#The ROASTS are NEXT LEVEL COMEDY GOLD.

[thespritefright]

Hot take, but one of the best parts about this leak is the free blocklist from people getting upsetti spaghetti over noncanon beta content mistranslations or a lack of media literacy.

[zoppicate]

9 to 5, 10 till 8, meet the manager at the door.

There isn't just something ironic about the dj blasting Dolly Parton's "9 to 5" whilst I serve rich parents of South Kensington prep school kids at the Natural History Museum. But also something funny, scary and sad.

I've been working every week with my agency grinding through London's Christmas rush, a gold mine for hospitality workers. It is so powerful, grand and sweeping that in January the agency app on my phone falls silent, like an abandoned building. No shifts are available for weeks, no one wants to organise office parties or get rich people drunk at charity comedy lunches.

I have never found myself pondering as much about capitalism as when I was working those three or four agency shifts a week. It was oh so boring as it was theoretically amusing. Things I witnessed or simply my presence at certain "prestigious" events were like a perfectly framed metaphor. I imagine myself shakily serving the umpteenth filet with a side of mash, gravy and roasted veg to the umpteenth dazed, beady-eyed, suit-wearing, red rose of a British man, with cheeks reddened by the free Peroni's and the cheap bubbly. Myself who was wearing a crinkly sweat-stained shirt, who hadn't washed her face and was hungover. It was comedic how ostensible the fanciness and luxury of these events were.

Nevertheless the night always ended predictably; after getting drunk and having me, a 22-year-old, gentle parent them into drinking a big glass of water before their next Peroni, which they seemingly must drink or god knows what could ever happen, they viscidly looked into each other's eyes, fell into each other's arms and ended up regretting it the next morning. Add a santa hat, elf ears or a pair of antlers here and there. I guess the head pieces were the only variety these scenarios allowed.

Now, I know I seem harsh on the Christmas party-goers of Central London, but the real critique (if you can call it that) I'm really trying to write is not on them, but on the scene that is set for them and in which they happily bask, with a dash of self gloating and smoky self importance.

For example, god forbid a "costumer" every saw me touch the cutlery with my dirty worker's fingers, but as we were setting up for the big events not a soul cared how we handled the cutlery to lay it perfectly on the table. So we were basically told to give the impression of a high level service, and yet our finger prints were all over the forks and knives. It's the absurdity of being positioned in a system which believes certain precautions in presentation to be representative of a certain social class. Some people I did a few shifts with had even served Rishi Sunak and the King at two different events; and they had done it whilst wearing the same crinkly sweat-stained shirt I was.

I can't have a nose piecing, I can't have fake nails. Because it's not proper: the client will not like it and I will be asked to go home. And yet they'll let you serve plates with a snotty nose and dirty fingernails. When you are the person who has to fit within these parameters of presentation you realise how all the ways in which people are served differently according to class are apparently different but fundamentally the same. Even the prime minister gets a worker's fingerprint on their cutlery.

[amjustagirl]

Chapters: one. ~ two. ~ three. ~ four. ~ five. ~ six. ~ seven.

Wordcount: 3k

Summary: 

Akaashi Keiji catches glimpses of another life in his dreams. He dreams of fields of endless gold, of constellation of stars that light up the night sky. He hears the echo of birdsong in her laughter, her song to the gods in the wind.

(Loosely inspired by Kimi No Nawa)

Masterlist link here 

AO3 link here

Author’s note: This fic is a little different from my usual work, so I’m a little nervous about publishing it. If you do like it, would love if you leave a comment / reblog / anything! 

If you’d like to be included in the taglist, do drop me a msg/ask! 

The first time it happens, Akaashi is in his third year of university. 

The upside of staying in Tokyo for university (his mother cried when he got into Waseda, her alma mater) is that he sees his family almost every weekend for cosy family dinners. The downside of staying in Tokyo for university is that he really has no excuse when his parents insist on carrying on Hatsumode, the first prayer of the new year, at the crack of dawn at the shrine close to their home. It’s not that he minds the tradition per se, but he did just spend all night rushing his projects just so he could adhere to the unspoken rule that no work should be done during the New Year holidays and spend some time flying kites with his little cousins. 

Still, there is something magical about starting the New Year watching dawn break and the world awaken from its slumber just as he reaches the summit of all twenty six steps to the top of the shrine, shrouded in the bare branches of the wisteria trees. He tosses coins into the box, drops into a deep bow twice, chin at waist level, clapping twice before bowing a final time. His mother buys far too many omamori, presses at least half of them into his unwilling hands when the omikuji he draws has a great curse scribbled on it. He’s not superstitious, so it doesn’t bother him, but he knows his mother is, so he does accept the omamori with some grace, though he draws the line at the love charm she tries to sneak into the pile. 

‘Mum, I’m too busy at school for a partner’, he tells her firmly. ‘Why don’t you pass it to Yuji-kun, he’s already started work, but hasn’t found a girlfriend from what Oba-chan tells me’. His elder cousin shoots him a particularly malevolent glare that he meets with a placid smile as his mother diverts her attention to him instead.

The faintest shiver runs up his fingers when he deposits the old charm he found in the corner of his closet, grey and faded with time, in the koshinsatsu osamedokoro, the omamori drop off open only during the first day of the New Year. The shiver turns into a ripple of cool water racing up his wrists and roars into an tsunami of dread when the attendant tells him all deposited charms will be burnt in the ritual fire in a fortnight’s time, but he writes it off as a symptom of his lack of sleep and starts to turn away. 

There’s a sudden echo of a nightmare of raging flames that prompts him to swivel around to snatch the omamori and stuff it back in his pocket, muttering apologies to the shocked attendant. Later, when he has time to process his impulse, he’d find it strange. In the meantime however, the festivities wait for no one, so he distracts himself by eating far too much dango and mochi in between rounds of tossing kites up to catch the wind. His uncles slip him full cups of sake and sweetened rice wine to his mother’s disapproval, which in hindsight he should have heeded, as he stumbles to bed that night, head heavy with alcohol. 

That night he dreams of a girl with curly hair, lying in a field of endless gold - daffodils to mark the dawn of spring. 

‘Also known as narcissus’, he hears himself say, hears himself narrate the myth of a man so entranced by his own reflection in the water that he lost his will when he realizes he cannot have his object of desire. A girlish voice lilts teasingly – ‘the flowers are too pretty to be ruined by your obsession of stories written by grumpy old men’. He wakes up with the ghost of laughter on his lips, but there’s a lingering sense of loss budding in barren soil of his heart. 

It does prompt him to pop by the florist near his parents’ house to order a bouquet of daffodils for his mom to be delivered on the first day of spring. He’s accustomed to the old couple running the shop, so he pauses just for a second when he walks into the store to find a new girl at the counter. She must not be used to customers yet, dropping the bouquet she’s working on when she notices him. 

‘Hi’, she stammers, cheeks pink. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘I’d like to make an advance order for daffodils please.’ 

‘For spring?’ she asks, and he nods, writing down his parents’ address when prompted. ‘That’s a good choice!’ 

She waves him off with a cheerful – ‘please come back again’, and he does not notice that there are stars in her eyes. 

His mother drags him back to the shrine on the third day of the holidays, and he obliges her, ever the dutiful only son, even though the frigid temperature makes his breath puff up into clouds and the tip of his nose turns numb. The old omamori is still snug in his jacket pocket, and as his fingers brush against it, he can feel the threads of the charm unravelling, the fabric almost fragile in its worn, threadbare state but he does not attempt to dispose of it again.  

‘What are you going to do once you’re done with your degree, Keiji?’ His mother asks, when they stop by an old teahouse for a cup of steaming genmaicha, the aroma of roasted rice tea warm against his cold nose. 

‘I intend to apply for a job at a publishing company after I graduate’, he tells her seriously, and she nods, encouraging him to continue. ‘I’m hoping it’s something to do with my major, preferably Japanese literature, better yet if it's poetry, but in this market, I’ll take what I can get’. 

His mother nods, smiling at him fondly. ‘I remember you used to be obsessed with Shakespeare and Greek myths when you were younger, all the way through high school, and your father and I thought that you’d end up majoring in that in university. You really surprised us when you chose to major in Japanese literature instead.’

‘I don’t know why, to be honest. Maybe I had a good Japanese literature tutor?’ He laughs, fiddling with his teacup. 

‘Mm I don’t think so though. I remember you complaining that Raku-sensei was so dull he caused everyone to fall asleep.’ He shrugs, and though she stares at him curiously, she does not pursue the line of conversation any further. 

That night he dreams of waking up in an old wooden house, shivering in a thick futon, the smoldering embers from the irori, mere inches from his face. It’s so very different from his childhood bedroom filled with modern appliances and walls of books neatly shelved in alphabetical order, but he doesn’t notice that in the dark. Instead, he reaches for his phone to check the time, bolting awake because that can’t be, he never misses his alarm, mentally calculating that he must leave the house in exactly fifteen minutes to make it in time for practice when a little boy bursts through the door. 

‘Nee-chan’, the little boy whines. ‘I’m hungry. Time for breakfast’. 

Did he just say Nee-chan? Scratch that - since when did he have a little brother? 

He scrambles out of bed, groping his way in the dark to the washroom. The cold water should wake him up, but when he looks up at the mirror above the sink, the face he’s staring at does not belong to him. No - it belongs to a dark eyed girl with curly hair - but it doesn’t make sense, shouldn’t make sense, because when he reaches a trembling finger to poke at the mirror, he is she or she is him - 

The ensuing panic and confusion makes him jerk out of his dream, but when he rushes to the washroom to check that he’s still himself, he is relieved to see that it’s still him - Akaashi Keiji, with dark circles around his eyes, staring back in disbelief. 

He chalks his strange dream up to the stress he carries around from trying to clear all his course work so he can audit additional classes over the next term. 

Except the dreams don’t stop, not even when he moves back to the university dorms. He keeps waking up drenched in cold sweat, clutching at his arms even though they’re clear of the scratches he sees in his dreams, red and raw and stretching all the way up his elbows. 

‘Be kinder to Hana-chan, Keiji-kun’, he hears the call of the same girl in his mind and he shudders, unsure whether the disembodied voice floating through his mind is a memory from his dream. ‘She’s going through an awfully tough time’.

‘It doesn’t give her the right to hurt you like that’, he can hear his faint disapproval. 

‘Never mind that, it’s not a big deal. What are we reading today – don’t tell me it’s anything like Hamlet. That was horrendously depressing.’ 

‘Midsummer’s Night Dream? It’s a romantic comedy at least.’

‘Only a nerd like you would read Shakespeare in high school – and it’s not even in Japanese!’

‘Hush – you don’t get to complain when I’m reading it out to you.’

‘What on earth is going on’, he mutters to himself. The copious amounts of frigid water he splashes onto his face is no antidote to this madness.

‘Sato-san, are you feeling alright?’ he asks his grimacing classmate in concern, lines of pain etched onto her face. 

‘I’m fine, Akaashi-kun’, she manages to spit out, clutching her stomach with white-knuckled hands. ‘It’ll pass in a bit, I hope’. 

‘Are you sure you’re fine? I could help you to the nurse’s office if that helps’. 

His classmate shakes her head, a blush staining her cheeks. ‘It’s just that time of the month. I apologise if that’s too much information to be polite’. 

Ah. But somehow even though he has no sisters, and his female classmates in high school were oddly reticent about their periods (strange, considering it is part and parcel of being a mammal for far more than a millenium) the steps to deal with this particular conundrum come to him so naturally it’s almost as if the answers were presented to him previously in a dream. 

‘Here’, he passes Sato-san painkillers, chocolate and a hot water bottle he’d managed to talk the university nurse into loaning him, and Sato practically whimpers in gratitude. 

‘You’re a lifesaver, Akaashi-kun’, she tells him and he nods, content that he’s solved the problem so efficiently. 

That night he wakes up in her body again. The room is dark, save for the sliver of white light between the blinds that allows him to discern the growing crimson stain between her legs. 

‘Don’t you know all women have to deal with this nonsense every month? But I’ll tell you a trick - painkillers, chocolate and a hot water bottle will make you feel as right as rain’, he hears her voice declare in his mind, and he startles awake to find himself back in his own bed, blessedly clear of any bloodstains. 

It must be a dream borne out of what happened today, he tells himself firmly and shrugs it off. The rest of his slumber is thankfully shorn of dreams. 

But then these dreams start to crash into his sleep like a series of never ending waves, and he’s a short hop, skip, jump away from falling off the cliff into a distracted madness, the rate his sleep keeps getting disrupted. He keeps waking up in her body, it makes him feel like a creep, wearing her skin like an ill-fitting glove, and he decided does not think about how strange it feels to have twin lumps of flesh in front of his chest (his mother raised him to be a gentleman, after all). 

The contents of these dreams are relatively cyclical. He wakes up at dawn, puts on her school uniform, makes breakfast for the little boy - Toya-chan over the primitive hearth before rushing to school through dirt paths lined with trees. His - or rather her classmates stare at her with a mix of condescension and apathy, and her hours in school are spent in a lonely silence, save when Hana-chan gets up in her face and screams absolute nonsense about staying the fuck away from her, which seems a little dramatic considering she’s the one doing the confronting, but it’s just a dream, so he keeps telling himself. It’s not like he can change anything about it. 

‘Does it bother you? That you’re alone?’ he asks her one day. 

‘Not really. I have you and Toya-chan, don’t I?’ she responds. 

‘I suppose’, he says, voice trailing off. 

He catches glimpses of sun drenched afternoons spent in fields of flowers, glances of dusky evenings spent in the forest basking in the light of the setting sun. He agonizes over stacks of homework, digs for mushrooms in the damp earth, climbs through wire fences to scavenge for eggs in neighbouring farms. 

‘Aren’t your parents worried about you and Toya-chan?’ he can hear himself question her one night. 

‘My mom is dead and my dad can’t be home often, he works on construction projects around Sapporo. He sends cash to me and Toya-chan, and it isn’t always enough, but he tries his best ’, she answers, her voice feather light. 

‘I’m sorry’, he tells her a little awkwardly, thinking about his happy family and wondering how it’d feel like to have them torn away from him so early on in life. 

‘Don’t be’, she replies, ‘Sometimes I wonder if it’s better to have good parents who’re dead or absent rather than horrible parents who’re still alive’. 

He jolts awake again, relieved to find himself back in his bed. It’s barely four in the morning, but he’s not going to be able to sleep after that, so he resigns himself to using the time to get cracking on his college assignments anyway. But he makes sure to call his mother once day breaks and he’s sure she’s returned from the market with groceries in tow, telling her awkwardly that he’s just calling to catch up and hopes she’s been well and ok bye mum I love you very much, heart pounding when he hangs up abruptly. 

He has a standing appointment on the first Thursday every month to meet Kenma for coffee at a café a stone’s throw away from Waseda. They both order black coffee, which is strange for Kenma considering his legendary sweet tooth, but he knows Kenma too well to know that the ridiculously successful game streamer is only drinking coffee to stay awake, the shadows under his eyes deeper and darker than those under Akaashi’s own eyes.  

‘Doesn’t Kuroo-san nag you go to bed at a decent time?’ 

Kenma doesn’t even bother to flick his eyes up, busy gulping mouthfuls of the bitter liquid. ‘Speak for yourself. Not sleeping well either?’ 

Akaashi shrugs his shoulders helplessly, stirring his coffee. ‘Mm. ‘I’ve been having strange recurring dreams and it’s been affecting my sleep’. 

Kenma merely hums in reply, and Akaashi finds himself spilling out the entire weird series of events – though to be absolutely accurate, his dreams aren’t real so they can’t be termed as events, but they’ve been haunting him for the past month so they might as well be at this rate. He explains about finding himself in the body of a high school girl with curly hair and a dimple on one cheek, how he’s lived her life enough in the past month that he can map out her days with startling certainty, how he knows it’s not real – it can’t be real, but his dreams glimmer with such vibrancy that they feel real. 

‘Am I going crazy?’ he asks. 

‘I highly doubt it’, Kenma says, tapping his chin in thought. ‘Maybe it’s like one of those exploration video games where you have to take your time to discover its world to figure out the narrative the game is feeding you.’ 

Trust Kenma to relate everything to video games. 

‘That was singularly unhelpful’, Akaashi says dryly as Kenma chuckles quietly in response. 

He is almost afraid to fall asleep again but his eyelids are weighed down by weeks’ worth of sleep deprivation and soon he finds himself again in her body. 

It’s a clear winter’s night. He’s huddled under a thick blanket to shield himself from the bitter cold, watching the embers in the hearth glow yellow and gold. 

‘It’s late. Can’t sleep?’ 

‘Mm’ he replies. ‘Wondering what tomorrow will bring.’ 

‘You’re overthinking again, Keiji’, she chuckles. ‘Tomorrow’s going to be just another day. You’ll wake up back in your warm bed at the crack of dawn for volleyball practice, attend classes in your fancy private school, and play even more volleyball with your beloved Bokuto-san’. 

He rolls his eyes heavenwards at her words and her laugh this time is loud, bright. 

‘You know I only speak the truth. Now, since you need to wake up ridiculously early tomorrow, why don’t I tell you a bedtime story so you can fall asleep.’

‘I’m not a child’, he replies dryly, but does not object when she starts to narrate the tale of a princess exiled from the moon, who is raised by a humble woodcutter and his wife to become a renowned beauty, with five suitors seeking her hand. ‘That’s mean of her’, he mumbles as she describes how the princess rebuffs her suitors by setting them impossible tasks, drifts to sleep as her voice softens as she describes how the princess falls in love with the Emperor, but breaks both their hearts because she knows she must return to the moon someday. He’s fast asleep when she reaches the ending where the princess leaves all her memories on earth with tears in her eyes, gifting the emperor with an elixir of immortality which he burns, because he declares life isn’t worth living without her. 

‘Goodnight Keiji’, she says, her voice shimmering in the still night air.   

For the first time in a long while, Akaashi wakes up at peace. 

Taglist: 

@1tooru @animeflower26 @kageyamakock

[thottyimagines]

I really love your ideas haha! Have drunk konoha 11 + sasuke been requested yet? If not I'd love to read that

thank you!! I feel like it has been but I can’t find it and have no desire to go digging for it so I’m gonna do it again

Naruto

Gets all red when he drinks at all, let alone when he’s actually drunk. It’s so cute. 

He’s also one of those people who thinks he is even more invincible than usual when drunk. He’s off trying to challenge a sober Rock Lee to insane physical challenges if no one stops him. 

Talks a biiiig game shooting his shot and is super affectionate when drunk, but would chicken out if someone actually wanted to hook up. 

Occasionally tears up about friendship. Super embarrassing. Super cliche. 

Sakura

Is soooo aggressive lmao she’s so fucking mean I love it. The only people who can match this level of rude are Neji and Sasuke. If the three ever banded together (which they won’t, because Neji and Sasuke would fight), their target would be done for. 

Desperately wants to arm wrestle. 

Loves taking drunk showers. It’s just a fun time for her. 

Gets kind of annoyed when people get weepy with her. She’s drunk to have fun, not to cry. If she wanted to get drunk and cry, she’d do it in her own home, by herself, as god intended. 

Sasuke

Is such a wanderer. Every now and then team 8 will have to go track him down because he’s basically  playing hide and seek without telling anyone. 

Always tries to smoke a cigarette when he’s drunk. Always coughs super embarrassingly and painfully. 

Again, Sasuke is sooo mean lmao he just sits there, wine glass in hand, critiquing everyone aloud! Drunk Sasuke immediately senses the thing you are sensitive about and comments on it. 

Let Ino pierce his ear once when they were all drunk. Actually kind of liked it, but he eventually took it out because it got infected and he didn’t know how to take care of it (and was too embarrassed to ask). 

Kiba

Horny drunk for sure. Unlike Naruto, he’s down to hook up with whoever happens to returning his affections that night. Claims they actually fuck, but usually they just sloppy, ugly make out and then Kiba falls asleep and is ditched. 

If he drinks enough, Kiba is convinced he can communicate telepathically with Akamaru. No one can really disprove him.

Frickin loves to booty-pop to anything. My mans drops it low. 

Gets angry when people try to make him drink water. He’s literally like this vid of the dude spitting his drink at his friend like one of those bath toys.  

Hinata

Level 1 Drunk consists of her getting even quieter and even redder than usual. She’s embarrassed to be drunk and thinks she’s being judged. Kiba and Shino know this, so they get her to Level 2 Drunk, which is when she’s too fucked up to care and can finally let loose a little. 

She’s kind of a wild card when she’s drunk enough to do abnormal things. Sometimes she confesses her weird secrets (such as definitely training herself to love ramen, even though her baseline is just that it’s ok, but a little salty); sometimes she gets uncomfortably deep; sometimes she just sits there with her Byakugan activated. 

Legit will sit with her eyes clothes, in her own world, swaying to music that may or may not be playing. 

Throws up often, but quietly and without drawing attention. 

Shino

Hates being drunk in big groups. He really won’t do it unless he’s at home or somewhere safe with Hinata and Kiba. Otherwise he gets all weird and twitchy. 

Shino is the kind of drunk who is very, very good at hiding the fact that he’s fucked up. Like, he’ll go all night with his team and the next day Kiba will bring up something Shino said and he’ll have zero recollection of that happening. 

Lowkey is a huge savage when he’s drunk. He voices all of those mean inner thoughts that he definitely (and, tbh, rightfully) has. 

Spills everywhere!! Mess!

Shikamaru

Has a strong preference for whiskey. He drinks it on the rocks, and has always done this. It’s what his mom drinks, so he just copied her because it looked cool and now he has a taste for it. 

He’s relaxed enough to drop the totally disinterested facade. This sounds like an oxymoron, but he’s just comfortable enough to show that he gives a damn about whatever he’s talking about. 

I say whatever he’s talking about because drunk Shikamaru dominates conversations. Kiba, who never really inspected him closely enough to recognize he has brain cells, was genuinely surprised that Shikamaru knew so many words the first time they were drunk together. 

Doesn’t like to get deep when he’s drunk unless he’s with his team or with an s/o. 

Ino

Ugh little lush. I love her. And Ino loves to be drunk. 

I think she likes white wine the best and chooses to stick to it once she gets old enough to decide hard liquor just is not it for her. 

Ino thinks she’s the funniest person in the world when she’s drunk. She will frequently ask, “Why don’t we have a show, you guys?” 

She can also just flip a switch and go total mom friend, though. If someone seems to not be doing so well, she can suddenly function at a much higher level. Ino is always the one to notice if Hinata needs to have a nice little vomit. 

Choji

Gets sooo giggly. It’s adorable. He’s just happy to be here, coach, and happy to be drinking with his friends. 

He’s kind of a lightweight for his size lmao. Also, baby boy loves the fruity drinks. He’s very confident in himself and his masculinity; why would he drink something that tastes bad to prove something to Shikamaru, who was born liking straight whiskey? No, thanks. 

Drunk Choji agrees with Ino in that they should absolutely have a tv show. They’re obviously comedy gold. 

Volunteers waaaay too much information. He’s just…so, so honest…as soon as a drop of alcohol enters his system. That’s why all of the Konoha kids know how long he is a virgin; he informs them monthly on the status. 

Neji

The third and final true savage of the pack. He’s a straight-up animal. Remember the chunin exams? Thirteen-year-old, sober, angry Neji came up with all of that very accurate and somewhat hurtful shit. Drunk, jaded, older Neji can come up with much worse, especially because he’s gotten some more humor injected in there as well. It’s horribly accurate and then everyone will laugh at what he said. 

Picks fights with Sasuke sometimes. He’s just so fucking annoying, man. If Neji can be normal in mixed company, so can he, god damn it. 

Gets really, really competitive. Sometimes he’ll take Naruto up on challenges on behalf of Lee. 

Neji only eats junk food when he’s drunk. It is always a night of indulgence, meaning he doesn’t do it super often. Tenten usually has to bully him into joining her (and then she has to bully Lee). 

Tenten

Just bodies shots like it’s nothing. She takes shots of the nastiest shit and her face doesn’t change. She started out like that in her quest to emulate Tsunade, then she just got a taste for it. 

Usually tries to do damage control with the dumbass “challenges” Naruto gets up to with her teammates. Sometimes, though, she’ll just join in herself to prove she can beat them all. And she can. 

Sings her fucking heart out. Take her to a karaoke bar. Please. 

Suuuuper supportive. If someone gets in their feelings too much, she’s there to help them out and bring the mood back up. She’s here for a good time!

Rock Lee

Rarely, rarely drinks. His body is a temple, for one thing. And for another thing, he can’t finish a whole drink and everyone roasts the shit out of him.

Genuinely tries to hold back with the drunken fist stuff, but Naruto won’t stop challenging him! He turns into an agent of chaos. 

Has written so, so many apology letters to different establishments and friends for destroying property. They are often tearstained and so sincere that he has never been asked to pay for damages. 

Makes a lot of drunk impulse purchases. And if all the stores are closed, he’ll end up just picking flowers from yards as he walks by. He never goes home empty-handed. 

[rwby-nwbe]

Just Finished RWBY Volume 2...

...and HOLY HECK IT GOT BETTER.

[Warning: Spoilers for Volume 2 and Long Post.]

New antagonists! More huntsman action! More characters and interactions! And the fights, tho. THE FIGHTS!

*Ahem* Okay, clearly I just need to start from the beginning...

Episode 1

We start the new season by being reintroduced to our new antagonists, Emerald Sustrai and Mercury Black. They may be villains, but they're also obviously teens (Mercury radiates prick energy) and they're dynamic is entertaining. Also, RIP Tukson, he seemed like a nice dude...

We then cut back to Team RWBY and JNPR, who are apparently on break at the moment. It's also nice to see Sun again, and we also get to meet Neptune. Anyways, someone throws a pie in Weiss face, and you know what that means...

FOOD FIGHT!!!

Seriously, THESE KIDS ARE CRAZY. Ruby can apparently surf on lunch trays! Weiss used ketchup and a freakin' swordfish like Myrtenaster! Blake used baguettes and a sausage link like Gambol Shroud! Freakin' YANG was punching things with TURKEY! JAUNE... threw a melon, that was cool; nice to see that he's losing the noodleness of his body. NORA RIPPED OUT A PIPE, STUFFED IT TO A MELON, AND CALLED IT MAGNHILD! Note to self: never challenge Pyrrha to a fight near a vending machine (or anytime, really). Ren can kick WATERMELONS, and fight with LEEKS. HOW CAN THEY EVEN DIGEST ALL THAT FOOD!?

RIP Neptune's hair though, I hear grape is hard to wash out...

Then we cut back to the White Fang and Torchwick, who are then met with Mercury, Emerald, and later the great Cinder Fall herself. I'll admit, Mercury's funny but a jerk, and Emerald... I'm pretty sure I was mentally screaming "YOU'RE BEING MANIPULATED" when I saw her and Cinder. First she doesn't give Emerald a hug, then she tells her to not think and just obey? RED FLAGS. RED FLAGS EVERYWHERE.

Oh, speaking of Cinder, while she does radiate boss energy, I'm glad that I don't personally like her. I don't know what it is, but it might be the fact that she's treating everyone else like her pawns (and considering she used a chess piece later in this volume, I wouldn't be surprised). I mean, good villain, but like any good villain, I want her to get roasted, though that might not work given her Semblance.

Also, Roman Torchwick, you beautiful jerk, never change. I love ya, but I also love seeing you get dragged, which is what Emerald did to you at the end of this. Yep, I'm on board for this season!

Also, the new opening. I thought nothing could top "This Will Be The Day." I was wrong. Haven't listened to all of it yet, but "Time To Say Goodbye" SLAPS.

Episode 2

So, several things. There's board games, insert Yu-Gi-Oh reference here... Yang has too much power. Also, if I remember the lingo right, then this is also the episode where the White Rose shippers got crumbs, the White Knight shippers were once again denied, and where the Iceberg shippers were born (while the rest of us were titling our heads in confusion with Jaune). Jaune continues to be a social dork (what's with the blonde boys blowing Blake's secret? Don't think I've forgotten about Sun...). Blake is being consumed with the burden of RESPONSIBILITY. I feel that Blake. Oh, and the ending...

Why do out villains have to be clever enough to infiltrate the actual school!? And Weiss' "We're doomed." I hope that's not secret foreshadowing...

Episode 3

Jaune fails yet again at wooing Weiss (at least Yang comforts him at the end), and the gang begins their espionage. We meet Penny again, Weiss deals with her past, albeit briefly, and Penny... oh boy. She's hiding something, and the hiccups make it obvious. What could it possibly- oh...

Episode 4

Most of us had our suspicions, what with Penny's awkward demeanor and ludicrous super strength, but yep, she's a robot! Aw, get yourself a real one like Ruby. Oh, and Neptune's useless with Yang around. Speaking of, HEY, good to see you again, Junior! So Blake and Sun intercept the White Fang rally and... oh fudge they got giant robots. BAIL! We also get to see Neptune's weapon and Sun's semblance (before they nope off the road and leave the rest of the fighting to RWBY, while they go off and get ramen, the jerks...). Also, nice to see that they have team attack names (I believe some of them double as ship names), and this is where we get to meet the Ice Cream Queen Neopolitan (not to be confused with the now officially dubbed Ice Queen Weiss Schnee. If even the villains are calling you that, then congrats, you have a new title)! Neo then proceeds to give them the slip, and I personally believe that Yang only disliked Weiss' pun because it highlighted her failure.

C'mon Yang, at least she's TRYING!

Episode 5

Pyrrha is a combat queen. 'Nuff said. Suck it, CRDL.

Oh no. Mercury is both a smart aleck AND smart. This will not end well.

Blake, take a break. No, seriously, working yourself to death just because you think you can doesn't mean you should. You will only feel worse. TAKE A BREAK.

Well Jaune, mission failed. You'll get her next time.

Pyrrha Nikos. Sweetie. We're talking about Jaune Arc here. He's not gonna get the hints you're dropping unless that "hint" is a full blown irrefutable confession so obvious that even he can't screw it up. I know you want to help him because you like him (and yes, even like like him), but it's clear Weiss isn't interested, at least not now. Capitalize on that!

And our villain group continues to be dastardly. *Chuckles* We're in danger.

Episode 6

The dance draws near, and it seems that both Blake AND Jaune could use a pep talk!

Poor Blake. It appears your faunus trait makes you more cat-like than just the ears.

Also, poor Ren. He just wants a nice bath, but alas, the power of bromance.

Oof, tough love from Yang. Pretty good flashback, though. Also, Pyrrha, your selfless nature will be your undoing, listen to Nora.

...oh God, if I'm saying "listen to Nora" when the world isn't ending, we might ACTUALLY be in danger.

Aw, the dance looks fun. Poor Jaune, tho. Don't worry, at least Yang, Blake, and Sun are having a good time (and this is the part where I realize I'm becoming a SunnyBee shipper, crap). Poor Ruby, having to wear heels. Don't worry, Ozpin will keep you company.

Oh crap, the villain kids are here! What are you up to!?

Episode 7

This one gets the runner up for my favorite episode. Alternatively, I give it the title "Team Leaders Know What's Up."

Jaune, you may be a dumbass, but you're the rare "Surprisingly Competent Dumbass With A Heart Of Gold," and you get my respect for that. Being socially awkward with Ruby? Comedy gold. Putting things into perspective for Neptune? Props, my dude. Comforting Pyrrha? Friendship goals (even though it should be more than friendship goals, but hey, you put on the dress, I'll give you that). Nice dance moves, by the way, JNPR.

As for Ruby... drinking Jaune's punch? Iconic. Noticing Cinder sneaking away? Nice. Fighting her in heels of all things? You, my dear red reaper, are on another level. A shame that Ironwood couldn't get there faster and that Cinder had to bail, but oh well.

Also: Penny continues to be heckin' adorable. I will never NOT stan.

Episode 8

HEAR YE, HEAR YE, THE NOBLE DOG ZWEI HAS GRACED US WITH HIS ADORABLE PRESENCE. Tremble before his ability to fit in boxes and melt Weiss' heart. Oh, and RWBY gets exposed to Ozpin, but surprise! Even Ozpin doesn't have to play by the rules! Though that could get him in trouble with Ironwood later...

Why does this show keep showing me characters that I want to get to know better in record time!? Team CFVY looks so interesting, and it's nice to see Velvet again! Ooh, I hope we see them more later...

Also, Professor Oobleck, I know we saw a bit of you in Volume 1, and I wish we got to know you better. You seem delightful.

Episode 9

Okay, my previous statement of DOCTOR Oobleck still stands. I love this chaotic fast man.

He's both funny AND deep! His reaction to Zwei? Comedy gold! Him picking apart RWBY's motives and the Grimm? Disturbingly thought provoking, but enjoyable. Also, Ruby, you're great, but you're not entirely a genius, you're just a little bit lucky.

In conclusion: there are a lot of characters to stan in RWBY. Dr. Oobleck is one of them.

Episode 10

We learn about WBY's motivations, now excuse me while I go crying in the club right now.

OH NO, RUBY GOT KIDNAPPED! AND SHE DOESN'T HAVE HER SCYTHE! FRICK, it's a mindset kind of deal! Without her scythe, she thinks she's useless! Oh, and Roman's there too, that's not good.

...that is REALLY not good, Oobleck! Get down there, all of you! Wait, is your thermos... your WEAPON!? HOW THE FU-

(Sidenote, I looked up the name, since most weapons have them and I'm impatient for them getting name dropped. "Antiquity's Roast," eh? Fitting...)

Episode 11

So... this episode.

Poor Ruby. She failed to fight back, she almost ran away but then it turns out Melodic Cudgel is also a GRAPPLING HOOK. Thank god Yang and company finally busted their way in.

...why are Roman and the White Fang going kamikaze with those train car bombs? Oh right, the Grimm. Crap, that ain't good.

Ah, Oobleck. You may have accidentally repeated Ruby's line, but a swig of your thermos/club/flamethrower and then using it to bat Zwei into a cannonball of death redeemed you!

So Neo's back. She's skilled, sassy, has something going on with her eyes... Oh boy, Yang's getting outclassed by a pipsqueak. That's gotta suck.

Does every faunus (baring Blake, Sun, etc.) hate the SDC? Seriously Weiss, what did your father DO!?

Roman, do not get flirty with Blake. Junior tried something similar with Yang way back in the Yellow Trailer, and he got socked in the face. You deserve that kick in the head.

Oh look, Yang's mom is here! Nice, now Neo can't kill her (don't you dare, you little ice cream, I swear...). Oh. OH. That's a big sword. Yeah, ya better run, Neo. You ain't winnin' this fight. Great, now I want to know what Yang's mom's deal is. Figures she just warped away afterwards...

And now the Grimm are above ground. Yeah, seems like a good time for the season finale.

Episode 12

Now THIS is my favorite episode.

Look at that, Jaune's getting good instincts! And it's nice that Team JNPR was able to help RWBY. Also nice that Jaune can actually kill a Grimm now. Good job, man. You earned Pyrrha's smile of approval.

As much as I'm wary of the antagonist trio, I'll admit, they can fight good. Especially Emerald, her guns are sick. Why am I warming up to her so fast? What is this magic!?

...CFVY. CFVY. WHY ARE Y'ALL SO BADASS? Seriously, Yatsuhashi's carying an entire sword and a half. Fox just pulled a Ren and caused a Grimm to explode. Coco... God, Coco- WHY DOES RUBY HAVE SO MANY QUEENS, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!?

"You just destroyed my favorite clothing store. Prepare to die."

I-FREAKING-CONIC!

And she just murders Grimm with a BRIEFCASE. That turns into a GATTLING GUN. BECAUSE OF COURSE IT'S ALSO A GUN. (BTW, Gianduja is a really cool name for it.)

And now I want to know Velvet's weapon! It doesn't look like much now, but apparently it took a semester to build. And we know that Velvet can fight based on what we saw with her and Fox, so how does she ADD to that!?

THAT TRACK IN THE BACKGROUND, TOO! "CAFFEINE~" HELL YEAH!!!

Ooh, Port and Oobleck teamup! Oh no... THE GLYNDA IS MAD PEOPLE. I REPEAT, THE GLYNDA IS MAD! SHE HAS NO PATIENCE FOR YOUR GRIMM BS!!!

Welp, Roman got handled, though I doubt it's for long... Yay, RWBY finally gets a break! Oh boy, trouble brewing between Ozpin and Ironwood, that ain't good.

...bull man's back. Uh, guys, Adam's back! And he's helping the bad guys! THIS IS REALLY NOT GOOD.

...oh, so your name is Raven? And that's what you look like under the mask. There's the resemblance... Oh boy, where have you been all of Yang's life?

...

So all in all, Volume 2 was even better than Volume 1, in my opinion. It's like they took the first volume and amped it up to 11. Longer runtimes, great comedy, great action sequences, great CHARACTERS. It's just a complete trip! 10/10, would ride again. Welp, it's getting late, so I can't immediately start Volume 3. But what Volume 2 gave us is good enough to tide me over.

...I am so glad I started this series. Well, this is goodbye for now. Cheers, internet!

-Mathewton, the RWBY Newbie (22 March 2020)

[chicagoindiecritics]

New from Every Movie Has a Lesson by Don Shanahan: MOVIE REVIEW: Coffee & Kareem

(Image by Justina Mintz for Netflix)

COFFEE & KAREEM— 1 STAR

The posters for Netflix’s latest action comedy Coffee & Kareem (which is silly already because it would never see a theater, with or without a pandemic shutdown) have been trying to splash its stars Ed Helms and youngster Terrence Little Gardenhigh in classic poses, fashions, and fonts from Beverly Hills Cop, 48 Hours, and Die Hard. The crack marketing department is really trying to get your nostalgic attention for the violent and raunchy R-rated cop movie of old with this PhotoShop power play. Catch a whiff right here:

Those posters clearly catch the eye, but once Coffee & Kareem attempts to evoke the promotional notion that it is worthy of standing next to classic giants like those three films as a homage or even as an lesser riff, it’s asking to bomb. 

LESSON #1: DON’T PRETEND TO BE SOMETHING YOU’RE NOT— When you fail, even intentionally, you become one more shitty cop movie from a generation ago. Does someone get an award somewhere from some lofty agency of aficionados when you make a shitty cop movie precisely as shitty as the old shitty cop movies this shitty cop movie emulates and remembers? Is that a Razzie or something else?

James Coffee is a mustachioed and divorced peace officer in the city of Detroit who naively loves Hall & Oates, upholding the law, helping people, and, yeah, yeah, yeah, the straight do-gooder wussy stuff you would expect. He is a complete dolt, played by the actor with the most locked-in doltish gear in the business in Helms. With a salt-grained hint of spice, James is bedding Taraji P. Henson’s hot, black, and widowed nurse named Vanessa. She is the mother of Kareem, her pudgy and fast-talking teenage son, played by the feature-debuting TV actor Gardenhigh. 

In more than the usual “so many words,” Kareem doesn’t like where Coffee’s nightstick has been. He plots to pay off a popular juvenile convict named Orlando (RonReaco Lee) to rough the dorky cop up to scare him away from his mom on a day when Coffee is picking the teen up from school. Orlando is, coincidentally, a collar Coffee embarrassingly lost which resulted in office chiding from his superior (Betty Glipin, recently of The Hunt) and a traffic duty demotion from his captain (a gray-bearded David Alan Grier). 

In propositioning the former hood, Kareem (and a tailing Coffee) are caught at the scene of a cop execution, one that Kareem records on social media. In the cross hairs of their own at-odds foolishness, the titular duo find themselves mixed up in dirty cops, tasers, drug deals, media-spun kidnapping confusions, gun play, constant racial and homophobic faux pas, and a heap of danger that will get them both in boiling hot water with Vanessa, let alone iced-down toe-tagging coroners and other higher authorities.

Coffee & Kareem surges for maximum sarcastic sacrilege out of all involved. Lovers of good roasts laced with compound obscenities will have much to love. Especially with Terrence Little Gardenhigh, this is way past Kids Say the Darndest Things. The savage vitriolic humor he spews, whether it’s scripted or ad-libbed, is snappy for sure and also vile beyond comprehension at some points. The second best stinger in the hive is Betty Gilpin busting balls like they were loaded in a Whac-A-Mole machine. 

LESSON #2: MEN OF ALL AGES ARE HORRENDOUSLY INSECURE— Thanks to the profanity, the loudest and bluntest message this movie has is trying to present all of the possible the insecure posturing males attempt when trying to think and be tough. They exaggerate. They lie. Their mouths get them in trouble. They get called out on it, and they furiously flail and fail. That’s not exciting. That’s sophomoric.  

Returning to the opening rant, where Coffee & Kareem treads on greatness and fails miserably in trying to be tacky tribute to comedy gold is in the stakes department. As irreverent as Eddie Murphy or Bruce Willis ever got in their iconic wiseacre roles, their movies had actual peril and imposing boundaries. There was either an authority figure peer or an indomitable villain (often both) that always grounded the kite-flying humor back to the grit that was a tried and true cop movie. With that edge, the humor was wiser and the body counts mattered because one of them could, at any point, become the protagonist or someone they or you cared about.

Zero of that level of sharpness or heft exists in Coffee & Kareem, directed by Stuber helmer Michael Dowse, who knows his way around the 80s with his career peak Take Me Home Tonight. The closest you get is Taraji P. Henson staring holes through ignorance, shouting more F-words, slapping tastes out of mouths, and whipping ass in her fleeting Pam Grier-esque moments to dominate. That was never going to Gilpin’s rival or any of the gun-toting henchmen. Instead, the best you get is some partial heart from the range-less Ed Helms connecting with the kid and the attempt of sacrificing his well-being to save who he comes cares about. That’s weak sauce here.

At around the one-hour mark with just about 30 minutes remaining in this economical one-nighter, Coffee reaches a point where he bemoans Kareem “Just pull over and stop. Let them kill me. I’m done.” Boy, after the hour that was already had, filled with dumbfounded narrative and creative choices, fake trauma, and forgotten consequences, he ain’t kidding. Pass the bullet and the remote. 

LOGO DESIGNED BY MEENTS ILLUSTRATED (#868)

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[michaelfallcon]

Agony And Ecstasy At The World’s Largest Starbucks

The roasting machine at the biggest Starbucks in the world is a khaki-colored Probat P25-2 named Charlotte Jackson. The staff—channeling the Kit Kat Klub in black and white, vests and ties, and felted H&M hats cocked in compliance with the Chicago health code—chose “Charlotte” in honor of the woman walking her dog on the label of Starbucks’ classic Gold Coast Blend. The flavor celebrated Starbucks’ expansion into the Windy City in 1987, while “Jackson” calls out the address of that first Chicago location. While Charlotte was never the dogwalker’s official name, the staff felt it expressed her specific je ne sais quoi, and management agreed.

Charlotte Jackson greets you as you walk into the five-story Starbucks Reserve Roastery that opened on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile on November 15, 2019—the sixth such roastery worldwide, and for now, the largest Starbucks location on Earth. The roastery features four glass-enclosed floors (the fifth floor is the rooftop) that suggest a transparent tiered cake, each floor an indoor diorama of winter-beaten humans seeking heat and comfort. (November in Chicago is winter in Chicago, don’t @ me).

If Charlotte is the building’s ground-floor, immovable hearth, her visual twin is the roastery’s “cask”—a 56-foot cluster of parallel metal tubes shuttling roasted beans to each floor, each bean blend traveling up and down via its own gleaming beanstalk, then hurtling to various locations (bean silos, barista stations) via a web of smaller pneumatic tubes crisscrossing each ceiling. Every roastery has its own uniquely designed cask system; an employee (or “partner” as they are called) shared with me that Chicago’s cask is supposed to symbolize the sun, that the seafoam ceiling planks radiating out from the cask to the opposite end of the building represent the rays of the sun, and that the small light fixtures twinkling across the ceilings represent coffee beans, presumably the children of the sun.

I admit I visited the Big Chungus of Starbucks to have some fun; imagining an event on the level of the Staples Logo Unveiling, I meant to vex the giant glass house with a few well-thrown scones. Starbucks has over 30,000 locations on six continents in 80 countries. If all 35,000 square feet of the Chicago structure can be counted as a coffee shop (and coffee is indeed served on each level), this Davos of the demitasse is not only the largest Starbucks location on the planet, but the largest coffee shop, period, dwarfing Riyadh’s Al Masaa.

Accordingly, when I arrived on opening day a bit before 5PM, I saw a 45-minute wait and two separate lines that folded around the block and doubled back on themselves to spare the sidewalks (the wait time was down from two hours; for the opening at 7AM over 1,000 people were in line). After regrouping inside one of the half-dozen normal Starbucks nearby, I came back at 6PM and began freezing in Line Two as the Starpartners supervising the crowd chanted, “Welcome to the chocolate factory of coffee!” Exactly 60 minutes later, I entered Versailles.

A little fireplace burns by the front door; burlap bags of beans rest fatly in the windows; and the giant beanstalks call to mind the Wonka factory or a theme park. The “Master Roaster” next to Charlotte Jackson holds forth to a crowd, blending the zeal of a circus ringmaster with the humility of a docent. The baristas, as noted, are out of a PG-rated Cabaret, bagging and brewing and ringing up coffee and Princi Italian pastries at the biggest countertops in the world; the music pulses as if you’re browsing in Zara; the mannequins wearing denim on denim invite you to reach for your wallet; and a glance out the window at Ferragamo, Burberry, and Ermenogilda Zegna inspires you to empty it.

I always make my boy happy, I hear a mother say to her son as they walk toward the curved escalator. You know why? Because you’re my everything. Into a tan fabric shopping basket you can pack the contents of an entire trade show: branded Starbucks Reserve keychains, beanies, baseball hats, puzzles, stickers, coin purses, totes, and latte art stencil sets; journals, luggage tags, a “coffee passport,” and a hand-painted La Marzocco espresso machine; woven aprons, leather coasters, cuffs, and wallets from Seattle’s Hardmill; coffee technology ranging from grinders, siphons, pour-overs, and presses to French press stirrer timers and a temperature-controlled mug called an Ember, its travel tumbler priced at $149.95; and of course, coffee. Many of these items have “Starbucks Reserve” printed on them in case you forgot where you bought them (or how much you paid).

The biggest Starbucks in the world is also Starbucks’ shrine to itself, a laboratory to brew its own mythology in perpetuity. Beans rest in glass jars like capsules on an apothecary’s shelf. “WHAT IS CHAR?” asks one display, explaining the secret to barrel-aging coffee. Here, coffee is no longer water passed through beans; it is arcane potion and luxury indulgence, artistic statement and elixir of aspiration, credit card line item and divine mystery. Mud has arrived.

The mysteries multiply by the floor. On floor one, coffee is served in its most approachable forms: hot brew, cold brew, espresso. On floor two, it is served with thick-crusted, oil-dappled pizzas rustled up by the chefs of Princi Bakery; the line stretches all the way across the building, kitchen to cask. On floor three, where PETA is protesting the surcharge for vegan milks, lives the Experiential Coffee Bar, where you can try barrel-aged coffee, “flights” pairing cold brew with whiskey, mulled spiced coffee, coffee with truffles, and liquid nitrogen gelato. Facing yet another line of 45 minutes or longer, I text STARBUCKS to 78322 and within seconds I have auto-sent a petition to make soymilk free.

On floor four, at the Arriviamo Bar, coffee and booze take their relationship to the next level, pairing off in ways even PETA might approve of. Alongside martinis, Manhattans, and other classics, you can sample coffee-based cocktails, including the Chicago-specific, thirteen-ingredient Roastery Boilermaker, featuring Chicago’s infamous municipal liquor of record, Malört. Friends have warned me that Malört tastes like “burnt hairspray” and “floral gasoline,” but I have no chance to disprove this because at 8:50PM, I’m told it’s too long to get on the waitlist to order before last call at 11:15PM.

Unfed and unbeaned, I return to the first floor to say goodbye to Charlotte Jackson (there are also a phalanx of Nuova Simonelli Black Eagle espresso machines, but she is the centerpiece). The Master Roaster, whose name is Patrick, explains how Charlotte roasts coffee in batches of 25 pounds for 10-12 minutes, with thermocouples inside her roasting drum monitoring the uniformity of the roast and the integrity of the roast curve; the beans then pass through a spectrometer to ensure they’re the right color for their roast level, then head downstairs to be destoned and de-gassed for seven days, after which they travel via the cask and its pneumatic web to the baristas, who have six days to use them up.

On my way out, I order Patrick’s recommendation: the Hawaii Ka’u, a dark, frank, bitter face-squincher. I buy one for myself and another for a friend I’m meeting afterward, as well as a cannoli to share with her, and I leave the biggest Starbucks in the world to return to my regular-sized existence.

We are now having important national conversations about exactly how big things need to be, specifically things like individual and corporate bank accounts; before my visit, a friend joked that I should search the Roastery for a golden statue of Howard Schultz. “Billionaire,” despite its jaunty French suffix, has no flair; it’s a buffoonish, bloviant word. It feels tightly spherical and self-satisfied, ready to burst under pressure—and indeed, there are more and more questions being asked as to how, exactly, Starbucks has amassed the sort of fortune necessary to build these Brand Experience Palaces.

For what it’s worth I am entirely satisfied with my usual Starbucks in Fulton Market, with its deep comfortable chairs and the Wi-Fi I feel less guilty about hogging than Stumptown’s or La Colombe’s. What I yearn for in a coffee shop is a sanctuary from bigness; I want it to feel like an extension of my home, cozy, contained, intimate. The world seems more manageable when bounded inside the shop, inside my cup.

It’s true that, inside the biggest Starbucks in the world, there are nooks and corners to read and hibernate (though nowhere in the building is there an electrical outlet). It’s hard to imagine anyone becoming a regular here; it’s built for tourists and gawkers, for holiday shoppers, for people giving out-of-town friends an Experience (if they have the patience to wait on line). But I’m probably the only one worrying about this. “You know how everyone thinks about Starbucks, like it’s just Starbucks, it’s everywhere,” said a young partner who welcomed me to the top floor. “This is about brand elevation.” He is the same one who explained to me the connection between the four-story cask and the rays of the sun. The sun is going nowhere, at least for now.

Starbucks Reserve is located at 640 N Michigan Ave, Chicago. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Janani Sreenivasan (@jennyvasan) is a comedy writer, filmmaker, and political strategist based in Chicago. Her work has appeared in Reductress, The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, and The Toast. Read more Janani Sreenivasan on Sprudge.

Photos by Janani Sreenivasan for Sprudge Media Network.

The post Agony And Ecstasy At The World’s Largest Starbucks appeared first on Sprudge.

Agony And Ecstasy At The World’s Largest Starbucks published first on https://medium.com/@LinLinCoffee

[shebreathesslowly]

Agony And Ecstasy At The World’s Largest Starbucks

The roasting machine at the biggest Starbucks in the world is a khaki-colored Probat P25-2 named Charlotte Jackson. The staff—channeling the Kit Kat Klub in black and white, vests and ties, and felted H&M hats cocked in compliance with the Chicago health code—chose “Charlotte” in honor of the woman walking her dog on the label of Starbucks’ classic Gold Coast Blend. The flavor celebrated Starbucks’ expansion into the Windy City in 1987, while “Jackson” calls out the address of that first Chicago location. While Charlotte was never the dogwalker’s official name, the staff felt it expressed her specific je ne sais quoi, and management agreed.

Charlotte Jackson greets you as you walk into the five-story Starbucks Reserve Roastery that opened on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile on November 15, 2019—the sixth such roastery worldwide, and for now, the largest Starbucks location on Earth. The roastery features four glass-enclosed floors (the fifth floor is the rooftop) that suggest a transparent tiered cake, each floor an indoor diorama of winter-beaten humans seeking heat and comfort. (November in Chicago is winter in Chicago, don’t @ me).

If Charlotte is the building’s ground-floor, immovable hearth, her visual twin is the roastery’s “cask”—a 56-foot cluster of parallel metal tubes shuttling roasted beans to each floor, each bean blend traveling up and down via its own gleaming beanstalk, then hurtling to various locations (bean silos, barista stations) via a web of smaller pneumatic tubes crisscrossing each ceiling. Every roastery has its own uniquely designed cask system; an employee (or “partner” as they are called) shared with me that Chicago’s cask is supposed to symbolize the sun, that the seafoam ceiling planks radiating out from the cask to the opposite end of the building represent the rays of the sun, and that the small light fixtures twinkling across the ceilings represent coffee beans, presumably the children of the sun.

I admit I visited the Big Chungus of Starbucks to have some fun; imagining an event on the level of the Staples Logo Unveiling, I meant to vex the giant glass house with a few well-thrown scones. Starbucks has over 30,000 locations on six continents in 80 countries. If all 35,000 square feet of the Chicago structure can be counted as a coffee shop (and coffee is indeed served on each level), this Davos of the demitasse is not only the largest Starbucks location on the planet, but the largest coffee shop, period, dwarfing Riyadh’s Al Masaa.

Accordingly, when I arrived on opening day a bit before 5PM, I saw a 45-minute wait and two separate lines that folded around the block and doubled back on themselves to spare the sidewalks (the wait time was down from two hours; for the opening at 7AM over 1,000 people were in line). After regrouping inside one of the half-dozen normal Starbucks nearby, I came back at 6PM and began freezing in Line Two as the Starpartners supervising the crowd chanted, “Welcome to the chocolate factory of coffee!” Exactly 60 minutes later, I entered Versailles.

A little fireplace burns by the front door; burlap bags of beans rest fatly in the windows; and the giant beanstalks call to mind the Wonka factory or a theme park. The “Master Roaster” next to Charlotte Jackson holds forth to a crowd, blending the zeal of a circus ringmaster with the humility of a docent. The baristas, as noted, are out of a PG-rated Cabaret, bagging and brewing and ringing up coffee and Princi Italian pastries at the biggest countertops in the world; the music pulses as if you’re browsing in Zara; the mannequins wearing denim on denim invite you to reach for your wallet; and a glance out the window at Ferragamo, Burberry, and Ermenogilda Zegna inspires you to empty it.

I always make my boy happy, I hear a mother say to her son as they walk toward the curved escalator. You know why? Because you’re my everything. Into a tan fabric shopping basket you can pack the contents of an entire trade show: branded Starbucks Reserve keychains, beanies, baseball hats, puzzles, stickers, coin purses, totes, and latte art stencil sets; journals, luggage tags, a “coffee passport,” and a hand-painted La Marzocco espresso machine; woven aprons, leather coasters, cuffs, and wallets from Seattle’s Hardmill; coffee technology ranging from grinders, siphons, pour-overs, and presses to French press stirrer timers and a temperature-controlled mug called an Ember, its travel tumbler priced at $149.95; and of course, coffee. Many of these items have “Starbucks Reserve” printed on them in case you forgot where you bought them (or how much you paid).

The biggest Starbucks in the world is also Starbucks’ shrine to itself, a laboratory to brew its own mythology in perpetuity. Beans rest in glass jars like capsules on an apothecary’s shelf. “WHAT IS CHAR?” asks one display, explaining the secret to barrel-aging coffee. Here, coffee is no longer water passed through beans; it is arcane potion and luxury indulgence, artistic statement and elixir of aspiration, credit card line item and divine mystery. Mud has arrived.

The mysteries multiply by the floor. On floor one, coffee is served in its most approachable forms: hot brew, cold brew, espresso. On floor two, it is served with thick-crusted, oil-dappled pizzas rustled up by the chefs of Princi Bakery; the line stretches all the way across the building, kitchen to cask. On floor three, where PETA is protesting the surcharge for vegan milks, lives the Experiential Coffee Bar, where you can try barrel-aged coffee, “flights” pairing cold brew with whiskey, mulled spiced coffee, coffee with truffles, and liquid nitrogen gelato. Facing yet another line of 45 minutes or longer, I text STARBUCKS to 78322 and within seconds I have auto-sent a petition to make soymilk free.

On floor four, at the Arriviamo Bar, coffee and booze take their relationship to the next level, pairing off in ways even PETA might approve of. Alongside martinis, Manhattans, and other classics, you can sample coffee-based cocktails, including the Chicago-specific, thirteen-ingredient Roastery Boilermaker, featuring Chicago’s infamous municipal liquor of record, Malört. Friends have warned me that Malört tastes like “burnt hairspray” and “floral gasoline,” but I have no chance to disprove this because at 8:50PM, I’m told it’s too long to get on the waitlist to order before last call at 11:15PM.

Unfed and unbeaned, I return to the first floor to say goodbye to Charlotte Jackson (there are also a phalanx of Nuova Simonelli Black Eagle espresso machines, but she is the centerpiece). The Master Roaster, whose name is Patrick, explains how Charlotte roasts coffee in batches of 25 pounds for 10-12 minutes, with thermocouples inside her roasting drum monitoring the uniformity of the roast and the integrity of the roast curve; the beans then pass through a spectrometer to ensure they’re the right color for their roast level, then head downstairs to be destoned and de-gassed for seven days, after which they travel via the cask and its pneumatic web to the baristas, who have six days to use them up.

On my way out, I order Patrick’s recommendation: the Hawaii Ka’u, a dark, frank, bitter face-squincher. I buy one for myself and another for a friend I’m meeting afterward, as well as a cannoli to share with her, and I leave the biggest Starbucks in the world to return to my regular-sized existence.

We are now having important national conversations about exactly how big things need to be, specifically things like individual and corporate bank accounts; before my visit, a friend joked that I should search the Roastery for a golden statue of Howard Schultz. “Billionaire,” despite its jaunty French suffix, has no flair; it’s a buffoonish, bloviant word. It feels tightly spherical and self-satisfied, ready to burst under pressure—and indeed, there are more and more questions being asked as to how, exactly, Starbucks has amassed the sort of fortune necessary to build these Brand Experience Palaces.

For what it’s worth I am entirely satisfied with my usual Starbucks in Fulton Market, with its deep comfortable chairs and the Wi-Fi I feel less guilty about hogging than Stumptown’s or La Colombe’s. What I yearn for in a coffee shop is a sanctuary from bigness; I want it to feel like an extension of my home, cozy, contained, intimate. The world seems more manageable when bounded inside the shop, inside my cup.

It’s true that, inside the biggest Starbucks in the world, there are nooks and corners to read and hibernate (though nowhere in the building is there an electrical outlet). It’s hard to imagine anyone becoming a regular here; it’s built for tourists and gawkers, for holiday shoppers, for people giving out-of-town friends an Experience (if they have the patience to wait on line). But I’m probably the only one worrying about this. “You know how everyone thinks about Starbucks, like it’s just Starbucks, it’s everywhere,” said a young partner who welcomed me to the top floor. “This is about brand elevation.” He is the same one who explained to me the connection between the four-story cask and the rays of the sun. The sun is going nowhere, at least for now.

Starbucks Reserve is located at 640 N Michigan Ave, Chicago. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Janani Sreenivasan (@jennyvasan) is a comedy writer, filmmaker, and political strategist based in Chicago. Her work has appeared in Reductress, The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, and The Toast. Read more Janani Sreenivasan on Sprudge.

Photos by Janani Sreenivasan for Sprudge Media Network.

The post Agony And Ecstasy At The World’s Largest Starbucks appeared first on Sprudge.

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[slothcritic1]

Moana (2016)

Amazing Hair: The Movie. Moana is a tale of Hawaiian/Polynesian folklore centering around Dwayne The Maui Johnson and brand new talent (Auli'i Cravalho) as the titular character.

As someone who grew up with Toy Story, it’s funny to think about what this movie represents from a technical standpoint. Toy Story purposefully did not have an explositions or exposed liquids due to the limitations of technology at the time. And now we have a movie that takes place 90% of the time in the middle of a huge ocean.

The movie has some genuinely good songs, thanks to the singing talents of Ms Cravalho and, surprisingly, Dwayne Johnson himself. Yes, The Rock can sing, and while it’s semi-obvious that he doesn’t have the range of some other singers, he works within his means and knocks it out of the park in the song You’re Welcome

The plot structure itself is very formulaic however, which is a shame as everything else holds up so wonderfully. The focal girl has a duty to uphold, but instead decides to “follow her destiny” and choose a life of adventure over the life she’s expected to live (you know, like Brave, Frozen, Mulan, Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Tarzan… you get the point). She then meets up with the wacky, street wise (or ocean wise), reluctant helper that she goads into helping on her journey. They become friends and bond, then theres the third act break up where the helper separates for no good reason, and the fourth act triumphant return at the ending climax for even less of a good reason.

With that out of the way, the movie rocks. Some people completely judge a movie only on plot, but I think it’s more about how it makes you feel. A movie is a vessel for emotion and intrigue.

Aside from the stunning visuals (which, lets face it, are now a standard practise for Disney Pixar films) and a catchy song (songs however are much easier to screw up, and this movie has a lot of good ones), the opening scene is bland. It sets up Moana to be the next village chief and her journey into leaving the island. The scene doesn’t really have anything for itself, but rather is used to carry the impact of when she actually disembarks. It’s necessary for backstory (no one ever leaves the island), exposition (Moana is the daughter of the village chief, etc) and the premise (find Maui and have him restore Heart of Te Fiti to stop a black virus from consuming all life), but doesnt do too much on its own.

The disembarkment scene however is wicked powerful. My friends thought I was alien for not crying or tearing up during it, but I will admit it did give me a good *pang* in the heart. Magical spirit stingray!

Two things should also be mentioned at this point. 1) A rooster named Hei Hei has snuck aboard Moana’s boat. It’s a very special rooster that my friends would not stop comparing to me. And B) The ocean is a sentient character of sorts, and provides some of the comedy for the movie.

Moana follows the constellation of the fish hook to where Maui is, since thats his dealio. At some point however, the lovable ocean gets triggered and decides to unleash its torrential stormy wrath upon Moana. I mean, it does get her to Maui’s island, but I’m sure there were less dickish ways of accomplishing that. Though I don’t think ocean cares since it killed Moana’s dad’s best friend. Oh, ocean, you little scamp.

Maui pops in and drops my favorite song of the movie, then steals the boat and leaves Moana to… I dunno, die? But she makes it back to Maui and explains that he needs to help her because, guess what, she’s the Disney Princess of this movie. And yes - She is. Her father is chief, which is like a king. She’s the chief’s daughter, which is like a king’s daughter, aka princess.

Maui responds by throwing the Heart of Te Fiti several miles away. This almost works out for Maui until p̶l̶o̶t̶ the ocean interferes by throwing it back, railroading him into a whole new world.

Maui however is at a disadvantage in his current state; He’s missing his hook. No hook, no powers. So when tribal coconuts show up on a HUGE ship, armed to the coconuts with poison blow darts, they’re kind of fucked, especially when they steal the Heart of Te Fiti, which is… currently inside Hei Hei.

Luckily, Moana does some badass shit while Maui handles the boat and the three of them get out fine. Next stop, Maui’s hook. But before that, Moana wants to drive the boat. Maui says no, and the ocean pricks him with a stray poison dart. Now he cant drive. But he can pee in the water just as he tells Moana to check for a “warm current”

I can get on board with that level of petty.

They arrive at Monster Island, which is where Maui’s hook is. Maui tells her to stay on the boat and do nothing like a good woman while macho man demi-dude saves the whole day. It has little success. I should also mention, this entire time they’ve been traveling from Casa de Maui to Mount Doom, Maui has just been roasting Moana for being a Disney princess. To summarize:

“Oh look at me. I’m the chosen one. I’m like 8 years old and never sailed a boat in my life, but here I am thinking the ocean chose ME, with my bleeding heart spiel and animal companion to try and save the world.”

To be fair, large bodies of water have never been good at chosing leaders - Ask Monty Python.

Regardless, Moana and Maui both climb what is basically a 90 degree incline to the top of the Dread Spire. It is at this point Maui informs Moana that the door to the monster realm can only be opened with a human sacrifice. Before Moana can protest, Maui ritually disembowels her with his own hands to appease the ancient blood gods.

Kidding. He chants a few words and the gateway opens. The two jump in, and Moana is almost eaten or killed numerous times with the first few moments of being in the realm of the monsters.

Maui’s hook is resting upon a mountain of gold. Seems innocent enough to Moana, but Maui insists she wears a bright and gaudy disguise to draw the attention of… something.

The mountain of gold rises up. Turns out thats just its back. Meet the British Crab. He sings a song about how he loves shiny things and then nearly eats Moana, until Maui reveals he retrieved his hook from the British Crab’s back.

But he’s a little rusty and it, uh, doesn’t work right. So Maui gets his shit stomped by BC. Moana saves the day by painting a rock with bioluminescent algae to make it look like the Heart of Te Fiti, which is shiny, and BC is all about the shiny.

They escape, and Maui learns to reuse his hook. Everythings looking swell until they try and take on the great evil of the story, Te Ka. He uses fireball and Maui presses E to deflect with his hook, only instead the hook gets mad cracked. It sparks like its somehow made of electricity, which I find weird. Maui is now done with life since his hook is nearly toast and he fucks off, leaving chosen girl all by herself, depressed as fuck in the middle of nowhere, ocean.

One drug trip and amazing song later, she regains her confidence and tried to take on Te Ka by herself. It surprisingly works, because now she knows how to drive a boat. Hei Hei comes in clutch and stops the Heart of Te Fiti from falling off the boat, and they make it through the border islands towards their main goal.

Te Ka is still rather pissed, being a giant lava demon and all, so he keeps trying to kill Moana. And for no real reason, here comes Maui to save the day - or at least to stall Te Ka until Moana can do the thing. His hook gets completely totalled but its okay, because he learned a valuable lesson off-screen that he’s still Maui, hook or no hook.

Moana realizes that the Heart actually goes into Te Ka. So she pulls a Moses, lets Te Ka come at her bro, and puts the Heart into her chest. This turns her from the red Lava Groot to the green Mother Nature Jemima, and everything is better forever. And hey, she gives Maui a brand new hook after he apologises for being the literal cause of ALL of this. Maui does his own thing and Moana becomes the leader of a brand new generation of voyagers.

I do have to applaud Disney for NOT having the two of them kiss at the end. Its always nice to see a platonic m/f duo in movies and the romance subplot sells so well to resist sometimes.

Overall, very stunning. I often cite “movie feel” as a reason why movies with plot/cliche/logistic problems can still make good movies, and this movie does a wonderful job of sweeping you off your feet. Though honestly, the writing on this movie is not bad. Rather, I would say its poorly structured. Think of it like a support beam a beanstalk might grow up. The characters were amazing; Full of life, personality and moderately complex emotions, the animation is so good the whole movie is like a humble brag about how awesome the DisneyTech is, a lot (i’d say 80%) of the script is bang on, and an astounding amount of the songs are really good - Songs are easy to screw up and I’d say that’s this movies second biggest strength (behind hair/water animation). It just struggles with the standard “winning formula” plot structure that was honestly ill-fitting in parts and did not impart a wholesome explanation or comprehensive rationale behind certain scenes.

I’m not a big Disney buff (unless you count the Star Wars acquisition), so I’m not qualified to say how this ranks compared to other movies (disregarding modern tech advancements and focusing more on storytelling) - However I will say that it’s better than Frozen.