bakerstreet | Summer

Summer

The Summer Festival Meme

Ah, summer: sunny days, clear skies, and endless days of freedom (or at least, childhood memories thereof). It's also the perfect time of year for festivals! So grab a friend or a date, don your concert outfit or your traditional attire, and enjoy the season of fun in the sun!

1. matsuri
Traditional Japanese summertime festivals feature fun foods, performances, dance, and music. Enjoy a walk around the festival grounds with a friend or sweetheart, and conclude your day by watching fireworks over the water!

2. music
The afternoon sun may be sweltering, but the heat won't get you down! Live it up with back-to-back outdoor concerts and mosh pits, or just hang out in the grassy hills and enjoy the thumping beats.

3. fireworks
Who doesn't love a colorful nighttime display? Or, cause a little chaos with some backyard sparklers and poppers!

4. dance
Learn some new steps and dance your heart out with whatever partners you find!

5. culture
What better way to experience a new culture than to go to a festival dedicated to food, art, and history? If you're lucky, you'll have a friend to show you around.

6. love
Festivals that celebrate legendary loves are the perfect place to take a date... or wish for one.

7. fertility
Those penis-shaped lollipops are not for the faint of heart, that's for sure! Or, swing for the fences and attend a fantasy festival that encourages attendees to enjoy the sexy mood, if you catch my drift.

8. wildcard
Anything goes!

[ Get Memes! ]

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[likely to show up at a music festival (or festival with music), probably even playing with dethklok (maybe don't ride any rides there), but there are plenty of reasons to hang out. 18+ for shippy/smutty possibilities.]

[Hey, nonny, nonny. This bard loves a good festival.]

[ idk how you'd get salaryman here, but available in that drab flavor, teen flavor, and 7:3 sorcerer (chaperone!! 🥺 ). i mean maybe they ride panda carousel or w/e is going on here. ]

[ it's an uneventful night, which by default makes it extremely suspect. add to that, the dynamic duo have been running off here and there, which while expected, has up to this point tired fushiguro megumi out so much that he's unpleasantly reminded why he doesn't much care for these things. tsumiki had liked them when they were kids, well, more kids than now anyway, and being someone with gojo satoru as a benefactor meant they could go if they wanted. not because they needed or would have a chaperone, but if there was anything gojo didn't lack for it was money. so he's no stranger to the festival, absentmindedly neatening the line of his yukata where itadori had just tried to grab him to haul him over wherever he and kugisaki were headed. (only to find if megumi really put his foot down one might suspect him of using max elephant for cheap tricks.)

so it leaves two sort of straight faced people left behind.

his sigh gets pressed down to nothing and he folds his arms in front of him for lack of anything to do. with all of these people around, it's prime grounds for disaster. unfortunately this is where his mind goes first these days. it's also nighttime of course. he sighs again and this one actually makes it out. he's about to ask nanami if they should follow them when a distracting sound has him bringing his stare down... ah.

he crouches slowly. gently. and offers the back of his hand, quietly obliged when the black cat rubs its head once tentatively and then again much more vigorously, as if somehow magically aware of the immense dog bias coming off of him, graciously showing megumi how to pet a cat. his shoulders relax a little and he ends up speaking after all, barely audible over the festival din. ]

I think Itadori and Kugisaki are trying to win you a goldfish.

[ green eyes flick over to their figures in the near-distance, kugisaki kicking itadori in the back as they seem to almost-win but-actually-fail for the second time. their continuing must have a point though, given there's already two successes at itadori's left.

he amends: ]

Or three.

[ For Fushiguro, being someone with Gojo Satoru as a benefactor meant he could attend a festival, if he wanted. For Nanami, it seems being someone with Gojo Satoru as a senior meant he would attend a festival, though he didn't want to.

It went something like this: Gojo asking Nanami to take his students to the festival, since he'd be out of town on assignment. Nanami refusing, since they were old enough to go without a chaperone. Gojo hinting, with all the subtlety of the five tablespoons of sugar he'd poured into his coffee, that he'd like it if they had a commanding sorcerer accompaniment, if-you-know-what-he-means. Nanami: If it's like that, report it to the higher ups. Gojo: Well, it's just a hunch. Nanami: I already don't want to go, so I really don't want to do it on your hunch. Gojo: —

In the end, here Nanami stands. At the festival. The night truly and completely uneventful, with so little trace of cursed energy it's almost suspicious, given the multitude of emotions inevitable at such a crowded gathering. In this moment, Nanami is suspicious. Of Gojo. That he hadn't had any hunch. That, despite not even beng here for it, he'd gotten a kick out of this orchestration.

One might expect Nanami's mood to be low and still sinking, or still tightening, annoyed that he'd been tricked into babysitting kids who didn't need it. Tricked into going to a spot of packed revelry.

It's not and he's not.

There's a distinct pleasure and place for festival food, and he's already had the opportunity to wash down okonomiyaki with a cold beer, now biting into ikayaki. Should he be drinking in front of the kids? He's off. They're at a festival. He won't overindulge. It's fine. So, the food placates. It also helps that he'd been knowingly tricked (seriously, he's known that guy for over a decade).

Most importantly, he does like the company. That is, he doesn't mind watching Itadori and Kugisaki throw themselves into the festivities, and despite his complaints to Gojo, has never minded keeping an eye on Fushiguro.

Hence, an anomaly: Fushiguro sighs. Nanami doesn't, couldn't.

... not even when alerted to the possible impending acquisition of one to three half-dead goldfish. Though he can feel one building, on the cusp of gathering. Nanami blinks up, his attention steered from peripheral observation of Fushiguro doting on an overly-friendly cat to the boisterous animation at the near booth, to two bagged fish, to the chaotic delight on their faces.

For precisely one-third of a second, Nanami considers feeding any such fish to the cat. Though appreciative of the consideration, assuming that was their intention, he must be critical of it, too, if it resulted in such a senseless gift. What would he do with a goldfish except have to inevitably flush it in a week?

He doesn't frown, but the mild easiness of his expression stiffens. Swallowing a bite of squid, ]

If three, I'd have each of you keep one.

[ If three.

Nanami watches as, having secured a third, they seem to try for one more. ]

...

Let's get some yakitori.

[ ...he's just going to keep eating, even though he hasn't finished the squid?

In fact, no. He intends to treat Fushiguro to chicken at a stand that's over half-way across the festival from the goldfish game. ]

Edited 2023-06-06 16:27 (UTC)

[ no 7, otherwise ota. ]

[OOC: LBR, it's probably some heist or other shenanigans going on at a summer festival. Music, food, and mayhem are a great combination.]

[ Maybe diplomatic relations mean making an appearance at a local festival. Or just maybe he's been afflicted by the mythical 'off-duty' curse. Definitely not 7 though ~~he would turn himself invisible and flee to Atmora~~. ]

[ ask before 7, please. will keep spoilers to a bare minimum unless otherwise asked. ]

[ m/m pref, no 7. ]

[If you want canon timeline, perhaps the school festival where 1A did a whole stage performance.]

[let him have a chill time for five minutes]

[OOC: Not interested in option 7 but the rest is on the table. Can happen on earth or another realm.]

((OOC: New muse. This is a slice-of-life affinity test. :') OTA.))

[OOC: Voice testing.]

[ ota. ]

[ They got to the festival as quickly as they could, perhaps not waiting long enough for the sun to sink under the horizon, but Midnight threw on his hood and cloak as soon as Narumi confirmed that the sky was darker than it was light and it was enough for him not to burn on the way there.

Midnight had missed last year's summer festival, but then again, he'd missed quite a few over the past few years. Too many night functions to attend, not enough time to spend walking warm evenings to music and the fry of yakitori.

(If Midnight's being perfectly honest, the right people to go to a festival with had never entered his life before. Several people he'd been intimate with of course, and even personally enough to speak with after hours, to share meals and unburdened conversation. But a festival was simply a bit out of his way. He hasn't been a child dragging his mother along to see the fireworks for a long time. ) ]

I think I want this one.

[ Midnight holds a mask over his head and turns to Narumi-san, expectant. It's a red tengu mask, shiny with lacquer. He's grinning. He'd get a hero mask, but he hasn't seen kabuki in a long time. Same hours of operation, same problems.

(It clashes just a little with his yukata — black and covered in pinwheels in soft shades of green and brighter splotches of pink — but he's barefaced and completely unbothered about his palette at the moment. He's off the clock. He is, for once, happy to be off the clock.) ]

[ when was the last time his yukata, this white affair decorated in black stripes, left its spot at the back of a closet in his bedroom? narumi reckons it must’ve been about… maybe two and a half years since tae-chan managed to drag him off to the tanabata festivities, no matter how much he complained about the crowd or the heat or walking around wearing geta.

”It’s about culture, Narumi-san! C-u-l-t-u-r-e! The American way is all well and good, but we can’t go leaving our roots behind, now can we?”

he’d bought the yukata not long after his feet stood steady on japanese soil once more, its design having reminded him of men dressed in sleek pinstripe suits. this fusion of the old and the new, fueling the delusion that coming back home after so long would somehow unmake a decade’s worth of living lies (but he’d held no hope that it would keep the permafrost at bay).

tae-chan’s busier these days. and while he hadn’t hated being made to leave the apartment as much as he’d played at, he also… wouldn’t have it any other way. hell, every time he spots an article attributed to one asakura kichou, narumi reads it with a sense of pride swelling in his chest.

it’s what he does, isn’t it? keeping up the same old amicable distance he always does.

or, well. it would be, if not for this summer evening being the antithesis of distance through something as simple as midnight leading him towards the festival grounds with boyish excitement saturating every motion, every sound, and every flash of that eager smile.

at first, narumi had, more than anything else, stumbled along at the hurried pace that was set. then, as the sound of steps taken in geta gradually became a pleasant rhythm, his gait had begun to match midnight’s steps better.

there’s something infectious and nostalgic about that unbridled enthusiasm— maybe he’d once been like this, just one of many boys pleading with his mother to hurry so as to make it in time for the fireworks.

so bright it’s almost blinding, that. it’s why he tips the brim of his straw hat down to better shield his eyes, a rare blush on his face.

that, right there. that’s a smile he wants to cherish, preserve, and see much more of in equal amounts. he fumbles a little in retrieving the wallet tucked into his obi before he has some coin in hand. ]

Let’s get you that one, then.

[ you really can’t put a price on this sort of innocent joy. or maybe you can, and he’s just got it real damn bad. ]

[ If Narumi has it bad, that he's gotten all the way to walking in public with Midnight of Yoshiwara — for free — means that the tayuu has taken on the rare, the unheard of... a personal relationship. Boggling. Again, he hasn't been accompanied to a summer festival for a long, long time. These things simply aren't done. Not for him.

He would do many things for his detective. The list is long. The items on it no longer make sense.

The enthusiasm is, of course, entirely genuine. Midnight may run on fumes more often than not, but he loves stepping out. Simple reasons to walk together, excuses to stay close, to have conversations in the dark. ]

Oh? I can pay for it myself.

[ He keeps smiling, though. He knows what this is, can allow for one gift. The simple wooden kanzashi keeping his hair twisted and pinned in a knot shines in the lantern light as he straps the mask carefully around his head, keeping an eye on the rest of the masks as he does. The tengu's long nose wavers as he scans the wall. The skin at the nape of his neck sparkles a little with sweat from their hasty arrival.

(He also turns to keep himself from staring. If he looks at Narumi for too long, he'll take that hat off his head and steal a kiss from behind it. Perhaps later, in a place with fewer prying eyes.) ]

If you want one, I'll buy it for you. Or for the food, if you'd like it. Heaven knows I won't be eating tonight.

[ He's already made sure he had his fill the night before, scheduling customers who were inclined to it. No thirst to fear if he's already been sated. ]

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Summer

Toki Wartooth | Metalocalypse | ota

alina starkov . shadow & bone . ota

no subject

edgin darvis | d&d: honor among thieves

nanami kento : jjk : ota

"and megumi and nanami are just there like OK"

thank you for recognizing my poetry... annnnnnnnd gomen tl;dr

y'shtola rhul — final fantasy xiv.

Rey || Star Wars || OTA

Lie Ren | RWBY | OTA

Kaz Brekker | Grishaverse | OTA

Persephone | greek myth | ota

Stratos Caelus | Skyrim OC | ota

genya safin | shadow & bone | ota

ariel - the little mermaid

zelda | loz: tears of the kingdom

yennefer | the witcher | ota

leona kingscholar | twisted wonderland

Mezo Shouji | MHA | OTA

Cal Kestis | Star Wars | OTA

loki odinson | where mischief lies

Dream | Sandman | OTA

wei wuxian | mdzs / the untamed.

Lahabrea | Final Fantasy XIV (Spoilers up to 6.4)

Hikari Yagami | Digimon Adventure: Last Evolution Kizuna | OTA

Chika Daimon | Digimon Savers (epilogue) | OTA

Serena | Yu-Gi-Oh Arc-V | OTA

izayoi sakuya 🔪 touhou project

Yatake Kouji | Given | voicetesting

Izuku Midoriya "Deku" | My Hero Academia

midnight | arknights

@lollygagger

psa: pathetic man simps for vampire

psa: equally pathetic vampire simps for detective. ojisans dating...