#longreads

[atavist]

His mother got duped by a man who claimed to love her—so he headed to Nigeria to find the con artist who broke her heart.   The Romance Scammer on My Sofa. The latest incredible true story from The Atavist.

[longreads]

In a new Longreads essay, Arkansas writer Jordan P. Hickey writes about a Palestinian American chef who honors her family's roots and culinary traditions through her pop-up bakery and cooking classes

And while these aren’t the most complex dishes to grace the text thread, they are the most remarkable, the most joyful, because they are the most improbable. They’re celebrated not because they’re beautiful, but because it means the family ate well that day—because they made something out of nothing.

Read Jordan’s essay, “The Expanding Table: Honoring Palestinian Culinary Tradition in Arkansas,” on Longreads.

[hopeymchope]

Hope's Peak and... Whatever is Going on with the "Talents" They Study

Hope's Peak Academy! Where only the greatest talents are invited to focus on the areas in which they excel (and to be studied by the staff).

The people working at Hope's Peak Academy in Danganronpa (whether staff, scientists, or Steering Committee) are pretty consistently presented as being dedicated to researching and understanding the nature of talent. They talk like talent is this hazy concept that only certain people somehow possess, so they're out to crack the code of its mysterious origins.

We have top men working on the origins of talent right now. .... TOP. MEN.

Now, I know we all eventually learn just how much of a shitshow HPA was and how corrupt its primary operators were. But the evidence of their crimes is mostly focused on how they take their interest in "Talent" much too far. So long as it furthered the study of "talent," human experimentation, endangering the lives of students, and much, MUCH more were totally on the table as far as HPA's Steering Committee was concerned. Which is very bad, yes.

However! I think the issues with HPA's intentions ran even deeper. The people in charge weren't just corrupt; they were also stupid. And this is evidenced by many of the "talents" they identified and researched.

See, Hope's Peak makes no real distinction between the types of talent they identify and accept into their walls. Even though there's a MASSIVE DIFFERENCE between the talent of someone like Junko Enoshima vs. that of someone like Fuyuhiko Kuzuryuu. Y'know?

(I strongly doubt I'm the first to observe how bullshit some of these "talents" are. But since I can't find any other conversations about this on Tumblr, I'm going to move forward with making my own commentary. Sorry?)

BTW, consider this: If Komaeda were somehow born earlier and was an adult by the time the 77th Class entered HPA? He could've easily been one of the staff members putting Hajime into that metal coffin.

In descending order of "I can see why they were interested" to "WTF is this," here are the four core types of Super High School-Level "Talents" that Hope's Peak Academy welcomes within its hallowed halls:

(DISCLAIMER: I include V3 students as some of the examples cited below. YES, I know they don't attend Hope's Peak in their game's main storyline. However, they attend Hope's Peak in both UTDP and DRS. That's good enough for me; you can always ignore those examples if you disagree.)

CATEGORY (A) Talents that seem to come innaately/naturally to those who have them. These are either your wunderkind types, or they otherwise gained their talent seemingly overnight. — (e.g., Yasuhiro Hagakure, Junko Enoshima, Nagito Komaeda, Miu Iruma)

My Thoughts: Okay, SURE. I get why you'd want to study how this can happen and where these kinds of skills come from. No notes.

CATEGORY (B) Talents that are developed over a lifetime of practice and/or hard work. Most Hope's Peak students we know about seem like they slot into this category. — (e.g., Nekomaru Nidai, Mikan Tsumiki, Kaede Akamatsu)

My Thoughts: My first reaction is "What is there to study/research about this?" Do the Hope's Peak staff not know that working on something for a long time can make you get way better at that thing? Y'all reminding me of Hajime in the now-classic @reddpenn comic where he is legitimately shocked to learn people can gain skills through practice. :P But HOLD UP; let's give them the benefit of the doubt here for a sec. Perhaps Hope's Peak's personnel are wondering why only some practitioners of these talents can reach such a noteworthy level of skill by the time they're teenagers? That's the most reasonable conclusion to draw about the inclusion of these students.

CATEGORY (C) Talents that are only noteworthy because these students demonstrated some above-average skill relative to their age or because they garnered attention through one specific incident. In other words: These individuals aren't nearly as exceptional as those in the previous two categories of talent, but at least they seem pretty decent at what they're being identifed for? — (e.g., Mahiru Koizumi, Shuichi Saihara, Kaito Momota)

My Thoughts: I hope I'm being clear enough about what I mean by this category. But if not, I'll try to clarify: Shuichi was supposedly recognized for his talent solely because he caught one murderer. Mahiru's photography is almost solely portrait photography and therefore not particularly noteworthy to most photographers; she's just pretty good at the one thing she happens to do. (And in truth, her mom's reputation probably played a role in her own Hope's Peak invite.) Kaito being able to pass a basic Astronaut screening exam at a younger age than is usually allowed is neat, but it's not like he's been an exceptional trainee or even gone into space; he's just the "Ultimate Astronaut" because he cheated his way into taking a test early and did surprisingly well at it. Maybe we're meant to think "Oh, Kizakura or whoever could somehow tell these students have the innate potential to be truly spectacular" or somesuch?? But that interpretation requires putting a lot of faith in this questionable-ass system (and the one HPA scout we're familiar with — a known alcoholic). Do these people REALLY demand further study? Is there ACTUALLY anything to be gained by learning about their "talents"??? I... can't see it, y'all. I don't get it.

CATEGORY (D) Talents that aren't even really a talent at all, they're just a position/title someone gained by being born. — (e.g., Fuyuhiko Kuzuryuu, Sonia Nevermind, Keebo)

LIVE HINATA REACTION

My Thoughts: Okay, so MAYBE Sonia was recognized by Hope's Peak as the the absolute pinnacle of refinement and royal behavior or something? But I kind of doubt it based on her actual behavior (and weird interest in serial killers) in DR2. And there's no way in hell that Fuyuhiko is the baddest-ass Yakuza, even among teenagers. You scratch that kid slightly. and you get the babychild undernearth. And Keebo? His talent is HIS OWN EXISTENCE. His "talent" is actually just his creator's talent, FFS. He's not even "High School"-AGED in reality; he's just programmed to operate at a mental capacity of approximately teenage-level. So ultimately, I'm asking: What is there to STUDY about any of these?! These aren't even TALENTS, frankly! These have got me wondering if there's some other reason to include these particular students... like perhaps Hope's Peak wants to extend their tentacles into the power/influence afforded by Novoselic royalty/the Yakuza? Or perhaps they wish the leverage Keebo's A.I. technology in their own pursuit of creating of an "Ultimate Talent"? Point is: THESE 'TALENTS' ARE SEVERELY SUS. (I have to wonder if the larger public and Reserve Coursers ever complained about how sketchy some of this shit sounds?? SURELY they did.)

ADDENDUM/NOTE: There are also those who hover between the various categories I've cited. This includes those who might be a mixture of two categories, or those whose background is hazy enough that it's not clear whether they always had their talent (A) or developed it over time (B). But I think the above list encompasses everyone we know about, either in one or multiple categories.

CONCLUSION: Hope's Peak is so vague and weird about what they define as "talents" that it's tough to say what on Earth they believe they're studying over there. Because the methodology they were employing for identifying these talents is super loose, they're inviting over SOME fascinating subjects right alongside a bunch of teenagers who... really can't reveal much of anything about anything?

How did Junko Enoshima learn to easily analyze the patterns all around her to the point that she was able to accurately predict most outcomes? GREAT question! You may genuinely be able to unravel something about inborn skillsets and unusual brain development from such a case.

How did Mahiru Koizumi become a great photographer? Uhhh, she observed some stuff from her mom and just tried a decent amount of portraits, I suppose. But she's not even that amazing frankly, she ain't taking any award-winning pictures or using any particular artistry. She's just good at smiling portraits. That's it. You ain't gonna learn shit from this.

How did Fuyuhiko become the Ultimate Yakuza? Because YOU decided he was! And that was just because of his inherited leadership role! He has NO special talent, wtf are you idiots doing?!?!

ANYWAY, that should cover all of the Hope's Peak students we've ever me—

Oh, right. There's ONE weird half-exception to this list, which I guess I'll explain for anyone who wants to be extracirricular about this topic.

BONUS! Outlier Case: Makoto Naegi (in DR1 only)

My Thoughts: In the original Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, the player/viewer/reader is made to believe that Makoto Naegi possesses no talent at all. Instead, Naegi was merely this year's winner of the annual drawing at Hope's Peak, and THAT IS IT. He was just drawn from a proverbial hat, and his presence is just a randomized factor. And SURE, by the end of the game/manga/anime, he's declared the "Ultimate Hope," but it's not like he was brought into the school based on that talent, so that's not particularly relevant. What I'm saying is simply this: DR1-era Naegi is the only known Hope's Peak student who doesn't fit into the above four categories. ............ Though this was later retconned, of course. Stories such as Makoto Naegi's Worst Day Ever (which came out alongside the first release of DR2, a mere two years after DR1 first hit PSP) and Danganronpa 3 would state that Naegi always possessed some unpredictable form of Komaeda-style inborn "luck" even if he wasn't necessarily aware of it. Which slots him into category (A). AS SUCH, he was only an outlier for literally THE FIRST INSTALLMENT OF THE SERIES. And since the first installment didn't really delve as much into the sketchy, obsessive ways the Hope's Peak scientists chose to study their roster of "talents," his outlier nature isn't really relevant anyway. I don't feel any need to justify "Makoto Naegi as portrayed in 2010-2011 continuity" for his inclusion in the class roster.

..........................but if I DID have to do that, I'd say including him among the students makes him the Control Group. :P

[powpowhammer]

Suddenly, the ship began to shudder. Hirai got to his feet, found he could barely stand, and staggered out of his cabin, grasping the handrail as he pulled himself up the narrow stairway to the bridge. “Engine trouble?” Hirai asked the captain, who’d already checked and replied that everything seemed normal. The ship continued to tremble. Looking out from the bridge, the sea appeared to be boiling.

They turned on the television. An emergency alert showed that an earthquake had struck 130 miles northeast of their location. The shaking finally stopped, and in the silence, Hirai’s mind leapt to what would come next: a tsunami.

Hirai feared these waves more than most people. He had grown up hearing the story of how one afternoon in 1923, his aunt felt the ground shake, swept up her two-year-old brother, and sprinted uphill to the cemetery, narrowly escaping floods and fires that killed over 100,000 people. That child became Hirai’s father, so he owed his existence to his aunt’s quick thinking. Now, he found himself in the same position. He knew tsunamis become dangerous when all the water displaced by the quake reaches shallow water and slows and grows taller. The Ocean Link, floating in less than 500 feet of water, was too shallow for comfort.

In the family tree of professions, submarine cable work occupies a lonely branch somewhere between heavy construction and neurosurgery. It’s precision engineering on a shifting sea using heavy metal hooks and high-tension lines that, if they snap, can cut a person in half. In Hirai’s three decades with Kokusai Cable Ship Company (KCS), he had learned that every step must be followed, no matter how chaotic the situation. Above all else, he often said, “you must always be cool."

[theknightmarket]

Okay uh...this is the first time I'm requesting any egos but I just have to. You're the best writer for them I've ever had the pleasure of reading from. So I'm thinking maybe some Yancy and reader (preferably if they're from Heist) pulling some shenanigans around Happy Trails and slowly Yancy realizing his feelings? The shenanigans can involve the guards, Yancy's friends, or even the warden!

"Came for the accent, stayed for the crisis."

In which Yancy and a convicted thief run their own April Fools' Day. 

TW: cursing

Pages: 20 – Words: 8,500

[Requests: OPEN]

The sounds coming from the corridor may have made any outsider think this was a theme park, which, while not all that different in context, was incorrect - if only for the fact that the rollercoasters, ring-toss games, and Ferris wheel were swapped out for sticky tables, rusty metal bars, and subpar plumbing. These may not have been mutually exclusive, but in Happy Trails Penitentiary, you would have better luck tracking down a perfectly innocent prisoner than a waffle. Or, for that matter, someone who wanted to be free. 

Happy Trails was notorious for being one of the only prisons in all of America that nobody wanted to leave. It wasn’t any different, there was still a fair amount of police brutality and a difficultly established hierarchy, but there was one thing that no other jail had that this one did. 

And that was not a something, but a someone: a young man who went by the name Yancy. 

Despite him having spent the majority of his life in a cell, nobody knew if that was his real name, or just a random thing someone had given him once. By the accent, he definitely wasn’t an Englishman, but that, too, was up to interpretation. Some said he was from Ohio, some said from Boston, but all agreed that it didn’t matter anymore. He was in Happy Trails Penitentiary, now, so who cared where he was born? 

Thus, this became his home. Yancy spent his days and nights in the confines of the walls, and he cherished the moments he spent with his friends, hell, family. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t leave, nor that his choices were limited in a lot of things, because he was with the people that he loved doing the things that he loved. It was a difficult task to imagine life outside, and it only sweetened the deal when you arrived. 

You knew next to nothing about prison-life when you first got kicked up the ass here, which, granted, was a lot more than he could say for your friend. You were a confusing pair, to say the least, but he wasn’t sure if you would adjust well. At first, admittedly, you didn’t; you picked fights and messed with the guards, and when your friend disappeared? Hell had no fury like you scorned. Yancy didn’t even know if you were still at the prison with how often you were chucked in solitary. 

Eventually, though, you settled down. You seemed to realize that this was where you were, and there was no changing that. You chilled out, got better, tried making conversation. Yancy was the first to welcome you properly, because he’d been where you were. A freshly-sixteen high school dropout was like early Christmas for the prisoners, until he found his group and made the place more homely. There was no denying the stray convicts who could make your life hard if you got on their bad side, but the vast majority were small time criminals who just didn’t want to leave. 

After your botched heist, you fit right in. 

And, yeah, you might be asking how this whole origin story resulted in yourself and Yancy getting chased down the hallway by the prison’s Warden, himself adorned in a pink afro, sunglasses, and the loudest shirt on the market. You weren’t exactly sure, either, but that didn’t stop you from squeezing Yancy’s hand and pulling him through a doorway. Your state-issued shoes clacked against tile, squeaking giving you away in a heartbeat. The sleeve of your jacket whipped past the Warden’s hand, and yet, against the prospect of being caught, a smile dashed across your face. It matched the one on Yancy’s mouth, soon to be interrupted by an accented laugh. 

You nearly let out a ‘woohoo’ in excitement, but you considered that too far, and you needed to catch your breath enough to get back to the Warden’s office. That thing was a fort right now, both of your faces were beet red from the running, amongst other reasons, and you were becoming awkwardly aware of your grip on Yancy’s hand. Getting caught was not an option, lest you wanted to face a month of solitary for this stunt – even though it was probably warranted. 

It all began at the very start of this morning when the sun barely peaked past your barred window and the guards had yet to wake everyone else up. You treasured this period, because it was the only time you were given free reign of what to do. Sure, during free time you had things to do, but you had to be doing things, whereas now was the perfect time to lay in bed, staring up at the top bunk and be at peace. A yawn broke the silence from that very place, but you considered the source to be the only thing that made a shorter rest worth it. 

“G’morning,” Yancy called sleepily. Even as early as this, his drawl was still present. 

Your response was more chirpy than usual, “Good morning, Yancy.”

His eyebrow’s rose unwittingly as he swung his legs over the side of your bed. “What’s got youse all hyped up?” He couldn’t think what made this day special. It wasn’t visitation day, it wasn’t Christmas, and it definitely wasn’t your birthday – so what was he missing? 

“Because,” you practically sang, strapping on your shoes and tying your jacket around your waist, “today is the first of April.”

Before Yancy’s feet could touch the ground, you secured your hands on his shoulders and grinned. He might have been scared had he not trusted you with his life, so he just returned the smile in appreciation of your mood and rolled up his own sleeves. 

For a second, you were confused. You didn’t expect much, maybe a laugh or a little sound of realization, but Yancy didn’t seem to know anything about what you were talking about. 

“April Fool’s Day,” you stated. 

His expression only shifted into concern. 

You, albeit overdramatically, gasped and moved your hands from his shoulders to cradle his jawline. “Yancy, have you never heard of April Fool’s?”

Not giving him time to respond, you assumed he hadn’t and knocked your forehead against his. With your eyes closed, you failed to notice the flush that exploded across his cheeks, the color blooming like a flower where your breath touched his skin. 

“What are we going to do with you,” you muttered, and by this time, Yancy’s entire face was beet red. He could say the same to you because this was not entirely out of character for you. You always had been touchy with him after becoming friends, and five months was enough time for this to be habit. 

He was stuck in this purgatory until you finally stepped back, not removing your hands however, and exclaimed, “You’re coming with me!” 

Bluntly, he replied, “What?”

“You’re coming with me.” Although you didn’t expand on that idea, you still took Yancy by the elbow and tugged him towards your corner. A while ago, you had designated the two available corners of the room for personal belongings, and yours had stayed concealed by a blanket for the past week. It had worried him slightly, but the guards were unperturbed, so he thought it fine to not ask any questions. Coming towards it now, though, he wished he had. 

“Prepare to be amazed,” you whispered, and you grabbed a corner of the fabric. 

In one, fluid movement, you ripped it away and threw it back onto your bed, revealing below what could only be described as an armada of materials. Yancy was stunned, and he stood completely still with his arms hanging limp for the next few seconds while he took in the pile. 

Multiple folded bedsheets made the foundation - some spotted, some plain, some covered in either blood or grenadine from the kitchen – followed by cans of neon paint and bags of fake moustaches on top. This, accompanied by a worrying number of handy tools, gave him pause and reason to ask, “Was’ all this for?”

Your grin grew manic in the short amount of time for you to remove a paint can without everything clattering to the ground. “This,” you lugged it to the desk, “is what we’ll need to enact the best pranks anyone could think of in a prison.” By the blank look on his face, Yancy still hadn’t a clue what you were talking about, so you started to explain.

“April Fool’s Day is celebrated by, uh, not a lot of people,” you admitted, “on the first of April every year. Nobody really knows where it came from, but that doesn’t stop it from being one of the most fun holidays in the year or me from going all out.” You removed a paintbrush from the stack of tools sitting next to the mismatched pile, and, after peeling the can open, dipped it in.

Yancy edged into view, slotting between the bunk bed and the desk, to ask, “Don’t you think we’re gonna get in trouble for dis?” 

You laughed, looked at him, and he quickly found comfort in your reassuring smile. It was like a tender fire sparking in the dark, a campfire that he could curl up next to and fall asleep until the next day. This tended to happen a lot, and it’d picked up recently, like the wind warning of the future. He didn’t want it to be a bad sign, so he stuck with what he knew; it made him happy to see you smile, he liked being happy, so he liked you, and there was nothing more to it. 

“We might.”

His smile wavered. 

“But you don’t have to worry about that.” You bounced towards him and tapped his jaw. “I’m an expert at this.” 

He had to trust you, it wasn’t as though he had a choice in the matter, anyway. A long time ago, he had decided that whatever you were doing, it would be fine in the end. Letting his shoulders and smile relax into a more natural one, he teased, “Like you were an expert at heists?” 

“Hey—” you flicked neon paint onto his shirt, staining it a slight green, “—I am an expert at heists, I got that part down to a T, I just don’t know how to pilot a helicopter.” 

“I think that’s part of the heist.”

“Nah,” you shrugged and did your best to reseal the paint can, mostly hitting it with your fist until it was in the rough shape it had been at the beginning but with a brush sticking through a hole. 

Yancy let one last, boisterous laugh through his lips, before you started to delve into the plan. 

You would admit that your plan seemed farfetched when you first brought it up to your cellmate and ironing out the details and getting the logistics down was a chore, but Yancy was quick to offer up his help. You appreciated it, trying to not let it slip that he lowered the risk of you getting caught a significant amount, and you reconstructed the plot to include the favors of his connections. Your improv skills had degraded since getting incarcerated, but that heist was a thing of beauty if you considered the need for thinking on your feet – which, you did. Half of that thing didn’t even have a plan, it was just ‘get in, get out, go home’. You faltered at the ‘go home’ part, of course, but you digressed. Your improvisation skills were needed now, and you had employed them well by the time of the breakfast bell. 

Keeping maniacal giggles to a minimum, you were the one to pull Yancy towards his main table, where his group of friends met you. None of them had the full picture, except for yourself and the ringleader, so they were all giddy with anticipation. They asked questions about who the victim was, why you’d chosen them, and you tried your best to answer them without giving too much away. Yancy, meanwhile, was somewhere else. 

Conducting the plan had been like a script – it was easy, efficient, and only needed muscle-memory from him to work fine – and that meant his mind was left to its own devices as his body helped you out. Every time you turned to him or asked him over your shoulder to pass him a screwdriver, he couldn’t take his eyes of you. He flailed his hand for the tool and handed it to you soon after grasping it, just so that he could watch you work. It was a reward for a duty he was unaware he had performed, but he must have done it well, because what a reward you were. Your company alone made his heart flutter, and he considered a doctor’s visit when your hands brushed. He ignored that they were breaking a lot of the prison’s rules, and, instead, the only thought at the front of his mind was that this, spending time with you… it was nice. 

“You ready, Yancy?” 

He blinked. Returning to the present, he waved away those feelings and moved his attention to his friends, including you, who were looking at him in excitement. 

Not sure what he was agreeing to but placing all trust in you, he nodded. 

Immediately, you pounced off the table, a tiger on the hunt, and everyone else watched on. Your shoes skidded against the tile as you carved a path to a particular guard. He stood alone, and, just as you had arranged, next to the breaker. Poor choice of the prison to put the box in the cafeteria of all places, but you weren’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth, so you nodded to the man and twisted on your heel to watch the hall. 

Chatter dropped, rose, and then dropped again, as if in sync with the flickering of the lights, before it flipped on its head – the fluorescent bulbs completely cut out, but a panic swirled. Guards, prisoners, even Warden Murder-Slaughter himself came out of his office and exclaimed some southern curse. It didn’t demand all of the attention, though, because that belonged rightfully to the spider-webbed convict leaning against one of the walls, helpfully, in the center of the room.

Jimmy the Pickle was your victim, and to answer Tiny’s question, he deserved your first prank of the day for punching one of your only friends through a goddamn wall. You would have done worse, but then you’d never have met Yancy and the gang, so you had some things to thank him for. Not enough to get him completely off the hook, of course, so a little neon paint was light punishment. 

A myriad of doodles and names adorned his body – more befitting of a graffitied high school yearbook – but the swirly mustache, horns and ‘nerd!’ worked here, too. 

From his seat atop the plastic table, Yancy could only watch the Jimmy’s reaction, mainly of confusion and then immediate rage as he stomped off to find whoever did this to him. Luckily, it was in the opposite direction to you, who was rushing over in quick step to slide next to him. Even coated in shadows, you were unabashedly red, and, when you turned to meet Yancy’s gaze, grinning ear to ear. If you weren’t in public, you’d be laughing like a maniac. The hushed chortles were evidence of this. 

“That was amazing,” you sighed, once the lights crackled to life and the restless gossip of the prisoners returned to normal. 

“We doing another one?”

Yancy’s eagerness caught you off guard, as did his sudden proximity to you. You didn’t know why he was so ready to pull another prank, but you decided that, if he was having fun, who were you to put a stop to that? All he was asking was to pick up the pace, and to deny the sparkle in his shimmering eyes was to deserve the death sentence. 

“Sure,” you conceded, “gimme a second to grab the blankets.” With that, you sprinted off again, almost stumbling over your own feet to get back to your cell.

His eyes trailed after you, fighting back the instinct to catch you with how many times you nearly tripped. You were worryingly similar a newborn deer – no control over your feet and even less knowledge of your surroundings. It was a strange and unfamiliar impulse that pushed him to lean forward on his seat, but a well-known pressure on his shoulder kept him down. 

Sparkles McGee peeked into view on his left. “You sure know how to pick ‘em, boss,” he joked, though there was the underlying tone of not joking. 

“Whady’a mean?”

“I mean, your new ‘pal’.” 

Having been practically raised inside the confines of a prison, Yancy wasn’t all that good at social cues. Sarcasm was difficult for him, bluntly told jokes he had a hard time figuring out, but the jumping of Sparkles’ eyebrows and the wink upon saying ‘pal’ didn’t leave much up to interpretation. That blush from earlier returned tenfold when he realized what his friend was insinuating. 

“I-It ain’t like that,” he responded quickly, but he didn’t entirely believe the words coming out of his mouth. 

“Uh-huh,” Bam-Bam joined in with a poorly disguised giggle, “and you don’t look at them like a love-sick puppy.” 

“I don’t!” It came out much more defensive that he had meant, but it was still the truth, wasn’t it? 

Tiny’s hand came to rest on his upper arm before she whispered, “Yancy, it’s okay.” 

“We’re just friends, guys,” Yancy still persisted, and he took off from the surface before they could think to stop him. Standing tall in front of his group, shoulders levelled and voice as sturdy as he could get it, he wished them a good breakfast and all but fled the cafeteria, hands tucked in his pockets and a scowl on his face. 

For the better half of an hour, he took to wandering around Happy Trails. He trusted his feet to take him wherever they felt he should go, while his mind relayed the conversation. He wouldn’t lie to himself, right? What point was there to convincing himself that he didn’t have feelings for someone – there wasn’t one, so, clearly, he didn’t have any to hide in the first place. To him, that made the most sense. Of course, his stomach flipped, and his heart pounded whenever you were around, he would risk ten years of solitary to stand close to you, and he was pretty sure he saw heaven in your eyes, but that didn’t mean anything special, right? Just plain old friends.

Why did it hurt to say that?

“Hey, Yancy!” 

Ordinarily, he would be annoyed at someone interrupting his brooding, but tilting on his heel revealed it was you who called his name. 

Yancy let a grin spread across his mouth while you bounded up to him. If anything, you’d be the puppy in the relationship – but you weren’t, because it wasn’t like that.

Skidding to a stop, you looked out of breath. A sudden fear of you running a fever toppled him, and he brought a hand to your forehead with little forethought. You weren’t too hot, but you should have gone to the medical bay, all the same.

“I’ve been looking for you,” you huffed, one half out of fatigue and the other out of annoyance.

“Ah, sorry,” he muttered. He didn’t expand on it, and you didn’t press, so you just moved on to shoving a pile of blankets into his arms. They were surprisingly soft for being in a prison, but, then again, he hadn’t a clue where you had gotten them from.

“I took them from the Warden’s office.”

Oh. Well, that was that. It explained where you got them, but it also made fear flicker about in his mind. The Warden would surely notice they were gone, what if you were caught, taken to solitary confinement, chucked out of the prison altogether? Just the thought shocked him to his core, and he stayed completely paralyzed while his thoughts ran wild. 

As if you could sense his inner turmoil, you pressed your hands against his jawline – a habit you’d long since picked up to calm him down. 

“Yancy, we’ll be fine,” you promised, “it’s just a bit of fun, we’re not gonna do any serious damage to the place. It’ll all be back to normal tomorrow, so the Warden won’t have anything to be mad at us for.”

Goddamn your reassuring smile, there it was again! Saving him like a knight in shining armor in his time of need. 

After taking a few deep breaths, he nodded back to you, making eye contact and avoiding biting his lip. 

Another laugh from you. “There you go, Yancy!” Another knocking of your foreheads. Another blush. 

There was a moment in the day when everyone was on edge. For the past few hours, a group of people were protected at all times. Now, however, nobody was safe. They’d glance up at the ceiling, waiting for the tiles to give way and unleash hell – they’d train their eyes on every exit and entrance as if daring a biblical flood to rush through – they’d mutter to themselves about who they thought the next victim would be, and send pitiful looks to the poor soul. 

The blindless a thief experienced was burned into his memory, his assumed death playing heavy before he had been able to throw the bedsheets off of himself. One of the guards still stared scrutinizingly at her fellows for any sign of them actually being a prisoner in disguise, and the general consensus of treating this like an infiltrated war base had been reached after the guard dogs were released on the officers’ private quarters. Any trust between each other had crumbled to the ground due to the actions of two wayward convicts. Yancy and yourself became names to fear amongst most of the occupying forces, to the point that Yancy’s gang had been separated and sent to their cells to stop them from conspiring with you. It was havoc, and there was just one more idea bouncing around that would be the end-all-be-all of the night. 

“Yancy, I have a plan—” you swung yourself up to his bunk, “—and it’s gonna be amazing.” 

While you made yourself comfortable, your cellmate leaned against the wall with his arms behind his head, trying his best to appear relaxed. The events of the day took a toll on his heart rate, but that wasn’t exactly a bad thing. His first attempt in April Fools’ Day had been a raging success, not only in the pranking department, but in the, well, you department. Nearly every second had been spent with you, laughing about people’s reactions, and plotting your next mission, you leaning in just close enough that he could feel your breath on his ear as you whispered the best ideas. What made it all better was the fact that, even though you both knew you could do this alone, you had chosen to do it with him. A grin stretched across his face as he thought back on how many times that you’d asked him to do the little things, like passing him items or giving him a leg up. All those times that you could have just improvised, but you didn’t; you chose him.  

However, as much as he was still trying to appear relaxed, it was becoming considerably harder to do so when you found that the comfiest place to be was slotted between his legs and looking up at him from his lap. You didn’t seem to mind the proximity, going so far as to push yourself further up him, but Yancy was certainly aware of your arms resting beside his thighs and the pressure of your head on his stomach. Now, it was a harder venture not to flush. 

“So,” you began, and he was suddenly reminded of why you were in this position in the first place, “this is me spit balling, feel free to chime in with stuff, but I think we should go after the Warden.” 

A grimace overtook his face. He usually loved your ideas, but the Warden? Number one, it was unimaginably dangerous, and, number two, he had his own reservations over risking his relationship with the man. It was no secret that he was the closest thing Yancy had to a father figure, and, as much as he hated to admit it, he relied on the Warden as a backbone. Take away him, and all of his confidence would go down the drain in a second. On the other hand, though, this was you. Yancy could trust you, he was certain of that, and what reason did you have to put him in the line of fire? 

The internal conflict must have been visible on his face because you were quick to bring your hands to his jawline and smoothen out the stubble. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” you pointed out in the softest tone you could muster, “I just think it would be nice to go out with a bang. It’s your choice.” 

It was at that second that - with you staring up at him, calloused hands pressing down on his jaw, the assuring twitch of your mouth, and the gleam of rigid determination in your irises – Yancy came to a revelation. It wasn’t sudden or surprising, it was more like when you zone out in a car and then notice that an hour has passed and you’re already there. Like expected clarity. 

Yancy would do anything, as long as it meant being with you. 

Now, he wasn’t entirely sure what that meant in relation to anything else, but this was an undeniable truth as stark as a glistening geode surrounded by rock. If that was all it was, then it was good enough for him, but if that meant something more, he wouldn’t fight it. How could he when it was someone like you?

This conclusion settled in his mind, he leaned forward barely an inch and pecked your forehead. “Youse is gonna be the death of me.” 

Despite the dusting along your cheeks, you laughed. The metal of the bunk bed almost seemed to get warmer with your unadulterated joy, and Yancy found himself unable to resist giggling along with you. His shoulders bounced, you smiled wider, and you only began to calm yourself down when you realized you hadn’t even told him the plan yet. 

“First of all, we’ll probably have to haggle for the stuff, but I think putting the Warden into 80s clothing would be a great time for everyone.” It was anyone’s guess as to where you came up with this stuff, but he nodded along anyway. “We could go for a wig, those stupidly curly ones that you can stick a comb in—oh, and if we can, we should try and get a pair of roller-skates on his feet, ‘cause it’d be really funny, and—” 

Your mouth was moving, and sound was coming out of it, and you were making your plan up on the spot, but Yancy paid it little mind. He was focused on the way that you shifted as you talked; your hands moved centimeters at a time, like you were subconsciously acting it out as you went, your fingertips pattering along his skin as you did so. While you spoke at a normal pace, the cogs in your head visibly spun a mile a minute behind your eyes. The determined gleam had shifted into passion, a look he’d only seen once before, and yet it was a very recent occasion. 

You’d been laying side-by-side in the air duct, waiting for an unsuspecting victim to walk underneath your blanket trap, when you’d filled him in on the traditions of other holidays not widely celebrated. Guy Fawkes Day, a lot of independence days, and pancake day, which was the only self-explanatory one out of the bunch you told him. All of these, you had inane knowledge on, but the look in your eye when you ranted about them had him drifting off, just like now, only to inspect the way it danced along the black and white ridges, disappeared under your eyelashes and…

He probably should have been paying attention. 

He only snapped back to reality when you were interrupted by a yawn. Your hand disappeared from his cheek, a sensation he felt his eyebrows fold in at, and covered your mouth. An attempt to continue was, again, cut off, and it only succeeded at making you more annoyed. 

“Youse, uh, youse sleepy?”

You shook your head, opened your mouth, and promptly yawned again. Yancy raised an eyebrow. You huffed.

“Nope,” you replied, and he waited for another sign of your tiredness. 

It came, and you were forced to accept that you may have been a bit fatigued by the day’s events. 

“We can go to sleep, if you want?” he offered. 

“But you don’t do pranks on the day after April Fool’s. It’s tasteless.” 

“Just a nap, then?”

“Yancy,” your tone was pleading but the intent wasn’t there. It dismantled seconds after he pulled those puppy-dog eyes, a tactic you were certainly familiar with after the many times you fell to it. 

And now would be no exception. 

Huffing, you slouched in your makeshift seat. Yancy’s striped sweatpants were surprisingly comfy for a prison uniform – or maybe that was just him. Either way, you were content to slip into a dream then and there, completely forgetting that you were still on Yancy’s bunk and him holding you up. Not that he minded; he, too, was happy to relax into the cushion, trying to avoid jolting you too much in your slept. Technically, it wasn’t lights out just yet, but your pranking had thrown everything into disarray. It would take a week to get it all back to normal, and the guards would probably stick you in solitary next year just to save themselves the pain. 

He laughed to himself, bringing a hand up to cup your cheek. You were pleasantly warm against the cool air of the cell. What a panic you’d made – his little imp. 

He drifted off without pausing to think. 

To say that you were startled awake would be an understatement; your eyes blew wide, you fumbled in surprise, and your face almost made great friends with the concrete floor. If it hadn’t been for Yancy gripping your waist before you could fully fall out, the scheme from earlier would have all been for naught. Heart racing and breath still rapid, your gaze flitted from wall to wall, checking your supplies and wondering what the hell woke you up in the first place. 

Your answer came not a minute later, when an officer came strutting down the hallway with a baton that he was helpfully clacking against the bars with. The hallway was dim, and the rest of the prison was silent in your sector – it must’ve been lights out, if the guard yelling, “Lights out!” wasn’t anything to go by. 

Internally, you groaned. Had you missed your chance? God, and it would’ve been so fun, too. All people had were the memories of you two vaguely terrorizing the prison, not the big blow-out you had wanted. Your hair dusted against the wall as you flopped backwards. 

“It’s too late,” you muttered, disdain evident and disappointment lacing it all. 

In another scenario, Yancy would have grimaced and tried to raise your spirits. He would have told you about the songs he’d practiced, or the up-and-coming movie night the prison was planning. However, this was not another scenario. 

Instead of letting you wallow, Yancy dragged you with an arm around your shoulder down the ladder and onto stable ground. You moved like a fluid, as you always did when you were annoyed, and simply watched as he got to his knees and checked underneath your own bed. 

“I don’t think dust bunnies will help us,” you tried to joke, but it fell on deaf ears. Instead, Yancy was fixated on bringing forward the small lockbox he had stored down there since before you had arrived. He’d never had to use it before, leading it to be shoved right at the back. Even now he was having trouble finding it with the darkness of a sheltered hiding place. 

While Yancy ran his fingertips at the edge of the wall, you inspected your stash of equipment. This plan was a spur of the moment kind of thing, so none of what you had would be helpful, but the nap would have given someone time to steal what you rightfully bartered for. A quick glance over suggested nothing was off, though you didn’t remember getting pink paint, and you checked off your mental inventory as you went. 

“Ah,” Yancy mumbled, pushing himself out of the space and towing a medium sized box with him. Time must have meddled with his memory, because it felt slightly bigger in his hands than it had before. Then again, people had the poor habit of growing. Brushing the thought aside, he sat back on his haunches and clicked it open. 

“Uh…” 

Yancy wasn’t always this unsure, as if bravado was in his blood, but this definitely knocked him off his high horse. What should have been an unassuming lockbox with nothing but a few lighters, combs, and a jagged, old key, was, instead, full to bursting with bright clothes and accessories. If that wasn’t weird enough, it was exactly as you had described during your plotting phase; a curly wig, practically doused in pink, a flamboyant, open-chested t-shirt, and roller-skates. Sweat dripped down his back when he considered the implications, but you merely dashed forward and removed the afro. 

“This is great!” you exclaimed, swiveling to Yancy and wrapping your arms around him.

Yes, you were aware this meant someone had broken into your cell while you were sleeping, and, yes, you recognised someone overheard your entire plan, but did you care? Hell no! You had all the materials you needed to pull off your best prank yet, and if you found the person who provided them, you’d probably shake their hand and spare them from future endeavors. The best clue you had was the small, bright pink mustache painted on the inside wood.

A manic grin blazed across the bottom of your face, and you squeezed slightly tighter in excitement. He patted your back, less enthusiastic but happy that you were. He was more concerned with an intruder hearing last night’s – or this night’s – moment. Lips pursing and hands coming to rest on your waist as you pulled back, he wondered why he held it so close to the chest. 

“Come on,” you whispered. Your hand collected his, and, with the key in your other hand, you escaped your cell to wreak even more havoc.

 

A ticking of a clock pricked up the hair on his arms, the slow patter of rain outside the window tapping the inside of his ear, and every other little sound sending off warning bells in his mind. Warden Murder-Slaughter stared at the front door, as if his glare alone would keep him safe. It was the only defense he had – except for the wooden planks bolted to the windows and the dozens of locks on the single entrance. He couldn’t be blamed for his paranoia, if it could even have been considered that, as he’d seen with his own two eyes the consequences of not being vigilant, and he did not like what he saw. 

So, his eyes drying from not blinking, the Warden accepted having to be awake for the night, just to see himself make it to the next day. It would be the April 2nd, then, and he would be free to wander the halls of the prison like he owned the place, which he did, and it was shameful that he was forced into hiding in his own goddamn office. 

The burning embarrassment wavering in his chest didn’t stop him from flinched when knocks arose on the door. His hand twitched, he fought back blinking, and with the most confidence he could muster, the Warden called out, “Who’s there?”

A pair of shadows cast from underneath the door shifted. “Uh, just me, sir.”

The Warden wasn’t stupid; he knew that when people said ‘just me’ that it probably wasn’t just them. It did sound like one of his lackeys, but he wasn’t willing to take any chances with wayward prisoners on the loose. 

“And you would be?”

They made a sound of disappointment, like most of his staff did when he didn’t recall their name, though they answered all the same. “Jacob Dalt?”

“Middle name.”

Unseen, Jacob shook his head. The Warden had never been so paranoid, and yet, there he was, cornered into his office with the fear of God in his heart. "Markus."

“First pet’s name.”

“David.”

“Social security number.” 

“Sir!” The handle rattled and the door shook, but Jacob stayed behind the door. “Look, sir, if you don’t want to come out, that’s fine – but it’s getting late, and we’re all worried about you. You’ve been in there for the entire day, you haven’t even shouted at the guys upstairs for the lights, yet, and we know how much you love doing that. Just,” there was a vague fist hitting the door, “are you okay?” 

The Warden was pretty sure he could trust the boy, nobody could mimic the overzealous care of that guard, so he rose from his chair with a huff and dismantled all the checks and balanced he had installed to keep himself safe. It was a full minute before he swung the door open and waved him in. 

“Yes, I am fine,” he replied as he re-did all of the locks, “I’m just on edge.”

“I can see that.” 

Jacob flipped around with a concerned smile, while the Warden focused all of his energy on getting the door secured once more. Both of their backs were turned to the rest of the room, which meant more than a few things; the swiveling chair was unoccupied, the window was clear to the outside, and the vent above the desk was out of their view. It was flawless timing, and you didn’t even need to bribe a guard.

Encouraged by your descriptive hand gestures, Yancy dropped as subtle as he could to the worktop, hoping that his shoes wouldn’t make a sound and sprung to hide behind the fake plant in the corner. You pushed yourself out seconds after him, and, lucky for you, the clicks of metal against metal distracted the two others enough for you to hop to the ground and crouch in the leg hole. The sight of your partner was worryingly familiar to you, causing a twitch in your attention, but the spark of adrenaline burst through you in the next moment. 

After gently shoving the chair further away from you, you were able to listen in to the conversation. Nothing stood out to you much – the guard was talking about the Warden’s health and that of the prisoners – until all of the security measures had been returned and the boy offered a single piece of advice. Take a nap. It was perfect, almost too perfect, really, but as said before, you weren’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth, and it appeared neither would the Warden. 

The man, sighed, waved the officer away, and was forced to fiddle with the locks for a fourth time when he realized he had no way out. It only worked in your favor, because he was slowly getting more pissed off at the situation you’d worked to create. Proud was swelling in you, and you tried to remind yourself where you were so you wouldn’t get swept up in it all. You were in the middle of a mission, the chance of getting caught and Yancy’s reputation on the line. 

All the pieces lining up bolstered your confidence so much so that, when the Warden came to sit back in his chair, you didn’t move. Instead, you stayed flat against the wooden panel and steadied your breath as he flopped into the comfortable hold of old leather. You were tempted to grab ahold of his feet and yank, but the sane side of you told you it was beyond stupid. 

Yancy, meanwhile, was panicking. You weren’t even supposed to be out of your cell, much less the Warden’s office. If he were to find you, there would be hell to pay, and sweat dripped down his neck as he thought what would become of you. Solitary was a granted, but you might get kicked out onto the streets of normal society! He couldn’t imagine anything worse – although, he also couldn’t figure out why. He liked you, he knew that, but why did the mere possibility of being separated shake him so much? He had half a mind to rush out and distract him so you could escape, and it irked him that he didn’t know why it seemed natural, like there was no other choice for him. 

“Yancy,” a voice hissed at him. Heart thudding in the chest, he glared through the leaves only to see you waving at him from the side of the desk. The Warden had fallen asleep quickly, and, based on him sleeping through frequent rehearsals late at night, would continue to be until you woke him. 

Doing your best not to giggle too loudly, you withdrew the pink afro and sunglasses from your shirt, a moment for which Yancy made sure not to look. There it was again, something had changed and, for some reason, even though he’d seen you get changed plenty of times right in front of him, it was awkward to spot a single inch of your collarbone. Was he sick? Had he caught something from last night’s food? His mulling over left him dazed and delirious when you snapped your fingers to get his attention. 

“You okay there, Yancy?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered, squatting to get on your level, “jus’ think I’m, uh, comin’ down with somin’.”

“As soon as we get back to our cell, you are sleeping for the next day and a half.” 

With tentative hands, he removed the Warden’s shoes and replaced them with the pair of roller-skates. It probably should have concerned him how well they fit, but he had learned not to ask questions by now. 

“And youse’d take care of me?” 

“Of course.”

Once everything had been properly settled onto the still-sleeping man, the two of you stood from the ground and stashed whatever he had been wearing before into the document cabinet. Your masterpiece was complete, and, now, it was just a matter of waiting until he woke up and left the room for the entire prison to see. You could get out the way you came in, so he wouldn’t be worried by any broken locks, and the sunglasses were the same weight and shape of his reading ones. This was perfect, this was the grand finale you had wanted, and you couldn’t have done it without Yancy’s help. 

You turned to him with a grin sweeping across your face. “Thank you,” you whispered, and leaned forward to lay a kiss across his cheek. 

Yancy’s heart thundered, his breath caught, and he almost felt his hands shake. 

But not from the kiss. 

It was from the Warden’s eyes snapping open with a look furious enough to frighten a crazed bull. It was maddened, inconsolable, and pointed straight at the both of you. 

Keeping the locks unbroken was thrown out in favor of bursting through the door shoulder first and flinging yourself down the hallway. It hurt like hell, sure, but the adrenaline lighting your veins told you to ignore it and just run, so you grabbed onto Yancy’s hand and did just that. 

The situation was manic, a feeding frenzy in an ocean of sharks. You tripped past the kitchen and the storage room, curbed through the washroom, and soon enough, found yourselves in your wing of the prison. It was nice to see Yancy’s friends as you ran by, Sparkless calling out your names like a commentator at a racetrack, and Tiny helpfully pointing to the man gaining on you. Bam-Bam made certain gestures towards you that Yancy caught, which both made him smile and explode in a furious red. 

The cafeteria was next on your hit-list, as you skidded between benches and leapt over tables. The Warden’s enraged shouts propelled you forward, though you didn’t miss yelling back remarks that only made him more annoyed. Your partner was just along for the ride, at this point, but he tugged you out of the way of a food cart as you ran. After sending him an appreciative glance, you made it out of the hall. 

A few guards peeked out of the staff room when you passed, the squeaking of your shoes making it difficult to be stealthy about this, but they preferred to exchange looks than interrupt… whatever it was that you were doing. They gathered it was something to do with the pranks, but the gleams in your eyes told a different story. 

With a final burst of energy, you swung Yancy into the Warden’s office and shoved the door closed behind you. The locks were useless, now, so you settled for vaulting over the desk and maneuvering it into a barricade. Yancy jumped to help, and you were quickly safe in the make-shift bunker. 

Flopping into one of the chairs, you sighed. That was… more eventful than you had expected, but it was good. Great, in fact! Reliving the glory days granted you the adventure you had been missing. 

From his spot leaning against the table, Yancy chuckled lightly, which turned into small laughs and then full-blown chortles. Never in his life had he imagined he’d be getting into pranking his surrogate-father, with you, no less. 

“That was…” he started, only to continue with giggles. 

You nodded before letting your head fall backwards. You might just join Yancy for the day and a half nap. 

After a few seconds, he regained his breath and spoke again, “I, uh, really enjoyed doin’ dat with you.”

“I enjoyed it too, Yancy.”

Your head propped up, wavering side to side, that feeling returned full throttle. It was the feeling when you’d been chased, sure, but there was something different about it. The warm wasn’t from his blood running through him, but a fuzzy, comfortable feeling – it was an emotion he wasn’t familiar with, and not being able to put a name to it was, well, annoying. He wanted to tell you how he felt, but describing it would be inefficient and, he feared, inaccurate. It was like a bunch of small emotions bundled into one, messy glob. Caring, joy, a little bit of worry. It made his heart sing and his face flush and his throat swell with all of the words he wanted to say but couldn’t. 

Coughing, he spoke, “And thank youse for doing it with me.” 

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I think dis’ is the best April Fools’ Day I’ve ever done, and youse didn’t have to take me along with it so, thank you.”

With a near-silent laugh, you made your way to sit next to him on the desk. The wood was kind of hard, but it made wrapping an arm around him that much easier. After the run, he was warm and stable.

“I should be the one thanking you,” you admitted, making Yancy look at you with confusion, “When I first came here, I was dead set on getting out. I thought that if I didn’t, then I’d be wasting away my life and betraying everything I’d worked for – and then I met you. You made it home, y’know. Now, eh, I’d much rather be here than in the outside world.” 

Yancy blinked, though, really, he wanted to jump and dance with you around the room. You wanted to stay for him. Not for the songs, or the free healthcare, for him. It might’ve been April Fool’s, but he was pretty sure it doubled as Christmas for him.

“Really?” he mumbled, and his eyes met yours. They were practically pools of sincerity, so vivid that there was a sheen of vulnerability over your irises. 

“Come on,” you pulled him close, “I came for the accent, stayed for the crisis.” 

It was a happy moment, so, so happy, that Yancy was furious he couldn’t express it with words. His mouth dried up and his mind flurried about like birds’ wings. You weren’t talking anymore, and it looked like you were about to pull away for a second. 

So, Yancy did the only thing he could think to do. 

The bone of your jaw was firm, the strands of your hair were soft, and the skin of your lips was delicate. Kissing you was something he had never imagined, and yet he couldn’t help but wonder why he ever held back. Carding one hand across the nape of your neck and the other secured around your waist, he poured all of his attention into the feeling of you against him. You pushed forward, and he did, too. It might’ve been the pounding of his heart or the banging of the Warden against the door, but he didn’t care! This perfect moment surrounded by chaos nestled into his memory, added to by the feeling of you smiling against his own mouth. Yancy held back a chuckle himself, before once more becoming engrossed in dancing with your lips.

It was in this moment that Yancy put a name to the emotion that had been stirring in him since the morning. Love – and the admission only had him leaning further in. 

You only broke apart because of the fatal flaw of human design – needing to breath, but even then, you went back in for another kiss milliseconds after catching air. Yancy was all but overjoyed to, not feeling bad about ignoring the Warden for the first time in his life. He had something better to attend to. 

However, that stance was changed slightly when the boards that used to be covering the windows crashed to the ground in splinters, followed by a body. Just one look at the wig and jacket, and Yancy was jumping to his feet and onto the chair you had abandoned. Thankfully, you had neglected to refit the vent, meaning it was easy for him to grab your hand and lift you towards the ceiling. When you were securely inside, he brought himself up, and you latched onto his arm to pull him towards you, barely missing the Warden’s hand by an inch. 

“So, again next year, then?” Yancy joked, to which you responded with a laugh and another short kiss on his lips, leaving the Warden’s southern curses to echo behind you. 

[Again, sorry for the lateness – I still hope you enjoyed this and our cute lil’ boy being all confused about emotions. I’m still not over him losing to Dark in the poll. I mean, yeah, I get it, but c’mon, how could they do this to the Boston boy??]

[spookcataloger]

"An Encounter in the Nevada Desert" by DesertRat (2013)

[stjohnstarling]

One of the sources of inspiration for Father Black:

Around the same time Bill Koch, an American billionaire who found fake bottles in his collection, hired private detectives and filed a lawsuit. Authentication experts saw more and more dodgy consignments emerging from these record-breaking auctions. At last the FBI got involved. In March 2012 they raided Kurniawan’s house in Arcadia, California. They found a fully equipped counterfeiting workshop, complete with corking tools, labels, empty bottles and extensive tasting notes. Kurniawan had been taking cheaper wines – though still better than you will find in your average off-licence – and putting them in more expensive bottles, or altering bottles to appear more valuable.

The most expensive wines are so rarely drunk few can claim to be expert on how they taste. On the occasions they are opened, it is usually courtesy of a generous host. It is poor guestmanship to lob aspersions on any proffered bottle, let alone one that cost as much as your car. What’s more, several scientific studies have shown that even professed experts are hardly better than chance at identifying different wines

[yunoteru4ever]

Musing about the forbidden appeal of stalkers and how Mirai Nikki's framework benefits the overall love story

Something I think is unspoken about the appeal of... oh, let's politely say off-kilter *cough* love stories such as the one at the center of Future Diary is that, for many people, the idea of having a stalker can sound... appealing? Romantic, even?

Let me explain what I mean in more detail: If you've never truly experienced the horror/stress of having a stalker? The idea of someone choosing YOU to fixate upon as the object of their unyielding love/lust can actually sound pretty nice, in concept. Hell — even moreso if you've never had anyone openly and proudly declare their love for you. The notion of having a stalker can feel VALIDATING, even! The less luck you have in love, the more that discovering you have your own stalker can sound like a weird, wonderful fantasy. Or, shit... even if you're doing just fine in the dating/romance department, imagining someone harboring an undying obsession/devotion can still feel like a massive ego boost.

My point is: When dealing with a stalker is only a distant, abstract and purely theoretical concept, the "horror" side of it can easily fade into the far background. So yeah, I think there's a certain Forbidden Appeal to stalker-romances for many, despite the inherent darkness and danger that could/should logically come with such a thing. (Especially in RL, of course.)

In that context, the way Mirai Nikki's central love story is presented and framed is especially genius. And I say that for two primary reasons:

First reason — Mirai Nikki taps into that Forbidden Appeal partly by giving Yuno an increasingly sympathetic portrayal, but importantly also by placing this unhinged stalker character into a framework where her biggest downsides become comprehensible or even beneficial. Sure, Yuno seems to have a taste for violence and blood, but she's trapped in a goddamn Killing Game where both her own life and the fate of the fucking world is at stake. Furthermore, we later learn there's a ticking clock element that demands the "game" crown a victor ASAP. Against this background, Yuno's violence and darkness becomes, at worst, a bit of evil that's also handily beneficial. And at best? Her behavior becomes totally understandable due to contextual morality. (Besides, it also provides us with a reason to exploit yet another off-kilter romantic concept that can hold a dark appeal for some: the "willing to kill for you"-level love.)

Second reason — Yet in spite of what I just said, Future Diary doesn't shy away (...much*) from the threat inherent to having someone develop an unhealthy obsession with another. Yuno isn't some harmlessly funny sitcom stalker, nor is she the kind of stalker who the narrative fails to ever acknowledge as such in order preserve the "purity" of the central relationship's appeal. Yuki recognizes her as an obsessive stalker from the very beginning! There's no denying that she's violent and clearly dangerous! The fact that she's mentally unstable and therefore seems unpredictable is absolutely core to her character! The story is utterly up-front about these things... and it never lets us forget that, for all that we may feel bad for her or understand her actions, she's still a threat/potential threat to EVERYBODY around her.

Long after it's clear that the bizarre situation makes Yuno's worst traits much more positive, there are still MANY instances when the narrative reminds us of just how much of an unpredictable threat she is to even her supposed allies.

However...

*...I added that "(...much*)" caveat because there are some rare exceptions . A signature aspect of every Sakae Esuno story to date is the way he delights in swerving from the primary horror/suspense/action focus over to sudden bursts of comedy. For that reason, Mirai Nikki is definitely guilty of playing Yuno's stalking as mere 'wacky hijinx' on select occasions — for better or worse. For me, these sudden breaks in the tension are quirky and delightful, but I can understand if individual mileage varies.

All of this is really just me thinking out loud about why the portrayal of such a clearly "problematic" relationship works so well for me and many others. It isn't afraid to confront the inherent problems, but it also provides a (totally unrealistic) framework in which the problems are more tolerable, maybe even acceptable. It makes the stalker sympathetic via the gradual reveal of her backstory, but it also never lets us forget that's she's legit dangerous. And it does all of this while showing us a twisted relationship that might already be oddly appealing to some members of the audience.

Besides, look — Esuno knows this is pretty "out there" stuff. He was once asked if he'd want to date someone like Yuno himself. In that interview, he laughed before replying, "It's probably best we keep that kind of relationship in the realm of fiction." So it's not like he's legitimately recommending that anyone go out and date a crazed stalker. That's part of why the framework has to be SO extreme and SO fantastical for it work so well, IMO.

[unatkozorobotok]

adatközpontú beszámoló a bürökratikus, steril gangbangről egyenesen a művésznő tollából

[atavist]

His mother got duped by a man who claimed to love her—so he headed to Nigeria to find the con artist who broke her heart. A rare look inside the world of the so-called Yahoo Boys. The Romance Scammer on My Sofa. The latest incredible true story from The Atavist.

[longreads]

“The most important part of my job is to make the library a safe space. One where kids burst through the door and go running with glee to the children’s area so they can say hello to whoever is at the desk. One where a patron can have a full metal meltdown about the state of the world and still be given resources to find housing, a shower, a meal. One where someone can come in blasted high for years and then return the next day sober and clean, ensconcing themselves in the safety of the books to stay that way.”

Lisa Bubert’s Instagram bio reads "Public librarian who has seen some 💩," and her latest piece makes clear just how much “some” is. When so much of our society has seemingly turned its back on its neediest members, public libraries have never been more important. To read “Safety Net,” head to Longreads.

[hopeymchope]

How the Phantom Thieves Became the Bad Guys (OR: A long-ass essay that’s likely to irritate any P5 fans that bother to read it)

PREVIOUSLY: I came to the sad realization that “Joker” — a.k.a. the Persona 5 protagonist, a.k.a. Ren Amamiya — is canonically an asshole.

...so I suppose the logical extension of that is for Joker to become a villain. 

And as it turns out, thanks to the third semester of Persona 5 Royal, he can! They WANT you to. 

I guess you could say the warning signs were always there.

...of course, alternatively, he might not. Because thankfully, the freedom of player choice still gives you some ways out. But sadly, the “True” (i.e., canonical) ending of the game requires Joker to lead the Phantom Thieves into a very dark place indeed. 

Before I delve into why that’s the case, though, I have to give the devs at Atlus credit for creating an ethical scenario that really challenges the player and makes them think. But uh, if you want to feel okay about pursuing the “True Ending,” you definitely shouldn’t think too much. It’s best that you just take the words of the characters at face value and try not to apply real-world morality, okay? Because applying serious thought to the moral debate in the third semester swiftly makes the Phantom Thieves into bigger baddies than some of the palace rulers they’ve previously battled.

Enough of the buildup, however. Let’s back up and dig into the core issue I’m talking about: Takuto Maruki’s quest to make the world a better place. 

The Setup

Maruki is a psychological counselor and cognitive researcher as well as a Social Link/Confidant that’s unique to the “Royal” version of the game. He’s also the central figure behind the new storyline that takes place after the ending of the original Persona 5. Said storyline involves Maruki leveraging his work as a psychologist and his studies of the cognitive world + Yaldabaoth’s merging of Mementos with the real world to rewrite reality, creating a new world where people’s innermost wishes are made real. The result? People who lost loved ones in traumatic ways see them now returned to life. People who experienced horrific injuries have had them undone. Rape victims were never violated in the first place. People who lost their dream jobs are suddenly re-employed by them. And so on. This is Maruki’s way of helping people move past being haunted by their traumas and worst experiences; now they can simply never have had such experiences.

Maruki is a very kind-hearted soul from the moment we first meet him. There’s never any doubt that he’s simply trying to make the world a happier, kinder place. And when he first triggers the change into a new timeline, most of the Phantom Thieves are blissfully unaware that the world has been rewritten around them. No less than three of our teammates are reunited with parents who died recently or years ago, although from their perspective, it’s not a “reunion” — it’s just the way things have always been, because those people were never murdered in the first place. Our lead character, Joker, and his rival/ally/antagonist, Akechi, are initially the only ones who remember the old reality. But Joker is soon triggering the rise of conflicting memories within his allies that make them call their new existence into question, even if just slightly...

(It’s cool how well this all aligns with a major area of current psychiatric research. Medical researchers have been seeking a way to target and delete traumatic memories from PTSD sufferers for well over a decade now, moving ever-closer to success. Traumatic memories can be debilitating to a level that millions of sufferers never can recover from their worst experiences even after living many decades more, frequently driving people to suicide; what if you could stop having to relive them? Granted, this wouldn’t literally undo them as it does in Maruki’s solution, but I think the core concept is similar, and that’s pretty neat. Though I have no idea if it was all intended and the devs actually knew about this... )

Concerns?

When I first entered and swiftly understood Maruki’s “new reality” in the game, I immediately theorized TONS of ways in which this could be a very bad thing. And even as I went through the initial phases of his palace/laboratory and slowly learned more about the situation, I continued to come up with new possibilities for why this could be a problem for the world.

...so what’s amazing is how, though a combination of main story dialogue and optional side dialogue, the game successfully addresses EVERY possible problem and erases ANY doubt regarding Maruki’s solution. I assume they were going for a more nuanced moral debate, but in practice wound up in a situation where Maruki’s solution carries only the slightest ambiguity as to its righteousness.

So! Let’s go ahead and break down EVERY concern I had... and how the game either dismisses them or muddies them up quite a bit.

Concern #1: Maybe this reality is fake, and the resurrection people are just illusions/cognitive beings? ANSWER: No, this is not the case. During their first couple of discussions, when Akechi asserts that this reality is phony, Maruki assures him that it’s every bit as real as the one they remember. Moreover, Akechi himself confirms this in his next phone call with you; he investigates the possibility that Wakaba Isshki is either an illusion or cognitive existence, and he confirms that she is indeed the real Wakaba. In fact, his research confirms that she simply didn’t suffer the incident the vehicular accident that previously ended her life... and history was rewritten from there. Per his testimony, this isn’t a false reality at all — it’s an alternate universe or new timeline with its own distinct history. Think of it like we just jumped to a new “world line” in Steins;Gate or something. 

The dark side implication of this fact is that it means that if someone WERE to revert reality back to its previous state, that’d be effectively the same as killing them yourself. 

Concern #2: Does this mean that people will never undergo loss or pain of any kind? No, negative experiences definitely still exist. Note that Yoshizawa still has endured the loss of a close sister who was killed in a vehicular accident! And the Niijima family is still missing their deceased matriarch. Ann specifically mentions how she was “so sad” when Shiho transferred away to another school. In fact, even Shido is confirmed to still be under arrest for multiple confessed crimes (courtesy of the Phantom Thieves) in this reality! But that last one could be an example of how people who don’t accept this new reality can continue to be trapped in their old struggles. You can see that particular problem in the homeless man in the subway... and even more blatantly in Akechi. He’s very open about his hatred of this new reality and his opinion that he needs his miserable life experiences. He literally defines himself by his trauma, which is... uh, not a good argument. In fact, Akechi is so messed up (and historically has been such a hostile, malevolent force) that his hatred of the new reality feels more like a ringing endorsement than something we should agree with. HOWEVER... it’s worth noting that later on in the “true” story route, Maruki continuously refers to his reality as one where nobody has to suffer. So perhaps the lingering tragedies/problems I’ve mentioned are actually imperfections he intends to iron out? Or it’s possible he’s just simplifying the situation, boiling it down to the essence of his argument even if it’s not strictly the case. UNCLEAR.

Remember: If Akechi thinks something is foolish, it’s probably a very good idea. 

Concern #3: Is everyone just going to live incredibly easy lives, then? Everybody gets whatever they wish for now? First: That’s literally impossible. It is inevitable that people’s wishes will conflict with one another. Second: It’s pretty clear that goals/wishes which logically require effort to be actualized will STILL require that effort. Sae Niijima is still said to be working late nights in her job as the district prosecutor ever after the new reality emerges, and Ryuji is literally doing laps around the school EVERY DAY in order to stay in shape and keep his track skills strong. So NO, it’s not like everything just comes on a silver platter without even trying for it. Third: In all other situations beyond ONE thing on January 1st (the first day of this new reality), it seems like the new world isn’t going to just give out every desire you might think of. See, the narrative waters are muddied by the fact that Yoshizawa wishes to not encounter a crowd at the shrine on New Year’s Day... and then, shockingly, it’s mostly empty. But for the rest of the story, this trick is never again employed. In fact, there are situations in which people would OBVIOUSLY be thinking or desiring something other than what they have, but they still aren’t magically granted the perfect life. Just look back at Concern #2: Are you telling me that it never would’ve occurred to Yoshizawa to NOT have such a tragedy in her past? In fact, just rewind back to my second point under this very concern - are you going to tell me that Sae never once wanted to have a lighter workload? And why the helld did Shiho EVER transfer away from Shujin in this new reality, huh? So the most logical conclusions here are either that A) The new reality was still forming (this was its first day after all), finding its footing and still in flux, but immediate fulfillment of random frivolous wishes won’t apply after this point. OR! B) One-off wishes that are specifically spoken aloud might be granted, but otherwise the focus is on granting the SINGLE deepest wish of each person. 

Concern #4: Wait, what if some real assholes/terrible people make destructive wishes? In the real world, somebody casually thinks “ugh, I want to die” all over the world at every second, and a few people probably think “Jesus, just blow up the planet” every few minutes, but it’s not like we see random citizens keeling over or the world exploding under Takumi’s new reality. But this is a fictional world, so maybe those kind of thoughts/statements don’t exist there. In which case  the fact that Shido is currently still imprisoned for his crimes seems like evidence enough that destructive wishes being granted isn’t going to be a concern. Does anybody really believe that Takumi would hand someone like Kamoshida his greatest (...and probably dark and perverted) wishes? Nah. No fucking way.

Concern #5: If Kamoshida never was at Shujin and never abused/violated anyone, and Madarame was actually an honest and supportive “master” to his apprentice, and Okumura is a caring boss and devoted father... does that mean the Phantom Thieves never existed in this world? Does that erase the special bond our characters built? ANSWER: No, it doesn’t mean that. I already mentioned that Shido is behind bars in this reality just as he is in the preceding one, and this is (as ever) courtesy of the Phantom Thieves. The Phan-Site is still running and putting out polls, and they’re still viewed as heroes to the masses. The Thief squad still possesses the same special connection they always had. 

The Stickiest Wicket: Kasumi and/or Sumire

Ultimately, the BIGGEST concern for many people about Maruki’s actions is what’s happened to Yoshizawa. She no longer even knows her real name (Sumire) or who she was born as. She’s living her life entirely as a deceased person (her sister, Kasumi). She fully believes she is that person, and she acts and thinks and feels just like them.

A lot of people find this creepy or weird, but Maruki originally triggered this change without even knowing he was doing so. Furthermore, it happened because that’s what Sumire wished for. It’s her own desire! 

But once Maruki realized Maruki’s argument is based in the trauma that got her here. Because, you see... Sumire is responsible for her beloved sister’s untimely death. Not in a direct “I literally killed her” sense, but I mean... Sumire picked a fight with Kasumi in the streets and then ran away upset, Kasumi naturally/obviously pursued to try and calm her down, Kasumi screamed out to Sumire to not run into the street because vehicles were coming, Sumire ignored her and ran into the street, Kasumi catches up to Sumiere JUST enough to shove Sumire out of the way of an oncoming truck... and Kasumi pays for that with her life. 

We are made to live out this experience in first-person view, and it’s harrowing. Afterwards, Joker and Maruki make some effort to calm and/or comfort her. Maruki gives her the opportunity to live her true self from then on and help her move forward... or to revert back to  Understandably, Sumire can’t comprehend having to live with this deeply traumatic experience in her mind.

No shame.

I come at this storyline from an unusual perspective because a very similar story happened near where I live when I was growing up. The story of a man who accidentally wound up causing his wife’s death while they were on their honeymoon.. it absolutely shook me to my core when I was a young teen. I won’t get into the messy details because I’d prefer to not pass the horror of a real-life tragedy on to a bunch of people, but suffice it to say that it was absolutely, undeniably an accident. Even so, he was similarly wracked with guilt. The area community watched that man’s psychological state completely collapse. He never recovered, and it was hard to blame him for that.

I can’t imagine how I’d ever recover if I accidentally caused a loved one’s death, either. And hopefully, very few people will ever have to know such horror. If I knew someone in such a situation, of course I’d be there to support them while simultaneously encouraging them to get professional help they can lean on. I’d encourage anyone in such a situation to seek out help and try to support them, naturally. And Joker does do that! But holy shit, when we see flashbacks to the aftermath of the tragedy, Sumire is DEEPLY miserable. She can barely go through the motions If Sumire believes that she is Kasumi, it does more than just help heal her feelings of inferiority —  it also means that she endured a tragedy in which her little sister died because of said sister’s own actions As we’ve established - tragedy still exists. Either sister being gone is a tragedy. And Sumire who died - not because of Kasumi but because of her own fault? Its still tragic (once again, reminder: hardships and tragedy still occur here), but it’s not completely debilitating in the same way.

In light of what I saw happen so close to home, I don’t blame Yoshizawa for choosing this life at all. It’d be preferable to just have both sisters alive and together, but it does not appear that Maruki has control over what people wish for. If he did, then maybe he could restore her sister and help build up her confidence from there... that’d be greatly preferable. But if this is her biggest wish — to simply BE her sister and live life with Kasumi’s confidence — then I’m with MarukI: At least this lets her live her life happily and at peace. 

I get that it’s not the perfect solution. But I’ll take whatever option is available that prevents a situation like the doomed, self-destructive widower I mentioned three paragraphs earlier.

Maruki is Doing the Same Thing the Phantom Thieves Did... But Better

Based on the above, this seems pretty win-win for everyone (although Sumire is certainly a debatable case). Well... it’s a win-win for most everyone except Akechi; he interprets any change to the current timeline as a removal of his free will. (Which obviously isn’t completely true; we watch a whole load of characters making clear decisions and choices during this arc, even before they are ‘awakened’ from this reality and, if they accept Maruki’s reality? Even AFTER that, too. So Akechi is full of shit, ofc.) In fact, Akechi is so dead-set on following the path he already chose that he’s still grimly adamant about doing so after finding out that he’s dead in the original timeline. Akechi insists that only HE can choose what is the truth, which is very much aligned with how he used to frame people for crimes in order to get credit for their arrest :P .... AND also not at all far removed from Maruki’s stance. Except Akechi’s “truth” is self-destructive, and Maruki’s “truth” is a positive for goddamn everybody.

Explained another way: The Phantom Thieves as a whole are doing the same thing as Maruki, just on a smaller scale and without actually addressing the societal problems that create such unfairness. The Phantom Thieves have spent this entire game forcibly changing the hearts and cognition of criminals and awful people, but they’ve never bothered to examine the root of such problems. Maruki is simply taking a single swing at erasing systemic injustice and sudden-onset cruelty in the world. The Phantom Thieves are firefighters; Maruki is an architect. The Phantom Thieves are whacking down whatever moles may pop up, but Maruki? He’s dismantling the whole rigged-ass game.

And y’know, considering how much Joker and the Phantom Thieves talk about carving their own future and free will and stuff in the “True” ending.. they sure do strip a whole lot of people of THEIR free will during the game’s campaign, don’t they? 

But look, I’m sure they don’t care about that. Because somewhere along the line — and it’s hard to pinpoint exactly where —the Phantom Thieves stopped caring about other people. As in: Anybody outside of their own group.

The Phantom Thieves’ Great Big Selfish Dick Move

In the “True” route, once the Phantom Thieves remember their past lives, they struggle for a bit with the idea of whether they’re doing the right thing by opposing Dr. Maruki and the new timeline. He’s only trying to help people, after all. Including all of them.

But Ryuji gives a little speech that gets everybody on-board with changing Maruki’s heart and returning to the former reality.

WOO! FUCK everybody else who is living their lives happily! FUCK all the people who are now LITERALLY ALIVE in the new timeline! Let’s re-murder them, re-traumatize people we know (umm wasn’t Shiho literally raped in the original world? but not in this timeline?................... so WTF are you fucking doing you fucking monsters??????), because ONLY WE CAN DECIDE ON OUR REALITY! And we remember the old, shittier one right now, so let’s .... default to that one I guess! Despite the fact that this is one is already established to be EQUALLY FUCKING REAL.

Shockingly, the rest of the team chooses THIS is the time to finally fucking respect Ryuji. (NOTE: The time to respect Ryuji was, in truth, every single damn day BEFORE this one. He’s an excellent human being. Or... he was. Before this moment.)

BUT NOT EVERYBODY BELIEVES IN IT, YUSUKE! What about all those people who are happy here? And what about the fact that this reality isn’t any less real than your original one? Remember: This is LITERALLY happening. This is a valid AU. There’s no trickery employed. No illusions. This is a new timeline that is VERY real.

So, why?! WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?!?!

.........................towards the end of the chapter, there’s an argument made that humanity has to suffer and overcome trials and struggle in order to develop and grow. Of course, we’ve fairly well shot down the idea that there’s zero suffering in this reality (see Concern #2 above) or that there’s no effort required (see Concern #3 above). But even if we hadn’t, there’s a bigger question to face here: Is there any evidence to suggest that people WON’T grow or evolve without struggle and suffering? Can we actually back that up, this idea that we have to “overcome” in order to become better people? 

I submit that we cannot. I further submit that this is the argument of the downtrodden; the argument of the sufferers who wish to justify their own misery to themselves. But in reality? They can’t say for certain that loss and trauma are “good.” 

In fact, let me argue right now that such things are inherently BAD. People who suffer from PTSD are far more likely to have suicidal ideation, and a 2021 study showed that suicide rates are more than four times higher for people suffering from PTSD than without. If we could really erase trauma and PTSD from our world, I think we can safely say it’d make a VERY lasting impact that would be EXTREMELY worth doing.

It seems that the “spirit of rebellion” within the Phantom Thieves extends to “any decision or idea any adult has ever implemented regardless of merit.” They’re teenagers, after all... and not a single one of them is as mature as someone like P3′s Mitsuru, so I accept that their knee-jerk rebellious instincts might be overriding their ability to think logically. 

Or, let’s be more charitable about it. MAJOR DIGRESSION: This could be a situation kind of like writing Star Trek: Insurrection. (I know most of you won’t understand what I’m referencing here. I’m sorry.) That movie presents a sticky ethical debate: Is it OK for a government to forcibly relocate a population of 600 people if their current homeland contains some natural healing mojo that could be used to save *billions* of people across the galaxy? Patrick Stewart once said that he was forced to make Picard very narrow-minded in order to serve the needs of the movie’s story. Because if that same story was presented in the format of multiple TV episodes, there would’ve been time to explore a bunch of alternative solutions that weren’t as binary as “force them out and take all the healing mojo OR leave them be and don’t take any of the healing mojo.” There would obviously be multiple negotiable middle grounds that just aren’t discussed because of time constraints. (To his credit, Picard DOES try to throw up a bunch of alternatives during his confrontation with a superior officer. They’re all shot down with hand-wavey explanations, but at least a few are suggested.)

DIGRESSION OVER. My point? Maybe that’s how it is here, too. Maybe the Phantom Thieves just can’t afford to sit around and discuss this matter in a serious debate because the game is already SUPER long; they need to get the fuck on with it and not just pump you full of non-interactive cutscenes, so Ryuji simplifies everything. ............. It’s just that he does so in a manner that makes the squad look really short-sighted and selfish.

In Conclusion

I took Maruki’s deal. That was MY ending to the game. And it might very well be the best ending available! Although I’d be willing to at least consider the original Non-Royal, didn’t-completely-Maruki’s-Confidant ending as a semi-contender... but DANG, yo. It’s tough to beat the Mega-Happy New Reality Ending. (I subsequently watched the rest of the “True” ending only on YouTube playthroughs, which is where I nabbed these screenshots.)

Taking Maruki’s deal results in basically everybody getting a fulfilling, beautiful life. Although I admit that I have no idea how Akechi is now part of the new reality... because he was never going to accept it, right? And we established repeatedly that those who don’t accept it can’t really reap the benefits, so... why is he now a legitimate “detective prince” whose external behavior from the first few chapters of P5 is now actually who he is inside? How’d THAT ever happen? Not sure about that shit.

Even so, it’s a long and beautiful ending full of gorgeous art of the squad all living their best lives. Morgana is relegated to just carrying “Miss Ann’s” bags while shopping, and he doesn’t even care - he’s just happy to be there. Makoto and Sae get to have dinners with their father again. Haru is more directly involved in the “Big Bang Burger” business, working to keep it ethical and respectful of the neighborhoods where they open as she prepares to carve her own path after high school. Makoto and Haru even get to graduate.

The whole thing wraps up with Sojiro inviting Joker to finish his high school experience in Tokyo. That’s right - he’s asked if he’d like to stay at the cafe and Shujin for his third and final year. Naturally, he’s happy to accept the offer. That means he’ll even be there for an overlap with Futaba’s FIRST year in high school. (Plus he no longer has to return to his small suburban town and his parents who NEVER ONCE CALLED OR MESSAGED DURING THE YEAR, WTF??? ............ or uh, maybe that happened offscreen?) 

It’s really weird how the writers of Persona 5 Royal SO THOROUGHLY argued against any possible downside of Maruki’s new reality. I get that they wanted a complex issue to grapple with, but if they really wanted us to choose to reject the new world and pursue the True Ending, they should’ve given us some kind of good reason, right? Even if it’s just a small reason, there’s got to be an argument that’s better than “I don’t like the idea that the timeline has changed”... which is ultimately all they’ve got. But I listed all the possible concerns above, and... they didn’t leave a single one of them standing. If they’d put just ONE of those potential problems in place, maybe I’d find the matter more debatable. 

Well, probably not Concern #5. That’s not really enough to justify erasing all this societal progress.

In the end, I’m left to ask you this:

[theknightmarket]

“Do you want to do this again sometime?”

In which Damien and the DA end up going to a party under false pretenses.  

TW: sexual references (teasing)

Pages: 20 - Words: 8000

[Requests: OPEN]

“You have to help me.”

Hearing that as soon as your friend of, at this point, 20 years bursts panting and sweating profusely through the door was not the best way to start the day. Good thing that you’d had your fair share of French toast and coffee, so you were able to swirl around in your chair to gauge the situation soberly. Damien didn’t look scared, if a little nervous, but he wasn’t happy. You remembered him talking about some dinner party the day before, which he would attend a few hours after he left. Still in his formal attire, so he had spent the night unwilfully. He also lacked a bowtie.

“Did you hook up with someone?” 

Much to your amusement, he went beet red the second the words escaped your mouth. It was painful to try not to laugh, but the single chuckle that breached the air had him rushing over to sit next to you, and he laid his cane on the table. A small attempt to hide his face was made with his free hand, though, you knew better. You had seen better, too, so you pat him on the back and left to pour another cup of coffee for the poor man. 

From your position at the countertop, you heard him mutter, “You don’t have to say it like that.” 

Oh. 

Normally, it felt great to be right. It was your favorite hobby, actually, but this time… this time was something different. Your eyebrows crossed and a faint intake of breath made it difficult to focus on the mug in your hand. Grip steadily clenching and loosening, the thump of your heart stilled. This should have been more concerning, the idea that some medical defect would put an end to your life before it had even begun, but Damien having stayed the night was somehow worse to you. 

Still, like any good friend, you brought the cup of coffee over to him and, making sure to avoid jostling him, set it down near his crossed arms. The steam faded into his eyes while he stared at the intricate design; he had always liked this mug, it was probably the best one out of your whole collection, in his opinion. A little golden retriever with a Christmas hat. Cute. 

He took it gratefully and gulped it down within seconds, the warning that it was hot not fully registering in his mind until half of it was gone. Then, the pain started, and it started strong. Damien was never one to curse but, in this moment, that didn’t matter. All the words in the book came pouring out of his mouth, alongside any coffee left that could cause more pain. It wasn’t until the glistening burn started to dull itself into a sting did he cease the speaking and start the fanning, not that it would help. 

You looked on with empathy and a small tinge of told-ya-so-ness. Either way, you quickly fetched a cold cup of water and bottle of honey, which, from experience, would work better than just waving at the burn. It didn’t take any coaxing to get him to open his mouth, so it was comparatively easy to help than when the roles had been reversed. 

Luckily for you, Damien wasn’t physically able to point out this fact, so you mumbled, “You’re such an idiot,” as you handed him a slowly melting ice cube. 

He rolled his eyes, momentarily distracted from the pain, but the curl of his lips downward and hiss were back the next moment. 

After some minutes of pampering and healing, the mayor was able to speak again, even if it was only a few words per sentence – his coffee had gone cold by now, too, and you rose from your chair to throw it down the sink like a prisoner into jail. Yours was already gone, drank in an orderly and non-painful fashion, so you just placed your mug into the sink next to Damien’s empty one. 

Despite the interlude, your mind still wandered back to his situation. Whoever he had been with, they must’ve been special to get with the mayor of sunny Los Angeles. You wondered what it was that drew him to them; maybe it was their looks alone, but Damien wasn’t that shallow, was he? Maybe they had a nice chat and it just escalated from there. You wondered how his sister would take it, since she was always so protective of him. You wondered if they would continue to see each other, if they knew each other already, if they had been together for a while now and you just didn’t know it, you wondered—

“I didn’t… hook up with anyone, you know.”

Oh, thank God. 

It had never felt so good to be wrong! You would have paraded around the kitchen if you hadn’t company, but that company you did have was Damien and he had not been with someone last night. Shoulders relaxing and that easy-going smile returning to your face, you whirled around to look at him again. 

“Then, why on God’s green earth, would you need my help?”

Damien sat up straight, pressed his hands across the table, and steadied his breathing. These were tell-tale signs that he was going to delve into a story, probably go off on a tangent, too, if you knew him well enough. With this knowledge, you cheerfully dashed back to your seat and dramatically leaned in close. 

The sudden burst of crimson on his face didn’t go unnoticed, but the reason for it did. You were too excited for the story of why he came back your apartment disheveled and lacking a bowtie to care. 

He started with a cough, “So, I went to that party last night.” You nodded. You were one to send him on his way with a good pep-talk and adjustment of his collar. “I’m aware.”

“I got there around six-fifteen, stayed in the car for another fifteen minutes and then went inside. I spoke to the Mr. Witz and his daughter Bethany.” You knew about Mr. Witz, he was an old guy in his late 50s and hell-bent on establishing his banking systems in L.A, hence why Damien was invited. “After being offered drinks, I took one and went to talk to, um, I think it was Mrs. Peterson, Mr. Daveed, and Mr. Ockley.”

With a light chuckle, you interrupted, “I’m starting to think you’ve killed someone and are trying to construct an alibi, Dame.” 

“I’m not! I didn’t, I just—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know you didn’t,” waving him off, you finished, “Please, continue.”

Another cough to clear his throat, and he was speaking again, “It was around half-nine when I spoke to Mrs. Harrows and then was I introduced to her daughter, Penelope, I believe her name was. We were talking nice and having a fun time, but it was obvious when we got into the subject of, uh, romancewhy Mrs. Harrows really brought her daughter to the party.” 

You nodded, knowingly, because, after most nights out with the rich and infamous - Mrs. Harrows amongst them­ – Damien had a habit of bursting into your apartment and ranting about whatever had gone wrong or even right this time. You always welcomed him with a smile and a drink, something that should have become tiresome after the thirteenth time that month, but they key word there was should. It didn’t, surprisingly, but you thought you knew why, and to be completely honest, that idea scared you. This exact scenario was the reason behind that fear. 

“Mrs. Harrows, I would never speak ill of her, but she was determined to get her daughter into my, well, good graces. Of course, I wasn’t initiating by any means, but then she left myself and Penelope alone to get some champagne, and I realized that this determination might’ve been genetic.”

You grimaced at the implication, feeling bad for both Damien and the girl, but less so for her because… obvious reasons. Nothing that you wanted to trouble yourself with, in the presence of Damien, you wanted to pay as much attention as you could. 

“So, for the better half on an hour, she was trying to charm me, and I was trying to get away. I even resorted to asking Mr. Witz about his insurance schemes.” His speaking was speeding up, and his tone was growing gradually more nervous, to the point that you were wondering if he was going to have a stroke. Eventually, though, he completely stopped still at the end of a sentence. His eyes held a look of remembrance, faint fear, and a hint of something else. You couldn’t quite pinpoint it, and you didn’t have his monologue to distract you from thinking about it. It wasn’t confidence, it wasn’t excitement, it was almost sad in a way. Disappointed, but for what, you didn’t know. 

“And then,” he began again shakily, “she asked if I would like to go for a stroll around the gardens.” 

“Scandalous!” you mocked, even though you knew full well what that really meant. You had been invited to a good amount of those kinds of social gatherings, and, nearly every single time, someone would approach another and ask to go out around the gardens. At this point, it was basically a marriage proposal, but no one was insane enough to refuse such a request if not for a good reason, none of which Damien had. Penelope Harrows was a nice girl, beautiful and, by all means, well-off. Damien, meanwhile, was single, equally rich, and with no one at his side throughout the evening to drag him away. So, there was the question – if Damien hadn’t lied to you, why had he not gone home with her?

The mayor rolled his eyes, smiling all the while, but he continued the story, “Of course, I said no – but she was insistent,” that blush rose from the dead, coating over the bridge of his nose to both ears, “and, when I refused again, she asked why.”

Damien was already getting choked up with words, them bundling together in the middle of his throat and halting breathing altogether. He knew what he wanted to say but getting it out was a much harder task than putting the sentence together. After a few seconds of floundering, his resolved crumbled – just as his knees felt despite being sat down – and he opened his mouth with a sigh. 

“I told her I was engaged.” 

Oh.

“To you.” 

Oh. 

You don’t know what you had expected, but it definitely wasn’t this. Hell, you would’ve been less surprised to hear he had just insulted her and gotten fired. However, that was not what had happened. And you had mixed feelings on the idea. 

For one, this was going to be difficult to fix. With so many influential people around Damien at the time, word was going to spread faster than a wildfire, and possibly damage a lot more, too. There were going to be death threats in your mailbox, which was par for the course, and fear for both your reputations as unbiased and objective swelled in your heart. Though, beside that little feeling was something else. A light feeling, as if the calm glow of the moon had leaked out of your stomach and into your heart. It was ludicrous and dishonest to be called Damien’s fiancé, but that didn’t stop you from grinning behind your hand. Your heart thudded in your chest when your eyes met. 

“We’ve been extended an invitation to attend another social gathering tonight at Mrs. Harrows’ estate. Seven o’clock sharp, dancing and socializing included, expect to depart around eleven.” He recited the information like a script, as if he’d rehearsed it time and time before – knowing Damien, he probably had, even in his mind to get the wording just right. 

You nodded. “Okay.” With that, you started towards your bedroom, specifically the closet which held most of your formal outfits. Shuffling through them, you picked at the ones you thought most suitable: the off-white one with cut edges, a completely black one that might have been too funeral-ly, and a more modern mix of the two. You heard the familiar footfalls of Damien’s dress shoes and his cane thumping against the wood as he approached, your head delved into the cabinet to scout out some appropriate shoes at the same time. 

“You- you’re not mad?” 

Ducking out for a second, you asked, “Should I be?”

“No, but… I mean, I didn’t ask permission to call you my fiancé.” 

“Probably half of L.A knows about us now, so why bother pretending we called it off overnight?” Besides, you wouldn’t mind it being the truth eventually. 

Your eyes blew wide and the hanger you had grasped in your hand clattered to the floor. That thought, had it actually come from you? You hadn’t focused much on romance since you landed a job as the D.A – though the odd thought about asking Damien out to dinner or a walk down the beaches would occasionally pop into your head – but now your imagination was running wild. You had a few suits in your closet in view, and each time your eyes glossed over them, you saw that damned mayor in it, standing at the end of an aisle. Were you the marrying type? This was unknown territory, way out of your comfort zone but you couldn’t deny the shaky excitement rising in you. Even the memory of your parents nagging you about getting into a relationship gave you pause. 

But was Damien considering anything? You knew he took his mayoral duties seriously, probably too seriously to be considered healthy, so would he be open to setting some time aside for anyone, let alone you? Breathing picking up and heart pounding in your chest, you realized that you were being overzealous. You could start by asking him out if you could even get past that hurdle. 

Meanwhile, Damien hummed in agreement, sitting on the bed behind you. His cane flipped between hands, a habit he had adopted when nervous ever since he had first gotten the thing. He barely needed it to walk anymore but he claimed it was just to be safe - you thought it was something to fiddle with to take his mind of off whatever bothered him. 

“So, what’s the problem, Dame?” Finally sticking your body out of the closet and toting two different outfits, you catch Damien off guard. He sputters and avoids eye contact for a few seconds, before settling on laughing quietly to himself. 

“I don’t know,” he admits. 

You lay the clothes down on your desk’s chair and come to sit down next to him again. 

“Well, there’s obviously something.” 

Silence. You tilted your head to look him in the eye, he looked away again. You moved closer, he shuffled back. 

“Damien—” his gaze immediately met yours, deep chestnut mudded with uncertainty, “—tell me what’s wrong.”

“What if it goes wrong?” 

The stark fear that consumed his voice, laced it with poisonous pessimism, had you squeezing his hand before you could think to move. His fingers clamped around your own and captured the assurance you gave him, warm and solid. 

Now having all his attention, you asked plainly, “What is the worst you think will happen?” 

His scenario was quick to flood out of his mouth, shaking every word, “You and I will show up and they immediately know that I lied, and they’ll get us alone and pick apart our stories like doomed vultures – our reputations will be ruined, you’ll lose your job, I’ll lose mine, and then I’ll be forced to marry Penelope Harrows, even though I don’t want to, and you’ll marry someone else and move away and—” Tears were brimming in the corners of his eyes, overwhelming him to the point that his sentence cut off by the silent splash of water against your connected hands. 

“Okay,” you started, rubbing tire tracks into the back of his hand, “and what’s the best thing that could happen?” 

This one took longer for him to come up with – and, all the while, you sat by him, pushing away the tears that fell and smiling to calm the ones just starting to flow – until he mustered up the words. “We go to the party and… and everything is fine.” 

There looked like there was something else he wanted to say, something else that tapped at the border of his lips, but you let it be. This was, after all, a big improvement from the bad scenario. 

Finally, you asked, “And what’s most likely to happen?” 

Damien stopped completely still as the dead. The cogs in his mind whirred at a pace faster than you were able to keep up with. Then, he spoke slowly, “We go to the party, and we talk to the other guests. They ask us questions, but we give sensible answers, and maybe they something’s it’s a bit odd, but it’s common courtesy to not poke holes in public, so they won’t prod. We go home around eleven and sleep until the morning.” 

You smiled tenderly; Damien was a rational person with rational thought processes, it just took some coaxing to get them out of him, and coax you did. This happened often, especially for public parties, and you couldn’t count on two hands how many times you calmed him down before a speech. It gave you a sense of pride that you had this down to a T, but seeing the aftermath was all the more rewarding.

You snapped to attention when your hand was squeezed once more, this time by Damien, as he whispered, “Thank you.” 

“Happy to help.” 

And there you two sat, watching each other like the most interesting show in all of Los Angeles. For you, the sparkles in Damien’s eyes danced along, bursting and cracking with the intensity of supernovas – bright oranges and blues and purples were born and died in those masses of brown. They never ceased to amaze you. The swirling, the twinkling, the parts that played against each other to create this amazing spirally galaxy. 

But, as Damien looked in yours, he found his lungs completely empty, breathe stolen away when he stared straight at you. Confined within the color of your irises was adventure untold and affairs whispered in the darkest of nights, to the one you trusted the most. There was danger sparking bombs, bombs that exploded chambers, chambers that held reward unimaginable. He hoped – promised himself as twilight overcame the sky – that he would, one day, be the only one to lie next to you and bear witness to those stories so intricate he believed he was there himself. 

What a world that would be, huh? 

He knew it was only a dream, distant and so, so tantalizing that it pained him whenever he glanced in your direction. At the same time, he couldn’t hold back. The love and loss bound to happen if he let himself slip wasn’t something he wanted to risk, but his body forced himself to. It forced him to step one inch closer, forced him to say one more ‘goodbye’ and ‘hello’ when he saw you. It forced him to recognize that, maybe, the lie of being your fiancé was more than to protect himself.

Damien felt the bed puff up at your sudden vacancy. A confused look sent your way, which showed you looking equally so.

“What time is it?” you muttered, wandering off back to the kitchen. When you arrived, the clock showed it was barely half-past ten, seemingly giving you all the time in the world, but that was a trick. You knew it would take around an hour to get to Damien’s place, then you’d have to actually get ready for the party – shower, dry, dress –, you’d end up having dinner at his, too, because God forbid someone expect to be fed at a party. Then, there was the matter of preparing yourselves with excuses and stories and—

You leaned back into the bedroom doorway and asked, “Do we need rings?” 

Damien’s face reddened and the grip on his cane tightened so much that you thought it might snap in half. Chuckling, you smiled and moved forward to sit beside him.

“It’ll be fine,” you whispered, swinging an arm around his shoulder, “if we’re together, we can get through it.” 

You heard him audibly sigh, the breath shaky and unstable, but he trusted you. That was all you needed. 

After a few seconds, you patted him on the arm and picked up the two outfits you had selected, as well as a pair of shoes you could feasibly dance in without breaking your toes. Or Damien’s if that was to happen. 

You grabbed his hand with the free one of your own and guided him to the front door. He was quick to adjust his jacket before creaking the wood open for you. A mock bow, and you were out into the fresh air, Damien closing and locking it behind you. 

“By the way,” you asked casually as your shoes clicked against the stone path, “why were you so… disheveled?” 

“I slept in my car.”

“Of course, you did.” 

The manor was a sight to behold and, standing at the base of cobble stairs, was nothing less than intimidating. Cold air rose goosebumps on your arms despite the jacket wrapped around you, fog accumulating in front of you every time you exhaled. Multiple unsteady breaths, and you still didn’t feel better off, until your hand was grasped by Damien, who stood beside you. Sounds of wheels rolling over gravel and metal doors opening behind you fell to deaf ears when a reassuring pressure calmed your heartbeat – though, there was a constant thrum not caused by the daunting role ahead of you. 

But that was all this was, right? The role of dutiful fiancé to the mayor of Los Angeles, ready to put in a good word or story with the man. You were also the District Attorney, but, somehow, you knew that wouldn’t be the focus of tonight. 

Hand in hand, you and Damien strolled in. 

Beautiful golden chandeliers dangled overheard in the foyer, spreading a unique glow to every square inch of the floor. Two staircases intertwining at the middle lead to a second floor, while a rug that pooled where you now stood trailed up the centre towards the dining room. Everything was polished to perfection, looking as though nobody had lived here for quite some time, but that was impossible to imagine with how many people flooded the rooms. Doctors, generals, even some lawyers you remembered seeing in court decorated the edges – each one was its own piece of silver-plated furniture. 

You swallowed and held Damien’s hand a little tighter.

“Oh, my good mayor!” a voice unknown to you called from the top of the staircase. 

Now, you had never met Mrs. Harrows but, by what Damien told you, this was either her or a very good copycat. Salt and pepper hair always tied up with a satin ribbon, some long dress she was sure to trip in, and mountains upon mountains of jewelry draped across her skin – her voice was even the same as he had described, high pitched but not squawking. More like a mouse that went through puberty. 

The lady rocketed down the stairs, fast despite her age, and landed perfectly in front of Damien. A small smile cracked over his mouth, and he let out an awkward chuckle. 

“Mrs. Harrows, always a pleasure to see you,” he spoke cautiously, every word running through millions of checks and balances to get it right. 

You suddenly dreaded what you would have to deal with for the next four hours. 

Brining her hand towards Damien to occupy him, she turned her sight, instead, to you. “Hmm, and this is your lovely fiancé, is it?” she asked, looking you up and down. It was, strangely, threatening for a 5’1” old woman. 

Your cheeks were already hurting from smiling so much, but you continued to do so to placate her. The grin threatened to fall when you were reduced to only Damien’s partner, though you held strong as you replied, “You are correct, Mrs. Harrows, and thank you for inviting us.”

 “Oh, it’s my pleasure, dear. I’ve always told our mayor that he needs a strong partner to help him in his life.” 

Awkwardly, Damien chuckled at his side. If his bowtie wasn’t strung so tight, you could’ve sworn you’d see smoke billowing out like a busted machine. “Yes, well…”

Mrs. Harrows smiled at him kindly, and then turned to you, asking “Now, when did you meet?” 

“We’ve known each other since we were children,” you responded. These kinds of questions were the easy part, the part that was already real and didn’t need any sudden improvisations.  

“Young love!” the lady gasped, “When did you get engaged then?”

In your mind, you were noting down everything that could come up again, the loose info that might land you in hot water if you didn’t keep it all straight. It was a tactic you used in court, but you supposed it wouldn’t hurt to exercise it here, as well. You started, “Actually, just a month ago. We went out to the town we grew up in, saw the places we made our best memories at, and then Damien proposed to me at the restaurant we used to sneak out to.”

A mischievous gleam appeared in Mrs. Harrows’ eyes, and Damien’s nervous gulp was nearly audible. “Sneak out, eh?” she whispered, in the way old grandmother’s do when anybody paying a sliver of attention could still hear them. 

You elaborated, “Every Friday afternoon, we’d get out of our houses and go to this family-owned place a couple of blocks away. They knew us and Damien tutored their youngest kid, so we got free ice-creams or milkshakes. Chocolate and mint, huh, Dame?”

The man looked completely lost in the conversation. The focus in his expression only returned when he responded, “Uh, yeah.” And then, he went back to staring into the distance. He was surprised, and worried, about your uncanny ability to make things up out of thin air. It was something good for a lawyer, sure, but it had him blinking away the shock many times in your conversation. Shoving the end of his cane into the tile, he tried to take his mind off it. 

“But we never told our parents, so we’d always have to climb in through trees or awful sounding back doors when we went back,” you finished your story with an eyeroll.

Mrs. Harrows giggled, “I won’t tell a soul- oh, but I must ask, when did you know it was right?”

That question. It appeared to stump you, and Damien took hold of your hand to assure you that it was okay. If you wanted, he would take the reins and give his own skills a try. However, you knew that was a fool’s game, so you sucked in a breath and answered, “Hmm, it was just after a dinner party, I think, when Damien practically took my door off its hinges to get into my apartment. He was all flustered and tired, and I had just finished making some coffee, so I was finished and sitting on the couch for the night. He didn’t really say anything when he came in, but he came in and laid down, looking out of it. We didn’t talk, we didn’t do anything, we just sat together until it got to around midnight and we talked. I think… that was when I realized he was it for me.” 

Damien’s grip on your hand tightened, his back straightening and his eyes widening as he remembered just that very occasion. It could have just been you drawing inspiration, but the memory was too similar – down to, regrettably, the door and midnight you mentioned – to one that happened exactly two months ago. 

“That’s precious, dear,” Mrs. Harrows cooed, and she shot a glance over her shoulder to where her daughter was chatting with a group of her friends. “I hope my Penelope finds someone like that.”

You smiled. “I’m sure she will, Mrs. Harrows.” 

“But tell me, what do you do during the day? I’ve heard all about the mayor’s duties, what do you do?”

Finally, you were able to talk about something familiar to you! Your job, something you treasured, was vastly easier to talk about. “Ah, well, I’m the District Attorney for Los Angeles, but I’ve been in touch with the other states for work, too.” 

Her once squinted eyes and pursed lips immediately disappeared with recognition. “Oh, I’ve read about you in the paper!” Without another word, your arm was wrapped by her own and you were gone from Damien’s side before you could think to protest. 

The man watched as you disappeared into the sea of strangers, a hesitant wave ducking between two gentlemen the last that he saw of you. Not even a full half-hour in and he had lost you. His first thought was to chase after you, and his foot lifted from the tile just a centimeter until he realized that the both of you would be fine on your own, that you would be fine on your own. So, he relaxed his shoulders and focused on finding someone to talk to. It didn’t take much searching for him to locate a group of friends – or, rather, people he had shared a conversation with before. 

In fact, Mr. Ockley was holding court over four men surrounding him, telling some story about the political crisis in Germany. Damien jumped in with his own opinion of the Weimar Republic, grimaced when half of those gentlemen turned out to be against the democracy and tried to play it off with a light laugh and subject change. 

The next hour continued much like that, with the mayor jumping from group to group and attempting to play nice. His battery was wearing thin though, only made worse when the most that he saw of you was the shade of your jacket in the midst of reds and blues, or the occasional smile you sent him when you noticed each other at the same time. He coped by assuring himself that he just had to wait it out until the bell rang, which reminded him too much of your days in college for his liking, and then he’d see you at the dance. Being supposedly engaged, you’d go through the motions together. You were a team. He didn’t have to worry. 

So, despite his constant affirmations and whispers of comfort to himself, why was he? Why did he continue to worry so much? It was like a curse set wild upon him by a damned witch from his past – it shook him to his core and infested his bones. And, the worst thing, he knew exactly why but couldn’t voice it. Just once he wanted to come right out and say something. Tell you his feelings and let whatever came of it be, he didn’t want to think about it. But something always stopped him. Whether it wasn’t the right time, or someone interrupted, or the words simply got caught in his throat before he could tell you.

That he loved you. 

“Now there’s a sight for sore eyes!” 

Even in his imagination, another person had to come and ruin the moment – but he couldn’t say he didn’t expect it, after all, considering who that person was. 

Damien swiveled on his heel, cane grounding him like a third leg as he came face to face with Mark, one of his oldest friends, and, behind him, his twin sister. Celine didn’t look thrilled to be there, but he couldn’t blame her; he didn’t feel lie being there anymore either, now that disappointment and sorrow filled his heart. 

“I could’ve sworn I saw our dear little District Attorney somewhere in here, so I told Celine that you’d be here, too,” Mark stated when he was within steps of the mayor.

That seemed to pique the lady’s interest because she was quick to squint her eyes at Damien and ask, “You’re not on a date, are you?”

“Ah, well, you see—” 

“I knew they’d get together eventually; I should’ve made a bet,” Mark interrupted, as he was want to do. 

Damien tried to explain, “What happened was—” 

This time, Celine was the one to cut him off, saying, “No, I definitely would’ve said he’d bite the bullet around now.” 

“No, you misunderstand—” 

“We don’t know how long they’ve been together for, maybe it was a long time ago.” 

“But that ring, Mark, it’s clean.”

“Damien is a careful man – he wouldn’t let something so special get dirty.” 

“So, it could go either way—” 

“Excuse me!”

The two, as well as some of the people close enough to eaves-drop, stopped short of another argument. Damien felt like a child in the midst of their parents’ divorce, and, somehow, the topic of his supposed relationship had devolved into their failing marriage. Not that he would say it out loud, or in public, at the very least. He paled to think what they would be like when you two really got married. If. If he really got married. 

Damien coughed to clear the air for a second before explaining in a low tone, “I accidentally told someone that we were engaged to stop them pursuing me, that is all. We are not… we’re not really engaged.” 

There was a moment of silence for the three, the rest of the party continuing to chat amongst themselves, but, for them, it was quiet while they processed the information. Mark was the first to speak, as always, but Celine did look somewhat disappointed before she looked away. 

“Well, that’s certainly more boring.” And that was that for him. The actor wandered away into the crowd, leaving Celine behind with Damien.  

Sighing, she whispered, “You really should tell them.”

Damien’s heart plummeted for fear that his emotions were that obvious. “Tell them what?” He feigned ignorance.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about, Damien, don’t play dumb with me.”

“I’m not playing dumb, I…” His eyes lowered when he realized he wasn’t going to get past the woman he shared a womb with for nine months. Whatever went on in their lives was no secret to the other, like Celine’s marriage or whatever Damien had going on with one of their oldest friends. Slowly, he conceded, “I only wonder when is the right time.” 

“How so?”

“Well, we barely spend any free time together, and any we do have is often after a large social event that we both would need to unwind from. I don’t want to add to their already-heavy workload, and I fear that my feeling may be unreciprocated.” 

Celine was still, thinking through a plan, it seemed, which gave Damien more fear than running for office had. He fumbled with his cane, wringing his hands around it to find some kind of comfort without you there to help. It wasn’t until she spotted something in the distance that she grabbed her brother’s arm and tugged him out of the room. Rushing through waves of strangers and acquaintances, he could barely see where they were going. Eventually, however, after side-stepping a considerable number of shoes and elbows, they came to a stop right where the night had begun.

People gossiping against the walls – shiny decorations spread to show the Harrows’ wealth – golden chandeliers hanging from the ceiling – and, at the head of it all, the pair of staircases that led to, now, two people. Mrs. Harrows and you. 

And, by the will of God, you looked like an angel. 

The glow of gold that praised you, the sparkle in your eyes even from this distance, the impeccable confidence you held in the cross of your hands and bend of your back over the wooden banister. You looked out over this ocean, parted it with your vision like the red sea for Israel, and saw him. Because, of course, you saw him first. You always had. He didn’t know whether he wanted to run from this manor or run towards you, dip you backwards into a gentle kiss that could speak a thousand more words than he ever could hope to in your presence. 

Celine paused just below the landing, from where you waved with a grin before indulging Mrs. Harrows in more idle chatter. Damien’s shoes felt rooted to the floor when your eyes met, and he was only able to breathe again as you shifted them away. 

“Tell me, right here, right now – that you think they’d consider a relationship with you ‘work’.” 

Try as he might, Damien couldn’t, but the weight on his heart was none the lighter. There was still the glaring question of whether you thought of him like that, after all. 

“And don’t think for a second they don’t think of you like that.”

God damn it. 

“I don’t know if you’re deaf or blind or both, but you should have noticed by now how they act towards you.” 

Damien glanced, genuinely confused, towards his sister, to which she sent back a blunt look. 

“First of all,” Celine began, “there hasn’t been a day gone by that they haven’t spoken about you like you’re the end-all-be-all of the entire world. Really, it’s getting on my nerves, and you don’t even notice it! Every time I’ll go to their office, they’ll ask how you’ve been, if you need any help, and then there’s those looks they’ll send you when you’re obviously not looking. They put you on a damn pedestal.”

Damien was sure that she was still talking, but he wasn’t listening. He was too caught up in the idea that Celine might actually be telling the truth – that you really did feel the same way and there was a chance this could all go well. In fact, it could be the best thing that could’ve happened that night, because Damien hadn’t told you everything that he thought would be the best. He had kept hidden the part where you admit your feelings to each other and go for a walk around the gardens. You both knew what that meant. 

But, although it was the best outcome, he was terrified to initiate it, so he pledged to himself that when the bell chimed to begin the dance, he would take your hand and slip outside for some time in the fresh air. Lord knows he can’t dance with his leg.  

That was the plan that would be put into action mere seconds later, when a handbell was rung from the main hall. Damien immediately regretted thinking this but was swept away with the crowd before he could leave for good. You were slightly better off, and, although you lost sight of your friend, it was obvious where he was headed towards. Accompanying Mrs. Harrows, you moved toward the dance hall. 

It was a great place, stained glass windows that detailed wars and marriages lining each wall to the outside. Rows of tables sat flushed against those walls, which held bowls of fruit and pastries too beautiful to be eaten. It felt disgraceful, sinful, even, to be in there with such glorious views, but nobody had much choice in the matter. People would match up soon enough, Mrs. Harrows looking over her guests and making sure their needs were met. The two of your parted when she left to ask after a bachelor for her daughter – this wasn’t an assumption, she told you this as she left your side. After wishing her good luck, you went to find your own man, whose tailcoat you saw between a group of people. 

It was tough to make your way through, but you managed it, if only to see the way Damien’s eyes lit up when he caught sight of you. He fought against the tide to fall in step beside you, and he took your arm in a classic gentlemanly fashion. You ended your little journey by one of the walls, both happy to be together again after the whole night spent apart. Still, it was quiet between you two, flanked by the sound of dress-shoes tapping against the floor and the swishing of dress fabrics. 

“So, you spoke to Mrs. Harrows,” Damien started plainly. Inwardly, he berated himself for going back on his plan, but you were none the wiser as you leaned against the brick. 

You nodded and replied, “Yeah, she talked by ear off about her late-husband and kids. I’m surprised I haven’t gone deaf yet.”

Damien laughed, the sound reverberating in his chest and flowing like a river into the air. Such a pleasant sound had you chuckling alongside him. “That sounds like Mrs. Harrows, though I’ve never heard her mention a husband.” 

“I think she murdered him.” 

“Like I said.” 

The laughter trailed off into the crowds, which left you watching the dancing couples with faint interest and Damien starting to sweat. Was now a good time to ask to leave? Or would you think he was getting bored and wanted to leave the manor entirely? Good Lord, he hated this, why couldn’t he just invite you out for a normal date, like a normal guy with a normal love. No, he had to be dramatic and start out a possible relationship with lying to the masses about already being engaged, because he was dramatic, and a liar, and, worst of all, a coward—

“Do you want to take a walk?” 

But you weren’t. Your words infested his brain and took control of his like some parasite. It made him malleable and suggestable while you waited for an answer. When you hadn’t received one in five whole seconds – which, really, wasn’t as long as it felt with bated breath and a rushing heartbeat – you shrugged it off and offered, “Or, we can stay here and watch people dance. Your choice.” 

“I’d like to leave.” That was not how he wanted it to come out, but the words had left before Damien became aware of what he was doing. 

You were startled by his abruptness, leaving you to mutter barely loud enough, “Oh, uh, okay. It’s not eleven yet, but I’m sure we could get a car.” You were disappointed, but you were here for him, so you stood up straight and began the way out of the hall. 

Damien was quick to grab your hand, holding it like his life depended on it. You retraced your steps and sent him a confused look, to which he cleared his throat and spoke, “I meant, yes. Yes, I would like to take a walk.” 

And again, you smiled! Completely disregarding his mistake and pretending like it had never happened in the first place. He was surprised your cheeks weren’t hurting with how much you were stretching them, but you continued to do so – shoot everybody who waved at you or called your name a grin – until the two of you were safely out of the back doors. 

The air was crisp and fresh, you noticed as soon as your foot crossed the threshold. The garden was as beautiful as the dance hall, more so, even, because every inch was covered with greenery or natural effects. The gravel underneath your shoes was intertwined with stray leaves and chestnuts from the trees above, and the paths were lined with bushes of a variety of flowers. It almost looked artificial, with how perfectly placed the roses were in mossy shrubs. They winded towards a silver fountain in the centre, but that was awhile away with how sprawling the garden was. 

You seemed to be the only couple out there, and you liked it better that way. Damien did too, because it meant that he could forget social norms and the fake engagement and worry only on what was right in front of him. You, and the cacophony of fluttering butterflies you let loose in his stomach. 

You tugged your friend by the hand and started to wander along, listening to the faint cheer of the band and the crunch of gravel. 

Content to stay quiet, you inspected the surroundings, not noticing Damien’s moving mouth. No words were coming out yet, his nerves strangling any attempt to make a sentence, until he eventually whispered, “I ran into Celine and Mark.”

You hummed. “How’re they holding up?”

“Well, Mark left when I told him we weren’t really engaged, but Celine… she stuck around.” He wasn’t about to tell you what happened with her, but it was a topic of conversation he had chosen, so he had to reap the reward. Hands twisting around his cane, he spoke, “I guess, we talked about love.” 

“Did she tell you about Will?” 

“What?”

“Nothing.” 

You grimaced, hoping he wouldn’t prod further into what you knew about the affair, and he didn’t, luckily. Instead, he continued, “It made me think about what I really want, and how I’d like to go about, well, getting it.” 

There, you stopped at the edge of the water fountain. The faint trickle of water soothed you when you looked back to Damien. In the dark, it was hard to see, but his cheeks were painted red, and his breathing was catching up to him. 

“You’ve already got the whole of L.A at your fingertips, what could you ever want?” you asked, both teasing and genuinely interested. 

He was struggling for the words, the confusion getting near painful now that he was seconds away from blurting it out. “You see, I know what I want, I just don’t know how to ask.” 

You stood still for a moment and let the scenarios rush through your head. If you were right, and it was likely, then you knew exactly what he meant. You swallowed, “Are you sure this is what you want?”

“Of course.” 

“Then, I think I can help you.” 

He watched with eager eyes as you turned to him, your entire body matched with his. “You just have to look them straight in the eye and do it. Don’t think, don’t worry, just do it, or say it.” 

“You say that as if it’s easy.”

“It’s not. I know, because, if it were, I would’ve done it months ago.” 

There was a determination in his eyes that was revealed in the next few seconds, as if he had received blinding confirmation. A surefire confidence you had never seen before. You would’ve asked what that was, but you found yourself unable to speak for the moment; lips bound by Damien’s, you were sure those fireworks and flames were real. Every sense was enraptured – his woody cologne, your hands lightly brushing his lapels, bursting notes deafened by those brick walls, your mouths moving in unison. You couldn’t help the smile that broke the kiss momentarily, but your date was back again with a smile of his own. It was warm and sweet, contrasting the fresh air around you and it had you leaning in so far you were worried you would topple over

Still, when you formally separated, the glint in his eyes told you all you needed to know. 

“Do you want to do this again sometime?”

You laughed that glorious, genuine laugh, and laid another, this time shorter but just as sweet, kiss on his parted lips. 

“Sure.” 

[sweetdreamsjeff]

Shelved: Jeff Buckley’s Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk

The posthumous Buckley industry began with this problematic album, proof that the people who control a musician’s estate don’t always have his music in mind.

Frans Schellekens / Getty

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Tom Maxwell | Longreads | February 2019 | 14 minutes (3,966 words)

On the evening of May 29, 1997, singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley and his roadie Keith Foti picked their way down the steep, weedy bank to Wolf River Harbor in Memphis, Tennessee. Buckley, wearing a T-shirt, jeans, and heavy Doc Martens boots, waded into the water singing Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love.” After about 15 minutes, a boat passed. Concerned about their boom box getting wet, Foti moved it out of harm’s way. When he turned back around, Buckley was gone with the undertow. His body wouldn’t be found for days. He was 30 years old.

Jeff Buckley had mastered that most singular of instruments: his own voice. Possessing the same incredible range as opera icon Pavarotti, his phrasing could be anguished or exquisite; his breath control was phenomenal. Beyond that, he was the soul of eclecticism: Raised on prog rock, he dabbled in hair metal, gospel, country, and soul. Once, during a live performance, he improvised in the ecstatic style of Qawwali devotional singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan — someone Buckley once described as “my Elvis” — over the riff from Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”

“I’m a ridiculous person,” he told the puzzled crowd afterward.

Sadly, if not surprisingly, Buckley left little in the way of recorded output. He released two albums during his life: 1993’s Live at Sin-é and 1994’s Grace. The record he was working on in Memphis, tentatively called My Sweetheart the Drunk, never saw completion and was shelved because of his death. It would have only been his second studio release. What was released more than a year later — a pastiche of studio recordings and demos — is as illustrative of his potential as it is of the Jeff Buckley industry that sprung up after his demise. Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk is a difficult listen, and not just because Buckley was unafraid to be challenging or the fact that much of it is more promise than fruition. The album encapsulates unpleasant cultural and legal issues of privacy, ownership, and the wishes of the artist when they run counter to those of his fanbase, record label, or even his estate. Jeff Buckley would not have wanted Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk to come out at all.

Jeff Buckley was reactive. He always seemed to be working in opposition to those aspects of him that were apparently beneficial: his record label and his provenance. On the eve of the release of Grace, an interviewer had the temerity to ask Buckley about his father, famed folk singer Tim Buckley, who died of a heroin overdose in 1975 at the age of 28.

“I knew him for nine days,” Buckley answered, after shooting the interviewer an unbelieving look. “I met him for the first time when I was 8 years old over Easter and he died two months later. He left my mother when I was 6 months old. So I never really knew him at all. We were born with the same parts but when I sing, it’s me. This is my own time.”

That night, Buckley played a 15-minute version of Big Star’s “Kangaroo,” an intense song from the Memphis band’s own 1973 shelved album, Third. Nothing could have been more portentous of Buckley’s swan song: his attempts to subvert his torch singer image; the growing contrarian imperative that made for parallel musical deconstructions on Sketches as well as Third; and Memphis’s coming role as his place of refuge and demise.

Jeff was born to Tim Buckley and Mary Guibert, a classically trained musician, in Anaheim, California, on November 17, 1966. Growing up, he was known as Scottie Moorhead, a combination of his own middle name and his stepfather’s surname. (Buckley took his biological father’s name after Tim’s death.) He spent the 1980s playing in various bands and working as a session musician.

After moving to New York City in 1990, the disaffected Buckley discovered Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, whose music would change his life. The two met and talked for Interview magazine in 1996.

Buckley: You once had a dream that is now very famous. Can you describe it to me? Khan: My father [the Qawwali singer Ustad Fateh Ali Khan] died in 1964, and ten days later, I dreamed that he came to me and asked me to sing. I said I could not, but he told me to try. He touched my throat, I started to sing, and then I woke up singing. I had dreamed that my first live performance would be at my father’s chilla [funeral ceremony], where we would all sit together again and read prayers from the Koran and so on. On the fortieth day after his death, we held the ceremony, and I performed for the very first time. Buckley: How old were you? Khan: About sixteen. Buckley: I had a similar struggle, because I started very late. Khan: When did you start? Buckley: My first performance was at about age fourteen. And I also hid from my father. He had died by the time I started, but I hid from him a gift that I was born with. There was a period when I was frozen for about three or four years, starting when I was eighteen. In my dream at that time, the ghost of my father came smashing through the window.

Qawwali is Sufi devotional music, originating in Persia more than 700 years ago. More spiritual than religious (as some qawwali can be downright bawdy), it is about devotion — to another person, or god. It’s about the pain of separation, the longing to reunite, and the sacredness of expressing these things.

If Buckley learned anything from qawwali, beyond the vocal calisthenics, it was to adopt a spiritual identity as an artist, to not be afraid of emotion, and to sing from the heart. 

Diffident to major-label interest, Buckley never made a demo tape or shopped a deal. “It would have been wrong somehow,” he once said, “wrong for the music. It needs to have a real sacred setting for people to understand it. Sending your music to established artists or labels or magazines — I mean there is something to be said for tenacity, for trying to pursue recognition that way — but it just doesn’t make sense for the best work. And if you do make an amazing work, it’s sometimes not the best way to be heard. You have to get on a sacred space, like a stage, and do your testifying that way.”

‘I thought we’d have something ready for Christmas, but this was going to take time. Jeff seemed despondent too.’

Buckley’s version of Khan’s “Yeh Jo Halka Saroor Hae” appeared on Live at Sin-é. In the background, some of the crowd laugh at the beginning of his performance, perhaps from amazement, surprise, or derision.

“He’s the only artist that I trusted 100 percent,” Buckley’s manager Dave Lory once said. “We had a saying: ‘Did you pack a parachute?’ because he was always taking leaps off a cliff. No other artist I’d worked with ever did. And I’d say, ‘Do you have a parachute?’ and he’d say, ‘Yeah, I think so,’ because we never knew how hard the landing was gonna be.”

After Grace, Buckley toured extensively, setting up new markets in Europe, New Zealand, and Australia. Despite modest album sales, he had the label support to do this, as he was signed to Sony subsidiary Columbia, home to some of Buckley’s musical heroes: Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Leonard Cohen, and Bruce Springsteen.

By 1996, pressure for a second studio album was mounting. Although now committed to performing original material, Buckley was not a prolific writer. “I wish I had a real reservoir [of songs], but I don’t,” he told an interviewer. “It just sort of comes. Thoughts lead into each other and gain momentum and then BOOM! Some weird gibberish will come into my mind and I’ll go, ‘That’s the one.’ Dreams, too.”

The new project was threatened by other issues. Buckley’s longtime drummer Matt Johnson left the band in 1996.

“There was the new material they’d tried live in Australia and one or two other demos that Jeff had made, but he seemed about to go into recording his second album with even less material than he had when starting Grace,” Lory wrote in From Hallelujah to the Last Goodbye. “Jeff had declared that his days of doing cover versions were over; he wanted it to be all original material, so that option wasn’t available. There was one other problem: no Matt Johnson. No songs, no drummer, and a producer without any hits didn’t feel like a great way to start, but I’d seen Jeff pull greatness out of an empty bag before, so …”

To further complicate things, Buckley decided New York underground guitarist Tom Verlaine should produce the new album, tentatively titled My Sweetheart the Drunk. Verlaine’s band Television helped define a smart, tight post-punk sound in the late 1970s, but Columbia A&R man Steve Berkowitz struggled with his artist’s decision.

“When Jeff mentioned Verlaine, I said, ‘Oh, what a great idea — Tom and all his sounds and ability to play guitar and create sonic structures — he’ll be great on the record,’ and Jeff said, ‘No, I want him to produce it,’” Berkowitz remembered. “And I said, ‘Based on what? What Television did is not what you do.’ I had only respect for Tom, but I didn’t understand how he’d be the producer for Jeff.” Sony had, in fact, floated much bigger names for the project: Butch Vig (responsible for Nirvana’s Nevermind) and U2 producer Steve Lillywhite.

Buckley rented a bland house in Memphis and asked the landlady if he could grow the grass waist high so he could lie in it unseen.

Verlaine understood the label’s hesitation. “I’m not a goldmine for anybody,” he told an interviewer about his work with Buckley. “They probably would have loved it if he wanted to work with Mariah Carey’s producer or something.”

According to Lory, Verlaine was given a tight budget and a flat fee. During the first session, Buckley seemed directionless. The material wasn’t quite finished or rehearsed, and the new drummer wasn’t working out. Four songs were recorded. There was talk, quickly abandoned, of releasing these as an interim EP.

“I was disappointed,” Lory wrote. “I thought we’d have something ready for Christmas, but this was going to take time. Jeff seemed despondent too. He became quiet and insular around this time, looking like some refugee from Crime and Punishment — long coat, long hair, and a goatee — and not being his usual upbeat self. He’d call up with some paranoid thought about someone at Sony or one of the team and have to be talked down.”

 Convinced by friends in a band called the Grifters, Buckley decided to relocate to Memphis and take another shot at recording with Verlaine at Easley-McCain Studios.

On October 1, 1996, Buckley wrote in his journal that he was “going to lay off the band.”

The February 1997 Memphis session was also uninspiring, with one exception. “Out of nowhere,” Lory wrote, “Jeff plucked one gem, ‘Everybody Here Wants You,’ which had the potential to groove like a Smokey Robinson song, and which everyone agreed was one of the best things to emerge from these sessions. Verlaine’s instruction to Parker [Kindred, the second replacement drummer] to hit the snare as hard as he could meant it turned out exactly as asked — heavy handed — but Jeff’s vocal was exquisite, emotional without being as refined as the Grace performances, and his harmony embellishments were gorgeous. When I first heard this song, I thought it was a massive hit in the making, but only in the making.”

The album was abandoned, and Verlaine was let go. “This stuff sounds really good to me,” he told Buckley after the last session. “If you feel dissatisfied maybe you want to take it a little easier on yourself, because there’s nothing wrong with this. I know you probably want to change everything.”

Buckley rented a bland house in Memphis and asked the landlady if he could grow the grass waist high so he could lie in it unseen. When he attempted to buy the house for $40,000, he realized he was broke.

Columbia cross-collateralized their deal with Buckley; that is, they signed him to both a recording and copublishing agreement. Although I haven’t read Buckley’s specific contracts, major-label agreements from that time would have involved an advance in return for a grant of rights: Columbia was given ownership of all Jeff Buckley recordings, as well as a share of his songwriting interest.

“In the United States, copyrights over creative works are ‘alienable,’ so if you transfer your rights to someone else, then that party can exploit them as they wish, subject to any contractual terms,” Jennifer Jenkins, clinical professor of law at Duke University, explained to me. Buckley may have gotten a decent advance from both the record and publishing sides, but Grace reportedly cost seven figures to make, and a percentage of things like video production costs and tour support (as well as advances in their entirety) are recoupable by the label, so he must have been heavily in debt.

Buckley began a life of relative anonymity in Memphis. Unable to afford a car, he biked around town. He set up a weekly residency in a nearby dive bar. According to friends, he took a particular interest in the local zoo, applying to be their butterfly keeper. “Jeff took a shower and got all spruced up,” remembered Tammy Shouse of the Grifters. “He put on his vintage suit, and he was all shiny and went in to put in his application. He wanted a normal-guy life.”

Buckley bought a used Tascam four-track cassette tape recorder and began demoing new material. He sent tapes of his demos to his bandmates, management, and label team.

“I found out after he died that he would make different versions of the songs for different people,” Berkowitz recalled, “because Parker and I compared what each other had been sent and thought, ‘That’s funny, he sent the deeper, darker, heavier stuff to the record company guy and the prettier stuff to the drummer.’”

Buckley decided to hire Andy Wallace to produce My Sweetheart. Wallace, famous for working with Nirvana, had also produced Grace. “I didn’t need to be sold on doing another record with him,” Wallace told Lory. “He could have played me ‘Happy Birthday’ and I would have made a record with him.

“I went down and saw Easley studios. It was a funky place — not a dump but down-home and clearly not a corporate environment, and I like that,” Wallace continued. “And a little on the dry side, acoustically, which I like. Jeff was enthusiastic about working there. I don’t believe he got back in touch with me in the hope that we could make Grace 2. He wanted it to be different, to move on.”

“When he gave me that cassette back then … he said, ‘These aren’t nearly close to being completed. I’m going down with Andy Wallace and we’re gonna put the color to ‘em,’” Lory recalled.

Buckley began a life of relative anonymity in Memphis. Unable to afford a car, he biked around town.

In May, Buckley summoned his band to join him in Memphis. Although they were coming to record a new version of the album, Buckley seemed to have another idea in mind as well.

“The stories I’d heard was that he was bringing the band to Memphis to burn the tapes of the record he did with Tom Verlaine,” Buckley’s friend Glen Hansard told author Jeff Apter in A Pure Drop: The Life of Jeff Buckley. “I was getting that from his friends in New York. He was gathering the band up to have a ceremonial burning of the masters. He was really unhappy with it.”

Back in New York, Buckley visited his manager. “I saw him two weeks before he died,” Lory told an interviewer. Buckley was clear about one thing; namely, that Sony not be allowed access to his sundry demo and studio recordings. Buckley gave Lory all of these recordings. Lory also claimed that Buckley gave him “commercial rights to everything.”

Although this conversation can’t be proven to have occurred, it does seem consistent with Buckley’s wishes, at least with respect to his dim view of his record label. From a legal standpoint, however, it’s moot: Because of their recording agreement, Sony owned everything Jeff Buckley recorded, including cassette demos.

On the day his band arrived in Memphis, Buckley drowned. His mother, Mary Guibert, became his sole heir.

At the time, Guibert was working in healthcare and considering reviving her acting career. She lost little time in asserting control over her son’s estate. According to Apter, she hired lawyers, fired Buckley’s management team, and prevented Sony from releasing the Verlaine-produced version of My Sweetheart that September, calling that plan “exploitative and premature.” She oversaw the combing through of Buckley’s demo recordings.

“I was in a lawsuit with Sony, because Jeff’s last words were, ‘Don’t let Sony ever have the music’ — I knew they owned the music, but they were scrambling to put out whatever they could,” Lory remembered. “I was fired a couple months after he died, and so was Steve Berkowitz, who was his A&R person, and Andy Wallace, his producer — basically anybody who had anything to do with his music were fired. But it was kind of a relief, ‘cause of the stuff we were witnessing.”

What Columbia did issue, on May 26, 1998, was Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk, a two-CD grab bag of the Verlaine sessions and some Memphis demos.

“About a week after he died, they called and asked if I could go into the studio and help this guy sort through the tracks and I said, ‘Well, there were track sheets,’” Verlaine remembered, “because I knew that they would do this: They would hire some Mr. Big Mixer and pay him a fortune to remix this stuff. He puts the bass drum, the vocal and the snare on ten and everything else at five and compresses it and there’s your mix. All the tons of very interesting guitar flavorings and moods in there that you don’t really notice … I never really mixed it. There was no mix by me of that record. There were a lot of other shades.”

The one thing that Buckley’s contemporaries — managers, producers, and friends — agree on is that he would not have wanted any of what constitutes Sketches released. “The almost-unanimous belief amongst those close to Buckley is that much of the music that has emerged in his name since 1997 not only runs contrary to his perfectionist streak but would never have seen the light of day had he stayed alive,” Apter wrote.

“This album may not be what Jeff would have wanted to release in his lifetime,” Guibert told Billboard, “but his lifetime is over.” She added that Sketches was compiled “with more love than commerce in our hearts.”

In life, Buckley was contradictory, mercurial, guided by dreams, and informed by spirituality. He constantly reworked arrangements, improvised new melodies, and abandoned recordings that didn’t meet his standards. In death, he has generated content with clocklike efficiency.

Buckley was clear about one thing; namely, that Sony not be allowed access to his sundry demo and studio recordings.

Since 1997, Guibert has overseen a steady stream of posthumous Buckley releases. “So now you can buy Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk, the two-disc set cobbled together from the Grace follow-up sessions Buckley had barely begun,” the Houston Press wrote in an unsentimental 2004 article called “Die, Jeff Buckley, Die!” “There’s the live record Mystery White Boy, the five-CD Grace EPs boxed set collecting rare/foreign releases, the two-disc-plus-DVD Live at Sin-é collection chronicling his old NYC nightclub crooner days, another pre-Grace odds ’n’ sods compendium titled Songs to No One 1991–1992 and now, the Grace ‘Legacy Edition,’ which couples the original tunes with a B-sides disc and another DVD. Throw it all in an Amazon cart and you’re out 130 clams.”

Fifteen years later, there are even more CDs and DVDs, comprised of live performances and early studio recordings. (“You fucking dick!” Buckley once said to a bootlegger at one of his shows. “What are you going to do, study it?”) A graphic novel adaptation of Grace was released in April. A book, Jeff Buckley: His Own Voice, will be published in October 2019. According to Rolling Stone, it contains “reproductions of his handwritten lyrics, diary entries and letters.”

“There have been and probably always will be those who wish to speak for my son, take credit for his success or put words in his mouth,” Guibert wrote in a statement. “In choosing these pages to share with the world, I’m giving him the chance to speak with his own voice, for the record … and for his fans to see what a sweet, funny, amazing human being he was.”

In light of this onslaught, it’s jarring to visit Jeff Buckley’s website and see his name and image and know it’s not reflective of his intent, nor most of its content representative of a career he would have designed. If he were to speak in his own voice, it’s doubtful he would say that he always intended to publish his diary.

I understand fans and completists’ desire to access as much music of their favorite artist as possible, but there’s an exhaustiveness to Buckley’s postmortem career that dilutes his legacy.

“My first statement regarding projects to ‘the powers that be,’ in 1998, went something like this: ‘The recordings we have are Jeff’s true remains,’” Guibert wrote in the liner notes to a recent Buckley compilation. “‘We should treat them as we would prepare his body for burial — no makeup, no Armani suit, leave the green glitter toenail polish on, and don’t cut or comb his hair.’”

Recording technology has always been a kind of embalming method. It’s wonderful to hear Claude Debussy perform one of his own compositions, recently captured from a 1913 piano roll, or to have access to the entirety of Robert Johnson’s limited output, especially when his life (as an itinerant black Southern musician in the 1930s) was so little valued. We will never hear Johann Sebastian Bach’s pipe organ technique or Buddy Bolden’s cornet improvisations — instrumental as they were in the creation of jazz. Capturing such transience on a recorded medium is a kind of miracle, as it gives us access to these people beyond their earthly term.

But reflected in America’s cultural thinking and copyright law is the fairytale belief that fame is immortality and that both are to be devoutly desired. Therefore we can entitle ourselves to the benefits of a deceased artist’s work without the responsibility of honoring their wishes. We proceed as if our celebrities belong to us, as if the individual is subservient to the brand, as if persona trumps person. The most base expression of this — as evidenced by the posthumous juggernaut careers of Buckley, Jimi Hendrix, and Tupac Shakur — is the profitability of an artist dropping dead in the bloom of youth and at the peak of their creative expression, so that we may exploit them as we see fit, freed from their contradictory will and controlling temperament. In this particular instance, as in general, love and commerce make for strange bedfellows.

There’s an entirely different conceptual and legal framework for these issues, according to Jenkins. “Contrast this state of affairs with countries such as France that have ‘moral rights’ that are not alienable,” she wrote me. “One moral right is ‘divulgation,’ meaning that the artist can decide when and if his music ever gets released. Moral rights (such as attribution, integrity, divulgation, and withdrawal) are different than the ‘economic rights’ (reproduction, distribution, derivative works, and public performance) we have in the United States.”

United States copyright law doesn’t provide moral rights over music. Neither does our culture afford them. We should ask ourselves who are the true beneficiaries.

***

Tom Maxwell is a writer and musician. He likes how one informs the other.

Editor: Aaron Gilbreath; Fact-checker: Samantha Schuyler

[august-chun]

“Last summer, I got an email from my editor asking, sneakily, among the how are you’s, “Have you ever thought about writing on wellness??” She was looking for someone to go on “the Goop cruise.” Like most female writers, I had thought about writing on wellness, mainly in terms of the free stuff I could get to do so. And for name recognition and potential hate-read appeal, a Goop assignment is the ne plus ultra of wellness writing. “