#drawing sixty: evil.

[they-call-me-youngermoney]

rk boys video chat !!!

(just an excuse to draw them at slightly unflattering angles) (also to draw nines bundled up in a blanket)

day 7 of @starryeyedstray's dbh prompt list ['rk series']

[shapelytimber]

Ok hear me out.......... wlw Wilhuff Tarkin and Orson Krennic-

the dynamic very much is unhinged creative vs rigid control freak in a context of evil bureaucracy- and personally the context is why I love to read stories with imperials jdjdkd nothing is more crack cocaine literature for me than to make drama in a space office filled with awful people

More flavor text and me trying to sell you on why this ship of two truly terrible people is great below vvv

For Krennic, lean more into the evil genius artist. She's been up for 46 hours straight drawing schematics, she's rambling about incomprehensible shit, her only meals have been cigarettes and energy drinks, she's so full of herself she might one day think she's god, she's gonna die by 60. She doesn't care much about the politics of the empire, but they don't bother her either. She works for the imperials because they have a lot funds to give to engineers willing to build them a battle station the size of a moon capable of blowing up planets. Before that she worked on a lot a architectures on imperial center/Coruscant.

The imperial uniforms are a bit boring- so I'm taking full advantage of the fact Krennic is more of an engineer/architect to tweak her uniform a bit (and the cape was already not respecting regulations sooooo) For Tarkin I'm keeping it tho, this woman won't be caught dead without it.

For Tarkin, lean less into the whole buff survivalist aspect- she very much was in her youth, but she *is* a 65 year old woman based on *Peter Cushing*, and has been in a very high and prestigious position within the empire for the past 20 years. She still as an extensive knowledge on how to survive in nature, and fight with her bare hands or a knife, but that doesn't come up very often in her line of work anymore. She still killed a space bear unharmed when she was like 17 tho. She hates chaos and developed the main philosophy that drove the empire to this day : to govern with fear and impose order. She is a bloodthirsty woman in her sixties, with a never ending hunger for power, currently cheating on her wife with a coworker she hates.

They both love the death star more than they tolerate each other, but they did end up bonding over plotting the demise of one coworker they couldn't stand and digging out rebel spies. Make no mistake tho, this is very much a love triangle/trouple between two women and a giant battle station.

In the end, Tarkin killed Krennic by shooting her from orbit with the death star, the project was finally finished, she didn't need her anymore and she might have gotten in the way of her control of the station.

Tarkin dies a few days later during the battle of Yavin, along the death star, not willing to back down in her moments of glory.

PS : a lot of this is inspired by the fic "Propagating structure" by oneinspats ! it's what made me like and understand this pairing, and is truly a great work of fiction. I really think this fic is a masterful work when it comes to expending the character of Krennic, and extrapolating on existing things. Exploring his more creative side, his passion for his work, his truly abysmal lifestyle, giving him a hatred of nature and a background as an architect on Coruscant. While also keeping his horrific aspects, like reading his internal (or external) monologues sometimes makes my skin crawl with how disgusting his ideas are and how deep they run, but making him an interesting and compelling protag for the story. While all of it is surrounded by this delicious dramatic irony, because we know that no matter how hard they try to scheme (or fuck), the death star will blow up and it's incredible.

[duexnuts]

she's my collar | choso x reader ⋆˙⟡

context: all characters are adults!

ch 1: scotty doesn't know | mlist | next ch.

“this is the fifth time you’ve forgotten to pay the venue, nobara,” you whisper to nobara, while she argues with the club owner.

she glares at you, as the club owner continues to scold, saying that your band may be banned from playing again if the fee isn’t paid. 

“mr. yaga, please understand we barely made any money this time, i mean this is barely enough for me to eat dinner tonight-”

you stopped listening after she started talking about how she also “needs” a new outfit for the next show. instead, you go back out to the stage and help yuji and megumi clean up.

“oh, y/n!” yuji runs over to you, smiling, “do you want to go with megumi and i to get ramen? he’s paying.”

while handing megumi’s bass guitar to him, you reply, “i don’t think i’m going to be able to make it. nobara said she wants to see the show after us and they seem pretty cool.”

yuji smiles before speaking again, “my brother's group!! i love them.”

nobara walks over to your group, boasting about how she got the club owner to allow for you guys to not pay the venue fee for the next three shows as long as your band draws in at least a crowd of sixty each time (which is supposedly easy because of her awesome singing). people begin walking in, sitting down for the next show as your group finishes cleaning up and go back stage. 

“i’ll see you later, y/n,” megumi says, placing a kiss on your cheek before leaving with yuji. 

after waving bye to your friends, you and nobara go to the bar and get drinks while waiting for the next set to come on. she way too many drinks and excuses herself to the bathroom to go vomit. you had offered to come with her, but she insisted that you didn’t need to because “club bathrooms are the BEST place to make friends with other drunk girls” and that you needed to wait, because “next time you see me, i’ll have the instagram of like, three other girls.”

after you finish your martini, a man with shaggy black pigtails walks over to you, “buy you another drink?”

you offer him a warm smile, “oh, no thank you. i’m okay, i can buy myself drinks.”

he signals the bartender to give you another drink anyway, “a girl as beautiful as you shouldn’t need to buy themselves drinks.”

“oh, i'm flattered but i have a boyfriend,” you reply, an image of megumi flashing in your mind as you take in every bit of the man in front of you– his sharp jawline, perfectly messy eyeliner, and toned body. the bartender sets down another martini in front of you. 

he chuckles in response, “well, he doesn’t have to know, does he?”

he moves a bit closer to you, leaning into your ear and saying, “stay after the show, okay?” before walking away.

unknowingly, a blush had crept on your face. you shake it off and turn away from the bar to go check up nobara, however she finds you first.

“i told you i would have three instagrams, i actually have five!” she says, her words slurred and her body slightly swaying.

“anyway, why were you talking to choso?” she says

“oh my, that was yuji’s brother?” you ask, “he just came to tell me to watch the show! they’re probably like us, you know? they need more people so that yaga doesn’t get mad at them.”

“yuji hasn’t introduced him yet? that mr. yaga is SO evil, like doesn’t he know we’re an up and coming band? he should be happy we’re here because when we’re famous…” she continues to rant about mr. yaga as you both head towards the stage, where choso’s band, the downtimers, just finished setting up. 

the lights turn purple and red as a pink-haired guy introduces the band and begins playing. 

as they began playing, you could not help but stare at choso– who saw your glances and just winked in response. you love your boyfriend, but something about choso’s bass playing was just so much more attractive; it had genuine passion. you watched every sweat drop that came off of him as he played, how his fingers moved just right to strum the guitar, and how he knew how to perfectly interact with his bandmates on stage. 

you knew choso was attractive, but you also had your loving boyfriend. 

so, when the show ended, you had a choice– going back stage or going home to your shared apartment. you chose the first option, telling nobara that you forgot your jacket backstage, which was true, but not your main motivation for going back there. 

“do you want me to wait for you?” she asked.

“oh no, its okay. i can just walk home, my apartment’s right around the corner,” you replied, before heading backstage. 

once you were backstage, you greeted choso again.

“oh, hey miss ‘i have a boyfriend,’” he said, before sitting down on a couch, patting the spot next to him.

you sit down with him and say, “i won't tell if you don't tell,” before kissing him.

a/n: giggling rn this was so fun to write

[myfaveisfuckable]

Xie Lian:

he looks more unassuming in his setting than in general but oh man is he not, this man is weirrrrd like Weird weird, he met a guy on a cart who he knew was like a super evil ghost man and not only did he decide to ignore the fact that he was that super evil ghost man, he eventually ended up marrying him! who does that? also, he collects trash for a living! and out of him and his ghost husband he's arguably the weirder one! he's literally a god and he dresses like that (imagine that in italics) absolutely wild. also he's obsessed with swords and is on good terms with the guy who stabbed him and trapped him in a coffin for 100 years but he draws the line at his annoying cousin (who does do really bad stuff as a ghost but he disliked him before that). overall he's just, wow.

Dokja:

1. Introduced as a bland everyman only made exceptional by circumstance, slowly revealed to be the most batshit, suicidally depressed, bisexual maniac in existence. Uses self-sacrifice like a tool and is completely unaware of how beloved he is by the people he keeps pulling into his fold because he is so deeply and utterly convinced that he is fundamentally unlovable. He's like sixty foundational traumas stacked in a trench coat and he's always sixty steps ahead of everyone else and he loves the people he chooses so so dearly and people keep calling him ugly even though he's canonically pretty average and holy shit dude get some therapy please

2. He looks like a neet-pulled office worker. Spoilers: turns out to be one of the oldest things in the world and the only being keeping it going and alive. He needs to be there to keep the world going. Also, he got like kind of adopted by Persephone and hades. Like his blorbo is real and in love with him. But this man looks so average that people call him ugly to his face just because he’s surrounded by absolute gorgeous people.

3. do NOT let the pretty official art fool u. this is the most average 28 year old salaryman going through the absolute most in the apocalypse. ORV is a story about the most average man on earth with the most mundane, depressing life. and one story that he read to cope with it all. he's just some guy, but he is also the most beloved specialest guy. not because he had some hidden talent. just because he loved a story ferociously and also he likes getting in trouble on purpose. he is the most unreliable narrator you will ever find. every piece of the universe loves him for his average stupid self. you will understand when you read 👍

4. GHBJNKML i am praying someone has sent him in but. unreliable narrator the most ever and also i just. love him so much. orv in itself is such a goo dnovel but like. kim dokja is the definition of love and the most caring person but also he's suffered so much and while. yknow we're introduced to him as a kind of nerd but like. listen he's so fucked up juts LISTEN

[roanofarcc]

PROJECT SUNSHINE CHAPTER SIXTY FIVE → BUT SHE’S A CHEERLEADER!

summary: steve harrington x oc

when another product of Hawkins National Laboratory escaped a long-survived nightmare alongside her sister, she crashed into one unsuspecting teenage boy and dragged him deeper into the dark mysteries that made up their hometown.

word count. 3.7k || masterlist

warnings: cannon typical violence, child abuse, horror, gore, and depictions of mental illness. parts of this story were written pre-season 4 release. cannon divergence.

previous chapter ← → next chapter

Tagged: @sattlersquarry, @leptitlu, @two-sides-samecoin, @adaydreamaway30

Steve hauled another stack of VHS tapes into his arms as Robin paced back and forth, not helping him reshelve the movies but instead ranting about her latest date with Tamera. 

“All I’m saying is, this one felt different! It was less ‘we’re just hooking up’ and more ‘this could be an actual relationship,” she said. Steve listened intently as he slotted a collection of horror movies back onto the shelf. He didn’t understand why anyone would willingly watch those kinds of movies, but he supposed most people in Hawkins hadn’t lived their own real-life version of a horror movie like he had. Maybe they needed the thrill; Steve did not. 

He turned around to grab more tapes but stopped at the look twisted up on Robin’s face, something mixed between unsure and worried. “Isn’t that a good thing? You guys could date for real instead of whatever weird back and forth thing you’ve got going on.” 

Steve knew it was more complicated for Robin and Tamera, especially in Hawkins but they could at least admit their feelings for each other. Robin clearly liked Tamera and wanted something more real than whatever causal situation they found themselves in. Granted, Robin had never been in a relationship before and she had confided in Steve that the idea of dating someone was nerve wracking to her. But she deserved to be happy, and Tamera clearly made her happy. Steve wished she just went for it, all in. 

“Yeah,” Robin said with a sigh, stopping her pacing and resorting to picking at the nail polish Steve had just painted on her nails two days ago. “But even if we do date for real, it’s not like I can take her to the prom without being a headline in the Hawkins Post. If any asshole caught a whiff of us being together, they’d start a witch hunt or some shit.” There was a shield of humor in her voice, but Steve knew Robin well enough to hear the fear that sat behind it.  It pissed him off. 

He knew that Hawkins was riddled with assholes of every kind, but the thought of someone coming after his best friend just because she wanted to date happily made him furious. Monsters and evil scientists once inhabited Hawkins but people wanted to draw pitchforks at two girls holding hands. 

“That’s not happening on my watch, Buckley,” he said with a cheeky smile, bumping his shoulder against hers as he collected another arm full of tapes. 

Robin cracked a small smile before parting her lips like she was going to say something, but something behind Steve caught her eye. She squinted and stepped around him, rushing toward the front counter. 

“What’re you doing?” Steve asked. 

Robin turned the volume up on the TV, causing a familiar Hawkins newscaster’s voice to fill the quiet Family Video store. 

“No names of possible suspects are being released at this time. Chief Powell is yet to make an official statement, but as said he will address the town later this afternoon once he knows more. All we know at this time is that it seems to be an isolated incident.” The scene on the TV shifted away from the newscaster and onto a gurney being wheeled down a dirt and gravel road swarmed by officers and paramedics. There weren’t many places in Hawkins that were unfamiliar to Steve. It only took a moment to recognize where the scene took place as trailer homes appeared in the background of the gurney being lifted in the back of an ambulance. 

“Someone died?” Robin questioned with furrowed brows. 

“The name of the victim will also not be released at this time, but it has been confirmed to be a Hawkins High student. We…” the reporter’s voice droned on, but it became fuzzy on Steve’s ears. 

A Hawkins High student. The trailer park. Steve knew it wasn’t rational to jump to the worst possible case scenario. There were a handful of students who lived in the trailer park, but he only knew one for certain. Max. Out of everyone in Hawkins, the worst things tended to happen to their little group. And maybe it was simply unreasonable paranoia, but he couldn’t help that his mind fell there first. 

Panic swelled in his chest as he turned to Robin. “Max,” he muttered, ready to run right out the door and make sure the redhead he somewhat begrudgingly saw as a little sister was okay. Robin sensed his worry, her own face suddenly as pale as her white knuckles that gripped the remote. 

Steve reached for his keys he left in a space under the counter, but as he did so, the bell on the door chimed and Robin let out a loud breath as she grasped his shoulder and pointed to the people who had just entered. 

Dustin and Max rushed toward the counter, both looking a little winded but otherwise fine. Steve let out his own sigh of relief, running a hand through his hair. How he didn’t have gray hairs already was a mystery to him. It felt like the universe was determined to see how much it could stress him out. 

“How many phones do you have?” Dustin asked. 

Unbelievable, Steve thought. “Someone was murdered-” he started to say, but Dustin, in his usual Dustin fashion, cut him off and repeated the question louder than he had the first time. Steve answered, “Two.” 

“Technically three, if you count Keith’s,” Robin added. 

Max glanced at Dustin, nodding her head almost frantically as she said, “Three works.” 

Without another word, Dustin threw his backpack at Steve a bit too forcefully. He then jumped up on the counter ungracefully, knocking over everything setup to the floor as he slid to the other side and hopped down. Steve threw the kid’s backpack to the ground with a huff and Robin started picking up the scattered papers, tapes, and other items Dustin had sent toppling. 

Max, like a normal person, walked around the counter to get behind it and rolled her eyes. 

“What are you doing?” Steve groaned in a familiar frustration. 

“Setting up a base of operations.” He moved in front of the computer and began clicking around. 

Listen, Steve disliked his job, but he didn’t want to get fired. The pay wasn’t great, but he got to work with Robin. Keith was a grade-A asshole, but he spent most of his time either not in the store or tucked away in the backroom playing video games brought from home. If Steve wanted to save enough money to escape Hawkins, he needed to keep his job, but the kids liked to make that a lot harder than it should have been. 

“Get off,” Steve snapped. “You guys aren’t even allowed to be back here.” He didn’t know why he tried; it wasn’t like they were going to listen to him. 

Dustin replied, “I need it!” 

“For what?” Robin asked, shuffling the fallen papers back into a neat pile. 

“Eddie’s friends’ numbers.” 

If it was possible to roll your eyes so hard they fall out, Steve would have done just that. The mere mention of Eddie pricked his skin, no matter how stupid he knew he was being. “Oh, you mean your new best friend who you think is cooler than me because he plays your nerdy game?” 

Dustin dramatically swung his head to look in Steve’s direction and threw his hands up. “I never said that!” He definitely did, Steve was almost positive. 

“Seriously, guys? Maybe on Monday you can play around here but it’s Saturday. It’s our busiest day,” Robin said. The Family Video store was set to get busy in an hour or two as the weekend rush filled in, looking for movies to watch for date night, sleepovers, and to cure loneliness. 

Dustin returned his attention to the computer, scrolling through a list of customers that had rented from the store before. “I empathize with you, Robin,” he said. “But this can’t wait.” 

“Oh my god,” Steve muttered. What he needed was Sunshine to come home and make the kids actually listen. They only seemed to care about what she had to say or told them to do, but she was still in Indy, much to his disappointment. And now there was a murderer in Hawkins, which made him feel even better. 

“Calling Eddie’s friends is an emergency?” Robin questioned. 

“Correct.” 

Steve moved beside Robin and helped her reorganize the tapes into their correct piles. He asked her, “Do you want me to strangle him, or do you want to?” 

“We could take turns?” 

With an annoyed huff, Dustin asked Max, “Can you fill them in while I do this?” 

Steve and Robin exchanged a confused look before the latter said, “Fill us in on what?” 

→←

The car ride back to Hawkins was tense and quiet, nothing the radio softly playing as the world whirled by. Sunshine fingers had played with the neckline of her shirt, where her necklace should have been, so much that the stitching started to come loose. 

She, Kali, and Calum had changed clothes at some lonely gas station just outside of Indy. Their bloodstained clothes were tossed in a dumpster and forgotten. 

As they rolled past the ‘Welcome to Hawkins’ sign, a headache bloomed behind Sunshine’s eyes. She winced and grasped her head, pressing her fingers into the skin in an attempt to ease the pain just slightly by applying pressure. 

“Where are we going now?” Kali asked, looking for directions as she eyed the road with a hard-set gaze. Her knuckles were white as she held onto the steering wheel. 

Checking the time on her watch, Sunshine knew where Steve and Robin would be for certain. 

She should have arrived home sooner, but it took them more time to escape Indy than she thought. They had to stop once to change their clothes, a second time to eat something, and a third because no one could keep their eyes open long enough to drive safely. After a quick nap, they hit the road in the morning, but Kali avoided the interstate and opted for backroads just in case someone was on their tail. By that time, Sunshine was more than ready to be home. 

“Steve and Robin will be at work. We’ll stop there first before we try to tack down Nancy,” she answered. “Stay on this road until you hit the next stop sign, then make a right.” 

Kali nodded and continued on through her clear discomfort for being back in Hawkins. 

Glancing in the rearview mirror, Sunshine saw Calum, who hadn’t uttered a word since their confrontation in the alley. He sat with his head turned and eyes fixed out the window, lost somewhere inside his head. There was a lot they needed to figure out, both in the grand scheme of things and between the three of them. Sunshine sure the best place to do that was in Hawkins. 

For the longest time, she had felt the need to carry everything on her own shoulders, but since relearning what a normal life was, she had learned to lean on others inside of drowning. They only solved things together, not alone. They defeated monsters together, not by themselves. As long as everyone worked together, she was sure they could put a final end to the Lab and everything else that had occurred as a result of it. 

Sunshine took a deep breath before she turned around and spoke to Calum. “Are you coming with us?” Her voice was careful but not too kind. 

He didn’t look away from the window as he said, “If we find my dad, can I at least talk to him?” His voice, on the other hand, sounded of a hurt child, abandoned and spirit broken. 

Sunshine glanced at Kali, who sighed in response before saying, “I can’t make any promises.” Calum’s figure slumped. “But I won’t say no.” 

It wasn’t much, but in Sunshine knew anything about Calum, if you gave him an inch, he’d try to take a mile. “Okay,” he said, flatly, in agreement to tag along. 

The car fell back into silence, aside from Sunshine’s directions. The sky was bright blue, the kind of color that brought hope after a long and gray winter. Maybe it was a warm welcome home. Her heart was happy to be back with those who she shared it with, but her head arched uncomfortably. She blamed it on a lack of restful sleep and her bout of angry emotions clouding her being. 

“Um, guys?” Calum piped up, leaning between the two front seats with an odd sense of urgency and he squinted out the windshield. He pointed ahead at a helicopter that appeared overhead, a blemish in the pretty sky. The helicopter hovered for a moment, not too far away, just beyond a cluster of trees. They watched for a moment before it started to descend. “That’s a military copter.” 

“How do you know that?” Kali asked. 

“They’re not exactly subtle.” 

Sunshine furrowed her brows. She had only seen a military helicopter once, after Starcourt. Owens and his “backup” had arrived in helicopters. After relocating the Byers-Hopper clan, Owens fell off the map. If he was back in Hawkins, Sunshine felt like she would know about it. Or she had missed something major in the twenty-four hours she had been gone. And with Hawkins' track recorded, that wasn’t impossible. 

Still, she asked the question all three of them were thinking, “Why would the military be in Hawkins?” 

Calum shook his head. “Because this place fucking sucks.” 

Sunshine all but sprinted through the doors of the Family Video store. The bell dinged, signaling a customer's arrival. The usual monotone drone of Steve or Robin’s greeting before they realized it was her and not a regular customer didn’t sound. Instead, a collection of voices filled her ears, and she was welcomed by the sight of Max, Robin, and Dustin all talking on phones. 

It was Max who noticed her first, as she hung up her phone. “Oh, thank God,” the redhead said. 

Steve’s head popped up from behind one of the shelves he seemed to be restocking, and a grin filled his face before he made his way over to Sunshine. Without a word, she hugged him tightly, relief flooding her veins after her troublesome twenty-four hours. He was warm and smelled like a mix of candy, dust, and cologne. Though it had only been a day, she realized how intertwined he and the rest of the group had come in her day-to-day life. 

A low chuckle sounded from Steve before he pressed his lips to the crown of her head. “Miss me that much, Sunshine?” 

She really didn’t want to let go of him, and she wanted to pretend that two people weren’t dead and it was more or less partly her fault. The more she had thought about it, they were probably followed, leading whoever was killing the people from Lab right to the two men. They were playing the same game of revenge as Kali, but Sunshine hadn’t agreed to play. She just wanted answers and to understand the memories she had somehow forgotten. Was it another kid from the Lab like Kali? Was it someone who had worked at the Lab themselves? There were so many unanswered questions it made Sunshine dizzy. 

Leaning back just slightly from her boyfriend, he caught sight of the frown on her lips, which gave her away almost instantly. 

“What’s wrong?” he asked. 

A lot of things, she wanted to answer, but she refrained as Robin hung up her phone with a loud ‘clang’ and said, “Calum?” 

The boy stood awkwardly with his hands in his pockets, leaving a good distance between himself and Kali. “Hey…” 

“Guys! We need to focus!” Dustin shouted. He shot a small smile at Sunshine. “We’re glad you're back, but we’ve got a problem on your hands that we gotta take care of.” 

Sunshine tried to shake off her own issues for a moment, turning her focus on what Dustin had just said. “Problem? What problem?” A pit had been stuck in her stomach since yesterday, but she hoped it would lessen once she arrived home, not get worse. But any issue in Hawkins was almost never small. 

Slinging an arm around Sunshine’s shoulder, pulling her into his side. Between him and Robin, they explained how there had been a murder that morning and Max was almost certain the victim was Chrissy Cunningham, a polite cheerleader who Sunshine had passed by in the halls of Hawkins High. The last person the cheerleader had been seen with, according to Max, was Eddie Munson. Despite that, Dustin was certain Eddie didn’t kill Chrissy. 

“Yeah, there’s no way,” Calum added. “I’ve been in the Hellfire Club with Eddie since freshman year. He’s not a murderer. An asshole sometimes, sure, but not a murderer.” 

Max piped up and said, “But we don’t know that for sure. Which is why we’re trying to find him and figure out exactly what happened last night.” 

Kali, who had been quiet, looked at Sunshine. “So, there’s a murderer on the loose?” 

Of course there was. She begged Kali to come to a place that held the worst years of her life with a promise that it was safer now, only to drag her back into a possibly dangerous situation. She wanted to curse the universe for its awful timing. 

“Not exactly…” Dustin looked hesitant, like he didn’t want to say whatever he was about it. 

“Then what, exactly?” Kali asked. 

He looked between her and Sunshine. “I’m sorry, who is she?” 

“Oh, right,” Sunshine said with a shake of her head. “Everyone meet Kali. Kali, meet everyone.” It was a less than enthusiastic introduction given the circumstances. 

“Kali? Like the Kali who Luke and Leia used to live with?” Max asked, eyes wide. Sunshine nodded in response. 

“Is she up to speed?” asked Dustin. 

It was Sunshine’s turn to be confused. “On what?” 

“We think, maybe, it wasn’t someone who killed Chrissy,” Max started to explain. “We think it might have been…something…” 

Max’s words were heavy, hitting Sunshine with an unknown force she hadn’t been expecting. The headache behind her eyes pulsed, as if it had a heartbeat. Steve’s arm around her shoulder shifted as he said, “Hey.” He brought his hand up to her face, running his thumb under his nose with a face full of pinched concern. When he pulled it away, blood stained the pad of his finger. “Your nose is bleeding?” 

Muttering under her breath, she broke away from Steve and reached for a tissue on the counter. Eyes fell onto her, but none more than Max, who stared at Sunshine with her wide blue eyes almost uncomfortably intense. 

Sunshine tried to shake off any concern. “It was a long night,” she said, blaming her less than ideal trip to Indy as the reason for her nosebleed. They started happening randomly after Starcourt, following the overuse of her abilities. Dr. Owens had blamed it on stress, and Sunshine didn’t have any reason to think otherwise. 

The blood stopped flowing after a moment and she returned her attention to the group. Level headed. She needed to stay level headed. She couldn’t lose it when one of her peers was head and the kids were already ready to get involved. She had promised Kali that Hawkins was different now, and she foolishly tricked herself into believing the same, that maybe that time, the monsters were really gone for good. 

“We shouldn’t jump to conclusions yet,” Sunshine said, looking between Max and Dustin. 

The latter countered. “We don’t exactly have a great track record of something weird not being…you know, almost the end of the world. Something could still be happening here.” 

Robin shook her head. “Even with the gate-thingy closed?” 

Dustin shrugged his shoulders. “The rules we play by are D&D rules, right? But we don’t really know the rules the Upside Down plays by.” 

The mere mention of the Upside Down made her sick to her stomach. Her muscles constricted, remembering the pain of what she felt last summer, holding off the Mind Flayer. 

“I still think we could be jumping the gun here,” Steve said. “We don’t know anything yet.” 

“That’s why we need to find Eddie,” said Max. 

“I know where he probably is,” Calum sighed. “Trust me, there’s only one place he could be.” 

Everyone rushed to gather their belongings to set out in their search for Eddie. Sunshine shoved a handful of tissues in her pocket as Kali approached her. 

“I’m sorry,” were the first words out of Sunshine’s mouth. Her shoulders slumped with tiredness and defeat. “I didn’t know this is what we’d come back to. If you want to leave, I get it.” 

Kali still looked indifferent with her arms crossed over her chest and her black makeup smudged under her dark eyes. “I will never understand your and Jane’s loyalty to this place,” she started. “The Lab is responsible for the messes here. The monsters Jane had told me about, the Upside Down. Yet, you’re still here, cleaning up after them. Why waste your time?” 

Sunshine looked past Kali, looking at Dustin and Max who shouldered their backpacks with steeled determination fixed on their young faces that had seen too much. She looked at Steve, who smiled when he realized she caught him looking at her. And she looked at Robin, who mumbled to herself as she quickly worked to close down the store so they all could leave and look for Eddie, risking her employment for the second time in less than a year to help them out. 

“We’re not loyal to Hawkins,” Sunshine said. “It’s about the people. Our friends. Our family. And because…” she trailed off with a sigh, wearing a sad smile. “Because no one else will.” 

The group all headed for the door, ready to go. Kali shifted in her boots, thinking. “Your friends are leaving,” she said. “We should get going.” 

Sunshine blinked, confused. “You’re coming with us?” 

“For now.” 

That was good enough for Sunshine. 

[heyclickadee]

Okay, here’s the slightly evil, kind of sad, but mostly happy in a somewhat melancholy way (basically just a lot of feelings here) thought I had about Tech and Phee having kids, if that should ever happen:

So, operating under the assumption that Tech comes back, let’s say he and Phee do get together. And let’s say they stay together, and end up more or less space married. Let’s say they both want kids, and, after a lot of discussion about the war going on in the background and how they’re going to raise them and keep them safe, they end up going ahead with it. They don’t really settle down in any one place, but they’ve got their own ship with plenty of room, Pabu (maybe) is a good, stable home base to go back to when needed, and they’ve got a huge family for support. Those kids, if they have more than one, are loved. They have tons of uncles, somebody is always around, maybe some of the other batchers have partners (or not) and also have kids or adopt kids (heck, let’s throw Riyo in there, too, since she and Echo are a popular ship—they end up together but they don’t want kids, but they do a lot of work helping younger clones when they’re not fighting the Empire, Hunter took in several of the clone cadets they rescued from Tantiss, Wrecker is the favorite uncle but Crosshair is the favorite babysitter, they all manage to visit Cut and Suu once in a while, and and both Omega and Lyana are delighted to have little cousins running around (I kind of headcanon that Shep and Lyana kind of adopted Phee into their family after she found Pabu, so even if we’re going with a version of Phee that was formerly a Jedi and and doesn’t really know who her birth parents were, her kids are going to have family on both sides).

And this all exists just as a headcanon for something that could maybe happen after season three, depending on how season three goes, buuuut I like it. It’s just this nice little thought of this big, chaotic family, way bigger than just our six batchers, that’s structured a little weirdly, because clones, and everyone has their problems. but they’re all doing their best for each other and there’s a lot of love in it. And then I started thinking about clone aging.

And we all know clone aging sucks, but: let’s say clones really do age at twice the normal rate once they reach maturity, and let’s say Tech is chronologically, like, twelve but physically in his late twenties. A hard late twenties where he could pass for anything between thirty and fifty, but late twenties all the same. Suppose he gets the best case scenario and manages to live till he’s physically 90. Chronologically, he’ll be around forty-five. So, close to best case scenario, barring dying violently or getting sick, he’s got maybe another thirty-three years in him. That might seem like a lot (and it probably is to a clone), but to put that in perspective, I’m thirty-five. If I die in thirty-three years, I’ll only be sixty-eight—I’ll have died pretty young. And I’ve already been alive almost three times as long as many of the clones have. The clones do not get that much time.

There’s a lot to be explored with that in regards to Phee; I’ll be honest, the potential, “This is going to be over faster than either of us are going to be ready for,” “It is—let’s do it anyway,” is part of why at draws me to the ship, because there’s something a little defiant about two people going into a relationship knowing one of them was built to die faster, and choosing to live their lives how they want despite that. But there’s also a lot to be explored in how Phee and Tech would handle that with their kids. Because—they’d tell them. They’d have to sit down and tell them once they got to a certain age. Tech is going to be lucky to see them hit their twenties. It’s not like they wouldn’t notice their dad and their clone uncles getting old so much faster than their mom, Omega, or their uncle Shep, or anyone else they know. They’d ask questions, and it’s not like Tech wouldn’t be up-front. But I don’t think it’d be an easy conversation for any of them to have.

[pagesfromthevoid]

Okay so I can’t draw worth a damn but I am obsessed with Hazbin Hotel rn so I used this picrew to create a base and then I played around on Canva to create…

Avery!

Avery died in the late sixties, when she was 31, having grown up in a cult-like community. When she broke away in her twenties, she turned to paganism and witchcraft to fill the void that was missing from her life after leaving the cult. Her mother and father sent someone from the community to bring her back, but instead they killed her when they saw her interacting with a crow (she was feeding them) and her killer took that as a sign of evil. They killed the crow as well. She’s in hell because of the witchcraft.

She doesn’t necessarily want to be redeemed, but she doesn’t think it’s fair she’s in hell for something harmless. It’s not like she was cursing or hexing people; she was simply protecting herself and her home. But the hotel is her best bet for understanding from anyone.

As we can see, she’s got crows feet and wings, representing her interaction with the crows and their symbolism in witchcraft. The crow that died with her joined her in hell, and it lives at the hotel. It’ll come when she calls, but it just sort of does its own thing and spends a lot of time on the roof. His name is Poe.

If I could draw, yall would be sooo fucked lmao

[lesbiandonnanoble]

hello! i dont know if there is someone better to ask but youre one of the most prominent dw blogs i can think of: are there any episodes that stand out to you in their discussion or promotion of space colonization? especially using rhetoric of "its human nature to explore" or even religous backing.

if not no worries haha, im just writing a paper and i wanted to use a scifi example!

this is really awful cos you asked this last year and i suck and obviously your paper is already written and i'm so sorry. this ask made me think about how the topic as a whole is approached in the show/the extended universe and this is sort of a poorly done summation of those thoughts.

there's a lot in doctor who to work with in terms of human/humanoid/dominant species colonisation in space. key word work, because it is very much on the shoulders of the watcher/reader/listener to draw up a complex or accurate allegory in almost every case. rather than the "right to explore," i think often by nature of needing an easy conflict doctor who goes more for the "right to utilise resources no matter where they're found, even and especially luxury resources". an example all my followers are the most likely to have seen/remember is planet of the ood. obviously this is slavery, but the abduction of a slave labour force is often part of the colonisation of an inhabited place. it's an especially on the nose critique because the colonisers in this case were physically preventing communication and the reforming of the community they colonised to exploit, but this is done on a very simple level and not extrapolated or discussed in real world terms or with real world context.

the extended universe deals with the topic of colonisation in a more frequent and usually slightly less basic way. jamie mccrimmon is a character who even in the show was (pre-doctor) living under militant colonial (british) rule. this is explored more in depth in a couple of audios; it is genuinely rarely touched on in the show. in certain companion chronicles jamie's survival of british colonial rule is discussed directly (the glorious revolution) or alluded to with parallel space colonisation plots (stuff like the edge comes to mind). c'rizz is another character from the audios who the doctor met after his community was violently colonised and imprisoned but c'rizz has sort of a very strange and very particular thing going on so i'm not really sure how much there is in terms of a colonialism discussion with him; i'm sure you could find something but again the work to find commentary on it is put on the shoulders of the audience. also in the way of extended universe, the EDAs will (like the show!) often have sort of basic space colonisation as a plot point which is not very explored or discussed or looked into beyond that it's a familiar cut and dry situation for the doctor to walk into and be the good guy. they go for this often in the show and the books, they'll pull up a complex and violent social situation and then not delve into it as a social situation (or in this case an act of colonialism) in favour of delving into it only as a plot point, if that makes sense. however I did think dreamstone moon (EDA) actually had something to say about how late stage capitalism/commodification is both an arm and heart of colonialism. i have a (very short) post about that here.

ultimately, doctor who as a creation began in the early 1960s in britain. the universal reoccurring threat that has persisted over the subsequent sixty years within the fiction of the show (perpetrated by any and all villains) is that of the fascist, the authoritarian, the idea of a world-conquering absolute dictator. the (white) british collective consciousness, reeling from the second world war, could not picture any greater evil than the global surge of fascism in the late 30s-40s. colonisation, especially with britain's history as the perpetrators, is something that held visibly less evil in the minds of these british tv writers, and that is reflected in the writing more often than not, especially in classic who. often, colonialism in doctor who is a backdrop, a setting, and not something that is examined, especially not fully, in the episode's text. it betrays something about the show and the country it came from. it is a nasty fact of doctor who and the context it rose out of.

i know i'm too late to help you with that essay but this just made me think, and these are just my thoughts. i don't know. i guess more than any wealth of strong examples when you look at colonialism in doctor who you notice the general lack of sociopolitics, realism, and empathy in any portrayal of colonialism. to pull strong, more-than-surface-level anti-colonialist narratives out of doctor who, you have to do most of the work yourself. i do think this has to do with the show being synonymous with a country that was historically the biggest perpetrator of military colonialism in the world. i don't know. it's grimly interesting in a way that puts a sour taste in my mouth.

[aaknopf]

In Shakespeare’s Sisters, Ramie Targoff recovers to literary memory the lives and talents of four women who wrote in England during Shakespeare’s time, well before there was any notion of “a room of one’s own.” From Mary Sidney, sister of the well-known poet Sir Philip Sidney (she wrote most of the beautiful translations of the Psalms ascribed to him) to Anne Clifford, a diarist and memoirist who fought for decades against a patriarchy that tried to disinherit her from her family’s land, these women stun us by their bravery. In the passage below, Targoff discusses the important poetry of Aemilia Lanyer, born of an illiterate mother and an immigrant father; it appeared in print in 1611, making her the first woman in the 17th century to publish an original book of verse.

. . .

In the same year the King James Bible first appeared in print, establishing the most influential English translation of scripture ever produced, Aemilia dared to tell a different story. Over the course of 230 rhyming stanzas of eight lines each, her “Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum” lays out the story of Christ’s Passion from a distinctly female perspective. The formal challenge of writing the poem was itself daunting: it’s no easy feat to compose over 1,800 lines of ottava rima (iambic pentameter stanzas written in an abababcc rhyme scheme). But Aemilia’s greater audacity was in tackling the subject of Christ’s crucifixion. To justify this, she makes the same claim for divine inspiration that the great Protestant poet John Milton would make sixty or so years later in writing Paradise Lost. Describing her own “poor barren brain” as “far too weak” for the task, she asks God to “give me power and strength to write”:

Yet if he please to illuminate my spirit,  And give me wisdom from his holy hill,  That I may write part of his glorious merit,  If he vouchsafe to guide my hand and quill Then will I tell of that sad blackfaced night,  Whose mourning Mantle covered Heavenly Light.

     Given the fact that the poem proceeds to do exactly what she petitions for, Aemilia shows her reader that her prayer has been answered: she’s not so much writing as channeling the divine word.[...]      Aemilia’s narrative of Christ’s Passion begins on the “very night our Savior was betrayed.” As part of her overall strategy in “Salve Deus”of celebrating female virtue, the poem draws attention both to the wicked acts of men (Caiaphas, Judas) and to the compassionate acts of women (the daughters of Jerusalem, the Virgin Mary) in the days leading up to Christ’s arrest. None of this comes as a surprise. But when Aemilia arrives at the moment that Pontius Pilate considers Christ’s fate, she does something totally unanticipated. Relinquishing her own role as narrator, she hands the poem over to Pilate’s wife. Among the most minor figures in the New Testament, Pilate’s wife has a single line of verse in only one of the four gospels. In Matthew 27:19, a woman who is never named urges her husband, the Roman governor in Judaea, to disregard the will of the people calling for Christ to be crucified: “Have nothing to do with that just man,” she warns Pilate, “for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him.”      In early Christian commentaries and apocryphal writings, this woman was often called Procula Claudia, or simply Procula. In medieval England, Procula was paraded onstage in the mystery plays as an evil woman who almost prevented Christ’s saving humankind; in the York Cycle’s play named for her—The Dream of Pilate’s Wife—Percula, as she’s called there, receives her dream from the Devil himself. There’s no way to know if Aemilia knew this or other medieval dramas; it’s more likely she would have noticed the more positive treatment Pilate’s wife was given in the Geneva Bible, the popular translation done by English Protestants in the 1550s. Consistent with the Protestant belief that everyone should have access to the Bible directly, the translation was heavily glossed with marginal notes. Next to the verse from Matthew regarding Pilate’s wife was a single gloss suggesting that Pilate should have taken the “counsel of others to defend Christ’s innocence.” But whether the treatment of this woman was negative or positive, she had never been asked to perform the role Aemilia gave her in “Salve Deus,” where she delivers one of the strongest defenses for women’s rights that Christianity had ever seen.      In Pilate’s wife, Aemilia found her perfect heroine: a woman whose intervention at the crucial moment could have changed the course of history, if only her husband had listened. With the scriptural verse from Matthew before her, Aemilia made two crucial additions to the story. First, she transformed Pilate’s wife into a faithful believer who already regarded Christ as her Lord. “Hear the words of thy most worthy wife,” she begs her husband, “who sends to thee, to beg her Savior’s life.” Far from simply reporting that she’s had an ominous dream, as she does in Matthew, Pilate’s wife explicitly warns Pilate that he will be killing the son of God.      Second, Aemilia turned Pilate’s wife into a proto-feminist. After urging Pilate to let Christ go on religious grounds, she comes up with a new reason for why he should be pardoned: “Let not us women glory in men’s fall / Who had power given to over-rule us all.” If men are sinful enough to crucify their savior, then women should be liberated from men’s rule. “Your indiscretion sets us free,” she declares, “And makes our former fault much less appear.” In these four short lines, Aemilia’s character anticipates the killing of Christ as the basis for women’s freedom from patriarchy.      As if this weren’t radical enough, Pilate’s wife moves in “Salve Deus” from making her argument about the Crucifixion to recon- sidering the reason for Christ’s sacrifice in the first place. “Our mother Eve,” she exclaims,

. . . who tasted of the Tree Giving to Adam what she held most dear, Was simply good, and had no power to see,  The after-coming harm did not appear.

If Eve had no way to know the damage she might do, Adam was only too aware: it was he who received the command directly “from God’s mouth.” Eve was simply a victim of misinformation and “too much love,” whereas Adam, not betrayed by the “subtle Serpent’s falsehood,” knew exactly what he was doing.      Aemilia was certainly not the first person to defend Eve on grounds of her innocence or to propose that Adam be held responsible for the Fall. She was possibly the first to argue that the crime of killing Christ so overwhelmed any fault of Eve’s that women’s subordination should come to an immediate end. “If unjustly you condemn [Christ] to die,” Pilate’s wife concludes,

. . . Then let us have our Liberty again, And challenge [attribute] to your selves no Sovereignty;  You came not in the world without our pain, Make that a bar against your cruelty; Your fault being greater, why should you disdain  Our being your equals, free from tyranny? If one weak woman simply did offend,  This sin of yours, hath no excuse, nor end.

Hundreds of years before the women’s liberation movement, Aemilia used the figure of Pilate’s wife to argue that the sexes should be equal. In doing so, she also rescued a voice from history, giving full personhood and agency to a woman whom the Bible didn’t regard as worthy of a name.

More on this book and author:

Learn more about Shakespeare’s Sisters by Ramie Targoff.

Browse other books by Ramie Targoff and follow her on Instagram @ramietargoff.

Hear Ramie Targoff read at the Boston Athenaeum in Boston on May 15, 6:00 - 7:00 PM. Click here to join virtually. 

Visit our Tumblr to peruse poems, audio recordings, and broadsides in the Knopf poem-a-day series.

To share the poem-a-day experience with friends, pass along this link.

[calamari-minecraft-corner]

Had to spend a hot minute happy stimming because oh god sixty years he is going to be so so so unhinged

And I fucking love unhinged Dream

I am scared for everyone and everything's safety

ALSO PLEASE ELABORATE ON THE 'dream doesn't let Cala go home' BECAUSE AOSYYQYSHWOSGJQUSGSHEOFYJA7XTWJSUTQ

I mean I have theories on why of course but I wanna hear more if you're willing to share c:

Also how does Cala feel on that???? And I would guess she probably has really complicated feelings on Dream in general

Because you know, everything

Also mostly unrelated side note, I am so excited for Revivebur in this because from what you've posted.... mmmmmm unhinged man that has committed several war crimes, aka exactly one of -if not- my favorite type of character

*evil gremlin laughter-8 writing revived!Dream is gonna be so fun and chaotic because he is so far gone at that point and he just needs everything to stop

And I’m willing to tell you a bit on what Dream doesn’t let Cala leave!

The main thing is that he eventually finds out that the reason Punz finally revived him was because of her help- and she literally did everything to help the cause and wanted nothing in return.

And Dream— figuring out that this woman he has this faint recognition for has done that, he honestly commends it. I mean it’s still Dream- and he doesn’t want her to leave since he feels she can help with his plans and in return he can grant her a favor before she leaves. So he basically sabotoges the way out and is like “oh no! You can’t go home yet, but it’s okay I can help you until you do!” And is basically lying saying he didn’t do that. Like he’s literally fuckin feral to everyone including her but it’s at least slightly less. She is not immune to his descent.

He just wants to return the favor and see if she can help with his plan and nothing more—

Well that’s what he tells himself anyways.

And Cala honestly is so tired at this point she just rolls with it HEJSSKSK

Like there’s a lot Cala goes through in this au (having burn scars on her arms, being struck by lightning and somehow surviving… Sam and Quackity they’re their own category bc jfc) so when the portal to go home doesn’t work she just lets it happen and doesn’t question it. She’s just “okay this is fine-“ because she’s so tired at this point and is going through a lot of emotions.

As well as her feelings on Dream: I won’t spoil too much but she knows it’s not Dre, she knows it’s not him but she still shows that kindness to him even if she’s exhausted and looks like she’s on the brink of becoming undone herself. Because she believes that everyone deserves to have some form of kindness (like she even tries her best with Sam and Q besides everything).

But yeah!

Also.. revivebur my beloved I’m so excited for writing/drawing him more. Because after Dream’s back she relies heavily on Ghostbur and Glatt bc they’re practically very close at this point. And then Ghostbur is gone and then eventually Glatt and she’s fucking alone and has to deal with these motherfuckers.

Surprisingly that doesn’t break her but it’s just that thing of she knows it’s gonna happen so she spends time with them as much as she can.

And Revivebur sees her- and he sees how her and Dream interact and he’s just “oh wait- there’s something there”

Let’s just say he gives her a bit of a time and she’s the equivalent of this at this point in the au

[mugiwara-lucy]

Listen, it’s not about letting Trump win, it’s about letting the Democratic Party know that they still have to earn your vote in order to affect their policy and their current stance on Palestine. Once they’re elected you can’t make them earn your vote anymore, so it’s important to hold that over their head before the elections.

Also, Kamala Harris is NOT “pro-Palestine” as long as she keeps repeating the “Israel has a right to defend itself” truism, and as along as she continues to talk of a ceasefire without doing anything to enforce it. This is not simply a matter of opinion or stance in the matter, the current United States government is a perpetrator of the violence and they need to be addressed as such.

Part of the reason why drawing a line on the sand with this issue is so important is that American liberalism has a history of elevating their own rights as worthy of pursuit while disregarding the way they themselves are complicit in the erosion of those said rights abroad. Leaders of the Civil Rights movement and the Black Panthers back in the sixties and seventies understood, for example, openly challenged and fought the Democrat Vietnam policy because they understood the hypocrisy of letting their rights come at the expense of people dying elsewhere.

“Vote blue no matter who” mentality creates complacency in officials seeking to be elected, it tells them they do not have to earn your vote. Living in a democracy is about making your voice heard and organizing accordingly, so please stop disparaging any efforts made to effectively challenge current policy and use that democratic power for an actual change.

First of all, I'd like to say thank you for being more respectful to me that some of these other Anons.

I will admit I lost my patience on them but when you've been getting harassed for months, it gets to you.

Now look, if we lived in a parallel universe where Project 2025 wasn't a thing and the person running against Kamala was an idiot like RFK Jr who doesn't seem to want to be a dictator, I'd probably agree more with the Non-Voting stance you all want to take although I'd never do it since I want to exercise my right to vote whenever I can but the reality is we don't. We have an unapologetic, lying, hateful evil RAPIST running for president. And I'm not sure if you're American or not but there's some people who downplay just how HORRIFIC his term was and the lasting ramifications of it. Here's the main consequences of him being in office:

Roe v Wade, Affirmative Action and the Chevron was overturned (stuff which was 50 years old that got lost after EIGHT YEARS).

I'm sorry but i am NOT INTERESTED in seeing what's next to go because of a Supreme Court Justice that he appointed. Especially since there'll be vacancies in the next couple of years and if he appoints MORE YOUNGER MAGA TYPE justices, the Supreme Court will be locked hard right for AT LEAST THIRTY YEARS.

Do you KNOW what will happen to this country at that point??

Now Trump has said when he gets back into office he wants to "restrict" the First Amendment:

And one of his Supreme Court dickriders Clarence Thomas was talking about getting rid of Loving V Virginia (the law that made Interracial dating LEGAL):

So that's why I'm putting as MUCH of my effort into making sure Trump does NOT get back into office as much as I can. It's not that I don't care about Palestine (quite the contrary actually) but if we DON'T HAVE OUR RIGHTS HOW CAN WE HELP ANYONE ELSE?? I ask this and get crickets in response.

And Kamala IS Pro-Palestine. Don't forget this:

And having her in office is WAY BETTER for Palestine that this clown that NOT ONLY SAID THIS:

And LITERALLY TRIED to SABOTAGE Kamala's chances at winning the election by conspiring with Natanyahu to HAVE NO ceasefires made:

Which I'd like to point out is in violation of the LOGAN ACT since normal people can NOT interfere in domestic affairs in other countries.

To say they're the similar is uninformed ignorance at best or just willful lying at worse.

They're NOWHERE in the SAME BALLPARK.

It's not disparaging your efforts as it is just saying if we don't get Kamala, we get the rapist back in office who has talked NUMEROUS TIMES about a third term so I wouldn't be surprised if the ONLY way he leaves is in a bodybag.

(ASSUMING THE MILITARY STEPS IN AND DEALS WITH THEM AS THEY HAVE A MANDATE).

[they-call-me-youngermoney]

you've discovered a dwarf gourami mer. sixty's a little perturbed by your presence, but he and his brothers are ultimately harmless...

... maybe.

my drawing for @cptjh-arts' 2024 sixty exchange! made for Nika.

[gracesshelves]

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

            The first time I watched anything related to The Lord of the Rings was last year when my friend made me watch the extended editions of the first three movies, so I was glad that I had some context while coming into The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012). However, I have not read any of the books, which I think made it harder to watch this movie in particular. I would rate this movie a two out of five, which is the lowest rating I’ve given in class so far. One of the most important things when consuming media is the ability to keep my focus. I’ve watched some really poorly made movies, but they kept my attention throughout the whole thing, something I cannot say for this movie. I sat and watched this whole thing and I cannot remember half of what happened because it dragged on for so long. Connecting to our discussion this week on the dangers of alienating potential fans through adaptation, I do think this movie kind of does this. If I’d read The Hobbit before, I would’ve been more invested, but since I had no context of where this was going, it was very hard to pay attention.

            This movie follows Bilbo Baggins sixty years before the events of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Despite his adventure-filled youth, Bilbo mellowed into adulthood and thought he was content to live the life of a simple hobbit. However, this illusion is shattered when Gandalf the Grey invites a bunch of dwarves to his house for dinner in an attempt to convince Bilbo to join their quest. Their goal is to reclaim the Kingdom of Erebor, which was captured by the dragon Smaug 171 years ago. Despite some pushback, Bilbo eventually agrees to join their group. In this film, we follow them on the first leg of their quest. Honestly, I think Martin Freeman was the perfect choice for this role. He’s kind of developed a type cast as the cautious, reluctant, sarcastic protagonist/sidekick, but he plays it so well. His personality got me through the lulls of action during this movie.

            I promise I have some nice things to say! I really enjoyed the whole Rivendell scene because I got to see some characters I actually knew. I also think it did a nice job of establishing Gandalf's philosophy, which makes his choices of protagonists make so much more sense. My favorite scene in the whole movie was, of course, the scene with Gollum. This section had the most tension and highest stakes of the film, in my opinion. I was folding clothes while watching the majority of the movie, but I had to stop what I was doing during this part because I was so invested. Andy Serkis does an amazing job of making Gollum creepy, yet sympathetic. His performance always draws me in, and I think the movie would have suffered without the inclusion of this scene.

This week I don’t particularly have any comments on themes, because I have a hard time recalling what the plot was in general besides getting from point A to point B, but I did appreciate Gandalf’s whole speech about why he picked Bilbo specifically. He says: “Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love” (The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey 2012). I think that is what stuck with me the most walking away from this movie. Will I finish the franchise? Probably not. I have a lot of diehard LOTR fans as friends, and they loathe this trilogy so I don’t feel the need to watch it, but I might consider reading the source material. Unfortunately, the studios kind of shot themselves in the foot with this one. I would’ve had the patience to sit through a four-hour-long movie if it covered the whole book. Making a trilogy out of a book that is shorter than any of the The Lord of the Rings books was not the best idea.

[glitch--gamer]

I decided to give Connor Sixty a yandere eye texture just because (evil versions of characters sometimes have a slightly different eye texture…kind of like how a lot of people draw Omega Zero compared to regular Zero).

There was a bow and arrow motion similar to the blade motion I made with Nines, so I made a version with Connor Sixty (the Connor from Cyberlife Tower).

Image Credits

Stage by 椛暗

Connor Sixty model by Enpitsu: twitter.com/enpi_tsu?lang=en

[scentedsoulducknerd-blog]

Twins

Harper was furious. How dare they hurt his sister? She did nothing to them.

This is an AU of Player's kids in the future.

All characters belong to the creator of Carmen Sandiego except for the twins and their mother. I don't own any of them.

Harper was furious. How dare they hurt his sister? She did nothing to them.

They were evil. Tiny demons, if you will. Although, not as evil as some of the people their aunt Carmen had to deal with.

Harper sat at his desk, looking at the red colouring pencil in his hand. When was the last time they saw her? It must have been at least a good few months.

He tapped his pencil against the desk, shaking with rage. The page in front of him empty, a blank space, mocking him.

They had been given an assignment, to draw someone that inspires them. The only problem was, he had a few people that inspired him and he couldn't choose which one of them he should do. His father, his mother, his sister or, his aunt Carmen. They all inspired him, so who to choose?

He didn't know what his father did exactly, nor did he his aunt, but all he knew was that his dad was amazing with technology and that he helped his aunt to change the world. One step at a time.

His mother was a writer, an author, and she created amazing stories for children and adults alike. All it took was a spark of imagination and the story flowed out like a dam breaking.

His sister, his dear sister, who had been put through hell and back because some arrogant people can't accept change. She meant the world to him, and he'd go to the ends of the Earth to protect her from any evil that came their way.

The teacher walked around the room, inspecting every child's drawing, as if he was expecting some Picasso level painting, because each time he laid eyes on one of the children's drawings, his eyebrows fell down into a crease, scowling at the child's drawing, almost disappointedly.

The teacher wasn't really a work of art himself however, and neither were any of his many 'paintings' that were hung up on the walls, each in a wooden frame.

The man had gelled black hair, although it looked more like he'd been whacked across the head by an octopus, with the amount of gel that was in his hair. He had dark blue eyes, that look more grey than blue at most times, and big, dumbo like ears. His face was covered in wrinkles, a sign that the man was indeed old. What was he now? Late fifties? Maybe sixties? Possibly seventies? And yet, here he was, still teaching a bunch of six year olds basic maths and showing them how to draw what most of them already can, stick figures. Honestly what was he expecting from them when he asked them to draw someone who inspires them? Hyper detailed realistically accurate  coloured version of the person? Come on.

He wore a two piece suit, both pieces black, and brown, freshly polished dress shoes. He also had a black handle bar moustache. He looked like he had been plucked out of one of those old films he had seen his parents watching, from the nineteen-thirties perhaps. Seriously, this was a school, not some grand ball thrown by the Queen of England, or another important figure of society. There really was no need to be dressed so formally.

Harper made eye contact with his sister and she smiled and waved at him. He grinned. It was nice to see her so happy. Suddenly, he heard someone clearing their throat, and he froze. Rosy's eyes widened as well, and she mouthed an apology at the fact that she had distracted him.

"Mr Bouchard, care to explain to me as to why, we are half way through our lesson, and yet your paper is still blank?" He heard the voice behind him ask. He winced, he really couldn't have drawn a line or something to make it seem like he'd done some work?

"I'm sorry Mr Williams but I've got lots of people that inspire me and I can't pick one." He replied, turning to face his teacher, eyes darting around the classroom, looking for a way to escape the patronising gaze of the man before him.

"If I do not see anything on this page," he pushed his finger down onto the page, crinkling it slightly. Even the way he talks is posh, "by the end of this lesson, then I will have to call your parents in. This is the fourth time you have not done work because you 'could not decide on someone'. It is really getting old and I am getting tired of your excuses Mr Bouchard."

Harper's eyes widened. They couldn't call his parents! They were already busy enough, and troubling them and causing them more problems over something as stupid as not doing a drawing was ridiculous.

"I'll have something down by the end of the lesson Mr Williams." He said, finally making eye contact.

"You better had. You do not want me to call your parents in because of something this simple, do you?"

Harper shook his head.

"No Mr Williams"

"Good. Get to it then."

He didn't have anything down. So, here he was sitting in the headmasters office, waiting for his parent to arrive.

Mr Williams was stood next to the headmasters desk, arms crossed. He didn't look very happy. Sat next to him was the headmaster. Harper was looking down, embarrassed, hoping this will be over soon.

"Mr Bouchard, I thought you had said you would have something down by the end of the lesson." Mr Williams remarked.

Harper looked up.

"I know. I'm sorry. I couldn't-"

"Decide on who to draw. You keep saying that, and look where it has gotten you."

"Now now, he feels bad as it is Mr Williams, you don't need to make him feel worse." The headmaster told him.

"I was gonna say I couldn't think of where to start." Harper mumbled.

"What was that young man?"

"Nothing sir."

The headmaster was a chubby man about the age of 40, and yet he was growing grey hair on the sides of his head and balding on top. The man wore a pink striped shirt, with blue suspenders over the top. Harper couldn't see the bottom half because of the oak desk between them. 

Bookshelves scattered the walls on either side of him, most mainly empty, with a few bits and bobs here and there, and some filled with books.

There was a knock on the door, snapping Harper out of his train of thought.

"Come in" the headmaster shouted.

The door opened. There were his parents. He made eye contact with his father and looked away immediately, ashamed.

"We came as soon as we could. What's going on?" He heard his mother ask.

"Mr and Mrs Bouchard, please, take a seat." The headmaster asked, or demanded.

His parents both looked at each other worriedly, and then proceeded to sit in the other two chairs there.

"What's all of this about?" His father questioned.

"Nothing too big, so there's no need to worry, Mr Bouchard. It's just about Harpers schoolwork." He reassured his parents.

"What about it?" His mother chimed in.

"It has recently come to my attention by Mr Williams here," the man in question raised his hand, "that Harper has not been doing his schoolwork and has been making stupid excuses as to why." The headmaster remarked.

"Is this true Harper?" His mother asked.

"Only my art work, mum. I do everything else! Plus, it's only happened four times, like, once a month or something like that!" Harper replied.

"Wait wait wait," his father waved his hands up and down, "you mean to tell us that you called us," he moved his hands to refer to himself and his wife, "to the school just because our son hasn't done what, four pieces of work? There gotta be a lot of other kids that don't do it either. I mean, they're six for crying out loud!"

"Parker." His mother warned, her voice low. She put her hand on her husbands shoulder gently and smiled at him lovingly, in order to calm him down, so there isn't a scene caused. 

The man's eyes widened. She never called him by his real name. It was always by his code name, Player. She really didn't want to make a scene.

"Yes. Other kids haven't done work as well and we'll be calling there parents in as well but Harper resists against his teacher so we've had to call you in first." the bald man told them.

"This is ridiculous" Player mumbled. His wife elbowed him, and gave him a glare. He rolled his eyes.

"How does he resist?" The woman asked.

"Uhh Mr Williams? How does Harper resist exactly?" The headmaster looked to the man.

"Umm... well... he gives me a lot of lip and doesn't participate in physical activities when I tell him to." Came his reply.

"There's a perfectly good explanation for that Mr Williams" the dark haired female said.

"And what is that explanation, Mrs Bouchard?" He said, looking down his nose at her. Judging by the stories he'd overheard from the twins on the playground, they were both reckless, adventurous and clever people. It was obvious that he didn't particularly like Harper, and because the two young adults in front of him were his parents, he didn't particularly like them either. They raised their child wrong. They should raise them to treat their seniors and their superiors with the respect they deserve. Harper and Rosy had none for him.

"Harper has been advised by his doctor to take it easy if he's hurting" the woman crossed her arms.

"If he's hurting? That's got to be the stupidest reason for a kid taking a break or not participating in activities. What is he? An old man like me? Because if I'm not allowed to get out of doing it with the students, neither should he." The man laughed and wiped a tear that came to his eye.

"Mr Williams! The doctor informed me of this and I have told you this as well. It seems you've forgotten though." The headmaster scolded.

"Forgotten what? That he" the man pointed at Harper. He looked down embarrassed. "shouldn't be doing Physical Education because he's 'hurting'?"

"No I informed you on why his legs hurt."

"And why is that?" He raised an eyebrow.

"Because he's an amputee." Player said to him. "He wears prosthetics. He's been to school with crutches before and a wheelchair. The reason he was told not to all the time is because he experiences phantom pain. Is that all you need us for, to mock our son for his disability and waste mine and my wife's time?"

"Even so, he still gives me lip when I tell him to stop making symbols with his hands to Rosy." Mr Williams was flustered at getting called out. Oh how he hated this family. He just wanted one reason to get one of the children in trouble.

"You mean when he's signing what you're saying so she can understand?" The woman asked.

"Signed? As in sign language?"

"Yes. Rosy's deaf and although she has hearing aids, she still needs a little help to understand because they don't magically make her able to hear." Player glared at the man. "Is that all?" He looked back to the headmaster.

"Is that all Mr Williams?" The older man asked.

"Yes" He grumbled.

"You may all leave now. I'm sorry for the inconvenience. I thought we had a different issue at hand." He told the family.

"Thank you" both of the parents said. They rose from the seats, and Harper followed and left the office.

"Unbelievable" Player mumbled, shaking his head.

"Did I do something wrong?" Harper asked, looking up at his father.

"No Harper you did nothing wrong. Your teacher just forgot about you and your sisters disabilities, that's all." He patted his son on his brown hair. Harper grinned at him and he smiled back.

They walked to the inside entrance of the school where Rosy was sitting on one of the blue chairs, swinging her legs. When she noticed the door open she looked up and smiled.

"Is everything ok? Did Harper get in trouble?" She asked, cocking her head to the side.

"No sweetie, he didn't." Her mother replied.

"Are we going home now?"

"Yes we are."

She walked to the door and opened it, signalling for them to go before her.

As the twins were walking in front of them and talking amongst themselves happily, Player decided to make conversation with his wife beside him, who was holding his hand.

"It's a good thing Red didn't want to do a caper today huh?" He laughed. She smiled.

"Yeah, lucky us. Otherwise I'd be stuck dealing with that man on my own." She chuckled.

"I would've come as fast as I could if I had to help Red, but I'm assuming you already knew that, didn't you Iris?"

"Yep. You'd do anything for the twins." He glared at her.

"And you."

"Oh you can spare some love for me now too?" She put her hand on her chest. "I'm honoured." She teased.

"No I don't think I will anymore, you've taken it for granted too many times." He looked away, feigning offence. When he looked at Iris however, he couldn't keep it up and they both burst into laughter.

The twins looked behind them to see their parents giggling to themselves.

"What are they laughing at?" Rosy asked, turning to her brother.

"I have no idea. It could be anything really." He said.

"Yeah you're right."

The next day at school when Harper walked into the classroom he made immediate eye contact with Mr Williams. Harper looked away awkwardly, cheeks red and biting the inside of his cheek. He sat down in his seat and got out his blue pencil.

"You got taken to the headmaster's office yesterday, didn't you?" The girl next to him asked.

She had long curly black hair that had been tied into pigtails with red bobbles. She had a blue and black striped shirt, and black leggings.

Harper raised an eyebrow.

"How do you know that?" He asked.

"Yesterday. Mr Williams told you that you needed something on your paper or he was gonna get your parents. You didn't have anything by the end of the lesson." She told him.

"You were looking at my work?"

Her eyes widened and she turned red.

"Yes. I was." She muttered.

"Why?"

She shrugged her shoulders.

"I was gonna ask you about who you drew but then, y'know, you didn't draw anyone."

"Why did you want to ask me about it?"

"You ask lots of questions. I've been wanting to be your friend for awhile but I didn't know how to talk to you."

"Oh." He stuck his hand out in front of her awkwardly. "I'm Harper."

The girl just sat there looking at his hand.

"You're supposed to shake my hand hand and tell me your name after." He told her.

"O-oh. Sorry." She laughed awkwardly. She grabbed his hand and shook it. "I'm Frankie."

They both smiled at each other.

Mr Williams cleared his throat and began the lesson, narrowing his eyes and glaring at the Harper as he began to sign to Rosy.

"What are you doing?" Frankie whispered, after noticing Harper signing.

"Rosy's deaf so in lessons I sign what the teachers saying so she can understand." He whispered back.

"That's sweet of you. But wouldn't it of been easier if you were sat next to each other?"

"It would be, but Mr Williams sat us in these seats and when I tried to tell him he dismissed it."

"Oh"

They both went back to listening to the teacher again.

At break time, the students all filed onto the yard, going to their friend groups. Harper walked towards Rosy.

"Harper wait up!" He heard someone say. He turned to find Frankie running towards him.

"What are you doing?" He asked.

"Playing with my friend. Where are we going?" She said, like it was the most the most obvious thing in the world.

"I'm trying to find Rosy."

"She's your sister, right?"

"Yeah, she's my older twin sister."

"Older? It seems like you're the oldest. You're always worrying about her and trying to help her."

"We take care of each other." He smiled gently.

"Take care of each other? How does she help you?"

"When it comes to my disability." He raised his trousers leg up and she gasped as she saw the prosthetic leg.

"Wow. I had no idea." She looked back up to him.

"That's kinda the point." He laughed.

They turned the corner to find Rosy sitting on the floor, with her head down. She was sobbing quietly, holding her ears. Harper and Frankie's eyes widened.

"What happened?!" He shouted.

She didn't respond. Harper crouched down and gripped her hands. She gasped and tried to escape until she looked up and saw it was her brother.

'What happened?' He signed.

"They ripped my hearing aids out." She whimpered.

"WHAT?!" He yelled.

Frankie put her hand on Harper's shoulder and gave him a sad smile. He pulled her hands from her ears, with much resistance from Rosy. Finally, he managed to keep her hands down and gasped. Her ears were bleeding. Frankie bent down to look and gasped as well. Harper's hand clenched and his knuckles turned white. They did this.

[basicsofislam]

ISLAM 101: The Position of Good Character in Islam: Part 1

1. The perfection of noble character was one of the most important objectives of the Prophet’s mission

Allah ﷻ says, “It is He who raised up among the unlettered [Arabs] a Messenger from them to recite His verses to them and purify them and teach them the Book and Wisdom, even though before that they were clearly misguided.” (Soorat Al-Jumu‛ah, 62:2)

This verse reveals one of the favors Allah ﷻ has bestowed on the believers, stating that He has sent them His Messenger, Muhammad ﷺ, to teach them the Qur’an and to purify them. Purification can only be attained by purging one’s heart from such imperfections as associating others with Allah in worship, having a bad moral character like hatred and jealousy and ridding one’s speech and deeds of all forms of evil practices. The Prophet ﷺ once declared, “I have been sent to the perfect noble character.” (Sunan Al-Bayhaqee: 21301)

This statement makes it clear that one of the reasons behind the Prophet’s mission was to elevate and perfect the moral character of the individual and society at large.

2. A noble character is part and parcel of faith and belief

The perfection of noble character was one of the most important objectives of the Prophet’s mission.

When asked about the best of the believers, the Prophet ﷺ replied, “They are those who have the best character and manners.” (Sunan At-Tirmidhee: 1162; Sunan Abu Daawood: 4682)

In fact, the Qur’an uses the comprehensive Arabic word birr to refer to faith. As the Qur’an states, “Righteousness (birr) does not lie in turning your faces [during prayer] to the East or to the West. Rather, those with true devoutness are the ones who believe in Allah, the Last Day, the angels, the Book, and the Prophets…” (Soorat Al-Baqarah, 2:177)

The word birr is a rather comprehensive term which includes all forms of righteousness, in word and deed. It is for this reason that the Prophet ﷺ said, “Righteousness (birr) is good character.” (Saheeh Muslim: 2553)

This becomes clear in the Prophet’s declaration: “Faith (eemaan) has sixty odd branches. The uppermost of all these is the Testimony of Faith: Laa ilaaha illallaah (There is no god worthy of worship except Allah) while the least of them is the removal of a harmful object from the road. Shyness is a branch of faith.” (Saheeh Muslim: 35)

3. Noble character permeates all acts of worship

Every time Allah commands the believers to perform an act of worship, He draws their attention to its moral significance or its positive effect on the individual and society. Examples of this are numerous and include the following: The Prayer: “Establish the prayer, for the prayer restrains from shameful and unjust deeds.” (Soorat Al-‛Ankaboot, 29:45).

The Obligatory Charity Payment (Zakaat): “Take zakaat from their wealth to purify and cleanse them with it.” (Soorat At-Tawbah: 9:103) Besides showing kindness and giving comfort to people, zakaat refines benefactor’s character and purges it from evil practices.

Fasting: O You who believe, fasting has been prescribed for you just as it was prescribed for those before you, so that you may remain conscious of Allah.” (Soorat Al-Baqarah: 183)

This verse makes it abundantly clear that the foremost objective of fasting is to realise the consciousness of Allah by obeying His commands and avoiding all words and deeds He has prohibited. As the Prophet ﷺ said, “ Whoever does not abandon false speech and false conduct, then Allah has no need of his abandoning of food and drink.” (Saheeh Al-Bukhaaree: 1804)

Therefore, if fasting fails to effect a change in one’s character and dealings with others, it will by no means serve its real purpose.

4. The immense rewards Allah ﷻ has in store for those who observe good character Textual proofs from the Qur’an and the Sunnah to this effect are numerous, including the following:

Good character will be the heaviest righteous deed to be placed on a person’s scale of deeds on the Day of Judgement. The Prophet ﷺ said, “No deed that will be placed on the scale of deeds [on the Day of Judgement] will be heavier than good character. Indeed, a person with good character will attain the rank of those with a good record of voluntary fasts and prayers.” (Sunan At-Tirmidhee: 2003)

It is the very deed that will lead people to enter Paradise the most. When the Prophet ﷺ was asked about which act leads people to enter Paradise the most, he replied, “Piety and good character.” (Sunan At-Tirmidhee: 2004; Sunan Ibn Maajah: 4246)

Of all people, those who have good character will be the closest to the Prophet ﷺ on the Day of Judgement.

The Prophet ﷺ said, “The dearest to me among you and the nearest to me on the Day of Judgement are those who have the best character.” (Sunan At-Tirmidhee: 2018)

The Prophet ﷺ guarantees a house in the highest part of Paradise to those who have good character: “I guarantee a house in the surroundings of Paradise for those who give up arguing, even if they are in the right; and I guarantee a house in the middle of Paradise for those who abandon lying even when joking; and I guarantee a house in the highest part of Paradise for those who have good character and manners.” (Sunan Abu Daawood:

Distinguishing Features of Noble Character in Islam

Noble character in Islam is characterized by unique qualities which distinguish it from all other faiths, including the following

1. A noble character is not confined to a particular type of people

Almighty Allah has made people into different shapes, colors, and languages. They are all equal in His sight, and no one has an advantage over another except in piety and noble conduct, as the Qur’an states, “O mankind, We have created you of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes that you may know one another; verily, the most honorable of you, in the sight of Allah, is the most pious of you.” (Soorat Al-Hujuraat, 49:13)

Indeed, noble character characterizes Muslims’ relationship with all members of society: There is no difference whatsoever between rich and poor, black and white, Arab and non-Arab, or a prince and a pauper.

How to Treat Non-Muslims

Allah ﷻ commands us to show kindness and courtesy to everyone without exception, for justice, kindness and mercy are aspects of good character which a Muslim observes in his words and deeds with Muslims and non-Muslims alike. A Muslim ought to embody good character traits as a means to call others to this great religion of Islam.

The Qur’an says, “Allah does not forbid you from being good to those who have not fought you on account of your religion or driven you from your homes, or from being just towards them. Allah loves those who are just.” (Soorat Al-Mumtahinah, 60:8)

Allah only forbids us to make friends with those belligerent non-Muslims who fight us because of our religion. He also forbids us to admire their way of life which clearly upholds unbelief and polytheist practices, as the Qur’an states, “Allah only forbids you respecting those who made war upon you on account of [your] religion, and drove you forth from your homes and backed up [others] in your expulsion, that you make friends with them. Whoever takes them for friends are wrongdoers.” (Soorat Al-Mumtahinah, 60:9)

2. A noble character is not confined only to human beings

Good Treatment of animals

The Prophet ﷺ once mentioned that a woman deserved punishment in Hellfire because of a cat that she had restrained and left it to starve to death. He also mentioned the story of a man whom Allah had forgiven after giving a thirsty dog some water to drink: “A woman entered Hellfire because of a cat which she had tied, neither giving it food nor setting it free to eat from the vermin of the earth.”(Saheeh Al-Bukhaaree: 3140; Saheeh Muslim: 2619)

He also said, “While a man was walking along a road, he became very thirsty and he found a well. He lowered himself into the well, drank and came out. Then he saw a dog panting and eating mud because of excessive thirst. The man said,‘This dog has become exhausted from thirst in the same way as I.’ He lowered himself into the well again and filled his shoe with water and gave the dog some water to drink. Allah thanked him for his good deed and forgave him.” The people asked, “Messenger of Allah! Is there a reward for us in serving these animals?” “Yes,” he replied, “There is a reward for serving every living thing.” (Saheeh Al-Bukhaaree: 5663; Saheeh Muslim: 2244).

Preservation of the environment

Islam urges its adherents to safeguard the environment.

Islam instructs us to make the world a better place by utilizing the earth's natural resources to build a civilization and engage in development and production for the general welfare of mankind, while at the same time trying to preserve such resources and prevent others from abusing or unnecessarily wasting them. Corruption in all its forms and by whatever means it may be caused is frowned upon in Islam and abhorred to the Creator Himself, as the Qur’an states, “Allah does not like corruption.” (Soorat Al-Baqarah, 2:205)

In fact, Islam is so concerned about this issue that it goes as far as to direct its adherents to do righteous deeds and engage in such things as cultivating the land even in times of great turmoil and under terrifying circumstances, such as the Day of Judgement. As the Prophet ﷺ once instructed, “If the Day of Judgement takes place [and you recognise the Event], while a man is holding a palm-tree seedling [to plant in the soil], let him, if he can, plant it.” (Musnad Ahmad: 12981)