#also i was thinking about the gulls - they seem to be fairly high class but gulls definitely do not have a good reputation with humans lmao

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

I'm probably going to do a terrible job of articulating myself here but every time I think about the worldbuilding in Hatoful Boyfriend, I think about the implications of having the birds simply have adopted the structure and policies of human society and go insane.

It's clearly originally just for the ridiculousness of it all for the players, but AGH it explains so much regarding the extremely rampant classism/racism/speciesism and how apparently normalized it is. It also, to me, adds a bit of moral nuance to the Dove - Hawk Party conflict.

(Long post under the cut. I'm so sorry I just kept going.)

First off, I'm obsessed with the concept of the birds becoming sapient and simply... taking over a society that was not structured for them. It leads to difficulties in universe! Bird wings are not made for doing tasks that human hands can do naturally - there's a couple instances where the characters ask for Hiyoko's assistance or express envy since she can just do the task more easily than they can. The birds are outright disadvantaged in certain areas of life, and yet, the society is in such turmoil due to the newness of it all that there still aren't really any workarounds for stuff like this.

Not that there haven't been any suggested solutions, such as the Labor 9 series, put forward initially by the Dove Party. Yeah, you know, that one throwaway line about how the party that up until this point have been the "good guys" wanted to take still semi-conscious human brains and make robotic slaves out of them Cyberman-style? What the hell. And what gets me is that Shuu was able to find the initial proposal, which he really only made tweaks to, which means that the project was at least close to being finished on the conceptual/planning/design phase before somebody went "hey this is a little fucked up actually".

The Dove Party wants peaceful coexistence with the humans, while the Hawk Party wants to eliminate humanity entirely. But we don't really go into how these two lines of thought evolved. I believe I have a suggestion for at least one part of the puzzle though.

Of all the birds in Hatoful, who enjoys the most privileges and the highest status? Fantails, it would seem. A breed of pigeon that is popular as a pet, considered beautiful and sought after, and achieve high accolades in shows and competitions - for clarity's sake, fantails were valuable in human society, and this status appears to have transferred when birds became sapient and took over. Conversely, which birds are ranked lower and often blocked from entering certain higher class places? Rock doves, who, in human society, are given an unfairly bad reputation, and considered anything from unclean and dirty, to nuisances, to pests. Again, this status transferred over when the birds took over.

So, while we don't know too many of the birds who make up the agents of the Dove and Hawk Party, let's take a look at who we do know of.

Fantails (Yuuya, Dove Party) are considered valuable over other doves and pigeons for being specially bred for their striking tail feathers

Cockatiels (Leone, Dove Party) are some of the most popular and beloved companion birds, kept as pets and considered very friendly

Rock doves (Ryuuji, Hawk Party) are considered unclean pests who receive a bad reputation, and are generally not treated with respect or appreciation <;- notable thing to mention here is that Ryuuji actually does like humans - I think he was only Hawk affiliated for the grant money and research facilities, which... fair enough man.

Chukar partridges (Shuu/Isa, Hawk Party) are game birds, specifically bred and released to be killed and eaten, and considered a delicacy

...do you... see what's going on here?

(I haven't mentioned Tohri as he's a special case. Give me a minute and I'll get to him!)

The birds we see in the Dove Party are those birds that were already viewed in a more favourable light by humans, a favourability that transferred over to their new society. Of course they are more likely to advocate for coexistence! They have less to lose, overall. And the Labor 9 series, and how that could've ever been suggested in the first place, suddenly makes a lot of sense. For many of these birds, society the way it exists now benefits them. Some of these high ranking Dove Party folks may be less about actual peace and justice (like Yuuya or Leone) and more about maintaining the current order of things - humans coexisting under their control, while they get to maintain their status... which is itself a product of human invention.

The birds we see in the Hawk Party, by contrast, are looked down on or hunted. Historically, even before bird sapience, they did not have a harmonious relation with humans - and it's likely this status carried over to their new society also, with many of these birds being more likely to have been disenfranchised. Their goal of elimination is therefore reactionary towards perceived threat. After all, the people who suffer when things go wrong aren't the ones at the top - it's all the people who sit at the bottom of the social rung; the vulnerable members of society who do not enjoy the same advantages as others.

Of course, the Hawk Party has built itself up into such a powerful group that they may have lost touch with this starting foundation - the only thing that remains is likely that reactionary fear. After all, people caught up in the actual conflict - Nageki, Hitori, Ryouta, and Hiyoko - see this kind of horrible bloodshed firsthand (firstwing?) and just want it to stop.

Again, it's not usually the people in these political factions who are the ones caught up in their conflict. It's the individuals who lack power or influence.

But that's just the political groups themselves. On an individual level, it's kind of interesting to look at and theorize where along the spectrum our core cast falls based on their species/breed.

Ryouta (rock dove) is actually rather indifferent towards humanity as a whole - he just likes Hiyoko. However, his witnessing of the Heartful House tragedy led him to abhor violence and unnecessary loss of life, and I'd imagine his mother's later illness solidified this. Ryouta doesn't seem overly interested in political struggles or the broader implications of a lot of things - he's actually a rather self-oriented character when it comes down to it (this is not a judgment, nor a bad thing! I love my boy!). Ryouta just doesn't want to lose people, really. A conflict would mean more loss, and rock doves seem to have to struggle enough as is.

Hiyoko (human) is the daughter of two diplomats, but interestingly, we don't get to see much of her political views on things - perhaps because even if she expressed them, it wouldn't really matter - she's not herself a diplomat, and humans are the lowest of the low - her going to a fancy school doesn't really change that. Social-wise, except with her friends, she is tolerated, not accepted. Yet, it's safe to say that Hiyoko strongly disapproves of people who flaunt their status - she's quick to not take crap from Sakuya, to get angry on behalf of Ryouta and herself over the gull clerk's assholery, and also to defend Miru and Kaku as living beings worthy of respect. Interestingly though, she also uses Okosan's status as a fantail to get Ryouta to let go of him and let him do whatever he wants so... it's kind of unclear what her firm beliefs are. Perhaps, as a human, she still values fantails more highly. I don't know honestly. Implicit bias?

Sakuya, Yuuya and Okosan (fantail pigeons) may share the same breed, but their experiences are highly different. Sakuya is largely separate from the human-bird conflict, as he is unlikely to be directly affected by it. As such, a lot of his story and development has to do with actually learning and un-learning about the world outside of the limitations of his "father's" classist views, which he simply mimics without understanding the larger implications. Yuuya and Okosan, on the other hand, may be fantails, but are also looked down on and often treated as inferior - Yuuya for being a "half-breed" and for his reputation, and Okosan for being closer to feral than a lot of other doves. Interestingly, these two show more interest and respect for the individual than Sakuya does, who often makes sweeping generalizations based on status - which makes sense to a degree, as they've been on the receiving end of this kind of treatment, whereas Sakuya hasn't. Okosan believes that each person has their own "wonderful names" (read: identity outside of breed or status), while Yuuya is a genuine fighter for justice who is able to get to the heart of people, especially in Holiday Star. However, even though they have experienced classism, they still have certain privileges with regards to species/race - take Okosan's shock when Hiyoko and Ryouta are barred entry from his favourite store. None of them are quite as out of place in everyday society as some of the other birds here, and it's notable that "diverse" St. Pigeonations still apparently has a significant fantail student population.

Shuu (chukar partridge) is really interesting, as he doesn't particularly care for the politics of the Hawk Party, and yet his role as a killer/hunter of both his fellow birds and humans is an interesting reversal of the chukar being a game bird. Shuu also has a disability (his semi-paralyzed right side) which hinders him in bird society even more than most. His extreme, yet coldly logical solution to kill all humans to stop the fighting between them, could be as much his rationality, as his joy in the sadistic, as a reactionary survivalism (remember he was caught up in a human terrorist attack as a child - while overall he considered this beneficial to him, he also did lose much of his colour vision and the use of his right side, so it did leave him weakened). Shuu attains control by "flipping the script" as it were.

Tohri (golden pheasant) starts out in the Hawk Party, but much like his colleagues, doesn't seem to care much for their politics. Golden pheasants are game birds whose eggs can be eaten, but are more often bred and kept for their plumage - they're not prey, but they're not exactly pets either. All this puts Tohri in this interesting position of being somewhat in the middle of this conflict, and indeed he goes on to be a part of (found?) the Crow Party - an opportunistic group that seeks to benefit from the overall conflict. Golden pheasants are birds intended to be admired for their beauty and intelligence more than anything else, benefitting in some ways from humans without a strong connection or a reliance, and Tohri's opportunism fits nicely with that. (As an aside, our sole crow character, Albert, is also something of an opportunist, being an assassin on the fringes of society.)

Hitori and Kazuaki (button quails) are somewhat interesting. It would be both expected and understandable if Hitori held hatred for humanity after the Heartful House incident, or even before then, considering they were all war orphans. Instead, he doesn't seem to harbour any particular ill-will - he seems totally fine around Hiyoko, and her being a human has nothing to do with his reticence with letting Nageki hang out with her in the shrine universe. Kazuaki, too, doesn't seem to mind Hiyoko being human and isn't afraid of her any more than he is anyone else. While quails are game birds, with both meat and eggs being eaten, button quails are too tiny for that and are mostly kept as pets - they are considered cute, silly, and entertaining, though a bit too jumpy to be outright companion birds. The quails don't seem to experience too much in the way of speciesism (except arguably with the whole mistaken identity of Kazuaki's corpse... there may be a bit of an "all quails look the same" thing going on perhaps). At the very least, they are able to occupy teaching positions at a renowned school as respected intellectuals, and did go to university. Still, it's kind of a known thing that you don't put button quails with bigger, more dominant birds, since larger birds will often pick on them or even outright try to kill them simply because they're small and shy - this may, in hindsight, explain some of Kazuaki's demeanour.

Nageki (mourning dove) and Anghel (luzon bleeding heart dove) are the two who are uncommon bird species in Japan. Nageki is another war orphan, who would be forgiven for harbouring resentment for humanity, but instead is appalled at the violence and made a huge sacrifice to get it to stop. It's kind of unclear how Nageki fits into this society, as mourning doves are not prey or pets - they're wild birds. They live on the outside of the human world, and while Nageki exists within current bird society, he likely doesn't have a designated status within it. Nageki is unfortunately also alienated from much of the action due to his illness and later his untimely death - this is why a lot of Nageki's thoughts are somewhat from an observer's perspective, with his most emotional moments being derived from his rare direct experiences - specifically the Heartful House tragedy and the human killings he was forced into, which solidified a really firm stance of not wanting anyone to suffer like that. Anghel is another outsider, this time genuinely a foreigner, as opposed to Nageki. Again, Luzons are wild birds, not prey or pets, and so it's a bit unclear what his status is. This might explain why Hiyoko repeats Sakuya's remarks towards him without apparently realizing they're actually insults - Anghel is removed enough from the conflict she is familiar with that it seems she doesn't quite... get it. Again, Anghel's role is as this strange kind of omniscient observer, whose perspective is closer to the player's than to the rest of the cast. He definitely frowns on the Hawk Party's overall goal - the Demon Spores are evil to him, and his main objective is to stop them from spreading, as they would cause damage to both birds and humans. I attribute his morals to his mother having raised him right lol. The lack of a clear status for both of them may be why they appear to take the stance of judgment based on individual actions, but are not heavily involved in the conflict itself - while humans tend to like mourning doves and luzons, there isn't much interaction that goes on between them. Nageki and Anghel are simply less embroiled in bird society's human-derived status conflict, which makes them both outsiders and observers.

As a bonus note, Azami, Rabu and Kenzaburou are all species of birds that can be kept as pets (java sparrow, budgie, parakeet), which may account for some of their friendliness towards Hiyoko, and Kenzaburou's willingness to hire her. Kenzaburou is even a bit old-fashioned it seems - he sleeps in a cage, which implies his ancestors were probably pet birds themselves. It's likely he, in particular, has more positive views on humans.

...Please tell me I'm not the only one who spent ages thinking about the implications and workings of a fictional post-apocalyptic bird society. Also I hope this made sense I kind of went off the rails here.

#storyrambles #anyways this was supposed to be a quick write up. yet here I am three hours later. does this even read properly anymore. help. #the one thing i'm a little unclear on here is how the ichijou family fits into all this. ichijou mino the headmaster was a nicobar pigeon #i find it likely mino was hawk affiliated if we're going with the trend here (nicobars are heavily exploited for food/ #gizzard stones/zoos/illegal pet trade) and also note that he signed off on the human representative directive #but i want to know how shuu fits into that as he was formerly ichijou utsuro. who has the ichijou name? why different species? #are they prominent benefactors of the hawks? interesting to think on #also i was thinking about the gulls - they seem to be fairly high class but gulls definitely do not have a good reputation with humans lmao #however gulls get to do whatever they want a lot of the time because they are loud. and like to bully others (including humans) #i hereby propose they gained power by doing much the same once birds gained sapience hjfhbdf #hatoful boyfriend #hatoful spoilers #holiday star #hatoful meta

[cyb-by-lang]

Shell Game (11/?)

Kei and Hayate spend a day strolling around Mustafu and meet a friend.

“What’re we gonna do today?” Hayate asked on Sunday morning. After omurice and tea, the day was theirs. And perhaps feeling generous after the sleepover, he even did the dishes.

“I thought about visiting the beach,” Kei said, holding up her shinobi sandals. “What do you think?”

“Sure!”

Dagobah Beach Municipal Park had apparently been completely trashed before Kei moved into town. Whether due to ocean currents or people being jerks, the accumulated wreckage and waste electrical appliances of an entire civilization ended up on one poor stretch of beach. But over the course of ten months, somebody or something had stealthily removed all the trash and cleared the beach from one end to the other.

It was also within walking distance, since Hayate had gotten fairly burned out on trains the day before.

…Wait a fucking second.

Hm?

Dagobah. Uh, that’s…a planet. In Star Wars.

I do not understand the reference.

It goes…um… “Go to the Dagobah system.” Something, something, Yoda. It could be a star system, I guess?

Isobu sighed deeply, which was impressive for someone without lungs. Kei.

Yeah?

Please go to the beach. I need to see a real one again.

Kei and Hayate made it to the park pretty damned fast after Kei explained that.

In mid-spring, the ocean was still cold as all get out. Isobu wanted to head in and have Kei lie down in the surf, but she sharply vetoed that plan upon putting a toe in to test the temperature.

Meanwhile, Hayate darted down the beach with no difficulty, kicking up plumes of sand as he went. Though it probably wasn’t obvious to onlookers, Kei could feel the little pulses of chakra being emitted as her brother prevented himself from sinking too far. He wanted to goof off, not work out.

“Hey, if you want shaved ice, only one of us has money!” Kei called after him, but that was really an afterthought. Kei was still barefoot and walking in the surf, instead of living up to Isobu’s wish of swimming in the ocean at nine in the morning.

Besides, Hayate was already happily running loose at the water’s edge, arcs of spray following him as he went. The sand, apparently, wasn’t his first love after that whole Chūnin Exam incident in Suna.

It took a little longer before, belatedly, Kei realized Hayate had never seen the ocean before. With Konoha as deeply inland as it was, only shinobi tended to get out often enough or range widely enough to see all kinds of cool climates and piss off the indigenous wildlife. Hayate was still a typical curious kid in some significant ways. Kei had been to plenty of strange places, both on missions and when she counted her previous lifetime, though this gravel-free sand was still novel.

How spoiled she’d become. Not just by her opportunities here, but by what knowledge she carried in her soul.

Isobu gave a deep sigh of contentment, though Kei hadn’t rushed into the sea. He seemed to be okay with the results of today’s morning adventure.

“You can see forever like this!” Hayate declared to the sea and the encroaching gulls.

Kei called back, “Try skipping rocks! My record’s five skips!”

Hayate flashed her a breathless smile, then promptly ignored her idea to try and snatch the miniature fish lurking in the surf. To be fair, this world had more interesting things going for it than Kei.

Hayate did eventually get bored, but it took a few minutes. He also managed to feed the seagulls his tiny haul of fish fry, which made him a troop leader in their eyes for the next few minutes. Perhaps it was youth, hidden viciousness, or just pure silliness that kept him interacting with the seagulls long past the “Mine!” stage.

But once they discovered he did not, in fact, have any more food, they all abandoned him in favor of a man eating takoyaki.

“I feel like I’ve accomplished something,” Hayate said, while the poor guy was being chased to the other end of the beach.

Kei didn’t have it in her to criticize much. Instead, she said, “So, after all that training with your team, how’s your taijutsu?”

Most bladed implements bigger than kitchen knives were highly regulated in Japan, so Kei hadn’t actually been able to spar with her full complement of melee skills. On the other hand, Hayate hadn’t specifically stated that he was training with, say, Gai on weekdays. Iruka and Yūgao were perfectly nice kids, but neither was a melee powerhouse just yet. Hell, Kei had been teaching Yūgao how to use her katana before this mission cropped up, so it was hard to tell if Hayate was getting rusty.

Rust. For a kenjutsu specialist. Isobu snorted. Hah.

A pun for all occasions.

Hayate blanched. “Um…”

A not-so-nice smile stretched across Kei’s face before she managed to hide it. “Lucky for you, I think public fighting is illegal. But you’re gonna catch hell later.”

Hayate seemed to consider this, but Kei felt the spark in his chakra in the split second before he threw a punch.

Kei instantly caught his wrist and judo-flipped him into the surf for being a brat.

Now, Mustafu—how the hell had she missed that little chestnut for two months—was in the same city as UA. It was also the same city as Kei’s apartment, primarily by design, but the point was that running into classmates was not the statistical impossibility it might’ve been if she lived, say, in Hosu. Sure, the greater Tokyo area was a big place, and she didn’t really know if anybody preferred hanging around their super-special high school.

“Is that how you’re training for the Sports Festival?”

Then again, Shinsō had already randomly come across her once. For a kid who didn’t look like he slept much, he was up early on a weekend.

“Hey, Shinsō-san.” Kei waved up at him, because it appeared her purple-haired classmate was actually a cyclist on his days off. Nobody with sense would take even a folding bike into the sand, though she could see Gai making a training exercise out of it. Thus, Shinsō had propped his bike up on a railing and was leaning next to it.

Put him a bit out of splashing range, though. That wouldn’t be a problem for long, because Hayate had caught onto Kei’s lack of attention.

In fact, both of the Gekkō siblings promptly trooped up to Shinsō, though Kei used the access stairs and Hayate hurled himself up and over the railing in a single leap like some kind of saltwater-encrusted kangaroo. Either because of watching Kei during PE or just being too used to a world full of Quirks, Shinsō didn’t react.

“Since when are there two of you, Gekkō-san?” Shinsō pointed past Kei to Hayate, who was sizing up the newcomer.

“Since I was three. This is my kid brother, Hayate.” Kei stepped neatly to the side, allowing Hayate to sidle forward.

Hayate, who was about tall enough to reach Shinsō’s collarbone, sized him up like he expected to have to get into a fistfight. While Shinsō probably outweighed Hayate by a fair amount, Kei’s adorable baby brother was also the next in line to mastery of their mother’s kenjutsu style and had been participating in their family training since he could walk. Now a genin, he could probably take on most of the local toughs before Quirks got involved.

Then everyone blinked and the trance was broken.

Hayate dropped a fist into his open palm, as though something had just occurred to him. “Oh, wait, is this the guy with the mind control power? You didn’t say what he looked like.”

“I didn’t?” Kei tried to think back, but they’d discussed so many things over the previous (extremely tiring) day that she couldn’t remember. “Well, this is Shinsō-san. He’s in my class and… You’re at the top of the class, right?”

“You can’t remember the name of our class rep and you can remember that?” Shinsō shook his head. “You’re hopeless.”

“If he’s at the top of the class,” Hayate said after a second, looking between the other two, “where are you?”

“Well…” Kei began, belatedly realizing that this was probably a poor conversational topic.

“Dead last,” Shinsō said, throwing her under the bus as though on reflex. It was a well-developed instinct for people who hung around Kei for any length of time.

“Shut up,” Kei grumbled.

Hayate very pointedly reached up and pinched his own ear. “Okay, not dreaming.” He took a deep breath, then jabbed a finger into Kei’s chest. “But seriously, what the hell? You were at the top of your class back when you were like eight, and Obito keeps saying you slept through everything and you transferred in late. Again, what the hell?”

Called on the carpet by her very own little brother. And with a witness! Kei jerked her head away, feeling her ears heat up under her hair. “It’s different, okay?”

“I really don’t think it is!”

“She makes up for it,” Shinsō volunteered, after Hayate had started to build up steam.

He demanded crossly, “How?”

“Scaring our classmates to death.” Kei’s glare was redirected to Shinsō instead of her brother. Smirking, Shinsō went on, “It started with the scar, then they saw her Quirk, and then she’s been ignoring them all ever since.”

Hayate smacked his hand directly to his forehead. “You are my favorite sister—”

“Only sister,” Kei muttered.

“—but you’re supposed to be nice to people at least a bit, and I know you’re smart enough to do well in school anywhere. Just put your back into it!” Hayate finished. Then, perhaps realizing that he was still half-soaked, he started scrubbing his hands through his rapidly-tangling brown hair as though it would remove any of the salt or sand.

Kei and Shinsō both leaned back a little from the sudden spray.

“Anyway,” Hayate said before Kei or Shinsō could think of anything to say. “Mind control. How does it work?”

“…Why?” Shinsō asked, notably more hesitant now.

Kei hid her initial reaction, which was the urge to quell Hayate immediately. Though she often pretended not to know what people were feeling or disregarded it, and being unable to read any chakra from the locals made that problem slightly more genuine, she did have compassion. Shinsō didn’t need an interrogation from Hayate.

But her brother was already on a roll.

“Inoichi-sensei can do something like that,” Hayate said. “He just went like this—” here, Hayate made the hand seal for the Mind-Body Disturbance technique, “—and this guy punched himself in the face. It was really cool!”

Shinsō looked at Kei over Hayate’s shoulder as though to confirm that Hayate wasn’t bullshitting him, and Kei said with a shrug, “His sensei’s whole family can do something similar.”

“And that’s…cool.” Shinsō raised an eyebrow. “Not creepy, or villainous, or dangerous.”

“Of course it’s dangerous.” Hayate shook his head. Counting off with his fingers, he went on, “So is setting fires, being a walking thunderstorm, or almost drowning people. Any type of power is dangerous if you’re an asshole about it. And Inoichi-sensei even gave us this huge talk about that like…last month? There was a lot about ethics.”

Ironic, since shinobi education tended to go light on those. Then again, Hayate’s batch of genin were growing up in a more peaceful era. Maybe that meant something.

“If you’re trying to get Hayate to admit he thinks you might randomly go evil,” Kei said in a mild tone, “even jokingly, it’s not gonna work. Mind control Quirks are really common where we come from. You can do a lot of good with good intentions and strong morals.”

Madara notwithstanding, the Uchiha were a respected noble clan. And, while not as rich or as popularly known, the Yamanaka clan sat proudly among the Konoha elite when they felt like putting on airs.

“Besides, I don’t know you,” Hayate said, “but you don’t feel like a bad person.”

Kei dropped a hand onto her brother’s shoulder and asked in a complete conversational left turn, ”Are you hungry?”

“Uh, sort of?” Hayate kept his eyes on Shinsō, however. “Do you think they have taiyaki?”

“Maybe.” Kei had not exactly made a habit of scouting beaches for snack stands.

“I’ll look!” Hayate said, and ran off.

Kei and Shinsō watched him go. Sooner or later, Hayate would remember that he didn’t have any local money.

“So,” Kei said after a few seconds. “Sorry if that was a lot to dump on you all at once.”

“It’s…It’s different, I guess.” Shinsō grabbed the handlebars of his bike and looked around for a second. “I’m going to park this, but I could…stick around. See what you’re doing for training.”

“All we’re doing right now is getting a mid-morning snack,” Kei said, and the pair of them followed vaguely in Hayate’s wake.

It turned out that, much like parking spaces for cars that had timers and pay meters, Japan also had such spaces for bikes. Kei poked at the strange devices while Shinsō locked his bike in one of the empty slots, paying the fee with a few coins.

“Are you looking forward to the Sports Festival, Shinsō-san?” Kei asked, while she idly pinged for Hayate’s chakra signature. Though she’d seen his reaction to the announcement, and perhaps the aftermath of everyone declaring war on 1-A for whatever reason, she still wanted to hear his answer.

As her brother’s lightning signature lit up further down the street, Kei heard Shinsō respond, “Isn’t it obvious?” When she glanced at him, he went on, “If I win, it’s a chance for me to get into the Hero course. I can’t afford not to win.”

Kei blinked slowly. That was a bit more intense than she’d been expecting.

“What?” Shinsō seemed almost offended that she didn’t have an immediate response.

“Good luck?” Kei tried. “Some of the kids you’re gonna be up against are pretty tough, aren’t they?” Kei was fairly certain Blondie McSplode would be totally okay with blowing up anybody near him, Shinsō included. Hell, his own classmates most definitely included.

“It doesn’t matter,” Shinsō said dismissively. “I know you don’t care about this kind of thing, but…people have been telling me my whole life that I can’t become a hero with a villainous Quirk.” Yes, Kei had rather figured that. But she kept silent so Shinsō could continue with, “But that’s my dream. I’m going to prove them all wrong.”

What, exactly, was she supposed to say to that? “Okay. I mean, you’ve probably got a strategy and I’m sure it works for your Quirk, but do you have a backup plan?”

Shinsō clearly didn’t want to listen to suggestions, but managed to grumble “I’m all ears.”

Kei was game enough for it. “Learn to fight?”

“The Sports Festival is in two weeks,” Shinsō said flatly.

“It takes just a few hours to learn basic self-defense.” She crossed her arms. “If your Quirk doesn’t cut it, that’s all you’ll have left. Do you even know how to throw a punch?”

“Of course I do.”

They continued half-seriously arguing this way for a while, following Hayate’s constant window-shopping more than anything. Apparently, in the months since the beach had been cleaned up, more businesses had cropped up to take advantage of the view than Kei had thought. Most of them didn’t have customers this early, but it was actually better that way. It meant no one really had to hear Kei and Shinsō’s ongoing debate regarding his fighting skills.

Hayate interrupted a round of Kei gesturing empty-handed while trying to explain the principles of punching someone in the face or the throat with, “Hey, what’s the law on Quirks again?”

“I know I’m not supposed to use mine in public,” Kei said, which Hayate accepted without elaboration.

She’d given him a very bare-bones explanation of Quirks and Quirk legislation, but it boiled down to about the same reason non-shinobi weren’t supposed to use chakra-based techniques outside of clan holdings. Hayate understood that, and then spent two hours over one summer weekend cheerfully tossing ideas back and forth with Obito and Kei about what his Quirk could be.

Hayate’s decision, in the end, was based on his chakra sensor ability. Besides being the only person in Konoha who could use their mother’s samurai-trained technique, Hayate didn’t expect to be able to carry a sword here or even to fight. The ability to sense other people’s emotions and intent was good enough for wandering the streets, and it covered neatly for shinobi hyperawareness.

“You can use them for self-defense,” Shinsō put in, when Kei was going to let the subject drop. “Technically, you can defend yourself or others, but just enough to run away.”

“Given the number of heroes running around, that can’t be that bad.” Hayate folded his arms behind his head, content to join them while they walked. “And everyone has cell phones, so contacting somebody would be easy.”

“You’d think,” Shinsō said. “There was a kid…last spring.” Shinsō rubbed the back of his neck, though the expression that crossed his face wasn’t particularly kind. “He got captured by a villain and nobody could get him loose until All Might showed up. Three heroes, and between the kid’s explosion Quirk and the villain possessing him, none of them could do anything besides try to keep people away and put out fires.”  

Kei couldn't help but notice that Hayate’s presence seemed to calm both of them down. Or rather, Kei stopped dominating the conversation and Shinsō had a chance to educate a twelve-year-old. Maybe he liked non-judgmental kids?

“Was that kid the blond jerk from 1-A?” Kei asked, unable to think of anyone else who could create explosions on demand.

“The very same,” Shinsō confirmed. Okay, that was definitely a bitter sort of smirk. “Guess that fancy Quirk didn’t do anything for him.”

Lots of bitterness.

“We might both have to face him in the Sports Festival,” Kei said, while they turned toward a shopping district instead of the beach. “Your strategy’s set, right?”

Shinsō nodded. “Shouldn’t be too hard to piss him off.”

“I don’t think I’m gonna be able to see that while it happens,” Hayate grumbled. To Kei, he said, “You haven’t done an exhibition match since you were eleven. How bad do you really think it’s gonna get?”

Good of Hayate not to mention the Chūnin Exams by name. The death toll was rather higher than would be accepted in a peacetime society. Sure, nobody tended to die in the finals, but the Second Exam was the obstacle course round and fairly unrestrained. Certainly people tried to kill each other, with varying levels of success.

“I’ll be fine,” Kei said.

“I know that,” Hayate griped, as Kei affectionately ruffled his hair. “But are you aiming for the top? Do you have a strategy?”

“Dazzle everyone with my skill,” Kei suggested sarcastically. When Shinsō and Hayate both gave her skeptical looks—disturbingly alike, actually—Kei huffed and said, “Depending on what the events are, I might be able to just use my athletic ability to get past them. But up against people like the explosion kid…yeah, that’d be about when I should bust out my Quirk.”

Kei needed to figure out what mechanism allowed Blondie McSplode to act like a walking minefield. If his Quirk was anything like the half-magic fūinjutsu explosions she favored, countering him would be harder. If he relied on a chemical balance, though…

Shinsō shook his head slowly as they passed a bank. “Are you sure you should be talking about this with me? We’re going to be rivals in the Sports Festival.”

“Whatever.” Kei flapped a hand dismissively. “If we both get that far, then I’ll worry about it.”

“She said the same thing before her last exhibition match,” Hayate said to Shinsō, in a stage whisper. “And then she and one of her friends beat the crap out of each other.”

“It was Gai,” Kei defended herself. “If I wasn’t prepared to use everything I had, I’d lose.”

“Shots below the belt are illegal everywhere else,” Hayate muttered, while Shinsō paled.

“Hey, we both knew there weren’t any rules,” Kei argued.

“What the hell kind of dojo did you two join?” Shinsō demanded incredulously. When both of the Gekkō siblings looked askance at him, he clarified, “Who was your teacher?”

Kei and Hayate exchanged looks. Then, in unison, “Mom.”

Shinsō’s purple gaze flicked rapidly back and forth between them, and then he pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh. “That explains so much.”

At least Shinsō knew now that Kei came by her weirdness honestly. Couldn’t be anything else if Hayate was also affected.

It was at this point that the bank next to them started to rumble.

Hayate’s first instinct was to pause and look at the potential problem, his eyes narrowed and entire body tensed for a fight. So was Shinsō’s, but he was a bit closer to the street in comparison and didn’t have any combat training to fall back on.

Kei grabbed both boys by the backs of their jackets and flung them clear before the front doors shattered.

#catch your breath fanfic #Shell Game #Keisuke Gekko #shinsou hitoshi #Hayate Gekko #my hero academia #crossover #Isobu

[queenofairandsnarkness]

Do you remember Brienne x Lucas Blackwood? Because I do and right now I am craving fic where he bakes her cupcakes that are inspired by her. And they are delicious.

The St. Cecilia’s Bake Sale was started... oh, ages ago. Brienne did it when she was a child, wide-eyed and following a bickering group of more interesting students. Mrs. Stark said she’d done it, and Rhae’s gran said it was done when her eldest was a student. It was all about responsibilities, and civic involvement, and getting the biggest sugar high possible.

(People still played poker with Rhae, then. No one thought a seven year old could fleece them.)

It was a little competitive- the students got to choose what they wanted the money to go for, and all of the teachers picked out their own projects. (Brienne had suggested better, safer gym equipment, Walda always suggested a knitting club, and Rhae wanted it to go to the theater program. Howland Reed suggested a summer garden program, because he was mad as a dragon. Cerelle Lannister’s idea of new technology won, because she said it would make the school like Star Wars. She was good at playing the kids.)

Then, of course, you have the actual baked goods. No one was allowed to buy things- it wasn’t in the spirit of it. The culinary school across the street allowed them to have an afternoon helping the students bake, of course, treating it as a lesson for both groups of students, and unofficial groupings did happen. Plus the teachers’ own contributions, which were evaluated by students and voted on. (Walda won last year with mini chocolate chip waffles, a Gull Arryn the year before with some salted-caramel maple syrup thing that had been too sweet for Brienne’s own liking.) It came across as a slightly manic Bake-Off, and was generally the most entertaining day of the year.

Walda had bubbled off too many ideas for Brienne or anyone else to keep track, Rhae was merely smiling and not answering, and Cerelle was probably going to hire a chef to do most of the work. She hadn’t gotten around to asking Lucas, as they tended to communicate better under masks. When on rooftops. Or beating people up.

Brienne had made scones- her mother had left behind a scrapbook of recipes, stained and still smelling faintly of spices. (Also, cider, but Selwyn Tarth inherited the Sapphire Isle before he married.) As a girl, she’d sometimes tried them, feeling awkward and sure to failure. (Renly had suggested that she not act like everything was a battle, but Renly was kind of a dolt who didn’t follow his own advice.)

Over the years, she’d gotten better, and her orange scones tended to vanish quickly whenever she brought them to a meeting. She made a batch of orange for confidence, then tried a lavender-honey mix that she’d been meaning to get around to. (She smelt strongly of lavender for two days before the bake-off, when she was experimenting, and was slightly baffled by Lucas Blackwood’s expression.)

Rhaenys was carrying three large boxes on her lap as she wheeled through the hallways, an honor guard of some of her favorite art students making sure none of the littles crashed into her. Normally it would drive the other woman crazy, but Rhae’d been in more pain then usual, and was looking faintly exhausted all week. Also, the boxes were huge and Rhae normally had something good and the allergy sufferers went to her, first. She labelled.

“Shoo, shoo, I’ve got it from here,” she said. “Thank you, though, for asking me if I wanted help.”

“Is it biscuits?” asked a girl. “Miss Tarth always brings scones.” Rhaenys winked. 

“You’ll find out in the afternoon,” she said. “Now, get to class!”

“Scones, again, Brienne?” Rhaenys asked. “I’ll take a lavender one with my meds.”

“Pain pill?” Brienne asked. Rhaenys nodded.

“One day,” she said, pinching her nose, “I’ll say yes when Q offers. One day, when I judge the risk to my sanity worth it. I haven’t been able to use the canes in two months without feeling like I’m reenacting the little mermaid.”

Damn it- Rhae could occasionally walk with a pair of canes, but Brienne had seen them only infrequently since they started at St. Cecilia’s. She knew the damage was slowly degenerative, that the healers had only managed that, but...

“The visions?” Brienne asked.

“It’d fry them,” she said, absently, ignoring the question Brienne was trying to ask. “That’d be the risk to my sanity- I’d be able to keep up the mirror tricks, but that’s it. Also, go visit poor Lucas. This is his first bake sale here, the poor boy is probably terrified we all went mad.”

The poor boy was their age and taller then Garlan Tyrell, but Brienne went, suspecting Rhae wanted some quiet time.

Lucas had two boxes on his desk, and Brienne sighed. “Lock them up.”

“What?” Lucas looked up from his planning, blinking. 

“The sweets- the students will stare at them if you leave them out,” Brienne explained. “Put them in a drawer or cupboard you won’t be using today- don’t stash them in the teacher’s lounge, they’ll all be stolen.”

“Ah,” he said. “Thanks for that.” 

Brienne wondered what she should do- she wanted to stay for a bit, but she wasn’t quite sure how to talk to him in the school. “How was the...” she waved her hand, not quite sure if there were curious ears nearby. 

“Fine, fine, thanks for the assistance, by the way,” he said. “I think Stannis Baratheon is dealing with the aftermath.”

Brienne tried not to pull a face- Renly’s brothers were both dicks in their own ways, but rigid Stannis just didn’t... well, probably remnants of her embarrassing teenage crush on Renly.

But she couldn’t see Stannis liking a vigilante. 

She moved to help grab the baked goods, and Lucas blushed and snatched them away. “I’ve got it.”

She raised her eyebrows. “You have Pari Martell in your class, right?” 

He nodded, locking them in a mostly empty drawer. “Yes...”

“Did she start making illusions in spelling, yet?” Brienne asked. “I had her last year.”

Lucas blinked. “...Not yet... is that something I should worry about?”

“Probably,” she smiled. “She likes to visualize words to help her memorize them.”

He nodded. “That’s going to be entertaining. I suppose we should avoid the dino unit...”

“I know for a fact she loves Jurassic Park,” Brienne agreed. “Her mum finds it hilarious.” Mostly because the ghost-raptor had nearly bit Darkstar in the rear.

“Any other disasters you’d like to worry me about?”

“Fairly sure Walda Frey is a serial killer, so don’t be rude to her,” Brienne smiled. She was ninety-five percent sure.

They chatted with slightly more ease, and Brienne realized she was faintly unhappy when the time came to run to her room.

~

Rhae was looking at Lucas’ blueberry cupcakes. “They have a plastic sword on them.”

“You think he bought them?” Brienne didn’t think that he was the type to cheat.

(Also, he’d arranged a small gluten-free table decorated with raptors and Iron Man that a pair of pleased nine-year-olds were manning.)

“No, no, the frosting is too awful for him to have bought them,” Rhae said, tilting her head. She’d made candied-apples, and had found a glittery witch hat somewhere, complete with ruby slide-on slippers. Brienne’s paper chef hat felt a bit silly, and kept falling off of her.

It was true, though, that his cupcakes had the swords coming out from a sliding, partially melted blue frosting.

“They match your eyes,” Rhae added. “The frosting, that is. And the cupcakes are blonde!”

“And they have lavender in them,” Walda added, munching on one. Some of his students had bought them out of pity, but Walda seemed pleased. “They look a bit silly, but they taste divine.”

“If they’re meant to be inspired by me, that explains the looks,” Brienne said, feeling... confused. Among other things.

“Lord, what fools these mortals be,” Rhaenys muttered. “Or he could be someone who never made cupcakes before.”

Pari Martell walked up. At some point. She was far too good at sneaking, and she hadn’t been seen at Lucas’ table. “Hiya, Auntie, hullo, Miss Tarth.”

Rhae raised an eyebrow at her niece. “What did I tell you about calling me that in school?”

“Deria calls you that!” Pari protested, nearly dropping the cupcake she was holding.

“Deria’s three, I’ll explain school rules when she can read,” Rhae said. “Did you buy one of Mr. Blackwood’s cupcakes?”

“He said to give it to Miss Tarth,” Pari said, big brown eyes wide.

“Thank you,” Brienne said, leaning down to grab it. “And you know your aunt just prefers you not adding the silly nicknames to the auntie, right? The other teachers might tease her.”

“Oh,” Pari nodded. “Okay. Bye, Miss Tarth! By Auntie Seer!”

“Try not to make anyone cry,” Rhaenys called, head bowed. “...She’s worse than her mother.”

Brienne bit into the cupcake, which was... amazing.

“Yum?” Walda waggled her eyebrows. 

“Yes,” Brienne admitted. 

“Like the chef?” Walda pressed, smirking.

Brienne felt the ugly red blush creep up her face, missing the delighted gasp of  one of the girls. (One of the ten-year-olds who had been running the apple booth with Rhae, and then set off giggling.)

While they obviously didn’t win, Lucas had received a large bundle of votes from the older girls that made Mrs. Smallwood frown and Rhae cackle.

“I’ll tell her the girls are shipping their teachers, don’t worry,” she said, because Brienne’s friends were awful people.

#i write stuff #becauseforoncethisisme

[toweringfiction]

Tower-ing Fiction #16: High-Rise (2015)

by Shawn Gilmore

Ben Wheatley’s 2015 adaptation of JG Ballard’s High-Rise (1975) positions the novel’s titular building and protagonist, Robert Laing, as bound up together, drawing on Ballard’s language and selective aesthetic palette throughout. The promotional materials highlight both the figure of Laing (Tom Hiddleston) and the film’s iteration of the forty-story high-rise, a brutalist tiered concrete block-style building, with its upper floors cantilevered out precariously. Liang stares forward while a figure falls into space, recalling the 9/11 “Falling Man” photo. (The poster version of the high-rise and the film’s actually differ slightly—in the film itself, a band of concrete separates every section of ten or so floors and the lower lobby structure is less pronounced.)

The film version of Ballard’s novel reduces the character set somewhat, introducing the building’s architect, Royal (Jeremy Irons), social climber and film star, Charlotte (Sienna Miller) and her son Toby (Louis Suc), documentarian and rabble rouser, Wilder (Luke Evans) and his lower-class pregnant wife Helen (Elisabeth Moss), upper-class toadie Pangbourne (James Purefoy), and a motley crew of hangers-on, gadflies, and denizens of the high-rise block that we follow as it progressively descends into madness. The setup of both book and film is deceptively simple: a new, modern (in both, mid-1970s) set of high-rises are put up by a visionary architect outside London, catering to a range of economic classes (narrower in the novel than the film), with the more well-to-do at the top and lower classes below (a familiar setup from works like Snowpiercer (dir. Bong Joon Ho, 2013)).

Both works open with Laing, holed up in his apartment on the 25th floor, cooking a leg of dog, attempting to center himself in the aftermath of a series of calamities that the works then flash back through. Wheatley introduces visual motifs of mirroring, fracture, and specifically kaleidoscopic vision, layered on top of the novel’s thematic emphasis on the building as a constructed organism and its impact on its residents.

The high-rise complex, unnamed, is introduced early in the film still under construction, with five buildings, seemingly of differing heights between thirty and forty stories tall. In their center is wide, open plaza, some of which is used for parking, the rest for the ongoing construction on the still-to-be finished buildings. Introducing the titular high-rise, the camera pans up the newly-opened building as Laing arrives.

The novel’s high-rise differs from the film’s in some interesting ways, but is described in the introductory paragraph: “With its forty floors and thousand apartments, its supermarket and swimming-pools, bank and junior school – all in effect abandoned in the sky – the high-rise offered more than enough opportunities for violence and confrontation.” The complex is quickly outlined:

the high-rise, one of five identical units in the development project [was] the first to be completed and occupied. Together they were set in a mile-square area of abandoned dockland and warehousing along the north bank of the river. The five high-rises stood on the eastern perimeter of the project, looking out across an ornamental lake – at present an empty concrete basin surrounded by parking-lots and construction equipment. On the opposite shore stood the recently completed concert-hall, with Laing’s medical school and the new television studios on either side. The massive scale of the glass and concrete architecture, and its striking situation on a bend of the river, sharply separated the development project from the rundown areas around it, decaying nineteenth-century terraced houses and empty factories already zoned for reclamation.

Further, “the apartment block was a small vertical city, its two thousand inhabitants boxed up into the sky. The tenants corporately owned the building, which they administered themselves through a resident manager and his staff.”

Wheatley worked with production designer Mark Tildesley to create a building that “doesn’t care about the people inside it.” The Architecture Foundation describes the buildings as “jointly inspired by Abalos & Herreros’ Torre Woremann in Gran Canaria mixed with Neave Brown’s Alexandra Road Estate in Camden”

Wheatley’s watercolor storyboards establish the gestural profiles of the five buildings in the high-rise complex, which Royal, the architect likens to curved fingers.

The building’s interiors are a mix of angular, ridged concrete walls and dividers (as in the lobby below), with other interior spaces, like hallways, that combine the bland look of mid-1970s schools, hotels, and apartment buildings.

Laing lives in apartment 2505 and his move-in provess gives a view of a typical floor plan and various interior shots of the open spaces, punctuated by concrete dividers

As Laing settles in, he visits the mid-building market and 30th floor gym and pool, each of which will be key locations in the plot, allowing viewers to track the chaos that will ensue. Note the almost parodic cleanliness and style of these locations, including a range of corporately-branded (presumably by the same company that owns the high-rise) products that appear throughout the film.

Though Laing’s apartment is on the 25th floor, his balcony seems to be on one of the off-set terraces that occupy the building’s upper ten floors (31st-40th), as evidenced by his first real meeting with Charlotte and Wilder. These balconies feature heavily in the plot, singalling both the upper-story remove that many prominent characters enjoy and the increasingly porous lives of the high-rise residents.

Laing’s early tour of the building wraps up with a trip to the 40th floor penthouse, occupied by Royal, his distant wife, and their upper-class hangers on (as well as some of the only regular staff we see).

The oppulent penthouse gives way to a surreal rooftop garden, complete with farm animals and rooftop vents.

The edge of the garden hangs precariously out over everything, opulence both above the lower-floor residents and the concrete blight that seems to surround the high-rise complex, with London some distance away.

The novel’s roof-top garden is Royal’s contribution to the building’s cohesion, designed as a children’s sculpture garden for residents to use regardless of class. However, its “concrete tunnels and geometric forms of the play-sculptures” are never used for this purpose: “Designing the garden had given him particular satisfaction, and he was sorry that the children no longer used the playground. At least it was open to the birds.“ By the end of the novel, Royal lives primarily by himself in the garden with his gulls.

Laing approaches Royal’s rooftop shack and architectural studio within.

Once they meet, Laing and Royal lay out (fairly bluntly) how we should think about the high-rise:

Laing: You built all this…

Royal: Dreamt. Conceived. I hardly rolled my sleaves up. Of course, the project’s far from finished. There were five towers in all, circling the lake. Something like an open hand. The lake is the palm and we stand on the distal phalanx of the index finger. There. I put all my energies into this tower. I’m its midwife, so to speak.

Laing: It looks like the unconscious diagram of some kind of psychic event.

Royal: Well, that’s good. Can I use that?

Laing: By all means.

Royal: Of course, I’m a Modernist by trade, but, you, a doctor will understand, one prescribes as required. […] My car was crushed by a reversing cement truck. […] Constant exercise is the only thing that keeps the pain at bay. So, you could say not only am I the building’s first road casualty, but I am the architect of my own accident. What do you think of that?

Their conversation is framed by various views of the high-rise complex, including a plastic model in the background and building plans.

At the center of the complex is a cryptic figure, what Laing called “the unconscious diagram of some kind of psychic event,” and which critic Elizabeth Sandifer likens to a “hypercubic prison.” (Interestingly, in the novel, Laing employs this line looking over the complex itself: “The cluster of auditorium roofs, curving roadway embankments and rectilinear curtain walling formed an intriguing medley of geometries – less a habitable architecture, he reflected, than the unconscious diagram of a mysterious psychic event.”)

Here, at the close of the first Act, the high-rise is presented flatly, with a profile of the upper half of the building well-detailed via Laing’s explorations. The catilevered upper floors veer out into space, carrying Roayl and his world beyond the lower floors, while also suggesting the precarity world established by Royal’s architecture.

Interestingly, Laing soon attempts to personalize his generic apartment, choosing a dull, gray color, only to discover that he’s chosen the same color as the midday sky. Hmm.

Things start to escalate as the top-floor residents throw an on-the-nose Regency-styled party, scored by a diegetic string quartet covering ABBA’s “SOS” (1975). Laing, out of place, enters the shag-carpeted passion pit (also a set up for later scenes), while his haughty betters emulate the class they truly aspire to. Laing is mocked for not dressing the part.

The subsequent exterior shots of the tower emphasize the downward glance of those above of the lessers below. Ballard’s novel repeatedly stresses the moderating force of the high-rise on the individual psyches and social organization of the building: “The underlying tensions among the residents were remarkably strong, damped down partly by the civilized tone of the building, and partly by the obvious need to make this huge apartment block a success.”

Laing, conflicted about his place in the hierarchy, strikes up with lower-floor Wilder, and while at one of Wilder’s parties that takes place during one of the rolling black-outs that plague the building, he witnesses and upper-floor resident, Munrow, leap to his death, crashing into the hood of Pangbourne’s convertible. (Though somewhat obscure in the film, Laing is the indirect cause of Munrow’s suicide, as out of spite Laing had misled him to think he had a brain tumor.)

The residents of the high-rise look on as Munrow falls to his death.

The next morning, the high-rise stands, passively.

Wheatley introduces visual fracture from this point on, particularly via Charlotte’s son, Toby. Spying on his mother and Laing flirting, Toby peers down.

Laing: What have you got there?

Toby: A kaleidoscope.

Laing: Ah, what can you see through that thing?

Toby: The future.

This motif will pop up, structuring Laing’s later journey through the plot, as when he shatters the control panel in the penthouse elevator, only to sink to the floor with endless repetitions of himself. Notably, kaleidoscopic vision is part of the music video for ABBA’s “SOS,” which exists in the world of the film, having been covered by the string players at the penthouse part earlier in the film

In the film, as in the novel, the social order of the high-rise begins to fracture as violence periodically breaks out, with “clans” of residents partying in the dark, commiting small acts of violence and sexual infidelity, as cohesion breaks down. Laing continues his brief trips to work, but eventually finds his life circumscribed by the high-rise complex. In a moment of crisis, he stands amidst the towers, which now enclose his known world.

Following a series of obscure conflicts—clearer in the novel—a number of characters are injured, including Wilder and Royal, the latter retreating with his upper-class party to the upper floors. Royal surveys his plans for the complex, puzzling over the impact of his choices (and giving us a good view of the complex).

As various locations in the high-rise are looted and vandalized, Laing attempts to maintain a normal routine, often to little success. The early establishing shots of the 30th floor gym and pool, as well as the supermarket and lobby, help us track the state of the building as things descend into madness.

Outwardly, of course, the building appears unchanged, seemingly a neutral container for the evolving social order inside.

Royal, dismayed by the orgies of sex and violence everywhere, searches for a solution, taking the mirrored elevator up to the penthouse, convening his cohort in the shag passion pit, where they plot. They decide to try to manipulate Laing into lobotomizing Wilder, who they paint as the singular antagonist they must stop to settle the agitation throughout the building. Tellingly, when Royal tries to dismiss his right-hand man, Simmons replies “I don’t work for you, I work for the building…”

This plan, hinging on Laing’s diagnosis of Wilder and willingness to lobotomize him, doesn’t come to fruition, and late in the film, Wilder is instead killed is a sort of ritual stabbing by a group of building residents, seen through Toby’s kaleidoscope, our view of the character’s death fractured like the coherence of the film’s plot.

When the sun rises once again, both Wilder and Royal are dead. Laing lays Royal to rest in the bloody waters of the 30th floor pool, and settles in to his new, somewhat feral life in the high-rise, including cooking the leg of dog the film opened with.

Juxtaposed against this is a conclave of the female residents who help deliver Helen’s baby (though Laing had taken up with Helen for part of the film, he is no part of this new social order) and Toby, who has built some kind of radio tower on the building’s roof, perhaps signaling a way to reconnect with the outside.

And still the high-rise stands stoicly in the morning sky. As Laing puts it in the novel, “these huge buildings had won their attempt to colonize the sky.”

#High-Rise (2015) #tower #Ben Wheatley #Tower-ing Fiction #Shawn Gilmore