#circa The Shattered Lens

[kingbirdkathy]

Hi! I love your art so so much!! I found you on ao3 through Clint Barton ships and immediately had to follow you on tumblr — you are so talented and I love every single piece you draw!! Thank you so much for blessing us with your art 💕💕 What are some of your favourite Clint Barton fics? Any ship of him is good, even gen, I just really love your taste!

Thank you!! I'm not so active in marvel fandom now, but yes I have read like thousands of fics of him, so here are some of my fav ones:



GEN：

A Good Feeling by dentalfloss

Dear Clint Barton (circa age 7) by pollyrepeat

late dawns by shatteredhourglass

Phil Coulson is not a crazy cat lady by nyargles

the soles of your shoes are all worn down

Wiping Off the Dust by dentalfloss

The Right Call by thegraytigress

In Visibility by cat_77



Hulkeye:

Anchor Point by anarmydoctor

A Step to the Left by dentalfloss, thoughtreflex (dentalfloss) 

Hawkeye's Revenge by NightWind

Green Looks Better On You by anarchycox

Off The Grid by cakeisnotpie

The Sorites Paradox by quomores

Trust by Neery



Steve/Clint:

A Lifetime Of Dreaming by shatteredhourglass

Disparity by AvaKelly

Ghosts by AvaKelly

Friends Don't Let Friends Wait Too Long by ArtaxLivs

Down Below by ClaraxBarton 



Winterhawk:

something magic, something tragic

Fire in My Soul

keep making trouble (til you find what you love)

by squadrickchestopher (I love her bratty Clint SO much)

I'll Keep You Safe Here With Me. 

The Other Man out of Time

by sara_holmes

Be All You Can Be

Dear Super-Secret Diary

Hydra's Bite

Out On A Limb

The Romance of Bureaucracy

Glitter, G-Strings and Other Mission Hazards 

Living in The Present 

by flawedamythyst

Ronin!Clint

if god is in the lens 

by shatteredhourglass

Silhouette

Sing Me That Old Song Again

The Wolves of Timely

Interruptions

by mariana_oconnor

A pinch of magic and a dash of passing time by hopelessly_me

Attachments by Lissadiane

Coffee Spoons by cakeisnotpie

Gold On Your Fingertips by Kangofu_CB 

It's Dark and There Are Wolves by Lissadiane

Lend An Ear by DustToDust

Moving in Tandem by AHM1121

Nobody Lost, Nobody Found by ClaraxBarton

Once Lost (now found) by Teeelsie 

Starving for the Lightby thepartyresponsible

Sweet Home Was Home by there_must_be_a_lock

With Us (Or Without) by dentalfloss

Your daughters shall be soldiers, Your sons their patron saints  by LittleRedCosette

In The Wake of Your Sunrise   by squadrickchestopher



Phil/Clint:

Through the Glass by dentalfloss

You Move Like a Dream I Had by Serenitala



Silverhawk:

Time by DustToDust

All in the Name by DustToDust

Double Stamped by Reiko009



Sam/Clint:

Singing in the Dead of Night by arsenicarcher (Arsenic)

Hope Is a Thing With Feathers by imafriendlydalek, orbingarrow



Steve/Bucky/Clint:

Mokusatsu  by shadesfalcon

Six Feet Underground by shatteredhourglass



All/Clint: Cycle of Disaster by 27dragons

Frank Castle/Clint: Make Your Peace by thepartyresponsible

Jason Todd/Clint: Shatter Together by thepartyresponsible

HunterHawk (Clint Barton and Dean Winchester) by cakeisnotpie

Tommy/Clint: Two Warriors by TheSparrow93

Mob: One Hell of a Show by MillyVeil

[incorrectalcatrazquotes]

Bastille: Actually, you’re the King of Mokia now.

Alcatraz: Oh. Oh bummer.

[the-arctic-commune]

DSMP and Old English Poetry: An Exercise in Creating Tenuous Connections

This is a post we’ve thought about making for a while, but we were pushed to by a trade offer with @yb-cringe for Greek tragedy. We’ll link his post if / when he makes it!

Ok, background: most of our (there’s two people running this blog) recent experiences with Literature have been with Old English. That means the vicinity of England circa 700 - 1100 CE; Beowulf. This stuff:

Hwæt!   Wé Gárdena      in géardagum þéodcyninga      þrym gefrúnon hú ðá æþelingas      ellen fremedon.

(the extra spaces in the middle of the lines are for poetry reasons)

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When you spend a lot of time with a particular style of literature, its conceits become something of a lens through which you can choose to look at other stories, and sometimes that’s fun!

If you’re used to seeing us produce more anarchist readings of the DSMP story, though, you might need to leave that aside for this one. Old English culture was heavily based on the king’s leadership; these poems don’t lend themselves well to an anarchist reading.

Disclaimer, though, neither of us are experts on this category; we may be missing or misunderstanding some nuances.

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There’s two parts to the following:

First, a semi-serious discussion of Old English (and, more broadly, northwestern European) (”““viking”““) literary conventions, particularly the cycle of revenge-based violence, and how some of the stories of the Dream SMP can be interpreted using these conventions.

(I’m using the scare quotes because “viking” is not the correct term here, but it is the term that will get most of you knowing approximately what I’m talking about.)

Second, a semi-silly discussion of some of our favorite poems or motifs, and their relations to particular characters on the server.

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The Serious Part

So, in the culture of England, there was a concept called “weregild,” literaly “man-gold.” If you kill someone, weregild is the price you pay to their family in return. If you fail to pay, they are obligated to revenge the death by killing you. Then, with you dead, your family becomes obligated by their own honor to revenge you... and you can see how this cycle repeats. Weregild was, very conciously, what you had to pay to prevent the revenge cycle from ruining both families.

This concept of “revenge cycles” permeates Old English and Norse narratives. Families were caught in a permanent struggle: they had to go to war for their honor, with the full knowledge that doing so would only invoke their foe’s obligation to retaliate. There was a sense of futility to this: that they knew they were caught in this cycle but the nature of the world made it impossible to escape.

Revenge cycles are foundational to the Dream SMP. Technoblade attacked Tommy during the Revolution, so New L’Manburg must respond by bringing him to trial, so Technoblade plots their downfall and eventually participates in Doomsday, for which even the shattered remnants of L’Manburg try to start plotting their strike back... it never ends. Even the most light-hearted aspects of server often revolve around “prank wars,” in which participants repeatedly up the ante in response to each other’s antics. They are never able to accept enough for enough; every injury must be returned in kind (even if the injury is putting cakes all over their house).

Near to Doomsday, there began to be the same awareness of this cycle that Old English narratives had. Maybe not everyone, but Niki and Ranboo started asking the question: why do we have to keep doing this? The cycle will not end; the only way to escape the need for revenge is to leave society entirely.

Of course, for the English, that really wasn’t possible. This wasn’t a society particular friendly to the concept of anarchy. A man without a king is doomed to a life of lone wandering, denied the joys of companionship....

Yeah, more on that later.

Anyways. It’s a fairly common motif: the fight that you know you can’t win, but that you must fight anyways. The revenge that you must take, though you know it will end in your death.

I think the narrative of L’Manburg, ultimately, is very closely a narrative of cycles and futility, and that’s very related to my experience of the motifs of Old English literature.

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While we’re on the broader themes and motifs, here’s a coincidence. Old English poetry is heavily concerned with death and battle, and there’s a really, really common motif to indicate the coming conflict. Namely, the arrival of the ravens and the wolves, the scavengers who come in the wake of battle to pick among the dead. The black birds, and the hungry wolf-pack.

Yeah. In terms of Old English symbology, the motifs associated with Philza and Technoblade around Doomsday basically made them walking omens of death.

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Another important aspect of Old English culture is the concept of kings and kinsmen. The warriors you fought with were, broadly, your kin: usually the prominent figures of a kingdom were all related, and even if they weren’t the idea of a warband as a “band of brothers” was everywhere. These warbands (my favorite word, dryhtguman) were organized around a central king. This lord was key to stability. A good king protects his clan and dispenses gold/treasure, preserving the family. His death brings ruin as old foes seize the chance to get revenge and his warriors scatter. A warrior whose king dies is the ultimate pariah, an exile: he carries his failure with him. A warrior should always die before his king.

This conception of small kin-groups organized around an all-important king links strongly to the structure of L’Manburg around the time when Wilbur was the leader.  Wilbur was strong: his charisma attracted warriors to the nation, and the fights he and Tommy won against Dream kept them together. When Wilbur was deposed, and further when he couldn’t return, the nation shattered. A succession of leaders tried to keep the people together but were unable to replicate the unity and prosperity under Wilbur, and in the end the cycle of revenge struck back with the ultimate destruction of L’Manburg.

Beowulf, the most famous Old English poem, ends with the death of the eponymous Beowulf. The last few lines depict his people mourning his death. Without their king’s protection, they know that it’s only a matter of time before the cycle of revenge destroys them. Without a strong leader to unite and defend it, L’Manburg could not long survive.

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The Silly Part

blorbo from my poems! Here we discuss in order:

1. Technoblade and The Wanderer

2. Niki and The Wife’s Lament

3. L’Manburg and The Ruin

4. Tommy and “Ofermod”

.

1. The Wanderer

This is my personal favorite Old English poem, and when I am being cringe I like to pretend that it is about Technoblade’s exile arc. I mean...

The sorrowful man must travel for a long time across the waters, rowing by hand over the ice-cold sea, treading the paths of exile...

There is no one now living to whom I can speak my innermost thoughts...

I am sorrowful, often wretched, parted from my homeland and kinsmen...

(translations are my own, and are approximate)

Of course, the parallel breaks down quite a bit in that the narrator of The Wanderer is doomed to exile because his king has died, and it is the lack of a king that’s a problem. In Old English poetry, kings represent the structure of society, the gathering of kinsfolk and the communal hall in which they eat and celebrate. Better to be dead than kingless; not a very anarchist view.

Still, leaving aside the hierarchy, it is important that Techno’s exile came after the death of the person he was fighting for, and that he mourns the camaraderie he once had with his fellow warriors, just as the narrator of The Wanderer does.

Overall, the image of the lone wanderer crossing the icy seas... definitely the first thing I thought of when I was watching Techno’s first exile streams.

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2. The Wife’s Lament

This is a super interesting poem, because it’s one of few entries in the Old English corpus which is about a women. In fact, it’s so unique that some “academics” have tried to argue that all of the feminine adjectives are just a mistake by a later copyist and actually the poem is about a man. These people are hilariously wrong and you should laugh at them.

SO. The Wife’s Lament is somewhat of the female equivalent of The Wanderer. It’s the elegy spoken by a woman whose husband left her to go to war. He never came back, and though the poem is ambiguous about what exactly happened, her kingdom was shattered and she was told go live alone in a hole in the ground (or potentially a forest grove, the words are unclear).

In DSMP terms, it’s a song about Niki Nihachu. In my opinion, it’s a bit touchy to connect Niki to terms like “wife;” she’s spent years living with an internet that wants to attach her to any man she talks to. However, given that Niki and Wilbur having a close relationship is canonical to the Dream SMP, I’m willing to do it here. Because The Wife’s Lament could have been written by Niki after Wilbur’s death.

I speak this poem full of sorrow, of my own plight. I can say what misery I endured after I grew up, new and old, but never more than I endure now.

(translations again my own, and loose). Her suffering started when her lord left over the waves; she was ordered to stay behind. Wilbur fled, ordering Niki to stay in the L’Manburg, where her misery only grew. Then, when the country was destroyed, Niki couldn’t find a place in the scattered communities of survivors. Increasingly, she lived alone, feeling cast away from every home. She is the one left behind when the fighting lords bring ruin, and she can never be at peace because of other’s turmoil.

There I must sit all the summer-long day There I must weep for my exile-journey, My fullness of hardships Because I may never find rest from the sorrow of my mind, nor from all the longings inflicted on me in this life.

When Wilbur died, Niki was left behind. Near to Doomsday, this was her refrain: I’ve suffered so much. I am alone. What more suffering can be added to what is already a seemingly endless pile?

The poem ends with the Wife seemingly living her life out alone, condemned there by a society in which you are nothing without a leader. Niki similarly struggles to find friends, as does all of L’Manburg, after the loss of Wilbur’s charismatic guiding light. But Niki’s story continues beyond the poem: she finds friends, and has a chance to move on.

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In both The Wife’s Lament and The Wanderer, Wilbur and L’Manburg play the role of the lost lord and kingdom: without him the narrator is purposeless. The lord’s downfall ends not just in his death, but in the loss of his kingdom and his warriors. To lose a lord like Wilbur is ruin to the country itself.

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3. The Ruin

This beautifully melancholy poem depicts the narrator’s wonder as he visits the ruins of an old Roman city (remember, the Roman Empire was in Britain from around 0 C.E. to 400 C.E., and The Ruin is probably from around 800 C.E.! Today we think of both of these periods as equally long ago, but the narrator of this poem is likely viewing ruins that haven’t been inhabited for several hundred years - longer than the USA has existed).

Anyways, L’Manhole, anyone?

Death took all the warriors, Their battlegrounds became deserted wastes, Their city decayed, the builders perished. Therefor the buildings fell to ruin...

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In case you were wondering, no! The English were never happy!

(ok, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but the poems we have remaining from that time are very often infused with mourning, melancholy, and defeat - though not always)

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4. Ofermod

This isn’t a poem, it’s a word, and if somehow this post has made its way to someone else who’s studied Old English, they’re probably already groaning. But please stay, I promise, I have an interesting point to make!

The word “ofermod” appears a couple times in the Old English corpus - once in a poem, The Battle of Maldon, and a few times in various prose writings. Etymologically it’s very simple, a compound word consisting of “over” and “mood,” though in Old English the word “mod” referred to one’s state of mind more generally, especially if that state was courageous, prideful, or otherwise of a “mood” befitting a warrior (German speakers may recognize the term “Mut” as pretty analogous).

It’s fairly easy to translate the basic meaning of “ofermod;” it means “very prideful.” But what is the connotation of that meaning?

You see, the word “ofermod” appears in The Battle of Maldon when the Anglo-Saxon warriors prepare to fight a group of invading vikings. They’ve trapped the Vikings across a narrow causeway, a tactically disadvantageous position for the Vikings, who won’t be able to send their full force to attack at once. But due to his ofermod the English leader agrees to let the Vikings cross to the mainland where they can fight on equal footing, and the English forces are destroyed in the battle.

So is his ofermod a bad thing or is it a good thing? We know, after all, that personal honor and bravery were highly valued by the Anglo-Saxons. Did the audience of this poem think the English leader had done the honorable thing to preserve his pride in fair battle? Or did they think that his over-inflated pride led to his downfall? Was his ofermod hubris or honor?

Academics have been weighing in on either side of this debate for a century, and most are well and truly tired of it. But we’re here to talk about the DSMP, so guess who I’m about to relate this to!

Are Tommy’s pride and courage admirable or self-destructive? When he constantly picks fights with people far more powerful than he and his allies, is it an impressive commitment to his personal ideals, or is it wanton stupidity? It really depends on who you talk to.

I think it’s amusing how this decades-long academic debate so neatly encapsulates the divided receptions of TommyInnit and his ofermod.

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I’m very impressed that you read all this way down! Congrats, and thanks! Hope you enjoyed the ride!

[historicalbeauties]

^ Beauty queen. London, 1970s.Credit...Raphael Albert, Courtesy of Autograph ABP

...It might be easy to dismiss Mr. Albert’s photographs as relics from a sexist past. Except for one significant detail: his subjects were black. For these women, members of West London’s Afro-Caribbean communities, pageants nurtured racial pride and self-expression.

These exuberant photographs are the subject of “Raphael Albert: Miss Black and Beautiful,” an exhibition organized by Autograph ABP in London and, now, at Mac Birmingham. Curated by Renée Mussai, the exhibition offers insights into a consequential, but largely overlooked, aspect of black culture and political expression in Britain.

^ Holly modeling jewelry at Blythe Road, London, circa 1974.Credit...Raphael Albert, Courtesy of Autograph ABP

^ Beauty Salon, London, circa 1960s.Credit...Raphael Albert, Courtesy of Autograph ABP

^ A woman waiting in a dance hall. London, 1970s.Credit...Raphael Albert, Courtesy of Autograph ABP

... While much of what Mr. Albert photographed might also be found at conventional beauty pageants, his subjects faced cultural and social obstacles unknown to their white counterparts. Their performances in events, and before the camera, were inevitably in relationship to a mainstream culture that routinely ignored or disparaged them as it focused almost exclusively on the beauty and concerns of white women.

^ A beauty queen posing against an alpine backdrop. London, 1970s.Credit...Raphael Albert, Courtesy of Autograph ABP

^ Crowned beauty queen with fellow contestants. London, 1970s.Credit...Raphael Albert, Courtesy of Autograph ABP

^ A model posing in a studio. London, 1960s.Credit...Raphael Albert, Courtesy of Autograph ABP

...Feminists typically have criticized beauty contests for objectifying their subjects and perpetuating a submissive view of women. ... Nevertheless, even mainstream pageants have sometimes been heralded by racial and religious minorities as markers of social progress.

As black women began participating in these competitions — in certain cases only after prohibitions against their inclusion were lifted, like with the Miss America pageant — they tested the presumption that beauty was synonymous with whiteness. With victories in the Miss World, Miss Universe and Miss America contests, Jennifer Hosten, Janelle Commissiong and Vanessa Williams, respectively, did more than shatter glass ceilings in the 1970s and 1980s. In the eyes of some, they served as icons of racial progress and role models for young women of color.

Nevertheless, these pageants featured token black contestants while largely continuing to perpetuate an idealized image of white beauty. “This fair image weighs most heavily on the brown shoulders of minority women who bear a special beauty burden,” wrote the psychologist Rita Freedman. “They too set out in search of it, only to discover that failure is built in for those whose lips smile too thickly, whose eyelids fold improperly, whose hair will not relax enough to toss in the wind, whose skin never glows in rosy shades.”

^ A model with a head wrap. Blythe Road, London, 1970s.Credit...Raphael Albert, Courtesy of Autograph ABP

^ A model in a suit, Blythe Road, London, 1970s.Credit...Raphael Albert, Courtesy of Autograph ABP

Thus, the dedicated black pageantry promoted and documented by Mr. Albert was fundamentally more empowering. If these contests focused on the women’s physical attributes — participants had to wear swimsuits and high heels — they nevertheless allowed contestants to define themselves outside of conventional notions of attractiveness and self-presentation. Commensurate with the international “Black is Beautiful” movement, which began in the United States in the 1960s, these pageants created “a distinct space where black women were able to both occupy and own the idea of ‘beauty’ for themselves, and without the need of conforming to Eurocentric ideals,” as Ms. Mussai noted in an interview with OkayAfrica in 2016.

^ Miss Black and Beautiful Sybil McLean in Hammersmith Palais, London, 1972.Credit...Raphael Albert, Courtesy of Autograph ABP

[cruger2984]

La Corda d'Oro and its Saints Part 1: January to June

So I've done this one a few days ago since my close friend of mine, who is a violinist and a cosplayer. Now after some further research, here are some characters from La Corda d'Oro, and this will separate in two parts. So here it is.

January 3rd - Akihiko kira

Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus: A liturgical event that is celebrated every year, at least at local levels, since the end of the 15th century. It has been held on different dates, usually in January, because 1 January, eight days after Christmas, commemorates the naming of the child Jesus; as recounted in the Gospel (Luke 2:21) read on that day, 'at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.' St. Bernardine of Siena placed great emphasis on the Holy Name, which he associated with the IHS Christogram, and may be responsible for the coupling of the two elements.

January 27th - Sousuke Nanami

St. Angela Merici: Italian religious educator and foundress of the Company of St. Ursula (Angelines) in 1535 in Brescia, in which women dedicated their lives to the service of the Church through the education of girls. From this organisation later sprang the monastic Order of Ursulines, whose nuns established places of prayer and learning throughout Europe and, later, worldwide, most notably in North America. Her major shrine can be found in Brescia.

February 9th - Nami Amou

St. Apollonia: 2nd century virgin and martyr. She was one of a group of virgin martyrs who suffered in Alexandria during a local uprising against the Christians prior to the persecution of Trajan Decius. Her torture included having all of her teeth violently pulled out or shattered according to tradition, and for this reason she is popularly regarded as the patroness of dentistry and those suffering from toothache or other dental problems.

February 20th - Sei Amamiya

Sts. Francisco and Jacinta Marto: Alongside their cousin Lúcia dos Santos, they are the two children who witnessed three apparitions of the Angel of Peace in 1916 and several apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Cova da Iria in 1917. Both Francisco and Jacinta were solemnly canonized by Pope Francis at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fátima, in Portugal on May 13th, 2017, the first centennial of the first Apparition of Our Lady of Fátima.

February 27th - Kahoko Hino

St. Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows: Italian confessor and clerical student from the Passionists. He gave up ambitions of a secular career to enter the Passionist Congregation. His life in the monastery was not extraordinary, yet he followed the rule of the congregation perfectly and was known for his great devotion to the sorrows of the Virgin Mary. After his death from tuberculosis at 23 and canonized as a saint by Pope Benedict XV in 1920, his major shrine can be found in San Gabriele in the commune of Teramo.

March 3rd - Hiroto Kanazawa

St. Katharine Drexel: American philanthropist, religious sister, educator, heiress, and foundress of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, as well as Xavier University of Louisiana, the only historically black Catholic college in the country. She might be the second canonized saint to have been born in the United States and the first to have been born a U.S. citizen, she is the patron of philanthropists and racial justice.

March 30th - Kiriya Etou

St. John Climacus (John of the Ladder): A monk from 6th-7th century at the monastery located on Mount Sinai. He is honored and revered as a saint by the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic churches.

March 31st - Kyoya Kisaragi

St. Benjamin the Deacon and Martyr: He is a deacon who is martyred circa 424 AD in Persia. He was imprisoned for a year for his Christian faith, and later released with the condition that he abandon preaching or speaking of his religion. As a consequence, he was executed during a period of persecution of Christians that lasted forty years and through the reign of two Persian kings: Isdegerd I, who died in 421, and his son and successor, Varanes V.

April 24th - Len Tsukimori

St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen: German religious, priest and martyr from the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin. One of the major figures in the Counter-Reformation, he was martyred by his opponents at Seewis in Prättigau, now part of Switzerland. Canonized as a saint by Pope Benedict XIV in 1746, his major shrine can be found in a Capuchin friary of Weltkirchen at Feldkirch, Vorarlberg, Austria.

May 4th - Haruto Mizushima

St. Florian: Born around 250 AD in the ancient Roman city of Aelium Cetium (present-day Sankt Pölten), he joined the Roman Army and advanced in the ranks, rising to commander of the imperial army in the Roman province of Noricum. He was also responsible for organizing and leading firefighting brigades in addition to his military duties. After he is sentenced to death and apprehensive of his words, the soldiers did not burn Florian, but executed him by drowning him in the Enns River with a millstone tied around his neck. Florian is the patron saint of firefighters, chimney sweeps, brewers, and Upper Austria together with St. Leopold the Good.

June 6th - Ritsu Kisaragi

St. Norbert of Xanten: Bishop, confessor and founder of the Order of Canons Regular of Prémontré (aka the Premonstratensians or Norbertines). When a dispute arose over the papal succession in 1130, Norbert traveled to Rome to support the legitimate Pope Innocent II. Afterward he returned to Germany and became a close adviser to its Emperor Lothar. In a sense, his life seems to have come full-circle: the first hints of his conversion had come on a trip to Rome two decades earlier, when he accompanied a previous emperor. This time, however, Norbert was seeking God’s will, not his own advancement. Canonized by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, he is the patron saint of Magdeburg and invoked during childbirth for safe delivery.

June 18th - Azuma Yunoki

St. Elisabeth of Schönau: German visionary and abbess from the Benedictine order who was a gifted mystic. She had her first vision in 1152 and was known for ecstasies, prophecies, and diabolical visitations. Her cult was never formalized, but she is listed as a saint in the Roman Martyrology.

[notsugarandspice]

OKAY PROMPT: CUTE FLUFFY THING OF REDDIE BASED OFF OF “kiss the boy” by keiynan lonsdale PLEAASE

Kiss The Boy

WARNING: PURE FLUFF, TEENAGE BOY STUPIDITY

Read it on AO3.

“I can do it myself, I’m not an idiot.”

“Never said you were, Richard. But you know absolutely nothing about it.”

“Mom, I can go to the shop a town over. But come on! You’re going to call a guy my age to paint me a car? What if he goes to my school. I won’t live through that humiliation!”

Richie shoves a ham and cheese sandwich Maggie made him with aggression that leaves some mayo on the lens of his glasses.

“I’m sure you’ll be just fine. Might help relieve you from the burden of that ego a little bit.”

Maggie lifts her eyes from a cutting board, eyeing her son with amusement. Richie just rolls his eyes and tries to stick some Pringles in the crevices of the mouth that aren’t occupied by the sandwich.

“Alright, I think I’m done here. Why don’t you bring this down to him? He should be here any minute.”

Maggie puts a plate with a large club sandwich and strawberry lemonade in front of Richie and has to slap her son’s hand away when he reaches for a layered triangle.

“Be nice, Richie. Don’t make me regret my decision.” She points the finger at him and lets it linger in the air as an eerie warning.

Richie eventually grunts and grabs the plate and the cup, and walks to the garage to greet the guy who’s going to do his job for him. As if painting a car is that fucking difficult. Yeah, right.

The door leading to the garage slams behind him as he enters the room, feeling the stifling heat from the opening. His mother’s old, beat-up circa 1970 Volkswagen Beetle is still in the middle, the silver paint worn and peeled in random places. Richie can see a red-cap covered head of someone bending towards the car on the other side, probably wondering whether he can salvage some paint. He can’t.

Richie is very grateful that Maggie decided to gift him one of the very first cars she owned, but he had a growth spurt Sophomore year of high school, and it didn’t help him fit into the tiny vehicle one bit. He doesn’t even care that the car is feminine; he simply can’t even sit down without bending his neck. Maybe he can ask the guy to do something about the seat.

Richie rounds the vehicle and steps in front of the boy who’s allegedly a car master of some sort. Maggie said his stepdad owns a shop on the edge of Derry, and apparently, the guy works there a lot. More like works out. The boy is bouncing on the tiptoes of white sneakers, peeling off some silver paint on the door of the car, the left tricep prominent and shifting as he moves the arm around. Richie can see that the shoulders are fit too because the guy is wearing a red tank top, and even the thigh muscles are bulging, revealed by the relatively short jean shorts. And Richie would say that they’re too short for a guy, but he likes the view a bit more than he’s willing to admit.

Richie clears his throat, and the boy looks up, but half of the face is still shielded by the cap. He leans on the knees to stand up, and Richie’s eyes get stuck on the movement of the bicep muscles as the boy turns the hat around, so the cap isn’t covering his face anymore. Richie lifts his eyes to meet the other’s, and his heart jumps somewhere behind his tongue. He’s met with a slightly tan, flushed face, covered in tiny dots of freckles stretching from one cheek to the other, several bigger ones perched on the small nose.    

“Is that for me?”

“W-what?”

The boy releases a soft chuckle and points the finger at the strawberry lemonade in Richie’s hand, and he is suddenly aware of the burning coldness in his skin, sweating droplets of the glass sliding down bony knuckles.

“Oh. Y-yeah.” Jesus Christ, did you switch bodies with Stuttering Buh-buh-buh-bill?

Richie reaches out the cup and blinks rapidly, an uninvited nervousness washing through him. The boy takes it, inadvertently scratching one of Richie’s knuckles, and he feels a shiver reach the bottom of his spine. They guy sips on the drink, the condensation running down his hand to the elbow, droplets falling on the uneven garage floor.

“You have something on your glasses.”

“What?”

“Is that your favorite word?”

Richie blinks and places the plate on the table next to the wall, taking the glasses off to see what the guy is talking about. And since he can’t actually put the frames into focus even if they’re straight in front of the eyes, he simply wipes them on the shirt. Which, apparently, only smudges the residue.

“Please tell me it’s not what I think it is.”

Richie is confused for several seconds, but then he laughs and points a finger gun at the guy. “It’s jizz, my darling.”

“Wow. Creative. You’re a real show stealer.”

“You bet.”

“Do you know what sarcasm is?” Richie wants to reply something witty, but he gets too mesmerized by the movement of dark curly eyelashes, only visible through the left lens.

It’s not until the guy grabs the glasses straight from his face, brushing a finger on each temple, that he recovers a bit. He watches the blob of red wipe at his frames furiously and hears the forced breathing, probably intended to help with the cleaning. Richie finally feels the glasses touch the tops of his ears, and he watches the concentrated expression on the guy’s face, brows furrowed and bottom lip trapped behind small teeth. He’s fucking adorable.

“Is it better?” asks the boy, still standing dangerously close to Richie. He smells like fresh baked cookies.

“Think so.”

They stand in the present position for several seconds, blissfully unaware of the passing time. Richie is looking all over the guy’s face, his eyes finally landing on puckered rosy lips, and he feels his neck tug down towards the boy involuntarily. But before he gets to even realize the implications of that, the boy coughs and steps back a bit, and the sweet scent of vanilla extract is gone.

“I’m Eddie,” says the guy, extending his hand for Richie to shake. The protruding vein on Eddie’s wrist distracts the tall boy for several seconds.

“Dick,” says Richie, grabbing the boy’s hand and shaking it with more enthusiasm than is probably socially acceptable. But Richie doesn’t give a damn about societal expectations anyway.

“Your name is Dick?” Eddie doesn’t seem to mind that his hand is still trapped between Richie’s pale fingers.

“Richard is my name, nicknames are my game.” Richie winks, and it inevitably leads to a quiet giggle and a barely-there blush. Jesus.

“You got one for me?”

Richie loosens the grip on Eddie’s hand a bit, making it go slack but still holding onto it, maybe a bit more gentle than he intended. He steps closer, leaning down to whisper. “Sure thing, Eds.”

Eddie squeals and pushes at the flat bony chest, effectively sending Richie tumbling into the table, the plate shattering on the dirty floor. Both boys bring hands to their mouth in anticipation of parental rage, but nothing comes, and terrified expressions are soon replaced with soft laughter. Richie leans down to pick up the small pieces of the sandwich that are scattered along with large ceramic pieces, placing it all in a small tower that he figures he’ll throw out by the pharmacy, so Maggie doesn’t know what he did. He shivers noticeably when Eddie’s arm brushes his own, adding the pieces that fell under the car. And when their eyes connect, Richie can feel his own face color resemble that of the boy’s, and he hasn’t felt that since… well, ever.

“You have a bag we can put all this in?” asks Eddie, standing up and walking around the garage to locate the needed item.

“No, but I have newspapers.”

“That’ll do.”

They wrap it in a large ball of Wentworth’s Washington Post, dated several months ago. Richie discards it into the trash bin standing next to the garage door, thinking that he’d remove it later to make sure Maggie doesn’t notice it. Not that his mother walks around peering into trash bins, but he really doesn’t want to disappoint.

“Sorry about your sandwich, Eds.”

Eddie smiles earnestly, and the warm feeling in the middle of Richie’s abdomen is almost overwhelming in the summer heat of Maine.

“Don’t worry about it. I didn’t come here for food.”

“Right, you’re here for the cold hard cash. I can’t believe you’d do this to me! I thought this was something special!” Richie drops down to his knees in front of the boy, animatedly sobbing, somehow pulling actual tears, and the guy laughs so hard that he doubles over.

“You’re terrible,” says Eddie, grinning wide and honest, and Richie is irritated that he’s too busy pushing his glasses to observe every movement of muscle on the boy’s face.

“You laughed though, Eds.”

Eddie suddenly rolls his eyes and throws his arms up in annoyance. “Don’t fucking call me that, dumbass.”

Richie stands up and moves to stand unnecessarily close to the boy, making the other crane his neck to blink up at him with twinkly brown eyes that make the corners of Richie’s mouth jump. But instead of sporting an irritated expression, Eddie simply smirks, lifting one of his eyebrows and crossing the arms, inadvertently touching Richie’s stomach, making him jump back with a whine he never even heard from a girl. Nice job, Tozier.

Of course, the boy just laughs at him and moves closer to the car. And Richie’s head is a jumbled mess of things he doesn’t yet understand. So instead of confronting the buzzing feeling in abdomen, he moves back towards the street and plops onto the bike.

“Where are you going?” asks Eddie, a note of disappointment laced through curiosity.

“I owe you some food, Eds!” screams Richie in response, pedaling away quickly towards the center of the town, his head a little light from the sudden rush of air he didn’t have in the small space.

He comes back forty minutes later, barely maneuvering the bike with one hand, holding a large vanilla cone in the other. The stifling heat makes the ice cream run down his hand, onto the handles, leaving a white trail from Smith’s to Tozier residence. He throws the bike onto the front lawn, unable to position it by the house. By the time he walks up to the garage, there are newspapers under and around the car, and Eddie is holding an electric sander, a mask hanging around his neck. Richie comes closer, the ice cream still dripping, and reaches it out for the boy to take. Eddie jumps when he turns around, his eyes going wide and breathtakingly pretty. Richie can’t get enough air again.

“What’s this? Oh my God, it’s dripping everywhere!”

Eddie grabs Richie’s wrist with the vanilla cone after he puts the sander down, and leads him out into the sun. Richie notices that the boy is no longer wearing the baseball hat, and the brown hair glistens with stripes of maroon and gold, smooth and wavy. Richie’s hand is shaking from nervousness, and he’s not even sure he can hold the ice cream much longer.

“It’s for you.” He reaches out again, a couple of vanilla drops falling on his toes, sliding down on the flip-flops.

“You brought me ice cream all the way from Smith’s?”

Richie realizes that he might’ve gone overboard, but when does he not? He can’t make a sandwich to save a life.

“Um. Yeah?” He smiles nervously, and he can feel his entire body flush with an intensity that reminds him of the time he saw Cillian Murphy on TV.

Eddie searches his face for several seconds, and Richie can see a cherry blush spread behind the tiny freckles. The boy fights a smile but eventually wraps his hand around Richie’s, gently taking the cone from his hand. He licks around the rim, taking care of the melted part of the small vanilla mound. He looks up at Richie who realizes that he’s staring at the boy with a mouth half-open, his whole body on fire. Eddie extends the arm, putting the ice cream right in front of Richie’s face.

“Want some?”

There is a silver glint in large browns again, and a shy smile that makes Richie’s legs shake a little. He wraps his hand around Eddie’s small one, covering it completely and for whatever reason leans down quickly, pecking the boy’s smooth cold lips. Horrified at what he’s done, he tries to retreat back, blood pumping in his ears but Eddie doesn’t let him, putting a small hand behind his neck. Richie has to breathe in harshly from his nose because he feels like passing out from the hot breath that escapes the boy’s mouth when their lips part to meet again. Richie can feel Eddie smile into the kiss, all warm cookies, and cold vanilla, and Richie thinks he understands what the fuss with kissing boys is all about.

Perma Tag: @happytozier (thank you for helping me with the beginning, babe!!), @studpuffin @j0ys @qwertykevin @its-stranger-than-you-think   @trippy-alexissss @letmybabyystayy (let me know if you want to be perma tagged!

[lifeisacinemahall]

On the face of it, they couldn’t be further apart in exposition, scope, or even their target audience. If I wasn’t constrained by the anomaly of the expression – for, I’ve tasted both, but never attempted to write with one of them – they’d be legends of chalk-and-cheese. And yet both arrived circa 2017, and both in their own ways, shook up the watching audience.

Wonder Woman, directed by Patty Jenkins and written by Allan Heinberg, as we all know now, shattered the DC world and that of superheroes forever. It was, by Zeus, helmed by a woman, and that wasn’t the reason it re-pressed box-office records worldwide. It carried with it, a hitherto unseen and unfelt emotional space in caped crusades, that brought a whiff of genuine romance even as it split wide open global issues, that though it keenly observed during the flagging days of World War I, are more relevant than ever. Opening in a flashback to the wondrous and stunning locales of the mystical and hidden island of Themyscira, the inhabitants being the all-women Amazonian warriors, created by Zeus to save mankind – the only scenes where the director and cinematographer Matthew Jensen paint the screen with mind-bogglingly breathtaking colors and hues – we see  the relationship between ruling Queen Hippolyta (Connie Nielsen, all power and caring mother at once) and her only daughter – also the only child on the island – Diana, wanting to pick up the battle cloak and dagger from an early age; to her mother’s vehement and vigorous denial, the child is trained by her aunt, Antiope (Robin Wright, masterfully intense) to become even a more whiplash of a warrior than herself. And once the Queen mother realizes there’s no stopping her defiant daughter and sister, she lets you into a tantalizing line that tells you there’s more to revealed about Diana. But that’s later for you to discover in the movie. The lives of the amazing Amazonian women are upended when a fighter plane crashes near their island, and a grown-up Diana (Gal Gadot) rescuing its sole pilot, American pilot Captain Steve Trevor (Chris Pine). That’s also when, in perhaps one of the most invigorating and eye-widening action sequences in the movie, that Diana realizes that Zeus’ son, Ares, is out there in the world unknown to her tribe, and is somehow behind the catastrophic war; she also realizes, as the island is attacked by a German unit in pursuit of Trevor, of how hopeless her island’s weaponry can be, against the modern blitzkrieg of hot lead and powerful thermodynamics. Her adventure takes her out to the big, bad world with Trevor, and she runs in with the German psychopath-cum-General  Erich Ludendorff (a marvelous Danny Huston) and his chemical-mania of a chemist Dr. Isabel Maru (a superbly evil turn by Elena Anaya) also known as Dr. Poison, which so nicely fills in her job description as well. There’s other characters who support Diana/Wonder Woman as she, with Trevor takes on the evil forces, with a little help from friends including the British cabinet minister, Sir Patrick Morgan (David Thewlis, shining as always), Trevor’s secretary Etta Candy (Lucy Davis), and a band of fighters that Trevor gets together for the mission.

Gal Gadot: bows to no one.

In Aruvi (Waterfalls), the titular lead character, played by Aditi Balan, has no such luck with regards to friends or kin. This story is told in flashback too, but keeps cutting to the ominous present, where she and perhaps her only thick-and-thin friend Emily (Anjali Varadhan, singeingly fantastic) are being interrogated by police officer Shakeel Waqaab (Mohammed Ali Baig, very suave, extremely believable, but inflecting at times as if he’d rather be on an episode of CSI), and as you hear Aruvi’s story, you realize that much like Diana, she’s had a sheltered childhood, but not one of fantasy, but an everyday life, where she’s the apple of her father’s eye  – Thirunavukkarasu in a magnificently etched and enacted supporting role – and has a regular love-and-tiff relationship with her younger brother. All this changes, and as far as you’re concerned, it happens in a scene that stuns, as you see Aruvi’s life upend, as you did Diana’s – only here, there’s no Trevor to lend a helping hand nor a mother to lend a supportive farewell, and a sullied Aruvi is kicked out of the house, despite her pained protestations. Director Arun Prabu Purushothaman doesn’t have the big bucks backing for this project, nor does he require the green bundles to tell the story he wrote – it’s in the turning of the  blunt knife that he enjoys your discomfiture, not in the anesthetized comfort of a newly forged blade. In between cutting from a swift montage of the ever-burgeoning intrigue of the present and an increasingly chilling look at the past that got his lead character here, the director spares no wound and cut, and just as suddenly, the movie parkours from a social drama to black comedy to a visceral look at society’s unstoppable spinning of hypocrisy and exploitation. Backed by an ensemble of character actors who do wonders onscreen (as they do in Wonder Woman) – here, Arnold Mathew (playing Aruvi’s brother), Lakshmi Gopalswami (the TV host of Solvathellam Sathyam), Pradeep Anthony, Bala and others – Aruvi works best when it’s ripping off the skin of societal hypocrisy, zipping into a TED-like talk of happiness, and a cathartic revelation for a character in the TV studio. Where it does get weak is when the director spins the bottle of story much too long, giving himself and his  Aruvi this indulgence that both might never get again. As in Wonder Woman, where the bar scenes and comedy tend to act as a plateau for the main mission.

Aditi Balan: water-falling in love.

Both movies also look, in their own lens-mounted ways, of the troubling times we live in. The focal point of these projects is women. And both of them are Wonder Women in the way they grittily pack a punch back at the world. Both characters step out into these worlds they haven’t seen earlier, much less prepared to take head on. But both realize very quickly that taking the bullshit by the horns is a much more messier and complex affair than they could have imagined or planned for. In a world designed by men, for men, and of men, in a sense both Diana and Aruvi are Amazonian warriors, their battles very cleanly defined by themselves even if circumstances have forced them to do so, their weapon of choice the best possible that their times have to offer. In Wonder Woman does Diana realize that the world’s such a big truckload of mess that even superheroes can’t quite resolve the mosaic of power struggles and the manic ambition of a few, or just one. Aruvi on the other hand does her best to take control of these very manipulative and destructive forces of reality shows and news mites that feed into speculation, metastasizing into false news, triggering meaningless late-night TV debates, making experts of all who care to appear on TV and indulge in shouting matches.

Thirunavukkarasu is all father’s pain in Aruvi.…

Both women succeed, if you can call it that, but pay a very heavy price for their success. If there ever was Pyrrhic victory, it is these two who bear the burden of it. From the principles of naiveté to steely determination for justice, these super women bear crosses that they’re forever nailed to. Aruvi also makes you think of palliative care, of how important it is for everyone, without fail, to have loved ones around them, as they make that one final journey, however painful the director makes it for you to watch.

..while Gal Gadot and Danny Huston play some deadly maneuvers in Wonder Woman.

And both movies work superbly well within the ground rules of engagement they lay for themselves – Wonder Woman is eventually a commercial explosion of entertainment, not pretending to be otherwise; Aruvi is more than a waterfall – it’s a flood of a wincing, progressively-tough-to-watch indie, not attempting to be anything else. And yet, both have power that they grant their women to achieve, and for that, both are extremely gratifying cinematic experiences.

The movies boast of fine lead performances – Gal Gadot is impeccable, walking the line of a radiant, magical superwoman, stumbling along to find the magic of love and the callousness of mankind, even while executing some truly fine action pieces. Aditi Balan as Aruvi is astoundingly splenetic, clawing at your soul with what has to be one of the finest debut performances ever. She’s magical too, in her own way, but more the dark, haunting variety.

The music score for Wonder Woman by Rupert Gregson-Williams is a typical blockbuster music sheet, and there, you won’t find anything alluring, except maybe for Hans Zimmer’s grungy theme. Composers Bindhu Malini and Vedanth Bharadwaj, however, aren’t bound any such considerations for Aruvi. Much like the break-out woman the movie portrays, their background score, especially, is a winner. Utterly unpredictable, rocking between Carnatic music and the unexpected pleasure of a bass, using trumpets to segue into hip-hop jazz, the musicians add their own layer of pleasurable unpredictability to the story.

And there’s another difference between the two movies. Wonder Woman, despite all the losses, gets a sequel. Aruvi, despite winning at life and because of it, doesn’t. But it is the pyrotechnics of the fantasy of one that make it easier to watch the inevitable poignancy of the other. And it is in the balancing out and propelling of these two stories, not in their canceling each other, that makes movie watching such a beautiful, uplifting, and powerful experience.

Aruvi Movie data powered by IMDb

Aruvi Director Arun Prabhu Purushothaman Running Time 2h 10 min Writer Arun Prabhu Purushothaman Stars  Aditi Balan, Pradeep Anthony, Arnold, Mohammed Ali Baig, Thirunavukkarasu Genres Drama

Wonder Woman data powered by IMDb

Wonder Woman Director Patty Jenkins Running Time 2h 21 min Writer Allan Heinberg Stars  Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Robin Wright, Danny Huston Genres Action, Adventure, Fantasy

  ‘Aruvi’ and ‘Wonder Woman’ reviews: A Flood and an Explosion On the face of it, they couldn’t be further apart in exposition, scope, or even their target audience.