#apologies for the climate change existential crisis that popped up at the end there

[agreatperhaps12]

There are a lot of misconceptions about Warren Peace. Five times Layla Williams saw through the bullshit, and one time Warren returned the favor.

happy holidays, @katiewont :) 

Misconception No. 1: Warren Peace loves a good fight.

Warren Peace does not go looking for fights. Fights find him.

See: Stronghold chucking a lunch tray at him the first week of class. Dumb and Dumber challenging them to Save the Citizen. Stronghold’s date going full supervillain at homecoming and nearly dropping a school-size anvil on an unsuspecting suburb.

That’s just the highlight reel for September.

When another villain interrupts Warren’s History of Heroism midterm with another school invasion, Warren’s first thought is: Could everyone around here chill for five fucking seconds.

No. Literally, not ever. See: three weeks later, when Warren is standing in line for lunch with the entourage of freshmen he’s long since given up trying to shake off. It has not even been five minutes since Warren and Stronghold defeated their latest challenger at Save the Citizen, and Zach is already doing a clumsy live-action replay.

To Stronghold, “Did you see his face when you were like?” Zach swings his arm with the spectacular confidence of someone not standing in a very crowded cafeteria. To Warren, “And then you were like—” Zach mimes shooting fireballs from his fists, complete with sound effects. “Totally brutal. You looked scary, bro.”

“He always looks scary,” Ethan says, smiling at Warren like that’s a compliment.

Warren glares down at his tray. He and Stronghold have been defending champions of Save the Citizen for over two months, Hero Team every time. He doesn’t get how people are still managing to make him feel like the bad guy about it.

“How was play-pretend battle?”

Layla has emerged from the crowd to stand beside Warren, with a smirk that makes a stupid something flutter behind his sternum. Layla stopped coming to their Save the Citizen matches after their dozenth victory, because “violence should be the last resort in any hostage situation” and “Save the Citizen completely undermines a valuable opportunity for Sky High students to learn strategic negotiation skills.” Warren doesn’t know what she does with the free period. 

Take me with you, he thinks.

“The match was epic,” Zach says. “Will got to throw a car.”

A bashful smile overtakes Stronghold’s dumb, Labrador face.

“And Warren almost barbequed Evans,” Ethan says.

Jesus, could they shut up about it already.

“Really,” Layla says, eyes on Warren while he pays for his food.

“Yeah,” Warren says, in a deadpan to rival Magenta. “It was epic.”

Layla frowns, but instead of launching into the pacifist manifesto that Warren is expecting, she holds up her bagged lunch says, “Want to eat outside?”

Before Warren can answer, Stronghold says, “Outside?” like he’s never heard of such a place. “It’s freezing out there.”

“It’s almost forty degrees,” Layla says, “and I had to come in early to finish a project, so it’s been over—” She checks the clock. “—five hours since I’ve felt roots under my feet. I’m eating outside.”

“Okay, but like.” Stronghold glances at Warren. “Do… you want me to come?”

“No, you’ll just be a baby about it,” Layla says gently. “Warren doesn’t get cold, do you?”

She looks to Warren for confirmation of a fact that Warren is one hundred percent sure he’s never told her. He shrugs to hide his wrong-footedness.

“Great.” Layla claps a hand on Stronghold’s shoulder and uses it to steer him toward the others, who are already sitting at what used to be Warren’s personal lunch table, once upon a time. She shrugs on her jacket, flips her hair out, and looks to Warren. “Shall we?”

Warren follows her outside warily. Sitting down across from her at the picnic table closest to the edge of school grounds, he says, “So, what is this, exactly?”

Layla pauses in uncurling her lunch bag. “What do you mean?”

Warren shrugs. “We don’t really hang out. Alone.”

They did, a little. Back when Layla was using Warren to make Stronghold jealous. But that pretty much ended with the homecoming debacle—after which Layla and Stronghold spent a few weeks trying to get their romantic relationship off the ground, decided they worked better as friends, and went back to normal.

“What are you talking about?” Layla says. “We hang out at the Paper Lantern all the time.”

It’s true that Layla eats at Warren’s workplace a few nights a week, when her mom is too busy with day-saving to make family dinners at home. But Layla is always doing homework, and Warren is always doing Work work, so, “I don’t think that counts.”

“It does,” Layla says confidently. It’s the kind of confidence that only Layla can pull off, because rather than coming across as arrogant, she gives the air of a mysterious woodland nymph, whose secret knowledge mere mortals wouldn’t understand.

“Okay,” Warren says, because he has precious little personal experience to back up any assertions about how friendship is supposed to work. “But this isn’t the Lantern.”

Layla raises an eyebrow. “Do you want to go back inside?”

“No,” Warren says. He doesn’t want Layla to leave, either. There’s a sureness about her that Warren finds comforting. She’s never been afraid of him—probably because she could kick his ass. Warren likes that about her. But he also likes to know where he stands with people.

By way of explanation, Layla says, “Did you know that when you get stressed out, literal steam comes out of your ears?”

“What?”

“Mm-hmm.” Layla pulls an apple out of her lunch bag. “A little. It’s easier to see when your hair is pulled back.”

Warren brings a self-conscious hand to the rubber band he used to tie his hair up during Mad Science Lab.

“It happens a lot when Zach is doing his Save the Citizen play-by-plays,” Layla observes. “Thought I might spare you an entire lunch of that.”

“Oh.” Warren’s hand drops into his lap, blind-sided by the unexpected kindness. “Thanks.”

“Any time.” Layla maintains eye contact while taking a bit of apple. Warren shifts in his seat and drops his eyes to his pizza. “You could tell Coach Boomer to assign Will a different partner,” she says after a moment. “Save the Citizen isn’t mandatory.”

Yeah, except it kind of is. No one’s ever voluntarily stepped back from a winning streak like Warren and Stronghold’s. Benching himself would never be worth all the extra side-eye in the halls. Not to mention the explanation he’d have to give Boomer. What kind of superhero-in-training refuses to fight?

Except for the one Warren is currently sitting across from, of course. Who’s looking at Warren with such doe-eyed earnestness that it almost squeezes a “Yeah, maybe” out of him. But Layla is a difficult person to lie to, so he says, “I thought we weren’t going to talk about Save the Citizen.”

Layla sits up a little straighter. “Right,” she says. “Consider it forgotten.”

“Thanks.”

Not that Warren doesn’t trust Layla, but she is the kind of person to press points she thinks are important. Before her mind can cycle back to Save the Citizen from some other angle, Warren says, “Sorry I dragged you outside in the middle of November.”

Layla tilts her head to the side. “You didn’t drag me. I dragged you.”

“Yeah, but for me,” Warren says, and there’s that stupid fluttering feeling again.

“And for me,” Layla says. “I wasn’t lying about needing to get out for a bit. Being inside all day, with the linoleum and cinderblock.” She wrinkles her nose. “It’s creepy quiet, when you’re used to feeling everything alive around you.”

He’s never actually thought about it, before. How Layla has her finger on the pulse of something so vast and intricate, even when she’s not bending it to her will.

“Even in November?” Warren says. “Isn’t everything, like… dead?”

Layla laughs. “No. Just taking a long nap.”

“Huh.” Warren looks around the grey-brown landscape of the schoolyard, with its bare branches and faded grass, with new eyes. It’s a nice idea, that all these lifeless-looking things are just waiting to wake up.

Misconception No. 2: Warren Peace doesn’t give a damn about his bad reputation.

Anyone who dyes a single streak of hair, wears fingerless gloves, and walks around like he’s got nothing to prove has something big to prove.

For Warren Peace, that is: I do not give a fuck about my family legacy.

Before starting high school, Warren figured a couple kids might recognize him, by name or by strong family resemblance. But Warren’s dad had already been locked up for a long time. It wasn’t like he made the news anymore. Worse came to worst, Warren thought he might have to field a few awkward questions about it.

Homeschooling did not prepare Warren for how big a household name Barron Battle was.

The first week of school was all open seats around Warren in class and at lunch, cold and curious looks over shoulders on the bus, “Check it out, that’s Barron Battle’s devil spawn” and “I can’t believe they even let supervillain kids in.”

It was treat or be treated like dirt, and Warren chose the former.

Fast-forward to junior year, and Sky High students know Warren Peace for the asshole he is, rather than the asshole his father was. Warren is comfortably back to pretending like his dad doesn’t exist. It mostly works.

Except during a History of Heroism unit on the most notorious villains of the twentieth century, when Warren’s class is staring at a PowerPoint slide that depicts the leveled Brooklyn neighborhood where Barron Battle and the Commander had their final showdown.

Warren ignores his classmates’ not-so-covert glances as Mr. Magnificent rattles of statistics like ‘seven dead and dozens injured’ and ‘nearly one billion dollars in damages.’ Magnificent has to pause his lecture to silence the white noise of whispers that has swelled up, and Warren wants to sink through the floor.

It’s like the first week of freshman year all over again. Warren is projecting I don’t care vibes so hard, there’s a good chance he’ll spontaneously combust.

What feels like an eon later, the classroom lights come up. Warren shoves everything into his backpack and heads for the door before anyone can try to talk to him. As usual, Layla is out of Hero Support early and waiting in the hall to meet Warren for lunch. Her patent sun-bright smile slips as Warren escapes the classroom.

“Whoa, where’s the fire?” she says.

“What?” Warren stops up short. “Nowhere. There’s no fire.”

“I was kidding,” Layla says, and winces at herself. “Poor choice of words. Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Warren rakes his fingers through his hair. “I can’t come to lunch today. I have to—work on something.”

Normally, when Warren is feeling like shit, there’s nothing he’d rather do than sit with Layla in their little oasis of calm at the schoolyard picnic table. But right now, Warren needs at least thirty minutes to pace around the empty auto shop classroom, literally and figuratively cooling off, before he subjects himself to more human company.

“Okay,” Layla says, hugging her notebook to her chest and looking at him critically. “Are you—”

“Yeah. It’s—whatever. I’ll see you later.” Warren shoulders his way through the crowded hall toward the shop room, head down.

Smooth, he thinks at himself. Very smooth.

Shut up.

Warren assumes the first chance he’ll have to apologize to Layla is the next day at lunch. But when Warren shows up for his shift at the Paper Lantern at five, Layla is already sitting at her usual table. Weird, because Layla usually doesn’t come to the Lantern on Thursdays. Weirder, because when she does come, she typically arrives sometime after eight, when the dinner rush has mostly cleared out.

“What can I get you?” Warren says, drawing his pencil out from behind his ear as he approaches Layla’s table. They do try to maintain some appearances of an employee-customer relationship, to appease Mrs. Zhou.

“Hmm.” Layla examines the menu. “I’d like one kung pao tofu, one green tea, and—” She looks up at him. “—for you to explain why you fled your History of Heroism class today.”

“I didn’t flee,” Warren says. “I stormed out.”

“All right,” Layla agrees easily. “Why did you storm out of History of Heroism?”

Warren crosses his arms. “None of your business.”

“Okay.” Layla holds out her menu.

Warren blinks. “What?”

“You’re right, it’s not my business,” she says. “I just thought you might want to talk about whatever it was.”

“I don’t.”

“Okay.”

Warren squints. “Okay…”

“Okay,” Layla says again, and flaps the menu in her hand.

Warren takes it slowly, waiting for the catch. But Layla just pulls a binder and notebook out of her backpack. “Honey with the tea, please,” she says, and clicks open a pen.

“I know,” Warren says, and leaves Layla to her homework. He spends most of the next half-hour trying to untangle why he feels disappointed rather than relieved.

The thing is, Warren sometimes gets a “What was that about?” or “Dude, what the hell happened back there?” from classmates after he goes nuclear. Like after his cafeteria fight with Stronghold in September. Those questions always feel voyeuristic. Prickly and probing.

With Layla, though, the question feels less invasive and more inviting. For the first time, Warren wants to explain himself. He wants Layla to understand. He doesn’t want her to see him as some moody, unapproachable asshole. But he also doesn’t know how to approach her, or the subject, now that he’s already shut it down.

He’s been talking himself in and out of going back over to Layla’s table for ten minutes when Mrs. Zhou sidles up to the pass-through window where Warren is brooding.

“If you’re going to stand around making eyes at your girlfriend, take your fifteen and go over before the dinner crowd arrives,” she says.

Warren’s face heats, and he looks around to see whether anyone is in earshot, even though he’s pretty sure none of Mrs. Zhou’s whitebread suburban customers understand Mandarin. “She’s not my—never mind.”

Deciding he’d rather be having any other conversation besides this one with Mrs. Zhou, Warren forces himself to walk over to Layla’s table and sit down.

“We learned about the Barron in class today,” he says, abandoning any attempt at preamble, “for a lesson on notable supervillain takedowns.”

If Layla is surprised by Warren’s sudden attempt at conversation, she doesn’t show it. She hooks her pen through the spiral of her notebook, closes it, and waits for him to continue.

“Magnificent was showing pictures from the last time Dad and the Commander fought in New York,” Warren says, “and people were looking at me like I was involved somehow, even though all that shit went down when I was still in diapers, and those people have been in my classes for three years, like—I know, we all know Barron Battle is my dad, why can’t everyone fucking get over it already—”

Layla lays a hand on his forearm, cutting Warren off and drawing his attention to the fact that his clenched fist is smouldering like a hot coal. “Shit. Sorry.” Warren shakes out his hand, and Layla pulls back. He wishes she wouldn’t.

Layla waits for the red glow of Warren’s knuckles to dim and then says, “Mr. Magnificent is an idiot. It was totally inappropriate to include your dad in a presentation, especially without asking you first.”

Warren shrugs. “A lot of people’s parents end up in his presentations,” he says. “They’re just usually on the right side.”

“He still should have asked you,” Layla says. “Also, you helped save the entire school in September. If people still think you’re anything like your dad after that, they’re idiots and you shouldn’t care what they think.”

Warren wants to say “I don’t.” What comes out is, “This is high school. Everyone cares what everyone thinks.”

“I don’t,” Layla says.

Warren wants to contradict her, but from what he can tell, Layla genuinely doesn’t. “You have to care a little,” he says.

Layla raises her eyebrows like oh, yeah? and points to her characteristically Whoville-style twist of braids and glittery clips. “You think these hairdos made me a lot of friends in middle school?”

“I didn’t go to middle school.”

“Well, they didn’t,” Layla says.

“Then why do you wear your hair like that?”

“Because I like it.” Layla twirls a stray piece of hair around her forefinger. “And I don’t need to be one of the pretty girls to feel good about myself.”

“You are pretty,” Warren blurts, and immediately has to suppress the urge to set himself on fire.

Layla’s eyes go wide. The last time Warren saw her blush this deep, he’d just called her out for crushing on Stronghold. But instead of straight-up embarrassed, this time Layla’s blush is weirdly, shyly pleased. “You think so?” Her chin is tilted down so that she’s looking up at him through her eyelashes, which is not fair.

“Me?” Warren points at himself, like an idiot. “I don’t—I mean, I do, but it’s not just—you are pretty. People know that. It’s an objective fact.”

“Really.” Layla’s cheeks are still pink, but her smile has a playful slant now.

“Yeah,” Warren says, more defensively than he intends. Christ, he was so much better at this when they were fake-dating, when none of Warren’s smirks or swagger could mean anything. Now, without the protection of pretense, everything feels altogether too personal. Warren is not good at personal.

“Thank you,” Layla says, and bites her lip in hesitation before tacking on, “you’re pretty, too.”

Whatever that comment is—reflex, or politeness, or something else—it is officially too much. “I have to get back to work,” Warren says, overloud in the quiet restaurant, and bangs his knee on the underside of the table in his haste to stand up.

“Okay,” Layla says, trying to hide a smile behind her hand. Before he can turn away, she adds, “Warren,” and points to either side of her head.

Warren stares at her blankly for a second before he catches her drift, yanks his hair down from his ponytail to hide his surely steaming ears, and practically runs back to the kitchen.

Misconception No. 3: Warren Peace thinks he’s got the best power.

“I feel like I should warn you,” Layla says as she turns the key in her front lock, “my house is kind of crowded.”

Warren frowns. “I thought you were an only child.”

“No siblings,” Layla says. “A lot of roommates. You’ll see.”

What Warren sees is a menagerie that would do Ace Ventura proud.

“Watch out for the—everything,” Layla says, leading him through a flock of peacocks, a few dogs and several cats that slink by too quickly to count.

“Why… is this?” is the only semi-coherent question that Warren can formulate as he shoos a parrot from his shoulder and shakes his pant leg free of a fox’s jaws.

“You’re not the only one who has to live with your parent’s superpower,” Layla says.

Layla’s mom, apparently, is a zoolinguist. The only place in the entire house not overrun by furry or feathered residents is Layla’s room.

“Wow,” Warren says as he crosses the threshold.

Layla’s bedroom is situated on the back corner of the house, and the two external walls and ceiling are all paneled glass. Presumably to usher in maximum sunlight for the greenery that crowds almost every inch of space besides Layla’s bed and desk. Warren has to shed his winter coat immediately to avoid overheating in the humidity.

“Yeah,” Layla says. “Sometimes I forget how weird it is. Will’s the only friend I’ve ever had up here.”

Layla is the only friend Warren has ever had in his room—which she immediately declared “entirely predictable,” on account of the punk rock posters plastered across his walls. Layla’s room is way more predictable, if you ask Warren. Or at least, Warren would have predicted this, if he’d known literal greenhouse was a legitimate option.

“It’s nice,” he says. “Peaceful.”

“Isn’t it?” Layla takes Warren’s coat and hangs it on a hook behind the leaves of an elephant ear plant. “Mom had the place renovated before we moved in. I think she figured, if she was going to let every animal in the neighborhood have the run of our house, it wasn’t fair to exile my plants to the backyard.”

“Do they all live here all the time?” Warren says, pointing at the floor to indicate the veritable petting zoo downstairs.

“Some of them,” Layla says. “Mom is good at finding homes for most. I think donations from her fans are single-handedly keeping every shelter in the city afloat.”

It’s rude to ask about superheroes’ secret identities, but context clues give Warren a pretty good idea who Ms. Williams might be. Charismatic Megafauna is basically a one-woman PETA operation, liberating animals from factory farms and delivering them to free-range pastures as often as she commands her elite squadron of apex predators to take down baddies. She’s a more controversial figure than the Commander and Jetstream, but she does have an extremely dedicated cult following.  

“Her power sounds amazing,” Warren says.

“Most of the time,” Layla says. She collects a watering can from beside her bed and begins to fill it with a knee-high spigot beside the door. “But there’s a lot of animal suffering in the world. It can get exhausting for her to be tapped into it all the time, you know?”

Warren pauses to consider. “Yeah, I guess that would be overwhelming.”

Layla turns off the tap and carries her watering can to the closest table laden with potted plants. “Everyone’s superpower looks spectacular on the news,” she says, with a very un-Layla-like smile. “No one’s around to see it when your power makes you so sad you can’t get out of bed.”

“Except you,” Warren guesses.

Layla drops her not-really-smile. “Except me.”

Warren shuffles along the row of plants beside Layla while she waters them. He waits until she finishes refilling the can and starts a new row before asking, “Does that ever happen to you? Your powers getting you down.”

Layla studiously waters a flower with orange starburst petals. “Plants have more…auras and vibes than thoughts and feelings,” she says, and tickles the flower under one leaf. The plant visibly perks up under her ministrations, and Layla smiles. For real, this time. “Their pain doesn’t feel as sharp to me as animals’ pain does to my mom.”

“But,” Warren prompts.

“But sometimes, yeah,” Layla says, and moves on to the next plant.

Warren casts around for something comforting to say, but comes up with nothing better than, “That sucks.”

“Yeah,” Layla says, “but it’s the exception to the rule. Most of the time, I wouldn’t give up feeling this—” She rubs her fingertips over a browning leaf to paint it green. “—for anything.”

Warren shouldn’t be jealous of Layla’s powers. Especially after she’s just admitted what a burden they can be. But Layla has also just confirmed what Warren has long suspected: Superabilities, even the ostensibly powerful ones, are not created equal. Warren’s pyrokinesis is, fundamentally, a weapon. A blunt tool to wield when the situation calls for violence. Layla’s power, on the other hand, seems more like a sixth sense. A trapdoor to another plane of reality.

How much of Layla Williams’s worldview draws on the alien insight of plants that no other human being, least of all Warren Peace, could ever possibly understand?

Layla interrupts Warren’s inferiority spiral with, “I’ve never talked about this with anyone but my mom.”

Warren watches Layla coax a stem into standing up straighter. “Not even Stronghold?”

He should not take as much pleasure as he does in Layla’s dismissive laugh. “Especially not Will.”

“Why not?”

“For a long time, he didn’t have any powers, and he was so jealous of mine, it seemed mean to complain about them to Will.”

“And now?”

“Now, he’s in the honeymoon phase with his new powers,” Layla says, “and it seems mean to bring him down.”

Not even Warren believes Stronghold can be that fragile. “I’m sure he’d get over it.”

“Maybe, but, you know. The things we do for our best friends,” Layla says, with a what can you do shrug, and returns to the faucet for another refill.

“So, why tell me?”

Layla chews the inside of her cheek. “I guess because you already have a complex about your own powers the size of Texas, thanks to your dad.”

“What?” Warren balks. “I do not.”

Layla squints. “Don’t you, though?”

“No. I—shut up.” Warren looks away, feeling hot all over.

Layla bends down to turn off the tap. A moment later, her hand on Warren’s shoulder startles him into looking back at her. Her big, brown eyes are wide with sympathy. “I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m sorry.”

“I’m not upset,” Warren snaps.

“Okay.” Typical Layla, letting him feel whatever he’s going to feel and say whatever he’s going to say and refuse to throw hands about it.

Warren’s spark of anger sputters and dies. He huffs out an exhale. “It’s not only about my dad,” he admits, quietly, mostly to the floor.

Layla’s hand remains on his shoulder while she waits for an elaboration. Warren very carefully does not acknowledge it in any way, for fear it might stop.

“Fire is...useful,” he says. “But it can only destroy things. I can’t create. Not like…” He waves a hand around Layla’s room. “All I’m good for is fighting, and sometimes I wish—” Warren shoves a hand through his hair. “I dunno. It’s stupid.”

Layla’s hand squeezes his shoulder. “First of all, you are not your power,” she says. “No matter what Boomer or anyone else says. Second, fire is creative. It creates light and warmth.”

“If I’m ever transported back in time to an era before electricity, I’m sure that’ll be extremely handy,” Warren says, aiming for wry and not quite making it, because the tickly feeling that flitters to life in his chest whenever Layla says nice things about him is going wild.

Layla rolls her eyes. “Third of all, you do not need a superpower to create and nurture things.” Before Warren can stop her, Layla has pushed her watering can into his hand.

“What?” he says. “I don’t know anything about plants. I’d probably kill them all.” He holds the watering can out to Layla, who does not take it.

“Don’t act like you don’t have a book of Keats in your backpack right now,” she says. “If you know ‘To Autumn,’ you already know the most important things about plants. Everything else is technicalities.”

Warren gives her a doubtful look.

Layla sighs. “Trust me. Which you should, because I know literally everything about plants, and I’m a very good teacher, and I would not let you hurt any of my babies. Okay?”

Layla holds out her hand, and Warren has to channel all his concentration into keeping his cool enough that he doesn’t burn her when he takes it in his own. Layla grins, and Warren feels a little light-headed with the thrill of it.

“Come on,” she says, and pulls him toward the row of potted flowers where they left off. Warren follows, as helpless as any of the flora around them to resist the benevolent force of nature that is Layla Williams.

Misconception No. 4: Warren Peace doesn’t get scared.

This illusion is at least partly on purpose. Part of the do not fuck with me ethos Warren has been cultivating for the better part of three years.

In reality, plenty of things scare Warren. Like the idea that everyone is right about him after all, and he’ll end up on the Superheroes Guild’s Most Wanted List someday. Or that deep down, a kernel of grudge in his mother resents Warren for taking so closely after his father. But those are more midnight-existential-crisis concerns than acute fears.

Warren gets scared during battles, too. But the initial kick of adrenaline always seems to knock his consciousness clear of his body, such that he spends most of the fight controlling the firestorm of his fists from somewhere above the action. He usually doesn’t realize how freaked out he is until after the fact, when his brain plugs back into his body and he thinks, huh, my hands won’t stop shaking.

It’s rare that Warren feels, in real time, the bass-drum beat of his heart and a cold sweat breaking out on the back of his neck. But that’s exactly what happens every time he gets close to asking Layla out on a date.

He’s come close so many times. He’s had the tickets in his jacket pocket for weeks. But the prospect of actually asking Layla invites the prospect of Layla saying no, and Warren—can’t.

Sometimes, he can almost convince himself that she would say yes, despite the fact that Layla is kind, beautiful, mystical Layla, and Warren is social-pariah, problem-child Warren. Like last Tuesday, when Layla said “you’re such a disaster” with such heart-stopping fondness, while she pulled a rubber band from Warren’s hair to replace it with one of her own, more comfortable fabric hair ties. Or last Friday, while they were watching a movie at Layla’s place, and she tucked her socked toes under Warren’s thigh on the couch. Or yesterday, when she held her hands out over the picnic table for Warren to warm her pink fingertips between his palms.

And always, in the back of Warren’s mind: “You’re pretty, too.”

But whenever Warren opens his mouth to ask, his tongue goes dry and his palms go damp. It’s such a stupid thing to be afraid of, it makes Warren want to close his head in a locker. Worst case scenario, Layla turns him down. They’d still be friends. She wouldn’t be cruel. She’s Layla. But Warren isn’t used to having so much of himself caught up in another person. The idea that Layla isn’t equally caught up in him provokes a strangled, withering feeling in the pit of Warren’s stomach that he can only imagine would intensify tenfold after the actual rejection.

So, Warren’s been procrastinating.

But time is running out.

It does not help that Stronghold’s flock of freshmen is currently obsessing over Winter Formal like a bunch of… well, freshmen.

“You guys asking anyone?” Zach says at lunch, one day when freezing rain is lashing Sky High too hard for even Layla to sit outside. Zach hooks an arm over Magenta’s shoulder, as if to underline the fact that she’s already spoken for. Magenta rolls her eyes but doesn’t shrug him off.

“I would ask Larry,” Ethan says, pushing steamed vegetables around on his plate with his fork. “If I could stop going full-puddle every time he looks at me.”

Layla and Magenta make sympathetic noises.

“I think I’m gonna ask Abby,” Stronghold says, eyes cast over at a table where Warren assumes this Abby must sit. He hasn’t bothered to keep up with Stronghold’s latest romantic fixation. They’re already two—three?—full crush cycles past Layla. Warren can’t believe he ever felt threatened by a kid with the attention span of a housefly.

“She’d totally say yes,” Magenta says. “I overheard her about how hot you are during the Shapeshifting Students Association meeting.”

“Really?” Will says, at the same time Layla goes, “Magenta!”

“What?”

“Gossip.”

“Okay, Mother Williams,” Magenta says. To Will, “We’ll talk later.”

Layla looks intent on pressing the matter, but Ethan says, “Do you have a date, Layla?”

Everyone turns to Layla, except for Stronghold, whose eyes inexplicably flick over to Warren—who glares him into dropping eye contact.

“No,” Layla says, unconcerned.  

“Not yet,” Zach says. “Just a question of who asks first.”

Warren’s heart stutters, and he swallows back a “What?”

Luckily, Stronghold has less restraint. “What?” he says, like he wasn’t ogling another girl 0.2 seconds ago.

Zach looks at Stronghold like, Are you kidding? “Layla’s hot,” he says slowly. Magenta nods in agreement. “Chen, Robinson, and Feinstein are all thinking about asking.”

“And those are just the ones we’ve heard about,” Magenta says.

“Where are you guys getting this intel?” Ethan says. “We’re your only friends.”

“You can hear a lot from the inside of a locker,” Zach says.

“Or from the vents,” Magenta adds.

“Who’s still shoving you in a locker?” Layla says, frowning at Zach.

“Don’t deflect,” Magenta says. “Who are you going to take?”

“I don’t know,” Layla says, very pink and very determinedly acting like she’s not. “I didn’t know I had options until right now.”

Warren didn’t know he had competition until right now. In his defense, he deliberately pays as little attention as possible to rest of the Sky High student body, except for the five freshmen who invaded his space last fall and refused to leave. But of course other guys want to ask Layla.

Fuck.

“What about you, Bucky Barnes?” Zach says, throwing Warren an upward nod. “Got your eye on any hot junior goths we don’t know about?”

Warren scowls. “No.”

“Warren’s too cool for school dances,” Magenta says.

Stronghold frowns. “He took Layla to homecoming.”

“Only to make you jealous,” Layla is quick to correct.

Warren’s eyes snap over to her, but Layla isn’t looking at him. Just stabbing at her salad with her fork and letting her hair partially obscure her still pink cheeks.

An uncomfortable, sour feeling settles in Warren’s stomach. He makes himself look back at Zach. “I don’t do school dances. I have a thing anyway.”

“What thing?” Magenta says.

“A thing,” Warren says, with enough finality that even Zach knows better than to push it.

That is, until Stronghold corners Warren at his locker after final period to ask, “What thing do you have to do instead of Winter Formal?”

Warren continues loading books into his backpack. “A thing.”

Stronghold, in a bid for Warren’s full attention, shuts his locker door. As soon as Warren turns a glare on him, the kid goes bug-eyed.

“I am so sorry!” he says, reaching out to open the locker, only to remember that, duh, it’s Warren’s and he can’t. “I don’t know why I did that.”

“You’re an idiot.”

Warren must be spending too much time with Layla, because instead of picking Stronghold up by his shirt collar, he merely swats Stronghold’s hand away and unlocks his locker.

“It was only—I know someone who was hoping you’d ask them to Winter Formal,” Stronghold says, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

Warren fixes Stronghold with a flat expression. “You’re not my type.”

For an aspiring superhero, Stronghold flusters extremely easily. “Wh—not me!” he says, and then leans in and lowers his voice. “You know.”

Warren, who is not in the business of getting his hopes up—no matter how many summersaults his stomach is doing—raises his eyebrows.

“Layla,” Stronghold murmurs, so low that Warren has to read his lips.

Summersaults, cartwheels, handsprings. Warren’s stomach is performing a full-on gymnastics routine. “Did she tell you that?”

“No,” Stronghold admits, and Warren’s stomach immediately flops. “But I am something of an expert on Layla Williams.”

Warren, who has an entire September’s worth of evidence to the contrary, makes a psh noise.

Stronghold squares his shoulders and ticks off on his fingers: “She hangs out at the Lantern all the time. She eats lunch with you, alone, every other day. The way she talks about you—”

“She talks about me?”

“Dude.” Stronghold lays a hand on Warren’s shoulder, looking so delighted with the irony that it takes everything in Warren not to ignite. “You’re so stupid. She’s totally into you.”

“Don’t touch me.”

“Right.” Stronghold’s hand immediately slides off. “Seriously, though. If you don’t ask Layla to the dance, someone else will.”

“Noted,” Warren says, like he isn’t already tying himself into knots over that exact possibility.

“You’re gonna ask her, then?”

Warren heaves a sigh. He can’t believe he’s about to confide in Will Stronghold, of all people, but at this juncture it seems like the path of least resistance. “I have tickets to something that night, and I want to ask Layla to go with me.”

Stronghold has the audacity to look innocently perplexed. “So, why haven’t you?”

“I’m, you know.” Warren pushes back his hair. “Waiting for the right time.”

Stronghold looks dubious. “It’s a date, not a prom-posal.”

“I know that,” Warren snaps.

Stronghold blinks, and something seems to click in his head. His expression goes slightly amused and, even worse, sympathetic. “You’re nervous.”

“I am not,” Warren says, but it sounds like a lie even to his own ears. “I’m just waiting for the right moment.”

“Okay, well.” Stronghold blows out a breath and puts his hands on his hips. “Any chance the right moment might be, like, today? Around now-ish?”

Warren narrows his eyes. “Why?”

“Because Magenta texted me five minutes ago that Andrew Chen is standing next to our bus, waiting for Layla.”

Warren’s heart lurches. “You should have led with that, Christ.” Guess he’s doing this now. Is he really doing this now? He has to, so he is. Warren slams his locker and swings his bag over his shoulder. “Where is Layla?”

“Magenta said she stayed after class to talk to Mr. Boy about—oh, okay, then. Bye! Good luck!” Stronghold calls after Warren’s retreating figure as he strides off down the hall.

Warren is so preoccupied with figuring out what he’s going to say to Layla when he finds her that he nearly runs into her as she exits Mr. Boy’s classroom.

“Warren,” she says, blinking up at him in surprise. “Hi.”

Warren, who suddenly feels like he’s stepped on stage with no lines prepared, takes a second to remember how to breathe before he gets out a “Hi.”

Layla stares up at him expectantly. Right. He’s supposed to say more words.

“I wanted to talk to you about something.”

A pucker forms between Layla’s eyebrows. “Sure. I actually wanted to talk to you, too.”

Warren clenches the tickets between sweat-damp fingers in his pocket. “Okay. Do you want to…” He jabs a thumb over his shoulder at the mostly empty hallway.

“Okay.”

Layla follows him out into the hall, and they stand in semi-awkward silence until Warren says, “You first.”

“All right.” Layla tucks her hair behind her ears. She already looks embarrassed. Not good. “So, I might be way off base here, but I get the feeling you’ve been working yourself up to asking me to Winter Formal?” Her voice lilts up like a question, but she must find all the confirmation she needs in Warren’s expression, because she immediately continues, “and I just wanted to make it clear that you don’t have to.”

When Warren opens his mouth, “Oh” is all that comes out.

“Yeah.” Layla hooks her thumbs through the straps of her backpack. “I know school dances aren’t really your thing—and they’re not exactly mine, either. So I didn’t want you to think homecoming set some sort of precedent, that you have to ask—”

“I wanted to ask you,” Warren says, finally unsticking his throat.

It’s Layla’s turn for surprised silence. It takes a full two seconds for her to get out, “You did?”

“Yeah, but—not to the dance. Here.” Warren pulls the tickets out of his pocket. His thumb has smudged the ink of the top ticket, so he hands the bottom one to Layla. “Town hall is holding a fundraiser gala next Saturday to raise money to build a park on an empty lot in my neighborhood.”  

Layla takes the ticket in both hands and stares down at it.

“There’s going to be food and music and dancing,” Warren says, heart rate accelerating. “I think they’re going to auction off dedications for benches and flower beds and stuff. There will probably be a couple boring speeches by some government officials, but.” He shoves his hands in his pockets and shrugs. “I dunno. It sounded like it could be fun.”

Layla still hasn’t said anything, and Warren’s heart is throwing a fit in his ribcage, so he adds, “It’s the night of Winter Formal, though. So if you wanted to go to the dance with someone else and hang out with your friends, I totally—”

“No,” Layla says, looking up at him with bright eyes and a wide smile. “I’d love to go.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” Warren says, too overcome by the cold flood of relief pooling in his gut to say anything more substantive than, “Cool.”

Layla carefully slots her gala ticket into the front pocket of her backpack. “Took you long enough,” she says, angling a teasing smile at Warren. “I couldn’t take another week of you opening your mouth like you were going to ask me something and then not saying anything.”

“Thank Stronghold,” Warren says, wondering what his life has come to, that those words just came out of his mouth. Must be the generosity of giddy relief.

Layla’s nose scrunches up in tickled confusion. “Why?”

“He warned me that Chen was gonna ask you to the dance this afternoon,” Warren says. “Sort of lit a fire under my ass.”

“But Andrew—” Layla breaks off with a laugh and shakes her head. “Will.”

“What?”

Layla takes Warren’s hand and starts walking them down the hall. “Andrew Chen’s been sick with the flu all week,” she says. “He’s not even here today.”

Warren’s mouth hangs open for a few seconds. “Stronghold.”

Layla laughs again and swipes her thumb across the back of Warren’s hand, and a great, soft warmth blooms in Warren’s chest.

Well. If he has to be indebted to Will Stronghold for something, this is as good a favor as Warren could have asked for.

Misconception No. 5: Warren Peace is not a touchy-feely person.

Warren himself would have sworn by this one, until a month ago. He has never, in all his life, considered himself a cuddly person. By any stretch.

It turns out that in order to identify as a cuddly person, you need someone to cuddle. Or, more specifically, someone you have permission to cuddle.

Dating Layla Williams finally gives Warren that permission.

He expected it to be harder, weirder, more awkward to transition from being someone who looks at Layla and thinks I want to put my arm around you, to being a person who can actually reach behind her back and curl his fingers over her hip bone.

It’s not hard at all. The first time Layla kisses Warren, up on her toes with her hands fisted in the lapels of his suit, in the dark of her front porch after the fundraiser gala, there’s a shift. A gravitational kick that sends them into closer orbit around one another, so that now it’s routine for Warren to wrap Layla in his jacket and tuck her into his side as they walk. Steal her hand to press her knuckles to his lips. Knock his knee gently against hers under their picnic table.

“Who knew Warren Peace was such a cuddle bug,” Magenta says, tipped back in a papasan chair to peer at Warren upside-down.

Warren is sitting on the shag carpet of Stronghold’s basement with his back against the couch to let Layla play with his hair while they talk over a movie. She’s just tied off an elaborate braid, so now his cheek is resting against her knee while she twirls the fine hairs at the nape of his neck around her fingers.  

“Call me ‘cuddle bug’ ever again and I’ll roast you like a marshmallow,” Warren says, too sleepy and comfortable to put any real heat behind the threat.

Magenta, true to form, doesn’t so much as blink. “Hate to break it to you, but an elegant Dutch braid kind of undermines your whole tough-guy act.”

Warren simply shrugs. It’s an occupational hazard of dating Layla, spending a lot more time around her—their?—friends outside school. Warren resisted at first, but at this point, it’s more exhausting to continue holding them all at arm’s length than to let them have the run of his life.

“Layla, in general, kind of undermines his whole tough-guy act,” Zach says. “You know he wrote her a poem for Valentine’s day.”

“Read her a poem,” Warren says. What else was he supposed to do? He couldn’t very well get Layla clipped flowers.

“That’s still sappy as hell, dude,” Ethan says.

“It was very sweet,” Layla says, leaning forward to plant a kiss on Warren’s forehead.

Warren unsuccessfully tries to bite back a smile.

“He’s preening so hard right now, oh my god,” Magenta says.

“Shut up.”

“Don’t tease him, or he won’t come back,” Layla says, but Warren hears the smile in her voice.

“Please. He’d go anywhere you go,” Magenta says, and as Layla’s fingertip traces the shell of Warren’s ear gently, always gently, Warren doesn’t even attempt to contradict her.

+1 Misconception: Layla Williams is a just happy, go-lucky hippy chick.

Outside Layla’s bedroom window, everything green is tucked under snow and the weight of waiting for spring. On the other side of the world, everything is burning.

Record-setting wildfires have raked Australia for weeks. Neither Layla nor her mom can directly feel what’s happening to the outback. But Layla knows her mom must sense it like she does, every time a singed koala or graveyard of splinterlike tree trunks appears on the news: a gnawing sensation that something on the far edges of her mind is vanishing into smoke.

The worst part is knowing there’s nothing Layla can do. Even if she had the means to get to Australia, there’s no way to salvage the aftermath of a forest fire. Layla wields incredible power over living organisms. But it’s like conducting an orchestra. Not much to be done if the entire ensemble is already dead when she takes the stage.

Actually, the real worst part is knowing that the inferno currently eating up Australia isn’t an outlier. The warming world is parching landscapes and revving up hurricanes, and every weather-related threat to her beloved biosphere is only going to get much, much worse. It makes Layla feel horribly, inescapably small.

To avoid sitting around the house and chewing her nails down, Layla takes on more volunteer shifts at the animal shelter. Helps Magenta with outreach for the Shapeshifting Students Association. Spends a couple Saturdays with the local river cleanup volunteer crew. Cooks dinner on the nights her mom is actually home. Overstudies for an exam in Hero Support.

It’s all a good distraction, but at the price of exhaustion. Layla feels emotionally sore. Like she’s been doing the psychological equivalent of running springs.

Case in point: “Layla?”

Layla blinks herself out of her middle-space-stare at the picnic table. “Hmm?”

Warren frowns. “I said, are you coming to the Lantern tonight?”

“Oh, no,” Layla says, and winces her apology. “Will’s coming over to study for Hero Support.”

“Why? You’re gonna ace that thing.”

“I promised Will I’d help him review.”

Warren’s frown deepens.

“What?”

“You should take a break,” he says.

Layla hides a yawn behind one hand and waves the other dismissively. “I’m fine.”

Warren gives her a flat look. Most of his expressions are pretty flat, but Layla has gotten good at reading the subtleties. This one says, quit your bullshit.

“What?” she says.

“You—” Warren spends a couple seconds struggling to find the right words. “Your hair is in a ponytail.”

Layla replays that in her overtired mind, wondering whether she heard correctly. “Excuse me?”

“No sparkly clip things. No scrunchies. You didn’t even do the thing where you wrap a little piece of hair around the elastic to hide it,” Warren says, as though that clarifies anything. When Layla’s expression makes clear that it does not, Warren sighs. “Babe. You’re exhausted.”

“Am not,” Layla says, and feels totally betrayed by her own body when the words are stretched out by a yawn. “Coincidence,” she says, in response to Warren’s unimpressed eyebrow-raise.

“Layla.”

“It’s fine,” she insists.

“Take a break,” Warren says, more insistently. “Stronghold can survive cramming for one exam on his own. Let baby bird learn to fly.”

“He’ll drop like a rock,” Layla says mournfully.

“Probably,” Warren says. “But you don’t have to be there for everyone all the time.”

Layla studies her bitten nails. “It makes me feel better.”

Warren’s ever-warm hands take hold of Layla’s, making her look up. But whatever he has in mind to say is interrupted by the bell. Warren gives her fingers a brief squeeze before releasing them, so that they can collect their things.

“Tell Stronghold to find himself another tutor so you can have a night off,” Warren says, hooking an arm over Layla’s shoulders as they head for the front doors. “Please.”

Layla does not. Which is why, when she says “come in” to the soft knock on her bedroom door at eight o’clock, she expects Will. Instead, she gets Warren, hovering on the threshold with his usual carefully concealed uncertainty, like he’s a vampire who has to wait to be invited in.

“What are you doing here?” Layla says, sliding off her bed. “I thought you had work.”

“Got someone to cover my shift,” Warren says. He’s holding what looks like a magazine. “This was more important.”

“What is… this?” Layla says. “You know Will’s going to be here any minute.”

“No, he’s not,” Warren says. “He’s at Magenta’s”

Layla narrows her eyes. “What did you do?”

“Told him to go find another study partner,” Warren says. “Since you’re already prepared.”

Layla crosses her arms and sinks her weight into one hip. “I told you, I want to help.”

Warren adjusts his grip on the magazine. Layla hears the paper stick to the sweat on his fingertips, but his determined expression doesn’t change. “Then help me.”

Layla blinks. “With what?”

Warren holds up what turns out to be a gardening catalog. “I want to get my mom a couple of indoor plants for her birthday,” he says. “Something pretty but doesn’t require a lot of attention, because she’s gone so much. I thought maybe you could help.”

Layla stares at him. “I love shopping for potted plants,” she says slowly.

Warren exhales a short laugh. “Uh, yeah, I know. And you are a good teacher, so.”

He rolls the catalog up between his hands and looks at Layla with guarded hope that shoots a bolt of affection like heat lightning straight through her stomach. She needs to sit down.

“Come in, then,” she says, and ushers him through the door. While Warren is taking off his shoes, “Just so we’re clear, you are not going to make a habit of rearranging my schedule behind my back.”

Warren stands up straight, dead serious. “Got it.”

Layla indulges a smile and leans up to kiss him. “I’ll forgive you this time, though.”

They sit on Layla’s bed, flipping through Warren’s catalog, as well as a stack of magazines that Layla has pulled out from under her desk. Warren loops his arms around her waist and hooks his chin over her shoulder, listening intently while she explains the care and keeping of flowers. It’s comfortable and easy and requires just enough idle attention to avoid falling into a slump. Layla could do this forever, she thinks.

Not an hour later, Layla is lying with her chin propped on her hands, which are folded over Warren’s chest, struggling to keep up conversation through yawns of increasing frequency.

“You can go to bed, you know,” Warren says, dryly amused, and tucks a strand of hair that has fallen out of Layla’s loose ponytail behind her ear.

“I might fall asleep right here on top of you, if you keep talking about it,” Layla says, closing her eyes and pillowing her cheek on her hands.

She feels, rather than hears Warren’s hitched inhale, and suddenly feels more acutely awake than she has all week.

Three seconds pass before Warren murmurs, “You can. If you want.”

Layla very carefully keeps her body relaxed and does not open her eyes to avoid breaking the fragile moment. “Mmm-kay,” she says, and adjusts to find a slightly more comfortable position. “Goodnight.”

“Night,” Warren says, one hand splayed between her shoulder blades, his other thumb smoothing the hair back at her temple.

Layla is so keenly aware of every point of contact that she thinks she might stay awake after all. But within minutes, the soft touch pulls her down into sleep.

[lthasablog]

The Pop Culture Essence of 2019 -- Part I: Movies

The mere existence of the year 2019 is a mystery to me. One need not do more than glance at Twitter, or just have a conversation with a friend, to notice that this year was unique in its ability to torture anyone who had the nerve to exist.  Perhaps it was the horrors of the Trump presidency or the snuffing out of black lives like so many candles in the wind.  Maybe it was the government-sanctioned camps cruelly detaining the most vulnerable or the existential threat of climate change bearing down on us all with intense inevitability.  No matter the reason, I think we can all agree that 2019 has been the absolute worst and can die in a fire. 

Now, It is no surprise that the artists who supply our pop culture took full advantage of the one thing 2019 supplied in spades: chaos.  It has been one hell of a year and, most often, I chose to handle my feelings by escaping into movies, television, music and podcasts. To prove to myself that I didn’t waste an entire year of my life, I thought I would take this opportunity to distill the essence of 2019 into a list of the pop culture moments that most personify what 2019 meant to me.  If you’re reading this, I hope that you learn a little something about me and how I see the world.  And maybe, just maybe, you’ll have a little fun.  After all, the real joys of 2019 are the distractions we found along the way.

Before we begin, a small preface — I really enjoy writing but I have never thought that I might have an audience for my work until just now.  I’ve seen some of my peers publish their work online to great readership and personal success.  I’m looking at you, Lincoln.  Don’t worry, I’m not even going to attempt to write down my thoughts about debate, so your domain is safe.  That said, if you all like this, then I’ll post more.  If not, I will probably post more anyway.

Oh and also, I will only be writing about things I have seen and/or heard for myself.  While I steep myself in all things pop culture like it’s my job, I do not feel it intellectually honest to analyze or critique a work with which I have no personal experience.  Also, 2019 is, sadly, not over yet.  There are many things that would likely be on this list that I just have not had the opportunity to see yet!  Queen and Slim, Little Women, Cats (because, like, why and how?), Just Mercy, The Farewell, Uncut Gems and so many others come to mind.  So if I leave out some of your favorites, or you just flat out disagree with what I have written here, great!  I welcome the opportunity to discover new things and to have an open, civil discourse on mainstream culture.

Part I:  The Movies That Defined 2019

Let’s begin with movies.  As for every part of this essay, this list in no particular order.  So, here are the movies I think most reflect the ouvre of 2019.  Oh, and there are some mild spoilers ahead for many items in pop culture, so continue at your own risk.

Hustlers

Immediately after leaving the movie theater, I began telling everyone who would listen, and some who really did not want to, that we were now living in a post-Hustlers world.  Perhaps it was the soundtrack.  I mean, it is just full of songs which effortlessly evoke the energy of a post-2007/2008 financial crisis New York which reverberated throughout the rest of America in myriad ways.  Casting Jennifer Lopez as a dancer in a popular New York strip club, and making her a supporting character in your movie is a major flex. Introducing Lopez’s character, Ramona, by showing her bring down the house to Fiona Apple’s iconic 1996 song, “Criminal” is a stroke of movie-making genius unparalleled by any I have seen in recent memory.  Once you get over the majesty of that scene, Hustlers takes the viewer on a thrill ride that can only truly be understood by those who have spent their lives being underestimated by society and yearning to steal back just a fraction of what they are rightly owed.  Watch out for your wallets in 2020; we’re living in a post-Hustlers world.  Oh also, this movie could NEVER have worked if it were directed by a man.  Hollywood, take note.

Us

Jordan Peele’s follow-up to his brilliant debut film Get Out is a weird, winding and wonderful story from beginning to end.  While the movie may not have fully fleshed out its mythology as did its predecessor, Get Out, I definitely left the theater with more questions than when I entered.  One may find it impossible not to get lost in the metatext of Peele’s take on class divides in the United States and the nation’s many broken promises to black America.  Also, Lupita Nyong’o’s dual performances as Adelaide and Red are worth the price of admission!  She is truly one of the best actresses of our generation and you know that we are truly living in a bleak timeline when an Academy Award winning performer of her caliber can still be considered underrated by the media meritocracy.

Avengers: Endgame

And now for something completely different…Okay yeah, I know, it’s a comic book movie.  However, I will not apologize for the fact that Avengers: Endgame was, by far, the best movie-going experience I had all year.  The movie is a marvel, no pun intended, in storytelling, quality of performances and the never ending capitalist machine that is the Marvel and Disney partnership.  When you think about it, it is truly awe-inspiring that the folks at Marvel sketched out a decade-long plan that actually worked.  Endgame delivered near non-stop thrills and emotion, save perhaps the scene between Black Widow and Hawkeye on Vormir.  I don’t think I need to say too much more about this one, especially given that the people have spoken with their dollars, as the movie has set a box office record, with grossed $2.797 billion worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo.  Also, isn’t it just beautiful when a plan comes together?  Honorable mention goes to Captain Marvel, Marvel’s first lady-led feature.  I do hope that the promise of Endgame’s seeming pivot to passing the torch to black, women and queer characters actually bears some fruit.  A changing of the guard is definitely in order and I am eagerly awaiting Marvel’s next phase.

Midsommar

Warning:  Do not break up with Ari Aster.  If you do, he might write a film wherein the avatar for his ex will face some nightmarish comeuppance.  All kidding aside, Midsommar is definitely not for everyone.  The film is a portrait of grief, mental illness and isolation, all set against an idyllic Sweedish backdrop.  It is a horror film, but it almost defies genre.  While most horror films deal in hiding the monsters in dark corners and opt for jump scares, Astor chooses instead to bathe all of the wretchedness of his characters in sunlight, and many monsters lurk in plain sight.  In Midsommar, you can see everything with a cold clarity, and that alone is disorienting.  The most terrifying part of Midsommar is that you will walk away questioning the motives and sincerity of every person in your life, while also reevaluating your previous notions of community and what it means to be a part of something larger than yourself.  If that is not the perfect allegory for 2019, I don’t know what is.

High Flying Bird

Tarell Alvin McCraney’s screenplay for High Flying Bird is deep, funny and thought-provoking.  That said, it was greatly elevated by performances from the tragically underappreciated André Holland, and rising star Zazie Beetz.  Set during an NBA lockout, Holland’s sports agent, Ray Burke, begins the film by discovering that all of his company credit cards have been frozen, and that his job hangs perilously in the balance due to a situation over which he seemingly has no control.  Watching Holland navigate the NBA brass, his player clients and the media with a demure and suaveness typically only reserved for the DiCaprios or Pitts of the world is not only refreshing, but necessary.  Beetz lends heart and charasma to the film, playing Burke’s assistant, Sam.  Beetz’s character motivations are clear yet ever-evolving.  She gets to be complex, smart and just cool.  It is also really interesting to see a movie lend voice to the idea that if professional athletes ever just decided to unite and refuse to play by the rules of the NBA or the NFL, those in power who profit from their labor would become nearly powerless.  It’s a pretty cool premise and frankly, you love to see it.

Parasite

I only recently saw Parasite, but I now understand what all the hype is about.  It is difficult to know for sure what director Bong Joon-ho, and his writing partner Han Jin-won who helped Bong pen the screenplay, meant for the audience to take away from this film.  Now, I do not want to spoil it for those who may not have seen it.  In many ways, Parasite is the long lost sibling of Us.  Both movies are tales of the upstairs/downstairs nature of class division.  While Peele examines America, Bong gives American audiences a glimpse into the haves and have-nots of a Korean city, and its literal highs and lows.  While the Parks are an affluent family who live in their own city which is at the top of an actual hill, the poverty-stricken Kims, meanwhile, live in a literal subterranean basement.  This makes the Kims’ quest to improve their lot in life a true social climb.  Also present in Parasite is the inescapable reality of climate change, along with the stark contrast on how its effects on the rich are inherently disparate to those on the poor.

Now for the movie grab bag…

These are films that I think capture something of the spirit of 2019, but in a manner explicable in a few sentences or less.  They are:

-Glass:  So much promise…so little pay off.  I mean, apparently one of the heroes’ kryptonite is puddles…

-Ready or Not:  Who among us would not hunt down wealthy, would-be murders in a wedding gown that is sleek, yet allows for a shocking amount of mobility?  

-Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood and The Irishmen:  I was surprised by how “whelmed” I was by these films.  Perhaps they warrant a rewatch, because I truly love Tarantino’s work and I grew up idolizing Scorsese.  To me, these are quintessential dad films.  That’s not a knock on dads or dad films, it’s just not where I am right now…

-Marriage Story:  Loved it.  I’ll simply say this – For your consideration:  Adam Driver and Laura Dern.

-Joker:  This movie was a pastiche of 70s and 80s era Scorsese films, which took itself far too seriously for me to give it any serious consideration.  Was this movie unflinchingly a product of 2019?  Yes.  It thrived on the buzz, provided by the dual weapons of entertainment writers and social media.  The whole origin story of a white terrorist thing was cute.  Was Joaquin Phoenix’s performance good?  Sure, it really was.  However, I liked the character better when he played it in The Master, or Her…I think you get what I’m going for here.

Next up, television!  I think this might be my favorite category.  Be on the lookout for part two.  Check out LT Has a Blog.  Yeah, I know, but I wanted the name to be a statement of fact.  ‘Til next time!

LT