#you bungled the transition of power that's on you man.

[corallapis]

don't know if i trust ol grandaddy borusa's relaying of events 🤨

[straydog733]

Watching Resolution: I Came By (2022)

9. A trashy movie: I Came By (2022)

List Progress: 1/12

Thrillers for streaming services are easy to throw together and even easier to bungle. Many filmmakers seem to think that just tossing some violence and tension at the screen will make for an engaging film, but so many fall short. That is why the 2022 British Netflix film I Came By stands out; while far from a perfect film, it makes enough smart, considered choices that have the audience leaning forward in their seats and hanging on until the end.

I Came By follows Toby, a graffiti artist with grand visions of fighting against The System, but a basic lack of respect for those around him, including his childhood best friend Jay and mother Lizzie. Toby and Jay have built a reputation as an infamous tagging crew, breaking into the homes of the rich and tagging the words “I Came By” on their interior walls as a means of showing those in power that they are still vulnerable to attack. But when Jay’s girlfriend gets pregnant, he knows he needs to step away from the high-risk life, and that the black Jay is far more vulnerable than the white Toby if they get caught. Toby is determined to take on One Last Job and breaks into the home of respected judge Sir Hector Blake, and stumbles upon something horrifying in this pillar of the community’s house. Toby, Jay and Lizzie need to find a way to bring down this man who is so insulated from consequences, without falling prey to him themselves.

The movie is great about having characters make very human, believable decisions. They are not always wise or smart decisions, but absolutely the choices you could see yourself making in such extreme circumstances. And everyone feels like they have a developed inner life, even more tertiary characters like Jay’s girlfriend Naz, who could have easily been written as a stock girlfriend figure on the sidelines. The actors are all giving it their all, and Hugh Bonneville in particular is great as Hector Blake, alternating between genial warmth and icy menace with very natural transitions.

While the characters and actors raise the quality of I Came By, the editing and cinematography unfortunately lower it. Shot composition can be so muddled that it is difficult to track the geography of a scene, which is a big issue when dealing with tense moments of suspense that depend on knowing where everyone in a scene could be hiding or lurking. But the movie’s biggest flaw is its time skips; almost all of them are jarring and it can be very unclear if twelve hours have passed in between scenes, or twelve weeks. Naz’s pregnancy is practically the only consistent clock the audience gets, and a baby bump should not have to do the work that an editor should be doing.

I Came By is a pulpy thriller, and makes no bones about it, but it makes enough smart decisions and careful statements that it stands above many of its peers. The pieces don’t always come together neatly, but the whole is still something to experience.

Would I Recommend It: Yes.

[skybird13]

Why I Think Fair Game Works

So we’re coming up on the midway point in this mini RWBY vol. 7 hiatus, and I have a serious addiction to Fair Game. With no more canon content coming out for another week (😭), I thought I’d provide some self-indulgent rambling in-depth analysis as to exactly why I think Qrow and Clover work so well together. I’ll be pulling off of what we have in the show so far (because I tend to base my ships off of canon context), but I’ll also be making some reasonable assumptions regarding Clover’s character since we don’t have a whole lot on him yet. 

[Note: I’m not really trying to sway anyone with this post, so if you don’t agree or don’t like FG, feel free to scroll right on by and have a nice day. I’m all for discourse but that’s not the point of this particular post. Make your own and invite me to engage and we can have a convo.)

That being said, and without further ado, here are my top reasons for being Fair Game trash. Be forewarned, this is loooong. Damn thing turned into a dissertation. 

Reason #1: Clover is a source of stability

One of the biggest criticisms I’ve seen aimed at Fair Game (aside from the more inane ones, which I will not dignify with an acknowledgment on this post) is that Qrow hates specialists. And people are right. It’s one of the first insights we get into his character in his volume 3 debut episode, right after the fact that he’s an alcoholic. I completely agree that if these two men had met in volume 3 or even 4, there is no way they would have gotten along. Clover is a soldier. A military man. He goes by the book and, in his mind, there’s not a lot of wiggle room when it comes to doing things the right way (see: his conversation with Robyn). He would have driven volume 3 Qrow up the wall, and not in a sexy way.

But the fact is, Qrow has been through a hell of a lot since then. He lost Ozpin twice (once to death and once to the lies Oz himself told), lost his way and sense of purpose because of it, almost died on multiple occasions, fell into deep emotional darkness, came under the influence of the Apathy, and had to finally acknowledge his own depression and poor coping mechanisms, or lack thereof, as a result. Shit like that changes you in deep and fundamental ways and, while I would have loved for a bit more in-show focus on this transition, I think RT gave us enough to infer the rest.

Thanks mostly to Ruby, Qrow is finally in a place where he is trying to heal for the first time since we’ve known him. He started the show as an impulsive– albeit manipulative and brilliant (see: him baiting Winter into a fight)– alcoholic who had no problem whatsoever with getting under people’s skin. The only relationships he really seemed to value were the ones he had with his nieces and with Ozpin, and everyone else could take a flying leap. Now I can’t deny that there was a certain charm to that. It’s one of the reasons I think he became such a fan favorite so rapidly; a lot of us can relate to that desire to not give a shit. But the underlying implications of that type of behavior are, I believe, pretty damn dark and serve as the earliest signs of Qrow’s depression and emotional isolation. Consider: his only functional relationships were with people who were incapable of really knowing him on a deeply personal level. Oz couldn’t because he was the one to give Qrow a purpose, thereby establishing a certain power imbalance in their relationship, no matter how close they were (I love Oz despite his mistakes before anyone comes after me for that statement and have nothing against Oz x Qrow, these are just my thoughts). And Ruby and Yang couldn’t, and still can’t, because they’re his damn nieces and being the adult in a relationship with kids means you maintain a certain distance between them and any insecurities or struggles you might have. Anything else is just not okay. He bungled that in volume 6 but he has clearly been trying to re-establish that supportive adult role in volume 7, which is amazing all by itself.

This brings us to Qrow’s emotional and mental state at the start of volume 7. Again, he’s in a place where he’s trying to heal. I don’t know how many people can relate, but that place is friggin’ terrifying because it’s the place where you have to stop lying to yourself about your problems and commit to dealing with them. But it also comes with a weird level of mental… stillness? Peace isn’t the right word, but when you’re not constantly fighting yourself anymore, you are able to breathe a little and that’s worth a lot to someone who has been trying to suffocate themselves for most of their lives. I think this has a lot to do with his shift in outlook. He’s less antagonistic because it no longer serves to feed the self-loathing monster inside him. Or rather, he’s trying to make sure he doesn’t feed it. The fact that he comes into Mantle, gets arrested for doing his job, and doesn’t immediately get in James’s face, or Winter’s for that matter, attests to the fact that he has changed. Qrow isn’t the one to call James out on the embargo or the state of things in Mantle. Instead, he steps into a role that we have never seen him in: the gentle voice of reason. He points out that James doesn’t need an entire military presence to build and launch the communications tower, and when James reveals his plans to tell the world about Salem, Qrow doesn’t outright disagree or go after him for it (as he certainly would have in earlier volumes). He simply points out that Oz spent every lifetime he had keeping that secret and then lets James explain his reasoning (flawed as it might be).

In short, all that outward anger he displayed in earlier volumes was most likely a manifestation of the self-hate storm he had brewing inside. Now that he’s decided to try to move away from that, he’s different. Of course he is. It would be completely unreasonable to expect otherwise.

Enter Clover Ebi. By sheer virtue of being who he is, Clover provides a source of stability for Qrow that he both sorely needs and has severely lacked up to this point in his life. Healing is an internal and independent process for the most part, and Qrow is going to have to sort out his issues on his own, but having someone in your life during that process who is solid is invaluable. And so far, Clover has been nothing but solid. He has been the one to pull Qrow back from bad old habits (self-deprecation and self-hate regarding his semblance). He’s been the one to take Qrow’s semblance in stride and even to get him to joke about the whole concept of having luck, good or bad, for a semblance. And so far? He’s done all of this with absolutely no strings attached. He’s not like Oz, who needed Qrow to be functional enough to carry out his spying missions, and he’s not like Ruby or Yang, who reasonably need Qrow to be solid for them because he’s their uncle. Clover is the first person who doesn’t need anything from Qrow, and so he is able to offer the type of emotional support that Qrow has never received from anyone else. They’re not even official battle partners, despite them being paired quite a bit. The lack of strings, of ulterior motives, of complicated and messy ties, and even of familial bonds, means that Clover can be the solid one. He can be a safe place where Qrow can fall apart and put himself back together if he needs to, because nothing is going to cave in if he does. Qrow won’t be putting too much weight on his nieces or on someone who relies on him for information and support. He can lean on Clover without having to worry about any repercussions. 

Reason #2: Qrow is a source of disruption 

Now for the fun flipside of my first point. While Clover provides a source of stability for Qrow, Qrow has the very real potential to provide a much-needed source of disruption for Clover, thereby balancing out what we have gotten of their relationship dynamic so far.

Being a military man, stringent structure and unconditional loyalty to his superiors are likely major aspects of Clover’s character. We have enough in the show so far to assume that’s accurate about him even if it hasn’t been blatantly stated. 

Clover carries out his orders without fail, to the point of arresting a bunch of kids and Qrow in Mantle for operating outside of official parameters. His conversation with Robyn is also extremely telling. He doesn’t have a problem with what she wants; he has a problem with how she’s trying to get it. He doesn’t believe that the ends justify the means and, in that same vein, probably also believes that institutions are there for good reason. He is the epitome of lawful good.

Qrow, on the other hand, has never operated within official parameters. He was a spy, for god’s sake, and therefore is intimately familiar with the inherent grayness of the world. He’s not someone who is going to see things in black and white, and because of this, he could offer a sort of push back against Clover’s blind loyalty to Ironwood. 

Not only is Qrow not in the military, and therefore not bound by its restrictions and dictates, but he has known James for a long time. He, more than anyone, is in the perfect position to call James out on his crap, and he’s probably the one with the best chance of actually getting through to him. Not with the same aggression and vehemence he displayed in volume 3, but with more of a tough-love approach. I fully expect this to happen at some point (and will be very sad if it doesn’t. I like James and want him to snap out of all this).

So how does this relate to Clover? Well, it forces him to acknowledge that, military or not, always trusting that the people above you are doing the right thing or the best thing is never a good way to go. He would have to step back and re-evaluate his general approach to life, which is the core of character growth. Clover never questions authority (that we’ve seen) whereas Qrow’s existence has always been in stark contrast to it. If anyone is going to act as a catalyst for Clover’s potential evolution from strict military man to a more free-thinking, free-acting individual, it’s going to be Qrow. And I think the pieces are set-up for that exact thing to happen.

Obviously, we’ll have to wait and see where CRWBY takes this one (if they take it anywhere) but the potential for growth from Clover is there because Qrow has come into his life. One of the best things couples can do is challenge each other, and these two are primed to do exactly that.

Reason #3: Opposites attract for a reason

We’ve all heard the phrase, right? Opposites attract. Sometimes I think this statement falls victim to a lot of misunderstandings so let me clarify what I mean by this. I don’t mean their chosen routes in life (rogue and spy vs. structured military man), or their semblances, or even their different combat styles. I’m talking about the complementary nature of their personalities. 

Qrow has always been a bit impulsive. It’s been established that he sometimes doesn’t fully think things through, or if he does, he doesn’t care about the consequences and is willing to deal with them (see: his battle with Winter again). Don’t get me wrong. The guy is brilliant. He baits Winter knowing it will give him the opportunity to pick a fight with James as well and call him on his shit. But I’m pretty sure he also does this knowing full well that’s all he’s going to get: a fight. He’s not going to convince James not to bring the full Atlas military presence in for the Vytal Festival by shouting at him. He knows this and does it anyway. In his fight with Tyrian, you can see more than one instance where he’s planning his moves so his semblance has the chance to work on his opponent, but it’s at the risk of his own safety as well (see: the roof stunt). There are plenty of other examples throughout the show. Qrow runs off instinct and momentum.

Clover, on the other hand, strikes me as someone who exercises a bit more caution in his life. He thinks through a situation before he steps into it and overall just seems a little slower to take action. This is true in combat situations, as the whole mine mission was meticulously planned out beforehand. You can also see this approach mirrored in the way the Ace Ops work on the whole. Vine and Elm definitely don’t rush in when they encounter Grimm in the mine, and while Marrow and Harriet might be a bit faster to go after the main target, they don’t do it without a fully formed plan. It’s not foolproof, obviously. Marrow does cut off that piece of Dust with no one there (that he knows of) to catch it, but the point is still valid. 

This tendency to go slow and feel his way is also true in Clover’s personal life. In the truck scene, you can see him watching Qrow while he talks, gauging his reactions, trying to find the best way to reach him. Nothing he says is mere chitchat. It’s all meant to pull Qrow into a conversation, which Clover tries to keep focused on Qrow himself. His opener might be Ruby but he ditches that line of thought as soon as Qrow gives him the opening to do so and shifts his attention to where he really wants it to be: getting to know Qrow.

Then you also have Qrow’s penchant for falling into dark mental places balanced against Clover’s good mood and playfulness; Qrow’s willingness to be a little more open with his emotions and Clover’s tight emotional control; the fact that Qrow feels things fully and deeply while I suspect that Clover might have emotional walls he hasn’t learned how to lower yet; Clover’s ability to follow orders and Qrow’s ability to question. And that’s all out of only 3-ish minutes of total interaction between them so far. I think as the volume goes, we’ll only get more insight on the ways in which they balance and round each other out. 

Reason #4: Shared semblances

So this has been the biggest kicker for people so far, and I’ve seen it as a point both in favor of and against FG. Some people theorize that Clover’s semblance might have some balancing effect on Qrow’s, making it much safer for Clover to be around him than it is for others. Others think that it might be more of a trade-off: good luck part of the time and bad luck the other part (I’m in favor of this). And yet others seem to see Clover’s semblance as a negative thing for Qrow, somehow dampening his own semblance or countering it to the point that it’s mentally or emotionally detrimental for him. I personally don’t quite see the logic behind this given what we’ve seen so far, but I’ll just make my point and get out of this debate because the truth is that we still don’t quite know how their semblances function together. 

What we do know is that they are two sides of the same coin, and as such, are not nearly as far apart as they might have seemed at first. They both carry around luck semblances, which I assume is pretty damn rare. Almost every other semblance we have seen has existed more in the practical realm (Yang’s damage absorption, Blake’s shadow self, Weiss’s glyphs, Ruby’s rose petal thing, Marrow’s ability to slow time, Tyrian’s ability to rip through Aura, etc. etc. etc.) And then we have these two who operate in the realm of chance, something intangible and completely unpredictable. They are fairly unique in the RWBY-verse in this sense, and uniqueness usually breeds a certain degree of separation. 

A ton of theories are floating around about how Clover’s semblance has affected him throughout his life. I’ve posited a few myself. We obviously have no idea what the canon backstory for Clover is, and while I do think it’s pretty safe to assume that while Qrow has dealt with ostracization because of his semblance, Clover might have experience with some sort of idolization or even over-reliance (which can be damaging in its own right) because of his, there isn’t a whole lot we can speculate on without more information.

So where does that leave us? With the scene depicted above. Regardless of how their semblances might play off each other or what these two have suffered (or enjoyed) as a result of them, one thing is certain: they understand one another. Qrow may not know what it’s like to be able to draw good luck to himself, but he knows what it’s like when his semblance does work in his favor and screws over an opponent. Clover, by the same token, probably doesn’t understand what it’s like having to constantly watch out for misfortune, but he most likely does know what it’s like to have his semblance flip on him and give the edge to his opponent. Additionally, them both having such similar semblances means that learning to look for signs of each other’s being at work won’t be much of a stretch for them. They would be able to adapt pretty fast to working together. Note, I’m assuming their semblances function in the same way and that Clover has no more control over his than Qrow does because it just makes narrative sense. 

This puts them in the unique position of being together in their semblances, even if they’re on opposite ends of the spectrum. Qrow has not exhibited any jealousy or bitterness towards Clover because of his semblance, and Clover sure as hell hasn’t put any distance between them out of concern for Qrow’s semblance. They get each other, and after only half a season, they have developed a level of comfort with one another that already allows them to joke about it. An inside joke that no one else could possibly understand. And that is some powerful shit for two people who have potentially (one person we know for certain has) been isolated in one way or another because of their semblances throughout their lives.

Reason #5: Clover is new

Okay, if anyone partial to a different Qrow ship has somehow made it through this monster of a post, you might want to skip this bit. Because I’m going to make an argument for why bringing in a new character to be Qrow’s love interest is actually a good idea. This is not to hate on I//ronqrow or S//nowbird or any other popular Qrow ship, but it might annoy the shit out of you so… fair warning. I’ll keep it brief, though. 

I think Qrow getting involved with someone who he has no past connection to would be insanely good for him. When it comes to James or Winter or, really, anyone else who knew him before this volume, there is a lot of baggage there. And I mean a lot. At this point in his life, Qrow is dealing with enough of his own internal shit that throwing external interpersonal baggage on top of that probably wouldn’t help him in any way. Sometimes, you just need to start over somewhere (especially when you’re trying to pick up the pieces of yourself and figure out how they go together), and Clover offers Qrow the perfect opportunity to do that. There are no preconceptions that Qrow has to deal with, nothing he has to make up for or prove. Clover won’t be hovering over him anticipating a relapse or using his past behavior to interpret his current actions, or wondering why he’s changed, or holding things against him. He can figure out who he is now without the pressures of who he was hanging around his neck. And that, like so many other things these two have going for them, is unbelievably powerful. 

Reason #6: They already have the nonverbal thing down

This one is more for funsies than anything, but come on. They’re already communicating non-verbally? 

It took me a while to pinpoint that expression on Clover’s face but I finally got it: his brows don’t lower in annoyance or anger. They furrow: the universal sign of concern. What exactly he’s worried about, I’m not completely sure. It could be any number of things at this point, from a hint that he’s not totally supportive of this particular order he’s getting (bringing Robyn into custody) to a concern that he and Qrow might be approaching a clash point (not so far, though if Qrow is going to be the disruptive force Clover needs, that point is probably coming). Either way, this look speaks volumes. I’m just not entirely certain how to read it yet. 

But in the interest of keeping up on the analysis, note his answer to James. It’s not a “yes sir” or a “whatever you say, sir”. He says “we’ll figure it out”. Qrow looks at him and only then does Clover shoot him that sideways glance thing. Is he making it clear that he means to include Qrow in this? That he wants Qrow’s help? That he knows they’re all in a crap situation but the Amity project is stalled and they need to try something so they should at least try this? They’re communicating something here and just because I don’t know what it is yet doesn’t mean this is any less significant in terms of their relationship. This kind of thing only happens when you click with someone and these two definitely click.

Bonus: They’re just so damn cute together

If you made it through that nonsense, congratulations! Have some Fair Game goodness as a reward. These two are adorable together and you will never convince me otherwise:

[sfiddy]

What's your favorite chapter you've ever written? What fic is it from? Why do you love it? Copy and post it here!

Hi Anon!  I’ve got a LOT to choose from but I’ll confine myself to more recent, multi-chapter works. 

One of my favorites is the first chapter of Balcony Duet!  I love how the whole work turned out, but the first chapter just has such a mood, an atmosphere, and a charming ribbon of humor wound through it that, for me at least, it really offers a wonderful summary of Erik’s life  It’s a lot like another favorite of mine, Gold Restoration. 

So here it is, in all it’s spottily edited glory.  Thank you, anon!

Chapter 1 

The Maestro

Evening fell in a soft cascade of yellows, oranges and pinks as Erik showered off the dust and scuffle of the theater. After applying a layer of protective cream over his fragile face, he shuffled off and relaxed into his couch. Managing a busy theater was a draining job, even when done mostly through others to avoid the stares and side glances of the morbidly curious, and left little time for what he really enjoyed. Even if he could, he wouldn't want the grinding job of day to day collaborative piano work. Not in a theater, anyway.

He poured a drink and carefully replaced his mask. If pressed, he would admit that he missed the moments when just a few people gathered at the piano and made music together. The intimate play of skill, interpretation, and talent that took what was on the page to a different level. The moment when the written score no longer ruled and the music, the music, led the way.

When his music led, people tended to notice his face less.

With a sigh, Erik walked across his living room towards the balcony doors, side stepping the piano that lived where anyone else would have… whatever it was that they had in their homes. Desks, coffee tables, cabinets; the pedestrian and mundane. He had a small couch, a tiny end table, and a piano. It was enough. He hardly sat in the couch anyway.

With a gentle press, his French doors swung open silently and let in a cool breeze. The courtyard below was dark, and the gardens many floors below were lit with tiny fairy lights strung from the tree branches. They hung low here and there, illuminating the bushes and flower beds. All around, balconies staggered drunkenly up the sides of the apartment buildings. Dim outlines jutting from otherwise smooth concrete façades.

It was funny how apartments boasted about their balconies, yet hardly anyone stepped onto them. Occasional glows followed by a puff of lazy, curling haze betrayed the smokers. A handful of others took in the evening autumn air that spiraled through the courtyard walkways and down from the sky above. Most of the jutting platforms were vacant.

As the evening settled violet shadows to the world's edges, Erik turned back to his rooms. Nature had exhaled and let the remaining shreds of day pass by. Darkness was gentler, kinder. Blurring the details. Everyone was the same in the dark. He flexed his hands and stretched his fingers.

He settled on Haydn, for the cool air felt like a lullaby. The notes danced in the courtyard, echoing playfully into the garden and up to the deepening purple sky. Variations evolved the music into a fugue that fused itself to a thoughtful motif he'd heard once, and finally Haydn once more. Erik ended his concert gently, for himself and, perhaps more practically, to avoid noise complaints. Then he toasted the accommodating night, finished his drink, and gathered the fortitude to finish his work. If he was quite fortunate, he'd manage a few hours of sleep before doing it all again.

…

The next morning passed in a blur of budget shifts and retroactive justification. It was followed by hasty medical attention for and filing the medical claims on behalf of his prima donna who, after her leading man bungled a set piece, ended up with a chipped tooth and bloody lip. Then more budgeting to replace the set piece after being bested by the prima donna's face.

Erik pulled his keys from his pocket and gave serious consideration to arson. When he reached his door, he unlocked it with a sigh and reminded himself that he loved the arts and his theater, loved music, and this was just the business side. Music took talent and training, and neither were free. He pushed the door open and looked down.

Damn. He had a note.

A scrap of cheap notebook paper had been shoved under the door with enough force to send it a foot beyond the threshold.

With a grunt, Erik bent and picked it up. If the little fart took issue with his playing they should have complained the day after he'd smashed out some Rachmaninoff and transitioned to Metallica, not after an evening of lullabies. He'd show them what a noise complaint should sound like.

He unfolded the note.

...

A humble request to the Maestro: Liebestraum No. 3 in A flat.

...

Erik immediately took back the little fart comment. It was the nicest scribble, really. Loopy enough to be artful, but with enough spike for efficiency. He hurried through his shower, threw on some clothes, and sloshed too much red wine into a glass.

Liszt. Who didn't love Liszt? Erik even had a hard copy of it somewhere, but immediacy demanded he queue it up on his laptop. A glance at the first bar and his mind filled in the rest; a conversation with an old friend. Then he flung the French doors open, only just stopping one from smacking against the wall to his bedroom.

The night again was violet-cool and breezy. The drunken balconies shared no secrets, and the smokers and shadows kept each other company. Somewhere though, somewhere in this was his audience, and they must not be kept waiting.

With a few deep breaths, a healthy swallow of wine, and a splendid neck crack, he was ready.

Erik gave the keys a light stroke as he placed his hands for the piece, then eased into the music, letting it flow through him and out into the courtyard; relief after a day of pounding power chords and paperwork. Such a deeply satisfying refrain, elaborated by flourishes that made the core seem simple, then repeated to emphasize their breathtaking beauty, the pearl in the oyster. Six little bars; love at the center of the dream.

He did not look at the music, all one needed was the six bars and after that it was frills and ribbons. Magnificent and transcendent to be sure, but decorations for what lay at the center.

Erik closed his eyes, letting Liszt spill into the cool evening air without really playing it, for in moments like these he became the music. There was no more theater, no paperwork, no mask and no Erik. He spread himself out in the song, a thin veil across the darkening evening.

Across a courtyard.

He let the last notes linger, hanging in the air, as long as he could before he reluctantly released the sustain. As they silenced, Erik opened his eyes and raised his mask to gently wipe the collected moisture underneath, caught in the misshapen twists and ridges of his… face.

Applause. One person. There was applause for his playing.

His audience.

Erik rose from the bench, replacing his mask as he walked to his balcony. The clapping grew louder as he stepped out, but he could not tell where it came from. The concrete walls of the courtyard bounced the sound in every direction. He was uncomfortable being watched, but the clapping did not stop when he stepped to the edge of his balcony, and came faster when he bowed.

It slowed, and finally stopped when he retreated. Erik was tempted to play an encore, considered seeing if his listener would offer another round of appreciation, but decided they had already pressed their luck with the other residents.

Besides, if he left his audience with an appetite, there may be another request.

His smile raised the mask over his cheekbones for a moment, and he closed his balcony doors gently, bidding a fond goodnight to the stars and his charming fan.

…

Though he tried not to, Erik couldn't help feeling a little disappointed when there was no note under his door the next day. He played jazz classics and sipped a gin and tonic. There was no note the next day, either, and he soothed his soul with a melancholy air and tea before retiring early.

After a dull day coordinating maintenance work and city inspectors, Erik trudged to his door with a substantial chip on his shoulder. It was irritating work, lacking even an intersection of art and business. It required calendars, carefully scheduling work away from stage time, and the quick diplomacy necessary to juggle multiple contractors on limited resources. It was dull without the good manners to be mindless.

Thus primed, his hands itching to play and his nerves begging for a stiff drink, Erik slid his key into the door. Perhaps a good pounding of Holst or some Mahler tonight. Either way, he'd have a shot before his shower, just to burn the day away.

The door swung open and Erik glanced down.

Oh. He had a note.

His bag smacked on the tile floor as Erik dove down for the folded paper.

…

Dear Maestro, Thank you for Liszt and the lovely jazz. Would you consider Shubert's Ave?

…

Well, wasn't that just jarring. Smashing out the loudest hot mess he could to… this. One does not easily trade a tirade for prayer. His fingers flexed impatiently.

Would he consider it? He was already debating which arrangement, the musician's equivalent of 'how high?'. While the request would be honored, he couldn't be blamed for taking liberty with it. Besides, he was an artist.

Showered and comfortable, Erik patted his face gently with cream and opened his bar cabinet. The first shot of tequila was far from smooth, but it burned so good and cleared the sticky, clinging day from his mind. The second shot burned, too, and he set on the third on the table near the piano, then he eased the mask into place and headed to the french doors.

The evening was warmer. A thick blanket of cloud overhead had trapped the daytime warmth. Storm season approached, or maybe it was the energy of expectation that crackled in the air. It was eerily silent in the courtyard, as if the smokers and crickets had all taken a vow of silence for the night. He could even hear the wind as it whistled through the hallways and down stairwells.

Erik imagined he could feel the eyes on him as he stepped into the soft darkness, making sure it was obvious that he, the Maestro, was about to play.

How little it took to capture his imagination these days.

He sat at the bench and removed the mask again. The Virgin Mother was about to be invoked and he wanted her to know who was calling.

The first notes came easy, reverently, but just before reaching the first 'benedictus', he added power, bass where it had not been, and Erik pounded into a crescendo and let it die back and sweeten for the refrain.

As he let the notes hush and prepared to really let go for the second half, a sound caught his ear. A sound he did not make.

A voice. From outside. Soprano.

Erik's hands froze for only a moment, his ears tingling, trying in vain to find the direction, but he knew that was pointless. Even if he wasn't inside, sitting in front of a piano, the concrete square outside would ricochet.

So he played on, softer, to hear the voice. He changed the arrangement to accompany the singer, not plow over her, and then repeated to give her a go at the entire song. As she grew more confident, her singing grew bolder, and she adapted and threw in trills and improvised around him. She was skilled. She was strong.

She was bewitching.

Too soon the song ended again, and Erik hopped from the bench and ran to the balcony. His applause joined that of his singer, their noisy clapping ringing around the courtyard.

"Brava!" he shouted, and heard a light laugh.

Oh, she was a diva.

It wasn't until he raised the third shot to his lips that he realized he wasn't wearing his mask.

…

The next day, there were two notes under his door.

...

My dear Maestro: Brava indeed! Perhaps just a lullabye tonight? -Your singer

...

The other was a noise complaint. Erik grinned and eased into some Brahms.

…

Erik stayed home the next day. After another day of repairs, he had no doubt the errors would make themselves apparent quickly. He assured his production and stage assistants of his full confidence in them and, knowing the hellscape they were in for, ordered pizza to be delivered for lunch. Then he ordered sandwiches to be delivered for dinner. His confidence in them went only so far.

He was absolutely not staying at home because the diva had seen him without the mask. But his sensitive hearing had not detected a gasp of horror and she'd kept clapping.

Conclusion? She was blind.

Error. She'd clapped louder as he stepped onto the balcony, and tapered off as he retreated.

Mad, then? Whatever she was, she was a delight. If he was lucky, she was in the market for an accompaniment.

Erik dragged his sofa and turned it to give a view of his door. He wasn't going to let her get away this time.

…

It was approaching the late afternoon as Erik replied to a reasonably coherent email from a stagehand. The current project needed more sophisticated rigging than they usually ran, but Erik was never without a plan, and had personally designed the modern fly system. It was worth a call.

"There's more capacity up there. Check the store room and you'll see crates labeled 'expansion'. If you run into trouble before I'm back, call the number on the plans and ask for Khan."

As he hung up,he caught the sound of movement in the hallway. Rustling.

By the time he heard paper tearing, Erik had his hand on the doorknob. When he whipped the door open, a young woman with soft brown curls piled atop her head jumped and dropped her notebook and pen. Erik bent down and picked up the notebook.

Same handwriting.

The woman stood up and straightened her glasses. She peered up at him as she plucked a curl from under a lens. She took a breath as if to speak but Erik held up a hand to stop her.

"Are you warmed up?"

She blinked. "I, ah… no. Not yet."

He pushed the door wide and stepped back to give her a view of… his couch. Erik swore under his breath and pulled the thing out of the way to give the woman a view of the small grand piano. "Never neglect a proper warm up. Come."

She hesitated. "I don't know…"

"Of course. I'm a stranger. A stranger wearing a mask no less. Look, I'll make this quick because I'm rather impatient to begin," He stuck out his hand. "Hello, I'm Erik, and I'm a very ugly musician. I'm very pleased to meet you miss…?"

She giggled and turned pink when her hand disappeared into his. "I'm Christine, and I'm a… a failed soprano."

He released her hand and stepped back. "Who told you that?"

Oh heavens, now she was blushing. "Fifteen years of vocal study, thirty failed auditions, three coaches, and an ex husband." Christine tilted her head. "Who said you were ugly?"

"God decreed it and my mother, good Catholic that she was, did not argue. Your problem is probably stage presence, not your voice. Your coaches were imbeciles, and I assume your ex is an ex for a reason."

Christ, his rapid fire was making his own head spin. He held the door a bit wider. "Are you going to sing or not?"

Christine hitched her bag higher on her shoulder and watched him carefully. "Okay. Maybe we can avoid a noise complaint if we're not serenading the entire complex."

Erik felt his uneven grin nudge the mask. "Philistines," he sniffed.

...

[dweemeister]

Pyaasa (1957, India)

When a print of Guru Dutt’s Pyaasa arrived at the Mumbai offices of Ultra Media & Entertainment (a film distribution and production company), the incomplete negative had almost completely melted. One of the most popular and acclaimed landmarks of Hindi cinema (“Bollywood” to many of you) needed immediate restoration. Several months of clean-up ensued, and the restorationists submitted the newly-cleaned print to the 2015 Venice International Film Festival. Pyaasa now has a second life for cinephiles who want to explore more of Bollywood – although, for the very fact that Pyaasa feels like a socially and thematically subversive work for its time, it is not recommended for beginners. As Guru Dutt’s first film after starring in and directing Mr. & Mrs. ‘55 (1955), Pyaasa is a magnificent feat of artistry and certainly Dutt’s most cinematic movie that he had made by that juncture in his career.

Vijay (Dutt) is a struggling poet uninterested in composing the treacly love poems that publishers and the public are demanding. “You call this gibberish ‘poetry?’” asks one prospective publisher, “You must write poems about love.” Against the wishes of his mother (Leela Mishra), he avoids living at home, lest he subject to the demeaning insults from his brothers. One evening, Vijay is wandering the streets when he hears a prostitute named Gulabo (Waheeda Rehman) singing his poetry. He follows, but she pushes him away when she realizes he has no money. Gulabo will, after reading a paper dropped from Vijay’s pocket, deduce that the person she just banished is the poet whose works she is enamored with. Further bitterness and disappointment follow Vijay when he learns his ex-girlfriend Meena (Mala Sinha) has married a hotshot publisher, Mr. Ghosh (Rehman; no relation to Waheeda Rehman). Vijay will begin work for Ghosh as a servant, leading to a finale flushed with bitter lyricism. The film also stars Johnny Walker as Abdul Sattar, a massage oil salesman who serves as comic relief.

Having gone through two previous Guru Dutt films in chronological order, my initial experiences with the Bollywood superstar included the swashbuckling spectacle of Baaz (1953) and the social satire of Mr. & Mrs. ‘55 (1955). Those two films allowed me to see the trajectory of Dutt’s directorial and developing aesthetic senses. Thematically, there is little in those previous films that could have prepared me – or frequent moviegoers in India in 1957, really – for what Pyaasa brings. The film is primarily capturing the travails of a struggling poet who composes poetry unmarketable to the masses. His words tell not of sweeping romances or witticisms, but commentaries on how cruel and destitute the world can be – heartbreak, injustice. Some of his poetry is social protest; these words seeping into the film’s soundtrack as lyrics (more on this later). For Vijay, his poetry serves to cleanse his soul of cynicism; anyone who purports to enjoy his poetry is celebrated, but he is not focused on numbers and mass popularity (although a decent paycheck might help). Yet there are still moments of the romantic in Vijay, at least from the past. In a flashback from his college days just over twenty minutes in – this scene is poorly edited, and it was not until several minutes afterwards did I realize it was a flashback – he recites this:

When I walk, even my shadow lags behind. When you walk, the universe keeps pace. When I stop, clouds of misery gather. When you stop, spring’s radiance is outshone.

That is the extent we ever hear of Vijay’s romantic poetry. 1950s Bollywood films certainly approached topics of materialism, but none to the extent and serrated cutting edge of Pyaasa. Pyaasa never reaches Satyajit Ray-levels of despondent, soul-crushing resolutions; however, this movie is more willing than most working in Hindi-language cinema at the time to avoid a glossy or compromised ending. Credit to Dutt for overruling screenwriter Abrar Alvi – who lobbied for a compromised ending – for the film’s fearless final twenty minutes. Perhaps Vijay’s decisions in the closing stages are not the most enlightened or practical, but make sense given the character’s tenacity and Dutt’s desire for an unconventional finish.

Most remarkable about Alvi’s screenplay to Pyaasa is how Gulabo is treated. No matter where movies were produced in the 1950s – the United States, Europe, across Asia, and elsewhere – the depiction of prostitutes and sex workers was a lot to be desired. As great as the following two movies both released in 1957 are, Pyaasa treats Gulabo with more dignity than Nights of Cabiria (a film that, upon seeing it six years ago, helped me recognize some personally regressive attitudes towards sex workers and learn more about the topic) does with its titular character. The tendency, even now, is to morally punish a sex worker character in a film, to demean them for their sexual expression, or to portray them as tragic figures suffering through unimaginable conditions of abuse or poverty. None of these apply to Gulabo – always in control of her situation, comprehending almost fully what she wants most in life, and subordinate to no one. Her actions throughout Pyaasa are out of love for Vijay and Vijay’s work, but there is no sense of “belonging” to a man or a romantic ideal of fixing a broken soul. A broken Vijay does not deserve the familial, financial, and mental turmoil that he is struggling through, so Gulabo selflessly helps Vijay from the desperate depths of his own mind.

In a twist, Dutt and Alvi – in a certain way of looking at it without spoiling the film – take the main character out of the film about a half-hour before the conclusion. We see Vijay’s brothers attempting to soothe their pain over their mother’s recent death (unbeknownst to Vijay) with illicit payments from Ghosh. Ghosh – a publishing executive seeking to expunge any inconveniences of his pocketbook or his twisted conscience, has a dastardly plot to help only himself. Vijay, though separated from the narrative for several resolving scenes of Pyaasa, is disgusted with what he has seen and heard from his family, his employer, and probably countless others in the past. In the film’s final musical number, Vijay recites/sings:

This world of palaces, of kingdoms, this world of power, The enemies of humanity, this world of rituals, These men who crave wealth as their way of life, For what will it profit a man if he gains the world?

The returns diminish; a desire to acquire more feeds upon itself, destroying the moral groundings of all. Though Guru Dutt and Abrar Alvi probably did not have Buddhism on their minds, Vijay’s answer – articulated with the light illuminating his figure while facing the camera – to all he has seen is a weary enlightenment. In these final scenes, Vijay appears as if he has ascended to a higher plane of existence, knowledge, and perhaps spirituality.

Cinematographer V.K. Murthy (a Dutt regular, having shot Mr. & Mrs. ‘55 and 1959′s Kaagaz Ke Phool) improves upon his previous collaborations with Dutt here. Murthy is the most important person that makes Pyaasa – by some distance – the most aesthetically enthralling movie that Dutt had directed by this point. Whether dealing with flashbacks, fantasies, or reality (or even surrealistic touches to reality, which is something that is unexpected, but contributes to the feeling Vijay is not entirely present in the corporeal world), Murthy provides gorgeous deeply-staged shots with dollied close-ups that, in less-assured hands, might come off as corny but instead heighten the dramatic stakes. But Murthy is not helped by editor Y.G. Chawhan, who handles scene transitions poorly and bungles the first hour’s flashback by not properly announcing that it is a flashback.

As an actor, this is Dutt’s most trying performance. After playing romantic leads Mr. & Mrs. ‘55 and Baaz, this performance in Pyaasa is worlds apart from his past. By the midpoint, Vijay sees nothing but the corruption of the world and is doing little to improve his situation. Vijay is Dutt’s least dynamic protagonist I have encountered thus far, but that does not devalue his character’s suffering and that inimitable way Dutt broods and listens or observes to other characters. Dutt’s character suffers silently; his performance is never labored, but enriched by his naturalistic acting. Waheeda Rehman, appearing in one of her first films as a leading actress (the role of Gulabo was originally intended for Madhubala), is stunning – her charm prevents Pyaasa’s existential and anti-materialistic themes from landing with a thud that might have excited some European auteurs at the time. Her appearance is undermined by the lengthy flashback that takes her out of the film’s first hour after one hell of an introduction.

Pyaasa includes a spellbinding musical score from composer S.D. Burman and lyricist Sahir Ludhiyanvi. But considering that the songs are built around Vijay’s poetry and the plot concerns his struggles, Burman’s music is secondary to Ludihyanvi’s lyrics – Ludihyanvi himself was primarily a poet who wrote in Hindi and Urdu. There are fewer musically spellbinding back-and-forths like “Udhar Tum Haseen Ho” in Mr. & Mrs. ‘55. For Pyaasa, poetry recital serves as musical performance for the film’s most interesting songs. Waheeda Rehman’s one hell of an introduction in “Jane Kya Tune Kahi” – where Gulabo (Waheeda Rehman was dubbed by Geeta Dutt) recites Vijay’s poetry back to him without knowing the fellow in front of her was the author – sets everything forward. This alluring misunderstanding of a song introduces the romantic tensions early, eliminating any annoying teases that might distract from the film’s larger themes. The climactic “Yeh Duniya Agar Mil Bhi Jaye To” defines the film, with its stunning, poetic lyrics, and is as context-dependent as original songs can be in cinema. Layers of meaning also sung earlier in “Jane Woh Kaise Log The” (behind the aforementioned song, it serves as the second-best poetry recital as performance) are expanded upon.

Less acclaimed from Bollywood fans but appealing to yours truly (I am grounded in Western musicals) is a fantasy sequence within a flashback: “Hum Aapki Aankhon Mein”. Sung by Vijay (Mohammad Rafi dubbing Guru Dutt) and Meena (Geeta Dutt dubbing from Mala Sinha), it is a song of budding love in a setting only possible in dreams. Or a soundstage, I guess. With maybe too many smoke machines concealing their feet, Vijay and Meena dance together with a gracefulness not out of place in any place that values the transporting nature of musicals. Johnny Walker (dubbed by Rafi), who is weirdly adorable in his comic relief roles, is endearing in “Sar Jo Tera Chakraye” while trying to sell his oil massages to passers-by. With the exception of these two, almost the entire Burman-Ludhiyanvi score draws its operatic-like drama from the plot – so make sure to concentrate a bit more on the lyrics than usual for Hindi-language movies.

For some cinephiles who have not yet ventured into Bollywood but have seen Bengali films (probably Satyajit Ray’s movies), Pyaasa might be an ideal point of entry for its combination of Bollywood escapism and Bengali-inspired parallel cinema. For everyone else, Pyaasa will be an anomalous, but memorable entry into the Hindi cinema canon.

Pyaasa translates to “thirsty” in English. That might not be the most appealing title, but it reflects Vijay’s craving for a righteous, altruistic world that just does not exist. How much of Vijay was a reflection of Guru Dutt is a point of speculation – Dutt, an advocate of social justice, seems to have enjoyed more creative freedom in Pyaasa that was not apparent in his previous films. His political voice is more pronounced here than ever before, showcasing an artist displaying a mature understanding of the medium he wields. At thirty-two years of age the year of the film’s release, Guru Dutt shows a confidence that belies his youth. It results perhaps not in a call to action, but to show us a response by a man so completely dedicated to his craft.

My rating: 9.5/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found here.

[newscheckz]

Memo No. 21 From the National Welfare Desk of Men

New Post has been published on https://newscheckz.com/memo-no-21-from-the-national-welfare-desk-of-men/

Memo No. 21 From the National Welfare Desk of Men

Losing is Part of Life: How Not to Lose Like Donald Trump

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Several months ago, we were enjoying a drink in a bar, when an old friend, the worst arseh*le I have ever had to deal with joined us.

He stayed with us briefly, ordered a round drinks for the five of us. Once the round was done, he ordered for some expensive whiskey. Then he made an Irish exit.

We only realized when it was time to pay, and there was a pending bill of Sh 13, 700, that he was supposed to have picked.

The bill now was upon us and we had to rob Mshwari, raid Fuliza, invade the Talas of these world until the bill was settled.

We were so mad, if met him moments afterwards, we would have attacked like we were a pack of wolves.

We were so angry at that SOB, and when we called him the following day, this is what he had to say, “Pombe si ni nyinyi mlikunywa? Nyinyi mkiniona, naeza buyia mandume mzinga? Acheni ufala?”

He hang up. He had even forgotten the first round of beers he had ordered for us. I was mad at myself, because I had cut off the bastard like five years earlier when he had proved he will never grow up to be a man.

But there is one trait that has always intrigued me about him: His total lack of shame. His inability to think how his actions can hurt others.

He not only has a careless tongue, but he is also prone to fights, never repays a debt, and can still call to borrow money from you.

It is a trait I have seen in some men, who think, everything in life should go their way.

And no man exemplifies this more than the outgoing American president, Donald J Trump.

Donald Trump has achieved a lot in life. Born with a silver spoon in the mouth, his father was a Real Estate magnet, whose canvas was no greater a city, than New York.

From the late 1970s and early 1980s, Trump took charge of his father’s property business, became a New York playboy, in between built some grotesque monuments across America, ventured into Casino business, failed horribly, gamed the system with taxation and bankruptcy games, entered the big stage of Reality TV, before stumbling into politics as a hobby and ending up as the most powerful man in the world.

By and large, this is a life that 99 percent of the people in the world can only fantasize. Money, lots of it, fame, all of it, women, most of them. Everything.

Here is the irony of life, Trump was not going to win a re-election. If he won, it would have gone against the very script of life.

History always elevates losers to the top, but their time at the top is never a smooth one, and often they crash out, and end up disgraced.

Gaddafi, Mugabe, Mobutu, and what may happen to Museveni. But the sad thing about life, even if Trump won a second term, or even became the president of the entire world, he will never be satisfied.

And that is why, he has not conceded and has only grudgingly allowed the transition authority to ‘cooperate’ with incoming administration.

Trump had a chance to concede much earlier, however grudgingly and walk away with a modicum of dignity and he could always look back at the records he shattered, save for the Covid-19, which he bungled (it is hard to tell, how democrats would have fared in all fairness), but the world will always remember him as an egregious loser who went against that most, exemplary and decent of traditions: peaceful transfer of power in the world’s No. 1 democracy.

I have seen many men like Trump who never admit to a loss, can never accept defeat and have a totally distorted view of themselves and the world.

I see men, who think, because of their power and position, their women can’t leave them, or cheat on them and when confronted with the reality, they either die of depression or go on rampage.

I see men who can’t accept an election loss, who can’t see that their business is collapsing, their marriage is ending.

Their ego cannot allow them to come to terms that sometimes life humbles you. Men who can’t seek help when undergoing a problem.

Men who keep on faking it, hoping they will make it, even when there is overwhelming evidence that they are doomed to fail.

It depends on their upbringing. Some people were raised as spoilt brats, their parent (s) and siblings never saw the need to nip their bad behaviour it the bud.

We all know adults who are a pain in the arse. Adults who love themselves too much, they can make love to their image in the mirror.

You know users. Guys who are so shameless, they can fish a phone, and call you after four and half years and proceed straight away to ask for a favour.

Guys who are arrogant for no reason, who believe so much in their ability, they think they are infallible.

I have news for them. It is OK to be humble. It is necessary to be selfish. But at the very least how the world works.

1. The world can exist without you.

2. Nobody really gives a damn about you. There may be some hangers-on and bootlickers, but these ones abandon you as soon as they smell your bankruptcy.

3. How you treat people always comes back to reward or to haunt you. I know very many lonely folks in their 30s and 40s, but they are lonely because they were self-centered young men, who thought everything will always work their way.

Now life has humbled them and can’t believe that the world still rotates and revolves.

The worst thing that can happen to this lot is to lose. Whether an argument, a good deal, a good woman, anything.

Often they totally lose their head, and cannot internalize what hit them.

Yet, if you are a man, losing is part of life. We lose all the damn the time. But as the cliché says, whatever you lose, don’t lose the lesson.

So, if you are a man, and currently losing out on something, undergoing some kind of rejection, remember, Man’s rejection is God’s protection.

When you lose, be gracious, be grateful, and mourn like a human being, but don’t mourn too long.

Pick up the pieces, dust up and know the job ahead is always the most difficult.

For arrogant folks, with no self-sense of awareness, understand losing is part of life. And if you have a friend who is self-centered, you owe them a rebuke, a reprimand, every time they act like arseholes.

Each human being must learn how and when to be proud, but more importantly, when to be humble.

Don’t be like Donald Trump and embarrass yourself, in your own small world. Cut your losses when you have to, let her go however bad your ego can’t allow it, admit you are/were wrong, and above all, learn.

In life, we win some, lose some. Champions are those who know how to bounce back.

[diarrheaworldstarhiphop]

WASHINGTON — President Trump loves to set the day’s narrative at dawn, but the deeper story of his White House is best told at night.

Aides confer in the dark because they cannot figure out how to operate the light switches in the cabinet room. Visitors conclude their meetings and then wander around, testing doorknobs until finding one that leads to an exit. In a darkened, mostly empty West Wing, Mr. Trump’s provocative chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, finishes another 16-hour day planning new lines of attack.

Usually around 6:30 p.m., or sometimes later, Mr. Trump retires upstairs to the residence to recharge, vent and intermittently use Twitter. With his wife, Melania, and young son, Barron, staying in New York, he is almost always by himself, sometimes in the protective presence of his imposing longtime aide and former security chief, Keith Schiller. When Mr. Trump is not watching television in his bathrobe or on his phone reaching out to old campaign hands and advisers, he will sometimes set off to explore the unfamiliar surroundings of his new home.

During his first two dizzying weeks in office, Mr. Trump, an outsider president working with a surprisingly small crew of no more than a half-dozen empowered aides with virtually no familiarity with the workings of the White House or federal government, sent shock waves at home and overseas with a succession of executive orders designed to fulfill campaign promises and taunt foreign leaders.

“We are moving big and we are moving fast,” Mr. Bannon said, when asked about the upheaval of the first two weeks. “We didn’t come here to do small things.”

But one thing has become apparent to both his allies and his opponents: When it comes to governing, speed does not always guarantee success.

The bungled rollout of his executive order barring immigrants from seven predominantly Muslim countries, a flurry of other miscues and embarrassments, and an approval rating lower than that of any comparable first-term president in the history of polling have Mr. Trump and his top staff rethinking an improvisational approach to governing that mirrors his chaotic presidential campaign, administration officials and Trump insiders said.

This account of the early days of the Trump White House is based on interviews with dozens of government officials, congressional aides, former staff members and other observers of the new administration, many of whom requested anonymity. At the center of the story, according to these sources, is a president determined to go big but increasingly frustrated by the efforts of his small team to contain the backlash.

“What are we going to do about this?” Mr. Trump pointedly asked an aide last week, a period of turmoil briefly interrupted by the successful rollout of his Supreme Court selection, Judge Neil M. Gorsuch.

Chris Ruddy, the chief executive of Newsmax Media and an old friend of the president’s, said: “I think, in his mind, the success of this is going to be the poll numbers. If they continue to be weak or go lower, then somebody’s going to have to bear some responsibility for that.”

“I personally think that they’re missing the big picture here,” Mr. Ruddy said of Mr. Trump’s staff. “Now he’s so caught up, the administration is so caught up in turmoil, perceived chaos, that the Democrats smell blood, the protesters, the media smell blood.”

One former staff member likened the aggressive approach of the first two weeks to D-Day, but said the president’s team had stormed the beaches without any plan for a longer war.

Clashes among staff are common in the opening days of every administration, but they have seldom been so public and so pronounced this early. “This is a president who came to Washington vowing to shake up the establishment, and this is what it looks like. It’s going to be a little sloppy, there are going to be conflicts,” said Ari Fleischer, President George W. Bush’s first press secretary.

All this is happening as Mr. Trump, a man of flexible ideology but fixed habits, adjusts to a new job, life and city.

Cloistered in the White House, he now has little access to his fans and supporters — an important source of feedback and validation — and feels increasingly pinched by the pressures of the job and the constant presence of protests, one of the reasons he was forced to scrap a planned trip to Milwaukee last week. For a sense of what is happening outside, he watches cable, both at night and during the day — too much in the eyes of some aides — often offering a bitter play-by-play of critics like CNN’s Don Lemon.

Until the past few days, Mr. Trump was telling his friends and advisers that he believed the opening stages of his presidency were going well. “Did you hear that, this guy thinks it’s been terrible!” Mr. Trump said mockingly to other aides when one dissenting view was voiced last week during a West Wing meeting.

But his opinion has begun to change with a relentless parade of bad headlines.

Mr. Trump got away from the White House this weekend for the first time since his inauguration, spending it in Palm Beach, Fla., at his private club, Mar-a-Lago, posting Twitter messages angrily — and in personal terms — about the federal judge who put a nationwide halt on the travel ban. Mr. Bannon and Reince Priebus, the two clashing power centers, traveled with him.

By then, the president, for whom chains of command and policy minutiae rarely meant much, was demanding that Mr. Priebus begin to put in effect a much more conventional White House protocol that had been taken for granted in previous administrations: From now on, Mr. Trump would be looped in on the drafting of executive orders much earlier in the process.

Another change will be a new set of checks on the previously unfettered power enjoyed by Mr. Bannon and the White House policy director, Stephen Miller, who oversees the implementation of the orders and who received the brunt of the internal and public criticism for the rollout of the travel ban.

Mr. Priebus has told Mr. Trump and Mr. Bannon that the administration needs to rethink its policy and communications operation in the wake of embarrassing revelations that key details of the orders were withheld from agencies, White House staff and Republican congressional leaders like Speaker Paul D. Ryan.

Mr. Priebus has also created a 10-point checklist for the release of any new initiatives that includes signoff from the communications department and the White House staff secretary, Robert Porter, according to several aides familiar with the process.

Mr. Priebus bristles at the perception that he occupies a diminished perch in the West Wing pecking order compared with previous chiefs. But for the moment, Mr. Bannon remains the president’s dominant adviser, despite Mr. Trump’s anger that he was not fully briefed on details of the executive order he signed giving his chief strategist a seat on the National Security Council, a greater source of frustration to the president than the fallout from the travel ban.

It is partly because he is seen as having a clear vision on policy. But it is also because others who had been expected to fill major roles have been less confident in asserting their power.

Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, occupies a central role in the administration and has been present at most major decisions and photo ops, but he is a father of young children who has taken to life in Washington, and, along with his wife, Ivanka Trump, has already been spotted at events around town.

Mr. Bannon has rushed into the vacuum, telling allies that he and Mr. Miller have a brief window in which to push through their vision of Mr. Trump’s economic nationalism.

Mr. Bannon, whose website, Breitbart, was a magnet for white nationalists and xenophobic speech, has also tried to reassure official Washington. He has been careful to build bridges with the Republican establishment, especially Mr. Ryan — whom he once described as “the enemy” and vowed to force out. He now talks regularly with Mr. Ryan to coordinate strategy or plot their planned overhaul of the tax code.

Before he was ousted in November as transition chief, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, the Trump adviser with the most government experience, helped prepare a detailed staffing and implementation plan in line with the kickoff strategies of previous Republican presidents.

It was discarded — a senior Trump aide made a show of tossing it into a garbage can — for a strategy that prioritized the daily release of dramatic executive orders to put opponents on the defensive.

Mr. Christie, who agrees in principle with the broad strokes of Mr. Trump’s immigration policy, says the president has been let down by his staff.

“The president deserves better than the rollout he got on the immigration executive order,” Mr. Christie said. “The fact is that he’s put forward a policy that, in my opinion, is significantly more effective than what he had proposed during the campaign, yet because of the botched implementation, they allowed his opponents to attack him by calling it a Muslim ban.”

In the past few days, Mr. Trump’s team has stressed its cohesion and the challenges of jump-starting an administration that few outside its group ever thought would exist.

“This team spent months in the foxhole together during the campaign,” said Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary. “We moved into the White House as a unified team committed to enacting the president’s agenda.”

As part of Mr. Trump’s Oval Office renovation, he ordered that four hardback chairs be placed in a semicircle around his Resolute Desk now heaped, in Trump Tower fashion, with memos and newspapers. They are an emblem of Mr. Trump’s in-your-face management style, but also a reminder that in the White House, the seats always outlast the people seated in them.

But finding enough skilled players to fill key slots has not been easy: Mr. Spicer is serving double duty as communications director, a key planning position, in addition to engaging in day-to-day combat with the news media. Mr. Trump, several aides said, is used to quarterbacking his own media strategy, and did not see the value of hiring an outsider.

An early plan was to give the communications job to Kellyanne Conway, his former campaign manager and top TV surrogate, but the demands of the job would have conflicted with Ms. Conway’s other duties as a free-range adviser to Mr. Trump with Oval Office walk-in privileges, according to one aide.

Mr. Trump remains intensely focused on his brand, but the demands of the job mean he spends less time monitoring the news media — although he recently upgraded the flat-screen TV in his private dining room so he can watch the news while eating lunch.

He often has to wait until the end of the workday before grinding through news clips with Mr. Spicer, marking the ones he does not like with a big arrow in black Sharpie — though he almost always makes time to monitor Mr. Spicer’s performance at the daily briefings, summoning him to offer praise or criticism, a West Wing aide said.

Visitors to the Oval Office say Mr. Trump is obsessed with the décor — it is both a totem of a victory that validates him as a serious person and an image-burnishing backdrop — so he has told his staff to schedule as many televised events in the room as possible.

To pass the time between meetings, Mr. Trump gives quick tours to visitors, highlighting little tweaks he has made after initially expecting he would have to pay for them himself.

Flanking his desk are portraits of Presidents Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson. He will linger on the opulence of the newly hung golden drapes, which he told a recent visitor were once used by Franklin D. Roosevelt but in fact were patterned for Bill Clinton. For a man who sometimes has trouble concentrating on policy memos, Mr. Trump was delighted to page through a book that offered him 17 window covering options.

Ultimately, this is very much the White House that Mr. Trump wanted to build. But while the world reckons with the effect he is having on the presidency, he is adjusting to the effect of the presidency on him. He is now a public employee. And the only boss Mr. Trump ever had in his life was his father, a hard-driving developer the president still treats with deep reverence.

With most of his belongings in New York, the only family picture on the shelf behind Mr. Trump’s desk is a small black-and-white photograph of that boss, Frederick Christ Trump.

[doedipus]

LP D&D: It’s Getting Boring by the Sea

It’s finally time for the party to attend the dinner party at Lord Heir’s estate, where they’ve heard rumors that there may be an attempt on John Merrow, the Visible Lord of Waterdeep’s life. Failure to protect him would mean that the city-state would fall completely into the hands of the Anonymous Lords, many of whom had already been swayed by the Sisters of the Night. The gang must work quickly to unravel the conspiracy before it’s too late!

Content under the break.

Trouble at the Mister Mister //A brothel by the harbor in Waterdeep

While Graham was visiting the brothel, his father wanders in out of nowhere

Mr. Broyer is perplexed

“Esmeralda is my friend,” explained the Graham

“Sh-she works here... as a dancer, I think”

Sir Huey, who was supposed to be engaged to (deadname), is also there, and is generally confused.

They want Graham to come back to the estate they’ve been staying at

Grandchildren

Marry Huey

Go back with mother

Condescension and misgendering abound

Jake wants to pause

But there is no pause in d&d

Mr. Broyer finds out that Graham is using his late brother’s name, and is infuriated

He attempts to flip the table and bolt for the door

The family is blocking the door

Graham bungles the table flip

Mr. Broyer attempts to restrain Graham, but he shoulder checks his father, knocking the old man over

He escapes the building, and runs through the streets of Waterdeep

House Broyer chases Graham through the city

Graham is surprisingly nimble, and navigates the goods in the street easily

Some cargo is strewn about the road, and Graham misty steps over it

He tries to hide in Lupe’s hangar //In the gang’s desperate struggle to derive utility from the semi-tame wyvern, they set her up in a warehouse with a receding roof.

Successfully

House Broyer runs past the warehouse, losing Graham

Lupe is nonplussed by his intrusion

She needs her beauty sleep, yo

Lupe happens to have tongues on her from last session //Phrasing!

A “moment” occurs between Graham and Lupe

Graham fills Lupe in on what’s just happened

His explanation rambles a bit

It’s basically his whole life story

...but Lupe went back to sleep

Graham falls asleep on top of Lupe

He dreams of his father’s words, his mother turning into a snake, and the skyline of Calimport

The next morning

Lucas teleports onto the ship

Greg says he was worried

Lucas is a wreck after the incident in Proskur

They go to their room below decks

Lucas tells Greg everything

Gandalf turned out to be a necromancer

He was “experimenting” on the locals

He had to die

Lucas and a friend were able to kill the wizard, but the friend died

When she died, Lucas absorbed her soul

Multiclassing, folks!

Lucas says the “L” word //“Lesbian?” “No, Scott.” “...Lesbians?”

Greg and Lucas make out

Lucas says they’ll get married after they take back Beydale //An inland duchy Greg is the heir to.

Greg seems pleased with this development

The two can rule Beydale

Greg wants to use the party as a platform to raise support for the reconquista of Beydale

Lucas gives Greg the raven statuette //I forget what the significance of this is

The planeswalkers return from Sigil

Without tote bags! What even was the point??

Coy realizes that world geometry makes sense again, kisses the ground

Escrima wants to give “baby girl Coy” a piggyback ride

But Coy wants to get down

Coy wanders off

They remember that they’re missing some party members, and head towards the ship

They pass by Lupe’s hangar, waking up Graham

Graham sees the party, and Coy’s tits

He kisses Coy’s hand

Coy is flustered

Max is also flustered

Coy tries to explain that she’s Coy, but Graham isn’t having it

But eventually, he recognizes her

Graham is confused

“I’m a paladin”

“Esmeralda is my friend”

Escrima sort of explains what happened with Narcovi

Escrima shows Graham his new tramp stamp

It was an ode to mother

Sometimes, Escrima doesn’t feel like he has a body.

Something possesses Graham to try and hug Escrima

...Who is entirely uncomfortable

Graham realizes that Coy transitioned, suddenly

“Coy, you cut your hair!”

“Where did you get... those..?”

Coy explains that she was transformed in a “flesh carving” shop in Sigil

Graham is curious about how to get there

The gang reminds him about the portal in Neverwinter

Everyone’s exhausted, and they head back to the Tavern Estate

Graham is trying reeeeally hard not to stare at Coy’s breasts

Shopping ensues

Coy needs to fix her order with the armorer, and the gang heads to the market district

The Planeswalkers run into Lucas and Greg, who were out buying clothes for the party

Lucas doesn’t recognize Coy

Coy introduces herself, but Lucas doesn’t believe that it’s her

She has big boobs. Coy does not have big boobs

Lucas tries to ask her a question that only she would know the answer to

Coy answers correctly, convincing Lucas of her identity

Lucas realizes that Coy was on the receiving end of a high level spell

He looks around in the book on 9th level spells for an idea of what it was

He takes some brain damage from reading forbidden knowledge

The spell is in there somewhere, but he can’t understand the words

Coy explains everything again

“YOU WENT TO SIGIL WITHOUT ME AGAIN??? MY ADVENTURE SUCKED!”

The gears in Lucas’ head start turning at the mention of that kind of power

He would never turn Coy into a kaiju for fun and profit.

Coy playfully punches Lucas’s shoulder, specifically the one that just got blown to bits

Lucas gets a good enough suit from a good enough shop

Coy goes looking for a dress, but she can’t find exactly what she wants

She gets something anyway, I think (?)

Coy goes to the armorer to be remeasured

It’s gonna take a couple hours and a few more gold.

They arrive back at the estate //Rocky generously allowed the party to stay at a pretty nice mansion in town while we were in the city

Coy wants to know about Akim

The butler is a little confused, but Coy explains herself again

Akim is in Coy’s room

Coy worries about what Akim will think

She goes to visit Akim

But falls asleep instantly

Lucas accidentally calls Jeeves a bartender, and he is indignant

Rolen gives Jeeves some of the wyvern venom, and asks him to sell it

Escrima goes to sleep by the pond

Everyone else goes to sleep in their bed, like normal people

During his trance, Rolen notices that something is trying to get out of his stomach

It has 8 legs

He concentrates real hard, and it goes away

Rolen gets up before everyone else, because elf

He does something clandestine

Graham grows personally to catch up with everyone else 

Rolen reveals that he went out in the night to get a cake and some things for Escrima

The whole lobby of the mansion is decorated

There’s 3 gifts by the cake

Bald head shine oil

Deck of cards from calimport

The bestiary

Rolen and everyone sings “Happy Birthday”

Escrima is confused

Rolen explains that it’s for mothers’ day

He figured that since Escrima was interested in Lupe, he should have some animal handling supplies

Rolen becomes inspired!

The cake gives the gang advantage against fear

Escrima is confused, but pleased

Akim stumbles in

“Oh, there’s cake!”

He’s not used to nice beds... or beds at all, really

He wants to know where Coy is

Coy hides behind Graham

Lucas attempts to explain things

Akim doesn’t care as long as Coy still loves him

Tbh the meme of “what’ll the kids think?” is the dumbest thing. It’s the adults that are the problem.

Coy is nervous about being a teen parent

The party is in 2 hours

Coy picks up her armor

Graham picks up Esmeralda

Esmeralda is working a customer when he gets there

Graham awkwardly asks if she can go to the party

She’s reluctant after the fit that was pitched last night

He gives her some cash, and she agrees to go

Lucas & Greg “prepare” for the party

Lucas applies mage armor to the both of them

The gang picks up their stuff from the tailor

The stuff there gives a +1 to CHA

Neverwinter styles rock, apparently

The merchant wants some of the fabric that Connie’s dress is made of

She says that all attendees need to make a donation to the sisters to enter

Escrima goes to Lupe’s Hangar

Escrima uses beast speech to talk to Lupe

Lupe confers that it will protect the party

...but Escrima forgot to unchain her

Connie disguises herself as a noble-looking human //Specifically, a different one than the last time she ran into the Sisters

They reach the entrance

Inventories are reduced

Coy is wearing some kinda armor, because she’s too good for the dress Connie got her in Sigil

The guards don’t care anyway

Plebs!

The gang flashes their invitations

It’s 100 gp per person to enter

The highest donation gets to chill with Elsa and Lord Heir

Greg talk about Beydale with some nobles

The town of MossStone was destroyed recently, which worries Lucas

His brother lived there

Greg mentions his quest

But the nobles aren’t having it

The sisters have told the nobles that they’ll take care of the hordes in the south

Greg blows his stack

The nobles tell them to cool it

Lucas yanks Greg away, and tells him that the nobles might not be worth it.

He tries to console him. The gang can handle anything the sisters can throw at them

...But it’s still not an army

One of the nobles has a sisters of the night logo

Sister Melina

The gang wanders around

Coy runs into that guy he stole the pendant from

But the guy doesn’t notice the pendant around her neck

Coy enters one of the buildings

A handful of sisters are milling about

Lord Heir is there, talking about how great the sisters are //The Sisters were calling themselves the “Sisters of Dawn,” and trying to act like humanitarians or something. The city apparently believed them, and allowed them to park airships above the city for some reason.

Coy has an idea. Oh no!

The players tell Max to not get them all arrested

She checks to see if Hier is married

There’s no ring there...

She tries to awkwardly hit on Hier

Hier introduces some of his bros

He talks about how he met the sisters of the night

Connie and Rolen try to save Merrow

Connie uses sending to tell him that his life might be in danger

Merrow tells her to meet him in a shed on the edge of the estate

The pair start heading over

Graham bumps into Merrow on the way over

Merrow says that he’d seen the rest of House Broyer at the party

Graham tries to brag about Esmeralda

But Merrow’s having none of it

Esmeralda remarks that she knows a lot of people at the party

She’s had a “professional” relationship with Merrow in the past

Somehow Graham is oblivious to all the innuendo being thrown around

Some bard intercepts Graham and Esmeralda

He says some absurd limerick

Graham is amused by his jokes

Merrow, Connie, and Rolen meet in the shed

They try to be stealthy, but the door is real squeaky

He deduces the pair works for Rocky

Rolen explains the theory about the assassination attempt

Merrow tells the pair that he isn’t in more danger than usual

He wants to gather information at the party

Merrow wants to raise a levy to reconquer the south

Rolen gives Merrow a death ward, and leaves

At this point, Kim had to leave to yell at kids for 3 hours, and the session ended prematurely.

Escrima is nervous about all the socializing, and does some people watching

A waiter offers him a drink

Escrima wants to know if there are any ponds

There aren’t, but there’s a fountain

It has frogs in it

Escrima heads for the pond

Escrima gets to the pond

There’s a jester/bard there, hyucking it up

Escrima asks if he “can see the ripples in the sky make it boom boom”

Jester hands him a frog, and turns it into a rabbit

Escrima is nonplussed

Escrima really wants the boom boom

Jester appeases him with some fireworks

“You need to pacify the people,” he asks the jester

Escrima wants the jester to gtfo of the fountain so he can drink

He has to make a CON saving throw

It doesn’t sit well, and he pukes his guts out

The noblery leave in disgust

Jester is pissed, that was a lot of tip money

Rolen and Connie discuss plans

They decide they want to try and get into the VIP table

Escrima can use suggestion, maybe

Failing that, they’re pretty loaded

Rolen goes to find Escrima, and Connie tails Merrow

Rolen goes looking for Escrima

He’s not by the gates anymore, but the guards know who he’s looking for

Rolen goes to the pond

The jester is mad

Rolen eggs him on a bit

Jester wants to do something really amazing

He turns Escrima into a dragon briefly

Jester gets a lot of tips

Rolen points out that they’re probably even at this point

Rolen tries to explain that Connie wants to talk to him

“Carry me!”

Mother hasn’t been contacting Escrima recently, and he’s distraught

“Oh nevermind, where’s Constanza?”

A noblewoman tries to distract Connie, but she isn't having it

Merrow is talking with a knight and a sister

Connie tells Merrow to watch his ass

Merrow invites her over

Knight is a sheriff of Waterdeep

Sister is Sister Sasha

Greg is dejected about the nobles sandbagging his reconquista

Lucas is worried for his safety

Greg wants to talk to Merrow

He doesn’t want to stay away from the sisters, because-

FUCK YOU LUCAS YOU’RE NOT MY REAL MOM

Rich reminds JP that Greg was the one who was worried about the sisters

Greg starts to agree with Lucas

It’s possible that he’s connected to Amarak somehow //Amarak was an ancient kingdom that occupied most of the Sword Coast. She previously repelled an earlier uprising by the Sisters.

Sister Melina approaches Lucas

She reminds him that Elsa doesn’t like him very much, and not to cause any trouble

Lucas gets his edge on

It’s best if nobody causes trouble

Lucas talks to greg about how his brother might be dead

A bard approaches Graham and Esmeralda

He tells the most lewd poem he could think of, at Esmeralda’s expense

Graham and the bard bicker about whether Esmeralda is a lady or a whore

Esmeralda is angry Graham didn’t just glass him

Graham reminds her that it would ruin the entire party

OH SHIT COY’S STILL IN THE BALLROOM

Hier talks about how Merrow has been blocking the sisters from

“Do I have to make a CON save to not fall asleep?”

WAITWAITWAIT NO

But JP moves forward with it

She falls asleep for a bit

Hier asks her name

Coy can’t think of a new name on the spot

Hier assumes she’s just smashed

Hier invites her to the most prestigious of places to bang: the utility closet

In his own damned house

5 minutes later, the two head to the closet

Coy wants to hold hands, but Hier tells her to not make things conspicuous

Coy and Hier move to his study

Hier locks the doors behind them

Coy notices that Hier looks a bit like her dad

“A fat, bald Danny DeVito”

Hier’s getting all handsy

Coy asks if he owns the airship

Proposes they bang on the ship

Hier says that there’s no time

“Watchu doin’, Coy?”

AAAAAAAUGH

“HE’S MOVING FOR HIS PANTS, COY”

Coy uses the potion of invisibility, confusing Hier

She jumps to the ceiling to try and hang onto the rafters

Hier wonders if he’s hallucinated the whole scenario

Coy says that the sisters are not to be trusted

Hier still can’t find her. He leaves the room, and locks several door behind him on the way out

Coy attempts to investigate, but the dice aren’t having it

There’s a letter from Elsa about murdering Merrow and putting Hier in control

The sisters want his army, and for him to sign a non-aggression pact

Make Waterdeep great again!

There’s some heavy armor in there too, and it looks enchanted

“I’m gonna take it.”

Rich suggests a “bra of holding”

Merrow introduces Vigo and Sasha to the other party members

Lucas is obviously not enjoying the party

Greg introduces himself to Merrow

Lucas glares at Sasha

Sasha appears to be salivating a bit

Lucas calls her out, and she leaves

Merrow seems interested in helping

But his hands are a bit tied

If Beydale becomes a vassal of Waterdeep, he’ll help

Greg doesn’t know what to say

Merrow mentions that Waterdeep thinks of Beydale as being fairly insignificant

Lucas mentions the possible assassination attempt again

He lends Merrow his bird //Lucas has a raven as a familiar. It’s named “Siegfried”

It’s totes fashionable

Lucas asks Vigo about his brother //A Military officer

Drow sacked Mossstone

Vigo says that he’ll try and look his name up tomorrow

Merrow confirms that house Broyer is at the table

Merrow is friendly with Esmeralda of course

“Esmeralda is my friend”

“She’s friends with a lot of people”

“Well, you can never have too many friends.”

After much bickering, the party decides that-

Escrima accidentally says something about the blueblood virgins or something out loud //Part of the lore the party picked up in the Candlekeep basement archives. It implies that Greg and Beydale are lore-important

Lucas & Greg, Connie & Graham shell out to go to the table

Graham leaves Esmeralda with Rolen and Escrima while he goes to the table

He wants her to make sure they’re “happy and satisfied”

Greg and Lucas make out, attracting a passing fujoshi

Lucas glares at her

OH YOU MUST BE THE SEME THEN LOL XD XD XD XD

Esmeralda manages to get a few more GP out of Graham

Esmeralda encounters Escrima

Escrima doesn’t like to be touched

He’s not into lovemaking

...though who knows where he heard that language from

A waiter tells the gang that the VIP dinner is starting

Lucas tells Connie that he’s not feeling very social, and she may need to smooth things over for him

He briefly considers using minor illusion to obscure his face, but everyone knows him already

“We’ll wing it, it’ll be great” -Rich

Rolen attempts some infiltration

He tries to explore the kitchen, but a guard says no

Coy is still stuck in Hier’s study

Hier left the window open

Coy climbs out the window, and closes the window behind her

Graham notices that Osric and Viper are already in the main room //His parents. Viper is not actually his mother’s name, she’s just an asshole.

Coy sneaks into the main room

A butler asks who he should announce as the gang as they enter

The players are confused

They settle on “Sir Graham Broyer and Lady of Athkatla Constanza de Catarina”

...and guest

That damned vampire is here //One of the nobles was revealed to be a vampire during that abandoned plotline

Coy slips the letter into Merrow’s pocket

Coy and Merrow’s pocket OTP

Graham and Connie enter the dining hall

House Broyer is pissed

Viper begins drinking. It’s not known if she will ever stop //She doesn’t.

Coy uncloaks in the middle of the room, and insists that she follow Lucas

Elsa brings up that she was a captive on the gang’s ship wayyyy back in session 1 or something

Graham corrects her. They saved her ass, tbh

Viper drinks more

“Ladies shouldn’t talk politics.”

Graham gets in a weird argument withe Viper

She drops the G-bomb //Graham’s deadname starts with “G”

Viper complains about Graham’s company

Lucas is not in the mood for little digs

Graham wants to know about Elsa’s mission

She spins the same yarn we’ve been hearing all night

But that’s not good enough

Coy mage hands Merrow in the pocket with the letter

Elsa has trouble providing detail

Merrow reads the letter.

Rolen & co. continue their exterior collisions matrix of the house

Escrima gets a guard to vacate his post with suggestion

They enter the pleb’s dining hall

Escrima asks Greg if he wants to go looking for treasure

Rolen attempts to freeze-break the lock on Hier’s room

It is pulverized

They investigate, but the dice are pissed tonight, and they find nothing

Hier asks Merrow to help the sisters

Vampire brown noses for no reason

Graham drops the name “sisters of the night”

Lucas notices that the waiters have been super quiet

He asks one of they speak common

Hier says they shouldn’t talk to the lower class

The servant attempts to leave quietly

Connie calls Viper a Viper

Osric and Viper attempt to leave, but Hier stops them

There’s some kind of magic in the servants

Merrow brings up the letter

Coy reveals that she found the note in Hier office

And also that he tried to rape her

The servants were Gnolls all along!

They sneak attack everyone

Battle against Elsa, Melina and their Gnoll henchmen

The gang is caught off guard

Connie casts evard’s black tentacles, restraining several of the gnolls

Lucas begins bladesinging

Lucas uses hypnotic pattern on the other gnolls, incapacitating several of them

Coy stabs the gnoll behind her

And by “stab,” I mean “instantly beheads”

At this point, Rolen, Escrima, and the others realize there’s a problem

There’s some gnolls wrestling with the tentacles in the other end of the hall

They head towards the dining hall

Elsa attempts to send to someone, but Lucas stops her

Elsa swears like a sailor

Vampire turns into a bat, and flies to the giant chandelier

A guard runs over and tries to attack one of the gnolls

But misses twice

A gnoll stabs Viper for not much damage

Connie spends inspiration to not lose concentration on her spell

Connie gets a solid shot off on Elsa

The tentacles gib one of the gnolls

Lucas misty steps to Elsa, and tries to stab her, but misses

Lucas spends inspiration to land a second stab, dealing heavy damage

Coy bounds across the table, landing next to Elsa

She misses her slash with the odachi

Rolen continues running towards the dining hall

Escrima runs into a sister on the way over

Blight turns her into mush

Mother compliments his handiwork

Elsa tries to run through the window

Coy gets an attack, but she misses

Lucas’ booming blade deals some damage

She takes fall damage

She tries to turn a guard on the party, but fails miserably

The tentacles finish off the other 3 gnolls on their side of the room

Graham jumps out the window after Elsa, landing two deadly blows

“I spared you once, and it was a huge mistake.”

He runs her through. The holy damage causes her to explode into bright lights and viscera

Sister Elsa of the Night is killed.

The guard next to Elsa and Graham attempts to attack the gnoll next to her, but misses twice

The guard in the dining room attacks a gnoll with a crit

Greg congratulates Escrima on his last turn

The sister by Connie tries to send a message, and Lucas stops her

She runs away, giving Connie an attack of opportunity

Connie grabs a kitchen knife off the table and stabs her in the neck, killing her

Viper continues to drink heavily

A few sisters attack Rolen in the hall

Lucas reminds Viper that the party is saving her ass

Viper continues to drink heavily

He gibs a gnoll, and reminds her again

Coy polymorphs into a bat, and chases vampire man

Rolen fights off the sisters in the hall

The sending appears to have alerted the airship

The ship blasts the roof off the dining hall

Lord Osric Broyer of Sorabia is killed in the impact

Viper is understandably distraught

The folks at the Mister Mister will probably send flowers

Escrima casts eldritch blast on the sisters in the hall

The bolts fly out the door behind them

Escrima panics a bit

A gnoll stabs Connie

The gnolls on the other side of the wall escape the tentacles, finally

Graham beats one of the gnolls that was trapped in the tentacles half to death

Merrow shivs a gnoll from across the table

Greg runs away, using his action to disengage

All magic seems to get sucked out of the building

We had to roll damage anyway. Spooky!

Rolen puts the hurt on the hallway sisters with spirit guardian

Lucas identifies the magic sucking device as being a spellskite

It’s a monster that eats spells. Eating enough makes it explode or something

Escrima wants to lick the sack

Coy continues to chase vampire man and evade more cannon fire

She picks some locks upstairs

Rolen regroups with Escrima

Vigo flees the manor like a huge yellow coward

The npcs in the room jump out the window

Lots of nobles have been gibbed

The airship fires another volley, and the shot lands in the great hall

Escrima bolts for the door, and spots the gnoll woman

The gnoll woman dumps a cloud kill on most of the party

Viper breaks the news of Osric’s death to Graham

Graham severely wounds one of the gnolls next to him

Connie screams for help and bolts for the window.

Lucas runs away from the fart gas, and to the window Connie jumped out of

Coy attempts to climb a ladder to the airship, but falls to the ground in front of the mansion

Rolen nearly dies in the fart gas

He heals himself and tries to flee with Greg

The airship fires another volley, and the shot lands in the great hall again

Escrima ducks into a coat closet and gives himself an HP buff

The gnoll woman goes looking for him

He closed the door behind him, but gnolls have a strong sense of smell

She KNOWS where he is

She casts blight!

Escrima fails his throw, barely hanging on //“JUST END ME” -Rap

Mother won’t let him die just yet

The gnolls in the alley attack Graham

They beat him half to death

Viper chides him for being in a bad spot

Graham kills the two gnolls easily

Greg hides in Hier’s rape study

A sister runs into the alley looking for Elsa, but realizes she’s dead as a doornail

Coy repositions herself in the courtyard, and spots the spellskite

She decides to try and climb the rope to the airship

...but then JP reminds her that she has the teleportation hat

She teleports to the other end of the rope, and climbs aboard

There’s a few dozen soldiers on board. How fun! //”‘A few dozen’ = 300″ -Rich “Okay, several dozen!” -Kim

Another volley from the ship gibs a bunch of civilians

Escrima attempts to smash through a wall, but he fails

He runs away, and uses his pact weapon to bar a door behind him

The priestess uses acid splash on the door, and it dissolves the door

“The Graham train is gonna do something!”

The Graham train wants to smash a wall to get to Escrima, but can’t tell which part of the wall escrima is behind

He gets lucky and smashes the right wall

Graham makes a kool-aid man noise as he smashes the wall

Connie ushers Viper and Hier through an open window

Mind the tentacles!

Connie takes a swig of Viper’s wine

They move through the building towards the front hall

The remaining sister leaves the alleyway, and calls to the gnoll woman to bail

Lucas jumps out the window into the alley, taking a crit from one of the gnolls on the way out

Merrow follows him

Coy tries to intimidate the soldiers on the ship

Predictably, it doesn’t work very well

JP didn’t expect Coy to try and board the airship

She teleports to the balloon and starts cutting the ropes attaching it to the ship

The ship is off balance, and lurches around unevenly

Rolen runs to the front door, and is confused about the plan

The gnoll woman conjures a pair of hyenas next to her and misty steps away

The gnolls in the dining hall burst out the window and chase lucas down the alley

The Graham train attacks the hyenas, wounding one of them

Graham and Lucas decide they should just leave

The gnoll woman and the remaining sister teleport away

The hyenas attack Graham

Lucas reactivates bladesinging, and heals Graham a bit

He remembers that if he says “explosion,” people will run faster

Coy does a really cool ninja move, and cuts through one of the ropes and part of the balloon

The ship is hanging by one rope, but is vertical. The soldiers fall onto the mansion from about 300 feet up

An orc splats in front of Lucas

Luckily, none of the party members gets hit by the falling soldiers

Coy becomes inspired!

Escrima manages to scare one of the hyenas away

Graham kills a hyena, but his sword is really wedged in its corpse

Connie catches up to Rolen, and asks for first aid

The remaining hyena disappears

Coy attempts to grab the remaining rope, but fails

She teleports next to Connie

...But lands next to Lucas, about 15 feet off the mark

Lucas wants to know if the airship was Coy’s fault

Of course it was. Why wouldn’t it be?

The spellskite ceases to exist, since the gnoll woman fell off the airship.

Apparently, she summoned it

The ship crashes through the northeastern quadrant of the mansion, obliterating the structure

The force of the blast pushes everyone out of the front door

Combat ends

WHAT A GREAT PARTY GUYS

The gang curses out Hier

Merrow agrees to help reconquer Beydale

Lucas realizes Greg is still alive, and gives him a big hug. Aww.

Coy points out that they just barely saved Waterdeep from total destruction

The second airship sails away

The braindead guards finally open the damn gates

#personal growth

[olaluwe]

Hi everyone,

I'm deji, and in this fourth leg of the running tutorial, I'll be exploring as the sub-heading indicated 'knowing when the climax comes' especially in relation to 'Understanding the Unseen' among others.

So, come along with me.

In grasping the meaning of a printed page, there's yet another thing which contribute more to the reader's understanding and pleasure.

And that's the climax or simply climaxing.

What then is climax?

In imaginative writing or speech delivery, climax is the point when the writer's or the speaker's emotional and dramatic intensity peaked.

Rarely a one off thing but transitional

It could happen many times over in a printed page just like when driver of mass transit bus stopped over at designated terminal for commuters to disembark.

It the point when the hearer or the reader is called not just to action but in highlighting what matter most to the writer and to which every other details in the narrative are subordinated.

Something akin to orgasmic experienced by lovers, if you get the drift.

And it doesn't just happen.

It is the by-product of a deliberate process initiated and slowly followed through by the author aimed at arresting quickly the reader's or interpreter's attention.

It objectives are lofty and worth every reader's attention.

It is the surging, forceful, and rhythmic summit of all interesting activities the writer slowly builds up through the series of words, phrases and adjectives.

A classic example is from the Roman orator, Cicero:

"To put a Roman citizen in chain is a misdeed; to scourge him is a crime; to kill him is almost a parricide; to crucify him- what shall I say? For so nefarious an act there is no word"

Equally worth a mention is this illustration of mine:

"As a people our patience, understanding and perseverance by now are never in doubt; but those who resolve behind the scene to prolong our misery and suffering by denying what truly belong to us through the use of force or other ungodly tactics shall pretty soon be met strength for strength; power for power and might for might."

Whether the selection you're reading is a novel, drama or poem, be sure to expect it.

It is an important thread that runs through the fabric of every worthwhile imaginative literature.

But when there's a sudden drop from the important to the less important in imaginative writing anticlimax is what you get.

It could either be intentional or unintentional.

And it's not without its effects too.

In any case, it is for the sake of humour or simply being funny as in this example of mine:

"The everyday Nigerians understood perfectly what hardship is all about; this they daily express with their deluge of angst and complains and award winning happiness"

In many a novel, drama, short story or poem you might have read the author holds it jealously in focus and don not for anything let the cat out of the bag; he subordinated his narrative to it and patiently wait for the right moment to swing it with power.

Going through scripted pieces, the interpreter is therefore encouraged to pay close attention to how the writer achieve the climax as may occur in his literary creatures.

Otherwise the reader’s understanding of a printed page hovers only around the half way mark until this aspect is taken care of.

Finally, as an exercise in knowing when the climax comes, we turn once more to the reading of my own poem titled: The 

Business Register.

In the selection, the reader can see how I slowly build up the climax which comes especially at the end of the poem...

The Business Register

I

They were your ideas of a dignified old couple,

Perfect perceptible to eyes,

Index by conservative piety;

There’s a matrimony in heaven consummated you say.

Needles the overstated narratives the sail was long

And arduous and many a storm swift

Arose to wreck their marital ship; Survived,

Now they proudly berthed at life nocturnal shores.

And subsequent a household name the community wide.

They were your standard reflections of the cross;

Mouthpieces of the good news;

They worshiped faithfully as the clock:

Many at the marble-porch parishes;

Many at their humble home;

And not a little nags or fight or bedlam was heard from their floor.

Except perhaps omniscient nature do record some

Behind closed door, of hearts bruising unseen, untold.

The proud parents of lovely sons and daughters;

Perfumed emissaries to our stuffy-aired world;

And how as morning stars they brightly shone through

Firmaments of social and religious engagements;

Like they use to say, to know a great family,

Into the children all must look. The husband

A perfect gentleman widely likable,

Who kept an open door to children not even his from far and near;

Even wayward nondescript were welcome;

And at his table he feeds them equal all;

Quick with rod at his right hand

To prove justice is love to their aberrations;

And with the left draws them close for soothing sermons;

A good man known also gospel by inheritance: His dwelling,

Though a small home with walls unbuilt;

And bath and kitchen

And detached crude convenience unroofed;

And ventured borehole and chairs and canopies now on threshold disrepair;

Like they use to say,

A man who raised himself a room apartment,

Has proved an achievers’ grade,

Ceases to be a member of the renters' club.

But sudden died, first, Lord of the house as is often the case;

When from vigil an ailment struck to cast in haste;

And tributary wailing and mourning rend the chamber's air;

II

Next entered widow Shoboe as heir apparent to estates bequeathed;

A dame hearty lightly built to sail with all winds;

For whatever they were worth, she has her honors too:

As sings the Sunday's choir a dancing Ikoto;

A leading light among the class of good women;

An ever charming sight for her years advanced;

Her gifts munificent she bestows more on the haves

Than the haves not; while a typical widow would her failings blame

On a dear deceased, wax lyrical his multitude of virtues,

Lineage; such alive rarely acknowledge; shrewdly appreciate.

Accentuating the truism: "till gone don’t know what you have got".

But Shoboe is an atypical widow who by the day more disgruntled became.

Piping to ears unsolicited her vexed notes of ascending murmurs:

Of how meagre the patrimonies, empty the vault;

Of how little accomplished her suggestions profound never took;

Of how once he brought a strange woman, their matrimonial bed defiled;

Of how she could have been history, save God and man;

Of how the union really was a patchwork through the years;

And of how-this how-that poorly fixed never fixed;

Often all these she spit fired faced down the narrow balcony

Where beloved Kith and Kin hollowed the dead a marbled rest home;

Not even once did his paean sublime from her mouth freely flowed;

His fate sealed a worst mortal of all, unworthy a husband;

Now five years the thriftless dowager reigned;

Her stewardship to none but self alone rendered;

As ever a working bee save the hive's empty;

Pouched the year's round rents and rates collected;

And in defaulters ears the reminder she crooned

On the go dusk or dawn; in trade all rivalling,

Even tenants struggling starters;

Every known article, she vowed to trade

In not too distant future; Inquire one not on her wooden-stall

And with lightning speed ordered, bungling yet the arithmetic

Of the gains; at threescore and more life seemed just began

And in it simply revels; a party freak her ears everywhere

Went for the breaking news; denied invitation the concerned

Mantle sooner arrived with her grievances. Their plea accepted;

Her avail next time she vouched. So consumed to splurge on

Things mundane that not a line or circle or square drawn.

Nor a shade of color splashed;

Nor a brick added as improved re-inventions to the wheel-heirloom

She's been so critical, mauled denigrate all these years. 

NOTE: Ikoto is a shell of some mollusc.

[newscheckz]

Memo No. 21 From the National Welfare Desk of Men

New Post has been published on https://newscheckz.com/memo-no-21-from-the-national-welfare-desk-of-men/

Memo No. 21 From the National Welfare Desk of Men

Losing is Part of Life: How Not to Lose Like Donald Trump

JOIN NEWSCHECKZ TELEGRAM FOR MORE INSIGHTS AND PERSONAL EXPERIENCE: https://t.me/Newscheckz

Several months ago, we were enjoying a drink in a bar, when an old friend, the worst arseh*le I have ever had to deal with joined us.

He stayed with us briefly, ordered a round drinks for the five of us. Once the round was done, he ordered for some expensive whiskey. Then he made an Irish exit.

We only realized when it was time to pay, and there was a pending bill of Sh 13, 700, that he was supposed to have picked.

The bill now was upon us and we had to rob Mshwari, raid Fuliza, invade the Talas of these world until the bill was settled.

We were so mad, if met him moments afterwards, we would have attacked like we were a pack of wolves.

We were so angry at that SOB, and when we called him the following day, this is what he had to say, “Pombe si ni nyinyi mlikunywa? Nyinyi mkiniona, naeza buyia mandume mzinga? Acheni ufala?”

He hang up. He had even forgotten the first round of beers he had ordered for us. I was mad at myself, because I had cut off the bastard like five years earlier when he had proved he will never grow up to be a man.

But there is one trait that has always intrigued me about him: His total lack of shame. His inability to think how his actions can hurt others.

He not only has a careless tongue, but he is also prone to fights, never repays a debt, and can still call to borrow money from you.

It is a trait I have seen in some men, who think, everything in life should go their way.

And no man exemplifies this more than the outgoing American president, Donald J Trump.

Donald Trump has achieved a lot in life. Born with a silver spoon in the mouth, his father was a Real Estate magnet, whose canvas was no greater a city, than New York.

From the late 1970s and early 1980s, Trump took charge of his father’s property business, became a New York playboy, in between built some grotesque monuments across America, ventured into Casino business, failed horribly, gamed the system with taxation and bankruptcy games, entered the big stage of Reality TV, before stumbling into politics as a hobby and ending up as the most powerful man in the world.

By and large, this is a life that 99 percent of the people in the world can only fantasize. Money, lots of it, fame, all of it, women, most of them. Everything.

Here is the irony of life, Trump was not going to win a re-election. If he won, it would have gone against the very script of life.

History always elevates losers to the top, but their time at the top is never a smooth one, and often they crash out, and end up disgraced.

Gaddafi, Mugabe, Mobutu, and what may happen to Museveni. But the sad thing about life, even if Trump won a second term, or even became the president of the entire world, he will never be satisfied.

And that is why, he has not conceded and has only grudgingly allowed the transition authority to ‘cooperate’ with incoming administration.

Trump had a chance to concede much earlier, however grudgingly and walk away with a modicum of dignity and he could always look back at the records he shattered, save for the Covid-19, which he bungled (it is hard to tell, how democrats would have fared in all fairness), but the world will always remember him as an egregious loser who went against that most, exemplary and decent of traditions: peaceful transfer of power in the world’s No. 1 democracy.

I have seen many men like Trump who never admit to a loss, can never accept defeat and have a totally distorted view of themselves and the world.

I see men, who think, because of their power and position, their women can’t leave them, or cheat on them and when confronted with the reality, they either die of depression or go on rampage.

I see men who can’t accept an election loss, who can’t see that their business is collapsing, their marriage is ending.

Their ego cannot allow them to come to terms that sometimes life humbles you. Men who can’t seek help when undergoing a problem.

Men who keep on faking it, hoping they will make it, even when there is overwhelming evidence that they are doomed to fail.

It depends on their upbringing. Some people were raised as spoilt brats, their parent (s) and siblings never saw the need to nip their bad behaviour it the bud.

We all know adults who are a pain in the arse. Adults who love themselves too much, they can make love to their image in the mirror.

You know users. Guys who are so shameless, they can fish a phone, and call you after four and half years and proceed straight away to ask for a favour.

Guys who are arrogant for no reason, who believe so much in their ability, they think they are infallible.

I have news for them. It is OK to be humble. It is necessary to be selfish. But at the very least how the world works.

1. The world can exist without you.

2. Nobody really gives a damn about you. There may be some hangers-on and bootlickers, but these ones abandon you as soon as they smell your bankruptcy.

3. How you treat people always comes back to reward or to haunt you. I know very many lonely folks in their 30s and 40s, but they are lonely because they were self-centered young men, who thought everything will always work their way.

Now life has humbled them and can’t believe that the world still rotates and revolves.

The worst thing that can happen to this lot is to lose. Whether an argument, a good deal, a good woman, anything.

Often they totally lose their head, and cannot internalize what hit them.

Yet, if you are a man, losing is part of life. We lose all the damn the time. But as the cliché says, whatever you lose, don’t lose the lesson.

So, if you are a man, and currently losing out on something, undergoing some kind of rejection, remember, Man’s rejection is God’s protection.

When you lose, be gracious, be grateful, and mourn like a human being, but don’t mourn too long.

Pick up the pieces, dust up and know the job ahead is always the most difficult.

For arrogant folks, with no self-sense of awareness, understand losing is part of life. And if you have a friend who is self-centered, you owe them a rebuke, a reprimand, every time they act like arseholes.

Each human being must learn how and when to be proud, but more importantly, when to be humble.

Don’t be like Donald Trump and embarrass yourself, in your own small world. Cut your losses when you have to, let her go however bad your ego can’t allow it, admit you are/were wrong, and above all, learn.

In life, we win some, lose some. Champions are those who know how to bounce back.