatever I write can’t really do justice to this song or the musical movement from which it comes, go listen to it... a jam you can dance to while hating the British!? Immaculate. 

31. “Vardavar” - EP No. 1 - Tigran Hamasyan: The first of two songs from Armenian Jazz-fusion pianist/keyboardist and composer, Tigran Hamasyan, is a fast moving rhythmically dense piece of music named after the Armenian holiday of the same name ---Vardavar is a holiday of pre-Christian origin that Armenians celebrate in July in observance of the transfiguration of Christ, it involves throwing buckets of water on each other! Appropriate to its namesake, the running piano line through much of the track and the melodic lines are both exceptionally fluid and reminiscent of water. The rhythm of the tune follows a highly irregular subdivision of the bar that it’s best to feel along w/ as a listener ---seriously, unless you’re transcribing the tune or practicing/rehearsing it, don’t worry about counting---and get lost in with the flow of the music. Notable features of the track are the dense layering of instrumental/vocal lines on the melodic and countermelodic material, breakdowns & entire sections where the music takes to longer notes, “slower” feel & division of the bar, and a slower harmonic rhythm, unexpected unisons b/n instruments, and the transformation of Armenian folk melodies & texts between vocalized material and statements of the original material. There is no living musician whose work I love more than Tigran’s and if you’re not familiar with it “Vardavar” is an excellent place to start.

46. “Boyish” - Tropical Jinx - Little Big League:  "Boyish” is better known as one of the singles from Japanese Breakfast’s sophomore album Soft Sounds from Another Planet where Michelle Zauner presents the tune at a slow tempo with an unassuming instrumental accompaniment, wash of synths in the chorus, and low-register closing guitar solo which leaves the audience with a sense of melancholy & vulnerability. The original version from the 2014 LP of Zauner’s former band, Little Big League, offers a different take on the text: noisy guitars, driving rhythm, aggressive drumming on a rock groove, and a vocal delivery offering more of the rage of heartbreak than its sadness. Zauner refers to “Boyish” as an ‘ugly girl anthem’ and that intention is very apparent on this version of the track ---whereas the Japanese Breakfast take on it gave me a sense of being in the gender hinterlands b/n acceptable presentations of masculine and feminine. Both versions of the song are really worth seeking out for different reasons, and I chose to highlight Little Big League on this list because they’re a solid guitar-driven emo band that deserves appreciation in its own right.

50. “Dreaming” - Eat to the Beat - Blondie: What do I need to say about Blondie!? A CBGB act from the late-70′s that straddled the worlds of Punk and New Wave at their peak with a mix of an exceptional rhythm section (that bass!) diverse and compelling guitar work, and the captivating and ever-iconic vocals and presence of Debbie Harry. “Dreaming” might be my favorite song from Blondie and has had a special place in my heart since I first listened to them with my mom. It’s one of those songs that I’m tempted to call a perfect pop song: a joyful performance, lyrics that are at once simple and relatable ---whom amongst is unfamiliar with longing!?---music full of hooks & containing the kind of energy that just goes and takes you with it!

65. “Holy” - Shadow Theater - Tigran Hamasyan: The second entry from Tigran Hamasyan comes from his 2013 album Shadow Theater ---an excellent work as a whole---and is one of the slower, more spacious, and simpler tracks from it. “Holy” is a setting of the Armenian liturgical piece “Soorp Soorp” which is frequently used in the celebration of the Eucharist (even in the Armenian Protestant church I grew up in) and it’s achingly beautiful. There’s always something to be said about a musician capable of complex and virtuosic feats on their instrument doing something very simply and very well, and that’s what the entire ensemble brings ---including frequent collaborator Areni Agbabian who provides the vocals. Even as the texture thickens in the middle of the song, the middle ground & harmonic support coming from strings and bassoon (Ben Wendel) is simple, under-voice, and reverent. “Holy” is the kind of piece of music that offers an encounter with God ---even if one would never otherwise believe in something beyond the material; even just for a moment.

77. “The Day the World Turn Day-Glo” - Germ Free Adolescents - X-Ray Spex: X-Ray Spex is one of those bands I’ve listened to before on a recommendation I received ages ago but never really followed up on beyond the one song sent my way. “...Day-Glo” is a fuckin’ banger of song that just bursts with this wonderful energy from the jump & showcases the best qualities of X-Ray Spex’s sound: driving guitars, wild saxophone lines, and chaotically charismatic lead vocals from singer Poly Styrene. X-Ray Spex have an output that is wild and fun as hell to explore, and “...Day-Glo” is an excellent place to start ---you’d also do well to check out their more notable song “Oh Bondage, Up Yours!” 

84. “Marquee Moon” - Marquee Moon - Television: Listen, you don’t need to read some internet lesbian with a music degree go off about Television ---one of the most musically interesting acts to come out of CBGB and one of many definitive proofs that Punk is not a label that people should fucking fight about having a true definition of. Clear 11 minutes in your day, find a pair of headphones so you can experience the use of stereo in the recording and enjoy each element of the song, especially with regards to Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd’s interlocking guitar lines.

96. “Leylum” - Kokorec - Collectif Medz Bazaar & Sevana Tchak: Armenian folk music, baby!! Collectif Medz Bazaar offer a lively and joyful rendition of the classic folk song “Leylum” which has been burned in my mind from church and community gatherings ---the fun ones with music and all of your aunties dancing in a circle and such. Listen to this song and DM me if you aren’t dancing along of joining in on the response parts as best you can. I think this particular recording offers a nice entry point into an exploration of Armenian music, the instrumentation hits a lot of the staples of Armenian folk ensembles ---duduks, dohl, dumbek, clarinet, shvi, etc.---and the song itself is an up tempo dance tune which I find to be easier to start with than ballads or liturgical music.

100. “Electrastar” - Paradize - Indochine: Back in the hazy past of 2017, one of my friends from undergrad and I were hanging out and playing music for each other. In a departure from his usual library of French Baroque music, he played a song by French New Wave band, Indochine. That song was “Electrastar” which is a consistent favorite of mine, my favorite song from its album ---Paradize, which is already a solid record---and a great entry point into the musical output of a band which has been active for about 40 years. "Electrastar” features driving rhythm guitar, pulsing synth under the texture, eminently catchy chorus and post-chorus, and a very care-full and effective approach to the mix. Also, not for nothing but that album cover is 👀

Survey of 2020 Listening

[fanbynature]

Obikin x AU /part 1/

Here are some additional things to know before you read the fic.

The ages of some of the characters are: Obi - 28, Rex - 26, Anakin - 23, Ahsoka - 19 going on 20, Plo/Shmi - late 40s, Qui-Gon - early 50s

The thing about the setting is this: It’s still in the SW universe, so aliens, planets and the like still exist and I am mixing it up with our reality while using some slang from SW. It’s set in a peaceful time period, so it’s just a normal living situation for them at the moment. The Jedi are going to have a place in the story but nothing too major. I hope this is not too weird.

I was hoping this to be just a one shot but I had to go and write something that is deeper than just some shag scene. I do love readin just plain NC-17 stuff but this ain’t it one. 

There are some warnings /non-healthy life choices, mention of non-con/rape, foul language, ooc - it’s an au what do you expect/

Obi-Wan is in a punk-rock band by the name of "Space Maniacs" that has been active for a few years but has not been very popular until recently. They had started to search for a better studio to record their songs because the home soundproofed garage of Ahsoka's dad, as nice as he is, does not scream "professionalism". Or at least that is what Ahsoka and Rex had been trying to sell to Obi-Wan. Honestly, he does feel apologetic towards Plo, Ahsoka's dad, for all the inconvenience they have caused even though the man had said time and time again that he feels proud of their tenacity and doesn't mind as long as they keep out of trouble.

And when Obi-Wan meets Anakin, the musician tells himself that he may start believing in God, because it's a whole ass miracle that the man comes across the band. 'Cuz if a guy that cute knows the band, is offering his very real and professionally equipped studio plus has the total hots for a certain lead singer it must be some type of miracle created by the almighty Her or that's what Ahsoka had been going on about for the past 20 minutes in the backstage area of one of Coruscant's' better known night cantinas they had just performed at. The cantina is called "Dirty Habit" and tonight they may have met somebody that will be beneficial for the future of the band. At least that is what they are all hoping for.

Obi-Wan had to resist the urge to roll his eyes at the comment that the guy has the hots for him so he settles for a snort. Even if it was true the decision of having sex with someone that could be professionally engaged with the band, won't be a wise one to make. Even if Obi-Wan found the idea of kissing those plush pink lips and to have his hands go through those dirty blond curls, tugging them enormously enchanting. The younger man would make such pretty noises for him. Fuck, no. That is a dangerous zone to enter. He won't jeopardize this chance for the band just because of a shag. Even if it's the best shag he could have in his life.

The guy, Anakin Skywalker as he introduced himself 30-40 minutes ago to the band after they had finished their set made a very tempting offer that they can hardly refuse. He offered them a fully equiped studio to use for as long as they want for 30 cred each month. The band wasn't sure whether they can trust him because that seemed like a total scam, that in the end they would be the one that have to pay an enourmous amount of money. However he explained that he and his mother have a non-profit organisation that helps rising artists who struggle to find their footing. Anakin gave them their cards and assured the band that they can check them out first on their Infocache and confirm that everuthing is legitimate. He doesn't blame them as he understands the dangers of being a rising artist and the people who try and take advantage of that. The blond also explained that he has followed the band for quite sometime now, since they were still experimenting with their sound actually and choose to first observe them and later decided to introduce them to his mother and if everything with their donors went smoothly they would help them. And here he was, speaking with them, offering them a generous amount of help.

They thanked him, understood everything but came to an agreement that they need just a little bit of time and they will contact him back with their answer.

"Honestly, Nobi, I don't understand why we just didn't agree on it on the spot. Anakin seemed genuine and proper with his cards and polite talking. And not so polite ogling."

Obi-Wan glared towards Rex and flipped him off.

"What did I tell you about that nickname? Stop using it. It's annoying. Also, we should not appear desperate. Weren't you the ones that were yapping about how we should "behave more professional-like". I was trying to not appear like I was going to suck this guy off. And I am the one who is in the wrong?"

"He didn't seem to mind. Bet he would suck you off before you get the chance to do it. Haha" the young togruta tried to whisper talk but it was loud enough for the fuming ginger to hear.

"Seriously you too? Can I get a break from the two of you?"

"Whaaaat? Come on, Obi. I know you are irked because Satine decided to end up things but you seriously can't blame her or take it out on us." Obi-Wan was contemplating the ways he could make a murder look like an accident or suicide. "Honestly, you can't look me in the eyes and tell me that you didn't know that this was coming. Like seriously, it was not going well."

Rex was watching his bandmates from the side and was sensing that things were going to either explode soon enough or their lead singer was going to storm out of the room to go get shit faced, sleep in some alleyway and get him and Ahsoka in trouble.

"Ahsoka." Both the man and the girl turned towards Rex. "I think it's time to stop with the jokes and get you home." The lead singer's eyes filled with gratitude towards the bass player and he gave Rex a little smile.

"Oh, Rex, you too. Let's have a little drink to celebrate. We deserve it. You two should stop behaving like old men. You are in your freaking 20s. Live a little."

"Rex is right. I have to go to work tomorrow morning. Get off me and prepare to go."

"That's not true. I know your schedule, it's your day off." Ahsoka scowled at Obi-Wan with disbelieve and crossed her arms in front of her. The man was trying not to snort at the display off childness of their youngest bandmate.

"Well, I decided to take a shift. The extra cash won't hurt us. Especially now that we have to pay for a studio." He smiled a little and gave Rex a knowing looking.

"So we are going to accept the help?!"

"Sure" Obi-Wan turned his gaze towards Ahsoka, gave her a bigger smile and then transformed his facial feautures into a more irritated emotion “Now let’s go because your father it’s going to kill me.” 

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

Of course, Obi-Wan didn’t have an extra shift and Ahsoka doesn’t have to know that. It’s not like he doesn’t want to get an extra shift, the thing is he can’t get one because he has the maximum available shifts his manager can give him. Other people have to work too, you kriffin menace, you know that right. Also I am going to tie you up to your bed and not allow you to do anything for a week straight if you don’t stop bugging me. Obi-Wan is slightly afraid of Cody now. He was even thinking of asking him to help in another position but he decided against it. Maybe Cody is right but that doesn’t mean that the Obi-Wan is going to listen to him. He has responsibilities and he can’t allow himself to rely on other people. Even if that was the reason him and his father have become estranged. It doesn’t matter, not anymore. He is a capable adult who does not expect other people to do his work. 

He may start to search for another job.

The ringing of the phone by the bedside brought up the troubled man back to reality. Shit, Ahsoka. Maybe he can ignore that. If he waits long enough it’s going to stop ringing. Ah, yes. Silence. Then a massage sound.

DONT IGNORE ME, KENOBI! I know.... 

Oh, for kriffing....She went to his job. Ringing again.

“Shouldn’t you be at Uni?”

“Shouldn’t you be at work? You liar. You know better than to lie to me, Obi-Wan. You should have just told me that your old bones were tired yesterday and Rex and I could have stayed and you could have gone home without lying. Also I have 1 hour brake and decided to visit your sorry ass. Know can you... ”

The older male was trying to remane calm as he knew that getting mad at the girl won’t be a sensible decision. She was right. He lied to her but she didn’t know earlier and was probably just worried that he was exhausting himself and wanted to check on him.

“Ahsoka, can you please slow down. Look, I am sorry. It was a stupid thing to do. Sorry for making you worried.”

Silence.

“If you want to...” Obi-wan started with a sigh but couldn’t finish.

“Next time just tell me the truth. I may be young and have to experience things but I am not daft....I am sorry too. For annoying you about Satine and the Skywalker guy. I was just trying to have some fun. But it was that peachy for you. I should have known better. It hasn’t been that easy for you this past year and I chose the wrong way of cheering you up.”

“When did you mature so much?” the older man was getting filled with a warm sensation in his chest. Proudness. The proudness of a big brother. Even if they weren’t related Ahsoka was close to him as any real sister he could have had.

“Tell anything to Rex and you are dead to me.” the girl warned him with an exaggarated threat in her voice.

“Hahah. I think Rex will truly appreciate the way you are starting to carry yourself, the way you think and sense the emotions in other people. He will love this side of you as much as he adores the careless, fun and cheerful side of you. Rex hasn’t been around as much as I have but his brotherly protectivness over you seems to be stronger than mine.”

“Stop it, you are making me blush.”

“It’s very much true. You know that one time-”

“So when are we going to talk with the Skywalker guy?” Ahsoka seemed to be in a rush and cut off the sentimental notion that the conversation was headed to. Obi-wan rolled his eyes. There haven’t been any time to really think about it but it has been sitting at the back of his head, constantly reminding him. The sooner he calls the better for the band. However there was this constant feeling of anxiety that was washing over him. He doesn’t know what to do. He can’t tell his bandmates, they would think he is just not getting enough sleep or food. He can’t talk to Cody because he really had the chance to tell him anything about yesterday and Ahsoka was waiting for an answer now.

“How about tomorrow? If that’s alright with you Miss Ahsoka?”

“Of course, my leash. My very trustworthy Knight in armor or Jedi in robes. I don’t know. Choose one. That’s sounds fantastic. I’ll talk with Rex and come by your house after I am finished. You just go and sleep, you old man.”

“Stop calling me an old man.”

“You stop acting like one.” she said with a mocking tone and hanged up.

Oh, Force. Sometimes he wishes he has chosen a different path for his life. This one seems like it needs a restart. Hm, maybe he should have become a Jedi. What he knew from his father is that he is Force sensitive but when a young Jedi had come to speak with Qui-Gon about the future of his child he had declined the offer of giving Obi-Wan to them. They had a long conversation and had concluded that as an ex-Jedi Qui-Gon had the abilities to keep his son save and help him if there was any trouble. So in reaching an agreement of Obi-Wan’s future as a Force Sensitive kid he can say that he had a pretty normal and stable upbringing. Well, except maybe a few instances. Some of those were his own fault so he couldn’t really blame the people that came across him. He turned out quite decent in end. For the most parts.

However from the texts which he could find about the Jedi some things seemed more appealing than others but certainly they didn’t feel as they were too far way from him. He could have easily fit with the culture. But he loves music too much too give it up now. He loves Rex and Ahsoka as his own family and he doesn’t want to let them down. 

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

3 hours later

There was a banging from somewhere outside but the drowsiness from the sleep couldn’t quite allow him to register where it came from. After a few more moments of banging and the voice of Ahsoka, Obi-Wan finally came to his senses. The door. 

He rubbed his eyes and yelled a muted “I am coming. Stop doing that. The door is going to fall.” He was still sleepy and couldn’t find his slippers so he just headed barefooted with one open eye towards the door and opened it.

“Finally. We were going to- Can, you please put something on ?” Ahsoka looked her friend up and down, unimpressed and passed by him to go inside. 

What in the blazes... His sleeping habit of undressing himself had acquired for the first time when he was hitting puberty and he couldn’t exactly explain what is what connected to. It’s probably the most embarrassing habit he could have developed, especially when the first time it happened was during summer camp with the freshers being mixed and him trying to sleepwalk to there in the early morning with his blader not allowing him to sleep. He couldn’t have predicted that there would be somebody else. He also didn’t know about the lack of clothes on him. With the years it got less frequent, thank the Force.

“We brought food and a holofilm. It’s the crime-suspense one we have been wanting to watch.” Rex tried to hide his smile and not to comment that his friend hasn’t been able to outgrow his adolescent habit. It’s not like everyone can train their brains to do what you want them to do, damn it, Rex.

“Did you come here straight from Uni?” Obi-Wan was trying to speak to the younger girl while she was putting the popcorns in the nanowave and just not staying in one place. He had two rooms + fresher and a balcony. How much more she can move?

“Sure. Why?” she moved to the balcony taking a pack of cigarettes. Obi-wan took the whole pack out of her hands and threw them to Rex. “Hey, come on”

“Not good for you.”

“Look who’s talking. Blondie, pass them back.” 

“I ain’t getting into the middle of that. I am just minding my own business, thank you very much.” 

“Chicken” Ahsoka puffed her cheeks out, signed and put her hands on the balcony’s metal barrier. 

“You should spend more time at home. I thought you stopped being a bratty rebel who didn’t like her dad that much with no reason.” 

“I did. And I do. I do spend time at home I mean.” A few beats pass by them, looking to the Coruscant’s landscape, basking in the noises of the city and background noises of Rex doing something in the kitchen. Ahsoka straightens up and turns around towards her friend, looking at the ground, playing with something in her hand. “I love my dad, don’t get me wrong. But sometimes there comes a time when you just feel like you have to split from each other and live alone.” A few more beats pass by “You understand better than anybody I know.”

“Of course I won’t judge you if you want to live separately from your father if that’s what you mean. I do hope you talk to him first and not just run away.”

“Absolutely. I am not that irresponsible, not anymore. I am sure he will miss me and it would be much harder for him than it is for me. I just need this at this point in my life.”

“I am sure he will understand. He is going to absolutely throw you “a goodbye party”. Or more likely “get home sooner” one.”

“Oh, Siths. Please don’t make me imagine this. It just sounds embarrassing.”

“Rex is totally going to get everything filmed.”

“I already know that I am going to kill him.”

Both of them laughed at the ridiculous situation. Obi-Wan placed his hand on the younger girl’s should in a reassuring manner. 

“Whatever you decide to do I am here for you one hundred and ten percent of the way.”

The togruta smiled at him and pulled him into a hug.

“Thanks, big bro”

“Oi, the sappy bunch, are we going to watch a movie or what?”

The other two rolled their eyes and returned back inside. While the two were chatting outside Rex had set the snacks and drinks on the coffee table and prepared the film for just pressing the play button. 

“Hey, look what we’ve got here. Can you believe, Obi. Our bassist is good at more things than just looking good, playing the bass and getting us a free drink.”

“He is sometimes good at repairing stuff. You gotta give him that.”

“Oh, yeah for sure.” the other two snickered while the blonde was flipping them off.

“Haha, you guys. You are a golden comedy duo. Can we now just watch the damn film? “

“Absolutely”

Halfway into the movie, Ahsoka fell asleep and the guys let her sleep on the bed and called Plo so he won’t worry about his daughter being kidnapped or something else. He told them that he could come to pick her up so it won’t be trouble for Obi-Wan but the younger man reassured him that it was no problem at all.

“So we are calling the Skywalker guy?”

“That is what you want, guys, right? I am not making that decision just on my own and just presuming your opinions.”

“Yeah, it is.’

“Then it’s decided.”

The two men were sitting on the floor cross-legged, drinking whatever was left from the things Rex and Ahsoka brought. 

“Do you want something stronger? “

“What do you have in mind?”

 “Cheedon whiskey. You know that is not my usual preference but someone who I used to fuck from time to time gave it to me recently as a gift for our good times. Amusingly he was there when Satine and I, well Satine to be precise broke things off. “ The ginger was pouring the drinks while talking and his bandmate was watching him cautiously .”But this is a great drink. Let’s drink to our future success. Cheers.”

“Cheers.” Rex watched his friend enjoying the brown beverage going down his throat and then looked at his own and sipped a little. Making a face because of the burning sensation of the drink. It had good after taste but Rex is definitely not the biggest fan of this type of liquor. He prefers his beer.

“How are things with after Satine? I mean I know you don’t like sharing the hard stuff with us, especially me. You sometimes talk to Ahsoka but you haven’t said anything. What I am getting at is that I am worried. We are worried, with Ahsoka. And we want to know if everything is really fine.”

Obi-Wan knew that Rex didn’t like initiating conversations with serious topics. He was usually there when you needed him, he doesn’t ask you a question, just stays with you until he knows you are ready to tell him what’s wrong. And Obi-Wan could sense the uncomfortableness in Rex’s everything. The older male greatly appreciated what his friend was doing for him and he didn’t want to just blow him off. He knew that it took strength to do something you don’t enjoy doing.

“I can’t blame her. As much as I want to say it was both of our fault. It was mine. I just wish she could have done it sooner for her own good. I was too much of a coward to leave her. I stayed with her just because I was used to it, but I didn’t really feel the way I felt before and it wasn’t fair to her. And that not being the worst part. Now cheating is what an immoral person does.”

“You know that wasn’t the full story.”

“Wasn’t it? I remember it differently.” Obi-Wan was pouring his third drink now and Rex was thinking of hiding the bottle. Or plain pouring it out into the sink.

“You don’t remember half the night. That is the problem. You are trying to take the full blame for something you weren’t even half-conscious to do.”

“But I was conscious enough to kriffing get it up and stick it up into a guy’s ass. Wasn’t I, Rex?” The ginger was trying no to raise his voice so he won’t wake up Ahsoka but he was having a hard time. He stood up, cursing under his breath, took his cigarettes and went to the balcony. 

Rex was blaming himself for even raising the question. He knew better than that. Why did he even try to get something out of the older? He never wins with him. His brother is better than him with that. Dealing with Obi-Wan Kenobi. Kriffing Siths. He begrudgingly went to the balcony’s door frame and stood there. Shifting his eyes between Coruscant’s view and his friend’s back. 

“Look, I know it doesn’t matter what I say, you are going to continue putting the full blame on yourself, but just know that. I am on your side. I will call you out when it needs to be done. But not when you don’t deserve it.”

“I wanted it, you know that Rex. I told you. You were there.”

“You were drunk. He wasn’t.”

Obi-Wan turned around with glistening eyes. Tears. 

“I said yes, Rex. I said it. I would-I would have said it even if I was sober, Rex. I know it. I do. I just-” the older male dropped to his knees. Putting out his cigarette and hanging his arms to the side.”I am just-just not sure anymore.” 

He looked up to Rex, with his cheeks already wet from the streaming tears. The blonde crouched down and hugged his friend. They stayed that like for a few minutes and Obi-wan spoke again, with a hushed voice.

“I think I am just trying to convince myself at this point. Not trying to fall apart. I can’t do it. If I fall apart I have to tell her. She can’t know, Rex. She’ll blame herself that she didn’t let me speak. It’s better that way.”

Rex pulled away from Obi-wan and sat on the floor across him, looking at his friend.

“You are kriffing idiot you know that. How is that better? Who is it better for exactly? Not you, that’s for sure.”

“Don’t say anything, Rex. Please. Not even to Ahsoka.”

Rex was wondering really hard how he could just prevent his friend from harming himself further than he already has. 

“I am not the person that is going to tell you how to live your life and what choices you have to make. That is your job. But I am the person who is going to be next to you until you want the help you need. Ahsoka and I are going to be here. Cody too. He cares for you too, even if he has “the though love makes you stronger logic”. Rex paused for a moment and continued “Your father will always be there for you too. Well, at least until you know. Nevermind.” He dies Rex thought.”Maybe things with Satine won’t be the same but they don’t have to be. The important thing is that you feel better.”

Obi-wan stopped crying and he was sniffling softly. Trying to get his composure back. He didn’t like showing his vulnerability. Even to his friends. He would start to think of himself as a burden but wanted to stop it.

“I don’t think I am ready yet Rex. I don’t think I am able to face it.”

“Look that is perfectly alright. As long as you don’t try and deal with it alone in an unhealthy way. We are here for you, okay.”

The only thing the ginger could manage as a response was a weak nod. He searched for his cigarettes and popped one his mouth. Rex picked up the conversation again.

“Truly the pot calling the kettle black.” he laughed a little to his friend’s earlier hypocrisy to Ahsoka. The older male looked at him confused.

“Huh? Oh, that. You know that I have tried to quit several times with no positive outcome.” He lit his cigarette and let out a blow of smoke.”It’s truly something I’ll never be able to fix.”

“Whatever you say, Nobi, whatever you say. Do you want me to stay more because the public transport will soon stop and the prices of the hovercabs are going up.”

“Nah, go. I am going to fine.”

“Call me when you get a word from Skywalker.”

‘Absolutely.”

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

The next day came faster than he expected with the bustling city noises waking him up. He forgot to close the door to the balcony last night. He remembered dragging himself from the outside, laying down his futon and just laying down. Now he had a duvet, which he didn’t remember getting. Ahsoka. She is still sleeping. He realised it’s still early as Ahsoka haven’t gotten up and she usually doesn’t have classes until late morning or early noon. He wasn’t sleepy, which meant his day will be longer and that annoyed him to no limit. He grunted and pulled the duvet over his head.

“Can you please just let me sleep for one more hour? Your grinding teeth are really kriffing annoying you know that. I think you should really go and let a doctor check you out. You have too much sleeping habits. It’s not healthy.”

“I just woke up and you are already annoying me.”

A small heart-shaped pillow flew over his head almost hit him in the face.

“You missed.”

A creak from his bed followed by footsteps on the wooden floor. His eyes were closed so he did not anticipate a soft yet hard hit on the face by a larger pillow.

“I think not. Ugh, now I am woken up. Make us some coffee. You are the host. Be one.”

“Half of my wardrobe is filled with your clothes plus a couple of your shoes. I think you can make your own coffee.”

“You are unbelievable.”

A small scratching noise was coming from the window outside followed by a meow. Ahsoka’s head snapped towards the noise and she went to check it out. There was a middle-sized loth-cat. The cat’s whole body was white except a patch of brown on top of each eye. Which was now meowing in Ahsoka’s feet, not knowing if it could do anything else

“Did you get a loth cat and not tell me?”

“She’s not mine. She just came one day and I started feeding her. She comes from time to time and I give her food when I am here. She seems like she’s domesticized. She had a collar when she first came but not anymore. Didn’t have a tag or anything like that.”

The togruta had already started making noises at the animal and petting her. Obi-Wan got up, when to the kitchen and took out a packet from the cupboard under the sink. He passed the girl with the cat in her lap, went on the balcony and poured the food into a green plastic bowl. The cat run next to him and started eating. He petted her for a bit and stoop up.

“Okay then. I think it’s time you get ready for Uni and I am going to make us breakfast and then I am going talk to Anakin.”

“Okay, boss. Oh, there is something else I want to talk to you about.’

“Sure. What is it?”

“Um, I have actually started to look into some places where I can move to live. As you know I received some loan and grants before I entered Uni so I have some money saved and can live for a while on those. But I was wondering if you could still help me with checking out when I pick a place if it’s legit or not. You have some experience so I think it would help me greatly.”

“Yeah, yeah. No problem.”

“Okay, I have more to tell you but I am going to shower first.”

The ginger laughed to himself and returned his attention to the breakfast. He hasn’t cooked for himself in a while. Running on coffee and cereal lately hasn’t been that great on his health but work kept him from making healthy choices. Okay, he kept himself from making healthy choices. A soft meow interrupted his inner monologue and his attention shifted towards the small creature which was halfway inside halfway out. 

“Oh, water. I forgot. What an idiot.” 

He filled an empty jar with water and went outside to put it into another plastic bowl but this one was blue. 

“Here, little one. Enjoy.”

The man smiled slightly and petted the cat softly again, trying not to disturb it, then he returned inside and went to finish making the food. While the man was occupied with his furry friend the shower noise had stopped and minutes after that the young togruta came out surrounded by fog.

“You should be thankful I don’t ask you for money for the electric bill. Half of it it’s yours. Doesn’t your skin melt off or something. “

“No, Mr Freeze who would probably shower in ice cube bath. I don’t have your endurance. “

“I could say the same to you.” Obi-Wan sent his most mature response - sticking his tongue out which was returned by Ahsoka with twice the emotion. 

“What else are you going to tell me.”

The togruta got closer to the kitchen counter and started making coffee for both of them

“Oh. I asked Cody if he can help me with a job in like a month or two. And he said that he won’t be needing any additional staff for the near future but he said he can speak with some friends of his that are in the business and will let me know if something comes up. ”

“That’s great. I am so glad for you.” Obi-Wan set everything on the table, while Ahsoka put some background music to enjoy while they were eating. 

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

[amendments]

Class 1-A’s Music Taste Headcanons

Deku: idky, but I’m feeling some Lo-Fi/vaporwave for my boi here. He probably has on that station with the pic of the anime girl with headphones studying (you know the one) on a lot. He just seems like the a e s t h e t i c type. I feel like he goes for the chill/study music, maybe to calm his nerves after a long day. Maybe he’d go for math rock if he’s yearning for something faster.

Iida: We got ourselves a raver boys. He 100% listens to electronic. Probably techno, trance, some house, anything that has a really fast tempo. I can see him jogging for miles upon miles to this shit. He also probably listens to classical because he does come from a sophisticated family.

Uraraka: She’s no doubt an idol fan. Sometimes I feel like she’s the embodiment of the cutesy-japan idol group stuff. So, that music is right up her ally.

Bakugo: Obviously he listens to heavy metal, but no, not just any metal, my friend, he listens to extreme metal. I’m taking about death metal, deathcore, black metal, thrash, maybe metalcore if he’s feeling extra emotional, anything chaotic with lots of screaming and growls. I could toooootally see this boy in a mosh pit at some rock festival.

Todoroki: Emo. Need I say more? I’ll expand, he probably likes pop punk, pop rock, or power pop type stuff. He likes daddy issue music because he’s as broken as the singers singing it. I personally like to think that he’s an MCR fan, and he worships the Emo-Trinity. He may also listen to some classical because he’s sophisticated too.

Yaoyorozu: Most definitely classical. She comes from a sophisticated and rich family, so classical because it’s refined. She may also like some smooth jazz to relax to, but her taste is mostly all classical.

Kirishima: I know this guy’s music has kinda been confirmed, and he likes 80’s rock, buuuut I’m just gonna hc that he likes rap and hip-hop anyway. He really strikes me as the type to like gangsta music for some reason. Maybe because a lot of hip-hop is very masculine and very manly. I can just see him blasting some heavy trap-beat shit at the gym and pumping away.

Tokoyami: I could see bird boy go one of two directions here, either he’s a giant emo and likes similar stuff to Todoroki, although, maybe a little harsher (add some post-hardcore and nu-metal in there). Ooooor, he likes gothic music straight out of the 80s. I like the latter. I can totally see him taking aesthetic inspiration from the likes of The Cure or Alien Sex Fiend. He may like Visual Kei aswell.

Jirou: Ah the hardest of them all to decide. She listens to every genre, although her favorite genre is rock, obviously. She’s too mature for emo music, but not mature enough for full blown rock n’ roll. So, most likely just normal hard rock and alternative metal are her forte. Although, she may also like some really obscure genres that are totally out of left field. She also likes visual kei as well

Hagakure: the same as Uraraka

Mineta: This fucker doesn’t even listen to music, he listens to erotic ASMR

Satou: the same as Kirishima

Aoyama: He probably likes vogue music, like deep house and lounge. This guy probably vogues alone in his room, and he can do it better than Madonna, beeech

Ashido: I’m feeling some r&b for my girl because of that sassy, confident nature of the genre. She may also like some bad-bitch rap.

Tsuyu: I’ve seen some headcanons that she likes hip-hop, and honestly, I love that idea! I could totally see her liking some indie rap/jazz rap, like stuff with old school elements. 

Shoji: He doesn’t listen to music because he’s a minimalist

Koda: Same as Deku, but add in some Disney songs

Ojiro: Is Karate music a genre? For some reason I have a vision in my head of him listening to the Kung Fu Panda soundtrack and practicing to that.

Sero: Same as Kirishima and Satou, but with more meme music.

Kaminari: Same as Todoroki, but add in comedy rap, increase the punk elements by 1000000%, throw in a dash of funk, and like Sero, add in more meme music.

[mikauzoran]

Ask Game: Mikau’s Headcanons - This Should Be a Drinking Game

Anonymous asked:

5&6

Thank you for the ask! ^.^

(The questions are from this list. So far I’ve done five, six, eleven, and fifteen.)

5. What’s your favorite headcanon you use in fics?

Oh my gosh. There are so many headcanons. XD I was actually just thinking last night that I needed to compile a list and turn it into a drinking game or something. 

Take a sip of tea every time:

1. Félix is Adrien’s older brother (eight years older). He left home at sixteen, married Marinette’s cousin Bridgette, and now lives in Marseille where he’s a homicide detective. Bri runs her own bakery. They have a daughter named Noëlle and a son on the way. Fé used to play the violin competitively growing up, and Adrien learned to play Danse Macabre and the first movement of Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata from him.

2. Émilie was a stage actress, and Adrien used to do the child roles in whatever production she was in, so he grew up backstage and going to the theatre to see his mum a lot. Her signature role was Viola in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. When Gabriel and Émilie met going to high school in Marseille, she was performing Viola and dragged him into being on the costume crew for the school play once she discovered he was an aspiring fashion designer.

3. Adrien decides to pursue a career in acting. He misses performing from when he did it with his mum when he was a kid, and it makes him feel connected to her. He likes getting to portray all kinds of different people and experiencing what it’s like to be someone else. It’s a safe space for him to experience emotions since expressing emotions was frowned upon in his home growing up. The roles he really wants to play are Jean Valjean from Les Mis, the Phantom from Phantom of the Opera, Elphaba from Wicked, and Viola from Twelfth Night.

4. Adrien is originally left-handed but has learned to be ambidextrous. This is my hill to die on, and you can fight me over it. ^w^ It’s probably just production error/the creators not really caring, but I’ve noticed several times in canon where Adrien has been shown doing things left-handed. (I mean, he uses his right hand for things too, but...) In Origins, when he’s walking to class and signing autographs left and right, he does so with his left hand. In Marchand de Sable/Sandman when he’s doing homework in his room, his writing supplies are on his left side. (I just want some left-handed representation. Is that too much to ask? ;-;)

5. Adrien is biromantic asexual. Even when I pair him with Marinette, he’s never not bi. I don’t always write him as ace; sometimes he’s bisexual in my works, but I could see canon Adrien as ace.

6. Adrien’s comfort foods are mint tea and salad. When he was little, when he or  Émilie had a bad day, she would kick the kitchen staff out of the kitchen, and they would make a big salad and some mint tea and enjoy it together. Now that she’s gone, he has mint tea and/or salad when he’s feeling down, and it’s comforting because it reminds him of his mother.

7. Adrien is a total anime nerd. He grew up relatively isolated from the outside world, so he learned about life and “normal”/“acceptable” human behaviour from Disney movies and anime. He’s always wanted to be a Disney princess and a magical girl. He was really inspired by Disney and anime protagonists who overcame the difficulties in their lives to achieve their dreams and find happiness and love. He has a lot of strong, female role models, starting with his mum, so he tends to identify with female characters more strongly than male characters.

8. Adrien is a polyglot. Obviously, he knows French, and he’s learned English because it’s required. Chinese lessons are canonical. He taught himself Japanese so that he could read manga and watch anime in the original (and pass it off as “studying”). He also speaks Russian (see “9″ below). He doesn’t speak Italian, but he has a passing familiarity with the language. He knows some phrases from opera from watching it himself and his mum’s career. He has some of his favourite portions memorized. He can insult someone’s sartorial choices in Italian from listening to his father do so on trips to Milan for business, and he knows survival phrases, but he can’t actually construct sentences or have conversations. He just hasn’t invested himself in it.

9. Adrien’s bodyguard’s name is Victor (really Viktor, but he uses the French spelling to fit in). He’s originally from Russia and still has family there. The reason why he doesn’t speak is because, even though he understands French just fine, he’s self-conscious about speaking it because of his accent. He’s also afraid to make mistakes, especially in front of Gabriel who is not a patient or tolerant man. Victor taught Adrien Russian, so now they can speak together, and no one knows what they’re saying. (Nathalie has picked up a little bit here and there, but not enough to have conversations.) Victor calls Adrien Adrianka. (It’s the Russian diminutive.)

10. Nathalie speaks a little bit of Mandarin Chinese. Her tones are so-so, but she can get her point across. She learned from listening in on Adrien’s lessons so that she could make sure he stayed on top of his curriculum. When Adrien has to miss Chinese lessons on short notice, Adrien’s teacher works with Nathalie instead.

11. Luka loves all music, not just rock or punk like we’ve seen on the show. I mean, the guy is portrayed as music being his whole life, right? He came to music through rock and roll because that’s what he was exposed to through his mother and her music career, but if you dig into the music and look at its history, where it came from, what inspired it, you start wandering back through time until you get to the big names of classical concert music. Luka is an inquisitive, thoughtful guy. I can see him digging into the roots of the music he grew up with and finding all sorts of cool influences. I can see him learning about and experimenting with different types/genres of music.

12. In university, Luka studies Literature with an emphasis on nineteenth and twentieth century Russia. Why? Below is excerpted from my response to a comment asking about this point.

Especially in the nineteenth century during the height of Romanticism, a lot of literary elements and themes made their way into classical music. Program music uses literary texts as a base and illustrates the story with music. Composers drew from the Russian literary tradition as well, particularly in opera. Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades is based on Pushkin's short story, and I just found out a month ago that Shostakovich turned Gogol's short story The Nose into an opera. In the arts, one thing always leads to another. It's like looking up something on Wikipedia. Two hours later you've become an expert on botany or Balkan folk dance. I think Luka would dig into the sources of inspiration for the music he was consuming in order to better understand the works and as a means of getting inspiration himself.

So that's why Russian Literature. I think he'd eventually find his way to it through music. Then, once you find Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky, you really get sucked in. For me, those two have such a way of depicting real human beings and what it means to be human. They really get at deeper human truths. Anna Karenina, Crime and Punishment, and The Idiot really capture that essence for me. (War and Peace too to some extent, but not as much as the other three.) I think Luka would really be drawn to Russian literature too and come to love it for itself apart from the musical inspiration he was able to derive from it.

13. In his teens, Luka takes more of an interesting in the piano and falls in love with the violin. He adds piano and violin performance majors halfway through university and ends up becoming a professional solo pianist as well as a first violin with the Orchestre de Paris.

14. Luka wears reading glasses. I don’t think I’ve used this one much. Actually, I can’t find where I’ve used this at all. :/ Well. I suppose there will be no tea drinking at this time for this headcanon. ^.^;

15. Luka has tattoos. I don’t think I’ve gotten around to this one yet either. Adrien and Luka talk about possible tattoo ideas in Chapter Four of Nachtmusik, but... At any rate, the full extent of the tattoos would be a stylized snake on his pelvis, Odin’s raven’s on his shoulder blades, a stylized snake bracelet under his regular bracelets, and a Chat Noir paw print under his ring. So far the paw print is the only one that I’m one hundred percent positive that will happen. The stylized snake on the pelvis is pretty up there too because in the Jabberwocky/Daisy universe I was going to have Adrien and Marinette squabbling over Luka, and Adrien was going to say that he bet Marinette hadn’t seen Luka’s snake tattoo. When Marinette asks Luka where he has a snake tattoo and learns how low on Luka’s stomach it is, she’s left wondering what’s going on between Adrien and Luka. I’m undecided about the ravens and the snake bracelet.

16. The children are always named Hugo, Louis, and Emma, but the birth order depends upon the pairing. Lukadrienette have Hugo (biologically Luka’s), Emma (Adrien’s), and then Louis (Adrien’s). Lukadrien have Emma (Luka and Rose’s), Louis (Adrien and Rose’s), and then Hugo (Adrien and Juleka’s). Adrienette have Louis, Hugo, and then Emma.

Which is your favourite of my headcanons? Which one would you like to see more of? Did I miss any? ^.^;