#i already had to reset too many times bc i simply did not know it spawns at night

[risaonda]

GEHEHEHEHE

[sweets-r-cool]

Not the Right Birthday Present

Bakugo Katsuki x Reader

so- I think this would’ve been better if I didn’t get played by google bc when I clicked off of full screen all my work got reset at some point so it’s not as good bc I forgot what it said but yeah-

Warning: Angst

A birthday is supposed to be a happy day filled with presents, laughter, friends, sweets, and fun.

It took a certain kind of person to hate birthdays, and as much as Bakugo would say he hated how you and the extras that followed him around would make a huge deal out of his birthday, he couldn’t shake that stupid light and warm feeling that captured his chest.

The same one he would get every bright smile you’d send his way. The same one he got when you kissed his face more times than he could count, bouncing up and down as you gushed with excitement when he got down on one knee, asking you to be his for life. That same feeling he got when he pushed that gold ring onto your finger as you did the same to him. 

Looking back on it, you were generally the cause for that damn feeling that invaded his chest. Even Bakugo couldn’t stop himself from genuinely laughing as you wiped cake crumbs off your face after tripping as you tried and failed to cake him on the two of you’s wedding day. 

Birthdays were supposed to be filled with happiness, not grief, regret, confusion, and hurt. God, did it hurt.

All Bakugo felt now was the opposite. Heavy, like gravity had betrayed him as his footsteps were heavier than ever before. His whole body was fatigued from fighting against the strong pull that made him feel like he was going to fall into the ground. Hopeless and unmotivated, the ash blonde didn’t even want to get out of bed.

 Was there a point? 

You weren’t there to complain at him to make breakfast. You weren’t there to make breakfast yourself, not standing the kitchen in one of his shirts that covered your entire torso as well as a good part of your thighs. He wouldn’t be able to sneak up on you and hug you from behind, burying his nose in the crook of your neck, feeling your warmth and the stove.

Things were just cold. And empty.

Bakugo laid in bed, exhausted for so many reasons.

...

Things were so calm, so dark it was nearly impossible to see anything, even if you squinted. Part of the perks of a house just barely on the edge of the city, away from the blinding lights and the loud noises of bustling night life.

Things were quiet, save for your rhythmic breathing as your chest moved up and down.

Out of nowhere, you shot up, and so did Bakugo who was unable to sleep already due to a weird feeling in his chest. Not the warm one, but rather one that told him it wouldn’t be good to sleep right now, a sort of anxiety. 

You had shot up due to the fact things had changed in the matter of one (1) second. There was an explosion, followed by two (2) more and now things weren’t calm, or dark, or peaceful. 

Peeks of a dim orange light shone through the blinds that were previously closed. A groan naturally came from you as you moved to reach for the blue light shining from your phone as Bakugo looked through the window.

You sighed with a slightly laugh, “Hm, we really can’t rest. Huh, Bub?”

In a matter of ten (10) or even less minutes, you and Bakugo were suited up and in your cars.

Out of all the times, 3 am was when the villains chose to launch a large attack on the better part of the city. But, of course, because that was what villains were. Nothing but inconveniences until Bakugo beat the shit out of them and got them to a jail cell.

“So, what exactly is going on?” you asked Deku on a call connected to the Bluetooth of the car as Bakugo sped- definitely going over the speed limit, but it wasn’t like it mattered at the moment.

The green-haired hero had barely managed to explain before more explosions went off and the line went dead. You were worried, but there was no choice but to push it down, as you were already at the scene. 

It looked like the apocalypse. 

Fire was everywhere, cars crashed, building crumbled, there wasn’t a bit of glass in sight left unshattered. 

The causes were at the center of it all, all the chaos. Countless heroes were already injured, but those who weren’t passed out stood as best as they could against the villains.

You and Bakugo had your work cutout for you.

That didn’t stop from an animalistic grin working its way onto Bakugo’s face as he warmed up with a few smaller explosions. 

~

It was now late into the morning. No one was entirely sure what time it was, but the sun was visible making things a lot easier. The known villains had finally been apprehended, but the damage was done.

It was time to check for survivors, the worst part in most heroes opinion. It always left a sad feeling inside of them, knowing how many lives were not saved. There was still fire everywhere, and of course, there was still a chance of villains roaming around that hadn’t been discovered yet, no one was letting their guards down. 

You had been able to keep a relatively neutral expression this entire time, not an ounce of fear evident. Though, you knew it was simply because there Katsuki was beside you. 

Bakugo had felt the same way, only before he noticed one of the attacks getting way too close to taking your life, had you not narrowly dodged it.

The aura around you always made him feel like everything was gonna be okay, at least eventually. In his eyes, you were the meaning of resilience, always bouncing back from any situation. The ash blonde was trying to keep that in mind.

Being a hero was tough, everyone knew. 

After more deaths of those close to you than should have been normal, you were still fine. Still able to proceed with life as normal.

It was different at this moment.

You had flinched significantly when you realized there was a little girl trapped in a burning building. There was no doubt, the building was extremely unstable, and would crumble any minute. The gash going from your collarbone to your shoulder didn’t look good, so Bakugo immediately stepped up.

“I’ll go,” he stated, already on the way before you stopped him.

Time was running out quick, “No, I’ll go,” you said, pushing both hands on his chest as you looked directly in his eyes pleadingly.

“You’re injured, dumbass,” he scoffed, continuing despite you still trying to block him.

You sighed, pushing him harder, “I’m going, Katsuki,” you pressed, “You know that you’re sweating like hell right now, it’s not worth that risk.”

You moved off him when he stopped. He hated that you were right, he didn’t like this. Not at all. He wanted to do it.

You smiled, about to run off before Bakugo had caught your wrist in his larger hand. You turned, “Katsuki-”

He cut you off, “Just come back to me, alright?”

You nodded, “Of course, I have things planned for your birthday next week, but I can give you one of the presents early later,” you teased, smiling even as you parted, getting closer to the girl and farther from him as you entered the building immediately working on getting to her.

There was far too many things the both of you noticed that went unsaid. However, there were reasons they went unsaid. 

The reality of the situation was far from good, or even okay. It was worse than ever. You’d both known from the start a lot of people had died, and were going to die. But it was also that Bakugo had noticed the way you shook, as if you had been freezing.

It was fear.

You had noticed Bakugo’s quirk was overused, as well as the fact his arm was definitely broken.

Bakugo couldn’t have gone. It was simple as that. If he’d gone it would just be stupid, putting everyone at risk. He might not have been able to carry the girl, or his quirk- which again, was overused- could’ve gone haywire, setting off explosions. Though the latter wasn’t likely, it was still a risk that shouldn’t be taken.

Bakugo didn’t like the unsureness in your smile, and definitely not the way it completely faded from your face the moment you turned. 

It was because you knew that the building might not just crumble. 

It had been one minute since you had gone into the building, Bakugo knew because he was subconsciously counting. It had been one minute, and he was being dragged away from the building by three (3) other heroes.

Something felt feral in him, he snapped, “What- What the fuck are you bastards doing?!” 

“It’s not safe, Ground Zero Sir!” one of them shouted, struggling against Bakugo’s thrashing. 

“Of- fucking- course, it’s not, but I’ll be fine outside!” the blonde hero screamed, the heroes- despite outnumbering him- could only hold him down on the spot that was far enough they wouldn’t be fatally injured, but still too close to the range of which they could be hit by flying debris and injured pretty bad.

“What do you mean, Sir?” another one questioned, “that building could blow up, it’s an apartment building so there’s a chance of one of the water heaters exploding. That could kill anyone.”

The rest of the world seemed to numb for Bakugo. Everything always went quiet before the storm.

Bakugo had to watch as the building exploded just like the other heroes had said. 

Bakugo had to watch as the event that most likely costed him the love of his live’s life unfolded in front of him.

He had to watch as all his light in the world shrived to nothing but ash and debris. A part of him still had hope despite the burning hole in his being. 

Bakugo tugged himself out of the heroes’ grasps, running towards the pile of broken concrete. Your quirk should’ve saved you somehow. In some way, it did something. That was probably what happened, right?

Bakugo’s being was shaking as he dug, pushing chunks of broken walls off. He had no idea where you were, but he’d find you. Finally, the blonde saw a piece of your costume, he moved more debris until he was able to uncover your limp body.

You were already gone.

Bakugo hand quivered as he moved hair out of your face. “Y-Y/n...” things were getting blurry, “Y/n, wake up,” the blonde pleaded. 

This couldn’t be happening. This was some cruel joke you were pulling to get back at him for something he did, probably. 

Bakugo’s breath was quickening in an unhealthy fashion, “W-Wake up, you damn-” it was like bitter weights filled Bakugo’s mouth as he lacked the ability to think about anything other than your name. “Y/n?!” he began to shake you a little.

You had so much more stuff left to do. So much to do together. Bakugo’s jaw clenched as he held you closer to him. His breath hitched, it felt like he was being stabbed in the stomach repeatedly. 

This couldn’t be real. It couldn’t be.

This was some cruel joke. Maybe even a dream. He really wanted it to be.

...

Bakugo woke up. He was sweating and his lungs hurt, he was breathing quick but he refused to open his eyes.

He didn’t want to take in reality. He might’ve been forced to do that if he did open his eyes.

A feathery touch to his cheek made him flinch. Prying his eyes open as he was unable to understand what was going on this very moment. “Hey, Bub,” your soft, just over a whisper voice cooed, “It’s your birthday!” you giggled, sitting upright on the bed besides him.

Bakugo felt the warmth invade his chest, only slightly this time as you continued, “I know you don’t want to wake up right now, but Mina, and the boys will be over later in the morning.” You glowed, your cheeks slightly flushed from how happy you were for a birthday that wasn’t even yours as you continued to rake your hands through Bakugo’s ash blonde locks.

Bakugo grunted when he felt his lips turn upwards. Not wanting you to see, he moved to bury his head in your lap, eliciting a giggle from you, as you continued to stroke his hair.

When he wrapped his arms around you somehow despite the position your were in, you scoffed playfully. “I woke you up for a reason, silly,” you admitted, ignoring Bakugo’s grunt of protest when you began to move to get up, “Please, Bub? I wanted to show you something before I go,” you pleaded.

Begrudgingly, Bakugo let you go and only after a second or two that you got up, he did too, following you to the piano. He scoffed with a smirk, crossing his arms as he leaned on the wall nearby. That piano was something you bought completely out of impulse, promising you’d learn, but the only thing you did learn was Hot Cross Buns. It was more like furniture to look at, only there for the aesthetic but never actually played.

You tucked a piece of hair behind your ear as you positioned yourself to play.

Bakugo thought you looked angelic at that moment, but he was sure that the sounds you were about to make weren’t.

However, the ash blonde stood corrected as you played ‘Happy Birthday’ in a tune that wasn’t simple, but rather more than just the basic keys involved. Some of the noted dragged in to each other in a nice harmony, while some of the others were short and quick but worked perfectly nonetheless. The sound was actually elegant, light, and beautiful, some more words Bakugo would be able to describe you with, even if he didn’t say it.

Your voice- also light and airy- worked well with the piano, maybe you could’ve been a singer if you tried that route instead of becoming a hero.

It was now that Bakugo realized, you simply were his light. You didn’t just cause him to feel that light and warm feeling, it was that you lit his life up and gave it warmth.

It was when the song came to a close, Bakugo felt something was off.

“Happy Birthday, my love,” was all he heard before everything went dark. Bakugo, was most definitely awake. So, why did it go dark?

An overwhelming feeling of dread filled Bakugo to the core.

It was freezing, as he had already broken into a cold sweat. He was nauseous.

Bakugo reached around for a light switch, his pupils dilating smaller when he was blinded by the artificial lights in the ceiling.

He caught sight of the clock on the wall.

3 am.

It mocked him, being awake at this hour for no reason at all.

Bakugo dragged himself to bed, dropping onto it without bothering to pull the blankets up despite his cold body.

He shut his eyes.

...

This time the ash blonde was woken up by a series of loud knocks. Strangely, the knocks were not from his front door, but rather right outside his bedroom door. Bakugo groaned, reaching around the bed for warmth, the blanket had fallen somewhere too far for him to find without opening his eyes, so his next source of warmth would be you.

Sleep weighed down his eyes just as much as his mind. He reached so far across the bed he only reached the other edge of it. You weren’t there.

Not anymore.

The thought sent Bakugo’s eyes opening in panic. Where were you? Why weren’t you there?

Another pang of pain went through his chest at the realization. 

You weren’t ever gonna be there, never again. You were cold, flashes of your lifeless e/c eyes appeared in Bakugo’s brain, hitting him with a wave of nausea. A strangled sob came from the ash blonde’s throat as fresh tears began to fall from his crimson eyes. 

He was never going to hold you in his arms, he was never going to eat your sometimes shitty food, he was never going to see you again. Bakugo would never feel that same warm and light feeling again.

He couldn’t breath. It felt like bile was scratching up the inside of his throat. The knocks had stopped, most likely after the loud sobs filled the room. Instead, it slowly opened, revealing Kirishima with a deep frown on his face. 

He got inside the house with a spare key you’d given him, but he tried to give Bakugo at least a little bit of space by knocking. It was clear he wouldn’t be able to do that.

The words that left Kirishima’s mouth in a sad attempt to get his usually standoffish best friend to stop crying went unheard by the blond who had his face buried in his face.

The rest of the Bakusquad- now turned into the ‘take care of Bakugo squad,’ was waiting in the living room, a solemn atmosphere weighed down on them as they were forced to listen to yet another round of sobs from their normally angry dead friend.

It had been a full week since you died, and Bakugo still felt in denial when he dreamed of you. It was his only peaceful time. He had barely eaten any of the food the Bakusquad had brought him, but it was enough to keep him alive.

They all knew in the back of their minds that Bakugo hadn’t known it’d been a week. He was on an emotionless autopilot when he was crying. Not only did your death hurt the Bakusquad horribly, but the state it left on of their other friends in. He wasn’t even himself anymore without you, just a mere shell.

Kirishima sighed, he was gonna save his birthday surprise until he felt a little bit better, or at least until Bakugo stopped sobbing, but the redhead couldn’t see when that would be.

He unlocked Bakugo’s phone, knowing the password because of you, and pulled up a video from a hidden file. Bakugo didn’t spend enough time on his phone for him to notice a file he never made.

Bakugo was still crying when he heard your voice, the fact he’d never hear it again made him confused. Then he realized it was the video on his phone.

Bakugo shut himself up upon hearing you, still crying, just quiet.

“Okay!” you grinned at the camera, a smirk on your face. “It’s currently... March 29...?” you questioned, checking your phone for confirmation and nodding when you knew you were correct.

You continued, looking back up, “Today is day one (1) of learning piano for my dear Katsu!” you grinned, a ghost of a smile prodded at Bakugo’s mouth, but it never showed, “He got mad when i bought the piano out of impulse- so I’m learning so he’ll owe me like a million kisses!” you proudly proclaimed, eyes sparkling, so different from the last image of them, forever burned in Bakugo’s brain. 

You stretched, “I guess I should be talking to the camera like I talk to you, so- uh- I’ll do that?” you giggled, “Okay! Back to the task at hand! I want to learn a bunch of songs eventually but for now I’ll focus on Happy Birthday and maybe your favorite song?”

Watching you do all this made the tears run dry, you really wanted Bakugo to be happy on his Birthday. 

Bakugo’s red eyes remained glued to the screen before the last part, “I know it’s not your birthday right now, but that’s when you’ll be seeing this. So, Happy Birthday, my love!” you beamed. 

You’d done all this, spent all that time learning piano for him and yet you never got to play it for him in real life.

Flashes of last night came pouring back in. Was it a dream? That same single phrase echoed in his mind like a mantra, “Happy Birthday, my love.” That was what you said to him in the dream- or was it real life?

Bakugo couldn’t tell.

He as much as he wanted to be happy on his birthday like you’d wanted, he just couldn’t do it. Not when the only thing he really wanted was for you to be alive. Not when he just wanted you to be okay. Now you weren’t, Bakugo wasn’t okay.

He wasn’t sure he ever would be.

Was it so much to ask for you to be with him on his birthday? He didn’t even want cake or present. Everything would’ve meant nothing to him if you were here. You were his world, his everything. Now without you, there was nothing but gray.

You were gone, and that left Bakugo broken, empty, and cold.

[fuck-customers]

So here's a real long and real angry fuck coworkers/managers so hang on tight (tldr at the end).

I work in fast food, which sucks a lot, but it's a high school job yknow. Well the place I work at is often heralded for it's outstanding customer service, which includes having people take the drive thru orders outside. And often take orders outside in illegally hot/cold temps, to the point where the weather app/website has been blocked on our order taking ipads, to make it harder to call out the managers for their bullshit, but whatever.

So I'm outside today, and it's late May in the south, so it's hot as balls out, probs around 90, so technically people outside are supposed to rotate every 10 minutes. So my coworker, J, and I are sent outside to take orders, and we do have fans but they literally don't fuckin work, so that's real fun. After about 20 minutes, J and I both ask for some water, and the shift leader who's wearing a headset inside, M, does get someone to bring that to us. I told her where my cup was, and someone got it to fill with water, but doesn't pour out the soda that was previously in my cup, and just fills the top half with water, and brings out my delicious warm watered down soda. Which I'm not gonna drink, that's disgusting, so I just resign myself to thirst.

About half an hour after this, J finally asks for his rotation, which I'd been thinking about. M inside says to give her a second, they're busy, but she'll get it in a couple minutes. I figure I'll let him get rotated, wait a bit, and then ask someone to come outside for me as well. I settle on waiting 10 minutes. I do ask for some proper water from whoever comes outside, as that'll make it more bearable. 

Yet the replacement never comes. J and I continue to take orders out in the heat for about another half hour, complaining to one another. Finally, he calls over the headset, mentioning his rotation. M simply says "okay", and another employee with a headset, B says that they'll get to it, and stop whining.

At this point, I'm starting to feel really sick from the heat, as in I can barely breathe, I'm having to stop and catch my breath in between every sentence I say to a customer, and my chest hurts. I just really want some damn water, honestly.

Finally, Js headset battery starts to die, and he calls for a replacement. A new coworker, S (sorry for so many letters), says she'll bring him one, and about 5 minutes later when she walks out, we both ask her for water. Thank God, she brings some back for us, and J asks her about his rotation again, and she tells him "We have no one to rotate you with", which is bullshit, because she could rotate, B could rotate, multiple others inside could rotate, they just don't wanna come outside, when J and I have been outside for close to 2 hours, which is like really illegal lmao.

So J says again over the headset that he wants his damn rotation, and he's pretty pissed now, understandably. My dumb ass, trying to be the tough guy, insists I'm fine now, even though it's hard to speak from wheezing. This time though, none of the original people respond.

Soon after though, the night drive thru lead comes outside, to check on J and I, and after I tell her what's up she starts apologizing profusely, saying she hasn't been wearing a headset, she didn't know what had been happening, she had no clue we'd been asking for an hour and a half for assistance we hadn't received. Less than 5 minutes later, both J and I were back inside, with B and S on our spots, and M nowhere to be found inside.

I go to take a spot inside and have a really rough coughing fit, can't talk, can't breathe, etc. The drive thru lead, L, tells me to go sit in the back for a bit, which I gratefully accept. At this point I'm sunburnt, my throat aches, and I'm shaking violently. A few minutes later L comes back and starts apologizing again, saying she feels awful, saying she wished she was wearing a headset. I love L, shes a super sweet manager, and I know she's really upset. She said it was bullshit that we didn't have people to rotate, and that if she'd been listening, she would've gotten it done ASAP. Then I tell her a shift leader, M, had a headset on, and she got mad, mad that M abandoned J and I outside, and says she'll talk with her. M has always liked me, but I figured that was about to change. L left for a smoke break, and I caught my breath in the back for a bit before going to take a spot up front.

Later, when B and S came inside, B was bitching about how he "had to be in a position that wasn't even his because some people have to complain". This is about being inside, because although he was scheduled on an inside position, it's the position that rotates with order takers, and he's a little bitch. I told him that if he'd taken the rotation when J first asked, he wouldn't have to have been outside for as long as he was, because if J and I hadn't been worked to heatstroke, we would've been switched back.

M walks over, hearing our bickering, and immediately like "oh it doesn't matter now we're all fine now haha" and I'm still p mad so I say "Yes, but I certainly still feel dehydrated". M starts to try to defend herself, saying she hadn't heard us asking for water or rotations or anything, but says she knew that my first drink got fucked up, but apparently didn't try to fix it??? But still, her defense is bullshit, because she would respond with an "okay" or "I'm working on it" whenever J tried to remind her. B immediately backs her up, saying he didn't hear anything, even though he too responded, because he's a suck up. I just ignore them and keep working on whatever I'm doing, trying not to lose my cool on this incompetent shift leader who literally just got back from 6 months of not working bc she's at school.

After we've closed I'm talking to L in the back about the night, and she's close to tears apologizing to me still, and I feel terrible, because it's obviously not her fault, and she already gets shit from the other managers about the way she does her job. I tell her what M said about "not hearing" J and i, and she says when she talked to M privately, she claimed the same thing. Honestly, that makes me angrier than the whole being abandoned thing, because you're a leader, sis. Own up to your mistake and apologize and I would've moved past it and not typed out this whole thing. J was also super pissed, but M kept telling him that he should be over it now.

Another thing M did at the same time was told J and I not to "reset" to the speakers when we've reached the end of the drive thru lane, to allow the orders to process and not keep inundating the kitchen. It's a basic drive thru protocol to reset when we're backed up, to try and keep things smooth, and keep food in order. M yelled at J and I and told us to keep taking orders and not "stand around" at the speakers. Apparently she gave the same orders to B and S when they were outside, and L heard and told them they had to reset, it was the rules. M then went outside and told them not to listen to L, that she was in charge, and that they weren't allowed to reset. M is a shift leader just back from school, L is the night drive thru lead, aka Ms superior. L was, understandably, pretty pissed, especially since a lot of other managers don't respect her either. Work is a shit show, and I'm sunburnt.

 TL;DR - Coworker and I left outside in 90 degree weather for 2 hours, I without water, other coworkers bitch about having to switch out with us, leader denies hearing our request for water or breaks, same leader goes directly against superior managers orders, I'm sunburnt and pissed off.

[kabutoraiger]

usually i type up “final thoughts” posts like, immediately after i finish a show. usually i’ve already made up my mind about how i feel, i guess. but kr build is... a tough one to wrap my head around.

i went into build needing it to be really good. for me personally, rider hasn’t been truly great since fourze. i’ve definitely liked certain seasons in between. but i haven’t loved them. and so this was me kinda placing all my hopes on this 1 show to tell me that rider still had the potential to be incredible.

and... it was, in some ways. mainly in terms of character - it’s been a while since i’ve loved a main rider OR a secondary as much as i love our best match boys. their relationship is something i hadn’t realized how much we’d been missing in this franchise. we hadn’t had that powerful main/secondary romance fated connection since... decade, i guess, and nothing quite like ryuga & sento since kagami & tendou. even then, there’s only so far i can take that comparison. bc ryusen really is pretty incomparable to the rest of heisei rider relationships. build has a lot of showa leanings but it’s the main duo that reminds me the most of the olden days.

i mean tell me this isn’t some build lads dialogue right here:

and the rest of the cast has so many other standouts - sawa, who despite being severely underutilized is still wildly interesting and unlike any lady in rider in the past few years. gentoku and his several weird phases each of them iconic in their own way. evolt, who entertained me more than any central villain in rider ever has. (thank you papa dan the capitalist man for paving the road for more genuinely fun big bads. your contribution was invaluable)

soichi. though why i love him so much i’ll get into in a moment.

the way the relationships & connections are woven together in build is astonishing to me. the way misora’s childhood interests informed the fullbottles (ok, sure, a lot of That was half-assed as far as explanations go, but on the base level there are some affecting ideas in there). the way the best match ft. her favorite animal then named sento. the way sento & ryuga were seemingly destined to meet from early on. the way sento was built by evolt, and the way that was all slowly erased as he was rebuilt by people who loved him. the way evolt’s manipulation of his “proteges” so to speak mirrors nanba and his “children.” all these themes of being put on a preset path by some dark or terrible power or person, and having to fight to free yourself from it.

there are so many beautifully complex things going on in build. the ties into real world politics. the way the pandora box doesn’t turn people berserker violent but instead makes them lose their human empathy, makes them scheming and cruel. gives them imperialist notions of the ultimate satisfaction being war and conquest. the blatant “here, see for yourself, kids” about why wars happen - not for the greater good but because people in power want them to - and how innocent people will always get caught in the crossfire and be turned into little more than weapons to be disposed of at someone’s whim.

there is so much happening in build.

there is too much happening in build.

in the end, it throws so much at the screen that it was never all going to stick. you could make entire shows out of minor parts of kr build. the nanba children, ryuga’s origins, vernage and the dead civilization of fcking mars!! these could all be entire premises on their own. in build, these things are almost an afterthought. it’s dizzying, at best. frustrating, at worst. even moreso when you consider that clearly mr muto needed to burn time somehow before the endgame, which is the only explanation i can come up with for the collecting lost bottles nonsense and all that ungodly boring shit with sento’s dad.

how do you look at this show you’ve made, which has about 50 incredibly interesting ideas too many, and decide to ignore all of those in favor of dad drama, toku’s favorite dull as dirt oft-recycled plot concept? it’s mind boggling to me. and to think that time could’ve been spent deepening characters & relationships, too. letting sawa talk to utsumi. doing Anything with utsumi to establish some kind of consistent personality, to make us actually care when he’s revealed to have technically died in the human sense and had his free will stripped from him many episodes prior. letting misora & kazumi have a normal goddamn conversation for once. treating misora as a person with wants of her own and not just a cute little prop to stand around and cry over others.

letting soichi wake the fuck up!!

the intriguing tragedy of soichi is something that i kept hoping and wishing that build might address. being trapped inside your own body for a decade, watching someone pose as you, and with such a spot-on impression that no one notices at all. the helplessness, knowing that this entity is plotting something terrible for everyone on earth and just. not being able to do a thing about it. but the emotions most of all - what did he feel for sento & ryuga & sawa while he was trapped? was it real, if he had no say in it, if he could hear them but they couldn’t hear him? and what did he really feel towards evolt, his only actual 2-sided conversation partner for 10 whole years? how well did he know him? what wild knowledge of evolt’s weaknesses could he have imparted if he’d just WOKEN UP!!

and now, with the ending, it’s like it never happened at all. i suppose the idea going around is that someday they might remember. but that’s just... so nebulous. it’s not a merge of worlds if one is just gone. i’d hoped so much that certain outcomes might have carried over, just with different causes. gentoku’s father still being dead, for example. in the new world he wouldn’t have been killed by evolt but instead in, say, a political assassination.

it just all feels too simple. all that pain and strife just wiped away. maybe it’s hypocritical to complain about this as a ryuki fan, but. in ryuki, resets were established as a thing that could happen. and via the setup of the rider battle, what other option was there to end the series satisfactorily?

here in build, we were told that the worlds would combine, and that evolt would never have existed. but evolt was not the singular source of villainy in all the universe. this show which took so many thought-provoking risks early on is now apparently telling me that in a world without evolt, humanity is totally at peace. nanba was never affected by the pandora box’s light. he was just goddamn evil, because sometimes people are. i loved that about his portrayal. in a world with no war to profit off of, this man should by all accounts probably be trying to start one himself.

but that’s not the world we see in the final ep of build. instead, everyone is simply normal and happy, the terrible things that shaped them in another reality seemingly having never occurred at all, even the things (re: nanba children) that by all accounts still should have.

it’s a disappointment. it feels like the easy way out.

but at the same time holy shit that ryuga & sento romance ending and the idea of the others even just potentially getting their memories back is like my IDEAL tropey shit i am so into that stuff oh my god dude!!! i cried so fucking hard just thinking about it!!

... so. yeah. conflicted might be the word for all of this.

i wish build had been better. i’m not sure what exactly happened, in that 2nd half. rewrites, i guess? the command that it now had to be compliant with the setting of the next rider, and so whoops time to do a little reality smushing & for some reason throw out all the other plot points? demands to toss in even more fucking merch like it didn’t have enough collectibles and upgrades already, good lord, even kids can’t possibly keep up with toy schedules like this, can they, like by the time you convince your parents to buy you [x] it’s already goddamn obsolete in the show --

but it’s hard to deny that build affected me in a big way. i got tired of it, near the end. but i’m glad i watched it all the way through. and i’ll never forget the absolute euphoria i felt watching, like, ep 12 to ep 30 or so. that stretch was a highlight of this entire franchise for me. it was like i was watching something made specifically for me. it was beautiful.

beautiful just like the suits in this show. damn. 

if only sawa had gotten one.

[circumswoop]

perfect, really easy

I hope I can still do this. Write on my phone. Write at all. I still have a messy novel that’s really more of a deconstructed memoir buried in a google doc and I think I have a heart buried somewhere nearby too. The pilot Ben and I are trying to make has been slowed by technical misfortune, substance abuse, and literal distance. I was told from a neutral corner that my dialogue, which is my main consultancy, is too cerebral and will make the show Hard to Sell. If u gave me cash up front, I would be willing to make it dumb. If it’s spec only, I think the smartness of it swings a kind of bellum against my own boredom. It is, indirectly, a show abt a woman who’s turning 30, has two boyfriends, and is constantly thinking up ways to avoid both of them. 

I’m in a rental car with two friends in the middle of New Mexico. Scheduled to go to Marfa two weeks ago, we got into some leftover coke one of us had, mere hours out from our flight, and then nobody woke up on time. Hence the rental. This has got me fucked up, the mind-blowing lack of quality control that went into this. Who books a flight and doesn’t show up? Who does coke and then oversleeps? I now have credit toward a future flight, to a destination I can’t imagine, bc the future rn is the only thing I truly believe to be fake news. Where shd I go next–home for christmas? A beach where the sand looks and feels like broken glass? I want to breathe into a balloon til it turns into another planet where depressing inadequacy is not so elemental. I feel like a farmboy who cannot get all his chores done. This year and the whole headlong rush of this epoch toward certain death by profit cannot be sensationalized enough, and yet sensation is almost all it consists of. An indefinite, generalized body feeling is what we are all turning into as news and politics hammer us with detail. All hammer, no sickle. In the time it took to write the last paragraph, which also involved a lot of staring out the window while eating Taco Bell to be honest with you, we crossed from New Mexico into Texas. Welcome to Texas here’s your white hood. Welcome to Texas the state that killed Kennedy. Actually it was a supreme leftist who killed the centrist Kennedy, but the John Birch fascists get all the credit. Such is our myth of Texas that we empower their racists with more historical thought and influence than they ever exerted over their most famous export which is assassination.

I am in Marfa for the unaccustomed luxury of time spent with friends in an unfamiliar place.

At the start of summer I wrote in an email “even better than love’s confessions are its permissions”. According to the Invisible Committee, much of being a radical is refusal of the world. As abstention makes me feel more miserable not less, I can’t relate. Maybe the reason I can’t go full radical, or am fatally reluctant to, is I like being able to say yes a lot. Anytime I feel desolate or estranged, I get kitted out and go be seen in public even if I don’t talk to anyone. Which I usually don’t. My friend Chloe says she does this too. Love only makes sense to me as a radical act. Much of what passes for functional love in this culture is really just a bunch of hyperextended reactions to institutionalized sadness, but lots of luck finding anything better. I’d like to beat bourgeois coupling unconscious as much as any self-made cynic, but when you compare American marriage to, say, American corrections, both of which are needed systems lost for good in insane blears of greed and paranoia, abolition may not be the answer. It’s like, you can fix it only by starting over which is not the same thing as abolition. Abortion maybe, bc you can always try again if u want. Habitually getting mixed up with ppl already in committed relationships is probably just emotional vampirism. Some call it looting, I call it eating. As a marginal figure slightly on the spectrum with anxiety and repression who can still somehow lie and flirt and manipulate at the executive level all while having no interpersonal or socioeconomic prospects that I don’t want anyway, I am a really good last chance for someone with a probably basic, art-damaged kind of life. Married women always speak of their husband figures in slightly awed tones like they can’t believe how lucky they got, like the man is good in all caps and would instantly unravel at the slightest seam in the stocking. Like if he ever caught them stepping out via some OPSEC mistake they made and not even by his own subatomic awareness level, he’d be demolished simply by never having had anything go wrong for him before. Husband is such a specific kind of person-state, grown and trained, and if I were to ever try to be one i would have to hack the shit out of it–although I’m not convinced they’re any less toxic just bc they’re more high-functioning. Meanwhile the wives or wives-in-waiting pretend not to know they’re already starring in a commercial for how much sweetness and light and GOOD do not fulfil. In short, this is the kind of lawlessness that permits radical love but briefly, before turning again to refusal–the refusal to tamper with status quo, to make any kind of permanent alteration. If it’s secretly very trendy to decry structures the existence of which you not so secretly benefit from, what’s worse is to treat those structures more like fabrics to loiter in or on, or touch longingly. Essentialism doesn’t rend.

If you fall in love with someone you’re not really allowed to, and then that love goes mutual, you’re at least tagging yourself in a picture of paradise. But eventually you’ll be asked to leave. And since paradise is just a picture anyway, your image will feel decayed and exposed. Now it’s 2 days later and I’m back in New Mexico. Despite being a dreamlike Klono-state of pleasant denial, Marfa is still in Texas, the roguest of states. We drove near the Mexican border thru light so splendid the terrain looked recently refreshed. We put our hands in natural running water and looked at millipedes stranded on rocks. A thunderstorm diffused somewhere off to the side. Every picture arrives on your phone instantly airbrushed. The sky dies in pinwheels of color every evening and then reblooms like it never happened, sunsets and sunrises as breakdowns and recoveries scaled to look like natural events. Texas is beautiful but it is not art. Drive-thru banks, courthouse annexes, touchless car washes, parked backhoes, so many f150s.

Halcyon Digest, the Deerhunter record that didn’t define a decade but definitely translated it, was on repeat all summer. So we were playing that as we barreled thru arroyos and past rock formations so intricate they looked cut with string, and I remembered a night earlier in this terrible terrible summer when Ben and Andrea and I were doing coke and playing dominos at like 3am and the song Helicopter was on–that’s the one abt the Russian fashion hopeful murdered by sex traffickers. Its lyrics are too beautiful to edit so I will not reprint them here but I remember as Bradford sang “I have minimal needs/and now they are thru with me” something resetting as I looked at the faces of my friends, like a key of exquisite sadness being turned but I did not know in what lock. I’m certain it wasn’t just a drug reference, and I’m certain I won’t realize exactly what it was for years. 

On the 10 out of town, just before the Prada store, there is a zeppelin, part of the Tethered Aerostat Radar System, used by border patrol. Its role is surveillance. Unmanned, it hangs perpetually off the ground, secured by a single cable, from which it can reach altitudes of 15,000 feet, a white bulge of eerie focus, as various homing info scatters and beams. If you ran for your life, this is the thing you would imagine hovering over you, just out of frame. The kind of thing that knows it doesn’t have to hurry to get you. So run. Maybe I can still do it.