#Élan warriors

[sopaprimordialy]

Warriors HC collection - 2nd Edition

Click here for 1st Edition — The Warriors

THE HOUSE OF HURRICANE

They are drag queens. That's not even a head canon because the lyric book addresses them as "House of Hurricane" rather than just "The Hurricanes" like it does with the other gangs. Additionally, the actors playing them are all queer (Michaela Jaé [Yaya] is a trans woman, Billy Porter [Granger] is gay and Mykal Kilgore [Élan] identifies as queer).

This, combined with the music style, vogue, which originated within the queer black community, indicates which groups they're representing here.

In the movie, the gang in roller skates was called "The Punks", and I incorporated this fact to my HC that they (Yaya, Élan and Granger) used to be a trio called The Punks when they were teenagers and had to stick together to protect themselves on the streets. As they grew up and discovered more about themselves and the world they live in, The Punks eventually became a larger crew known as The House Of Hurricane.

They own a couple of gay bars, discos and pubs in upper Manhattan (here you'll have to forgive me for the lack of knowledge about locations in the US, if you have a more specific suggestion for where their turf could be, let me know!)

Since a drag family, among other things, has to do with drag style, I believe the main component of the Hurricanes' style is skating. They are known for their ice and roller skating performances, being able to move and dance freely wearing them (I'm jealous)

The three of them are drag mothers to a LOT of other queens. After the events of the album, their Hous will be long last and their legacy will be gigantic. Yes, by that I mean some future Hurricanes will participate on RuPaul's Drag Race.

Now, individual head canons ahead! Since they appear in only one song, a lot of this is just me hallucinations

ÉLAN

She's the leader, and she has always been the mother of the group. As I mentioned earlier, I believe these three know each other since they're teens, but Élan is a bit older.

Some time before the events of the album, one of the drags she mothered/recruited was killed by the police. She, and many others, quile literally went missing in the park at night. Because of this she tells the Warriors to "stand up for you and yours"; she regrets not being there for her.

She's a taurus (Idk why this felt important).

She's the kind of person who'll tell you her deepest, darkest traumas with a straight face while you're left there, horrified.

Speaking of trauma, she has a lot of it.

They all have. My poor mistreated children.

She cares deeply for all her girls, but especially Yaya. Sometimes Yaya complains, claiming that she doesn't need to be babied, but Élan's still protective of her.

YAYA

The baby of the group.

She's literally never out of drag, which made Élan and Granger start to realize maybe this wasn't the same artistical feeling they had for her.

She's trans. That's it.

And she's always gorgeous.

Also, she's autistic, because I CAN hc whatever I want. One of her favorite stims is imitating the little noises she hear, hence why she keeps singing "dong dong!" during Quiet Girls.

She's a gemini (bcs I started this signs thing and if I stop now it'd be weird).

Yaya was like, super nervous when she told the others about being trans, because crossdressing is one thing, being a trans woman is another.

Fortunately the other members of the gang are not assholes so she was well accepted, and Yaya became her actual name.

She's the most flexible of the group. As my dance teacher wisely said once: "Queers can vogue dance because they don't have bones".

GRANGER

First of all, I love her voice. Not a head canon but I needed to say that. Billy Porter I didn't know you before but holy shit I'm in love.

I feel like she's the strongest of the group, the one who can actually fight and tend to protect the others.

She was the one actually dragging the Warriors out of that train, and she is the one to confront them with the "how do we address our guests [...]" part.

At the end of Quiet Girls when she says "Stand clear of the closing doors!" I always imagined her high kicking the train door. Wearing skates. She cracks the glass.

And then death drops. That's it thanks for reading my incredible ideas for an animatic I'll never make hope it's good 🤙🏽

She's a scorpio (just to be clear here I don't necessarily know what I'm talking about)

I don't really know why but I associate her with Jennifer Lopez's El Anillo.

She taught the others how to skate, she learned as a kid.

[xaaaavleg]

!Première fois que je publie (et que j'ecris aussi) donc soyez indulgent!

STORY WRITE IN ENGLISH AND FRENCH

Context: You and Vi were friends, even if the two of you shared a very romantic chemistry...Only, after the accident caused by Powder, your whole world collapsed, desperately trying to find Vi or Powder, you end up finding Vi's sister and then working for Silco. That said, a few years later, Vi reappears. The story unfolds as Caitlyne and Vi are kidnapped by Jinx.

Contexte: Vi et toi étaient amies, même si toutes les deux partageait une alchimie très romantique...Seulement, après l'accident causé par Powder, tout votre monde s'est écroulé, essayant désespérement de retrouver Vi ou bien Powder, vous finirez par retrouver la soeur de Vi puis à travailler pour Silco. Cela dit, quelques années après, Vi réapparaît. L'histoire se déroule où Caitlyne et Vi se font kidnapper par Jinx.

L'histoire est aussi courte que la musique

───── ⋆✩⋆ ─────

we'll find moonlit nights strangely empty because when you call my name through them there will be no answer

sᥲ᥎ᥱ 𝗍һ᥆sᥱ ᥡ᥆ᥙ s𝗍іᥣᥣ ᥴᥲᥒ

I looked at the one I'd loved so much, from beginning to end, and all I could do was think of her. But now, it was time for her to become a memory, just a name that will never be thought of again, but never completely forgotten either. I looked at her, with an eager face, then in a rush I took her cheeks between my hands and kissed her. She was slow to react, but participated in the tender kiss. It was the first and last time our feelings would come together after so many years, at last. I stepped back and spoke coldly.

"You failed, Vi. You failed to save your sister, and to keep our love alive" I paused and turned my head towards that soldier, who was chained to the chair. "If you hadn't followed her like a good doggie we wouldn't be here, you screwed up" I said, turning my head towards her.

Vi was about to speak, but I didn't let her. I untied the ties that bound her to the chair. She looked at me confused.

"Save those you can", referring to this warrior. Vi rushed at her, untying the ties that held her to the chair. I took advantage of their distraction to head for the cliff where Jinx was waiting for me.

Holding in her hands the weapon that would destroy the site of the Tower of Councils. I look at Jinx and smile at her. We take the weapon together and pull the trigger. This provoked an enormous noise that shook the earth for a few moments. The soldier screamed, realizing what we'd just done. There was no turning back - it was already too late for that. Vi said nothing, still in shock at what had just happened. She preferred to try and console the soldier, but to no avail.

I looked at Jinx. She knew it was time to move on to the next phase. So we turned to face the two women who were staring at us, eyes wide open. I took Jinx's hand and stared at Vi. I silently uttered an "I love you". She looked at me, her eyes revealing great confusion, a desire to understand what was happening, to know where all this was leading. At last, she realized. Then she remembered what I'd said to her earlier: "save those you can," but too late.

It had taken her too long to understand. She rushed towards us, begging us to stay. Still hand in hand, Jinx and I smile sadly. We let our bodies topple over the cliff. As we fall, I have time to hear Vi's heart-rending scream. Our bodies collided violently with the ground, creating a deafening noise. I used the last of my strength to close my eyelids. They would never lift again.

This is the end.

sᥲᥙ᥎ᥱ ᥴᥱᥙ᥊ 𝗊ᥙᥱ 𝗍ᥙ ⍴ᥱᥙ᥊ ᥱᥒᥴ᥆rᥱ sᥲᥙ᥎ᥱr

Je regardais celle que j'avais tant aimé, du début à la fin, je n'aurais fais que de penser à elle. Mais maintenant, il était temps qu'elle devienne un souvenir, Juste un nom auquel on ne pensera plus mais qui ne restera jamais complètement oublié non plus. Je la regarda, d'un visage avide, puis dans un élan je pris ses joues entre mes mains et l'embrassa. Elle prit du temps à réagir mais participa à ce tendre baisé. Ce fut la première et la dernière fois que nos sentiments s’unissent après tant d’années, enfin. Je me recula et d'un ton froid je m'exprime.

"Tu as échoué Vi. Tu n'as pas réussi à sauver ta soeur, et à faire vivre notre amour" je fis une pause et tourna ma tête vers cette soldate, qui était enchainée à la chaise. "Si tu ne l'avais pas suivie comme un bon toutou on en serait pas là, tu as merdé" dis je en tournant ma tête vers elle

Vi allait s'exprimer mais je ne lui en laissa point le temps. Je détacha les lien qui la liaient a la chaise. Elle me regarda d'un air confus.

"Sauve ceux que tu peux encore sauver" faisant allusion à cette guerrière. Vi se précipita sur elle, détachant les liens qui la mintenai à la chaise. Je profitais de leurs distractions pour me diriger vers la falaise sur laquelle Jinx m’attendais.

Tenant dans ses mains l'arme qui allait détruire l'emplacement de la tour des Conseils. Je regarde jinx et lui souris, Nous prenons l’arme ensemble et appuyons sur la gâchette. Ce qui provoqua un énorme bruit qui à fit trembler la terre quelques instants. La soldate cria, réalisant ce que nous venions de faire. Aucun retour en arrière n’était possible c’était déjà trop tard pour ça. Vi ne dit rien, encore sous le choque de ce qui venait de se produire. Elle préféra tenter de consoler la soldate, en vain.

Je regarda Jinx. Elle comprit que le moment de passer à la phase suivante était arrivé. Nous nous tournons donc face à ces deux femmes qui nous regardaient, les yeux grands ouverts. Je pris la main de Jinx puis fixa Vi. J’articula silencieusement un « je t’aime ». Elle me regarda, ses yeux dévoilaient une grande confusion, une envie de comprendre ce qui ce passait, de savoir où tout ça allait nous mener. Elle réalisa, enfin. Elle se remémore alors ce que je lui ai dis plus tôt : « sauve ceux que tu peux encore sauver » mais trop tard.

Elle avait mis trop de temps à comprendre. Ni une ni deux elle se précipita vers nous, tout en nous suppliant de rester. Toujours main dans la main, Jinx et moi sourions tristement. Nous laissons nos corps basculer de l’autre côté de la falaise. Pendant notre chute, j’eux le temps d’entendre le cri déchirant de Vi. Nos corps percutent le sol avec violence, créant un bruit assourdissant. J’utilisais alors mes dernières force pour fermer mes paupières. Elle ne se soulèveront plus jamais, désormais.

C’est la fin.

[essays-for-breakfast]

Memento

Melizabeth Week Day 3: Precious

As usual during the early evening hours, the Boar Hat was bustling with customers. Meliodas had prepared rounds upon rounds of fine ale from all the outlandish places he had stocked in his wine cellar – out of the absence of a basement located on the third floor –, and none of the packed tables showed signs of slowing down. Most of his clientele belonged to the Holy Knights, easy to identify by the straight way they held themselves even while drinking and the occasional pieces of armor catching the light.

Meliodas rolled his eyes and polished the mug in his hands with more vehemence. His experience had taught him that there were only two types of customers every tavern owner wanted to fill his house with: people with money and people with unhappy marriages.

And if the pathetic salary paired with the grueling workhours Meliodas had endured when he had been a Holy Knight of Liones were any indicator, his current set of customers fit into neither category.

At least the atmosphere was cheerful enough to motivate multiple rounds of booze, which Meliodas gladly filled into another set of mugs placed on the wooden tray Diane was all too eager to shove in his face.

“Another round coming right up,” she yelled, earning herself cheers from the table in the far-off corner, before she disappeared within the crowd on light feet.

Meliodas was lucky to have her today; his assistance waiter only showed up to work on rare occasions these days. No wonder with all these political troubles on her mind about clan fusions, border regulations, and peace treaties. He could call himself lucky to have avoided that particular set of hassles. Life as a tavern-owner sure had its downsides – customers with a drinking habit, or as Meliodas liked to call it ‘drowning habit’, similar to Ban’s loved to grind his nerves –, but at least he had no expectations to trouble himself with.

Well, apart from the expectations of hungry customers of course.

“Hey, where’s my meat-pie special?” one of the loudmouths from the front table asked while shaking his mug with enough élan to spill half its content on the table. Shame about the liquor; the burgundy drink looked suspiciously similar to one of Meliodas’ most expensive offers on the menu. But if that compelled him to order a second serving faster, Meliodas would be the last one to complain.

“I’ll check in with the cook,” Meliodas said to appease the troublemaker. If Ban was slacking in his agency as prized top chef again, he would give him hell on earth. Or he could demand the keys to his booze storage room back – that should do the trick too.

But before Meliodas had a chance to knock down the kitchen door with a commanding stare and the words ‘Captain’s orders’ on his lips, that same door swung open as Meliodas’ favorite person in the world emerged from the kitchen.

“No need, good sir, I have your order right here,” Elizabeth said.

Not even the dim light of the Boar Hat’s oil lamps screwed to the ceiling could take away from her beauty as she slipped into the tavern room, a plate stacked with meat-pie balancing in her hands. Her long silver hair flowed behind her, charmed by the new waiter outfit Meliodas had presented her a few days ago with a sly grin. The scandalously short skirt and ribbon-top enhanced her perfect curves, and Meliodas patted himself on the back for coming up with the design. Elizabeth almost floated into the room on her white slippers, and presented a beam to the customers that made Meliodas forget everything at once, including the urge to scold Ban. All he saw was her as she moved with the grace of a Goddess…

… and stumbled over her own feet.

His brain kicked back into action, and in a fit of chivalry Meliodas jumped forward to prevent her fall. He was a man of opportunities, however, and when he caught her, not only did he save Elizabeth from a bruised knee, he was also treated to a first-class look – and more crucial, touch – of her upper body’s unique and soft qualities.

Elizabeth shrieked in a return to old habits, and Meliodas could imagine the priceless redness creeping into her cheeks, but because his face was still tucked into her bust, he missed out on the sight. Not that he would have traded this place for anything in the world.

The rattle of costly china invaded their privacy, and Meliodas steeped back to examine the damage with an unflinching poker face. Elizabeth, still with a blush on her face, stared at him with wide, blue eyes as large as plates. Speaking of plates, Elizabeth’s hands, frozen in the forward motion they had entered when she had lost her balance, were empty; the meat-pie along with its porcelain company had shattered on the floor to cover the stonework with white shards more pricy than Meliodas could afford after a week of double-hours. Out of all the pieces of crockery he owned, it had to be this one.

Elizabeth shocked gaze skipped between Meliodas and the broken plate, the first tears swimming in her eyes.

“Not again!” Ban complained from the kitchen. “I can’t prepare each meal twice just because it keeps raining plates. I want to submit vacation!”

“Shut up, Ban,” King said, followed by a low thud that sounded like Ban’s head had made the acquaintance of the ceramic workbench.

“I’m so sorry, Meliodas,” Elizabeth said teary-eyed. “I know this was your favorite plate. Even after you’ve made me co-owner of the tavern, I’m still no use when it comes to lending you a hand. If there’s a way to make it up to you, I’ll –”

“Sssh, if you keep talking like that, you’ll soon start to believe this nonsense.” Meliodas petted her head, and a glimmer of happiness returned to her eyes. “It took me five years to turn into a somewhat decent tavern owner, and even then, I maybe failed to offer my customers a decent meal once or twice. As I’m sure Hawk will be eager to inform ya. Yo, scraps disposal, there’s work for you.”

The named swine emerged from behind the counter and sniffed at the leftovers on the floor. “Even your best food can’t compare to what Ban cooks on his worst day. The smell alone… and the soft flavors that explode in your mouth with an aftertaste only the gods could have created…”

“Well, help ya’self.”

“Oh, I will,” Hawk said with a cloudy expression; he had already fallen victim to the intoxicating aroma of Ban’s food and used his hooves to shove the remains of the plate aside to dig into the meal that was no doubt too good to be wasted on him.

All these servings of Ban’s cooking had made him choosy, and if Meliodas didn’t threaten him with starvation, he wouldn’t do as much as look at the scraps Meliodas and Elizabeth handed him when Ban was out and busy enjoying his own life. Why did he continue to pay these morons? Well, technically their salary consisted of nothing but a pat on the back, but Ban and the pig enjoyed the luxury of unlimited access to Meliodas’ booze and groceries – and they both knew how to make the most of this privilege.

Elizabeth had dropped to her knees beside Hawk and collected the white shards with her bare hands and more bitterness than Meliodas could bear to see on her face. She treated each piece covered with artistic lines depicting birds and deer and landscapes almost like a lost child.

He bent down next to her and took her hands with soft firmness. “You’ll cut yourself.”

Elizabeth’s hands were shaking when she let go of the shards, but despite the emotional struggle she worked herself through, she had regained enough control to climb to her feet with his assistance. All these curious gazes from the overcrowded tables only added to her unease, and the meat-pie guy made a particularly sour face as he watched his order disappear into the greedy maw of the pig. Elizabeth needed a bit of air to calm herself, and Meliodas would be happy to escape the noise, so why not delegate some tasks to his underlings?

“Yo, Gowther, take over the counter for a bit, wont’cha?” Meliodas said and scooped Elizabeth with the same ease he would have a baby bird.

Gowther left the corner he had occupied with the stiffness that befell him whenever a captivating book found its way into his hands and saluted. “Roger, Captain!” He picked the mug Meliodas had polished to perfection, and rubbed the dirty cloth from the counter over its surface in an attempt to copy Meliodas. Maybe he hadn’t been the best fit for the job, but Meliodas had other things on his mind besides Gowther’s inability to look like a bar tender with any sort of competence.

With Elizabeth in his arms, Meliodas rushed out of the door and trod over dry patches of grass until the sounds of conversation and laughter from inside the Boar Hat had faded to background stereo. Sometime after he had ordered Diane to lighten the oil lamps in the tavern room, the sun must have disappeared; apart from the stars and the beams of orange seeping through the Boar Hat’s lattice window, the landscape was covered in shadows.

Meliodas placed Elizabeth on her feet and reached out to cup her face. “Feeling better?” Her small but honest nod encouraged him to continue. “You shouldn’t get so worked up about this tavern business, we set this up because we both enjoyed the idea, remember? And who cares if that chattering knight in training doesn’t get his meat-pie? I’ll be the last one to complain.”

“Sometimes I feel so useless next to you,” Elizabeth admitted quietly. “In other lives I was a warrior or a knight or a sailor. But the longest time in this life, I’ve spent as nothing but a spoiled princess. Even running a tavern with you is more than I can manage.”

Meliodas studied her with a knot in his throat he couldn’t swallow. “Elizabeth…”

“But,” she interrupted, “no matter how often I fall and how often I let you down, I won’t give up. That’s what you did for me. I want to at least repay you a little, and with more practice, I will do better, I promise.”

“There’s nothing you’d have to repay me for,” Meliodas said with a smile that turned wicked when an idea crossed his mind. “Of course, if you’d ask your crazy wealthy relatives to fund our business every once in a while, I won’t decline.”

Elizabeth laughed that adorable laugh he was so addicted to before her gaze was caught by Liones’ capital glistering in the distance with tiny lights from a thousand windows. The palaces’ outline, a bulk of stone towering above the city, stood out against the hill ranges in the distance. For a moment, the reflections of her old home shone in her eyes, and Meliodas soaked in this beautiful expression like a man dying of thirst.

She surprised him with the question she asked next. “What about the plate was so dear to you?”

“You’re still thinking about that stupid piece of china?”

“No… I mean, of course I am still sorry for breaking it, and if I knew how to mend it, I would in a heartbeat, but what I want to understand is what the plate matters to you. I would like to be able to see the value in those objects that surround you the same way as you do.”

After three thousand years, she still surprised him with how much she cared about the little, unimportant details others would fail to even notice.

Meliodas crossed his arms behind his head and let his eyes trail over the landscape without seeing any of its shapes. “I got this plate from an old woman in Byron, a few years after I opened the first version of the Boar Hat together with a Hawk. There were all these people on the street, trading their tableware, laughing, and shoving around in these idiotic traditional dances. I stopped by the town by pure chance on that day, but Hawk forced me to spent all my hard-earned savings on new plates, so I went to the stall of this woman with the intention to get this trip over with as fast as I could. But even for someone who doesn’t care one bit about how the dishes under the food look, the craft she had put into these things was a sight for sore eyes. And while I was studying this one plate, she told me that she’d give me that one for free. She wouldn’t accept a single coin. I asked her why she would do that for a stranger, and you know what she said?

“She said it was the birthday of the third princess of Liones, a day to celebrate and show kindness to those who aren’t offered sympathy on other days. That one was the only plate I brought with me that day. Hawk was furious, of course. But that plate and the gesture behind it always reminded me of you, Elizabeth, and of your kindness. That’s why it was my favorite.”

When he craned his neck to peek at Elizabeth, Meliodas was met with a warmth that could melt glaciers and a sorrow that could bring tears to the eyes of stone-cold warriors. “Now I regret that I broke that plate even more. It sounds like it was a very precious piece of remembrance to you.”

“Forget that plate,” Meliodas said and stepped closed to take her hand. “What’s precious to me are all these little moments with you – especially when you stumble over your own feet and I’m there to catch you.”

They leaned closer until they lost themselves in the touch of the other. And if Meliodas had been given the choice by some higher entity, he would have traded that plate – that had by miracle survived all the times his tavern had been shredded by accursed strokes of fate to remind him of the kindness he had been granted – for this moment every single time.

[grover-nyquist]

Thirty-fifth Transmission

"Lice make camellias, and cats and dogs make mallards," Cecil Baum writes in one line. The history of our obsession with cats is several-dimensional. Partly our own, partly the function of the pet-store savvy industry we've created. Bacteria, narcissus, tarantulas, capuchin monkeys, hedgehogs and, of course, pets, are not children's playthings; we keep them, and in many cases, die for them. Cecil Baum didn't think that cats kept black-footed ferrets alive; William Withey did, but he put it in a poem that disturbed and rewarded his readers for an unusually long time.

That year, in 1862, Flea Flea had a litter and sold it to Mrs. Yewen at the Warwick Neighbourhood Store and F.Y.N. (for Simple Economics) Apothecary. Like many New Yorkers, Mrs. Yewen had a small collection of black-footed ferrets; the paraphernalia purchased by the pack leader furnished material for a delightful and occasionally terrifying poem, which got many-layered play in an on-the-ledge critical culture. "I opened the door to a large store; inside, while she planned the day's menu, seven ferrets slept."

In much of nineteenth-century America, many people kept ferrets. For no-nonsense people living on farms with no kids, there were always wayward, shy children they could give life to. In age-obsessed urban America, black-footed ferrets were useful pets, a rarity in the West; though they brought with them a nightmare of hypothermia, foraging for the fertilizer, hunting for rodents. On the west coast, tiny dogs had a calling and a purpose.

Flea Flea sold the kit, which included five pellets. Papa Flea is a rugged warrior who still has his hokey-pokey skills and sells boots and hats from beneath an awning. Papa Flea has his brother's large nose and sturdy paws that make him equally prone to let everything fall in, and he wasn't about to stand around, studying the book while his newborn ferret fur could be soothed. The book has an interesting diagram of the Great Ferret Ship, "landing at [port] above a seaweed-and-fertilizer trap in a driftwood crib."

This account is unbelievable, in lots of ways. As it's later revealed, Papa Flea wasn't a known name in children's literature. Nor is this type of kit as encyclopedic as it appears. Papa Flea's portholes contained instructions of tools and a few clippings of the garden and each of the incubators. Mama Flea, who was uneducated but had a she-devil of a temper and a bit of Irish élan, left her stew and a note or two. The shopper visits the flea-deck and takes a look at her black-footed ferret, then falls silent. Several years later, Papa Flea writes the woman a thank-you letter, on crumpled paper, with the notation: "WRONG PART OF A DRAW".

This offers a snapshot, as confounding as it is funny, of nineteenth-century America. The younger man, upon realizing the kindness of the transaction, gave Mrs. Yewen a half-dozen pictures of the mother ferret, a black one. A determined animal lover at home, she kept the photographs in a frame, inside a box. In the book, she endures more problems than she ever did with the young ferret. She bought more black-footed ferrets; an ancient one died of old age, while a younger one feasted like a demonic animal on an oyster; she got caught in a number of storms; and they looked awful, with wrinkled backs and small eyes. At least on the inside of the store, which is covered in four ferret-covered sides, she must have found some comforts, "fewer storms, less bites from badgers and lice, and no paralysis from the odor of human decomposition." But "suddenly, her face was overwhelmed with emotion, as though Mrs. Yewen had tried to suppress it for forty years." He throws her a bouquet and looks away from the horror to the fresco-like mountains surrounding her ...

[thedunesea]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker Additional Tags: Angst, Sith Horror, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Feelings, Love Summary:

On the inside, Anakin was devoured by his own inner fire. A moth to the flame, Obi-Wan knew that sooner or later he would be caught in the firestorm too.  

A vision of someone close to him dying has Anakin diving head-first into darkness; Obi-Wan goes to the rescue. Yes, they are just that predictable.

FULL TEXT UNDER THE CUT

[The holoimage shows a woman clad in standard-issue EduCorps garments. Her eyes are wide with fear, and the deafening noise of blasterfire intermingled with screams drowns her panicked words.]

We can’t get out. They’ve taken the walkway and the hangars. Cloud, Kit and Spike tried to hold them in hallway besh-three – they are dead.

[An explosion, somewhere not far from the speaker. Then the unmistakable clanking noise of marching droids.]

They’re coming in waves. Something – something has awaken in the tombs. We hear drums, drums in the deep – no! Force, no… they got through the blast doors!

[Another explosion. The clanking footsteps approach.]

We can’t get out. It’s the end... They’re coming.

[One last explosion, a scream, and the blue image crumples to the ground before disappearing.]

Silence fell over the High Council Room. The greatest Jedi Masters of this age sat motionless in their circle of wisdom; not a shadow of fear or doubt darkened their carven faces, but their silence said what their features did not.

After a few heartbeats, Yoda voiced what the others could not bear to even think.

“Awakened on Korriban, the ancient Sith have.”

***

Over the course of the years, Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi had become quite a connoisseur of desert planets. Even if his understanding of the hellish environment was still dwarfed by that of his former apprentice, who had grown up on Tatooine, he knew enough to realize with just one glance that Korriban was unlike any other such place he had ever seen.

The asteroid field through which the Resolute was slowly wading its way reminded him of a morbid image etched in his memory since his impressionable Padawan days, gray bloodflies flying in lazy circles around the putrid wounds of a man he and Qui-Gon had found days after he had died.

The image was morbid indeed, but accurate: the planet beyond the asteroid field was a putrid wound. There was something to the rusty color of its sands that spoke of millennia-old bloodstains on rugged cliffs, of fractured slabs still guarding desecrated tombs, an ill presence festering in every crack of the planet’s parched surface.

Not to mention the fact that the Force itself seemed to shriek away from the place.

Averting his gaze from the viewport and blinking away this unnecessary macabre line of thought, Obi-Wan cast a worried glance at his former apprentice, who was standing beside him and scowling at the planet below, horror and exhaustion carved deep in his features. Taking advantage of the fact that Anakin was too absorbed in his own musings to feel his gaze upon him, Obi-Wan took his time to study the boy he had watched turn into a man.

Nature had made Anakin tall and handsome; his training had given him broad shoulders and the lean, muscled body of a warrior. The loss of his hand had been a gruesome rite of passage to adulthood, a passage ultimately sealed by war, which had bestowed upon him a bronze tan and that trademark scar featured on the cover of half the Galaxy's holomagazines.

On the surface, Anakin was the perfect image of a Jedi – the poster boy of the Order, as Obi-Wan fondly called him. Sometimes he almost seemed to have come straight out of a holomovie on the Mandalorian Wars, and not because of his raw power, unlike anything else the Galaxy had seen in millennia, but because of his charming mix of dashing élan and natural leadership paired with a captivating smile and a generous heart.

On the inside, though, Anakin was devoured by his own inner fire. A moth to the flame, Obi-Wan knew that sooner or later he would be caught in the firestorm too.

“Master?”

Apparently, this time Obi-Wan had been the one too engrossed in his own thoughts to mind his surroundings; Anakin had averted his gaze from the viewport and was now staring at him, frowning slightly.

“Yes, Anakin?”

“What are you looking at?”

“You seem preoccupied,” Obi-Wan said, evading the question.

Anakin bit his lip, hesitating. “I wish they had assigned someone else to this mission, Master," he confessed.

Obi-Wan folded his hands in his sleeves, arching his eyebrows in an inquisitive frown.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Anakin explained.

Obi-Wan opened himself to the Force and almost recoiled under the onslaught of Darkness soaring from Korriban’s sands. Fighting to stand his ground, he reached out, following the tide of time beyond the horizon of the present moment, but the future was silent. He retreated back to the here and now, where Korriban stood as a catalyst of the Dark Side; beyond the evil of the place he could feel nothing amiss - at least no more than usual in an age of civil war.

“That’s strange,” he said at last. “I sense nothing. Well, other than that abyss of darkness we are happily walking into.”

His try for a lighter mood failed; he saw Anakin swallowing, a brief spasm in the curve of his throat.

“I wish we weren’t.”

One hand slipped out of a sleeve, going to rest on Anakin’s forearm.

“So do I, Anakin.” An affectionate squeeze. “So do I.”

A weary smile tugged at the corners of Anakin’s lips. The golden grins of the first year of the war had long since gone, taken away by so many half-averted disasters: Mortis, Zygerria, the Rako Hardeen debacle, the loss of Ahsoka were only the major catastrophes in a tragedy three years in the making. Obi-Wan had never thought he would miss the times of Cristophsis and Geonosis.

“But we are Jedi, aren’t we, Master?” Anakin asked, then sighed and dropped his gaze. “And we will do what we must, whether we want it or not.”

***

The Republic archaeological research center built near the entrance of the Old Sith Academy had become a mass tomb: bodies – or what remained of them – were everywhere, sprawled across control boards, lying in crumpled heaps on the floor, some still in their beds. Trails of blood guided the troopers' steps. Death hung heavy on the air.

Unheard by all save Obi-Wan, the Force screamed in ghost agony.

The planet had been blockaded by Republic forces since the first months of the war; feeling safe under the protection of three star-destroyers, most of the archaeologists had been unarmed. No one could have figured death would come from below.

“Stay alert, men,” Obi-Wan said, his voice booming in the eerie silence. “They might come back.”

“They? What are they, Sir?” Boil asked, voicing what most of his brothers were without doubt thinking.

Obi-Wan kneeled beside the body of a young Zabrak woman; her chest sported two blaster wound, one for each heart.

“Droids,” he muttered.

“Clankers?” another man asked, skepticism clear in his voice.

“No.” Obi-Wan closed the women's eyes and got back to his feet, wiping his hands clean of her blood on his trousers. “Ancient droids, perhaps as old as the Great Hyperspace War. These blast points are too accurate for battle droids. Only supercommando are so precise, but there is no way they could have made planetfall without us knowing.”

“Droids still alive and kicking after thousands of years?” Cody asked, bewildered for probably the first time in his life.

“Yes. Such is the power of the Dark Side,” Obi-Wan said bitterly. “There were legends about this, bedtime scaretales for Jedi children, ancient tombs filled with assassin droids. There is always a bit of truth in old tales.”

“But where have they gone now? And why did they awake in the first place?”

Obi-Wan stroke his chin, deep in thought.

“Woke up on their own, these droids did not,” Yoda had said. “Activated them, someone has, someone powerful with the Dark Side.”

“I thought the problem was that the archaeologists had dug too deep... too greedily. That they awakened something."

“Perhaps. But the shroud of the Dark Side I feel. Darth Sidious I fear it may be.”

“But to what use, Master?”

“To test our resistance, perhaps, mmmm? Clouded everything, the Dark Side has. Beware, young Obi-Wan. Whatever you may see, trust it do not."

“I don’t know, Boil,” Obi-Wan said at last, relinquishing his reverie. “Perhaps the archaeologists triggered a trap. For now, though, the droids seem to have withdrawn.”

Or, perhaps, it was really a Jedi trap. Frowning, Obi-Wan tapped his comlink. Only time would tell. In the meantime, he had to make sure his men were safe.

“Kenobi here, awaiting status report.”

“Perimeter sweep complete, General. The area is clear. The squad in the dig site has reached the last check point with all green.”

“Very well. We’ll rendezvous at the opposite side of the Academy and go help Anakin and his men in the valley.” He tapped his commlink again, switching to his and Anakin's private frequency. A buzz of static met him. Unease crawled cold on his skin. He closed his eyes and tried to reach for him into the Force.

Anakin?

Darkness and silence. The Force, shrouded in timeless malice, seemed to close around him and jolted him out of his trance.

Fear gnawing at his heart, he turned to his men.

“Let us hurry, gentlemen. I’m afraid General Skywalker is in danger.”

"From the droids?" Cody asked, as he started to run.

"From himself," Obi-Wan said.

***

For a stunned moment Obi-Wan simply stood, staring at Rex in horror. A trickle of cold sweat run from the back of his neck down his spine.

“Anakin has done what?”

Another man would have probably recoiled at his tone of voice; Rex simply frowned.

“He has entered the inner chamber of the cave alone, Sir. There was some sort of… Force barrier, he called it, and we could not get in. The General thought you were in there - he had some kind of vision, said you were in danger. He sent us back here to look out for straggle droids.”

Exhausted and positively terrified, Obi-Wan brushed his fingers on the hilt of his lightsaber, searching his kyber for comfort, but not even the light of Ilum could pierce the encroaching darkness.

"Secure the perimeter, Rex, then call a med unit and wait for us. If we are not back in three hours, leave our hyperspace rings in orbit and return to Mandalore to join the rest of the battle group.”

“With all due respect, Sir, I…”

Imperiously, Obi-Wan raised his hand to stop the man's protests.

“Have I made myself clear, Captain?”

This time, Rex swallowed.

“Sir, yes sir.”

“Good.”

Then Obi-Wan turned on his heels and broke into a run, crossing the vast expanse of blood-red sand with a single-minded focus, leaping over fallen pillars and dashing among sun-bleached bones and effigies of evil monarchs of old.

Had the situation been less dramatic, he would probably had found the time to snort in amusement. Trust Anakin to rush headfirst into a Sith cave because of a darkside-driven vision of someone close to him being in danger - and trust him to follow suit.

***

Obi-Wan had seen the cave on the way from the Academy, a dark crevice opening in the rugged cliff on his left. The Force was so murky he had not felt Anakin's presence inside; he could not sense him even now that he knew where to look.

An old fear took him, the same fear he had felt as he stood behind the red barrier of light, helplessly watching Qui-Gon Jinn fighting Maul and dying at the Sith's hands.

He run as he had never run in his life. Winged creatures of darkness attacked him; he made short work of them, slicing through flesh and bone without even thinking. The Force guided his hand. Which aspect of the Force guided his hand was a question for another time.

When he reached a stone bridge arched across a gaping abyss, Obi-Wan knew his suspects had been founded. Straight out of a youngling’s nightmares, this was no mere cave: this was the tomb of Ludo Kressh, Dark Lord of the Sith.

Always an history enthusiast, Obi-Wan had read enough of the legends about the Sith Lords of old to recognize it. There were rumors about this tombs, whispers of arcane demons still wandering its depths, of dark magic so powerful it could drive a Jedi to madness.

According to ancient annals stored in the deepest vaults of the Archive, a Jedi Master of old had passed unscathed through the chambers, surviving all the horrors the tomb had unleashed upon them. The true nature of those horrors – ghosts, the records had called them – had unfortunately been lost to time; the most widely acknowledged theory was that the tomb forced those who entered it to witness memories that haunted them, fixed moments in time that could never be changed.

If it so, Obi-Wan defiantly thought, I have nothing to fear.

Dark as his past may be, filled with pain, anger and regret, there was nothing in it he could not face head-on. There was nothing he could not face head-on if it meant Anakin's life. Not even Qui-Gon Jinn's death.

He run across the bridge. A rock he accidentally hit fell down across the edge and plummeted into the abyss; no sound of it hitting the bottom ever came.

There it was, the Force barrier: electricity crackled in the air, purple sizzles of long-forgotten dark magic casting eerie shadows against the carved walls of the corridor beyond.

Obi-Wan opened himself to the Force, pulling at the faint threads of light to shroud himself in their warm protection. They broke apart under his touch, crying in distress as they met the darkness around him. He tried twice, then let go.

He didn't have any time to lose. He crossed the threshold unshielded.

***

Obi-Wan found himself in darkness – both in the realm of gross matter and in the Force.

He was standing on the summit of a slope; the ground under his feet was so hot its searing hit seeped past the soles of his boots. The only light in his pitch-black surroundings came from a river of molten fire flowing several feet below him. Still, the lighting was unnatural: not even the red glow of the lava could pierce the thick darkness that surrounded everything. Of one thing he was sure: this was no memory. He had never seen such a place place.

He stood there for a few moments, uncertain on what he was supposed to do. There seemed to be no way of crossing the river of flames, and somehow he knew that this was the direction he would have to go. Something moving at the edge of his line of sight caught his attention just as he was about to climb down the slope.

In precarious equilibrium on a small surface hovering across the lava flow, two figures of shadow were fighting each other, their blades shining in identical sapphire, a sight even more hideous than that of a red lightsaber.

The vilest blasphemy.

Jedi against Jedi.

Fratricide.

Aghast, unable to move, Obi-Wan stood and beheld the fight. The two warriors were good – incredibly good - and this made their duel even more horrific: Obi-Wan was an adept swordsman enough to know they were fighting to death. Still, he could not suppress the awe he felt before this show of skill. He hated to admit it, but it was a thing of beauty.

In all his years at the Temple and on the battlefield, Obi-Wan had never seen anyone fight like this. He had never even dreamed it was possible to fight like this.

A Jedi and a Fallen One.

There was no way of knowing whom was which.

It was a clash of fates. A shatterpoint of faiths.

A duel out of a long-forgotten hero tale.

As the paralyzed universe watched, the blinding sizzle of lightsabers went on. The two contestants fought without quarters, thrusting their blades in search of an opening, body slamming against body, fingers closing around wrist or around soft, frail throat, limbs contorting in a struggle to escape a death grip. Tremors shook the ground and the air; the tension piled up, electric, burning hot and thick in Obi-Wan's blood.

Mortified at the deep, dark thrill washing over him, he averted his gaze.

This was something more than a mere duel of fates.

This was something personal, a deadly dance on the thin line between love and hate.

Two souls beyond salvation making love to each other in the only way they could.

The two blades met again, pressing viciously one against the other. Roused by the sizzling noise, Obi-Wan turned back to watch and felt his hair standing on his arms. One of the two opponents disengaged, backflipping on the slope a few meters above the shore.

Obi-Wan knew, with the bone-deep certainty of the Force, that the duel was nearing its end.

Precognition, or, possibly, mere expertise in the art of swordsmanship told him what was going to happen. He felt the Force gathering around the taller figure, the one still standing on the hovering platform. The man would jump. And the other man would cut him down, probably with a savage mou kai, the Mark of Dismemberment.

This, at least, was what Obi-Wan would have done were he in his place.

He was bracing himself for the gruesome spectacle about to unfold before his eyes when a spurt of lava cast its smoldering light on the face of the soon-to-be victim.

"No!"

Darkness drowned his scream, and Anakin leapt.

It wasn't even a choice. Duty, trust and the overwhelming need to protect guided Obi-Wan's hand.

His own blue blade cut through the traitor's heart.

But, once again, he had been too late.

Just before he died, the unknown warrior had swept his blade in that forbidden move Obi-Wan had predicted, severing in one fell swoop both of Anakin's legs and his flesh arm.

The dead traitor crumbled to the ground in a dark heap, but Obi-Wan didn't even see; the only thing he saw was Anakin's maimed body sliding down the slope, towards the fire. Desperately, still screaming, Obi-Wan tumbled down the hill and gathered what had remained of his Padawan in his arms, cradling him with his eyes blinded by tears. When the stumps of Anakin's legs caught fire, they burned together.

The last scream on Obi-Wan's lips was Anakin's name.

***

“M-Master?"

Darkness. The ground shifting under him. A trickle of perspiration running down his neck.

"Obi-Wan?"

When he heard his name, Obi-Wan's eyes snapped open, but the darkness didn’t lift. He blinked twice, trying to make sense of his predicament. Now that he was almost awake, and more aware of his surroundings, he realized that the shifting ground under him was no ground at all. It was someone’s legs. Startled, he pulled up so fast his vision got black for a moment; he dropped back to his knees.

“Anakin?” he croaked as soon as he had regained his balance, belatedly appreciating the fact that, apparently, neither him nor Anakin of them were dead. He blindly groped around until his hands reached the body on which he had awakened. Anakin twitched under his touch.

“Yeah, it’s me.” Obi-Wan heard him snort. “It was a trap.”

Obi-Wan huffed in relief.  “Don't you say,” he said, tiredly mocking him. “Oh, Anakin. Will you ever learn?”

“I learnt from you. Spring the trap,” Anakin quoted, his sass somewhat spoiled by his still shaky voice.

“When we are together, not on your own.”

Obi-Wan could sense Anakin’s smile in the Force. “I knew you’d come,” he said. “Eventually.”

The memory of what he had seen before awakening sent a tendril of fear down Obi-Wan's spine: back then, he had been too late.

“Anakin,” he murmured. “Did you fight anyone?”

Anakin’s confusion echoed through the Force.

“Here, you mean? No, why?”

Sighing in relief, Obi-Wan realized his hands were still on Anakin's chest. He folded them on his lap.

“Nothing. I had a vision. You were fighting someone.”

"Who?"

“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. He’s dead.”

“Well, that’s what usually happens when someone is stupid enough to pick a fight with me.”

Obi-Wan didn’t reply. There was nothing amusing in his memory. Anakin, incredibly, was tactful enough to understand he had somehow hit too close to home, and changed the subject. "At any rate, no, I wasn’t fighting anyone. I was just lying here unconscious until you tripped over me."

Snorting, Obi-Wan called his lightsaber to his palm; the blade flared to life, casting its sapphire glow on them. They had been in darkness long enough.

Anakin was half lying, half sitting on the floor, his back propped against something that looked suspiciously like a sarcophagus. Behind it, Obi-Wan could make out what seemed to be the feet and the legs of a ridiculously tall statue of an armored warrior, whose body was lost in the shadows above. Cautiously, Obi-Wan stood up and inserted the hilt of his saber in a empty sconce on the nearest wall, so that it could cast its glow on them without him having to hold it.

“Lovely,” Anakin said, eyeing his surroundings in disgust. “The Sith certainly knew how to brighten up a place.”

“Anakin, it’s a tomb, it doesn't need being bright,” Obi-Wan remarked before he could stop himself, sitting down again beside Anakin.

Anakin waved a hand in dismissal. “Whatever. I don’t like it.”

“Neither do I.” Wearily, Obi-Wan let his head thump back against the sarcophagus. “How in the blazes did you end up unconscious on the sarcophagus of a Sith Lord, Anakin? Honestly, I'm quite intrigued."

Anakin straightened, sitting cross-legged. “We were checking the cave for droids when I saw the Force barrier. I tried to reach out for it, but apparently the dark energy knocked me out for a while, and I think I had a vision." He frowned, his eyes glazed. "I was in a place I’ve never seen before, I’d say it was something like a military base – perhaps a space station. Some of the technology I couldn't recognize."

Trust Anakin to notice these kind of details even in a Sith-driven vision, Obi-Wan thought in fond amusement.

"The only thing I know is that I had to find you," Anakin went on, his voice now tense. "I don’t know why, but I had to. I could sense your presence, I knew you where there, but I couldn't find you... until I found your robes and your lightsaber in a heap on the floor. Then I woke up.” He blushed. "Screaming, according to Rex. I know this doesn't seem much, but trust me, it was creepy."

“And you thought that the best course of action was to come looking for me in a Sith tomb while you knew perfectly well that I was in the archaeological outpost,” Obi-Wan said, fond amusement now turning into frustration. He knew that this ferocious need to save everyone was one of the things that made Anakin so endearing, but it was a terrifying trait for whoever cared about him: it could only too easily become a self-inflicted death sentence.

Anakin shrugged. “Better safe then sorry.”

“I’m afraid that running headlong into a Sith tomb because visions fits more into the definition of sorry rather than safe,” Obi-Wan said in a tight voice.

Anakin jerked his head upright. “Obi-Wan, can you please knock it off?”

“Knock it off? You put yourself in danger and left your men and put me in danger and I have to knock it off?”

Indignantly, Anakin leapt on his feet. “How in the nine Sith hells did I put you in danger?” he spat.

“You knew I would come after you,” Obi-Wan said, dropping his voice and closing his eyes. Attachment. We have come to rely on our attachment to each other. Force preserve us. “You said that yourself. So you knew that I would put myself in danger to come and rescue you. Leaving our men behind.”

To this, Anakin had no reply. He dropped on the sarcophagus; the ancient stone croaked under his weight. “Ok. Sorry, Master,” he said in a flat tone, his head clasped in his hands.

Sighing, Obi-Wan got up and sat beside him.

“I’m not angry at you, Anakin, but don’t do this again,” he said softly. “You gave me quite a scare.”

Anakin blinked, turning towards him. “You… scared?”

“Of course I was. This place reeks of Darkness. Who knows what horrors still lie in these tombs. Wouldn’t you have been scared, were you in my place?”

“Well, that’s the reason why we’re here in the first place, isn't it? Beside me being a kriffing idiot, of course,” Anakin said, snorting. “I was scared.”

Obi-Wan sighed. The last thing he didn't want to deal with right now was Anakin's self pity. "You didn't tell me how you ended up here."

"Keep your pants on, Obi-Wan, I'm getting there."

Obi-Wan knew Anakin enough to sense that he'd rather not get there at all, if he could. "I assure you, my young friend, Sith visions most definitely don't make me want to pull my pants off," he said, trying to ease the tension.

As always, Anakin rose up to the bait. "I'm glad to hear that. Not that I would judge you, of course, but it'd still be quite kinky."

Obi-Wan let out a long-suffering sigh. "Anakin."

"Ok, ok." Clenching his fist, Anakin forced himself to speak. "I had another vision as soon as I crossed the barrier." He closed his eyes. "Do you remember the dead star we saw when I was a child? The white dwarf?"

Obi-Wan nodded, shifting closer to him and sliding one arm across his shoulder to pull him in a reassuring half-hug. He still remembered the blind panic that had taken old of a twelve-year old Anakin at the sight of the spent star, the tears streaking down his round, childish face when Obi-Wan had told him that, just as all things do, even stars burn out. Sighing, Anakin let his head drop on Obi-Wan's shoulder. "You had nightmares about it for years," Obi-Wan said.

"Still have," Anakin admitted wearily. "In the vision, I was standing on the bridge of a Star-destroyer, right before the viewport. It was empty - completely empty. No droids, no men, all consoles powered off, but the ship kept going. It was like it was caught in a tractor beam, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. And I didn't want to let the ship go there, I didn't, but I couldn't move, I was just staring at it... I was paralyzed, Obi-Wan."

Obi-Wan felt a burst of pride swelling in his chest. He knew perfectly how much such a confession was costing him - the so-called Hero with no Fear. He tipped his head sideways to let it rest on Anakin's.

"It was the dead star," Anakin whispered. "Not the white dwarf we saw. It was the dead star of my nightmares. White. Solid. Dead.”

"Solid?" Obi-Wan asked, frowning. "A moon?"

"No, that was no moon," Anakin said, shaking his head. "I could feel the nucleus beneath the crust. Pure energy, like a kyber crystal. I know that stars aren't solid, but this one is. Was. I don't know how to explain." He frowned, as if in search for the right words. “It was sick – distorted. Abused. And I couldn’t stop falling towards it. I was just staring at it, even though I wanted it destroyed. I wanted to crush it, but it crushed me.”

Obi-Wan shivered, remembering Anakin’s maimed body sliding down the slope towards the flames, remembered how he had shattered the unknown man’s heart and how Anakin had died anyway. Their worst fears materializing before them.

“We cannot escape our deaths, Anakin,” Obi-Wan said softly. It was true, no matter how hardly he wished he could protect Anakin from this truth.

Anakin trembled under his fingers. “I know,” he said, his voice croaky. “I always thought death was the worst thing that could happen to anyone. Now I’m not sure anymore.” He paused, biting his lip. “I don’t want to be afraid.”

Oh, Anakin. “It’s this planet,” Obi-Wan said. “And this tomb. If I am right and this is the tomb of Ludo Kressh, it is famous for being haunted.”

Anakin let out a faint snort. “Force, Obi-Wan. First geonosian zombie worms, now ancient Sith magic. You are a weirdo, not a Jedi.”

“Well, one of us needs to know what we are doing,” Obi-Wan protested, faintly offended. “Anyway, some scholars thought that the ghosts in this tomb showed the immutable facts of our lives.” Obi-Wan paused, and Anakin’s horror spiked in the Force. “I think they are wrong," he went on hastily. "I think that what we saw are our worst fears: you told me that yourself, you saw the dead star of your nightmares."

In an instinctive gesture of affection, Obi-Wan lifted a hand to card his fingers through Anakin’s hair; Anakin winced and grabbed Obi-Wan's wrist, pulling away from him. “Don’t.”

Obi-Wan froze, his hand limp in Anakin’s clutch. “I am sorry,” he murmured, afraid to have crossed an unspoken barrier. He couldn't deny that, affectionate as they were, it was unusual for them to be this tactile - only during the second battle of Geonosis they had reached such... intimacy. Obi-Wan could still remember the heat spreading through him as they bantered throughout the battle briefing, Anakin's sheer relief when he had found him still alive, the way they had struggled to find a moment away from peering eyes just to hug each other in a crushing embrace. He blushed as he remembered what he had dreamt in his painkiller-induced sleep after the battle. War had given them that intimacy, and war had taken it away from them before it could even bloom.

“No, no,” Anakin blurted, apparently grasping the surface of the thought - at least, Obi-Wan hoped it was just the surface. “I mean… My hair is soaked with sweat.”

Oh. Obi-Wan’s shoulders relaxed; his lips curled in a crooked smile.

“Do you think it would bother me?” he asked, shaking his head in disbelief. “I’ve had your blood on my hands more times than I care to remember – and your vomit too, now that I think about it,” he added with a smirk.

Anakin grimaced in disgust. “Did you really have to bring that up? I was ten!”

Chuckling, Obi-Wan lifted his hand again, brushing his fingers against Anakin’s cheek. Anakin leant into the touch, his eyes fluttering close. Obi-Wan hadn’t seen him this vulnerable since after the first battle of Geonosis, in the aftermath of the loss of his hand. Back then, his fragility had been that of a devastated teenager who had broken down; now, though, it was a grown man deliberately shedding every defense before someone he trusted with his life. The realization made Obi-Wan shiver again; Anakin, apparently, misread the sentiment. He turned abruptly to face him, his hands raising to cup his face.

“What did you see, Obi-Wan?” he asked, his eyes wide and burning.

Obi-Wan straightened his back, painfully conscious of how near him Anakin was. “I don’t see how thi-”

“Tell me.” The voice of a General. Obi-Wan swallowed.

“I saw you die. I tried to kill the man you were fighting, but he got to you anyway. It was Qui-Gon all over again, only that this time I could have done something… But I failed.”

“Your worst fear is watching me die?” Anakin croaked.

Obi-Wan blinked. “Yes. Of course. What else?”

Anakin leant closer, so close that Obi-Wan could see every crack on his lips as they moved. “Because of Qui-Gon?”

There was no easy answer to that. The death of his Master had left him scarred; it had taken years for Obi-Wan to overcome the trauma. But somewhere deep in himself he knew that a life without Anakin by his side would have been his worst fear even if Qui-Gon had lived. To run away from the truth hiding behind his Master's death would have been a betrayal of Qui-Gon's memory and of Anakin’s trust.

“No,” he admitted slowly. “At least, not entirely. Perhaps the fear of watching you die and being unable to help is affected by my trauma, but... we are at war, Anakin. We both know that not even our abilities can guarantee that we will live to see its end. We march into each battle knowing it may be the last. It’s only natural that I fear losing you.” The more he talked, the hoarser his voice became, until his last words were nothing more than a rasping whisper. Anakin was so close, too close, and when he swept his tongue on his quivering lips, covering them in a thin film of moisture, Obi-Wan had to swallow a gasp. Something red and dark pooled in his groin. He remembered the wanton way Anakin had slammed his body against that of his unnamed opponent, the carnal heat of their fight. Blind jealousy shot through him, and he felt a black jolt of grim pleasure at the memory of his blade cutting through the man’s heart – the same ecstasy he had felt as he watched Darth Maul’s severed body plummeting down into the abyss.

“But you killed him?” Anakin asked, a dangerous gleam in his eyes. “The man who murdered me?”

“Yes.” Revenge was not the Jedi way, and Obi-Wan tried to tell himself he had acted only to save Anakin. Without even realizing, he leant closer. His hand slid back into Anakin's damp hair. “I put a blade through his heart the moment he struck you down.”

“Good.”

For a long moment they stood together in precarious balance on the edge of the precipice, mouth a hair's breadth from mouth, just close enough that Anakin's warm breath fluttered on and past Obi-Wan's already parted lips.

Obi-Wan had always known that, once started, this was a fight he could not win; there was no fighting gravity, the eternal law binding gross matter and pulling him towards Anakin, the burning fulcrum of his life.

Not on a Sith Lord's tomb, was his only half-rational thought as he closed the distance between them.

Shaking, he let himself fall, pushing Anakin down with him and pinning him against the cold floor with his weight. Anakin's lips were there to catch him, warm and damp, primigenial.

Anakin kissed like he flied: bold and impetuous, smothering his inner fire in the absence of thought, his fingers tracing deep creases on Obi-Wan's back. For once, Obi-Wan soared with him, high among the stars, kissing him as he had never kissed before – as he had never done anything else before, with an abandonment he had never felt, with the same forbidden eroticism of the battle he had witnessed, his hands entangled in Anakin's hair.

They pulled apart, gasping for air, and guilt washed over Obi-Wan; frantically, he searched Anakin's face for a sign of regret for what had just happened. He found his eyes, and they were wide, darkened from arousal, impossibly blue in the light of Obi-Wan's plasma blade.

Gently, Anakin lifted a finger and touched Obi-Wan’s cheekbone, tracing a languid path towards his lips. Obi-Wan leant into the touch with a sigh and his eyes fluttered close, but only for the briefest moment: he could not bear to lose the sight of Anakin lying under him, eyes wide and wet lips slightly apart.

Anakin's hand slid back, his fingers curling against the short hair on the back of Obi-Wan's neck, pulling him down for another kiss, mouth against mouth, desperate, drowning. Obi-Wan's hands traced the lean lines of Anakin's body, a body he knew better than his own and yet didn't know; his mouth slid down Anakin's neck, kissing and licking, eliciting small gasps. He could feel Anakin's own desire burning in the Force, intermingled with his, their barriers falling one after the other, crumpling to dust.

Slowly, deliberately, Obi-Wan tipped his head back to watch Anakin as he pressed his hips down on his, grinding his already almost full erection against Anakin's. The small sound Anakin made as his lips opened in pleasure sent a dark flame of arousal through Obi-Wan's body; clumsily, hungrily, he let his lips slide down over Anakin's jawbone, leaving a trail of hot dampness and small bites that made Anakin whimper under his wandering hands.

Reverentially, he let them slide down Anakin's muscled chest, down towards his belt and further down. Anakin moaned again, thrusting his hips upwards into Obi-Wan; then, he opened his legs, letting Obi-Wan in between them, clutching his hipbones with his strong thighs.

"Oh," was all Obi-Wan could say, all rational thought crumbling to ashes in the firestorm, Anakin's own arousal pressing against his stomach.

Then, the firestorm was inside him, burning, a urge more powerful than that of sex, stronger than honor and duty and vows. Panicked, Obi-Wan froze, his lips stilling on Anakin's collarbone.

"Obi-Wan?" Anakin moaned, distress for the interruption intermingled with worry.

“Anakin. I-” Obi-Wan knew what he wanted - needed to do. It was only right that he did it before he and Anakin crossed this last barrier together - no more secrets, no more lies. Still, he stumbled on the words. They had been true before, and for others than Anakin, but Anakin was the first person for whom Obi-Wan was willing to say them out loud. The first person for whom the words were more important than anything else. The Force itself seemed to nod in tacit consent. “I-”

His commlink started to beep with the high-pitched tone of the emergency channel. Dismay flashed across Anakin’s face, and he looked away. Obi-Wan cursed softly, letting out a ragged breath and trying to compose himself before tapping the comm open.

“Kenobi.”

“General. We have an urgent message from the Jedi Council.”

Blast. With a sigh, Obi-Wan rolled off of Anakin and scowled at the black ceiling.

“Put it through, Cody. Standing by.”

Anakin had propped himself on an elbow, and was watching him with wide eyes still glazed with lust. Obi-Wan couldn't help smiling, and was rewarded by a grin as blinding as the light of Tatooine’s twin suns, even if a little giddy. The grin he had not seen on Anakin's face for years. Hope bloomed inside him, hope for a newly found trust after all the lies and the shadows of these three years of war.

“You were saying, Master?” Anakin asked, and leant over to kiss him swiftly, nothing more than a brush of lips against lips.

"Obi-Wan. "

Obi-Wan rolled his eyes in frustration, eliciting a smirk from Anakin, who pulled away.

“Kenobi here.”

“Obi-Wan. Coruscant is under siege. Grievous has kidnapped the Chancellor. We need you and Anakin back now to lead the rescue mission.”

Anakin was on his feet even before Mace had finished speaking, his fist clenched in rage and fear.

"What?"

Exhausted, Obi-Wan nodded.

“We are on our way.”

And perhaps it is better this way, Obi-Wan thought as they rushed out of the Temple. The place was tainted with darkness, and they had both been too emotional and raw. Too unbalanced because of those horrific visions of fears that would never become real.

This is not how I want it to be.

I will tell Anakin I love him when the war is over.

[fullfestivalpeanut]

Les Warriors sont la pire équipe, et ils peuvent manquer les séries éliminatoires s'ils perdent à nouveau

Les Warriors, champions en titre, ont de gros problèmes dans la nouvelle saison. L'équipe est dans un mauvais état et perd d'affilée. Chaque match ne peut être gagné qu'en s'appuyant sur les superbes performances de Curry. Une fois que Curry n'obtient pas plus de 40 points, alors les Warriors veulent Il sera très difficile de gagner la partie. Contre les Kings à l'Ouest, les Warriors ont montré un élan pire qu'eux, et ils ont été facilement vaincus par les Kings.

Les Warriors étaient en bonne forme au début, mais l'attaque et la défense globales étaient encore médiocres, en particulier du côté défensif. Fox, qui portait le maillot nba Sacramento Kings, n'a pas pu être retenu. Il est la figure centrale des Kings. Le garder peut contenir l'infraction globale. J'espère que le prochain match du Warrior contre les Spurs sera meilleur que celui-ci. La performance de Curry est importante, il affecte la vie et la mort de toute l'équipe, et Thompson peut ne pas jouer, la pression de Curry est encore plus grande.

La seule bonne chose est que Wiggins est en bonne forme depuis le début de la saison, réduisant beaucoup la pression sur Curry du côté offensif. Lorsque Thompson n'a pas réussi à porter un maillot nba Golden State Warriors pour aider Curry, Wiggins est devenu le centre d'intérêt. point d'attaque. Bien sûr, l'équipe a aussi Poole et Green. Ils doivent tirer ensemble pour améliorer leur force globale. Si l'équipe s'appuie uniquement sur Curry, elle ne pourra pas du tout participer aux séries éliminatoires. Travailler ensemble est leur chose la plus importante. Les Spurs sont également sur le point d'entamer un road trip, il leur faut bien débuter, ce match doit être plein de poudre à canon.

[sandandjello]

WaterField Pro Executive Backpack Review: A Well-Organized and Professional Backpack That's Perfect for Commuters, Road Warriors, and Remote Workers

WaterField Pro Executive Backpack Review: A Well-Organized and Professional Backpack That’s Perfect for Commuters, Road Warriors, and Remote Workers

If you are one of the many who now has to work remotely, or if you regularly commute and need a bag that can hold it all and then some, you’ve come to the right review. Finding a well-made backpack that looks professional, has intelligently designed compartments, and that’s comfortable to carry when fully loaded is no easy feat; the WaterField Pro Executive Backpack handles it with élan. (more…)

[lefanclub1]

Comment les Warriors peuvent redevenir des prétendants au titre avec une seule décision

Même si, au cours des derniers jours, on entend de plus en plus de rumeurs selon lesquelles l’espoir israélien Deni Avdija a émerveillé les Warriors lors de sa rencontre avec la haute direction de l'équipe, nous ne croyons pas que Golden State devrait repêcher cet ailier de 19 ans au repêchage de la NBA tenu le 18 novembre prochain. En effet, nous croyons que si Golden State veut profiter des dernières années de Curry et Thompson pour accéder au titre dans l’Ouest, l’équipe se doit de repêcher James Wiseman, car le match avec Golden State est parfait. 

La situation des Warriors de Golden State

Ayant connu une des pires saisons de leur histoire moderne, avec 15 victoires et 50 défaites, les Warriors se retrouvent donc avec le deuxième choix au total du repêchage 2020. Cette saison médiocre peut s’expliquer de plusieurs façons, mais ce qui est le plus révélateur de la saison de misère de Golden State, ce sont les blessures et le manque d’expérience dans l’équipe. En effet, les blessures ont coupé les reins des Warriors dès le départ de la saison. Stephen Curry, la vedette de l’équipe, n’a joué que 5 matchs en raison d'une blessure à la main. Klay Thompson, l’incontestable deuxième vedette de l’équipe, a manqué toute la saison à la suite d'une blessure à la jambe qui s’est manifestée lors de la finale NBA de 2018. Donc, les deux vedettes ne pouvant pas jouer, les clés de l’offensive étaient données à Draymond Green, qui a connu une saison en deçà de ce qu’il peut donner à Golden State en temps normal, avec des moyennes de 8 points, 6,2 rebonds et 6,2 passes décisives, tout ça sur un médiocre 27.9% aux trois points. 

Pour ce qui est de l’inexpérience, la perte de Shaun Livingston (retraite), Andre Iguodala (échangé aux Grizzlies) et DeMarcus Cousins (signé par les Lakers) a fait très mal aux Warriors, les trois joueurs étant capables d’amener beaucoup de points en sortant du banc tout en jouant une solide défense, et en pouvant remplacer des joueurs blessés dans l’alignement partant avec facilité. Avec la perte de ces trois joueurs, Golden State se retrouvait avec un effectif très inexpérimenté (avec plusieurs joueurs de première année) et, sans leader d’expérience pour le guider, cet effectif inexpérimenté n’a jamais su prendre son élan et accumuler les victoires lors de la saison 2019-2020. Par contre, du côté des belles surprises, on note l’éclosion de Eric Paschall, choix de deuxième ronde des Warriors en 2019, qui a réalisé une moyenne de 14 points par match au poste d’ailier fort, et Damion Lee, arrière de 28 ans qui a connu sa meilleure saison en carrière avec 12,7 points par match. Ces deux joueurs feront sans doute partie du futur de Golden State et peuvent devenir des rouages importants de l’équipe. 

Golden State se retrouve donc au tournant de son histoire. Les dirigeants de l’équipe doivent décider s’ils croient encore à leurs vedettes qui vieillissent (Curry a 32 ans et Klay a 30 ans), mais peuvent toujours offrir un bon niveau à l’équipe, pour leur amener un autre championnat ou s’ils doivent entamer une reconstruction totale en échangeant ces mêmes vedettes. Ici, au Fan-Club, nous croyons que les dirigeants de Golden State vont s’essayer pour un dernier tour de piste avec leurs vedettes, et vont donc essayer de les entourer avec les meilleurs joueurs possibles pour offrir un autre championnat à l’équipe de la baie de Californie. C’est pourquoi nous croyons qu’ils se doivent de repêcher Wiseman le 18 novembre prochain, Wiseman étant un bon joueur pour entourer les vedettes de l’équipe. 

Mais qui est James Wiseman?

Centre de 19 ans né à Nashville au Tennessee, Wiseman est un bonhomme très impressionnant physiquement, du haut de ses 7 pieds et 1, 235 livres. N’ayant joué que trois matchs au collège, car son université (Memphis) a statué qu’il était inéligible à jouer dans la NCAA, il a tout de même réalisé une moyenne de 19,7 points par match, 10 rebonds et 3 tirs bloqués durant son court séjour dans le réseau collégial américain. Ces statistiques impressionnantes montrent clairement que Wiseman était déjà prêt à jouer dans la NBA et il aurait sans doute été un one-and-done s’il avait joué la saison complète à Memphis. 

Outre ses statistiques incroyables, Wiseman a des qualités à faire rêver tous les dirigeants de la NBA. En effet, son athlétisme et sa longue portée (il a une envergure de 7 pieds et 6) font de lui un monstre en défensive. Ses 3 tirs bloqués par match peuvent le prouver. En défense, Wiseman se qualifie beaucoup comme un protecteur du panier, c’est-à-dire qu’il peut contrer tous les joueurs essayant de foncer à l’intérieur de la zone de trois points. Par contre, Wiseman a aussi la capacité de sortir de la zone pour défendre contre les tireurs à trois points, ce qui est rare au poste de centre et fait de lui un atout prisé pour n’importe quel système défensif dans la ligue. Néanmoins, il ne faut pas lui demander de défendre les gardes durant tout un match, car il peut être exposé en défense en raison d'une certaine difficulté à se déplacer facilement. Il est aussi un des meilleurs rebondeurs de sa cuvée, mettant beaucoup d’efforts pour sécuriser le rebond défensif, mais ayant aussi la volonté de voler les rebonds offensifs aux hommes forts des autres équipes. 

Au niveau offensif, Wiseman est bon pour créer l’écran lors des pick-and-roll, mais il ne semble pas avoir la volonté de jouer ce rôle. En effet, Wiseman est plus le genre à s’isoler à l’extérieur de la zone de trois points et de dribbler ses adversaires jusqu’au panier. Il est aussi capable d’étirer le jeu par sa capacité de tirer, mais il n’est pas encore assez bon aux trois points pour être un joueur que l’on poste à l’extérieur de la zone lors des possessions offensives. Il faudra donc montrer à Wiseman qu’il doit se comporter comme un vrai centre et créer les écrans pour les autres, et ne pas toujours vouloir le ballon dans ses mains lors des possessions offensives. Ce manque de volonté de jouer comme un vrai centre en attaque peut inquiéter certains entraîneurs de la NBA, mais nous croyons que le joueur est assez mature et a une assez bonne attitude pour comprendre rapidement qu’il doit modifier son style de jeu s’il veut avoir du succès dans la grande ligue. Nous croyons qu’il peut devenir encore meilleur qu'un joueur de la trempe d'Hassan Whiteside s’il est bien coaché et s’il tombe dans un bon environnement où il sera utilisé comme un vrai centre. 

Wiseman et Golden State, le match parfait?

 On le sait, Golden State est l’équipe qui a révolutionné l’utilisation des trois points dans la NBA et la majeure partie de son jeu en zone offensive est constitué d’écrans créés pour libérer les tireurs de l’équipe (en l’occurrence Curry, Klay et quelquefois Draymond). Par contre, ce qui manque aux Warriors depuis quelques années, c'est un joueur qui peut ramasser les tirs ratés par les vedettes de l’équipe. En effet, lors des premiers championnats de Golden State, l’équipe avait Andrew Bogut au poste de centre, lui qui avait la capacité de travailler fort pour voler les rebonds offensifs à l’autre équipe lorsque les tireurs rataient leurs tirs à trois points, ce qui ajoutait du temps en zone offensive pour créer d’autres jeux et amasser des points en zone offensive. Wiseman, par son excellence à prendre les rebonds offensifs, viendrait jouer le rôle de Bogut dans le schéma offensif de Golden State, tout en ajoutant une certaine dimension que Bogut n’avait pas, c’est-à-dire la capacité d’étirer le jeu. En effet, Wiseman, par sa capacité à tirer d’assez loin du panier (mais pas en-dehors de la zone des trois points) et sa facilité à dribbler, pourrait amener une autre dimension à l’offensive des Warriors et pourrait aussi avoir certains jeux appelés pour lui lorsque, par exemple, Thompson et Curry sont sur le banc. Il pourrait donc agir à titre de troisième vedette de l’équipe. 

Au niveau défensif, Wiseman jouerait comme gardien du panier, chose que les Warriors n’ont pas eue depuis Andrew Bogut. Étant capable de contrer tous les joueurs essayant de marquer à l’intérieur de la zone de trois points, Wiseman aiderait grandement la défense des Warriors, qui pourrait laisser à Klay Thompson et Draymond Green le soin de surveiller les ailes. De plus, Wiseman peut défendre les ailes sur une courte période, par exemple lorsque Draymond ou Klay sont sur le banc. 

Bref, nous croyons que Wiseman serait parfait pour les Warriors, car il pourrait faire la différence dès le départ avec un rôle de troisième vedette et pourrait agir comme centre capable de ramasser les rebonds lors des tirs ratés par son équipe, tout en étant un monstre qui peut amener des maux de tête aux équipes adverses lors de leurs possessions offensives. Pour conclure, oui, le match entre James Wiseman et Golden State est effectivement parfait. 

[scifigeneration]

Review: Wonder Woman reinvigorates tired superhero conventions

by Liam Burke

“Wonder Woman! All the world’s waiting for you,” rang the theme song to the classic 1970s television show as one-time Miss World America, Lynda Carter, transformed into the star-spangled superhero. Yet while gun-toting raccoons headline today’s superhero movies, the world has waited a long time for its most famous female superhero to receive a dedicated film.

Lynda Carter as the 1970s Wonder Woman. Bruce Lansbury Productions

Female superheroes have been confined to sidekick roles (Black Widow is the highest profile Avenger without her own movie) or relegated to TV (where Jessica Jones and Supergirl kick ass on a weekly basis). Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman is the first major female-led superhero movie - and as a hero, her antecedents reach back to the suffragettes.

As historian Jill Lepore details in The Secret History of Wonder Woman, the formative years of Wonder Woman’s creator, psychologist William Moulton Marston, took place against the backdrop of the suffragette movement. As a freshman, he had heard Emmeline Pankhurst speak when she visited Harvard in 1911.

The young Emmeline Pankhurst. flickr, CC BY

An advocate for women’s rights, Marston would later describe the “blood-curdling masculinity” of comic books as their “worst offence”. His remedy? To create a “feminine character with all the strength of Superman plus all the allure of a good and beautiful woman”. So in October 1941, All Star Comics introduced Wonder Woman, “to whom the problems and feats of men are mere child’s play”.

Marston was married to attorney Elizabeth Holloway Marston, who served as the family’s breadwinner. Later he began a relationship with his research assistant Olive Byrne, who became his life-long partner living with Marston and his wife. Byrne was the daughter of radical feminist Ethel Byrne who, with her sister Margaret Sanger, opened the first birth control clinic in the US (forerunner of today’s Planned Parenthood). It is said that Byrne wore bracelets that inspired Wonder Woman’s bullet-deflecting jewellery. The comic was filled with such feminist iconography, but, as Lepore notes, this was often “feminism as fetish”. Marston’s interest in bondage frequently saw the hero bound and gagged in suggestive poses.

Gal Gadot puts Wonder Woman’s bracelets to work. Atlas Entertainment, Cruel & Unusual Films, DC Entertainment

Across her 75-year history, Wonder Woman has regularly been depicted scantily clad and in anatomy-defying poses offering the optimum number of angles for leering. This is the tension that each version of the character, including the big-budget film, must reconcile: Is Wonder Woman a feminist icon or a pin-up girl masquerading as a satin suffragette?

While one might question the wisdom of entering into battle with little more than a bustier and mini-skirt, director Patty Jenkins’ feature length Wonder Woman adheres more closely to Marston’s feminist celebration than the comic’s kinkier elements.

Although the story is repositioned to the trenches of World War I, the adaptation remains largely faithful to the character’s origins. Gadot plays the Amazonian princess who, after saving the life of US serviceman Steve Trevor, leaves the women-only island paradise of Themyscira to aid the allied effort.

Avoiding the easy option of camp or Marvel’s tongue-in-cheek distance, the film’s first act convincingly realises the matriarchal society of warriors. In particular, Robin Wright gives a muscular performance as the Island’s head badass and Wonder Woman’s unforgiving mentor, General Antiope, who trains the future superhero to protect the world from the eventual return of Ares, God of War.

Robyn Wright as General Antiope. Atlas Entertainment, Cruel & Unusual Films, DC Entertainment

Once the hero leaves the island, the film falls into superhero movie conventions with Wonder Woman’s powers and principles tested as she attempts to unravel a German plot. In particular, the film shares many parallels with the WWII-set Captain America: The First Avenger with the brightly-coloured hero enlivening grey battlefields with the kind of supercharged élan that would have no doubt pleased her original creator.

Like all genre films, superhero movies are built on sameness and difference, and while Wonder Woman offers little variation on the box-office tested superhero origin story, the presence of a female hero is enough to reinvigorate tired conventions. There is something doubly heroic in watching Wonder Woman lift a tank over her light frame, or crash through armed soldiers to save innocent villagers.

Connie Nielsen as the Amazonian queen Hippolyta. Atlas Entertainment, Cruel & Unusual Films, DC Entertainment

Gadot, a bright spark in the otherwise grueling Batman V Superman, plays the Amazonian with wide-eyed curiosity but is careful to avoid ever having the hero appear foolish. Rather, Wonder Woman’s outsider status allows the film to point out the inequities in the patriarchal world, as the hero eschews corsets, barges into men-only meetings, and compares secretarial work to slavery.

While the distance that the film’s WWI setting provides dulls any feminist critique, it will be interesting to see if that same critical lens is applied when Gadot resumes the role of Wonder Woman later this year in the modern day Justice League film. For her part, Patty Jenkins’ direction makes no obvious concessions to the hero’s gender nor does she exploit it, with each action sequence filmed much the same as if the Man of Steel was at its centre.

Aided by Jenkins’ assured approach, Gadot manages to navigate the inherent tensions of the character by creating a Wonder Woman who is unapologetically glamorous, but also capable and caring.

As the first man Wonder Woman ever meets, Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) successfully channels Steve McQueen circa The Great Escape. The charismatic Pine enjoys a playful chemistry with Gadot during the second act culture clash and some genuinely tender moments as the film reaches its CGI-laden conclusion.

Chris Pine (left) and Gal Gadot. Atlas Entertainment, Cruel & Unusual Films, DC Entertainment

While some may see the film’s moments of girl power as a facile gesture on the part of the filmmakers to appease “social justice warriors” rather than a meaningful attempt to redress imbalances of superheroes on screen, the result is still the most successful entry in the otherwise moribund DC shared universe. (Though to describe the film as the best DC or female-led superhero film is to damn Wonder Woman with faint praise.)

Although it could not hope to shoulder the full weight of 75 years of expectations, no qualifiers are necessary: Wonder Woman is an exciting entry in the superhero movie genre.

Wonder Woman, the world’s no longer waiting for you.

Liam Burke is the author of The Comic Book Film Adaptation: Exploring Modern Hollywood’s Leading Genre.

Liam Burke is Senior Media Studies Lecturer at Swinburne University of Technology.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. 

[nightwingdog]

Music Shuffle Tag

I wasn't really tagged, more like I simply grabbed this from @atobekeigo because I love doing this kind of stuff ^^' 'Put your music player on shuffle and write down the first 10 songs (then tag more people) Gethsemane - Nightwish My Immortal - Evanescence Letterbomb - Green Day (Musical Version) The Wolves Die Young - Sonata Arctica 21 Guns - Green Day (musical Version) Make it stop - Rise Against Night Witches - Sabaton Fading Earth - Leaves Eyes Élan - Nightwish Warrior - B.A.P (I would add links but I'm on mobile :/ ) I tag @athletes-of-god and @punk-rock-kitten and whoever may like to do this^^'

[78682homes]

Rien de grave pour Kris Dunn après sa vilaine chute 78682 homes

http://www.78682homes.com/rien-de-grave-pour-kris-dunn-apres-sa-vilaine-chute

Rien de grave pour Kris Dunn après sa vilaine chute

C’est ce qu’on appelle être stoppé dans son élan. Alors qu’il venait de claquer un dunk en contre-attaque permettant à Chicago de revenir à cinq petits points des Warriors, après… Lire la suite »

homms2013

#Basket

[keepyourgoodheart]

Le sociologue Gildas Lescop replace le mouvement musical et vestimentaire dans son contexte initial :

Gildas Lescop est enseignant à l’université de Nantes. Il est auteur d’une thèse en sociologie, «Les skinheads, du phénomène de mode au phénomène social».

Comment est né le mouvement skinhead ?

Les premiers skins apparaissent en Angleterre vers la fin des années 60. Ils sont issus du métissage entre deux sous-cultures juvéniles, les hard mods et les rude boys. Les hard mods sont des Blancs très lookés qui veulent incarner une version classe du style ouvrier anglais. Leur façon de s’habiller, caractérisée par une chemise à carreaux, une paire de bretelles et des Dr. Martens aux pieds, est une manière de dire : «On est prolos et fiers de l’être.» Les rudes boys sont des immigrés jamaïquains, qui écoutent du ska et du rocksteady, qui portent des pantalons très courts et les cheveux coupés ras. Le mouvement skinhead est un peu la synthèse de tous ces éléments vestimentaires et musicaux. L’attrait pour la bagarre, que partageaient les deux premiers groupes, reste aussi une constante.

La violence est donc consubstantielle à la mentalité skin ?

Oui. Pour eux, c’est un moyen d’affirmation. Après la Seconde Guerre mondiale, différentes modes juvéniles apparaissent en Angleterre. Chaque fois qu’un nouveau mouvement se crée, il cherche à se faire connaître, à s’imposer par rapport aux autres. Comme les skinheads descendent des hard mods et des rude boys, dès le départ, la baston a été leur façon de se faire remarquer. L’une des sphères d’émergence des skins, ce sont les stades de football. Ils se font repérer par l’agitation qu’ils mettent dans les tribunes, les bagarres avec les adversaires. Ils aiment que les journaux parlent d’eux. Se voir désigner comme les plus durs, ça les valorise. Et puis ça s’auto-entretient. Plus les médias en parlent, plus le hooliganisme continue.

Mais on est encore loin du basculement dans la xénophobie. Que s’est-il passé pour que des skins, fans de reggae, se transforment en néonazis ?

Il y a discontinuité dans le mouvement skinhead. Le premier élan s’éteint en 1971. Quand le reggae fait son virage rasta, les skins se retrouvent sans musique, ils se sentent exclus de cette scène. Et comme la police les harcèle, leur style devient de plus en plus difficile à porter. Donc, le mouvement se délite. Le terme refait surface aux alentours de 1978, à la faveur du mouvement punk. La seconde génération reprend les codes vestimentaires de la première, en plus trash. Les skins de 1969 voulaient incarner le dressing smart. Eux, c’est le dressing hard : les crânes rasés à blanc, les motifs camouflage, le port du drapeau britannique. Ils n’écoutent plus de reggae, ils créent leur propre musique, la Oi !, un genre encore plus agressif et basique que le punk. Le parti d’extrême droite britannique de l’époque, le National Front, voit dans ces nouveaux skins des bons clients pour rajeunir ses rangs. Le parti se met à financer le groupe de musique Skrewdriver, qui devient son porte-parole dans les salles de concert, avec des chansons xénophobes et racistes, appelant à rejeter les immigrés et à préserver une Angleterre blanche. Des années 1981 à 1983, la scène skinhead se droitise. Les militants d’extrême droite empruntent le look pour son côté warrior. Certains skins adoptent le nationalisme comme le nouveau trip de l’époque. Un moyen d’épater les médias et de faire chier le bourgeois en exécutant des saluts nazis.

Quel écho les médias donnent-ils à cette nouvelle génération ?

Ils vont mettre en lumière les skins d’extrême droite. Notamment les tabloïds, qui se focalisent sur eux par attrait pour le spectaculaire et la dramatisation. A l’époque, pas un seul reportage ne mentionne qu’un skin n’est pas forcément un nazi. Tous les médias font l’amalgame. Les journalistes fixent ainsi le cadre général de perception du mouvement. Dans la tête des gens, skinhead va devenir synonyme de skins nazis. Les autres skins n’ont pas accès aux médias pour faire passer leur message. Ils perdent le combat de la représentation. Les médias ont ainsi créé une prophétie autoréalisatrice. Leur définition des skins provoque un comportement qui fait que cette définition initialement fausse devient vraie.

Comment expliquez-vous une telle erreur de jugement de la part des journalistes ?

C’est l’exemple typique d’une réaction de «panique morale». Le sociologue sud-africain Stanley Cohen a développé ce concept en étudiant comment les journaux anglais avaient monté en épingle les affrontements entre mods et rockeurs dans les années 60. Ce qui n’était à la base que quelques tables bousculées dans un bar, s’était transformé dans les tabloïds en véritable guerre des gangs. Stanley Cohen analysait qu’à l’apparition de toute contre-culture, les médias la présentaient comme une menace pour les valeurs de la société. Teddy boys, hard mods, skins, tous ont été désignés dans les journaux comme le symbole du déclin de l’Angleterre. Face à des pratiques culturelles qu’ils ne comprennent pas, les groupes dominants créent leurs «démons familiers», afin d’amener la population à plus de conformisme. Les démons désignés par les médias servent de repoussoir aux jeunes, auxquels on montre l’exemple à ne pas suivre.

Quand apparaissent les premiers skins en France ?

A partir du milieu des années 80. Le premier mouvement skinhead n’a eu quasiment aucune influence en dehors de l’Angleterre. En revanche, comme le second est plus médiatisé, il a une influence un peu partout en Europe. Les premières bandes de skins français n’étaient pas politiques. C’était l’équipe des Halles. Mais à cause de la médiatisation des skins nazis en Angleterre, de plus en plus de skins se mettent à copier ceux qu’ils considèrent comme des modèles. Serge Ayoub fait partie de ces skins nazis qui imposeront progressivement leur influence à Paris.

Où en est le mouvement en France ?

Depuis que les partis d’extrême droite demandent à leurs militants d’abandonner le style skinhead, parce qu’ils savent que ça attire les caméras, je constate un retour des skins apolitiques ou culturels. Ils ont pu se réapproprier leurs éléments stylistiques. C’est un retour aux sources. Même s’ils font majoritairement partie de la classe moyenne.