#the way I have so many shading variations is criminal

[chelireads]

Colored Ver.

[Procrastination at its finest]

[kyliafanfiction]

You know, I've heard people make the case that Dark Elves as in D&D-style Drow (and anything drawing from those inspirations)* are somehow racist against black people, that drow represent Black people or... something.

That's always baffled me.

Because when I think of the stereotypes I've seen racists express towards black people, either in the modern day, or in history, what I see are all variations on the following themes: uncivilized barbarians, ape-like, smelly, dirty, criminals, rapists, lazy, stupid. Squatting in ruined cities in jungles, etc.

By contrast, the conventional depictions of Drow/Dark Elves as inspired by D&D are: Sophisticated, cruel, usually matriarchial, sexually transgressive in some form often, sometimes religiously transgressive in settings where they aren't in thrall to a Lolth-expy. Demon-consorting. Some longstanding emnity that explains the split from the regular elves. Evil. Violence based societies that create cycles of abuse. Slavery. Living underground.

(this is not every depiction of dark elves, obviously, Eberron famously stands out, but the convention is the target)

Apart from the loose notion of having dark skin (but Drow-style Dark Elves have coal black, gray, dark purple, dark blue skin, and black people IRL are generally shades of brown - there are exceptions, but not really present in the US conception of black people and every think piece I've seen calling Drow racist has been by and for Americans so...) there's not a lot of overlap between the stereotypes.

I feel like if someone was looking for the stereotype of black people in fantasy settings derived from D&D, orcs by way of conventional D&D is what you're looking for. Orcs are usually smelly, uncivilized, brutish, stupid tribal monsters destroying civilizations. Many settings often gesture in the direction of trying to put a veneer over this, and some actually succeed at portraying orcs as fully realized 3D cultures and people while still keeping them recognizably orcs, but most don't).

Like, people call the Goblins from Harry Potter antisemitic, and they can point to real overlap between the goblins and traditional antisemetic depictions - the noses, the obsession with money, the whole mess in the HP Game that shall not be named, etc). People can and have argued this was - at least at first - more JKR unconsciously engaging with tropes that were longstanding, but even if they're right about the intentions (and these days, JKR doesn't really deserve the benefit of the doubt), the overlap is still there and something that can be pointed to.

Now, yes, there are problems with Drow as often depicted - an ontologically, 'born evil' race like that, etc. And you can actually draw some overlap between the depictions of drow-style dark elves and certain Orientalist tropes, oddly enough, though I think that speaks to more how Orientalism uses tropes that predate it than anything else. YMMV there.

Of course, most variations on those conventional drow-style dark elves usually do, again, make a stab at showing that they aren't ontologically evil, born evil. The cycle of abuse and paranoia and violence and so forth of Dark Elf society is front and center of most versions of them. The influence of cosmic forces of evil on their religion and thus culture. And of course, Dark Elves that aren't evil, ones that were born into different traditions, or consciously made the choice to turn away from that culture they were raised in. There have been missteps, sometimes really honking huge ones (:glares at R.A. Salvatore and his enablers:) but even then, if there's any depth to the depiction of dark elves...

I mean, frankly, for a long time, you were a lot more likely to find a sympathetic dark elf rather than a sympathetic orc, in fantasy fiction.

So yeah. I don't get the 'dark elves as presented by D&D are racist against black people' argument.

*This does mean this post doesn't discuss 'something called a dark elf with brown or tanned or olive skin, etc', unless they share other commonalities with the D&D-style Drow depiction. Dark elf really shouldn't be used to mean 'elf of color' anyway.

[terrainofheartfelt]

You keep saying S6 of Gossip Girl is fake, so how would you have done it? Considering the same constraints the writers had (only 10 episodes, many characters, the loose ends in the S5 finale and the fact that it’s an ensemble show, so you can’t get someone away to deal with stuff)

It IS fake! As my dear friend Ivy (natearchie) said once, “canon is in the eye of the beholder,” and if every branch of christianity ever can cherry pick which parts of their mythology they deem to be true, then why shouldn’t I do the same with this cw soap about pretty people kissing?

Of course, the answer I want to give is that you can find my rewriting of the story following s5 on my ao3, but that shit’s long and you’re talking within the same 10 ep order so *cracks knuckles* let’s do this.

Oh but first lemme tell you of a god-tier s6 fix-it by S (strideofpride) here. It Healed me.

Disclaimer: since s6 is fake I don’t really remember all that happened in there so I am painting with broad strokes here. and I'm putting it under a read more because once yet again, my loquaciousness got the better of me.

Oh, for starters, let’s just get this out of the way now: Dan is not Gossip Girl. No one is Gossip Girl. The identity of Gossip Girl shall not be revealed. Because I think narratively-speaking I don’t need to, and because giving it to any of the GG mains would mean retconning like 99.99% of the show. So.

I’d open the season with both Serena AND Dan hiding away from New York, having cut ties with everybody. Blair is the one to track down Serena, finding her...not shacking up with a dude twice her age, but in a small town, anonymous, maybe she has a part-time job, maybe she finally got her yoga certification and is teaching classes. She’s doing the GOOP thing she pretended at doing between s2&3 and s3&4. Her unhappiness isn’t because she doesn’t belong in the world she’s run to, or that she’s pretending to be someone else (just a different shade of herself), it’s that she left at odds with so many important people in her life, and doesn’t she want to fix that? -- here let’s flashback to Blair tracking down chip whiskers whereverst he pranced off to, and the conversation that follows, and Blair realizing “this isn’t what I want” -- okay and we’re back to the Blairena show somewhere in...Maine or whatever.

Nate tracks down Dan still living in Italy - Georgina fucked off halfway through the summer when he gave up writing. He’s just been a barista ever since. Nate gives him a variation of the “you can’t run away when things get hard” speech, and Dan throws all the drafts of Outside (was that the name? idk) in Nate’s face. Dan’s hiding because he’s too ashamed to come back. Because he wrote this. And Nate points out: but you stopped, you’re not publishing it.

The episode ends with GG blasts that note Serena & Dan’s respective returns to NYC.

Okay here’s the broad brushstrokes coming in:

Rather than have Nate be the one with the Howard-esque scandal, let’s make it Chip. Hell, throw his resurrected dad in there too. I don’t support the prison system but I do love locking up fictional criminal rich white men. And let’s be real, any attempted coup chip would make to take his dad’s company would rely heavily on white collar crime (I think it’s nevertothethird’s fic that rightfully points out that chip barely got a high school diploma, what the fuck is he doing running a company).

I’d gut a lot of the extraneous side character tomfoolery, get Ivy out of there, get wvdw out of there, they are barely relevant as it is. Instead I would center the episodes around the core four, and their friendships with each other, and where they are going in life.

And to that point, with such a limited timeframe to work with, I don’t think I’d have any endgame pairings at all. Except Lily/Rufus. They stay married. Because I said so. (maybe the hijinks that put the derena friendship back on track is pulling off another parent trap). I’d have Dan and Serena and Blair and Nate all be friends with one another, and maybe there’s some backsliding (this is a CW show after all) or hey, maybe let’s give the Gays what they want and have a blairena and/or date hookup, just for funsies. But I think any of that tomfoolery would still be brought back to, we need to just be friends/ I need us to just be friends right now.

And I’d end the series on that friendship, with them having one last night in New York before they all go their separate ways. They are all getting out. Serena is moving to LA, because she realized that is where she’s been the happiest in the past six years, but this time, she is leaving on good terms, and her friends and family know where to find her. Blair is moving to Paris for a new job at a fashion publication (isn’t this how Friends ends??? S? Only nobody stops Blair from getting on the plane, she and her people know it’s the best thing for her). Dan is going to graduate school in the midwest (I think it was waldorfhistoria who told me he does this in the books, let’s bring in that energy!), because he wants to be a writer again, he just needs some better role models than noah goddamn shapiro. Nate, new college graduate, unemployed, is about to set off on an around-the-world sailing trip. He’s been plotting it for months, and he’s very excited. He’s not thinking too far ahead in the future, but that’s okay.

Okay okay okay I will go ahead and do a time-jump. Let’s have it be about the same length as the show one, which was what - ten years after the series began? Maybe a little longer? Something is happening to bring the gang back together: maybe it’s a Constance/St. Jude’s reunion, maybe Rufus and Lily are renewing their vows, idk, it’s something.

Serena is working her way up the ranks of a production company in LA, she’s happy and healthy and loving her life, maybe she’s doing some writing of her own. Blair is flying in from Paris, after closing another fabulous coverage of fashion week, she’s a high-ranking editor now, near the top of the ladder, and loving every second of it. Let’s allude to Jenny and Eric, too. Jenny, celebrating success with the debut of her own label (with rave reviews from Blair’s publication, and Eric, who is helping direct and provide counsel to a nonprofit centered around LGBTQA+ youth with…*drumroll*...Nathaniel Archibald. And, last but certainly not least, Daniel Humphrey, visiting NYC from Chicago to promote his new novel (his 3rd!), hitting the top of the NYT bestseller list (because he deserves it!)

They all keep in touch to varying degrees, some closer than others. Serena and Nate are too on the move to really keep up, but they make a catch-up coffee not-date which turns into lunch which turns into dinner which turns into drinks and they show up to this party as each other’s date.

Dan and Blair really only keep track via instagram, never really talking to each other directly, though he did personally congratulate her on each of her promotions, and she’s sent him a lengthy and brutally thorough review of each thing he’s published in the last few years. But they both go to this aforementioned vague event (it’s late I’m tired just go with it), arriving separately, and then at some point, while they’re catching up with other people, they spot each other, and lock eyes across the crowded room.

Roll credits.

[warrioreowynofrohan]

Conservatism in Brandon Sanderson’s Writings; or, Reflections on Revolution in the Cosmere

I’ve only read The Stormlight Archive and Warbreaker, so this is based on an incomplete picture, but the combination of those two have given me an impression of Sanderson’s ideas on social structures, appropriate and inappropriate responses to institutional injustice, and revolution. These ideas strike me as being essentially conservative; I’m tempted to say Burkean (hence my alternate title), but I don’t know Burke’s writings well enough to be sure if that’s correct.

To be clear: this is not a ‘call-out’ post. I personally disagree with some of Sanderson’s themes, but I’m trying to understand, engage with, and debate them, not flatly condemn them.

My interpretations here are primarily based on two storylines: Warbreaker, and Kaladin and Moash’s arcs in Words of Radiance. Both of these two storylines, and their resolutions, seem grounded in the following political ideas:

1) Injustice and cruelty are the result of bad, or flawed, people; not of bad systems. And people can change. The solution to a system that seems unjust is to improve the people within it, not to tear it down.

2) Those who seek revolution are basically self-serving and vengeful, not interested in the good of others or that of society.

3) Radicals and those who seek revolution have a blinkered political perspective, flattening societies and people into stereotypes rather than acknowledging their complexity.

1. People, not systems

For the first point: both Alethkar and the world of Warbreaker have systems that are fundamentally founded on entrenched and institutionalized inequality. In Alethkar it is the division between lighteyes and darkeyes (and the different ranks thereof). In Warbreaker it is the position of Returned, who can only exist by daily taking life-force/spirit from others - typically from the poor. Nonetheless, the narrative justifies the maintenance of both systems, primarily on the basis that the ruling classes contain good people (e.g. Dalinar, Adolin; Siri, Susebron, Lightsong); one of the major themes in TWOK and WOR revolves around forcing Kaladin to recognize that some lighteyes are good, and others, like Elhokar, have the desire and capacity to improve.

The basic political conflict is, to me, expressed by two lines following Kaladin’s (second) defeat of a Shardbearer. The first is Dalinar’s, when he states what Kaladin should do about institutionalized discrimination against darkeyes: “You want to change that?...Be the kind of man that others admire, whether they be lighteyed or dark...That will change the world.” This fundamentally rubs me the wrong way - it’s the Booker T. Washington theory of how to address racial inequality, and history has proven time and time and time again that it doesn’t work. If Kaladin did that, people would say, “Wow, that Kaladin, what an unusually exceptional darkeyes!” and continue to treat the rest of darkeyes just the same.

The second line is Kaladin’s when he refuses the shardblade that would make him lighteyed: “I don’t want my life to change because I’ve become a lighteyes. I want the lives of people like me...like I am now...to change.” This, I completely agree with - but later events would suggest the narrative may not. (And the fact that Kaladin doesn’t used his increased status in later books to push for change on this front frustrates me.)

To give another example: when Sadeas treats bridgemen as cannon fodder and their lives as utterly disposable, the problem is treated as being that Sadeas is a bad person (and facing certai. tactical constraints) - not the fact that Sadeas and the other brightlords has the power to treat darkeyes’ lives as disposable in the first place. When Kaladin is imprisoned for challenging Amaram to a duel - in effect, imprisoned for being darkeyed, since a high-nahn lighteyes would not have been punished for issuing such a challenge - this is treated as Kaladin’s fault, not the fault of a system that treats him as having fundamentally less worth than Amaram.

There’s no focus in the books on getting rid of the unjust system - by any means, violent or non-violent, bottom-up or top-down - just on having the ruling class become better people, which is expected to alleviate some problems without fundamentally altering the social structure.

2. Revolutionaries are selfish

The most open expression of this idea is in TWOK, where Moash says outright that he’d like to keep the same system but flipped, with darkeyes on the top and lighteyes on the bottom. Vivenna’s endeavours towards revolution are also portrayed as driven by bigotry against Hallandran culture. And Kalladin’s desire to remove Elhokar is shown as driven by a desire for revenge, with any larger goals or motives being mere rationalization. Likewise, the main antagonist of Warbreaker is shown as having destructive, not constructive goals.

While this is ceratinly true of some revolutionary movements, in Sanderson’s works it is shown as invariably true, with no revolutionary characters being driven by genuine justice or the desire to improve people’s lives. This provides a stark contrast with the number of virtuous characters who are shown depicting or upholding the existing social systems.

3. Radicals see society in shallow and stereotypical terms

This is a big part of the characterization of both Vivenna and Kaladin. For Vivenna, the main example is that she initially sees her people - from a largely rural nation - as fundamentally virtuous, and is horrified by the ‘criminals’ they have to live among in the slum. When she’s made to see that those ‘criminals’ are in fact members of her people, she sees them as victims tragically corrupted by the terrible (urban) culture they’ve immigrated to. She generalizes; she doesn’t want to recognize the fact that some of her people prefer life in the city - despite marginalization and poverty - to life in their country of birth, and wouldn’t want to return. She spends most of the book being gradually forced to break down her stereotypes of her culture as good and Hallandran society as corrupt.

Kaladin, for his part, continually stereotypes lighteyes. In his youth, it’s a kind of internalized caste-ism - he’s constantly disappointed and mistreated by the lighteyes around him, and he keeps on thinking that the people doing it aren’t ‘real’ lighteyes, ‘real’ lighteyes are noble and honorable and he’ll get to fight for one someday. After being betrayed one too many times, he switches to thinking that all lighteyes, invariably, are corrupt, exploitative and evil; it takes a lot to get him to trust Dalinar, and for well after that he continues stereotyping every lighteyes he meets (Adolin, Renarin, Shallan) as spoiled and uncaring even after evidence to the contrary. Even in Oathbringer stereotypes are his default reaction to lighteyes he doesn’t know. He also tends to ignore the fact of major differences in variations in status and life with the two main castes, by nahn and dahn. It’s treated as one of his more persistent character flaws, and contrasted with the more open and merit-based attitudes of the main lighteyed characters.

I’m not really comfortable with this portrayal. Kaladin’s entire life, and everything he’s suffered, have been defined and determined by being lighteyes. He doesn’t have the luxury of being ‘eye-colour-blind’ . Does he make invalid assumptions? Yes, especially about Shallan. But Kaladin thinking of Adolin as a spoiled brat and Adolin calling Kaladin ‘bridgeboy’ are not the same kind of thing; calling someone from a discriminated-against group (who is an adult of about your age) ‘boy’ has implications that both the author and reader are aware of; it is, intentionally or not, an expression of power and superiority, and it is quite justified that it would guve Kaladin a negative impression of Adolin! More broadly, mistrusting lighteyes is basically a trauma-induced defense mechanism for Kaladin, and understandable given what he’s been through. Adolin’s thinking, early in Words of Radiance, that “he was all for treating men with respect and honor regardless of eye shade, but the Almighty had put some men in command and others beneath them; it was simply the natural order of things” is to my mind far more offensive than Kaladin’s personality hostility to lighteyes, but the only main character who the narrative treats/criticizes as being bigoted on the basis of eye color is Kaladin. Adolin’s treated by the narrative as a great person who Kaladin needs to be nicer to, and the aforementioned attitude is never addressed again; it’s not part of his character arc like Kaladin’s view of lighteyes is.

In short, Sanderson’s works are strongly grounded in the idea that the quality of a society is grounded in the personal goodness of its people (including the goodness of its ruling class) more than in the creation of just and equal social structures; and that attributting a society’s problems to structures that create and perpetuate injustice rather than to the choices of individuals is basically wrongheaded. I agree with him on the importance of individual goodness and choices; I disagree with his minimization of the need to dismantle unjust social structures.

[harbingerhorizon]

Individual Responsibility to Society

Introduction

As humans, we have the capability of creating beautiful works of art. Leonardo da Vinci was most well known for the Mona Lisa. Vincent Van Gogh created the Starry Night. Johannes Vermeer made Girl with a Pearl Earing and Milchelangelo with the Sistine Chapel. These are just a few works admired by millions if not billions as works that could have only been completed by intellectuals. People flock from around the world for an opportunity to see such talent on display not recognizing that they themselves are artist in nature. A mosaic of people of many colors defined by many different types of pieces trying to figure out how to best fit into a pattern we call community. What makes any work of art a masterpiece is not just putting imagination on to canvass but the ability to carefully choose the colors, manage those colors, stay within the lines, and holding themselves accountable to every paint stroke made. 

Carefully Choosing the Colors

The world is a complexed series of problems on a canvass designed by many colors. Those many colors are the people within a community that cross intersect to make one complete picture. Within those colors are a mixture of ingredients that make up the shades that if not monitored, causes imperfections in the final work: unemployment, political violence, poverty, and ecological disasters all of which exist but dependent on the skill of the painter get overlooked despite being the things we should care about the most. What makes these problems so complexed is how they intersect one another on the canvass as colors mix. The more paint that is applied to the canvass and the more colors that are chosen, the more they become entangled and more difficult to manage. While some may go unphased by the harsh chemicals, it does not go unnoticed that the mixtures cause reprehensible results which if corrected early enough has a new unique perspective to the picture but if left unaddressed, could in worst case destroy the work and waste the time spent developing it.

Managing of the Colors

For those viewing our painting - our community, what perspective are we providing to them? The actions of individuals within our community gives sanction to the viewer of the art to determine which color is most relevant.  It also allows any viewer to pose the questions of “Are any of these colors important to me, If I were the artist, what colors would I have chosen instead, and what does the entire picture mean to me? We based these questions on cultural values and beliefs which helps us answering fundamental questions to what colors one chooses to focus on or find most appealing. In a 2007 journal on the study of Youth Sense of Community: Voice and Power In Community Context, Scot Evans (Author) concludes the importance of adolescents involvement in community affairs. In this study, youth express their views of their society and what matters to them citing while they have a high interest in contributing, “…teenagers are often unequipped and under supported to participate fully and feel like they are making meaningful contributions to society.” Teens themselves are of a separate color on the pallet that is often ignored or given equal consideration especially those young people “who are disadvantaged or members of minority groups” (S. Evans, 2007).

Staying Within the Lines

Both teens and adults have a similar set of values and that has evolved throughout history a system of governance that selects values and beliefs based on those most shared. This governing is imposed on the people as the “Rule of Law” (J. Hart, 2014). The theory behind the rule of law is designed to govern the decorum of the people within a society that are fair and equitable. This system throughout history has not been perfect but in the description of democracy, has stood through the test of time by its foundational principles of governing by the people with majority rule and with ultimate authority from its people. This is important to our societal canvass as we are essentially giving the colors that make up the painting the power to choose what is considered out of bounds or outside the lines of the painting we intend on creating.

Within a democratic society is the creation of government systems and within that, courts. The purpose of these courts is to take a common set of beliefs and values and implement them into law to protect people from other people. Originally designed to be judicial in nature, western society courts have progressed into an inclusive affair where the public through concepts of faith become involved in the decision making of what is socially acceptable. The involvement of people that are governed included the “participation in local law enforcement and administration (as sheriffs, JPs and constables) or juries (grand and petty) and, indeed, in parliament itself (as lawmakers) …” (J. Hart JR, 2014). This invited society to buy into an idea of shared responsibility and “…the commitment to the traditional means and methods of English government.  The United States continues to maintain the concept of shared responsibility through government practice in the appointments of peace officers of similar title at a local level, judges and magistrates at all levels, and the election of congressional and senatorial positions for both state and federal level. Collectively, the bodies of these entities collaborate with the communities in which they serve to solve complexed quality of life issues. To be effective, they all must make a commitment to enforcing laws in an equal and equitable manner.

The principles of a societal occupied justice system are not just for the purposes of societal cohesion but too personal gain. In a free society, people are afforded the right to explore financial independence through entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurial ventures invite innovation which as a byproduct also invites competitors to steal the ideas of one to make it their own. Individuals of society are sought to play roles in the civil judicial system to protect the rights of intellect that contribute to economic growth. Civil judicial courts as defined by Glenn Hubbard and Patrick O’Brien in “Macroeconomics” are independent courts who make decisions free of influence from any other portion of the government, governed people who have connections to political influence or any person who intimidates by criminal gang. These courts are expected to be used to make decisions based solely on law.

The legal protections of our society are lines on our canvass we have chosen to remain in to maintain order. These same lines are what society collectively create through majority vote and like the practice of artist leading to a perfect masterpiece, we are continuing to improve upon. When we work outside the lines it lends opportunity to anarchy, unrest, and disorder. This is the paint finding its way away from the canvass, splattered throughout the room in places it should never belong. As a society, working collectively, we can paint a beautiful work of art. The best direction is to embrace each color to help complement one another and, in some cases, create new colors.

Accountability to Every Paint Stroke

Some of the colors used in paintings share similar tones. What is a simple brown can be changed to a lighter or darker form of brown. We recognize these slight variations as a family of tones. A color that is mixed into another loses its identity as one color and becomes a totally different color. As it pertains to civic responsibility, we see this happen when it comes to influence on youth. According to the study of Youth Sense of Community: Voice and Power in Community Context (S. Evans, 2007), people demonstrate a higher interest in personal responsibility and accountability when they are introduced to civics and politics at an adolescent age. Youth not only have a higher interest in civics but to are “…more likely to consider public interest an important life goal when their families emphasized an ethic of social responsibility (S. Evans, 2007). When there is an absence of influence from family, there are plenty of replacements today through technology that fill the void that shapes the views of teens. Social media and online content are huge replacements that manipulate the values and beliefs in teens as they become adults.

Youth are encouraged to engage in civic programs like student body councils and Mayor Youth Council (MYC) which help them with problem solving and understand the necessity of community partnership for the greater good of all within the community. Engaging in civic government programs, teens have positions of power bestowed upon them. In Evans study, he concluded that when this power is gained, they are more conscience of their personal responsibility to the community. The students in the study also expressed their want to better their communities after becoming aware of inequalities within and outside of their own communities “revealing how their opportunities to play meaningful roles promote their developing sense of social responsibility to the agency.”

Conclusion

As a society working collectively, we can paint a beautiful work of art. The best direction is to embrace each color to help complement one another and, in some cases, create new colors. As contributing colors to the painting, we have a voice to influence the significance of our own color within the painting governed by the rule of law where the colors on the canvass dictate what is fair and just. When we say, “The system isn’t fair,” The question that we should ask ourselves is: “How are we contributing to it?” To create a picture we want others to see, we must become involved. We must find a way to carefully put our color on to the canvass, staying within the lines and holding ourselves accountable for the strokes we make. Are we becoming a part of the painting as designed, or are we fighting against it?

 References

 Evans, S. D. (2007). Youth sense of community: Voice and power in community contexts. Journal of Community Psychology, 35(6), 693–709. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcop.20173

Hart, J. S. (2003). The Rule of Law, 1603-1660: Crowns, Courts and Judges (1st ed.). Routledge.

 Hubbard, R. G., & O’Brien, A. P. (2020). Macroeconomics. Pearson.

[sukitaro]

The Underworld

Part 1/2:

Wading through the gleaming streetways of Kugane under it’s midnight rainfall, the hulking silhouette of Ryuki sluggishly wandering the streets of the Rakuza District nearest the Garlean Consulate. Even with the rainfall, the middle-aged Auri opted for a black Yanxian haori, hakama and zori. He was poised in his deceptive hunch, bamboo cane in hand. His head was kept down, but his focus remained forward, golden irises piercing the night from between salt and pepper hair.

The typical crowd to be expected in the Rakuza District was present, albeit in semi-smaller quantities on account of the hour. Merchant shacks and carts had closed for the evening with staff retired to the safety of their homes. Men loitered around, a majority dressed in a black kimono or haori, with little skin to be shown off. Raen Auri, Roegadyn, and Hyur were present in the masses, exchanging words in Hingan. These men likewise populated the less-visible alleyways of the Rakuza District area, performing the occasional swapping of unseen materials - in many cases, some variation of a drug. Despite the vacancy of the merchant stalls and closed teahouses or restaurants, a few establishments continued to operate, nestled in the rear alleyways, ranging from sexually illicit stores to karaoke lounges and bars. The alleyways and surrounding area were kept impeccably clean and unviolated with litter or property defacing. 

As Ryuki neared the strip of the Rakuza District nearest the Garlean Consulate, he halted at the steps of a specific karaoke lounge - in contrast to the few others that sat in the more hidden reaches, this lounge made no effort to keep out of sight. The light from within held a reddish hue, illuminating the exterior with a soft crimson glow. A man stood idly to one side of the main entrance, dressed in a floor-length black and grey yukata, a mess of chocolate hair covering his forehead. A katana was boldly sheathed at a hip, and despite the occasional patrol units of the Sekiseigumi, this potentially criminal offense was spared not more than a passing glance by roaming guards before turning to continue along their route. He casted a side-long glance towards Ryuki as he approached, holding it for a moment before dipping into a respectful bow. He turned his attention towards the streets when this had concluded.

Ryuki slowly returned the gesture, stepping into the karaoke lounge with careful footsteps. The interior of the entrance hall was exquisite, adorned with high quality Hingan sake and whiskey to break the bank of a typical visitor. Gorgeous black leather couches and seats sat neatly in the general seating area, fine porcelain wares studded in imperial-quality jade standing on display on tabletops nearby. Authentic works of Hingan and Doman art were hung along the walls, varying in styles from ukiyo-e to Yanxian landscape painting. Private karaoke rooms were layered along hallways branching from either side of the entrance hall, with all listed as ‘Unoccupied’ in Hingan kanji except for one karaoke room at a hallway end listed as ‘In Use’. Despite the lack of complete lack of patronage in the hallway or anywhere in sight, the faint scent of cigar smoke sat in the air.    

A brawny Sea Wolf Roegadyn silently tended to the bar area, organizing glasses and sanitizing what was in reach. He boasted a full suit and tie, along with polished dress shoes and a slicked back head of navy blue hair. As Ryuki made his presence known, the Roegadyn spoke up in curt Hingan, halting his cleaning to bow in the expected Eastern fashion. <”A familiar face. Good evening. How may I assist you this evening? Might I start you off with something to drink, or would you like to rent out a room?”> 

Ryuki, with his haori and hakama partially plastered down by rainwater, dipped at the waist in turn. Replying in Hingan. <”Good evening. I respectfully decline your offer. I have business with yours’.”> Maintaining an even eye contact, he made a mental note of the shotgun in the Roegadyn’s holster.

Despite the vague explanation for his arrival, the Roegadyn knitted his brows, gesturing towards one end of a hallway with an open palm. <”...I am of the assumption you understand where to go. Thank you for stopping by, Kotaro-sama.”> With a parting bow, he slowly pivoted on a heel, returning to his mindless cleaning.

The Auri man returned the gesture graciously, turning his attention towards the hallway to his left. Leading with his bamboo cane, he made his way for the peak end of the hallway where the private room marked ‘In Use’ sat. He stood before the door a moment before twisting the knob, pushing the door open and revealing a downward staircase. What began as a faint trace of smoke in the main entrance area amplified in intensity as Ryuki began his descent. Upon arrival at the base of the staircase and with further travel down another hallway, he peered up, greeted with the hanging scroll that marked the entrance of a place unknown to the masses too cowardly or blissfully unaware. Upon the scroll laid a bold daimon.

The daimon of the Takaneda-gumi.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Part 2/2:

Stepping into the space with a gentle opening of the entrance door, Ryuki stood still with his hunch persisting. The interior space was moderately lit with Hingan lanterns along the wall, alongside various Hannya masks that seemed prepared to come alive at a moment’s notice. As was the case in the upstairs area, the space was adorned with priceless Eastern paintings, velvet crimson couches and traditional cushions and randomly placed jade statues of Eastern serpents and terrifying creatures of legend. Expensive bottles of Eastern sake and whiskey littered the tables. Of all the aspects to note, one stood out in contrast to the Eastern-lounge feel to the space -- the small number of Imperial banners that hung, showcasing the widely denounced Garlean insignia. A group of men loitered about against the walls or on sofa cushions with bottles of sake in hand. Roegadyn, Raen Auri and Hyur. In contrast to the bartender above, these men boasted some variation of a sleeveless haori or no shirt at all. A myriad of Eastern irezumi inkings coated the skin of what was visible, leaving only the face unmarked. The majority chatted idly with one another in the native tongue. A smaller cluster were huddled at a table, lost in a game of Doman Mahjong with a handsome quantity of koban on the line. The scent of smoke hung thickly, sourced collectively from lit cigars. Everyone present looked occupied in some fashion, speaking in casual Hingan without a care in the world.

That is, until Ryuki made his presence known.

The Raen man advanced into this new space with a bow, greeted with the wary side-long looks of the majority present including the group involved in the game of Doman Mahjong. Seeming overall unperturbed by the attention and sudden silence, Ryuki hardly gave the group a passing glance as he made his way for another room across the way flanked by twin Eastern serpent statues and scrolls showcasing the Takaneda-gumi daimon.

<”I am obliged to understand what you are doing here, Kotaro-san.”> A gruff voice in Hingan called out. 

Ryuki slowly peered over his shoulder, met with viciously scarred Midlander man. The accursed third ‘Garlean eye’ visible on his forehead with his mop of hair slicked back. <”My reasons for a visitation are of no concern to you, shateigashira.”> Ryuki grunted.

The Garlean Hyur canted his head. <”No concern to me? Is that the case? I speak to the man whose Clan nearly sent our operations spiraling into extinction following the liberation of your pitiful excuse for a home. You dare treat me as a chip on your shoulder, you Eorzean-sympathizing bastard?”>

<”That will be all. I pray to the Kami your oyabun will teach you respect. You are as a lawless babe, threatened by those that question your hotheaded temper. How many times must we have this interaction, Raekis-san?”> Ryuki mused, turning about half-way. <”I do understand this to be a common flaw present in the Garlean population.>”

The Garlean Hyur gnashed his teeth, reaching for a dagger nestled away. Halfway through his motion, under the squinted stare from Ryuki, he stopped. <”...We will have our day, Kotaro-san. You will find yourself a Clan patriarch, with no Clan.”> Casting a smoldering look at the door nearby, he pivoted on a heel to walk off. Likely to burn off steam.

Huffing, Ryuki approached the doorway flanked by Eastern serpents and hanging Takaneda-gumi scrolls. Remembering his mannerisms, he delivered a knock on the door. 

<”Come in, Kotaro-San.”> A low voice responded with not a moment to spare before Ryuki could get a word out. Smooth and confident.

Adjusting his haori, Ryuki pensively pushed his way into the space at the voice’s invitation. The ‘office’ was akin to a more condensed version of the underground lounge he had arrived from, with the addition of an ornate fool’s portal mounted on the wall. 

A monstrous Raen man sat comfortably on a leather chair to the rear of the office before a desk, kiseru pipe pinched between fingers. Even in comparison to Ryuki, who stood a few ilms taller than your average Auri when his hunch was lifted, this man-in-waiting was taller still by a few more ilms - almost abnormally so. He looked between 30 and 35 in age, rippling with scarred and irezumi inked muscle underneath a luxurious suit and tie. A hefty tail resembling that of a komodo dragon with a hazardous quantity of spines and jagged edges hung from the edge of his seat. A pair of cold, calculating irises bore viciously into Ryuki the moment he worked the door open, orange in color and glowing with a feral intensity. His skin was a tan caramel in shade and hair a short mess of black, spiked forward and partially shielding his right eye. A pair of ridged horns angled downward and forward from his skull like animal canines. He faced the door with legs crossed in the male fashion, tapping a pointed fingernail against his kiseru pipe as he suppressed the urge to greet his visitor with an unnerving, fanged smile. 

<”I am truly blessed this evening. Please, take a seat, Kotaro-san.”> The man gestured to the Eastern cushion purposefully placed before his desk. A power play to all who dared request an meeting.

Eying the cushion, Ryuki shook his head, bowing slowly. <”With all due respect, I would wish to stand. Takaneda no Zenkoshi.>” He spoke the man’s full name, tapping his bamboo cane into the floor.

<”You would do well to remember your place in my pecking order, Kotaro-san.”> Zenkoshi remarked with a lift of his brow, extending a finger to gesture to his guest’s bamboo cane. <”An impressive act. However, I am a man of authenticity.”> He took a generous hit of his kiseru pipe. <”Would you not agree?”>

Ryuki knitted his brows, placing his cane against the doorway and rolling his shoulders back. He stood at his full height, hunch dropping entirely. The man stood with his hands at his side, eying the crime lord warily. <”I will stand. Do me harm, and suffer the unending wrath of my people, oyabun-”>

<”Your ‘people’?”> Zenkoshi interrupted, head tilted softly to the side. <”Your people are fewer with each passing month, Kotaro-san. Your numbers…”> He trailed off, taking another puff of his kiseru pipe. <”...I can name on a hand. As you can see, I have been a busy man.”> Opening a palm and gesturing to the hideout on the outside, smiling. <”My men live as nobility. I, myself, the emperor I was destined to be.”>

<”Even with your much beloved financial masters fractured and left to wander?”> Ryuki mused, arms folded across his torso. <”The Garlean Empire is in hopeless disrepair. Soldiers and civilians have fled. Squadrons disbanded. With your funding strained, what remains of your brutish band of traffickers and petty criminals?”>

Zenkoshi chuckled darkly behind his kiseru pipe, pinning it between his elongated fangs for the moment. Speaking up. “<Petty criminals...without koban, we are stripped of potential. Although.”> He released his pipe. <”Hard times create strong men. I am apologetic on your behalf. Your Clan’s mindless vigilante days have produced a storm beyond your understanding.”> The Raen continued on with a fine squint.

 Staring at the oyabun with a stoic expression, Ryuki produced a gutteral hum from deep within his throat. <”Takaneda-sama, I implore you to move past this. I have repeatedly taken accountability for my Clan’s hotheaded actions. Dealing with your mettle is best left to the Sekiseigumi, easily enticed by koban as they are.”> He spoke with blatant distaste on his tongue. 

<”You fail to witness the deep-seated effects of your ‘glory days’.”> He pointed his kiseru pipe at the older man. <”Wrenched operation after operation bled us dry of much of our support. Even much of the Empire has learned to fear the Shinobi, it would seem.”> Zenkoshi frowned. <”I do wonder. Who remains? The patriarch...and his heiress.”> Slowing his speech as he neared the end.

<”This conflict is between you and I.>” Ryuki spoke up without a moment to spare, jamming a finger at the ground between the two. <”You and I. This occurred on my watch.”> 

Zenkoshi lifted a palm. <”Are you so lost beyond your years you forget the business in which I operate, old friend?”> Sneering. <”An heiress of so feared a Clan would fetch a fortune. Or, if this is not to your liking, she can remain here? How lonely this office can be...”> He mused, looking off to the side. <”If you wish to end this ‘bickering’ as you so graciously label it.”>

<”This is OUT of the question!”> Ryuki roared, slamming his palms atop the oyabun’s desk. <”You have enough koban and material wealth to last an eternity. I will hear NONE of this rabble.”> He hissed between clenched teeth, leaning forward to drill his reptilian gaze into the crime lord. <”I will bleed you in the dead of night.”>

In an impressive display of collectiveness, Zenkoshi remained in his seated position. He snapped his kiseru pipe with a sudden tensing up of the hand, irises ablaze with fury as his lips curled back to reveal his vicious set of teeth. <”I am going to recommend a soothing dip in the Onsen to ease that tension, Kotaro-san. Have a lovely evening. I will keep in touch.”> The man spoke with an unnatural coolness, veins popping along his neck.

Visibly shaking from a narrowly restrained anger, Ryuki lifted himself from his aggressive lean, watching the oyabun from start to finish. Wordless tension. With a pivot on his heel, he grabbed his bamboo cane, exiting the office and heading for the upstairs. Ignoring the clusters of Takaneda-gumi that had gathered following his sudden outburst.

Zenkoshi slowly laced his fingers atop his desk, leaning back with a hot exhale of breath.

<”In time.”>

[antipodeanpineapplelump]

Fast Times at Konoha High

This was supposed to be a drabble, but like everything else I touch it got totally out of hand. It’s inspired by some really pretty art of grumpy janitor Obito by @glas-onion-nard​ which you should definitely check out. Thank you so much for letting me write this Jay! (and no pressure at all to like it - I just had fun working on something completely different for a day). 

‘Can anyone tell me who Konoha’s founder was?’

A room full of less-than enthusiastic faces stares back at him and Kakashi breathes out a long sigh. Is it just his imagination, or is the ceiling light above his desk flickering? He wouldn’t mind if it is, though realistically it’s probably just wishful thinking. The bulbs were changed only two weeks ago after all.

‘No one?’ he prompts again, already anticipating the answer - or lack thereof.

Late-afternoon sunlight streams through the windows, shades of warm amber and gold. The question plays out just as Kakashi expected – blank faces and disinterest - and not for the first time, he wonders why he bothers. It’s clearly one of those days. The classroom looks deader than the staff party last Christmas – wrapped up by nine pm without so much as a single inappropriate drunken speech. Kakashi’s been to more exciting funerals. But it is nearly home-time on a Friday, so he can’t exactly blame them.

The bell rings, and the kids come alive like someone’s electrified the floor beneath them. ‘Alright,’ Kakashi calls out over the screech of chairs over wood, the clatter of stationary and books being zipped into bags, ‘Make sure you read that chapter this weekend, because anyone who doesn’t know the answer by Monday is definitely going to fail the test. You can’t say I didn’t warn you.’

‘Yes Mr. Hatake,’ they intone as one.

He smiles just a little bit at that. Enthusiastic or not, it’s still nice to hear his name spoken the same way as the teachers he remembers. After all, they’re what inspired him to pursue this career. They made a difference, even if he didn’t always appreciate it at the time.

‘Have a good weekend,’ he says as they file out, one by one.

Typically, Sasuke lingers in the corner, slow to leave again, and Kakashi makes a mental note to talk to Gai about him. It’s nothing more than a fleeting suspicion, but he gets the feeling all might not be right at home with him. He’s never been good at broaching that kind of thing with students himself, but surely the ever-cheerful guidance counsellor will know what to do.

A giggle from the corner of the classroom alerts him to the ongoing presence of Sakura - the quiet achiever of the class, and most enthusiastic member of Sasuke’s fan club. Kakashi will never understand what all the girls see in him – something about the mysterious, troubled, brooding type maybe – but wherever he goes, she goes. And where she goes-

A stack of books tips over at the back of the room.

‘Naruto you dunce!’ Sakura exclaims loudly, directing a scowl at the clumsy blond boy, then glancing back toward Sasuke for approval.

Kakashi wants to slap his palm over his face. They’re the worst, most oblivious, most patience-trying love triangle ever, and some days he just wishes he could-

The door to the classroom opens and his head snaps around, eyes drawn to it, hoping.

A man trudges in, stepladder under one arm, and brown cardboard box in other. He’s wearing a faded blue uniform, an eye patch, and an expression that can only be described as cantankerous. Or unreasonably grouchy. Or any other of a thesaurus-full of variations on the theme that Kakashi might care to apply. Like being here is utterly ruining his day, and he knows exactly who he blames it on.

Kakashi tries very hard not to swoon.

‘Hatake,’ the janitor growls, unimpressed.

There’s something oddly appealing about the way it sounds in his rough, gravelly tone though. ‘Obito,’ Kakashi replies warmly, suppressing the smile that wants to break through his careful mask of composure.

‘I presume you have something to complain about.’ Obito dumps the ladder on the floor. ‘Since you always do. Air conditioning again maybe. Or another squeaky door?’

‘Actually I think that light above my desk is flickering again,’ Kakashi says evenly.

‘Really?’ Obito drawls, one narrowed eye assessing him like he doesn’t believe it for a second. ‘Because I only changed the bulbs in it two weeks ago. The last time you complained,’ he adds snidely.

Kakashi holds out his hands, placating. ‘Maa, I can’t help it if the school doesn’t have the budget to look after these things properly.’

Obito breathes out through his nose, looking for all the world like he might hit Kakashi with the box he’s carrying. But instead he just rolls his eye, holding the box up. ‘Well, aren’t you lucky I brought replacement bulbs with me then?’

Kakashi actually smiles at that, bright and genuine. ‘That is lucky,’ he says, feeling a familiar flutter rising in his chest. He tries to lean casually against his desk, but it’s lot further away than he realised. Overbalancing, he flails gracelessly into thin air for a couple of seconds, then steps into a clumsy recovery, coughing awkwardly and trying to pass the whole thing off as intentional.

The wry expression and raised eyebrow suggest Obito’s not buying it though. He snorts sharply, something like amusement – or certainly the closest Kakashi’s ever seen - passing over his face, then drags his ladder toward the light in question, shaking his head.

The second he looks away, Kakashi sags against the desk. God he’s such an idiot. A completely hopeless mess whenever Obito’s around. Though in his defence, Obito does seem to be all Kakashi’s weaknesses rolled up into one man – and undoubtedly the most interesting person in this place. His past is a complete mystery, and regular topic of discussion in the staff-room over lunch. Ex-criminal, undercover secret agent, education ministry inspector – you name it, it’s probably been suggested. Although personally, Kakashi doubts any of them are right.

In any case, he just can’t seem to stay away from the man, and it’s caused the number of maintenance complaints he makes to skyrocket. A couple of really juicy issues, and he has a good excuse to stick around chatting to Obito for at least half an hour on Friday afternoons when he does his weekly rounds of the school. It’s made them Kakashi’s favourite day of the week.

‘So,’ he says, hoping to recover some of his lost dignity. ‘Do you have any plans for tonight?’

Obito pauses screwing in the light bulb momentarily to scowl at him. ‘Do I look like I have any plans?’

Ok… so maybe that was a bad question.

Kakashi bites his lip, distracted as Sasuke saunters past without the slightest acknowledgement. There really is something about the kid’s attitude that’s just not right and he probably should-

‘Naruto, don’t!’ Sakura exclaims.

Kakashi looks up just in time to see Naruto’s fingers slip off the spare bulb in Obito’s box, expression one of foiled mischief as Sakura drags him back by a shoulder.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she says to the janitor, looking terrified.

Naruto grins ridiculously, not the least bit put off by this change to his plans.

Obito glares at them both, expression exuding barely-contained menace. It’s enough to make Kakashi reconsider that suggestion about possible past criminality, and he knows it should probably concern him, but it’s also unreasonably attractive…

With a nervous laugh, Sakura tugs Naruto toward the door. ‘Come on,’ she entreats, as he refuses to budge, staring between Kakashi and Obito with the oddest expression on his face, like he’s just realised something terribly important.

Kakashi tears his eyes away from Obito (though that’s hard, because the view is very good) and pushes off his desk. ‘Time to head home Naruto. Mr. Uchiha needs space to do his job, and your parents will be expecting you.’

Still reluctant, Naruto pokes his tongue out at the janitor’s back, then much to Kakashi’s relief, follows Sakura to the door. That’s… less pushback than he was expecting.

But just before he gets there, and just when Kakashi thinks he’s home free, with Obito to himself for a whole few glorious minutes, Naruto pauses, fixing Kakashi with a terrifying grin and asking loudly enough that no-one - least of all the janitor perched on the ladder at the front of the room – could possibly miss it, ‘Do you want to be alone so you can finally ask him on a date Mr. Hatake!?’  

Teach children they said. It’ll be a rewarding career they said.

Well whoever they were, they obviously hadn’t accounted for Naruto.

Kakashi’s face feels like it’s on fire, Obito’s shoulders have stiffened and Kakashi just knows he’s heard. It makes him want to bolt straight out of the room. Anything to avoid having to explain to Obito, who - if he hadn’t realised before why so many things always break in Kakashi’s classroom – must surely understand by now.

‘Naruto!’ Sakura gasps. ‘I’m so sorry Mr. Hatake.’

Gritting his teeth, Kakashi smiles at her. ‘It’s alright Sakura. I hope both of you have a good weekend.’

‘Er… you too,’ she says with a final horrified glance at Obito - still frozen on the ladder - before dragging Naruto out.

Kakashi can hear her admonishing him all the way down the hall. Not that that helps him.

There’s a completely dead, stony silence. Kakashi swallows, wondering what he can possibly say to talk his way out of this. It’s all he can do not to just run away right now. As much as he likes Obito, he’s never imagined actually telling him how he feels, more than content to just admire from afar. But the way things have gone he has to say something.

‘Obito…’ he croaks out, name sticking in a too-dry throat. ‘I can explain.’

Almost in slow motion, Obito turns. His eye sweeps across Kakashi’s face, no doubt taking in the particular shade of red Kakashi knows he’s sporting. The nervous tongue that flicks traitorously across his lips, betraying the truth behind Naruto’s words.

‘Is it true?’ Obito asks flatly.

Kakashi’s resolve crumbles before the other man’s gaze. His eyes drop to the floor between his feet and he sucks in a deep breath, feeling like nothing in the world can prepare him for what he’s about to say. ‘I… yes, it is. I like you Obito. But I’d never… not if you didn’t want to…’

He trails off, unsure how to finish, and hating the deathly silence that fills the space between them. The heat in his face is spreading outward now, creeping along the tips of his ears and down his neck. Shifting uncomfortably, he scuffs at the floor with a toe.

There’s a noise that sounds suspiciously like someone clearing their throat. Steeling himself to face the music, Kakashi looks up. Obito’s still staring at him, but his expression is a lot less deadpan than before. Now there are tiny creases around his mouth and eyes, and if Kakashi didn’t know better, he’d say the janitor looks almost… amused. It’s not enough to make Kakashi relax, but it is far better than he was expecting.

Obito grunts, glancing at the box in his hands. ‘So tell me… should I finish changing these bulbs, or not?’

‘Um…’ Kakashi runs a hand through his hair nervously. Might as well come clean about everything, considering. ‘You probably don’t need to. Sorry… about that.’

Obito nods slowly. He steps back down to the floor, appearing lost in thought as he folds up the ladder. He’s taking this remarkably well. So well, Kakashi has almost begun to think he might be able to breathe again. That he might actually get away with this being one of those embarrassing incidents that they both agree (by omission) to pretend never happened. It’s probably the best he can hope for, realistically.

But Obito stops right in front of him on his way to the door. ‘You know,’ he muses, like he’s trying out each word before he actually says it. ‘I don’t have any plans tonight. But I could.’

Kakashi’s heart leaps into his throat. ‘Are you asking me… on a date?’ he squeaks.

The janitor’s mouth quirks subtly upward, slight but unmistakeable this time. ‘No. You asked first. I’m just telling you I accept.’

The noise that escapes Kakashi’s throat is almost embarrassing in it’s enthusiasm. This is not at all what he was expecting.

It’s so, so much better.

‘Do you like music?’ he hears himself babbling. ‘There’s a live band playing at my favourite bar in town tonight. Maybe we could go?’

‘Sure, that sounds fun.’

Kakashi resists the urge to punch the air. ‘I can pick you up at five?’ he suggests, aiming for cool and collected, but landing a lot closer to breathy and excited. There’s a smile plastered across his face, he just knows it, and from the way Obito’s eyes are lingering over his lips, he hasn’t failed to notice it.

‘I finish at six,’ the janitor says, wry but not displeased. ‘You can pick me up then. Assuming you don’t have anything else that needs fixing while I’m here?’

Kakashi blushes again. He’s probably never going to live that down. ‘Yeah uh… I’m pretty sure everything is working fine now, thanks.’

There’s an obvious smirk on Obito’s face, and it’s edging rapidly toward smug. ‘Funny that. I’ll see you at six then.’

‘Yeah… see you then.’

As soon as Obito leaves the room, Kakashi really does punch the air. Best day ever! And all thanks to Naruto’s inability to keep his mouth shut. Who’d have thought?

Minutes later he saunters from the classroom, drawing stares from his colleagues as he waltzes past them in a hazy dream-like state, whistling cheerfully.

Let them wonder. He’s got a hot date to prepare for, and he’s pretty sure it’ll be the talk of the school in due course.

But for now at least, it’s going to be a great start to the weekend.  

***

The mop seems to float, weightless in his hands, as Obito works his way down the hall, keeping a watchful eye on the time. If anyone had asked him earlier today why he thought Mr. Hatake from homeroom six was always finding so many issues with the school facilities, he would have said the man did it just to spite him.

Instead, it turns out he’s just a pervert who can’t resist the view of Obito’s ass halfway up a ladder as he changes the light bulbs. Who’d have thought?

Not that he’s complaining. There was a lot to like about the way Hatake’s stupid handsome face lit up at least five different shades of crimson when he realised Obito knew. Just the sort of gay disaster Obito’s never been able to resist.

He hums to himself, mopping right over patches of floor-bound chewing gum that would usually render him irate.

Only one hour to go, then he’s going to find out just how deep a shade of red Hatake can actually blush. Maybe even what’s behind that stupid mask of his.

Obito grins at the thought. It’s going to be a good weekend after all.

[mariocki]

Mariocki's 2018 Top 5s

Top 5 films (previously unseen)

Hachijikan No Kyôfu (Eight Hours Of Terror, 1957). An entirely atypical Seijun Suzuki film, its basically The Lady Vanishes mixed up with The Wages Of Fear, all shaken about and told with Suzuki's unique blend of irreverence and humanity.

Die Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum, 1979). Volker Schlöndorff's adaptation of Günter Grass' seminal novel dispenses with much of the third act, making for a leaner, more coherent film. Magical realism walks hand in hand with the banality of evil in a visually stunning, difficult, funny and distressing film. Unique.

The Offence (1973). Sidney Lumet adapts a minor play and transforms it into a cinematic masterpiece. A gruelling, exhausting study of one man's destruction - or is it two men, or neither? In replaying the same scenes, with slight variations and a little more revealed each time, Lumet twists the plot and the characters until everything is either revealed or obscured - depending on your reading of events. Undoubtedly Sean Connery's finest performance.

Alice, Sweet Alice (1976). A cheaply made, independent slasher film - but so intelligently made, so thoughtfully put together, that to call it a slasher feels insulting. Full of symbolism, amazing visuals, and one of the most frightening knife attacks in all horror cinema.

The Shape Of Water (2017). The only time I ventured to the cinema this year, I think, and I was well rewarded. Guillermo del Toro's fairy tale is at once very modern and thoroughly old fashioned, a warm and rosy love letter to both Old Hollywood and modern love. Beautifully acted, directed, scored, costumed...

Top 5 films (rewatched)

Point Blank (1967). John Boorman tackles the familiar film noir tropes, only to pick them apart and produce something entirely new. Incredibly stylish, and towered over by Lee Marvin's amazing central performance as the inscrutable, unreadable, intense Walker.

A Man For All Seasons (1966). Robert Bolt adapts his own play, streamlining some elements and redistributing the Chorus to produce a powerful polemic on hypocrisy, politics, and ambition. Paul Scofield fully deserved his Oscar for playing More.

Butley (1974). Part of the American Film Theatre, Simon Gray's study of a verbose, embittered, drunken academic on the day his life falls apart, is both brilliantly witty and heartbreakingly sad. Alan Bates barely draws breath for two hours, but it doesn't drag for a second.

Night Of The Demon (Curse Of The Demon, 1957). Jacques Tourneur approaches the ghost story as film noir. Where the film suffers from special effects limitations of the time, it succeeds in producing an air of pure terror and suspense.

Operazione Paura (Kill, Baby... Kill!, 1966). A relatively tight and simple plot by Mario Bava's standards, but perhaps his most visually experimental film. Drawing on a wealth of sources, Bava weaves a gothic tale of dread in a lurid kaleidoscope of greens and purples.

Top 5 TV shows (new)

Sharp Objects (HBO). Had the audacity to tear me apart, then stitch me back together, only to tear me apart again. Truly one of the most impressive bits of television ever produced, perfect in design, casting, direction and every other aspect. I'm honestly not sure I've recovered from it yet.

Killing Eve (BBC America). Big, shiny, funny as hell, Gay ™, a brilliant cast work tirelessly to produce a show that works on multiple levels, all of them awesome.

Vic & Bobs Big Night Out (BBC). Its always a joy to have the dynamic duo back on tv, but to have them revisit some of their oldest and most beloved creations (The Man With The Stick! It's been nearly thirty years!!) felt very special. Undeniably an acquired taste, the pair are part of my childhood and nobody can do unbridled, joyful anarchy quite like them.

Derry Girls (Channel 4). Deeply funny, bitingly honest and at times truly moving. The young cast are excellent, and if you made it through the finale without a tear in your eye, you're a stronger viewer than I.

Doctor Who (BBC). Not, perhaps, the strongest series New Who has had - but Jodie Whittaker made, for my money, the strongest and most confident debut. She was The Doctor within seconds, and what the series might have sometimes lacked in depth and maturity it more than made up for with one of the strongest TARDIS teams the show has ever had, in New Who and Classic Who.

Top 5 TV shows (old)

The Fellows (Granada, 1967). Establishing itself as a formulaic, criminal-of-the-week crime show, about half way through this series creator Robin Chapman pulls the rug out from under the viewer, culminating in one of the most singularly impressive episodes of old telly I've ever seen - fifty minutes in which the two leads, irrevocably changed by a seemingly minor infraction, debate their own worth, the nature of crime, the relevance of justice and the very existence of evil. Spellbinding.

Callan (ABC/Thames, 1967 - 1972, rewatch). Was there ever a more anti-authoritarian series than this? Dispensing with black and white for shades of grey, and deep, dark shades of grey at that. Fantastic scripts, flawlessly cast, and with moments of genuine shock that will stay with you long after the series has finished.

Out (Thames, 1978). Trevor Preston shook off his association with children's television to produce this decidedly adult study of a career criminal deeply affected by his time in prison. Sticking rigidly to the 'show don't tell' school of storytelling, Preston slowly paints in the background to Tom Bells intense loner Frankie Bell, ending with a morose portrait of a man both damaged and damaging to those around him.

Mr. Palfrey Of Westminster (Thames, 1984 - 1985). Supported by scripts that are dense, literary, but often very funny, Alec McCowen makes Mr. Palfrey a truly unique figure in the world of spy fiction. Always witty, always clever, but sometimes devastating - like all the best TV should be.

The Nearly Man (Granada, 1974 - 1975). Unashamedly wordy scripts full of monologues and complex, barbed conversations. A fascinating insight into British politics in the 1970s, held together by Tony Britton's powerhouse performance as Labour MP Christopher Collinson - an arrogant, selfish, committed, honest, manipulative, courageous, decent bastard.

Top 5 books

Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen. A lot funnier than I was expecting, quickly became my second favourite Austen novel. Considering we never really get inside his head, Brandon is a brilliantly realised, three dimensionsal character.

Selected Literary Criticism - D. H. Lawrence. I have a lot of issues with Lawrence, and almost as many with his writing, which is frustrating and irritating just as often as its beautiful and moving. His criticism, although far from perfect, is perhaps the best way to get to know the man behind the words - part genius, part raving zealot, insightful, clever, conceited and baffling.

To The Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf (reread). Light on plot, heavy on everything else, Woolf's masterpiece. Hauntingly beautiful, a semi-conscious daydream of a book which is about nothing much at all, but also what it means to be, what a soul is, and the nature of love.

The Dig - Cynan Jones. In style, Jones is the polar opposite of Woolf - short, clipped, without fanfare or decoration. At times an ugly book about ugly things, but there are moments of sheer joy - and of real shock.

Feet of Clay - Terry Pratchett (reread). What can I say? It's TP, and it's The Watch, a sheer joy. The man knew how to use words just right, so that you're laughing one minute, and the next you feel distinctly uncomfortable.

[spicy-dunkaroo]

Taking Power Back (One-Shot)

♫Now Playing: “Taking Power Back” by Spicy Dunkaroo…♪

❀ Word Count: 5k

❀ Rating: Mature, 18+, Minors Do Not Interact (please)

❀ Genre: One Shot (Not sure how to explain this haha)

❀ Summary: (Writing Prompt) Mora’s job was to take away the powers of supervillains as they’re admitted to jail. For a few years, she’d been reselling these powers to interested bidders on the side - no questions asked. Today, a prisoner showed up with a power so unusual, she decided to take it for herself.

❀ Warning(s): Please read!! Dark Content ☠, Mentions of Murder, Attempted Murder, Implied Childhood Abuse, Implied Bullying, Swearing, etc.

❀ Author's Note: Hello everyone!! This will be my first story/one-shot of hopefully many other more positive ones lol. Credit for the prompt goes to u/totoropengyou on reddit for the writing prompt!! Just want to warn you all once more if you skipped over the warnings, this is a dystopian world that's fucked up. Please read with caution.

☟❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀☟

Everyday seems the same as the one before it. Same coworkers at the same job, not to mention the same shitty work Mora has to do to get paid.

Her job is to extract the powers of crooked criminals that somehow ended up in the nation's most secure penitentiary. Why? Well, if it weren’t for her, most of these monsters would have probably destroyed the government and Gods know what else.

Somedays, Mora finds it easier to sleep at night when she doesn’t think of the ‘what-if’s’ of not taking on the government position, if she screwed up, and what if she was any less moral than she already was.

That’s not to say that she was any sort of ‘holier than thou’ being that had mankind's well-being as top priority. The job doesn’t pay her enough to be so kind to the shitty world she’s lived in for the last 19 years. There probably isn’t enough money in the world for Mora to change her ways now, now when the temptation has become that much sweeter.

Sure, maybe she could be helping the world out by not selling the quirks to the highest bidder every Friday night. But in all honesty, who gives a damn? Yes, the government would and probably would punish her to the highest degree, and most citizens wouldn’t be too pleased. Why be mad at her though? It’s the buyer's fault for throwing hundreds of millions of dollars for just one of the many powers she extracts from those crooks everyday. Most of them aren’t too bad, they at least seem nice with the weekly gift baskets and extravagant gifts they throw her way in hopes of getting a nifty power before it’s on the floor the following Friday night.

Then again, you’d never expect those who were begging to be in Mora’s favor to be in the positions they are.

If it’s any consolation, most of those bidders can’t even infuse the power within their own bodies without risky surgery and the high chance of dying.

See, nearly 70% of all humans born in this ‘age of power’ are gifted with one of the four types of abilities. There’s fight, flight, freeze, and then there’s the unknown fourth type, probably the most rare of them all, mutants. As they are listed, 43% of these humans have the fight type, 32% have the flight, 20% have freeze, and less than 5% have the mutation type. Despite this, research says that you have a good chance of walking past a human with the mutation type of power at least once in your life without knowing it. Since there have always seemed to be so few ‘mutants’ as they call them, there's not much information on the different variations of the ability outside of that they don’t fit in the category of the other three.

Lucky for Mora, she happens to be one of the very few with the mutation power. Her’s happened to be perfect for her government assignment as well as for her side business.

The government took it upon themselves to name this “company” Vera. Mora wasn’t too sure why this was outside of the Latin meaning of the word (truth), like some sort of ‘holier than thou’ complex she presumed.

Though there have been struggles with her ability. Since there has been little research done, nobody knew how to teach her to hone her skill. Not her teachers, advisor, biological parents, or her other parents in the past. Despite this, Mora feels that she has a pretty good idea how her power works now.

Did she ever dream about extracting a part of most humans' identity as her ‘ideal job’? Of course not, when she was growing up she dreamed about being a rockstar, firefighter, or a damn teacher, anything but the hell she’s had to live through day in and day out.

Since she was assigned her power type, she moved from one home to another, left one school after the next, and was always called a mutant. Although she wasn’t sure exactly when the government began to really lock their sights on her, she was heavily reminded of the fucked up world she lived in once she graduated high school. There were only ever two options for her. Look out for everyone else, or look out for herself.

When you’re asked if you’d be willing to become a human lab rat or work as an official government officer, just about anybody wouldn’t have thought twice about that choice. Though there are a few poor motherfuckers that wanted what was best for humanity. To that Mora thanks them for giving her the ability to have a choice. Besides that, screw humanity. The criminals on the street aren’t the monsters you’re told live in the darkness, the ones in your closet, or the ones hiding under your bed. No, sometimes those monsters are a lot closer to you, and they’re not there to protect you.

It’s a real dog-eat-dog world on both sides of the door. So look out for yourself, that’s the only way you can survive. Despite learning this throughout her whole life, Mora lived by the only saying she could remember from her time with her father.

‘Don’t let anything in this world tear you down. It’ll be tough, sure, but you deserve to pursue your happiness as much as anyone else because you’re a fighter- a winner! Never let anyone make you feel like anything less than the champion you are.’

Though she never understood what her father meant when she first heard it, now it’s one of the only few thoughts that seem to brighten her day as she looks back on her more fond memories of growing up.

Even now, as Mora sits in the holding room, it appears to be the only thought that can take her out of the mindfuck that was currently her train of thought as she regretfully remembered her last patient.

If Mora had the freedom her fellow peers had back in high school, she always thought she might have wanted to go to college to become a doctor. These happier possibilities help Mora to separate herself from her gruesome work. So regarding these scum of the earth beings as ‘patients’ helps to block off the blood-curdling screams that echoed in the walls many hours after they were moved to their prison cells.

As Mora begins to think of her perfect life, a knock is heard at the door, quickly followed by the door swiftly

“You okay in there Spe?”

“Oh, it’s just you Timentes. You scared me for a second there, also, please stop with the formalities. You know how much I hate my birth-given name. At least call me Griseo if you have to.”

“You know the rules, officially I can’t call you by your revised name, at least in front of others that is.”

“Then could you at least call me Mora in private?”

As she says this, Mora pats a spot before her at the small table, deciding to sit herself in the patients chair as she sees what they always saw before she conducted her ‘surgeries’ on them.

“Fine, fine, but only because you’re the most tolerable person in this hell hole.”

“Damn right I am! Ain’t nobody gonna take that title away from me haHA!”

“You worry me sometimes, Moralis.”

“Aww, is that your secret way of telling me you’re thinking about me? I’m touched, really, but I don’t think I can say the same about you, no offense.”

Timentes dramatically gasps as he places his right hand onto his bullet-proof gear, leaning back as he begins to speak once more.

“Offense completely taken. And here I was about to ask you out.”

“And by ‘ask me out’ you really mean make some instant ramen as we binge watch another anime this weekend? Because you know I can’t say no to that.”

“Which is why I always ask. You know you love our marathon nights! We- we might as well be a married couple with how often you stay the night.”

As Timentes says this, Mora notices the sudden change in demeanor, his cheeks becoming a brighter shade of pink of his stubbly face, the way his blue eyes dart away from her direction, and how she can clearly see how awkwardly cute his eyebrow quirks at his own words.

“I don’t think we fight enough to move that fast.”

‘If he won’t get the balls to actually ask me out, clearly we aren’t meant to be.’

Despite thinking this, Mora knew the real reason she was writing off her adorably shy co-worker. Mora knew she had to keep everyone at arm's length, regardless of her happiness in order to make it out of this world alive.

Mora rolls her eyes as she decides to change the topic.

“So...What did you come in here for? I know I’m a nice piece of eye candy, but you can’t let my womanly charms distract you from work. There’s only so many times I can cover for your ass.”

“R-Right...The next inmate will be coming in soon.”

“Okay? What’s wrong with him? Is he deranged? Violent? Or did he murder his family? Usually you don’t come to tell me about them in person either way.”

“The thing is… From what I’ve heard through the grapevine, this guy is something else.”

“Could you elaborate?”

“Well that’s the thing, I think it’s something about his power that nobody can figure out. We had to pull out all the stops just to restrain him. Who knows if he’s deranged or violent, apparently he took out 8 officers before he was apprehended.”

“Well, how’d they end up arresting this guy?”

“That’s the weirdest part, they didn’t.”

“They didn’t?”

“Well- they did but only after he surrendered.”

“You mean to tell me that this guy had more than enough man-power to escape, and yet after he was done screwing around he just- gave himself up?”

“Exactly.”

“So you’re telling me to be on high alert because you guys don’t know this guy's deal?”

“Yep. Everybody here knows how strong you are. But- you know the guys and I care about you, don’t you?”

“Yea yea, more like you’re worried this guy might catch my eye.”

“I’m being serious Mora… He's code 10.”

Despite feeling her nerves begin to creep up, Mora attempts to keep her composure as she blows Timentes off.

“I’m sure he’s not-”

Before she can finish her sentence, she hears a sudden thud, making her jump in her seat as she looks back over at the man before her.

“You and I both know there are no other inmates that are code 10. Hell, there hasn’t been a code 10 in years!”

Mora crosses her arms in disgust as she turns her head away without an answer.

“Oh Gods- Mora, I’m so sorry I just- I’m just worried about you-”

“Leave.”

“W-What? Lo-look I know I screwed up but-”

“I said leave. Go before you piss me off.”

Without another word between the two, Timentes stands up, hearing the metal chair scrape against the dull concrete floor, quietly turning to open the door behind him, the metal eye-sore loudly scratches against the frame and floor as it screeches open, and soon after slams back into its frame.

Mora can feel the tears begin to trickle down her cheeks as she refuses to look forward again. The memories of her past begin to flood in slideshow form as she feels a panic attack start up.

‘Damnit- Keep it together Griseo!’

As she thinks this, she wipes away the few tears that escaped her lids.

In the little time Mora had in isolation, juxtaposed to every other day, she’s able to calm herself down as she regains her composure once more.

Before she has a moment to breathe, the signaling of five knocks at the door are heard through the metal barrier as she is quick to stand up and move back over to her chair. She coughs in an attempt to drown out the dejected tone in her throat that was previously gripping at her vocal chords.

“C-Come in.”

Hearing this, three men step into the muted turquoise walls of Mora’s ‘office space’.

Two are wearing the familiar dark uniform, while one appears to be restrained in a black straight jacket.

Outside of the workers uniforms, most of their gear and restraints are color coordinated based on the risk factor code. Usually Mora only ever saw the white, orange, even the occasional red, but the most heavy duty of all was always.

‘Black? Timentes really wasn’t kidding when he said this guy was code 10.’

Mora begins to feel on edge as she stares at the man who appeared…average. The man stood at 6ft as he was seated in his chair, umber bangs seemed to be askew but still were able to hide his eyes completely. Minus a blistering red scar on his neck, the man before Mora looked like any other law abiding citizen. Although, based on the look of it, the scar appeared to be fresh.

As the two officers restrained the man further into his chair, Mora props her foot on the top of the table between them, waiting for the sound of locks to cease in its continuous echo.

Once the officers were finished, Mora waved them away dismissively, speaking up once she heard one of the two grip at the handle.

“Stand by and guard the door for me? I’m sure this won’t take long.”

As Mora looks back, the men both nod as they exit the suffocating room, leaving her with her newest patient.

Grabbing the clipboard that was left by one of the officers, Mora glances over at her patients health information, zeroing in toward the bottom of the page that listed his allergies, blood type, and ability type.

“Allergic to: None. Blood Type: AB-, let’s hope you don’t lose too much blood then.”

As Mora reads the final section, she notices there are many unprofessional scribbles with many question marks behind the possibility of what this man’s ability type was.

“So tell me, since you have nothing better to do, what is your power categorized as?”

Mora looks back up toward her patient as she waits for a response. After a moment if awkward silence fills the room, she speaks up once more.

“Here, I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours, okay?”

Without a verbal or physical sign of agreement, Mora quickly gives in, but not before she has a bit of fun with him.

“I’ll give you a hint, it’s the reason why I have no chance at another job. Why I’ll be stuck under these assholes' thumbs till the day I die. Why I always hate it when my patients don’t cooperate. It just makes my job so much harder. Think that gives you an idea?”

There’s another moment of silence as Mora flimsily flips through the other pages of paperwork she’ll have to fill out after the surgery.

“Here, I’ll give you one more hint, but if you don’t answer this time, we’ll, you’ll feel soon enough how painful I can really make it.”

Mora sighs as she continues on once more.

“Kids used to call me ‘mutant’ back in school. I was always looked down upon because nobody knew who or what I was- no, more like they didn’t know how to scare me because I knew what they were capable of, while they were afraid of what I was- what I am.”

Hearing this, the man before her finally reacts, slowly moving his head up, for the first time looking Mora dead in the eyes.

She would be lying if she didn’t say that his stare didn’t scare her. It felt like he was carving her up with just his eyes as his mouth began to stretch into what appeared to be a smirk.

“So we’re the same then?”

Mora was taken aback by his sudden answer, noticing his voice was hoarse as he spoke. It takes her a moment to sort through her thoughts as she walks over toward the door, knocking twice.

In a matter of moments the red blinking light on the camera pointed at the man cease, signaling that nobody was watching them now. Mora walks back over toward the table, moving closer toward the man as she drops the volume of her voice to a whisper.

“So you’re a mutant type? No wonder those guys couldn’t handle you back there. Dumbasses don’t even know how to hold a gun half the time, much less deal with people unlike themselves.”

The man turns his head eerily as he looks back at Mora, seeming to drop his guard for a moment. This causes Mora to relax as she responds once more.

“I’m sure those guys haven’t been treating you well, are you thirsty?”

Nodding, the man smacks his lips at the lack of hydration. Walking back over to her side of the table, Mora grabs her bottle of water that sat by the legs of her cold chair. Once she grabs the half filled bottle, she walks back over toward the man as he appears to be pleading with his eyes in hopes of quenching his thirst.

“Now, since you’re restrained, I’m going to have to pour it into your mouth. If you want me to do that, I’m going to need you to promise that you won’t bite my finger or something, alright?”

The man shakes his head in response, this time appearing more eager than when he was brought in as he watched Mora’s fingers twist the cap off, titling the bottle toward him as he begins to open his mouth.

“Just to make sure, you aren’t going to bite me if I give you a drink?”

Looking back at the man once more, he shakes his head just as eagerly, giving Mora the scariest idea of ‘puppy-dog eyes’ she might have ever wished she could have unseen.

“Okay, I’ll try to be slow but let me know if it’s too much.”

Mora then places the top of the bottle onto the man's lip, beginning to pour the water into his mouth.

Despite her beliefs and her attitude toward those she called her ‘patients’, she couldn’t help but feel sympathy for the bastard. Mora is a lot of terrible terrible things, but knew she wasn’t some sort of cold monster that found satisfaction in others' pain. Especially since they had one thing in common, getting fucked over by the world because of who they were. The least she could do was show empathy for someone who seemed to have it worse than herself.

Before long, the man gulps down the remaining water, releasing the top from his mouth as Mora cautiously moves it away from him. Mora speak quietly once more as she twists the lid back on to the plastic bottle.

“Good, thank you for not trying to hurt me. You’d have no idea how many of these inmates would leap at the chance to do just that. It’s- it’s fucked up. Now… Since I feel safe enough to trust you, I think I should tell you something about why you’re in here with me…”

Mora looks away from the man as she feels guilt in what she knew she had to do. In the past, all she did was touch the patient and take away their power as she tried to block out their strained shrieks that made her ears bleed.

Now, because she extended an olive branch to this stranger, it made everything moving forward begin to feel all the more gut-wrenching. Despite this nauseating feeling that began to crawl up her throat, she felt it would be best to tell him the process, doctor to patient.

“I have to remove your ability from your body.”

As Mora says this, she works up the strength to push away her feelings of guilt by staring the man in the eyes as she broke the news.

“It’s an excruciatingly painful process and there is a 20% chance you could die before the procedure is complete.”

Mora could feel her strength begin to evaporate before her very eyes as she felt the bile crawl up her throat once more.

“In the event that that happens, I will still continue to extract your power from your body as emergency services attempt to revive you.”

‘Gods, I’m gonna fucking puke.’

“A-And I know you don’t have any choice in this, but- I’ll try to make it as painless as possible, and hopefully you won’t die.”

As she spoke, Mora can feel the tears begin to form in her eyes as her vision begins to blur. Before now, she was able to block off the painful wails of her past patients, feeling some pass on as she was forced to continue on with the procedure, Gods- somehow she was able to sleep at night before now.

She never thought too much about her power until now, but somehow, Mora became the grim reaper, selling strangers' souls to the highest bidder. The more she thought about it, the more she began to feel disgusted in herself for not realizing this for years! Maybe it was for her own sanity, or it was so she wouldn’t become a lab rat, but for some damn reason, she couldn’t forgive herself for acting so selfishly.

“I’m so sorry.”

Mora was at a loss for words as she felt a few tears begin to cascade down her cheeks as she forced her gaze at the man.

The pair sat in silence for what felt like hours, Mora eventually dropping her head in shame for what she had done and would have to do. Before long, the man speaks up.

“It’s not your fault. I deserve this. So please, don’t cry.”

Her breath is caught in her throat as she looks back up at the man. There was no reason for him to talk to comfort her when he was the one about to suffer. It wasn’t fair, none of this was fair for either of them. Before Mora can speak up in retaliation, the man speaks up once more.

“Before you take it away, could you do one thing?”

Mora nods energetically as she wipes her cheeks with the back of her hand, wiping her eyes with her knuckle in an attempt to give him her full attention.

“Whatever happens to me, could you please tell my family that everything they’ll need is in the basement?”

“I-I can!”

“Good good. I’m ready.”

In utter shock, Mora takes a moment before she stands up from her chair, clenching her fists in anger as she trudges toward the man.

Before Mora has a chance to rethink her decision, she places her hand on the man’s shiny bald head, forcing the breath she held to release as she began the surgery. As she does this, Mora can see the man attempting to restrain his howls of agony in the indescribable torture he must be feeling.

“I’m so sorry!”

As Mora says this, the man looks up at her, exhaling his last words as the process is nearly complete.

“Bring back peace.”

Mora’s bottom lip begins to quiver in guilt as she nods in response, not understanding the weight of the man's words.

After the procedure, Mora left early, deciding to get a breath of fresh air as she put it. Taking long strides in the direction of her home, she began to think back on the man’s words.

‘The hell did he mean by “Bring back peace”? Was he some sort of hippy that got into trouble? If that were the case then why was he a code 10?’

Mora’s thoughts continued to consume her attention as she failed to notice the looming shadow that didn’t seem to be too far behind her as it continued to stalk its prey.

‘Maybe he was a scapegoat? They didn’t really give me much information on his charges so he could have been some sort of cult leader for all we know. That- there was no way that could be it… So then, why-’

Suddenly, Mora was pulled from her thoughts as she felt a tug by her side. Before she had a chance to figure out what was happening, she felt her body being pulled away from the desolate streets and into a damp alleyway- pushed against what felt like a dirty brick wall as she felt a bit of her shirt tear.

In a mere few seconds, Mora went from walking home to suddenly being trapped in an alleyway between a brick wall and from what she could tell was a pistol as all she could see was the underside of the gun that was held against her forehead.

“Listen here bitch. If you so much as yell, I’m putting this entire magazine in your skull, ya got that?”

Without seeing another way out of this endeavor, Mora nodded as she looked toward the perpetrator, only able to recognize a scar that started at his top lip, continuing diagonally across, and ending a few centimeters away from his bottom lip. The assailant continued speaking as she felt her heart beating a mile a minute.

“Nobody has to get hurt, just reach into your purse there and give me all your money and I’ll be on my way, alright?”

Mora nods once more as she feels the metal cylinder against her temple shift in its position on her. Between this and the brick wall behind her, she’d never felt more suffocated now than all those years she spent in that stupid cell she currently wished she never left in the first place.

As she agrees to this, she slowly moves her purse straps from their comfy place on her shoulder, now sitting in her hands as she shakily reaches in to pull out her wallet.

‘Where the fuck is it?! Of all times, NOW I had to stuff it away somewhere else!? I’m so fucking dead…’

With weighted breath, she begins to speak as she continues to scrummage through her messy bag.

“I-I- heh, you’re not gonna believe this. I- uh, I can’t find my wallet.”

“You tryna fucking pull a fast one on me lady?!”

“N-No I swear I’m not, I-I think I left it at work.”

“Bullshit. If you don’t get your money out in three fucking seconds, there’s gonna be a bullet between your eyes.”

Mora began to panic as she knew exactly where she left her wallet in the locker room that morning.

The assailant began to count down, each second seeming to further paralyze the woman in fear as she couldn’t see any other way to escape her fate.

‘Is there really no way out of this? Is this where I die? Goddamnit-’

“One.”

Mora hears a shot fired from the man's gun, the ringing in her ears proving his threats were legitimate but- something was off.

As she looked up toward the gun, she could see the smoke from the firing at the front of the cylinder dissipate, but Mora didn’t feel...anything. No pain, no blood trickling down her face, nothing! She wasn’t sure what had happened but as she shakily reached up to feel the point of impact, she was met with a cool metal feeling. The thief standing before her stumbled back as he saw the chamber appeared to have exploded rather than fire off at its intended target.

“W-What the- D-Don’t think you’re off the hook just because you have a freeze type bitch! I-I’ll fucking kill you myself!”

Confused by his statement, Mora sat there stunned as she knew that this definitely wasn’t her ability at work. Suddenly, the man begins to charge at her, wrapping his hands around her neck in hopes of choking her.

Feeling her airway begin to close off, Mora instinctively reached her hand out toward the man, gripping at his arm as she attempted to remove the man’s ability in hopes of injuring him. Mora did injure him alright, just not the way she was attempting to do so as she looked to her hand and noticed it began to burn and glow a bright orange hue. In the blink of an eye, the man before her was suddenly engulfed in flames as he released her throat.

“YOU FUCKING PSYCHO!!! AHHHHG-!”

As the man frantically began to run around in circles, Mora lost strength in her legs as she slid down the brick wall, watching in both fear and amazement at what she had done. Looking down, she sat on the ground, pulling her hand toward her face as she noticed the orange hue continue to glow.

Suddenly, from the corner of her eye she saw the assailant fall to the ground, not attempting to extinguish the fire as his body laid there lifelessly. As she sees this, she notices the fire begins to burn out itself. Looking back at her hand, she notices the glow start to fade, nervously clenching it into a fist as she trembles in...excitement?

As Mora began to think that she’s lost her mind, another thought began to linger in the back of her mind.

‘I think I’ll keep this one for myself...’

[dereksgarcia]

Garden.

GARDEN — ' hoping they'll never find out that you're anyone else 'cause i love you just how you are. ' / the reader will always love hearing spencer ramble, even if the team doesn't.( 1.9k words ) 

NOTES — so this is my first imagine for anything criminal minds related ever, so we lit outchea!! i actually just started watching the series in chronological order instead of watching random re-runs when they air, thus why this takes place all the way back in season 1 when spence was just a lil bub. i hope you guys enjoy, and i would love any feedback, constructive criticism, or requests you may have for me! 

SNIPPET — You’ve perfected the art of nonchalance when it comes to your feelings for Spencer. There’s no reason for them to be like an oil spill — pour it out, then light a match to it; let the whole damn building catch on fire all for a harmless crush. 

YOU SIP AT your iced latte. The chilled plastic cup dampens your fingertips in condensation; you push the hair from your face and set it against your forehead. Irritation settles. The unyielding thrum of your forehead subsides. The action, similar to the rest of your morning behavior, doesn't go unnoticed by Aaron Hotchner, who was willing to play oblivious for as long as you would play sober. He ceases the incessant taptaptap of his pen and abandons the dossier provided to the team (or those who've managed to arrive on time, which wasn't many) minutes ago to narrow his eyes into a ruminative peer. Even the sunglasses perched high on the bridge of your nose couldn't serve as a barrier betwixt yourself and his icy gaze. The Hotch Stare. 

"Y/N, are you hungover?" Asking is a formality. Your pores house lethargy and every move you make reeks of languor. The haircut that frames your face is so terrible it had to be the result of a previous night inebriation. The question isn't 'are you hungover?', it's 'just how hungover are you?' 'Can you function?' 'Should I just send you home now?' 

Still, you answer in that sing-song croon children use when they've been caught with both hands in the cookie jar, "Define hungover." 

The pen ensconced in Jennifer Jareau's grasp points unmistakeably at your misshapen tendrils. "You letting Derek do that to your hair last night and still showing your face this morning," she teases, roseate lips curling upward until her cheeks raise. 

"Is it really that awful?" Fingers graze the ends of your hair. It's choppy, and not in a way that could pass for irony. Yes, Derek Morgan is a god in most aspects, but anything to do with kitchen scissors is where his talents reach an abrupt end. Lesson learned. 

"Princess, it is so ugly I'm surprised you didn't slap me afterward." As if on cue, the man of the hour graces yourself, JJ, Gideon and Aaron with his own variation of hungover. All attention that was once fixated on you is put toward Derek Morgan, and it's certainly understandable. Despite your shared night of debauchery, he looks like he stepped off the cover of a GQ magazine. He doesn't slouch when he passes the threshold, a cup of his own coffee in hand and shades (most likely designer) neatly folded inside his suit's breast pocket. The million watt smile that splits his face in half is almost taunting. Actually, you decide that it is, and your silent retaliation is delineated in the form of folded arms. 

He tweaks your cheek as he saunters past you to claim a seat beside Gideon. 

"She probably did," Elle suggests. The gorgeous brunette entered just behind Derek, entirely shrouded behind his height. "Not like we'd remember anyway." 

"I'll drink to that," you punctuate your announcement by elevating the remnants of your coffee in the air. Elle, Derek, and JJ join you before making a show of tipping their heads back and taking a gulp. 

Whatever Hotch gripes underneath his breath falls on deaf ears. Again, he attempts to assert himself into the conversation. "Alright, alright. Is everyone here?" 

Spencer isn't. But how would that look, you calling that to their attention? You've perfected the art of nonchalance when it comes to your feelings for Spencer. There's no reason for them to be like an oil spill — pour it out, then light a match to it; let the whole damn building catch on fire all for a harmless crush. Neither of you are children anymore, even if it was only a few short years ago that you legally were. To morph your place of work into a high school would be immature, childish, about as stupid as, as — 

— letting Derek cut your hair. 

You could get a degree in stupid. 

"Boy Genius is missing," the umber male notes with a rap of his knuckles atop the round table. 

Aaron's face drops. "You guys did not get him drunk, too." No, but you certainly wish you had. 

“Oh, I'd pay to see that," Gideon murmurs, licks the pad of his index finger, and flips a page in his newspaper.

"Of course not," Elle dismisses. "Cool kids only." 

Eyes turn into daggers from below day-old mascaraed lashes. "None of us had his number," you answer, finding it of paramount importance for some reason inexplicable that everyone understands this wasn't a deliberate isolation. "And he is very cool." The whir of the overhead fan could very well be crickets within the dead room. Your gaze sweeps over the many dubious countenances that stare back at you. So much for that oil spill. Suddenly bashful, you tuck your chin into the sharp slope of your shoulder. "I just mean, yanno...he's cool. I-I like him." 

Derek quirks a thick eyebrow. "Believe me, baby, we know." 

Heat courses through your veins, thick and hot. You bury your face in your hands and wait for Aaron to announce that you all should finally get this briefing started. It never comes. Spencer does, however. "Sorry I'm late." Unlike the self-proclaimed 'cool kids' who took their sweet time arriving, Spencer Reid earnestly apologizes. It prompts something fierce to ripple in your stomach. Is that all it takes for him to get under your skin now? All he has to do is be courteous? You're pathetic, Y/N Y/L/N. You're really fucking pathetic. 

"It's fine. You're fine. Just take a seat." Impatience is woven into every one of Aaron's syllables. He could goof off with the rest of you, but there's people that currently need your assistance, so of course he'd want to put a stop to the shenanigans once his complete team's arrived. 

From your peripheral, you witness the gangly man scope out every occupied chair before finding the open one to your left. Hazel irises like shrunken stars hand plucked from the night sky zero in on you and pale pink lips twitch. You know you're in for it once he's seated. He'd never outright insult you, but nothing amicable could be said about your appearance. Your breath remains stagnant in your throat. "I, uh, like the haircut." The compliment's uttered with such saccharinity you can feel it in the thump of your heart. Leave it to Spencer to never let you down. 

It’s subconsciously that you tuck the strands behind the shell of your ear. A smile that wide scrunches your nose and crinkles the corners of your eyes. "Thanks, Spence." Inherent hangover's been banished. Nothing but good times and vibes over here. You can't even recall what it's like to have a headache.

His gaze dips to the latte cooling on the table, then back to you. "Did you know that coffee doesn't actually cure hangovers? Coffee's sobering powers are, for all intents and purposes, a complete myth. While the molecules in coffee, adrenaline, caffeine, and adonesine may increase your alertness, they don't ever interact with the same receptors that alcohol affects. In fact, the reason many people believe it helps is because they're regular coffee drinkers anyway. Meaning that if you were to skip your morning coffee, the withdrawal symptoms would only worsen. So, coffee's not actually alleviating the hangover, it's just–" 

"You know, I'm beginning to see why we didn't invite you," Morgan interjects, coffee inches from his mouth despite (or maybe in spite of) the facts now verbally laid out for him. He's always picked on the younger boy in the way an older brother does. Harmless for the most part, sometimes he plucks a nerve. The tight pinch of Spencer's mouth is proof that this is one of those times. 

"Interrupt him again and we won't invite you next time." The pause is as thick as the shades you push into your scalp. Interlocked fingers hold your chin steady as full lips curve into a Splenda smile. 

He grins like a boy who hasn't been scolded, tips his head to the pallid boy beside you, and says, "My bad, Kid. You were saying." 

 “This is still the best cure for a hangover known to man." 

Spencer must've waited for you to end your call with Penelope Garcia, for the very second you returned the phone to the receiver he materializes — an unopened water bottle in his skeletal-fingered grasp. The two of you were assigned to comb through evidence at the office. Lord knows your irresponsibility and general lack of ability to bounce back from a night of binge-drinking would've been a hinderance out on the field. A small mercy via Hotchner. (You'll refrain from referring to him as old man for a week to show your gratitude.) 

"Doctor knows best," you tease after accepting the drink. "Thanks." Possibly a trick of the flourescent overhead lights, possibly not, either way you swear you witness a pink tinge fan out across his cheeks. He's too pretty for his own damn good, you think. 

You expect him to amble back to his desk in that awkward way he does when he knows eyes are on him afterward, but he stays, rocks on the balls of his feet and wipes his hands on the front of his trousers. You take another swig from your water before asking, "Did you find something about our unsub?" It's unlike him to stay mute for this long. For as long as you've known him, he's always had something to say at any moment. Opportune or otherwise. 

"No, I actually wanted to talk to you about what you said back there. To Derek."  

Lips gradually form a soft O shape. "Oh. Oh yeah." You're quick (maybe a little eager) to brush files of weeks-old paperwork to the side, permitting him some space to sit on your desk. He'll probably just thank you, but you appreciate every slice of time you have with Spencer. "You know he was just kidding, right? We didn't purposely not invite you." 

Insecurities are Spencer's largest vice. Despite being the smartest person in any given room, it's noticeable how he doesn't believe you. He wants to if the attempt at a smile he makes means anything, but years of being the guy on the outside looking in has worn him down. "Yeah," he says. "But still, thanks for, you know, defending me." 

You're bobbing your head into an earnest nod before you even realize it. "Anytime. Thanks for telling me my haircut was nice." 

The ice breaks. His unreserved laughter rings in your eyes; you watch his posture slacken. "Why did you let Derek anywhere near your head with scissors?" 

“Alcohol amplifies my poor decision-making skills! I swear, Spence, you've just gotta see it for yourself," you laugh. 

He raises his hands in jocular surrender. "Fine. Fine. For research purposes." 

"Yes, research purposes," you reiterate, your smile wide enough to compete with his own. "You have to give at least one of us your number though. What kind of friends don't have each other's number? It's insane."

The genius kicks himself up from your desk. You know you've said something to upset him once he begins to walk off, but then he turns his head over his shoulder to call out, "Already done." 

Your eyebrows knit together near the middle of your forehead. Who could he have given it to? There certainly wasn't much time to socialize between the briefing and now. Maybe Derek? Most likely JJ. Definitely not you. 

 You don't notice the number scrawled out on the bottom of your water bottle until you're done with it.

[hearsaykrp]

                 Presenting — kwon loren as the wren.

— info.

name / kwon loren birthday / 931025 pronouns / she/her occupation / clerk at gs25

— traits.

( conniving, risk-taking, empathetic, loyal )

One does not become known for being CONNIVING without a certain kind of track record. As a child what would later become called conniving was simply “being contrary for the sake of it.” But it started as more than that. desiring to be notable, different, contrary by any means necessary meant constant reinvention of the self. a simple lie told once (i hate the color pink!) would become a truth (shying away from anything in the offending shade, despite heretofore having no real opinion on the topic). over time, this ability to spit out a lie and make it a truth became something steadily more manipulative, a sort of resourceful ability to change her own reality in a way that others might not necessarily notice. she was, and remains, careful about it, these inventions. she’ll take a facet of something that cannot be disproven and force it into existence, with a stubborn focus on her goal. 

so imagine, a girl returns a failure and, on a sudden whim when questioned about her plans now that she’s stuck in the town, proclaims herself an up and coming entrepreneur, of the most criminal kind. receiving positive feedback from her compatriots on the topic, she sets about to make it true, pulls her sister into her plan, insists upon her grand plan without properly having one, putting it all together on the fly, digging herself ever deeper into an immoral and terrible hole.  

RISK TAKING is an obvious companion to a girl with a criminal track record of sorts, one riddled with misdemeanors bargained down to slaps on the wrist. vandalizing, trespassing, driving without a license, driving with a suspended license. beyond this, she bargains with fate on a more minor level, a seeming disregard for personal safety that leads her to impulsive and erratic behavior, thrill seeking and yes, to a degree notably attention seeking. 

a sense of EMPATHY is one that creates an unwilling vulnerability in the girl. not to say that she’s aggressively tenderhearted nor that she was particularly naive, but that she tends to immerse herself in the moods of others, lending her to a somewhat mercurial and sulky disposition. rather than ascribing to a certain degree of introversion or extroversion, she plunges into the mood around her, drawn to erratic or irrationally reckless people because she simply feels better around them, less burdened by the latent and nameless anxieties that have plagued her since childhood. she seeks in most aspects of her life to outpace silence and calm, afraid of the quiet spaces in her mind and how easily she can slip back into a depressed malaise when she stops the wheels from spinning. 

it leaves her crafting herself into a reckless perpetual motion machine, forever darting from moment to moment, action to action, and to those friends who stick along for the ride, she is LOYAL to the point of foolishness, willing to turn a blind eye to any unsavory actions or foolish behavior (though perhaps not without resoundingly pointing it out to them in private). though, perhaps her ability to remain loyal in the face of lurid criminal activity may be put to the test in the near future.

— about.

“and everyone knows, girls like dresses,” the boy says, part of an offhand comment in the midst of a normal kindergarten class. and loren, who has never given much thought to her clothing beyond her ability to remain mobile, latches onto the statement. “i hate dresses,” she tells him, and in that instance it becomes true.

in a perverse desire to be as contrary as possible at all times, she has a tendency to eschew anything perceived as expected of her. she pouts when her mother brandishes a pink top, rejects the hello kitty stickers a teacher offers as reward for a task. unruly hair sticks out from a maze of pins and rubber bands that attempt to tame a mane that she longs to unleash.

loren doesn’t walk, she runs. loren doesn’t talk, she shouts. her actions are rough and ramshackle and her opinions are many and fiercely delivered, usually at the top of her lungs. her teachers love her despite themselves. she’s brilliant,  they tell her parents, if only she’d just calm down. if only she’d just be quiet. if only she’d just sit still.  to each other they would say, she’s cute but she is a lot to handle.

this never becomes less accurate. but, as she becomes older, and markedly less adorable,  and much more surly, it also becomes less endearing.

as loren gets older, her voracious appetite for fiction grows. at the knee of her grandfather,  she learns urban legends, drenches herself in stories. she sympathizes with villains and learns too quickly, perhaps, what it means to be morally gray, to be enticed by darker things. she becomes strange and morbid. her vocabulary is very advanced, her teachers say, laughing nervously as they note that she asked how to spell “blood-curdling” when told to use an adjective to describe a sound. her seatmate had written “loud.”

but that’s loren.

always a bit different.

maybe there’s something compelling about it though, something endearing in her relentless pursuit of individuality, as if she could be capable of manufacturing herself to be more than a small town, more than her prim and proper cousin, more than the granddaughter of a semi famous author of horror novels and serial pulp fictions.

so how does such a smart girl, such a pretty girl, end up such a terrible mess? such a collision of contradictions and absurdities, such a morbid and erratic creature?

she has her parents to thank for that.

you see: the expectations start early - no, instantly.

“she’s crying much more than swallow did,” is one of the first things her grandmother says, forever pitting her two children against one another, now extending that cruel courtesy to the two daughters.

the doctor says something about it being healthy, about variations between children being a given, but it’s too late. her mother has heard everything she needs to hear.

“you’re really naming her loren?” her grandmother asks with an imperceptibly arched brow,  and instantly her prenatal nickname, often drug through childhood affectionately, is abandoned in favor of the fullness of her name, a burden of maturity weighing on her shoulders as her mother hoists it onto her, an act of defiance against a mother who’d always found her wanting.

“she looks so much like you,” the elderly woman says, terse lipped, to her daughter. it is not a compliment. loren is old enough now, at eight, to understand that. she examines her features in the polished wood reflection of the table, the dress she’s been forced to wear stained on the collar and the fabric scratching at her skin. swallow sits nearby, looking far more at home in the formal attire- sunday best. loren hates church. the echoing interior, the press of strangers nearby, the weight of expectations, the need to sit still. it gets under her skin. she doesn’t have a word for it yet, the tightness in her chest and the urge to cry that bubble up from nowhere. she’ll learn it later, with a doctor’s prescription and a hushed whisper from her mother that if she ever, ever fills that prescription in town there will be hell to pay.

anxiety.

it’s a constant companion, warping perspective. she fulfills each of her mother’s nightmares, one by one.

it starts with her uncouth attitude as a primary student and continues as she becomes lazy in her hagwon classes. she pouts and huffs through ballet and never takes to piano the way her mother wants her too. she likes to write, though, and her grandfather dotes on her for it- an action that seems to curry no favor with her grandmother, who stares daggers at the two of them as they grow closer. what irony, that the old crone would want the affection and respect of a child she’d never done anything but criticize?

of course, it’s a sham of a marriage. loren learns that later too, secrets blooming under her fingertips. people talk when she’s around. she gets under their skin, and unsettled lips loosen. people pick fights around her, over the top of her head as she sits sketching in the corner, ever the disagreeable teenager. at thirteen she hides behind her hair- too long and too wild, fraying at the ends. she should trim it more often, wear it shorter, style it more fashionably.

her mother won’t stop pestering, so when she’s seventeen she shears it off into a blunt cut bob. it doesn’t suit her face and her mother grounds her for it, screeches about how ashamed she is to have a daughter that doesn’t even take care of her own appearance, doesn’t give a damn what the world has to say.

highschool is an inconvenience. she does well when she cares to make an effort, that’s what her teachers say. but what’s the point in trying when she’s already been written off as second best, crowned the family loser before she’d had a chance to decide if she even wanted to compete against swallow in the first place. if they want to force her to run this race, the least she can do is exercise her own agency by throwing the competition.

after all, it’s much safer to fail on purpose than it is to try and still come up lacking.

so she doodles morbid drawings, preferring ink and pencil, the start black and white of graphite and shitty school ruled paper. writes bleak poetry and thinks of herself as something more special, more significant than she is.

she’s really lucky, honestly, that their literature teacher notices talent beneath all that teenage angst. recommends her to the school newspaper, the literary magazine of student submissions, gets her involved. on the magazine she picks up skills in graphic design, handling layout and submissions. journalism never becomes her forte, but the meager resume and help from her teacher bring two things.

first, they bring rumors of favoritism on his part, which does little to help the general “weird wallflower” girl motif she has inadvertently cultivated,  and school rumor mills run as they do. second, they bring her the escape that she increasingly needs.

it’s not a great school, but it isn’t the worst either. and creative writing isn’t the best major but, again, it’s better than nothing- right? she goes anyway, as her grandmother tuts with disapproval and her mother mirrors the action, the spitting image of the woman she’s hated for longer than loren has been alive. what irony. loren privately promises never to become her mother (or her grandmother) on pain of death.

in university she’s no one. just another kind of weird girl from a kind of weird town. she likes it- no,  loves it. she’s not swallow’s cousin or her mother’s daughter. the rumors that swirl around her,  the expectations that she falls short of, the secrets that reveal themselves to her; these things are all gone, now. for once in her life she feels free, stretches her wings.

her work grows for the opportunity, and by the time she’s graduating there are a few publications under her belt. inclusion in some literary magazines, a poetry anthology, a magazine that publishes short fiction. but all good things come to an end, and with graduation comes the crushing reality that jobs don’t grow on trees, that she’s only been a big fish in this very, very little pond.

in the end, she crawls back home. daddy, always away at the factory to work, is now properly absent, buried up on the hill.  without his minor buffer, her mother’s narcissism and cruelty overflow. loren stays in her house for exactly six months before she spirals back into a breakdown, moves out abruptly in the middle of a fight. with a single duffle bag to her name she ends up on the edge of a bridge outside of town, lingering as she stares into the swirling waters. years of effort on building herself into something real have shattered at a single blow from her mother, and she hates herself for that weakness. she doesn’t sleep that night, just wanders the forest, the outskirts of town, and tries to make a plan.

so there she is, stumbling her way into a shitty lease in a shittier apartment, begging them to waive the key money until the next few months. the first floor houses a gs25 and they’re looking for a night manager, so she takes them up on it. the glaring fluorescents give her plenty of time to brainstorm options for cash, dreams for her future.

she picks up webcomics, self publishing a few false starts before she settles on something she can keep up with, something that starts to pick up a little bit of traction. it’s a strange amalgamation of horror and romance and it won’t ever exist outside of a particular niche, so she branches out. starts drawing more lurid drawings on commision and finds there is an untapped market there, in etching out fantasies for those with alarmingly specific tastes. It’s a strange trade but the money is good when it rolls in and she doesn’t have the income to be discriminatory.

so when a temporary and somewhat uneasy truce forged between her and her cousin grows, is it really a surprise that it ends up in a business deal? and is it all that surprising that with loren involved, it’s one that tilts right out of shady and quickly into illegal? swallow has always been more straight laced, but loren has had her share of run ins with their small town police force, much to the undying shame of her mother.  (you’re just proving that old woman right, she’d say to loren, and viciously loren would smile, a triumphant expression in the face of her mother’s distress)

it’s not an honest job and it isn’t one she likes, particularly, but money is money and she can’t deny her penchant for disappearing under people’s noses comes in handy, her tendency to be overlooked by virtue of being generally seen as “kind of weird” in a harmless way coming in handy. for once, it’s something that makes use of the fact she’s lived in the shadows her whole life - and if that gets her the money to finally set off, stretch her wings under a different sun, someday, well, she’ll take it.

[heatherboehm2-blog]

University Refinancing Options Open For Parent PLUS Loans.

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[motupatlucartoons2017-blog]

Motu Patlu Cartoon Review

For all those of you who know and are conscious in regards to the hit collection, Motu Patlu, that airs on Nickelodeon, it won't take too much time to appreciate that this manufacturing of Viacom 18 is an expanded version of simply that.  Additionally, do stay till the end credits to look at the dance by Motu Patlu and Chingam. The channel can even air its fourth movie primarily based on its standard cartoon characters on October 23, at 12:15 pm. The movie is titled 'Motu Patlu Kungfu Kings'. The movie incorporates a runaway circus lion, a lion king making an attempt to guard his kingdom, a grasping poacher and Motu and Patlu concerned in a battle to avoid wasting the life of the jungle.

In that sense Motu Patlu has had an fascinating journey - beginning with tv, then transferring into digital, capitalizing on their growing model worth by means of Viacom18 Client Products and now starring in their own film,” he added.

He also added ‘Jungle predominant Dungle' is his favorite tune from the movie ‘Motu Patlu' King of Kings 3D. The 10 Motu Patlu ‘made-for-tv' movies have contributed 10 per cent of Nick's ratings, being amongst the top 5 every time we released one such movie.

He's the one one who makes samosas and tea in the entire Furfuri Nagar which is the favourite of Motu and Patlu respectively. In an attempt to search out Guddu Galib, Motu and Patlu come across Singha, the king of the jungle, and errors him for Guddu Galib. Motu Patlu in Double Hassle - After Chingum's wedding, Motu Patlu and buddies find themselves blended up with two scientists who look alike themeselves and two villains struggling for objectives of one another.http://motupatlucartoons.checkingseo.com/2017/05/motu-patlu.html

Could Have been higher as compared to the Series which fits on TV. The first half was less targeted on Motu Patlu & extra on the Lion.. Luved the animation and would say fairly a neatly achieved but absolutely may have been higher. It's set for an October 14 rollout throughout 700 screens in India with Hindi and Tamil language variations.

Maya Digital Studios animated television collection like The Adventures of Motu Patlu, VIR -The Robot Boy, Eena Meena Deeka and Kisna are main attracts on prime children channels like Nickelodeon, Discovery Children and Hungama, drawing high TRPs within the Indian children's TELEVISION area.

Prime members get pleasure from FREE One-Day and Two-Day delivery on eligible items, unlimited video streaming, 30-minute early access to high offers & extra. Motu: Motu is a fat man who serves because the one of many show's central protagonists. He's silly and is be-fooled by bad folks and must be recovered by Patlu His samosa power is short-term.

He's a helpful individual and due to this all of the citizens of Furfuri Nagar ask him and Patlu for help when there may be bother. He has brilliant ideas to lure Motu and Patlu but each time he tells him John says that his thought is bad and beats him, saying that he has a greater plan but repeats the same one.

The characters within the film are extremely entertaining ranging from Motu who needs no less than a dozen samosas to fight anyone to the witty Patlu who has an answer to almost each problem, to the depraved Narsimha, who is evil however cute in his methods.

With a give attention to high-finish work in the animation outsourcing enterprise, MDS caters to movie, television, video games and online media in a wide range of visuals that vary from cartoon-shaded children programmes to practical computer sport cinematics. The movie is slated to release on October 14 in Hindi and Tamil in over seven-hundred screens across India.

Animation movie 'Motu Patlu: King Of Kings has performed a reasonable business in its 10-day run at the box office. It's humorous game as a result of it's too easy to predict every little thing, Suppose somebody caught one ball then a game offers you four options.

Motu and Patlu are popular characters within the Indian kids's animation sector and are primarily based on a comic book strip printed in Hindi magazine Lotpot. He as soon as bought impressed with Motu and Patlu and even recruited them within the police as Havaldars, however when he got here to know that they were not as succesful as he had thought, he bought annoyed with them and fired them from the police.

From being the main present across the youngsters category on television and digital; creating brand licensing alternatives across product classes, curating an incredible merchandising line, to now taking the franchise to the silver screen - our endearing Motu Patlu have further deepened and strengthened our bond with kids throughout the nation.

A promotion drive throughout 30 cities of the Hindi and Tamil talking belts has additionally been planned for the film. Viacom18 is all set to take the Indian animation business by storm with the release of Motu Patlu King of Kings - the community's maiden 3D stereoscopic animation theatrical.

Contrary to normal thieves, he's not afraid of Chingam however is as a substitute afraid of Motu and Patlu. With 'Motu Patlu — King of Kings', is India's first homegrown animated franchise. Discover showtimes, watch trailers, browse photographs, monitor your Watchlist and charge your favourite motion pictures and TV shows on your telephone or tablet!

He often rewards Motu by exempting him from the money Motu owes him and even promising him free samosas when he saves him from other residents of Furfuri Nagar. Motu and Patlu, two buddies dwelling in Fufuri Nagar, all the time get themselves into hilarious conditions and later rescued merely by luck, using the assistance from Ghasita Ram, Inspector Chingam and Dr. Jhatka.

Motu is one other title of starvation and he always likes to eat the meals or samosa so here is the game where he has to eat all of the sorts of meals. However, chingam manages to catch criminals merely by luck with the assistance of Motu and Patlu.

Motu Patlu Game respects your privateness, does not retailer any private data and does not permit you share this info. Finest Associates Motu Patlu are the lovable awesome twosome residing in a small city in the heartland of India, often known as Furfuri Nagariya. MDS's latest choices, The Adventures of Motu Patlu and VIR -The Robot Boy, Eena Meena Deeka and Kisna are drawing high TRPs within the Indian kids's TV area while just a few new ones are being developed and launched simultaneously.

An attention-grabbing confluence of two main developments has led to Motu Patlu's silver display debut. The printed artificial kites this year have taken a cinematic flip with popular motion pictures and TELEVISION serials characters like Baahubali, Motu and Patlu, Chotta Bheem emblazoned on them.

The Motu Patlu amusements incorporate racing games, cooking video games, and cricket video games as nicely. Later Motu and Patlu, together with the villagers decide to take Guddu Galib to a national park and set him free. The producers of 'Motu Patlu Cartoons in Hindi' claim the movie is their tribute to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Make In India imaginative and prescient.

Take a look at the Indian motion pictures with the highest ratings from IMDb customers, in addition to the films which are trending in real time. With our Motu Patlu Namkeen, we've marked our name very strongly available in the market at present. Motu Patlu: 36 Ghante Race - Motu Patlu race in opposition to time for thirty six hours to solve the case of the theft of the Golden Automotive award.

I am promoting Motu patlu video games on my web site and never proudly owning any game or adding copyright to any content on my site. Animation could be recorded with both analogue media, a flip book , motion image film , video tape, digital media , together with codecs with animated GIF , Flash animation and digital video.

Nonetheless, even earlier than their good intentions could be translated, Motu finds out that the jungle has been seized by a harmful poacher referred to as Narsimha, who intends to loot the gold hidden inside. To obtain the free app Motu Patlu Edtion Surfers Runner by kishan chapani, get iTunes now.

Nina Elavia Jaipuria, Enterprise Head, Children Entertainment, Viacom18 added, We now have created a vibrant ecosystem across the Motu Patlu franchise that retains rising in scale and reach by the day. The community had beforehand launched 10 Motu Patlu movies in the ‘made for TV' format that received an amazing response, and the eleventh film marks the characters' big display debut.

Entrapped in a plot with a runaway circus lion, a lion king trying to guard his kingdom and a greedy poacher who needs to smash the jungle life - Motu Patlu should wage a battle to avoid wasting the jungle. Nonetheless, Motu is a bit clumsy and due to this typically his pals (especially Patlu ) suffer.

Viacom18 Movement Pictures has joined hands with Nickelodeon to create the favored characters Motu Patlu film. The story starts with Guddu Ghalib, the lion, escaping from a circus and landing at Furfuri Nagariya the place he meets Motu and Patlu, Inspector Chingam and Dr. Jhatka who all plan on taking him safely to the National Park.

Best Pals Motu and Patlu are the lovable superior twosome residing in a small town in the heartland of India, referred to as Furfuri Nagariya. Motu Patlu: Mission Moon - Motu Patlu wrestle to stop a malevolent entity who has been changing the soil of the Moon to gold to incur profits.

Secondly, with an estimated 400mn children in the nation as we speak, the youngsters class is the third largest in the Indian broadcast sector, after the GECs and Movies classes, with a sizeable headroom for development by way of each viewership and revenues,” noticed Sudhanshu Vats, Group CEO, Viacom18.

You can simply play this sport by urgent solely left arrow and proper arrow(not supported now). Motu Patlu tune in sound mp3 and video in MP4 design which is accessible free to download. Prime members additionally enjoy unique access to films and TV exhibits, two million songs and much more.

Properly, these are solely flash games and can be played from LAPTOP or Home windows telephone, but I will provide you few Android and iOS motu patlu games as effectively. Since its inception, Motu and Patlu have enjoyed a candy spot in the minds of children and have over time become a phenomenal success for Viacom18 throughout tv, digital and consumer merchandise enterprise strains.

The person behind Motu Patlu, the corporate's flagship animation IP, Suhas is likely one of the key artistic forces in the company. Motu shouldn't be as endearing as Mowgli from The Jungle Book neither is this animated motion-adventure anywhere close to the Hollywood movie that just lately rewrote field-workplace historical past.

Which is a little character, You must transfer your mouse and click the screen to levitate or else motu will motu hits backside or top boundaries, He will die, and the game will end there. The film was launched by Sushant Singh Rajput, the main lead within the upcoming film M. S Dhoni: The Untold Story, he was seen having enjoyable with Motu Patlu at the event of trailer launch.

Additionally, do stay till the end credits to observe the dance by Motu Patlu and Chingam. The channel will also air its fourth film primarily based on its common cartoon characters on October 23, at 12:15 pm. The film is titled 'Motu Patlu Kungfu Kings'. The film encompasses a runaway circus lion, a lion king attempting to protect his kingdom, a greedy poacher and Motu and Patlu concerned in a battle to save the lifetime of the jungle.

In that sense Motu Patlu has had an interesting journey - beginning with television, then transferring into digital, capitalizing on their rising brand worth through Viacom18 Shopper Products and now starring in their own film,” he added.

He additionally added ‘Jungle predominant Dungle' is his favorite track from the film ‘Motu Patlu' King of Kings 3D. The ten Motu Patlu ‘made-for-television' motion pictures have contributed 10 per cent of Nick's ratings, being amongst the top 5 every time we launched one such movie.

He is the only one who makes samosas and tea in the whole Furfuri Nagar which is the favourite of Motu and Patlu respectively. In an try to find Guddu Galib, Motu and Patlu come throughout Singha, the king of the jungle, and mistakes him for Guddu Galib. Motu Patlu in Double Hassle - After Chingum's marriage ceremony, Motu Patlu and buddies discover themselves mixed up with two scientists who look alike themeselves and two villains struggling for goals of one another.

Might Have been higher as in comparison with the Series which matches on TELEVISION. The first half was less focused on Motu Patlu & extra on the Lion.. Luved the animation and would say quite a neatly executed however surely may have been higher. It's set for an October 14 rollout across seven hundred screens in India with Hindi and Tamil language versions.

Maya Digital Studios animated tv collection like The Adventures of Motu Patlu, VIR -The Robot Boy, Eena Meena Deeka and Kisna are major draws on prime kids channels like Nickelodeon, Discovery Children and Hungama, drawing excessive TRPs in the Indian youngsters's TV house.

Prime members enjoy FREE One-Day and Two-Day supply on eligible gadgets, limitless video streaming, 30-minute early entry to top offers & more. Motu: Motu is a fat man who serves as the one of many present's central protagonists. He's silly and is be-fooled by bad people and must be recovered by Patlu His samosa power is temporary.

He is a helpful person and because of this all of the residents of Furfuri Nagar ask him and Patlu for help when there may be bother. He has sensible ideas to lure Motu and Patlu but whenever he tells him John says that his thought is bad and beats him, saying that he has a better plan but repeats the same one.

The characters within the movie are extraordinarily entertaining ranging from Motu who needs no less than a dozen samosas to combat anyone to the witty Patlu who has an answer to almost every downside, to the depraved Narsimha, who's evil but cute in his ways.

With a concentrate on high-finish work within the animation outsourcing enterprise, MDS caters to film, tv, video games and online media in a variety of visuals that range from cartoon-shaded children programmes to sensible pc sport cinematics. The movie is slated to release on October 14 in Hindi and Tamil in over seven hundred screens throughout India.

Animation movie 'Motu Patlu: King Of Kings has performed an inexpensive enterprise in its 10-day run at the field office. It's humorous sport as a result of it's too easy to foretell all the things, Suppose someone caught one ball then a recreation provides you with four options.

Motu and Patlu are common characters within the Indian children's animation sector and are based on a comic book strip printed in Hindi journal Lotpot. He once received impressed with Motu and Patlu and even recruited them in the police as Havaldars, but when he came to know that they weren't as succesful as he had thought, he obtained irritated with them and fired them from the police.

From being the leading present across the youngsters class on television and digital; creating model licensing alternatives throughout product classes, curating a terrific merchandising line, to now taking the franchise to the silver display - our endearing Motu Patlu have additional deepened and strengthened our bond with children across the country.

A promotion drive throughout 30 cities of the Hindi and Tamil speaking belts has also been deliberate for the movie. Viacom18 is all set to take the Indian animation trade by storm with the release of Motu Patlu King of Kings - the network's maiden 3D stereoscopic animation theatrical.

[therightnewsnetwork]

Schism in the House of Malick

Listen closely and you’ll hear a storm of squabbling voices rolling in just over the horizon. They’re not debating politics, but rather Song to Song, the new movie by Terrence Malick now opening in theaters nationwide.

If the cinema is the moviegoer’s cathedral then Malick is its high priest. Ever since he emerged in the ’70s with Badlands, a ruminative frontier love story with shades of Bonnie and Clyde, Malick has been bewitching and infuriating audiences in equal measure with his signature blend of Biblically flavored storytelling and rapturous, naturally lit imagery. It’s always been the case that you either love his style or you decidedly don’t, but his turn toward more experimental modes of filmmaking in recent years has caused something of a schism in the House of Malick—and even brought some of his haters into the fold.

Song to Song picks up artistically where Malick left us off in his previous narrative feature, the 2015 release Knight of Cups. In both films, Malick has seemingly abandoned many of the hallmarks of his early cinema: expansive shots of natural vistas, linear narrative, the tiniest hint of anything so much as resembling a coherent plot. So while it’s not incorrect to describe Song to Song as a movie about Faye (Rooney Mara), an aspiring musician pursuing a romance with an adrift piano player (Ryan Gosling) while keeping from him a secret affair with her music producer (Michael Fassbender), and the existential questions that haunt her as she tentatively makes her way in the Austin music scene, that description wouldn’t be entirely accurate—in no small part because I can’t for the life of me recall a single moment in the movie when anyone actually addressed Mara’s character, or any other character, by name.

There’s too much going on in any given frame of this movie for the viewer to make sense of all of it in one sitting. One moment we’re watching partygoers on the fastidiously manicured front lawn of Fassbender’s modernist mansion eat sushi off a human serving platter; the next we’re watching Mara, through a fisheye camera lens, dolefully wandering the aisles of a Costco. One minute we spy Gosling slip into a church for a moment of prayer; the next we’re eight inches away from Val Kilmer’s face as he’s tearing an amp apart with a chainsaw. Malick mixes the sacred and the profane with such giddy abandon here that he renders entire movements of radical mid-20th-century art timid by comparison. Perhaps it’s the freedom that comes with being a 73-year-old veteran who has already won the eternal admiration of the film establishment for making a towering and transcendent epic, 2011’s The Tree of Life. Perhaps he’s just losing it.

And so the arguments over the merits, or lack thereof, in Malick’s recent cinematic output continue apace. The generous read of Malick’s experimentation is that he’s going through a phase of testing out a new cinematic language (if the specifics interest you, Eric Hynes has a formally rigorous take on it), but if anyone’s going to understand this new way that Malick has decided to speak to us, we’re going to need some translators.

Malick, who studied philosophy at Harvard and went on to become a Rhodes scholar before a brief stint as a lecturer at MIT disabused him of idea that he’d make a good teacher in a traditional classroom setting, has always aimed at higher things in his work than what most directors in Hollywood are interested in. Song to Song, for all its obfuscating editing, nauseating camerawork, occasionally transgressive imagery, and criminal misunderstanding of how pop music cues should work in a motion picture (true to Malickean form, the best-deployed tracks in the film are all classical-music needle-drops, foremost among them the use of Camille Saint-Saëns’ “Danse Macabre” over a montage of the courtship of a briefly present Natalie Portman by Fassbender), is trying to communicate messages that are familiar to fans of Malick’s œuvre.

What the film lacks in meaningful dialogue it makes up for in contemplative voiceover—the one reassuring (or exasperating; your mileage may vary) constant in all of Malick’s work. Led by Mara’s voice, but also skipping around to Gosling’s, Fassbender’s, and Portman’s, the narration guides us through the fractured thinking of young people in search of the good but lacking the language to identify it. In a way, Malick is using the cinema to distill the vocalized thoughts of his characters down to their absolute and most penetrating essence.

The kineticism of his camera and the bodies it catches in improvised motion tell us as much about these characters as other directors would say by means of more traditional filmmaking conventions (shot-reverse shot edits, three-act screenwriting). Whenever we hear an actor speak, it’s to say what only words can communicate. “I never knew I had a soul,” Mara narrates at one point. “The word embarrassed me.” She’s well on her way to reconciliation with Gosling’s character, after the two of them have frayed the bonds of their own relationship by keeping affairs hidden from one another. But the spaces these people move about in—the mosh pits and drug dens and penthouse apartments of the deracinated, irreligious, disposable pop musicians and pop-musician enablers of 21st-century Austin—leave them ill-equipped to define the malaise at the heart of their heartbreak and anomie.

Here, perhaps, is where we can make some sense out of the seeming nonsense that Malick is creating. For all the radical weirdness on display in Song to Song, the director guides the proceedings with a firm gentleness and a wisdom rooted in the philosophical and biblical traditions in which he is so well-read. (It’s surely no accident, as Alissa Wilkinson has pointed out, that this movie’s name bears a resemblance to the Old Testament book of love poetry Song of Songs.) Toward the end of the film, after some chronological looping that shows us the moment when Mara and Gosling first meet, as well as an even earlier moment when Gosling watched his father die, Mara inches asymptotically closer to a biblical revelation about her life. “‘Mercy’ was a word,” she catches herself admitting, “I never thought I needed … Or not as much as other people do.”

There’s hardly anything transgressive about Malick’s messages about mercy, grace, forgiveness, and selflessness, and their necessity for the formation of well-ordered souls: they’re as old as storytelling itself, and we’ve been hearing variations of them in lineage of Judeo-Christian art and literature for thousands of years. The fact that Malick has thought to repurpose cinema itself to convey such seemingly simple and longstanding truths about human nature and relationships is the sign of a genius at work. When a culture stops understanding the wisdom of history and tradition, it is not a sign that this wisdom has become obsolete so much as it is an invitation to translate it into subtler languages the surrounding culture will comprehend. Though the haters would claim that Malick’s new language is too subtle to be understood, the ongoing pushback from critics moved by Malick’s pathbreaking new stories are proof to the contrary. We fellow-journeymen on the road of tradition and virtue that Malick is obliquely traveling might do well to seize upon the method to his madness—and maybe even a bit of the madness itself.

Tim Markatos is editorial fellow at The American Conservative.

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[patriotnewsblogger-blog]

Schism in the House of Malick

New Post has been published on http://www.therightnewsnetwork.com/schism-in-the-house-of-malick/

Schism in the House of Malick

Listen closely and you’ll hear a storm of squabbling voices rolling in just over the horizon. They’re not debating politics, but rather Song to Song, the new movie by Terrence Malick now opening in theaters nationwide.

If the cinema is the moviegoer’s cathedral then Malick is its high priest. Ever since he emerged in the ’70s with Badlands, a ruminative frontier love story with shades of Bonnie and Clyde, Malick has been bewitching and infuriating audiences in equal measure with his signature blend of Biblically flavored storytelling and rapturous, naturally lit imagery. It’s always been the case that you either love his style or you decidedly don’t, but his turn toward more experimental modes of filmmaking in recent years has caused something of a schism in the House of Malick—and even brought some of his haters into the fold.

Song to Song picks up artistically where Malick left us off in his previous narrative feature, the 2015 release Knight of Cups. In both films, Malick has seemingly abandoned many of the hallmarks of his early cinema: expansive shots of natural vistas, linear narrative, the tiniest hint of anything so much as resembling a coherent plot. So while it’s not incorrect to describe Song to Song as a movie about Faye (Rooney Mara), an aspiring musician pursuing a romance with an adrift piano player (Ryan Gosling) while keeping from him a secret affair with her music producer (Michael Fassbender), and the existential questions that haunt her as she tentatively makes her way in the Austin music scene, that description wouldn’t be entirely accurate—in no small part because I can’t for the life of me recall a single moment in the movie when anyone actually addressed Mara’s character, or any other character, by name.

There’s too much going on in any given frame of this movie for the viewer to make sense of all of it in one sitting. One moment we’re watching partygoers on the fastidiously manicured front lawn of Fassbender’s modernist mansion eat sushi off a human serving platter; the next we’re watching Mara, through a fisheye camera lens, dolefully wandering the aisles of a Costco. One minute we spy Gosling slip into a church for a moment of prayer; the next we’re eight inches away from Val Kilmer’s face as he’s tearing an amp apart with a chainsaw. Malick mixes the sacred and the profane with such giddy abandon here that he renders entire movements of radical mid-20th-century art timid by comparison. Perhaps it’s the freedom that comes with being a 73-year-old veteran who has already won the eternal admiration of the film establishment for making a towering and transcendent epic, 2011’s The Tree of Life. Perhaps he’s just losing it.

And so the arguments over the merits, or lack thereof, in Malick’s recent cinematic output continue apace. The generous read of Malick’s experimentation is that he’s going through a phase of testing out a new cinematic language (if the specifics interest you, Eric Hynes has a formally rigorous take on it), but if anyone’s going to understand this new way that Malick has decided to speak to us, we’re going to need some translators.

Malick, who studied philosophy at Harvard and went on to become a Rhodes scholar before a brief stint as a lecturer at MIT disabused him of idea that he’d make a good teacher in a traditional classroom setting, has always aimed at higher things in his work than what most directors in Hollywood are interested in. Song to Song, for all its obfuscating editing, nauseating camerawork, occasionally transgressive imagery, and criminal misunderstanding of how pop music cues should work in a motion picture (true to Malickean form, the best-deployed tracks in the film are all classical-music needle-drops, foremost among them the use of Camille Saint-Saëns’ “Danse Macabre” over a montage of the courtship of a briefly present Natalie Portman by Fassbender), is trying to communicate messages that are familiar to fans of Malick’s œuvre.

What the film lacks in meaningful dialogue it makes up for in contemplative voiceover—the one reassuring (or exasperating; your mileage may vary) constant in all of Malick’s work. Led by Mara’s voice, but also skipping around to Gosling’s, Fassbender’s, and Portman’s, the narration guides us through the fractured thinking of young people in search of the good but lacking the language to identify it. In a way, Malick is using the cinema to distill the vocalized thoughts of his characters down to their absolute and most penetrating essence.

The kineticism of his camera and the bodies it catches in improvised motion tell us as much about these characters as other directors would say by means of more traditional filmmaking conventions (shot-reverse shot edits, three-act screenwriting). Whenever we hear an actor speak, it’s to say what only words can communicate. “I never knew I had a soul,” Mara narrates at one point. “The word embarrassed me.” She’s well on her way to reconciliation with Gosling’s character, after the two of them have frayed the bonds of their own relationship by keeping affairs hidden from one another. But the spaces these people move about in—the mosh pits and drug dens and penthouse apartments of the deracinated, irreligious, disposable pop musicians and pop-musician enablers of 21st-century Austin—leave them ill-equipped to define the malaise at the heart of their heartbreak and anomie.

Here, perhaps, is where we can make some sense out of the seeming nonsense that Malick is creating. For all the radical weirdness on display in Song to Song, the director guides the proceedings with a firm gentleness and a wisdom rooted in the philosophical and biblical traditions in which he is so well-read. (It’s surely no accident, as Alissa Wilkinson has pointed out, that this movie’s name bears a resemblance to the Old Testament book of love poetry Song of Songs.) Toward the end of the film, after some chronological looping that shows us the moment when Mara and Gosling first meet, as well as an even earlier moment when Gosling watched his father die, Mara inches asymptotically closer to a biblical revelation about her life. “‘Mercy’ was a word,” she catches herself admitting, “I never thought I needed … Or not as much as other people do.”

There’s hardly anything transgressive about Malick’s messages about mercy, grace, forgiveness, and selflessness, and their necessity for the formation of well-ordered souls: they’re as old as storytelling itself, and we’ve been hearing variations of them in lineage of Judeo-Christian art and literature for thousands of years. The fact that Malick has thought to repurpose cinema itself to convey such seemingly simple and longstanding truths about human nature and relationships is the sign of a genius at work. When a culture stops understanding the wisdom of history and tradition, it is not a sign that this wisdom has become obsolete so much as it is an invitation to translate it into subtler languages the surrounding culture will comprehend. Though the haters would claim that Malick’s new language is too subtle to be understood, the ongoing pushback from critics moved by Malick’s pathbreaking new stories are proof to the contrary. We fellow-journeymen on the road of tradition and virtue that Malick is obliquely traveling might do well to seize upon the method to his madness—and maybe even a bit of the madness itself.

Tim Markatos is editorial fellow at The American Conservative.

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[mavwrekmarketing]

The Lego Batman Moviewould never skip leg day. Never.

The new movie which is fantastic also doesnt skip a beat during more than 90 minutes of jokes and references, some even at the expense of its parent studio, Warner Bros. Its padre, as Robin might say. Its papa.

The infamous moment happens later in the movie. Before heading off to save Gotham, Batman takes a shot at another Warner Bros. movie, Suicide Squad, saying that using criminals to fight criminals is a dumb idea.

Suicide Squad, though a commercial success, was berated by critics, a fact thats not lost on Warner Bros., nor the moviescast and director. Lego Batman throwing shade at its own makes the moment stand out from the rest.

And people noticed:

The Huffington Post talked with director Chris McKay about the surprising moment. He said Lego movies are all about getting away with stuff:

I cant remember if that was one we really had to run up the flagpole or not, or just the executives who were on the movie saw it and were OK with it, but that was just us kind of riffing in a voice booth, said McKay. It was me [writer] Jared Stern and Will Arnett. It was one of those things where we gave Will an idea, and he took it and made it his own. I love working with him. Hes amazing, but being able to get away with stuff I think is kind of one of the things we do well in all of the Lego movies. You feel like youre sort of getting away with it.

In an interview with Build Series, the director also commented on the matter, saying, Because were approaching these characters and this movie with a lot of love, people kind of let us do some things that maybe we couldnt do.

Will Arnett, the voice of Lego Batman, also chimed in, saying, Its kind of incumbent upon us in this position as the in a certain way, as the absurdist Batman, to take those shots. If we dont, then were sort of missing our own point.

In addition to talking with HuffPost about the Suicide Squad jab, McKay also cleared up some of the movies unanswered questions:

In the movie, Dick Grayson (later Robin)asks Bruce Wayne if he should get experimental surgery on his eyes to make him more appealing. Does he get the surgery?

No, I think hopefully Batman and Bruce Wayne persuaded him from doing that.

Robin calls Batman tons of variations of father. How many different words for father did you go through?

There were a lot more. We had to cut [some]. At one point, we even translated Hebrew. We used all languages we possibly could to say father. But it was one of those jokes where we have to keep the movie moving. But, at one point, I think we recorded Michael Cera doing everything.

Will Batman ever get to hang out with lady activewear models?

We know hes hung out with ballerinas in Christopher Nolan movies. Yeah, I think in a sequel. The thing were looking at with every one of these movies is hes got a different girlfriend.He has very limited relationships. Theres an expiration date on his relationships. Its always something like that. I really wish, in a future movie, we can see Batman hang out with lady activewear models.

Ralph Fiennes, Voldemort in the Harry Potter movies, voices Alfred in Lego Batman. This movie has an appearance by Lego Voldemort (Eddie Izzard). Was there any talk of getting Fiennes to voice Lego Voldemort?

[Fiennes] is great, and hes amazing to work with. Yeah,at one point I wanted to do that and suggested it to the studio. Fora coupleof reasons we decided not to, but I think the main one was unless youre gonna put Alfred and Voldemort in a scene together, unless youre gonna do something with it … its going to end up on the cutting room floor. I think thats kind of the main reason why we didnt do that. I think also J.K. Rowling was really generous obviously in letting us use Voldemort and Dumbledore in the first movie. I dont wanna step on too much of what theyre doing.

Did J.K. Rowling have to approve Lego Voldemort?

Yeah,not on the cast, but just to show her the stuff we were doing, and she was super positive and really helpful and actually gave us spells that we should use.

Why does Batman always have a deep voice?

When you boil Batman down, he stopped developing when he was a little kid, so everything he does is what a little kid would think is scary. Its like, How do you stop crime? OK, Im gonna learn karate. Im gonna dress up like a giant bat, and Im going to scare criminals with my big scary voice. I think that is the solution of a child to a real problem. I love Batman. I think its kind of funny to take a step back and look at our heroes and find some kind of loving critique.

Is there anything scarier than snake clowns?

The only other thing [is] in dreams, you can add to that waking up naked at a test. Being late for a test and you dont have any clothes. I think that would probably the scary dream triumvirate between clowns, snakes and nudity.

How important is it not to skip leg day?

You gotta even it out. Actually, youll fall over, so you gotta get your legs. People try to blow it off, but it really is important.

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