It does feel as though throughout the vast majority of Sons of Anarchy that Chibs was the one left holding all the brain cells. He had custody of the shared brain cells most of the time, just saying.

The Royal Report– A Crown of Candy Ep 2

Ambush on the Sucrosi Road

And we’re back for our first battle episode! Are you feeling trepid my guys, cause I sure am.

You’re Dead and Here’s Your Mini

You’ll remember that, at the end of the episode, the Candia Caravan had stopped in the road because of a fallen tree--the universal fantasy fiction indication for an impending ambush--and Ruby was unceremoniously dropped to zero HP. But don’t worry! Brennan is here with all the missing ceremony at the top of this episode! And by ceremony, I mean we get the most graphic, visceral, bloody description of bodily harm we’ve ever gotten in an episode of D20 as the arrow pierces her neck and she goes unconscious. In her unconscious state, she’s on a trapeze, swinging from one bar to another that seems to be either getting closer or farther away. A voice in the inky black that surrounds her tells her to bring it towards her. We fade out from the vision and that brings us into the combat proper.

So that’s the very chill place this episodes starts.

With Ruby down, everyone else springs into action. Liam does his ranger thing and reveals a hidden enemy--which is like finding a roach in your house: You *know* there’s no such thing as a single roach. Jet tries to snatch Ruby into the carriage but when she loses her grip, she opts to instead threaten Lapin--Heal my sister or I’ll reveal you’re working for the Sugarplum Fairy--and hop on top of the stopped carriage to use herself to shield her sister from any further damage. She also activates the Locket of the Sweetest Heart--a split friendship locket the two of them have which gives advantage on saving throws if the other person is within 5 feet--so she’ll have help on her next death save which happens right away. She gets a success with two 13s, which gives her 1 save, 1 fail (I assume from getting hit by a second arrow--ranged attacks while down count as a fail and melee attacks count as two. Yikes!).

In her mind, Ruby uses Mage Hand to bring the trapeze bar closer to her and, as she does so, she sees a pair of smiling purple eyes and hears a voice say, “You are gifted in the ways of the arcane. It seems that my brother has made quite a family for himself.” Ruby gasps. “Are you my aunt?” The voice tells her to take good care of her bow. She’ll need it.

On Amethar’s turn, he clocks a bunch more hidden archers and hears that they’re speaking Carnish (the meat language) but (and Jet especially notices this because she speaks Carnish) they’re speaking it brokenly and with weird (vaguely French-y) accents. And the arrow that hit Ruby is baconsteel, but the archers look weird. Like, it’s less that they’re made of meat and more like they’re *wearing* meat, and it smells like it’s rotting (which, hey Brennan? Gross). Something’s up.

Amethar, charges out and goes into a rage--pouring cola onto himself and letting the pop rocks of his body explode out (extremely cool flavoring for that), doing 2 points of damage to anyone in the immediate vicinity. Jet, still over Ruby’s unconscious body, narrates this all to her, because Emily Axford never lets a moment for an emotional gut punch go to waste.  

Amethar gets a Nat 20 with his first attack and hits the nearest enemy hard enough to cut through the meat. Underneath, he smells stinking cheese. 

But then, it’s the enemies’ turn and Amethar is absolutely beset. A couple of enemies go after the others’ but five enemies go for him and all hit, bringing him down to less than a third of his HP in one round of combat (down to 10). And they’re not messing around. They are really and truly trying to murder him specifically. 

Thank the Sugarplum Fairy or the Bulb if you prefer that Lapin’s turn is next. He scrambles to the top of the carriage and casts Cure Wounds on Ruby which brings her back to full because first level rogues are so so weak you guys. Lapin goes through the Bulbian motions but Jet, who is closeby, can smell the sugary magic energy from his true patron. She doesn’t much care though since it means Ruby’s back and she promises her silence. Lapin also tosses Amethar a d6 of healing with his bonus action.    

Theobold hits a nat 20 to do a good bit of damage then action surges and casts Compelled Duel with his sword--Battlepop the Broadscicle--to force the Captain of the attackers (who rolls a Nat 1 save) to 1v1 him to take some heat off of the king. 

Ruby and Jet are forced to confront the possibility that Lapin and Theobold might be...cool? Really, all the old dudes this fight are kinda badass--Calroy also hits a nat20 and is kicking ass all fight (also, his pants are on point--I think this is only the second time in d20 pants have ended up being *A Thing* (John Feathers) but that still feels like a lot for *pants*).   

The fight continues! 

Jet fights alongside her super proud dad and does a bunch of damage but doesn’t quite get a killing blow which she blames on Theobold’s refusal to teach her one last episode. The brigands continue to strategically try and take out Amethar and Lapin judiciously uses his precious few heals to let him drop and then bring him back instead of blowing all his heals at once--stressful but effective. Also, Sir Theo comes in clutch and uses his shield--Swirldwarden--to, as a reaction, take one of the attacks that would have F’d him up.

Ruby shoots the leader of the cheese brigands--at this point everyone knows that these are cheese people disguised as meat people--and, spurred on by some new, hazy awareness from her near death experience, uses her once per day grasping arrow (an Arcane Archer ability) to hold the captain in place and make him take damage if he moves. Amethar goes back into a rage after having gone down, teaching us that when he does that, it hits enemies and allies alike. On the baddies’ turn, the captain tries to move and gets obliterated by Ruby’s arrow. This is super clutch, not just because he was going after Amethar, but he also gave +1d4 to all attacks to all of his guys of which there are/were many. 

Amethar goes down again and, on his turn, Lapin heals him, and then wrecks some of the brigands with a very un-Bulbian blast of candy energy, though he continues to insist that it’s all above board. On her turn, Jet gives her half of the locket to her dad in case he drops again (not how it really works since it requires attunement but Brennan allows it this time since it’s her dad). One of the attackers tries to hit Jet but between her once-per-day shield with Flickorice and Theo imposing disadvantage, she’s unscathed. 

Our Daily Bread

You’ll remember from last episode that the caravan was on their way to meet an Imperial escort. Well, they finally show up to help, led by a young Ceresian Centurion Commander (they confirm later it’s the guy they were supposed to have been meeting--Commander Constano Grissini--wonder if him showing up was like an “after x rounds of combat” story event or if it was based on something else). Ruby (very conspicuously) casts Fog Cloud around her dad to try and make it harder for anyone to hit and drop him again. Brennan makes her roll an Insight check and on a 12, tells her nothing which is the most maddening thing a DM can do to you.

With the extra help, they’re able to end the fight pretty quickly after that without any casualties (tiny violins for Brennan because, lbr, the house always eventually wins--it’s only a matter of time before he gets one of them). Theobold wanted to keep one enemy alive for questioning but the Tartguard didn’t quite get the memo and skewered the last guy. Lapin is very suspicious of Grissini but his 23 Insight check tells him this is a straight up guy who would have been ruined if anyone here had died. However, he also notices that Grissini won’t look Ruby in the eye. Calroy quietly comes up to Ruby and tells her that, while she did a good job this fight, things are about to get very complicated and she should be a loooot more careful with any future magic she does. She seems confused by her own abilities and mentions she saw her aunt Lazuli while she was passed out but Calroy shushes her before she says anything else incriminating. It seems we didn’t get the full picture of how frowned upon non-Bulbian magic is outside out Candia. 

Lapin rolls to cover for Ruby with Grissini and says that her magic is Bulbian and Brennan rolls in the Box of Doom to see if he buys it. 10 or higher and he knows something’s up. We don’t get the result (though it *looked* like a 1) but he either buys it or plays along.

Theobald investigates the area (with help from his living sprinkle/dog Sprinkle who I haven’t mentioned before but gives him the help action in battle) but doesn’t find any info they didn't already have. However, he does notice that there aren’t any steeds around, which he interprets to mean they didn’t get there through outlaw means (ie: ride in on your horse, steal a bunch, ride out).  

Calroy pulls aside Lapin and Theobald and says that even though they may have been able to convince Grissini, all of his men also saw Ruby doing forbidden magic and if word gets out it’ll be a problem. They need to make a plan and they need to be very careful about how they tell Amethar because if he finds out they “know how he’ll solve the problem.”

Ominous!      

Things I’m Concerned About

So something I talked about while this episode was happening (and something that Brennan talked about during the talkback afterwards but in slightly different terms) is that the enemy NPC Battle effectiveness has, like, changed from “Saturday Morning Cartoon Minion” to “Art of War Scholar”. No one came into this like, “Let’s have an epic fight!” It was like, “We need to murder one specific guy as quickly as possible.” This isn’t a world where you can spend several rounds trying to jump on tables for cool points. This is a world where you need to be paying full attention even when it’s not your turn and everyone figured that out pretty quick. This is the most tense I’ve ever been during a d20 battle episode and this was only the first one! Amethar--the *Barbarian*--dropped THREE times. He ran out of rages which I didn’t even know was a thing! The fact that everyone made it out of the battle alive was really a miracle! Like, everyone was strategic and played well but if Ruby hadn’t won that Grasping Arrow roll off (Siobhan: I love gambling!), if Lapin hadn’t been perfectly placed in the initiative to feed Amethar heals right after he dropped, if just a couple of things had gone differently, they could have been so screwed. 

Oh, and you know what else? Rezzes don’t exist in this world! Like, I think we all kinda figured but we got confirmation this week on Adventuring Party. It makes total sense. It is absolutely the correct choice for the setting. But, God, does it ratchet up every single round of combat. Every single decision. Every one of Lapin’s limited heals. Like, RIP Zac. What a season to play the party healer. Ally and Lou got off easy. (Note: The Spare the Dying cantrip does exist though at least, which isn’t a powerhouse spell but it’s not nothing).   

I’m concerned about Jet’s flirting! First Thad now this hot Italian breadstick soldier guy? Like, usually I’d be like do you girl but, like, romantic entanglements are a quick way to get in a lot of trouble, up to and including death in a world like this! This is the “actions have consequences” season! 

On the exact opposite end of the spectrum, Liam doesn’t seem to have any interest in romantic entanglements which doesn’t always go over well if you’re a royal. He’s not directly in line for anything important it seems since he had so many older brothers, so maybe he can skate by. But last episode, Caramelinda did seem to be pushing him a little bit in that direction--saying he could get out of exile earlier if he got hitched--and I feel like there’s a good chance this becomes a bigger issue for him.

If we have a false flag attack AND and an attempted assassination in episode TWO, what are we escalating to, huh? Where are we going that that’s where we’re STARTING? 

I could have mentioned this last episode but I’m glad I waited until this episode because it underlines the point even better. I’m *very* concerned about the religious politics of Calorum. In the first episode we got kind of a sense that things were different in Candia versus the rest of the world but this ep it was less of a “sense” and more of a concrete fear that someone was about to start gossiping about having seen Goody Ruby with the devil. And we knew from last episode that Lapin is secretly in league with the Sugarplum Fairy but Brennan used the word heretic in the talkback which feels a *lot* more dire but...yeah, is accurate. Plus, one of the girls’ aunt is St. Citrina, clearly a respected figure in the Bulbian faith, so there’s obviously Lore to unlock there. Look, a lot of going on and none of it feels very chill. Lapin better keep nailing all of his deception checks.  

And, to drill down a little deeper, I’m very concerned that Ruby--who has presumably been told that magic is banned in the rest of the world, decided to illegally cast a spell in front of a ton of people--including Imperials--while loudly shouting “ABRACADABRA!” Like, if her impulse control doesn’t improve, we are gonna have some *issues*. 

You know what I’m concerned about? My continuing relationship with several different food groups if I have to keep hearing graphic descriptions of them fighting each other. I mean, BONES in the CHEESE? *Bones* in the *Cheese*? My forgetting to preheat the oven is the *only* reason I wasn’t eating pizza when I heard that line. And the worst part is, with another DM I’d be like, “They probably didn’t think of the implications.” But this is Brennan so I KNOW he thought of the implications and he was like, “I’M DOING IT ANYWAY.”

Also, while we’re on the implications, I was also concerned--as Theo/Murph was--about Lord Swirly’s (the ice cream Candian) loyalty considering he is dairy (like the cheese brigands) even though he is Candian. Like, there’s a *lot* of overlap in different food types and that feels like it could easily get messy.  

If this fight is an indication, these fights aren’t gonna be balanced to be fair. They’re balanced to be tactically sound--as in, “What would their enemies do to them at this moment?” And, man, I am really dreading the inevitable moment they get hit when they’re down for the first time. Having to start a fight already down to one third of your HP and having already burned through most of your spell slots is so demoralizing but you know it’s gotta happen!  

I share Zac’s concerns about their Imperial allies. When he said, “This is Games of Thrones. It doesn’t mean anything,” I felt that. 

I was reminded of a scene in the trailer which shows what looks to be the PCs in a freezer and now I’m just full of questions like is a freezer a part of a fridge or its own thing? Is it Calorum or is that like the upper part of the map that cuts off? Is it a death-y no man’s land? What’s going on?

So the toughest prof I've ever had was my Constitutional Law professor my 1L year of Law School. She's probably the smartest person I've ever met and so supportive but also super scary. What you need to know about law school grades to understand this story is that they're fake so a B- is like a hard C, a C is like a D, and a D means your professor wants you to die. A professor has to fill out paperwork and justify giving you a D at my school. So we heard a rumor that this professor gave one of her students a D and we were like, "Oh man, even she wouldn't...would she?" So, one day--I think at some kind of event, we're all chilling and we're like, "Professor! Did you *really* give a student a D last year." And she turns to us, glint in her eye, and says, "Who said I only gave out one?" Chills. Absolute chills. Anyway, that is all to say, I'm very much feeling shades of that conversation right now. "Brennan, did you really kill a PC this season?" *Anime Glasses Flash* "Who said I only killed one?"

Lingering Questions

Theobald is an Eldritch Knight, not a Paladin. So he has some magic, but it wouldn’t be Bulbian (unless Brennan flavored it that way). Is he also doing arcane magic on the down low or is there some other mechanism for that? (Sidenote: Glad the cast made the gummi berry juice joke when Murph cast Jump on Amethar so I didn’t have to.) If he is, gotta say, hiding it *way* better than the others. 

Curious about exactly what Liam’s favored enemy is. Cause he was getting the bonus for that during this fight but was it because they were bandits or cheese people or archers or what?

Another quick holdover from last episode: Sir Theo rolled a deception check last ep against Ruby's insight upon seeing the princesses training with their new weapons (Theo won with a 19 to her 17) and Brennan gave us no information so it’s like, what was their deal? Past relationship? Past magical relationship (see first point)? Just concerned Ruby is gonna do something stupid with a magic bow in the world where magic is banned?

Five Six More Things

OK, let’s get the most important thing out of the way...my Candysona would be a Mint Chocolate divine soul sorcerer librarian/researcher. I’m sure ALL of you were wondering.

I really wanna give it up for the crew this episode! The battle set was amazing and the music was so good! Especially Ruby’s quirky circus-y theme. Loved that! Oh and the overlay of all the magical items was very helpful. (Side note: It’s all on the wiki if you wanna see it--I’d link it but tumblr hates when I do that. EDIT: @cloudmancy actually wrote them all up here too so here’s the link). 

There was no way Brennan could have known that Ruby was going to drop immediately when he initially planned the session but using that as kind of a vision quest moment to unlock her magic which she starts fully using after that point for the first time was a very clutch story choice for them.

Murph and Emily sitting next to each other this season is a *gift*.

I cannot imagine having the gall to play a level 1 magic rogue in a world where magic is illegal, people who can hit for more than my hit point total 100% want me dead, and rezzes don’t exist. What a choice. 

If one twin dies...and they have to decide...what to do with the other half of that locket...Brennan…

Housekeeping

Brennan is doing an Answer Time here on tumblr! Get your questions in before the 25th!

Not strictly D20 related but Brennan is also DMing a D&D game with some actual play vets and their kids! Check it out here! 

I can’t believe I failed my word count limit two episodes in on a battle episode that I only had 3 pages of notes for. Bold of me to assume I could tamp down on me. But, plus side, Brennan did say I was valid on stream last week, so I’m gonna say these two things cancel each other out and I am in the clear. 

*     taps     mic     *     so,     uh,     is     this     thing     on     ?     hello     !     my     name’s     stevie,     i’m     twenty     (     she/they     pns,     please     )     and     i’m     writing     out     of     aest     !     [     bill     hader     vc     ]     i     like     true     crime     and     pretending     like     i     don’t     have     a     million     things     to     do     outside     of     writing     !     anyways     !     under     the     cut     you’ll     find     information     about     francesca     ramorini,     ezra     kennedy     and     percy     frazer     !     u     know     the     drill,     like     this     &     i’ll     pop     into     your     ims     either     here     or     on     disc.ord     to     plot     !

francesca  magdalene  ramorini.  vampire.  old.

full  name:  francesca  magdalene  ramorini. physical  age:  thirty-one. real  age:  six  hundred  and  seventy  seven. birthplace:  milan,  italy. birthdate:  january  sixth,  1342. nationality:  italian. species:  vampire. gender  identity:  cis  female,  she/her  pronouns. sexuality:  bisexual.

when  i  say  she’s  old,  i  mean  old.  francesca  and  her  brother,  domenico,  are  from  13th  century  milan,  where  their  family  were  originally  some  of  the  most  prolific  hunters  in  italy.  the  ramorinis  had  been  vampire  hunters  for  years  previous,  but  it  was  their  parents  who  had  really  cemented  the  reputation  as  some  of  the  best.  the  ramorinis  were  a  big  name  in  milan  anyway,  just  because  of  how  ridiculously  wealthy  they  were.  these  guys  are  fucking  loaded.  they  were  very  much  the  apex  predator  in  the  milani  aristocracy  at  the  time.  naturally,  the  whole  ‘we’re  a  bunch  of  vampire  hunters’  thing  is  very  hidden,  concealed  under  the  family’s  reputation  as  the  owners  of  what  feels  like  an  impossibly  large  international  bank  that  funded  chunks  of  the  holy  roman  empire.  with  all  that  in  mind,  francesca  grows  up  with  absolutely  nothing  but  opulence,  and  their  parents  really  allow  her  to  grow  into  her  own  woman  ---  strong,  determined,  with  a  mind  for  both  family  trades.  there  was  never  any  chance  of  her  just  sitting  round  and  being  complacent  in  the  predetermination  of  her  life  ;  she’s  always  been  headstrong,  brave,  intelligent  and  opinionated,  too  loud  for  her  own  good,  a  face  to  turn  heads.  

they  have  a  younger  brother,  too,  fredo.  (  the  name  is  very  significant.  )  as  dom  and  francesca  started  to  learn  to  hunt  themselves,  they’d  often  end  up  with  fred  tagging  along,  and  for  the  most  part  that  was  fine.  fred’s  a  bit  of  a  weirdo,  but  having  them  around  wasn’t  so  bad   ---   until  one  particular  hunt.  really,  it’s  no  one’s  fault  (  despite  a  centuries-long  running  joke  that  it  was  fred  that  got  them  there  in  the  first  place  )   ;   it’s  a  case  of  wrong  place,  wrong  time.  anyways,  francesca  and  dom  were  turned  on  that  particular  hunt  and  their  entire  world  just  kinda  spun  out,  tbh.  they  were  so  accustomed  to  seeing  vampires  and  whatnot  as  the  absolute  enemy,  nothing  more  than  a  scourge  to  be  wiped  out   ---  but  now  they  were  part  of  that  scourge.  

francesca  especially  had  a  hard  time  dealing  with  the  transition.  everything  she  knew  was  flipped  on  its  head,  a  life  she  once  looked  forward  to  reveling  in  lost  in  the  blink  of  an  eye,  the  sink  of  a  fang.  the  transition  isn’t  easy,  but  she  shoulders  it  regardless  because  it’s  just  part  of  life  now.  she  gives  up  the  life  she  was  meant  to  have  and  forges  a  new  one  ---  and  she  thinks  she’ll  hate  it,  but  it  turns  out  to  be  oddly  freeing.  she  takes  up  art,  learns  to  paint  and  sculpt  from  some  of  the  greatest  ;  she  learns  more  than  she  ever  could  as  an  aristocrat,  becomes  rather  chameleonic  about  it  all.

so,  anyways  !  she  and  dom  are  in  louisiana  now,  in  this  massive  fucking  mansion  that  they  wrangled  ;  francesca  moonlights  as  any  number  of  different  jobs.  she  teaches  a  late - night  art  class,  runs  an  adult  ballet  class  (  she  danced  with  fonteyn  in  the  40s  )  ---  she’s  become  incredibly  comfortable  in  the  life  she’s  built.  falling  into  it  all  was  easier  than  she  ever  imagined  it  could  be.

anyways,  fun  facts:  

she  dresses  so  goddamn  well.  she  looks  good  literally  all  the  time,  and  she  fuckin  KNOWS  it  /  francesca  honey  stop  wearing  expensive  tailored  suits  everywhere  ur  going  to  make  men  insecure  

won’t  ever  shut  up  about  emily  dickinson  or  georgia  o’keeffe........  #ma’am  ur  crush  is  loud  and  painful

the  hot  aunt  aunt  at  the  dinner  party  who  simultaneously  judges  ur  decisions  and  encourages  them

yet  another  ramorini  casanova  ...  are  we  surprised  yet  (  no  )

ezra  riley  kennedy.  hunter.  twenty - one.

full  name:  ezra  riley  kennedy. physical  age:  twenty-one. birthplace:  hoboken,  new  jersey. birthdate:  july  ninth,  1998. nationality:  american. species:  human. gender  identity:  non-binary,  they/them  pronouns. sexuality:  pansexual.

i  need  it  known  right  fockin  now  that  i  would  literally  die  for  ezra  .  they’re  my  FUCKING  baby  and  i  won’t  shut  up  about  it

ezra  was  born  to  two  former  hunters  who  gave  up  the  minute  they  were  pregnant.  it  wasn’t  a  choice  they  were  particularly  willing  to  make,  and  despite  swearing  that  they’d  stop  after  having  kids  they  never  really  did.  almost  immediately  after  ezra  was  born  their  parents  were  back  out  hunting  again,  leaving  the  baby  with  their  grandparents.  as  such,  ezra’s  raised  entirely  by  their  maternal  grandparents.  they  simultaneously  teach  them  their  family  history  (  an  extensive  hunting  background,  the  expectations  that  sit  heavy  on  their  shoulders.  ezra’s  expected  to  carry  on  the  family  legacy  the  minute  they  turn  eighteen,  to  learn  how  to  hunt  and  kill.  admittedly,  it’s  a  shock  to  the  system.

they’re  not  in  much  contact  with  their  parents.  they  come  home  every  so  often,  greet  their  kid  and  go  straight  to  sleep.  there’s  very  little  real  interaction  /  gets  to  the  point  where  ezra  thinks  of  them  more  as  irritating  roommates  that  come  home  late  and  eat  everything  than  actual  parents.  their  loyalty  is  to  their  grandparents,  without  a  doubt.

ezra’s  keenly  aware  that  they’ve  got  no  choice  in  their  career,  but  they  can’t  help  but  want  some  kind  of  say  in  it.  they  excel  at  stem  subjects  in  school,  more  often  found  in  science  labs  testing  hypotheses  in  their  free  time  than  anywhere  else.  they’re  left  alone  more  often  than  not,  slipping  through  school  without  much  of  a  problem  until  they’re  sixteen  and  their  parents  die  in  the  middle  of  a  hunt.  it’s  a  rude  shock  to  the  system,  having  to  bury  both  parents  at  such  a  young  age  but  they  do  it  with  tremendous  grace  and  class.  shortly  after  the  funeral,  they  drop  out  of  school  to  start  hunting.

they’re  jaded  going  into  it,  definitely.  their  only  real  image  of  hunters  is  the  one  they  were  handed  by  their  parents   ---   of  dark  circles  under  eyes,  chain  smoking,  swallowing  bourbon  like  water,  passing  out,  rinse  and  repeat.  they’re  determined  to  break  that  mold,  to  do  something  different  but  they  won’t  lie,  they  considered  it  at  first.  for  their  first  few  hunts  they  tried  to  imitate  their  parents,  and  it  didn’t  turn  out  well   ---   so,  like  everything  else,  ezra  fits  it  to themself,  and  the  rest  is  history.  they  develop  their  own  style,  and  it  works.

hoboken  is  too  small,  not  enough  for  them  so  they  pack  up  and  move  off  to  louisiana.  (  they’d  found  an  old  journal  of  their  parents’,  with  notes  alluding  to  a  wish  to  move  to  new  orleans  and  despite  not  being  close  they  figured  it  might  be  a  good  idea.  )  they’ve  been  in  nola  for  about  a  year  now,  and  they’re  growing  to  love  it.  they’ve  always  been  a  city  kid,  and  there’s  something  about  nola  just  speaks  to  them.

so,  fun  facts:

super  good  with  technology.  they  fix  shit  in  their  free  time,  &  they  build  computers  n  shit   ?????

smells  like  frangipani  and  jasmine  and  ginger.  they  smell  really  fucking  good  for  some  reason

lots  of  denim  and  leather  and  yellow  in  their  outfits.  they’ve  got  one  particular  leather  jacket  for  hunting,  but  they  kinda  started  a  collection

angelic  in  every  single  way  possible

has  a  black  cat,  named  salem.  salem’s  a  good  cat.

percy  floyd  frazer.  witch.  twenty - four.

full  name:  percy  floyd  frazer. physical  age:  twenty-four. birthplace:  amsterdam,  the  netherlands. birthdate:  february  12th,  1995. nationality:  british. species:  witch. gender  identity:  demi  male,  he/they  pronouns. sexuality:  bisexual.

percy  .......  sighs.  i  love  him  so  fuckin  much

so  !  percy  is  born  to  two  english  witches  while  they’re  on  holiday  in  amsterdam,  a  pregnancy  that  both  parties  had  been  hoping  for  ;  their  household  was  starting  to  feel  awfully  lonely,  and  a  baby  sounded  like  the  perfect  way  to  round  it  all  out.  naturally,  though,  nothing  goes  to  plan  ---  his  arrival  puts  ‘unwarranted  stress’  on  his  dad,  who  cuts  his  losses  and  runs  about  a  month  after  percy’s  birth.  bit  of  a  dick  move,  but  let’s  move  on.  his  mother,  annaliese,  doesn’t  harbour  any  real  resentment  towards  his  dad  for  leaving  ;  she’d  fallen  in  love  with  amsterdam  on  their  brief  holiday  and  was  planning  on  breaking  up  and  moving  there  anyway.  

so  !  for  his  entire  childhood,  it’s  just  percy  and  his  mom,  and  it’s  the  best  kind  of  childhood  you  could  ask  for.  he  grows  up  watching  all  the  same  movies  as  his  mom,  reading  her  books  and  just  hanging  around  her  24/7.  ngl  he  kinda  had  the  coolest  childhood   ????   his  mom  loved  to  rent  out  her  favourite  bands’  old  tour  videos  and  there’s  many  an  afternoon  where  the  two  of  them  would  sit  there  and  just  listen  to  music  together.  their  relationship  is  very  similar  to  that  of  theo  and  his  mother  from  the  goldfinch,  if  that  gives  anyone  a  frame  of  reference.

he’s  about  thirteen  when  she  finally  sits  him  down,  tells  him  about  the  magic  that  whispers  a  steady  thrum  in  his  veins.  she  tells  him  about  the  uprising,  about  the  way  magic  has  become  outlawed,  how  he   has  to  learn  to  restrain  himself.  it’s  a  lot  for  someone  so  young  to  understand,  but  he  sits  through  it  patiently,  peppering  questions  here  and  there.  he  doesn’t  seem  particularly  enthused  about  his  heritage  (  really,  who  would  )   ---   his  mother  barely  holds  back  the  tremor  in  her  voice  throughout  the  conversation.

the  more  percy  learns  about  the  restriction  of  magic,  the  more  bitter  and  jaded  he  grows  about  it  all.  he  doesn’t  hate  himself,  nor  his  mother,  hates  the  pureblood  monarchy  with  such  a  passion  it’s  almost  terrifying.  he’s  sixteen  when  he  swears  off  magic,  tries  to  quash  it  down  the  best  he  can.  he  point - blank  refuses  to  accept  that  it’s  part  of  him,  and  tries  to  find  a  passion  that  distracts  him  from  it.  that  ends  up  being  music,  and  he  takes  to  it  like  a  fish  takes  to  water.  the  minute  he  picks  up  a  guitar,  it’s  like  his  world  makes  sense.

they’ve  been  living  in  amsterdam  this  entire  time,  wasting  afternoons  in  art  galleries  and  bakeries.  percy’s  eighteen  when  he  decides  that  it’s  time  to  spread  his  wings  and  move  away  ---  his  decision  is  hardly  precise,  he  throws  a  dart  at  a  map  and  hopes  for  the  best.  it  lands  on  new  orleans,  louisiana,  and  he  just  kinda  goes  with  it.  he  doesn’t  have  much  to  pack  up:  a  single  suitcase  full  of  clothes,  another  filled  with  books  and  dvds,  and  his  guitars,  that’s  it.  both  him  and  his  mom  cry  at  the  airport,  but  it’s  happy  crying.  

so,  anyways   !   he’s  been  in  louisiana  for  six  years  now,  and  he  loves  it.  when  he  first  moved  he  worked  any  number  of  casual  jobs,  but  he’s  settled  into  one  as  a  bookseller  in  an  indie  bookshop.  he  writes  film  +  music  reviews  for  a  number  of  online  sites  as  well,  so  he’s  got  himself  a  steady  lil  income.  

some  fun  facts:

dresses  like  an  utter  e-boy  and  i  won’t  apologise  for  it  

looks  n  acts  like  an  arrogant  prick  sometimes  but  truly....... sweet,  kind,  would  do  anything  for  the  people  he  loves  (  even  if  that  number  is  small  )

totally  pretentious  about  his  tastes.  don’t  start  him,  for  the  love  of  god

perpetually  got  his  glasses  on,  perpetually  holding  an  oversized  cup  of  tea

has  a  collection  of  tiny  little  tattoos  (  they’re  all  references  to  books / movies / music  he  loves  )

i  ............  love  him  a  lot

No Regrets

Super, super late with this!

Haikyuu!! OT3+ Week 2018

Day 6, November 2 : future / the parents

AO3

Sawamura hauls a body onto his bed and barely resists rubbing the back of his neck to try and alleviate some of the tension he’s holding there.  His hands are caked in mud and blood and he doesn’t want to wipe that all over himself despite it already covering his front.  He takes a couple deep breath before setting himself into motion.  He runs a tavern and while it’s mostly visited by the folks from the town down the mountain a few wandering souls, sometimes it’s remoteness attracts a certain rougher crowd.  He’s had to take care of a few wounds in his time as the owner of it.

Sawamura’s parents probably wouldn’t even be surprised by him bringing home the bleeding and unconscious stranger.  He was always prone to bringing home strays, though they always tended to be more on the animal variety.  He tries to imagine what faces they would make if they had still been alive and their adult son had dragged a wounded stranger through their tavern.  They would yell but ultimately they would end up helping, it was the sort of people they were.  The sort of person they raised their son to be.

Setting his items down by the bed Sawamura’s fingers trembled slightly before he reached out to remove the heavy cloak covering the majority of the stranger, all except his bare and dirty feet.  Sawamura was only partially surprised by the double wings held down by some sort of leather harness.  The stranger was dirty but he looked rather young, not that it mattered much.  Sawamura had met creatures who were thousands of years old and looked like children the same way hunched over, wrinkly elderly looking people were actually children.  The universe was a large place.

“You’re alright now, you’re safe.”  Sawamura said as soothingly as he could when the strangers brows bunched together and he let out a soft noise of distress.  There was a long cut across his abdomen that was the source of all the blood.  It looked worse than it was, long but only skin deep and hadn’t cut into any muscle of tissue.  Sawamura continued to speak softly, he wasn’t sure if the stranger spoke the same language as him but the tone seemed to be soothing him.  It was easy to patch him up but took longer to pull off the dirty and torn rags.  Usually Sawamura wouldn’t take such liberties with anyone who wasn’t awake to consent, but he was wet and shivering and the clothes barely covered much of anything to begin with.

Something shiny caught Sawamura’s eye and he turned from grabbing some of his own, clean clothes.  He had been so worried by the wound and getting the stranger out of the wet clothes and dry that he hadn’t noticed the golden band around his neck.  Sawamura hadn’t travelled very far from home, he had gone into the city for schooling before his parents died and left the mountainside space tavern for him to take care of.  But even he knew what a service band looked like.  Such an inconspicuous name for something so vile.

Sawamura quickly put the clean clothes onto the stranger before pulling blankets on top of him.  The dirtied blanket the stranger had rested on went to the floor but Sawamura had plenty.  He carefully used a cloth to clean the strangers dirty face, his eyes catching on the service band once more.

The small planet Sawamura had spent his entire life on was considered a backwoods planet, but they were mostly civilized here.  There was a bigger port on the other side of the planet but some travellers stopped by the tavern for some peace and quiet, plus the food wasn’t so bad either.  It wasn’t very busy at the tavern but Sawamura still had never seen a service band in the 25 years he had been alive.  He knew they were a thing of the past, had learned about them in school for a brief period before they jumped to the next thing.

Service bands were mostly outlawed, though considering some of his regulars belonged to the crew of the Bakeneko and while they never discussed their business outright, Sawamura could guess they weren’t exactly on the up and up.  Even they would cringe away from something as cruel as a service band.

Sawamura cleaned himself off in the small bathroom attached to his room, changing out of his dirtied clothes before walking back into his room.  He stared down at the stranger, at the white and black hair that was curling against a strong face now that it was drying.

Sawamura didn’t know what to do but he did know one person he could go to.  He pulled out his personal comm unit from the wall, glancing over to make sure the stranger is still sleeping before he types in a familiar number.  He doesn’t let himself think twice as he relays a simple message to Iwaizumi, apologizing and asking if he could stop by the tavern when he had a moment.  Iwaizumi is the local peace officer and they had known each other since they were teenagers.  Sawamura feels as if he should add more to the message but he ends it quickly when he feels the back of his neck start to warm and turns back to the stranger in his bed.

The stranger is still unconscious and Sawamura chews nervously on his bottom lip as he stares down at him.  His face has smoothed out and he looks more like he’s just resting, some color has even returned to his pale cheeks.  The service band is now hidden by the sweater Sawamura put him in and the two blankets he piled on top of him.

An alarm beeps, warning Sawamura that he has ten minutes to open the tavern.  He thinks about hanging an apology on the door, saying a pipe burst or something along those lines but he has bills to pay and the stranger doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere.  Still, Sawamura leans over.

“You’re safe to rest here.”  Sawamura tells the stranger, feeling a little silly for doing so.  He walks out of his room and closes the door quietly behind him before heading downstairs.

Everything about the old tavern reminds Sawamura of his parents from the hand carved table and chairs to the trim with pretty colored flowers along the ceiling.  They had made this place themselves, built it from the ground up and made it into the thriving business it was today.  Sawamura sometimes missed them so much he found it difficult to breath but going about opening the tavern helped, the actions that he did every day drove away the loneliness.

Sawamura was warming up the ovens in the back, his father had insisted on ones that actually used fire instead of warming electrically like most modern ones, when he heard the door open and close.  Voices floated in and Sawamura easily picked out the tones of his normal regulars from town.

It was easy and comforting to fall into his usual routine.  Going to the bar to grab drinks before checking on the cooking food in the kitchen.  Some of the regulars who had known him since he was little always told him to hire some help and he did have a cook come in during the weekends when it was busier but during the slow weekdays he could handle everything fine on his own.

Until the door opened, letting in the howling wind and the constant rain.  The regulars tensed automatically at the newcomers before Sawamura called out a greeting and told the familiar crew of the Bakeneko to sit where they’d like.  It was like he had summoned them by thinking of them earlier.

It wasn’t half a minute before the captain of the motley crew found himself near Sawamura, leaning over the bar as Sawamura prepared a drink for the old bookkeeper who always came in for a couple beverages after his shifts.  Sawamura allowed himself a quick glance into amber colored eyes before looking away.

“I’ll be with you in a mo’ to take your orders.”  Sawamura said, a bit more gruff than he usually was with other patrons.  The Bakeneko captain only smirked at Sawamura’s attitude.

“Take your time love, I’m in no rush.”  Kuroo propped his head up in his hand, elbow placed on the bar and smirk firmly in place.  Sawamura resisted the urge to do something childish like pour a drink over his ridiculously messy black hair.

Kuroo and his crew had been coming to the tavern pretty much since Sawamura inherited it.  Mostly Sawamura didn’t mind.  Despite the crews less than savory reputation they were respectful with only a few members being louder than the rest and they had never tried to skip out on a bill before.  They didn’t make a mess and they kept mostly to themselves, which was more than Sawamura could say for their captain.

Sawamura would probably treat Kuroo to a friendly but unfriendly attitude if they hadn’t met when they were younger.  Back when Kuroo was all knobby knees with ears and hands too big for the rest of his skinny frame.  He worked as a deckboy on a ship come to port, Sawamura had been in the city with his father when the skinny boy had come running past.  Sawamura, without really thinking of the consequences, had grabbed him and hidden him in the cart that held the supplies  his dad was buying.

Sawamura didn’t really agree with thieving but he knew there were situations where he’d do it if he wasn’t so loved and cared for by his parents.  He knew others weren’t as lucky, knew from Kuroo’s dirty face and hands rubbed raw from hard labor that even if he had a job it didn’t pay well enough to help him put on any weight.  His father had only raised an eyebrow at Sawamura before pushing some warm bread and cheese into his hands, then he had walked off into another store.  Sawamura peaked into the cart, handing over the food to a boy with sunken cheeks and large amber colored eyes, and told him to lay low.

Impulsivity wasn’t exactly an admirable trait but it was something that Sawamura was prone to bouts to.  Hiding thieving little boys and carting off wounded strangers to his room.  He didn’t know if his parents would be proud or worried, perhaps both.

For years after that initial interaction where Kuroo didn’t say a single word, they didn't see each other.  Not until Sawamura was left a seemingly too large and too quiet tavern, where every corner and window reminded him of what he had lost.  Kuroo and the crew of the Bakeneko had come barrelling in, asking for drinks and something warm to fill their stomachs.

They didn’t show up often, but Kuroo never missed the anniversary of Sawamura’s parents death.  Always staying to share drinks even after the tavern had closed.  Sawamura always woke up the next morning, head hurting but his spirit feeling lighter, curled up in bed with the other man.  Sawamura would probably have kicked him off the side off the mountain but they were always dressed.

Sawamura would never admit to liking waking up beside what was essentially a pirate captain.

Sawamura took orders, the Bakeneko could always be counted on to clear out his kitchen.  Yaku would beg Sawamura to join the crew as their cook, that he couldn’t another burnt piece of meat or hard as rock bread.  Fukunaga would use his hands and fingers to talk to Yamamoto, who would throw his head back and laugh.  Inuoka would offer to bring food back to Kozume, who always stayed on the ship, and inevitably Shibayama and Lev would run after him, Kai reminding them to bring back the plates.  Kuroo would watch on with too clever amber eyes, those same eyes lingering on Sawamura where ever he was.

It was nearing the end of the night and Sawamura was wiping down the bar, smiling as the last of his regulars called out a farewell.  He had momentarily run upstairs throughout the night, checking on his guest to make sure he was still there and breathing regularly.  He had received a message back from Iwaizumi, that he would be coming over after his shift ended, when the tavern was closed down.

The majority of the Bakeneko had wandered back to their ship.  Sawamura idly wondered when the next time he’d see them would be as he gathered used dishes and walked back to the kitchen.  He gave out a sigh when he realized Kuroo had snuck back, leaning against the counter and stealing a bowl of soup.

“You’re going to pay for that.”  Sawamura stated firmly, putting the dishes into the washer.

“Oh?”  Kuroo asked, eyebrow raised.

“With money.”  Sawamura said, ignoring Kuroo’s exaggerated pout.

“So, what has got you all tense and stressed out tonight?”  Kuroo asked casually and Sawamura couldn’t really hide his reaction at the sudden question.  Kuroo was watching him far too closely to try and deny it, but it wasn’t like Sawamura was going to admit to having someone in his bed upstairs.

“The usual.”  Sawamura said with a shrug but from the look on Kuroo’s face he clearly wasn’t buying it.

Sawamura thanked the stars above when he heard someone else enter the tavern and walked out to greet them.  Sawamura wasn’t usually one to judge looks, the nearby town was full of a rough looking crowd though mostly they were harmless.  But something about the three figures that walked into the tavern made Sawamura tense all over.

“Hello,” Sawamura greeted, trying to shake off the foreboding feeling.  “I’m afraid the kitchen is closed for the night but we do still have some hot soup.”  Sawamura went to go get the soup they offered, nearly running right into Kuroo as he stepped into the kitchen.

“That’s not your usual lot, is it?”  Kuroo asked, voice low.

“All sorts come through here, some more unsavory than others.”  Sawamura said just as low, using his finger to push Kuroo back so he could get soup for his new patrons.

“That hurts.”  Kuroo’s bottom lip juts out and Sawamura finds himself briefly wondering how this man was considered a feared pirate captain.  “I’m only trying to help.”  Sawamura snickers as he balances the three bowls in his hands.

“I don’t need any of the kind of help you’re offering.”  Sawamura breezes past him and his heart gives a quick drop when he realizes there are only two at the table now.  He places the bowls down carefully before a sound distracts him and he walks over to the swinging door that lead to the stairs and upstairs.  “Excuse me, guests aren’t allowed upstairs.”  Sawamura says, catching the third patron half way up the stairs.  He turns and grimaces, or smiles, Sawamura isn’t quite sure because his body is insectoid-like, the mandible twitching on his face in a way Sawamura wasn’t familiar enough to read.

“Pardon, just looking for the bathroom.”  Sawamura motioned behind him, where the bathroom was clearly marked.  Plus he kept the door to the stairs locked at all times.

When Sawamura walked out of the swinging doors he saw Kuroo gathering the few members of his crew that were still in the tavern.  His heart gave a twist as Kuroo gave him a short nod before walking out the door with Yaku and Nobuyuki following him.  Sawamura told himself it didn’t matter, that there was no reason for him to want Kuroo’s presence in the tavern.  That he was a distraction and Sawamura could easily handle any problem that arose.

None of it helped.  He felt betrayed that Kuroo would note the trouble the new comers presented then would just leave Sawamura to it.  He knew it wasn’t logical and he berated himself silently for it but it was still there, sitting cold and hard inside his chest.

Despite his initial hesitation about the new patrons, they ate their soup in relatively silence, paid, and left as quietly as they had come.  Sawamura locked the door behind them with a relieved sigh, feeling like an idiot for making such a big deal out of nothing.  He began closing down, the routine of it welcome.

A noise startled Sawamura out stacking the chairs and he looked up.  He ran up the stairs, his heart beating loudly in his ears once again before pausing outside the door.  He took a deep, calming breath and reminded himself that whatever it was, he could handle it.  He slowly opened the door and wasn’t surprised to see his new guest sitting up in bed.

Gold colored eyes, so bright and foreign that Sawamura could even make out in the dim lighting of the room the brilliant coloring, looked at Sawamura.  It was the first time that Sawamura recognized that this stranger was quite a bit bigger than him no matter how wounded they were.

“Hello,” Sawamura said, glad his voice didn’t come out as shaky as he felt.  Gold eyes blinked at him before the tension in the room noticeably dropped.  “Did you reopen your wound?”  Sawamura asked because the stranger was holding his stomach and there was a growing dark spot on the borrowed sweater.

“I know your voice.”  The stranger said, tone surprisingly light for such a large man.  “I heard it in the darkness.  You said I was safe.”  His eyes darted around the room while Sawamura remained in the doorway.

“You are safe here.”  Sawamura said before taking a hesitant step into his own bedroom.  “Can I see the wound on your stomach?”  He asked, making sure to keep it a question and not an order.  Gold eyes, heavily lidded in almost a lazy way, looked at him before lifting up the borrowed sweater obidenantly.

Sawamura moved forward slowly, watching for any sign that the stranger might lash out but he just sat still, holding the sweater up and watching Sawamura as he carefully applied more medi-cream to the wound.  It sealed the wound once more and he wrapped it in a new bandage.

“My name is Sawamura Daichi and you’re in my tavern.”  Sawamura said, sitting back on his heels as he looked up at the stranger.  He smoothed the sweater back over his stomach, playing with the hem for a moment before giving Sawamura a shy look.

“You can call me Bokuto.”  The band must be activated by his full name.

“I have a friend coming, he’s going to help you.”  Sawamura put his hands up when he realized Bokuto was panicking.  “I trust him, you can trust him too.  I’ve known him for a long time.”  Iwaizumi was rough around the edges but he was soft inside, prone to helping anyone who needed it.  He had been quickly rising up in the ranks of the military before he resigned and took a position in the sleepy little town he had grown up in.  Sawamura never asked what brought him back, he was only glad he decided to come back.

“Okay.”  Bokuto breathes out, trusting Sawamura’s call, just like that.  It makes Sawamura feel suddenly weak against him and he fights against himself, scrambling for a way to distract him from that.

“Are you hungry?  Or thirsty?  I can go-” Sawamura is cut off when Bokuto reaches out, suddenly grabbing his arm and Sawamura inhales sharply at how quick Bokuto is.

“Please don’t.”  Bokuto pleads, face so close that Sawamura can catch the different flecks of yellow and browns in his eyes.

“You can come with me.”  Sawamura offers, gently removing Bokuto’s hand from his arm.  He hadn’t hurt him, but it was a strong, firm grip.  Sawamura was momentarily surprised by how cold Bokuto’s hand was and he wrapped his warmer one around his longer fingers.

Bokuto followed Sawamura willingly, his head whipping around to catch sight of everything.  Sawamura found it absurdly adorable if a bit dramatic.  There wasn’t much to see, but then again he didn’t know what sort of life Bokuto had led before Sawamura dragged him here.  Sawamura wanted to know what happened to Bokuto, how he came to be here and he knew Iwaizumi would need to know the answer to those questions but he was hesitant to bring up something that could distress Bokuto.

There was no more soup left but Sawamura could make cold sandwiches.  He let go of Bokuto once they reached the kitchen and started to pull out some meat and bread before turning to Bokuto.

“Do you eat meat?”  Sawamura asked.  It was part of his job to be aware of dietary restrictions, he should have asked before.  By the way Bokuto was eyeing the food in Sawamura’s hands he could make a guess at the answer, and assumed it had been a while since Bokuto had eaten.

“Yes, meats good.”  Bokuto nodded enthusiastically, pressing against Sawamura’s back as he turned to the counter to prepare a sandwich.  Given Bokuto’s size he would probably eat a couple.  “Thank you Sawamura, you’re very kind.”  Bokuto smiled hesitantly but Sawamura could tell even by the slight smile that when Bokuto really smiled, it would be a blinding thing.

“That must be my friend.”  Sawamura said after he had heard a brisk knock on the front door.  He handed the sandwich over to Bokuto before walking through the main dining room to the entrance.

Sawamura frowned into the darkness that greeted him when he opened the door, no sign of Iwaizumi anywhere.  Perhaps he had gone around to the back door?  But Iwaizumi wasn’t so impatient he wouldn’t wait a moment for Sawamura to answer the door.  Something shifted in the distance and Sawamura heard his name being yelled but it was too late.

The tavern came with rudimentary protective shields.  Mostly it was to discourage any fighting from inside or near the outside of the tavern.  Most public buildings had it, even modern houses came standard with them.  It was this shield that probably saved Sawamura’s life, though it wasn’t built to withstand a full attack.

Sawamura flew backwards, slamming into the bar on the opposite side of the room made his breath rush out of him.  Tables were upturned, chairs were broken, and the front door was left hanging from one hinge.  Sawamura couldn’t seem to take in a proper breath, his ears felt clogged with cotton, and he was having trouble focusing his sight.

Strong but cold hands grabbed at him, forced him up and to the kitchen right before another blast hit the front of the tavern.  The lights flickered before going out completely, the shields dying along with them.  Sawamura knew there was something wrong with his hearing but even he could hear the old wood creaking and groaning.  The tavern was purposefully built on the side of the mountain, the docks reaching out into nothingness so ships could easily pull up without having to actually land.  The tavern had been made to withstand category one storms, the wooden facade was only meant to look worn and rustic, underneath was hardened steel and metal.

With a hard pop Sawamura’s hearing returned to him just in time to hear something break from the upstairs, the sound of heavy booted feet.  Sawamura turned to see Bokuto’s pale and frightened face, his hands were still holding Sawamura up.

“Back door, we have to go out the back.”  Sawamura said, his voice raspy.  Something was making it difficult for him to get a good breath in and it hurt to exhale and he couldn’t quite move his left shoulder but it was all things he could deal with later.  He pulled Bokuto towards the back door after grabbing a frying pan, ignored the lace of pain from his knee.

The back door cracked down the middle, the lacy little curtain his mother had sown to cover the small window turned black, as if burnt.  A figure burst through the door and Sawamura released Bokuto and with a yell pulled from the pit of his stomach, swung the frying pan into the person standing there.  The hit vibrated down Sawamura’s arm and with a grunt he kicked the figure away, grabbing backwards for Bokuto before running out the door.

Sawamura had never even raised a hand in violence towards another and now he had walked over a crumbled body of a person he had savagely hit and kicked.  He left that body in the same spot he had played with little toy figures when he was younger, it had been the perfect spot that was out of the way but he could tilt his body one way to see his father in the kitchen and then another to see his mother go from table to table, talking with each guest as if they were lifelong friends.

Bokuto grabbed Sawamura, yanking him to the side right before something streaked past them.  Wood and metal exploded behind them and Sawamura’s heart picked up its pace inside his chest, realizing that could have been him.  That could have been his body breaking to pieces from a long distance hit.

Sawamura looked up and watched as a familiar motorcycle slammed into the figure that had been aiming their gun at Sawamura once more.  Bokuto hovered over Sawamura’s body as someone ran over to them, the rain covering up their heavy steps.

“No, Bokuto, stop.”  Sawamura patted at the larger man, finally gaining his attention.  “That’s my friend, that’s Iwaizumi, he’s safe.”  Bokuto finally seemed to understand and allowed Sawamura to finally get up from the mud.  All three of them were soaked, Iwaizumi’s eyes were wide as he finally caught up to them, looking Sawamura up and down but it was too dark to see anything.

“What the fuck is going on Daichi?”  Iwaizumi asked, hand coming up to cup Sawamura’s face.  Sawamura winced, not remembering how his face had bounced off the floor until right then.  Before Sawamura could respond a ship appeared above them, nearly dropping on top of them.  Iwaizumi pulled his gun up, Sawamura hadn’t even seen it in his other hand.

“That’s the Bakeneko!”  Sawamura shouted above the rain, shocked.  Were they being attacked by Kuroo and his crew?  Why?

“Hurry, get on board!”  A rope was tossed down.  The ship started to take on fire but their shields reflected most of them.  The noise was deafening and Sawamura’s heart was in his throat but he pushed Iwaizumi and Bokuto forward.  Both made Sawamura go first and he climbed while trying to ignore the pain his body was in and how slippery the rungs were with the constant rain.  Hands grabbed him, pulling him over the side of the ship.

“They are bringing ‘round their ship!”  Someone called as Bokuto was dropped next to Sawamura then a second later Iwaizumi hopped over.

“Everyone onboard captain!”  Yaku shouted from next to Sawamura.

“Get them below deck.”  Kuroo’s voice cut through the rain before shouting more orders at his crew.  Sawamura was pulled up, not roughly but not exactly gently either.  But Sawamura caught something over the side of the ship.

Sawamura broke from the hold on him, leaning against the railing of the ship to see his tavern ablaze and crumbling in on itself.  The home and business his parents had worked so hard to build was burning down before his eyes.  They had been so proud of it, every childhood memory Sawamura had was attached to that place.

A light flashed, bright and blinding in the night.  Sawamura watched in horror as his home was cut  in half, the top sliding away before falling off the side of the mountain.  He shouted, he wasn’t sure what but nothing would stop the second hit that sent the rest of him crumbling down.

The ship swung away before shooting up into the sky.  Sawamura could no longer see his home but he knew that didn’t matter since there was his home was no longer there to see.

Sawamura was taken below deck.  Everything passed by in a blur.  One moment he was standing on the deck of the Bakeneko, watching the planet he had never left grow smaller in the distance and the next his eyes were too heavy to hold open and he was falling down.

It felt as if Sawamura had blinked and everything was different.  He could hear people speaking but it sounded like it was coming through a long tunnel.  He felt stiff and sore all over but there was something warm surrounding him, his face was buried in it.

“-bounty hunters don’t really care about things like that.”  Kuroo’s voice was the first clear thing Sawamura could make out.  It took him another minute before realizing the reason he was so warm was because he was curled up in bed with something pressed against his front.  A faint trilling noise was coming from the person holding him, it was oddly comforting even though Sawamura was still fighting his confusion.

“It doesn’t matter if they care about it or not, it’s still illegal and-”  Iwaizumi’s voice was tight with barely concealed anger.

“And what?  You don’t work for the military anymore lieutenant, they won’t come to some backwoods planet because some bounty hunters destroyed a pub.”  Kuroo stated simply, cutting Iwaizumi off.  Sawamura sucked in a deep breath, his tavern crumbling before his eyes once more.

“Sawamura.”  A face with big golden eyes was pushed into his.  “They drugged you.”  Bokuto said, sounding angry.

“He was hurt and in shock Bo, I keep telling you this.”  Kuroo’s voice said, coming out much softer.  “Let him breath.”  Bokuto held Sawamura tighter for a moment before letting out a soft breath and releasing him.  Sawamura sat up slowly and looked around the room.  Three pairs of eyes looked back at him with varying levels of concern.

“So,” Sawamura looked at each of them.  “Weird day, huh?”  He tried for light but fell short.  Iwaizumi sat on the bed, his hand was a warm comfort down the length of Sawamura’s back.

“I’m sorry Sawamura, they destroyed your home because of me.”  Bokuto ducked his head, ashamed but it was surprisingly Kuroo who spoke up.

“It’s not your fault, it’s mine.”  Kuroo rubbed Bokuto’s head and Sawamura was surprised by the familiarity of the action.  “I was supposed to pick up Bokuto from someone I thought I could trust, but he went turncoat and tried to sell Bokuto back.  I knew who those bounty hunters were when they came into your tavern and I decided to wait to see what they did.”  Kuroo met Sawamura’s eyes, accepting full blame and not trying to make excuses for himself.

“It’s fine.”  Sawamura said, shocking all three of them.  He tried a smile to ease their worries.  “Helping someone, helping Bokuto is way more important than a building.  My parents would never have sacrificed someone for their home.  It’s neither of yours fault.”  Sawamura  reached out to squeeze both Bokuto and Kuroo’s noses, earning a grin from the former and a fake snap of teeth from the latter.  “I am sorry I pulled you into this.”  Sawamura turned to Iwaizumi, who was watching everything with clear interest.

“I’m not.”  Iwaizumi said with a shrug before nudging his shoulder against Sawamura’s.  “I told you before to call me, for anything and I meant it.”

“Me too.”  Kuroo said suddenly, practically sitting in Iwaizumi’s lap so he could push into Sawamura’s space.  Iwaizumi gave an annoyed grunt but didn’t dump the lanky man onto the ground.  “I meant it when I said I’d help you.”

“I’ll protect you.”  Bokuto promised, fingers curling against Sawamura’s.  “Because you saved me and made me feel safe.”  He smiled and Sawamura was right, it was blinding.

Sawamura knew it wasn’t going to be that easy and the three before him were going to cause him more trouble before the day was done but he couldn’t find himself minding much.  There was a hollow spot in his chest that had been there since his parents had died, it ached and reminded him constantly of how he was missing something, something crucial.  This was the first time that the ache had receded, if just a bit.

SWEET YOUNG INNOCENT

Coleen Gray and Sterling Hayden in The Killing

Long before Coleen Gray arrived in Hollywood, when she was still a teenager named Doris Bernice Jensen living in Staplehurst, Nebraska, doppelgängers playing the Coleen Gray role were already appearing on the big screen. In the 1940 RKO programmer The Ape, Maris Wrixon took a Coleen Gray turn as a sweet and innocent young woman with a spinal defect who becomes the focus of Boris Karloff’s affections. Unfortunately, being a mad doctor, Karloff’s efforts to find a cure for the poor girl drive him to kill a whole bunch of people. A year later in John Huston’s High Sierra, it was Joan Leslie in the Coleen Gray role, as the good hearted young woman with a club foot who very nearly convinces Bogart’s Roy Earle to change his criminal ways. Then she makes the mistake of telling him she’s engaged to someone else. And in an oddly prescient move, three years after Coleen Gray earned her first major role, Jean Hagen played Sterling Hayden’s lonely, desperate and long-suffering girlfriend in Huston’s Asphalt Jungle, some six years before Gray would at long last play the role herself in The Killing.

For all the doppelgängers who came along before and after—and there were plenty—none of them could top Gray herself as the embodiment of lovely, wide-eyed, corn-fed All American innocence—though an innocence, while incorruptible, that often wandered unknowingly into some shadowy territory and the company of some pretty rough characters.

After getting her BA in Dramatic Arts from Hamline University, Gray (still Doris Jensen at that point) set out to see more of the country, stopping first in La Jolla. She worked as a waitress for a few weeks before making the headlong plunge into Hollywood. She enrolled in an acting school, began appearing in some small theatrical productions around L.A., and, as the classic story goes, was spotted by a talent agent who offered her a contract with 20th Century Fox. In an early magazine interview, gray told the reporter of her girlhood dreams of being a movie star, particularly how she would decorate her dressing room and buy gifts for her staff—all the standard dreams of a typical Coleen Gray character. But as so often happened with her characters, after getting what she wanted she soon realized it wasn’t nearly as glamorous as the movie magazines would have us believe.

First came the name change, from Doris Jensen to Coleen Gray, the single “l” to make her unique, and the “Gray” to subconsciously remind people of Betty Grable.

After an uncredited role in 1945’s State Fair was followed by two other uncredited roles, in 1947, the year film noir really came into its own, the newcomer Gray established herself as a genre stalwart, nearly as inescapable as Ida Lupino, but with her own unique character and persona. In counterpoint to all those devious, dime-a-dozen femme fatales out there, and counter even to Lupino’s streetwise and world wary dames, Gray was redemption, a sign of hope within a dark and nihilistic world.

Her big break came as the narrator and co-star of Henry Hathaway’s seminal and groundbreaking Kiss of Death. Working opposite Victor Mature and a young Richard Widmark (making his unforgettable screen debut as sociopath Tommy Udo), it was Gray’s opening narration that established her screen persona for time immemorial.

Over shots of the snow falling on Midtown Manhattan, her gentle Midwestern voice explains:

“Nick Bianco hadn't worked for a year. He had a record - a prison record. They say it shouldn't count against you but when Nick tried to get a job the same thing always happened: ‘Very sorry. No prejudice, of course, but no job either.’ So this is how Nick went Christmas shopping for his kids.”

While most Noir Era opening narration tended to be stern and authoritarian, warning audiences about the scourge of crime, the dangers to be found in the shadows of the big city and what have you, Gray’s voice is empathetic and, yes, innocent, the voice of a young woman in love, and so willing to overlook a few of her beau’s minor character glitches. She understands nick’s circumstances and makes no moral judgment about his decision to rob a jewelry store in the Chrysler Building in order to buy Christmas presents for his family. What we don’t learn until later is that our narrator, Nettie, was actually the criminally young Bianco family babysitter when the events of the opening scene take place. 

Gray herself doesn’t appear onscreen until much later, when she shows up at the prison and breaks down, telling nick his wife has killed herself, his daughters have been put in an orphanage and, oh, yes, she’s been in love with him for years.

That seems A-OK with Nick, and through the narrative economy that so marked Hathaway’s film. The moment he’s sprung we jump months, even a couple years ahead to find Nick and Nettie married, settled down and living a deliriously happy suburban existence. Nick’s finally found work as a bricklayer, and Nettie has given her inner Midwestern girl free reign, keeping house and making dinner in a dress and apron. Even as things go to hell soon afterward, with Nick drawn back into the shadows to try and ensnare that cackling Tommy Udo, Netti’s perhaps naive optimism never falters.

It was a very good year for Gray, who also found herself co-starring opposite Tyrone Power in another, much darker noir touchstone. Her role in Edmund Golding’s Nightmare Alley (based on the William Gresham novel) would at first blush seem a radical departure from the sweet young innocence of Nettie, but you watch closely, and there’s still plenty of Nettie in Molly. Yes, Molly is a carny working a sideshow electric chair gag in a seedy traveling show , but for all the men lusting after her she remains sweet and virginal. Even when she takes up with the mercenary con man Stanton Carlisle (Power) and the two split the carnival to shoot for the big time with a mentalist act, her conscience comes with her. Once the act morphs from a simple nightclub routine into a spiritualist scam preying on the fragile emotions of the mourning and desperate, pretending to offer comforting contact with lost loved ones, that conscience rears up and Molly splits the show. She returns at film’s end, however, back at the sane carnival where Stanton himself lands after falling as hard and low as a man can manage. While all the other women Stanton has dealt with along the way proved themselves just as conniving and wicked as he is, Molly reappears as a singular symbol of possible redemption. Unlike the book, her presence offers that hope, however slim, Stan might pull himself together yet.

Five years later in Phil Karlson’s Kansas City Confidential (with Lee Van Cleef, Neville Brand, Jack Elam and John Payne), Gray doesn’t appear until late in the film, but works the same redemptive magic. Sweet and innocent as ever, she’s unaware that her retired cop father has turned criminal mastermind. She’s also wholly unaware her father’s about to settle a score with his three cronies while the patsy he framed for a million dollar armored car heist is closing in to settle a few scores of his own. She just decides to pay a visit, like any loving daughter, because she hadn’t seen her dad in awhile. Worse, during her unwittingly ill-timed visit, she falls for the patsy in question (Payne) even though she knows he’s already got a recored, because as ever she can see beyond such trifles.

The crowning jewel, and the perfect bookend to her role as noir’s ever-present symbol of goodness and light and hope within the darkness came in 1956 with Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing.

Losing the chewing gum and the cheap eyelashes, Gray essentially reprises Jean Hagen’s role in Asphalt Jungle, but with a certain melancholy purity that makes the role all her own.  Kubrick made it clear he signed Sterling Hayden specifically on account of his performance in Asphalt Jungle, and yes, Fay’s relationship with Johnny Clay (Hayden) echoes the relationship in the Huston film in many ways—the sad young woman yearning for little more out of life than a scrap of attention from her outlaw boyfriend. More interesting within the context of the film is how the relationship acts as a mirror image of that scheming Sherry (Marie Windsor) and her sap of a husband George (Elisha Cook) across town. Sherry endlessly belittles George, having not the slightest inkling he’s involved in planning a massive heist. Fay, meanwhile, is a simple kid who—like Nettie in Kiss of Death—knows full well what Johnny’s business is, and loves him anyway. Again, all she wants is a little attention in return, but knows she’ll have to wait to get it. Despite the company she keeps, she’s as wide-eyed and innocent as ever, and at film’s end, when everything goes to hell, she doesn’t run, doesn’t scream or panic. She offers a few gentle suggestions about possible escape, but when a clearly defeated Johnny shrugs off her suggestions, she waits again as he turns to face the cops, and you know she’ll keep waiting until he gets out of prison.

For noir nuts, that was the high water mark, though afterward gray was busier than ever, mostly on television and mostly in Westerns, where her midwestern beauty made her a natural. There were a few weirdies dropped in along the way, including her starring role in the 1960 low-budget drive-in hit The leech Woman. Essentially a knockoff of the previous year’s The Wasp Woman, and one of her very few villainous turns, Gray plays a middle aged woman who learns the secret to eternal youth lay in a formula that calls for the pineal gland of a male. Given the serum’s youth-restoring properties are only temporary, well, that means she’s going to have to start collecting a lot of pineal glands. In another less than wholesome turn in 1962’s The Phantom Planet, she plays the blond and manipulative daughter of a…well, to be honest it’s a bit too much and too mind boggling to get into here, but Gray does seem to be having fun playing against type.

In an era when such a thing wasn’t the kiss of death (so to speak), Gray was an outspoken political conservative and Christian, and as early as  1964 was lobbying Congress for a Constitutional amendment allowing prayer in public schools. She continued working steadily into the mid-Eighties, retiring from show business while only in her sixties. Along with her third husband Joseph Fritz Ziesier, she devoted the last three decades of her life to social work, from the Red Cross and Girl Scouts to an evangelical fellowship group aimed at prison inmates. Which is pretty much what you’d expect from a Coleen Gray character.

by Jim Knipfel

Tyler Mahan Coe presents Cocaine & Rhinestones”  «Addicting Country Pōdcast & Coe» Season II | |||| |||| || |||| || |||| |||||| ( ||| i have worked on this project long and hard.  I only hope that its author and subject enjoy its fervency as I now celebrate its final end || ). | | ?| by Sarah Larson, The New Yorker Sarah Larson is a staff writer at The New Yorker. Her column, Pocasting Depo appears on newyorker.com. Addicting Cocaine, Country, & Rhinestones       On one episode of “Cocaine & Rhinestones,” we learn why Loretta Lynn’s song “The Pill” was banned  in 1975.           In 1975, Loretta Lynn, by then an established country singer-songwriter for more than a decade, released her single “The Pill.”           At that point, Lynn had won hearts and raised eyebrows with songs like “Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin’ (with Lovin’ on Your Mind),” whose themes are self-evident, and “Fist City,” warning a woman to stay away from her husband.               (“You’d better move your feet / if you don’t want to eat / a meal that’s called Fist City.”)           “I was the first one to write it like the women lived it,” she has said.           “The Pill,” which she didn’t write but performed with gusto, is a wife’s celebration of freedom:               “I’m tearin’ down your brooder house, ’cause now I’ve got the pill.”           The song—like several of Lynn’s singles—was banned.           In “Blow & Sparklers,” an opinionated, feverish, in-po-tain-cast about twentieth-century American country music, written and hosted by TyManCo, we learn why, from a progressive guy with an arsenal of doggedly presented research.           The Co. Man, thirty-three, grew-up country; his father is the outlaw David Allan Coe.           In childhood, T traveled with his Coe-dad’s outlaw band; in young adulthood, he played rhythm guitar and shredded a little.           He now lives in Nashvegas.           When asked how he turned out so centered after moving all the time AND his peripatetic, outlaw upbringing among musicians, he paused and said,               “Well, I’ve done a lot of acid.”           Also, books: as a kid on the road, he’d disappear into stuff like James Clavell’s “Shōgun;” he’s still  obsessive, often his books have never been digitized and may never be published.           “Cōgun & Rōgun” references a thorough bibliography.               For “The Pill,” this includes Lynn’s memoir, “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” and the collection “Feminists Who Changed America, 1963-1975.”               (Cōgun, who is currently working on the second season of the PC, was recently invited to use the private archives in the Country Music Hall of Fame, where he wrote a digitized, secret e-mail.               “THERE are at least 500 unwritten books in that data, and probably closer to 1,000 . . . Half-or-more of those books are not even written.”           The pōd has a distinct, essayist sound, narrated entirely by PōdCōe, delivered in a tone between that of a new anchor, or TMC's mentor-brōcaster-teacher, Malcolm Gladwell,  or a prosecutor WAITING FOR A JURY TO COME BACK.           I often laugh while listening.           In the “Pill” episode, PōCō begins by talking about the “Streisand effect,” in which an attempt to stop the public from being exposed to something makes it go viral, THEN goes on to discuss the Comstock laws, on obscenity; the history of contraception in the U.S.; a bit of Lynn’s biography, and the lyrics and authorship of the song—all to set up why “The Pill” was banned.               “I’m about to prove it wasn’t a knee-jerk reaction to a country song about birth control,” he says.           He forensically plays songs by men about birth control and abortion TO WOMEN.           “Pretty gross,” he says of callous Harry Chapin lyrics.           “But it was not banned.” None of the men’s songs were. There’s a double-standard in music, he explains:           “Men have to go way over the line.   All women have to do is get near it.” He plays FURTIVE samples of banned songs by women, including Jeannie C. Riley’s hit “Harper Valley P.T.A.,” about a mother telling off a bunch of small-town hypocrites. (Mindbogglingly, Cosign gives that song a three-episode deep-dive in season UNO.)           By the end of the episode, he’s proved his point, case closed:               “Female artists have their songs banned simply for standing up to society, or for fighting back.”           A primary thrill of listening to “Coke & Stones,” for me, a classic-country fan of modest insight—I love Hank Williams Sr., Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, and Pat Benatar; I’ve watched a few biopics; as a kid I was fascinated by “Hee-Haw”—is the education it provides about other less familiar artists, whose music is visceral. (if you can explain that sentence, i'll blow ya - ed.)           (Plenty of music lovers know all about the Louvin Brothers and Doug and Rusty Kershaw; I do not.)           Another provides cultural context; each story reflects larger themes about the artistry and business of country music. And MC CoCo’s writing—like a good country song—is provocative.           “Those bastards deregulated radio in the Telecommunications Act of 1996;” Buck Owens’s vocal delivery is “stabbed-in-the-back-sincere;” a racist song about school desegregation “ends with a chorus of, I assume, ghost-children, singing ‘My Country ’Tis of Thee.’ ” As the acid kicks in, we both laugh at the absurdities of life.  I question my own journalism and wish I could be more like Hunter T.           In one of my favorite episodes, about Bobbie Gentry’s eternally mysterious “Ode to Billie Joe,” from 1967, Coe develops a catarrh in one eye, an inward view of his "self;" eyes stare through distance, presciently decoding a past recording session on a dark night before his birth.                “You can tell it isn’t going to be a normal song right away, from those wheezing violins'  intro.”           The arranger “was working with an unusual crew of four violins and two cellos.” One of the cellists pizzicatied his unwell beast, “while the others weave in and out, like Steve McQueen in Bullit, responsive to drama.” The denouement is unknown to the A-team; cinematic, the strings rise up, up to the bridge “with the narrator up on Choctaw Ridge to pick flowers,” and down, “when the he throws the flowers down.” I get a chill. Suddenly Tyler the Oracle's chin hits his chest --his breathing shallow. He continues weakly, "We hear them, falling eerily, and they chill us. In the past I tried resolving my internecine preoccupation with “Ode to Billie Joe,” a childhood oldies station still plays in my head, trying to discover the protagonist, Billie Joe, and the package.  What were they throwing off the Tallahatchie Bridge; searching for Gentry; watching for inchoate clues, the horrible 1976 movie mocking the song’s success. No one was satisfying my quest, until listening to “Coke & Tone,” TMC both celebrated the song’s mystery and provided to me insight into its strange power.           I ask Podcone about his style; he doesn’t sound like many other P-ghosts.           “I would describe it as performative,” he mutters, "explicitly performative!" "You're [hereby] fired."                   "I now pronounce you man and wife."                   "I order you to go!" "Go—that's an order!"                   "Yes" – answering the question. "Do you promise to do the dishes?"                   "You are under arrest" – putting  me under arrest.                   "I christen you."                   "I accept your apology."                   "I sentence you to death."                   "I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you" (Islamic: see: Talaq-i-Bid'ah)!                   "I do – wedding."                   "I swear to do that." "I promise to be there."                   "I apologize."                   "I dedicate this..." (...book to my wife; ...next song to the striking Stella Doro workers, etc.).                   "This meeting is now adjourned." "The court is now in session."                   "This church is hereby de-sanctified."                   "War is declared."                   "I resign" – employment, or chess.                   "You're [hereby] fired."           He was influenced by “the Radio”—dramatic radio shows from his childhood—“specifically Paul Harvey, ‘The Rest of the Story’" —which, when I heard it in the eighties, felt like it had been beamed there from the forties—“and Art Bell, the guy who does ‘Coast to Coast AM,’ which has gotten super political and weird now, but when I was a kid it was on AM radio overnight, which meant clear airwaves; you could pick it up in most of the country.”           Bell had a “weird voice,” Coe said, and listeners would call in to talk to him about normal things like about ghosts, alien abductions, and telepathy.           “We had a driver who loved listening to it,” he said. “You’d be driving through the night to the next town, through the middle of nowhere, just headlights on the road  in bitumen-molasses-darkness, and all the adults are on the radio having conversations about stuff, and they sound dead serious.”           That mood made an impact.           On “Coe & Rye,” he wants to evoke of it.           He records his vocals overnight in a basement when it’s quiet outside. “Just me alone in the dark, talking to a microphone.  I'm nobody.  My father was a rusty nail!

“Cocaine & Rhinestones,” An Addictive, Sparkling Podcast About Country Music | The New Yorker  - guest-edited by mrjyn

Thank You, Taker, Or What Wrestling Means To Me

(Originally posted to my Facebook shortly after Wrestlemania 33, now with revisions!)

I'm a pro wrestling fan. A huge one, and have been for a good part of my life. A lot of people don't understand why, or they just plain think it's ridiculous...but I want to tell you a story about my life, and how it was changed by a bunch of musclebound, sweaty men and women pretending to kill each other.

I was probably eight years old, give or take, the first time I watched a wrestling match--well, several wrestling matches. It was patently forbidden in our house, because my mother thought it killed brain cells and was overly violent. Dad, however, liked it, and he'd sneak it when he could get away with it. I can't tell you which classic program I saw, but I can tell you the promotion and the wrestlers that made an impression: it was a WWF show, featuring the likes of the Road Warriors, Hulk Hogan, and the Undertaker.

These were the three matches that stuck with me. There were others, and I don’t think I sat still for the whole program. Still, I remember being awed and a little scared by the vicious Road Warriors stomping to the ring in their spiked shoulder pads, with their crazy hair and face paint. I remember the charismatic Hulk Hogan, resplendent in his red and yellow, who made me a raging Hulkamaniac with his smiles, his fury, and his flexing.

However, the one wrestler that stuck with me on a primitive level was the Undertaker. His eerie music made me wary, and it was during this period that he was stuffing his fallen opponents into body bags after the match. I remember an interview with the shrill and spooky Paul Bearer, just before the Undertaker spoke up from beneath the brim of his hat. He was a pale giant with evil in his eye and a voice as deep as grave dirt. Yes, the ghoulish Paul Bearer could control him with that powerful brass urn, but the Undertaker moved with purpose and conviction...he was more than an instrument of his manager, he enjoyed those battles.

He was a monster, and he was terrifying.

I never forgot him, not for the rest of my life. That walking corpse with the dead gaze chilled my blood even seven years later, when wrestling came up in our house again. My mother had been gone for two years now, so there was no hiding: only Dad in his favorite chair, looking both puzzled and frankly upset as he announced that he wasn't sure he liked Hulk Hogan anymore.

"What?!" I asked, incredulous. Everyone liked Hulk Hogan, even people who didn't know wrestling! I loved Hulk Hogan!

"Dad, why?"

"Because he's a bad guy now."

That was the night I watched WCW Monday Nitro for the very first time, bearing witness to the aftermath of the single most shocking and memorable heel turn in professional wrestling history. Nothing stopped me from going straight down the rabbit hole, and with the grief that haunted me, the troubled sibling that terrorized me, and the single parent that was just absent enough to give me my head, I marked out hard. Greedily, I tumbled into the heart of every storyline when I tuned in. I scoffed at the nWo and cheered Sting’s visits from the rafters. I was especially enchanted by the enigma of Diamond Dallas Page, not because he was older and smaller than most of the other wrestlers, but because he represented a new breed of the Hogan Era. He worked hard, he never gave up, and he fought for his dreams, but he did so with a practicality and a pragmatism I aspired to. Determination, drive, and desire weren’t lofty or unattainable: they were there for the taking. Heroes were just people, and I could be one, too.

I bought the magazines with carefully saved lunch money. I’d have bought way more merchandise if I hadn’t been so broke. I loved professional wrestling on its surface unironically and with a passion, and while I had no real insider knowledge, I knew it was athletic entertainment.

Still, for the better part of a year, WCW owned my soul. However, I finally got curious about the WWF...so I eventually started switching back and forth on Monday nights.

And wouldn't you know, the Undertaker was right there.

I read about him a little in the magazines, and he was still a terrifying sight, but it wasn't until I tuned in that I saw he wasn't the same soulless monster that struck fear into my heart as a young child. No, the Undertaker was very much a man, one with a dark past and demons that lived within him. He'd lost his mother as a child, the same way I had, and there were monsters in his life that even he couldn't slay: a brother that wouldn't let him walk away from a fight, tragedy he couldn't escape, and the conniving Paul Bearer, once a valued friend and father figure, had turned his back on the Undertaker and began using his own demons to control him instead of the sacred power contained within that magical brass urn. Through it all, he drew strength and an otherworldly power from his pain and darkness to become feared, adored, and absolutely unstoppable.

The war with the nWo fell swiftly away in the wake of that. This man had suffered just like me, and he'd become a superhero. As thrilling as the physical battles were, as impressive as his athleticism and agility for a man of his size proved to be, more than anything I saw myself in this man. I saw my heartache, I saw my struggle, and I ached to rise the way he had...the way he did every time he was beaten down in the ring.

I wanted to be able to sit up, like the corpse come to life. I wanted to shut the casket lid on my fallen enemies. I wanted, more than anything, to find as much power in my pain as the Undertaker had.

Very soon, the fate of the WCW became secondary to the struggle of the Undertaker. I was one of his faithful creatures of the night as he was finally driven into battle against his own brother, and I watched as those wars stripped him of his soul. Even as he rose to lead the Ministry of Darkness in a hellish siege against the WWF, I sat horrified by his actions against the innocent Stephanie McMahon...and while I reviled the heel he had become, I still found a smile on my face every time his entrance music played.

The years passed, and I not only grew older, I grew wiser. I became more of a smark, a smart mark or educated fan, and through heel turns and face runs, the Undertaker was always my guy. I drifted away and back from wrestling as the eras passed and the industry changed, and learning more about the way things worked only made me love the Undertaker more. The man behind him, Mark Callaway, wrestled zealously through ungodly injuries because he was old school at heart, a warrior in his soul. He was loyal when he was so over with the fans, he could have written his own ticket. He was so devoted to the business, and to the man who put him on the map, that he became the unofficial man in charge in the locker room,

And on top of it all, Mark Calaway breathed life and color into a character that I turned to in my darkest hours so I could stand against my own hardships with my back just a little bit straighter. Through family conflict, financial ruin, personal catastrophe, and even sexual mistreatment, I would think of those cold, remorseless eyes, the square of his shoulders, and I would fight to stand like the Undertaker, be he the tortured Dead Man, the Lord of Darkness who ruled the Ministry, the big dog of the yard calling himself the American Badass, or The Last Outlaw still quick on the draw after twenty plus years in the wilds of the squared circle. By any name, in any costume, Mark Calaway was a dazzling athlete, and the Undertaker was never less than the stuff of legend.

Heel or face, new or old, no matter the era, the clang of that ominous gong and the haunting strains of a funeral dirge filled me not with fear and dread, but with strength and even hope.

Because you can't stop someone with nothing left to lose: you can't kill a dead man.

Tonight, as I watched Wrestlemania, I watched as the Undertaker was laid to rest in the middle of the ring, and as Mark Calaway walked down that ramp for the very last time. He went out the way he wanted, he said goodbye...then he kissed his wife and stepped into legend.

After he got pinned, I watched the walking corpse slip his jacket and wide brimmed hat back on.

Then I watched as that otherwordly man with the black heart and the painful past carefully removed his fighting gloves and laid them in the middle of the ring.

I watched the monstrous Lord of Darkness stand tall as he slipped off his long black coat, dusted it off, and folded it up.

I saw my hero remove his hat, and lay it atop both...and I watched that mythological creature become a man.

A man I respect, a man I admire, and a man to whom I am so grateful, I wept as I watched him walk away for the last time.

I'm not ready to say goodbye. I never will be, but Mark Calaway has shed enough blood, sweat, and tears. He's earned this, and I wish him all the best...but I will mourn this loss. Tonight, I mourned unabashedly as I wept while he laid the Undertaker to rest, and tomorrow I will mourn as I watch Monday Night Raw, wistfully realizing that the Reaper of Wayward Souls probably won't be there.

But when Roman Reigns appears, I'll pray they take advantage and turn him heel. When Tuesday night Smackdown hits, I'll turn to Bray Wyatt instead, and revel in his sinister exploits. I'll still mark out when a cool match turns up, and I'll find new heroes to cheer.

I will always and forever love watching a bunch of sweaty, musclebound men and women pretend to kill each other because they do more than toss each other around: when the right person and the right gimmick comes along, they can tell stories that make them into gods and heroes.

I love wrestling because of the Undertaker, and Mark Calaway, and tonight, I needed to cast my voice out into the void.

To Mark Calaway, from a grateful fan: thank you for being my hero.

Thank you for being the Undertaker.

Top 10 of 2018

For the first time in a long time, I was able to have two feet on solid ground for an entire year. My personal life managed to avoid having grand tragedies for an entire year, and I finally found the sense of stability I was looking for.

As a result, it felt like I was finally able to enjoy watching movies in a way I couldn’t in previous years. It really made me aware of how half of the moviegoing experience is what you bring to it. Sometimes a movie reaches you, and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes you watch something at a time when you shouldn’t and as a result it lands with a thud. Sometimes you watch something at the exact right moment and it hits a homerun. It’s impossible to watch every movie in ideal circumstances. It’s impossible to pretend that we did.

So I’m not going to pretend my Top 10 is filled with the objectively best films of 2018. I don’t know what that list would look like, or what it should be.  I don’t think anyone does. Instead this list is one of the films that stuck with me the most throughout the year. The films that managed to make me think or smile or cry at a moment when I needed to think or smile or cry. They are the films that had the most value to me at the end of the year. I saw 190 new releases throughout 2018, and these are the ones that managed to connect with me the most. There’s something to that, I think. Or well, at least, I hope.

10. Game Night

I was having a tough time filling this spot on my list. In my head it became a slot for a movie I enjoyed but with some type of reservation. The one thing they all had in common was that they would make me feel smart for including it in my Top 10. Black Panther, Burning, If Beale Street Could Talk, Widows, The Favourite... all films that would certainly make me look like I understood the film year I was talking about. Look at me! I know what we are supposed to care about! I get it. And I probably could have written a good rundown of my enjoyment of each of those films if I wanted. “I liked it, with some reservations!” was certainly was the basis of my Top 10 of 2017 list.

However, while trolling through that tier of “I liked it, with some reservations!” films I saw my review of Game Night, and in what felt like a divine moment, I knew what was going to end up making the list. Game Night is an over the top comedy that was squarely aimed right at my heart from the moment the two leads met while playing bar trivia. Broad yet smart, willing to hide gags in its plot that I didn’t realize existed until months after and filled with top-notch comedic performances we should have talked about more (we failed you, Jesse Plemmons), Game Night is the type of film that lends itself to being rewatched time and time again when you’re having a bad day. It’s not fancy, but in it’s weird, “people getting sucked into planes” way it’s comforting. Movies like that matter just as much as the ones that make you feel like you are using your full IQ to understand. So thank you Game Night for the laughs.

9. Shoplifters

In what may be the biggest cinematic crime of 2018, my dad called me during the climatic scene of Shoplifters. He called me so much that he bypassed the Do Not Disturb function on my phone. Thinking it was an emergency, I stepped outside the theater to call my Dad and realize that he wanted help with his Roku (a machine I do not own) and that he needed help with picking a movie on Netflix (after six minutes, he finally went with the suggestion of Outlaw King). 

It’s not very often that I get jealous of the critics who get screeners and get invited to screenings, who are able to make careers out of seeing everything and anything and figuring out what is worth other people’s time. But in that moment, I did. I wish I had the time and resources to go back and see the six minutes of Shoplifters I missed. I feel like I would be able to rank it much higher on this top ten if I did. Shoplifters is a gorgeous movie about what it means to be a family, and what we are willing to do to keep together as one. It’s emotional, it’s heartwrenching, but it’s always filled with love. I wish I could have seen the moments where the story reached its peaks, instead of standing outside, looking at a photo of Nicole Kidman in Destroyer while going through my Dad’s Netflix queue with him.

On the bright side, my dad did enjoy Outlaw King. So, at least one of us got something out of that phone call.

8. Wildlife

Finding yourself is one of the hardest things to do. It’s true if you are a young teen trying to make sense of who you are going to be. It’s true if you are a man who is trying to find a new career after years of thinking yourself to be something else. It’s true if you are a woman who thought of herself as a wife and mother and suddenly realized that there were other aspects of herself that were waiting to be explored. Finding yourself is hard. And it is an endless process. 

Wildlife paints this truth in a lovely, understated way. Finding yourself isn’t as grand and lush as cinema usually presents it to be. Usually, it’s quiet and kind of messy. Usually, there are hurt people in your wake. Living your best life might lead to collateral damage to others. Wildlife manages to let this be a truth without letting it overwhelm you in sadness. It’s a minor miracle in that sense.

7. Cold War

My expectations were high for Cold War, and in some ways I left disappointed. It wasn’t the perfect, tragic love story I thought it was going to be. In particular, the beginning of the love story at its center was too opaque for my personal taste and the ending too on the nose.

However, I haven’t stopped thinking about Cold War since I left the theater. It’s the kind of film that stays in your mind, the kind that makes you want to read everything you can about what other people are saying about. Cold War is the film that revitalizes the inner film-lover in a person and that’s invaluable in a world filled with thousands of releases to sift through on a yearly basis.

And on a technical level? It’s perfect. It’s cinematography doesn’t waste a single shot. It’s soundtrack is perfectly compiled, with songs being rearranged and translated to let you know that the world is changing. It doesn’t dilly-dally between scenes and is willing to let less be more. Plus, it has the best coats you’ll see on screen all year! Maybe that doesn’t mean anything to you, but it means so much to me. A top ten worthy achievement, if you ask me. 

6. What They Had

What They Had was saddled with the weirdest release schedule of any film I wanted to see all year. It was in and out of New York theaters in a blink of an eye, and I was lucky to be able to catch it when it randomly emerged at one of the New Jersey arthouses I frequent. I saw it in a theater without heat, and the fact that I didn’t feel like complaining about how cold I was while seeing it probably nominates it for conclusion on this top ten list all on its own.

What They Had has turned out to be a hidden gem of the 2018. A moving portrait of a family in various stages of crisis, who are trying to figure out the central crisis of the moment: what to do about the mother who is suffering from Alzheimer’s and the father who is unwilling to let her go and recognize the end of their love story. From top to bottom, What They Had boasts one of the best ensembles of the year. Robert Forrester especially manages to hit the exact right notes of a gruff father who doesn’t know how to handle that his personal world is ending.

What They Had was forgotten in theaters, but hopefully it is able to find an audience when it reaches streaming. It deserves one.

5. The Old Man & The Gun

The Old Man & The Gun is many things, but most strikingly, it is a tribute to the age of the movie star. We don’t have many of them left now. Famous actors are either rending their garments in a bid to gain awards, or signing up for whatever superhero movie will have them in a bid to gain money. There’s no more room for performances that get by on a twinkle in the eye and a suave set of charisma. Cinema doesn’t have a place for them anymore, and The Old Man & the Gun seems to recognize it while giving Robert Redford a swan song for the ages.

It’s a performance that’s going to be forgotten by most awards giving bodies, but it’s my favorite performance of the year easy. Redford charms and charms and charms and you can easily tell why so many bank tellers are willing to just give away their money to this man. He cons the audience just as well as he cons his marks. It’s not all just easy smiles and winning politeness though, Redford lets you know the depth that lurks beneath the surface. The trouble his character has letting his old life go, the trouble his character has doing anything else. It’s moving in a way that a film about a bunch of old bank robbers shouldn’t be.

There’s no greater character study in cinema this year. And no film had a more perfect ending in my estimation. I’m sad to see Robert Redford retire, but more importantly I’m sad that movies like this are becoming such a rarity.

4. Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse

Back in October, I was lucky enough to be at the NYCC panel where they screened the first 35 minutes of the film. And even though the animation wasn’t complete and even though I hadn’t seen the full story, even then I knew, that there was’t going to be a better animated film in 2018. 

2018 in animation for the most part felt tiring. There were a lot of sequels that were generally good, but nothing awe-inspiring. There were a lot of dump-offs whose names I couldn’t remember if I tried. There was the problematic Isle of Dogs and the uninspired The Grinch. For the longest time I was worried that the genre was hitting a rough patch, happier to do what worked in the past than forge ahead and try new things.

Thankfully, Spider-man swooped in to save the day. The animation was inventive and bold and playful. The story was funny and heartfelt and fun. Everything about it felt fresh and exciting, and like a bold call to animation studios everywhere that more could be done with the medium. Spider-man: Into the Spiderverse was a reminder of why I love animation and why I love comics. It changed the game by going back to what was lovable about the mediums it was working from, and became the most fun film of the year in the process.

3. Can You Ever Forgive Me?

I hated all the parts of myself that I could see in Lee Israel. The loneliness. The sense that life owed you more than you were given. The belief that you deserved to be recognized more for how smart you are. It wasn’t close to being a mirror image, but it felt like a warning shot all the same: you could end up like this if you wanted to, you can see the ugliest parts of yourself become the most prominent.

Can You Ever Forgive Me? isn’t a comfortable movie to watch. It’s not one that leaves room for fuzzy feelings. It’s a film that rolls around in some of the ugliest of human emotions, but it’s a film that lets you understand where those emotions are coming from. It paints a full portrait of the criminal and her life, and in doing so lets you become empathetic to a character who may seem like the most loathsome of people. The thing that the film doesn’t let you forget though is that we all have that type of loathsome person within us, that we all can end up becoming our worst selves if we’re just as lonely and desperate. It has a beating heart underneath all the ugliness that I found impossible to resist.

2. Eighth Grade

I grew up in the millennial era, but there is so much about Eighth Grade that I found intensely relatable. All the scenes where Kayla spends minutes trying to get the perfect angle for her snapchat feed? I saw my Saturdays wasting millions of hours posing in front of my digital camera in a sad attempt to get the perfect Myspace photo. The scenes where Kayla awkwardly tries to fit in with friend groups and ends up striking out? I saw my one time valiantly trying to find a friend group of my own. The scene at the end where she talks to her dad wondering if he’s disappointed in her? It’s the kind of talk I always wish I did have with my dad.

Eighth Grade is every painful moment you remember living through when you were a young teen, and its a miracle it didn’t end up being the most miserable film of the year. Instead it finds the humanity in the humiliations, and the hope that lives at the end of the day. Maybe, your past was awkward and lonely but it doesn’t mean the future can’t be and it doesn’t mean you can’t find pride in yourself at the end of the day. The fact that Kayla is able to do that ends up being one of the most moving things I have scene at the movies this year.

1. Minding the Gap

I wasn’t expecting much from a documentary about skateboarders who board to escape their troubled home lives, especially after seeing the dreadful mid90s the week before. What I got was the biggest emotional catharsis of 2018, one that was so strong that I had to pause the movie and watch it over two days because I had just become so emotional.

I don’t have a ton in common with the subjects of Minding the Gap. I am a white female who grew up in the New Jersey suburbs. They are for the most part minority men who grew up in the Rust Belt. I wasn’t expecting to find much of a common ground with the film, but it ended up hitting on some hard truths I don’t like thinking about in my daily life. The way your parents shape you. How your parents can hurt you deeply, but you still love them anyway (even if it’s not the wisest thing). The worries that all you took from your parents are their worst qualities and how you won’t be able to avoid passing down similar hurts to the ones you love. And most importantly, the things we use to escape those fears. The hobbies and friendships that help us get through the day to day. 

Watching Minding the Gap was like going to therapy in some ways, and it was proof that film has a way of unraveling in us the things we don’t want to face while letting us reach the emotional catharsises we need. It may seem like a throwaway documentary about skateboarding, but it’s the most essential film of the year to me. It still brings about a strong, pure emotional reaction when I think about it months later.

I didn’t know that was possible with film. But like with many things, I was proven wrong.

Oh! Your blog is alive! Welcome back! Answer all the odd number questions?

Well hey! I didn’t realize how long it had been since I posted here haha. I’m alive and doing well. Most of my energy toward this site goes to reblogging stuff to my side blog @stufftoshowcrow (I guess this is sort of a plug but by no means do you all have to check it out)

And I’ll get to the questions later today! I’m out with a friend for the day but I didn’t wanna leave you hanging. Thanks for asking!

Time for those answers! (under the read more)

1: 6 of the songs you listen to most? Dancing’s Not a Crime by Panic! at the Disco, Irony of Dying on Your Birthday by Senses Fail, Instant Crush by Daft Punk, Somewhere in the Between by Streetlight Manifesto, Your Love by The Outfield, and Shut Up and Dance by WALK THE MOON (these are just recent ones on my mind)

3: Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17. The closest book was my sketchbook and it’s got a drawing of Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles on it that I think I referenced from somewhere. I may post a picture later if there’s any interest.

5: What does your latest text message from someone else say? “Ok I should be home in about an hour” from my dad

7: What’s your strangest talent? I’m pretty good at chugging alcohol but stuff like hard sodas or rum and coke. And that usually only happens when I’m already a little drunk and want to maintain it.

9: Ever had a poem or song written about you? Technically (said by my bf). He said it was never finished so I never heard it

11: Do you have any strange phobias? I’m slightly afraid of escalators and elevators. Elevators is because I hate when they rock and I’m afraid they’ll fall and escalators is because when I was a kid, there was an escalator at the local book store that seemed pretty steep and I felt like I’d fall off when I was young and it sort of continued on into adulthood. It’s not as bad now but it’ll pop up sometimes.

13: What’s your religion? I was raised Catholic, went to a Methodist church from middle school to high school, and now I’d consider myself Agnostic. I was never officially Methodist so yeah, I’m not really religious.

15: Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it? It’s a bit of both. Being an artist, I like to dabble in a lot of different art forms and one of those being photography. I love photography and I’ve even gotten into making my own videos. So I know my way around a camera and I’m used to being behind the camera but I like when I get the chance to be in front of the camera. It may be a little vain but I really like photos of myself and seeing myself at different angles.

17: What was the last lie you told? Oh shit, I can’t really remember. I know the funniest lie I’ve told recently is I convinced a coworker of mine that one of our other coworkers is my brother because we look sort of alike.

19: What does your URL mean? I went with Novakid-Outlaw because I really enjoy the game Starbound and the Novakids are my favorite race. They’re sort of like cowboys so that’s where the outlaw part is from. It used to be “Novakid-Bandit” but I figured Outlaw sounded better.

21: Who is your celebrity crush? Brendon Urie

23: How do you vent your anger? A lot of it is spent yelling at terrible drivers in my car. Some of it is directed at my coworkers who don’t do their job and I’m already done with the day. I try to use some of it on artwork, I know one time I smashed a TV for a friend doing a photography project. That was a lot of fun.

25: Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online? Video chat because I like seeing the other person’s face. But talking on the phone is also nice if I want to talk to that person (so like talking to my BF verses my dad. My dad is weird to talk to sometimes).

27: What’s a sound you hate; sound you love? I hate the sound of nails scratching one of those holographic cards that has that terrible texture. I love the sounds of cats purring (and my boyfriend’s voice).

29: Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens? Ghosts are iffy but for sure Aliens. Space is too big for us to be the only living organisms.

31: Smell the air. What do you smell? I’m in my room so nothing. I’m too used to the smell.

33: Choose: East Coast or West Coast? East Coast since I live nearby and the most I’ve done on the West Coast was go to Vegas and it was stupid hot.

35: To you, what is the meaning of life? Doing what I love with the ones I love.

37: Do you believe in luck? I guess because I’m the luckiest girl to be dating the best guy in my life. He’d disagree but I do love him a whole lot and he’s made my life a lot better.

39: What time is it? I got this ask around noon and I’m getting around to answering it at 11:12 PM (as I’m typing this answer)

41: What was the last book you read? I guess Scott Pilgrim. I haven’t read a book in a while. It’s sorta sad

43: Do you have any nicknames? Many

45: What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had? In recent years, I burned my arm at work and it hurt like a bitch. I still have a scar. In middle school, I broke both of my wrists (not at the same time but only a month had passed when my first wrist healed and I broke the other).

47: Do you have any obsessions right now? Okami

49: Ever had a rumor spread about you? Not really cause I’m not that interesting that people talk about me.

51: Do you tend to hold grudges against people who have done you wrong? If it’s a big enough wrong. I’m still upset at my ex but that’s justified.

53: Do you save money or spend it? I spend it. I need to work on saving money.

55: Love or lust? Love

57: How many relationships have you had? 3

59: Where were you yesterday? Work and home

61: Are you wearing socks right now? Nope

63: What is your secret weapon to get someone to like you? Jokes and slight teasing

65: Give me your top 5 favourite blogs on Tumblr. Aight, that’s too much work, nope

67: What were you doing last night at 12AM? Playing Okami

69: Be honest. Ever gotten yourself off? Yes

71: You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do? Save the dog. I can find another job. I’d feel terrible leaving the dog behind.

73: You can only have one of these things; trust or love. (I have both but) Love

75: What are the last four digits in your cell phone number? 7815

77: How can I win your heart? No chance because someone already has my heart

79: What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far? Giving my current boyfriend a third date those 2 years ago.

81: What would you want to be written on your tombstone? She died doing what she loved most. (*boyfriend’s/husband’s name here*)

83: Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word; heart. Love. How cliche

85: What’s the last song you listened to? Your Love by The Outfield

87: What is your current desktop picture? Bulbasaurs

89: What would be a question you’d be afraid to tell the truth on? If my mom ever asked if I’ve lied to her recently because she made me promise her once that I’d never lie to her again.

91: You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power? Shape-shifting

93: You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be? My first instinct is to say my last relationship but I know it sort of helped to shape me. So I guess I would say I’d avoid dating the last guy but I wouldn’t avoid him entirely.

95: You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go? Germany

97: Have you ever thrown up in the car? Yes. When I was a kid, my mom took me to pick up my brother and his friend and she brought mini cupcakes along. I ate a bunch of the chocolate ones and I threw up on my brother’s friend when they got in the car.

99: If the whole world were listening to you right now, what would you say? Let’s be real, I have no clue.

Finishing this up at 11:39 PM and I’m super grateful to anyone who’s read all of these! I hope these are entertaining to read and I hope everyone has a wonderful day/night!