#a subtle melancholy threaded with my sense of self

[anthropoetics]

by essam marouf

#art #essam marouf #portraits #my curations #something about the art i'm drawn to lately! #i'm large. i contain multitudes. #a subtle melancholy threaded with my sense of self #cold colors that bring warmth #personhood! etc. etc.

[thesunlounge]

Reviews 370: Coyote

I have been mostly absent as of late due to the pressures of completing my PhD studies, but now that the work there is finishing, I am trying to return to regular reviewing. And for months and months now, one of the records I’ve most wanted to discuss has been Coyote’s Buzzard Country, released last year on their home station Is it Balearic? Recordings. In fact, my delay has been so extreme that, not only has Coyote released an accompanying Buzzard Country Remixes 12”—which I will cover here as well—they have also dropped the incredible Return to Life 12”, and even announced a new 2xLP slated for the summer called The Mystery Light. But better late than never, and there is no way I can pass up the chance to at last write in depth about the music of Timm Sure and Ampo. I say “at last” because, despite the fact that I consider Coyote amongst my very favorite recording artists, you would be forgiven for not knowing that by scanning the Sun Lounge archives. Though I’ve had opportunity to discuss their work here and there via remixes (such as on Blank & Jones’ Relax: The Sunset Sessions 2 and Joe Morris’ Cloud Nine 12”), by some strange turn of fate, Coyote has released no vinyl of their own since this blog’s inception...something that only changed very recently. Indeed, prior to 2020, the last time the duo put out solo works on wax was their stunning 2016 run, which included the Song Dogs LP, the Fight the Future 12” on Clandestino, and the seventh EP in their long running self-titled series on Is It Balearic? Which is not to say they weren’t active, and in fact, Timm Sure and Ampo delivered a really great set of digital singles and EPs in collaboration with Music for Dreams, and additionally, they remained active with remix and DJ work. As well, Buzzard Country was due quite a bit earlier than 2020, but was unfortunately plagued by production delays. To at last get to the point, this is all a roundabout way of saying that I am really excited to have plenty of Coyote to write about now and in the future, so that I can finally pay proper tribute to this foundational duo of the modern balearic beat. 

As I’ve explored the balearic soundworld, Ampo and Timm Sure have always been beacons of light guiding me on my path, whether through their eclectic productions as Coyote, through the curation of Is It Balearic?, Über, and the Magic Wand edit series, or through their mixes and DJ sets, which are typically loaded with unheard treasures that lean towards the trippier and dubbier ends of the chill out spectrum. And it is this tendency towards the psychoactive that most endears me to Coyote, for the duo have always championed an authentic balearic spirit, one that foregrounds the music’s connections to the hippie hedonist heydays of Ibiza, to the second summer of love, and to a spirit of ecstatic abandon, one that is equally imbued with a magical sense of melancholy…of a feeling of being in paradise, but knowing it can’t last…as if the moments of revelatory magic—of wild nights dancing and sunrise comedowns—are tempered in real-time with senses of longing and regret. Which brings me finally to Buzzard Country, Coyote’s fifth full-length LP and a pitch-perfect encapsulation of their signature mixture of wistful melodic nostalgia and daydream seaside grooving. Across the album, baggy beats morph between downbeat disco, stoner dub, and world exotica while bottom heavy basslines work the body. Echoing vocal samples thread around hand drums tapestries, emotional washes of synthesis flow over radiant piano chords, and at crucial moments, the exotica guitar flourishes of longtime collaborator Saro Tribastone carry the mind away to lands of faraway fantasy. As for the Buzzard Country Remixes 12”, the A-side is given over to the Hardway Brothers, who brilliantly transform the album’s “Sun Culture” into varying landscapes of ultra deep Chain Reaction style dub wizardry. Then on the B-side, Woolfy vs. Projections and Max Essa respectively flip album stand outs “Shimmer Dub” and “Ranura de Marihuana” into their own specific strains of equatorial dancefloor euphoria, with each remix pushing the mind, body, and spirit towards maximal beach boogie mania. 

Coyote - Buzzard Country (Is It Balearic? Recordings, 2020) “Soaring” begins with buzzard calls and hovering breaths of synthesis evoking a new dawn. Ripples form in the ether via bubbling squarewave synth leads, and pulsating dub bass sits beneath a blanket of sighing strings. The carrion calls continue streaking through the mix and celestial pianos rain down while echoing playfully across the spectrum. Plucked bass electronics bounce in counterpoint and hesitate woodwind glimmers call to mind flashing laser lights beneath a beautiful sea surface…almost as if a flute has been transmuted into a rapid fire fractal vibration. At times the strings back away, leaving layers of rainbow colored ocean ambiance to flutter and dance, all before ending with white noise delay oscillations that mimic the swell of ocean waves. Then in “Soft Top Saab,” an echo-soaked voice muses on the sunrise, with chills running down the spine as the solar affirmations are increasingly surrounded by space age string synths, and by Sara Tribastone’s mystical guitar filigrees. Reversing melodies enter the spectrum and swell the heart while shakers and tambourines hold a gentle beat. Tribastone’s guitar serenades softly overhead, with plucked textures of synthetic wood and stone dancing in the background. Further delay-laced pianos fade into view, with the track ebbing and flowing…growing and receding…and sometimes backing down into understated back and forth between guitar and piano, wherein harmonious brass layers and swells of spectral space glitter moving at the periphery. The result is a conversational interchange between seaside melancholy and romantic nostalgia, one which is eventually superseded by cosmic flutters, soft six string dances, and the spoken spells of a reggae mystic, who gives thanks to the sun, and its bounty of restorative light.

Dusty acoustic guitars and sunrise vapors introduce “Shimmer Dub,” while dancing dub bass portends the first real taste of a groove. A rocking hypno-rhythm comes into focus and laid back snares guide the infectious glide, while tablas roll overhead and evocative vocal layers thread through the mix. Steel pan synths are seen through the titular shimmer and wavering wavefronts of blurred melody wash over everything, until the mix drops down into a haze of stoned exotica comprised of a minimalist pallet of tabla rhythms, bleary-eyed pads, and thrilling vocal incantations…the effect like awakening on the shores of some faraway ocean paradise, with visages of desert caravan rituals preceding in the distance. The dubbed out groove eventually resurges, with passages given over to extended echo percussion experiments and the fragile songs of tropical idiophones. Feminine vocals glow like some intoxicating gas of multi-hued magic, and springy basslines guide the body while hi-hats and snare work through a psychedelic skank. Smoldering currents of ether move through the stereo field and moments of subtle intensity erupt from the horizontal vibe out…with airy woodwinds shrouded in static, claps cracking, and hand drums creating webs of groove mesmerism. And as the beat starts to vaporize, echo oscillations set the air aflame amidst fantasy orchestrations.

“Ranura de Marihuana” bathes in echo acoustic guitars that seem beamed in from some distant past…these evocations of classical folk music futurized via layers of fx. An ecstatic scream washes the mix clean, and a four-to-the-floor kick drum emerges to pound in the void, while overhead, Flamenco-indebted guitars spin webs of magic and reverberating vocals call to the spirits of sea and sky….sometimes whispering, other times shrieking wildly into the night. Sub-earthen bass movements are felt more than head, with exotic dub lines moving far beneath the surface. Bongos and congas pop and nervous shaker patterns lead the downbeat disco strut, while guitars work through further Mediterranean hooks and Iberian flourishes. A moment is given over to heavy bass and kaleidoscopic hand percussion–with scatting vocals, reverberating snaps, and lost souls wailing in desperation–and when the groove snaps back, there are touches of tango kissing the preceding, which bring to mind a rose-in-mouth glide across some dark and mysterious dancefloor, wherein spindly psych folk guitar melodies work the mind and airy drum rhythmics entrance the body. The kick climbs back towards dancefloor strength, with desert mystic percussions moving all around the mix and vocals morphing though fever dream echo layers. Elements from across the track refract through oscillating delay machines, and touches of rave haunt the rhythms, especially as subsonic basslines and subdued breakbeats work together.

A single piano note brings light to the darkness in “Sun Culture” and layers of radiance rain down in the form of heart-melting piano chordscapes, with some of that Screamadelica soul bliss suffusing the progressions. Warming pads envelope everything and deep dub pulses walk down white sand beaches, with shakers and lysergic breaths giving shape to the groove. Hi-hats, snare taps, and beachside bongos enter and buzzing guitar notes give off waves of golden light while overhead, liquids drip from the roofs of ocean cliff caverns. The single piano note continues to glow while souflul chords hold the mind in a state of psychedelic rapture, and space age ethers blind all vision as they spread outwards, then recede. Coyote move the track progressively towards a state of horizontal bliss, with almost everything washing away except the summery piano incantations, which are so soaked in reverb as to generate billowing cloudforms with every single note. Hushed rhythms return and hand drums take on a slight sense of urgency while pads generate layers of oceanic warmth, resulting in an audial invitation to greet the rising sun, and a naturalistic tribute to crashing waves and drifting clouds.

Intergalactic pads breath in “Dos Canas,” with tones wispy and suffused with inner light. Palm-muting electric guitars dance like bubbles through the ocean blue, and a touch of kosmische ambiance is soon tempered by bulbous dub basslines and splayed out layers of percussion, wherein the mechanic and organic merge seamlessly. Electroid sketches and seed shakers move in time as a slow and low balearic skank emerges, with glorious tones of brass pulsing overhead before ascending to the heavens on currents of humid tropical air. Hand drums circle the mix as the heavy atmospheres recede, leaving vaporous rhythms and golden synth strands to intertwine. Heartwarming chords give off mirage shimmers as the dub bass works its way back in, bringing with it further layers of world drum delirium. Soft sirens pan before giving way to more of the ascendent brass synthesis, and hisses of white noise add layers of subtle psychotropia. Snares are blasted into bursts of desert sand and all throughout the mix, various strands of melody and harmony are caught within oscillating delay cycles…progressively distorting and roaring into the ether. Shakers and 16th note hi-hats lead the groove while bongos and idiophones dance playfully against the snare and kick, until it all breaks down into an ambient outro of serene static, sighing strings, and layers of phasing rainbow light.

“Feedback Valley” closes the show with synth incantations portending the glow of a glorious sunrise, while shakers generate an infectious shuffle. Tribastone and his acoustic guitar explore Flamenco landscapes and a four-four kick drums hits against the body while layers of synthesis radiate compelling colorations. Babbling voices ride a serpentine synth sequence and touches of acid bass move in support, with cut-off filters opening as the snare drops, creating a head-nodding and body bopping groove that lifts the spirit towards the sky. The sequential electronics are so effective as they bob and weave through the mix, creating an effortless vibe of beach dance perfection…of hands-in-the-air euphoria and the abandonment of all worry or fear. Additional touches of six string sunshine push the mind every towards the shores of Ibiza and during a breakdown into burning delay feedback, synthesizers filter into solar squelch and guitars drift towards psychedelic delirium. A slow yet anthemic snare roll calls to mind big room trance as it brings the groove back into focus, now with 3D synth snaps firing in the left ear as the ever-present sequence reduces to a calming purr. Tribastone continues letting loose threads of sunshine lysergia and points of synthetic light swell into magnificent globes of blinding incandenscence. And towards the end, an echo-shrouded choir of the sea sings beneath a brief guitar fantasia before it all washes away in a scream of oscillation.

Coyote - Buzzard Country Remixes (Is It Balearic? Recordings, 2021) The Hardway Brothers take “Sun Culture” into ultra-deep territory across two versions on the A-side, with the first being the very aptly named “Balearic Channel Remix”…which is of course a reference to the work of Mark Ernestus and Moritz von Oswald. Underground warehouse kick drums pound beneath hissing space fluids, as a low down Chain Reaction-style groove emerges, though with its eyes locked on a melting sunset panorama. Liquiform chords flow into cold industrial caverns and string synths suffuse the reverberating spaces with splashes of sunshine, while sub bass motions vibrate the soul. Shadowy tracers flit across the sky and DMT vibrato waves squiggle at hyperspeed, yet their effect is blunted and muted. Claustrophobic clouds fade in then out while melodic piano chordstrokes reflect in strange ways off of glowing walls of stone, their effect like gemstones glimmering underwater, yet with their luster sanded away by the march of time. Muted dub chords are caught in crackling delay chains and the deep kicks and jacking bass never relent in their heads down, hands-in-the-air stomp. Snares are reduced to a whisper and shaker patterns cause head-bobbing hypnotism as funky chords bring touches of liquid fusion grooving…only as if proceeding in the middle of a dub techno fever dream. Insectoid chitters move in from all corners of the mix, sawing sirens swirl into screams of feedback, and all the while, drum circle flourishes are shattered into a web echoing delirium.

Next comes Sun Culture “(Hardway Brothers Meet Monkton Uptown),” which sees the bass going even deeper somehow, as growling riddims menace the mind and rattle the ribcage. We soon find ourselves in another subaquatic dub techno dopamine dream, wherein kick, snare and hi-hat lock in for maximal hypnotic effect. Sometimes the bass guitar of Duncan Gray seems to take on a post-punk drug chug edge, and at some point, the rhythms pull away, leaving chopped up voices to decay into the void. Bassline and beats return and streaks of feedback sing softly over everything, while fogs of seafoam move at the outer edges of the stereo field. Clouds of solar static are seen from millions of miles away and traces of flamboyant fuzz guitar are submerged into a pooling vortex of deep dub delirium, emerging stretched out and mutated into currents of neon starshine. Gray's melodic basslines serenade through the underground club grooves, those funky chords return to sing their 70s fusion songs within layers of sighing feedback, and increasingly, the mix is overwhelmed by distorted blasts of drug-induced haze. Abstracted voices filter from one ear to the other…their unintelligible spells of esoteric mystery pushing the mind ever further towards astral activation. And towards the ends, the original tracks Primal Scream-style piano chord structures can just be heard amidst feedback fires, delay detritus, and morphing vocal abstractions.

In the Woolfy vs Projections mix of “Shimmer Dub,” the original track’s hand percussions intermingle with gurgling rhythmic fluids…the effect like wandering upon some tribal jungle ceremonial. Big blasts of downer synth bass are soaked in reverb, repetitive synth pulses tickle the mind, and pillowy arpeggios flow into view while those familiar synthetic steel drums shine in the sunlight. Fingers roll across myriad skins as the kick drum drops away, leaving the mind to swim in a world of equatorial energy. Then, as the bass drum resumes–with shakers never relenting–a new bassline emerges, bringing with it a heavy touch of wiggling squiggling Italo boogie. The vibe is hesitant…anxious even…with a persistent refusal to lock in, and as bass bursts grow in intensity, the rest of the mix begins reverberating into a balearic dreamscape. Following a delirious pause, the track explodes into flamboyant disco funk perfection, as sweltering chord hazes melt from the sky and bouncing basslines join an infectious and tropically tinged body groove. Chords scat, virtual marimbas dance, synthetic steel pans shimmer across the spectrum, and swells of white light synthesis overwhelm the mind...the whole thing as massive a groove as there could possibly be. Touches of electro kiss the rhythms and futuristic synth riffs fire as we back down into a swinging breakbeat, with rapid keyboard riffs locking into heady funk cycles and stadium-sized tom tom fills splaying out across the stereo field. Guitar licks are soaked in sunshine as they lead a dubwise swing, and as we explode once more into the block rocking groove, double time shakers and hats push the vibe towards dance party mania…all as coral-colored leads rush through star ocean fx clouds.

Max Essa’s take on “Ranura de Marihuana” sees a four-four kick smacking with infectious disco dance energy and hand percussion flowing all around. A snare crack introduces another groove indebted to Italo boogie, with big bottomed synth basslines accentuating the vibes of beach dance euphoria. Shakers spread into sandy clouds of atmosphere and heatwave pads sweat and squelch as starlight arppegios race across the sky. The vibe of Ibizan melancholia is here perfected, causing body and soul to merge in hedonistic ecstasy, and though the track resembles one of Essa’s characteristic blue ocean dancefloor cruisers, its a little slower and baggier than usual, which fits completely with Coyote’s zoner stoner vibe. Seascape pianos bring a peaktime fee and at certain moments, the groove momentarily recedes, only to rush back in on an infectious snare crack. Ivory melodies are increasingly strange and psychotropic as they flutter across the mix, with decaying vibration tails carried away on an aqueous breeze. The radiant piano chords and vocalizations from the original swim into the stereo field as Essa barrels down into a heavy bassline stomp, with every pulling away aside from smeared out voices and 70s prog rock pads that evoke a string orchestra tuning to the sounds of the stars. Further clap cracks bring back layers of equatorial euphoria and the vocals are used to incredible effect, with echoing snippets repurposed as anthemic hooks. Pianos continue their alien dance over relaxed disco rhythms and snapping funk basslines, and as we move towards the end, claps and basslines fire rapidly as vocals morph through slapback oscillations…all before dropping into one last expanse of seaside dancefloor magic, with dub disco beats, infectious world percussion rolls, and a pleading voices diffusing towards a gorgeous sunset horizon.

(images from my personal copies)

#coyote #timm sure #ampo #is it balearic? recordings #buzzard country #buzzard country remixes #saro tribastone #the hardaway brothers #woolfy vs projections #max essa #balearic #balearic beat #dub #drug disco #acid house #ibiza #ambient #horizontal #balearica #ecstasy #sunset #downbeat #chill out #basic channel #exotica #flamenco #remixes #album reviews #vinyl reviews #music reviews

[nevertherose]

One Hundred Seconds to Midnight- Chapters 9-13

"All Roman wanted to do was take Logan on a Doctor Who LARP within the Imagination.

But with Thomas's Sides at their figurative breaking point after the disastrous wedding, the Imagination may just have a few ideas of her own..."

Chapters 1-8 are here.

Chapters 14-17 are here.

Here's the next chunk:

Chapter 9- Gridlock

“This Martha. She must mean an awful lot to you.”

“Hardly know her. I was too busy showing off. And I lied to her. Couldn’t help it, just lied.”

Patton felt strange.

Well, he’d felt strange for a while now, ever since this odd little adventure had started, but it grew worse the further into the asylum they traveled. His limbs were strangely heavy, he couldn’t seem to catch his breath, and there was a chill in his core that no amount of self-hugging could alleviate.

And he kept having these flashes of…well, anger. Like, sure, being stuck in the Imagination in the middle of the night was a tad frustrating, but that was no reason to feel this…this blind, red rage that welled up from time to time.

What was wrong with him?

Patton needed a hug.

He wondered if Janus would give him one, if he asked.

Eh…maybe not. Janus was many things: smart, cunning, arrogant, fiercely caring…but huggable wasn’t a word that immediately came to mind.

The ladder from the escape pod had led down a long shaft that dumped out into an empty metal hallway; dark, rusty, and with water dripping everywhere. Janus had found a computer terminal and scanned the area, plotting out a route that would lead them around various knots of warring aliens. He located Remus’ tiny prison almost immediately, and ignored it in favor of scanning for a teleportation chamber.

“If I have to be in this stupid adventure,” he informed Patton tersely, “I want my damned TARDIS back.”

“I’m not arguing with you.” Patton spread his hands.

“We’ll have to cross four hangers and a maze of corridors to reach the room,” Janus mused, irritatedly rubbing the scales on his face. “And it looks like most of this area is still infected with the nano cloud.”

“I know,” Patton whispered as Janus strode off.

Patton would feel a lot better about their chances if this hadn’t been the fifth time they’d had this exact conversation.

One empty hanger and two hallways later, Janus stopped at another terminal.

“Janus…” Patton started.

“There’s Remus’s prison,” Janus muttered, staring at the screen and ignoring him completely. “But where’s…ah. There’s a teleportation chamber about three hangers away. We should head for that.”

“But…”

“No, Patton, we are not going after Remus first.” Janus sighed, and itched his face. “If I have to be in this stupid adventure—”

“You want your damned TARDIS back, I know!” Patton yelled.

Janus blinked at him, and narrowed his eyes.

“You never swear.”

I never feel like this. Why am I acting like this?

“And you are being affected by the nano cloud,” Patton said hurriedly. “We keep having this same conversation over and over! I am begging you, please wear the bracelet for a while. ”

He held out his wrist, which Janus absently took in his hands. His mouth compressed, so hard that the skin around the snakelike slit grew pale.

“Or let me go ahead of you, and try to deactivate the cloud,” Patton offered.

“You wouldn’t be able to hack the system.” Janus shook his head. “I have all the Master’s knowledge, which is why I can.”

“Then you take the bracelet and do it!”

“We’re not splitting up, Patton.”

Patton growled softly and turned away, walking in a small circle to calm himself down.

“You…just…I am getting really frustrated with you, mister,” he sputtered. “Take. The. Bracelet.”

“I’m tough, Patton. I can handle it.” Janus smiled bitterly. “Maybe the cloud is messing with my memory a little, but it will never be able to actually convert me.”

Patton frowned…or tried to. His facial expressions felt weirdly stiff.

“Why’s that?”

“You remember the whole ‘how do you make a Dalek’ schtick?” Janus’s grin grew wider, fangs flashing behind his lips. “‘Erase love, add anger’? Well. My heart is already cold and hard. There’s no love to erase, and thus, nothing to convert.”

Patton felt his own heart break, to hear Janus say such awful things about himself…but…maybe he had an inadvertent point. Patton knew that he himself, on his best days, was a squishy ball of excessive caring and emotion, prone to bouts of both effervescence and melancholy (or so Roman had described him, once). Nothing to be ashamed of; as Thomas’s heart, that’s just who Patton was.

But as such, maybe…maybe the nano cloud really would have an awful, immediate effect on him. He already felt so strange…

Maybe Janus was right to insist he keep the bracelet on.

Well. Patton put his hands on his hips, huffing. That doesn’t mean he gets to talk bad about himself.

“Hello?” a strange, almost furry-sounding voice called.

Two aliens rounded the corner behind them. They looked almost human, except for their furred bodies, large, feline ears and catlike faces. They moved hesitantly, with inhuman grace, their long tails flicking nervously behind them.

“Ooh, Janus, they’re Catkind!” Patton gasped softly, clasping his hands together. “I always wanted to see one up close…”

“But where the hell did they come from?” Janus groused. “We were just in that corridor…and also, may I remind you that you’re allergic?”

“Hello there!” Patton called as the Cat People approached, ignoring Janus’s eye roll. “Where did you come from?”

“I’m not sure.” The tabby-like Cat Person rubbed their furred hands together. “One moment we were in our hover van, watching the newscast as always, and then…oh!”

The Cat Person’s eyes widened as they drew up to Patton. Janus quickly stepped between them and lifted his hands.

“It’s okay, we’re lost here, just like you,” he said smoothly.

“Well. I guess strange times make strange bedfellows, or something like that,” the tabby Cat joked, flashing a mouthful of feline teeth.

“Isn’t that the truth,” Janus crooned. “You were saying…?”

Patton was beginning to sense, more and more, that Janus was actively, purposefully hiding something from him.

But now wasn’t exactly a good time to ask.

“We were watching the TV,” the second Cat Person said. They were shorter, their voice and fur color both lighter than that of their companion, and they wore a sling pouch across their body. “And something flickered across the screen; I can’t remember exactly what it was. A gray face, or…” They shrugged, furred shoulders rippling. “And then we were just…here.”

A tiny face popped out of the sling as they spoke. It meowed, and Patton let out a very undignified squeal.

“Is that a kitten?” he all but squeaked, holding hands up to his face. It was so cute!

“Oh! Yes.” The pale Cat smiled down at the sling. “Our six babes. They sleep better when I keep them close.”

“Can I pet them?” Patton was practically vibrating. “Pretty please? I’ll be very careful.”

The Cat frowned, exchanging a glance with their partner, but carefully extracted a kitten and cradled it. Patton ran a trembling finger down its spine and cooed when it started to purr.

Janus, meanwhile, was stroking his bottom lip.

“Catkind…hover van…were you on the Motorway in New New York, by chance?”

The tabby Cat frowned. “Well, of course.”

“The Gridlock episode,” Janus said quietly to Patton. “Which was set in the far future, if I recall. But where…or I suppose, ‘when’…does the asylum episode fall within that timeline?”

Patton shrugged. He didn’t have Logan’s or, he supposed, Janus’s patience for untangling complex plot threads in TV shows, and time was so wibbly wobbly within the Doctor Who universe anyway. Plus, knowing “when” the Cat People were from didn’t explain how they spontaneously ended up here, in this hallway.

They’re just…here, like that Tivolian in the escape pod. Sadness rushed through him. The asylum was no place for innocent people like this, especially a couple with babies!

“If I may,” the tabby Cat said as their partner resettled their kittens in the sling. “Where did the two of you come from? And where are we?”

“Ah, well, that’s a rather long story,” Janus said. “We—”

“Ah-ha! More intruders in our quadrant!”

Six or so squat Sontarans, all helmeted and bristling with blaster rifles, flooded into the corridor. The two Cat People froze, eyes growing wide.

“Terminate them,” the Sontaran leader shouted, pointing. “For the glory of Sontar!

“Invasion of the Potato People,” Janus snarked, fangs flashing, as he flicked a setting on his sonic laser. “Just what we need.”

The aliens raised their guns.

“Now, er, fellas,” Patton tried, raising his arms. “There’s…there’s no need for violence. Can’t we all just, uh, get along?”

“The Sontaran Empire does not take orders from your kind, metal scum!” the lead Sontaran snarled. “Fire!”

“Run!” Janus shouted, seizing Patton’s arm and shoving the two terrified Cat People ahead of him.

There was a confused, mad rush through a half dozen corridors, dodging blaster fire, as Janus occasionally fired back with his laser and stopped to hack closed doors as they encountered them.

The clomp of boots and chanting echoed behind them.

“Sontar-ha! Sontar-ha!”

At one junction, the Cat People peeled off down a smaller random hallway before Patton could even protest.

“Splitting up is safer! We can’t worry about them!” Janus yelled, yanking Patton a different direction. That corridor ended in a door that Janus couldn’t seem to hack, and they had to backtrack to a tiny alcove, folding themselves inside and catching their breath.

There was barely enough room for the two of them.

Janus pressed one yellow-clad hand against Patton’s chest as they waited, warily, for the bootsteps and yelling to pass, their breaths filling the space. He was so close that Patton could count the individual scales on his cheekbone and the green flecks in his yellow slitted eye. Unfamiliar facial hair…familiar, hooded gaze.

It occurred to Patton, suddenly, that he’d never stood this close to Janus before. Close enough to feel his slight warmth, to breathe in the spicy, subtle aroma emanating from his clothes…

“Did you know you smell like cloves?” Patton blurted out when the corridor was silent again. It had been such an odd thing to notice.

It also wasn’t unpleasant.

Janus didn’t acknowledge that, but instead massaged his temples.

“Ugh, my head is killing me.”

“Say…” Patton narrowed his eyes as he realized he was looking down at the other Side. “Aren’t I shorter than you? In the mindspace anyway.”

If Patton hadn’t been looking for it, he might have missed the way Janus’s eyes widened infinitesimally.

“Well.” Janus shrugged, all expression gone. “I hadn’t paid much attention.”

Liar.

Something stone-like settled in Patton’s stomach.

“No, you’re definitely supposed to be taller,” he said, more firmly.

Deceit.

“If the Imagination altered our clothes coming in, surely it could have altered our heights.”

Janus’s voice was as smooth as ever, and for a moment, Patton hated how easily the snake-faced Side did this. The unfamiliar anger at the back of his mind swirled.

Deceit, come on.

“Well, then why didn’t I sneeze when I pet that kitten?” Patton demanded. “You yourself pointed out that I’m allergic.”

“Kittens don’t produce the protein that triggers an allergic reaction.” Janus’s eyes went distant for a moment. “I do hope that couple found a safe place to hide.”

“Gosh, yeah, me too…” Patton murmured, and then frowned. “Oh, no you don’t, mister, you’re trying to change the subject! I wasn’t allergic to the parents, either; explain that!”

Janus shrugged, still infuriatingly calm.

“Maybe Catkind as a whole don’t produce ordinary feline dander.”

“Why won’t you just tell me what it is you’re hiding!” Patton snapped, grabbing the other Side’s shoulders and raising a hand…wait.

What…am I doing?

Janus had paled, and the spark of actual fear flashing in his eyes was enough to snap Patton out of…whatever that was. He stared at his hands and for a moment, he swore he saw…

But then it was gone.

And Janus had pulled away, stepping out into the now-empty corridor.

“We should keep moving,” he threw over his shoulder, jacket flapping as he stalked away, leaving Patton to stumble after him.

“Janus.”

Janus’s shoulders flinched but he kept walking, his boots clacking harshly on the concrete floor.

Patton hurried to catch up.

“Janus!”

The snake-faced Side turned a corner, taking him out of Patton’s line of sight for a moment. Patton broke into a run, rounding the corner and almost crashing into him.

He’d stopped, and was typing away at yet another terminal.

Patton realized they were back at the door from before, the one Janus hadn’t been able to hack. Muffled shrieks and shouts echoed through the thick metal from the other side.

“Almost got it,” Janus muttered, absently rubbing his head; hadn’t he mentioned a headache earlier? He’s always concealing things. I wish he could just…but Patton still felt shaken by what had happened earlier, so he decided to let it go for now.

Best to avoid another quarrel.

“Are you sure we want to go this way?” he said instead. “It sounds like a battle on the other side.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Patton.” Janus waved a hand, not looking at him. “I already looked. It’s just some people milling around; they likely won’t even notice us. And the teleportation chamber we need is on the other side.”

Patton frowned, and hunched to peer through the smudged rectangle of glass on the door. It was difficult to make out specifics, but he definitely saw blaster fire, and knots of very large aliens running back and forth.

“That is not just people, J—” he started, but then the door slid open and Janus was already striding through.

“—Janus, no!” Patton yelped and followed.

That door, it turned out, had been blocking a great deal of noise. Yelling, clanging, blaster fire hitting metal, horribly familiar robotic voices screeching. Knots of hulking Judoon fought a proper horde of green Silurians, with a few commanding Daleks thrown in on both sides.

It was impossible to tell who was winning, if anyone; or what, if anything, they were fighting over.

Patton caught up to Janus and grabbed his jacket collar.

“See, Patton?” Janus shot him an easygoing smirk that made Patton’s stomach twist in alarm, and waved a hand. “It’s just people.”

“Oh, no, I remember this bit now,” Patton murmured.

He seized Janus’s face.

“Janus Sanders, the nanocloud is altering your perception,” he said, twisting the other Side around. “Look again, look!”

Janus looked, and Patton heard his swift intake of breath.

“EMERGENCY! EMERGENCY! THE CARGO DOOR HAS BEEN BREACHED!”

Several Daleks split off from the battle and rolled toward the two of them, drawing a few curious Silurians along. Patton huffed.

“And now they’ve seen us.”

He again held up his arms, though logically he knew negotiating with Daleks was a worse non-starter than placating Sontarans. Still…it never hurt to try.

A Silurian grabbed one of their neighbors, and pointed at him.

“It has a nano repeller!” they called. “Seize it!”

“Well, that’s new,” Janus snarked.

“Run?” Patton squeaked as more Silurians peeled off from the main battle.

“Run,” Janus confirmed.

They bolted across the hanger and through the thick of the fight.

The pursuing Daleks actually proved to be a useful distraction, charging after them with blasters blazing, drawing enemy fire away from the two Sides. But the pursuing Silurians were faster, and they kept chasing long after the Daleks found other, more engaging targets.

The Silurians tailed Patton and Janus into the adjoining corridor, briefly catching up when Janus had to stop and hack yet another door. The door slid open as green hands scrabbled at Patton’s arms. Janus zapped one with his laser and pulled Patton through, slamming the inside panel with his other hand.

The door slid shut, and Janus fried the controls so it couldn’t be easily opened again.

Patton breathed.

They were safe, again, for the moment.

At least Patton thought they were….until he happened to glance down at his hands.

“Janus!” he yelled shrilly. “My bracelet is gone! Oh no, oh no, oh no…I thought if we didn’t lose it in the escape pod we wouldn’t lose it at all…”

“Patton.” Janus was abruptly in his face, gloved hands gripping his jawline. “Patton, breathe.”

“I’m sorry!” Patton sobbed. “I lost it and now we’re both going to turn into Daleks, Janus, I’m so sorry—!”

“Nonsense.” Janus’s voice grew sharp. “You have nothing to worry about.”

And something��truthy...in the timbre of those words cut through Patton’s rising panic like a slap to the face.

“And why is that?” Patton asked, just as sharply.

Janus hesitated.

He very clearly hesitated, his fingers digging into the nape of Patton’s neck. Patton held his breath.

“Because…” Janus swallowed, his eyes darting away. “Because nobody in this universe or any other could possibly exhaust the well of love that is Patton Sanders’ heart.”

And with that he whirled away, stalking to the raised teleportation platform and sliding under the glass floor.

With an effort, Patton closed his gaping mouth (darn his stiff muscles). He’d never been so certain in all his life that Janus had just lied to him, again…but it was also the sweetest and most vulnerable thing he’d ever heard the other say. It sent a shock of warmth down to Patton’s too-cold toes.

Janus…Janus truly believed that Patton’s heart held too much love for the Daleks to steal?

“Oh.” Patton exhaled, gaze drawn to Janus as he rewired the platform; jacket sleeves rolled up his forearms, sonic held between his teeth and a look of utter concentration on his face.

That strange, and oddly beautiful face.

Oh.

Chapter 10- Silence in the Library

“The shadows are moving again. Those people are depending on you. Only you can save them. Only you.”

“What I want to know,” Roman griped as he and Logan slumped against yet another corridor wall, “is where all these blasted aliens are coming from.”

Ever since giving Remus’s “Silurian army” the slip, they’d encountered one obstacle after another. They’d been pursued what felt like halfway across the asylum by a pair of crafty Saturnynians wanting their nano bracelets; Roman had singlehandedly fought off a horde of Tritovores; Logan had outsmarted a Sontaran troop by trapping them in a small chamber with only one working door; and they had only just outrun a platoon of Judoon.

All with Logan unable to see anything more than five feet in front his face.

Roman, if he was being honest with himself, kind of didn’t mind being Logan’s eyes. Sure, his sword arm was sore from fending off aliens trying to rob them or kill them (Roman fought with the flat of his blade, of course; no need for pointless killing). But having his crush depend on him to see threats coming, and to keep from crashing into things…it was nice to feel needed.

For once.

Plus…Roman could compose entire sonnets on how beautiful Logan’s galaxy-dark eyes were, when they weren’t hidden behind glasses.

“Remus,” Logan called, straightening up. “We could use some help.”

Roman scoffed. “I wouldn’t get your hopes up.”

“If Logan offers to pay in dick pics, I might get something up,” Remus’s whiny voice commented from the wall behind them, making them both jump.

Roman sputtered.

Did his brother really have to keep…was it even flirting, when it was that crude? Roman knew logically he was only doing it to get a reaction, but gosh darn Remus for going straight for his metaphorical heart.

“We are all anatomically the same, Remus.” Logan frowned. “Why you would wish to see my—?”

“Logan, I implore you not to finish that sentence.” Roman flapped his hands.

Logan leaned over to squint at him. And quite apart from Remus's inappropriate commentary, Roman wished he could figure out what that intense, narrow-eyed look Logan kept giving him meant. Right now he was sure his face must be as red as his missing Prince sash.

“It would be helpful,” Logan went on, turning to face the general direction of the wall speaker, “if I could see a current life-form reading for the whole planet. Then we would know which areas to avoid. Remus, is that something you can hack into?”

“Only for you, Logie-bear,” Remus answered. “Or should I say Nina? There’s a terminal with a screen just down the hallway.”

“Remus, I swear…” Roman brandished his sword at the speaker as Logan climbed to his feet.

But Remus only giggled, and Roman didn’t know how to finish the threat without prompting uncomfortable questions, anyway.

The screen showed the whole planet, with life-form density marked in red and notes written in some alien tongue. Logan leaned close, typing in various commands, looking at different areas; his frown grew deeper as he worked.

“Is that, like, a whole lot of red, or do I just not know how to read this thing?” Roman asked.

“No, it doesn’t make any sense,” Logan muttered, mostly to himself. “Remus. Will you read that number to me? Perhaps the Doctor’s command of this language is incomplete…”

“You mean the part where it says there are currently 13 billion life forms on the planet?” Remus said.

“What?” Roman sputtered.

“Exactly. It’s preposterous.” Logan nodded. “Nearly twice the population of humans on Earth. We’d be packed into this asylum like sardines, were the population really so high. Perhaps it’s aggregate?”

“Hmm, you know people can aggregate, too, especially during orgies when they f…”

“Remus, while normally I would applaud a creative use of vocabulary,” Logan cut in with a flat expression. “I do not wish to discuss group copulation at this time, or any other.”

Roman, meanwhile ran a hand down his (flushing) face.

“‘Copulation’, my ass,” he grumbled.

“Yes, that is usually how it works among men,” Remus crooned.

“REMUS!”

“Both of you!” Logan snapped. “Enough. Remus, please.”

“Fiiiine. Here’s your stats over a span of weeks.” Remus flashed another chart on the screen. “And here’s months, and years.”

More charts.

“See, this math makes more sense.” Logan reached up as if to adjust his glasses, but dropped his hand when he realized they weren’t there. “A constant flow of new aliens, while a smaller number disappear every day. That is unfortunately as I would expect in such a volatile environment.”

He peered closer to the screen.

“However, nearly eighty percent of the abnormally high life form readings are concentrated in a few clusters around the asylum; mostly in isolated, out of the way places. Remus, can you provide a visual for one of those areas?”

Remus did so, the screen switching to what appeared to be a security feed, pointed at a storage room. A room which was conspicuously empty, except for a few piles of long, white objects.

“Come on, quit fucking around,” Roman complained.

“Language.” Remus’s voice tsked.

Roman scoffed. “Oh, put a maggoty sock in it, Remus; you aren’t Patton.”

“Careful with those metaphors, brother mine, or you’ll start to sound like me.”

“Why you—!”

“Hush!” Logan snapped with a frown. “No, these…these are the correct coordinates. According to this data, there are several million life forms packed into that space.”

Roman and Remus gasped in unison, causing Logan to shoot Roman an alarmed look.

“How big are the ‘life forms’ that chart is picking up?” Roman demanded.

“Way ahead of you.” Remus threw more readouts onto the screen. “But I’ll bet my favorite stick of deodorant that they’re really, really small.”

“They appear to be microscopic, in fact,” Logan’s eyebrows shot up. “And those white objects…”

“Bones,” Roman whispered. “‘A million million life forms, and silence in the library’.”

Logan’s eyes widened. “Vashta Narada?”

“Vashta Narada!” Remus screeched, startling them both.

It took Roman a moment to realize his brother had screeched with glee.

“Ooh, look, there are so many of them!” Remus pulled up a chart of the whole planet, with clusters illuminated in red. Logan whipped out his screwdriver and scanned the screen.

“I did wonder why the Daleks always avoided the shadows, and ooh, look! Bones! Piles and piles of bones!” Remus showed another security feed; Roman quickly turned away. “They’re so clean.”

“I have downloaded the locations of the worst nests,” Logan flashed his sonic. “So we can avoid those areas, too.”

“Well, that’s just boring,” Remus complained. “One of you could surely sacrifice a leg or something. Aren’t you curious to see what your skeleton looks like?”

“Nobody wants to see that!” Roman felt slightly nauseated at the idea.

“Well, and if they did,” Logan added, ever literal, “that is what X-rays are for.”

“The Vashta Narada are his favorite Doctor Who alien,” Roman said in a lower voice. “He talked about that episode for weeks—”

The lights cut out, and the Voice…that’s what Roman had taken to calling it, anyway…mumbled its incomprehensible speech. It had happened several times on their journey now.

“What is that?” he demanded once the lights came back up.

“I think I heard ‘tower’, that time, and something about seconds,” Logan commented.

Roman shrugged.

“I may regret this, but…Remus, what do you think?” he asked with a grimace.

Silence.

Roman sighed. “Typical.”

A blast down the hall interrupted them.

Several Daleks rolled into the hallway, screeching in their room-filling, robotic voices. Roman seized Logan’s arm and pulled them into an alcove, placing his hand over Logan’s mouth when the logical Side started to protest.

“Daleks, super close,” Roman whispered.

He swore he felt Logan shiver in his grasp, and tried not to hyperfocus on the other’s rapid breathing, and heated skin, and…

One of the Daleks rolled in their direction. “INTRUDER! COME OUT AT ONCE!”

Logan pried Roman’s hand away.

“If we are at the scene in the asylum episode that I believe we are,” he said lowly, “then this should be the Dalek that runs out of power. If so, I remember how to defeat it.”

“And if it’s not?” Roman whisper-demanded.

“INTRUDER!”

“Then we will think of something else.”

“But—!”

Logan pulled Roman’s face very close, effectively shutting him up. His dark pupils were wide with adrenaline, his skin flushed with all the running they’d done. Roman couldn’t help it; his gaze flickered to Logan’s lips.

Those well-bitten, unfairly kissable lips.

“Roman,” Logan said softly, the words puffing against Roman’s face. “Do you trust me?”

“Oh, you…you can’t just quote Aladdin at me, Lo,” Roman protested weakly. “That’s not fair.”

“I would not be here to quote it, if you hadn’t gotten us this far. I outwitted the Sontarans; let me handle this.” Logan leaned even closer, and Roman couldn’t move even if he wanted to. “Do you trust me?”

Always, Doctor.

Roman nodded.

“INTRU—der—!”

As if on cue, the Dalek sputtered to a stop just before it reached their hiding place.

Logan shot Roman a devastating smirk and stepped out.

“All right, you rolling tin can.” Logan flicked his wrists and performed a mocking bow. Even half-blind, he was so fully and completely the Doctor in that moment that the performer inside Roman could only swoon.

Well, their Source was an actor, after all. Even his Logic instinctively knew how to work an audience.

“Identify me. Access your files. Who am I?” Logan’s voice dropped. “Come on. I’m tired and blind and just want to go home. Who’s your daddy?”

Roman choked and slapped a hand over his mouth.

“YOU ARE THE PREDATOR,” the Dalek declared.

“And what are your standing orders concerning the Predator?” Logan asked.

“THE PREDATOR MUST BE DESTROYED.” The Dalek attempted to use its gunstick, but only managed to wiggle it around.

“And how are you going to do that, Dalek?” Logan smirked, making Roman swallow another soft noise. “Without a gun, you’re a tricycle with a roof. How are you going to destroy me?”

“SELF-DESTRUCT INITIATED,” the Dalek warned, a light inside its eyepiece flashing red.

“Oh, heck, I remember this!” Roman rushed out to join Logan, as the other pulled out his sonic and lifted the Dalek’s lid.

“Exactly, Roman.” Logan ran the screwdriver along the shell’s insides.

“SELF-DESTRUCT CANNOT BE COUNTERMANDED.”

“I’m not looking for a countermand, dear.” Logan slammed the lid down. “I was looking for reverse.”

The Dalek whizzed backwards, flailing its appendages, its lights flashing frantically.

“FORWARD! FORWARD!”

It sped back into the chamber it had vacated, where several other Daleks waited.

“Run!”

Logan pulled Roman along (nearly running them into a wall; Roman quickly righted their direction), barely making it to the other end of the hallway when the Dalek exploded. Roman pushed them both down, crouching protectively over Logan as heat blasted against both their backs.

The asylum shook.

Grit rained down on their heads.

When it stopped, Roman pulled Logan to his feet and led them back through the newly-cleared chamber, dust still settling in the air. Dalek shells lay scattered, cracked and smoking; he had to guide Logan around them.

(There were a few other…bodies, too, which Roman determinedly looked away from and didn’t mention.)

“Oh my gosh, Roman! Logan!” a somewhat familiar voice shouted.

A Cyberman came barreling across the floor, prompting Roman to raise his sword…but relaxed when he realized it was only Patton.

“Janus, I’ve found the others!” Patton shouted over his shoulder. Roman squinted but didn’t see anyone else. “Boy, am I glad to see you guys!”

“We are pleased to see you as well, Patton.” Logan scrunched his face up in that adorable squint again; Roman caught himself smiling fondly, and swallowed the expression.

“Although unfortunately,” Logan added, “I mean ‘see’ in an entirely metaphorical sense right now.”

“Oh no, Logan, did you lose your glasses?” Patton caught up to them, as clunky and metal and frankly scary-looking as before. “Well, come on. Janus found a teleportation room, and is almost finished rewiring it to get us out of here.”

He led them across the exploded chamber, around a bend, and directly into a room with a raised glass platform, and machinery-covered walls. The platform itself looked half-disassembled, with dozens of wires and components sticking out.

Janus lay, collapsed and unmoving, at the base of it.

Chapter 11- The Power of Three

“I’m not running away from things, I am running to them before they flare and fade forever.”

Patton screeched.

There was no other word for the unholy noise that came out of his mouth, Logan decided. The moral Side-turned-Cyberman rushed to Janus’s collapsed form, shaking him and calling his name.

“I don’t know what happened!” he cried, rocking back on his heels. “He was fine when I left…well, not fine, he hasn’t been exactly fine this whole time, but he was awake!”

Logan knelt beside the downed Side and scanned him.

“He does not appear to have suffered any sort of electrical shock or other accident.” Logan peered at his screwdriver, reading numbers on the tiny screen.

(Yes, it had a readout, something he’d never noticed from the show.)

“Hmm. It would seem that the nano cloud is having an unexpected effect on his serpentine biology,” Logan explained, leaning over to place a hand under Janus’s jaw, and then over his heart. “It is making him too cold.”

“Oh!” Patton’s stance shifted. It was difficult to read his body language in his current state. “So do we need to, like, cuddle him or something? Body heat is good for cold, right?”

“Well I’m certainly not cuddling that viper!” Roman announced, folding his arms.

Patton awkwardly rubbed his head. “I mean…I could do it.”

It was on the tip of Logan’s tongue to point out that Patton would not be warming anyone up with his cold, metallic body…but it was clear he still didn’t know. And if Janus still hadn’t told him, Logan certainly wasn’t going to do it right now.

Patton having an identity crisis would be a distraction they didn’t need.

Roman stared at Patton with narrowed eyes, looking ready to protest. Logan stepped in before an argument could begin in earnest.

“Body heat would not be enough,” he said. “But I believe if I reconfigure one of our protective bracelets to counter those particular effects, he would revive on his own. Of course, that would mean one of us temporarily going without nano cloud protection.”

Patton sighed and rubbed his wrist.

“I’d give up mine in a heartbeat, except I already lost it earlier.”

Typical Patton. Logan bit back a sigh of exasperation. His was the bracelet he'd been hoping to use, as Patton didn't actually need it. Always willing to sacrifice his own wellbeing, and always losing things.

Well, that meant there was only one way to wake Janus.

He’d begun the process of unfastening his own bracelet when a strong, warm hand stopped him.

“Hang on, Calculator Watch.” Roman separated Logan’s hands. Annoyed caramel eyes stared into his own. “Why do you automatically assume you should be the one to give up your only means of protection?”

Logan frowned.

“Of the two of us, Roman, I am the least emotional. Obviously it has to be me.”

Roman let go and paced the room, coming back with determination sparking in his gaze.

“Look, I’m going to be logical here, because I know that’s the one thing you understand,” he said.

“Roman, we don’t have time—” Logan started, but Roman silenced him with a finger over his lips.

Logan noted, absently, how his skin reacted to the touch.

“We have to finish this game before Thomas wakes up, right?” Roman sighed, his eyes flickering down to Janus. “And as much as it pains me to admit it, the snake is smarter than me. We need both brainiacs on this team awake and thinking clearly to get us out of here.”

“Roman, you—” Logan protested.

“We both know I’m the expendable one here!” Roman yelled, pushing his bracelet-ed wrist into Logan’s face. “So just take it and fix him.”

“Falsehood!” Logan shoved at Roman’s arm. “May I remind you that the nano cloud subtracts love and adds anger; ergo, it manipulates feelings. As I have said many times before, and let me know if I lose you, I am not a feeling. I am Logic. It won’t—”

“You are Thomas’s Logic, you big-brained idiot!” Roman got in his face again. “And no part of Thomas could simply lack the ability to feel things. It's not in him. That's why you are not just Logic; you are Logan, and you already have a temper problem. The last thing you need is more anger!”

Logan whipped out his stack of vocabulary cards and flipped through them.

“As they say: ‘pot, meet kettle’,” he snapped, holding one up.

Roman growled, raising his hand like he’d knock the card away, but seemed to realize that would only prove Logan’s point. The hand clenched into a fist, which fell resignedly onto Logan’s chest.

Like a soft shock against his skin.

Logan was quite sure Roman’s touch didn’t always do that.

“Using mine will buy us more time. The conversation will take longer with me,” Roman said through thin, angry lips, staring at the floor.

“Why?” Logan whispered.

Roman’s fist flattened into a palm, still resting against Logan’s chest.

“It’s just arithmetic. It’ll take longer with me because…”

Logan inhaled sharply, and Roman’s suddenly wide eyes came up to meet his.

“It'll take longer with me because we both know, we've always known, that, the basic fact of our relationship is that I love you more than you love me.”

Without even realizing it, they’d been reenacting the fight between Amy and Rory.

Logan placed his own hand over Roman’s, wondering if the other could feel how rapidly his heart was beating. Does…does Roman really believe I care for him less than he does for me?

Well.

Thinking back over their tumultuous friendship, the fights, the insults; he realized he’d given the creative Side every reason to believe that. But then another realization crashed over Logan, which he felt like a physical shock through his system.

Do I…do I love Roman?

Headstrong, stubborn Roman, who knew exactly how to get under his skin with his ridiculous ideas and over-the-top facial expressions and twisty, rapid-fire cleverness. Brave, selfless Roman, who’d sacrificed his own dreams just to ensure their Source could keep a clear conscience.

Roman, with that wild hair and pouting lower lip and those fiery, passionate eyes that made Logan feel warm just from looking into them. He defied all logic, all sense, all attempts to constrain or catalogue or categorize him.

And Logan…Logan absolutely loved him for that.

“So…so it has to be me,” Roman concluded, glaring, finally snatching his hand away.

It took Logan a moment to remember what they’d actually been arguing about. He grabbed at Roman’s wrist as the other began blindly removing his bracelet, both hands held high above Logan’s head.

“Roman, no, you’re…you’re making a mistake,” he grated, as Roman continued to keep his arms out of reach. No matter how he tried, Logan couldn’t budge him; the other Side was much stronger.

“Yeah?” Roman succeeded in unsnapping his bracelet. “Well, get a pen and get in line, Specs. I have a list.”

He thrust the device into Logan’s hands and stomped away, avoiding Patton’s questioning gaze.

Logan shook his head, hand tightening around Roman’s bracelet until the edges bit into his skin. Stubborn.

So, so stubborn.

Like you, a quiet part of his mind whispered. He’s your equal, your check. That’s why you like him.

…and that’s why it could never work.

He exhaled, resigned.

Then he pulled out his sonic, and set about reprograming the bracelet to wake Janus.

Chapter 12- A Good Man Goes to War

“Good men don’t need rules. Today is not the day to find out why I have so many.”

Janus awoke with a pounding headache and a frayed temper. He sat up, digging at his face so hard he dislodged a scale. Irritably flicking it away, he saw that Patton had managed to find both Logan and Roman.

Good. That means we can all get out of here.

“Janus—” Patton started, but Janus held up a finger.

“Do not.”

He stood up, swaying a little, hating the way they all clustered around him.

“Stop hovering, I’m fine,” he grumbled, waving them away. Aside from the headache, his body felt stiff and sluggish…probably similar to how Patton feels, he realized, which did not help his sour mood.

“What happened to me?” he demanded, flexing his hands.

“The nano particles caused your internal body temperature to drop too quickly,” Logan explained. “Which, due to your unique biology, caused you to pass out. Your reflexes may be impaired for a few minutes as the bracelet continues to counteract the effects.”

Janus glanced down at his wrist, noting the bulky black bracelet with its cheerfully blinking light. Who…? Not Patton, his was lost; so probably Logan…but no, Logan still wore his. But that leaves…

Sure enough, both of Roman’s wrists were bare.

Janus raised an eyebrow, but the princely Side refused to meet his gaze.

Whatever.

“I am getting us off this rock and back to our TARDISs,” Janus groused, stalking to the abandoned panel and picking up the wire cutters he’d found. “Feel free to either help, or preferably stay the hell out of my way.”

“Ooooh, Jan Jan sounds a widdle angwy.” Remus’s sing-song voice crackled over a loudspeaker. “Pretty soon he’s going to try and kill you.”

“That does it!” Janus whirled and threw the cutters at the wall, eliciting a startled noise from Roman when they narrowly missed his face. “Logan, you reprogram the damned panel. I am going to deal with Remus.”

“Oh no, I’m so scared!” Remus gushed, not sounding one bit scared.

Janus marched to the chamber door, only to be stopped by Roman’s outstretched arm.

“Move,” Janus growled, clenching a gloved hand.

Roman didn’t budge.

“What are you even going to do?” he demanded. “If this is like the episode, then he’s already a Dalek and we can’t exactly bring him along for a ride.”

“I’ll figure it out when I get there.” Janus knocked Roman’s arm aside. “Perhaps we’ll get lucky, and seeing him in person will be enough to satisfy the Imagination. We have to at least make the attempt.”

“Well, then I’m going with you!”

Janus stopped at that, turning slowly to face Roman.

“Why?” he said flatly. “Surely not because you crave the pleasure of my company.”

Roman mirrored Janus’s folded-arm stance.

“Maybe I don’t trust you.”

“Because you haven’t already made that crystal clear.”

“And maybe I have my own score to settle with my brother,” Roman added in a louder voice, glaring around the room as though waiting for Remus to butt in.

For once, Remus did not.

But maybe that was because the Voice chose that moment to override the comms again, dimming the lights and rattling off its garbled message. Logan narrowed his eyes, Patton cocked his head, but Roman simply looked annoyed.

The Prince does hate to be interrupted when he’s picking a fight. Janus rolled his eyes. Or maybe it’s the nano cloud, which would serve him right…

“You know,” Patton commented, once it was over. “That weird little speech almost sounds like Virgil, when he gets really upset and his voice goes all deep and layered.”

Janus’s eyes widened and he inadvertently met Logan’s shocked gaze.

It did.

It sounded very much like Virgil’s Tempest Tongue, and Virgil had been inexplicably missing from this entire adventure, and why had none of them made that connection?? Once again, Janus found himself both impressed and unsurprised that Patton had been the one to put the pieces together.

“If that’s true,” Logan began.

“You know it is,” Janus cut in, a little sharper than he meant to. Logan held up his hands.

“I was not disputing the validity of Patton’s claim,” he said.

“Uh, overprotective much, snake?” Roman said with an eye roll, making Janus’s scales bristle and his nostrils flare.

“If that is Virgil, and Patton is correct; it seems very likely,” Logan enunciated, still holding up his hands. “Then he is part of this LARP, and has been the entire time. If reunification is indeed the ultimate goal, we will need to locate him as well, in order to meet the Imagination’s requirements.”

“Well, I’m not fighting my way back through this goddamned, alien-infested haystack to look for one overdramatic, anxious eyeshadow palette,” Janus declared, turning toward the door again. “Not without my TARDIS. Virgil can sit on his moody ass and wait.”

“Language!” Patton called after him.

Roman, more annoyingly, followed; surprisingly quickly, given his short-skirted outfit.

“Mixed metaphors aside,” the creative Side said as Janus stalked across the exploded chamber. “I still demand to know what you mean to do when we reach my brother…will you slow down?”

Janus stormed into a far corridor, making a sharp left and leaving Roman to stumble along afterward. Two lefts, a right, a straight shot through Intensive Care and we should find Clara’s…or rather Remus’s…chamber.

“Come on,” he threw irritatedly over his shoulder. “Or is Mr. Really Obviously Muscular And Nice having a hard time keeping up? What are all those muscles for, anyway?”

“Don’t you dare bring up that courtroom right now, Deceit,” Roman said darkly, still trailing behind. “Don’t you dare.”

“Still refusing to use my name, I see,” Janus snarked. His fast, angry footfalls echoed on the concrete floor.

“Show me where you’ve earned the right to be called anything except what you are, Deceit,” Roman spat. “I can wait.”

Janus stopped and whirled, coat flaring, almost causing Roman to collide with him. He thrust a gloved finger into Roman’s face.

“You don’t get it. You still don’t get it, because you are too spoiled, entitled, and self-absorbed to even attempt to understand another Side’s point of view.”

Janus started walking again, ignoring the pinched, insulted look he knew Roman was giving the back of his head.

“And what exactly am I supposed to understand?” Roman demanded, catching up.

“Why do you know my name at all, W-R-O-M-M-I-N?” Janus asked.

Roman exhaled carefully, closing his eyes for a moment.

“Ignoring that obvious bait, we know your name because you told us.”

“Exactly! I told you!” Janus paused just outside the Intensive Care ward, facing Roman fully. “You know Deceit’s true name because Deceit willingly revealed it.” He let his voice drop. “Now why do you suppose he did that?”

“Stop referring to yourself in the third person like some creepy, two-faced Elmo doll,” Roman groused. “Obviously you wanted to manipulate Thomas into trusting you for some nefarious purpose of your own.”

“Oh, for—!” Janus exhaled, barely resisting the urge to beat his head against the wall. “I could have told Thomas my name any time I pleased, if his trust was the only thing I wanted.”

Roman smirked. “Ah-ha, so you admit you have an agenda—”

“I wanted your trust, Roman!” Janus roared, silencing the other. “Yours, and Patton’s. I thought taking my glove off would be enough of a symbolic gesture, and how did you repay me? With laughter!”

Roman just stared.

Janus sighed.

“You were on my side, in that courtroom,” he said in a quieter voice. “Whether you are willing to admit it or not, Creativity and Self Preservation make a strong team for Thomas, and I don’t hate you, Roman.”

Roman scoffed and rolled his eyes, but said nothing.

“I have been trying to be more than just Deceit, to Thomas, to…all of you,” Janus went on. “Given how well our Purposes align, I cannot understand why you, of all Sssides, have been the most resistant to the notion that I am not evil!”

“Then let me enlighten you, Jack the Fibber.” Roman leaned close, eyes ablaze with fury. “Remember that courtroom scenario you just bragged about? The one where you claim I was on your side?”

Janus made a “duh” gesture with his hand.

“Did you conveniently forget that you spent the entire time patronizing me, emotionally manipulating me, and making me look and feel like a fool?” Roman folded his arms. “Because if that’s how you treat your so-called ‘allies’, then I would hate to be an actual enemy.”

Janus frowned. It was true; he had done a bit of twisting Roman around his finger, hadn’t he?

“Nobody trusted me then, and I needed you to help Thomas make the right choice,” he explained. “Your pride and your little rivalry with me make you irrational at times. I couldn’t risk either getting in the way.”

Roman let out a humorless chuckle.

“See, you say things like that,” he gestured angrily, “and then act shocked when I do the honest thing and side with Patton.”

“Which you and I both now know was a missstake!” Janus snapped. He tapped a series of numbers into the control panel by the Intensive Care door, which slid open.

They went in, but Roman, unfortunately for Janus, was not finished.

“And don’t forget the part where you manipulated us all again, by removing Logan and impersonating him,” Roman said.

“Because you and Patton were handling that situation so admirably on your own,” Janus snarked.

“That is not the point! That has never been the point!” Roman waved his arms for emphasis, almost knocking into one of the cells along the walls.

“Even here, now, when I’m trying to have an actual conversation with you,” and he jabbed Janus’s chest, “you’re still trying to manipulate me. The only time you’ve called me by my actual name is when you’re like ‘oh, Roman, woe is me, why won’t you trust me’? The rest of the time it’s all mockery.”

“It’s almost like it hurts when someone refuses to call you by your actual name.” Janus leaned into Roman’s space, baring his fangs. “Doesssn’t it?”

Roman winced. It was a tiny, tiny motion, but Janus saw it.

“Fine. Janus. But lying and manipulation are still wrong,” Roman said in a firm voice. “It doesn’t matter why you do it. It doesn’t matter what mistakes I make, or Patton makes, or even Logan or Virgil make without you. Lying fixes nothing.”

Janus pinched the bridge of his nose. “You are missing the bigger picture—”

“No! Stop pushing me to accept the things you’ve done to me just because you maybe, maybe, had good intentions!” Roman shouted. “As long as you believe deception is a legitimate path to making Thomas do what you want…even when it turns out to be the right call…you and I will never see eye to eye, and I will never trust you!”

Janus’s mouth lifted into a snarl.

“You know what? So be it. I do not have to defend my purpose or my methods to you.” He yanked out his sonic laser and placed it under Roman’s chin, relishing the momentary flare of fear in those caramel eyes.

“I just want to know one thing, oh noble Prince Roman, and be honest. When you were creating this cute little adventure for yourself and Logan, did you really have nothing to do with me being cast as the villain? The Master?”

The last word he cracked like a whip, and it echoed down the long, straight corridor.

“…master?” a staticky voice echoed from one of the cells, and a small yellow light flickered to life on the wall.

Cells that were, Janus noticed for the first time, unsettlingly empty...except for the rows and rows of fist-sized metal spheres along the walls, which began to light up, one by one.

“Uh…” Roman whispered. “What is happening? Where are the Daleks?”

Other voices joined in the chorus of “master, master”, until the corridor buzzed with echoes and Janus’s blood ran cold as ice in his body. The weird, almost childlike cadence was unsettlingly familiar…

“There are no Daleks.” He stared at the spheres, realization crashing over him.

“What?” Roman looked around wildly at the mass of yellow and now red lights, sword hilt gripped so tight that his knuckles were white.

The spheres began to detach from the walls.

“There are no insane Daleks in here,” Janus repeated, his voice rising. “They’re Toclafane! Run!”

He sprinted down the corridor as the first laser blast burst at his heels. Roman yelped, and then they were both running for the far door. A few cells were blasted open, though the little aliens were small enough to slip right through the bars, and the air suddenly swarmed with spiky, fist-sized metal balls.

“What…Toclafane?!” Roman yelled as they ran, dodging blasts. “Why? And why are they shooting at us?”

“The Master betrayed us! Kill the Master!” Metallic spikes whirred.

“They’re shooting at me!” Janus yelled back, shooting a wild blast with his laser over his shoulder. “Or rather, at the Master!”

Laser fire exploded at Roman’s feet, sending him careening into a cell as they ran.

“Well, tell them they have terrible aim!” the Prince retorted.

“Yes, I’m sure they’ll take advice from the character who canonically used and betrayed them,” Janus snarked, zapping a Toclafane and sending it spinning into its neighbor.

They reached the far door and slid to a halt, Janus seizing the control panel to open the door.

“Funny,” Roman said breathlessly, catching up and drawing his sword. “I can relate.”

Janus rolled his eyes as Roman spun to face the oncoming horde of tiny aliens, batting away a few spinning metal spikes.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, use this!” Janus thrust his sonic into Roman’s hands. Roman, to his credit, didn’t argue, but switched his sword to his left hand and readied both.

“Remus!” Janus shouted, focusing all his attention on the door’s keypad. “A little help would be appreciated.”

Behind him, he heard his sonic buzz and the sound of Roman’s sword crunching against something metal. The ozone smell of burnt electronics was starting to hurt his lungs.

“You have to say pleeeeeeease,” Remus’s voice said.

Janus slammed a hand against the panel.

“REMUS, I SWEAR TO APOPHIS I WILL REMOVE EACH ONE OF YOUR ORGANS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER—!” he roared.

“Which alphabet?” Remus cut in.

“REMUS SANDERS—!”

“All right, all right! So violent. I love it!” Remus crowed. “Here you go.”

The door opened.

They tumbled through, Roman zapping away one last murder ball as the door slid shut again.

Chapter 12- Can You Hear Me?

“I’m still quite socially awkward, so I’m just going to subtly walk towards the console and look at something. And then, in a minute, I’ll think of something that I should’ve said…that might have been helpful.”

Roman leaned against the door for a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the bright white light that filled the circular chamber. Compared to the dimness of the rest of the asylum, it was downright blinding.

“IT’S ABOUT TIME,” a harsh Dalek voice rasped, making both Roman and Janus jump and whirl.

A Dalek sat, motionless and menacing, at the far side of the room, bound in layers of chains. Its casing was green with silver trimming, and it wiggled its green-glowing eyestalk in a way that was almost…suggestive.

“I suppose that’s you, Remus?” Janus asked, visibly relaxing.

Roman sheathed his sword and realized he still had Janus’s sonic, which he tucked against his wrist. As little as he liked the unchivalrous weapon, he didn’t feel like handing it back over just yet.

“IN THE FLESH. BUT NOT REALLY.” Dalek-Remus burst into metallic giggles, sounding all the more bizarre coming from the killing machine he currently inhabited.

He probably likes being a Dalek, Roman thought sourly.

“ZAP MY CHAINS, MASTER JAN.” Remus wiggled, attempting to move. “AND LETS GO FIND THE EMO.”

Janus pulled a face.

“You…actually want to come with us?” Roman raised an eyebrow.

“THAT IS WHAT I SAID.”

Roman scrubbed a hand through his hair. He hadn’t considered what they would do if the dream didn’t end once they actually found Remus, and he definitely hadn’t considered the possibility of Remus actually wanting to be rescued. He’d assumed his brother was just, well, being himself. Taunting them, testing them, before fucking off (sometimes literally, ick) to do his own thing.

“I had hoped the scenario would end once we reached this room,” Roman confessed aloud, side-eyeing Janus.

Janus scoffed. “Well, it didn’t. Any other bright ideas, Creativity?”

“Well, we can’t take him,” Roman began, and startled backward when Remus screeched.

“EXCUSE YOU!”

“I’m sorry, Remus, but you’ve seen this episode! This is where your involvement in the story canonically ends.” Roman threw his hands up. “If we bring you along, it could mess up all the parameters we’ve established so far. And if finding you wasn’t enough, that means Specs was right; we really do have to track down old Panic at the Everywhere before the Imagination will let us go.”

“And since we haven’t the faintest idea where to start, we’ll need our TARDISs.” Janus walked back to the door and sighed. “We’ll have to run the Toclafane gauntlet again.

Roman cracked his neck. “I’m ready if you are, snake.”

“I’ll have my sonic back first.” Janus held out a hand. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you trying to secret it away.”

Roman’s mouth twisted, but he handed it over.

“Ready?”

“Ready.”

Roman readied his sword. Janus slapped the panel.

Nothing happened.

Frowning, he hit it again, but the door remained obstinately closed. Roman’s stomach sank.

Can’t one aspect of this disaster be easy? Just one?

“Remus, open the door,” Janus snapped.

“WHY SHOULD I?”

Both Sides slowly turned to face the Dalek.

“Exsscuse me?” Janus said, dipping his head to glower.

Remus’s twin head lights flashed. “WHY SHOULD I LET YOU GO?”

“Because we need to end this game, Remus! You know that!” Roman ran a hand exasperatedly down his face. “Are you choosing now to be contrary? Really?”

“EXCUSES!” Remus snapped. “THE TRUTH IS, YOU DON’T WANT MY COMPANY.”

“Remus…that’s not it,” Janus started.

“Oh, that is absolutely it.” Roman folded his arms. “You pride yourself on how many different ways you can gross someone out within the span of five minutes, and then you’re surprised that nobody wants you around?”

“I HAVE BEEN HELPING YOU THIS ENTIRE NIGHT.” Remus rattled his chains; one of them snapped. “AND YOU MAKE PLANS IN THIS ROOM LIKE I’M NOT EVEN HERE. YOU WOULD LEAVE ME BEHIND WITHOUT A SECOND THOUGHT.”

Roman rolled his eyes. “Like you wouldn’t do the same for a laugh, if it suited you!”

“BUT I DO NOT CALL MYSELF A HERO.”

Roman felt those words like a punch to the solar plexus. He physically recoiled, his grip on his sword tightening.

“Look, Remus—” Janus started.

“I AM EVERYTHING THOMAS FINDS DISGUSTING AND ABHORANT,” Remus continued. “UNLIKE SOME, I DO NOT PRETEND TO BE ANYTHING ELSE.”

That barb seemed to be aimed at Janus, who flinched, and Roman almost felt bad for him.

Almost.

“WHY SHOULD I ALLOW YOU TO LEAVE HERE IN TRIUMPH, JUST BECAUSE YOU ARE THE SO CALLED GOOD GUYS?” Remus surged forward, snapping the rest of his chains, and raised his gunstick. “THOMAS IS SUPPOSED TO REJECT ME, BUT WHY I SHOULD ACCEPT THE SAME FROM YOU?”

The gunstick began to glow.

Roman felt the wall at his back; out of time, out of options, again. What would they do if Remus decided to actually shoot them?

They were trapped in here.

“KILLING YOU WOULD END THE GAME, WOULDN’T IT?” Remus shrieked, shrill even for a Dalek. He rolled forward until his eyestalk was inches from Roman’s face. “TELL ME WHY I SHOULDN’T!”

Like looking in a funhouse mirror.

Roman saw his own terrified face, reflected in a Dalek eyestalk. Is this what I would be like, if I became someone Thomas…didn’t need anymore?

“Maybe you should,” Roman said quietly, the words just slipping out.

Remus stopped. “WHAT.”

“Roman, what the hell?” Janus snapped beside him. He had his sonic aimed at Remus’s headpiece, clearly ready to return fire if necessary.

Roman chuckled, bitterly.

“You Dark Sides always know how to hit where it hurts, you know? You’re right, Remus, I’m not a hero. Thomas even said so. So maybe…maybe killing us really is the fastest way to end this game. Clean reset. Done.”

“Don’t be a moron,” Janus retorted. “Thomas said no such thing. I was there for that conversation, if you’ll remember.”

“Shut up, snake!” Roman bared his teeth. “He thinks it, and don’t pretend like you aren’t the reason; you and my brother both! I knew who I was, and Thomas knew who I was, and everything was fine until you two started showing up with your lies and your lewd grossness and making Thomas doubt everything he is!” He dropped his gaze, eyes stinging. “Everything I am.”

Remus backed up a few inches. “AT LEAST YOU ARE HEEDED.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Roman said tiredly, still biting back tears.

“YOU NEVER HAD TO SHOUT TO BE HEARD. WHEREAS I WILL ALWAYS BE A MONSTER.”

Janus’s face shuttered. “Remus. We’ve talked about this.”

Remus aimed his eyestalk at the deceptive Side. “I AM NOT LIKE YOU. I NEITHER WANT NOR NEED ACCEPTANCE FROM OUR SOURCE, BECAUSE I AM THE INCEPTION AND DEPOSITORY OF EVERYTHING THAT HE FINDS UNACCEPTABLE.”

“But you still want it from us,” Janus finished quietly. “Is that what this is about, Rem?”

Remus said nothing.

Roman glanced between them. Somehow he had a hard time picturing his chaotic brother sitting down and just…talking, especially about heavy stuff like purposes and whatnot. Especially with Janus?

Janus exhaled.

“Honestly, neither of you know how to change, and I have watched it hold both of you back.”

He held up fingers to forestall both their protests, and pointed at Roman.

“You have always bathed in the light with Thomas, and so you’ve never needed the motivation to be better. And you,” he pointed at Remus, “have never been accepted by anyone, and therefore have never had the opportunity.”

“But the clock ticks on, and Thomas is growing up,” Janus went on, beginning to pace. “Which means all of us, including the two of you, must adapt. This whole ‘light Side, dark Side’ nonsense has to stop if Thomas is ever to achieve any sort of peace within himself.”

“EASY FOR YOU TO SAY,” Remus said. “NOW THAT YOU HAVE A SEAT AT THE TABLE.”

“As much as I hate to agree with Remus.” Roman folded his arms again. “I have to agree with Remus. What makes you the expert in how we need to change?”

“I am Thomas’s self-preservation!” Janus snapped, stalking back to Roman. “Adaptability is one of my core functions, because those who cannot change, do not survive.”

Roman frowned. “That seems like an oversimplification—”

“You really want to know why we ‘dark Sides’ have become such a problem for you, Roman?” Janus interrupted. “It’s because you, and Patton, and to a small extent Logan, have kept Thomas trapped in a familiar, oversimplified pattern of thinking, like an ill-fitting jacket bursting at the seams!”

Janus held up a finger. “Virgil was the first tear, lighting the metaphorical flame under your butts to think deeper, think wider, think differently. And when he, too, got too used to squeezing himself to fit into that safe little kid jacket, you got me.”

He smirked.

“You got me, pushing you to understand that the world is bigger than black and white, good and evil, and that sometimes the solutions to problems are not wholly one thing or another. And when you wouldn’t heed my words, you got someone even more blunt.”

He gestured at Remus as he spoke, then exhaled and adjusted his coat.

“We are not evil alien forces creeping about in Thomas’s head, making trouble for no reason, Roman. We have purposes, too. And if you’d take one moment, and use that creative brain instead of lashing out with your fantasy-trope, holier-than-thou, six-year-old mores, I know you are capable of seeing that.”

Roman huffed, and looked away.

The problem was…he did see it.

Maybe he couldn’t have put it in such articulate terms; he wasn’t Logan, after all. But anyone who looked into Thomas’s dejected eyes lately could deduce that the so-called Dark Sides were a symptom of something deeper, not the cause of it.

He just hated when Deceit…fine, Janus…was right, and lately it felt like the snake Side was turning out to be right about a lot of things. If Roman was ever going to change…if he was ever going to be better…he needed to reign in his pride, and acknowledge the truth in Janus’s words.

“The god of doorways, of beginnings and endings,” Roman said quietly. “One face to the past and one to the future.”

Janus blinked, clearly shocked; his snake eye slitted to the merest sliver.

“I am Creativity,” Roman added, enjoying the other’s momentary discomfiture. “Do you really think I’m not familiar with all the mythology Thomas has studied over the years?”

“If you knew what it meant.” Janus spoke barely above a whisper, looking away. “Then why did you mock it?”

Roman pressed his lips together. In all honesty, despite all his posturing, he’d never been proud of how he’d acted that day.

“I was jealous,” he admitted, just as softly. “Thomas needed you, a Side he’s always seen as morally abhorrent, more than he needed me, his…his hero…” he trailed off, staring hard at Remus’s Dalek shell. “What was I supposed to think? What does that make me?”

Janus sighed, deeply, and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“It was never a competition. The metaphorical table is big enough for all of us. And I…” he sighed again. “I was wrong, to dig at your insecurities the way that I did. It was unworthy of me.”

Roman gaped at him. “By Odin’s beard. Was that…was that an apology?”

Janus grimaced, and flicked out his forked tongue. “Don’t get usssed to it.”

“GET OUT.”

Both Sides turned to face Remus, who’d been blessedly, unusually quiet up to that point.

“Excuse me?” Roman said.

“I HAVE LOWERED THE PLANET’S SHIELD.” Remus gestured with his gunstick as the door to his prison slid open. “WE HAVE JUST UNDER TWO MINUTES TO GET BACK TO THE TELEPORTATION CHAMBER.”

“Are you crazy?” Roman yelled, drawing his sword as the Toclafane outside swarmed toward the door.

“Kill the Master!”

A distant explosion rocked the asylum, making Roman and Janus stumble.

“IT HAS STARTED.” Remus slammed his body into Roman, pushing him toward the door. “TWO MINUTES, THE PLANET BLOWS UP. TICK TOCK.”

“What about them!” Janus shouted, zapping a Toclafane that tried to breach the doorway and hauling Roman back by one of his denim suspenders.

“I WILL CLEAR THE WAY.”

Remus rolled out into the carnage, firing his gunstick and laughing maniacally.

“EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!”

Laser bursts and smoke clogged the air, Toclafane swarmed and fell in his wake, but finally the little murder balls began fleeing en mass.

Another explosion shook the ground, closer this time.

They ran.

“What made you change your mind?” Janus panted as they rounded a corner.

“THE SCENARIO MUST END.” Remus easily kept up, despite being a tin can on wheels. “THOMAS IS ATTEMPTING TO WAKE UP.”

“What about Virgil?” Roman demanded.

“IT DOESN’T MATTER NOW.”

“You didn’t kill us,” Roman pointed out.

Remus made a grating noise that might have been a chuckle.

“MAYBE YOU DON’T KNOW ME AS WELL AS YOU THINK,” he said. “OR PERHAPS THIS IS MORE FUN.”

The floor shook violently, sending cracks knifing up the walls.

“We have a problem!” Janus, bringing up the rear, shouted as they sprinted down the last hallway. “A big, fiery problem!”

Roman felt scorching heat on his neck and glanced back. His heart dropped; the corridor behind them was rapidly being engulfed in flames.

“This bit seemed so much cooler in the episode!” he yelled, putting on a burst of speed.

“Shut up! Go, go, go!”

Patton was waiting outside the teleportation chamber, his Cyberman head swiveling back and forth. He let out a metallic screech as they approached.

“Don’t shoot the Dalek, it’s just Remus!” Janus shouted, waving his hands. “Get inside!”

They all stumbled in.

Logan crouched by the translucent floor panel, sonic poised, obviously ready to activate the teleport. Roman had never been so happy to see his nerd.

“Patton, Roman, what—?” Logan squawked when Roman grabbed his arm to haul him up on the platform. Remus levitated the last few feet; he was the last one on.

“No time, Specs!” Roman yelled cheerfully. “Step on it!”

An explosion, near and violent, rocked the platform and sent everyone but Remus stumbling into each other. Roman caught himself on Logan’s shoulders…completely by accident, of course.

“Step on…what?” Logan squinted at Roman’s face. “What’s—”

“Oh for fuck’s sake!” Janus seized Logan’s sonic and pointed it down at the panel, whirring it to life.

Light blasted up from their feet as fire filled the doorway.

Roman braced for a fireball…but the room seemed to disintegrate around them and the awful heat vanished. He sagged against Logan’s back. Soft weight enclosed his arms…sleeves…and he realized his outfit was shifting back into his familiar Princely attire.

They had done it!

“BY THE way.” Remus’s voice warped from a Dalek’s screech to his own whiny tenor. “Whose idea was it to make Patton a Cyberman?”

Stunned silence.

“I’m a WHAT now?” Patton’s shocked voice rang out.

#sanders sides #sanders sides fanfiction #ts fanfic #ts fanfiction #doctor who #thomas sanders #canon compliant #action #adventure #romance #roman sanders #logan sanders #deceit sanders #patton sanders #remus sanders #virgil sanders #ts sides #ts roman #ts logan #ts deceit #ts patton #ts remus #ts virgil #logince #moceit #sympathetic deceit #sympathetic remus #bickering #enemies to friends #rivals to lovers

[sinceileftyoublog]

Taylor Swift Album Review: Folklore

(Republic)

BY JORDAN MAINZER

COVID-19 has gotten a lot of people holed up in one location thinking about their past, their regrets, and their legacy--even the world’s biggest pop stars. Recorded in isolation during the pandemic, Taylor Swift’s folklore intertwines not-so-subtle references to her combed-over personal life, character love triangles, and the ghosts of our past, allowing her most nuanced self-reflection yet. In collaboration with The National’s Aaron Dessner, frequent co-writer Jack Antonoff, and even Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, Swift has created not just an album of only good songs, free of the problematic virtue signaling that’s plagued her in the past, rejecting any aesthetic that could soundtrack a pet food commercial. folklore is a great, cohesive statement of purpose, a literal “fuck you” to the men who’ve written her off as a serious artist or defined her by her boyfriends, but one that achieves the kiss-off from lifting herself up more than putting down others. As she sings on sparse, yet bouncy and finger-snapping opener “the 1″, “the greatest films of all time were never made” and “the greatest loves of all time are over now.” It’s time for us--and her--to move on.

Throughout folklore, Swift looks back at what was expected of her, a white, blonde, all-American sweetheart country singer, and reclaims her persona beyond a three-year period in which she finally revealed her political beliefs and cornily declared the old Taylor dead. On immediate highlight “cardigan”, she uses the imagery of a lived-in sweater to occupy meaning beyond a comforting cliche, something with real history. “Sequin smile, black lipstick,” she sings, “Sensual politics / When you are young, they assume you know nothing.” Over the same swooning violins and booze-lounge piano work that Dessner does so well with The National, Swift reveals her threads. On the clattering, comparatively propulsive “the last great american dynasty”, she sings about Rebekah Harkness, the composer and oil heiress who lived in Swift’s Rhode Island house before her, and sees commonalities with her, both setting the record for “the most shameless woman this town has ever seen”, both of whom “had a marvelous time ruining everything” throwing Gatsby-esque parties. “seven” features nervous, blip drum programming from The National’s Bryan Devendorf, as Swift looks back at her childhood as when she was, conversely, the most at ease. And on the jangly “mirrorball”, she sounds conflicted when she declares, “I can change everything about me to fit in,” recognizing the pros of adaptability and the cons of being unable to subvert expectations.

Indeed, part of what makes folklore effective is its successfully delicate balance between Swift’s self-critique and righteous indignation towards those who have wronged her. “You wear the same jewels that I gave you as you bury me,” she sings on “my tears ricochet”, a song about a tormentor showing up at the funeral of his victim, a possible reference to Scott Borchetta’s betrayal of her when she left Big Machine Records. On “mad woman”, she asks rhetorically, “Does a scorpion sting when fighting back?” and later, “Does she smile? Or does she mouth, 'Fuck you forever?’” And yet, the somewhat maudlin and muddy “this is me trying” nevertheless reads like a necessary lift-via-confession, one that encompasses and previews the humility and empathy present on some of folklore’s other best tracks. The ambitious emotional centerpiece “epiphany” imagines the experience of a soldier in WWII next to a health care worker during COVID-19, a New Age hymn with real substance through humanism. “Only twenty minutes to sleep / But you dream of some epiphany / Just one single glimpse of relief / To make some sense of what you've seen,” Swift sings deftly, coming face to face with the uncertainty brought upon by life’s ultimate tragedies. Even lighter fare like country pop tune “betty” is written from the point of view of a 17-year-old lost in love, and “illicit affairs” from the point of view of someone lost in lust; Swift inhabits other characters with skill and precision.

Ultimately, the two tracks wherein Swift sings about her current relationship, with actor Joe Alwyn, almost entirely, benefit from the same sense of perspective that allowed her to tell others’ stories. It takes over half the album to finally get that banjo track, but “invisible string” is worth the wait. Swift, self-referential, sets the scene, “Bad was the blood of the song in the cab on your first trip to LA / You ate at my favorite spot for dinner,” reveling in the part of new love when you begin to share yourself with someone else. The kicker comes when she shares how her current happiness, and perhaps growing older, has softened her: “Cold was the steel of my axe to grind / For the boys who broke my heart,” she declares, summarizing so many of her best-known songs and albums, before shrugging, “Now I send their babies presents.” And on “peace”, she asks Alwyn whether he’d be okay with the life of scrutiny that comes with being with her, warning him, “I’d give you my sunshine, give you my best / But the rain is always gonna come if you’re standin’ with me.” Dessner’s staccato synthesizers and bass noodling adds a weighty melancholy to “peace” and so much of the record. The inherent sadness of nostalgia and mediation on the past, accepting it, simultaneously being okay with the present and the future. This is Swift’s entry in the folklore of the loved, the loving, and the lonely.

#taylor swift #album review #republic #republic records #folklore #covid-19 #covid-19 pandemic #coronavirus #coronavirus pandemic #the national #jack antonoff #bon iver #aaron dessner #justin vernon #rebekah harkness #bryan devendorf #scott borchetta #big machine #big machine records #joe alwyn

[bloodstarved]

big ol’ survey (take 2)

BASICS.

FULL  NAME :  beaumont black NICKNAME :  beau, mister AGE :  early 40s BIRTHDAY :  doesn’t care to remember ETHNIC  GROUP :  highlander NATIONALITY :  ala mhigan LANGUAGE / S :  eorzean & huntspeak (keeper dialect) SEXUAL  ORIENTATION :  bisexual RELATIONSHIP  STATUS :  single HOME  TOWN / AREA :  unknown CURRENT  HOME :  dimwold, gyr abania PROFESSION :  witch of the wilds

PHYSICAL.

HAIR :  grey EYES : one blue & one green FACE :  gaunt, wide jaw covered in coarse stubble, sunken eyes; haggard LIPS :  thick, bloodless, dry COMPLEXION :  sallow BLEMISHES :  n/a SCARS :  many on his back: faded & white TATTOOS :  n/a HEIGHT :  6 fulms, 10 ilms WEIGHT :  250 ponzes BUILD :  tall, broad-shouldered, thick: heavily-muscled FEATURES :  heterochromia; shoulders that are habitually slumped as if bearing an extraordinary weight; listless, wandering eyes; face always concealed by ornate masks; generally bedecked in gold and jewels not befitting his usual, ragged attire ALLERGIES :  rolanberries USUAL  HAIR  STYLE :  medium-length & thin; wispy; unhealthy USUAL  FACE  LOOK :  tired & melancholy; like he’s been through hell USUAL  CLOTHING :   varies between worn old clothes that have been mended times immemorial & ornate, lovely surcoats and fabrics; occasionally, he can be seen dawning heavy plate armor

PSYCHOLOGY.

FEAR / S :  the unknown; the unquantifiable ASPIRATION / S :  to find a purpose; to be at peace POSITIVE  TRAITS :  compassionate, empathetic, & resilient NEGATIVE  TRAITS :  gruff, aloof, & ill-mannered MAJOR ARCANA :  the hermit ZODIAC :  cancer, the crab TEMPERAMENT :  melancholic SOUL  TYPE :  the shaman ANIMAL :  barn owl VICE HABIT / S :  isolationism, FAITH :  believes in rhalgr to some degree, but moreso he believes in the spirits of the dimwold--innumerable apparitions that are fickle and unforgiving GHOSTS ? :  unfortunately AFTERLIFE ? :  yes REINCARNATION ? :  no POLITICAL ALIGNMENT :  indifferent EDUCATION  LEVEL :  intelligent & educated, though somewhat lacking when it comes to social interactions--favors short responses and simple language that perhaps belittles his true intelligence

FAMILY.

FATHER :  unknown, deceased MOTHER :  eleanora black, deceased SIBLINGS :  none EXTENDED  FAMILY :  unknown, presumed deceased NAME MEANING / S :  beau, meaning “fair” or “lovely”; mont, meaning “hill” or “mountain”

FAVORITES.

BOOK :  the autobiography of some obscure monk’s unfortunate life DEITY :  rhalgr, vaguely HOLIDAY :  starlight MONTH :  november SEASON :  autumn PLACE :  his cabin: ramshackle yet quiet & quaint--homey WEATHER :  overcast with a cool breeze SOUND / S:  a babbling brook & a crackling fire SCENT / S :  rainwater & leather TASTE / S :  iron & bread FEEL / S :  coarse furs & threadbare blankets NUMBER :  11 COLORS :  dark grey, white, washed-out red, & soft brown

EXTRA.

TALENTS :  homebrew magicks & potions, healing wounds, & general handyman skills BAD  AT :  socializing, expressing his emotions, & romance TURN  ONS :  soft-spoken individuals, long hair (especially when braided), large breasts, chubbiness, mask kisses, patience TURN  OFFS :  rash personalities, loudness, clumsiness, black-and-white thinking, any attempts to remove his mask, necromancy (don’t ask) HOBBIES :  general survivalism, whittling, helping travelers passing through the dimwold, making offerings to the spirits, practicing witchcraft QUOTE :  “Please...” spoken softly but with a lot of feeling.

MUN QUESTIONS.

Q1 :  If you could write your character your way in their own movie,  what would it be called,  what style would it be filmed in, and what would it be about? A1 :  an unnamed video tape you find in the back of your grandfather’s garage, and when you put it in the VCR, it’s just a two hour long silent film of beau weaving various baskets while avoiding all eye contact with the camera.

Q2 :  What would their soundtrack/score sound like? A2 :  a slow, melancholy piano accompanied by a steady, thrumming bass

Q3 :  Why did you start writing this character? A3 :   i absolutely fell in love with his design when i saw the completed version. from there, i slowly began thinking of things i could do with him, and eventually i incorporated most (of not all) of dali’s scrapped concepts into him. perhaps, in some ways, he is a revamped version of dali: a spiritual successor or even a homage to my first ffxiv rp character. yet unlike dali, i wanted to write a character who struggled with his own tenderness--who is soft yet without the knowledge of how to express it. so instead, he is gruff and keeps to himself, avoiding long-term connections with others. but he cannot stop himself from helping those in need, because there is no real escaping his nature.

Q4 :   What first attracted you to this character? A4 :  honestly, after i modded his face and saw how haggard & melancholy he looks, i simply fell in love. even the original art gave me this vibe of profound loneliness & desperation for contact: his subtle expression coupled with the way he gazes down at the red thread entwined with his fingers.

Q5 :  Describe the biggest thing you dislike about your muse. A5 :  i wish he would wear socks more often.

Q6 :  What do you have in common with your muse? A6 :  i used to be extraordinarily lonely growing up. in a lot of ways, beau is reminiscent of my early teenage self--without all of the outright destructive traits i had.

Q7 :  How does  your muse feel about you? A7 :  you know, i think we would actually get along. i can be persistent without being pushy when it comes to making friends, and i think that’s exactly what he needs to help him open up a bit.

Q8 :  What characters does your muse have interesting interactions with? A8 :  i’m not sure yet! i think it would be interesting to see him interact with someone very high-energy, to contrast his low-energy. like a yuffie kisaragi to his vincent valentine (no i do not mean that in a romantic sense).

Q9 :  What gives you inspiration to write your muse? A9 :  dali himself is a big inspiration, along with sten from dragon age, eileen from bloodborne, auron from ffx, nier from nier: gestalt (NOT replicant), hopper from stranger things, giyu from demon slayer/kny, & dracula from netflix’s castlevania

Q10 :  How long did this take you to complete? A10 :  let’s just say im really gonna hate myself when i have to get up for work in the morning. (:

#rp meme #beau

[its-just-like-the-movies]

Personal Ballot for 2017: Score, Costume Design, Production Design, Visual Effects, and Makeup

Hi all! I’ve begun the slow but steady process of writing out paragraph-long entires for my favorites of 2017 in 20 categories. I pray it’ll all be up by this time in April, if not before then, and the long list without write-ups is definitely susceptible to changes (for instance, Get Out is very likely to take the slot in Score that I’ve given to writing about Dawson City: Frozen Time), but there’s no time like the present to write about last year’s movies. So, without further ado, here are my five nominees (plus a few runners-up) in these five categories.

Best Original Score

Dawson City: Frozen Time, Alex Somers - It’d be hard, if not unbearable, for any kind of film to evoke a sense of awe in the miracle of its own existence. Imagine most films trying to do this for their entire hour and forty minute run time and not trying to bash your head in. But Dawson City: Frozen time pulls it off gloriously, partially because the film builds such a convincing case that the survival of its subject - hundreds of rolls of silent film footage previously thought lost recovered in 1978 - is a genuinely impressive achievement borne mostly from dumb luck, but also because it does a great job flexing its central themes and melodies to suit the tone of its current scene. The score isn’t derived from period tunes, instead taking on ethereal and atmospheric qualities that never tilts into opera, guiding us through complex histories in Dawson City. Yes, there’s a lot of awe, but also panic and terror and discovery, keying in to the developments of the town through its relationship to cinema, helping us grasp the idea that immortality and survival itself is so precarious under circumstances like these. In large part, the work here reminded me of what Angelo Badalamenti’s score accomplished for Twin Peaks - using emotional and mood-appropriate chords to guide us through heady, unusual material

Dunkirk, Hans Zimmer - More wall-to-wall scoring, though almost the inverse goal of what Dawson City: Frozen Time is attempting to do. Here the primary objective is delineating between all manner of suspense and fear as Dunkirk’s characters try to survive amidst their own inhospitable conditions. And since those characters are so intentionally blank, his score basically acts like a piece of opera music, a series movements charting the story more than an accompaniment or accent on the film’s scenes. Hope is strung out as chances for escape seem more and more dire, but the score lets the men’s belief that they will be rescued hit as passionately as their fears that whatever latest hell has sprung out of the sky will surely kill them this time. It also has the sense to submerge itself, adding quieter tensions to downbeats as the characters wait for danger to return and search for means to avoid it. Zimmer runs a decathlon based in exhaustion and the very real possibility that these men will die without growing stale or overbearing, keeping the terror lodged in our guts like a bullet.

Good Time, Oneohtrix Point Never - So accomplished in its sonic textures and moods that calling it exhilarating feels like I’m just scratching the surface. With its reprisals of 80’s synth and electronica, Oneohtrix Point Never’s score maintains all kinds of tensions as the film’s narrative barrels forward. From the opening heist that’s doomed to go wrong (and does, spectacularly so) to scenes of the people orbiting Connie getting trampled as collateral damage, the score finds ways to maintain tension in downbeats while ratcheting it up when necessary, flexing and stretching its motifs to flesh out the psychology of the film’s characters. Buries itself deeply under the audience’s skin without falling prey to any of the pitfalls its musical style entails, and manages to be completely enthralling while fitting perfectly into Good Time’s grotty aesthetic.

The Lost City of Z, Christopher Spelman - Admittedly, I’m unfamiliar enough with the pieces Christopher Spelman cribbed from for his score here to have known off the bat that some of his operatic flourishes were actually operas. So, maybe not 100% original. But! It’s still pretty original, and smartly incorporates works from other composers that fully contribute to the already-operatic nature of his score for Z. Throughout, Spelman avoids accenting obvious rises or falls in the narrative in favor of applying a continuous sense of motion, suggesting simultaneous beginnings and endings without pointing where it could all be going. This simultaneity also allows for the score to play to multiple moods and ideas at once, like the melancholy inside a joyous reunion between husband and wife, or finding a great discovery pointing towards an unknown civilization you have no tools to investigate. Just as Percy’s relationship to the jungles, to glory, and to enlightenment all change in themselves and become more enmeshed in each other, Spelman’s score helps us track these shifting mental and emotional pathways in him and his companions.

Wonderstruck, Carter Burwell - Like everyone in Wonderstruck, Burwell has to communicate between two time periods using totally disparate musical eras while including melodies and tunes that can work for both protagonists. He also has the additional challenge of scoring Rose’s scenes like a silent film, complimenting Millicent Simmonds’s performance without overshadowing her own subtle work. And, without succumbing to period clichés or overplaying the “wonder” in Wonderstruck, Burrell delightfully meets the challenges of the film on both sides. He gives both the 20’s silent pastiche and 70’s funk modern accents, keeping in tune with what’s dangerous about this adventure as much as what’s exciting and exhilarating about it. Wonderstruck indeed.

Best Costume Design

I, Tonya, Jennifer Johnson - Who’s to say about degree of difficulty when having such publicly available/iconic outfits as reference for its real person lead character to wear, but that doesn’t mean Jennifer Johnson’s recreations of Tonya’s outfits are completely dazzling to look at. She’s completely in key with the gaudy charm behind Tonya’s costumes, making them convincingly homemade and lower-class rather than using nicer fabric to beef up their dazzle. That energy is given to the background skaters, though when Tonya starts getting “nicer” outfits she still lets the costume retain their unsightly flair. Supporting characters are dressed in broad, colorful strokes that invoke character details without tilting into caricature. Julianne Nicholson’s coach get lots of soft floral prints, while LaVona always seems to have different versions of the same fur-trimmed coat, blossoming into the pelt she’s wearing in her interview scenes. Tailored to accentuate Janney’s imposing height, their length and flatness makes her look even more physically imposing than she already is. The sweaters Jeff wears are more form fitting than the ones Shawn does, but they’re both cozy-looking and character appropriate. A color ensemble of looks that fits the colorful ensemble of characters.

The Lost City of Z, Sonia Grande - Can we just take a second and appreciate how gorgeously dressed Sienna Miller is at all times in this movie? Decked in full-body dresses, gloves, and glorious hats, her looks are eye-catching and elegant without calling attention to themselves or immobilizing her. All the outfits of the explorers look suitable to their environment and grow convincingly tattered as their expedition continues, and Grande  avoids exoticizing the Indian tribes while keeping them specific. More than that, the line about Percy only seeing the lack of medals on his uniform at the opening ball helps clue us in to how the film will insert character details through the baubles they’re wearing, such as the medals decked on the men’s breasts and the jungle-themes ascots Percy begins wearing after coming home from his second trip. Unshowy, unfussy period costuming that’s executed to a tee. Bonus points for the soldier’s uniforms, the fortune teller, and all the suits of the menfolk.

Personal Shopper, Jurgen Doerig - Gives Phantom Thread a real run for its money as the 2017 feature whose central character’s life revolves most around their film’s outfits. Maureen’s near-invisible boss sure is fashionable, with a taste for chic (sorry Reynolds) and, to put it lightly, suggestive outfits. We certainly get some idea of what Kyra is like through the dresses and accessories Maureen picks for her, and it’s almost a plot point that this woman is so unconcerned with her employees that she’d hire a personal shopper that’s also her size. But damn does Stewart wear those outfits well, using them to bolster Maureen’s self confidence as she enjoys the high of those incredible dresses, doing a better job expressing character via fashion show than Jackie. Just as amazing is the character’s own outfits, layers of sweaters and t-shirts underneath the same leather jacket, somehow a coherent look despite clearly being thrown on at the last minute, or at least chosen for function and comfort when sleeping in them over appearance. A sturdy collection of outfits that all reveal something different about the woman wearing them.

Phantom Thread, Mark Bridges - Look, all I’m saying is that I was a woman of means in 50’s London, I’d hire Reynolds Woodcock to make as much of my wardrobe as possible. Every outfit he designs for his clients is completely ravishing, but also somewhat regal and ornate, giving the House of Woodcock a rigid style that’s so far away from chic it’s understandably becoming outdated. It’s a portfolio anyone would be proud to hang their hat on, and Mark Bridges gives equal attention to what the three main players in this game are wearing. Cyril’s black-on-black-on-black looks are too modern in their elegant simplicity to have been made by her brother. He also makes repeat looks count for a lot, as when Alma goes to the New Year’s party - whose other attendees have their own, distinctive style - wearing that green and yellow dress Reynolds made so early in their amorphous relationship. The film simply wouldn’t work if Bridges wasn’t at the top of his game, and he hits a bullseye with every look.

Roman J. Israel, Esq., Francine Jamison-Tanchuck - From the start, Roman’s outfits are noticeably out of place next to the other lawyers we see, not just because the fabric is considerably cheaper but because they don’t seem quite tailored to his size. But they also seem pretty comfortable, and pieces like his magenta suit help him stand out next to the other members of the law firm he’s reluctantly sucked into. After acquiring a good bit of money through illicit means, his new and expensive outfits lose some of that individuality as he gets more in line with a cynical version of the law firm even as it changes itself to meet Roman’s idealism. As the head of that law firm Colin Farrell’s suits are tailored as fine as he is, even accentuating his fineness, while he and his associates go through the exercise of sporting “personalized” ties. The outfits of Carmen Ejogo’s activist leader are believably thrift store but as casually elegant and quietly worn as she is, and it’s exciting to examine the array of protesters meeting with her to see who’s wearing the same kinds of clothing or the imitative, expensive versions of it. Every costume pulls double duty, importing narrative significance and unexpected fashionability to story that didn’t seem to invite it on its face.

Best Production Design

Blade Runner 2049, Dennis Gasner - How can one call something unshowy even if so much of the film seems devoted to showing of its technical elements? My biggest complaint with Blade Runner 2049 is how so many scenes start at the earliest possible moment only to end as late as possible. In moments like K walking past those broken statues of giant, nude women, it seems as though the scenes have no point except to gawk at the physical environments and design elements that Dennis Gassner created. But damn if the sets aren’t something to marvel at. Not only that, but the flat, gray, angular style of these buildings and drawers and junk-sorting tables look as though they were designed with only function and space-saving in mind. Yes, the casino an important character has been hiding out at for decades is very much old and abandoned in the middle of nowhere, but it has round(!) tables, and the remains of some kind of charisma that would’ve made customers spark to the place if it was an active business. The roundness of there and Dr. Stelline’s lab stands out in contrast to practical flatness of everywhere else the film has taken us. Gassner finds a way to make 2049’s sets absolutely stunning, utterly serving the film’s story and the characters inhabiting those spaces without courting tropes of outright dystopia or any obvious visual charisma to make them easy eye-candy.

It, Claude Paré - Repeat watches of It have keyed me in to the criticism that the film suffers a real trade-off between scene-by-scene conceits being fully realized while larger ideas about growing up and more aggressive King themes aren’t so much left for the audience to fill in as much as avoided or vaguely implied. But even as the film petters out, the production design remains indelible and attentive in every scene. The kids’ rooms are  individualized with clutter and personal objects - love the circus wallpaper in Georgie’s room - and Pennywise’s lair feels like its own, unique haunted house, even into the sewers. Derry itself is believably 80’s, grounding the town and playing to its normalcy rather than a rotting host for an unspeakable evil it’s turning a blind eye too. But the real achievement here are the film’s props, from the MISSING CHILD posters piled on top of each other to the history book Ben reads at the library about the Easter tragedy, evoking a bloody and haunted history even as the town continues to ignore it, brutally emblematized in the endless tower of mementos in the sewer. Bonus points for the army of clown dolls and the dummy in the coffin Richie encounters.

mother!, Philip Messina - Right off the bat mother! wins points for creating a house that’s convincingly rustic while also balancing ornate flourishes. It’s big but internally coherent, and has a creepy basement without being a creepy house, though it certainly suits the spooky atmosphere and unraveling narrative Aronofsky is going for. But the real kicker comes in the second act, as the house grows and devolves into a place of worship and war in honor of Him and his poetry. The transformation of so many rooms into war zones and actual altars is utterly remarkable and unfussily done despite the immense work it must have taken. It even looks as well-made as it should given the short, dream logic time frame that all of this is occuring in within the film, as though a stage crew is swapping out sets with every new scene of a play, wrecking this carefully built world in only a matter of minutes. Perhaps the least showy and most immaculately constructed part of an aggressively combative film.

The Lost City of Z, Jean-Vincent Puzos - Yes, a lot of the action takes place in the lush jungles of the Amazonia. But those jungles are believably rendered at every step of the way, teeming with life without falling into exoticism. And the manufactured majesty of the “natural” doesn’t diminish the quality of the homes and communities we get to see. It’s fascinating to see the homes of the colonizers living in those jungles, sturdily made outposts with surreal flourishes and decadent wealth pouring from its most scourigible parts. There’s also the communities built by the Indians that Percy encounters, each clearly their own tribe, as well as the attention paid to wartime trenches and the grand mansions and meeting places of the Explorer’s Guild. The homes he returns to after every journey help illustrate his growing obsession with Zed and his shifting place in English society, going from an upscale house with vine-covered exteriors and leaf-print wallpaper in the bedroom to a cottage practically drowning in the trees surrounding it.

Wonderstruck, Mark Friedberg - Between his miraculous outings with Todd Haynes on Far From Heaven, Mildred Pierce, and now with Wonderstruck, plus his gargantuan work on Synecdoche, New York, can someone please get Mark Friedberg a Wikipedia page? Hell, his work on Wonderstruck alone should’ve qualified him for that, let alone any awards recognition at all. There’s more applause here for deeply specific bedrooms and homes, but there’s even greater praise for the attention he gives to shops and museum dioramas and the way he, along with every other technician, juggles making aesthetics 50 years apart internally cohesive while finding avenues for both timelines to speak to each other, even outside of shared locations. Friedberg may even have a greater challenge in including objects older than both time periods, like the book advertising the Cabinet of Wonders or the impersonal but captivating dioramas and galleries inside the museum of natural history. But damn does he pull it all off, ending the film with its richest achievement in the deeply personal map that this mysterious father of Ben’s created, a diorama that’s as much a diary, and a story told with non-diegetic sets.

Best Visual Effects

Blade Runner 2049, John Nelson and Co. - Easily the film that has been in every incarnation of this category since I first saw it, and the one I’ve had the hardest time starting a write-up about beyond asking “How did they do it?!?!?!”. But reader, I have to ask. The blending of CGI landscapes with the film’s already-impressive production design is smooth and unobtrusive. Joi, in all her incarnations, is a pretty incredible achievement. Fluctuating in transparency and functionality, moving in and out of spaces and characters, in skyscraper and human-sized incarnations, the character is fascinating to watch, the constant reminder that she’s an object making Ana de Armas’s warm, emotionally rich and humanizing performance all the more interesting. Dr. Ana’s Stelline’s manufactured memories coming together is practically a short film onto itself, and the ghostly singing holograms are as affecting as the decrepit casino Deckard himself haunts. Consistently breathtaking work that keeps finding new ways to surprise you.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Christopher Townsend and Co. - I’m still amazed by how fully I’ve come around to Marvel’s side after their 2017 output, but without a doubt I’m still most impressed by the visual style and deliciously saturated color palette that Guardians so perfectly manages. Without ever tipping over into Wonderland garishness, the film indulges in practically every color imaginable in creating its sets and environments and weapons. The hot, neon pink of Yondu’s whistling spear-thing is easily my favorite, as is the blueness of the sky and orangeness of the ground as Gamora sits outside after fighting with Peter, completely unaware of Nebula soaring behind her. Meanwhile, the creation of Ego’s planet and his palace is a truly massive achievement, as are the dioramas detailing his long, hilariously sexy travails across the universe. And they find a way to make Kurt Russell young again without creeping into the uncanny valley. Yes, there’s that one effect in the big climactic fight that weirdly makes it look like Ego and Peter are apparating at each other like in the Harry Potter films, but it’s only a slight bump in a film that’s otherwise full of visual wit and bursting to the brim with as much color as possible, practically daring you to look at it and not enjoy yourself.

It, Nicholas Brooks and Co. - It’s absolutely ridiculous that the campaign team for Warner Bros. couldn’t even muscle It into the VFX shortlist. If repeat watches have cooled me on Bill Skarsgård’s performance, the graphic impact of Pennywise still hits as hard as that first showing in a packed theater. The many ways that Pennywise contorts his limbs, changes size, takes on new and equally terrifying forms, are as terrifying to me as they are to the kids. Seeing him unwind from that fridge to scare Eddie is still one of the most indelible sights of the year, as is his Meshes of the Afternoon arm reaching out for Georgie. Bonus points for the detail given to the dead kids, particularly the headless Easter Egg casualty and Betty Ripsom.

mother!, Tamriko Bardadze and Co. - Compared to the scale some of these other teams are operating on, I keep thinking of mother!’s achievements as being somehow smaller. Effects like the burning wound on the floor where a man is killed, the blood from the dying man himself, the beating heart of the house, that pulsing, spindly Thing hiding in a toilet, all are brief but completely impactful. But then I think back to larger spectacles like the house beginning to rot when Lawrence’s character is at her most distressed, the occasionally barren and occasionally lush Outside we get only glimpses of. Then, even bigger spectacles, like every single way that her house is blown apart, and the charred but living and talking body of a character who has instigated its greatest destruction, and I have a hard time calling its achievements small in any way. Supporting, maybe, but as fully realized as it needs to be, and as mad as everything else that mother! is doing.

War for the Planet of the Apes, Joe Letteri and Co. - I’ll admit upfront there’s a ceiling to how much I can be in awe of a third incarnation of digitally remastered apes, the look of each film improving with technological advances even if I don’t see anything as inherently “new” here as some of my other nominees. But even with that caveat in place, there’s no question that the apes have never looked better. Compare the trailer for Rise in 2011 to what we get in War, and it’s even more obvious how much effort the VFX team has put into making Caesar and his tribe look as realistic as possible. Their faces have never been so expressive; their fur looks so real you could practically touch it, or at least imagine how it feels and smells as they hop between increasingly inhospitable ecosystems, caked in snow and mud and dirt and blood. Even if I’m not as wild about the series as its most ardent fans, their adoration is completely earned with the knowledge that this trilogy has gone out with its most auspicious technological achievement to date.

Best Makeup

Atomic Blonde, Paul Pattinson - A shout out first to the wonderful styling of the minor characters, from the punk hackers working under Bill Skarsgård (and Skarsgård himself) to the functional Russian antagonists, individualizing members on both sides where it counts while knowing who to keep relatively anonymous, even after repeat viewings. John Goodman and Eddie Marsan stand out among the suits dealing with this case, though all the mysterious officials wandering around the story are fantastically groomed. James McAvoy seems to have lost all morality along with his hair, legible as either “disastrous” or still pretty foxy, depending on who’s asking. Still what most interests me are the wigs that Charlize Theron and Sofia Boutella’s characters wear throughout the film, wigs that are undeniably wigs to the audience that are treated like actual haircuts in the film. Both of them, Charlize especially, wear the kind of wigs that spies would usually wear to disguise themselves as other people, something only highlighted in how the actual wigs Lorraine wears seem more plausible as real haircuts than her typical bleach-blonde cut. It’s the first real sign that everyone in Atomic Blonde is playing more roles than they let on, and that the film is willing to be far more ambitious than you’d expect from the setup.

The Death of Louis XIV, Antoine Mancini and Lluís Soriano - There are wigs, and then there’s the magnificence resting on Louis XIV’s head, some kind of lion’s mane passing for a cloud that, like the king, is ready to float off to the beyond at any moment. The gradation of his physical health is the spectacle the whole film is premised upon, and it wouldn’t work if the makeup team wasn’t doing their job so marvelously, oscillating between wilting wigs, full white wigs, or unbelievable and youthful brown wigs. His physical decline is more subtly rendered than my comments on his hairdo let on, and the gangrenous splotch on his leg is appropriate unsettling. Equal attention is given not just to Louis but also to his aides, consorts, and doctors, delineating who is and isn’t bothering to maintain appearances while tending to their king. The Sun God is disintegrating before their eyes, everyone doing their damndest to keep him alive, and still some people have the time to put on makeup and maintain their wigs? Every look is utterly in tune with Serra’s unusual tone and wildly ambitious aesthetic, across a whole host of characters.

The Lost City of Z, Juanita Santamaria - Boy are Charlie Hunnam and Sienna Miller put together with period appropriate glamour that could easily pass for movie-star shine. Robert Pattinson’s facial hair is wildly unkempt but still well-trimmed and completely convincing, far more than whatever died on Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo’s faces in Foxcatcher. Even better is watching the wear and tear of the jungle taking hold of these men’s bodies, smearing them with dirt and sweat, as well as the infections ravaging their bodies, appropriately painful-looking and and revolting without overdoing it The various menfolk of the Adventurers guild are properly groomed and shaved, and the multiple native tribes are given individualizing looks that avoid broad caricature or blurring them all into one large, amorphous tribe. And all of them are gracefully aged as the film progresses, which is frankly as tough an object to find in most movies as a lost civilization.

Phantom Thread, No Credited Head - There’s been a lot of well-earned praise about how gorgeous Phantom Thread is, from its costumes to its cinematography to that ornate, endless house. But how about a round of applause for how stunning those actors look? Daniel Day-Lewis and Lesley Manville are immaculately assembled, from their hair (his naturally graying, hers a wonderfully dyed dark brown) to his eyebrows to her lipstick, all without covering up the age and weariness on their faces. Both look a little gaunt around the edges. Vicky Krieps gets that no-makeup makeup look too, with no attempts to make her look more conventionally or exotically pretty, keeping her gorgeous and comparatively plain next to the other models and muses of Reynolds’s that we see. The background players are given their fair share of attention too, but there’s no denying the main attractions here.

Wonder, Arjen Tutien - Much in the same way that Wonder is a tougher film than I expected but still a remarkably sweet one, I admire the way that the rendering of Tremblay’s disfigurement neither overdoes the surgical scars and deformities nor softens them to the point of being “cute” or “cool”. There’s plenty of room for Tremblay to give a performance underneath all that makeup without simultaneously flaunting the fact that Tremblay is acting under all that makeup the way Darkest Hour so frequently does. The makeup team also does right by the rest of the cast, especially in giving Julia Roberts and Owen Wilson careworn, normal-parent looks better than most films with superstars in those roles manage to pull off. It neither condescends to the normalcy of the characters nor sneaking in ways to remind us that hey, isn’t Julia Roberts friggin’ beautiful. Maybe not as ambitious as Darkest Hour or It, but it’s more consistent across a host of characters while perfectly managing a tricky central character than both films are without showing off or dropping the ball, nailing its assigned tasks to a perfect tee.

#my posts #2017 ballot #personal ballot