fragmented rambling about mayday + a bit of vinyl city stuff

 

she was born in a lower-income urban area of Vinyl City, methinks.

there's the part of the city with all of the flashy stuff -- where the NSR information building and the giant billboards and the various districts and the tourism hotspots are at -- the Outer Ring / Outer Cities ... and then there's the Inner Cities -- the Mamak area and everything theoretically before that.
i like to think that Vinyl City is a LOT bigger than visually expressed ingame (mostly due to No Straight Road's status as an indie boss rush game meaning making the city hub fucking gargantuan was unnecessary both gameplaywise and resource-wise.)

so. Mayday was born in the inner city. it was a place that NSR has already moved on from, left in the shadow in favor of the more commercialized, tourist-oriented, with-the-times outer cities -- kind of like how Rock was cast into the shadow of EDM. the place she'd grown up was more so held together by its people rather than their governing force, thus instilling that outgoing-helper-butterfly software into May's head at a very young age. she knew a lot of people, and a lot of people knew her (which would either prove very handy or very annoying when trying to sneak into local venues at like 16 where she was NOT allowed lol...)

Mayday had earnest connections with so many people, who were in the same position as she was. they were at this dead-end where it was either Get With The Electronic Times or fade into the end stages of irrelevance. and i headcanon that music and music-based (sub)cultures have a lot of social weight to people in the world of 'No Straight Roads', especially to the people who live in Vinyl City, the Music Capital of the World ... therefore, it wasn't as easy as just 'letting go' of Rock. there were a lot of obstinate people without much agency, Mayday included.

the difference between them and May, however, is that her stubbornness went beyond refusing to assimilate. in fact, there's nothing she had ever wanted more than to be a rockstar. to bring Rock back to the top, just as Kul Fyra had done long ago. to be famous.
she doesn't realize it outright, but she equates fame with agency. probably because of... the apparent idea of how NSR works as a governing body: it has the NSR elites ... famous musician(s) ranking high in society, with the districts of which they own and have complete control over. maybe this is corny, but i see Mayday's yearning to be a famous rockstar as not only a Kul Fyra-motivated thing, but also a desire to be able to Rightfully give back to people and the places she'd grown up around. (though, The Goolings' stardom was similar in the sense that Rock music was at its peak, therefore Rock lovers were flourishing. Teenage May pined endlessly for a time where it could flourish once again.)

even though, Mayday would probably have her own gripes about joining NSR as a Rock musician, the same force that's responsible for most of her squalor in the first place. but for her case in particular, she deems it a necessary evil.

i will talk about mayday's family now. this section will be probably less cohesive compared to the previous because i'm not firm on it yet but alas!

mayday was raised by her grandmother and dad. she does have other relatives Buuuutt they're not really as important, i guess.

(grandmother, as in her deceased mom's mom by the way. and may's father is her birth father and a widower (though technically they had their daughter as younger unmarried-but-still-devoted adults.)
i think that was kind of a confusing way to put it so let me try again: Mayday's mom is deceased, so her grandma (on her mama's side) and her father take care of her.)

(this paragraph is not as important either and is subject to change:) now, i don't wanna say the two adults had a strained relationship but for some reason i've always thought that things were just. kind of tense, mostly on her grandma's side & directed towards her dad. it may have something to do with the sudden passing of her mom ... which i do NOT think May's dad was responsible for, but... like... from her grandma's perspective, that was her daughter ... and now there's this sort of pressure on Mayday as the Super-Only-Child and also the only non-washed up person there, so ...  it's a large factor as to why neither of her guardians are at all thrilled that she becomes a first-year college dropout.


(Dead Parent trope incoming...!!! yes... i know it's kind of overused and we already have Yinu's Dad [or lack thereof] canonically + Zuke's Dad as a headcanon [also with reason ... it has to do with the reasoning behind DK West's behavior but this ain't about him] which would push the count up to a whopping Three but i promise it's not just a hollow tearjerker...)
i mentioned that Mayday's mom is deceased. and if you read my previous blog entry you might remember me also mentioning/alluding to the fact that Momday (i'll just nickname her that hehe) was a HUGE The Goolings fan. when she passed during Mayday's toddler years, she left behind this hoard of recordings & memorabilia and i think Somewhere along the line, May kind of. like. Equated her mother to Kul Fyra, thus managing to imprint on the 'deceased' rockstar...??? and that's why a majority of her actions are driven towards honoring her, making her proud, yadda yadda. her lifelong obsession with Kul Fyra manifests as a lifelong drive to become a rockstar & bring rock back to Vinyl City.
(yes... i know people can just be obsessed with things in a normal obsession way... but i think mayday is a very abnormal girl... you can call her case a hereditary Special Interest of sorts...)


anyways, kind of going back to her dad & grandma. she has a good relationship with them both and loves them dearly, really. when she "runs away" from home as a result of their conflict concerning her dropping out of college, she really doesn't "run away" for good. she can't really bring herself to. one of her halves knows she was wrong -- the other half is unshakeable in her belief that she'll fare well without schooling -- like an unstoppable force vs. an immoveable object. but as we know, Mayday is not the best at taking criticism or changing her beliefs when she thinks she's in the right and, subsequently, apologizing for her faults (see: the latter half of the Lights' Up Audition, her dilemma with Zuke's NSR drumsticks, the ending cutscene in the Festival Plaza...) so. to her, it was kind of a guilty compromise. sure, she'd stay in the neighborhood and sure, she'd sneak into the apartment if she needed something out of there, but other than that, yep! totally out of there!

i've also imagined for a while that Mayday is an urbexer. short for urban explorer. given her curiosity and boundless energy, she's probably done tons of exploring in her hometown -- places ranging from secret spots in-the-cut to old, abandoned stores filled with albums from 30-40 years ago, to Vinyl City's awfully spacy underground sewage runoff systems ... she can tell you where a lot of things are. i think this is also how May managed to score her and Zuke's so-called Home Sewer Home. she'd been looking for a side-hustle in premonition for when Old-Man Tuk's shop would eventually fold, and got some kind of job dealing with parcel for a post & mailing facility on the outskirts of Festival Plaza. she almost fell into that BIG ASS TUBE that connects to the Living Quarters. you know, the one that those packages fall from? that May catches and throws to Zuke and he kicks it away? that giant tube...

anyways. Mayday climbed down of her own accord once she got her bearings together (through the tube -- she didn't realize she could enter through the manhole near Aunty's eventual Mamak restaurant) and... Huzzah!! There's just all of this unoccupied space for her to, well... Occupy!!!!!!!! it seemed to be some kind of basement-infused-storage-system-infused-storm-drain. as for the fucking built-in underground helicopter pad and the logistics for transporting furniture i don't have an explanation for that. Heh. Some things are better left unexplained I Suppose...

i'm pretty bad at writing conclusions for these kinds of things so here's a song that i associate with Mayday. thank u for reading! (epilepsy warning -- flashing lights for the video!)