#murphys evil little sketches

[x-letsbreaksomerules-x]

yuri is so fucking real you guys

[theliterateape]

We Killed Jason Todd

By Matt Markman

In 1988 my friends and I killed a kid.

He was just a boy really. We had help it wasn’t just me and my pals. there were adults involved, lots of them. I mean we were young we were just thirteen and really couldn’t comprehend the ramification of our actions, the adults knew what they were doing. I’m painting it to sound way more sinister than it was, and in today’s society, wouldn’t trend on Twitter but maybe in the ’80s, it was probably considered quite ominous.

To set your mind at ease, it was Jason Todd. You know, Batman's sidekick, The Boy Wonder, Robin—well, the second Robin anyways. And I helped kill him.

I was big into comic books but my favorite was, The Dark Knight, The Caped Crusader, The Batman… He donned the best costume, he had all the money and was the most intelligent of all the superheroes. That last trait right there, the fact that he was considered a superhero and he had no actual super powers made him cooler than the other side of the pillow. You know how The Big Bang Theory has convinced the world it’s an Emmy-winning sitcom worth watching? I think it’s the fact that Batman was someone any one of us could actually be. Sure we needed to start with a base coat of genius followed by a splash of handsome billionaire playboy then train overseas in martial arts for several years, but if you had those things you, too, could be a vigilante. You ask me today and I'd stand by the fact that Batman would beat Superman in a fight, say ten out of ten times. This is not debatable because super beings from another planet are not real.

My favorite thing about Batman, though, is his ability to balance out good and evil. He spawned one of the greatest comic book villains and fictional characters ever created, The Joker. They have tried and tried again but in my opinion never got close to the Clown Prince of Crime—maybe Negan from The Walking Dead, he's pretty ruthless. The Joker is what would happen if a stand-up comedian became a criminal mastermind, so basically the plot of the 2019 film Joker.

My love for Joker made sense because growing up I was always more into the bad guys than the good guys. Watching and playing with G.I.Joe, I was always on the side of Cobra Commander, the twins Tomax and Xamot, and Zartan because they were always more glamorous and eye-catching than the boring ass Joes. Just once, I’d like that “knowing is half the battle” part at the end of the cartoon to have been Storm Shadow giving us kids a tip on how to fuck up Shipwreck and his stupid Parrot. Megatron, Skeletor, Shredder, Mumm-ra…

The list goes on, but the antagonists always resonated with me. they had a much better and more intriguing agenda than the good guys did. I know that wasn't the purpose, we were supposed to cheer on the good guys, like the idea of saving the world and all, but the mayhem… It’s like Alfred Pennyworth said, “Some men just want to watch the world burn.” It’s odd because the bad guys in my life were real, the bullies and I didn't like them at all. They tormented me daily unprovoked because I was short and had big ears. Perhaps my love for the dark side stemmed for my desire to be on that side because in real life there was no Superman swooping in to rescue me from the clutches of Lex Luthor. 

There were two sides, and good had a lack of champions looking out for the weaker, smaller good guys. The bad guys in my neighborhood, well, they were real and never really foiled and more importantly, they always got the girl in the end. Fuck the good guys!

My admiration for evildoers achieving their agenda was tested in 1988, Batman was running a four-part series called A Death in the Family. It was your typical Batman arc. Somehow, The Joker was going to get the upper hand on The World’s Greatest Detective only to be bested in the end by Batman. But this time, the third comic decided to do something nobody had never seen in the industry. The writers were going to give the fans the opportunity to decide where they were going to go with the story, only it was an option between two different roads, one quite unconventional. Apparently a few years earlier, one of the writers, Dennis O'Neil, had seen a sketch they did on SNL where Eddie Murphy held up a Lobster—Larry the Lobster—and was asking viewers to decide whether Larry was boiled and eaten or was to be set free. The choices were offered in the form of two phone numbers both costing fifty cents a call. One number was a vote for him to be freed and the other number was a vote for Larry to be murdered, smothered in butter, and devoured by Axel Foley. Ultimately, after nearly 500,000 calls, the people voted for Larry the lovable lobster to be pardoned with a 12,000 call margin. The popularity of this bit intrigued O'Neil and A few years later he decided to implement it in his Death in The Family storyline.

In the third book, The Joker had taken Batman's sidekick, the Boy Wonder, hostage. He’d beaten him bloody with a crowbar leaving a cliffhanger to be wrapped up in the fourth book. The last page of the comic was full page and at the top read in true ’80s Do the Right Thing fashion: “Robin will die because The Joker wants revenge, but you can prevent it with a telephone call!” They even phrased it to steer you down the hero’s path, like you can literally be Batman with one phone call. Underneath the imploring verbiage were two numbers, dial one number; The Joker fails and Robin lives, Batman would once somehow saves the day. However, call this other number and The Joker succeeds and Robin dies. Gruesomely.

Wow! They were going to let the fans decide the fate of Robin, really this was one of my earliest introductions to a reality voting competition type show. In my opinion, it was a bad idea. Robin was always the worst. Go back and read through an adventure or two involving Jason Todd and tell me he wasn't always whiney and bellyaching. He was never going to be iconic or cool like Bruce Wayne or even his predecessor Dick Grayson—the first Robin. See, Dick got pissed off, decided he was tired of being in Batman's shadow, ditched the Robin costume, threw on a black blue and gold costume, moved to another city and became Nightwing. Dick was a go getter, ambitious. Grayson’s Robin was a winner, Todd's Robin was an irritating little bitch; he was not an innocent lobster.

I went to my mother and asked if I could make a call that was going to cost just fifty cents and I would pay her back or she could just take it out of my allowance. She wanted to know what it was for and mostly wanted to confirm it wasn't for an adult sex line, which costs more than fifty cents a minute, but that’s a different story. It was nothing as tawdry as phontercourse, I just wanted to help murder an annoying teenage sidekick. My mother response was “Oh, yeah, that’s fine.”

I think after it was exposed that it wasn't phone sex anything else I said went in one ear and out the other, surely she didn't think I was actually voting for a plucky comic book sidepiece to be murdered by The Joker. So that’s what I did. I cast my vote along with a majority of DC comic book fans that shared my detest for the boy wonder. Ten thousand votes were recorded with a narrow margin going to Robin dying. I think the writers never suspected that fans would go that route.

O’Neal himself voted for Robin’s stay of execution. A man of his word, Batman issue #429 was released and Robin was killed by The Joker in an explosion and we were to blame for it. Sad to say but you give a bunch of comic book nerds the power I think it would go bad every time. That day we were all proud to be The Joker's henchmen. I felt like a soldier at the end of Star Wars cheering madly while The Joker received his metal shouting, “I helped that happen!”

So many shows these days embrace our fascination with the anti-hero with the success of The Sopranos, The Shield, Breaking Bad, hell Narcos had me rooting for Pablo Escobar—Pablo fucking Escobar. I wouldn't say I was a bad person growing up. Quite the contrary, I was a shy nerd with no power to do anything but pick my books up after they were smacked to the ground. What I’m saying is don't give me the power to make important life or death decisions with your franchise because myself and the other dorks will have the bodies of Orko, Snarf, and Jimmy Olson lying in a shallow grave, just tell me what number to dial… or text.

Matt started performing standup comedy in 2004 in Las Vegas and is now a regular at every major comedy club on the Las Vegas strip. He released his first comedy album in 2016 titled Uncut available on iTunes. More about Matt and his upcoming appearances can be found on MattMarkman.com.

[thejiaqiverse]

So a few posts ago I mentioned how for my fanfic AU Clark Kent is NOT known as “Superman” right? That’s majorly because he’s known as the “Nightwing”! Surprise! And because, Clark’s “superhero” career in The Bat and the Kryptonian is initiated and then entirely founded by Bruce Wayne! Bruce even picked his Nightwing-hairstyle (HUGE changes ikr)

Yes, Clark has a Brightburn-ish background; no, he’s actually NOT evil

You must be wondering where’s Dick Grayson now. That will be explained in the future......

Squeezing in some backstory elements:

BE-1 —this AU’s Bruce already knew why his parents were murdered and who called the shots not long after a masked “joker” gunned them down (drawing a bit of inspiration from the Joker movie), someone who had a plan in mind for Bruce (that’s not exactly in Bruce’s best interests) informed him upfront. Although later in life Bruce succeeds big times and is worth almost 20 billion dollars (this will become an unfortunate running joke...), all those years he knew deep in his heart that he, along with his parents, are all being used as pawns in a high-stake game; he knows he can be taken out literally at ANYTIME if he’s just a little uncareful

BE-2 —Clark’s (Kal-El’s) Kryptonian background is even more intriguing. Brightburn AU, a.k.a. the AU where Kryptonians are evil invaders feared by all civilizations (hence one of the many reasons why Diana wants to kill Clark asap). Planet Krypton “imploded” out of nowhere. Kal-El was at the time one of many genetic experiments created on Krypton, after the “implosion” he was the ONLY life within the “implosion’s” range that survived, no Kryptonian could explain how and why. Lead scientist Jor-El decided to send Kal-El as a wildcard to the planet Earth—an interesting planet he studied and was fascinated with. Kal-El is quite an abnormal case, for one the substance supply needed to quick-grow a Kryptonian embryo into a full adult before reaching the target planet (so they can then immediately start the invasion upon arrival) did NOT work properly for him, he only grew into a cute little baby. Martha and Jonathan Kent, whom recently suffered a devastating miscarriage, decided against reporting the alien spacecraft and took him in as their own.

BE-⭐️ —SUMMER CAMP!

Kal-El (12 at that time), renamed Clark Joseph Kent upon adoption met this new kid at camp named “Michael Murphy”. The two almost immediately struck up a tight friendship, they were inseparable. Before parting ways when camp ended “Michael” finally decided to reveal his real name to his trusted friend Clark, but only got to finish saying “my name is Bruce...” before he was interrupted then picked up. So, Bruce Wayne (8 at the time) who’d just lost everything and was in hiding met Clark at summer camp! So, Clark while trying to reach his new friend afterwards ended up mistakenly sending letters to a 50-something-year-old dude named Bruce Murphy and got all his letters returned to him, how nice

Going back to this sketch I made

as a general reference for myself: let’s follow the thought process of Bruce designing and crafting both his own and Clark’s costumes.

First and foremost, although Bruce is an insanely rich billionaire, in reality he can NOT simply spend as much money as he’d please here (there are good reasons, to be looked at in the future). In other words, he really needs to think about the cost and effectiveness of things and consider what is really needed and what is unnecessary for each occasion. Leads to an incident where Alfred noticed Bruce cutting budget from his own gear to improve Clark’s, needless to say Alfred’s not pleased

What is notable for the Batman costume, let’s see... it’s a uniform dark color, with only the Bat-logo having a dull gold outline and the utility belt having a very light gold tint. All parts of the costume are pretty unreflective in order to camouflage it with the dark of night. The mask provides vision and hearing enhancements, the eye portion’s appearance is close to Spider-Man’s mask’s design (follows facial expressions, no constant frown). The Batman of this AU still can’t really fly, his cape helps him glide tho. The base suit serves as a power boost (in this AU it has something similar to Black Panther’s suit’s energy conversion function, which boosts punches, kicks and stuff) and as a protection against a wide range of outside impacts (strikes, fall, cuts, gunfire, etc.). The utility belt is used for storing gadgets and tools and holding the top and bottom pieces of his costume together. The base suit is comfy and makes sure the wearer is not too warm or cold, so he doesn’t need to wear anything except for regular sport boxers underneath

Moving on to the Nightwing costume. This costume is like the Batman’s polar opposite in many ways. Opposite from how the Batman’s mask covers the upper half of his face, Clark’s mask covers the lower half of his face and provides no visual or hearing enhancements (because Clark does NOT need those). As an added disguise, Clark’s natural eye color, which in this AU is dark grey, becomes very blue under the disguise of his mask—it even gives his naturally dark brown hair a blueish tint. The cape is lightly iridescent under sunlight and splits into two parts vaguely resembling two wings, Clark definitely stands out wearing it. The base suit is very aerodynamic and centers in on the purpose of not splitting open when Clark throws his powerful punches and kicks, so connecting parts (lighter-colored) are stronger and more elastic. One very important thing Bruce found out is that Clark needs protection against Kryptonite, believe it or not, when making his costume Bruce actually gave it Kryptonite-proof properties, which help Clark tremendously later on (trust level over 9000). Lastly, despite having holsters/pockets on his belt Clark doesn’t bring gadgets from home (not even his phone, Bruce maintains Ghost in the Shell-esque communication with him at all times)

Well that’s all for now about this AU

[mysweetestcreature]

Tomorrow Never Knows (President!Harry) Chapter 7: Two Princes

(Banner by the wonderful noblewomankat!)

***

Masterlist

***

Monday, November 10, 2008

Y/n doesn’t know what it is, but the dreams about the bench atop the flowery hill continue to evade her dreams night after night. Every morning she wakes up, a new detail having just been discovered and needing to be added to the initial sketch that she had started two months ago. Although, there was a period of about two or three weeks where she hadn’t dreamt of the scene at all. She might have even forgotten about it all together had it not been one of the first pages in her book. 

She stands at her locker, grazing her fingers over the indents of the heavier lines as though they were the actual real-life thing. 

“That’s a nice drawing.” 

A smile arises at the scratchy notes of his vocal cords. 

“Why, thank you,” she chirps before closing the sketchbook and placing with precision on the second shelf. (She’ll be sure to work on it again later.) “Good morning!” 

Harry raises his hand over his mouth to stifle a yawn. “Morning,” he barely rasps out. Slowly, he works his combination into the lock. As soon as it opens up, he tosses a bike helmet onto the locker floor. 

“Did you bike all the way here?” Y/n gapes in surprise.

“It’s not that far. Mum’s away on business and Gem’s staying over at her boyfriend’s until she gets back.” After Gemma had dropped Anne off at John F. Kennedy Airport last night, she had texted Harry saying that she would be staying at Michal’s house for the rest of the week (they’re very serious, as his sister puts it). It’s not like he minds it all that much though, he quite likes having the house to himself as long as it doesn’t last more than a week. 

***

Maybe he’d been a complete and utter arse in his past life, it’s the only explanation as to why he hasn’t been able to maintain appropriate stress levels for more than a few days. He really can’t help but wonder what he did to piss off the people upstairs because as soon as he had finally cleared the air between him and Y/n, this just had to happen. 

Harry doesn’t like –– no, no, more like he hates –– Jasper Daniels with every ounce of his being, in fact.

And Harry doesn’t hate anyone! He’s always been pretty accepting of others, even when they’ve been jerks to him at times, but there’s just something about him that makes him want to take a football and aim it directly at the guy’s gut. What really gets his blood pressure going is how everyone, and really, he just means Y/n, thinks he’s the coolest person in the entire world. Sure, Jasper writes poetry and reads it to the elderly down at the senior center twice a week, and maybe he does play the violin like a professional out of the philharmonic orchestra. Other than that, there’s really nothing that special about him.

“He’s super hot, if you ask me,” Cici says, eyes as hazy as a dream while she admires the back of his head. “Like he’s totally got that Abercrombie model vibe going on.”

“I don’t know, that beanie makes him look dumb. Don’t you think it’s weird how he never takes it off?” Harry presses, glaring down as he shreds the remains of his chicken fingers, collecting them in a large pile on a nearby napkin. Even at lunch, where all he wants is to sit down and enjoy a meal, he can’t escape.

Cici looks at him knowingly, an almost evil smirk forming across her lips as she turns to her best friend. Maxxie kicks her under the table, desperately shaking his head as to tell her to stop, but she pushes forward anyway. “What do you think, Y/n? You know him better than I do.” 

“Hm?” she hums, brows rising high before she can tear herself away from her sketchbook. “Jasper?” she asks when she looks up, Cici nods. “He’s really nice! When I went with him to his mom’s birthday, he–”

“Wait, what?” Harry drops the last bit of chicken. “Like-like as his date?” Who brings someone they’ve just met to a parent’s birthday party!? He’s known her for about three months now, and he has yet to introduce her to Anne and Gemma! 

“I wouldn’t go that far,” she giggles, stealing a fry from Harry’s tray. “His mom knew I was making her cake, so she told Jasper to bring me along.” She takes a bite out of the fry, face contorting in displeasure as she clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth. 

Harry slides her a packet of ketchup. “Here,” he mutters under his breath. 

“Thank you!” she cheers happily, squeezing the entire thing onto the rest of his fries. “His parents are really nice! His mom is Filipino, so the food was so good! Have you guys ever had pancit? There’s a Fil-Am restaurant just off Main Street, we should totally check it out!” 

“We should!” Cici agrees. “And maybe we should invite Jasper, just so we know what to get.” 

Maxxie bites harshly on his bottom lip, daring to look at Harry, who he’s afraid might explode with any further provocation. “You know,” he starts, “I was actually hoping we could get ice cream!”

“It’s like forty degrees outside,” Cici deadpans.

“And is ice cream in forty-degree weather a crime or something?” Maxxie chuckles nervously. “Or what about sushi! If we leave right after bell, we can order in time to get the lunch special prices! Seven dollars for two different rolls? I mean, how do you beat that?” 

***

“What are you doing?” Maxxie asks her as soon as he arrives at her table in the library. After being dismissed from Drawing, he had shouted a rushed goodbye to Y/n before running through Abbott Hall (even getting a demerit from Mrs. Murphy because he had slammed into her cart, causing all of her hydrogen chloride to spill onto the floor).

Cici doesn’t even look up from her homework. “Geometry,” she answers evenly.  

He sighs, dropping his messenger bag by the foot of the table. He falls into the chair across from her, crossing his arms and pouting at her like an upset child who has just been refused dessert. “I meant, what the hell was that at lunch? I thought you liked Harry?”

“I do,” Cici says, but sighs immediately afterwards. She places her pencil gently down into the crease of her notebook. It’s not like she called him after midnight just to chat. Of course, she had every intent of helping the guy out. Their talk was so inspiring (she should really get an award for world’s best motivational speaker) that he went all the way to Y/n’s house not even twelve hours later. “But you didn’t see her after he kissed Zoey.”

“And you didn’t see him when she wouldn’t talk to him. I’ve never seen someone so miserable in his life,” he counters. 

“Look...” She leans back in her seat and pulls on her ponytail and runs her fingers through all the knots. “I want them together as much as you do, but until then, let him suffer just a little bit. No one makes my best friend cry and not have to pay some consequence for it. 

Maxxie blows raspberries into the air. “Hasn’t he agonized enough, though? He texted me like an hour ago and I could practically feel the tears in his text.”

“That’s–”

“Heartbreaking?”

“I was going to say ‘dramatic,” Cici snorts, returning her attention back to her assignment. 

Rolling his eyes, Maxxie gets up. “Well you’re–”

“A stellar friend?”

“I was going to say, ‘slightly sadistic.’”

***

“I definitely would recommend the chicken adobo and lumpiang shanghai for first-timers,” Jasper says over Y/n’s shoulder as they all look at the food selections. Instead of choosing what he wants, however, Harry can’t help the scowl on his face as he looks at the two of them. Although, he’ll admit that everything behind the glass screen looks absolutely mouthwatering, or maybe it’s just that he hadn’t eaten much of his lunch earlier. 

“Oh! Do they have pancit?” Y/n asks excitedly. 

Jasper signals towards the woman behind the counter. “Ate, may pancit pa ba kayo?” (“Do you guys have any pancit left?”)

“Wait lang! Tingnan ko sa kusina.” (“Just wait! I’ll check in the kitchen.”)

Harry squeezes between Y/n and Cici, earning him a whack in the arm from the latter when she stumbles into Maxxie’s side. “So, you’re bilingual?” he muses. 

“Tri, actually,” Jasper shrugs as though he isn’t impressing everyone around him. “My grandma was a high school German teacher, so I’m pretty good at conversational talk.” 

The smile that lands itself on Harry’s mouth couldn’t be any more strained, the muscles in his cheeks slowly starting to ache. “That’s...that’s great!” he exclaims through gritted teeth. Of course, how could he expect anything less? Turning to Maxxie, his expression falters. “Isn’t that just great?”

The blonde boy nods all too cautiously. “Yeah,” he draws out, switching places with Cici. He leans in just enough to whisper in his ear. “Are you sure you don’t want to leave? My mom’s just at the Shop Rite right around the corner.” 

Harry can sense the panic in his tone, just as Maxxie can feel how the air that surrounds him might just be a little too stuffy for the five of them. However, he chooses to brush off the suggestion. There’s no way he’s leaving, only to give rise to an opportunity for Jasper to make a move in his absence. “Is that chocolate?” he asks, pointing to a dark, almost black dish with lumps of unknown floating at the top. 

The woman behind the counter laughs loudly, bending over backwards and clapping her hands repeatedly. “Tsokolate daw!” (“Chocolate!”) she blurts out with a giggle, wiping a tear from along her lash line. “This is dinuguan. It’s like a pork blood stew. Very delicious!”

“Oh, that’s um...” Harry turns his head to the side, both Y/n and Jasper’s eyes trained on him. It’s like the next words to come out of his mouth are being anticipated by the masses, and one wrong move may lead to the ultimate humiliation in front of her.

“Hey, man,” Jasper starts, “it’s okay if you’re not up for it. Some Filipino food can be a little daunting for first-timers.”  His hand lands itself around Y/n’s shoulders when he squeezes in the already tight space that lingers between them. “This one saw the lechon at my mom’s party and almost fainted. She wouldn’t even go near it!”

“Excuse me!” she gasps. “But that was a whole pig on the dining table!” She cups her face, shaking her head as she relives the vivid memory over again. 

None of this amuses Harry. Not one bit. The more he thinks about how close these two have become in just a short amount of time –– probably even less than when he and Y/n had first met –– feels like his insides are being wrung like a wet towel. “You know what, give me the blood stew.”

***

Thursday, November 13, 2008

During Algebra, Harry can’t stop himself from glancing her way every couple of minutes. There’s nothing in particular that he wants –– besides for Jasper Daniels to disappear off the face of the earth –– that is going to have to wait, unfortunately. She just has this thing about her, like the way she crinkles her nose when she’s in full-mode concentration, to the way she bites on her tongue when Mr. Daughtry calls on another student when she’s had the answer solved in a fraction of the time, that constantly reels him in. He doesn��t think he’s ever met someone both adorable and attractive bundled into one body. 

“Do I have something on my face?” she cocks a brow up. She’s tried to ignore the feeling of his eyes boring into her skull, but she lost the battle with herself that had restrained the desire to gaze back into the emeralds he has for eyes. 

“No,” he’s quick to answer back, quietly though (he doesn’t want Mr. Daughtry to have him go up to the board). “It’s just...” 

Y/n quirks her head. “Just?”

“It’s nothing,” he gulps, tugging lightly on the knot of his tie. He faces the front of the room and jots down the newest equation on the board, his jaw muscles tense under his skin. 

The silence that suddenly arises on his end makes her weary of his thoughts. She gives him one last narrowed look before deciding it would be wiser to let it go. Sometimes letting it go can save an overly curious mind, even one as active as hers. Just this morning, Jeremy had berated her for being too nosey when he had dragged a large box in from the garage. “Don’t you have to be in school or something? Sheesh! Can’t a guy live peacefully without his daughter hounding him? What is this? ‘Ask Dad a million questions’ day?” And all she had asked was if he wanted some help (her dad isn’t much of a lifter).

Pretending to be completely taken with solving for ‘x,’ Harry finally breathes out a softly spoken answer, one barely above a faint murmur. “You’re just really pretty, is all.” 

Y/n’s pencil scrapes across the entire page just as she’s about to put a dash across the stem of her seven. 

“What did you just say?” Had her ears heard that right? There’s no way she could have mistaken it! Does he really think that? She can practically feel a fire spread across her cheeks and internalize all the way to her erratic heartbeat. 

“Fifty! I said the answer might really be fifty.”  

Disappointment settles on her features. “Oh.” 

***

Things might have taken a turn for the worse for her today. First and foremost, she thinks she might have to get her hearing checked. Second, she received a text from her dad during cheer practice saying that he wouldn’t be able to pick her up on time because Mason’s parent-teacher conference is running behind schedule, and that she should get a ride home with Cici. Well, she wishes she could’ve read his message before Cici had driven off with her brother. She could always wait for her mom to come fetch her, but Olivia’s office doesn’t close until seven today since so many of her patients are coming in with broken brackets (the few weeks after Halloween are always the busiest, apparently).

Y/n sighs, looking down at the time on her phone screen, 5:09 PM, great. 

She stands just outside the main entrance, carefully thinking through what she should do now. The school grounds are completely abandoned. With the cold weather comes darker skies earlier in the day, and there’s no way she’ll be able to walk home by herself now that the sun is barely visible above the horizon. 

Maybe she will just wait for her mom. The library is open until eight, after all.  

“What are you still doing here?” 

She nearly jumps out of her skin. “Where the heck did you come from?” she screeches, hand flying over her heart. 

“Sorry,” Harry apologizes. “I just got out of the locker room. Coach kept me and a few others to talk strats for the championships next week.” 

“My mom can’t pick me up till after seven, so I was just going to head to the library,” she replies sadly. 

Harry looks back towards the building, a crease forming above the bridge of his nose. “It’s a bit late for you to be here by yourself,” he notices. 

“There are probably still people insi–”

“I can bring you home.” 

Her lips purse together at his suggestion. A strong gust of wind hits her behind her, her hair blowing around the perimeters of her face. “Is your sister back home?” she wonders while she attempts tame the loose strands. 

“Well, no,” he says, a slight hint of embarrassment dripping off the last syllable. “But my bike can hold us both. C’mere.” Taking her hand in his, he leads her towards the bike rack, where his bike stands alone. “See, you can sit right here!” He points to the long top tube just in front of the seat. 

“Is it safe?” she can’t hide the apprehension of her tone. Her other hand slides over the cool metal, and her fingers curl around the tube as though to test its durability. 

“Completely. And besides...” He takes the helmet tucked under his arm, then places it gently on top of her head. “I would never let anything happen to you.” He sheepishly grins when he realizes how cute she looks. 

She touches the top of her head, unable to keep her lips from turning upwards. A soft giggle escapes her as she buckles the chin strap tightly. Harry’s smile only grows wider, and he eagerly swings a leg over the other side and kicks the stand up. 

“Take a seat then, milady,” he says with a wink. 

Thank god she hadn’t needed to bring so many things in her bag home. She fixes the skirt of her cheer uniform before sliding her bottom over the side of the tube. When she’s finally able to settle on a comfortable position (her choices are limited) she looks to her side. What she hadn’t expected was for his face to be so close hers, the tips of their noses brushing against each other. His eyes stare into her briefly, before shifting a few inches lower, lips parting on their own accord. 

Y/n quickly turns her head the other way and swallows. “So, are we leaving now or what?” 

His arms envelop either side of her as they grasp tightly on the handlebars. If her cheeks hadn’t already been slightly flushed from the cold air, she’s sure they would be a forbidden shade of pink from the way the inside of her chest refuses to calm itself. 

***

As they stroll along Main Street, she soon realizes that maybe –– and just maybe –– she really likes being this close to him, especially when she can feel the puffs of each of his warm breaths on her cheek and on the back of her neck. The tingles reach all the way down to her toes, and she has to remind herself that she can’t fidget too much, or else they might topple over. 

“Do you want to stop by Hidden Grounds?” he asks her, slowing down at the store’s front. “I could go for a rose chai.”

“I love Hidden Grounds!” she exclaims, ardently nodding. “But it’s my turn to pay, okay?” 

Harry chuckles, shrugging his shoulders as he cuts across the sidewalk and parks next to the building. She hops off and waits patiently as he fishes his chain from inside his backpack. “Just a sec,” he mumbles, eyes brightening when the back of his hand grazes over it. 

“No problem,” she muses. After he secures his bike to the railings, he turns to her, dimples set in as he signals to the front. 

They’re shocked to see the coffee house being as packed as it is. Almost all of the tables are occupied, and by students from Ashwood, nonetheless! Y/n tenses when she sees Zoey sitting in the far corner with her minions. The redhead spots them, her face contorting as she whispers to the girl on her left. “Hey, Harry!” she yells over the combination of loud voices and music. “Want to join us?” But Harry rolls his eyes, choosing to ignore her. And he thought he had managed to shake her off him. He and Y/n try their best to swerve around the crowds of people to get to the register. Hopefully, they’ll be able to be in and out for a to-go order in less than ten minutes. 

As a chair loudly screeches across the floor, Harry swiftly pulls Y/n against him before a particularly rambunctious individual (Mark Jeffries from the wrestling team) can back into them. “Watch it, man,” Harry chides, still holding her close. Both her hands fall just below his bent elbows, her cheek pressed up against his chest. Her eyes are wide when Mark stands up, towering over both of them like a skyscraper. Yet, Harry is completely unfazed. “You nearly knocked her over.”

Mark glowers at him, but leaves it be when he sees the manager come up behind them. “Sorry,” he mutters to her, then signs to his friends to follow him out the door. 

Y/n touches Harry’s shoulder. “Let’s go order?” She looks up at him with a soft expression. The harshness in his eyes immediately dissolves and he nods. She turns in his hold, her hands landing atop of his that are on her hips, so not to lose him in the tight spaces. Harry doesn’t bother to hide his elation as they move in sync to the front counter.  

***

It’s a quarter before six when they finally make it to her house. Y/n invites him inside to drink their beverages before the tea fully cools down, and he’s more than happy to accept her offer. The ride from the coffee house to her home had been uneventful, but it still managed to make Harry’s heart skip a beat whenever she’d turn to look at him when she had something to say. He thinks he’ll offer to take her home more often. 

They find Mason in the living room, Mulan playing on the TV. He’s just at the part where all of China bows down to the heroine. “Mason...” Y/n sings, putting her finger up to her lips when she briefly glances at Harry from over her shoulder. “I have a surprise for you!” 

When the little boy cranes his head back to his sister, he’s instantly filled with glee when he sees his new best friend right beside her. “Harry!” He jumps up and runs to him with lightning speed into Harry’s ready arms. “You’re here again?” he gasps when Harry picks him up.

“Of course!” Harry says firmly. “I told your sister that you and I still had to watch Lilo & Stitch together.” He reaches into the takeaway bag in Y/n’s hand and pulls out a smaller bag. “And I even got you a movie snack.” Mason bounces excitedly when he peeks inside. “Brownies!” he cheers. “Thanks, Harry!”

Just as they take a seat on the island stools, Jeremy frantically rushes in. His face full of surprise when he sees his daughter home so soon (he had been upstairs and thought someone might have broken into the house).

“How’d you get here so fast?” he questions.

“Harry gave me a ride,” she answers, taking a sip from her cup. “Yes! It’s still hot!” 

Jeremy looks to the boy next to her. “You drive?” 

“No, sir,” Harry shakes his head. He seats Mason in the chair on the other side of him “I do have a bike, though.” 

“A bike...” the older man repeats. He walks around the island to stand closer to Harry. “What kind of bike?”

Harry licks along his top lip as he places his cup down. “Um...” he thinks. “Just a regular bike, I guess.”

“Describe it.” 

“It’s silver!” Y/n offers after she swallows another mouthful of chai.

“Yeah,” Harry agrees. “I’ve had it for like a year now. I think it’s a cyclocross, maybe a hybrid.”

“What else?”

“Well, I put this Packers sticker on the–”

Jeremy slams his hand down on the table, causing both teens to jump in their seats (Mason is too taken with his brownie to notice). “Did you just say Packers?” He closes his eyes, and a curled fist rises solemnly to his lips. When what sounds like a sniffle erupts from him, Harry and Y/n look at each. 

“Dad?” Y/n asks, almost pleading. “Are you okay?” 

Her father nods his head, suddenly turning to face away from them. “Harry,” he croaks. “Would you...” 

Another sniffle sounds from him. Mason looks at his sister, confusion written all over his face. “What’s wrong with Daddy?” But she honestly can’t say she knows what’s going on. Meanwhile, Harry isn’t sure if he should leave. Was it something he said?

“Would you...” he starts up again. “Would you like to stay for dinner?” 

Harry’s jaw drops. 

“Uh...” But he’s completely out of words at the moment, mostly because he truly thought he was about to get thrown out. It’s no question, he’s getting a little fed up with the prepped meals that Anne had left him, and the look on both Y/n’s and Mason’s faces only encourages him further. 

With his pause, it’s quiet enough to hear the television in the next room. “Would you like to stay forever?”

“Yeah,” he smiles, “I’d love to.” 

***

[bishopsorphan]

Big Bad (Epic Ducifer AU, Dickifer, you know the drill)

“Oh, Lover Boy!”

Nick and Dean paused in the middle of sketching out the protective symbol they were drawing on the house of their latest case and looked up. A tall, blonde woman with bright blue eyes was standing a few paces behind them, smiling, her head tilted to admire their work. She was maybe twenty years old, wearing tight ripped jeans and an oversized black sweatshirt.

“Can we help you?” Nick asked, taking a step toward her.

“No,” she said, “but I can help you.” Her eyes glowed momentarily red.

“Oh, yeah, real funny, Luce,” Dean said, dropping his chalk and stepping up beside his boyfriend. “Drop the dame. We could use your help getting this place warded before Mrs. Murphy’s demon son comes crawling back again.”

The girl blinked, her eyes sliding blue again. “I’m sorry, but when did we start with the informalities?”

Nick and Dean exchanged confused glances. “When I was seven,” the hunter answered.

She smiled. “Right. That makes sense. Time travel, universe creation. What I want to know, is how my Nick ended up in your world.”

Said Nick paled considerably. “Lucifer?”

“Kind of inconsiderate, don’t you think?” she asked. “Praying me back from oblivion and then leaving me all alone in a world where everyone hates me.”

“I didn’t...”

“You did.” She stepped closer. “But it’s ok. I’m here now.” She reached out for him, slowly, smiling. “You let me in, we’ll go back home, and we’ll raze the planet to the ground. Just like old times.”

Dean wedged himself between them. “Yeah, you’re not taking him anywhere.”

“Is that what you think?”

Dean smirked. “Yes.”

Lucifer took another step closer, but was stopped by a blinding flash of light. It faded out to reveal Dean, eyes blazing red, shadowed wings stretched behind him, twin blades in his hands.

“Really?” Lucifer asked. “Dean Winchester? Ew.”

Luce scoffed. “You’re one to talk. Don’t think I can’t see your goopy ass in there. Say howdy to The Empty for me when send you back.”

“Well, look who found himself a high horse. You think you’re better than me? You are me. You can’t kill me.”

“Wanna bet?”

Lucifer grinned and spread her arms out. “Oh, you’ll never guess who I’m wearing. You think you’re the only one who can time travel? I must say, the new world is growing on me. And some thanks for it do seem to be in order. You went back, I went forward, and it turns out that you gave me a whole new generation to choose from.”

It took a moment for the remark to really sink in, a moment before Nick finally realized why the woman his old captor was wearing looked so familiar. The last time he’d seen her, she’d been coloring pictures at a dinner table, just a little girl, completely oblivious to the fact that he was there watching her with the angel that had made her existence possible.

“Gwen?”

Lucifer nodded. “Turns out Gwenny here’s a chip off the old block. Inherited daddy’s suicidal tendencies and penchant for Devil worship.”

“You let her go!” Nick lunged, but didn’t make it past Luce’s outstretched arm. The angel fisted a hand in the man’s shirt to hold him back, and suddenly they were in the bunker, states away.

“He took her!” Nick shouted, nose inches from the angel’s, glaring down at him as Dean’s green eyes stared passively back. “He took my daughter!”

Luce nodded, cupping Nick’s face with his hands. “He did. But not yet. Right now she’s still safe and sound in Delaware with our you, and Sarah, and Teddy. He does have standards, because I had those standards and he is a me that I could have been.” He stepped back and took a deep breath. “Fuck, this is gonna get confusing.”

“I don’t want him anymore,” Nick whispered. “I don’t need him. I want you. You and Dean.”

“You got us, Killer. We’ll stop Evil!Me. We’ll save Gwen. Together.” He blinked. “Fuck yeah!” Sighed. “That was Dean.”

Nick managed a small smile. “Figured.”

“Ok, well, let’s see if we can pawn Mrs. Murphy’s demon spawn off on some other hunter. We got us a new Big Bad to kill.”

[ravenriya]

For the love of levers (A Clarke Griffin and her levers story)

Contains spoilers for season 6

Madi smiled, seeing Clarke fast asleep on top of her drawings. Madi knows Clarke has been up all night. Some rest will be good for her.

“No…No, p-please-“ Clarke mumbled in her sleep. Her eyes scrunched up and body stiffened. Madi rushed to her and put a hand on her shoulder, trying to wake her up.

“Clarke…Clarke, wake up!”

Clarke woke up startled. Her hands reaching for Madi frantically.

“Madi?” She said “What happened? Is everything okay?”

“Yes. Everything is just as good as it was when you fell sleep.” Madi replied. “You were dreaming and-”

“Yeah, I just-“ Clarke paused. “You are supposed to be doing your homework.”

“Yeah, I was but then Jackson came by to ask if you will like to join this appendectomy he is doing in the evening. So I thought I’ll tell you.”

“God, you sound like mom.” Clarke smiled sadly. “Go now, do your homework.”

“Who sounds like mom now.” Madi rolled her eyes.

“You’re spending too much time with Murphy. He’s rubbing off on you.” Clarke said to her back, smiling.

Clarke stretches her arms. She was tired and her hurt a bit. She glanced back at drawing sheet she had fell asleep upon. The sketch brought her some peace deeply embedded in sadness. She took the paper and added it to her private sketchbook. A sketchbook that she never showed to anyone. A sketchbook filled with intricately drawn sketches of her only love.

Clarke turned over to the first page. The first time she had realised that she was not alone. That it was there for her. She still remembers the way it felt. Smooth and strong. The glassy finish and calmness that it entailed. The lever back in the spaceship in which she was sent to earth. The lever had come down with her. Had witnessed her struggles and responded with so much stillness that it filled Clarke’s insides with gratitude and respect. It did not let her do it alone. It held her hand as she burned her enemies to ashes. The sheer force and power of it amazed her.

Clarke sighed as she flipped to the next page. She closed her eyes immediately. It was the lever from the mountain. Not one of their best moments. But at least they were together. Together and powerful. It did not leave Clarke even when she wasn’t sure what to do. When Clarke pulled it, it irradiated hundreds of mountain man to save her loved ones. It bore it so she wouldn't have to. Clarke still rememberers how cold it felt. How ruthless. But it was on Clarke’s side nonetheless. So much power, yet still with her. That was the moment Clarke realised that their companionship was inevitable.

The next one, she saw in the City of light. Glittering in all its glory under the white light. It was unexpected. Clarke hadn’t anticipated meeting it there after what happen in the mountain. She had promised she would never touch it again if it meant death to people. But this time they both had grown so much without growing apart. This time it didn’t meant to kill it was their to save her. Her people. Her family. And when Becca and ALIE tried to drill their way into her head, she touched it. It immediately made her feel braver, stronger. Like they were meant to be together. She held it between her fingers and it gave her the power she needed. When she pulled it close inch by inch she felt the lightness in her head. The sense of content and love. The lever saved her once again.

Clarke wiped away the stray tears. The travel down the memory lane had taken more energy than she had anticipated. The next page was not a sketch of it. It was rather a sketch of herself at the top of the tower. If one looks closely, a wave of fire rolling in the background can be seen. The Praimfaya.

Clarke had thought she was left alone. When in fact she wasn’t. When Clarke saw it again on the top of the tower. She almost didn’t recognised it. The lever, it had grown so much. So evolved. But then again Clarke herself had grown much different. They both tried their best at the top of the tower to save her friends. Clarke knew it was the lever when she had to pull the satellite. When she had to touch the edges of the disc and pull it closer, it resisted. Clarke never understood why it had gone to such lengths to disguise itself and then resist. But somewhere deep inside, she knows the answer. The simple truth that it did not want her to suffer on earth when her friends live the rest of their lives in space. Because it wasn’t sure if this was their last moment together. But it succumbed to her wishes. How could it refuse her? How could it refuse her when she was so selfless and good? Clarke cried and screamed and fought as it went down in a ball of fire. As it wished to meet her in another life. Another time.

The fifth time Clarke met it, they both knew they were made for each other. That their whole life was a struggle to be close to each other. All the battles and sacrifices so that she could come near it. Touch it. Feel it. Love it. On the Eligius ship when Clarke found it again, she cherished it. She held it in her hand and felt the familiar connection once again. She sobbed. And it supported her. The lever never let go of her. It was ready to save her from Damocles. It got angry when Bellamy refused to come in. It wanted Clarke to pull. It wanted her to save herself. But she didn’t. So it stayed patient. It wasn’t like it will do anything against Clarke’s wishes. She was it’s queen. It’s ruler. The one it served with every atom constituted in it. The one it loved with its many forms and figures. She was it’s Wanlever.

The last and most recent drawing made Clarke’s heart break into millions of pieces. The lever that got her Mother (or her body) killed. Clarke still remembers the moment like it happened seconds ago. The grief and love etched so deep in her mind. When she had nothing and no one, the lever was there. The lever was the one constant thing in her life. And it held so much power for her. It made her so strong.

When her own mother’s mind was snatched by the primes, she was devastated. But it gave her leverage. The lever gave her leverage, ironic. It had witnessed so many deaths, floated so many people but it was their at Clarke’s command when she needed it the most. It saved her life again and more vigorously than one might think.

Simone pretended to be Abby, she might have believed her if it wasn’t for the lever. The lever in her hand vibrated, reminding her of its presence. It reminded her of all the times they had been together. All the times when humans did terrible things just to get what they want. They lie and cheat and pretend to be other people. It reminded her of all the people that were floated. It reminded her of her father.

“What’s my father’s name?” She asked although it ached like hell. And the answer was what she had known all along. A bloody fucking lie.

Simone-Abby launched herself but Clarke was too quick. She pulled it and it sent all the evil primes right out in space. But Simone-Abby clinged to Clarke. She pulled her and tried to climb back. All Clarke needed to do was push her. But for a moment, Clarke looked back at the lever. It seemed so far away. Could she do it? Could she float her own mother. The lever replied in stillness. Lowered and waiting for her. They had been through it all and still it waits for Clarke to make the right choice. The lever will stand by her no matter what she chose. It urges Clarke to choose the right thing. So she pushed taking one last glance at her mother’s face. She pushed until Simone-Abby floated away from her.

It was her will to go back to the lever that drove her to choose right. She fought and pulled herself back to it. She held it tightly and pulled it up, closing the air duct. For the next few minutes, it was just her and the lever, sitting there in silence sad Clarke sobbed for her mother. The lever stayed quite. It grounded her to reality for what was yet to be done. The lever anchored her.

And now looking back at the charcoal sketch of the lever, Clarke knew that only the lever understood her pain because they lived through the horrible things she did together. It was their for her when nobody else was, when an army of grounders attacked and everybody looked at her for a decision, when her friend’s lives were on the line, when an artificial intelligence tried to take over the world, when the world ended again, when she went back to space and when her own mother tried to kill her. It was there forever and always.

Clarke blinked out of her trance when she heard a faint knock on the door of her studio. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and opened the door slightly to reveal Bellamy standing on the other side.

“Hey,” he smiled.

“Hi,” she replied. “What are you doing here?”

“I…I have something I just wanted to drop off.” Bellamy said sheepishly. “Can I come in?”

“Yeah, sure.” Clarke opened the door wider.

Bellamy walked in to the centre of the studio, under the dimly lit chandelier. Clarke stood right in front of him, smiling slightly. They still weren’t used to these casual walk-ins. When there was no matter of urgency, no one trying to kill them and no earth was being attacked. It felt odd but nice.

“So…?” Clarke trailed off.

Bellamy held out a small packet that he was holding behind his back. It was neatly wrapped and tied by a thread in a small brown paper.

“What’s this?” Clarkd asked curiously.

“Open it.” Bellamy said. “I once saw Finn made you one of these for you…so, I thought I’ll give it a try, you know…”

Clarke pulled the end of the thread excitedly, it wasn’t everyday that she got gifts. The package opened to reveal a necklace. But when she looked closer to the pendant, it was something magnificent. Something that took her breath away. She gasped. A miniature lever made of shiny metal encased in a gold frame. She couldn’t believe her eyes. It looked perfect with little handles and everything.

“Bellamy…” Clarke said in a teary voice.

“I had nothing else to do - and it was there a metal plate in Ryker’s workshop - I thought I would make you one of these…” He rambled. “Do you like it?”

“I love it!” Clarke laughed. “But how did you know - is it that obvious?”

Bellamy chuckled. “Yeah.”

“Hey, don’t laugh.” She bumped his shoulder playfully. “Thank you, Bellamy. I don’t know how to explain I-”

“It’s okay. I get it. You don’t have to explain what you love and why you love. Besides, it’s a new world. Anything’s possible.”

“Anything is possible.” Clarke repeated and embraced Bellamy in a hug. “Thank you, for everything.” Bellamy nodded and held her tightly. She closed her fist around the mini lever pendant and held close, feeling the mental pour love in her.

May we meet again.

[antoine-roquentin]

You’ve been an activist since you were a teenager. You’ve been very visible in the Occupy movement. When it comes to raising awareness for change, how different are you finding the power of a movie from the power of the street?

With a movie, you have the power of putting out an idea about the world and for people to take it seriously. I think often the stuff that we see just re-situates the status quo and confirms it. But my hope is to talk about things that could be.

I think the movements — even ones that I’ve been involved with — over the last 50 years have been mainly about spectacle, mainly about showing that people are fed up with something and not one that’s power-based, whereas movements of the ’20s and ’30s used the withholding of labor as their power base.

When they came out on the street in the ’20s and ’30s with 50,000 workers, they were able to say, “These are 50,000 people who can shut down your industry.”

And that was just a demonstration — that was a demonstration of power. What are we demonstrating when we get 50,000 people on the street today? We are demonstrating that it’s great for us to talk to each other because it allows us to say, “Well, here are people that are thinking the same thing I am, and people who are fed up.”

But in the end, it doesn't have the ability to exact change. It doesn’t have the ability to exact a demand. And in that way, it’s spectacle.

Therefore, doing a movie is similar in some regard, in the sense it is spectacle. It is talking about ideas. But I was involved in Occupy Oakland. And we have the most people of Occupy [nationally] to show up because we’ve called for a general strike in Oakland. And we got 50,000 people to show up because people were like, “Wow, this is something that might be able to do something.”

We all — even at a base level, even a Republican — understand that the people with the money are the ones with the power. We all learn that.

But what we don’t learn is that we are the ones that give the folks with money their wealth, and that we can cut those purse strings or hold back on them, and therefore have a conversation with power by using our power.

There are many people who, like your character Cassius — Cash — who say, “Look, I agree with you, but I need to pay the bills, and if I have to cross a picket line to do it, so be it. I’ll take whatever they pay me, and I’m happy to get it.” What makes these people feel they have any power?

I think that people end up realizing, in those situations, that they are just pawns as well, and they’re by themselves. You can’t get much done by yourself. Speaking as someone who made a movie — and it took hundreds of people to make it happen — I can say that. And any movement that we see, any big change, does take other people.

I actually don’t think most people would make those decisions [like Cash]. I think some would relate to what he’s saying.

One the one hand, many movements have put being involved in social justice as an extracurricular activity, as something you do when you’re off work or on Saturdays or whatever. And people say, I can’t be involved in it — I got to pay the bills. And we haven’t been organizing in the way that helps people pay the bills.

If there is a different kind of movement, where it is organizing around those things, organizing around putting food on the table, I think we’ll have a whole different look at these movements. People shouldn’t have to get involved after work; they should be able to get involved at work.

In the film, you make a lot of points by exaggeration. But it’s not that much of a stretch. For example, in China, you’ve got suicide nets hanging outside dormitories where workers live. And in your movie — I won’t ruin it for anyone — you make the point about workers being literally dehumanized.

In the movie, there’s [the fictional mega-corporation] Worry Free, which does lifetime contracts; you’re guaranteed housing, employment and food for life, and these things don’t exist in the U.S. It’s not only that they exist in other countries, but they really exist here because [of the overseas corporations] making things for U.S. corporations, so the exaggeration is only of geography.

There are so many things in this movie that, when I wrote them, hadn’t happened yet. For instance, one character in the 2014 version has the line that “Worry Free is making America great again.”

The reason that these things are becoming more and more clear to us now is because it’s connected to our economic system, not just connected to who’s in elected office.

You use humor as a storytelling device. The Coup’s 1993 album, “Kill My Landlord,” made me think of the old Eddie Murphy “Saturday Night Live” sketch “Kill My Landlord.” So the steel wrapped inside the smile seems to work a little better than all steel?

See, I don’t even look at it that way. I came up around organizers, a group of them who had come from the British mining strikes of the ’80s, and then some who were older and had been in the whole CP [Communist Party] days. These are jokesters. They know how to relate to people. They’re full of jokes, and the way that they’re pointing out things is really true.

The reason why it’s funny is this: Analysis is looking at how something works, and when you’re explaining how something works, that means explaining the contradictions in it. That point of contradiction is very similar to irony, and irony and humor go hand in hand.

And so it’s all one thing to me. It’s not like I have to put sugar on it.

When you wrote your screenplay around 2012, Barack Obama was the president and he was being reelected. But you also had Mitt Romney talking about the 47%. What’s changed in those years that your movie now gets made and distributed?

Movements. Movements coming to fruition. There’s been the Black Lives Matter movement, Occupy — all of those things showing that people want something different.

Also there was a [movie] development process that had to happen between then and now. At that time, I hadn’t gone through the Sundance [Institute screenwriting] labs, which gave people a lot more confidence in what I was doing.

There’s just a confluence of so many things that came together for this to happen. And I’m glad it didn’t happen before.

Why?

I probably would have been so eager for it to happen that there may have been other things that I would have compromised about. Through the process of the Sundance lab, I got a lot of good notes [about the screenplay]. I will say that the screenplay was controversial, in the sense that narrative-structure wise, it doesn’t do everything it’s supposed to do — “supposed to” in quotations.

And they’re all giving me advice, some of them that are extremely contradictory to each other. And then at some point, some of them are getting in heated conversations, and then I realized through this that nobody knows what they’re doing, and it’s up for grabs, right? You can do something different and fail, meaning it doesn’t connect to people. Or you could do something different, and it really works.

But it’s true about people wanting a good story, and a good story having to keep people on their toes to a certain extent.

If we were to update a movement anthem — maybe from “We Shall Overcome” — could you write one? What would it sound like? What would it say?

It would probably be a song from my last album, a song called “The Guillotine.” It’s a metaphorical guillotine because [if] you use the guillotine for real, just more of them pop up.

It’s talking about the idea that we have the ability to have a society where the people democratically control the wealth that we create with our labor, so we don’t have someone ruling us in that way.

Is this a system you’d ever take part in by running for office?

Nope. Here’s the thing: I know where the seat of power really is. And it’s not in the elected office.

Where is it?

It’s in the ruling class, the folks that have the money. For lack of a more understandable thing, the 1%, you know. Those are the puppeteers. The folks in office are the puppets. If we can make a movement that can get to the puppeteers, then the puppets will do whatever we want.

Think about it like this: Affirmative action came in under [President] Nixon, and it’s not because he just had one contradiction where he had some progressive idea and was like, “Hey, let’s do this.” No, it’s because the ruling class was afraid of this movement that was building.

Let’s take it back to even the New Deal. It’s the biggest liberal reform we’ve had in the 20th century — that and the civil rights bill. But that didn’t come because of a big campaign to get FDR in office. That came because all throughout the South, and places like Alabama, Utah, Colorado, Oklahoma, there were mining strikes, shutting down mines.

In the Midwest at the same time, in the ’20s and ’30s, there were people occupying factories. On the West Coast, at that time, there were the longshoremen who were shutting down the ports to create there, for the first time, a union.

In that milieu, with revolutions going on all around the world, the ruling class was afraid of an actual movement, perhaps a revolutionary movement happening, and because of that, we’ve got the New Deal, specifically because that’s what the left focused on — movements that were able to withhold labor.

So if we’re looking for extreme changes like that, and we want elected officials to make big changes like that, we’ve got to stop focusing only on elections because then we’re going to get caught in this cycle.

Right now, the next time a Democrat gets in office, all they have to do is be two inches to the left of [President] Trump.

The evil genius of Trump is that he’s already got the Democratic Party and people who want him out to move to the right in order to get him out. You got people cheering on the CIA and the FBI, this false nationalism where people are cheering, “Let’s only use politicians that only take U.S. billionaires’ money.”

There are people that are doing this that know better. But the opportunism of electoral politics makes people lie to each other.

Usually people ask filmmakers, “What do you want the audience to come out of the theater thinking?” But I’d like to know what you’d like the audience to come out of the theater doing.

I’d like people to get involved in campaigns and get involved in organization that can actually effect change. I hope that people are able to be involved in movements that take place at their job, that creates them, all of those things. For that to happen from the movie, that would be a lot, but that would be a great thing if it did happen.

But hopefully what happens is that organizations that are already taking on campaigns to change things, they will use the knowledge — one of the reasons that people like this movie is that it talks about changing the world — to get people involved in what they’re doing.

[clexa-portland-boxing-au]

Lastly, 43 and 50 for all characters, or for as many as you can be bothered to write on here haha xD

43) emoji this character uses the most whilst texting?

lmao that’s hard ^^ With your permission (which I will just assume) I’ll go most frequent/ top emojis for the characters, since I’m bad at choosing. Okay I’ll do my best and also put little explanations/context with it underneath:

Clarke:

(She’s often late and sorry, nope, I’m being cutesy/omw, dirty mind/just being derpy for no reason, please kill me now (usually because of uni))

Raven:

(I’m evil and I know it, details!/what mee?!?!, OI!, hehe, her response to derp Clarke when they’re just texting to text each other out of boredom, I’m a unicorn motherfuckersssss/deal with it, and also just any and all food emojis really)

Octavia:

(I didn’t just let Raven do the thing/ talk me into that thing, omfg no way, I’m at the gym, let’s party/I need a drink, fuck you (Bellamy))

Lincoln:

(at the gym, love hearts to Octavia, we/you can do this!, Lenny the Good Luck Duck which he sends to the kids at the Youth Center when he knows they have an exam or something, Good Morning text to his mom and now Octavia as well)

Lexa doesn’t really use emojis. Sometimes a thumbs up when she’s confirming plans.

I’ll do the other characters another time :) I love this ask, but I need to do something else now, cause I’m afraid I’ll dream of emojis if I stare at them any longer...

50) this character’s guilty pleasure?

Clarke: waffles and climbing on things

Raven: talking Octavia into doing something stupid and high-adrenaline like pushing her (Raven) down a hill in a shopping cart while drunk (and more importantly while Clarke is drunk enough to not lecture them about it) She just wants to feel the thrill sports gave her again

Octavia: binging reality TV shows and yelling at all the stupidity

Lexa: tripping Anya when she’s being especially annoying; curling up in a ball on her bed and listening to audio books on her headphones

Anya: Smoking; going to car shops and looking at motor cycles

Lincoln: his mom’s pies; getting drunk and dancing to horrible 90s songs while singing along

Bellamy: making power-point presentations of the house he wants to build for his future wife someday; buying his dog new toys

Murphy: watching cooking shows at night on his laptop; annoying bellamy with pictures of hot guys

Jasper: getting someone to have a mouth stuffing contest with him (cause he always wins); editing stupid video clips and sending them to his friends

Monty: anonymously beating Jasper’s high scores at GTA and other online games and watching him go nuts the next day; going to museums and sketching the art and how it makes him feel even though he can’t draw

[xtruss]

Saturday Night Live: Eddie Murphy Returns After 35 Years and Lives Up to Hype

Murphy reprises some of his most popular characters, and reminds us that no one can match him

The final Saturday Night Live of 2019 turns out to have been an early Christmas gift for all, as comedy kingpin Eddie Murphy returned to the show after 35 years.

It opens with the latest Democratic primary debate, which “just like The Bachelor, the further we go, the less diverse it gets”.

It’s another overstuffed, star-studded affair, featuring, Rachel Dratch’s try-hard Amy Klobuchar, Larry David’s finnicky Bernie Sanders, Fred Armisen’s droopy Michael Bloomberg, and Jason Sudeikis’s sundowning Joe Biden.

The candidates start to argue over wine caves, but they’re interrupted by a number of hangers-on, including martini-swishing dropout Kamala Harris (Maya Rudolph), Wicked Witch of the Democratic party Tulsi Gabbard (Cecily Strong) and even Trump (Alec Baldwin) himself, who, channeling daytime talk shows, dares them to “Impeach me outside, losers!”

As usual, David’s Sanders is the standout, although Sudeikis almost steals the show with his rambling bravado (it’s a toss-up as to who makes for a better Biden, he or Woody Harrelson).

Eddie Murphy hosts SNL for the first time since 1984, making this the most highly anticipated episode in recent memory. He starts his monologue talking about his new baby girl, getting in a killer dig at Bill Cosby by asking, “Who’s America’s Dad now?” Given the past animosity between Murphy and the disgraced Cosby, this feels downright triumphant.

Tracy Morgan, Chris Rock and Dave Chapelle all show up to pay homage to him. While lighting up a cigarette, Chapel notes that he followed Murphy’s blueprint for his entire career: “I became the biggest star on television and then I quit.”

While some might be disappointed that we weren’t treated to any new standup from Murphy, it’s hard to complain about watching four of the funniest comedians of their generation swap jokes with one another while celebrating Murphy’s legacy.

There was no question this episode would see Murphy reprise some of his most popular characters from his time as a cast member, and we dive right in with a new episode of Mister Robinson’s Neighborhood.

A lot has changed since last we saw Mister Robinson, but he’s managed to hold onto his apartment even as gentrification has completely transformed the neighborhood .

How has managed this? The answer is also the mantra of the day: Squatter’s Rights. He’s visited by a couple of his new neighbors, who, he tells us, paid over a million for the unit “where Mr. Robinson’s old neighbor Freddy use to cook crack!”

They accuse him of stealing their brand-new TV, but he manages to scare them off by flying into a fit of his trademark baritone rage.

He then needs to skip out through the back window when a long-lost son tracks him down with the help of 23 & Me. Murphy is great here, effortlessly picking up where he left off 35 years ago.

Musical guest Lizzo, host Eddie Murphy, and Kenan Thompson during promos.

On Holiday Baking Championship, contestants design cakes based on cherished Christmas memories. Three of the four confections are inedible monstrosities based on real-life baking disasters, with Murphy’s grotesque hedgehog cake being a literal demon who speaks in “evil backwards devil talk”.

A good sketch to begin with (props to the props department), Murphy still manages to elevate it with top-notch delivery. He’s clearly having a blast, too.

Another of Murphy’s most beloved characters returns in The Masked Singe, as a mystery contestant sheds his Corn on the Cob costume and reveals himself to be none other than Buckwheat.

The aged Little Rascals star samples a number of classic songs, such as “I Chot Da Chariff” (I Shot the Sheriff), “Aneese Nameena” (Feliz Navidad), and “R-E-S-P-T-T-D” (Respect). Fans of the characters will enjoy his return, though there’s not much beyond easy nostalgia.

Lizzo is the night’s musical performer. She performs her anthem Truth Hurts, backed by an all-female rock band as well as her loyal dancers, The Big GRRRLS.

On Weekend Update, Colin Jost and Michael Che start to rundown the impeachment of Donald Trump, only to be interrupted by a chorus of bleeped cursing as the segment is invaded by none other than Gumby (dammit!).

The acid tongued, cigar chomping green misanthrope marks his triumphant return by utterly laying waste to the hosts, especially Che, who he repeatedly refers to as “you black bastard!”. Murphy doesn’t just kill it here, he absolutely slaughters it, bringing the house and hosts to tears.

Next up is a new edition of Black Jeopardy, featuring Murphy’s smooth-talking pimp Velvet Jones, who uses the show to promote his bestselling book, I Wanna Be a Ho (as well as a couple new editions, such as How to Be an Instagram Ho), but has to reckon with the #MeToo movement.

This one falls a little flat, with Murphy stumbling over his lines. Also, I know that Velvet Jones is a fan favorite, but I can’t help but think the sketch would have been better served if Murphy had adopted the titular character from his (great) new film, Dolemite Is My Name.

Lizzo returns and, surrounded by a winter wonderland replete with candy-cane dance poles, performs a noel-themed version of Good as Hell.

Like fellow 2019 comeback king Adam Sandler’s return to SNL last season, Murphy’s return somehow managed to live up to the massive hype preceding it. He reminded us that, when he’s working at full power, no one can match him. A true Christmas miracle.

— Guardian USA

[x-letsbreaksomerules-x]

they’re the worst im going to chew on them

[smokescreen24]

50 DND Questions

1. What do you think your d&d race would be? Proabably human. If I get the choice, I’d like to be either an Elf or Dragonborn. I’d be cool with either of those. 

2. What class? Mostly likely a fighter? I’m not religious enough for a cleric, and not smart enough for a sorcerer or wizard. I like the idea of being able to throw hands. 

3. What two feats would you have? I’d want the Alert feat, and more than likely the Lucky feat. Alert means my initiative gets improved, and Lucky means that I can reroll a bad throw. Those would get used a lot. 

4. What has been your favorite d&d character you've played? (NPCs count for DMs) I’ve only got the two for now, but Liander’s been getting the most love. She’s probably my favorite. 

5. Which of your d&d characters has been the most like you? Oh, Liander, without a doubt. She’s pretty close to my baseline personality.

6. Which of your d&d characters has been the least like you? And that would be Cade. Cade is just this side of Chaotic Evil, so she’s a little harder for me to get into the right headspace for. Playing her takes a lot out of me, to be honest. 

7. How do you go about making a character or NPC? That’s hard to say - I give the session about an hour or so to feel it out, and let the personalities develop naturally over time. My playing style is reactive, so I let the situation dictate how said character would respond. 

8. What is the most memorable natural 20 you've ever experienced? That would be with Cade. I’d rolled to take out a stone giant, suplexed them (because she’s a barbarian and her strength stat is wild), then chopped his dick off with my battleaxe like I was swinging a golf club. It uh, made an impression on the rest of the party, and the rest of the enemies. 

9. Has one of your d&d characters ever died? How? Not yet, so don’t jinx me! I’m still attached to both of them, and would like to keep them around! 

10. What is your favorite class to play? So far, it’s been my ranger. She’s fun, and I’m digging the whole ‘animals as companions’ thing she’s got going. 

11. Have you ever fought a dragon? Yes. Between Cade and Paileous, we cut it’s head off. It’s currently a trophy back at home base. Got a lot of gold for our trouble, too. 

12. Have you ever fought a beholder? NO. Not entirely sure I wanna, either! 

13. Have you ever fought a mind flayer? No, but it’s coming up. My buddy is having us roll new characters for the Underdark campaign. I might try a cleric just for funsies. 

14. Have you ever had a romance with an NPC or another PC? Nope. I am here to tell you that neither of my characters is looking for any of that. Liander’s too busy, and Cade is a halfling barbarian surrounded by equally questionable Drow paladins and rouges. No thanks. 

15. Do you prefer to DM or play?  I have no desire to DM. I’ve only been playing for a little while, and I’m not creative enough to attempt it. I’ll stick to playing. I’m good at that. 

16. What is your favorite D&D pod/vodcast? I’ve been listening to Critical Role - I’m relistening to the Whitestone/Chroma Conclave arcs. I love No Mercy Percy so much. 

17. Who is your favorite "celebrity dm?" I only know the one - Matt Mercer. 

18. Do you use props/minis/terrain in your game? Very rarely. I think we’ve only had like, two sessions that actually had terrain and mini’s. 

19. How did you discover D&D? My friends. I sat in on one of their games, and just for the hell of it, they rolled me a character, and thus Cade was born. 

20. If you run a homebrew game, give an out of context spoiler. I’m not running it, but smuggling is a thing, and the dude we’re smuggling for is someone whose face is on a wanted poster in my pocket. 

21. Drop a picture of a mini you painted (if applicable) Sorry, I don’t have any minis. They’re all with my DM. 

22. Write a brief scene centered around one of your characters! Uh, hang on -  "That was nice. I didn't ask you to get it for me, and I distinctly remember telling you I can get my own. Not my fault you don't listen worth a damn." Liander says with a slight grin. She doesn't know why, but she likes poking at Chancel. Not many folks react the way he does, and the scowl he sends her just makes her grin wider. "Come on. I cannot possibly be the only one who's pointed that out to you." 

 "Yeah, me. Two minutes ago." Zulth mutters into his mug.

23. Do you have any art of your characters? Yeah, one of my more artistic friends drew a sketch of Liander for me, complete with her cat on her shoulder. It’s pretty cool. It’s also huge, which is why I’m not posting it here. 

24. Have you ever played any TTRPGs other than D&D? No, this is my first foray into TTRPGs. 

25. What is your favorite snack for d&d? I reach for Cheetos or Doritos usually. They’re good, crunchy snacks. 

26. If you could have one potion from d&d, which one would you choose? If I could just load up on superior healing potions for life, I’d be a happy woman. 

27. If you could cast one spell from d&d, which would you cast? Fireball. That’s a nice equalizer, I think. 

28. What is the most memorable natural 1 you've experienced? Oh man. That would be with Liander this time. She was trying to sneak into a well fortified part of the city, and tamper with the water supply for one family. Well, I had to roll to hop the fence to do so, rolled a natural one, my foot caught in the fence, and there was a dog right in front of me. Landed on my face, and got bitten for my trouble. Still got the mission done, though. 

29. Have you ever been drunk playing d&d? I’ve been buzzed. Does that count? 

30. Homebrew or prewritten? Both? Both. Both is good. 

31. Tell me about your current party! Which one? Well, for the Alagaesia campaign, there’s my character Liander, a dwarf named Thorin, a rouge(?) named Zulth, an herbalist named Liam, and the man who hired us, an NPC named Bjorn. We’re actually trying to accomplish something with this campaign, or so the DM says. 

For the Guardians of Gravenhollow campaign, I’m a halfling barbarian named Cade, there’s a drow Paladin named Varis, and another Drow rouge named Paileous. This particular campaign is just chaotic evil fuckery. 

32. Most memorable NPC you've encountered in a game you played in. Victor. He built a clock, I wanted his tinkering kit, and wound up buying both at a just criminally low price. I kinda feel like I ripped him off, tbh. 

33. Do you listen to music while playing? What kinds? Mostly the Skyrim soundtrack with a little Witcher soundtrack thrown in for funsies. Atmospheric stuff. 

34. Favorite accent to do for characters? I don’t really have one for either of my characters. Mostly because I’m bad at keeping it up. I forget. 

35. Favorite classic d&d trope Tragic Backstory(TM). Only one of my characters has it, but it’s damn fun to role-play.

36. What was your first d&d character you made? That would be Cade! She started out as kind of a throw-away, but she got mixed in with Paileous and Varis and she’s living her best chaotic life. 

37. What is the most recent PC or NPC you've created? That’d be Kahtri, actually! I haven’t played her a whole bunch, so I’m not really familiar with her yet, but it’ll be interesting to play a Drow cleric who doesn’t actually worship Lolth. (I don’t do spiders.)

38. Goblins or Kobolds? I actually haven’t dealt with either yet. I’m slightly more familiar with Goblins simply because of CritRole. 

39. Favorite villain you've defeated? Uh, I dunno if I’d classify her as a villian exactly, but Cade’s killed an NPC named Creed who was a servant to the god Grotz. Pretty sure he’s out for revenge now. 

40. What d&d deity would you be a cleric of? I am a cleric of the Drow deity Elistraee. (I had to double check the spelling on that) 

41. Give an out of context quote from one of your games! Liander - “I tried to stop him, but he fucking yote me across the room like I wasn’t even there. Is it weird I’m bitter about that?”

Thorin - *emerges from the wreckage of the crate we were smuggling holding dragon eggs* “I FOUND LIVING ROCKS!” 

Liander and Zulth in tandem - *knows exactly what he’s holding* “Oh for fuck’s sake!” 

42. Have you ever rolled turn into a potted plant on the wild magic table? No, I don’t think I know anyone who plays that particular class, so I’ve never seen it happen. 

43. Minis and terrain or theater of the mind? Theater of the mind, good sir/madam. 

44. Mulligan, Mercer, Murphy, or McElroy? Mercer! Mercer! Mercer! 

45. What is the longest session you've ever had? Oh, jeez. Like, fourteen hours, give or take?

46. What is the longest battle you've fought or run? Uh, that’d be the fight with Creed. It took us like two hours to beat her down with three of us. She was stupid powerful. The bounty was great, though. 

47. Have you ever played at level 20? No, my highest level character is a level 11. I’m working on it, though. 

48. Does your dm say "How do you want to do this?" Oh yes. The table just blows up when that happens, not gonna lie. It’s fun to hear, especially if it’s aimed at you. 

49. Have you ever played an edition other than 5th? No, I started playing last year, so 5th is all I know. 

50. Will you try to convince others to play? Already done so. I’ve added a couple people to the group - my husband, whose character is the best straight man to our fuckery, and one of our mutual friends whose lunacy works with our brand of crazy. 

[starsofmirkwood]

I would love to read your story about not being able to disappoint the sun, it sounds interesting :) Hope you have a wonderful day!

Thank you sweetie!!

I wrote this in my Junior year of high school, when I was taking a creative writing class. Our prompt was to write a story with an epiphany in it, so I decided to write mine about the idea of cosmic indifference, and how it could be perceived as comforting, from the perspective of an utterly miserable teenage boy. I don’t remember what I titled it, so… I’m open to suggestions! :)

…

It was drizzling. The sky was a frozen grey, and the wind came and went in halfhearted swirls. It was a lifeless day, a day to stay inside and avoid people. The kind that numbed you, made you feel just as dull as the thick clouds, as cold as the rain. Sam shut his eyes as he took a long breath.

He had never been a morning person. Not on mornings like these. Being awake was better than sleep, at this point. Third night in a row of restlessness. He didn’t feel tired. The air stinging his ears woke him up. He wished he had a hat, and maybe some coffee. He hated coffee. He tugged his jacket tighter around himself and tried dodging the rain as he shuffled to class.

Sam slung his backpack under his table and brushed the rain from his shoulders, shaking as he felt a drop of water run from his soaked hair down his forehead and into his eye. Blinking furiously, he pushed his hair out of his face. He was freezing.

Art class. He liked it a bit. He could draw well enough to capture the beauty in things. His classmates told him he was amazing. Ms. Earley said he had a gift. For him, it wasn’t good or bad. It was relaxing, watching his hand create things. It was a way of getting his feelings out without anyone knowing. A hiding place.

Today he painted. Ignoring the instructions to compose scenery, he sketched a face. Nobody he knew. Dark hair and a sharp nose. A man’s face. Intelligent eyes. The whole thing was done in watery shades of blues and greens. Sam was satisfied. He signed his name in ink, and turned it in. He got a frown from Ms. Earley for dismissing the assignment. He left the room 6 minutes early. He wouldn’t get in trouble. Never did. If anyone asked, Ms. Earley would tell them he was in the bathroom.

The hallway was quiet. Six minutes of peace. He did end up in the bathroom, grabbing a wad of paper towels to wipe some of the water from his hair. It was mostly dry now, but the clinging dampness felt stifling. Sam caught his reflection in the mirror. He looked pale. Was he sick? He needed sleep. Dark circles framed his eyes. His hair was wild, frizzy with moisture and curled into awkward waves in places. He looked a mess.

He smoothed his hair down with a yawn. He didn’t want to be here. Or anywhere. Restlessness crept back up. Always. God, he didn’t want to be here.

Splashing some water on his face, Sam took a long breath that came out dangerously close to a sob. He stared at his reflection. He didn’t recognize the stranger there. The clothes were his, but the boy wearing them… he looked defeated. Sam turned away. He was tired.

Next class was biology. It fascinated Sam, oddly. All the pretty miracles of nature and the cycles of everything. Ordered, yet chaotic. Not as nice as anatomy would be, but intriguing. Life and how it works. Death. It was all the same. Fascinating.

Watched a video in class. Something about the Sonoran Desert. Sam didn’t take notes. He doodled a saguaro cactus, thinking about humanity, and how it doesn’t matter how tall and strong you are, or how much you surround yourself in protection and spines, when a storm hits, man and cactus alike are capable of falling.

Literature class. Tolerable on good days. Today was not a good day. No days were. Sam endured it anyway, on the basis that it really was something worth learning. Many things were. Most things weren’t.

Sam picked up his copy of Lord of the Flies, opened it to a random page. He had loved the book. It was fast paced, gripping, more beast than boy. Spoke volumes about the human race without saying a word.

The corners of the paperback were getting bent, and one page was folded at an odd angle. He had dropped the book once, and it had landed in such a way that had damaged it. It was funny, in a demented sort of way.

Sam drummed his fingers on his keyboard. An essay about the theme of the book. Due next Tuesday. Sam didn’t know where to start. The theme. Which one? There were many possibilities. Good and evil, civilization and savagery, rules and discord, knowledge and fear and power and wisdom, Ralph and Jack and Simon and Roger and Piggy and it was overwhelming. Sam typed what he knew. Man is inherently evil. Every man. Primitive and unholy. He didn’t need the book to tell him. Jack Merridew. Anarchy and chaos. Order and laws keep people from savagery. That’s what the book said. Sam rather liked Jack. Something about his untamable aberrance appealed to him, reminded him, terrifyingly, thrillingly, of himself.

The printer whirred and beeped as his essay came through. It smelled like ink and stale paper. He proofread his work, for a third time, this time on a physical copy, and decided that his words were sufficiently eloquent and precise, he stapled the papers together with a twang, and tucked the essay into the folder on Mr. Tennyson’s desk.

Ignoring the keyboard clicks and off-topic ramblings of his classmates, Sam spent the rest of the time reading a new book from the library. It was fiction, although Sam preferred fact, but it was entertaining enough to pass the time. About the future and space and war and all those useless distractions. A means of worthwhile escapism, rarely found.

Math was next. Well, Sam loved math. It was the one class he looked forward to, even though his excitement had been rather depleted lately. His teacher loved him. Called on him to solve problems, write out the answer on the board. It wasn’t a chore. Numbers and patterns spiraling to infinity filled his head, and were a thing of beauty to him. Fibonacci’s sequence, algorithms like Turing’s, number theories, abstractions and differentials made sense to him and connected in his head so perfectly, like universal strings inside his mind. A bit too complex for simple geometry, but he smugly enjoyed being smarter than his classmates. It made the loneliness easier to bear.

Today, Mr. Murphy’s lesson was on the area of cones and pyramids and frustums, and Sam already knew all this. He tried to pay attention anyway, because he sort of liked the old man, even if he was a bit too kind and gave the class far too much leniency. Sam personally rooted for him to grow a backbone and actually stand up for himself, but he never mentioned it, figuring a man who couldn’t even trim his ear hair probably wasn’t going to be teaching much longer anyway.

Mr. Murphy didn’t call on him that day, so Sam rotated between doing his homework and taking notes. He only bothered with either because he got a grade for it, and what little motivation he had left pushed him through it. It was just mathematics. Nothing unbearable, he told himself.

Study hall was the worst time of day. Hideously dull, eternally a waste of Sam’s time. He’d played at deductions for a while. Boring after the first three days. Nothing stimulating, nothing more than bland, unexceptional people. Some were less tedious than others.

There was Eliza, the awkward girl with acne on her forehead and thoroughly good intentions. She smiled at Sam occasionally, and probably would have sat with him from time to time if he didn’t make it abundantly clear that he didn’t care for company. She wasn’t stupid. She wasn’t particularly smart either, but what she lacked in communicative aptitude she more than made up for in altruism and quiet observation.

Laurel was Eliza’s opposite in nearly every way, Sam had decided. Confident, charming, and brilliant, Sam admired her. She was shallow, but intimate. She wouldn’t say much that wasn’t entirely superficial, but the way she carried herself, the smiles she’d give out so freely, and the way she’d speak so softly you’d have to lean close to hear her, made it feel like she was a close friend, or a lover. But she was clever, and radiated femininity, and although Sam had never talked to her, he could sense her intelligence in the knowing depth her eyes held when her gaze met his.

A boy, Jeremy, had been in Sam’s history class last year. They’d been partners for a project. They weren’t friends, but the taller boy had been kind to Sam, although Sam had done most of the work for the project. They’d both received good grades, and hadn’t spoken since.

There were the typical workaholic kids, furiously scribbling words onto wrinkled lined paper, textbooks open and creased from use. Other kids cared much less, a category Sam was tempted to fall into, but he made good grades regardless. Music blared from one back corner of the room, where a group of assholes refused to put in headphones and valued their short-lived, unsatisfying pleasure over the needs of other people who wanted nothing more than to finish the assignment they hadn’t had time to do last night.

Sam occupied himself with looking out a window. It was raining harder now, and the dimness outside gave way to a ghostly, barely-there reflection on the pane of glass, and Sam stared into the poor imitation of his eyes. He blinked tiredly and tried not to think. He distracted himself from his thoughts with other thoughts. It was bitter and funny, how that played out. It never worked.

Sam dodged and wove his way through the whirling chaos of students in a too-small hallway, shifting and ducking when those prone to being inconsiderate made sudden stops or decided to walk slowly, and in groups.

He still had one class left, but the unsated, miserable part of himself, the foremost part, couldn’t take it. Thinking about any more pressure in his day made his eyes water in anxiety, and his fingers shook a bit. He ducked into the bathroom for a second time in the day, and was surprised that he wasn’t alone.

He coughed as he stumbled into the hazy air, blinking smoke from his eyes and clutching a sleeved fist over his mouth and nose. Another boy was standing by the sink, flicking ash onto the counter carelessly. He had thick hair that fell across his eyes, high eyebrows, and long, bony arms. He turned his noble head lazily to watch Sam, and he must have sensed that Sam was on the verge of breaking down, because he smiled at him. It wasn’t a kind smile, and didn’t reach his eyes. It was akin to sympathy. Pitying. But he reached into his pocket and fished out his box of cigarettes and held it out to Sam anyway.

Sam looked from his eyes to the box and back. He’d never smoked, and never intended to, but when the boy shook the box, threatening to put it away, Sam grabbed one and stuck it between his teeth. Without a word, the boy lit it for him, and Sam took a long breath, and barely managed to swallow his coughing fit. He exhaled in a thick grey puff that made his eyes sting and his throat hurt. He loved it.

A few minutes passed in blissful silence as the two smoked. A time came when Sam turned his head and found the other boy was gone. He didn’t know how long it had been. A smoke alarm went off in a piercing wail, and Sam realized why the boy had left. He took his still burning cigarette and held it against the wood of the counter until it burned a small black spot, growing bigger and bigger until it caught fire, and the fire spread. Sam slipped out of the bathroom door soundlessly and unnoticed, smooth as the cloud of smoke that trailed with him.

…

The night was quiet. Once everyone had gotten over the hype and the hysteria of the school’s fire had died out, it was like the silence after a thunderstorm subsides. The school hadn’t been badly damaged. They had put the fire out before it could spread farther than the bathroom, and no one had been injured. Sam wanted to be glad about that, but he found himself unable to fully care.

Time ticked on in slow hours, and Sam spent it sitting out on his rooftop. It was cool outside. Not so cold as to be painful, but enough that Sam’s breath fogged in front of his mouth, and the slight wind had stolen the color and feeling from his cheeks and fingers. It had stopped raining, and only a few thin wisps of clouds hung in the sky, trailing across the softly glowing moon.

He’d climbed out his bedroom window, wrapping himself in a thick blanket to fight the clinging dampness. From there, facing away from the small road that ran by his house, he had an unmarred view of the sky that stretched above the the trees with leaves clinging to the topmost branches, above the houses that dotted the gentle slope of the land, above everything.

The stars seemed so small, and so far away, like tiny specks of light against a shadow-painted sky. They had always been beautiful to Sam, lovely in their cold, wavering light, but always shining.

Sam thought about how the stars were perhaps the only thing that remained constant. Even though they were constantly changing and drifting and burning away into oblivion, to a human perspective, they were immortal. They were untouchable, throughout time, and while the planet would spin on and on in chaos and entropy, the stars would never die.

The stars were a vast reminder to Sam that while there are limits on life, the universe does not care about people or pain or the trivialities of existence. It didn’t care care about English essays or loneliness or boys who smoked in school bathrooms. In the grand play of everything, Sam didn’t matter. He was small among that which was infinite, and when he was gone, the universe would not miss him.

Sam felt a stillness come over him, and he was calm. He closed his eyes for what seemed to be forever, and when he opened them, he smiled. He was at ease for the first time in a long while, and the tumult in his mind had subsided, at least for a moment, and it was freeing, and Sam felt as though he would be alright.

[autolenaphilia]

I, Robot The Shame of Mystery Science Theater 3000 by Chris Fujiwara

(This article has disappeared from the Internet, though you can find it archived on the Wayback Machine here I find it quite interesting and it articulates some of the concerns I have with MST3K and “bad movie culture” in general, so I’m reposting it here. The article is written by Chris Fujiwara and belongs to him. If he wants me to take it down, I will.)

One sign of the death of the cinema is the zombie-like persistence of the "bad film" cult that rose to public-nuisance status in the late Seventies, feasting noisily on things like the Ed Wood films. From the start, this was just an especially obnoxious manifestation of a general intolerance for films that try to free themselves from the dominant mode of cinematic realism. Thus it's but a short step from sneering at the budgetary deficiencies of Plan 9 from Outer Space to scoffing at, e.g.:

1. Any non-state-of-the-art special effects and visions of the future, even though these things date themselves anyway from period to period, and future generations may find Independence Day less "realistic" (whatever that will mean) than the 1956 aliens-smash-the-state programmer of which it is an unacknowledged remake, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers;

2. Overtly non-realistic visual and acting style used for expressive purposes, as in Soviet master S. M. Eisenstein's outrageous Ivan the Terrible, which uses actors' bodies as components of a delirious architecture;

3. "Implausible" plots like Vertigoas if we're supposed to ignore the holes in the stories Hollywood tells now just because men don't wear ties to walk around the block and no shot lasts longer than 1.4 secondsand "banal" ones like the potboiler-like thriller stories from which Orson Welles made his superb Lady from Shanghai, and Touch of Evilas if Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripedes working together could have come up with an original story or cared less about it;

4. Mythic dialogue and situations like those in Rebel Without a Cause and Douglas Sirk's Written on the Wind, The Tarnished Angels, and Imitation of Life, whose emotional power intimidates audiences lulled by the rituals of appeasement enacted in nighttime soap operas.

The irrelevant yocks that frequently greet the films just mentioned when they show at a revival house or a college auditorium are the voice of a viewing public paralyzed by fear, desperate for any externalization of a comforting "distance" to protect them from recognizing their own anxieties writ large in the image unspooling from the past not dead enough to suit them.

Such a distance is abundantly provided by the robots on the cable (now also broadcast-syndicated) show Mystery Science Theater 3000, devoted to stomping on "the worst movies ever made." The big gimmick (the "plot" behind which isn't worth explaining) is that these robots are sitting in a mockup of a theater and we the lucky TV audience are watching the films from over their shoulders and ostensibly being entertained by their scornful running commentary. The numbing, irritating effect thus achieved is not unlike watching a Josef vos Sternberg film in the eighth row of the Brattle Theater in Harvard Square the week after midterms. What is most amazing about MST3K (the acronyum preferred by the show's adherents) is that the robots can blather on for an hour without saying anything witty or interestingand people can't get enough of them! (As of this writing, MST3K, which has been in hiatus, is due to be "revived" in new episodes [it wased]; meanwhile, the repeats are still shown contantly on Comedy Central.)

(A similar dead-end sensation can be found by watching what is supposed to pass for heady, unsettling stuff in recent cinema. I refer to the ubiquitous superficial irony that has become the stock-in-trade of Robert Altman, the Coen Brothers, and many less skillful directors, the maddening profusion of brain-eating detail in one of Terry Gilliam's nasty conceits, and the pompous theatricalized events of Peter Greenaway.)

I'd like one of the misties (in-group code for the shows devotees) to explain to me (a letter in care of the editor of this magazine will do, thanks) why if these mechanical creeps are such Oscar Wildes don't they take on something just a bit juicier, a tad more worthy of their withering satire than The Beasts of Yucca Flats. What about, say, Fellini's La Dolce Vita? There's a film that has everything the robots love to disdain: pretentious dialogue, long dull stretches, and people with funny clothes and big asses. Obviously, the contempt for cinema, history, and the audience that fuels the whole robot insanity can be applied to low-budget horror and exploitation filmmaking.

MST3K isn't really about "bad movies" anyway. This is proved by the choice of 1955's This Island Earth as the film basted in Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie, the recent theatrical spinoff from the show. In a kinder, gentler era of genre film appreciation (whose tone was set by Forrest J. Ackerman, the benevolent editor of Famous Monsters of Filmland), This Island Earth was regarded as a classic. Whatever you think about the film, to rank it one of "the worst movies ever made" is clearly absurd. Of the 30,000 features released in the United States from 1915 to 1960, This Island Earth is probably in the top 3,000-4,000. Considering that countless films have been made since (most of them bad in ways that could scarcely have been imagined in 1955), I would guess that This Island Earth is sitting comfortably in the top five percent of all films. (That's right, I'm saying that 19 out of every 20 films are worse than This Island Earth. Prove me wrong.) Why pick on This Island Earth? To raise the intellectual stakes a little ? Probably notit's doubtful that many members of the intended audience of MST3K:TM had ever heard of This Island Earth or could distinguish it from Rocky Jones, Space Ranger. Anyway, the level of humor in MST3K:TM is preposterously low: roughly a third of the robots' remarks are alarmed, sniggering references to homosexuality, putdowns of the hero's sidekick's virility, and other manifestations of male adolescent sex-role anxiety. (Another third are mostly farting and toilet jokes, which possibly belong to the same category.) In its treatment of Faith Domergue's sexy scientist, This Island Earth may betray what we now recognize as the sexism of the Fifties, but what are we to make of the fact that the woman aboard the MST3K spacceship is a maternal vacuum cleaner with no arms? MST3K is obsessed with sexuality and afraid of it. The absence of women highlights the show's treehouse psychology.

MST3K's use of robots for heroes is no accident. MST3K's sarcasm at the expense of the past is techno-elitism at its most self-congratulatory, asserting mastery through acts of cultural misrecognition. Perhaps the reason the MST3K people despise so much that they choose to mount an attack on it in the nation's theaters is that they're disturbed by the way the film reduces the unimaginable future of interplanetary communication to the level of an erector set. MST3K's creators, who resemble science nerds using their first grant as an excuse to lord it over their former peers, would probably be thrilled to be drafted for a totalitarian planet's nuclear program (the fate of the protagonists of This Island Earth).

The robots on the bottom of the MST3K screen are scotomas that indicate a more fundamental visual disturbance, the inability to see anything in films except the same things over and over again: hot women, men who match masculine stereotypes either too well or not enough, and supposed defects of representation (too slow, too cheap-looking, not realistic enough, etc.).

Then there's The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Amazing Colossal Episode Guide. Just as MST3K represents a depressing low in "golden turkey" television, TMST3KACEG marks a stupefying new milestone in "golden turkey" film books by having no information about any film, apart from short, inaccurate plot summaries. Instead, the book recounts supposed highlights of the robots' parasitic interventions and explains how the robots behind the robots "strived to make [the films] funny." Readers are thus treated to 172 large-format, haute-design pages filled with pointless descriptions of robot skits and unreadable writing-room anecdotes ("I recall this episode as being the first time we decided to write sketches having nothing to do with the movie..." from the section on Monster a-Go-Go). Nauseatingly self-important, TMST3KACEG leaves wide open the door I wish had remained shut; I expect to see a new wave of film books that focus on the writers' bus rides home.

The book exposes the cluelessness behind the smug sensibility evident on the show. MST3K writer Kevin Murphy proclaims reverence for Frank Zappa (and in real goo-talk yet: "When all his tapes are played and his music is studied, I'm guessing he'll go down as one of the finest composers and performers of the century," p. 109) but makes fun of an angry viewer for wanting to hear Eddie Cochran in Untamed Youth without robots talking (p.16). It makes sense that someone who thinks it's cool to put robots in front of The Killer Shrews would have no problem revealing in print that he thinks the composer of "Don't Eat Yellow Snow" and "St. Alphonzo's Pancake Breakfast" is a greater artist than the man who recorded "Something Else" and "Nervous Breakdown."

There's nothing new about MST3Kit's just a tasteless crossbreeding of the tradition of the TV horror host (Zacherle, Ghoulardi, the Ghoul, Elvira) and the "Golden Turkey" way of misreading films that was codified by inane right-wing reviewer Michael Medved and his equally vapid brother, Harry. All this comes indirectly from the surrealists, but the MST3K robots, following their idols the Medveds rather than Andr Breton and Ado Kyrou, deny and trivialize the power of strange films to disturb, confuse, and give hope.

It's time the "bad movies" movement died a quiet death. This goes not just for MST3K-style vendettas against low-budget films but also for the would-be more sophisticated "camp" onslaught against glossy major productions like "Valley of the Dolls" and the Delmer Daves-Troy Donahue cycle (A Summer Place, Susan Slade, etc.). Of the many possible ways of enjoying a film that deviates from standard criteria of adequacy, the least interesting is to treat it as a source of unintentional humor. Robot Monster, The Sinister Urge, The Brain That Wouldn't Die, Hercules and the Captive Women, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Giant Leeches, Aleksandr Ptushko's fantasy films"bad" as some of these films may be (although many of them are, in fact, "good"), all of them will be admired long after their potential for robot humor has been exhausted (i.e., starting right now) for the unique aesthetic experiences , strange personal visions, and precious cultural documentation they offer.

Someone should invent MST3K glasses with the robots printed on the bottoms of the lenses for people to wear to movies, except that it would be unnecessary, since the robots are already built into the cognitive and aesthetic faculties of an entire culture. MST3K assumes its audienes are so impotent that they can't enjoy even "bad" films first hand but can derive pleasure from them only over the shoulders of robots.

[tuseriesdetv]

Noticias de series de la semana: El Clone Club presenta el tráiler de su última temporada

Renovaciones de series

CMT ha renovado Nashville por una sexta temporada

Sky Atlantic ha renovado Sick Note por una segunda temporada

Dave ha renovado Zapped por una segunda temporada

Hulu ha renovado The Path por una tercera temporada

Syfy ha renovado The Magicians por una tercera temporada

Netflix ha renovado Grace and Frankie por una cuarta temporada

E! ha renovado The Arrangement por una segunda temporada

AMC ha renovado Fear The Walking Dead por una cuarta temporada

Cancelaciones de series

WGN America ha cancelado Outsiders tras su segunda temporada

Incorporaciones y fichajes de series

Lisa Kudrow (Friends, The Comeback) será recurrente en la cuarta temporada de Grace and Frankie como Sheree, la manicura de toda la vida de Grace.

Jeffrey Nordling (Big Little Lies, Desperate Housewives) será recurrente en la quinta temporada de Nashville como el dueño de una firma discográfica.

Donald Sutherland será el empresario Jean Paul Getty en Trust, la nueva serie de Danny Boyle para FX, que tratará sobre el secuestro en Roma de John Paul Getty III, nieto de Jean Paul.

William Hurt (Humans, Damages) y Bob Balaban (Show Me a Hero, Ghost World) serán Bob Partridge, condecorado operativo de la CIA, y Reuel Abbott, un hombre brillante que ha ascendido en la CIA durante treinta años, en Condor.

Becki Newton (Ugly Betty, How I Met Your Mother) y Steven Pasquale (American Crime Story, The Good Wife) se unen como recurrentes a la segunda temporada de Divorce.

Josh Stewart (Dirt, No Ordinary Family) se une como regular a la segunda temporada de Shooter. Será Solotov, asesino relacionado con Swagger (Ryan Phillippe) y su equipo de Afganistán.

Tracie Thoms (Love, Cold Case) será recurrente en la tercera temporada de UnREAL como Fiona, una amiga lesbiana de Quinn (Constance Zimmer).

Erik Madsen (The Last Kingdom) será recurrente en la quinta temporada de Vikings como Hemming, rey danés que lidera un ejército vikingo contra los sajones.

David Morrissey (The Walking Dead, The Missing) protagonizará The City & The City, adaptación en cuatro episodios de la novela de China Miéville (2009) en BBC Two, sobre la investigación del asesinato de una estudiante extranjera en la ciudad-estado europea de Besźel. Le acompañarán Mandeep Dhillon (Some Girls), Danny Webb (Humans), Maria Schrader (Deutschland 83), Christian Camargo (Penny Dreadful) y Ron Cook (Mr. Selfridge).

Pósters de series

   Nuevas series

Amazon ha encargado dos temporadas de The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, de Amy Sherman Palladino (Gilmore Girls, Bunheads). El piloto está disponible desde el 17 de marzo.

Regina King y John Ridley (American Crime) producirán la adaptación de No Place Safe, novela de Kim Reid que cuenta sus recuerdos de la adolescencia mientras su madre investigaba el asesinato de veintinueve niños y adolescentes afroamericanos en Atlanta entre 1979 y 1980, para FX.

Netflix encarga diez episodios de The Haunting of Hill House, adaptación de la novela de terror de Shirley Jackson (1959) escrita y dirigida por Mike Flanagan (Ouija: Origin of Evil).

Pop ha dado luz verde a Hot Date, comedia basada en los sketches de CollegeHumor que llevan el mismo nombre. Protagonizada también por Emily Axford y Brian K. Murphy.

Según la web Tracking Board, Netflix ha encargado veinte episodios de una nueva serie animada de Carmen Sandiego, a la que pondrá voz Gina Rodriguez (Jane the Virgin).

Fechas de series

La tercera temporada de Murder in Successville llega a BBC Three el 19 de abril

La segunda temporada de The Durrels se estrena el 23 de abril en ITV

La tercera temporada de Grantchester se estrena el 23 de abril en ITV

Still Star-Crossed llega a ABC el 29 de mayo a ABC

Date My Dad llega el 2 de junio a UP

La segunda temporada de Queen Sugar llega a OWN el 20 de junio

La tercera temporada de Playing House se estrena en USA Network el 23 de junio

La séptima temporada de Suits se estrena en USA Network el 12 de julio

La segunda temporada de Shooter se estrena en USA Network el 18 de julio

Somewhere Between se estrena en ABC el 24 de julio

The Sinner llega a USA Network el 2 de agosto

Tráilers de series

Orphan Black - Temporada 5

Sense8 - Temporada 2

The Mist

I Love Dick

Dear White People

Date My Dad

[x-letsbreaksomerules-x]

his ass needed a bath

[x-letsbreaksomerules-x]

thinking about that damn concept armor. robbed. we were robbed.